Sitting of 8 May 2003

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

  LONDON LOCAL AUTHORITIES BILL [Lords]
  Order for Second reading read.
  To be read a Second time on Thursday 15 May.

Oral Answers to Questions
  TREASURY
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer was asked—
  TREASURY

    Euro
    Mr. John Bercow: If he will make a statement on his policy towards UK membership of the single currency.[111882]
    Mr. Graham Allen: If he will make a statement on progress made with satisfying the criteria for joining the euro. [111890]
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Gordon Brown): As I said in my Budget speech to the House on 9 April,
    "I will present the Government's statement on the assessment on the euro by the first week of June.
    The House will have before it all 18 of our background studies as well as our assessment of the five economic tests."—[Official Report, 9 April 2003; Vol. 403, c. 284.]
    Mr. Bercow: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that reply. Given that the so-called five economic tests have not been met, and that the harder the Government have tried to persuade the British people of the case for euro entry, the more strongly they have resisted, why does not the Chancellor abandon any plan to hand over massive powers for ever to people whom we do not elect and cannot remove, and concentrate instead on the crisis in our public services, which is letting people down week by week, month by month, and year by year of this failing Labour Government?
    Mr. Brown: We will take no lectures from the Conservatives about either how to run a European policy or how to run our public services. As far as the five economic tests are concerned, those tests are designed to examine whether it is in the national
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    economic interest to join. Some people, like the Conservatives, would refuse to join as an act of dogma, even if it were in the national interest, and some, like the Liberals, would want to join irrespective of whether the five economic tests were met. Our position is the right one, and I will report to the House in due course.
    Mr. Allen: Does my right hon. Friend accept that even those of us who are supportive of the European project and of joining the euro at some point feel that recent events with our European partners over Iraq has made it less likely in the short term than it might otherwise have been? Does he agree that to go for a referendum early and fail would be the worst of all policies?
    Will my right hon. Friend also make it very clear to the House that he rejects totally the nonsense peddled by Conservative Members that we must never, under any circumstances, join the euro?
    Mr. Brown: The issue is that this is a long-term decision about the future of Britain. It should be made not on short-term considerations based on foreign policy or on other events that are happening this year, but on a long-term assessment of the national economic interest.
    As for those people who would rule it out as a matter of principle, I have said before in this House that if the case for joining is clear and unambiguous on economic grounds, the constitutional factor should be taken into account, but it should not be an overriding factor. It is a pity that Conservative Members, who said that they were ruling out the single currency for the duration of a Parliament, now appear to be ruling it out for ever.
    Sir Peter Tapsell: Does the Chancellor agree that there can never be a satisfactory convergence of exchange rates in Europe that will be permanently beneficial to Britain unless the age-old trade cycle is exorcised from the economic textbooks? Does he think that that is at all likely?
    Mr. Brown: I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. He is finding another way to justify ruling out a single currency on the ground of principle and as an act of dogma. I hope that those in his party and others who support that position will recognise that the assessment is about whether this is in the national economic interest. We are looking at investment, employment, financial services, sustainable convergence and issues of flexibility in the economy. Those are the tests that ought to be met, and it is on that basis that we will make a judgment in the national economic interest. It would be wrong for this country to rule out the single currency, as the Conservatives want to do as a matter of dogma.
    Mr. Gordon Prentice: If the time is not right for the moment, would the Chancellor consider introducing parallel pricing showing the price of goods in pounds sterling and in euros?
    Mr. Brown: On all the details relating to the single currency, my hon. Friend will have to wait until the statement is made in the House of Commons. We will publish the 18 studies. This is the most detailed, comprehensive and rigorous assessment of these issues that has ever been made. It is a lesson of history that

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    nearly 13 years ago, when the country joined the exchange rate mechanism, no analysis was done, no preparation was done, and no assessment was made. The result was the disaster presided over by the shadow Chancellor, who was Secretary of State for Employment at the time; we will not make those mistakes.
    Matthew Taylor: Inward investment in Europe in the decade before the launch of the euro averaged 39 per cent. for the UK, but Britain's share since the euro was launched three years ago has averaged only 23 per cent.—almost half the previous figure. Does the Chancellor attribute that to Britain's absence from the euro or his economic failures in the UK?
    Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman has to look at the picture in some detail. Inward investment from the United States as a share of investment in Europe and Britain has increased. One cannot extrapolate a general picture from one year's figures.
    Matthew Taylor: Three years' figures.
    Mr. Brown: Or from three years' figures. The issue must be considered as a whole. That is why one of the 18 studies is being conducted on inward investment and general investment. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be sufficiently patient to consider the results when the assessments, especially that on inward investment, are published.
    For far too long, the Liberal party has held the position that it wants us to join the euro irrespective of the economic issues. That would repeat the mistakes of 1990 when we joined the exchange rate mechanism. We need a proper analysis and assessment. We shall not repeat mistakes, nor should the Liberals.
    Mr. George Stevenson: While we await the report on the assessment of the five economic tests with great interest and anticipation, does my right hon. Friend agree that a review of the stranglehold of the stability pact in the European Union is long overdue? Will he confirm the Government's policy that there will be no harmonisation of taxation in the European Union in pursuit of euro membership?
    Mr. Brown: We have already made our position on taxation clear. We have examined matters that relate to the stability and growth pact in European Finance Ministers' meetings, and further discussion will take place. We made the points that the stability and growth pact must take account of investment and acknowledge that there are pressing reasons for countries to make long-term investments. It must take account of the economic cycle, as the latest recommendations attempt to do, and the sustainability of the debt position. We have made those three points about the stability and growth pact consistently. I am pleased that opinion in Europe is moving in our favour on all those matters.
    Mr. Michael Howard: Has it momentarily escaped the Chancellor's mind that he and the Labour party supported entry into the ERM and
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    that his permanent secretary is on record as saying that the five tests can never be clearly and unambiguously met?
    In the past few weeks, we have read reports that the Education Secretary, the Health Secretary, the Trade and Industry Secretary and the Defence Secretary were gearing up for a concerted attack on the Treasury; that the Welsh Secretary has said that the pound has fallen to levels that would make British membership of the euro possible; that the Chancellor's faction has briefed that a referendum will be ruled out before the next election, and that the Prime Minister's faction has briefed that the Chancellor's chief economic adviser should be sacked for poisoning the Chancellor's mind. Is not it clear that the Cabinet is in disarray over the issue? Will not the terms of the Chancellor's forthcoming statement be determined not by an objective assessment of the effect of euro membership on jobs and prosperity in this country but by the outcome of the furious faction fighting in the divided Cabinet?
    Mr. Brown: Why cannot the Conservative party address genuine issues to do with the economy? When we discuss stability, employment, investment and financial services—the subjects of the tests—Conservative Members can only cite unattributable gossip. The shadow Chancellor was Employment Secretary in 1990, and he cannot escape his responsibility for the events of 1990 to 1992. The British people will never forget them: 15 per cent. interest rates, mortgage repossessions, negative equity, businesses going bankrupt and massive deficit. The Conservatives will never be forgiven..
    Mr. John McFall: May I commend the Chancellor on his rigorous approach to the economic tests and direct his mind to the Treasury Committee's equally rigorous approach in its report, "The UK and the Euro"? I draw to his attention the comments of Professor Michael Moore of Queen's university, Belfast, who said that waiting for two economies to converge was like waiting for two lovers to pick the perfect moment for marriage—it will never happen. Convergence can take place only within a monetary union. On that basis, what criteria is my right hon. Friend using to ensure that we will ultimately have sufficient convergence with euro countries?
    Mr. Brown: Question one of the tests relates precisely the point that my hon. Friend ends with. It asks whether there is sufficient convergence for Britain to be able to live comfortably with the interest rate set in the eurozone. Question two, if I may put it like that—the second test—is about whether there is sufficient flexibility. My hon. Friend rightly points out that this is a serious economic analysis of the consequences for Britain and Europe. We are looking at these issues in more detail than any Government have done in the past. We are not going to make the mistakes of the early 1990s, and I believe that the House will look forward to seeing not only the 18 studies that are being produced on all the difficult issues that my hon. Friend mentioned, but the assessment itself. I praise the Treasury Committee for involving itself in the detail of this work, and I just wish that the Opposition would take the issue as seriously.

    Dividend Tax Credit
    Mr. Andrew Mackay: What estimate he has made of the effect on pensions of the removal of dividend tax credit. [111883]
    The Paymaster General (Dawn Primarolo): Payable tax credits were withdrawn on dividends paid to pension funds as part of a package of reforms that included cuts in corporation tax and the abolition of advance corporation tax. These changes were designed to improve the climate for long-term investment in the United Kingdom. In the long run, this should benefit all investors, including pension funds and those saving for retirement.
    Mr. Mackay: Will the Paymaster General now accept that, although the removal of dividend tax credits in the afterglow of the 1997 general election victory might have seemed like a clever wheeze and a clever stealth tax at the time, many pensioners in my constituency and elsewhere are suffering hugely in the cold light of today because of this irresponsible raid on pension funds?
    Dawn Primarolo: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the abolition of the dividend tax credit was part of a wider corporation tax reform to remove a distortion in the market—a distortion that the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, now Lord Lamont, described as having a "damaging economic effect" when the Tories themselves reduced the tax credit. Furthermore, in an article published on 24 November 2002, when asked whether the Conservatives would reintroduce the tax credit, the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) said:
    "Actually, I don't think we'll be doing that. Helping pensions funds doesn't mean going back to the same system we had before. you know."
    Precisely. The Government are helping pension funds and pensioners through their Green Paper on pension reform, their support through the tax system and their simplification of the tax system, and by providing a stable economic framework of low interest rates and low inflation, allowing the economy—and, therefore, future investment—to do well.
    Miss Anne Begg: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the message for those who are in work is that they must save more for their pensions? In that way, they will have a better future once they have retired. Has she made any assessment of the effects that the removal of the money released by the abolition of the dividend tax credit from public spending would have on public services?
    Dawn Primarolo: My hon. Friend raises an important point. This is precisely why the Government have introduced proposals on the simplification of tax payments and support to those saving for retirement. The Green Paper looks at ways to give greater choices, more flexibility and secure savings, so that people can plan for the long term. The money released in the way that my hon. Friend described was used to cut corporation tax and to help to introduce reforms in the corporate tax system to enable our businesses to become more competitive and to tackle the productivity gap. That is why this country has, according to the
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    Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, one of the best environments for companies in the European Union.
    Mr. Peter Lilley: The Minister seems to hold the almost incredible belief that removing £5 billion a year from pension funds has no negative effect on those funds. Does she know anyone who shares that view, other than the late Robert Maxwell?
    Dawn Primarolo: As the right hon. Gentleman knows—or as I thought he knew—the effects on pension funds and on the stock market are varied. To try to attribute those effects to changes in the tax system—changes that were beneficial to our companies, and which his party pursued when in government—is absolutely ridiculous. He needs to address the question of why the hon. Member for Havant, the Conservative spokesperson on social security, now says that he does not think that the Conservatives will be returning to the tax credits. There are better ways of helping pensions and pension funds than going back to the old system. It is the right hon. Gentleman who lives in the past; this Government are placing the economy in a competitive system to benefit citizens now and in the future.
    Kali Mountford: What analysis did my right hon. Friend make before taking decisions on the future of pensions, based on the comparison of £4 billion taken out of pensions in an unregulated pension market by the previous Government? When looking at how money is used in the pensions services, is it not better to consider a proper, regulated market with properly managed funds in a strong, stable economy in which people can make proper decisions about their futures?
    Dawn Primarolo: I entirely agree with the points that my hon. Friend makes, and I remind her that the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) was a member of the Government who presided over mis-selling and the cheating of millions of people in this country of their pension rights. This Government enabled that mis-selling to be put right and put in place the financial services structure to protect pensioners in the future.

    National Insurance
    Sir Michael Spicer: What estimate he has made of the effect of the recent national insurance rises on UK competitiveness. [111884]
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Gordon Brown): With regard to national insurance rises to pay for the national health service, employers' costs for health care have reached £30 a week in Germany, £60 a week in France and £70 a week in the United States. Even after the national insurance rise, employers' health care costs in Britain are, on average, £10.50 a week, while average wages rose by just 2.4 per cent. last month.
    Sir Michael Spicer: Why has the rate of productivity gone down ever since the day that Labour took office?
    Mr. Brown: Productivity in this country is growing. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has raised this: the only years in which productivity has been negative were Conservative years. The only years in which manufacturing productivity has been negative were also Conservative years—1995 and 1996. I am afraid that he wants to oppose the national insurance rises in health care because he does not believe in the NHS.
    Mr. James Plaskitt: What assessment has my right hon. Friend made of the effect of past under-investment in the NHS on UK competitiveness?
    Mr. Brown: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because the Confederation of British Industry did a study on those issues fairly recently and it is estimated that the cost of sickness is over £11 billion to business every year. The British Chambers of Commerce president said last year that it is our duty to ensure that investment takes place in health care for the interests of business and of employers. The choice is very clear for this country: the national insurance tax rise, which is paying for 80,000 extra nurses between 1997 and 2008 and for 25,000 extra doctors, or the Flight plan, which means 20 per cent. cuts in our public services.
    Howard Flight: Is it not extraordinary that the Chancellor apparently made no assessment of the effect of the additional £3.9 billion of national insurance employment tax that he is imposing this year on employment and business competitiveness? Has he forgotten, or changed, his conclusion of 21 March 2000 that lower national insurance contributions would act to promote employment opportunities? Is he not concerned at the findings of the recent British Chambers of Commerce survey that one firm in five intends to lay people off and that 16.7 per cent. of firms plan to cut investment as a result of the additional national insurance tax when the profitability of British companies is at its lowest for a decade?
    Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman seems to forget that there are 1.5 million more jobs in the economy and that unemployment is at its lowest since the 1970s. Unemployment is lower than in America, lower than in Japan and lower than in the rest of Europe. We have the lowest inflation for 30 years and the lowest long-term interest rates for 40 years. Now, on national insurance, perhaps he will get to the Dispatch Box and explain how he could save 80,000 nurses' jobs in the health service with a plan to cut 20 per cent. out of public expenditure.
    Jon Trickett: Is it not clear that there is a direct correlation between health expenditure funded by the national insurance fund and a productive labour force? Many people in my constituency and elsewhere have long-term illnesses, although they might be able to get back to work if the health service was properly funded. Derek Wanless clearly showed that 40,000 of the 110,000 people who die each year from coronary heart disease would still be living, and perhaps be
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    contributing to a productive economy, if the health service was adequately funded, as it will be under this Chancellor.
    Mr. Brown: That is precisely why the health service is performing more operations, more beds and hospitals are being opened in the health service, and more nurses and doctors are being employed. I believe that in every part of the country people want that additional investment in the NHS. As for its general effect on competitiveness, perhaps the shadow Chancellor and members of the Conservative party generally will read their own observations about the United Kingdom being the most liberal economy in the European Union. How can they say at one and the same time that it is wrong to invest in the NHS and that ours is the most liberal economy in Europe?

    Tax Receipts
    Mr. Michael Jack: If he will make a statement on the methodology used to calculate tax receipts. [111885]
    The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Paul Boateng): The Treasury makes forecasts for each individual tax based on relevant economic assumptions and forecasting methodologies, and then aggregates them to arrive at forecasts of total taxes.
    Mr. Jack: I am grateful to the Chief Secretary for admitting that the Treasury produces forecasts for each tax. The Treasury makes available, in public, its economic model, and independent commentators can offer their own views about the performance of the economy. Will the Chief Secretary publish the economic model that underpinned his answer to me, so that in the interests of transparency, knowledge and understanding of the economy we can all know more about the way in which our tax receipts are progressing?
    Mr. Boateng: We have no intention of producing any such publication, but as a former Financial Secretary the right hon. Gentleman understands very well the basic methodology that is applied in these cases. He understands it well because it is exactly the same as that used by past Governments, including the Government in which he served.
    There are, however, a number of crucial differences. The most important are that the key assumptions underlying our forecasts are subject to audit by the National Audit Office, that we are committed to more transparency than the right hon. Gentleman ever was, and that we ensure that our forecasts are cautious and seen to be cautious—something that the right hon. Gentleman and his Administration never did.
    Mr. Stephen McCabe: Is not a policy of full employment the best guarantee of a solid base of tax receipts, and in that regard is there not a fundamental contrast between Labour in power and that lot when they were in power?
    Mr. Boateng: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The difference is between stability under a Labour Government and instability under a Conservative

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    Government; between employment under a Labour Government and unemployment under a Conservative Government. The right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) is himself the beneficiary, in his constituency, of a 32 per cent. drop in the claimant count, a 74 per cent. drop in long-term youth unemployment, and a 66 per cent. drop in long-term unemployment. That is the record under a Labour Government. Imagine what it would have been like had the right hon. Gentleman's party been in power!
    Mr. John Redwood: If by any chance the private-sector forecasters were right and the Treasury wrong, and growth this year and next were 0.5 per cent. lower than the central Treasury forecast, what would be the shortfall in tax receipts compared with what is in the Red Book?
    Mr. Boateng: I refer the right hon. Gentleman to table C.8 in the Red Book, which I think he will find useful and valuable. The fact is, however, that UK growth is still strong in global terms, and is forecast to be higher than growth in Italy, Germany and France. That is a record of which we are proud, and the right hon. Gentleman should at least give us some credit for it.

    Football Clubs
    Andy Burnham: What his policy is on the Inland Revenue's dealings with professional football clubs in administration. [111886]
    The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Healey): When a football club, or any other business, goes into administration, the Inland Revenue must act in accordance with insolvency law, and will seek to recover no more and no less than that to which it is legally entitled.
    Andy Burnham: I declare an interest as the unpaid chairman of Supporters Direct. The Minister will know that the collapse of ITV Digital last year left many of the great names of English football on the brink of collapse. I thank him for the Inland Revenue's general approach of rescuing those clubs, rather than closing them down, but I draw his attention to the inconsistency in some of the deals struck in respect of unpaid tax. For example, the business consortium at Leicester City paid 10p in the pound, yet the not-for-profit supporters trust at York City paid more than 60p. Will he agree to meet MPs from the all-party group on football to discuss whether a standard approach could be adopted towards unpaid tax, to ensure fair competition in the league? In particular, will he look at a special regime for not-for-profit supporters trusts, given the community benefits that they can bring?
    John Healey: The Inland Revenue does indeed have a good track record in helping some of our football clubs out of administration, and has been party to agreements in 13 cases in the past couple of years. It is serious about trying to secure a viable future for such clubs, at the same time as fulfilling its duty towards the taxpayer. So it has a consistent policy and approach, but every situation in every business is different: the assets, liabilities, prospects and potential investors are all
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    different, so it is not surprising that the agreements struck are different. Notwithstanding those remarks, my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General will indeed meet my hon. Friend and his colleagues in the all-party group.
    Hugh Bayley: May I congratulate the Government on reaching an agreement with the administrator to allow York City football club to be taken out of administration? The club was given a tax reduction of about £60,000, which made the difference between its having a future and not having one. In particular. I thank the Minister for responding so quickly when I wrote to her asking for the quick decision that was needed. As a result of that quick decision, she is seen as a good supporter of York City, and I give her colleague who is answering—he is a good Yorkshire lad—the opportunity to wish the club well for this season, and for the future seasons in which it will play because of this decision.
    John Healey: For the avoidance of doubt, the Minister whom my hon. Friend refers to is not me but my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General. The Paymaster General has indeed worked closely with the Inland Revenue. I welcome my hon. Friend's remarks, and the support given and the part played by the Revenue in reaching this latest agreement relating to the succession of problems that football clubs have experienced. We wish York City well for the future now that it has come out of administration, along with the other clubs that are suffering similar financial difficulties. The pressures are indeed severe in the lower divisions.

    World Trade Agreements
    Mr. Tony Lloyd: What plans he has to raise world trade agreements at the next meetings of the (a) IMF and (b) World Bank. [111887]
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Gordon Brown): In my capacity as chairman of the international monetary and financial committee—the governing body of the International Monetary Fund—I will seek to ensure that, just as trade was discussed in our April meetings, it will be considered at the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in September, and in the sessions on the global economy and the needs of low-income countries.
    Mr. Lloyd: I am grateful to the Chancellor for his response. It is widely recognised that nobody has done more internationally than him to push the case for the poorest people in the poorest countries, but does he accept that trade is probably the best mechanism that we can offer to those people in order for them to join the world economy? Does he accept that the IMF's historical pursuit of the case for the destruction of protections for infant economies has been disastrous for the poorest people? We need to bring the poor into the world economy, but the way to do so is by recognising the fragility of their economies and the need for real assistance from powerful economies in Europe and north America.
    Mr. Brown: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has taken a wide interest in all the issues affecting developing countries. He will agree that the benefits of a successful trade round could be between $250 billion and $400 billion a year for the world economy, a third of which would go to the poorest countries. So that would be a major injection of resources and make possible the development of these countries. He will also agree that, although it is true that structural adjustment policies have, in the past, been very damaging to some of the poorest countries, the IMF has now changed its policy on these issues. We now have country and civil common ownership of poverty reduction strategy programmes, which—in partnership with the World Bank—are the means by which trade issues, health, education and other economic development matters can be considered together. I hope that the whole House will support the IMF and the World Bank working more co-operatively to make those programmes work in order to secure over the next few years and, ultimately, by 2015, the halving of world poverty.
    Rev. Martin Smyth: I welcome the Chancellor's statement, but does he share the concern of the Trade Justice Movement that more needs to be done, particularly by the developed countries, which often protect their own industries and farming communities at the expense of the developing countries?
    Mr. Brown: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. In thanking people for their work on development issues, I include those in all parties who have taken them up. The hon. Gentleman is right that the Trade Justice Movement, which brought thousands of people to the House of Commons a few months ago and is organising a major event in a few weeks' time, has put on the table a set of issues that the developed world must now address. The European Union initially made an offer to the 49 least developed countries of duty-free and quota-free access for all products except arms. That offer is still to be taken up by some developed countries, which should support it. Equally, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the EU should also respond to the American offer of the past few months to remove the remaining barriers, especially those of agricultural protectionism.
    Judy Mallaber: Earlier this week the European Union held a conference attended by representatives from developing and industrial countries on the future of the textiles and clothing industry after the phasing out of the multi-fibre agreement and the Doha round, which seemed to show that China would be the main winner at the expense of some developing nations and our own industry. In that light, will my right hon. Friend discuss with his colleagues at the Department of Trade and Industry whether any further help could be given to our own industry to remain competitive in world markets, and to invest in new technologies and training? That is necessary to maintain the industry in line with the work of the national industrial strategy drawn up by the industry with the Government.
    Mr. Brown: I know of my hon. Friend's work in her constituency and beyond in putting the case for the textile industry. It is important that the Department of Trade and Industry and other Departments help the textile industry as it moves towards high-quality and high-technology products. We will continue to provide help with investment, regional development grants and training. I hope that the regional development agency in my hon. Friend's area will continue to take seriously the needs of the textile industry. The fact remains that in her constituency and many others, the number of jobs is still rising. As to trade agreements around the world, we have four blockages that affect industries in many of our constituencies. There are continuing problems with agriculture and services, which need to be addressed, and many hon. Members will know of problems relating to pharmaceuticals, with poor countries being denied drugs at prices that they can afford. It is urgent to make progress on that, because lives are being lost unnecessarily as well as damage done to trade.

    Research and Development
    Ms Dari Taylor: What steps he is taking to encourage investment in research and development in the north-east. [111888]
    The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Healey): The Government are encouraging investment in research and development throughout Britain. Last year, we allocated the largest sustained increase in the science budget for more than a decade and, to boost commercial research and development, we have introduced tax credits for large and small companies.
    Ms Taylor: I welcome my hon. Friend's response. For the record, my region has accorded widespread praise for the research and development credits proposals announced in the Budget. However, will the Minister acknowledge that the management of British industry needs an urgent change of culture, given that Corus spends only £64 million out of an operational budget of £7.2 billion on research and development in the steel industry? Is not that simply managing decline in the steel industry rather than growth in the UK?
    John Healey: My hon. Friend is right to point to the importance of private sector investment, because the major variation in research and development spending in each region primarily reflects private sector variations. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor is well aware of the particular challenges faced in my hon. Friend's region. He mentioned in his Budget statement that business R and D in the south-east is worth £450 a head, and that in my hon. Friend's region, the north-east, it is only £50 a head. The £650 million in R and D tax credits will help, as will the work being done in the region by One NorthEast. My hon. Friend might like to know that her regional development agency is now investing more than twice the average amount invested in other regions in support of regional science, engineering and technology.
    Mr. Barry Sheerman: Universities are at the very heart of the north-east region's research and development programme, as they are in any region. Does my hon. Friend agree that any proposal that suggested a further concentration on a few universities, nearly all of which would be in the south-east, would be a disaster for regional regeneration?
    John Healey: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend's expertise in this area. He is Chairman of the Select Committee on Education and Skills, and has also worked for a long time on these matters. What he says is right, of course, but he is also right to say that RDAs have a very important role now. They must encourage regional innovation and better local transfer of knowledge, and—crucially, as my hon. Friend mentioned—they should foster better and more collaboration between universities and businesses in the regions.

    Growth Forecasts
    Gregory Barker: What methodology he used in drawing up the growth forecasts in the 2003 Budget. [111889]
    The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Healey): The forecasts for the UK economy are constructed using the Treasury's model of the macro-economy as a framework within which to apply forecasters' judgments, and to ensure consistency.
    Gregory Barker: At the time of the 2002 Budget, the Chancellor's forecast for UK growth was way ahead of independent forecasts. The independent forecasters were right, and the Chancellor was proved wrong. At the time of last autumn's pre-Budget report, the Chancellor's forecasts were again more optimistic than those of independent forecasters. They were right, and the Chancellor was proved wrong. In this year's Budget, the Chancellor is again completely out of step with independent experts. How can anyone have confidence in his forecasting ability, or is he simply hoping that it will be third time lucky this time?
    John Healey: I am afraid that it is the hon. Gentleman who is wrong. The heightened uncertainty in the world economy has resulted in forecasts for almost all the major economies being downgraded. Since the pre-Budget report in November last year, almost 90 per cent. of independent forecasters have revised down their forecasts. At Budget time, the Chancellor's forecasts for the current year were in line with those of three quarters of independent forecasters, who expected gross domestic product growth to be within or above the Budget range. Finally, of course, at each and every point the British economy, unlike the economies of some of our competitors, has continued to grow.
    David Taylor: Paragraph 1, annexe a, of the Budget report makes it clear that long-term economic growth depends on long-term fiscal sustainability, which cannot be achieved if we switch financial burdens to future generations. How does my hon. Friend the Minister set that against the growing
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    and damaging impact of the private finance initiative, which does just that—transfer financial responsibilities to future generations, with a damaging effect on growth?
    John Healey: I do not accept my hon. Friend's contention. The Government, and the Chancellor in his Budget statement, are able to be so confident about future increases in investment in public spending because of the tough decisions taken earlier on tax and spending. They included reducing debt as a share of GDP to the lowest of any country in the G7, and they mean that, despite the challenges of the world economy, the Government can meet their public spending commitments and tough fiscal rules. Also, the Government can be sure that the current Budget will be in surplus over the cycle.
    Pete Wishart: Will the Minister explain why there are no specific growth targets for the UK's constituent nations? Is the reason that no target has been set for Scotland that Scotland has once again experienced chronically low economic growth, compared to the UK as a whole?
    John Healey: The reason is clear. We are the United Kingdom; we do not devolve macro-economic management. I remind the hon. Gentleman that during this Government's period in office, 150,000 extra jobs have been created in the Scottish economy as a result of this Government's measures.
    Mr. Kelvin Hopkins: Does my hon. Friend agree that growth is something that does not just happen, that it depends on economic policies and that the Government can use the levers of macro-economic power to make sure that it takes place? I hope that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and hon. Friends will do that. Does my hon. Friend also agree that giving up those levers of power by joining the euro would not be sensible?
    John Healey: The general contention laid out by my hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course we are in the present situation not by chance, but as a result of deliberate policy choices by the Government. That is why, 10 years ago, inflation was at 10 per cent. and is now one of the lowest levels in the EU, and why it has been consistently low. That is why, 10 years ago, interest rates were in double figures for four years in a row and are now the lowest since 1955. That is why 1.5 million new jobs have been created in the British economy since 1997.
    Mr. Michael Howard: Is it not astonishing that the Chancellor once again refuses to answer questions on his forecasts? At the time of his Budget, the Chancellor blamed his downgraded forecast on world growth and world trade. Yet his forecast for G7 gross domestic product growth in the 2003 Budget was identical to his forecast in the 2002 Budget. His forecast for growth in world trade in the 2003 Budget was actually higher than in the 2002 Budget. Does the

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    Economic Secretary agree that it is absurd for the Chancellor to continue to cling to such ridiculous excuses that lack all vestige of credibility?
    John Healey: What is absurd is for the shadow Chancellor to try to pick holes in the forecasting record of the Treasury. Since 1997, the Treasury's forecasts have been better than the independent consensus. For every year-ahead projection since 1997, we have had a smaller or identical size of error than the average of independent forecasters. The right hon. and learned Gentleman might like to consult his colleagues on the Treasury Select Committee, who will have heard my right hon. Friend the Chancellor dealing with these questions in detail. They will also have heard the views of independent experts called by the Committee, such as Peter Spencer from the university of York, who said:
    "There is no doubt the Treasury has a good forecasting record."
    Mr. Howard: The Economic Secretary seems to have forgotten that the last time the Chancellor got his forecasts wrong—four or five months ago, in the pre-Budget report—it took him 24 hours to abandon his lame excuses and accept responsibility. This time, helped by the co-incidental timing of the fall of Baghdad, he has not abandoned his excuses at all. Will the Economic Secretary finally and belatedly do so on behalf of the Chancellor, accept responsibility and apologise to the British people for misleading them twice in a row?
    John Healey: I will do no such thing. I explained earlier that with the sharp economic downturn across the world in 2001, compounded by the added uncertainty of last year, independent forecasters across the board have been downgrading their forecasts in line with the Chancellor and the Treasury.

    Northwest Development Agency
    Tony Cunningham: What recent discussions he has had with the north-west regional development agency on unemployment. [111891]
    The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Paul Boateng): Treasury Ministers have met with members of regional development agencies and particularly value their input, but we have had no specific discussions recently with the Northwest Development Agency on unemployment.
    Tony Cunningham: Unemployment in my constituency has fallen dramatically in recent times, with one of the main driving forces for that being small businesses. Will the Chief Secretary comment on the work of the development agency in helping small businesses to develop broadband, which is vital to them? What measures can he put in place to support small businesses and help job creation?
    Mr. Boateng: My hon. Friend takes a real interest in small businesses and the work of his RDA. We particularly welcome the proposals coming from the Northwest Development Agency in relation to
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    broadband infrastructure in Cumbria. Both sides of the House will welcome that, not least because of the concerning state of affairs exposed by the Countryside Agency a few days ago, which found that only 7 per cent. of rural villages and 1 per cent. of remote rural areas had access to affordable broadband internet connections. The NWDA is right to bring forward proposals and I hope that others will do likewise.
    We, in the meantime, are assisting small businesses investing in information and communications technology, and that is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced in last month's Budget the extension of 100 per cent. first-year capital allowances for a further one year. That is the sort of help that small and medium-sized enterprises are getting under the Labour Government, and it is help that they never had when Opposition Members had stewardship of the economy.
    Mr. Peter Pike: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the Northwest Development Agency is doing tremendous work in developing the former Michelin site to provide employment in Burnley? It is important to encourage all investment in research and development and in manufacturing industry if we are to gain employment in towns such as Burnley.
    Mr. Boateng: My hon. Friend works hard in Burnley on employment issues, and he is absolutely right to point out the importance of investment in this area. He will appreciate the work on skills that the regional development agency is doing with local higher and further education institutions. He will know that employers are more likely to invest in areas such as Burnley when real efforts have been made to enhance the skills of the people who make up the labour market. That is happening, and it is good news for Burnley and the rest of the north-west.

    Child Tax Credit
    Mr. Huw Edwards: If he will make a statement on access to free prescriptions for families in receipt of child tax credit. [111892]
    The Paymaster General (Dawn Primarolo): Claimants receiving the child tax credit can get access to free prescriptions if they have an annual income for tax credits purposes—that is, income assessed before any tax credits are paid—of £14,200 or less. This will be the income set out on the claimant's tax credit award notice. If claimants meet the qualifying conditions, and have a tax credit award, they will automatically be sent an NHS tax credit exemption certificate by the Prescription Pricing Authority on behalf of all the Health Departments—that is, the Health Departments in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In the period between receiving their award of tax credits and receiving the NHS exemption certificate, claimants can sign for free prescriptions and use their tax credit award as evidence of entitlement.
    Mr. Edwards: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for such a comprehensive reply. Can she assure us that no one who previously received free prescriptions under the working families tax credit will lost out under the new child tax credit system? Before Conservative Members comment on the implementation of the child tax credit system, does she agree that the Government have made the most generous investment in families that any Government have ever undertaken? No Opposition party would ever have introduced such generous investment for British families.
    Dawn Primarolo: As my hon. Friend says, the new tax credits are more generous than any predecessor payment made directly to mothers to support their children. As for access to free prescriptions, the level was set to ensure not only that all those who received free prescriptions through the working families tax credit and the disabled tax credit will continue to do so, but that another 80,000 families will benefit for the first time. I know my hon. Friend's enthusiasm for campaigning on these issues, and I am sure that he will be keen to ensure that constituents of his who newly qualify for free prescriptions will take them up.
    Dr. Vincent Cable: What role did the Treasury play in the decision announced yesterday to reduce the renewal period for prescriptions from three months to two months, thereby increasing prescription charges for those long-term sick people who are not on benefit or tax credit by 50 per cent?
    Dawn Primarolo: That is a matter for the Department of Health, and I will ensure that the hon. Gentleman's comments are drawn to the attention of the relevant Minister.
    Mr. Stephen O'Brien: Notwithstanding the complacent answers that the Paymaster General has given so far, is she aware of the outrage and anxiety that the shambles, chaos and confusion of the Chancellor's burdensome new child tax credit system are causing the constituents of Members on both sides of the House? She told us 11 days ago that 700 staff had been added to the tax credit helpline personnel. To check whether it is now working effectively, my office made 80 calls in 90 minutes yesterday and did not get through to speak to any member of the helpline staff. Will the Paymaster General now get a grip on that failing service and tell us how much the 700 extra helpline staff are costing, in addition to the £53 million of taxpayers' money that she has already spent, and why the helpline is still not working effectively?
    Dawn Primarolo: The Opposition said that the take-up of the new tax credits would be low and a disaster. They were wrong. The take-up of the new tax credits has resulted in more than 4 million people currently claiming, tens of thousands of applications coming in each week and 1.3 million people on income support and jobseeker's allowance also receiving their payments. Indeed, the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) said, when forecasting that take-up would be low, that he preferred the working families tax credit. That is interesting because, in March 1998, he attacked the introduction of the working families tax credit and said
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    that take-up would be low and that it would not work. The Conservative party's history on this is to deny families money, to attack a system that delivers—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Let us go on to Question 13.

    Tax Credit System
    Mr. James Clappison: What representations he has received about the administration of the tax credit system. [11189]
    The Paymaster General (Dawn Primarolo): My statement to the House last week reflected a range of representations received about the two new tax credits—child tax credit and working tax credit—currently being introduced. I made it clear then that more than 4 million claims have already been received and that, along with the 1.3 million families who will get the benefit of the increased generosity of the child tax credit through income support or jobseeker's allowance this year, more than three quarters of the number of families that we expected to get the new credits have therefore already either claimed or are benefiting from them. I also said last week that all claimants whose claims were received by the Inland Revenue by Friday 25 April would be contacted and either be in payment or have received inquiries from the Inland Revenue to complete their forms by the end of this week.
    Mr. Clappison: May I take the Paymaster General back to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien), which she did not quite answer? Will she tell the House what was the Government's original estimate of the cost of setting up and administering the child tax credit and the working tax credit? Has the administrative cost subsequently increased?
    Dawn Primarolo: If my memory serves me correctly, the figure given to the House on the budget for setting up the new tax credits was about £300 million, and I can confirm that we are well within budget, as we always are.

    Iraq
    Mr. Tam Dalyell: if he will estimate the cost of the military action in Iraq. [111895]
    The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Paul Boateng): It would be premature to make such an estimate, but we expect the costs of the military campaign to be covered by the £3 billion reserve announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in the Budget.
    Mr. Dalyell: Is £4 billion wide of the mark?
    Mr. Boateng: I would say to my hon. Friend the Father of the House that we have made available a £3 billion reserve. That is the figure announced by my right

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    hon. Friend the Chancellor, and it is our best estimate of the right figure to make available in the reserve at this time.
    Dr. Julian Lewis: I understand why the Minister is vague on such large figures, but when he eventually gets around to computing them, will he also take into account the costs to the country that will be saved of not having to fight a third Gulf war as a result of finally winning the second one?
    Mr. Boateng: The hon. Gentleman makes a very reasonable point.

    G8 Summit
    Ann McKechin: If he will urge the forthcoming G8 summit to tackle the shortfall in the HIPC trust fund. [111896]
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Gordon Brown): At the forthcoming G8 summit, we will push for a change in the HIPC rules to exclude additional voluntary bilateral debt relief from the calculation of
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    topping up at completion point. The aim of that measure is to provide an estimated $1 billion extra debt relief to low-income countries.
    Ann McKechin: I congratulate my right hon. Friend, in particular, on his efforts to promote the international finance facility. I wish him every success in promoting that initiative at the forthcoming G8 summit, and I hope that he can persuade other members of the G8 to join it. Does my right hon. Friend agree that an urgent need exists to review the HIPC scheme and to adopt an approach whereby it should be based on the country's ability to meet its basic needs rather than putting priority on debt reservicing?
    Mr. Brown: I thank my hon. Friend for the work that she does in promoting the case of debt relief and the international finance facility. It is absolutely true that the HIPC initiative achieves many but not all our aims. Twenty-six countries are receiving debt relief, and another nine could qualify. The long-term solution to the problems that she identifies—both debt and poverty—is a major initiative for a funding mechanism that could double the amount of aid available. That is why we are supporting the international finance facility, and I am pleased that there is all-party support for that.

Business of the House
12.30 pm
Mr. Eric Forth: Will the Leader of the House please give us the business for next week?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Dr. John Reid): The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 12 MAY—Consideration of an allocation of time motion, followed by all stages of the Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections and Periods of Suspension) Bill.
TUESDAY 13 MAY—Progress on consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill.
WEDNESDAY 14 MAY—Conclusion of consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill.
The House may also be asked to consider any Lords messages which may be received.
THURSDAY 15 MAY—Opposition Day [6th Allotted Day] [First Part]. There will be a debate entitled "Schools Funding Crisis and Teacher Redundancies" on an Opposition motion, followed by a debate on developing a national skills strategy on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
The House may also be asked to consider any Lords messages which may be received.
FRIDAY 16 MAY—Private Members Bills.
The House will not adjourn until Royal Assent has been received to any Act.
The provisional business for the following week will be:
MONDAY 19 MAY—Progress on remaining stages of the Criminal Justice Bill (Day 2).
TUESDAY 20 May—Conclusion of remaining stages of the Criminal Justice Bill (Day 3).
WEDNESDAY 21 MAY—Second Reading of the European Union (Accessions) Bill.
THURSDAY 22 MAY—Motion on General Synod Measure, followed by motion on the Whitsun recess Adjournment.
The House may also wish to be reminded that, subject to the progress of business, we will rise for the Whitsun recess on Thursday 22 May and return on Tuesday 3 June.
Mr. Forth: In thanking the Leader of the House for giving us the business, may I wish him a very happy birthday today? It is a particular pleasure to have his youthful exuberance at the Dispatch Box. We all find it invigorating, and I will try to match it as best I can in my advancing years.
The Prime Minister, as we know, supports our membership of the euro: he supports it with enthusiasm and in principle. We can conclude from that that he trusts implicitly the judgment of the European Central Bank, which, of course, were we ever to join the euro, would have complete control over our economy. Given that, and given that the European Central Bank has said that our joining the euro would undermine if not destroy the national health service, can the Leader of the House
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afford the Prime Minister the opportunity next week to tell us whether he trusts the European Central Bank and wants us to join the euro or wants the national health service to survive, because he cannot have both? An answer to that would be most welcome and would help us all.
It is becoming obvious that the new system for postal ballots is a threat to democracy. In centuries past, the peasantry used to gather in the village square and the town hall and be leaned on by the local squire, who sought to influence them in how they cast votes. The modern equivalent would appear to be that Secretaries of State and Labour officials demand to see the ballot papers that the peasantry are considering and seek to influence the voters in how they will vote. In other words, the secret ballot is effectively disappearing before our very eyes, and I hope that the Leader of the House accepts that we must have an urgent debate on the matter. Perhaps one or two Secretaries of State might wish to attend that debate to explain their role in influencing voters now that the secret ballot is diminishing under the Government's scrutiny.
The Secretary of State for Education and Skills made a huge song and dance of his claims that £500 million of funding is being withheld by local education authorities rather than being passed on to schools, but it has recently emerged that £1 billion of funding is being withheld by his own Department. We need him to come here promptly so that he can tell us where his missing £1 billion is and when it will be passed on to schools—never mind his allegations that LEAs are holding back half that amount. An urgent statement from the Secretary of State would be welcome.
The Government were effectively bailed out yesterday by Scottish Labour Members voting on an English matter: nothing less than the future of the English national health service. Why do those of us in England who effectively pay for the Scottish health service have to sit here and watch Scottish Members voting on the future of our health service although we have no say in what goes on north of the border? Is that devolution and new Labour justice? I think we need to know more about it.
Dr. Reid: I am deeply touched and moved by the congratulations on my birthday. I shall try to learn from the example of my older colleagues in the House about how to conduct myself when dealing with the grave issues that come before us.
The right hon. Gentleman's last point was about Scottish Members. It is part of my job, as Leader of the House, to ensure that every hon. Member has the same rights. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman misunderstands if he thinks that he has more or fewer rights than me because I have no more right to vote on the Scottish Parliament's decisions on Scottish education than he has. The last thing that we want is the creation of three or four categories of Members with different rights according to the level of devolution that has been given to their areas. The level of devolution given to Scotland is different from that given to Wales, which is different from that given to Northern Ireland—when the Assembly is not suspended—which is different from that given to the Greater London Assembly, which might be different from that given to regional assemblies

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in England. He is going down a very dangerous path if he is asking me to create different classes of MPs, and I shall stand against that as Leader of the House.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about the euro. Of course, the whole European dimension is hugely important to this country, both politically and in terms of jobs and employment. We shall debate accession measures to enlarge the European Union next week. On the euro and its supposed relationship with the national health service, the Prime Minister made it plain yesterday that we do not recognise the description of the influence, powers and implications that membership of the euro would have for our national health service. We are committed, in principle, to membership of the eurozone, but nothing has changed with regard to our decision on when that might happen. Our judgment will be based on the tests that we have clearly set out and, as the Chancellor and Prime Minister have said, we shall consider the tests and implications before the first week in June.
Mr. John Bercow: This is a very long speech.
Dr. Reid: I am trying to give as full an answer as possible out of deference to the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth). The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) made the same remark last week—
Mr. Bercow: I was not here.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must be quiet. I have told him before that he sometimes gets far too excited.
Dr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, you are far too kind. The hon. Gentleman's silence will contribute greatly to the alacrity with which I can deal with questions.
On postal ballots, any implication that a member of the Government has acted improperly is refuted. Had that been the case, I and everyone else in the House would be greatly worried. As it is, we are concerned about the assertion of the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst that there is a huge threat to democracy if more people vote. That is certainly not the view of Labour Members. Of course, any system of democracy is potentially open to abuse, but I stress that at this stage there are not even any allegations that someone has acted improperly.
It is not true to claim that the Secretary of State for Education and Skills or his Department is withholding £1 billion from schools. Schools have received a cash increase of £2.7 billion this year, which is one reason why we all look forward to debating education at every opportunity.
Mr. Paul Tyler: May I express our good wishes for the Leader of the House's birthday? Did he, over his birthday breakfast table, have time to look at early-day motion 1136 on Gulf war illness victims? Perhaps we could debate that as soon as possible.
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[That this House welcomes the adjudication of the War Pensions Appeal Tribunal in the case of ex-Lance Corporal Alex Izett RE; recognises that it provides powerful corroboration for the link between the cocktail of inoculations and long-term serious illness amongst veterans of the 1991 Gulf' War; and calls upon the Secretary of State for Defence to adopt a more sympathetic, generous and grateful attitude to the pleas for justice from those who served their country well.]
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman has seen a large report in the Evening Standard with the headline, "New fears over safety of 'toxic' vaccines against germ warfare terror attack". As a Minister who once had responsibility for such matters, does he agree that we owe it to the veterans who have served this country well to treat them at least as responsibly and sympathetically as the US Administration treat their veterans?
Does the Leader of the House recall that his office accepted responsibility for the state funding of Opposition parties in a parliamentary answer to me on 18 March by his colleague the Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office? May I support the Opposition spokesman's plea for a debate on state funding of parties? Despite the Conservative party's opposition to such funding in principle, has the Leader of the House noticed that the Conservative party has received in the region of £16 million from the taxpayer since its defeat in 1997, including a sum of £500,000 each year to the office of the Leader of the Opposition?
Will the Leader of the House seek assurances that none of the money has been used to pay off senior executives from that office? Has he noticed that in recent weeks no fewer than four senior executives of the Conservative party have been paid off with apparently very large golden handshakes, including yesterday Mr. Barry Legg, a former Member of the House? Can the right hon. Gentleman give us an absolute assurance that despite the hypocritical attitude of the Conservative party to state funding, no taxpayers' money has been used for that purpose because clearly it would be bad value?
Dr. Reid: I also thank the hon. Gentleman for his good wishes. The expressions of kind sentiment are overwhelming. Before we know it, the Scottish National party will wish me a happy birthday, which would create a precedent.
On early-day motion 1136, I have a knowledge of the issue and am greatly concerned that we treat our servicemen and women properly. I also have some personal experience. I was the first Minister to invite Gulf war veterans in and to institute medical programmes and so on, although to be fair some of those were set up by my predecessor, the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames). However, we owe it to veterans and medical science to ensure that anything that we are considering as part of the so-called Gulf war syndrome is based on verifiable medical evidence, and thus far there has been no verification that such a disease or illness exists. I am aware that a tribunal last week reached a decision that on the face of it appears to indicate that, in its view, there was such medical evidence, but the Ministry of Defence disagrees. Such decisions can be challenged only on a point of law. There is no point of law on which the MOD can appeal. That is why it is not appealing—it is not because it accepts the

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medical basis of the decision. We try to provide whatever facilities we can, not only to troops who served in the Gulf war but to all our troops. We are aware of this and continue to search for a possible explanation, but it would be too easy to hold up our hand and say, "In the absence of any evidence we will accept that that is the case."
On state funding of political parties, I heard what the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) said. I am not sure whether we can make time for such a debate here, but there are other avenues for discussing those matters. We have been generous in providing £16 million to the Opposition which, as we always say of the public services, just shows that throwing money at a problem does not necessarily solve it. I trust that none of that money will be used for fat cat pay-offs to Mr. Legg, whom the hon. Gentleman mentioned. That leads me to something that I should have done earlier: I wish my opposite number, the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), a happy day tomorrow when he goes to his party's bonding session. It will be the first occasion on which the whole Tory Front Bench arrives at a function Legg less.
David Winnick: It would be nice to see the shadow Leader of the House in a jumper in his bonding session. As there is a growing movement for the removal of wigs in court, is there not a case for the Modernisation Committee to consider the removal of all forms of ceremonial dress—gowns, wigs, swords, gaiters and so on—to bring the Chamber up to date? [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame."] Some people are more conservative than ever, but is it not important to consider that? After all, the devolved institutions and our parliamentary Committees do not associate themselves with court dress. What I have said is no criticism of those officers who have no option but to wear such dress.
Dr. Reid: The Modernisation Committee is continually looking at ways to improve our relationship with the public outside. I do not want to embarrass you in any way, Mr. Speaker, but I believe that you were involved in a radical departure from the dress code when you took up your position. I cannot remember whether it was stockings or another part of the attire that you dropped, but I am sure that you led by example, and I suspect that, following your example, there are few men on this side of the House wearing stockings. However, I welcome the proposed removal of wigs, and we are always willing to contemplate changes that make us more accessible and modern.
Bob Spink: People in Castle Point went to bed last Thursday with a strong Labour council, and woke up on Friday morning with two Labour councillors and 39 Tories. May we have a debate to discuss the local reasons for that extraordinary and tremendous swing to the Conservative party? Perhaps it was the need to tackle issues such as a third road for Canvey Island, air quality and the high council tax for which the Labour Government are responsible.
Dr. Reid: It would be churlish of me not to congratulate the hon. Gentleman and his local Conservative party on having done enough throughout
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the country to keep the Leader of the Opposition in his present position. I am sure that all my colleagues will agree that there are few occasions on which a result that pleases both sides can be achieved, but I think that that one did.
Julie Morgan: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, in the Welsh Assembly elections last week, 30 women and 30 men were elected, which means that the Assembly is the only legislature in the world with equal numbers of men and women? That is largely due to the positive action of the Labour party. Will my right hon. Friend draw that to the attention of his colleagues and consider a debate on women's representation to look at the lessons that can be learned?
Dr. Reid: It is not my job as Leader of the House to draw that issue to the attention of the Labour party, but I am sure that 50 per cent. representation will have been noted among the many successes of the Welsh people in the course of the past week. Another success was wisely giving the leader of the Labour party in Wales the opportunity to form his own Administration—an interest that I am sure is also close to my hon. Friend's heart.
Mr. Nigel Dodds: Will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on an issue that is of great concern to many of our constituents—the rights of our senior citizens? While many laws are in place that outlaw and banish discrimination against a range of people, many senior citizens still feel a great sense of injustice about discrimination in access to goods, services and facilities, as well as employment. Will he convey to his relevant ministerial colleagues the need for action in this important area?
Dr. Reid: Yes, I certainly shall. That issue grabs the attention of many people in this House, up to and including those in its highest positions as they enter the decade of their lives that qualifies them for membership of Saga, as I think happened to one our colleagues a couple of days ago. I shall certainly consider the issue. Of course, one reason why Westminster Hall has been such a success is that it provides opportunities to discuss a cross-cutting agenda, but the hon. Gentleman makes a fair point.
Mr. David Watts: My right hon. Friend will be aware that there is a great deal of speculation that the Government are about to approve an Olympic bid for London. Many of us are concerned that such a decision would have a major effect on areas such as the north-west, which would suffer a massive reduction in funding. Can he find time in the House to discuss the matter and the implications for areas such as the north-west?
Dr. Reid: I can tell my hon. Friend that no decision has been made as yet regarding the Cabinet position on this matter, although it probably would have been discussed if we had not spent a great deal of time in the past few weeks considering matters relating to Iraq. To give all of us a chance to consider its implications not only for London, but for the nation as a whole, we have delayed that decision. I am sure that all members of the

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Government will take on board his points. I am also sure that, if the decision is taken. there will be an opportunity to discuss it in the Chamber, at which time he can raise the very points that he has raised today.
Mr. Henry Bellingham: The Leader of the House may be aware that we had an all-postal ballot in my constituency and that it was initiated by the former Labour controlling group, which was trounced by the Tories; the number of seats that it held fell from 28 to 14. However, there have been many stories about ballot papers going missing and houses receiving more than one ballot paper. In spite of the professionalism of the electoral returning officer, many people complained that the double envelope system should have been used. Surely, such all-postal ballots are a dumbing down of democracy and a compromise of secrecy and we should have a debate about them.
Dr. Reid: I do not know about the specific details in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, but I hope that I speak for everyone in the House in saying that greater participation in voting is in all our interests. That is a minimal threshold in securing greater participation in politics and wider participation in democracy. I am not saying that postal balloting is a panacea, but it is one of a range of measures that we are considering and I have no doubt that time will be made available to discuss it in due course. We must wait to see the results of the various approaches—weekend voting, text voting, electronic voting, all-postal ballots and so on—but the early evidence seems to suggest that participation is much higher. While we must ensure that there is no misuse of any system, that general point should be welcomed by hon. Members in all parts of the House.
Helen Jones: Can my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on the role and accountability of strategic health authorities and especially the Cheshire and Merseyside strategic health authority? I have had problems in getting a meeting with it to discuss the deficit at my local hospital. I have raised the matter in the House and I know that hon. Friends representing Merseyside constituencies have experienced similar problems in the past. Can we have a debate about how to prevent such health authorities from developing into independent fiefdoms and how to make them more accountable and responsible to the communities that they are supposed to serve?
Dr. Reid: I know that my hon. Friend raised that issue earlier this week in attempting to secure an emergency debate, but she was, unfortunately, unsuccessful. Nevertheless, the application itself made some of the points that she wished to make. I take it that there will be opportunities to raise the matter during discussions about the Health and Social Care (Community Health and. Standards) Bill, which is passing through the House. Some of the elements that she mentioned are meant to be addressed by foundation hospitals, so I have no doubt that she will have the ingenuity to relate some of those issues to in-order subjects that arise in the course of discussions about that Bill.
Sir George Young: On 11 February, the Select Committee on Standards and
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Privileges published its eighth report, which proposes a number of changes in the way in which the House regulates itself. The right hon. Gentleman's predecessor indicated that he hoped that we would debate the report before Easter, but the Iraqi war intervened. Mercifully, that is now behind us. When can the Leader of the House offer us a debate on this important report?
Dr. Reid: First, I thank all the members of that Committee for the work that they have done. I have begun to look at the report—I am now catching up with the backlog of work that any new Minister takes on—and I have also discussed it with one or two of my colleagues. I cannot give the right hon. Gentleman a specific date, but I can tell him that we regard the report as a very important document and that we will turn our minds to it as soon as we possibly can.
Mrs. Alice Mahon: Many human rights organisations investigating the situation on the ground in Iraq have now reported that 2,700 civilians have died and that many thousands more have been injured. Today, the World Health Organisation has reported that there are 15 cases of cholera in Basra. Last week, in Fallujah, we saw the United States firing on and killing 15 Iraqis and injuring 50 more for demonstrating about the fact that their school was occupied. Can we have a full debate on post-war Iraq and, more importantly, a statement on our Government's position on the role of the United Nations in rebuilding Iraq?
Dr. Reid: On the recourse to statements and debates in the House, my hon. Friend's position on this matter is well known and she will accept that, whatever her criticisms of the Government, we have tried to make time available, often to the detriment and risk of our previously published programme. We have tried to make time available for statements and debates. I do not know that I can say that we will have yet a further statement on the matter at this stage, but I have no doubt that, from time to time, we will come to the House on the very important issue of reconstruction, redevelopment and humanitarian aid in post-war Iraq.
I should point out that, through the Department for International Development, the Government have committed £115 million to support work by the humanitarian agencies to address some of the problems that my hon. Friend has mentioned. Of course, like every hon. Member, I regret every single death, whatever the figure, and every injury. A further £60 million was set aside by the Chancellor as late as 9 April for Departments to claim from the Treasury for work in Iraq if and when the need arises. I am sure that we will report if and when that happens.
Andrew Selous: Will the Leader of the House make time for a debate about the constitutional Convention? He will be aware that both the Conservative and the Labour representative on that committee have called for a referendum on the future of Europe. Perhaps in the course of such a debate, the Government will be able to tell us why the citizens of Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal will have the opportunity to vote on the constitution, while the citizens of the United Kingdom are being denied that opportunity.
Dr. Reid: The reason is simple. They have a constitutional system different from Britain's. If the hon. Gentleman suggests that Ireland and all the other countries that he mentions have a better constitutional system than ours, that would be something of a reversal of the Conservative party's position over the decades. Nevertheless, I should like to give the lie to the idea that the discussions in the constitutional convention are a deep threat to the sovereignty of this country. I do not take that view. The Convention on the Future of Europe is publicly debating a draft constitutional treaty for the EU to replace the present constitutional position, which is extremely complex and based on many treaties. The convention does not threaten Britain's independence or identity.
Mr. Tony Lloyd: I refer my right hon. Friend to the exchanges that his predecessor had on progress with legislation on corporate manslaughter. He may be aware that one of the rumours doing the rounds is that the blockage preventing the legislation from being introduced is the fact that permanent secretaries in the various Government Departments are worried that they may end up in jail themselves if they do not adequately look after their employees. I hope that he can scotch that rumour. Can he give any clear indication of progress on that legislation—if not today, perhaps in writing at a later date?
Dr. Reid: I know of no evidence or facts that would give substance to the rumour that my hon. Friend mentions.
Mr. Lloyd: Anything may be true.
Dr. Reid: Well,theoretically anything may be true, but I have never heard anything to suggest to me that the delay is related to what my hon. Friend suggests. It is largely the result of pressure of work in the House. There is always a balance between the ambitions of the Government and the rights of the House to scrutinise legislation. They often come into conflict and it is not possible to introduce every piece of legislation that we think desirable. We believe that legislation on corporate manslaughter is desirable; it has not dropped into some black hole from which it will not re-emerge.
Angus Robertson: In the spirit of non-partisanship, may I offer the Leader of the House congratulations on his birthday on behalf of the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru? When he is considering what he should eat for his evening birthday meal, will he out of solidarity consider eating Scottish fish? After all, the Scottish fishing industry has suffered a double whammy this week. The European Commission confirmed that the industrial fishery will be allowed to continue in the North sea, while Scottish fishermen and fishermen from elsewhere in the UK will see their quotas cut massively. It also announced that €32 million in additional funding would be available for communities such as those that I represent, but I understand that the UK Government do not intend to draw down those funds to help fishing communities. When will the House have time to debate that matter in full? It is of supreme importance to fishing communities around this island.
Dr. Reid: We take the issue very seriously, which is why we had a debate on fisheries policy just before
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Easter. However, we have to be honest and truthful with people. There is a real problem to do with conservation of stocks. Ultimately, however often we debate the issue, that problem will not be miraculously cured just by wishing that it were not the case. So we have to try to balance the needs of present Scottish fishermen with the needs of those who in the coming decades will want to earn their living from that direction. We always try to make time to debate fishing, but given that we have had a debate recently, perhaps an Adjournment debate or a debate in Westminster Hall will be more accessible.
While I would like—and often fantasise about—a good big haddock fish supper, as my wife is paying tonight I think I might go for something more expensive. Aberdeen Angus steak may well be on the menu.
Mr. Nigel Beard: May I draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to the recently published Treasury Select Committee report on the UK and the euro—an all-party report which sets out the issues relevant to the Chancellor's five tests and the ultimate decision? Can he find time for a debate on it on the Floor of the House, before the Government come to a conclusion on this important issue?
Dr. Reid: I am aware of the report, and I am grateful for the work that has been put into it. It is the culmination of a great deal of consideration by the Select Committee, so in a sense the detailed debate by the best-qualified Back Benchers has already taken place, and it has been put into the public domain. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to have any further discussions after the Cabinet has reached a view on the matter. We have always said that if a decision were taken to proceed on the euro, we would bring it to Parliament before going to the ultimate arbiters—the people of this country—in a referendum.
Michael Fabricant: Notwithstanding the fact that the Leader of the House has announced a debate in Opposition time on education, may we have a debate specifically on money that is being held back or otherwise by local education authorities? We understand from a letter from the Secretary of State that the reason why teachers are being made redundant is that LEAs are holding money back. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Hill) says, "Right." There will be teacher redundancies in Staffordshire, including in Netherstowe high school in Lichfield, yet according to the Secretary of State's own figures in his letter, Staffordshire passes on 106.2 per cent. of its SSA grant—more money than is allocated by the Government. So someone has not done their sums right. "Shurely shome mishtake?", as Private Eye might say.
Dr. Reid: I do not know the details of the case that the hon. Gentleman mentions, but the disbursement of money from the centre via LEAs to a myriad schools and other educational institutions is a complex process. Some of the things that he mentions could be the result—I merely speculate—of changing school rolls, changing numbers of teachers and the pressures created by increases in pensions. I am glad to say that the terms and conditions—[Interruption.] Well, we should be proud that the Government have provided a better pension scheme for teachers.

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One thing is certain. The amount of money provided has in every case been greater than the pressures on local authorities. We have gone to enormous lengths, and will continue to do so, to find out if and why any of the money has not been allocated to schools.
Mr. Bellingham: Teachers are being sacked. We need action now.
Dr. Reid: We do not deny that there is a problem, but we should see it in context and remember that spending per pupil is up something like £800 since the Government were elected. So there will be no reticence on the part of the Government about holding debates on education. When one looks at the bigger picture, the reason why we have had the best ever primary school results, GCSE results and A-level results and the reason why we have moved from sixteenth to third in the world in terms of primary literacy is that we have put the money in. If some of that has not yet got through, of course we regret it, and we will do everything possible to ensure that the reasons are identified and remedied.
Mr. David Chaytor: My right hon. Friend will be fully aware of the contribution that has been made to rising educational standards by the system of national testing and league tables, but does he accept that there is now growing concern that the main factor that determines a school's place in the tables is the ability and motivation of the pupils who happen to come through the doors? Does he also accept that the school performance tables rely on a single indicator to an extent that no other performance tables in the public services do? Does he agree that there is a genuine feeling that it is time to revisit the methodology of school league tables; and can he find time for a debate on the subject in the near future?
Dr. Reid: My hon. Friend will know that the Government very much value—and believe that parents value—as much information as possible about their child's education being passed to them. He will also know that we have been concerned to ensure that when that information is passed out it is as neutral and objective as possible. That is why, not long after we took office, we changed the league table criteria to added value.
If my hon. Friend believes that in the light of experience we need an even more sophisticated criteria base on which to evaluate those results, I am sure that he can take the opportunity to make those specific points during an Adjournment debate. He should be in no doubt, however, that, contrary to many recent commentaries and some recent propaganda, we believe that the tests are a vital part of allowing parents to evaluate their child's progress and of maintaining the progress that has been made so far in literacy, numeracy and the results that I mentioned earlier.
Mr. Andrew Mackay: As, during our time in Northern Ireland, the Leader of the House and I knew Mr. Liam Clarke of The Sunday Times, a distinguished and very professional journalist, does he not think that it is time for a statement on the disgraceful
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behaviour whereby armed police came to the Clarkes' house in the middle of the night and arrested Mr. Clarke and his wife, which was quite unnecessary?
Is it not also appropriate, in the light of questions by the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), that the Prime Minister should come to the House to give a statement about just what was going on in relation to the bugging of Mo Mowlam's telephone conversations?
Dr. Reid: I know that my answer will disappoint and frustrate the right hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock, but I will not add anything to the statement that the Prime Minister has already made.
Mr. John Smith: In the light of the ruling by Judge Graham Jones against Thomson Holidays on Tuesday, will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on the inadequacy of the Warsaw convention of 1929 in governing the liability of airline carriers? Airlines have complete control over the well-being of their passengers—where they sit, what they eat and even the air that they breathe—but have no legal responsibility whatsoever for their health or welfare. That must end. Such a debate would allow this House to warn the 50 million people in this country who fly abroad every year that they have no protection from the considerable health risks that face them, including deep vein thrombosis.
Dr. Reid: My hon. Friend has been a robust advocate of the rights of travellers and consumers, and, to his credit, has raised the subject on every conceivable occasion. Although I cannot promise him today that we will have a debate on the Floor of the House, I have no doubt that his commitment to the cause and his ingenuity in finding opportunities to make his points will stand him in good stead, as it has over the past year or two.
David Burnside: On behalf of the Ulster Unionists, I pass on our best wishes to the Leader of the House. We all hope that at the end of the UEFA cup final he will find new youth, but that at the end of the Scottish league season he will age considerably.
The Leader of the House announced that the House will have time on Monday to debate the second postponement of the Northern Ireland Assembly elections. That was caused for no other reason but that the organisation that the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Mr. McGuinness) commands has refused to disband and to disarm, while his party, Sinn Fein, operates as a normal democratic party. Would not the time of this House be better spent debating the evidence that is being given today a few hundred yards away in Westminster Central hall—that Martin McGuinness, the Member for Mid-Ulster, fired the first shot on Bloody Sunday, which exonerates the Parachute Regiment; and that in the same year in which Bloody Sunday took place, 1972, 24 soldiers and members of the RUC were murdered under the command of Martin McGuinness, 20C Derry brigade, Provisional IRA? Would not that be a more honest use of the House's time?
Dr. Reid: First, I thank the hon. Gentleman for his birthday wishes and for his rather cryptic comments in a language that the English do not know, but which he and I, and other Scots, probably understood.

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On the Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections and Periods of Suspension) Bill, I should tell the House that draft copies will be available this evening and will be sent to Opposition parties and Northern Ireland Members. I mention that because last night I spoke to several Members who were worried that they would not have sufficient time to read it. The Bill will be published on Friday at 7.30 am, and amendments will be accepted at the Public Bill Office between 11 am and 3 pm tomorrow. I should also tell Members who were awaiting with anticipation the debate in Westminster Hall that it had to be adjourned because of the emergency statement that took place last Thursday, and that we understand that the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs has requested that it be rescheduled to July.
As for the hon. Gentleman's comments about the Bloody Sunday inquiry, it would not be appropriate for me to make any specific comments about that, other than to say that my experience in Northern Ireland taught me that if truth, reconciliation and justice are to be achieved in future, they must be undivided truth, reconciliation and justice. In other words, they must be achieved in such a way that all people in the community who have suffered, not just one section of the community, feel that their woes, concerns and pain have been addressed.
Andrew Mackinlay: May I ask the Leader of the House about the allocation of time motion in respect of the Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections and Periods of Suspension) Bill, which will be early business on Monday? It is very important that we have a proper Committee stage. How much time does he intend to allocate to that, bearing in mind that we will not have seen the Bill, that he cannot be privy to the number of amendments that will be tabled before 3 o'clock on Monday, and that as the legislation that we passed postponing the elections was relatively short, the Bill must by definition be quite complicated. There are reports that Members who had decided to retire from the Northern Ireland Assembly will be on half-pay for some indeterminate period, although they are no longer MLAs. That illustrates the fact that we need to consider the Bill with forensic skill and in some detail, and that it cannot be bounced or railroaded through Parliament.
Dr. Reid: I take my hon. Friend's comments very seriously, not least because of the interest that he takes in matters of Northern Ireland and of parliamentary scrutiny. In an ideal world, we would not have the Bill at all, and elections would be going ahead. In a less than ideal—but approximating towards it—world, we would have an endless amount of time to scrutinise an important issue: the postponement of democratic elections. But we do not live in an ideal world, and events in Northern Ireland move sometimes with incredible speed and sometimes with incredible slowness, inch by inch. This is one of the occasions on which it is necessary to act with some alacrity to postpone the elections, and to do so having gone extra miles, and having taken extra time, right up to the last minute, to try to avoid postponement. That is why we
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shall have to deal with all the stages of the Bill in one day. I hope that within those limitations we will give it as much scrutiny as we humanly can.
Mr. John Bercow: May we have a debate on rotten public services at rip-off prices in the form of higher taxation under the Government? They have already taken an extra £130 billion from the British people in higher taxes in the past six years, almost all Departments fail to spend even their existing allocations, and Ministers are all too fond of setting, missing and scrapping public service agreement targets. What confidence can the Leader of the House offer that the Government's record on public service reform and improvement will be any better in future than in the past?
Dr. Reid: Rather than condemning public services as rotten and rip off, the Government prefer to allow plenty of time to debate the way in which we match the unparalleled investment in our public services with radical reform. We want to match those two elements not simply because that is conducive to debate but because it results in genuine change and benefit to people's lives. I have already mentioned the changes in education. On health, there are 50,000 more nurses, 10,000 more doctors and 300,000 more operations. We achieve change in people's lives through radically reforming our public services, and we make adequate time available for debating that in the House. Yesterday's debate was an example of robust discussion ending in widespread support for the Government.
Mr. Harry Barnes: At Treasury questions, the Paymaster General pointed out that the Inland Revenue was dealing with 5.3 million cases of child tax credit and working family tax credit. If only 1 per cent. of cases go wrong and people lose out on benefits that they previously received, it means 80 cases per constituency. Can we hold a discussion about the problems? There is a specific difficulty in cases that involve several agencies. For example, the Child Support Agency, income support and child tax credit may affect each other. If difficulties arise in more than one agency, that creates an especially serious problem. Some of us are continuously on helplines; perhaps we could do with some help to deal with the matter.
Dr. Reid: The issue has been raised several times in questions and statements in the Chamber in the past week. Although the vast majority of cases have been tackled, a significant number remain to be transferred to the new credit system. Everything possible is being done: money is being spent and more human resources have been brought in to cope with the matter. I ask hon. Members to understand that although the position is distressing for everyone who has not received their benefit, the ultimate reward of the tax credit system for millions of people will be the biggest single advance for working families and pensioners in the history of the welfare state. Any complexity is therefore due to the huge step forward that the system constitutes.
Mr. Andrew Lansley: The Leader of the House knows that, on Saturday, it will be a year since the tragic crash at Potters Bar in which two

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of my constituents were killed. He must also know that there is mounting concern about the lack of progress in the investigation and any resolution of the cause of the crash. Will the right hon. Gentleman ask the Secretary of State for Transport to make a statement in the House next week about the investigation and what is being done to secure progress? The victims, their families and those who travel on the line every day need reassurance that their anxieties are not out of sight and out of mind.
Mr. Reid: Everyone on both sides takes the matter extremely seriously. The inquiry is under way and effectively in the hands of the Health and Safety Executive. People would frown upon any interference by the Secretary of State in such an inquiry. Of course, we want it to be done as expeditiously as possible, but we also want it done properly and not rushed. I believe that Transport questions will be held next Tuesday or Wednesday, and the hon. Gentleman can raise the matter then.
Paul Flynn: Should not the House reconsider the electoral systems that we imposed on the devolved Assemblies? Last week's bizarre result means that the Welsh Assembly now consists of 40 winners and 20 losers. Forty seats, of which 30 are Labour, were won on the first-past-the-post system. The other 20 Assembly Members benefited from an assisted places scheme, under which not one member of the Labour party got a seat although it won the vast majority of votes in the second ballot.
Will my right hon. Friend join me in hoping, like most Welsh Members of Parliament, that Rhodri Morgan, the Prif Weinidog of Wales, will soon announce that as he was elected as old Labour, he intends to rule as old Labour?
Dr. Reid: If I remember correctly, my hon. Friend is a convert on the subject—I mean the electoral system, not old Labour. Others who are not necessarily converts would take the view that although it might be too early to consider changing electoral systems in Scotland, Wales and elsewhere, we should bear in mind experiences thereof when examining future developments in our constitution for other areas. If that is not sufficiently cryptic, I can find another way of putting it.
Mr. John Wilkinson: May I draw to the Leader of the House's attention the report of the Select Committee on Home Affairs on asylum removals, which is one of the most important and damning Select Committee reports of recent years? It demonstrates that immigration control and the process of removing asylum seekers who are not entitled to remain in the United Kingdom are totally ineffective. Will the Leader of the House therefore ensure that a debate on the matter is not tucked away in Westminster Hall in the middle of July but held on the Floor of the House, as a matter of the utmost urgency, preferably in the next two weeks?
Dr. Reid: I am not sure that I can guarantee a debate as soon as the hon. Gentleman would like, but I want to make several points.
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The Government take the issue seriously and there is no attempt to push it aside. Although we have always maintained that it must be tackled, not exploited, if the Government are not prepared to face up to dealing with it, others will exploit it.
I welcome the detailed report of the Select Committee on Home Affairs on a complex subject. We shall consider it carefully. I also welcome its acknowledgement—perhaps, in fairness, the hon. Gentleman should have mentioned it—of the efforts of the immigration and nationality directorate and its contractors to carry out the removals task with "dignity, humanity and fairness". It is a difficult topic in practice as well as in political discussion, but we shall continue to tackle it.
Provisional management information suggests that we have removed approximately 24 per cent. more failed asylum seekers and their dependants in 2002–03 than in 2001–02. Any abuse of the system is unfair, not least to those who seek to enter this country by normal, legitimate and ordered means.
We must also consider ways in which to decrease the number of applicants for asylum in this country. The Prime Minister has outlined what we would like to happen between last October and next October to reduce numbers greatly. I believe that we shall realise that aspiration.
Dr. Julian Lewis: Almost a month has elapsed since the publication of the discovery in Baghdad of a document dated 27 November 2000, in which an Iraqi intelligence agent reported that the Russian intelligence service had provided him with the names of assassins for apparent possible use against the west. May we have a ministerial statement—perhaps a written ministerial statement—from a Foreign Office Minister about representations to President Putin on that serious matter?
Dr. Reid: I have to confess to the hon. Gentleman that I am not aware of the measure of veracity and substance of these reports. I am also somewhat constrained by the self-discipline under which we normally operate on such matters of intelligence. I am sure, however, that the Secretary of State will have heard the point that the hon. Gentleman has raised. On all matters relating to Iraq, we have tried, within the confines of time, to be as accessible and open with the House as we possibly can, up to and including the unprecedented debates that we have had on the war itself. There is no retention of information or curtailment of debate for the sake of it, so far as the Government are concerned.
Mr. Desmond Swayne: What on earth has become of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill?
Dr. Reid: It is still our intention to get that Bill approved and on the statute book as soon as we possibly can.
Mr. Swayne: It has been out of Committee since February.
Dr. Reid: Well, there is a huge number of priorities, but I know that both the Government and my right hon.

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Friend the Deputy Prime Minister regard this as a very important issue, not only in itself but because of all the implications that it has for the wider issue. It is still our intention to get the Bill through as soon as possible.
Mr. Andrew Turner: When the debate to which my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson) referred takes place, will Ministers also take the opportunity to explain why, when an unquantified number of asylum seekers have not been removed, they are encouraging 100,000 people a year to migrate lawfully to this country—a number that would require a new town the size of Luton every year for the next 10 years to accommodate them?
Dr. Reid: We have to distinguish between lawful, ordered immigration into this country—particularly when it can make a valuable contribution to its economy, as well as its social life—and unlawful immigration. Immigrants have made such contributions over many years. Indeed, many of us would not be here if the attitude that the hon. Gentleman is taking had been adopted. That is not to say that we should in any way tolerate abuses of the asylum system, and I have already made it clear that we have acted robustly on that over the past year. That is already having an effect. We have made great strides in speeding up the removals process; in particular, our targets on a proportion of decisions taken in two months, and on decision and appeal in six months. As intake reduces—that is where we are putting the emphasis at present—we will have more resources to deploy to making high-quality decisions fast, which, in turn, should reduce the proportion of cases granted on appeal. But I do not think that we want to take the attitude that, whatever skills we may be offered, or need, we should set our face against any form of immigration just because we dislike foreigners.

Points of Order
1.32pm
Mr. Eric Forth: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Following the question raised by the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) about Monday's business, you will be aware that the only guidance that we have at this stage to the shape and form of Monday's business on the important and potentially controversial Bill on Northern Ireland is the item on page 1800 of today's Order Paper, which simply makes a reference to the business being concluded at 10 o'clock. So all we know at this stage is that the House will have the opportunity only from 2.30 until 10 o'clock on Monday to complete all the parliamentary stages of a complex and potentially controversial Bill. It would help the House to know whether it will be in order to table amendments to the motion on page 1800 of the Order Paper—for example, to extend the business beyond 10 o'clock.
Would it not be a courtesy to hon. Members if the Leader of the House could answer the not unreasonable question put to him by the hon. Member for Thurrock, and tell us how much time he envisages being allocated to Second Reading, the Committee stage, Report and Third Reading on Monday—all of which must take place between 2.30 and 10—so that hon. Members can have some idea of what the Government are proposing and of how to deal with this controversial matter? On the face of it, it seems entirely inadequate to allow only from 2.30 until 10 for all the parliamentary stages of a Bill that we have not yet seen to be completed, never mind the fact that we only have tomorrow, when the House is not sitting, to table amendments.
I make this appeal to the Leader of the House: it would be very helpful if he could tell us more of what is in the Government's mind at this stage. It would also be helpful, Mr. Speaker, if you could use your authority to confirm that amendments can be tabled to the motion, which is the only information that we have at the moment, so that we can give serious thought to whether the House as a whole might want to give itself more time than the Government now envisage.
Mr. Paul Tyler: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Let me answer the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth). Perhaps I can assist him and the House by saying that amendments to this motion will be accepted and can be tabled.
Mr. Tyler: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Can you confirm that there is nothing in Standing Orders, despite the recent changes to our hours, to prevent the House from sitting until it completes the process on that Bill in a proper way, and that it can sit until any hour? Can you confirm that there is nothing in either the modernisation proposals that were put to the House or in the decision made on them that could prevent that from happening? Could you use

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your good offices, in the interests of proper scrutiny of this very important measure, to make representations to the Leader of the House on that point?
Mr. Speaker: At the moment, the guillotine motion is set for 10 o'clock, but that can be changed. The hon. Gentleman will perhaps have more influence than I on that matter.

ROYAL ASSENT
Mr. Speaker: I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:
European Parliament (Representation) Act 2003
National Minimum Wage (Enforcement Notices) Act 2003
Electricity (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2003
Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Act 2003
Industrial Development (Financial Assistance) Act 2003

BILL PRESENTED
  NORTHERN IRELAND ASSEMBLY (ELECTIONS AND PERIODS OF SUSPENSION)
  Mr. Secretary Murphy, supported by the Prime Minister, Mr. Secretary Prescott, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Secretary Blunkett, Dr. John Reid and Mr. Desmond Browne, presented a Bill to make further provision about the election of the next Northern Ireland Assembly; to make further provision about periods when section 1 of the Northern Ireland Act 2000 is in force; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Monday next and to be printed. Explanatory notes to be printed [Bill 104].
Orders of the Day

  Fire Services Bill
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Mr. Speaker: I inform the House that I have selected neither of the reasoned amendments.
  1.37 pm
  The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. John Prescott): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  It is with some reluctance that I find myself here today. This is a Bill that I would have preferred not to introduce, but after 12 months of negotiations and three separate pay offers, the fire dispute has reached deadlock. Legislation is therefore necessary in the public interest and to protect public safety. Reform of the public services is one of this Government's key priorities. In recent months, we have pressed ahead with the modernisation of the fire service, the repeal of section 19 of the Fire Services Act 1947, the introduction of a new system of fire cover based on actual risk, and a new White Paper that will be published shortly.
  The Bill now before the House draws on the arbitration powers originally set out in the Fire Services Act 1947 but repealed in 1959. It will enable me—in England and Wales, but not Scotland—to make an order to do two things: first, under clause 1(1)(a), and subject to the negative resolution procedure, to set or modify the pay and conditions of service of fire brigade members; and secondly, under clause 1(1)(b), to give specific or general directions to the fire authorities about the use or disposal of property or facilities. Those combined powers will enable me to secure a pay and modernisation deal for the fire service if no agreement is reached through the normal process of industrial negotiations, and only after full consultation with the parties. That is the situation that we find ourselves in today.
  This dispute dates back to May last year. Since then, the Fire Brigades Union has rejected three successive pay offers. The first was for 4 per cent., the second for per cent., and the most recent was the employers' final 16 per cent. offer. Hon. Members will also recall that we have attempted to resolve the dispute through Sir George Bain's independent review of the fire service, and that we brought the parties together at ACAS where, after two months of discussion, they still failed to reach agreement.
  The dispute is made even more difficult because, in recent months, the FBU executive has failed to carry its members with it. The executive has twice made recommendations to the members, including a recommendation to accept the employers' final offer, and has twice been overturned. We are therefore back to where we were last May, 12 months ago. The claim remains 40 per cent. for the firefighters and 50 per cent. for the control room staff, without any commitment to reform or modernisation of any kind. Under those circumstances, we have tried to break the deadlock and I am therefore bringing the Bill to the House.
  Mr. Desmond Swayne: The Secretary of State is effectively saying that because we

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  have reached an impasse he has to present the legislation to the House. What estimate has he made of the likelihood of us not having reached that impasse had he involved himself directly in the negotiations earlier?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: This is a matter of judgment, and I give the best of my judgment to the House. I have reported regularly to it on the negotiations and, after 12 months, I have made the judgment to move to a form of arbitration in legislation, after saying that I would be prepared to consider it. That is what I am presenting to the House.
  Jeremy Corbyn: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: Always.
  Jeremy Corbyn: I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way, and I am very interested in the points that he is making. What consideration has he given to his imposition of a settlement to bring the dispute to an end being met with rejection by the union and by members, who could then take industrial action? What would he do at that point?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: That is the difficult question that we have to answer in this matter, and I give the best of my judgment. If the House gives me those powers, there will still be a period before I can act—over two months. I hope that my hon. Friend will see from my speech that I am still encouraging negotiations and that there is still a lot of room for manoeuvre and agreement, but at the end of the day this is a free country where people make free decisions on whether they want to give their labour—that is why I am against the anti-strike legislation. But we all must make judgments, which is why I am giving the House my best judgment of how we can find agreement. The dispute affects this country's public safety, in respect of which all of us in the House have responsibilities.
  Mr. Edward Davey: The FBU and its members may refuse to accept the imposition of a settlement by the Secretary of State. What preparations is he making to ensure that the public have the fire cover that they would then need?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman would do better to wait until he has heard my speech. Clearly, I have to address those circumstances.
  David Davis: I apologise for interrupting the Deputy Prime Minister, but he made an aside in his response to the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) that he is against anti-strike legislation. I understand that he has given the House an undertaking that the White Paper will consider whether there should be anti-strike legislation or an anti-strike agreement. I hope that he is not prejudging that White Paper.
  The Deputy Prime Minister: It is true, as the right hon. Gentleman says, that I have promised the House that in the White Paper we will address ourselves to that essential principle. I shall still give my judgment,
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  however, and I am entitled to it. A White Paper represents a Government's view on matters, and he must wait for that White Paper.
  My main point about anti-strike legislation, whether people agree with that or not, is that it would take many months for it to go through the House and be achieved. I assume that that would do nothing more to solve the dispute. My judgment is that this can be done quickly, and it is an alternative beyond just sitting back and doing nothing. That is what I am addressing myself to today.
  Mr. Patrick McLoughlin rose—
  The Deputy Prime Minister: May I make a little headway? I will take an intervention later.
  There has been a failure to reach agreement on the pay and modernisation deal. In addition, we are working against a background of wide-ranging national and local non-co-operation by the FBU and the continuing threat of strike action. In some parts of the country, old, badly located fire stations have been closed and replaced by new modern fire stations in areas of higher risk. That has taken place with the agreement of the local brigade. Even while the dispute has been on, those changes have been taking place in some areas while being resisted in others.
  In some parts of the country, local brigades have opposed new fire stations. In two fire brigades, we have projects on stream for new control rooms shared with other emergency services. In other areas, joint control rooms have been blocked by the union. In some areas, there is flexible crewing or alternative shift patterns are in operation. In still others, firefighters are already using defibrillators and participating in co-responder schemes with the ambulance services, but elsewhere they are not. In too many areas, there are none of those things. Effectively, we have a postcode lottery for fire and rescue services, which is not acceptable.
  Over the past year, the FBU has constantly called for the provision of new equipment to tackle the increased threat of terrorist attacks using chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear devices following the events of 11 September. I am pleased to tell the House that new equipment is available and ready for use thanks to the Government's £56 million investment. That equipment is designed to deal with members of the public, or indeed the firefighters themselves, who have been exposed to chemical or other weapons in a terrorist incident. However, now that the equipment is available, Members will be concerned to learn that at national level the FBU is refusing to use it, and it is a lottery locally as to whether ordinary firefighters agree to undertake the training.
  The equipment essentially consists of mobile decontamination facilities where members of the public can be washed down, and it is absolutely necessary for them to be made available as soon as possible. It is unacceptable to the Government and to the people of this country for that equipment not to be available to them in the event of a terrorist incident. If the FBU will not co-operate, the Government will take action to provide that protection against terrorist attack by whatever means necessary.
  In addition to the non-co-operation, the FBU continues to play cat and mouse with the Government through its extended threat of strike action. That has

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  forced 19,000 members of the armed services to be kept on almost constant stand-by since last September. We have had only 15 days of strikes, but the cost to the public purse stands at over £100 million, largely due to the stand-by costs involved. On 15 April, the FBU gave an undertaking that there would be no strikes during the hostilities in Iraq. As a result, the Secretary of State for Defence was able to release 3,000 personnel for other duties. Even so, the impact of firefighting duties on the armed forces has been serious. Troops have been diverted from their training and preparation for core military tasks, and they have had to stay longer on tours of duty than would normally be the case. Military capacity has deteriorated, and members of the armed forces have often gone without leave. That cannot be allowed to continue.
  The firefighting duties are having a progressively detrimental effect on our troops in Iraq and our capacity to fulfil a wide range of military duties and obligations. I have therefore agreed with the Secretary of State for Defence that the priority must be to relieve the armed forces in Iraq, and also to release those involved in firefighting for training and other important operational tasks. I have further agreed a release of 5,000 personnel from stand-by for firefighting duties with immediate effect. We will now have only 11,000 members of the armed forces available for firefighting duties, and by the end of the month we will be down to about 9,000 troops.
  I want to spell out to the House exactly what those significant and continuing reductions to the number of armed forces personnel deployed on firefighting duties will mean in terms of public safety. In the event of a strike, they will result in significantly reduced fire and emergency cover. On a normal day, the number of fire appliances in the UK is about 3,000. The original deployment of green goddesses was about 829, crewed and supported by 19,000 military personnel. A reduction in the number of military personnel to 9,000 means the deployment of about 250 goddesses and 300 specialist vehicles.
  The Defence Fire Service and the fire service inspectorate judge that such a reduction would significantly increase the risk to the public and members of the armed forces. If the FBU calls for further strikes, lives will be endangered and property put at risk. Under normal circumstances, 80 per cent. of the population of England and Wales receive a response within 10 minutes. During the last strike in February, that fell to 47 per cent., and with 9,000 troops involved it would fall to about 36 per cent. Under normal circumstances, 600,000 people would have to wait more than 20 minutes for a response. With 9,000 troops involved, that figure would rise to 10 million people waiting more than 20 minutes. I therefore call on the FBU to make it absolutely clear that there will be no further strike action while our armed forces continue to be engaged in Iraq.
  The armed forces are still engaged in military action—providing security and carrying out vital humanitarian and reconstruction work. They are still at risk. They are still in danger. The conflict may be over, but the military still has numerous commitments and responsibilities.
  David Winnick: I am not one of those who have been critical of the way in which my
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  right hon. Friend has been involved in the current dispute, but I am concerned about the powers that he is taking to impose pay and conditions. Those powers may well be used fairly by this Government, but one can imagine what might happen in the future. At this stage, I am not sure that I can support the Bill.
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I understand my hon. Friend's concern. The same thoughts are in my mind. I have to make a judgment one way or the other, however, and come to the House to justify it. I still hope that an agreement will be reached through collective negotiation.
  As for the length of time for which the Bill will be available to this or any other Government, all that is happening now is my presentation of it as one way of dealing with the situation. Certain safeguards, or protections, are provided: for instance, I must consult all parties involved. Then, however, I must make a decision.
  The proposed powers are based on those in the Fire Services Act 1947, which provided for arbitration largely because everyone recognised the importance of fire and other emergency services. Employment in those services is not like any other employment: public safety must be given greater priority. Given the circumstances of the dispute and the delay to which I have referred, I think I am right to present this legislation.
  Mr. Tony Lloyd: Along with 13rendan Barber, general secretary elect of the TUC, I pay tribute to what Mr. Barber describes as my right hon. Friend's
  "strenuous personal efforts to assist in finding a resolution".
  That is indeed a fact, which ought to be recognised by all.
  My right hon. Friend must bear in mind, though, that there are real concerns about the Bill. It poses enormous problems, and it may not offer a solution. I will reluctantly support my right hon. Friend tonight, despite my doubts, but ultimately a negotiated framework will be needed to settle the dispute. That is the right way forward for the Government, for the employers—who have not enjoyed much credibility during this process—and for the FBU.
  The FBU sets great store by the Burchill proposals. I am not competent to tell my right hon. Friend whether the proposals have merit, but I should like to know whether he thinks either Burchill or, as it were, son or daughter of Burchill could offer a framework in which meaningful negotiation on both pay and modernisation could begin.
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's kind remarks. The proposal presented by Professor Burchill, who is independent chair of the National Joint Council for Local Authorities' Fire Brigades, has a number of cost implications. The existing costs are quite heavy, and I consider the 16 per cent. offer adequate; but Burchill's is just one proposal—although all the evidence suggests that FBU members are about to reject the executive's recommendation and accept Burchill's. I believe they are to decide on 15 May. There is, in fact, sufficient information to suggest that even that proposal may be

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  rejected—but if Members will allow me to finish my speech, they will learn that I am prepared to present other proposals. During our discussions of the Bill. collective bargaining may yet provide a way of settling the dispute.
  Mr. Russell Brown: May I make a point relating to Professor Frank Burchill? The figure of £100 million has been mentioned. Many of us are at a loss to know how it was arrived at, as there is no evidence that fire authorities have done any costing.
  I congratulate my right hon. Friend on all his efforts. If a negotiated settlement is reached before the Bill completes its progress, will he be in a position to abandon it?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I thank my hon. Friend for his kind remarks. The £100 million to which I referred did not, in fact, relate to the Burchill proposals; it related to the stand-by cost—more than £2 million a day—of having forces ready and available.
  Burchill accepts a negotiated wage framework, but has presented proposals which we and the employers consider effectively prevent any modernisation. There must be a balance between modernisation and the payment to which we are committed to make some advance contribution. If modernisation proposals are not accepted, there will be an extra cost. We are talking about the difference between the £30 million involved in the mark 1 deal—the 16 per cent. Offer—and that extra cost.
  All these matters can be discussed, but modernisation and reform must accompany a wage agreement. That was not at the heart of what Burchill proposed; in fact, he virtually vetoed any such possibility.
  As for the time scale for the Bill and the possibility of a sunset clause, no judgment has yet been made, and I do not want to go into that now. I just want the Bill to be approved. It may prove unnecessary: I still believe that collective bargaining could finally settle the dispute.
  Mr. McLoughlin: Given that the Deputy Prime Minister is not the employer, I do not know why it is not possible for the Local Government Association or the fire authority employers to impose a pay deal. Why is the Bill necessary?
  I am particularly concerned about clause 1(1)(b), which allows the Secretary of State to
  "give specific or general directions to fire authorities about the use. or disposal of property or facilities".
  Why does the Deputy Prime Minister feel that he needs that power? Does he want to set up regional fire authorities?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: Of course the LGA, as employer, could impose a deal, although I think there would be quite a reaction from FBU members, but the point is that it is not prepared to take such action.
  Having explored every avenue, I have brought the Bill to the House because neither party is prepared to move any further. There is deadlock, although I am still working constantly to secure an agreement.
  As for whether the use of the facilities themselves will be necessary, I hope that if a difficult stage is reached during arbitration and fear is generated, fire stations will
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  be available. On occasion even some fire authorities have made it clear that in such circumstances they would not be available. I had the rather quaint idea that the fire stations belonged to the public, although in one or two cases I have felt doubtful about whether that is so.
  That was a flippant remark, but I think that hon. Members will know what I mean.
  Mr. Gerald Howarth: The Deputy Prime Minister has described in some detail the considerable dislocation experienced by our armed forces, who have had to stand in for the firefighters while being paid substantially less than what the firefighters currently receive. Even if the Deputy Prime Minister reduces the number on stand-by from 16,000 to 9,000, an intolerable burden will be imposed on the forces, and our capacity to train those men and women for emergency operations that might become necessary in future will be seriously damaged.
  The Deputy Prime Minister: We take the advice of the Ministry of Defence on troop management. I am told that in certain circumstances, at certain levels of troop deployment, if a strike did not last longer than a certain period it could still be managed. The point is, though, that we must try to secure an agreement.
  To be fair to the FBU, when the Iraq situation began it made it clear that it would not strike while we were involved. I now appeal to the union not to strike in the current circumstances, but it will decide on 15 May. Let us take this one bit at a time. Meanwhile, I must give the House a justification for the action that I wish to take. The least I can do is tell the House what the consequences would be if troops were not available, and I have tried to do that.
  On a number of occasions the Opposition have called for the Attorney-General to take out an injunction with the aim of protecting public safety. I have kept the Attorney-General fully informed of the situation as it has developed, and I have frequently told the House that it is up to him to decide whether legal action is in the public interest. The Bill provides a way forward in these difficult circumstances: it allows me to secure an arbitrated settlement concerning pay and conditions, and gives me a statutory duty to consult before placing an order before the House. I propose to consult both the national joint council and the statutory advisers to the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council, which includes a number of organisations and trade unions not represented in the national joint council.
  The principles that will guide those consultations will be the same as those that have guided the negotiations. Any pay rise above inflation must be paid for by modernisation. The Government continue to stand ready to provide £30 million of transitional funding, in addition to the £100 million cost of the dispute so far—but we will not provide one penny more.
  I am also very conscious that ordinary firefighters have received no increase in their basic pay since November 2001. That is particularly unjust for those who have not been party to this dispute—mainly the retained firefighters, including members of the Retained

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  Firefighters Union—and have continued to work throughout, but have been denied their due entitlement to a pay settlement as soon as possible.
  The powers in this Bill will also enable me, as well as making a decision about pay and proper consultation, to improve public safety and support the process of modernisation more widely, bearing in mind the primary concern for public safety as set out in our new guidelines on integrated risk management.
  Hon. Members will be aware that one of the cornerstones of the current terms and conditions of service is that there must be a constant level of crewing at fire stations around the clock, regardless of daily fluctuations in the number of fires that actually occur. That is neither right nor sensible, and it is certainly not right to assume that fire cover cannot be provided in another way. No other emergency service operates on this basis. Through the powers provided in the Bill, I will be able to change existing constant crewing requirements and allow fire authorities to match staffing to the real risks posed by fire. The House—and indeed firefighters—should not misunderstand what I am saying: this is not about compulsory redundancies; it is not about attacking firefighters' second jobs; it is not about taking away rights and benefits that firefighters currently enjoy; it is about creating better ways of working for both managers and firefighters, and better provision for the public.
  John Robertson: My right hon. Friend rightly points out that this Bill relates to England and Wales, and as a Scottish Member I have some concerns. Can he allay my fears and confirm that this will not end up in regional pay bargaining and agreements—that it will be a national agreement that cannot be split up?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: On the agreement, if I were given the powers by this House and forced into using this legislation, it would apply only to England and Wales; it would not apply to Scotland, because it has a devolved Parliament. As to whether, as Bain recommended, the same privilege should be given to Wales, I ask my hon. Friend to await the White Paper, in which I shall give a judgment on that issue.
  On regional wage bargaining, at present there is a national wage structure. If it is agreed to, I will be imposing not a regional wage structure but a national one to apply in Wales and in England. I am hopeful that there is still room to find an agreement while the House discusses this possibility.
  Mr. Philip Hammond: The Deputy Prime Minister says that this is not an attack on firefighters' second jobs, and he has previously given a commitment—or the employers have, at least—that there will be no compulsory redundancies. Is he in a position to extend that commitment by saying that no existing firefighter will have a compulsory change in shift patterns imposed on him?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: This is an important point, and I shall come exactly to it if the hon.
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  Gentleman will allow me to complete my speech. There is a genuine fear among many firefighters that we are proposing to give total control to the fire chiefs, who will decide that all firefighters are to come in at 8 o'clock in the morning and work 24 hours a day, or for seven days. I am just as concerned about the Captain Blighs in this situation as I am about those who have common sense.
  Matthew Green: The Deputy Prime Minister will be aware that throughout the country different brigades have achieved different levels of modernisation. The Shropshire and Wrekin Fire Authority is probably the most modernised of any fire service. The only step that it has yet to take is the establishment of a joint operations centre, which it is planning to do in conjunction with the ambulance authority. That proposal has the support of the FBU in Shropshire—even though it contradicts national policy—and of Unison; all that is holding things up is, I am afraid, an apparent lack of help from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Will he examine this issue to see whether matters can be progressed?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I am coming to the issue of joint operations, but I believe that the situation is not exactly as the hon. Gentleman describes. He has in fact written to us about it, and we have made it clear time and again that we want joint control rooms. There are two or three places in which joint control rooms are used. There has been a great deal of controversy about whether the joint control room for Wiltshire should be divided by a brick wall or a glass wall, or whether the services should come together. However, in the past few days the FBU has agreed that it should be established, so there is movement.
  My complaint is this: people may want national standards for wages, but why are there no national standards involving the best of the safety provisions, such as joint control rooms? That is the issue that I am trying to address. The standards were changed through the Fire Services Act 1959, and authorities were given the power to take decisions; before then, there was a national system under the terms of the 1947 Act. I have inherited a situation that, in my view, is not satisfactory.
  Mr. David Drew: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the White Paper that was produced a couple of years ago, and was universally welcomed, was at least a step in the right direction? What happened to it, and why has it been so difficult to make progress on the ideas contained in it?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I, too, was interested in that point. It was the general secretary of the FBU who told me that a White Paper had been published and the Labour Government would not deliver on it. Apparently, it contained a proposal whereby certain powers would be given to fire service chiefs. The FBU did not like that, and preferred that the White Paper not be delivered. As I understand it, because we could not reach an agreement, nothing happened.
  However, I have made it clear that there will be a White Paper, and I made it clear to the FBU that it is absolutely right that we modernise. It is not just a question of wages and conditions; a whole range of changes needs to be made, and that fact will be

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  encompassed in the White Paper. Scotland has already produced a White Paper on its own services, and I am taking that into account. I shall shortly publish a White Paper that will cover many of these issues, and our response to the Bain recommendations.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I shall now try to make some progress. I hope that the House appreciates that I have tried to give way as much as I can, but it is taking up time. However, this is an important matter, and there are great concerns in the House that I must try to satisfy.
  At present, the FBU bans all pre-arranged overtime in order to maximise the total labour force employed in the industry. It has been quite honest about this. It says that by maintaining the current overtime ban, it is able to keep 4,000 more firefighters in employment, which is a legitimate point for a trade union to make, but I am bound to say that I must ask what constitutes the better balance in the use of the labour force to provide the services that I want. Everyone wants to keep their labour force as large as possible, but I am not sure that many trade unions have been able to do that. This is where the argument concerning non-compulsory redundancies comes in—an issue that most unions would recognise in their negotiations.
  Overtime is an essential issue. The ban on overtime denies the opportunity for ordinary firefighters to increase their pay by working overtime as a firefighter, and creates the current absurd situation in which it is acceptable for a trained firefighter to work overtime as a minicab driver, but not to work overtime using his skills and training as a fireman. Yet the hourly rate of pay is far greater than that for driving cabs, cleaning windows or gardening—jobs that some of these guys get involved in. I cannot accept that the skills of highly professional firefighters should not be used in overtime if they wish—if it is their choice—and should be used instead in driving a cab, digging a garden or cleaning windows. This rather absurd situation is in need of change.
  Currently there is also a "one size fits all" shift pattern. It is known as the 2-2-4 pattern, whereby firefighters work two days followed by two nights, and then have four days off. I have no argument with that principle. Changing that system would allow for better ways of working, but it would not mean firefighters being forced to work unreasonable and unpredictable shifts. They have fears about that, and we have to satisfy them. Throughout the past 12 months I have constantly encountered misconceptions, uncertainty and a lack of proper dialogue between the two parties in these negotiations.
  Ordinary firefighters are understandably concerned about both redundancy and shift pattern changes. My officials and the employers have done a great deal of work to assess the impact of modernisation on the overall manning level for the fire service, and on shift patterns. Between now and 2005–06, the fire service will lose 1,500 firefighters through compulsory retirement at age 55. There is the potential for a further 2,500 optional retirements under the scheme after 25 years of service, and in the normal course of events, there would be about 1,000 retirements on ill health grounds. In comparison
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  to those figures, the final pay offer tabled by the employers would require a reduction in the total work force over the same period of about 1,900 staff—not the ridiculous figure of 10,000, which has been suggested to hon. Members here. That figure should be justified if it is to be used: it is a further misconception, sometimes deliberately deployed.
  Reductions on the scale that I mentioned—I repeat that natural retirements are a key component—would be similar to the annual reduction in the labour force over the past 10 years. It has not remained constant, but has reduced under normal procedures—through non-recruitment or whatever—over the past 10 years. The labour force has not remained static, so the proposed changes to work patterns are not a radical departure from what has happened in the past.
  Patrick Mercer: The Deputy Prime Minister is extremely eloquent about the fears—in his view, misguided—of the average firefighter. Having spent considerable time talking to the men—and the few women—who work in the Newark, Retford and Southwell fire stations, I agree with him. What he says makes sense and is honourably intentioned, but many firefighters have indeed either been misled or are subject to the fears that he mentioned. I respectfully suggest that, if those fears are to be allayed and some form of rational argument is to be produced on both sides, the Government should employ a better communications strategy.
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I agree absolutely. I have been at the centre of negotiations, trying to push each party to agreement, and I must say that the communications abilities of the employers leave much to be desired. Sometimes when the communication is good, it is misinterpreted. That lies at the heart of the difficulties. I want to tell firefighters that they do the most important job in the country and they do it well. I am not saying that they do not do a good job, but it can be done differently and better. We recognise that they deserve better remuneration than they currently have, but increases have to be balanced with reform of the public services—the heart of the matter. Even if I had the most ideal communications systems—hon. Members know that I sometimes have problems with language, so I can hardly criticise others—it would not be everything, but it would make a difference.
  My officials are working with employers on examples of how changes to the duty system would work in practice. The genuine fear is that if new powers are given to the bosses, they will do what the hell they like with them. We must allay those fears, however irrational we think they are. That is why I have asked the employers to develop concrete working examples of the impact of new shift patterns consistent with the new guidelines on the new integrated risk management in five brigades, covering about 50 per cent. of the fire service's whole-time work force. Initial work by the fire service inspectorate shows that the fundamental nature of the existing duty shift system would not need to change, and that about 80 per cent. of firefighters could remain on exactly the same shift system in force today.
  Firefighters are guaranteed a choice of family-friendly duty systems. Discussion must take place between the Fire Brigades Union and the owners—a

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  hangover from my shipping days, I mean the employers. The matter can be settled only through discussion. I cannot settle it. I do not want to arbitrate, but it is common sense that the two parties should come to agreement. I have to weigh the public interest in the balance and justify the Government's approach to Parliament.
  Hon. Members will know that I have become familiar with the chat lines—perhaps I should be more discreet about that—of the firefighters, who say what they think about the dispute. I have certainly picked up the signals as to what they think about me—and about Andy Gilchrist, but I leave that aside—and I am aware of their concern about long-term service payments, which are made after 15 years of service and obviously affect wages and final salary pensions. People near to retirement age are particularly concerned about whether, under the changes to long-service payments under the new system, they will still receive the same money after their 15 years' service. It is another genuine concern and I have asked the employers to deal with it. I believe that it would be comparatively simple to guarantee long-service payments to existing firefighters, but the FBU needs to discuss that with the employers. I am sure that many other concerns are worthy of discussion between the FBU and the employers, and I beg them to get talking while we are debating the Bill.
  David Davis: The Deputy Prime Minister was set off on an eloquent exposition by my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), who asked him about the effectiveness of communications systems. What does he think about that in the light of how the FBU chose to present its case at the last stage of the ballot? There was a referral back to committee and decisions were taken at the fire stations. Does the Deputy Prime Minister believe that that assists communication for the FBU?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I understand the right hon. Gentleman's point. All trade unions consult with their members in different ways, and the FBU sometimes does it through the brigade headquarters. During this dispute, the FBU has adopted two methods: it held a secret ballot to determine what action to take on the first 4 per cent. increase, but has also used a consultative conference. I am not going to criticise the process, but it is important to receive proper information, and the principles of communication are critical. That is why I am sure that Mr. Barry Legg will have no further involvement in this matter. The right hon. Gentleman asked me to say that.
  It is not often that Ministers come before the House to seek support for a Bill that they hope they will not need to use. I still believe that it is possible to reach a negotiated settlement, and the weeks that it will take for the Bill to become law provide a further opportunity to reach a settlement, but both parties need to sit down and talk in order to understand the full details of the employers' offer. The dispute is as much about misconception, misinformation and misunderstanding as it is about the realities of what is proposed. I hope that what I have said today will provide some of the reassurance that ordinary firefighters require.
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  I repeat that the Bill is not about getting rid of second jobs; it is not about forcing firefighters to work unreasonable or unpredictable shifts; it is not about compulsory redundancies—none will arise from the changes in the Bill; but make no mistake: whether through a negotiated settlement or through arbitration as set out in the Bill, the fire service, like all public services, will reform and modernise. As I said in my statement on 20 March, firefighters should be aware that if I am forced to arbitrate a settlement—I hope that I will not be—I will not be bound to stick to the current 16 per cent. offer. The choice is there for all firefighters. A final offer is on the table. The employers have recommended it; the FBU executive has recommended it; and the Government have agreed to finance it. I appeal to ordinary firefighters, especially to members of the FBU, to make their feelings known. An offer of 16 per cent. over two and a half years is generous in anyone's book. There is still plenty of time while the House considers the Bill for the employers and the FBU to reach agreement.
  Change is coming. Ordinary firefighters may require more information about the employers' final offer, but if the FBU does not accept it, I will use the arbitration powers in the Bill to bring about a settlement. That is necessary, given the history of this dispute and my obligation to maintain the highest levels of public safety and protection. I firmly believe that the measures in the Bill are in the best interests of our firefighters, the fire service and the safety of the general public, which is paramount to me and to the House. I commend the Bill to the House.
  2.19 pm
  David Davis: The Deputy Prime Minister began what I thought was one of his better speeches, if I may say so, with an expression of reluctance about bringing the Bill to the House. I am not surprised: this Bill should have been entirely unnecessary.
  One year into the fire brigades dispute, the public will find it hard to know who to blame more—the Fire Brigades Union for its intransigence, or the Government for their incompetence.
  The catalogue of incompetence is extensive. It starts with the Deputy Prime Minister's ill-fated intervention at the Local Government Association conference nearly a year ago, when he trailed the Government's intention to set up an independent inquiry, thereby stalling the ongoing negotiations. It continued with the slow-motion establishment of that inquiry, which was delayed by the lobbying and undue influence on the Labour party of its union paymasters. It further continued with the lethargic pace of the Bain inquiry, which took more than three months where other inquiries, such as that which produced the Wilberforce report, took less than two weeks. It was further exacerbated by the Government's schizophrenia—of which we heard more today—about who is in charge.
  Who runs the negotiations? Is it the local employers, who are in the front line, or is it the Government, the paymasters who call the shots and exercise the veto? That uncertainty was ignominiously highlighted by the farcical overnight negotiation on 22 November, when the Government seemed willing to allow a strike to proceed rather than disturb the Deputy Prime Minister's slumbers.

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  Although the Government have asserted in public that the management of the dispute is a matter for the employers and the unions, the truth is that they have intervened repeatedly to emphasise the Government's effective veto over any settlement. We heard that again at the end of the Deputy Prime Minister's speech, when he said that the 16 per cent. offer was by no means the final outcome.
  Despite the rhetoric of devolution and local management, throughout the dispute central Government have treated local government as a very junior partner—indeed, almost as a branch office. Confusion over the respective roles of central and local government has dogged the dispute from day one. The lack of a clear Government response in the early stages encouraged the union executive to believe that it could get away with a massive increase with no strings attached. If the Government's determination to link any increase above inflation to changes in working practice had been set out clearly and forcefully at the outset, the dispute might have taken a very different course.
  However, the incompetence has not been confined to the Government's handling of the negotiations. They have failed on many other fronts. For example, they failed—the Deputy Prime Minister again referred to the fact—to use the law to protect the public. The relevant laws were put in place by a previous Conservative Government, precisely to deal with that sort of situation.
  The Government failed to provide the best equipment for our troops to use, wasting months before realising—under repeated pressure from the Opposition—that many modern fire engines were available if the Government just organised themselves properly. They failed again and again to protect the public because they could not decide whether they were macho, anti-union new Labour, or the unions'-friend, beer-and-sandwiches old Labour. That was evident in the comments from numerous different Ministers, especially through November of last year.
  This bumbling tale of incompetence might seem funny were it not for the enormous risks facing the public. Throughout the year of this dispute and its attendant strikes, the nation has faced the double hazard of a war and a serious and continuing terrorist threat. That threat is not over yet. To have the firefighters, our first line of defence in any terrorist attack, on strike at this time is not just incompetent; it is irresponsible and entirely unacceptable.
  It is fortunate that the public were protected—and the Government were to some extent rescued—by the sheer professionalism of our armed forces. It is only by their sterling efforts that we have got this far without major loss of life. Our armed forces acted at considerable cost, when they were suffering massive overstretch. They delivered for us at the cost of lost leave, lost training time, and extended tours in Northern Ireland.
  I should also like to take this opportunity to put on record the Opposition's admiration for the retained firefighters, who have also provided invaluable support for our communities during the dispute—sadly, often in the face of intimidation.
  Mr. Henry Bellingham: My right hon. Friend is right to flag up the incredible and
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  superb support of the retained firemen, many of whom are based in small village fire stations of the kind that can be found in his constituency and mine. They are very concerned about the repeal of section 19 of the Fire Services Act 1947, as they fear that many small stations could be closed. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that would be an appalling thing to happen, after the loyalty that they have shown?
  David Davis: My hon. Friend makes a very good point. In fact, the Deputy Prime Minister answered the point in a previous exchange, when I asked him whether he would guarantee—that was the word I used—that retained firefighters would not lose their jobs as a result of the reorganisation. The right hon. Gentleman gave me that guarantee. Moreover, I think I heard him say earlier that the retained firefighters would be involved in the process of resolution in the last stages of the reorganisation. That benefit is also well worth while.
  David Winnick: Will the right hon. Gentleman clarify whether a Conservative Government, faced with a firefighters' strike, would have made the strike illegal? That is the policy of the Opposition now.
  David Davis: First, there was no firefighters' strike throughout the entire time that the Conservative Government were in office. That was no accident, but I shall deal specifically with the point that the hon. Gentleman raises later in my speech. If I do not deal with that exact matter, I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman later on.
  The situation that we are in today simply cannot go on. That is why the House of Commons has been put in the position of having to decide on the Bill before us. It is simply to rescue the British public from the consequences of the Government's incompetence.
  This Bill is designed solely to bring the dispute to an end on the Government's terms. In his speech, the Deputy Prime Minister referred to the process as arbitration, but arbitrary action is not arbitration. Many of the people involved in the dispute will see the Government's response as arbitrary action. They may be right or wrong, but that is how they will see it.
  Even from the Government's perspective, the Bill is a botched job, in three different ways. First, it does nothing to offer the ordinary firefighter a way out of the strike with dignity. The Government are quick to rebut any criticisms by branding them "inflammatory", yet now they propose to do something which, if it goes wrong, could leave a legacy of bitterness for decades.
  The Government are giving the Deputy Prime Minister effectively unfettered power to impose pay and conditions and direct fire service assets. What the Government should do, in my judgment, is put a new clause in the Bill to require the FBU to have a secret, postal ballot—not a show of hands at fire stations—on the proposed settlement, before the relevant parts of the Bill come into effect. Then at least there would be one last shot at achieving an agreed outcome.
  The Opposition will propose an amendment to that effect in Standing Committee. We hope that that will ensure that the voting practices of the FBU, which seem little better than the pit-head ballots that we thought

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  that we had eradicated years ago, are put to bed once and for all. That would give the ordinary firefighters an opportunity to be truly represented within the FBU.
  Mr. Drew: It is a nice notion that a ballot could be held on national pay and conditions. The element of pay could be the subject of a ballot, but the proposed changes will have many implications at local level. Those implications will differ greatly across the country. I therefore do not quite understand how people could be asked to ballot, on a set statement and using a set ballot paper, when the outcomes could be different in different parts of the country.
  David Davis: That is an extraordinary statement. The implication of what the hon. Gentleman has just said is that there can never be a resolution of the dispute. As I listened to the Deputy Prime Minister's speech, I learned a number of things that I had not known before. For example, I learned about the right hon. Gentleman's interpretation of matters such as compulsory redundancy and compulsory shift change. I suspect that many of my constituents—some of whom work in the same fire station as constituents of the Deputy Prime Minister—will not have been aware of the right hon. Gentleman's interpretation of those matters. It is very important that all firefighters have the right to express their views in an unintimidated and unfettered way, on the basis of all the available information. Of course that will not give him a route map for the next five years, but it will allow him to determine what his own union does on his behalf. That is the point of my proposal.
  Secondly, the Bill gives the Deputy Prime Minister the right to impose a settlement, but fails to deal with the consequences. It gives him no power to act if the FBU continues to strike, either completely or in its most militant areas. I was surprised that the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) pointed that out; his is a surprising corner for such an observation to come from. The absence of any such clause to deal with that matter robs the Bill of teeth. The Deputy Prime Minister may have the power to impose a pay settlement, but he has no power within the Bill to prevent a strike.
  In what I have said was a good speech, the Deputy Prime Minister failed to tell the House what he will do to protect public safety if a strike occurs after he has imposed a settlement. If he cannot answer that simple question, the Bill will be pointless. We could be talking about a local, national or wildcat strike in the capital, in Liverpool or in a county such as Essex. We might be talking about a strike announced at long or short notice. It could be a long or short strike. This comes in a week in which the newspapers claim the existence of 50 suicide bombers inside the United Kingdom, along with sharp reductions on border checks that stop incoming terrorists from outside the UK.
  My next line was written before the Deputy Prime Minister's speech. It said: "Are we to have 16,000 troops on stand-by in perpetuity?" We will not, apparently; the figure is 9,000.
  Mr. Andrew Miller: I am slightly confused, and it is important for the whole country to understand where the official Opposition are
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  coming from. The right hon. Gentleman describes the Bill as botched and pointless and he referred indirectly to no-strike clauses. Is it the intention of the Opposition to support the Bill tonight? If so, is it their intention in Committee to seek to insert a no-strike clause in the Bill?
  David Davis: The hon. Gentleman invites me to jump three or four pages ahead in my speech. We will not block the Bill tonight. In my judgment, the Bill is a defective vehicle, but it is a vehicle to try to bring an end to an overlong dispute. As a responsible Opposition, we will attempt to amend the Bill to give it the teeth it requires. I shall explain how in a second. We will also deal with the three errors or failures in the Bill. I have talked about the problem of not allowing the firefighters a dignified way out; the question of the enforced ballot. The second error concerns strikes. I am dealing with that and the hon. Gentleman will see what our approach is.
  We will not have 16,000 troops on stand-by in perpetuity; the Deputy Prime Minister says that the figure will be 9,000. In perpetuity, that will be a crippling burden on our armed forces. Is that what our troops returning from Iraq will come back to? Will this mean the cancellation of yet more training exercises, in addition to the 12 we have lost already, damaging the combat readiness of our troops, and thereby putting at risk Britain's defences yet again?
  Given that 9,000 troops are to be on stand-by at high-risks levels, what will the Deputy Prime Minister do in the event of a terrorist attack on a major British city? Will he gamble that the FBU does not go on strike? If it does, who will pay for the troop cover and the consequences of this inaction? Will it be his Department or the local authorities? I suspect we know the answer to that.
  What is missing from the Bill is a clause that makes strike action by the FBU illegal for the period of high risk to the public. We will propose an amendment that puts strikes in the fire service on the same basis as under the police discipline code for the duration of the legislation.
  Mr. Miller: I want to pursue this a little further. My constituency is dominated by areas of extremely high risk. Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that, in perpetuity, the fire brigades would not have the right to take industrial action? That risk is there every day and not just during national emergencies.
  David Davis: I take the hon. Gentleman's point, which is a good one. I shall come back to it. For the purposes of the Bill, the answer is, "For the duration of the Bill." I want to move on to what that duration should be. I shall return to the permanent risk issue at the end of my speech.
  I take a strong view that, in the 21st century, it is wrong for an emergency service to use a 20th century tactic, strikes, to resolve their pay and conditions. That is the wrong approach. It is wrong for trade unions to be able to hold the public hostage. There is nothing uncivilised in that view, although I know that there is a difference across the Chamber. These constraints apply to the police and to the armed forces and are a necessity for those whose work is so important that the safety of the public depends upon them. That is the key issue.

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  The men and women who provide our communities with protection from fire should be proud, as the Deputy Prime Minister said, of their role in society. They are entitled to expect fair pay that recognises their skills and commitment, as well as fair conditions of work. But the communities that they serve are entitled in turn to expect them to be there when they are needed.
  David Winnick: Presumably, if firefighters are to have the right to strike taken from them because of the essential nature of their work, which is not in dispute, that could also apply to other essential workers. The right hon. Gentleman is in effect proposing as part of Conservative policy that all essential workers should be denied the right to strike. If not, why should this apply to one section, firefighters, alone? If they are not to be allowed to strike, why should others? It seems to me that Conservative policy is to undermine democracy and to take the right to strike away from those involved in essential services.
  David Davis: The hon. Gentleman makes an eloquent case in respect of essential workers, but it was not the case that I made. I referred to emergency services, and areas where people's lives are at risk. To give the hon. Gentleman a history lesson about a time when he was in this House, he may remember that, until the 1970s—the Deputy Prime Minister probably knows this—it was illegal for gas workers to go on strike, and it was a Tory Government who withdrew that provision, taking the view that the essential test was whether those concerned were emergency workers.
  We want these men and women to get a fair deal—the deal they deserve. I believe that, in return, firefighters should give up the right to hold the public hostage by staging strikes. In a civilised society, in circumstances where there is no right to strike, there is quid pro quo; a recognition of the rights of the work force. That is why we should put in place a procedure that recognises and safeguards the individual and collective rights of firefighters.
  David Winnick: Who else cannot strike?
  Mr. Bellingham: MPs cannot strike.
  David Davis: But sometimes their constituents dispense with their services. It is the other way round—a consumers' strike. [HON. MEMBERS: "You have to be working to go on strike."] I shall let the Deputy Prime Minister speak for himself in that respect.
  Whether such a safeguard should be a pay review body, as exists for the police and other public sector workers, a radical alternative, such as final offer arbitration, or simply an old-fashioned mediation and arbitration process is frankly too complex—and raises passions too great—to be decided on a hurried timetable and under the pressure of a dangerous strike.
  As we heard from the Deputy Prime Minister, a White Paper is due shortly. We do not know which way that will come out, but it will, we presume, address dispute resolution in this sector. We shall therefore propose in Committee that the Bill be subject to a sunset clause at a time that will allow it to be replaced by a more permanent arrangement after the House has carefully considered the Government's own White Paper.
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  The Government must at last get to grips with the dispute. It has rumbled on too long with too many questions unanswered. Sadly, today's Bill fails to answer those questions. The Deputy Prime Minister has said that he will do what he can to protect the public. This is his final opportunity to do so. He can start by accepting our amendments to the Bill. He can end by ensuring that the forthcoming White Paper includes an independent mechanism for determining fire service pay to ensure that firefighters are properly and fairly rewarded for their invaluable work, but which is also linked to an obligation not to strike. Only that will give a fear deal to firefighters and proper protection to the public. Only then will the Deputy Prime Minister have completed his job.
  2.41 pm
  Mr. Kevin Barron: I am opposed to the Bill. That said, I do not support the Fire Brigades Union. Nor would any responsible trade unionist, particularly in the public sector, who looked at the FBU's claimed wage increase and its feeling that it need not be affected by the modernisation that has taken place across the whole public sector over not just the past six but probably the past 10 years. Those things are a sign of what I call bad leadership. I know a little about trade unions, having been an active trade unionist for more than 40 years.
  I believe that the firefighters have been badly led, but I also believe that what would be done through the Bill is not a job for the Government. I am more convinced of that the longer the dispute has gone on. The Government are inevitably at arm's length on any public sector settlement, direct or indirect. There is no statutory machinery to settle disputes such as the one affecting the firefighters. That is something that should have been thought about long ago, particularly in view of the facts that it is 25 years since the last strike and that, by and large, that part of the public sector has been governed by legislation that has hung around since about 1947, when I was one year old.
  The Deputy Prime Minister: The Bill is based on the legislation of 1947—a long time ago—which was designed for arbitration because of the special circumstances of the firefighters. What I have done is taken what was repealed by the Tories to put it in the Bill.
  Mr. Barron: I am grateful for that intervention. I shall give my views on what is and is not arbitration later, but I firmly believe that it is not a job for Government, for two good reasons. One is the position that my right hon. Friend was in during the overnight negotiations on Thursday 21 November. An agreement was reached, we are led to believe, at about 3 am on Friday 22 November, which central Government did not look at before a strike started at 9 am. I listened that morning to my right hon. Friend on the radio explaining the events of the last 24 hours, and it was the only time in 20 years as an MP when I have phoned my regional Whip to say that I did not like what I had heard. With all respect to

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  my right hon. Friend, people from the Government, who had clearly had a steer on the negotiations, were not around at 3 am, but thousands of my constituents—
  The Deputy Prime Minister: That is not true.
  Mr. Barron: Excuse me. I shall let my right hon. Friend intervene in a moment. If I am misreporting him, I regret it, but it was said that he was not around at 3 am, and no one was around to look at the settlement that had been made. Within an hour and a quarter of the start of a strike, that was said.
  That morning, I was on my way to see a firm of solicitors on a constituency matter, and later I visited an engineering factory where hundreds of people work shifts and are up at 3 in the morning. I used to work shifts and worked all hours of day or night. I was upset that it appeared from the media—I hope that I am not misrepresenting my right hon. Friend—that central Government were not around at the end of the negotiations and, consequently, did not have time to look at the deal before the next strike kicked in at 9 am on the Friday. That is why I phoned my regional Whip. I was unhappy, as a Member of Parliament. I am pleased that no one suffered loss of life in a dispute that may have been related to professional people not being present, from what I heard.
  The Deputy Prime Minister: I must make it clear that that is not true. It was put about by the general secretary of the union that I was not available. However, since I spoke to the general secretary of the TUC, the assistant general secretary of the TUC and the negotiators throughout the night—there were conversations at 2am—I can say we were there right through to the end. Our objection was that we could not be given a copy of the agreement, and the union wanted to make an agreement without any costings. I could not accept that.
  Mr. Barron: I hope that I have not misrepresented my right hon. Friend, but I thought that he said in his interview on Radio 4 that he had not had time to look at the deal and was not around. I do not mean anything malicious by saying that I did not like what I heard, and I phoned my regional Whip to say so at the time. I have kept quiet about that.
  I do not think that this is a job for Government or Members of Parliament. Anyone who reads the Hansard record of this debate will see what was said in my right hon. Friend's opening speech and the interventions of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) about shift patterns and everything else. Those are not Government, but industrial relations matters. We need competent machinery in different industries to sort such problems out. This is not a matter for Government, and that is why I do not support the Bill.
  My right hon. Friend has said several times that we need some form of arbitration, and that the Bill is about arbitration. It is not about arbitration as I understand it. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden mentioned arbitration, referring to two instances—Wilberforce and Bain. I was a working coal miner when
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  Wilberforce was around, and it settled a dispute in which I had been involved for weeks. The Wilberforce inquiry was supported by all sides so that we could break the impasse in the mining industry, which had spread across the nation.
  Bain was not like that. I am not saying that the FBU was wrong to absent itself from Bain, but I think that its leadership had a responsibility to put its case in front of Bain, to get a decision made by arbitration and get it out of the way so that we could move on to what we all hope will be changes in practices. I want certain changes in my constituency. Not allowing ambulances to stand on fire brigade yards so that they have to park a few yards down the road on children's playgrounds because the FBU do not like the idea of emergency services getting too close is one example. That happened years ago in my constituency, and it is disgraceful.
  Ms Joan Walley: In the interests of getting a negotiated resolution before legislation imposes a resolution on the firefighters, does my right hon. Friend agree that much in the Frank Burchill report could assist us on the issue of arbitration? Is it not the case that other models, such as those used by ACAS, could greatly assist the Deputy Prime Minister in bringing to fruition his work in trying to resolve the dispute, without his having to impose one at great cost to the trade union movement?
  The Deputy Prime Minister: We were two months at ACAS.
  Mr. Barron: From a sedentary position, the Deputy Prime Minister says that we have been to ACAS, and that process has failed. We have to accept that there are no grounds for settlement at arbitration, as we know it, with the FBU. That is a great shame. As I said earlier—I shall say it one more time and that will be it—there has been bad leadership by the FBU, which should have represented its members in respect of Bain, because nothing in society is for ever for any of us.
  The idea that the Bill involves arbitration is wrong; it is an imposition. I am not convinced that imposing a settlement at this stage on a service where modernisation will have to come under any circumstances will take us any further forward than where we are today, unless some people feel that the threat of imposition will do so. I do not want to allude to too much, but my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (David Winnick) intervened during the opening speech and referred to accepting that wages and conditions can be imposed on the public sector.
  I find that principle unacceptable, and I say that as an active trade unionist and as a Member of Parliament who saw the coal industry, which had 4,500 jobs in my constituency, effectively destroyed by bad industrial relations. Massive changes have taken place. I am pleased to say that we went through the worst days years ago and unemployment in my area is less than the national average—it used to be twice as much when all the pits were open—but I would not want the pain that went through that industry because of the way things were handled to be repeated.
  There is one thing that we have seen in this country: we can do without thousands of coal miners. We cannot do without firefighters. This is not an offer of arbitration but an imposition, and I honestly do not understand how it takes this industrial action any further forward.

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  I have to tell the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), who will speak on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, that there was one thing in their amendment, which has not been selected, that I would have sooner seen in the Bill: some form of compulsory arbitration, where the arbiter would be independent of both parties. The Government cannot be independent of both parties in this instance. We should go down that route even if that were a bitter pill for all sides to take. I would be happier if that proposal, not what is in clause 1, were part of the Bill, because at least both sides—employers and employees—could blame someone else and then get on with providing a service that is vital for all our communities.
  My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister received a letter—I think that it was dated yesterday—from the general secretary—elect of the TUC, in which he says that modernisation will be achieved only by negotiation, and what he says is absolutely true. All my history in the labour and trade union movement shows me that, in the end, that is how modernisation takes place and how we get things changed. Change does not happen by taking on people publicly, which is what this dispute boils down to on all sides. I have to tell my right hon. Friend that I will have been in the House 20 years next month and I have never knowingly gone against a Labour Whip in all that time, but I cannot accept the principle in the Bill and I will not vote with the Labour party tonight in Parliament.
  2.53 pm
  Mr. Edward Davey: I agree with the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron), with one exception: his criticism of his right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. Those of us who have paid detailed attention to every aspect of this dispute cannot fault the energy that the Deputy Prime Minister has put into trying to find a solution. We may not have agreed with all his tactics, but his energy has been impressive. What was impressive about his speech was his passionate reluctance for the Bill. I have never seen a Minister be so passionately reluctant in introducing a Bill.
  Perhaps we have taken a slightly different judgment from that of the Deputy Prime Minister. We will not support the Bill—in fact, we will vote against it—but that is a question of judgment. As we said in our reasoned amendment, which has not been selected, we think that there are other ways forward. The Bill will set a very dangerous precedent.
  We have agreed with the Government's strategy throughout the dispute. Our criticisms have been about the tactics. The strategy is right. We need modernisation in the fire service. We need to ensure that no pay deal is agreed until we get that modernisation. Linking modernisation and pay was exactly right. Setting up the Bain review was right, and ensuring that the employers do not resile from the link between modernisation and pay, as was in danger of happening in the overnight discussions that have been mentioned, is essential.
  The strategy is right, but there have been problems with the tactics. Some of the problems were outlined by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), who is unfortunately not in his place, and I shall dwell on some of the other wrong tactics later. The Bill is certainly another wrong tactic by the Government, mainly because it will not end the dispute.
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  In my initial remarks, let me remind the House that we have supported the Government on their strategy throughout the fire strikes. We believe that those in the FBU need to make a move now. They have a generous offer in front of them. They agree with a lot of the reforms. When we speak not just to individual firefighters but to some of the FBU leaders, they agree that there needs to be reform. They cannot argue against the case for reform because it is so strong. The only problem is that they are not prepared to face up to reform and to push it through the membership.
  As the Deputy Prime Minister reminded us, the FBU executive has twice agreed to the settlement that was on the table. Unfortunately, some FBU members have prevented a settlement from being reached at its conferences, so those at the FBU conferences have to move. That is why we believe that one of the mechanisms that the Government should adopt, rather than the Bill, is to require a secret postal ballot, as the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden said. There is now a willingness to face reality among firefighters across the country; the arguments are being won.
  I am not suggesting that the firefighters will accept the settlement willingly. Of course they will not—there will be almost as much reluctance as the Deputy Prime Minister showed today—but they could be persuaded. If they had the chance of a secret postal ballot, they would vote for the settlement. So the Government have been right about the strategy and the FBU should move, but the Bill is the wrong tactic for sorting out the dispute.
  I was interested in the exchanges on misinformation, which is a very important point. Throughout the dispute, the FBU has not given the full picture to its members, as was clear when we debated the repeal of section 19 of the Fire Services Act 1947 earlier this year. Indeed, I read out in that debate the letter that the FBU had sent to its members and Members of Parliament, and it completely misrepresented the implications of repealing section 19. The FBU has not done its members a service.
  The employers may be to blame, as the Deputy Prime Minister implied, but there is one issue where the FBU and its members cannot be blamed. Some of the details of the settlement on offer have not been spelt out clearly enough. That partly relates to the fact that we do not know the implications for each locality of what will happen when the framework for modernisation is put in place. That is an inevitable consequence of devolving power so that the best modernisation settlement is reached for each of those areas. But there is more to it than that.
  There are issues about pensions and what will happen with the pay deal in years 4 and 5. There are issues that relate to the timing of the introduction of the new pay scales. When I visited the fire station in Kingston and talked to FBU members and firefighters in my constituency, they told me that they wanted clarification of those issues and, following that meeting with local firefighters. I mentioned that to the Minister for Local Government and the Regions. If we had greater clarification and the FBU and employers had helped to communicate what was on the table, I am sure that we would be further down the line. One argument for a secret postal ballot is that it would provide the opportunity to advance the real arguments, so that we

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  could get rid of the misinformation and individual firefighters could understand in more detail, with greater sensitivity, the issues that they would vote on. That is why a secret postal ballot could be won.
  Let me outline some of the reasons why we think that the Bill is wrong, which coincide with some of the points made by the right hon. Member for Rother Valley. We think that there are problems with the practicalities of the Bill and worried that it is very centralist—the Government are getting involved in matters in which they should not get involved. But alternatives exist, as I have begun to outline. We are also concerned that the Bill could inflame matters and prevent a negotiated and peaceful resolution.
  On practicalities, the question that the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of State must answer is this: what happens if the Deputy Prime Minister uses this legislation to impose a settlement on firefighters and fire authorities, and firefighters refuse to work under the new conditions? What happens if they say, "We're still going to put out fires, we're going to go to our fire station, and we're going to work in the old ways. We're not going to accept the new rotas or the new contract that has been imposed by the Secretary of State"? Certainly, in a free society, they could take that action. What will the Government do in that situation? The Deputy Prime Minister has not spelled that out. There seem to be only two options: they could take action against the FBU, perhaps sequestering its assets, or they could sack firefighters. Those would be the only possible courses of action were the FBU members and firefighters to decide not to abide by the settlement imposed by the Deputy Prime Minister. If he does not agree, I am more than happy for him to intervene on me, but the logic of the avenue that he is pursuing suggests that those are the only ways, in practice, that he could make sure that his settlement was implemented.
  The Deputy Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend the Minister of State will probably make some points about the employers' responsibilities in this matter. It would be quite wrong, however, to think that there is any question of sequestration under this legislation. That is not the case. As there is no legal requirement in that regard, the action of sequestration would not be taken. That action would be taken, however, were we to pursue outlawing the strikes. Having been through sequestration, I know what little effect it has on the matter.
  Mr. Davey: I am grateful for the Deputy Prime Minister's clarification on the sequestration issue. Perhaps that is not an avenue that would be available under this legislation, although it might be available under the legislation that the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden would like to see. The Deputy Prime Minister did not, however, answer the question of whether he would have to sack firefighters who refused to work under his imposed conditions. What would happen if they did so? He indicates from a sedentary position that the Minister of State will answer that important question.
  I say this in a spirit of genuine, democratic debate, because that criticism could be levelled at all options. It could be made of the idea of the right hon. Member for
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  Haltemprice and Howden to ban strikes, as it could of our proposals for independent compulsory arbitration. It could even apply to a secret postal ballot, as, in theory, the FBU could decide not to engage in one. We in Parliament, and the Deputy Prime Minister, as a member of the Government, need to think about what we would do were the FBU to refuse to co-operate in all reasonable situations. That is why I asked the Deputy Prime Minister what preparations the Government are making to deal with a situation in which there is no cooperation, even after a settlement has been imposed. If the firefighters refuse to accept modernisation and the solution offered, and the Deputy Prime Minister pursues the logic of that outcome by sacking them, how will he ensure fire cover? What preparations are being made to ensure that there is some way of tackling fires and providing for public safety?
  Mr. Hammond: Can the hon. Gentleman explain what would be the sanction under his model of compulsory arbitration if the firefighters refused to accept the decision of the arbitrator?
  Mr. Davey: I have said that that criticism could be levelled at all our solutions—[Interruption.] If the Deputy Prime Minister would listen, given that that criticism could be levelled at all options, the question is which of the options will work best and be most acceptable, and which might persuade the FBU and its members to agree to the settlement and to modernisation. We must make that judgment. I believe that the judgment at which the Government have arrived is the wrong one. Their solution is less likely than ours to get the FBU and the firefighters to agree. In a free society, we must persuade people; otherwise, logically, we must start sacking people, which none of us, I hope, would want. The Government are therefore making a tactical error. Their solution will not persuade firefighters.
  The Deputy Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman does not know that.
  Mr. Davey: The Deputy Prime Minister says from a sedentary position that I do not know that. Of course not; it is my judgment. The point is that we must debate whether the Government have got the judgment right, and we think that they are wrong. Because of all the arguments put forward by, for example, the right hon. Member for Rother Valley, it will annoy trade unions up and down the country. They will see that some serious and important rights that they have treasured—and that the Deputy Prime Minister clearly treasures, given his reluctance in relation to this Bill—are under threat. The Government are therefore making a serious tactical mistake.
  It is interesting that this approach has never properly been used before. The Deputy Prime Minister might point to the 1947 Act, and he might also point to section 50 of the Police Act 1996, which contains similar powers to impose pay and conditions. The point is that the powers contained in those two pieces of legislation have never been used to settle an industrial dispute. Of course, they were used to finalise pay and conditions in those two services when they had been agreed by negotiation, but the powers in the 1947 and 1996 Acts

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  were never used in the situation that we face now. That is why imposition is unlikely to work. There is no precedent for it, and if the Government persist with this approach, they will prolong the strike.
  The Deputy Prime Minister: The 1947 Act is clear. It transferred the fire service from being basically a nationalised service to being a civil authority-based service. When two parties had refused to agree, the 1947 Act allowed a Secretary of State to arbitrate. As for the fact that the power was not used, it was repealed by the Conservative Government in 1959.
  Mr. Davey: The Deputy Prime Minister is right in what he says—I have a copy of the 1947 Act and the relevant section in front of me. My point, however, as he has just admitted, is that those powers were never used. I assume that the Deputy Prime Minister now wants to use those powers when we have a serious dispute on our hands.
  The Minister for Local Government and the Regions (Mr. Nick Raynsford): Passionate reluctance.
  Mr. Davey: The Minister of State quotes my words back to me. Yes, it is passionate reluctance, but we must make the judgment about whether the Government are taking the right way forward, and we think that the Deputy Prime Minister is wrong.
  There are other problems with the Bill. For a start, paradoxically, although we debated in the House a few months ago a measure to decentralise powers in the fire service through the repeal of section 19 of the 1947 Act, the Government are now centralising powers and taking even more draconian ones. It is odd that the Government say one thing one month, and a completely different thing the next.
  Mr. Drew: Having attempted to get this point across to the Conservative spokesman, I shall try again. As far as I can see, the Liberal Democrats want a vote of the FBU to make up its mind. It can have a vote on pay, but how can it have a vote on conditions—given the nature of the changes that must be introduced, they will almost certainly have to be introduced at brigade level, if not at station level? Is it not a case of negotiation being required?
  Mr. Davey: It is possible to vote on the principle and the framework, although I take the hon. Gentleman's point. It was interesting that one of the most important details of the Deputy Prime Minister's speech was that the Local Government Association and the employers are now working with some of the largest brigades to see whether they can implement one of the more contentious aspects of what is supposed to be decided locally—reform of the rotas—to see whether the fears of the average firefighter can be dispelled. I welcome that announcement. It represents the right way forward because when firefighters start to see the reforms in place, many of their fears will go. It will be possible for them to vote because they will see the framework and hopefully, with the new announcement, the implications of the Bain review.
  I am worried by several of the Bill's details. It does not seem to have borrowed every word in the 1947 Act. It is interesting that the Government have reworded that Act
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  because it is much more specific about the types of imposition that the Secretary of State may make by order. The Bill will give the Secretary of State a general power, but the House should limit the Government's power, not give them huge general powers. I am worried that this or another Government could use the power in clause 1 in a way that this House would not intend or consider appropriate with regard to the dispute. For example, the power could be used to reform firefighters' pensions, which is a contentious issue, as we all know. Some readings of the Bill suggest that the power could be used to stop strikes. The power is broad and dangerous.
  I agree with the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden that if the Bill is to be passed—I hope that it will not be—it should include a sunset clause so that its powers may be time—limited. The Bill should provide for a mechanism to return powers to local authority employers.
  I have made it clear that the Government could pursue alternatives. The Bill is not the only way to break the deadlock. We have already debated the secret ballot, but independent compulsory arbitration would also represent a way forward.
  Mr. George Stevenson: Having been around the course a few times during the years in which I have been involved in trade unionism, I have heard the phrase "compulsory arbitration" on many occasions. However, even compulsory arbitration requires agreement by both parties. What would happen if compulsory arbitration were accepted but either side did not accept its outcome? What would be the hon. Gentleman's policy in such a situation?
  Mr. Davey: As I agreed during my exchanges with the Deputy Prime Minister, the logic behind compulsory arbitration, the Government's policy or a no-strike policy means that there must be a mechanism through law, such as sequestration of the union's assets or the sacking of firefighters, although no one wants to contemplate or adopt either option. A free society must have a final recourse in law for such action. However, compulsory arbitration would engage the FBU and firefighters, so it would be a much better way of reaching a negotiated settlement. That is why the Deputy Prime Minister was wrong to say that the Bill would provide for a further type of arbitration. I would not say that he misled the House but he misrepresented the Bill. The problem is that the Bill will provide not for arbitration but for imposition. Compulsory arbitration would provide a much better way forward because it would engage both sides.
  I know that some local authority employers worry about arbitration. They feel that when they experienced it before, the independent arbitrator or panel of arbitrators did not understand the fire service and its details. They believe that people such as Professor Burchill may come up with solutions that do not push the modernisation agenda in the way in which it must be pushed. However, I should have thought that ACAS is now quite in tune with the issues and if compulsory arbitration were held in the context of the Bain modernisation and financial regime—although not according to every dot and comma—it would provide a way forward. After all, the FBU executive has recommended a way forward on two occasions.

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  One could comment on many aspects of the dispute. Many issues, such as pensions, have not been addressed by the Government. I know that firefighters are worried about the implications that Bain will have for pensions. Retained firefighters should be addressed. They have done a fabulous job during the strikes, as they do every day of the year. As the Deputy Prime Minister said, it is worrying that retained firefighters' pay increases are being delayed as the dispute drags on. Has the Minister of State found a mechanism other than the Bill to determine whether retained firefighters could receive a pay increase before the dispute is settled? They deserve that and it is a real shame that they must wait for such a length of time.
  The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden was right to pay tribute to the incredible role that the armed forces play when they deputise for the firefighters. They have showed that a modernised approach to fire prevention and putting out fires can work because they used several of the ideas for reform proposed in the Bain review.
  Many hon. Members want to speak, and I am especially keen to hear Labour Back Benchers because I hope that they will help to get the message over to the Government. The Liberal Democrats cannot support the Bill in the Lobby tonight. The Government might have the right strategy on modernisation and pay, but the Bill represents a wrong tactic that will backfire.
  3.16 pm
  Mrs. Alice Mahon: I am sorry that Mr. Speaker did not select the amendment that I signed, but I shall speak about its message. The Bill will be a disaster. People who live in a democracy cannot be forced to do something that they do not want to do. Professor Burchill offered a way out and I hope that we can return to that.
  I am immensely proud to be a member of the Labour party and a lifelong trade unionist. When the Labour party and the trade union movement work together, they create a huge civilising force. I was active during the 1970s when wonderful legislation was introduced with the full co-operation of the trade union movement to bring us equal pay, health and safety at work, and other good civilising laws. I am proud of the way in which this Government have moved the agenda along and given us more rights at work.
  I wanted to get that on the record, because I shall now criticise the Government heavily for introducing the Bill. It will effectively end firefighters' collective bargaining rights to allow their democratically elected leaders, for whom I have a lot of time, to negotiate their members' pay and conditions now and in the future. I am sorry that a Labour Government are proposing such an unprecedented attack on workers' rights. The Bill undoubtedly breaches many international treaties to which the Government are signatory, such as the International Labour Organisation convention. In the words of the Fire Brigades Union leader, Andy Gilchrist, it is
  "illiberal, undemocratic and signifies two fingers to … international law".
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  If one thinks about Iraq, we seem to making a habit of doing that, and I deplore that fact.
  The Government offer two main arguments in support of their attack on the FBU. First, they argue that firefighters endanger public safety when they take industrial action and, secondly, they claim that collective bargaining has broken down in the fire service and that they must impose a settlement in the national interest. Neither claim is true. The Government have interfered too much and the dispute could have been settled on at least two occasions. I wish that they had not taken such a line.
  The Government have contradicted themselves: the FBU gave a clear commitment that its members would respond to emergencies in a professional and caring way, as we saw during the few days' strikes that were held. It also said that there would be an immediate response if there were a need to protect public safety, and we saw examples of that throughout the strikes. Indeed, the Government praised them over and again for the responsible way in which they responded during those few days of action.
  Ms Walley: Does my hon. Friend realise that the FBU in Staffordshire was asked to intervene five times, which it did?
  Mrs. Mahon: That was repeated across the country, and I am grateful to the firefighters for looking after our safety.
  The second argument relates to the breakdown in negotiations. The Government bear a heavy responsibility for that. The dead hand of No. 10 came down at least twice on a settlement. I wonder how many of the policy wonks in No. 10 who are thrusting this policy on us have belonged to a trade union or have negotiated on behalf of members. I suspect not many.
  Many of us, including the Deputy Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) and myself, have negotiated in difficult circumstances on issues on which we thought we could never get a result that would satisfy both sides, but we managed to achieve that. Indeed, the Deputy Prime Minister cut his political teeth on a serious dispute as a trade union activist. He was unfairly accused of being politically motivated when all he wanted to do was to get a just and fair settlement for some of the most exploited people in the country. The seafarers had dreadful pay and conditions—I am old enough to remember all the arguments on that. That background makes the Deputy Prime Minister eminently suited to the role of getting a settlement. Unfortunately, I do not think that he is being allowed to do that by people who dislike organised labour and who have adopted all the Tory bad past practices.
  On Professor Frank Burchill's proposals, like many of my colleagues, I attended an FBU briefing last night, which was useful. His proposals could settle the dispute to the satisfaction of the firefighters, their unions and employers. The Deputy Prime Minister said that he did not think that the firefighters would accept the Burchill recommendations, but that is not what I gathered when I spoke to them. I think that they would accept them and the pay claims could be settled. Of course, that would not be to everyone's satisfaction. People always end up

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  with a compromise in such circumstances, but the alternative will seriously damage the best firefighting service in the world, which is an extremely valuable public service.
  I do not like the Government's draft guidelines. They are all about cuts and the new philosophy of getting as much out of someone as possible regardless of the consequences. I cannot believe that a Labour Government have not considered the possibility that losing 5,000 firefighters will affect safety; I think that it will. At last night's briefing, we were told that if we were to compare the loss of 5,000 jobs with a proportionate cut in the number of nurses, it would be like sacking 40,000 nurses. No one would contemplate doing that. I urge the Government to think again when they say that the redundancies will be painless and harm no one. I think that they might harm the public if not enough people are available to protect them.
  Firefighters are members of a much—valued public sector work force and should be given the chance to have an honourable settlement. I want the dispute to be settled, but in the interests of being brief, I shall not go over old ground—I am tempted to say I shall not throw petrol on the flames.
  The dispute is unnecessary. The Government must bear some responsibility for it and I am saddened that a Labour Government are trying to impose a settlement. The Bill is about imposition, not arbitration. I have a full copy of the letter from the general secretary elect, Brendan Barber. He makes it clear that he is
  "firmly convinced that there is no short cut through imposition. Real modernisation will only be delivered if the support of the fire service workers is secured through a negotiated settlement."
  I think that all Labour Members believe that. He goes on to say:
  "I strongly urge you again now to use all your best endeavours to promote such a settlement rather than pursuing this damaging and unhelpful statutory intervention."
  I add my voice to that and plead with the Government to accept that the Burchill proposals could be the way forward.
  The Bill should be dumped. As a democrat and a lifelong trade unionist, something of which I have always been proud, I intend to vote against it. I hope that my colleagues will do the same, because it marks a serious backward step in industrial relations.
  3.25 pm
  Mr. John Randall: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon), who always expresses her views on such matters with great sincerity. I am sorry that the Deputy Prime Minister is not in the Chamber, because I wanted to congratulate him on a fine speech. He seemed to be enjoying himself. Perhaps he was speaking on a subject on which he has great experience, as the hon. Lady said. I agree with the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) that the right hon. Gentleman spoke passionately and that he was reluctant, as he admitted, to be here today. Indeed, I wish that none of us had to be here to discuss this matter.
  There is something inherently wrong with the Bill. Intellectually, I could be persuaded that it is needed. We have heard what went on during the industrial action and no doubt will hear more about that, but something
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  inside me says that we should not be introducing the Bill at the moment. In one way, I am relieved that the amendments were not selected because I might have found myself having to support one of them. Having received membership forms from the Campaign group as a result of previous votes in which I have participated, I was a little worried about that because I do not want to start a Conservative branch of the Campaign group.
  I have got to know the firemen in my area over many years. Before I came to the House I was a retailer and my involvement with Uxbridge town centre meant that I met them many times. Shortly after being elected, I made representations, along with other hon. Members who represent the London borough of Hillingdon, to stop the Government snatching the second pump away from us. I got to know the firemen well.
  I saw the firemen again during the course of the action and once took my 13-year-old son, Peter, with me. Afterwards he said, "Dad, they seem like absolutely normal men and women. They are not the militants that we are seeing on the television. They nothing but hardworking people. I don't think they want to strike." He was right. That station decided in its ballot not to strike, but we must all take collective responsibility and they did what they had to do. They also assured me that there was no question but that if public safety were at risk, they would go out.
  Today's situation is deeply problematic. I regret greatly the inability of both sides to come to an agreement. All of us as Members of Parliament rather fancy ourselves as great arbiters and think that if only we were given a chance we could sort out this dispute, but many people have tried to do that and there is a great deal of intransigence. I understand the frustration. We all deal with disputes between neighbours in our constituencies. For people on the outside, those disputes are seemingly about nothing and, we think, could be sorted out over a cup of tea. However, they end in almost open warfare. That seems to be the situation with the fire dispute.
  The fact that there was a build-up to action in Iraq during the course of the dispute made the situation much more difficult, and the firefighters, who had been supported by the public in many ways, started to be demonised. I have no particular regard for the leadership of the FBU, but I was slightly surprised to find that no restaurant bills have been found in the Iraqi Ministry of Information. The leadership, however, has let down the ordinary members—that is the view of members of my local branch of the FBU. As many hon. Members have said today, the holding of a secret ballot may reflect better what is going on. When we vote in the House we are accountable to our constituents, so we must have an open vote. If the way in which we voted were not a matter of public record, some votes might have gone a different way. Luckily, we do not have that system.
  Mr. Drew: Has the hon. Gentleman not worked in the Whips Office?
  Mr. Randall: Yes—I understand how these things work.
  I believe that we should try to ballot the members of the FBU. As I said, the dispute was overshadowed by the conflict in Iraq. I should like to pay tribute to the

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  servicemen and women who stood by and took over firefighting duties, particularly the men and women of RAF Uxbridge, who were on duty in our area and manned the green goddesses. I felt secure in the knowledge that they were only half a mile from my house. They did an excellent job, despite worries, which they share with my constituents, about having to go into action.
  I am not in a position to know what has gone on' behind closed doors in the discussions, but I believe that the Minister for Local Government and the Regions and the Deputy Prime Minister have tried their best. I do not think that they particularly want to be in this position. Indeed, I got the impression from a Government Whip just before the first strike that they thought that the situation would be resolved: there would be a short 24-hour strike, the firefighters would have their moment, then it would all be sorted out and everything would be hunky-dory. Something seemed to go badly wrong, but I do not know what it was.
  I shall not go over that, however, as I wish to highlight my concerns about the Bill. Clause 1 refers to the Secretary of State giving
  "specific or general directions to fire authorities about the use or disposal of property or facilities."
  I am concerned about the inclusion of disposal of property in a Bill that tries to set or modify conditions of service. If we are not careful, under the Bill, one of the two remaining fire stations in the London borough of Hillingdon could be closed down. As I said earlier, the first time that I became involved with the fire services was to try to stop a pump being removed from a station, which has happened in many constituencies. The Bill will make such a process a little easier, and I have a great deal of concern about that.
  There are increased risks today, as was highlighted by hon. Members who spoke about suicide bombers. I discovered that the suicide bomber who recently blew himself up in Israel worked in Stockley park, which is divided between my constituency and that of the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). That young man was on the books of a company next door to his family's shop in Uxbridge. With all the potential terrorism in our area, we are very much aware of increased risks. This is not the time to look at reducing the fire services; it is a time to consolidate and, if necessary, increase them. I shall not go into the details of what firemen have told me, but they feel that being called out to road traffic incidents is an increasing part of their duties, the money for which comes out of their budget.
  A couple of things concerned me in the explanatory notes, which say of the regulatory impact assessment:
  "It is not expected that the Bill will have any direct effect on businesses, charities or the voluntary sector."
  That may not be expected, but if property is disposed of and the service is reduced, there will be an impact on those bodies. Many Government Members may think that, as a Conservative, I am anti-union, but I am far from being an anti-union person. I have one reason for holding a slight grudge against the trade union movement. On the day on which I was supposed to receive my degree many years ago, the TUC called a day
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  of action. My parents could not see the ceremony because it was cancelled, so I never officially got my degree, which is probably why I ended up in the House instead of getting a proper job.
  Inevitably, the Bill has been introduced as a result of what has gone on. It has many flaws and, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), I hope that it can be improved in Committee. I sincerely hope that there is still time to solve the dispute. Everyone involved should treat themselves to a good helping of humble pie, try to forget the history of the past few months and see if they can sort this one out. If they can, and the Government and the House can scrap this rather unpleasant Bill, they will be doing the country a service.
  3.38 pm
  Mr. Andrew Dismore: It is rather peculiar for me to stand up to speak in this debate, as waiting for rebellions is a bit like waiting for London buses; one can wait for ever and then two come along at once. I am afraid that, again, I shall not be able to support the Government on this Bill. I take that position not out of disrespect for the Deputy Prime Minister, who has done his best to try to intervene in the dispute constructively and find a resolution, but because I do not think that the Bill is the right way of proceeding.
  Before I became a Member of Parliament, I was the Fire Brigades Union solicitor for the 17 years up to 1995. During that period, I got to know the fire service and firefighters very well—when I started, they were called firemen, but that changed—as well as the union and management. I also got to know fire service law inside out. Like every other speaker, I have nothing but respect for firefighters, who do a very dangerous job with such great courage and heroism. It was suggested from the Opposition Benches that there were no strikes in the fire service when the Conservatives were running the show, but that is not true. There were a lot of disputes, often at a local level, that did not necessarily get national publicity. Many of those disputes seemed to have been provoked by the management.
  I do not dispute the need for reform of the Fire Services Act 1947, and I look forward to seeing the White Paper about that issue in due course, as I have campaigned and argued for such reform for a long time. Reform of the 1947 Act is needed from section 1 onwards. As has been mentioned, the Act does not even require the fire service to operate any form of rescue operation in relation to road accidents and, by extension, chemical incidents and terrorism. All those hazards were never even thought of, or were at least pretty minor issues, when the fire service duties were originally proposed in 1947. Nevertheless, reform of the 1947 Act has to be done comprehensively and not in the piecemeal way proposed in the Bill and in the previous amendment to local government legislation repealing section 19. We will end up with a dog's breakfast of reform that will not do anything to help in settling the dispute. Indeed, I believe that the Bill will make things worse and make a resolution less likely and modernisation harder to achieve.
  The Bill gives the Secretary of State power to impose a settlement on pay and conditions, but that will not solve the problem or prevent the union from taking

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  industrial action unless trade union law is reformed, the definition of trade disputes is changed or the right to strike is taken away from the Fire Brigades Union. Unless that happens, the union will still be able to conduct a legitimate and legal trade dispute in respect of pay. Even if the Deputy Prime Minister uses the Bill to say "You're not getting any more," it will still be able to strike.
  Even if I am wrong about that, local disputes can result from a whole series of consequences, some of which we heard about earlier. Disputes could arise in respect of all sorts of terms of conditions. For example, they could relate to shift patterns. Some of the more enlightened chief fire officers might not try to interfere with shift patterns, but others—the Captain Blighs to whom the Deputy Prime Minister referred—would do so. The removal of section 19 means that there is no way in which the Deputy Prime Minister can intervene to stop them doing so, as they have no obligation to refer such decisions anywhere other than to their fire authorities. In the past, fire authorities have often been seen as rubber-stamping ciphers that merely approve what their chief officers want to do.
  Kate Hoey: I agree absolutely with everything that my hon. Friend said. Does he agree that, even if the Bill seems the immediate answer to a particular situation, if there is a sense of grievance and injustice among firefighters and it is rammed through, as may well happen, with a huge Government majority, that will do nothing for long-term industrial relations with those very hard-working decent men and women, whom we all want to defend and help us when there are problems in our areas?
  Mr. Dismore: I very much agree, and I shall say some more about that shortly.
  Disputes can still arise in respect of issues that have nothing to do with pay, such as work load. I remember advising the NASUWT in the days of the Conservative Administration in connection with the Wandsworth strike. Those involved wanted to take on various aspects of Government policy and could legitimately do so in respect of an increase in work load following policy changes. The same thing could happen in the current dispute. There could even be a dispute about the very arrangements for sorting out the issues, as a legitimate trade dispute can be conducted in relation to industrial relations mechanisms. The Bill is not a recipe for industrial peace in the fire service; as my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) said, it could be a recipe for continual guerrilla warfare.
  I have some concerns about particular parts of the Bill. For example, clause 1(1)(b) deals with the ability of the Deputy Prime Minister to require a fire authority to dispose of its equipment in accordance with his directions. I presume that that could be a way of organising strike breaking. We should be worried about that risk. I am pleased that a door is still open through the negotiation body and that that very important option is available. I am also pleased that the Secretary of State is empowered to consult more widely. What I would like to know is whether the consultation will also
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  include consultation with local communities about what they would like to see done in relation to the fire service in their area under clause 1(4).
  Mr. Hammond: I am sure that the Minister will tell the hon. Gentleman that local communities will be consulted, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that part of the problem is that the integrated risk management plan is supposed to be based on an objective assessment of risk, whereas the Deputy Prime Minister has said that any settlement must be financed out of the savings from modernisation, thus defining the result of the supposedly objective process before it has even begun?
  Mr. Dismore: The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. We shall have to look at the individual risk assessments in due course. The Conservative Member of the Greater London Authority for my area has written about the issue in the local newspapers. He advocates that we should change the fire service arrangements in London and that we need fewer firefighters on duty at night. That is all in accordance with the grand plan that he advocates.
  I answer that very simply. I was one of the lawyers who represented the fire service victims of the King's Cross fire—the family of the firefighter who was killed and others who were injured. The fire started at the beginning of the changeover to the night shift. The night shift was called to deal with the fire. We then had more fire engines than we have now, but on that night every fire engine in the London fire brigade was called to the fire itself or used to provide relief during the night or to provide cover for those appliances that had been called to the fire. Do we want to take the risk of reducing fire cover at night and not being able to respond to such an incident? To put that question in the context of terrorism, can the Government guarantee that if a suicide bomber decides to have a go at a club in the west end he will do it only when there is no one there during the day? Is he not more likely to do it at night, in which case we may face a similar huge demand on the fire service at night—when the Conservative GLA Member in my area thinks that the risk is far less?
  The dispute is not just about pay; it is about modernisation. This point echoes the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall made. Modernisation is a gradual process, taking perhaps two or three years. One can fix pay as of a given date, but the modernisation process has to expand and be introduced over a period. As has been mentioned, modernisation is already under way. Many local brigades have modernised. In my own patch, a lot of work has been done on community fire safety. The firefighters have gone out busily fixing smoke alarms to virtually anyone's house who wanted them. I am afraid that all that work has stopped. A lot of it was done as good will, often in firefighters' own time.
  The fire service relies on good will. One thing that has happened in London—it was not formally organised by the trade union—is that firefighters have ceased to take up temporary promotions. They say, "Why should I bother to be promoted to temporary sub-officer to allow a fire engine to stand ready?" Firefighters' good will has been rejected, and that has caused a reduction in fire cover in London.
  You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. You can lead a firefighter to water, but you can't necessarily make him squirt it in exactly the way and at

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  the time that you want him to. How can we achieve modernisation by diktat? It will not work. It has been tried and has failed in the past. We ask firefighters to do a dangerous job. There are often good reasons for some of the union's policies—to avoid accidents and to maintain health and safety. In my time representing firefighters injured on duty, I have seen far too many accidents caused by managers, senior officers or often junior officers cutting corners and trying to fight a fire in unsafe ways with inadequate resources, thinking that they could do the job better than by following the correct procedures. There are good reasons for many of those policies, and I should hate firefighters to be injured as a result of changing working practices.
  To achieve modernisation, we have to have the union's full co-operation, and it has to believe in what is trying to be achieved. If it takes a little longer to achieve it, so be it. The union has shown that it is willing to negotiate and modernise, as we know from the alternative proposals that have been made throughout the period. The solution to the dispute is not to impose a pay formula but to continue to negotiate until we can find a fair and honourable agreement for all the parties.
  3.50 pm
  Angela Watkinson: At first glance, the Bill seems innocuous because it is so brief. However, its brief provisions are far-reaching, including as they do, in clause 1(1)(a), the changing of conditions of service of firefighters and, in clause 1(1)(b), the use or disposal by fire authorities of property or facilities. That means that fire stations and appliances could be sold and that conditions of service, interpreted in clause 2(2) as
  "pay and allowances, hours of duty or leave"—
  a fairly comprehensive list—could be changed in an unspecified way. It is unsurprising that the membership of the Fire Brigades Union is opposed to it.
  The difficulty with clause 1(1)(a) is that the changes are unspecified. Firefighters do not know what they are being asked to agree to, which is generating feelings of uncertainty. For shift workers, the logistics of family life are complex, especially when both parents work. Delicately-balanced arrangements have to be made around child care, school runs and shifts, and they rely heavily on established routines. If shift patterns or work locations were to be varied at short notice, it would make life unmanageable for fire service families. Firefighters are very worried about the way in which clause 1(1)(a) might be interpreted. I was pleased to hear the Deputy Prime Minister's reassurances on that point, but there is a lot more work to be done in conveying the message to firefighters.
  Firefighters to whom I have spoken recently are even more worried about disruptive changes to their working patterns than they are about pay, important though that is. Nobody joins the fire service because they want to earn a lot of money: they join because they want to provide a worthwhile public service. If they wanted to earn a lot of money, they would choose an entirely different career. In London, where they have specific problems, London weighting is only £3,000 a year, which compares unfavourably with other essential services such as teaching and the police. Housing costs
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  are high compared with other parts of the country, and firefighters in London have difficulty in maintaining a decent standard of living. There is a case, therefore, for the upgrading of London weighting to form part of future pay negotiations.
  Mr. Edward Davey: Is the hon. Lady aware that as part of the settlement on the table the Fire Brigades Union in London is being offered an increase in the London allowance of more than 20 per cent.?
  Angela Watkinson: My informal discussions with firefighters suggest that they are looking for significantly more than 20 per cent., but it should indeed be included in their pay negotiations.
  I want to move on to the risk review, which is not mentioned specifically in the Bill, but is inextricably linked because of its timing. Fire authorities have been asked to undertake risk reviews of their areas to be completed by September this year. They will focus on the protection of people, rather than property, as has been the case in the past. That is eminently sensible. However, the movement of large numbers of people—commuters, for example—could result in different levels of fire cover being set during the day and during the night in the same area, with a consequent effect on firefighters' working patterns. If they are asked to attend different fire stations, for example, on day and night shifts, that will cause operational as well as domestic complications. Would their clothing and equipment have to be transferred from one station to another? Would that be done during their shift or as overtime? What of the very close-knit watches who work together and rely on one another in life-endangering situations? Leading firefighters know the specific strengths and skills of every member of their watch and deploy each one accordingly. When working with a random group, thrown together in an emergency, a leading hand would not have the benefit of familiarity with firefighters under his command, and that could adversely affect the efficient and safe working of the watch.
  Although the risk reviews have not yet been completed, clause 1(1)(a) leaves the door open to whatever proposals arise from them. An impression is given of responding to local circumstances, but the budget remains centrally controlled. It would be disingenuous to suppose that the outcome or even the aim of the risk reviews is not to make savings, given the budgetary pressures on fire authorities. The London fire brigade in particular has had to prepare for terrorist incidents such as major building collapse and chemical or biological attacks. The Greater London Authority budget had to allocate £11 million to fund that. In the absence of a Treasury decision, the money had to come from the fire service precept.
  Fire authorities must make difficult decisions on finding savings in the risk reviews. Closing fire stations on valuable sites would raise large sums of money but would be deeply unpopular with the general public and firefighters. Grave anxieties would be expressed about response times, especially if closures meant longer journeys or reduced cover at night. Any firefighter will say that although there are fewer fires at night, the proportion of fatalities is higher than in the daytime. People do not walk around at night and fires are not noticed so quickly. In residential properties, where

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  families are asleep, the vital life-saving period is between the moment the householder makes an alarm call and the arrival of the fire service. If it was, for example, 20 minutes, as the Deputy Prime Minister admitted in his opening remarks, anyone who was still in a smoke-filled bedroom would be dead.
  The Deputy Prime Minister's powers to close fire stations, impose pay settlements and change conditions are draconian and centralising, yet fall short of the most necessary provision of a strike ban for a specified, post-war period. Of course, the need to draw on armed services personnel to undertake firefighting duties during strikes had more serious implications than usual when the country was at war. In the post-war period, our overstretched armed services need time to recoup and recover. It is as important now as it was during the war that they are not called on for firefighting duties.
  The fire service enjoys huge public support. We have had five campaigns to save our second fire appliance at our local fire station in Hornchurch. On the fifth occasion, the battle was lost, but public support was as strong on the fifth as on the first occasion. There is a deep well of good will, which is far from exhausted, among fire service personnel. They believe in the importance of their work. I never doubted that, but my awareness of what they do increased when I set fire to my greenhouse in the Easter recess because I had an out-of-control, large bonfire. I did not call the fire service—I put it out myself—but the heat from my small fire and the time it took me to extinguish it gave me a new perspective on what firefighters have to face in their ordinary, everyday duties.
  Firefighters' fears about station closures and job losses need to be communicated clearly and tackled frankly. As I said to the Deputy Prime Minister on a previous occasion, 1974 was a year of high recruitment. Firefighters who joined then are now close to retirement, and there are genuine concerns that that will be perceived as an opportunity for major natural wastage. I believe that changes to enhance the service would be welcomed, but the firefighters are being asked to accept an open-ended agreement. The Bill is too vague; they are being asked to sign a blank cheque. In that respect, the measure is too short. It is deficient in that it does not include a no-strike provision, with an appropriate sunset clause, for the period of respite and training programmes for the Army. A permanent no-strike agreement, in line with those in place for the police and the Army, would be a desirable aim in this essential lifesaving service, and should be worked towards as part of a negotiated package on pay and conditions.
  The Bill is seriously defective. Its sweeping provisions will do nothing to improve relations with the FBU and will need a great deal of improvement in Committee—including the introduction of provisions for a secret postal ballot to enable the views of ordinary firefighters to be made known—before it can become acceptable.
  4 pm
  John McDonnell: The key question that we need to address today is whether the Bill will contribute to the settlement of the dispute. That is fairly straightforward. To do that, we have to understand the strength of feeling among firefighters across the country. Because of the nature of the dispute
  894
  and the concerns that I have with regard to my own fire service and fire station—I echo the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall), who has been on the same campaigns as I have locally—I have built up a relationship over time with local firefighters. I pay tribute to them and personally thank them for all that they have done over the years to serve my community. Because of my involvement in various campaigns over the years, I think that I have been on more picket lines and visited more fire stations than most other Members in the House today.
  The depth of anger about the Bill, and about its presentation at this particular time, is palpable, and we must take that into account when we discuss these issues today. Many FBU members and firefighters across the country see this as a strike-breaking Bill—an attempt to break their strike. To attempt to break the strike, one would need to defeat the union, and many of them see this as a direct attack on their union. But the Bill goes further than that. It gives the Deputy Prime Minister powers to impose conditions of work on firefighters and to force through a programme of cuts in firefighters' jobs, fire stations and fire tenders. All of that is set out in the Bain review. Most firefighters across the country see the Bill as an attempt to break their strike, to break their union and to cut their jobs. We need to appreciate that as we debate these issues.
  The Bill also sends out a clear message to other public sector workers. This point has been made by many of the speakers today who have any form of trade union involvement or history. The message that is going out to teachers, nurses and local government workers is that, if they enter into a dispute with this Government over wages and conditions, the Government will resort to the use of Parliament to impose a settlement. We cannot avoid that conclusion. It was reinforced in the Prime Minister's birthday message to the nation published in the Financial Times, in which he made it clear that any trade union standing in the way of what he sees as reform would be taken on. Many in the public sector have already experienced reform, and it has meant privatisation, increased hours and worsening conditions, despite the investment that has gone in.
  We need to understand how we got into this mess—because it is a mess, by anybody's judgment. The history of the dispute has been rewritten every time a Minister has risen, and I can understand where the anger comes from, because we could have resolved this matter 12 months ago. In step one of the dispute, the negotiators on the employers' side prepared an offer 12 months ago. It was a claim based on going at least some way towards what the union was demanding. In other words, it followed the normal negotiating process, whereby the union makes a demand and the employer comes back, usually at about the mid point. That is where we were in June last year, but an intervention occurred—denied by the Government, but at that point admitted by some employer negotiators. That offer was blocked.
  That was the first disastrous Government intervention, and I do not name names. It soured the atmosphere of the negotiations immediately. The employers lost all control of the agenda and the unions were not sure who they were negotiating with. So when the ballot on the offer occurred, what was the response? In Northern Ireland, 97 per cent. voted to reject it. On average, 90 per cent. of trade unionists—FBU

  895
  members—voted against the offer. That is the highest ballot result opposing and rejecting an offer in the history of trade unionism since the second world war.
  Step two was industrial action, which was solid to a person among FBU members across the country. It was responsible action, as firefighters made it clear that if lives were at risk they would leave the picket lines. I thank them for that, and we pay tribute to them for it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley) pointed out, that situation occurred on five occasions in her constituency, and on five occasions they responded. What was the Government's response? The Bain review.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) referred to Wilberforce. I worked for the National Union of Mineworkers for a time, and I was a member of the National Union of Mineworkers-Colliery Officials and Staff Association, so I know that Wilberforce was a joint initiative from unions and employers, which, with the Government, agreed who sat on the review body and its terms of reference. Eventually, results came from that. Bain, however, was imposed. There was no consultation on membership or on terms of reference. As a result, there was no agreement on the outcome.
  Then, in November, a clear deal was drafted. Virtually every Member of the House saw the draft after publication. It was acceptable to employers and the unions, with the TUC present. Many of us were up during that night, and we breathed a sigh of relief at 3.30 because we thought it was all over. Then came the second disastrous Government intervention. I do not care whether the Deputy Prime Minister was in or out of bed. We know that civil servants were present throughout the night. The employers confirmed the next morning that the offer was costed, but the Government intervened again to prevent agreement.
  I believe that we could have had a settlement in November to solve the dilemma and get us all off this terrible hook. The result of such inept and dangerous interventions is the worst industrial relations atmosphere in the fire service for 25 years. Across the trade union movement, there is widespread disquiet at a Labour Government's behaviour, which was never expected and never planned for.
  What happened then? The FBU took further industrial action, which, again, was responsible. We were told in the House before that action that there was no agreement on the gold cover—the standard of emergency cover. There was. We were told that there was no agreement on actions to be taken should a terrorist incident occur. There was. The FBU gave those assurances to the Deputy Prime Minister personally.
  Then the Prime Minister intervened and associated the strike action with the election of Andy Gilchrist as general secretary. Most of us have been shop stewards, so we know that a union general secretary cannot persuade 97 per cent. of members to go on strike if they do not want to. The FBU behaved appropriately throughout.
  The third stage was the Government directing the employers, straightforwardly, not to allow the November offer to go forward. There was a discussion
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  in which we reached the next stage earlier this year. By that time the offer had been amended and there was potential for a negotiated settlement; but the atmosphere had been soured by Government interventions—by the emphasis on Bain and cuts, and by the argument that the FBU never wanted to negotiate on modernisation, when we knew that for three years it had been discussing with the Government a draft White Paper dealing solely with that issue. No trade union leader could sell his members a deal in such an atmosphere. The Government have cut the legs from under the FBU general secretary.
  The Government's interventions destroyed trust, good will and any belief in the honesty of the discussions and negotiations that were taking place. I urge Members to take account of the depth of firefighters' anger about their treatment, and the way in which they understand this process.
  We now reach the fourth stage of the process. Mr. Burchill comes forward. He is no running dog of Trotskyism, no lapdog of the militant trade union movement; he is the independent chair of the joint council. He has proposals that the FBU leadership see as a basis for negotiation and for a settlement—for that is what the leadership thought at that stage. What do the Government do? The employers say "We cannot accept this," but the FBU wants to negotiate. The Government say "No, we will not fund it," and they invent a figure of £100 million. There has been no negotiation with any fire authorities about the cost of Burchill. How do we know that? We know because the fire authorities have been asked, and they say that they have not been involved in the calculations. So a figure is invented that undermines a climate in which Burchill could have been agreed.
  The current consultations in the fire stations may well cause some FBU members to go back to their executive next week and say that Burchill does not look like the basis for a deal; but there is time for the creation of a climate in which we can persuade people that it could form the basis for a negotiated settlement.
  What happens then? The next intervention. What perfect timing! We present this Bill, as a threat to impose a settlement—for that is what it is. The timing, in fact, could not have been worse, undercutting FBU leaders' ability and authority to try to secure a negotiated settlement and alienating the entire trade union movement.
  Bob Spink: The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech. Does he think that now is a good time for all FBU members to be consulted by postal ballot?
  John McDonnell: The point of the current consultation is to reach a stage at which Burchill could be presented as a formal offer, on the basis of which a ballot could take place. That is the normal process of negotiation: union leaders discuss with their members what a proposal means, going through it line by line. That point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew). It is difficult to organise a ballot on a complex negotiation: the leadership needs time to discuss it with members, and when it constitutes a formal offer it is subjected to a ballot.

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  We had reached a point at which a climate was being created for resolution of the dispute. Then the Government produced this Bill, saying that whatever happened in coming weeks they would drive it through. It is no good Ministers coming here and saying, "We're only doing this because if we don't, there will be more draconian measures in the wings, coming from No. 10 or elsewhere." Ministers who have some experience of industrial relations should be standing up to No. 10 and saying that this is no way to resolve the dispute.
  Mr. Hammond: The hon. Gentleman has replied to the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) by talking about a postal ballot on an offer that is not on the table. What is his reaction to the suggestion of a postal ballot of all FBU members on the offer that is on the table?
  John McDonnell: Time has moved on, and at this point there would, I think, be an overwhelming rejection. As the Deputy Prime Minister said, we can only provide advice according to our individual judgments; that is the best way forward. The atmosphere is so soured that unless the offer is realistic and based on the process that Burchill has gone through, it stands no chance of success—it is as simple as that. We have been led into a quagmire. Rancour has broken out in this dispute because of a series of inept and—I repeat—dangerous interventions.
  The FBU executive meets next week. I hope that we can find a way forward, but if the Government think that this legislation can be used as a threat, they need to reassess the people with whom they are dealing. As has been said time and again, firefighters are some of the most courageous members of our community; they put their lives at risk for us every day. They are disciplined, with many coming from a military background. They do not go on strike lightly, and they will not be intimidated easily. They are seriously dedicated people, yet today I heard them be traduced.
  I have toured fire stations that are trying to operate the new dimension procedures to tackle ricin and biological warfare. They have been demanding the necessary equipment for nearly 18 months. Some of the equipment that they have been training with during the past six months has been of an appallingly bad standard. We are told today that there are boycotts, but I did not experience a single one in any of the areas that I visited—far from it. Firefighters are willing, yet again, to risk their lives on our behalf. Trying to push through the legislation with threats such as this is totally counter-productive; if anything, it will exacerbate the situation. It will make a settlement more difficult to achieve, not less.
  For the Government, this has much wider ramifications. Such coercion of public service workers results in demoralisation. Coercion of one group of trade unions makes others militant and angry, because they know that they could be next. From the Labour point of view, it destroys any semblance of the link between new Labour policies and the tradition of a party and a movement that was founded by the trade union movement, which many trade unionists have devoted their lives to supporting.
  This new Labour legislation marks an historic break between the party of Hardie, Attlee and John Smith, and new Labour. If it is passed, do not mention solidarity
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  again; do not refer to "our movement"; do not expect the support of firefighters across the country and the many trade unionists who are behind them—and be prepared to go further. Many firefighters will not accept an imposed settlement. What happens then? It was made clear in today's House of Commons briefing that this legislation does contain the power to go further and ban industrial action. So in voting for this legislation, be prepared to go further; be prepared for the consequences: banning strikes and sequestering union funds, taking us back to the Shrewsbury picket days of the imprisonment of trade unionists.
  This legislation is a disaster—I never expected a Labour Government to introduce such legislation. It is a disgrace to our movement, and it should be rejected tonight.
  4.19 pm
  Mr. Desmond Swayne: The principal argument advanced by the Deputy Prime Minister in introducing the Bill was about public safety. He made it clear that, in view of the special delegate conference's rejection of the latest offer and the reduction from 19,000 to 9,000 in the number of troops available to provide cover in the event of continuing strikes, which would have a significant effect on response times, the consequences for public safety could not be tolerated, so he had to impose a settlement. However, I believe that the Bill will not deliver the public safety that the Deputy Prime Minister rightly desires.
  As the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) so eloquently pointed out, an imposed settlement will not necessarily be accepted. The Bill has no evident power—unless clause 1(1)(a) contains sinister hidden powers—to ensure that firemen remain at work, thereby safeguarding public safety. The Bill simply does not possess the teeth required to deliver its principal aim of obliging firemen to go back to work.
  When the Deputy Prime Minister was challenged when he made his statements to the House at the end of last year and earlier this year, particularly on public safety and whether he would use existing powers to prevent strike action, he consistently said that that was a matter for the Attorney-General and the courts—he had no power. I suggest that the Bill provides an opportunity for him to acquire the necessary power and I hope that the Committee will concentrate on giving him such power, should he so require it. However, giving him the power to impose a settlement raises the question of what exactly he intends to impose. In view of the huge powers that the Bill will accord him to determine terms and conditions and remuneration. he could at least have shared with us—or given us some idea of—what he had in mind in that respect. He has not done so. Will he seek to impose the terms and conditions and the settlement that have just been rejected by the special delegate conference? If not, what terms and conditions will he impose that will provide any chance of bringing about the settlement that he desires?

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  Will the Minister for Local Government and the Regions explain precisely what is meant by clause 1(5)(a), when it says
  "to make provision with retrospective effect fixing or modifying the pay or allowances of fire brigade members (including provision having effect from a time before the passing of this Act)"?
  I am not aware of any precedent for such a power, but I would welcome some clarification of what that means.
  Mr. Hammond: I thought that I heard the Deputy Prime Minister clearly indicating, by way of threat, that he could not give an assurance that an imposed settlement would be as generous as the one already offered. Did my hon. Friend not hear that? If he is in any doubt, he could ask the Minister to clarify the matter.
  Mr. Swayne: I certainly heard that, but I was hoping for some exposition of precisely what the Deputy Prime Minister intended to impose. I hope that, if the Minister will not intervene now, he will favour us with an explanation in his winding-up speech. The fundamental question remains: if the Deputy Prime Minister intends to impose a settlement, why did it not occur to him to seek to negotiate one earlier? There has been a great deal of confusion about the level of negotiation that directly involved the Deputy Prime Minister. We have heard from the hon. Members for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) and for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) about the extent of the Deputy Prime Minister's involvement, and they described how unhelpful it was. Indeed, when he was at his most passionate and eloquent this afternoon, the Deputy Prime Minister said that he was at the heart of the negotiations. I hope that the record will show tomorrow that that was what he said. I am not sure what the Deputy Prime Minister meant by those words but it is clear that he was exercising a veto throughout the negotiations.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) pointed out that the Deputy Prime Minister's speech was one of the best that he had made, and I agree. He was eloquent and passionate—most of all when he described his frustration at what he called the misconceptions, uncertainties and lack of dialogue. So why did he not do what the Opposition were urging all along and take a direct, formal part in the negotiations, thereby ensuring that there were no misconceptions or lack of communication?
  The Deputy Prime Minister was eloquent when he criticised the employers' communication skills. The negotiations would have benefited from the communication skills that he evidenced this afternoon, when he presented the Bill to the House. The Government should have intervened in the matter when the negotiations were under way, as I pointed out in an intervention. The Deputy Prime Minister did not answer me, saying simply that that was a matter of opinion. We would not be in this position now if there had been direct negotiations, as we argued all along.
  One way to get out of the position in which we now find ourselves, short of an attempt to impose a settlement. would be to do what my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) proposed, and hold a ballot. In that way, we could at least test the water.
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  The hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) responded to the proposal for a ballot with the extraordinary argument that no one could be expected to respond in a ballot to a programme of actions or conditions imposed from the centre, when that programme would have a differential effect in different parts of the kingdom. That seems a pretty good argument against ever holding a general election, but I shall let that ride. In Committee, the Opposition would do well to concentrate on the possibility of inserting into the Bill arrangements for a secret ballot of the entire FBU membership.
  I shall finish with some questions that I hope the Minister of State will address when he winds up the debate. When will the White Paper on which much of the Bill is predicated be published? In respect of what is being proposed for the future of the fire services, will he say whether there is any substance to the reports on the front page of today's edition of The Daily Telegraph to the effect that the Deputy Prime Minister is urging local authorities to ensure that they charge when the fire service is called out to deal with domestic floods, car crashes, and so on?
  What guidelines have been issued for the purposes of drawing up the risk assessments, management plans and consultations that will be instituted once section 19 of the 1947 Act is repealed? I believe that those assessments are being made even now, so I should be grateful to know what guidelines the Government have issued.
  In his statement to the House on 28 January, the Deputy Prime Minister said that it cost £1 million a day to provide cover for striking firemen. Will the Minister give some indication as to how that figure is computed, and what it is made up of? Does it include the salaries of the servicemen who provided the cover? That would surely not be a marginal cost, at any rate, as those salaries would have to be paid anyway.
  When the Deputy Prime Minister was asked again and again why he had not made the assets and facilities available, he advanced two arguments. The first was that they were not necessary and that the servicemen were not capable of using them. The second, and more important, was that that would only inflame the situation. Perhaps he can explain why these provisions are in the Bill. If they were so unnecessary and unhelpful then, what has changed?
  Principally, the Bill simply does not and will not do what the Government hope it will. If it is to do that, it will require substantial amendment in Committee.
  4.30 pm
  Mr. David Drew: I am pleased to contribute to the debate. It is peculiar that every Labour Back Bencher who speaks is likely to speak against the Bill. I should like to respond briefly to the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) so that there is no misunderstanding about how we could handle a ballot. We can have a ballot on pay and on the outline framework of conditions. But given that the Government want to impose a series of solutions at brigade level and at the level of individual stations, unless we allow a ballot to take place at those levels, we cannot get a meaningful result. We must agree to disagree on that.

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  Members have paid tribute to the earnestness with which my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has approached the matter but, with the best will in the world, I cannot understand how we can see the Bill as anything other than counter—productive, and it could be very disadvantageous. My part of the world is not known for its militancy but, like my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), I have spoken not only to the FBU, but to retained firefighters. They feel angry; partly because of the time taken without reaching a settlement, but also at what has been, at best, a series of misunderstandings and, at worst, recklessness.
  I do not see why we cannot look at what Sir Frank Burchill suggested. All the evidence shows that he is an independent person who speaks for no one other than himself and his proposals contained the basis of a settlement. No one has yet costed them. No one pretends that they are an end, but they are the means to an end. But why cannot we have a costing of the repercussions if Burchill were the basis of a settlement?
  I have been critical of the FBU in one respect. It would have made sense for the union to take part in the Bain investigation, although, with the benefit of hindsight, it may justify its position because of its feeling that Bain was an imposition. Perhaps we should reconsider the repercussions of what Bain brought forward, but, as with any settlement, there are points in Bain that will, in due course, be agreed.
  My biggest concern remains the fact that we have moved beyond pay. Pay alone was a difficult issue to resolve, but most people who have any understanding of the fire service, including the Deputy Prime Minister, suggested that, because of the lack of appropriate reward in recent times, we had to recognise that the fire service was a deserving case. We have gone well beyond that now, and into the difficult arena of whether there will be job losses, how firefighters will be asked to work and how some things of which the service is proud will have to alter.
  There is a trap—the Deputy Prime Minister fell into it—to do with the nature of why there has not been willingness among firefighters to change their pattern of work, and that has to do with the fact that they supposedly all have wonderful second jobs. One of the best ways to make anyone in any place of work angry is to repeat old wives' tales about what may have been true in previous generations but is not the case now. The firefighters I talk to do not have second jobs. They recognise the advantages of their shift pattern and the way in which it allows them to use their time in ways that other people cannot, but, in the main, they do not have second jobs, and I wish that we could move on from the belief that the dispute is all about an overtime ban because of interference with second jobs.
  David Taylor: Like my hon. Friend, I have visited FBU members in my constituency, and he is right that only a minority hold second jobs. However, those who have second jobs do so because they cannot afford to live on the income that the first job provides. It stands logic on its head to suggest that anything else is true.
  Mr. Drew: That is a fair point, and it is why we need to get away from disconnecting pay and conditions. They are linked, and the insults often thrown at the profession are unfair.
  I do not want to exaggerate the point, but my main reason for being upset with the Bill, notwithstanding the fact that I do not think it will allow any opportunity for a settlement, is that it creates a precedent, as other hon. Members have said. That precedent has already been noted on the Opposition Front Bench. The Opposition cannot wait to look at the opportunities that it will provide in Committee and elsewhere. It opens the door to no-strike arrangements, and more, for those who work in the public sector. In a democracy, that is totally reprehensible, and as a socialist, I find it completely unacceptable. We should not be creating that precedent.
  Mr. Hammond: To ensure that the hon. Gentleman does not inadvertently misrepresent my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), let me say that there is no wider agenda on public services in general. This is a specific issue to do with an emergency service that is rightly regarded as absolutely essential and on a par with the military and the police in its importance to the community.
  Mr. Drew: I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but we can judge each event only on its merits. The problem is that as soon a decision is made that may appear appropriate in a particular case, it becomes easier to argue a much harder line for the future. I would go even further. We could be looking at a whole series of industrial relations changes, which may not come about through primary legislation as such, but could lead to a breakdown in relations.
  With the best will in the world, the fire service, like many of our public services, can only operate at local level. What saddens me is the danger of this precedent. I have a lot of evidence that the relationships have not been dangerously put at risk locally, but I fear that, if we get this wrong—the Bill is evidence that we could get it wrong—those local relationships could begin to suffer, and we could ratchet up the possibility that such impositions have to be made in relation not just to no-strike arrangements, but to the operation of firefighters' shifts. There may be some dangers given the way in which those who work with the fire service are asked to work, and we are in danger of opening a can of worms.
  As someone who has spent his life as a trade unionist, I believe that it is always worth going the extra mile to try to find a settlement. There is no doubt that this dispute has lasted too long, but there seem to be signs of a settlement. There are certainly those on both sides who would say that a settlement is not that far away, yet just as we seem to be edging towards it, we are resorting to the possibility of creating a complete impasse. I fear that a lot of anger will result, and we must avoid this precedent in every case.
  4.41 pm
  Alan Simpson: I begin with a couple of tributes. I want to join colleagues who have paid tribute to members of the fire services in the different areas that we represent. I am particularly grateful to them for the patience that they have shown

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  me during different stages of the dispute, not only in educating me about the risks that they face and are willing to take in the course of their everyday duties as firefighters, but in taking me through the modernisation agenda that they themselves have been a part of. They felt that they were partners with the Government in that agenda right up until 2001, when the draft White Paper prepared by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien), appeared to be the document that would have modernised the fire service and produced not only a restructuring, but a consequent pay settlement that would never have taken us into this dispute.
  It seems somewhat perverse that we have gone through a process whereby we have plucked a settlement from the jaws of a national agreement and plunged it into the grip of a national dispute. That is a perverse political achievement for anyone to wish to lay claim to, but I am grateful to the firefighters for making it clear to me what the press often fails to make clear: that the firefighters have never opposed modernisation that would stand on the basis of addressing risk to the public and putting that at the centre of any change that takes place. The House would do well to return to that as its own benchmark for acceptable change dressed up in the name of modernisation.
  I also want to pay tribute to the Deputy Prime Minister. It is important to put on record that his whole life, certainly in the Labour party, has been devoted to campaigning for workers' rights a ad to challenging and tackling the exploitation that irresponsible employers have been able to get away with for decades—in fact, centuries. It is very sad that the Deputy Prime Minister has been a victim of what I regard as the Baghdad bounce from No. 10. Sadly, the bill pursues a series of mistakes into a comedy of errors.
  The Bill will solve nothing. It will give the Secretary of State powers to impose a settlement. It will give him powers to impose changes in conditions, which is a euphemism for the cuts that will be needed to pay for the settlement. It will not be acceptable to FBU members and it will almost certainly precipitate a strike. As various Members have said in the debate, we are far from clear about what the Government's reaction will be to a piece of legislation that makes industrial action more likely rather than less. We could see the glee on the faces of Opposition Front-Bench Members when they knew that that would take us one step further towards what they would dearly like to see: a Government who stepped into public sector disputes and removed the right to strike. It would be a tragedy of enormous proportions if a Labour Government were responsible for taking us right to the edge of a trap into which we would then be forced to step, and which would be celebrated only by the Conservatives, who have always wanted to see the removal of the right to strike in the public sector.
  I am opposed in principle to any Government intervention that seeks to remove or undermine the right of workers to be involved in collective bargaining. As other Members have pointed out, that breaches article 8 of International Labour Organisation convention 157 and article 6 of the European social charter. As I said, it
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  takes us perilously close to a precedent that other Governments would use to undermine systematically the right of public sector trade unions to pursue collective negotiation towards negotiated rather than imposed settlements.
  We are told that this approach is inevitable because of the breakdown in negotiations. It is difficult, however, to see how that claim is substantiated. The breakdowns have occurred because of external interference. The FBU offered voluntary arbitration, but, as I understand it, that was rejected if it went outside the terms of any financial settlement that was acceptable to No. 10. We are now told that the Burchill proposals—which, again, in the terms of the FBU, may form the basis of a settlement to which it could agree—are not acceptable because they too would involve costs of £100 million over three years. As other Members have pointed out, how that figure has been reached is the subject of a great deal of conjecture. If that is the stumbling block, let me remind the House that the Deputy Prime Minister made it clear in his opening speech that the costs of providing cover by the Army so far have been £100 million, not over three years but just during this dispute period. The costs of providing emergency cover now are £1 million a day.
  For the cost of 100 days of emergency cover, therefore, we could have a settlement, even if we accepted the totality of the costs, for a three-year period. That does not sound like a bad deal to me, even if we were to accept those costs without qualification. It seems perverse that, instead, we are considering imposing legislation that prevents the very negotiated settlement that I suspect both the unions and the employers would wish to reach via the Burchill mechanism. We should give that process space to work its way through, without putting a No. 10 veto on the possible outcome.
  I also want to deal with the subtext of why we are making such a mess of this matter. In his opening comments, the Deputy Prime Minister made a point of referring to the extent to which the dispute had undermined the risk and safety factors of fire cover during that period. His starting point was to say that, before the dispute began, 80 per cent. of the population were able to benefit from a response time of 10 minutes. That is extremely important, but the Government's new guidelines give us no assurance that that response time will continue to be the national benchmark that the fire service must adopt. Everything will be open to local guidelines and agreements, so the current consultation could give the Deputy Prime Minister the power to impose, through the Bill, standards of fire cover that increase the risk of serious injury or death to the public.
  We expect the FBU to say, "Fine, go ahead. You take us down a path that will move us from being the best fire service in the world to a second-rate one, although cheaper, with fewer staff and lower standards of cover and response times, and we will say nothing." Any FBU member has a rooted commitment in their soul not to go down that path, but to say that the firefighter's job is to protect people's lives. That is the benchmark against which they would expect to be judged. They will make their own stand in defence of the current standards of service. Any proposal to change that would fundamentally threaten not firefighters' pay, but the

  905
  public's lives. That is the most important issue for which we elected representatives of our constituents and the wider public must take responsibility.
  I return to the fact that, despite all the suggestions for modernisation that have been trailed around in the Bain review and picked up by Ministers, one cannot escape the fact that the settlement must be paid for by cutting some 5,000 firefighters' jobs. No one is willing to say how that would be done without increasing risk to the public and reducing the fire service's current standards of service, although that is the issue about which our constituents will be most worried.
  There is a case for considering the repeal of section 19 of the Fire Services Act 1947 because there have been many dramatic changes since it was enacted. Firefighters have been at the forefront of saying that terrorism, bio—terrorism and increased expectations of their ability to respond to road accidents and floods have changed the demands on the fire service and must be part of the new risk assessment that will form the basis of the standards of service to which we expect it to operate.
  The repeal of section 19 also means that the public loses the right to object to a fire station closure, the reduction of a tender or the loss of fire service jobs. The loss of such a statutory right will turn round bite and every single hon. Member, because if chief fire officers decide that, for administrative reasons, they could save money by closing a fire station, one can bet money that the public who would be affected by the closure would go absolutely ballistic. They would vent their anger on their Member of Parliament, who would be expected to create hell in this House. We would have to stand up and ask why we voted for a process that removed a statutory right from the public and replaced it with the more ambiguous provision in clause 1(4) of the Bill to give the Secretary of State the duty to
  "consult such persons … as he thinks fit."
  It is not exactly the same as a statutory right of consultation, because members of the public who think that they are fit to be consulted will have no legal right to claim that. We should be careful before we remove from the public the statutory rights of objection that they have come to enjoy and expect.
  We must also consider the basis on which we are putting the cart before the horse. The process of risk assessment should have come first. For the purposes of my constituency, I want that risk assessment to cover legislation that is going through the House. The Licensing Bill will fundamentally change the character of social life in cities such as Nottingham. The character of how the city works will be changed by 24-hour licensing. It will not reduce the risk of demands placed on the fire service, but it will spread those demands throughout the night. Most call-outs and deaths occur at night. It is crazy to say that the ability of clubs to operate through the night will not create an additional risk factor that will fall on the fire service. I want that built into a risk assessment before we talk about modernising the service and changing shift patterns.
  Many of us in university cities have noticed the prodigious growth in the number of houses in multiple occupation by students. Anyone who pretends that that does not carry with it risk factors in terms of fire and the response times for emergency services is living in a
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  different world. I have been out with police emergency response teams and have attempted to discover what happens in the ambulance service. The two reorganisations of police and ambulance services that have affected Nottingham have had disastrous implications for response times. Nottingham city once had an extremely efficient ambulance service that was merged into a regional service because Derbyshire's service was disastrous. The hope and expectation was that that would raise the worst standards to the best, but we now have a mess an a regional basis, not just on a county basis.
  The fire service was the only emergency service that arrived to attend a number of accidents. Fire tenders and fire officers have taken people to hospital in fire service vehicles because they were the only people in a position to do so. Yet we face the prospect of similar administratively convenient reorganisations that will take control units and response units out of cities with the result that units will arrive later. We will face that dilemma if we try to impose a settlement and change people's working conditions ahead of the review on risk, which should be our starting point. That is why I plead with my Front-Bench colleagues, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister, to halt the madness that drives us to this Bill.
  Let us understand the wisdom of the first law of holes: when we are in one, stop digging. Let us give the FBU and the firefighters the chance to use the Burchill process so that they have the prospect of negotiating a settlement that will provide them not only with job security and an acceptable pay increase, but with a benchmark for a national framework of minimum standards that will raise the cover for risk that the public's lives will ultimately depend on. I urge hon. Members to vote against the Bill.
  4.58 pm
  Mr. George Stevenson: It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson), and I am about to disappoint my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), who said that all contributions by Labour Members will oppose the Bill. I want to put on the record the important reasons for my position.
  We have heard many claims about being in the Labour and trade union movements, all of them valid and based on experience, and we have benefited from the knowledge gained from such experience. I want to associate myself with the comments on the dedication of the fire service. I know that to be the case from my area, and it is the same throughout the country. I also associate myself with what has been said about the frustration and anger, which everyone can see. There is a theory among fire brigade members, both in London and in my area, that they have been severely let down by the Government. Whether or not that is true, perception, as in politics and life, is extremely powerful.
  A lesson from my years of experience in industrial relations, trade unionism and representation has been burned on my mind: the longer a dispute goes on, the sooner we forget its true basis. That is happening now. I do not hear very much about 40 per cent., but I did initially. Firefighters said, "We want 40 per cent. now because we're worth it." I do not think that anyone

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  would argue that they were not—they had a good case. I do not hear a great deal of such talk now. At the beginning of the dispute, my constituents were throwing their 50p coins into the buckets, sounding their horns, waving and so on. Now, however, they say to me, "We can't understand why they don't accept this. I wish I'd got 16 per cent." That is a simplistic view of a complicated, messy situation, but again perception is important, and we must take such views into account. When we deliberate on these important issues, we must consider how we will justify the Bill to our constituents as well as members of the FBU when we go back to our constituencies. My constituents are increasingly saying to me, "George, what is the problem?"
  Mr. Hammond: "George"?
  Mr. Stevenson: Yes, they call me by my first name, the hon. Gentleman may be surprised to hear—there is no "Mr. Hammond" in my constituency. I pick up more cases in my local Tesco than in my surgery, but that is another matter.
  To be serious, we must justify the Bill. My constituents are asking me why, if the pottery workers have had to accept a nil increase in their pay, the FBU will not accept 16 per cent. It is difficult to try to argue that through, and it is a factor that needs to be taken into account when we are challenged in our constituencies about our actions in the House. I shall deal with employers' organisations later, but a related issue is important. If offers are made, as they have been in the dispute, by employers who do not have the money to pay for them, but then ask the Government to sign a blank cheque, the Government are right to say, "Hang on a sec—if you want us to sign that cheque, we want to know what's going on. We want to know how this is going to be paid for. If we do not sign it but the settlement is agreed to, the money has to come out of local government coffers." That would mean lower pay increases for my constituents who work in local government, and a threat to services that, in many cases, are already under strain. We must take that into account when considering the mess that the dispute now represents.
  It is therefore not a matter of recognising, as important as it is, the dedication of the FBU and firefighting personnel. Nobody argues about that, or their professionalism, or their anger and frustration. When we are considering how a settlement will be paid for, we would be irresponsible, may I suggest to my hon. Friends in particular, not to take into account the effect that it could have on our constituents who are asking those important questions.
  Mr. Hammond: I am not sure whether I follow the hon. Gentleman's logic. The Deputy Prime Minister, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Local Government and the Regions have made it abundantly clear that any settlement will be paid for by cuts in the fire service, and not by spillover into other services.
  Mr. Stevenson: That may well turn out to be the case, although we hope not. If the hon. Gentleman is patient with me, I shall deal with that issue in a moment.
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  I submit that my general point is a valid one. When employers' organisations offer deals but do not know how they will be paid for, and then ask the Government to sign the cheque, is it not the Government's responsibility to turn around and say "Hang on a second—how is this going to be paid for? We're not going to sign that cheque until we're satisfied about that"? I think that that is a perfectly reasonable line for the Government to take. It is unreasonable for the employers, as happened in this case, to offer a settlement that they know cannot be paid for without the Government signing the cheque and would be bound to affect the services that local authorities provide to our constituents. That is part of the mess that we are in.
  When disputes continue for as long as the current one has, we begin to forget the original problems and point the finger of blame. We point at the Deputy Prime Minister or the general secretary of the FBU—it is Tom, Dick or Harry. We look for people to blame and forget about the initial issues. The issue can become one of personality, so people say, "Oh, if it weren't for the Deputy Prime Minister doing this," or "Oh, if it weren't for the general secretary of the FBU doing that." That attitude can become the basis of the debate, and we have heard a lot of it today. In my experience, that is what happens.
  The Bill is important in that context, although I have severe doubts about whether it will settle the dispute. I am prepared to lay a bet that, even if it is enacted, this dispute, like others, will be settled by negotiations—they always are and always will be. The Government should not step back when there is deadlock. By the admission of the Liberal Democrats and the official Opposition, even if their position and amendments were accepted, there would be no guarantee of finding a solution. There is a public interest argument from which the Government cannot turn away. There is deadlock, and public interest is at stake. I am far from convinced that the legislation will solve the dispute, but I would be equally unhappy if the Government did not show that they had a responsibility and were not prepared to act on their best judgment. As to whether that judgment is correct, we shall have to wait and see.
  If it is the Government's intention and desire to deal with this messy, long-standing and dangerous dispute, and if it is settled by negotiation even between now and Third Reading or Report, in my judgment—I say this with the greatest of respect to my right hon. Friend the Minister—the Deputy Prime Minister will have a duty and responsibility to bend over backwards to facilitate that negotiated settlement in the short period available. If that means using Burchill as the basis for a settlement, I hope—I would use a stronger word if I could think of one—that the Deputy Prime Minister will be able to say that agreement has been reached in the interim for Burchill to be the basis of negotiation for a settlement. In that case, the legislation will not be necessary.
  If there is one fundamental criticism of the Bill, in addition to some of those that we have heard from my hon. Friends, it is that it is probably irrelevant. The Government will not send anybody to jail. They will not sequestrate union funds. They will not sack firefighters.
  Mr. Ian Davidson: How do you know?
  Mr. Stevenson: We have heard from the Deputy Prime Minister, and it is not in the legislation as I understand it. So the Bill is probably irrelevant.
  Jeremy Corbyn: My hon. Friend will have heard the Deputy Prime Minister's speech, in which he sought the support of the House for the Bill, but if a settlement is imposed, the Fire Brigades Union refuses to accept it and the members take strike action, what do the Government then do?
  Mr. Stevenson: Exactly. The question was asked, and the response was, "Well, there ain't much we can do." That is why I use the word "irrelevant".
  However, for the Government to sit back and do nothing when a public interest issue is at stake would worry me almost as much. I view the Bill as a catalyst, no more, to show that the Government are serious about the public interest, which I recognise is an important factor, and to say, "Look, come on, you really have to get to grips with this."
  I insist—that is the word I am looking for, not "hope"—that the Government in the interim fulfil their even more special responsibility to facilitate the negotiations, even if that is based on proposals that have been made only recently.
  David Winnick: We know what the Tories would do. They would ban strikes in the public sector by people such as firefighters and many other essential workers. They use the word "emergency", but they mean essential.
  If the Government said that the Bill was being introduced to facilitate a settlement of the present dispute, I might change my mind, but it contains no sunset clause. Regardless of what happens, under the Bill the Government can impose a settlement whenever the Minister wants to do so. Hence the reason for my concern.
  Mr. Hammond: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I think that the hon. Gentleman has just suggested that my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) used the word "emergency" when he meant "essential". I can assure the House that when my right hon. Friend said "emergency", he meant "emergency", not "essential".
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): That is more a matter for debate than a matter for the Chair.
  Mr. Stevenson: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point, because he has very nicely led me to the next point that I want to make.
  There is serious concern on the Labour Benches that the Bill is a precursor for further measures to restrict or remove the right of people in services such as the fire brigades to take industrial action or to strike. All Labour Members see that as a basic human right. If the Government, even in a flicker of their wildest imagination, thought that Labour Members would support any such notion, they would be making a very
  910
  serious mistake. That is why, between now and Third Reading, many of us, particularly me, want to see a sunset clause in the Bill. The notion that the Bill is a catalyst to bust through the deadlock in the public interest is a notion to which I am prepared to give the benefit of the doubt at this stage, but I am not prepared to support the Government in putting legislation on the statute book that will be there for ever and a day. If the Bill comes back to the House on Third Reading without a pretty narrow sunset clause, I will not support it, and I suspect that many of my colleagues will not do so either. I cannot make that point strongly enough.
  The dispute is terribly messy. The Government are being blamed for intervention, and the executive of the Fire Brigades Union has—as I understand it—twice recommended a settlement to its members but has been unable to gain their support. I remember the days when on the odd occasion I was not able to get the support of the members I represented, and it did not do me any good. Like Members of Parliament, any public representatives, in the trade union movement or anywhere else, are there only at the behest of their members. The minute they lose the support of their members, or it is in doubt, difficulties emerge.
  My last point concerns the employers' organisations. I do not want to repeat my comment about blank cheques—that approach was a serious mistake—but I have severe reservations about the way in which they negotiated. In fact, given my knowledge of their approach and actions, I should not use the word "negotiated", because I never thought for one second that they were in control of the situation at all. I told the local Staffordshire representative that that was my view. When he attacked my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister in the press, I told him that the enormously irresponsible actions of the employers' organisations would threaten their future. The Bill is as much about them as about the trade union, and we must take that into account. Having said that, if the Government intend the Bill to remove that local negotiation process, I for one will not support that. That is why the sunset clause is extremely important.
  The situation is a mess—disputes that go on for such a long time always are—and we have a deadlock. My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister is right to address the public interest issue: not to do so would be irresponsible. I hope that the Bill acts as a catalyst—no more than that—to bust through the deadlock. I am prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt this evening, but I hope that when it comes back on Report it contains the measures that I have talked about. If so, it will get my support on Third Reading; otherwise, it will not.
  5.17 pm
  Mr. Ian Davidson: I rise as a Scottish Member to speak about a Bill that does not apply to Scotland. I am aware that that will cause concern in some quarters, but I take the view, as do many of my Scottish colleagues, that as long as England, like Northern Ireland, is run on the basis of direct rule, we who are Members of this House have not only a right but a responsibility to participate fully in the debates that take place here.
  The Deputy Prime Minister spoke very well and very convincingly about the positive role that he has undertaken so far. I accept that he is doing the best that

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  he can in the circumstances and making every effort to secure an amicable resolution. I do, however, believe that he has been dealt a duff hand and that he is operating in circumstances in which the financial constraints that have been placed upon him mean that he has no flexibility to reach an amicable settlement between the three partners involved in the discussions and debates.
  We have reached the position where a settlement of about 16 per cent. is possible on the question of salary. The dispute is now over the modernisation of terms and conditions to pay for that increase. I had always believed that the concept of modernisation was all about reorganising existing assets to improve the service, not to pay for salary increases that should be funded in other ways. That is a distortion of the language of modernisation, which many of us have either supported or opposed on the basis of different principles.
  Is legislation the way in which to solve industrial disputes? I do not believe it is, either in principle or in practice. In principle, it is incorrect to adopt legislative means of solving a dispute. To do that is not only to centralise and set a precedent but to take the Government back down the road of establishing an incomes policy, as it is they who will have to determine appropriate income. Unless the Bill is a one-off measure and does not set a precedent, it is a dangerous route for a Government to follow, especially when there are hard financial choices to be made. Yesterday, we debated hospitals and devolution and decentralisation. We should not take the opposite direction on the fire service and centralise pay determination.
  Let us consider practice. It is possible to enforce pay increases by diktat; measures can be taken to provide for salary increases. However, changes in working practices, procedures and methodology require co-operation and consent, for which we cannot legislate from the centre. People can be forced to turn up in specific places at particular times, but they cannot be forced to co-operate fully. The success of most of our public services depends on the wholehearted cooperation of our staff. Introducing legislation is an attempt to short-circuit the messy, complicated and slow procedures of negotiation. Although they are irritating, they hold out the only prospect of success in the longer term. Any dispute carries a legacy of bitterness, but that can often be dissipated. However, a dispute that is resolved by legislative means from the centre not only exacerbates short—term difficulties but extends the period of bitterness. It is the wrong method.
  I was anxious when the Deputy Prime Minister made the explicit threat, as I understood it, that the 16 per cent. might be reduced in a settlement. Even contemplating that takes us down the wrong road. I understand that perhaps we want to exert pressure on both sides to come together, but: given that moods are already inflamed, suggesting that any enforced settlement would be less than 16 per cent. takes us in the wrong direction.
  The Deputy Prime Minister: Let us be clear that the 16 per cent. is connected to modernisation. Without modernisation, there might simply be an annual payment without any extras above what the figure
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  should be. I would have to make the judgment at the proper time, but £100 million on-cost and £30 million for funding the proposal is a lot of money from the public purse.
  Mr. Davidson: I should like to revert to that later because I want to make some other related points. If we had reached the end of the road and believed that we were in extremis and had no choice, I would have to accept that nothing else could be done. But although considerable inconvenience is currently being caused and enormous additional costs are being incurred, everyone accepts that scope remains for negotiations and haggling. I understand that a meeting took place between the FBU and the employers earlier and that another is scheduled for the end of this week or the beginning of next. Clearly, some exchange is happening, and all the parties should therefore be prepared to move. I accept that that applies to the FBU and that members of the FBU are defending some indefensible things. That also applies to some of the employers. However, the artificial cash limit to which the Government appear to be sticking should also be subject to movement. If we genuinely want to see some movement, there has to be movement from all three sides involved, which means that, if necessary, more money must be made available. I do not want to go into the details of the dispute now, because I do not believe that it should be discussed in detail here. We are neither negotiators nor experts; we are just speaking off the top of our heads. The negotiations ought to be taking place elsewhere.
  It is unfortunate that, over a considerable period, the impression has been created that certain elements of the Government are spoiling for a fight and want to teach the trade unions—particularly the public service unions—a lesson by taking them on and defeating them. That has to do with the way in which the Government have, in my view, neglected the trade unions over a period, even though there have been substantial and very welcome developments. I pay tribute to the Deputy Prime Minister and others who have achieved those things, but there has been a difference between content and presentation. We have often done good by stealth but given the impression in public utterances that we see the trade unions as an impediment to the free flow of capitalism. That has clearly been the intention of some—although not all—of those in the Government, which is unfortunate. In those circumstances, introducing this legislation at this time, when the negotiation process has not been exhausted, is potentially inflammatory and likely to result in less, rather than more progress.
  The modernisation of public services is not simply about making cuts to pay for salary increases. It is about hearts and minds—about getting people to reform, to work with new methods, to be much more customer and client-oriented and to bring about a revolution in the delivery of public services. To seek that at the same time as engaging in an industrial dispute in which we are trying to force people to accept cuts in the service to pay for salary increases—increases that those people, rightly or wrongly, believe are justified—creates entirely the wrong climate. The way forward for modernisation is to ensure that it is seen as a means not of restructuring but of improving services.

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  I am inclined not to support the Government tonight, because I do not think that this is the correct way forward. I want to see the dispute resolved, and I believe that the Government should give a period of time to allow a final opportunity for negotiations. If the dispute cannot then be resolved, this might be what we have to do, but we have not yet reached that position.
  5.28 pm
  Mr. Philip Hammond: This has been a very interesting debate, if one can call it a debate. The Deputy Prime Minister has spoken in favour of his Bill and everyone else has spoken against it. One can only imagine that those in the Government's usually efficient Whips Office are having a day off after their hard work last night.
  Mr. Stevenson: I hope that I said that I was prepared to give the Bill the benefit of the doubt, when I made my speech.
  Mr. Hammond: If the hon. Gentleman represents those in favour of the Bill, the Government have an even bigger problem than I was about to suggest.
  To consider the Bill in its proper context, we need to see it against the backdrop of the current dispute and the Government's programme for the modernisation of the fire service. I would like to state clearly at the outset of my speech that the Conservatives want a speedy resolution of the dispute and the establishment of a proper procedure for future pay determination in the fire service. We also recognise the need for reform of the fire service and strongly support the Bain agenda for the decentralisation of control and a reconfiguration of the service, so long as that is based on genuine risk assessment and is not simply an exercise in cost cutting. The House is considering whether the Bill will assist in achieving those two objectives.
  The men and women who provide our fire and rescue services are held in very high regard in the community, and they are entitled to expect fair pay and conditions for the arduous and sometimes dangerous work that they do. It has been clear to most people for years that the issue was coming to a head and that the formula agreed back in 1977 was not working due to changes in the nature of the firefighters' job and the composition of the work force. It was also clear that some employers, and perhaps the Government, saw a window in which to negotiate changes in working practice and an end to the rigid deployment formulae.
  In the aftermath of the 11 September disaster, with public support for firefighters probably at an all—time high, it is perhaps not surprising that the FBU made the mistake of thinking that it was pushing at an open door with a 40 per cent. pay claim. The union has not served the firefighters well in the dispute, however, as it has manoeuvred them into a corner from which intransigence is the only weapon that they can deploy.
  As my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) explained, the Government also must share the blame for the impasse. They did not intervene early enough to make it clear that they would demand that any pay settlement be self-financing. They repeatedly insisted until the very last moment that pay settlements are a matter for the unions and the
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  employers, and nothing to do with the Government. Then they intervened publicly with lead boots to scupper the deal that the unions and the employers had agreed.
  Indeed, earlier this afternoon the Deputy Prime Minister criticised the employers for being "not prepared to move" while emphasising that the Government would not find a penny more for any settlement. They oscillate between claiming that they are not directly involved in the issue and emphasising that they exercise a full veto over any settlement through their control of the purse strings.
  Once the strikes were under way, the Government's refusal to use the powers available to them to halt that action and their preference instead for diverting a large proportion of our armed forces to providing fire cover again showed where their priorities lie. Now, with the negotiations between employers and the unions at an end, they propose to turn back the clock and reintroduce a power to set pay and conditions that the Secretary of State relinquished in 1959. As far as I am aware, that is their only proposal to settle the dispute.
  I have already emphasised our support for the modernisation agenda. At the heart of the proposals is flexible redeployment to achieve fire cover that reflects the real threats to life, not the notional and rigid relationships to buildings on which the current 50-year-old standards are based. The proposals are based on integrated risk management plans to be drawn up by each fire authority, but implementation of those plans will require controversial redeployment decisions, and at least in some areas we can anticipate active local union resistance to specific changes. Such action will fuel inevitable community scepticism about changes that look like cuts. A number of Members mentioned that issue.
  The Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Local Government and the Regions have already announced publicly that the settlement of the dispute must be self-financing—paid for through modernisation—so they have cut the legs from under the supposedly objective risk assessment process. They are judging in advance the outcome of that process and judging that, overall, an objective risk assessment will lead to a requirement for fewer resources to be deployed, generating the savings that Ministers insist must be found from the modernisation process to pay for settlement of the dispute. The hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) emphasised that point.
  Mr. Edward Davey: Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that there appears to be no place in the Bill for integrated risk management plans? If he does, will he join the Liberal Democrats in voting against it?
  Mr. Hammond: I shall make the Conservatives' intentions clear, but I accept the hon. Gentleman's point. The Bill does not constrain the Deputy Prime Minister to act in accordance with integrated risk management plans that have been drawn up and adopted.
  The Government are digging a hole for themselves. They have caused a fatal confusion in the public mind between the financing of a pay settlement and the

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  unanswerable case for reorganisation based on risk. When the Government try to sell the changes in the integrated risk management plans to the public, their problem will be that the public will—I suspect—be inclined to see those changes ELS old-fashioned cuts, based not on an assessment of risk but on a need to balance the books following settlement of the dispute.
  Modernisation must also mean a decisive move away from the old-fashioned confrontational methods of pay bargaining. Conservative Members think that the time has come to recognise that our fire and other rescue services are as critical to the safety and well-being of our country and communities as our police and armed services. Many Labour Members raised the spectre of rampant strike-breaking spreading across the public sector, but I have heard not one Member challenge the long-established practice of preventing strikes in the police force and armed services. It is a tribute to the role played by firefighters and other rescue services in our communities that they are rightly seen to be up there with the armed forces and the police as a vital element in guaranteeing security and safety.
  Rob Marris: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Hammond: No, I must make progress.
  The time has come to put our fire and other emergency rescue services on a basis similar to that of the police and the armed forces, and there should be an independent mechanism to determine fire service pay to ensure that firefighters are properly and fairly rewarded for their invaluable work, linked with an obligation not to strike. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden made clear, we expect the Government's promised White Paper to address pay setting in an equitable way that is fair to firefighters, in the context of a no-strike environment.
  With the questionable exception of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Stevenson), every Labour speaker opposed the Bill. The Deputy Prime Minister emphasised the military impact of the dispute, and said that in the event of further strikes cover would be reduced to just 250 appliances for the whole United Kingdom, thus massively increasing the risk to the public. The right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) criticised the Deputy Prime Minister specifically for the Government's performance on the night of 21–22 November, and said that the Bill was not about arbitration but an imposed settlement.
  The hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) went a little further, calling the Bill unjust and even criticising the legality of what was proposed. She spoke of the dead hand of No. 10, although she and her hon. Friends should be advised—after last night, some may already know—that the hand of No. 10 is probably still very much alive and wriggling. She ended by saying that she could not believe a Labour Government were going down this road.
  916
  The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) emphasised the depth of firefighters' anger about the timing of the Bill, and his concern about its use as a negotiating tool—or, as he put it, a threat and a strike-breaking measure. He accused his own Ministers of rewriting the history of the dispute every time they rose to speak, and gave us his own version. I will not bore the House by saying which version I prefer. He concluded by saying that the Government had cut the legs from under the FBU general secretary, destroying any prospect of a deal, and accused his own Government of inventing the £100 million given as the cost of the Burchill proposals. He spoke of an historic break between the unions and the Labour party, and of a Bill that is a disaster and a disgrace to the labour movement. Other Members spoke in similar terms, and I only wish that the Deputy Prime Minister had been present to hear them. Perhaps he will read tomorrow of the strength of feeling not just in the speech of the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, but among all his hon. Friends.
  Our conclusion is that the Government have lost their sense of direction. While publicly espousing an agenda of decentralisation of control, they now propose a hugely recentralising measure. They propose a Bill that will impose a pay settlement at the Secretary of State's discretion without reference to any independent mechanism; that is unfair. They propose a Bill that has no power to enforce the settlement that it imposes; that is ineffective. And they propose a Bill that does not provide for the existing offer to firefighters to be tested properly first, which makes the Bill unnecessary. So the Bill is unfair, ineffective and unnecessary.
  The Liberal Democrat reaction is to oppose the Bill, and I fully understand that instinct. Our approach, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden set out, is slightly different. We recognise that the Bill is the only immediate vehicle available, and we prefer to try to engage constructively with the Government, to propose amendments to the Bill, and to seek to persuade them to turn it into an effective short-term measure to resolve the dispute one way or another and lift the threat of further strikes, as part of progressing towards creating a long-term solution that is fair for firefighters and fair for the public.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden set out the three essential amendments that we will seek to the Bill: a requirement for a postal ballot on the current offer before the Secretary of State exercises any of his powers; the introduction during the lifetime of this legislation of a power to ban strikes in the fire service, so that any settlement imposed can be effectively imposed; and a sunset clause to recognise explicitly that this is a short-term emergency measure that cannot be a long-term solution to the problem, because it is not sufficiently just or fair. With these changes, this would be a workable short-term measure to lift the threat of strikes, end the current dispute and pave the way for a permanent solution. Without them, it will be a toothless tiger. It will be a heavy-handed instrument for imposing a settlement without having first required proper consultation, and it will lack the teeth to enforce the settlement imposed. Without a sunset clause, it is a recipe not for modernisation but for a reversion to the pre-1959 situation—a status quo in which huge power would rest with the Secretary of

  917
  State, and the Government's decentralisation agenda would be abandoned. That, in our view, is not the future for a modern, locally managed fire service.
  I hope that the Minister will say in a few moments that he will take an open-minded approach in Committee to our proposed amendments, and to the issues that my right hon. Friend has raised today. On that basis, we shall not attempt to deny the Bill a Second Reading, but I say to the Minister now that if those issues are not addressed in Committee or on Report, we will vote against it on Third Reading.
  5.43 pm
  The Minister for Local Government and the Regions (Mr. Nick Raynsford): I can assure the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) that the Deputy Prime Minister, the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie) and I will continue to approach with an open mind the many difficult issues that this entire matter has raised. I should tell the hon. Gentleman that we shall try to avoid mixing our metaphors in the way that he did at the end of his speech.
  As my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister said when he opened this debate, this is not a Bill that the Government would have wanted to introduce in normal circumstances. But these are not normal circumstances. This dispute has dragged on for a year. It has been a year in which there have been 15 days of strike action and the threat of strike action on many more days; a year in which the possibility of disruption of normal services has never been far away. It has been a year in which thousands of members of the armed forces have been required to provide emergency fire cover, or held in readiness to provide it, instead of performing their normal duties; a year in which the public have faced repeated periods of uncertainty as to whether their regular fire service would be working. It has been a year in which there has been growing concern about the FBU's willingness to accept long-overdue modernisation and the use of new equipment to cope with possible terrorist threats. It has also been a year in which the hard-earned reputation of the fire service—I refer to both employers and employees—has, frankly, been damaged.
  We have consistently made it clear that we would prefer the two sides to reach a negotiated settlement. We made that clear a year ago when the FBU first launched its 40 per cent. pay claim. No one should forget that the FBU's claim remains at 40 per cent. for firefighters and 50 per cent. for control room staff. Since then, we have done all we can to try to ensure that a negotiated settlement is achieved. Last autumn, when negotiations broke down for the first time, we commissioned Sir George Bain to undertake an independent review of the fire service. Incidentally, my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) was wrong to say that there was no consultation on the membership or the terms of reference of the Bain review. The FBU was informed and consulted, and asked to give its views on both those matters. It chose not to participate. My hon. Friend also forgot to mention that a very senior member of the TUC was one of the three members of the review team.
  918
  Early this year, after several strikes and inconclusive discussions, we set up a forum in which the FBU and the employers had the opportunity for constructive dialogue on how best to modernise the fire service, in parallel with the ACAS discussions. We indicated that we were willing to provide up to £30 million worth of transitional funding to support a negotiated settlement. My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister and I have met representatives of both sides on numerous occasions in the past year to explore a range of options to help to resolve the dispute. But there still appears to be no prospect of a negotiated settlement.
  That state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue. The public has every right to a fully functioning fire service. We are therefore seeking the powers in the Bill so that we can draw a line under the dispute, so that the two sides can make a fresh start, and, most importantly, so that the public can be properly protected. In addition, we have made it clear that, dispute or no dispute, the fire service has to change. It cannot be right that the service continues to be riddled with outdated work practices, many of which have remained unchanged for decades. It cannot be right that new options for saving lives, for ensuring better co-ordination between all the emergency services, and for protecting the public against the new threats posed by international terrorism are thwarted by resistance to change. There are better ways—better in terms of protecting the public and better in terms of giving fire-fighters more rewarding and flexible careers.
  As the Bain report: made clear, modernisation is essential to save lives and provide a better service to the public, but it is also a real opportunity to enhance firefighters' pay and prospects. Bain made it clear that the only justification for a substantial pay increase was the scope for savings from modernisation. Therefore, it is wrong of the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge to suggest that we have made a mistake in linking pay with the modernisation savings. That is the clear message from Bain and the only justification for a substantially above-average pay settlement for firefighters.
  We value the work that firefighters do, we want them to be able to do an even better job in the future and we want them to receive a fair reward for their work. We will use the powers in the Bill, if necessary, and the measures in the forthcoming White Paper, to make that possible.
  Numerous themes were raised in the debate and I shall try to do justice to them. However, I ask hon. Members to bear with me if I cannot cover every single point raised. I shall start with the attempts to rewrite history. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) started that theme, but it was picked up by several other hon. Members in the debate. The reality of the Government's interventions in the dispute is that they were motivated solely by the requirement to make it clear that there are limits on what costs the Government will pick up. Any settlement above the amounts currently provided for must be justified by modernisation. Those are the two messages that we have sent consistently from the summer of last year to today.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Stevenson) made an important speech and rightly emphasised that it was right for the Government

  919
  to place limits on the costs that we will pick up. It is not appropriate for settlements to be agreed by those who expect others to pick up the tab.
  The principle that pay and modernisation must go hand in hand was clearly agreed by the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey). He differed with us about tactics, but he agreed with the strategy, and was firmly of the opinion that those matters must be taken together.
  The second issue to be raised was the Burchill report, and the proposals that it contained. Frank Burchill is the chairman of the national joint council, and in that role he has been involved with both the employers and the FBU over the period of the dispute. The proposals that he has recently made are different from other proposals considered earlier, in that they were not discussed between the parties, as is normal in the national joint council. The employers made it very clear that they had serious reservations about the way in which Frank Burchill had come forward with the proposals without ever consulting them, and without looking into the proposals' costs and implications.
  Given those reservations, I wrote to Professor Burchill on 10 April. I think it right that the House should know the terms of the letter that I wrote, as there has been considerable misrepresentation. I wrote:
  "I was surprised to learn that you had produced unilaterally a new package of pay and modernisation proposals, which goes beyond the employers' final offer to the FBU. I have now had the opportunity to look at what you have put to the two sides.
  As you know, the Government has made clear that any pay award not affordable within existing public expenditure provision must be paid for by modernisation. The Government is prepared to provide limited transitional funding of £30m to facilitate the employers' current offer, to be repaid over the next three years.
  Our assessment of your proposal is that by reducing the scope and likelihood of savings it would increase the net cost of the package over the three years 2003–2005 to around £100m with no prospect of recouping this investment at all even in later years.
  This does not sit well with press reports that indicate you feel your proposal involves 'changes of a minor nature'. It would therefore be helpful to see the detailed costing which I assume you have prepared as a basis for your proposals. As things stand, it is difficult to see how these proposals could be funded from the employers' current budget. As you will appreciate, we have made clear that the Government will not be able to provide any further transitional funding beyond that necessary to support the employers' final offer, which is very much at the limit of what they can afford.
  I would appreciate an early reply, and would be happy to discuss face-to-face if that would be helpful."
  The House should be aware of the reply that I received by e-mail from Frank Burchill, on 13 April. He wrote:
  "Dear Minister,
  Thank you for your letter.
  The intentions behind 'my' proposals were purely to keep open a line of communication and to gain time, if required—a potentially valuable commodity in light of the surrounding circumstances.
  I can assure you that I will not discuss the financing, economics or opportunity costs of any proposals with anybody or at any time or in any forum. Similarly I will make no response whatsoever to any comments or criticisms, from whatever source.
  920
  This is not my first intervention during these negotiations. I am very conscious of the fact that I persuaded the union negotiators to recommend to their executive the Employers' offer. Needless to say, I will not object to the employers calling the recent intervention 'unprecedented'.
  Yours Sincerely,
  Frank Burchill."
  That response is not a promising basis for a settlement, given Professor Burchill's clear unwillingness to engage at all with the issues of costings, and of how the modernisation savings can help to finance a settlement.
  The third issue brought up during the debate was the question of a secret ballot. I make it clear to the House that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister and I have said, on several occasions, that that could be a sensible way forward, and that it might provide a basis for gauging firefighters' opinions. I certainly would not want to prejudge those opinions in the way that at least one hon. Member did in this afternoon's debate.
  The fourth issue raised was the risk to public safety. It was highlighted in particular by my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon), who did not think that there was threat to public safety, as she believed that firefighters would respond in an emergency. I accept entirely that, as a matter of course and natural instinct, firefighters would want to respond if there was a threat to life. In any case, where the normal service is withdrawn, there is inevitably an enhanced risk. The military responded magnificently to the challenges of the winter strikes, but there is a limit to what they can do or cope with, given the other pressures on their time. The Deputy Prime Minister has spelled out the necessary reduction in manpower. I must put it to the House that further strike action against that background would inevitably create a greater risk to public safety.
  Conservative Members suggested that there should be legislation or other action to ban strikes. The Deputy Prime Minister has made it clear that he is not convinced that that is appropriate, but that the Government will set out our view, as promised in the White Paper to be published in the very near future. Also, the Attorney-General will review the position, as he has done throughout the dispute, and we will keep him fully informed.
  We were asked about the duration of the Bill, and my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South and others asked about the possibility of a sunset clause. We believe that the issue should be considered in due course and I am sure that it will be raised in Committee. The White Paper will set out the basis for future legislation. If it is agreed that there should be a sunset clause and that the Bill should have only a short life, further longer-lasting legislation, whatever that might be, will need to be introduced subsequently. I hope that that gives my hon. Friend the assurance that he seeks.
  We were asked about the basis on which the Deputy Prime Minister might reach a decision on a settlement. We hope that we will not have to do so. It has always been our wish that there should be a negotiated settlement. Also, my right hon. Friend is committed by the Bill to consult before any decision is reached with both the national joint council and the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council. It would be wrong to preempt that.

  921
  There is one point that I should make clear. The employers' offer of 16 per cent. over two and a half years, linked to modernisation, depends on savings from modernisation. It is not possible to assume that this is payable indefinitely, or that the offer will remain available indefinitely. There is a time factor here and I must put it to the House that time is beginning to run out.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) asked about compatibility with human rights legislation. On 20 March, my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister made it clear that, in his view, the provisions of the Bill were compatible with the European convention on human rights. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has carried out an initial examination and has formed the provisional opinion that the Bill is compatible with convention rights and the Human Rights Act 1998.
  On the European social charter, the Bill does not affect the right to strike, nor does it seek to prevent collective bargaining. On the International Labour Organisation convention, article 8 says that a settlement shall be reached through negotiations between the parties. That is our objective—to achieve precisely that negotiation.
  I want to talk about misinformation. We have heard a series of wild and inaccurate allegations about threatened cuts and alleged risks. There is no question or possibility of cuts of 5,000 or 10,000 firefighters, or of increasing risks. Our proposals are all about a better response to risk; to ensure a more effective response to the risks of today, rather than retaining the provisions established in the 1940s, which were related to risks to property at that time. There is a real case for change to enhance public safety and it is right that we should do that.
  We are introducing the Bill with great reluctance, and only because we cannot sit on our hands when there is no prospect of a settlement. We are doing so to draw a line under this dispute so that firefighters and employers can work together constructively to provide the service that the public deserve and expect. No responsible Government can stand aside and allow the current wholly unsatisfactory situation to continue indefinitely. It is time to move on, and I believe that the House will send a strong message to all involved by giving the Bill a clear endorsement on Second Reading now.
  Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second Time:—
  The House divided: Ayes 284, Noes 59.

  Division No. 180]

  [6:00 pm

  AYES

  Adams, Irene (Paisley N)

  Baird, Vera

  Ainger, Nick

  Bayley, Hugh

  Ainsworth, Bob (Cov'try NE)

  Beard, Nigel

  Alexander, Douglas

  Beckett, rh Margaret

  Allen, Graham

  Begg, Miss Anne

  Anderson, rh Donald (Swansea E)

  Bell, Stuart

  Anderson, Janet (Rossendale & Darwen)

  Benn, Hilary

  Bennett. Andrew

  Armstrong, rh Ms Hilary

  Benton, Joe (Bootle)

  Atherton, Ms Candy

  Berry, Roger

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Betts, Clive

  Bailey, Adrian

  Blackman, Liz

  922

  Blizzard, Bob

  Grogan, John

  Blunkett, rh David

  Hain, rh Peter

  Boateng, rh Paul

  Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

  Borrow, David

  Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

  Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

  Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Hanson, David

  Brennan, Kevin

  Harman, rh Ms Harriet

  Brown, rh Nicholas (Newcastle E Wallsend)

  Havard, Dai (Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney)

  Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

  Healey, John

  Browne, Desmond

  Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

  Bryant, Chris

  Hendrick, Mark

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Hepburn, Stephen

  Burden, Richard

  Heppell, John

  Burnham, Andy

  Hesford, Stephen

  Byers, rh Stephen

  Hewitt, rh Ms Patricia

  Cairns, David

  Heyes, David

  Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

  Hill, Keith (Streatham)

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Hodge, Margaret

  Caplin, Ivor

  Hoon, rh Geoffrey

  Casale, Roger

  Hope, Phil (Corby)

  Caton, Martin

  Howarth, rh Alan (Newport E)

  Challen, Colin

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N & Sefton E)

  Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

  Chaytor, David

  Howells, Dr. Kim

  Clark, Dr. Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

  Hughes, Beverley (Stretford & Urmston)

  Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Clarke, rh Charles (Norwich S)

  Hurst, Alan (Braintree)

  Clarke, rh Tom (Coatbridge & Chryston

  Hutton, rh John

  )

  Illsley, Eric

  Clarke, Tony(Northampton S)

  Ingram, rh Adam

  Clelland, David

  Irranca-Davies, Huw

  Clwyd, Ann (Cynon V)

  Jackson, Glenda (Hampstead & Highgate)

  Coaker, Vernon

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

  Cook, rh Robin (Livingston)

  Jamieson, David

  Cooper, Yvette

  Johnson, Alan (Hull W)

  Corston, Jean

  Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)

  Cranston, Ross

  Crausby, David

  Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

  Cruddas, Jon

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  Darling, rh Alistair

  Jones, Kevan (N Durham)

  David, Wayne

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

  Davis, rh Terry (B'ham Hodge H)

  Jowell, rh Tessa

  Dean, Mrs Janet

  Joyce, Eric (Falkirk W)

  Denham, rh John

  Keeble, Ms Sally

  Dobson, rh Frank

  Keen, Alan (Feltham)

  Donohoe, Brian H.

  Keen, Ann (Brentford)

  Doran, Frank

  Kelly, Ruth (Bolton W)

  Dowd, Jim (Lewisham W)

  Kemp, Fraser

  Drown, Ms Julia

  Kidney, David

  Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

  King, Andy (Rugby)

  Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

  King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green & Bow)

  Edwards, Huw

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Knight, Jim (S Dorset)

  Ennis, Jeff (Barnsley E)

  Kumar, Dr. Ashok

  Farrelly, Paul

  Ladyman, Dr. Stephen

  Fisher, Mark

  Lammy, David

  Fitzpatrick, Jim

  Laxton, Bob (Derby N)

  Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

  Lazarowicz, Mark

  Flynn, Paul (Newport W)

  Lepper, David

  Follett, Barbara

  Leslie, Christopher

  Foster, rh Derek

  Levitt, Tom (High Peak)

  Foster, Michael (Worcester)

  Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

  Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings & Rye)

  Liddell, rh Mrs Helen

  Linton, Martin

  Foulkes, rh George

  Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

  Francis, Dr. Hywel

  Love, Andrew

  Gapes, Mike (Ilford S)

  Lucas, Ian (Wrexham)

  Gardiner, Barry

  Lyons, John (Strathkelvin)

  George, rh Bruce (Walsall S)

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Gilroy, Linda

  McCabe, Stephen

  Goggins, Paul

  McCartney, rh Ian

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  McDonagh, Siobhain

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  MacDonald, Calum

  923

  MacDougall, John

  Robertson, John (Glasgow Anniesland)

  McFall, John

  McIsaac, Shona

  Roche, Mrs Barbara

  McKechin, Ann

  Rooney, Terry

  McKenna, Rosemary

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Roy, Frank (Motherwell)

  McNulty, Tony

  Ruane, Chris

  MacShane, Denis

  Russell, Ms Christine (City of Chester)

  Mactaggart, Fiona

  McWilliam, John

  Ryan, Joan (Enfield N)

  Mahmood, Khalid

  Salter, Martin

  Mallaber, Judy

  Savidge, Malcolm

  Mann, John (Bassetlaw)

  Shaw, Jonathan

  Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

  Sheerman, Barry

  Marshall, David (Glasgow Shettleston)

  Sheridan, Jim

  Shipley, Ms Debra

  Martlew, Eric

  Simon, Siôn (B'ham Erdington)

  Meacher, rh Michael

  Smith, rh Andrew (Oxford E)

  Meale, Alan (Mansfield)

  Smith, Angela (Basildon)

  Michael, rh Alun

  Smith, rh Chris (Islington S & Finsbury)

  Milburn, rh Alan

  Miliband, David

  Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

  Miller, Andrew

  Smith, John (Glamorgan)

  Moffatt, Laura

  Soley, Clive

  Mole, Chris

  Spellar, rh John

  Moonie, Dr. Lewis

  Squire, Rachel

  Morgan, Julie

  Stevenson, George

  Morley, Elliot

  Stinchcombe, Paul

  Mountford, Kali

  Sutcliffs, Gerry

  Mullin, Chris

  Taylor, rh Ann (Dewsbury)

  Munn, Ms Meg

  Taylor, Dari (Stockton S)

  Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

  Taylor, Dr. Richard (Wyre F)

  Murphy, rh Paul (Torfaen)

  Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

  Naysmith, Dr. Doug

  Thomas, Gareth (Harrow W)

  Timms, Stephen

  Norris, Dan (Wansdyke)

  Tipping, Paddy

  O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

  Todd, Mark (S Derbyshire)

  O'Hara, Edward

  Touhig, Don (Islwyn)

  Olner, Bill

  Trickett, Jon

  O'Neill, Martin

  Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

  Organ, Diana

  Turner, Dr. Desmond (Brighton Kemptown)

  Palmer, Dr. Nick

  Pearson, Ian

  Turner, Neil (Wigan)

  Picking, Anne

  Twigg, Derek (Halton)

  Pickthall, Colin

  Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

  Pike, Peter (Burnley)

  Vaz, Keith (Leicester E)

  Plaskitt, James

  Walley, Ms Joan

  Pollard, Kerry

  Ward, Claire

  Pond, Chris (Gravesham)

  Watson, Tom (W Bromwich E)

  Watts, David

  Pound, Stephen

  White, Brian

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

  Whitehead, Dr. Alan

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Williams, rh Alan (Swansea W)

  Prescott, rh John

  Wills, Michael

  Primarolo, rh Dawn

  Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

  Prosser, Gwyn

  Purchase, Ken

  Woodward, Shaun

  Purnell, James

  Wrighi, Anthony D. (Gt Yarmouth)

  Quin, rh Joyce

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Wright, David (Telford)

  Rammell, Bill

  Wrighi, Tony (Cannock)

  Rapson, Syd (Portsmouth N)

  Wyatt, Derek

  Raynsford, rh Nick

  Reed, Andy (Loughborough)

  Tellers for the Ayes:

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

  Mr Phil Woolas and

  Gillian Merron

  NOES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Campbell, rh Menzies (NE Fife)

  Barnes, Harry

  Carmichael, Alistair

  Barron, rh Kevin

  Clark, Mrs Helen (Peterborough)

  Bruce, Malcolm

  Coleman, Iain

  Burnside, David

  Connarty, Michael

  Burstow, Paul

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Cable, Dr. Vincent

  Cryer, Ann (Keighley)

  Calton, Mrs Patsy

  Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

  924

  Davey, Edward (Kingston)

  Price, Adam (E Carmarthen & Dinefwr)

  Davidson, Ian

  Dismore, Andrew

  Pugh, Dr. John

  Doughty, Sue

  Reid, Alan (Argyll & Bute)

  Drew, David (Stroud)

  Russell, Bob (Colchester)

  Foster, Don (Bath)

  Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

  Gidley, Sandra

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  Green, Matthew (Ludlow)

  Strang, rh Dr. Gavin

  Harris, Dr. Evan (Oxford W & Abingdon)

  Stunell, Andrew

  Taylor, David (NW Leics)

  Hoey, Kate (Vauxhall)

  Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

  Holmes, Paul

  Thurso, John

  Hopkins, Kelvin

  Tonge, Dr. Jenny

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

  Tyler, Paul (N Cornwall)

  Vis, Dr. Rudi

  Jones, Lynne (Selly Oak)

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Keetch, Paul

  Webb, Steve (Northavon)

  Kirkwood, Sir Archy

  Williams, Hywel (Caernarfon)

  Laws, David (Yeovil)

  Willis, Phil

  Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

  Winnick, David

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Wood, Mike (Batley)

  McDonnell, John

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Marris, Rob (Wolverh'ton SW)

  Tom Brake and

  Moore, Michael

  Mrs. Annette L. Brooke

  Question accordingly agreed to.

  FIRE SERVICES BILL (PROGRAMME)
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Orders [28 June 2001 and 29 October 2002],
  That the following provisions shall apply to the Fire Services Bill:

  Committal
  1. The Bill shall be committed to a Committee of the whole House.
  Proceedings in Committee, on consideration and Third Reading
  2. Proceedings in the Committee, any proceedings on consideration and proceedings on Third Reading shall be completed at one day's sitting.
  3. Proceedings in Committee and any proceedings on consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.
  4. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.

  Programming Committee
  Sessional Order B (programming committees) made on 28th June 2001 shall not apply to proceedings in Committee, any proceedings on consideration and proceedings on Third Reading.

  Other proceedings
  Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments or on any further messages from the Lords) may be programmed. —[Mr. Caplin.]
  The House divided: Ayes 285, Noes 90.

  Division No. 181]

  [6:12pm

  AYES

  Adams, Irene (Paisley N)

  Allen, Graham

  Ainger, Nick

  Anderson, rh Donald (Swansea E)

  Ainsworth, Bob (Cov'try NE)

  Anderson, Janet (Rossendale & Darwen)

  Alexander, Douglas

  925

  Armstrong, rh Ms Hilary

  Farrelly, Paul

  Atherton, Ms Candy

  Fisher, Mark

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Fitzpatrick, Jim

  Bailey, Adrian

  Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

  Baird, Vera

  Flynn, Paul (Newport W)

  Bayley, Hugh

  Follett, Barbara

  Beard, Nigel

  Foster, Michael (Worcester)

  Beckett, rh Margaret

  Foulkes, rh George

  Begg, Miss Anne

  Francis, Dr. Hywel

  Benn, Hilary

  Gapes, Mike (Ilford S)

  Benton, Joe (Bootle)

  Gardiner, Barry

  Berry, Roger

  George, rh Bruce (Walsall S)

  Betts, Clive

  Gilroy, Linda

  Blackman, Liz

  Goggins, Paul

  Blizzard, Bob

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Boateng, rh Paul

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Borrow, David

  Grogan, John

  Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

  Hain, rh Peter

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

  Brennan, Kevin

  Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

  Brown, rh Nicholas (Newcastle E Wallsend)

  Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)

  Hanson, David

  Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

  Harman, rh Ms Harriet

  Browne, Desmond

  Havard, Dai (Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney)

  Bryant, Chris

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Healey, John

  Burden, Richard

  Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

  Burnham, Andy

  Hendrick, Mark

  Byers, rh Stephen

  Hepburn, Stephen

  Cairns, David

  Heppell, John

  Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

  Hesford, Stephen

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Hewitt, rh Ms Patricia

  Caplin, Ivor

  Heyes, David

  Casale, Roger

  Hill, Keith (Streatham)

  Caton, Martin

  Hodge, Margaret

  Challen, Colin

  Hoon, rh Geoffrey

  Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

  Hope, Phil (Corby)

  Chaytor, David

  Howarth, rh Alan (Newport E)

  Clark, Mrs Helen (Peterborough)

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N & Sefton E)

  Clark, Dr. Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

  Howells, Dr. Kim

  Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

  Hughes, Beverley (Stretford & Urmston)

  Clarke, rh Charles (Norwich S)

  Clarke, rh Tom (Coatbridge & Chryston)

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Hurst, Alan (Braintree)

  Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

  Hutton, rh John

  Clwyd, Ann (Cynon V)

  Illsley, Eric

  Coaker, Vernon

  Ingram, rh Adam

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  Irranca-Davies, Huw

  Coleman, Iain

  Jackson, Glenda (Hampstead & Highgate)

  Connarty, Michael

  Cook, rh Robin (Livingston)

  Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

  Cooper, Yvette

  Jamieson, David

  Corston, Jean

  Johnson, Alan (Hull W)

  Cranston, Ross

  Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)

  Crausby, David

  Cruddas, Jon

  Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

  Darling, rh Alistair

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

  Jones, Kevan (N Durham)

  David, Wayne

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

  Davidson, Ian

  Jowell, rh Tessa

  Davis, rh Terry (B'ham Hodge H)

  Joyce, Eric (Falkirk W)

  Dean, Mrs Janet

  Keeble, Ms Sally

  Denham, rh John

  Keen, Alan (Feltham)

  Dismore, Andrew

  Keen, Ann (Brentford)

  Dobson, rh Frank

  Kelly, Ruth (Bolton W)

  Donohoe, Brian H.

  Kemp, Fraser

  Doran, Frank

  Kidney, David

  Dowd, Jim (Lewisham W)

  King, Andy (Rugby)

  Drown, Ms Julia

  King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green & Bow)

  Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

  Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

  Knight, Jim (S Dorset)

  Edwards, Huw

  Kumar, Dr. Ashok

  Efford, Clive

  Ladyman, Dr. Stephen

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Lammy, David

  Ennis, Jeff (Barnsley E)

  Laxton, Bob (Derby N)

  926

  Lazarowicz, Mark

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Lepper, David

  Rammell, Bill

  Leslie, Christopher

  Rapson, Syd (Portsmouth N)

  Levitt, Tom (High Peak)

  Raynsford, rh Nick

  Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

  Reed, Andy (Loughborough)

  Liddell, rh Mrs Helen

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

  Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

  Robertson, John (Glasgow Anniesland)

  Love, Andrew

  Lucas, Ian (Wrexham)

  Roche, Mrs Barbara

  Lyons, John (Strathkelvin)

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Roy, Frank (Motherwell)

  McCabe, Stephen

  Ruane, Chris

  McCartney, rh Ian

  Russell, Ms Christine (City of Chester)

  McDonagh, Siobhain

  MacDonald, Calum

  Ryan, Joan (Enfield N)

  MacDougall, John

  Salter, Martin

  McFall, John

  Savidge, Malcolm

  McIsaac, Shona

  Shaw, Jonathan

  McKechin, Ann

  Sheerman, Barry

  McKenna, Rosemary

  Sheridan, Jim

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Shipley, Ms Debra

  McNulty, Tony

  Simon, Siôn (B'ham Erdington)

  MacShane, Denis

  Smith, rh Andrew (Oxford E)

  Mactaggart, Fiona

  Smith, Angela (Basildon)

  McWilliam, John

  Smith, rh Chris (Islington S & Finsbury)

  Mahmood, Khalid

  Mallaber, Judy

  Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

  Mann, John (Bassetlaw)

  Smith, John (Glamorgan)

  Marris, Rob (Wolverh'ton SW)

  Soley, Clive

  Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

  Spellar, rh John

  Marshall, David (Glasgow Shettleston)

  Squire, Rachel

  Stevenson, George

  Meacher, rh Michael

  Stinchcombe, Paul

  Meale, Alan (Mansfield)

  Stoate, Dr. Howard

  Michael, rh Alun

  Straw, rh Jack

  Milburn, rh Alan

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Miliband, David

  Taylor, rh Ann (Dewsbury)

  Miller, Andrew

  Taylor, Dari (Stockton S)

  Moffatt, Laura

  Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

  Mole, Chris

  Thomas, Gareth (Harrow W)

  Moonie, Dr. Lewis

  Timms, Stephen

  Morgan, Julie

  Tipping, Paddy

  Morley, Elliot

  Todd, Mark (S Derbyshire)

  Mountford, Kali

  Touhig, Don (Islwyn)

  Mullin, Chris

  Trickett, Jon

  Munn, Ms Meg

  Truswell, Paul

  Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

  Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

  Murphy, rh Paul (Torfaen)

  Turner, Dr. Desmond (Brighton Kemptown)

  Naysmith, Dr. Doug

  Norris, Dan (Wansdyke)

  Turner, Neil (Wigan)

  O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

  Twigg, Derek (Halton)

  O'Hara, Edward

  Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

  Olner, Bill

  Vaz, Keith (Leicester E)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Walley, Ms Joan

  Organ, Diana

  Ward, Claire

  Palmer, Dr. Nick

  Watson, Tom (W Bromwich E)

  Pearson, Ian

  Watts, David

  Picking, Anne

  White, Brian

  Pickthall, Colin

  Whitehead, Dr. Alan

  Pike, Peter (Burnley)

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Plaskitt, James

  Wills, Michael

  Pollard, Kerry

  Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

  Pond, Chris (Gravesham)

  Pound, Stephen

  Woodward, Shaun

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

  Wright, Anthony D. (Gt Yarmouth)

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Wright, David (Telford)

  Prescott, rh John

  Wright, Tony (Cannock)

  Primarolo, rh Dawn

  Wyatt, Derek

  Prosser, Gwyn

  Purchase, Ken

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Purnell, James

  Gillian Merron and

  Quin, rh Joyce

  Mr. Phil Woolas

  927

  NOES

  Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

  Jack, rh Michael

  Amess, David

  Keetch, Paul

  Arbuthnot, rh James

  Kirkwood, Sir Archy

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

  Lansley, Andrew

  Bacon, Richard

  Laws, David (Yeovil)

  Barker, Gregory

  Lewis, Dr. Julian (New Forest E)

  Bercow, John

  Liddell-Grainger, Ian

  Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

  McIntosh, Miss Anne

  Brady, Graham

  Mackay, rh Andrew

  Brake, Tom (Carshalton)

  Maclean, rh David

  Brooke, Mrs Annette L.

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Mates, Michael

  Bruce, Malcolm

  Moore, Michael

  Burnside, David

  Murrison, Dr. Andrew

  Burstow, Paul

  O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

  Burt, Alistair

  Ottaway, Richard

  Butterfill, John

  Paterson, Owen

  Cable, Dr. Vincent

  Portillo, rh Michael

  Calton, Mrs Patsy

  Price, Adam (E Carmarthen & Dinefwr)

  Campbell, rh Menzies (NE Fife)

  Carmichael, Alistair

  Pugh, Dr. John

  Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

  Randall, John

  Reid, Alan (Argyll & Bute)

  Collins, Tim

  Robertson, Hugh (Faversham & M-Kent)

  Conway, Derek

  Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Rosindell, Andrew

  Davey, Edward (Kingston)

  Russell, Bob (Colchester)

  Davies, Quentin (Grantham & Stamford)

  Spicer Sir Michael

  Doughty, Sue

  Spink, Bob (Castle Point)

  Duncan Smith, rh Iain

  Steen, Anthony

  Evans, Nigel

  Stunell, Andrew

  Fallon, Michael

  Swayne, Desmond

  Field, Mark (Cities of London & Westminister)

  Swire, Hugo (E Devon)

  Flook, Adrian

  Syms, Robert

  Foster, Don (Bath)

  Taylor Ian (Esher)

  Gale, Roger (N Thanet)

  Taylor Dr. Richard (Wyre F)

  Gidley, Sandra

  Tonge, Dr. Jenny

  Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

  Turner, Andrew (Isle of Wight)

  Goodman, Paul

  Tyler, Paul (N Cornwall)

  Grayling, Chris

  Wilkinson, John

  Green, Matthew (Ludlow)

  Williams, Hywel (Caernarfon)

  Hague, rh William

  Willis, Phil

  Hammond, Philip

  Wilshire, David

  Harris, Dr. Evan (Oxford W & Abingdon)

  Winterton, Ann (Congleton)

  Winteion, Sir Nicholas (Macclesfield)

  Hayes, John (S Holland)

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Holmes, Paul

  Angela Watkinson and

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

  Mr. Mark Hoban

  Question accordingly agreed to

  FIRE SERVICES BILL [MONEY]
  Queen's recommendation having been signified—
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52 (Money resolutions and ways and means resolutions in connection with bills),
  That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Fire Services Bill ("the Act"), it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums which are payable out of money so provided under any other Act.—[Mr. Caplin.]
  Question agreed to.

  FINANCE BILL (PROGRAMME) (NO.2)
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Orders [28 June 2001 and 29 October 2002],
  That the programme order of 6th May 2003 shall be amended by the substitution in paragraph 1(1) (provisions committed to Committee of the whole House) of the words "Schedules 5, 6, 19 and 25" for the words "Schedules 5, 6, 19, 21, 22 and 25".—[Mr. Caplin.]
  Question agreed to.

  NORTHERN IRELAND ASSEMBLY (ELECTIONS AND PERIODS OF SUSPENSION) BILL
  Ordered,
  That, in respect of the Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections and Periods of Suspension) Bill, notices of Amendments, new Clauses and new Schedules to be moved in Committee may be accepted by the Clerks at the Table before the Bill has been read a second time.—[Mr. Caplin.]

  SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE
  Ordered,
  That at the sitting on Wednesday 14th May—
  (i) the Speaker shall not adjourn the House until any message from the Lords has been received;
  (ii) the Speaker shall not adjourn the House until any Committee to draw up Reasons which has been appointed at that sitting has reported.
  Ordered,
  That, at the sitting on Thursday 15th May, the Speaker shall not adjourn the House until he has reported the Royal Assent to any Act agreed upon by both Houses.—[Mr. Cuplin.]

PETITION

  Pharmacies
  Mr. Mark Hoban: I am presenting a petition signed by over 2,600 people from communities in my constituency, including Whiteley, Swanwick, Sarisbury, Parkgate, Warsash, Locks Heath, Titchfield Common, Titchfield and Fareham itself. They are protesting about the threat posed to their community pharmacies by the proposals in the report by the Office of Fair Trading. The petition
  Declares that the removal of restrictions on pharmacies able to dispense NHS prescriptions will have a detrimental effect on local chemists.
  The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government both to reject proposals that would allow unrestricted opening of pharmacies able to dispense NHS prescriptions and to preserve local pharmacies and safeguard their continued services to local communities.
  And the Petitioners remain etc.
  To lie upon the Table.

  Asylum Seekers' Children
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Caplin.]
  6.28 pm
  Mr. Michael Connarty: I am pleased that the system has allowed me to secure this Adjournment debate on an important developing issue. I apologise to my hon. Friend the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration—I did not anticipate that much of her time today would be taken up with a report produced by the Select Committee on Home Affairs. It says that the abuse of the asylum process is a problem, and I agree that there is a need for a strong and controlled immigration policy. I have, in fact, appeared in the media to defend some aspects of the Government's strong policy. Locking up asylum seekers' children does not contribute to solving that problem. It distracts us from facing up to the fact that there is probably a large number of absconding and disappearing people who enter this country, claim asylum, but then pursue the path of illegal immigration.
  That is a distraction, and I believe that it is a very offensive one. The offence caused by locking up the children of asylum seekers is compounded because the act of detention—that is what it has become—is different from the expression that is used, which is that it is part of a removal process. That has been the argument all along, but there is no way in which changing the name of detention centres to removal centres can hide the facts. It appears that we are scapegoating families, who are often easy to trace—people who are seeking social and educational services for their children are easier to trace—because we cannot deal with the mass of people who are not burdened or accompanied by families and can easily disappear into the grey economy of this country.
  As the Minister knows, I am here because of what happened and is possibly still happening at Dungavel, the former prison in Scotland that is now a detention or removal centre. Following further research and thought about this matter and about the concerns to which I was alerted by those campaigning about what is happening in Dungavel—in particular, they include the justice and peace movement of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, led by Bishop John Mone of Paisley—I am led to believe that it is not only what is happening at Dungavel that is the problem, but the basis on which we establish the right to detain the children of asylum seekers and the way in which they are detained.
  I wish to pay some compliments to the people who have become involved in the process. A great number have done so and they have sent me a large number of contributions; in fact, there are probably too many for me to use. Contributors include the Refugee Alliance in Scotland, people from BID—Bail for Immigration Detainees—who have supplied me with a number of documents that I have passed on to the Minister, the Children's Society and a group called the Refugee Children's Consortium, which comprises Save the Children, the Children's Society, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Barnardo's and the Refugee Council, all of which have expressed views similar to that expressed by Bishop Mone.
  930
  I also draw the Minister's attention to the new report published by BID following research by Emma Cole, called "A Few Families Too Many". The report deals with the experience of a number of families who have been detained in the United Kingdom. Other groups in Scotland that are taking an interest in this matter include the Church of Scotland education committee, the Scottish Episcopal Church education committee and the Roman Catholic education committee in Scotland, and it also features in the Church and Nation Committee report, which is going to the general assembly of the Church of Scotland in a few weeks and I am sure will be debated at that time. A large number of people are hoping for a change in Government policy. Even though it was soundly defended when the legislation was introduced, it has now shown itself to be flawed.
  Let me move on to the question of why we have reached the current position. As the Minister knows, Bishop Mone's visit to Dungavel led him to write a document and publish it in the media. It said:
  "What is happening is quite unacceptable. You cannot just lock up children like this…Protecting children has been high on the agenda of our people in recent times and to ignore what is going on at Dungavel shames us all."
  I believe that that is echoed by the fact that 20,000-plus people have so far signed the petition on this matter that I hope to present to the House in a few days or weeks. Bishop Mone called on the Home Secretary
  "to close the 'Family Unit' at Dungavel and to find a more humane way of dealing with the application for asylum made by families."
  Bishop Mone then entered into correspondence with the Home Secretary. As always, the bishop was extremely courteous and complimentary to the people who have tried to do their best in Dungavel, but he was still firm in his opinion that it was unacceptable to detain children in conditions such as those that he found there. In that correspondence, the Home Secretary said that attempts were made to ensure that no one was detained longer than necessary.
  In his response of 4 April, which Bishop Mone has given me permission to quote and circulate if necessary, the bishop said that to state that no one was detained longer than necessary was surely too vague. He said that detention had extended to eight months and beyond for some of the children he had met. We know that we are talking here about the Ay family from Iraq. He was also concerned that, while some children had not been detained as long as eight months, they had been detained beyond the removal time envisaged.
  I visited Dungavel, and although I found staff who were caring and warm and trying to moderate the impact of the detention process, I found the same conditions that I had found only a couple of years ago when it was a prison when I went to visit some of my constituents, who were UVF gun runners, and it was barely an adequate facility to put them in. The barbed wire was still there. The large fence was still there. In fact, a plate some 10 ft high had been added so that people could not see in or out. My overall assessment of Dungavel was—I perhaps offended the people there because I was too honest—that it was a terrible place to detain children. It is a facility that we should not use, but even if it were moderated, the principle of locking up children is wrong.

  931
  So how did we get here? I believe that section 22 of the Immigration Act 1971 gave the Secretary of State a power to detain children, but it was as part of an immediate process of removal and was specifically for the very short term. It was for people who had been told that they could not stay, who were to be taken to an airport or other port and in the process might have to be detained temporarily.
  I saw nothing in the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 that enhanced that power, yet there has been a creeping process of detaining children with their parents seeking asylum since 1999. Lord Filkin gave an assurance in the House of Lords when he said:
  "I am not aware of any shift in policy between the 1999 and 2002 White Papers"—[Official Report, House of Lords, 10 October 2002; Vol. 639, c. 435.]
  But there was a change in policy. A ministerial decision was taken to reinterpret the powers in the Immigration Act 1971 and to use them differently to institute a new approach to the detention of children. I presume, given that the accommodation is open, that contracts must have been let before the passing of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 for detention centres to contain family accommodation at Dungavel and some other locations.
  In letters of 25 October 2001 and 18 June 2002 to the director of BID, the Home Office admits that it is about to enhance the accommodation. In October 2001 and by 18 June 2002, it admits that it was done by ministerial decision, not on the basis of a change in primary legislation.
  I presume that section 55(5) of the 2002 Act confirmed the new approach. I read the description of it in the explanatory notes to the Bill. They said that the clause
  "shall not prevent the Secretary of Stale exercising his power"
  to avoid the breach of a person's rights under the European convention on human rights. We have taken a firm decision to become more and more confirmed in our regressive policy towards the children and families of asylum seekers.
  It is interesting to look at why we said that we needed to do that. The Minister in correspondence with me said that the White Paper confirmed that decision. She said that section 4.77 said:
  "it is especially important in the case of families that detention should be used only when necessary and should not be for an excessive period."
  Yet at the same time, in rejecting the attempts made by a number of bishops in the other place first to have the detention of children excluded from the Act and then to have a time limit of 10 days on those detentions, Lord Bassam was clear. He stated several reasons that may have made logical sense. First, people may have had difficulty in verifying the facts of their application—for example, who they were, where they had come from and whether they had applied for asylum before. Secondly, they may be about to be removed. Thirdly, they would be unlikely to comply with temporary admission or release. In other words, he was saying that if they were given a chance to stay temporarily, they would abscond.
  The document "A Few Families Too Many" makes it clear that that view is stated without any statistical analysis or research by the Home Office or any
  932
  organisation on its behalf. The analysis by Bail for Immigration Detainees and others shows that where a family with children is given temporary admission, the first thing that they do is register the children at school. They are easy to find. They look for doctors, health services and social services. Irrespective of whether the process that expelled them from their country was traumatic, the process of travelling will have traumatised them.
  Mr. Russell Brown: On medical treatment, the all-party parliamentary groups on refugees and on AIDS are holding a number of parliamentary hearings to do with migration and HIV/AIDS. As we heard at one of our hearings this afternoon, if people are unwell and in need of medical treatment, the last thing they will do is attempt to abscond. The issue of HIV/AIDS, which tends to centre around adults, tends to put additional pressure on children in families living in such centres.
  Mr. Connarty: I fully accept that point and thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. The BID report makes it clear that there are too many cases of families being held for long periods. It is not a removal process but a detention process. In that situation, people develop illnesses—not only psychological but physical. That is especially true of children but sometimes of their parents, too.
  Ms Oona King: On the education of asylum seekers' children, does my hon. Friend share my concern about a family in my constituency? Their 16 and 18-year-old children were at school for four years in this country. One was about to take GCSEs and the other was about to take A-levels. Just three weeks before those exams, they were taken with their whole family and detained, and not allowed to sit them. When they were released, the mother had a mental breakdown and was committed to a mental asylum, and the father, who was deaf and dumb, found it incredibly hard to cope. Should not such families be treated more sympathetically?
  Mr. Connarty: That is the case that I am putting, which was put by the justice and peace committee. It is the case that I put to the Minister—perhaps not lucidly enough, given the reply that I received—when I met her to discuss the problems that my research had exposed regarding families who were detained.
  On the other side of the coin, I want to mention an excellent report by the Children's Society in Scotland, which follows another excellent report by FMR Research, examines the beneficial effects on families and the communities in which they settle. A study of more than 900 children who settled in Scotland shows that they raised the achievement of schools. Those children are so keen on education and on doing well that they raise the aspirations of the children around them and give them role models. It is well documented that that gives children a stable base, so that should they be removed they go back in a much steadier position, with much better understanding, as well as with a much warmer feeling about our country than they would have had if they had been ripped out of their education.

  933
  By effecting this policy, we have denied children their rights under the European convention on human rights and the UN charter on human rights. My question was, "Does the policy effect the Government's instructions or aspirations?" I believe that it does not. The report, "A Few Families Too Many" finds that there is possibly institutional prejudice in the immigration service, which puts people in detention before it has any right to do that. They are subsequently trapped.
  When the media questioned the Home Office about the Ay family's eight-month stay, its e-mail added something that was never mentioned in legislation. It stated that the families cause problems for their children through making last-minute appeals and that those who are held for a long time are in the judicial process and have an appeal or a judicial review. Surely that is not the same as a process of removal. Detention is like a punishment for daring to question the removal process. That applies in the case of the Ay family.
  We have a list of other families with prolonged stays in detention. One family has been detained for 161 days, another for 111 days, another for 87 days and another for 81 days. The Ay family is heading for 270 days, which is in breach of every guideline that the Government set.
  The appeals not to detain children, and subsequently for a term of 10 days, were rejected when the Bill was considered. Her Majesty's inspectorate of prisons produced a report entitled, "Introduction and Summary of Findings: Inspection of five Immigration Service custodial establishments" in April. Recommendation 5 states that the detention of children should be avoided whenever possible, only take place for the shortest possible time and in no case be for more than seven days. That is even less than was requested. Sadly, the Home Office response, which I have taken from the website, states:
  "It is completely impractical to suggest a time limit—which would enable people to evade removal by lodging last minute and time-wasting appeals."
  We either respect the judicial process—and treat people as having the right to temporary admission while that progresses—or we admit that we use the removal process as a form of punishment. The only way in which to square the circle is for the Government to take all the advice, including that from the chief inspector of prisons, and not keep people in detention except for the short period when they are in transit for removal.
  I apologise to my hon. Friend the Minister for not giving her much time to reply, but I am sure that we shall correspond on the matter in future. It will not go away.
  6.47 pm
  The Minister for Citizenship and Immigration (Beverley Hughes): I welcome the opportunity to put on record the Government's policy and practice on the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk. East (Mr. Connarty) raises. As he said, he has raised them with me previously; we have corresponded and I have met him. I am pleased to have the opportunity to reply in a more public domain.
  I appreciate that the subject of detaining families with children rightly arouses interest and concern. As a Minister, I expect to have to answer questions on it and justify it. Sometimes the concern is misplaced or
  934
  misdirected, and some comments have been made in that vein today. However, it is understandable and I share people's concern; I do not dissociate myself from it in implementing Government policy.
  I want to clarify the legislative basis on which families with children are detained and our policy on the use of detention in such cases. As my hon. Friend rightly says, paragraph 16 of schedule 2 of the Immigration Act 1971 provides for the power to detain people, including families with children. It provides for the detention of those subject to immigration control in specific circumstances, such as pending a decision on granting leave to enter; pending the giving of removal directions; and pending removal in line with such directions.
  The 1998 White Paper clarified that detention would be most appropriate initially when establishing a person's identity or the basis of their claim and when there is reason to believe that a person will fail to comply with any conditions attached to the grant of temporary admission or release, or to effect removal. Detention may also be appropriate if it appears that an asylum claim is straightforward and capable of being determined quickly through fast-track procedures.
  My hon. Friend is right to say that, prior to October 2001, families with children were detained under those powers, but as a matter of policy rather than law, using qualified detention criteria that meant that families would be detained only to go through the Oakington fast-track asylum process, or for one or two days immediately prior to removal. He is also right to say that, in October 2001, it was decided to remove this qualification and to allow the detention of families under the same detention criteria as others. That was done in recognition of the fact that families—or the adults in families, anyway—can give rise to the same concerns as single adults, in terms of absconding or frustrating removal.
  My hon. Friend ought to accept—although he might not do so—that the need to maintain effective immigration control is a legitimate concern of the Government and something that the public expect us to do. That means that we have to remove those people who have no right to stay here, and I am afraid that, difficult as it sometimes is to contemplate, that applies as much to families as to single adults. To suggest otherwise might be comforting and reassuring, but it would be to ignore the reality of some of the situations that we face.
  The effect of the change in policy was to allow the detention of families in appropriate and selected cases, at times other than just prior to removal or at Oakington. That decision was confirmed in the White Paper in 2002. I readily acknowledge that detention is a difficult issue to contemplate, and it is especially difficult to contemplate in cases involving families with children, but I am afraid that because of the situations that we meet in reality, it is a necessary element in the effective enforcement of immigration control, and it has to be applied to some families, albeit a very small number—a very tiny proportion—of the families in the immigration system.
  I entirely reject my hon. Friend's assertion that families are targeted for detention, or that they are detained except in the most exceptional circumstances or for the shortest possible period of time. I also reject

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  his very regrettable assertion that immigration staff exercise institutional prejudice, or prejudice of any other kind, in making their decisions about detaining families prior to removal. That is not the case. People are not detained lightly, particularly families. Each case has to be considered carefully on its merits, and in all cases it is our policy that the presumption should continue to be in favour of granting temporary admission or release, where that is possible. I can say categorically that no family is detained simply because there is suitable accommodation available. A decision to detain is based on the particular circumstances of the family in question, and on their immigration history.
  I am deeply sympathetic to concerns about the detention of children. It is not something that we do easily or gladly, and it is certainly not our intention—or our practice—that children should be in detention for prolonged periods. I am aware of the views of my hon. Friend, and he was honest enough to say that in his view it was a matter of principle that no child should ever be in detention for any reason whatever. I also know that that view is shared by some of the non-governmental organisations. My hon. Friend quoted the BID report, "A Few Families Too Many". It is an interesting report, but what he did not say was that it was based on a tiny sample of only nine families, two of whom were never detained, as I understand it. Clearly, that report puts forward the subjective views of those families without giving the context or the detail of the reasons why particular decisions were made in those individual cases. That context has to be understood, particularly by Members of Parliament, because we all have responsibilities to our other constituents, many of whom express great concern about the current situation in relation to asylum in this country. As my hon. Friend said, I was speaking about that to a great extent today in relation to the Home Affairs Committee report.
  I accept the views of NGOs and I know what they think, but I have to say to them that detention, where it takes place, will always be for as short a time as possible and for no longer than is necessary. That period will vary from case to case, depending on individual circumstances. The average for families in detention is
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  just a few days, although I accept that the variance is greater and that some families have been in detention for longer. I can tell my hon. Friend, however, that prolonged detention, as in the example of the family whom he identified who have been in Dungavel, is very much the exception rather than the rule. Most families who are detained, pending those few days, go on to be removed.
  I am sorry that my hon. Friend does not accept it, but I have to say that, in reality, the longer periods of detention are not the fault of those who are detained in the sense that he has outlined, but a consequence of decisions that they have taken, particularly in relation to absconding and not abiding by immigration law and decisions applied to them. Clearly, that is to do with the decisions taken by adults in those families—I accept that—but those adults have to comply with what is required of them. That is fair and reasonable. It is regrettable that the consequences of their actions also apply to any children in the family, but the thrust of the policy, especially when children are involved, is that detention will be as brief as possible.
  In the few minutes remaining, I want to touch on one or two other issues that my hon. Friend raised. He mentioned a particular family who have been in Dungavel for a considerable time. I may say to him, without going through the chronology, that the case is exceptional. It began in 1988 and this couple have taken their children through several European countries over a long period. We have to remove this family. Owing to their history, at the moment, while legal proceedings continue, they have to be detained. As my hon. Friend knows, however, there are safeguards in the system. In fact, during an application for leave to appeal, as recently as December, an application for bail was also made in relation to the family. Despite assurances of several thousand pounds being offered, the judge decided that in view of the history of those particular adults in the UK and in Germany over a long—
  The motion having been made after Six o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at two minutes to Seven o'clock.

Preamble
[SIR NICHOLAS WINTERTON in the Chair]

Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions
[Relevant documents: Eighth Report from the Public Administration Committee, Session 2001–02, HC 303, and the Government's response thereto, Cm 5756.]
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—[Mr. Woolas.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker: We have an interesting debate this afternoon on a report from the Public Administration Committee entitled "These Unfortunate Events".
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Tony Wright: That was a kind, generous and warm welcome, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Happily, we are here to discuss the report that the Public Administration Committee produced last year entitled "'These Unfortunate Events': Lessons of Recent Events at the former DTLR", with which it would be convenient to take—I am learning Speaker speak—the ninth report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life entitled "Defining the Boundaries within the Executive: Ministers, Special Advisers and the permanent Civil Service", which was published only last month and deals with some of the same issues. As this is the first opportunity that the House has had to discuss that report, it is useful to take it as part of our frame of reference this afternoon.
We called our report "These Unfortunate Events", because we could not resist the way in which these tumultuous events were described, in classic civil service-speak in a statement agreed by a certain Martin Sixsmith and the DTLR on 7 May 2002, as:
"These unfortunate events, for which no blame is being apportioned".
If we want quintessential civil service-speak, that is it. It means, "No one is responsible for anything. It was all terribly unfortunate." We wondered if we could do better than that by examining what had happened.
It may seem unusual, indeed unnecessary, to dissect events in a particular Department. We are not, as hon. Members know, a departmental Committee. However, it seemed to us that here was a series of events that raised general issues about the conduct of Government, and it was therefore worth giving some attention to and reporting to the House on. In particular, we wanted to draw lessons for Government from the events, rather than to dissect them. That is why our report's title also refers to "Lessons of Recent Events".
The events took place between September 2001 and May 2002, and their fallout was extraordinary. Briefly, they involved the loss of a special adviser, the eventual loss of a Secretary of State, the transfer of a permanent secretary, the disputed resignation of a director of
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communications, and the eventual abolition of the Department. That was a most extraordinary sequence of events to have given rise to such consequences.
Mr. Don Foster: I remind the hon. Gentleman that two directors of communications ended up being removed, or moved, not one.
Tony Wright: Indeed. If we had a fuller list, that would be on it. An absolutely full list would probably have other entries, too.
Kevin Brennan: Is it not also true that we gave the report its current title because the alternative civil service quote, although colourful, was unprintable? Ultimately, however, it was correct.
Tony Wright: Yes, we managed to delete all the asterisks from our report in the interests of parliamentary propriety, although we had some most interesting exchanges.
We are clearly talking about events of substantial moment, which had important consequences. It was important to consider those events in detail, and it is worth making two points about them. First, they involved a particular conjunction of circumstances. They related to the character of certain individuals at a certain moment in time, and that is often the case with events that cause difficulties. It so happened that there were no difficulties at all in other parts of the Department. Indeed, the other special adviser worked extremely constructively and positively with the civil service and with everyone else, and there were no problems on that front.
At the same time, however, a certain sequence of events often highlights wider issues. As we considered what had happened, it occurred to us that there were endemic problems with relationships, structures and boundaries, and that it was worth teasing them out and talking about them. I shall identify just some of those problems in my few introductory remarks. I do not want to go through the events themselves, simply to identify some of the leading lessons to which it is worth paying attention. The Committee gave them some attention, and the Committee on Standards in Public Life did so in turn.
The points that I shall raise are, in a sense, all demands for clarification. The first relates to the need to clarify the lines of accountability. There was a difficulty in the case of the special adviser because it was not possible to address the issue that arose. It was not clear exactly who was responsible for doing so or for enforcing accountability. The special adviser was widely believed to be behaving in ways in which special advisers should not behave, but the permanent secretary's attempt to take action ran up against the fact that special advisers are creatures of Ministers and therefore enjoy a degree of protection that other civil servants do not. That problem was irresolvable and was at the heart of all that happened. It caused people to do and say the things that we record in our report.
Brian White: Although there were procedures, is it not true that it was people's perceptions of those procedures that prevented them

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from taking the actions that they should have taken? The problem was not necessarily some of the procedures, but the assumptions that were made.
Tony Wright: That is true only in part, and I shall say more about the need for better procedures in a moment.
There is a problem of accountability. Special advisers are a species of civil servant—they are temporary civil servants—which means that, formally, they come under the civil service disciplinary procedures. The permanent secretary has the central role in that respect, but the problem was that the permanent secretary in this case was unable to deal with the special adviser in the way that he would have dealt with a normal civil servant. For as long as the person in question enjoyed ministerial protection, it was not possible to treat that civil servant in the way that another civil servant would have been treated. That is why it is crucial to get the lines of accountability right.
The accountability for special advisers rests directly with the appointing Minister. The Wicks committee said that quite clearly and we must say it again. There can be no derogation from that at all. Special advisers are the creatures of Ministers. They are brought into Government on that basis and they live or die with their Ministers. Although we have not gone into the business of apportioning blame, when Ms Moore, the special adviser in question, sent her notorious e-mail in the wake of 11 September saying that it would be a good time to bury bad news, there is no question but that she should have ceased to work in Government at that moment. Had a Minister let that thought cross their computer screen—unthinkable, I know—that Minister would have been dead in the water. It would be impossible politically for that Minister to survive, and so it should be. The person who is the creature of a Minister must live or die by the same standards. Had the matter been attended to at that point, many of the subsequent difficulties would not have arisen.
Kevin Brennan: This point goes to the heart of the matter. Might it not create a difficulty if the Government implemented the recommendation in our report that special advisers should be advertised for in the way that other civil servants are? Would special advisers then still be the creatures of Ministers in the way that my hon. Friend suggests and, therefore, ultimately hireable and fireable by Ministers?
Tony Wright: That is an interesting observation. I accept that doing what my hon. Friend describes would probably muddy the relationship somewhat. The Government rejected the recommendation to which he referred and the Wicks committee did not make it, so I accept that there would be difficulties if a post were not a straight ministerial appointment. However, as I understand the matter, that is precisely the procedure that has been adopted in Wales. I thought that my hon. Friend was going to make that point. No doubt he will tell us more about that. I was interested to see that in Wales the First Minister advertised for special advisers and the process took place openly. I suspect that there are ways of combining open advertisements and ministerial appointees, although I accept that there might be difficulties.
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The first lesson is the need for absolute clarity about the lines of accountability. Who is responsible for each actor in the situation? We discovered that there was even some confusion on that question with regard to the Prime Minister's role. The line of accountability must go from Minister through to Prime Minister, who is responsible for the system overall. Ministers are responsible for their appointees, but if a problem is not resolvable at that level, the Prime Minister must sort it out. It is therefore crucial that the line of accountability should be clear.
The second lesson to do with clarification is the need to clarify the role and position of special advisers more generally, not least in relation to media handling, which was at the heart of the case in question. I shall not go over the difficulties in relation to the different job descriptions of special advisers. Under the original Order in Council, special advisers are there only to advise Ministers. Under their code, special advisers have now been given responsibilities that include media work, so there are confusions that must be sorted out.
I am attracted to the recommendation, which was previously made by the Committee or me personally, that we should cease to treat special advisers as a special category of civil servants, squeezing them into a box in which they do not naturally sit. Although we all have good knockabout fun with the special adviser issue, they are an established part of the way in which the Government work. We can argue about how many there should be and the role of Parliament in approving them, but the fact is that they are an integral part of the Government and will be under any party. As the Wicks committee has now said, it is probably more sensible and mature to treat them as a distinct category with their own rules. That will mean that we know who they are, what they can do and, more importantly, what they cannot do. That would be a major advance.
Mr. Tim Collins: The hon. Gentleman has touched on a point that he rightly said is also referred to in the Wicks committee report. I do not want to pre-empt anything that he will say later, but does he still believe that we should have a civil service Act? If we were to have such an Act, does he agree with the Wicks committee that it should specify what special advisers cannot do?
Tony Wright: Yes. I shall come to that point in a moment. We should have such an Act, which should specify what special advisers cannot do. I thought that he was going to ask whether it should specify something else, but as he did not, I do not have to worry about that.
Mr. Foster: Before the hon. Gentleman moves on, I want to ask him one question. I accept his and the Wicks committee's proposals on special advisers, but does he agree that it is somewhat disappointing that neither his Committee nor the Wicks committee report has made clear proposals for the precise lines of accountability for a new category of Government servant, not least for issues of appointment and dismissal?
Tony Wright: I do not agree with that. There has been a serious attempt to define and set out clearly those lines of responsibility. We could argue in detail about the particular recommendations, but my general point

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concerns the need for the special advisers to have their own category with their own rules approved by Parliament. That will mean that we can see who they are, who is accountable for their behaviour and what happens when things go wrong. That is how we should approach the situation.
The Government have already been doing work on taking special advisers seriously, and I was pleased to see that they picked up on some of our work. They accept now that when special advisers start working in government, they learn how it works and its proprieties. I was struck that when the new Cabinet Secretary, Sir Andrew Turnbull, gave evidence, he said that special advisers
"just turn up on the coat-tails of a minister and that is it, they either sink or swim."
That is not a satisfactory way of introducing people into the Government, so I am delighted that the Government have done some induction work with special advisers. That is part of treating them as an established part of the Government.
Mr. Ian Liddell-Grainger: There is a mechanism within the civil service for secondment from business into the civil service. It is a tried and trusted regime of indoctrinating people into the civil service for even just a short time. I do not believe that it has been used for special advisers.
Tony Wright: That is a good point. We have understood the need to ensure that people coming into the civil service on short-term contracts understand some of the bedrock principles of the civil service, but we have not taken it on board for special advisers. It was part of the difficulty of not quite knowing what this species of creature was. Now that we at least think we know what they are and have got some of the special adviser angst out of our system, we might work out in a rather more grown-up way exactly where they sit, what they do and how we induct them into the Government.
Brian White: Is not one of the other problems that Oppositions use special advisers to develop their policy? Short money should facilitate the use of special advisers so that after a change of Government their use is not the culture shock that it has been in the past.
Tony Wright: My hon. Friend invites me to go further than I naturally want to go. In our previous reports we explored different funding mechanisms, Short money and so on. We discussed whether both Government and shadow Cabinet advice should come from the same pot. That probably takes us slightly further than we need to go and I feel all kinds of bad habits coming on. I discovered last week, for example, that the Opposition had some £15 million in Short money since 1997. That is public subsidy on a vast scale. I am not sure whether my hon. Friend wanted me to go down this road. There is the argument that where public money is spent, we should demand delivery. The public may ask whether we should consider special measures here, or perhaps ask a neighbouring party or a beacon party to come in. Hon. Members can see where I am going. I will pull back at once.
Those are two kinds of clarifications that are based on the report. I have two more and then I am done. The third picks up a point that my hon. Friend raised with
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me and relates to the role of the civil service, commissioners and appeal mechanisms more generally. One of the oddities that struck me as I listened to the evidence in this case was that civil service commissioners are concerned with propriety issues in the public service, particularly on the appointments side, and yet were mere onlookers when a series of events convulsed the Department. They had no locus and no way of getting involved. That cannot be sensible. When people think that boundary lines are being lost and proprieties are being trampled upon there must be somewhere that they can go to get it investigated properly. That should not be the nuclear option. There should be someone who can keep a general eye on how the civil service is working.
There are other fundamental reasons for doing that, which go beyond the immediate events that we are talking about. They relate to whether the civil service should be a creature of the Executive or whether it should be rooted in Parliament. That is a fundamental constitutional point. I have views on that. For the moment we need to ensure that we have the kind of mechanisms in place that a statutory civil service commission would give us. That is one reason why we need to move rapidly to getting a civil service Bill. For a Committee that has endlessly recommended progress on that front, it is a source of distress that the Government have not yet felt able to live up to their promises and protestations. Such a Bill has been promised for at least five years, probably slightly longer. Cabinet Secretaries have come before us and said that it would be this month, next month, this autumn or next autumn, but that has not happened, and there comes a point at which the delay is simply no longer acceptable.
Reading the evidence to the Wicks committee, I was struck by a nice piece of evidence, which I will share. Mr. Pat McFadden, who is one of the Prime Minister's advisers in No. 10.
Mr. Foster: A former adviser.
Tony Wright: He is both a former adviser and a present adviser; we are both right. He gave evidence on the issue of a civil service Bill. Interestingly, he said:
"Issues have champions in government and this is an unwritten part of a political process. But if an issue has a champion in the Cabinet it is going to have a much higher chance of proceeding. In fact one of the things that is often not said about the Civil Service Act is that one of the reasons it has not happened is not because anyone is particularly against it, but because up until now it has lacked a champion."
That is a shrewd political observation. Mr. McFadden went on to say:
"When the Queen's speech is written there are not many members of the Cabinet saying, 'Hang on, I think you should drop that Education Bill and we should have a Civil Service Act.'"
That evidence gets close to one reason why we do not have such an Act. I do not think that that is because the Government particularly dislike the prospect of such an Act. No doubt they would like to have one already, but they are not sufficiently motivated. There is no champion to make it happen. I therefore ask my hon. Friend the Minister whether he will be that champion and try to get the process finally moving. I hope that he will announce a firm timetable.

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The Wicks committee, having heard such evidence, says that it is
"concerned that the pressures of the day-to-day business of government are being allowed to take precedence over a measured look at the fundamental issues which we describe in this report."
That is a serious danger. These underlying issues will never be top of the political agenda. When there is a crisis, a series of events such as those that we describe in the report, issues such as civil service legislation suddenly shoot up the political agenda for about a fortnight, and then they disappear again. Unless the Government have a sustained commitment to ensuring that such legislation is introduced, that will be the recurrent pattern. That is why I hope that the Minister can today announce something rather more definite.
My final area of clarification concerns Government communications. That area, the media handling area, was at the heart of the events that we are discussing. It was not accidental or unanticipated that that would be the area in which relationships would be most sorely tested and where some of the boundary lines would be most exposed. There is no question but that media handling has assumed an importance inside Government that it never previously needed to have.
Two approaches came together. One was the approach of an incoming Government who had been very professional in their media management in opposition, and wanted, quite properly, to bring those skills into government. They believed that the civil service machine was ill equipped to do the professional media job that they wanted done. As a result, the Government started, as in the case that we are discussing, to use their own people to do the jobs that they felt they could not rely on the professionals to do. They even sought to replace certain professionals with others whom they felt were better equipped to do those jobs. That approach met that which said that people were trampling over all the old proprieties, that it was extremely dangerous and that it would have to be watched and hauled in. One could see that battle being fought out in the civil war that took place in the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions.
Unless we want endlessly to go over those events, it would be more sensible to take stock of the media needs of a modern Government. We should accept that the media environment is quite different now from what it was a generation ago. We should accept that we live in a 24-hours news environment. That voracious beast has to be fed every second of the day, and that requires skills that the communications people inside Government have not traditionally expected to call upon. Indeed, many of them are not communications experts. The Committee was right to recommend that the Government should put in hand a thoroughgoing review, by an outsider to give it credibility and expertise, of the Government Information and Communication Service.
The Committee was delighted that the Government felt able to accept that recommendation. Indeed, I go further in my praise. Recommendations are often accepted in a token way. Reviews are agreed to because they sound nice and cuddly; there is no problem because
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something is being done. In this case, I was pleased not only that the Government accepted the idea of a review, but that they wanted a serious external review.
The supporting work that went into preparing for that review was conspicuously serious. The Government appointed someone of note from outside, who has assembled an impressive team. I have met the chairman, Bob Phillis, who is seriously engaged in the matter; he will report in a few months. That is entirely to be welcomed. In so far as such a miserable sequence of events can have a happy outcome, that is certainly a happy one. I hope that it will put the communications side of government on a new footing. I suspect that we may need more communication specialists in government as a result. That will doubtless be met by headlines saying "Yet more spin doctors", but we shall have to brace ourselves for that if we are to do the job.
Those clarifications are the main lessons to be learned from the report. I end by quoting from the last paragraph of the report, which goes to the heart of the issue. It states:
"The issue of 'spin' has dogged the life of this Government. There is a terrible predictability about the fact that the events discussed here arose in the areas of news management, and involved a special adviser employed for this purpose. Yet this is part of a wider picture in which sections of the media engage in systematic spin and news management of their own. The result of this mutual spinning war is immensely damaging to public life and to trust in the political process. The remedy is a simple one. Governments should play it straight, and the media should play it fair."
That is probably the greatest lesson of all.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: The House is grateful to the hon. Member for the presentation of his Committee's report. Uniquely, I shall not go to the other side of the Chamber for the next speaker. I call the hon. Member for Luton, North (Mr. Hopkins), who was not a member of the Committee when the report was produced, but is now.
3.11 pm
Mr. Kelvin Hopkins: I am flattered to be called to speak now; I expected to be called last. I am a new member of the Committee, but I have some thoughts on the subject, and I hope that my comments will be useful.
I have some early experience of the sort of tensions that arise from the appointment and use of special advisers. About 25 years ago, I was the party chair for my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore) in his previous incarnation as the Member for Luton, West, a constituency that covered a similar area to my own. Each day, we met to discuss politics, as one does with one's friends. At that time, he worked as Parliamentary Private Secretary to that fine man, Tony Benn, who employed two special advisers, Francis Cripps and Frances Morell. Every morning, Tony Benn would have an hour or two with his special advisers and my hon. Friend to discuss the politics of the day and to focus his mind on the issues. Those were friends who were employed by the Secretary of State, Tony Benn, not the civil service.
The civil servants could not contain their dislike of the arrangement—to say that they were incandescent is perhaps an exaggeration, but they were very, very upset

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about it because they wanted to get to the Minister first in the morning to put his mind right according to their priorities, and I remember the daily battle that went on.
On one occasion, Tony Benn wrote his own White Paper on energy policy, which was unthinkable: civil servants draft White Papers and Ministers approve them. Tony Benn's White Paper came back from his civil servants completely changed, so he changed it back and it was bounced back to him, again completely changed. He called in the permanent secretary and asked him, "Why have you refused to accept my White Paper?", to which the reply was, "Well, Minister, we don't agree with you." Tony Benn said, "I am the Minister. I am responsible democratically to Parliament for the White Paper. It is my policy and I have helped by writing it for you." There were great tensions at that time and the matter went to the Cabinet and to the Prime Minister.
It is of fundamental importance for all politicians, especially at that level, but even for Back-Bench MPs, to have people around them whom they can trust, to bounce ideas off in the morning and to talk to about politics. They want to know that they are getting an honest answer from someone who is loyal to them as a person and as a politician.
Mr. Liddell-Grainger: I recall a radio interview with a permanent secretary, whose name I cannot remember, who said, "I used to go in and bat hard." When asked what happened if that did not work, he said, "I used to bat even harder." Does the hon. Gentleman think that perhaps Tony Benn had that batting image of his civil servants and was one of those people who would never have got anything through because of belligerence?
Mr. Hopkins: I have never met anyone in politics smoother, softer and more charming than Tony Benn. The problem is that the civil servants profoundly disagreed with him. Even then he was on the radical wing of the Labour Government and he did not have quite the support among his colleagues and the Prime Minister that he would have liked. He was not hard in an aggressive sense, but undoubtedly his was a mind to reckon with.
It is crucial that Ministers employ friends who are loyal to them and to whom they can speak before they are taken up by civil servants. I am sure that it is not true of my hon. Friend the Minister, but many Ministers are swallowed up by civil servants as soon as they take office. They have never had such an experience before; they happen to be in the right place and are a favourite of the Prime Minister. Suddenly, they have an office of state and must do extremely clever things on subjects about which they know little and they become prisoners of the civil service, although that is not true of Tony Benn and many other Ministers. However, it is important that a Minister should have independent political advice from people who are loyal to them and not to the party or to any other outside organisation. There is a difference between someone who is chosen and appointed by the Minister and someone who is appointed by another organisation, perhaps the party, whichever one is in power.
Mr. Collins: I rather agree with some of the hon. Gentleman's arguments. The logical consequence of his
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position is that he would agree with the Government's response, as I do, that although many of the Select Committee's recommendations are entirely sensible, the recommendation that special advisers should be appointed as a result of open competition and should not, as now, be the personal appointment of the Minister, is not one of its wiser recommendations.
Mr. Hopkins: I obviously speak for myself and I was not a member of the Select Committee. I overwhelmingly endorse the wise words of the Chairman of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright), but I believe that the Minister should have the final choice, even if there is open competition for the appointment. It should not be made by the Prime Minister, the party or any other organisation.
Mr. Foster: Might I pursue the line taken by the hon. Gentleman, with whom I entirely agree, as I agree with the Government's response. He suggests that, although the appointment will, rightly, be made by the Minister, he still accepts the notion of open competition. Would that not, as the Government's response points out, create a huge difficulty for an incoming Government in that they would be unable to bring with them those close friends to whom he referred?
Mr. Hopkins: I can see the problem. However, in open competition such friends would put their names down and it would probably be openly admitted that they would be likely to be selected by the Minister, but at least others would have a chance. Indeed, a Minister might bring some advisers into office with him whom he did not want, and he might want to choose someone more capable. Whatever the situation, the appointee should be loyal to the Minister, sackable by the Minister and separate from the civil service. That is fundamental. The person should not be controlled by the civil service, the Prime Minister or the party but should be under the total control of the Minister. Without that support, our Ministers would be weaker, less independent and less likely to put forward challenging ideas. That is what we need, and Government are weakened without such input.
Tony Wright: I feel responsible; perhaps I am the only one who has ever believed in this so I shall defend it. I have a nagging sense that where public money is spent, there should be some kind of accountability for it. As I have argued today, I understand the need for Ministers to be able to bring in whomever they want. If it is a high-grade policy adviser, that is fine. If it is a comfort blanket, that is fine; Ministers have different needs. However, such people are being paid for out of public money. If they were being paid for differently, the issue would not arise.
As it is public money, there must be a way of reconciling Ministers' very proper ambition to get the people with whom they feel comfortable and who meet their needs with some kind of basic test of merit, so that it can be demonstrated that the person can properly do the job. For example, were it to be suggested that a Ms Moore might be appointed as a special adviser with public funding, it would not be entirely improper to ask some questions about her understanding of

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relationships with civil servants. We must be sure that people cross basic boundary lines before public money goes in their direction.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I used some discretion about the length of that intervention because of the status of the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Hopkins: I understand and broadly accept my hon. Friend's point. However, I draw a simple parallel. As Members of Parliament, we employ our own staff. My staff are loyal to me. I use them daily as my political sounding board. However, if they had to be vetted by the House, the civil service, some commission or even my party, I would not have the trust in them that I do now. They are my people and I know that when I bounce my ideas off them I will get a true answer. They are not loyal to or appointed by anyone else. I happen to have chosen two first-class staff and I hope that every other Member of Parliament will do the same. However, there could be a conflict of loyalties if there were pressure to ensure that such staff were publicly accountable because they were publicly paid. We are given an office cost allowance. The Minister might be given the same. It is important that things are transparent and open. I want government to be much more open and far less secretive.
When my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch was the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the then Secretary of State for Energy, Tony Benn, they went to dinner at Oxford with a college warden. When he started talking about open government at the dinner table, the warden turned to Tony Benn and said, "Minister, do you realise that your PPS is mad," because the idea of open government was unthinkable. It is thinkable, and I want government to be much more open.
I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate, and I hope that I have not spoken for too long.
3.15 pm
Mr. Ian Liddell-Grainger: The Public Administration Committee was one of the first Select Committees that I took part in when I first entered Parliament. It was a fascinating Committee, because it tied in with so many other things that Select Committees examined long before most of us, including the hon. Members for Luton, North (Mr. Hopkins), for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright) and for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White) were members of it.
What has emerged is an amalgamation of other things that we have considered; namely, a civil service Bill, the ministerial code and the accountability of the Prime Minister. I agree with a civil service Bill, although I know that certain Government Members do not. A civil service Bill is vital, because we have reached the stage where the future accountability of a very sophisticated group of people who run many things in this country can be misconstrued, abused and misused.
Our report says that senior civil servants leaked information on behalf of or against Ministers, and against two special advisers, Ms Moore and Mr. Sixsmith. A civil service Bill would clarify the position. It is a great disappointment that we do not have one.
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The hon. Member for Cannock Chase has been diligent in trying to get such a Bill out of the Government, and I hope that the Minister will announce one today. Unless we have one, civil service propriety and its ability to operate will be left increasingly in doubt. Surely in the 21st century, when we have the sophistication, we must be able to produce a Bill that can cover the role of special advisers.
Brian White: The hon. Gentleman suggests that several things are changing in the real world and that they have an impact on the civil service. Surely, if a civil service Bill were to be introduced now, it would entrench the status quo and could not react to those changes in the real world.
Mr. Liddell-Grainger: The hon. Gentleman may say that, but I profoundly disagree. We are a sophisticated society. There are many ways of building in safeguards, but there are also many ways of updating things. A civil service Bill would add the safeguards that we need. There has been an explosion in the number of special advisers from, I believe, 37 to 81 or 82.
When the Select Committee took evidence, Sir Richard Wilson, the former head of the civil service, was asked:
"Do you see yourself then as a manager of these people?"
He replied:
"The Prime Minister has appointed a small number of unpaid advisers from outside who are on a panel and they are offering a day or two a week."
We asked who was in charge of them, and Sir Richard said:
"This is something which has existed under all governments … They are not employees of the organisation and therefore I am not their manager."
Surely we must bring the civil service under proper control. When the former head of the civil service says, "They are not my responsibility, but …", we are opening up a can of worms and the consequences will be extremely detrimental to us all.
Mr. Foster: The hon. Gentleman is the third hon. Member to say that it would be extremely helpful if the Minister told us at the end of the debate that he was going to announce a civil service Bill. Does he agree that it would save a great deal of our time if the Minister was to intervene now and tell us what the Government intend?
Mr. Liddell-Grainger: I rise slowly in hope, but the Minister stays seated and smiles.
The ministerial code is meant to be able to help or cajole Ministers to appear before Parliament or, in this case, Westminster Hall, or to stop them from doing so. That is the natural place for them to be. If a ministerial code and a civil service Bill were dovetailed, statements and announcements could be classified. We all know that announcements were made to the press before being made to House—both before and after the events that we are discussing. If I remember correctly, we had all the problems with paragraph 28, in which we tried and failed to bring those issues together.
The third aspect is the Prime Minister's accountability. Hearsay has it that, back in the mists of time, the hon. Member for Cannock Chase and the

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Committee would pursue the Prime Minister in every Session. They wanted him to come before the Committee, but he never would. The only Prime Minister who ever came before the Committee was John Major. That is indicative of the stage that we have reached. The Prime Minister almost has to be forced to go before the Liaison Committee. That Committee is marvellous, but it is made up of all the heads, and one cannot get to the nitty-gritty. Despite having listened to the hon. Member for Cannock Chase pursue the Prime Minister on many issues, including the Moore-Sixsmith affair, we have been unable to get to the bones.
Power rests with the Prime Minister; he has responsibility. If the head of the civil service feels that he has no power to intervene in a situation, or if, as in the case before us, his own civil servants are leaking against their Departments and against individual Ministers, the buck stops with the Prime Minister. We can all say that he did not act quickly enough. We are all wise after events—that is human nature. However, the affair went on and on, and the pressure grew and grew. We may now have to consider making the Prime Minister more accountable to the Committee system. Alternatively, he may, as we do, have to produce an end-of-year report. It may have to be much more inclusive in terms of what was going on in the Government. It would not be a written report—I do not think that one was published last year—of where the Government have got to in their cycle.
That brings us back to the erosion of standards in the civil service, which is dealt with on page 22 of the report. It must be totally demoralising for civil servants in any part of the organisation to see the bickering of Ministers and special advisers all the way up to No.10, including people that they do not even know, such as Mike Granatt and Ed Balls. That erodes standards. confidence and morale. That is very clear with regard to permanent secretaries. They are trying to get the message across, but they cannot, because they are the servants of the Cabinet or whatever level of government they work in.
To take a slightly different issue, although the principle is the same, Nigel Crisp came before us to talk about the health service. Members of the Committee had heard about positively frightening things in Bristol. We did not realise that they were going on, and I do not think that people could bring out the issues that they wanted to. If we continue down that line, we shall erode the civil service ethos—another of the issues that we considered—until it is non-existent. If one undermines it at every level, the civil service will never work properly. The mistrust, misunderstandings and potential damage that can be done by Ministers trying to save their own necks can be incalculable. That is what happened in this case. It was a leak for all or a free leak—I do not know what one would call it. Perhaps the motto was "We leak together".
The other aspect that the hon. Member for Cannock Chase mentioned is Government communications. When we first received news of the breakdown of the Cabinet Office and No. 10, it was big. We have had a few similar events since then, and they have got bigger. Every time we get more information from No. 10, it seems to come out almost in waves. Communications from the Government—they are very good at communicating—are becoming farcical. Who does
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what to whom? The Committee discovered that the delivery unit had gone to the Treasury, but that the boss had not. He therefore has two offices. The report brings out such inconsistencies. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East shakes his head, but we are reaching the stage where communications are getting out of control, and we see that in the report.
Brian White: Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the communications service has not yet reacted to the changes that are happening in the media world? That is the fundamental issue that must be addressed—not the points that he is making.
Mr. Liddell-Grainger: That is probably a fair comment, but the problem is that one has to start somewhere. If one has set oneself up to communicate effectively with the media and one fails, one has only oneself to blame. There is a great raft of people who sometimes are not accountable to those to whom they are meant to be accountable. That does not mean that the media have got it wrong and that we cannot communicate with the media. However, the stories coming out on the pagers are perhaps not the stories that we want to put forward.
I was just reading—I had forgotten this—about the wonderful moment when the Deputy Prime Minister was questioned by our Chairman on what he thought of the situation. One could see that he was dying to say, "She should be fired", or sacked, or something ghastly, although it was not his decision. That sums it up. It was a case of everyone passing the buck until it could go no further and the whole affair blew up and fell to bits. If we had proper training for special advisers and members of the civil service, as has been proposed by the hon. Member for Cannock Chase, much of that would not happen.
If training can be used for people coming in on secondment, it can and should be used for special advisers. A point was ably made about Tony Benn when he was Secretary of State for Energy. The people involved were friends, but these are not; they are highly qualified people who do not have the use of the facilities because they are not trained to use them. Therefore, they follow what they know best, which in most cases is the party political machine, not the role and the ethos of the civil service. I believe that that is wrong.
In conclusion, there is no doubt that, as a Committee, we should pursue this excellent report. We all know that something similar will happen again. Such events need to be brought out and Committees of the House should be able to pursue them. If we cannot, there will not be a forum in this establishment in which to discuss these issues.
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Brian White: I suspect that if these events had been submitted as a script for "Yes, Minister", it would have been rejected as too far fetched. I am no fan of Jo Moore and never was when she was in the Labour party, but she has unfairly become the scapegoat of the episode. It is too easy to ascribe blame to her. The report highlights her role in a fair way and removes some of the unfair reporting that surrounded the events. It needs to be put on the record that she was used as a scapegoat for some of the other people involved in the issues described in the report.

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The episode has revealed two interesting aspects. Comment has been made on the need for the civil service to catch up with some of the changes taking place in the real world. It has also revealed an agenda in which Jo Moore became a pawn. The Select Committee has produced a number of reports on the Government communication services in the past few years, and I applaud the Government for setting up the Phillis review.
I sometimes wonder why any Government press releases are picked up by the media, because they are so anodyne and boring. Because they are put in civil service-speak and are so neutral, journalists have to go to someone to find out the story behind the press release. The review should tackle that issue, which in this time of 24/7 media has to be considered. In trying to protect the neutrality of civil servants we create problems. The neutrality of the civil service and its going along at a certain pace may have been OK in the days before 24/7 media, but in today's climate there is a serious issue about how the organisation reacts and feeds the insatiable monster that is the current media.
The days when political campaigning was restricted to the three weeks before a general election are long gone. We have elections every year, and although the civil service may have rules preventing the Government from making major announcements during the three weeks before local, Scottish parliamentary or European elections, political parties have developed permanent campaigning, and the system has not yet adjusted to that. If we allow the Opposition to campaign but restrict the Government's use of the machinery to campaign, that would cause an unfair imbalance. Equally, allowing the governing party unfettered use of the machinery of Government would create another imbalance in the system. As a democracy, we need to work out the boundaries on the use of Government communications. There are real issues with 24-hour media and permanent campaigning by political parties.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright) described the tension between civil servants and special advisers. The advisers are frustrated by the speed of delivery and are looking at how to move the civil service forward, while the civil servants are trying to get the special advisers to slow down and examine the issues. That tension has not yet been fully thought through, and one problem is that special advisers are seen as temporary civil servants. The move to make special advisers, including Opposition advisers, a separate category and a recognised beast would be a useful step forward.
Another question is whether using a civil servant to give Government views is the right way forward. We have a problem in this country with public distrust of official information, particularly scientific information on issues such as BSE and foot and mouth. A serious question arises from that, which I hope that the Phillis review will consider: how can we give people information that they can trust? The breakdown of trust, which has happened over several years, must be addressed. Information must be honest, reliable and accurate if the public are to have confidence in it.
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What is the best way to try to achieve that? To give an example of how the situation has moved on, I doubt whether the information flow that we had in the Falklands war would have been appropriate for the war in Iraq. It is not right for neutral civil servants to put forward Government policy in a political environment, and there is a role for special advisers in that. As my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Mr. Hopkins) said, the problem is that the system is not open enough. Improvements are being made but, because the public has no confidence in the machinery, we need to work out how to get the information into the public forum so that we can have a proper public debate. If special advisers were accountable, open and attributable, that would go a long way to improving the situation. Part of the problem is unattributable comments, and if statements were made openly, that would help.
It is important to pay tribute, as the Committee does in its report, to Mike Granatt and his work in trying to reorganize the Government Information and Communication Service. That concerns not only press releases, but the range of Government information services, including advertising and campaigns, for example about benefit take-up and, recently, SARS. All the different aspects are important. The role of Mike Granatt needs to be clarified, but his work should be praised.
We have spoken about the relationship between special advisers and civil servants. Where it works, it delivers results, and it works well in the majority of cases. It is often forgotten that the use of special advisers protects the neutrality of civil servants. It gives journalists and campaign groups the opportunity to get to real political issues, which does not happen by talking to civil servants. Having an open and transparent use for special advisers enhances our democracy.
However, our report shows that real problems arise when the relationship between special advisers and either the media or civil servants breaks down. The key problem is accountability. In this country there is a myth of ministerial accountability—we all trot it out—which says that the Minister is accountable for everything. However, that myth means that individual civil servants and special advisers are not directly accountable for their actions and can hide behind the Minister. As the civil service is modernised, it will be necessary to consider how individuals in the system are held accountable. I do not think that we have fully thought that through.
Mr. Liddell-Grainger: I know that the hon. Gentleman is used to this, but he is making a compelling argument—well, perhaps not—for a civil service Bill.
Brian White: I am coming to that.
One thing that came out of the report was the case of a civil servant who quite properly reported her concerns. When she did so the media jumped on the story and said that someone had sent her off to Europe to keep her quiet. However, the facts of the matter were that she had been trying to get that job for a number of months and that it had come through. According to the current rules, that civil servant had done the right thing in reporting her concerns and leaving the matter with her superiors to deal with, so it was totally wrong for there

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to be such misunderstanding and for the media to slate her as they did. That civil servant acted properly and came out of the episode with a lot of credit.
However, that case highlighted the real problem. When that civil servant made her complaint she had the option of either ending up with a permanent secretary or going to the civil service commission, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase said, was the nuclear option, given the evidence. What looks reasonable on paper does not work in reality. We need a number of processes to deal with the intermediary concerns. I hope that the Minister will address that when he replies.
We have already talked about the fundamental problem that special advisers are pretend civil servants. The case for making them separate categories has been well made. However, what happens if an official and a Minister fall out? The Minister cannot tell the official what to do because the official is employed in the civil service, so their line of accountability is to the permanent secretary and the head of the civil service. The Minister must go to the Secretary of State or to the Prime Minister. The two sides interact only at Prime Minister level. The fact that the Prime Minister is the Minister for the Civil Service is one of the problems with our constitution, although I say that with due respect to my hon. Friend the Minister, who does a good job in the Cabinet Office. Given that the Prime Minister is that point of interaction, there should be processes below that, which deal with some of the key issues.
The hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Liddell-Grainger) talked about the growing number of special advisers in No. 10. That key point relates to questions about how strong a centre we want, whether the civil service or special advisers should be at the centre, and what the interaction between the two should be. As the hon. Member for Cannock Chase has said, we ought to be grown up enough to have a proper debate about special advisers and to ensure that their role in No. 10 is treated properly. Previous Governments have had policy units, but there are issues to do with how such units operate and what their role is. Part of the problem is that their role is not transparent enough at the moment. Making it so would solve a lot of the problems.
However, Departments have departmental agendas and political agendas. It is important to recognise that although those agendas overlap they are distinct. One agenda goes on irrespective of who the Minister is, while the other is dependent on the political party and the individual whims of Ministers. One only has to see the Secretary of State for a Department change to see that Department's priorities change. We need to recognise, as anyone who has tried to put forward a private Member's Bill will know, that Departments have their own agendas. My problem with the Government is not that they are doing too much reform but that they are not doing enough to address the key issues—trying to tackle vested interests and the blockages in the system.
I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to recognise that a range of issues needs to be dealt with in relation to the civil service. We are still running a civil service that is based—as the Committee heard in evidence taken this morning—on the East India Company, with one or two tweaks. We should ask ourselves why the civil service is still so hierarchical, why civil servants who are incompetent are allowed to stay in their posts, and why
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some of the more innovative management techniques used in the private sector are not applied to the civil service. My fundamental objection to a civil service Act is that it would enshrine the current code in law, and therefore make it harder to introduce the sort of reforms that are needed if we want to see the introduction of innovative schemes in the delivery of public services.
We need a public debate and cross-party consensus on the way forward. If we do not have that debate, and put forward a civil service Act based on the status quo, we will create conditions that will cause more of the problems and tensions that exist at present. I am not opposed to a civil service Act or to a debate about the nature of the civil service, but I am opposed to codifying the civil service and ministerial codes as they are at the moment.
We should be examining cross-departmental working and how the civil service codes work in relation to that and to the devolved Assemblies. Our report also shows that a number of key issues related to Government communications have not been thought through. Such issues need to be addressed before a civil service Bill is introduced.
It may suit the Opposition at the moment to support the codification of the current situation into a civil service Act, but if they were in government again, I suspect that they would be the first to squeal at the restrictions that that would impose.
I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that it is important to have a strong centre, and that the way that the civil service operates must be changed. The Departments would then be freed from the silo mentality that they have at the moment, and there would be cross-departmental operations. One of the interesting things that emerged from the report was the way in which the cross-departmental operations worked when the DTLR, No. 10 and the Cabinet Office tried to resolve the issues over the weekend. Some areas worked well and some did not. A lesson must be learned from that interaction if we want a civil service that creates public entrepreneurs and risk-takers.
To be fair to Richard Wilson and Andrew Turnbull, they recognised that changes were needed, and have taken steps to ensure that they take place. However, I believe that those changes are not occurring rapidly enough, and that the issue of the total separation of policy and implementation is not being addressed quickly enough. The changes are bringing people in at too low a level. In five or 10 years' time the changes will bear fruit, but they are not doing so now.
The real issue—the highlight of the report—is how the civil service manages change, how it deals with a media world that has changed beyond all recognition, and with a situation in which campaigning takes place on single issues rather than along political party lines. In particular, the way in which special advisers deal with single-issue campaigns has not been thought through.
This incident is a wake-up call for us. It highlights serious issues, some of which were addressed by my hon. Friend in his introduction. The report says that there is a lot of work to be done, and that consensus needs to be built on the development of the civil service, the system of special advisers, and the structure of the civil service and its relationship with Parliament, all of which are important. There are lessons for the GICS.

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The key point that I hope the Phillis review will address is how we restore trust in information and allow debate between politicians. This may have been a storm in a teacup but it has highlighted the opaque way in which we deliver services in this country. It has highlighted the need for clarity in understanding the different roles of civil servants, special advisers and the relationship between the centre and the Departments. Most of all it has highlighted the inadequacies of the system in dealing with the media. The "Modernising Government" White Paper was a beacon of hope and a road map showing us the way forward. We have done some of the things in that White Paper, but we need to renew our efforts. That fundamental reform at the heart of Government is exactly what is needed, rather than tinkering as we did yesterday.
3.45 pm
Kevin Brennan: When the Select Committee on Public Administration was considering the royal prerogative this morning, I said that we did not have an unwritten constitution, but rather one that is written in invisible ink. It only emerges when the heat of the flame is administered to the paper and we begin to see some of the things that exist in our constitution that we would not otherwise see. Perhaps that comment is equally appropriate here in considering our report and what these unfortunate events have revealed about the role of special advisers.
Being a member of the Public Administration Committee can sometimes feel like attending a seminar organised by St. Thomas Aquinas as we discuss how many special advisers can fit on the head of a pin. But that sort of stuff matters. Ultimately, it is about how effectively the Government deliver and not only get their message across, but introduce policies for the benefit of the people. Although it may sometimes seem academic, public administration is of fundamental importance.
I should confess that I once was a special adviser, albeit not in Westminster, but in Cardiff. It was under unusual circumstances. There was a sudden regime change early in 2000 when the First Minister of the Welsh Assembly, the current Minister for Rural Affairs and Urban Quality of Life my Right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South & Penarth (Mr. Michael), fell from his post. Rhodri Morgan, my predecessor as the hon. Member for Cardiff, West and a distinguished former Chairman of the Committee, took over as First Minister.
I stumbled upon a room that had previously been occupied by the special advisers to the former First Minister. It seemed to me no different from the sort of experience that people would have had during the Russian revolution, or perhaps in Baghdad when they stumbled upon the offices of the outgoing regime. The special advisers had to leave in such a hurry that they did not even have time to log off their computers. The room was strewn with bits of papers, perhaps in a desperate search for important papers that should not be left behind, even though the regime change took place within the same party. What happened demonstrates the precarious nature of the job of a special adviser. We should remember that these unusual creatures live a pretty precarious existence, entirely dependent on the
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political fortunes of their masters. It is a high-pressured role to perform. We should perhaps be more forgiving when we consider their role.
The chair of our Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright), referred to that situation in Wales and the decision that was taken by the current First Minister to advertise for special advisers in a way that has been recommended in this report. That was done after I left for my brief period as a special adviser. I never intended to be one, but I filled in for a few months while new special advisers were advertised for and found. Those special advisers were appointed in that way.
I say to the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) that those appointed included Liberal Democrat special advisers. They were advertised for because, until the fine victory last week by the Labour party in the Welsh Assembly elections, there was a coalition Administration in Cardiff. The Liberal Democrats participated in the process and agreed that special advisers should be appointed by open competition.
Mr. Foster: I remind the hon. Gentleman that, on 23 October 2001, he berated me about the number of Liberal Democrat special advisers in the Welsh Assembly.
Kevin Brennan: Obviously, a Liberal Democrat never forgets. I did not berate the hon. Gentleman. I just reminded him that there were such creatures as Liberal Democrat special advisers and perhaps fired a shot across his bows in case he was going to pontificate about Labour special advisers and their activities.
As I said, special advisers were advertised for. It was an interesting initiative. Despite supporting the report in full, I remain agnostic about advertising for special advisers for a couple of reasons. The point has been well made that it is important that special advisers, as Ministers' closest advisers, have good and very close relationships with them. Sometimes we have to be realistic and not too precious about these things. Someone may well have won the post in open competition, but it is not really possible for them to be a special adviser for a Minister if they do not get on personally.
Brian White: There are categories of special adviser—I am thinking of the drugs tsar, for example—for which not having such a close relationship would work. One problem is that we lump a number of different groups under the term "special adviser".
Kevin Brennan: My hon. Friend is right. These creatures evolved out of the special list advisers and became special advisers. Technical expertise was needed in government originally and, as it was not available in the civil service, it was drafted in by this unusual method. These people have become political chiefs of staff almost and spin doctors in the 1980s, 1990s and now the 21st century. That is why the Wicks report and our report are so welcome. We attempt to make sense of that typical British evolution. It simply happened; there was no conscious decision to create this role in government.
We should review the issue of open competition and how special advisers are appointed, but I understand the Government's reluctance to accept that principle at

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Westminster. I can also see the difficulty in calling for accountability to the Minister in the hiring and firing of special advisers, which was one of the problems that we encountered in producing the report.
If hon. Members cast their minds back, they will remember the then Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions saying that his special adviser had been disciplined by the permanent secretary in the Department and that it would have been inappropriate for him to interfere in the management of staff. At the same time, the permanent secretary made it clear to us in the Committee that he felt ultimately that his hands were tied in dealing with the special adviser unless the Minister took on the responsibility of dealing with that. The fog surrounding the firing and disciplining of special advisers cannot go on. If we are saying that they can and will be fired by Ministers, it is difficult to say that Ministers should not hire them in the first place. We need to consider that point further and keep the issue under review.
The Select Committee report and the Wicks report found that there should be much greater clarity in the management of special advisers and their role in respect of civil servants. It is a myth that special advisers could have no role in managing or directing civil servants; that is utterly impractical because the special adviser is the equivalent of the embedded journalist in the Iraq war. They are in the system but not part of it. It is impossible for special advisers to do their job unless they can interact effectively in management terms with civil servants. Special advisers must have the closest access to their Minister and civil servants must be able to go to the special advisers knowing that the advisers know the Minister's mind and, without having to bother him, can give the civil servants a direction that they are confident the Minister would support. What is needed is a practical and pragmatic relationship between civil servants and special advisers that is based on the firm principles of probity, common sense and trust. That is what broke down in the case that we are considering.
Mr. Liddell-Grainger: Is there not a danger that one could politicise the civil service if one got the role of special advisers and the relationship with the civil service wrong?
Kevin Brennan: My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White) made the point very well earlier that the opposite is true. There is political activity at the heart of government and it would be wrong if it were carried out by civil servants. If a political issue comes across the desk of civil servants or if they encounter a problem of that kind, they can pass it to a special adviser. That is the point. Civil servants should be able to carry out their functions and protect themselves and the neutrality of the civil service. I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, but it is important to be realistic about how modern government works. It is necessary for political activity to be carried out and the civil service should be protected from having to do that.
I describe what happened to me when I was a special adviser as being thrown in at the deep end and being told to swim. I had to remind civil servants that the Minister, in this case the First Minister, did not depend on the patronage of the Prime Minister but on the snake pit of
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the Welsh Assembly for his position. Therefore, the cosy circle that the civil servants put around him to protect him would probably bring him down if he were not allowed out a bit more. The special adviser has an important role to play in getting the Minister out and about and protecting him from the cosy, but sometimes deadly, embrace of his civil servants.
I welcome the Government's undertaking on the GICS. The Chairman of the Select Committee is right about the 24-hour media beast and the need for the Government to fill that vacuum. We know what sort of reporting there will be if they do not do so. One of my favourite cartoons, which appeared in the New Yorker—it often has fine political cartoons—shows someone kneeling at the gates of heaven and pleading with St. Peter to let him in, saying, "Those weren't lies, it was just spin." Clearly, there is a line to be drawn between the presentation of Government policy and misleading the public, and it is important that special advisers remain within the boundaries. Nevertheless, there is a role in providing information and the GICS has perhaps not adapted—who has?—to the rapidly growing media outlets and the 24-hour global news media coverage.
One other matter that was not mentioned in our report, but which still concerns me, was central to the episode; that is the use and role of modern technology, particularly the e-mail, in government. In the old days, one could easily follow the dictum of Joseph Kennedy, which was never to write anything down that one would not want to see on the front page of the New York Times. Today, as a result of e-mail, gossip, chat and even bad jokes and office tittle-tattle have become historical documents. Such things now pass between civil servants and special advisers by e-mail in a way that, for previous generations, would be the equivalent of a whisper in the corridor. It is now part of the record, as we see so clearly from the tasteless joke that led to this affair.
The question is how e-mails should be treated, as they are official submissions and part of the historical record. It is an interesting question for historians, but it goes to the heart of the management of the civil service. I have yet to see the guidelines that must have been developed since we wrote our report. They might prevent the odd tasteless remark or bad joke, which most of us make from time to time, turning into a constitutional crisis.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I was thinking of calling the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Janet Anderson), but she has had to leave the Chamber. I call Mr. Don Foster.
4.1 pm
Mr. Don Foster: I begin by congratulating the Chairman and members of the Committee on an excellent and thought-provoking report. I am delighted that the debate has not yet looked back as to who said what, where, when and to whom in the time described by the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan), when the tasteless e-mail joke was sent by Jo Moore.
I fear that it was worse than that. Looking back at the record, I note that I described the events of the time as "unbelievable". I said:
"While the rest of the world looked on in horror at what was happening in America, I find it staggering that someone was able to think along these lines. No wonder people are disillusioned with politics."

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The wording of a motion debated in the House at the time led me to say that her actions were stupid, horrible and wrong. The important thing is that, even when those events were occurring and I and many others were asked to comment on them, I said to the media that the main issue was not that specific case but that
"the whole culture of spin has been taken to new heights by this Labour Government",
and that it had brought politicians and the political process into disrepute and added to voter apathy.
Although I do not agree with the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White) when he said that Jo Moore was used as a scapegoat, I accept the underlying principle that the issue is far greater than suggested by that incident.
Brian White: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that Jo Moore was disciplined through the civil service disciplinary code?
Mr. Foster: I will come in a moment to the way in which the situation was handled, especially in relation to the disciplinary procedures that led to the opening up of those arrangements. The hon. Gentleman will be well aware that the Deputy Prime Minister said on a number of occasions that there could be no investigation unless a formal complaint had been made, particularly in relation to the sideways move of Mr. Alun Evans. Although I agree that a procedure was followed—it is referred to in part in the report and the Committee's recommendations—the evidence of how it was handled has led many to question procedures and the lines of accountability for people such as Jo Moore and other special advisers.
However, the incident raised wider issues, as I said at the time. I was delighted that the Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright), ended his remarks by referring to the last paragraph of its report, paragraph 74, which refers to the development of spin by both the Government and the media and the problems that that has created.
Many recommendations have been made, not only by the Select Committee but in the more recent Wicks committee report. It would be inappropriate to go through all those recommendations, but I should like to comment on some important ones that have been mentioned today. I am delighted with most of the recommendations and with the fact that, in some areas, the Government have responded positively to them, especially in recognising the need for a new, in-depth independent investigation into the role of GICS.
However, I have a continuing problem to which neither report provides a satisfactory solution. It concerns the communication roles of, respectively, the impartial, independent civil servants and a number of special advisers. It came to a head, in relation to the former DTLR, with project Ariel, which was developed by the Government—behind the scenes, it would appear—to deal with the problems of Railtrack and its future. It became increasingly clear that the work was undertaken and the media relations handled by Jo Moore and the other special adviser in the Department. Jo Moore was setting up all the interviews with the
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media in respect of the project and she was the main point of contact for them. We witnessed the bypassing of the normal media-handling communications services of the civil service. Nothing that I have seen in the recommendations has made it clear when it is appropriate for special advisers to be mainly in charge of the media and when GICS should be in charge. There is a need for greater clarity in that area.
Another of the recommendations, on which we have touched and which the Select Committee covered, concerns the appointment of special advisers. Let me make it clear to the hon. Member for Cardiff, West that I have no problem with his having been a special adviser. I accept the conclusion of the Wicks committee report that special advisers have an important role to play in government. It was right of the Chairman of the Committee to point out that, in a different guise, the Conservative party has special advisers, paid for out of Government funds. So too—not as many, as there is not so much money to spend on them—do the Liberal Democrats. I hope that we make effective use of our special advisers. [Interruption.] Hon. Members may draw conclusions about the effective or other use of those employed by the Conservatives; that debate is for another day.
The Wicks committee report makes it very clear that there is all-party agreement about the benefits of the use of special advisers in government. It quotes my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell) and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Estelle Morris), among others, as endorsing the need for special advisers, so I hope that there is no debate about their importance or the valuable role that they can play. However, as I implied in an intervention, I believe that the Committee's recommendation about their appointment is wrong. I accept that there needs to be a degree of public accountability for the advisers, as public money is being used, but advisers should be brought in by Ministers to provide a range of different services that Ministers themselves should be able to define within a clearly defined framework that excludes certain activities.
The question of numbers and funding of special advisers was touched on by the Wicks report but not in the Committee report. I am slightly disappointed that the Wicks committee report concludes that a report should be published each year to say only how many special advisers there are, whom they were appointed by, how much money is being spent and what the percentage increase in the cost of the special advisers should be. If the argument is going to run that they are comparable to the advisory support that the Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and others have got—for which there is a cap on funding availability—we should examine imposing a funding cap, within which the Government and ministerial teams may make decisions on how best to use it for their personal advantage.
Kevin Brennan: To take the hon. Gentleman back to his earlier point, does he welcome the Government's response? In it, they say that the review of GICS should examine
"the roles played by other civil servants and special advisers who have a responsibility for communications. This should clarify the

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boundaries between the work that is appropriate to special advisers and work that is not appropriate to them".
Does that not cover his point?
Mr. Foster: I thank the hon. Gentleman for taking me back. The great advantage of some of the other aspects of the Committee and Wicks committee reports is that, in making recommendations, they give a clear indication of the direction in which the situation is expected to go. My point was not that the Government would not look at that, but that it would have been helpful had the Committee and the Wicks committee both given some thought to the question. There is still a vacuum, so I hope that there will be wide-ranging consultation by the body now set up, which was referred to by the hon. Member for Cannock Chase and in the Government's response.
Kevin Brennan: As a Committee member, I would accept that criticism, but will the hon. Gentleman give us the wisdom of his views on how that would work?
Mr. Foster: No, largely because it is an issue to which I have not given a great deal of thought. It is also probably beyond my pay grade to do so, but it must be addressed.
To finish my second point, we need greater clarity about the funding envelope from which special advisers are paid. As I hinted earlier, we also still need improved clarity, which is now promised, about who is directly responsible for appointment and firing.
Mr. Collins: I strongly agree with the thrust of the hon. Gentleman's contribution. However, he is being slightly unfair to the Wicks committee. If he looks at paragraphs 7.48 and 7.49, he will see that the committee is not saying that it does not have a view about whether there should be a limit, but that it is for Parliament to specify one. It is in favour of a limit and has heard no compelling evidence in favour of a further increase in the number of special advisers.
Mr. Foster: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for putting that on the record.
Bearing in mind that others want to speak, I want to raise two final points. Several hon. Gentlemen have touched on one of them, but the other one—the recommendation on freedom of information—has hardly been touched on at all. The Select Committee's recommendation is very clear. The Government's response to it, however, was rather churlish. It implied that the Select Committee did not know what it was talking about, that it was clearly unaware that the Government were taking seriously the issue of freedom of information and that it was unaware that instructions had been issued to all Departments to ensure that they got their act together and recognised that the legislation would not be fully implemented for another couple of years or so. The response also implied that all the Departments had already gone about ensuring that all their staff knew how to handle freedom of information requests. If that were true, and given that the prime means of contact with Departments is now through their websites, presumably one could go to each Department's website to find out whether there was a
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clear section on freedom of information and on how it would handle freedom of information requests from members of the public and others.
I, too, have appointed some excellent, highly qualified staff whose qualifications and skills I would be proud to put under public scrutiny. The hon. Member for Luton, North (Mr. Hopkins) did not mention—but it is important to place on record—that we must make it clear what salaries we pay our members of staff, because it is public money, and that we must make their contracts of employment clear. My wonderful staff and I spent some time trawling through the departmental websites to check whether the Government's comfortable, cosy confidence that all is well with each of their Departments was justified.
In summary, we concluded that the Home Office website was poor; very little information was available. The Lord Chancellor's Department website had limited information available, as had the Treasury's. I congratulate the Department of Health on its website, where information was available. No information was available on the website of the Department of Trade and Industry. Some information was available on the website of the Department for Education and Skills; it was somewhat limited, but it was there. The same was true of the website for the Ministry of Defence. The Department for Transport website contained no information; we could find no information about the topic anywhere.
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister clearly played a key role in all this, but, sadly, its website contained limited information. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs website was not too bad. So far as the Department for Culture, Media and Sport website was concerned, however, I could not find a sausage; information was simply not there. There was a little information on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website, and on the website of the Department of Work and Pensions. In many cases, however, even when some information was admittedly available on Departments' websites, we had enormous difficulty trying to find it. I therefore find the Government's response to that recommendation especially disappointing.
I want to make it absolutely clear that the Liberal Democrats fundamentally support the Select Committee's recommendation. As the Chairman said, it has made that recommendation for many years, as have the Liberal Democrats. It is important to place on record that, sadly, the Government are holding it up. The hon. Member for Cannock Chase referred in passing to a commitment that had been made, I believe he said five or more years ago, as a result of the joint work done by the Liberal Democrats and the Labour party in the run-up to the 1997 general election—the so-called Cook-Maclennan agreement.
On page 69 of the Wicks report, the Select Committee is quoted as saying:
"Both parties agree that there should be a Civil Service Act to give legal force to the Code which should be tightened up to underline the political neutrality of the Civil Service. It should also be reviewed in relation to other published authorities to clarify lines of Civil Service and ministerial accountability and responsibility."
The hon. Member for Luton, North said that it would be wrong to have a civil service Bill because it would merely codify what is currently done. I do not accept

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that argument. The purpose of drafting a Bill and taking it through the parliamentary procedure is that it provides an opportunity to consider how we can do things better and the range of changes that are undoubtedly needed.
Mr. Hopkins: Will it be a problem that the people drafting the Bill will be civil servants? Will there not need to be an external input?
Mr. Foster: The hon. Gentleman told us a story earlier about how Tony Benn did not seem, as he put it, to be very good at knocking things away with his bat and persuading civil servants on what to do. I hope that the hon. Gentleman has greater confidence that his colleagues who are now in the Government will not simply do the bidding of the civil service. Judging by some of the legislation that has come before us over the past few months, one suspects that it was drawn up not by the civil servants I know but by Ministers at senior level having their way against the wishes of the civil service. I suspect that it will be possible, as there will be a fair degree of all-party support, to make serious progress on the matter.
Tony Wright: The report produced by our two parties to which the hon. Gentleman referred also contained a commitment to a democratic second Chamber. I omitted to say earlier that the Select Committee on Public Administration is drafting a civil service Bill; in fact, we almost have one. I say that partly to laud our achievements and in the hope that the Minister will not say that, because we are doing that, there is a further reason for not announcing a timetable.
Mr. Foster: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman placed those comments on the record. Were we to start going through the list of agreements made in the Cook-Maclennan deal, we could add a number of others that have not yet been delivered by the Government. He is right that it is another issue with which his Committee is dealing, and I wish him good luck in getting the Committee to agree with the line that he takes and that I share.
A number of hon. Members have spoken about why a civil service Act is important. Not only will it codify existing practice, but it will give us an opportunity to look afresh at many of the issues, including the role and position in government of special advisers. When the Minister responds, I, like many others, desperately hope that he will announce at last when that is going to happen. If he does, he will be running counter to some of the signals that we have received over the past 12 months from others in the Government.
The hon. Member for Cannock Chase referred to the quote from Pat McFadden who is now back at No. 10 Downing Street. He has been in and out, but is undoubtedly welcomed back by some. The Wicks report also refers to the debate that took place in another place; in particular the contribution of my noble friend Lord Whatsit of Cheltenham—I have forgotten his name—Lord Holme. I apologies, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The trouble is one often knows these people by their first name: I know him as Richard. Trying to remember his official title is difficult.
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The contribution of Lord Holme of Cheltenham to that debate was interesting. He said:
"Last November"—
that means 2001, because the debate took place in May last year—
"Sir Richard Wilson told the Public Administration Committee in another place that consultation on a Civil Service Act would start in the New Year. Two months ago, on 26th February, the Cabinet Office again promised that consultation on a Civil Service Act would start shortly. Subsequently, an issues paper was promised, hot on the heels of the significant speech made by Sir Richard at the end of March calling for an Act as outgoing Cabinet Secretary.
It is now 1st May, and there is no sign of government-initiated consultation on the issues".—[Official Report, House of Lords jy1 May 2002; Vol. 634, c. 691–92.]
We are still waiting. Today might be a golden day in the history of such matters, when at long last we have a Minister with the confidence of his convictions and his party's promises to announce to us the starting date for consultations and the introduction of a much-needed Bill.
4.24 pm
Mr. Tim Collins: I should explain that my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), who usually shadows the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, has been in the Chamber speaking on the Fire Services Bill today, which is why he is not here and I am instead.
From my point of view this is a welcome return to such matters. The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) has been uncharacteristically generous to the Minister in saying that today's debate is his first chance to put his views, because there was a chance at Cabinet Office questions some months ago to question the Minister on precisely such matters. I got the sense that the Minister is not exactly out of kilter with the rest of the Administration in his reluctance to rush into legislation.
My other point by way of introduction is that, in common with the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan) I, too, should declare an interest. Like Back Benchers and Front Benchers in all parts of the House, I have been a special adviser, although that was longer ago than when the hon. Gentleman was—in my case it was about a dozen years ago. I therefore endorse the comments that have been made on the value of having special advisers, although it of course matters how exactly they conduct themselves.
I should like to commend the Committee and its Chair not only on the fact that it produced the report but on the fact that it was remarkably topical document when it was published. The Committee took evidence during February and March last year. It then produced a document in July, which was, I think, less than two months after the affair reached it denouement with the departure of the former Secretary of State and the break-up of the former Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions. It is therefore a matter of some regret that it has taken the best part of a year for us to have this debate. However, again, that is not the responsibility of the Select Committee. It took the Government some seven months to produce a three-page reply to the Committee's recommendations, although I doubt that it genuinely took the Government

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that long. It was then a further three months between the appearance of that response and this debate. I therefore hope that the Minister will explain why the Government took so long to produce a response, particularly as that response, as some hon. Members said, was in one or two respects a little lacking.
Despite those points of difference, however, it is generally agreed in all parts of the House that special advisers have value not simply because they provide personal support to Ministers and an alternative, committed perspective that can offset the necessarily neutral political advice from civil servants, but precisely because they permit the bulk of civil servants to be wholly politically independent. Without special advisers it would be enormously difficult to maintain neutrality, particularly for the ranks of the senior civil service.
I remember some years ago reading Mrs. Barbara Castle's diaries of her experiences as a Cabinet Minister in the 1960s, which was before the later Wilson Government introduced special advisers. She revealed in those diaries that on a number of occasions her key private office officials had undertaken tasks that these days one would usually expect special advisers to do. Those tasks included, I believe, on one occasion drafting a speech for her to deliver to a party audience. The situation is healthier now, in that no career civil servant would usually ever be expected to do something such as that, as special advisers would take those tasks away from them.
Mr. Foster: I recommend that the hon. Gentleman continue his historical research by looking back at the role of the present Foreign Secretary in such a post.
Mr. Collins: The hon. Gentleman is right. Some of us take encouragement from the fact that senior Cabinet Ministers may at one stage have been special advisers.
The other point that it is important to stress is that an appropriate balance is not one in which we rule out having any political appointees. That is a point of cross-party agreement. The hon. Gentleman is of that view, and I imagine that the Minister is, as it is included in the Government's response. We all take the view, despite the powerful and persuasive case put by the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright), that broadly speaking special advisers, certainly those who are being brought in in a party political role, should be appointed personally by the Minister and not necessarily by a prolonged process of open appointment or competition.
If we rule out saying that we should never have special advisers, there is an equal and opposite danger which is to say that because we are now operating in a new and different political environment the restraints that were put in place in the past are fuddy-duddy, traditionalist and irrelevant. A number of comments worried me. First, it is said that we have an unprecedented number of media outlets. Indeed, it is said so often it has almost become a cliché. It is also implied that the 24/7 culture and the 24-hour news media erupted out of nowhere and has completely changed the qualitative nature of the relationship between Government and media. Neither of those propositions is true.
Al Gore, the former American Vice-President and presidential candidate caused amusement unintentionally during the 2000 presidential election
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campaign when he was reported to have claimed that he had invented the internet. I sometimes get the impression that the present Administration believe that they invented 24-hour news channels, the internet and inquisitive journalists and that none of those existed before 2 May 1997. Sky News has been with us since 1989. BBC News 24 started well before 1997. The internet was certainly much smaller prior to 1997 but it certainly existed.
Then as now, the vast majority of our fellow citizens got the bulk of their news from the regular national newspapers and the main news bulletins on BBC1 and what is now ITV1 The only significant difference between now and then is that both the circulation of most newspapers and the ratings for most television news programmes have fallen. We have to be a little careful before we believe that there has been such a huge and permanent change in the relationship between journalists and politicians that all the constraints that would once have applied to what the GICS could be expected to do should cease.
The hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White) pointed out that a change has taken place, although perhaps over 20 or 30 years rather than over six years. He said that elections were once fairly clear events in that they lasted for the three or weeks before polling day, but we are now much closer to permanent campaigning, certainly in the year or so before a general election. I agree with him on that but I draw an opposite conclusion. He said that because of the nature of permanent campaigning it would be wrong to put excessive restrictions on what the party in government should do. The party in government, whichever it is, should be entitled to campaign vigorously and put out all their material through their party headquarters in the usual way. I would argue that precisely because we are now in a period of much more intensive and long-term campaigning, it becomes more rather than less important to have clear rules about what is permissible for the party in government to expect the career, long-term, independent and impartial civil service to do. That is an argument for a civil service Bill, not against it.
That brings me to the final element that concerned me and here I agree with the hon. Member for Bath. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East said that it was in the nature of legislation to freeze the status quo in place. I suppose that is true, but in part that is an argument against any form of legislation at all. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his conversion to the largely Conservative cause of less government and fewer Bills. All credit to the present Administration when they have said in the past that they were in favour of the principle of a civil service Bill. Other parties have said that too. I would hope that it would generally be accepted as a long-term and permanent principle—to the extent that anything in political life is permanent—that civil service impartiality should be written into statute. I hope that none of us would regard it as likely or desirable that such impartiality should be modernised out of existence, whether now or in 10 or even 30 years' time.
A case can be made for writing some basic, clear, non-partisan, consensual and agreed principles into legislation. As I shall say when making an offer to the Minister, it will not need to be a long piece of legislation. I do not envisage it requiring a huge number of clauses

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and schedules, nor will it take a huge amount of the parliamentary draftsman's time—indeed, it may not need any of his time, because the hon. Gentleman will be producing a draft himself.
I stress that the events referred to in the report are significant not only in themselves. I agree with the hon. Member for Bath, who said that although the matters were serious, they raised other long-term and more important issues. I cannot help pointing out, in parentheses, that the Liberal Democrats did not vote with the Conservatives for the removal of Jo Moore in October 2001, although they subsequently came to that view.
It is important to stress that that series of events was not wholly untypical. Regrettably, there is concern about spin and the role and powers of special advisers, and the decline of public trust in statements—perhaps of all politicians, but notably of those in the present Administration, given the events of the double and triple counting of education and health spending and the manipulation of the hospital waiting list figures. I cheerfully wrote out a long list of other examples, but I shall not detain the House by reading them out. It was probably more entertaining for me to write them out than it would be for some hon. Members in the Chamber to have to listen to them.
The incident was not an isolated one. It pointed to concerns with wider applications, and they require wider solutions. In that respect, I am intrigued by the question of whether special advisers should have the power to issue instructions to civil servants. Without going into detail about the allegations relating to what Jo Moore did or did not do, it is certainly true—it is a matter of common agreement—that by the end of the saga, the allegations relating to her conduct had broadened far beyond the e-mails that she may or may not have sent on 11 September 2001. It became a much broader dispute about the extent to which political appointees should be able to put pressure on civil servants to get them to do things with which they are uncomfortable.
It is important that we have a clear understanding about what is permissible. I disagree with the hon. Member for Cardiff, West that it was always a myth that special advisers do not have the power to issue instructions to civil servants. When I was a special adviser, only one civil servant was answerable to me—a secretary, and to avoid doubt I make it clear that she was a typing secretary not a permanent secretary. There was no question of my being in a position to compel, instruct or even require a civil servant to do anything.
The hon. Gentleman went on to explain some of the things that he thought were proper for a special adviser to do, such as providing civil servants with a sounding board and an indication of the Minister's thinking. I agree with that; it is legitimate, and it one of the things that I used to do. The things that the hon. Gentleman mentioned are all about providing a liaison between the party and the Minister. That is entirely legitimate, but none of them require the issuance of instructions to officials. That is where I part company with the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Hopkins: Is not the problem the difference between a formal relationship and an informal one? In
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the latter, an adviser might use threats and intimidation against civil servants in a manner that would cut across any formal understanding of their role?
Mr. Collins: I naturally understand that different personalities are involved, irrespective of party politics and of whichever party happens to have formed the Administration. We would all agree, I am sure, that it would be a matter for condemnation if, using the hon. Gentleman's words, a special adviser, a career civil servant or even a Minister used intimidation or employed threats.
I come down on this matter with the Wicks committee, which has specifically recommended—we have touched on it today—that it should be clearly stated that, with the exception of two officials at No. 10, special advisers should have no executive role. The committee was correct in that judgment. That should apply irrespective of which political party is in power. To clarify an earlier point, I certainly accept that the position that we set out in opposition is the one by which we should expect to be bound when we return to office. It would be ludicrous to take any other stance.
Kevin Brennan: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman and I disagree too much. When we took evidence on this matter, it became clear from civil servants and, on one occasion, from a permanent secretary that they accepted that there were occasions on which, for the practical efficiency of the service, a special adviser could give an instruction to a civil servant if the instruction had clearly originated from the Minister.
Mr. Collins: Naturally, I agree. If the special adviser acts merely as a messenger, of course that is appropriate. In the same way, one might expect that a more junior official, such as, technically speaking, a principal private secretary, could issue an instruction to a permanent secretary because they were acting as a messenger for the Minister. That is an entirely legitimate role.
The Wicks committee states:
"Special advisers should not … have powers to authorise the spending of government money … have any role in the line management of civil servants … have charge of or any direction over the work of GICS members … have any other executive powers."
That is the Wicks committee's conclusion, with which I would be most comfortable. It would take us broadly back to what was generally understood to be the position of special advisers under Governments of both main parties from the 1970s until 1997.
Let me talk about some of the ways forward; I want to return to the civil service Bill in a moment. It is important to have some understanding about limiting the numbers and the powers of special advisers in No. 10. I hope that the Minister will touch on that. Again, the Wicks committee makes clear recommendations, but I shall not repeat them; I am sure that the Minister is familiar with them. I hope that he accepts that the case has been made for the Government to accept a cap on the number of special advisers, and clearly delimited and specific restrictions on what they can and cannot do. I was delighted that the Chairman of the Select Committee confirmed that, like the Wicks committee,

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he favoured any legislation specifying what special advisers could not do. That would be a notable step forward.
My next point comes out of the Select Committee report and what happened at the DTLR. It is equally important to have a clear chain of accountability for special advisers, and that Ministers accept responsibility for special advisers, because they are personal appointees. In turn, the conduct of Ministers, particularly any allegations that they have acted improperly or out with the requirements on conflict of interest, should not be opined on by permanent secretaries—who are put in a very difficult situation if they are asked to do so—but presided over by someone of independent standing. That is a recommendation of the Wicks committee.
I hope that it will be accepted that there should be, as the Select Committee has recommended on several occasions, statutory establishment of the ministerial code and the code of conduct of special advisers.
Tony Wright: I confess that I have never been entirely persuaded by the idea of a numerical cap, for one reason only. On any comparative assessment, this country is right at one end of the spectrum for the number of political appointees in Government. There is no way of knowing whether we are at the right point on that spectrum; we are now lining up to praise special advisers and their role, but if it turned out that they were adding substantial value to the system one could argue that we should have more of them. What would be the point, therefore, in arguing for a cap on a species of animal that does rather good things in the system? Surely, the key objective is to ensure that Parliament approves the arrangements for special advisers and their funding, not to set an arbitrary cap on them.
Mr. Collins: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. He is right to say that the United Kingdom is at one end of the spectrum: the United States is at the opposite end, as a huge number of political appointees change every time the President changes. The great advantage of the UK system is that one day the electorate can vote to throw out a Government, lock, stock and Michael Portillo, and the next day a wholly different Administration, shaped by entirely different values can take office, hit the ground running and announce the independence of the Bank of England four or five days after coming to power. It was made possible largely by unselected special advisers but also by the permanent civil service; there was no prolonged delay in the transfer of power. The immediacy in the British system is possible only because the vast bulk of the government machine is permanent and impartial and is expected to be in a position to serve irrespective of the result of the election.
I am not arguing that that necessarily applies when the limit is 80 or does not apply when it is 100, but there is a point in the French or American system at which a huge number of decisions have to be referred to, cleared and taken by political appointees, and it is no longer possible for an electorate to take a decision on a
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Thursday and for a new Government to take office with full powers the next day. That is the strength of the British system and I would be very reluctant to lose it.
Tony Wright: If a cap is to be set, it must be set at a particular level. At what level would the hon. Gentleman set it?
Mr. Collins: My party believes that the present level is excessive. We have committed ourselves on several occasions, saying that we would be in favour of reducing the present level by about 25 per cent. It would not take the figure back to where it was in 1997 but it would be a substantial reduction.
In terms of a statutory limit, I could live with the present number. A Conservative Administration would probably want to be below that limit but I would be perfectly happy for Parliament to provide for a limit roughly the same as it is now. However, I agree with the Wicks committee and I should be interested to know whether the hon. Gentleman agrees that there is no clear case for a further increase above the doubling of the numbers since 1997.
Tony Wright: I do not agree with the Wicks committee for the reasons that I gave just now. Cannot the hon. Gentleman see the difficulty that he is in? He cannot say at one moment that special advisers are a good thing, and at the next that there should therefore be reduced by a quarter, as that is not logical.
Mr. Collins: It is perfectly possible to say it; one can take the view, as my party does, that Members of Parliament are largely a good thing but that it would be even better if there were fewer of them and they were of higher quality. That view could be applied across many parts of the public and private sectors.
I conclude by addressing the concerns about the civil service Bill and I would like three assurances from the Minister. First, as we have referred to the matter at length but have not formally debated the Wicks committee's ninth report, will the Minister undertake that the Government will reply shortly and that there will be a separate debate on he matter before the summer recess? Secondly, will the Minister respond to the point made by the Chairman of the Select Committee about the draft being prepared by that Committee and the timetable for any parliamentary legislation? It is no secret; we are sophisticated enough politicians to know that the chances are if the measure is not in the Queen's Speech this year it is unlikely to get in next year, which is a pre-election period. I do not expect the Minister to make a commitment now on what will be in the Queen's Speech, but I hope that he will take away from this debate a clear sense of a strong cross-party willingness to see legislation proceed. I hope that he will say that the Government are committed to legislating in this Parliament. He can also take from me the commitment, which I suspect applies to the Liberal Democrats although I cannot—and would not want to—speak for them, that given that the legislation will be broadly non-contentious, the official Opposition would not expect artificially to prolong debate on it.
The hon. Member for Cannock Chase mentioned the fact that it is difficult to find a champion within Government for the legislation, but the Minister would

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find that the Opposition would give a much fairer wind to it than to several other Government proposals for legislation. I hope that he will factor that into internal discussions on the desirability of introducing such legislation.
Kevin Brennan: To clarify that, has the hon. Gentleman given an undertaking that the Opposition would not oppose a programme motion on a civil service Bill?
Mr. Collins: The hon. Gentleman knows well that the official Opposition have serious concerns about the way in which the Government have departed from all parliamentary practice and precedence by routinely guillotining legislation of all sorts at all times. Therefore, he would not expect me to give such an assurance, and I will not give it.
However, I point him to the recent experience, in which the hon. Member for Bath and I both took part, of the consideration of the Railways and Transport Safety Bill. It was generally non-contentious, and both Opposition parties acted in a way that even Government Ministers acknowledged was broadly supportive and positive, helping the passage of that Bill through both Houses of Parliament. We will of course have to examine the detail of a civil service Bill, but if it is broadly in line with what we have discussed today, what is in the Wicks committee report and what has been repeatedly announced by Government, we will give it a fair wind and do our best to get it on to the statute book more rapidly than most other Government legislation. That is as far as the hon. Gentleman would expect me to go, and he will accept that it is generous by most standards.
The final assurance that I want to hear from the Minister is that he accepts the specific recommendation of the Wicks committee that special advisers should have no executive role outside No 10.
4.52 pm
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr. Douglas Alexander): I am grateful for the opportunity to debate the issues arising from the Public Administration Committee report. I must first pay tribute to the quality of debate that we have enjoyed this afternoon. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan) suggested that the Committee's deliberations sometimes appeared as if they were a seminar of Thomas Aquinas standards. On the basis of the speeches at least so far this afternoon, I believe that the contributions would have graced any such seminar. I also pay tribute to the Committee's work under the estimable chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright). It has made a constructive contribution in recent months on all the issues, and I look forward to maintaining a lively dialogue.
Hon. Members have raised many points. I anticipated that I might have been on my feet slightly earlier, but given the time available to me, I hope that hon. Members will have a degree of forbearance as I try to answer the wide range of points that have been put. I will try to reflect the order of points made by my hon. Friend
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the Member for Cannock Chase to give some structure to the responses, but I begin by stating how much I enjoyed the historical perspective that was brought by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Mr. Hopkins). However, in tribute to Tony Benn, about whom he spoke with such warmth, I shall try to focus my remarks on policy rather than personality.
Members on both sides of the House have raised points about the Public Administration Committee's report into a series of events that occurred in the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions. In framing its report, the Committee did not go into the details of the specific case, and I commend it for its approach. To quote its words:
"We have not sought to carry out a detailed dissection of all the events at DTLR, nor to apportion blame to individuals. Our aim instead has been to review the events in the round and identify the most important lessons for the Civil Service and for Government."
I intend to adopt a similar approach in my remarks this afternoon. The events at the former DTLR have been the subject of much discussion in this House and elsewhere. The challenge now is to move on, learning lessons, as many have said, from those events rather than seeking to reopen the debate at this late stage.
The report of the Committee, "These Unfortunate Events", which was published in July 2002, examined a number of the communications issues that arose at the former DTLR. The Government welcomed the report of the Committee, as its members will be aware. There is much common ground between them and the Government on the issues that the report addressed. It made a number of specific recommendations for further improvements to current practice. At their heart was the need for a radical external review of Government communications, which we accepted. That and the other recommendations were dealt with in the Government's response, which was furnished in February 2003. I shall update the House on the progress that has been made since then.
First, let me address the point made by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) when he challenged me directly on the timing of the Government's response, given the importance of the report. I hope that I can offer him some assurance that it was simply a matter of logistics: I was determined to ensure, given the centrality of the recommendation that we have an external, radical review, that we had the appropriate personnel in place by the time that we offered the Government's full response. Getting people of the calibre that we have secured for the GICS to undertake that review takes more than a matter of weeks, and it was necessary to ensure that we had the correct personnel. I hope that hon. Members will agree that we were right in taking time, given the generous tributes that have been paid to members of the review who are now undertaking that work.
I turn next to the matter that was put to me by my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Cannock Chase—accountability in relation to special advisers. The Government have been clear about the responsibility for disciplining special advisers. In our response to the Select Committee's report, we made it clear that the ultimate responsibility for disciplining a special adviser rests with the appointing Minister. The permanent secretary can also provide advice to the Minister on any

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disciplinary action. Where the permanent secretary is unhappy with the Minister's decision, he can raise the matter with the Cabinet Secretary, who can in turn raise it with the Prime Minister. It has been said that general responsibility rests with the Prime Minister, together with the relevant Minister. In that regard, I should point out that it is open to the Prime Minister to terminate a special adviser's employment by withdrawing his consent to the appointment concerned.
Let me next turn to the broader subject of the role of special advisers in Government, which has taken up much of this afternoon's debate. The Committee recommended that special adviser posts should be publicly advertised, and the Minister given the final choice between suitably qualified candidates. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West reminded us, that is the position of the six special advisers working for the Welsh Executive in Cardiff. It also recommended that advisers should be kept up to date through a programme of continuing training.
I shall deal with those specific issues shortly. Before that, it is worth setting out the context for them. Special advisers, as we have heard in this debate, are not new. They have been part of our system of government since the early 1970s. In preparing for today's debate, I had the opportunity to read the speech given at the Commonwealth Heads of Government conference by Harold Wilson, then Prime Minister, in which he described the role of special advisers at the time of their initiation. It would be illustrative and helpful for the House if I were to remind it of some of the points that he made. He described the role as
"A 'sieve' examining papers as they go to Ministers, drawing attention to party political implications or electoral considerations; a 'deviller', chasing up Ministerial wishes and checking facts and research; carrying out long-term planning, preparing 'think-pieces' for the Minister to stimulate long-term policy thinking across the Department; contributing to policy planning within the Department; liaison with the Party",
which, as we have heard this afternoon, Harold Wilson saw as important to prevent the party and Government from growing away from each other,
"handling contacts with outside interest groups to ease the burden on the Minister",
and, of course, speech writing and research, about which we have heard.
That role of the special adviser, as enunciated by Harold Wilson in the 1970s, is closely reflected in today's code of conduct. There have been changes and innovations since the 1970s; this Government were the first to introduced a model contract and code of conduct for special advisers, a measure that the Public Administration Committee "wholeheartedly welcomed". It praised the Government's "commendable recent progress" in developing proper transparent arrangements for the employment of special advisers. I should like to place on the record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase for his work and the work of the Committee as a whole in helping us to draw up that code.
Mr. Foster: Does the Minister not consider it instructive, in relation to the debate about the need for a civil service Bill, that when the Government
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introduced the new code of practice for special advisers, they expanded their role without any notion of consultation, even with the House?
Mr. Alexander: I will be happy to address the point about civil service legislation, to which I sense hon. Members on both sides of the House look forward, and the hon. Gentleman's point about the powers of particular advisers. On the issue of special adviser numbers, which was also raised, the rapier-like questioning—indeed, the forensic dissection—of the Opposition's case on the issue of a cap on the number of special advisers was almost as entertaining as it was illustrative. Several hon. Members have referred to the number of special advisers. As of 1 May, 78 special advisers were in post, which compares to a senior civil service of about 3,500 staff.
The former Cabinet Secretary, Lord Wilson of Dinton, described the position in evidence to the Committee on Standards in Public Life:
"I do not think the senior civil service of 3,500 people is in danger of being swamped by 70 Special Advisers. That is not what is happening and I do n to see it as creeping politicization".
Lord Wilson gave a characteristically astute assessment.
This debate has demonstrated that the idea of an arbitrary cap, as described by the Opposition, who cannot say at exactly what level it should be set, requires more thought about the right balance to be struck between the important contribution, in the universal view of the House, of special advisers in Government, and the continuing vital role of the permanent civil service.
Mr. Collins: The Minister seems to be giving a categorical and final Government answer to at least one recommendation of the Wicks committee. Do I take it that he rejects the finding of the Committee on Standards in Public Life that there should be a limit, albeit the members of the Committee felt that it was for Parliament, not them, to specify what it should be?
Mr. Alexander: Tempting though it would be to outline even the Government's preliminary thinking on a serious report that has been 18 months in preparation, it would be discourteous of me, not least to the Chairman of the Committee, to set out our definitive position. However, I reserve my right, as evidenced in the debate, to point out inconsistencies in the Opposition's approach. Notwithstanding the fact that there were clear echoes of the hon. Gentleman's own contribution in evidence to the Wicks committee in his contribution this afternoon, perhaps there is cause for further thought by the Opposition on this issue. That is evidenced by the debate that we have just heard.
I hesitate to say the name of the constituency of the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster), but I will do the best that I can manage with a Scottish accent. On his point about advisers with executive power, special advisers are restricted to an advisory role. Only two special advisers in the office of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister have executive powers. The Government have made it clear that we have no plans to make further appointments of special advisers with executive powers.
It is important to be clear about the position of the Opposition. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale stated it would be "ludicrous" for the

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Opposition to advance one position now and then change position when the Conservatives were in government. However, we must bear in mind the personal nature of his contribution and the credibility that he drew for his comments from his wide experience in government and from his service as a special adviser previously.
Again, it is important to remind the House of exactly what Richard Wilson explained in evidence to the Wicks committee on the limits or delimits of special advisers' power. He explained that, during the 1980s—the period when I understand the hon. Gentleman served as a special adviser—there were no restrictions on what special advisers could do in law. New powers have been introduced. The 1997 Order in Council concerning the three special adviser posts in No. 10 with executive power—from recollection, I think that it was section 3.3—removes the restriction confining advisers solely to advising Ministers, which was introduced in 1991. Richard Wilson said that the 1997 order
"put those three posts back to where all special advisers were before 1991."
I appreciate that the role that he had in advising his typing secretary was different from the role that is presently being discharged in Downing street. Nevertheless, it is important to place on the record the legal position of special advisers in the 1980s and 1990s prior to 1997.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West declared himself to be agnostic on the issue of advertising special adviser posts. The Committee recommended that they should be publicly advertised, an issue that was also raised in the Committee's fourth report on special advisers. There is unity across the House on the point that special advisers should be outside the rules of fair and open competition as they are. by nature, personal appointments made by the Minister at his or her request to meet particular needs. For those positions, Ministers seek a combination of political and personal commitment, relative experience and personal trust and confidence. My hon. Friend illustrated graphically the speed and suddenness of what he described as regime change in the Welsh Executive that took place when he was appointed a special adviser.
On a change of Government, incoming Ministers will want to bring with them advisers with whom they worked closely in the final days of opposition. To require special adviser posts to be advertised would deprive an incoming Government of special support at what is agreed across the House can be a crucial time.
Because of the combination of qualities required for the job, the Civil Service Order in Council and the Civil Service Commissioner's recruitment rules recognise that it is necessary to exempt such posts from the normal civil service rules. The Government continue to believe that that is the right approach. For the reasons that I have outlined, we rejected that recommendation.
My hon. Friend raised the issue of special adviser training by quoting the evidence given by the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Andrew Turnbull, about special advisers who arrive in Government fresh on the coat tails of Ministers. The Committee's report welcomes our efforts to develop induction training for new special advisers.
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We have such a programmed in place, aimed at developing the new advisers' understanding of the systems within which they are obliged to work. It began in November last year, and covers the roles and responsibilities of Ministers, special advisers and permanent civil servants, taking account of the ministerial, civil service and special adviser codes. It continues to develop and will, increasingly, be part of the process of enhancing special advisers' development and good working relations across Government.
Mr. Liddell-Grainger: How long does the programme take? Is it a day, a month, a week?
Mr. Alexander: It takes less than several weeks because we are keen to ensure that special advisers who are appointed are rapidly in a position to contribute. However, we have made a start. The induction programme is in place and I understand that the response from special advisers has been that it begins to address the observations of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West when he graphically described some special advisers feeling that they had been thrown in at the deep end.
I turn to the point that has been raised most frequently today—civil service legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase again raised the point that the Committee on Standards in Public Life recently made recommendations in that area. We shall respond to them in due course, taking account of the comments made in today's debate. Under his distinguished chairmanship, the Select Committee on Public Administration is also considering the issue. I listened carefully to his contribution late in the debate, and I understand that his Committee plans to issue a paper in the near future. While I await that paper with great interest, I am sure that he will appreciate that, after 18 months of work by the Wicks committee, it would be discourteous to respond to its recommendations today, despite the invitation to do so from hon. Members of all parties. We are considering the report and will respond in due course.
It will come as little surprise to—in the generous description of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale—sophisticated politicians that I cannot and would not prejudge the content of the Queen's Speech. However, I can assure him that I have listened with real interest to his points about the Opposition's position on that important matter.
Mr. Foster: I suspect that I speak for many when I express great disappointment at what the Minister has said. Can he explain why the excuse is now that the Government have to wait to consider their response to the Wicks committee? The Wicks committee merely says that the Government previously committed to do something and urges the Government to do it. I cannot see what the response is other than to say, "We will ignore what you and the majority of hon. Members want." Why cannot there be a clear response today? Will they do it or not?
Mr. Alexander: This matter has been well ventilated. Tempting though it might be to try to cherry-pick individual recommendations that have been made by the Wicks committee, it would be inappropriate and

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discourteous to members of that committee for me to decide which recommendations to address. After 18 months of work, it is only fair that serious men and women undertaking serious work are given a serious response from Government. In that sense, I take on board the point that the hon. Gentleman has made about the work that the Government need to do, but I can assure him that that work is under way. My interest in the work of the Public Administration Committee is absolutely sincere. Frankly, there is danger of illogicality for some hon. Members to suggest that this is a hugely important matter, but that when important bodies are deliberating on it, it is somehow inappropriate to take their views into account.
Tony Wright: I do not want to be overly unhelpful, but it is not as though this is the first time that the Committee on Standards in Public Life has expressed a view on a civil service Bill or that the Government have told that Committee that there would be one. It is not the first time that our Committee has recommended it and been told that we would have one. Endless commitments have been given in relation to every kind of report on this. It is a little disingenuous to say that another report is needed which the Government will consider and will then come back to us. We have gone past that stage now. We know that the Government are committed to doing it. They have told every Committee that. When are we going to have it?
Mr. Alexander: Forgive me if I have misunderstood the work that is presently being undertaken by the Public Administration Committee, but I thought that it was not just another report but a draft Bill that was being prepared. That seems to offer potentially significant shafts of light into this subject. I am sincere in saying that a great deal of important work has been done in ventilating this issue in the Committee. I look forward with earnest interest to its forthcoming draft Bill. It is important to recognise the importance and significance of a committee such as the Wicks committee. It comprises men and women from across British public life who have given time, commitment, energy and intellect to taking forward this work. The Government should treat them with the respect that they deserve. On that basis, we will ensure that we offer a full and conclusive response to the committee, but at the appropriate stage after due consideration of the recommendations.
It is a commonplace among politicians that it is not unreasonable for a Minister at the Dispatch Box or speaking in this Chamber not to seek to prejudge the Queen's Speech. There are always significant constraints upon the legislative agenda of any Government. Even a Government as committed to ensuring reform and delivery as this Government must necessarily confront the reality of that. In that sense, while it may be disappointing, as some hon. Members have put it, I hardly think that it is surprising that I have given a commitment both to look with interest at the forthcoming draft Bill from the Public Administration Committee and to give serious consideration to the recommendations of the Standards on Public Life Committee.
Perhaps if I move on the Phillis review we can find more common ground among hon. Members. The committee recommended that a radical, external review
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of Government communications should be established. It further recommended that the review should examine not only the effectiveness of GICS but the roles played by other civil servants and special advisers who have a responsibility for communications. That should clarify the boundaries between the work that is appropriate to special advisers and work that is not. That is another matter that has been raised this afternoon.
The Government accepted the recommendation and set up a review in February this year under the chairmanship of Bob Phillis, chief executive of the Guardian Media Group plc. It would be worth while to quote the terms of reference of the review, not least given the charitable and generous remarks that have been made about the Government's response to the recommendation. The review states:
"In the light of the Eighth report of the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee, to conduct a radical review of government communications. This will include the examination of different models for organising and managing the government's communication effort, the effectiveness of the current model based on the Government Information and Communication Service, and the roles played by other civil servants including those special advisers who have a responsibility for communications."
The review has a broad-based membership, drawing expertise from across Government, print and broadcast media. I was keen to ensure that the majority of members were external. Of the 13 review members, only three work in the Government machine at present. The others are from the fields of print and broadcast journalism and corporate communications. As I stated, it is independent from the Government.
I understand that the review is well on with its work of gathering information and taking evidence. Written submissions of evidence, including the one from the Public Administration Committee, are accessible on the review's website. I cannot report on the review group's thinking, because other than urging the chairman to conduct a thorough and radical review, I have allowed it to develop its own deliberations. However, I understand that it is expected to complete its work towards the end of September, with a view to submitting a report to me in October. I await its findings with great interest.
Mr. Collins: Will the Minister assure the House that he will not implement the recommendations of the report of October 2003 before he implements the repeated Labour commitment, made since 1996, to introduce a civil service Bill?
Mr. Alexander: I obviously cannot prejudge the Government's response to the Phillis review. I merely point out that considering the seriousness with which the hon. Gentleman has spoken about the Phillis review this afternoon, I find it surprising that the Opposition have not bothered to contribute to it by submitting evidence. However, even at this late stage after the deadline has passed, if the Opposition were keen to ensure that their views were heard, I would extend an offer, in the spirit with which the hon. Gentleman spoke to me, to ensure that their views are brought to the attention of Mr. Phillis and the review team.
This is perhaps an appropriate point for me to conclude. We have done a great deal to make our system of government more transparent and accountable, as

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has been requested by hon. Members this afternoon. We introduced for the first time a code of conduct for special advisers and a model contract, which together provide a transparency that did not exist under previous Administrations. We have been clear and upfront about the numbers of special advisers and their cost—I have repeated the figures today—and we have introduced training for new special advisers to develop understanding of government and their role in it. As the Committee recommended, we have initiated an independent, radical review of government communications.
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Ours is a strong record. It is based on our absolute commitment to maintain the political impartiality and integrity of the civil service and to carry out Government business according to the highest standards of ethical conduct. That has been our position since coming to office, and it will remain our position in the years to come.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: The House thanks the Minister for his comprehensive reply. I think that I can say from the Chair that we have had a very good debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at seventeen minutes past Five o'clock.

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

  Agricultural Sludge
  Dr. Iddon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs with reference to the consultation paper Proposals to Amend the Statutory Controls for the use of Agricultural Sludge, when the consultees listed in Annexe C of the paper received the paper; and what percentage of the consultees responded. [109992]

  Mr. Morley
  The consultation paper on the proposals to amend the statutory controls for the agricultural use of sludge was dispatched on 21 October 2002 to all those individuals and organisations listed at Annexe C of the paper, a total of 220. 32(15 per cent.) of these consultees responded. A further 185 copies were requested from the Defra distribution centre and the paper was also available on the Defra website. The total number of responses received was 63.

  EU Enlargement
  Dr. Murrison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the EU Special Accession Programme for Agriculture and Rural Development. [111272]

  Mr. Morley
  The EU Special Accession Programme for Agriculture and Rural Development (SAPARD) is available to the 10 EU new member states and candidate countries from central and eastern Europe1. Its objectives are similar to those of the rural development programmes in the 15 existing member states.

  The programme has provided a valuable opportunity to the candidates in the practical application of rural development policies and EU financial systems. The accreditation process for the newly established Paying Agencies in particular has enabled them to experience and satisfy EU audit procedures.

  Defra Ministers and officials have taken every opportunity to urge the applicants to make full use of the funds available. Defra is a strong supporter of rural development programmes as a mechanism for supporting rural and farming areas and very much welcomes this chance for the candidates to benefit from these systems in advance of their membership. Although we have not commissioned any specific assessment of the progress of SAPARD expenditure, my officials attend meetings of the European Commission Regulatory Committee, which reviews and approves the programmes of the countries concerned.

  1New member states due to join May 2004: Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia. Candidates due to join in 2007: Bulgaria and Romania.
  774W

  Animal By-products
  Mr. Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many furnaces fuelled from animal carcases and animal byproducts are operational in(a) the North West of England and (b) England. [111161]

  Mr. Morley
  We are not aware of any furnaces fuelled from animal carcases and unprocessed animal byproducts.

  Prior to the introduction of the EU Animal By-Products Regulation on 1 May 2003, the Department was not responsible for the approval of animal carcase incinerators, with the exception of incinerators which dispose of Specified Risk Material. However, a central register of operators currently approved to operate specified risk material incinerators indicates that as at 1 May 2003 there were 306 approved incinerators in Great Britain. Strictly speaking these are not fuelled by animal carcases or unprocessed animal by-products. They use gas/oil as fuel to provide the heat to burn the carcases.

  Mr. James Gray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether the EU Animal By-products Regulation will apply to the burial of(a) domestic cattle, (b) domestic pigs, (c) domestic sheep, (d) domestic poultry, (e) goats, (f) llamas, (g) ostriches, (h) members of the equine family, (i) dogs, (j) cats, (k) hamsters, (1) gerbils, (m) rabbits, (n) guinea pigs, (o) rodents, (p) farmed fish, (q) domestic fish and (r) wild animals killed on the road; and what advice the Department has given to owners of these animals. [111352]

  Mr. Morley
  The carcases, or parts of carcases, of wild animals are exempt from the scope of the Regulation unless they are thought to be diseased or are used to produce game trophies.

  The Regulation allows member states to apply for various derogations regarding the disposal of animal by-products, and, among others, we have applied for the derogation to permit the burial of dead pet animals.

  The definition of a pet animal given within the Regulation is: any animal belonging to species normally nourished and kept, but not consumed, by humans for purposes other than farming. Therefore, species such as cattle, sheep, pigs, goats and poultry etc would fall out-with this definition and would require disposal by an approved route other than burial.

  The situation with regard to equines is complicated. Although it can be argued that humans within the UK do not consume members of the equine family, the UK does export horses/ponies which may be used for human consumption. Under a strict interpretation the EU Regulation would, therefore, ban the burial of pet equines but we would expect local authorities, who enforce the legislation, to deal with such cases on an individual basis.

  Although no specific advice has been provided to pet owners, information on the disposal of animal carcases is available on the Defra website, at http:// www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/by-prods/default.htm., and from local Defra Animal Health Offices.
  775W
  Mr. Gray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) what advice she has given to Wiltshire county council about the disposal of TB infected badger carcases; [111396]

  (2) what advice she has given to local authorities in parts of the country where badgers may be infected with TB on the testing, collection and disposal of badger carcases. [111394]

  Mr. Morley
  The EU Animal By-Products Regulation, which applied in member states from 1 May, requires, among other things, that wild animals suspected of being infected with diseases communicable to humans and animals, such as bovine TB, are disposed of at an approved plant using one of the following methods:

  incineration;

  rendering followed by incineration; or

  pressure rendering followed by landfill

  Trading Standards, who enforce the Regulation, have received guidance notes and training on the new rules. In addition, information on the disposal of animal carcases is available on the Defra website, at http://www.defra.gov. uk/animalh/by-prods/default.htm., and from local Defra Animal Health Offices.

  Andrew George
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will list the materials by type that will be included through her Department's national subscription collection and disposal scheme for fallen livestock under the Animal By-Products Regulation. [111116]

  Mr. Morley
  Assuming that the scheme is viable, we would envisage that it would apply to the collection and disposal of carcases of all types of farmed livestock on agricultural holdings.

  Mr. Hendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what steps she is taking to ensure that schemes to collect animal carcases from farms will not result in the spread of disease. [111185]

  Mr. Morley
  Animal By-Products legislation already controls the collection, storage and transportation of animal by-products, including animal carcases, it also requires records to be kept of any consignment of animal by-products to assist in the auditing and traceability of this material.

  However, we would expect that only those collectors who follow biosecurity procedures yet to be agreed would be allowed to participate in a national carcase collection service.

  Lembit Õpik
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to her answer of 10 April 2003,Official Report, column 364W, on fallen stock, if she will list the alternative processes that the Commission is considering for approval; and what the timetable is for the consultation process. [111408]

  Mr. Morley
  On the basis of information submitted, the Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) adopted an "Opinion on six alternative methods for safe disposal of animal by-products" on 10 to 11 April 2003. According 776W
  to this Opinion, five methods are regarded as safe for the disposal or use of Category 2 and 3 animal by-products. These five methods are:

  high pressure high temperature hydrolysis;

  high pressure hydrolysis biogas process;

  biodiesel Production;

  Brookes gasification system; and

  combustion of Tallow in a thermal boiler.

  The Commission will now analyse the SSC opinion and present a proposal approving the five methods listed above to the next Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health.

  On the basis of the SSC opinion, member states can allow the use of the methods listed for the disposal or use of Category 2 and 3 animal by-products, pending their approval by the Commission, provided that:

  the alternative methods are approved by the competent authority following adequate validation procedures; and

  the premises, facilities and operational standards meet the recommendations of the SSC opinion.

  The SSC opinion can be found at: http://euro pa.eu.int/comm/food/fs/sc/ssc/ out352_en.pdf

  Mr. Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of emissions from furnaces fuelled from animal carcases and animal by-products. [111590]

  Mr. Morley
  No assessment has been made of emissions from furnaces fuelled from animal carcases and animal by-products. However, Defra commissioned an independent report to measure and review atmospheric emissions from small carcase incinerators, which was published in August 2002. This is available on the Defra website at: http://www2.defra.gov. uk/research/project_data/Default.asp under Project Code WA0806.

  Mr. Gray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what advice her Department has given to those who undertake pest control on disposing of(a) foxes, (b) rodents and (c) mustelids. [111349]

  Mr. Morley
  The Animal By-Product Regulation, which applied in member states from 1 May, does not apply to foxes, rodents, mustelids or other wildlife. With regard to rodents, for those killed by rodenticides the Statutory Conditions of Use for each product will stipulate the method of carcass disposal. These conditions are set by either the Health and Safety Executive or the Pesticides Safety Directorate. Typically, the conditions require that rodent carcases are either burnt or buried. These conditions must be strictly adhered to. Defra has not given specific disposal. advice for foxes and mustelids, but recommends that normal good practice is followed. Anyone requiring advice on appropriate disposal methods should contact their local authority.

  Mr. Gray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what regulations will apply to the burial of pets from 30 April; and what information on burial she has provided for pet owners. [111351]
  777W
  Mr. Morley
  The Animal By-Products Regulation allows member states to apply for various derogations regarding the disposal of animal by-products, and, among others, we have applied for the derogation to permit the burial of dead pet animals.

  Although no specific information has been provided to pet owners, information is available on the Defra website at the following address: http://www.defra.gov.uk!animalh/by-prods/default.htm.

  Biological Resources Centres
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what response she has made to the OECD Initiative on Biological Resources Centres; and what resources have been committed to the achievement in the UK of the objectives of the initiative. [107922]

  Mr. Morley
  [holding answer 9 April 2003]The Government supports the broad objective of the OECD initiative on Biological Resource Centres, which is to seek to ensure the conservation of biological resources and associated information in an efficient and effective way through the creation of a global network of biological resource centres like seed banks or culture collections, and, through such a network, to provide improved access to biological resources of an appropriate quality to bona fide users in the fields of life sciences and biotechnology. Proposals on how this might be achieved are still under discussion in the OECD. Officials from my Department are actively involved in those talks.

  Bovine Claim Payments
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what is owed to Mr. and Mrs. T. McCoy of Dartmouth in relation to their 2001 bovine claim; and what the reasons are for the delay in payment, with reference to her Department's letter to the hon. Member for Totnes of 15 March 2003. ref 179375/JW. [111859]

  Alun Michael
  As stated in the letter of 15 March 2003, all Mr. And Mrs. McCoy's bovine claims for 2001 have been paid, and there are not outstanding payments.

  Countryside and Rights of Way Act
  Valerie Davey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when she expects the new rights of access under Part 1 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 to commence in the Central Southern Region. [111247]

  Alun Michael
  I announced in November last year that the new right for the public to walk on mountain, moor, heath, down and registered common land will be rolled out on a region by region basis. This will give walkers the right to walk in open countryside and on registered common land as early as possible, rather than having to wait for the mapping process to be completed for the whole country. I intend to open the first two regions to public access during the summer of 2004. These are the south east and central southern England.
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  This is a demanding timetable as we will need to have in place not only the conclusive maps for those regions but also all necessary restrictions and exclusion on access. Guidance and codes of practice will also need to be available to walkers and landowners. These mechanisms are necessary under the CROW Act and it is important for them to be in force in each region before access land is made available to the public so that the interests of both land managers and walkers are safeguarded. We expect to meet the target of having all access land open by the end of 2005.

  Criminal Offences
  Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will list, broken down by Act, the criminal offences created in legislation sponsored by her Department and its predecessors since 1997. [110988]

  Alun Michael
  A number of criminal offences have been created in primary legislation, sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and its predecessor Departments, since 1997. The following list contains only legislation concerning policy areas now administered by Defra. The Plant Varieties Act 1997 (c. 66) created two new criminal offences. The Food Standards Act 1999 (c. 28) created eight new criminal offences. The Fur Farming (Prohibition) Act 2000 (c. 33) created four new criminal offences. The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (c. 37) created 22 new criminal offences. The Animal Health 2002 Act (c. 42) created 14 new criminal offences.

  No comprehensive records are kept by the Department of offences created in secondary legislation, and the cost of searching the many instruments in force for which the Department has responsibility would be disproportionate.

  Exhibitions
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will list events at which her Department and each agency and non-departmental public body for which her Department is responsible have exhibited in each of the last three years, stating for each(a) the purpose of exhibiting, (b) the cost of exhibiting and (c) the number of staff attending for the exhibition. [107626]

  Alun Michael
  The following is a list of the events at which attendance or an exhibit were commissioned centrally by Defra as part of the Department's publicity programme. This covers the period since the Department's inception in June 2001. The events were commissioned at a cost of £0.5 million in 2001–02 and £1.2 million in 2002–03 to Defra's central publicity budget.

  The number of staff attending each event is not available and the information for each agency and non-departmental body for which Defra is responsible could be collated only at a disproportionate cost.
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  Shows 2001–02

  Agrivision (National Event) NAG Stoneleigh

  Permanent Defra Exhibition Event (continually updated) Brockhole Visitor Centre, Lake District ESA, Cumbria.

  Beef 2001 Royal Agricultural College

  Agrivision South of England Agricultural Society, Ardingley, West Sussex

  Crufts Dogs Show NEC Birmingham

  Agrivision Show Cornwall Wadebridge, Cornwall

  The Supreme Cat Show, NEC, Birmingham

  National Cat Club, Olympia, London

  Royal Cornwall Show, Wadebridge, Cornwall

  Devon County Show, Westpoint, Clyst St. Mary, Exeter

  Town & Country Festival NAC, Stoneleigh, Warks

  Tatton Park Show, Tatton Park, Cheshire

  CLA Game Fair, Shuttleworth College, Bedfordshire

  Fruit Focus Show, Hadlow College, Kent

  Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, Hampton Court, Surrey

  BBC Gardeners World Live, NEC, Birmingham

  Bath & West Dairy Show, Shepton Mallet, Somerset

  Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition, Earl's Court, London

  FMD Information—Mobile Unit visited Houghton, Oakhampton, Barnstaple, Northallerton and Ripon

  Careers Fair—Exhibition—Building Design Centre, Islington

  Conferences/seminars 2001–02

  Study Group Meeting Conference

  TSE Research Workshop—Durham University

  Public Appointments Seminar—Nottingham

  Careers Seminars, Bromsgrove School

  English Rural Development Programme Seminar, Bewl Water, Ardingley, Devon and Reading

  Planning and Diversification Seminar—Reading and Oxford

  Public Appointments Seminar—Norwich, Abingdon, Nottingham

  Anti-Microbial Resistance Seminar—Woolfson Theatre, NAG, Stoneleigh

  Golden Rules Seminar—Kendal, Cumbria

  Waste Seminar—QEII

  Food and Farming Conference—Oxford

  Map 'Launch' with Countryside Agency, Portcullis House, Westminster

  SEAC Open Meeting Conference QE2 Centre, London

  Developing DEFRA Conference, Aston Villa, F.C. Birmingham

  National Energy Crop—TDI Victoria Street

  18 x FMD Recovery Seminars (Nationwide)

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  Exhibitions/shows 2002–03

  Agrivision (Midlands) Stafford

  Permanent Exhibition–Brockhole Visitor Centre, Lake District ESA, Cumbria

  Sprays and Sprayers 2002, NAG, Stoneleigh

  Lincolnshire Show, Grange-De-Lincs, Lincoln

  Tatton Park Flower Show 2002, Tatton Park, Cheshire

  Fruit Focus 2002, East Mailing, Kent

  Pig and Poultry Fair, NAC, Stoneleigh

  Devon Country, Westpoint, Clyst St. Mary, Exeter

  Grassland (and MUCK), NAC Stoneleigh

  Beef 2002 Woolner, Northumberland

  Royal Bath and West, Shepton Mallet, Somerset

  Royal Cornwall, Wadebridge, Cornwall

  South of England, Ardingley, W. Sussex

  Cereals 2002, Sleaford, Lincs

  Three Countries Show, Malvern, Worcs

  East of England, Peterborough

  BBC Gardener's World Live, NEC Birmingham

  Royal Norfolk, New Costessey, Norwich

  Hampton Court Flower Show, Hampton Court

  Great Yorkshire, Harrogate, N. Yorks

  CLA Game Fair, Broadlands, Romsey, Hampshire

  New Forest and Hampshire, Brockenhurst, Hampshire

  Royal Lancashire, Astley Park, Chorley, Lancs

  Northumberland Show, Corbridge, Northumberland

  National Scrapie Plan Stand (Various Locations)

  Royal Show, NAG, Stoneleigh

  Great Yorkshire Show-Harrogate

  Royal Welsh Show, Builth Wells

  Sheep 2002, Malvern

  The Royal Smithfield Show–Earls Court London

  Skills City Careers Exhibition, Salford, Manchester

  International Food and Drink Exhibition Excel, Dockland

  European Dairy Event, NAC, Stoneleigh

  Discover Dogs, Earls Court, London

  Town & Country Show 2002, NAC, Stoneleigh

  The Supreme Cat Show 2002, NEC Birmingham

  The National Cat Club Show, Olympia 2, London

  The Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition, Earls Court

  Conferences/seminars/launches 2002–03

  8 Regional Events On Sustainable Food and Farming—Government Office Regional Conferences

  Career Fair and Welcome Events

  Annual Report of Sustainable Development, Canal Museum, Camden

  Abbots Hall Farm, (Agri-Environment Schemes)—ESA's Reintroduction of Grazing on the Coastline, Great and Little Wagborough, Kent

  Wildlife Crimes Unit

  Marine Stewardship Event, National Maritime Museum

  Launch of New Atlas of British and Irish Flora, Kew Gardens

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  Community Renewable Initiative Workshop

  Defra Hearings on Hunting with Dogs

  OECD Launch, Room 808, Nobel House

  Public Appointments Seminars, Scunthorpe, Leeds. Greenwich, Tyneside and University of Kent

  Scientific Advisers Presentations, Horseguards Hotel and Nobel House

  British Equine Event 2002, NAC, Stoneleigh

  Sustainability In Public Service

  Sustainable Development Events QEII Centre, London

  Bio Energy Conference

  Flood and Coastal Management Conference, Keele University

  Countryside Stewardship Campaign, 10th Anniversary Conference—Kew Gardens

  Noise Forum Conference, Chartered Institute Environmental Health, Waterloo

  Creating the Future 2002, Central Hall, Westminster

  Timber
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether the Government procurement policy on timber includes timber used on and in the construction of Government building projects; and if she will make a statement. [111033]

  Mr. Meacher
  The Government procurement policy on timber applies to all wood and products made from wood used in performing Government contracts. Thai includes the wood used temporarily during construction works as well as wood fixed as part of a finished structure. The Office of Government Commerce reminded Government Departments of this policy in November 2002,and particular attention was drawn to construction projects as follows:"Under the Achieving Excellence agenda, Departments are encouraged to improve the design quality, sustainability, health and safety and client management of their supply chains for their construction projects".
  "Managers must, in addition, make themselves aware of the commitment made by the UK Government in July 2000 that all Departments and their agencies should actively seek to procure their timber and timber products from legal and sustainably managed sources".

  Market Research
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what expenditure has been incurred by her(a) Department, (b) agencies and (c) non-departmental bodies in 2002 on (i) opinion polling, (ii) focus groups and (iii) other forms of market research; and if she will list the surveys commissioned and the purpose of each. [106259]

  Alun Michael
  The expenditure on external market research which has been recorded centrally by Defra in 2002/03 was £354,000.

  The list of the surveys is:

  Corporate Identity research

  Illegal Meat Imports

  General Public tracking—omnibus

  GM Crops desk research

  GM Debate Foundation discussion workshops

  GM debate—stimulus content creation

  Defra Customer Vision

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  Defra's sponsorship activities

  The information not held centrally within Defra and for each agency and non-departmental body for which Defra is responsible could only be collated at a disproportionate cost.

  Private Finance Initiative
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the expected saving to public funds from the private finance initiative schemes due to become operational in 2003. [105716]

  Alun Michael
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Boateng) on 10 April 2003,Official Report, column 400W.

  Common Agricultural Policy
  Dr. Murrison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of CAP Pillar Two funding. [111273]

  Mr. Morley
  The effectiveness of CAP Pillar Two funding in England is being assessed in several ways. The Mid-term Evaluation of the England Rural Development Programme (ERDP) is currently in progress and aims to assess the implementation and impact of the Programme since its inception in 2000 to present. The evaluation will be completed in December 2003 and its findings will be reported to the European Commission. Similar evaluations are being produced on rural development programmes in other parts of the UK and in the other member states.

  There are also a number of recently completed or ongoing studies on individual ERDP schemes and other reviews that will touch on the effectiveness of the Programme as a whole. The studies on individual ERDP schemes include a major review of agri-environment schemes, a Hill Farming Allowance review and reviews of the Farm Woodland Premium and Woodland Grant Schemes. With regard to project based schemes, an economic evaluation of the Processing and Marketing Grant scheme is in progress and various aspects of the impact the Rural Enterprise Scheme are being examined.

  Outside of these internal reviews and studies, Defra officials assess the effectiveness of CAP Pillar Two funding by analysing reports from other organisations and by using internal management information.

  Regional Policy
  Joyce Quin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what progress the Department has made towards the aim in the White Paper, "Your Region, Your Choice", of assessing the balance of staff between the centre and the regions in terms of effective policy design and implementation; and what examples there have been since the publication of the White Paper of the Department deciding between locating new streams of work(a) in and (b) outside London and the south-east. [108570]
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  Alun Michael
  Defra is making considerable progress towards the aims set out in the White Paper, "Your Region, Your Choice", and Ministers have repeatedly stressed the importance of regional delivery and regional partnerships. For example:

  Defra Teams in Government Offices

  The Department's predecessor, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF), planned to move around 90 staff into the Government Office network in April 2001. The demands of the foot and mouth outbreak delayed some of these moves, but since summer 2001, the Rural Director's team in each region has been fully integrated into the Government office. They also work closely with the Regional Development Agency, the Regional Assembly and a range of regional and local partners. A 'sounding board' for rural communities in each region is provided by The Regional Rural Affairs Forum, which has direct representation on the Rural Affairs Forum for England which I chair. The network of Regional Forums is encouragement of Ministers and senior officials. The formation of Defra in June 2001 also meant that the pre-existing environment teams in the Government Offices contribute to the delivery of Defra's environmental and sustainable development objectives.

  Since then, the Department has provided an extra £2.3 million to administer its policies in 2003–04—an increase of one hird from 2002–03. This will enable the Government Offices to increase their involvement in the delivery of the Department's sustainable food and farming strategy and the rural agenda.

  The Better Quality Service Review of the Defra Estate

  We are undertaking a Better Quality Services Review of our estate, including its London headquarters operations, and the review's findings are expected to be made available shortly. One of the issues it has been considering is the extent to which staff should continue to be located in central London accommodation.

  Lord Haskins Review

  Lord Haskins has been asked to make recommendations on how the Government's rural policies can be delivered more effectively and efficiently. He will be considering the future role of regional and local bodies in the context of delivery.

  Vollatile Organic Compounds
  Alan Keen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will list the pollutants regarded as volatile organic compounds; and if she will make a statement on the health risks associated with the pollutants regarded as volatile organic compounds. [111139]

  Alun Michael
  Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) include a very wide range of individual substances, such as hydrocarbons (for example benzene and toluene), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), halocarbons and oxygenates. Hydrocarbon VOCs are usually grouped into methane and other non-methane VOCs. Non-methane VOCs are emitted to air as combustion products, as vapour arising from handling or use of petroleum distillates, solvents or chemicals, and from numerous other sources. The emissions of the 50 most significant non-methane VOCs in the UK (in terms of mass emissions), together with time trends and a784W
  spatially disaggregated map of all sources are published annually in the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory, available at www.naei.org.uk.

  Some VOCs are harmful to human health, including benzene, PAHs and 1,3-butadiene. Benzene can cause leukaemia, if exposure is maintained over a long period of time. There are several hundred different forms of PAH, and sources can be both natural and man-made. Several of these PAHs can cause lung cancer. Sources of 1,3-butadiene include the manufacturing of synthetic rubbers, petrol driven vehicles and cigarette smoke. 1,3-butadiene exposure probably causes lymphomas or leukaemias. Other volatile organic compounds may, at high concentrations, affect the central nervous system (e.g. chloroform), cause liver damage (e.g. carbon tetrachloride) or show irritant effects (e.g. aldehydes). These effects will not necessarily be relevant at environmental levels of exposure.

  VOCs also contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone that can impair lung function and cause irritation to the respiratory tract. Ozone has also been associated with increases in respiratory hospital admissions and deaths in those already ill with respiratory disease.

  Total emissions of methane and non-methane VOCs have reduced significantly in England since the late 1980s, particularly those from traffic and industrial processes, and are expected to continue to do so. The UK met the requirements of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution's 1991 Geneva Protocol, which required a 30 per cent. reduction in VOC emissions by 1999 using 1988 as a basis. The EU National Emission Ceilings Directive has set a further target of a reduction to 1200kT VOC annual emissions by 2010. Latest projections suggest the UK will meet this target. The Air Quality Strategy includes objectives for ambient levels of benzene, PAHs and 1,3-butadiene to protect human health. Latest monitoring indicates that we have already met the Air Quality Strategy objectives for some of these pollutants at most sites in the UK and that levels are generally declining for all these pollutants.

  Partners for Water and Sanitation
  Mr. Lazarowicz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the work being carried out with the support of her Department on Partners for Water and Sanitation. [111857]

  Mr. Morley
  Since its inception in 2001, Partners for Water and Sanitation (PAWS) has brought together a forum of partners from Government, civil society and the private sector. The aim has been to contribute to the Millennium Development Goal for Water and the equivalent target for sanitation agreed at the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg in 2002.

  PAWS currently focuses on three countries—South Africa, Uganda and Nigeria. The current position in each of the partner countries is as follows.
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  South Africa

  Preparatory meetings in February and May 2002 set the scene for the development of the partnership in South Africa. A further meeting took place the following August to set out the ways in which the partnership could contribute to meeting the needs of municipalities in South Africa. This meeting examined these needs, and agreement was reached on guiding criteria to decide which municipalities will enter into partnership with the UK. The meeting also considered an outline programme of work to include study visits to municipalities by partnership working groups. Partners attended an inception workshop with four nominated municipalities in November at which presentations were made by the partnership to explain the basis for the initiative and by municipalities to explain their assessment of needs and priorities. Scoping study visits were made to Hungulu, Matjhabeng, Nkomazi and Zululand between January and April 2003, from which a number of conclusions and specific recommendations for action were generated. A bi-national meeting is planned to take place in South Africa in early June 2003 to consider the outcome of the scoping studies and to develop a plan of action for each municipality.

  Nigeria

  Following a series of preparatory meetings in April 2002, PAWS agreed to partnership engagement with the State of Enugu. A further visit was made by a small partnership working party in late September 2002 to participate in meetings at State Government level and to consider a detailed assessment of needs and how these might be met from partnership resources. The group reported to the Partnership Steering Group late in 2002 setting out areas which had been identified for possible partnership involvement. The group are currently finalising a plan for action over the next year, which includes the appointment of an in-country co-ordinator.

  Uganda

  The concept of Partners for Water and Sanitation was introduced to Uganda in May 2002. An exploratory visit took place the following June, which identified potential stakeholders and furthered the development of the initiative in Uganda. The partnership was represented at the annual sector review at the end of September 2002. Discussions are continuing on the scope for partnership involvement in and the Secretariat are examining the options for exchange programmes to allow Ugandan Government technical staff the opportunity to visit the UK.

  Water Industry
  Sir Michael Spicer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether it is her policy that the Water Service regulator, in determining the charges that water companies can make to their customers, should take account of the need for these companies to rectify flooding problems which do not necessarily involve direct ingress of water or sewage into people's homes. [112099]

  Mr. Morley
  In setting price limits for sewerage undertakers, the Director General of Water Services takes account of companies' sewer flooding programmes. In the initial Guidance issued to the Director General in January 2003, the Secretary of 786W
  State, made clear that there would need to be an increase in the rate at which companies rectify sewer flooding problems if companies are to get on top of the situation.

  The Secretary of State also welcomed the findings of the consultation carried out by Ofwat in the paper, "Flooding from Sewers", particularly the proposal that the worst cases of external sewer flooding should be included in sewerage undertakers' programmes. This should help to ensure that many more customers than at present benefit from sewer flooding prevention schemes.

TREASURY

  Global Health Fund
  Mr. Lyons
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proposals he has to finance the Global Health Fund. [111893]

  John Healey
  The Department for International Development has committed $200 million to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria over five years.

  In addition, the Treasury is seeking international support to establish the International Finance Facility, which will raise $50 billion annually to fund the Millennium Development Goals. This money would be disbursed in the form of concessional loans and grants, including debt relief.

  Industrial and Provident Societies
  Mr. Gareth Thomas
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what further measures he is taking to reform industrial and provident society law. [111897]

  Mr. Boateng
  The Government recognise the important contribution industrial and provident societies can make to the economy and are currently progressing a range of initiatives to support the sector.

  Overseas Development Assistance
  Mr. Harris
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what progress the UK is making towards the target of contributing 0.7 per cent. of national income to aid for the developing world. [111899]

  John Healey
  The Government remain fully committed to reaching the UN target for official development assistance (oda) of 0.7 per cent. of Gross National Income. In the 2002 Spending Review the Government set out their spending plans for the next three years up to 2005–06 and have made substantial increases to the aid budget. The UK's level of official development assistance reached 0.32 per cent. in 2001 and will reach 0.40 per cent. by 2005–06, up from 0.26 per cent. in 1997.

  Aid effectiveness is also important as well as aid volumes. The Government are committed to redirecting their development assistance budget to the poorest countries, particularly those with effective governments pursuing high growth and pro-poor economic and social policies. By 2005–06, 90 per cent. of DfID's bilateral budget will be spent in low-income countries, where

  787W
  research tells us it is most effective. In addition, the Government have untied all their aid as from 1 April 2001.

  Tax Credit Claims
  Mr. Michael Foster
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what percentage of applications for(a) working tax credit and (b) working families tax credit were submitted either incomplete or with errors preventing correct assessment. [111900]

  Dawn Primarolo
  Claims for Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit are made together, on one form, leading to a single calculation if claimants qualify for both. By 28 April, over 4 million claims to the new tax credits had been received and around 3.2 million awards were already being paid or had been set up for payment. The Inland Revenue was working through the remaining claims as quickly as possible. Where necessary, the Revenue contacts claimants to ask for any outstanding information or to follow up any queries about the claim.

  The number of claims for Working Families Tax Credit that were initially incomplete is not available. The priority is to identify and correct errors where possible and get claims into payment.

  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the reasons are for the recent unavailability of the working tax credit helpline; and if he will make a statement. [105263]

  Dawn Primarolo
  In recent weeks the number of callers has exceeded the capacity of the helpline and some have not been able to get through on their first call. One of the facts that the helpline has consistently had to confirm is that the earliest date for the (monthly) payment is 28 April. To meet the demand, we have, over the last six weeks, increased the resource allocated to handling telephone calls to maximise the number of calls the helpline can answer.

  Vera Baird
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what action he is taking to ensure that take-up of tax credits is not adversely affected by the initial administrative problems; [110856]

  (2) what action he is taking to relieve the impact of the problems encountered when administering tax credits in the Redcar constituency. [110855]

  Dawn Primarolo
  I refer my hon. Friend to the statement I made in the House on 28 April 2003,Official Report, column 53W.

  Over 4 million claims have already been made for the Child and Working Tax Credit. The publicity campaign to encourage claims from families who may be entitled to tax credits will continue.

  Mr. Howard
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) how much has been spent on publicising the emergency payments system for tax credits; and if he will list the media being used to publicise the emergency payments system; [111384]

  (2) how many households have received money under the emergency payment system for tax credits; and what the total value of such payments is. [111385]
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  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many interim payments of child tax credit have been paid by each Inland Revenue office. [111835]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The Inland Revenue already had standing procedures to enable interim payments of tax credits to be paid, in cases where such payments are necessary. As I said to the House on 28 April 2003, by the end of last week 3.2 million families had their tax credits in payment in the normal way and remaining cases were being processed as quickly as possible. In the vast majority of cases, therefore, special arrangements for payment are not necessary.

  Mr. Howard
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when the Inland Revenue will publish a code of practice on overpayment of tax credits. [111386]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The Inland Revenue will publish a code of practice on recovery of overpaid tax credits later this year.

  Mr. Howard
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many applications for(a) child tax credit and (b) working tax credit are waiting to be processed. [111390]

  Dawn Primarolo
  Claims for Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit are made together, on one form, leading to a single calculation if claimants qualify for both. By 28 April, over 4 million claims to the new tax credits had been received and around 3.2 million awards were already being paid or had been set up for payment. The Inland Revenue was working through the remaining claims as quickly as possible, where necessary contacting claimants for outstanding information.

  Mr. Howard
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) how many households who submitted application forms before 31 January are yet to receive payments of(a) child tax credit and (b) working tax credit; how many payments of (i) child tax credit and (ii) working tax credit are overdue; and what the total value is of overdue payments of (A) child tax credit and (B) working tax credit; [111393]

  (2) how many households who have applied for (a) child tax credit and (b) working tax credit and who opted to receive four-weekly payments applied (i) before and (ii) after 31 January. [111389]

  Dawn Primarolo
  About 2.7 million claims for child tax credit and working tax credit were received by the end of January 2003.

  Awards are already being paid except in the small proportion of cases where further information is needed to make a decision on the claim. In these cases the Inland Revenue should already have been in touch with claimants to ask for that further information.

  About a third of all claims processed so far have opted for weekly payment.

  Home Safety Products (VAT)
  Claire Ward
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the progress of discussions with the EU to reduce VAT on home safety products. [111901]
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  John Healey
  Discussions on the EU provisions for reduced rates of VAT will follow publication of proposals for such a review by the European Commission. We will consider the position of home safety products and other goods and services for which we have received similar representations as part of that review.

  Manufacturing Industry
  Mr. Hopkins
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what recent assessment he has made of the impact of the sterling exchange rate on demand for British manufactures. [111902]

  John Healey
  A full assessment of the prospects for manufacturing can be found in Chapter B of this year's Financial Statement and Budget Report (HC 500), a copy of which is available in the Library of the House.

  Small Business
  Mr. Henry Bellingham
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, What discussions he had in advance of the Budget with the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry regarding new taxes and regulations imposed on small businesses. [111903]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The Chancellor meets regularly with my right hon. Friend, at which time he discusses a full range of relevant issues, including the Government's success at reducing the corporate tax burden on companies and introducing such reforms as a R&D tax credit and improvements to the capital gains tax regime.

  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Chancellor of Exchequer, what representations he received from the Federation of Small Businesses in advance of the Budget regarding his policies on corporate tax and regulation. [111905]

  Dawn Primarolo
  In advance of the Budget the Government received representations from a number of organisations, including the Federation of Small Business.

  International Finance Facility
  Mr. Ross
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what recent steps he has taken to promote the International Finance Facility. [111904]

  John Healey
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Treasury continue to promote the IFF through all relevant national and international fora.

  In addition to positive discussions at recent G7 Finance Ministers' meetings and the Spring Meetings of the IMF and World Bank, the Chancellor and his officials continue to discuss the proposal with nongovernmental organisations, faith and community groups and the business community—both nationally and internationally.

  I also raised this with fellow Ministers from Members States of the OECD at a meeting in Paris last week.

  Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative
  Mr. Reed
  To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment he has made of the impact of reduction in commodity prices on the HIPC initiative. [111906]
  790W
  John Healey
  The UK believes that where countries have had to contend with external shocks—such as sharp falls in the price of key export commodities—we should be generous in providing additional debt relief to promote a lasting exit from unsustainable debt.

  Moreover, the UK is seeking agreement that this additional debt relief or topping-up that HIPCs can receive when completing the HIPC initiative should exclude additional bilateral voluntary debt relief, to ensure fairer burden sharing between creditors and provide truly additional relief to HIPCs. This important change in the rules could provide a further US $1 billion in debt relief.

  The Government also believes we must be much more cautious about the forecasts we use to calculate debt sustainability. Optimistic assumptions about future growth and exports often do not reflect the reality many countries face—and unnecessarily restrict the amount of debt relief we can provide.

  Capita
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer pursuant to his answer of 15 January 2003,Official Report, columns 661–62W, on Capita, if he will give the (a) start and finish date, (b) value, (c) evaluation mechanism for successful delivery and (d) penalty charges for failure to deliver for each contract; whether penalty charges have been incurred; what the service level agreements were; what the contract numbers were; and if he will make a statement. [97334]

  Ruth Kelly
  It has been drawn to my attention that there were errors in my earlier answers about Capita of 13 March 2002,Official Report, column 1113W, and 15 January 2003, Official Report, column 662W. I apologise for this earlier inaccuracy, which I very much regret.

  The following information is given separately in respect of each of the Chancellor's Departments.

  HM Treasury

  In my earlier answers I stated that the Treasury had placed work with Capita under a single framework agreement for external recruitment with no defined value. At that time, no such framework agreement was in place: service orders were therefore being placed individually at a total cost of £170,847 (excluding VAT) in 2001–02. Spending during 2002–03 was £279,697 (excluding VAT). Details of the seventeen orders during this period are given in the following table. For reasons of commercial confidentiality it is not possible to list individual contract values. Exemption 13 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information applies, ((a) and (b)).

  Delivery is assessed through internal mechanisms for review of the staff recruited. No penalty clauses or service level agreements were put in place: service requirements were specified for each piece of work, ((c) and (d)).
  791W

  Title of post

  Start date

  Completion date

  HR consultant

  27 May 2002

  27 June 2002

  Customer Relations Manager

  6 March 2002

  12 April 2002

  Customer Relations Advisor

  11 July 2002

  2 August 2002

  Accounting Policies Manager and Accountancy Advisor

  7 May 2002

  7 June 2002

  Head of information services

  25 July 2002

  9 September 2002

  HR Team Leader and HR Diversity Officer

  26 November 2002

  10 January 2003

  Quality Manager

  17 June 2002

  19 July 2002

  Head of Learning, Skills and Development

  9 January 2003

  3 February 2003

  Development Consultant

  16 January 2003

  28 February 2003

  Gold System Manager

  22 January 2003

  13 February 2003

  Website Editor

  22 January 2003

  14 February 2003

  Project and Programme Managers and Knowledge Manager

  29 January 2003

  28 February 2003

  PA to Managing Director

  3 February 2003

  28 February 2003

  Senior Programmer/Analyst

  24 February 2003

  21 March 2003

  Policy Analysts

  26 February 2003

  4 April 2003

  Senior Policy Analyst

  28 March 2003

  25 April 2003

  Second Permanent Secretary— Managing Director, Budget and Public Finances and Head of Government Economies Services

  16 April 2003

  20 May 2003

  Inland Revenue (IR)

  IR has two competitively procured management consultancy framework arrangements with Capita. One starts on the 1 April 2002 and runs until 30 September 2003. The other runs from 1 September 2002 until 29 February 2004. Neither contract has yet been used by IR. Accordingly, no IR contract values are associated with these arrangements, ((a) and (b)).

  Evaluation criteria will be drawn up for each requirement under the framework, (c).

  Neither penalty clauses or Service Level Agreements are associated with these frameworks. The requirement will be stated in the order/contract for each piece of work and the supplier will be judged on their ability to meet that requirement, (d).

  H.M. Customs and Excise HMCE

  Within the following broad headings, during 2002–03, HMCE have awarded the following work to Capita under one of IR's management consultancy framework agreements. The start and finish dates for the individual contracts could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Maximum return on Investment Training

  Membership Subscription

  Promoting Flexible Working Practices

  Managing Change Training

  e-Learning Training

  Leadership Training

  GORS Selection Interview Training

  Training Administration Introduction

  NLP Training

  IT Tests

  Talent Spotting

  Professional Skills for SEC

  Business Writing

  Taking Responsibility Training

  Civil Service Reform Training

  AA/A0 Assessment Tests

  Training Evaluation

  Legal Trainees

  Fast Stream Recruitment

  Advanced Assertiveness for Managers Training

  792W

  Complaints Training

  Leadership Training

  Positive Image Training

  Assistant Print Buyer

  Access to Personal Information Training

  Time Management Training

  Data Protection Training

  Belfast Building Work

  Diagnostic Internal Communications Manager

  Feedback

  RAS Helpline

  Thinking on your feet

  GLS Lawyers Recruitment

  Human Resources Manager

  Communication Training

  Internal Communications Manager

  Effective Middle Management

  Human Resources

  Customer Contact Centre Advisor

  Instant Recruitment—EO

  In House Training (Feedback Skills)

  Selection Test

  Interviewing: The Selection Techniques

  In house training (Coaching)

  Diversity in the Civil Service

  For reasons of commercial confidentiality, it is not possible to list individual contract values. Exemption 13 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information applies. In total, the value for the services listed is £238,097 (excluding VAT), ((a) and (b)).

  Evaluation criteria were drawn up for each requirement under the Framework. The information required under detailed analyses (c) could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Office of Government Commerce OGC

  To clarify my earlier answers, Capita Property Consultancy and two other consultancy companies were appointed to provide property related advice and services under the terms of a competitively tendered framework agreement from 16 August 2001 to 15 August 2004, with the option to extend for a further two years. At time of posting the tender notice in the

  793W
  Official Journal of the European Community, the estimated total cost of the agreement was £200,000 per annum. However, no spend has yet been made through the framework, ((a) and (b)).

  The evaluation mechanism for successful delivery is covered by OGC buying. solutions customer care programme that comprises customer feedback on overall quality of service provider (understanding of requirement, speed of response, quality of administration and timescales met), (c).

  Penalty clauses do not form part of the terms and conditions of the framework agreement, (d.)

  In addition, during 2001–02, the OGC placed individual service orders with Capita to the value of £159,170 (excluding VAT). And during 2002–03, OGC used one Capita consultant under a contract. The contract with Capita was concluded in May 2002 when the consultant was subsequently employed by OGC on a fixed term contract. The total sum paid to Capita over the 2002–03 period was £46, 519 (excluding VAT), ((a) and (b)).

  Neither penalty clauses or a Service Level Agreement were appropriate for this contract, (c.)

  Nevertheless, the evaluation of the value for money for the payment was on the basis of the successful achievement of the objectives set for the programme of work to which the individual contributed, (d).

  Child Care
  Ms Buck
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the terms of reference and timescale are for the review of the effectiveness of the national child care strategy in ensuring an adequate supply of affordable child care, as indicated in the Budget Statement. [111761]

  Dawn Primarolo
  We will announce details in due course. The review will involve dialogue with family and parent groups and voluntary organisations.

  Criminal Offences
  Simon Hughes
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list, broken down by Act, the criminal offences created in legislation sponsored by his Department since 1997. [112111]

  Ruth Kelly
  Under section 38 of the Bank of England Act 1998, it is a criminal offence to fail to provide information, or to provide false or misleading information, to the Bank of England. Improper disclosure of information received in the exercise of functions conferred by the Bank of England Act 1998 is a criminal offence under Schedule 7 to that Act.

  The Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 created the following criminal offences:

  Carrying on a regulated activity in the United Kingdom without being authorised or exempt under that Act (section 23)

  The making of a false claim to be, or falsely holding oneself out as, an authorised or exempt person (section 24)

  The communication of an invitation or inducement to engage in a financial services activity, except where that communication is made by, or approved by, a person who is authorised under that Act (section 25)

  794W

  Where the Financial Services Authority ("FSA") has required an authorised person to transfer assets to a trustee, any release of or dealing in those assets by the trustee otherwise than with the consent of the FSA (section 48)

  Breach of an FSA. order prohibiting an individual from performing functions in relation to regulated activities (section 56)

  Failure to deliver a copy of listing particulars to the registrar of companies (section 83)

  The offer of securities to the public in the United Kingdom before a prospectus is published (where publication is required by listing rules) (section 85)

  The issue in the United Kingdom of an advertisement in connection with a listing application without the approval or authorisation of the competent authority (section 98)

  Failure to comply with a requirement to provide information or a document imposed by the FSA, failure to comply with a requirement imposed by an investigator appointed by the FSA, provision of false or misleading information or the obstruction of an investigation or the exercise of rights conferred by a warrant issued under the Act (section 177)

  Failure to notify the FSA of a change of control over an authorised person or proceeding with a change of control without FSA, authorisation (section 191)

  Breach of a prohibition or restriction imposed by the Office of Fair Trading on carrying on business relating to consumer credit in the United Kingdom (sections 203 and 204)

  The making of a false claim to be, or falsely holding oneself out as, a person who may carry on regulated activities without being authorised by the FSA by virtue of membership of a designated professional body (section 333)

  Provision by an authorised person of false or misleading information to an auditor or actuary who is appointed under or as a result of the Act (section 346)

  Improper disclosure or use of information received in the exercise of functions conferred by the Act (sections 351 and 352)

  Failure by a director of an insurer to notify the FSA of a general meeting at which a resolution for the voluntary winding up of the insurer will be proposed (section 366)

  Misleading statements or practices which relate to certain financial services (section 397)

  Provision of false or misleading information to the FSA (section 398)

  Misleading the Office of Fair Trading (section 399)

  Failure by an unauthorised UK firm to comply with the procedural provisions of the Act relating to the carrying on of regulated activities outside the UK (Schedule 3)

  Failure by a firm established in an EEA State (other than the UK) to notify the FSA of an intention to carry on regulated activities in the UK (Schedule 4)

  Failure to attend or give evidence before the Financial Services and Markets Tribunal (Schedule 13)

  The Finance Act 2000 created the following criminal offences:

  The possession and sale etc. of unmarked tobacco or the use of premises for sale of unmarked tobacco (sections 8G and 8H of the Tobacco Products Duty Act 1979, as amended by section 14)

  Being knowingly concerned in the fraudulent evasion of income tax (section 144)

  Intentionally to falsify, conceal, destroy or otherwise dispose of a document which is the subject of a production order (section 2OBB of the Taxes Management Act 1970, as amended by section 149)

  Being knowingly concerned in the evasion of the climate change levy (paragraph 62 of Schedule 6)

  Misstatement by false document for the purpose of the climate change levy, conduct involving evasions or misstatements relating to the climate change levy and preparations for the evasion of the climate change levy (paragraphs 93 to 95 of Schedule 6)

  795W
  The Finance Act 2001 made being knowingly concerned in, or taking steps with a view to, the fraudulent evasion of the aggregates levy, using a false document for purposes connected with the aggregates levy, conduct involving misstatements or evasions of the aggregates levy and preparations for evasion of the aggregates levy criminal offences (paragraphs 1 to 4 of Schedule 6). Under section 18 of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, it is a criminal offence to contravene a direction given by the Secretary of State which prohibits disclosure of information for the purposes of specified overseas criminal proceedings. Section 35 of the Tax Credits Act 2002 creates the criminal offence of being knowingly concerned in any fraudulent activity undertaken with a view to obtaining payments of a tax credit.

  Debt Restructuring Mechanism
  Mr. Colman
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on progress at the Spring Meeting of the IMF on the introduction of the legal framework of the sovereign debt restructuring mechanism. [110038]

  John Healey
  At the Spring Meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) on 12 April, ministers discussed the report of the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund on a Statutory Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism. The conclusion of that discussion is set out in the IMFC communique released on 12 April as:"The Committee welcomes the work of the IMF in developing a concrete proposal for a statutory sovereign debt restructuring mechanism (SDRM) and expresses its appreciation for the IMF management and staffs efforts. The extensive analysis and consultation undertaken in developing the proposal have served to promote better understanding of the issues to be addressed in bringing about orderly resolution of crises. The Managing Director's report sets out the current position. The Committee, while recognizing that it is not feasible now to move forward to establish the SDRM, agrees that work should continue on issues raised in its development that are of general relevance to the orderly resolution of financial crises. These issues include inter-creditor equity considerations, enhancing transparency and disclosure, and aggregation issues. The IMF will report on progress at the Committee's next meeting."

  Employment
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proportion of the population of working age was in work in each of the last 30 years. [110689]

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

  Letter from Colin Mowl to Mr. Frank Field, dated 6 May 2003:

  The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question about employment rates. I am replying in his absence. (110689)

  The attached table gives the information requested for the three month periods ending May of each year from 1984 to 2002. The latest available estimates, for the three month period ending February 2003 are also given. These estimates are from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and are seasonally adjusted. This information is not available on a consistent basis for prior to 1984.
  796W

  Employment rates1 for people of working2 age—United Kingdom, spring and winter quarters

  Seasonally adjusted

  Percentage

  Employment rates1 for people of working2 age—United Kingdom, spring and winter quarters

  Seasonally adjusted

  Percentage

  Spring

  1984

  68.8

  1985

  69.6

  1986

  69.7

  1987

  70.4

  1988

  72.7

  1989

  74.5

  1990

  74.9

  1991

  73.2

  1992

  71.2

  1993

  70.3

  1994

  70.7

  1995

  71.2

  1996

  71.8

  1997

  72.7

  1998

  73.3

  1999

  73.7

  2000

  74.4

  2001

  74.6

  2002

  74.4

  Winter

  2002–03

  74.6

  1Working age people in employment as a percentage of the working age population.

  2Men aged 16–64 and women aged 16–59.

  Note:

  These Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates have been interim-adjusted to take account of the recent Census 2001 results.

  Source:

  ONS Labour Force Survey

  Funding
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will list the schemes which have been allocated funding from the £25 million earmarked following the 2002 Spending Review over three years starting in 2003–04 for services delivered in partnership with the voluntary sector to help parents improve their parenting skills. [111861]

  Mr. Boateng
  A consultation document discussing the Government's proposed approach to the £25 million Parenting Fund will be published shortly.

  Insurance Premium Tax
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to alter the rate of insurance premium tax. [112418]

  Ruth Kelly
  The Government's taxation plans are announced in my right hon. Friend's annual Budget.

  Iraq (Debt)
  Nick Harvey
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what economic terms he plans to set out regarding the repayment of Iraq's debt to the UK; and if he will make a statement; [111811]
  797W
  (2) what terms of (a) relief, (b) restructuring and (c) rescheduling of Iraq's debt he plans to propose in the Paris Club: and if he will make a statement. [111819]

  Mr. Boateng
  The UK supports a full assessment by the IMF and the World Bank of Iraq's economic potential, needs and obligations. In the light of that assessment the UK will seek a fair and sustainable solution to Iraq's debt, including to the UK, at the Paris Club of official creditors.

  Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council
  Rachel Squire
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will review the rules which reduce the amount of UK grants and funds awarded to the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council when it gains additional EU funding. [111376]

  Ruth Kelly
  [holding answer 7 May 2003]Government policy is that UK public spending financed from the EC Budget is subject to normal public sector budgeting rules. This reflects the fact that UK taxpayers have an interest in spending on programmes funded from the EC Budget being spent in a way which is consistent with national priorities.

  Departments have therefore in general needed budgetary cover for spending funded from the EC Budget, including spending on research and development. To improve incentives, however, a recent review has resulted in changes to the public sector budgeting rules, so that from 2003–04 departments which receive income from the EC Budget for commercially- or competitively-let research contracts will be able to offset half of their income from qualifying programmes against spending within their departmental expenditure limit.

  Savings
  Mrs. Helen Clark
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what evaluations he has made on the benefit to low income families of measures to promote savings. [112094]

  Ruth Kelly
  The Government recognise the importance of saving and assets in providing security in times of adversity; independence and opportunity throughout life; and comfort in retirement. The Government's saving strategy is focused on:improving the environment for saving, with macroeconomic stability and an efficient and well-regulated market in financial services;
  798W
  creating the right incentives for saving by ensuring that the tax and benefit system does not unfairly penalise savers and by assisting those on low incomes;
  empowering individuals with financial information, improved access to advice, and simpler and easier to understand savings products; and
  developing saving products suitable for each stage in a person's life cycle. As the scale of saving increases, proceeds from one product may be rolled into the next, helping people to progress up the savings ladder.

  A number of Government policies are promoting saving among lower income groups. For example, ISAs have helped to make saving simple for ordinary investors to understand. One in five ISA holders are from lower income groups compared with one in seven who had either a TESSA or PEP. The Saving Gateway is aimed at low-income individuals and offers a transparent incentive to save through a government-funded match. The Saving Gateway is currently being piloted and independent evaluation will assess its effect on saving behaviour. The Government are also committed to strengthening the saving habit of future generations. The Child Trust Fund will ensure all children born from September 2002 have an account set up for them into which an initial Government endowment of £250 will be paid. Children from the poorest families will receive an endowment of £500.

  Stamp Duty
  Mr. Howard
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the further consultations he is to have with business concerning stamp duty on lease contracts, as referred to in paragraph 5.90 of the 2003 Budget (HC 500). [110238]

  Ruth Kelly
  The lease duty consultation after Budget 2002 was very helpful in informing the proposed new lease duty structure, which incorporates many consultees' views. The Chancellor announced in Budget 2003 that he is happy for further consultation to take place on the proposed new structure. In order to facilitate this, a time-limited regulatory power has been incorporated in Finance Bill 2003 to allow a suitable alternative proposal to be put in place for the implementation of Stamp Duty Land Tax in December 2003. However, any alternative will only replace the current proposals if it can be shown to be a better way of achieving the same objectives. The Inland Revenue will convene further discussions shortly with representative organisations and with businesses who have expressed a particular interest in the proposals.
  799W

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Age Discrimination
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps her Department is taking to address the issue of age discrimination. [109454]

  Ms Hewitt
  The DTI is strongly and actively committed to diversity in its workforce. Age restrictions do not apply to DTI job advertisements or to selection criteria. We have adopted, or had already met, the recommendations in the Cabinet Office's Winning the Generation Game report and will continue to embed age diversity in all policies and processes as part of diversity mainstreaming. This includes from August 2002 giving all staff in the DTI below the Senior Civil Service the option of continuing to work to age 65.

  North Sea Anti-dumping Convention
  Mr. Colman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what actions have been taken to amend the London Anti-Dumping Convention for the North Sea Region to enable carbon sequestration to take place in the geological formation following the extraction of gas and oil. [110455]

  Mr. Wilson
  DTI, Defra, and FCO are jointly examining the London Dumping Convention 1972, the 1996 Protocol to that Convention, and the 1992 OSPAR Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North East Atlantic to assess their compatibility with the storage of carbon dioxide in subsea geological formations. The outcome will be summarised in the DTI Report of the Feasibility of CO2 Capture and Storage in the UK, expected early summer 2003. The Government intends to raise the issue of such storage before the appropriate forums under these Conventions.

  Broadband
  Mr. Paterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps she is taking to ensure broadband is made available to all those living in Shropshire. [111660]

  UK imports of goods from sub-Saharan Africa1 (£ million)

  SITC Division

  Commodity group2

  2000

  Year to February 2003

  Change

  Perecentage change

  02

  Dairy products and birds' eggs

  1.3

  5.3

  4.0

  318.8

  03

  Fish, (not marine mammals), crustaceans, molluscs, and aquatic invertebrates and preparations thereof

  93.9

  130.9

  37.0

  39.4

  04

  Cereals and cereal preparations

  0.3

  0.7

  0.4

  114.7

  05

  Vegetables and fruit

  301.6

  375.9

  74.3

  24.7

  06

  Sugar, sugar preparations and honey

  167.3

  219.2

  51.8

  31.0

  07

  Coffee, tea, cocoa, spices and manufactures thereof

  241.7

  304.2

  62.5

  25.9

  08

  Feeding stuff for animals not including unmilled cereals

  2.0

  2.6

  0.5

  24.9

  09

  Miscellaneous edible products and preparations

  2.7

  3.7

  0.9

  34.2

  11

  Beverages

  81.7

  123.2

  41.6

  50.9

  12

  Tobacco and tobacco manufacturers

  50.8

  61.3

  10.5

  20.7

  21

  Hides, skins and furskins, raw

  7.9

  9.9

  1.9

  24.6

  22

  Oil seeds and oleaginous fruit

  5.2

  7.6

  2.4

  46.3

  27

  Crude fertilisers other than those of division 56 and crude minerals (excluding coal, petroleum and precious stones)

  41.8

  48.8

  7.0

  16.7

  29

  Crude animal and vegetable materials

  28.3

  40.0

  11.7

  41.4

  800W
  Mr. Timms
  We expect to spend 1 billion over three years to 2006 to help bring broadband to primary and secondary schools, GPs, primary care Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities. We are also developing strategies to aggregate public sector demand to reinforce the case for wider community access to broadband.

  I was pleased to see reports that Shropshire has provided broadband connection to all its 22 Libraries in February this year with support from the People Network Initiative, supported by the New Opportunities Fund.

  Through the £30 million Broadband Fund, my Department also supports satellite trials through the Remote Area Broadband Inclusion Trial (RABBIT). Shropshire receives support through this Trial, directed at giving rural SMEs experience of broadband.

  Correspondence
  Mr. Kaufman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when she intends to reply to the letter to him dated 31 March from the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton with regard to Ms K. Grant. [111592]

  Ms Hewitt
  I apologise for the delay in replying to my right hon. Friend's letter. It was not readily evident that my right hon. Friend's constituent raised issues that are within my Department's responsibility.

  However, I have now decided that they are for my Department and I will reply as soon as possible.

  Imports (Sub-Saharan Africa)
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in what products imports from sub-Saharan Africa have grown since the implementation of the Everything but Arms agreement; by what margin; and if she will make a statement. [110768]

  Ms Hewitt
  According to information published by HM Customs and Excise, the value of UK imports from sub-Saharan Africa increased, from 2000 to the year ending February 2003, in 36 out of 64 commodity groups. The value of UK imports and the percentage change, for those commodities that showed an increase, are given in the following table:
  801W

  UK import of goods from sub-sharan Africa1 (£ million)

  SITC Division

  Commodity

  2000

  Year to February 2003

  32

  Coal, coke and briquettes

  133.1

  264.9

  131.7

  98.9

  33

  Petroleum, petroleum products and related materials

  43.1

  51.7

  8.6

  19.9

  42

  Fixed vegetable fats and oils; crude, refined or fractionated

  3.6

  4.4

  0.8

  21.0

  43

  Animal and vegetable oils and fats, processed, and waxes of animal or vegetable origin

  0.2

  0.5

  0.3

  175.3

  51

  Organic chemicals

  3.6

  7.1

  3.5

  98.8

  53

  Dyeing, tanning and colouring materials

  1.0

  1.2

  0.2

  20.3

  54

  Medicinal and pharmaceutical products

  3.5

  8.6

  5.1

  146.1

  55

  Essential oils and resinoids and perfume materials; toilet, polishing and cleansing preparations

  15.4

  20.7

  5.3

  34.3

  56

  Fertilizers, (other than those of group 272)

  0.1

  0.3

  0.2

  154.0

  57

  Plastics in primary forms

  1.6

  2.3

  0.7

  43.7

  58

  Plastics in non-primary forms

  1.2

  1.5

  0.3

  2.7

  63

  Cork and wood manufactures (excluding furniture)

  36.5

  42.9

  6.4

  17.5

  64

  Paper, paperboard and articles of paper pulp; etc.

  12.0

  25.0

  13.0

  108.3

  66

  Non-metallic mineral manufacturers

  1,362.4

  2,022.1

  659.7

  48.4

  72

  Specialised industrial machinery

  16.5

  21.4

  4.9

  30.0

  74

  General industrial machinery and equipment, NES and machine parts NES

  75.4

  95.9

  20.5

  27.2

  78

  Road vehicles

  105.9

  315.8

  209.9

  198.3

  79

  Other transport equipment

  56.0

  91.6

  35.7

  63.7

  82

  Furniture and parts thereof; bedding, mattresses, supports, cushions and similar stuffed furnishings

  61.6

  65.5

  3.9

  6.4

  85

  Footwear

  2.4

  3.7

  1.3

  56.1

  87

  Professional, scientific and control instruments (and apparatus NES)

  43.1

  52.5

  9.4

  21.9

  89

  Miscellaneous manufactured article NES

  35.3

  42.3

  7.0

  19.8

  Total

  4,201.3

  5.343.7

  1,142.3

  27.2

  imports

  1Sub-Saharan Africa comprises the following countries: Mauritania, Bali, Burkina, Niger, Chad, Cape Verde, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, Gabon, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, St. Helena, Angola, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Seychelles, British Indian Ocean Territory, Mozambique, Madagascar, Mauritius, Comoros, Mayotte, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Swaziland and Lesotho.

  2Commodities are grouped according to Divisions of the Standard International Trade Classification, revision 3.

  Note:

  NES: Not elsewhere specified.

  Health and Safety at Work
  Mr. Crausby
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans she has to introduce a bill that will remove Crown Immunity from liability under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. [111196]

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  I have been asked to reply.

  The Government will seek a legislative opportunity, when parliamentary time allows, to remove Crown immunity from statutory health and safety enforcement.

  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.

  Iraq
  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many contracts have been awarded related to the reconstruction of Iraq; of those, how many have been awarded to(a) US and (b) UK companies; what the total value is of contracts awarded: and what percentage have gone to (i) US and (ii) UK companies. [111130]
  802W
  Ms Hewitt
  [holding answer 6 May 2003]The US Government has let a number of contracts to US firms, mainly through US AID and the US Army Corps of Engineers. Information on these contracts is available on the Trade Partners UK website, with full details on US Government websites, including US AID. The main US AID reconstruction contract was awarded to Bechtel on 17 April. We are supporting efforts by UK companies to win sub-contracts but companies are not obliged to inform us if and when they win contracts.

  Research Councils
  Valerie Davey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans she has to undertake a review of the work of the Medical Research Council following the report of the Science and Technology Committee published on 24 March, HC132. [111246]

  Ms Hewitt
  The MRC is highly renowned around the world for its track record in promoting excellent medical research. We currently have no plans to carry out a review of the MRC following the Select Committee report. We are however reviewing the Select Committee's report and we will make a detailed response during May.
  803W
  Rachel Squire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will review the arrangement whereby the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council has its income from UK grants and funds reduced when it gains additional EU funding. [111375]

  Ms Hewitt
  [holding answer 7 May 2003]: UK public spending financed from the EU's Budget is subject to normal public sector budgeting rules. This reflects the fact that UK taxpayers have an interest in spending on programmes funded from the EU's Budget being spent in a way which is consistent with national priorities.

  Departments and their sponsored bodies, including PPARC, have therefore in general needed budgetary cover for spending funded from the EU's Budget, including spending on research and development. To improve incentives, however, a recent review has resulted in changes to the public sector budgeting rules, so that from 2003–04 departments and their sponsored bodies including PPARC which receive income from the EU's Budget for commercially- or competitively-let research contracts will be able to offset half of their income from qualifying programmes against spending within their departmental expenditure limit.

  Radiocommunications Agency/Oftel
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many staff were employed by(a) the Radiocommunications Agency and (b) Oftel in each of the last five years; and what the annual budget was in each of those years in each case. [108937]

  Ms Hewitt

  Radiocommunications Agency

  Year ended 31 March

  Staff employed (average)

  Staff costs £000

  1998

  509

  15,653

  1999

  492

  16,380

  2000

  502

  16,256

  2001

  535

  17,786

  2002

  573

  20,101

  Note:

  'Staff costs' is actual expenditure on staff including salaries, social security costs, and early retirement costs, as shown in the Agency's published Annual Report and Accounts.

  Office of Telecommunications

  Year ended 31 March

  Staff employed (actual)

  Staff costs £000

  1998

  176

  6,097

  1999

  181

  6,783

  2000

  195

  7,671

  2001

  208

  9,401

  2002

  236

  10,741

  Source:

  Annual report and accounts

  SARS
  Mr. Dismore
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will take steps to support businesses operated or owned by people of Chinese origin which deal directly with the public, with specified reference to(a) restaurants and (b) shops, to combat the effect of public concern over the issue of SARS; and if she will make a statement. [111785]
  804W
  Ms Hewitt
  [holding answer 7 May 2003]: The Government are striving to combat the effects of SARS, taking the steps described to the House by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health on 28 April 2003, Official Report, colums 38–41.

MINISTER FOR WOMEN

  Iraq
  Joan Ruddock
  To ask the Minister for Women what steps she is taking to ensure that Iraqi women play a full part in the leadership of Iraq. [110339]

  Ms Hewitt
  The UK Government is a strong supporter of UN Security Council Resolution 1,325 which emphasises the importance of the inclusion of women into all aspects of post conflict reconstruction and peace operations, and strongly supports its effective implementation in post conflict Iraq. As Minister for Women I am extremely concerned that Iraqi women play a full role in the reconstruction and leadership of their country. Together with colleagues across Government I am taking several initiatives to fulfil this aim, these include:An ongoing dialogue with Iraqi women exiles,
  Awareness raising within the Office for Reconstruction and Development (ORHA) on the importance of promoting the involvement of women in all aspects of the reconstruction of Iraq,
  Nomination of female participants at meetings to discuss the Interim Iraqi Administration (IIA),
  Active encouragement of UK NGOs in this process,
  Use of Freedom TV to encourage Iraqi women to participate in reconstruction, Plans for a women's conference to feed into the creation of the IIA,
  Secondment of a UK government gender equality expert to work in ORHA.

WORK AND PENSIONS

  Correspondence
  Sandra Gidley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many acknowledgement letters and cards were dispatched by his Department in each year since 1997 for which figures are available; and what the estimated average cost was per letter and card. [111869]

  Maria Eagle
  The information is not available.

  Criminal Offences
  Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will list, broken down by Act, the criminal offences created in legislation sponsored by his Department and its predecessors since 1997. [111787]

  Malcolm Wicks
  The Social Security Administration (Fraud) Act 1997 created six new offences—involving failure to report material changes of circumstances and making false statements. These offences were re-enacted in modified form in the Social Security (Fraud) Act 2001. S.5 of the 1997 Act created a further offence of failure to comply with a requirement to produce documents and information required under the Social Security Administration Act 1992.
  805W
  The Social Security Act 1998 modified a previously existing offence of breach of regulations and created a new offence of fraudulent evasion of contributions (sections 60 and 61).

  The Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999 created offences in three areas. False statements in applications to register stakeholder pension schemes (s.2); fraudulent evasion of employers payments to personal pension schemes (s.9(12)) and a substituted offence for s.49(8) of the Pensions Act 1995 of fraudulent evasion of the deductions from employees' earnings for contributions to pensions (s.10).

  The Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Act 2000 created three offences of making or causing false statements to be made and failing to comply with a request for information required by regulations.

  The Social Security (Fraud) Act 2001 added an offence to s.111 of the Social Security Administration Act in respect of failure to comply with requirements to allow authorised officers to have electronic access to records.

  Disability Living Allowance
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what studies he is conducting into whether potential loss of disability living allowance inhibits potential returners to work. [110735]

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  Disability Living Allowance (DLA) provides a contribution towards the extra costs that severely disabled people face as a result of their disabilities, and entitlement is based solely on a person's need for personal care and/or their walking difficulties. DLA is payable to people both in and out of work, and therefore does not disincentivise recipients wishing to take up work.

  We recognise that, for many disabled people, work is made possible through receiving additional support and we make no assumptions that the severity of a person's disability has changed simply because they are undertaking work. Decision makers receive specific guidance that awards of DLA should only be altered where a person's care or mobility needs have changed.

  Employment Action Teams
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) where peripatetic employment action team advisers are present in Newcastle upon Tyne; how regularly they use these locations; and if he will estimate the number of users at each location; [103427]

  (2) what internal estimates of working age employment rates in each ward of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne informed the selection of wards for employment action team status. [103428]
  806W
  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  Information on the outreach locations used by the Newcastle Action Team for Jobs, how regularly they are used, and their average number of customers is in the table.

  Ward/Outreach location

  Number of days per week action team advisers attend the location

  Average number of customers attending per week

  Walker

  B & Q car park1

  1

  6

  Walker Library

  2

  10

  East2Work Shop, Shields Rd

  2

  16

  Byker

  East End Library

  1

  4

  East2Work shop, Byker

  2

  19

  Brinkburn Centre

  1

  5

  Morrisons1

  1

  10

  Monkchester

  Roman Avenue1

  1

  7

  Walker Library

  1

  6

  East2Work

  3

  20

  West City

  Ron Eager Centre

  0.5

  5

  ESOL, Nelson Street

  0.5

  2

  Angela Centre

  1

  6

  City Jobcentre Plus

  2

  10

  Cruddas Park Library

  1

  8

  Anchor Programme Centre, Market St

  0.5

  3

  City Library

  2

  9

  CSV Training

  0.5

  5

  Elswick

  Workfinder Office, Benwell

  1

  3

  Computer Gym

  1

  5

  Civic Centre

  4

  Elswick Pool

  1

  3

  Westgate College

  1

  3

  Action4Employment

  1

  4

  Benwell

  Workfinder Office, Benwell

  1.5

  12

  Cornerstones

  1

  7

  St Josephs Refugee Group

  1

  5

  John Martey Centre

  1

  4

  Newcastle College1

  1

  6

  Benwell Library

  1

  8

  West Road Jobcentre Plus

  1

  15

  Scotswood

  Workfinder Office, Benwell

  1

  6

  Community cafe

  0.5

  4

  West Road Jobcentre Plus

  0.5

  5

  Valley View Nursery

  0.5

  3

  Scotswood Support Centre

  0.5

  9

  Woolsington

  Newbiggin Hall Library

  1

  10

  Gala Fields

  2

  11

  Roycroft Centre

  0.5

  10

  Detached Youth Project

  0.5

  8

  Newbiggin Hall Shops1

  1

  5

  807W

  Ward/Outreach location

  Number of days per week action team advisers attend the location

  Average number of customers attending per week

  Fawdon

  Park View Sports Centre

  1

  5

  Fawdon Community Centre

  2

  12

  Peacock Pub Car Park1

  1

  3

  Fawdon Library

  1

  5

  Kenton

  Cowgate Leisure Centre

  1

  8

  St Cuthbert's Church

  0.5

  3

  Montague Library

  1

  6

  Kenton Library

  1

  6

  1Mobile unit

  Source:

  Jobcentre Plus

  In 2001, Newcastle upon Tyne was chosen as an Action Team for Jobs area because the local authority was one of the 30 with the lowest labour market participation in Britain.

  The selection of wards within the area to be covered by the Newcastle Action Team was based on the proportion of the working age population not in employment. The wards targeted had a working age employment rate of 58.5 per cent. or below at the time of selection (April 2001).

  The Office for National Statistics does not produce employment rates down to individual wards from the Labour Force Survey. For this specific purpose a one off exercise was carried out to calculate data at ward level in action team areas. At ward level there is a larger margin of error and so a combination of data—including benefit recipient data—was used to rank wards in Action Team LADs. The table shows the employment rates for wards in the City of Newcastle local authority area derived from this exercise.

  City of Newcastle local authority area

  Percentage

  Ward

  Employment rate

  Monkchester

  30.7

  West City

  30.8

  Walker

  31.5

  Byker

  34.8

  Elswick

  39.5

  Benwell

  40.5

  Scotswood

  43.0

  Woolsington

  47.6

  Fawdon

  53.8

  Kenton

  56.8

  Blakelaw

  59.2

  Newburn

  59.2

  Denton

  59.9

  Walkergate

  59.9

  Fenham

  62.9

  Wingrove

  64.1

  Moorside

  66.1

  Lemington

  67.8

  Sandyford

  71.8

  Grange

  73.3

  Heaton

  77.9

  Westerhope

  77.9

  Castle

  80.9

  Dene

  82.2

  Jesmond

  87.3

  South Gosforth

  88.2

  808W

  EU Committees
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will list(a) the names, titles and grades of the officials who sit on the EU advisory committee on social security for migrant workers, (b) the number of times, and the dates, on which it has met since January 2002, (c) the agenda items it has considered since January 2002, (d) the decisions it has made since January 2002 and (e) the means used to communicate the decisions to the House. [110289]

  Malcolm Wicks
  Detailed information concerning the membership of the Committee is published in the Official Journal of the EU.

  The Advisory Committee on Social Security for Migrant Workers has met on only one occasion since January 2002, that being on 2 October 2002.

  On the agenda for that meeting were the Chairman's report on changes to Community legislation, a report on the work of the Administrative Commission by its Chairman, a report on the decisions of the European Court of Justice since the previous meeting, a report on the implementation of the EU/Swiss Agreement on Free Movement of Persons, a proposed amendment of a Recommendation of the Administrative Commission of 12 December 1984, a report on developments in the Technical Commission and a report on the state of play in the process of enlargement of the EU.

  The Committee has no power to make formal decisions.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will list the names, titles and grades of the officials who sit on the EU advisory committee on equal opportunities for women and men, the number of times and the dates on which it has met since January 2002, the agenda items it has considered since January 2002, the decisions it has made since January 2002 and the means used to communicate these decisions to the House. [110504]

  Ms Hewitt
  I have been asked to reply.

  An official from the Women and Equality Unit at the DTI attends the EU Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunities for women and men. An official from the Equal Opportunities Commission also attends, as does an official from the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland.

  The EU advisory committee has met three times since January 2002. It convened on 20 February; 19 June; and 9–10 October.

  The 20 February meeting discussed the following items:

  The European Employment strategy—draft opinion on the European Employment Strategy.

  A new Directive on gender discrimination, working group meeting on 9 January 2002—draft opinion on a new Directive.

  The Gender mainstreaming, working group meeting on 3 December 2001.

  Draft opinion on gender mainstreaming in Community policies.
  809W
  Follow-up of the opinions of the Advisory Committee 2001.

  The work programme of the Advisory Committee 2002.

  The 19 June meeting discussed the following items:

  The working group on the Convention and the future of Europe-draft opinion on the Convention-for adoption.

  The working group on Gender Budgeting-a report from the meeting on 18 June.

  Follow-up opinions of the Advisory Committee.

  Contribution from the Advisory Committee to the "European Round Table on Poverty and Social Exclusion", Aarhus. Denmark on 17–18 October 2002.

  "Women and decision-making": Input from members/observers on the priority theme of the framework strategy for gender equality for 2003 "women and decision-making"

  The feasibility study on a European Gender Institute.

  A meeting on gender issues with candidate countries: A draft programme for a meeting with candidate countries, planned to be held on 10 October 2002.

  The 9–10 October meeting discussed the following items:

  The working group on the Convention and the future of Europe-draft opinion on the Convention.

  Follow up of the social inclusion process-draft opinion on the next round on the National Action Plan on social inclusion.

  Follow up on opinions of the Advisory Committee.

  Meeting with candidate countries: Exchange of views regarding achievements and problems in relation to legislation, national machinery awareness raising initiatives, current developments on gender mainstreaming.

  The EU advisory committee on equal opportunities for women and men is not a decision-making body. The Committee's remit is to help the Commission formulate and implement Community measures aimed at promoting equal opportunities for women and men and to encourage the continuous exchange opportunities for women and men and to encourage the continuous exchange of information on experience gained and policies and measures undertaken in the fields in question between the member states and the various actors involved. It produces Opinions and Inputs, whose purpose is advisory only. Member states are not politically or legally committed to these documents.

  I will place the minutes to the EU Advisory Committee Meeting in the Library as they become available.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will list(a) the names, titles and grades of the officials who sit on the EU technical committee for the implementation of regulations concerning the free movement and employment of workers, (b) the number of times, and the dates, on which it has met since January
  810W
  2002, (c) the agenda items it has considered since January 2002, (d) the decisions it has made since January 2002 and (e) the means used to communicate the decisions to the House. [110535]

  Malcolm Wicks
  The officials who attend Technical Commission are the Senior Executive Officer Manager and an Executive Officer from the International Pension Centre, together with a specialist from the Department's IT provider.

  Since January 2002, meetings have been held on 5–6 March 2002; 4 June 2002; 24–25 September 2002; 3 December 2002 and 5–6 March 2003.

  Agenda Items considered were:
  Clearance times for pension claims
  Development of COWEBS portal (improved web access for migrant workers)
  Progress on electronic data exchanges (registration/identity data, pension claims and reimbursement of health claims)
  Updating and modernising the use of standard electronic message types for the transfer of data
  EU Health Card
  Preparation of Annual Report for Administrative Commission
  Technical Amendments to Administrative Decision 118 (early exchange of insurance records in pension claims)
  Enlargement of EU—effect on Technical Commission work
  A number of other technical matters relating to the maintenance of existing electronic exchanges between institutions

  The Technical Commission has no power to make formal decisions.

  Investments
  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what assessment his Department has made of whether in the(a) short, (b) medium and (c) long term the recent falls in equity performance will lead to consumers buying cash investments instead of equity investments. [111443]

  Ruth Kelly
  I have been asked to reply.

  Recent declines in equity prices have seen a fall in retail purchases of equity investments. The declines in equity prices should be viewed in the context of the historically higher return on equities over the longer term compared to other mainstream investments. Over time, stock market performance is likely to reflect the underlying performance of the economy. The fundamental drivers of a successful economy—high employment, low inflation and low interest rates—are in place.

  New Deal
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many young people in(a) Coventry and (b) the West Midlands have found permanent employment through the New Deal each year since 1998. [111136]

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  [holding answer 7 May 2003]: The information is in the table.

  811W

  Number of people who moved into sustained employment1 through the New Deal for Young People

  Coventry

  West Midlands

  1998

  280

  3,940

  1999

  600

  7,740

  2000

  410

  7,560

  2001

  290

  6,810

  2002

  330

  6,150

  Total

  1,920

  32,200

  1Sustained employment refers to jobs that last for at least thirteen weeks.

  Note:

  Figures are rounded to the nearest ten and may not sum due to rounding.

  Source:

  New Deal evaluation database.

  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what monitoring takes place to ensure that employers involved in the New Deal provide jobs of quality for the employees whom they accept. [111137]

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  [holding answer 7 May 2003]: Jobcentre Plus requires all employers interested in recruiting a New Deal employee under the New Deal Employment Option to sign an Employer Agreement, which outlines the quality criteria and terms and conditions relating to the recruitment of employees under New Deal.

  In addition, monitoring visits are undertaken by Jobcentre Plus staff and partner organisations at frequent intervals during the Option. These help to ensure that the work placement is running smoothly and that no discrepancies exist from that of the original notified vacancy including changes to duties, working hours, wage and expected duration and that the employee is receiving adequate supervision and mentoring.

  Pensions
  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what policies his Department has for targeting Government information on pensions to groups in the workforce that traditionally have a low take-up rate of private pension provision. [111435]

  Maria Eagle
  The proposals outlined in our Green Paper "Simplicity, security and choice: working and saving for retirement", (Cm 5677), published on 17 December 2002, aim to ensure that people are provided with the information they need to make informed choices about their retirement provision.

  The proposals include:
  Issuing automatic state pension forecasts to people who are not members of private pension schemes, starting in May 2003 with the self employed;
  Targeting pensions information at key life events when people might be most likely to think seriously about planning for their future;
  Making it easier for employers to promote the benefits of their pension scheme to prospective members by producing an FSA approved pension information pack;
  Requiring employers, who do not provide a pension, to provide employees with access to certain information or advice to help them plan for their retirement.
  812W
  We have also announced our intention to set up an employer task force with a remit to promote employer led solutions to extend occupational and private pension provision.

  We are now concluding a wide-ranging consultation exercise in which we have sought views on these proposals. We have received more than 800 written responses and we will be setting out our plans in more detail in due course.

  In addition, the Department's current pensions awareness campaign, supported by a series of information guides, has been running since January 2001 and over two million guides have been issued so far. This has included direct marketing activity targeting groups with traditionally low take-up of private pension provision, including women, the self-employed, young people, and working-age people with no private pension.

  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if his Department will work with the Inland Revenue to send out information to workers entering new permanent positions about the benefits of taking out private pension provision. [111437]

  Maria Eagle
  We are committed to encouraging people to consider their pension saving options. Everyone needs to be equipped to understand their Financial choices and have access to the information they need to prepare for their retirement.

  The Green Paper "Simplicity, security and choice: working and saving for retirement", (Cm 5677), recognised the vital part that the workplace plays in pension provision and set out the Government's proposals for working with employers to encourage and facilitate the provision of better pensions information to employees and prospective employees. This was a joint publication between the Department of Work and Pensions, HM Treasury and the Inland Revenue, demonstrating the close working relationship necessary between Government Departments to take forward the Government's agenda on pensions.

  Our proposals for new employees include:
  Targeting pensions information at this key life event when people might be most likely to think seriously about planning for their future.
  Making it easier for employers to promote the benefits of their pension scheme to prospective members by producing an FSA-approved pension information pack.

  We are now concluding a wide-ranging consultation exercise in which we have sought views on these proposals. We have received more than 800 written responses and we will be setting out our plans in more detail in due course.

  We will consider carefully any opportunities for the Department for Work and Pensions and the Inland Revenue to continue to work closely together in this area.

  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if his Department will make an assessment of(a) whether and (b) to what extent price caps and regulation have an effect on the ability of pension companies to offer products to lower income groups, with particular reference to stakeholder products. [111444]
  813W
  Maria Eagle
  Following the Sandler Review, the Government published a consultation document "Proposed product specifications for Sandler `stakeholder' products" in February 2003 that made proposals to provide people with more opportunities to save. As part of this work the Government have commissioned independent research into the impact of a charge cap on retail investment products. We will be responding to the results of the consultation in due course.

  Mr. Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what percentage of working-age(a) adults, (b) men and (c) women in the north west of England are members of a stakeholder pension plan. [111588]

  Maria Eagle
  Specific data on the number of individuals contributing to stakeholder pensions, including a break down by region, will not be available until later this year. However, latest figures from the Association of British Insurers (ABI) covering the United Kingdom, indicate that 1.25 million stakeholder pensions had been sold up to the end of December 2002. of which an estimated 97 per cent. had been bought for individuals of working age (comprising 56 per cent. men and 44 per cent. women). ABI figures show the number of stakeholder pension policies sold, not the number of individuals who have taken out a stakeholder pension. People are allowed to hold more than one stakeholder pension.

  Return to Work Credit Scheme
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) when he will extend the return to work credit scheme to the whole of the UK; [1107361

  (2) whether he plans to exclude the pilot return to work credit from calculations for (a) housing and (b) council tax benefit; [110737]

  (3) how many specialist disability advisers will be recruited to assist the employment of disabled people; and what core skills they will be expected to possess; [110739]

  (4) how many pilot schemes under the Green Paper Pathway to Work will involve medical services delivered other than by the national health service. [110741]

  Maria Eagle
  Our consultation document 'Pathways to Work, Helping People into Employment' Cm 5690, sets out a strategy for enabling people with health problems and disabilities to move into work, and so become and remain independent.

  We are currently analysing the responses to the `Pathways to Work' consultation. We will publish our response in due course.

  Hospital Stays
  Paul Farrelly
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what his estimate is of the number of(a) pensioners and (b) people on income support who will be helped by the Budget proposals regarding stays in hospital. [111898]

  Maria Eagle
  The information is not available in the format requested.
  814W
  Over 20,000 pensioners and around 3,000 income support recipients aged under 60 are affected at any one time by reductions in their benefits as a result of a stay in hospital of between six and 52 weeks. All of these people will therefore benefit from the recent announcement which will change the rules so that hospital deductions in respect of certain benefits are made after a stay of 52 weeks in hospital.

  Notes:

  1. For pensioners, the estimate is based on September 2002 retirement pension administrative data. For people aged under 60, the estimate is based on the latest available income support data (November 2002).

  2. The above estimates represent the number of people who will benefit at any given time from changes on hospital deductions. It is not possible to estimate reliably the total number of people who will benefit from the recent rule changes over the course of a year.

  Winter Fuel Payments
  Shona McIsaac
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will estimate the number of people aged 80 and over in(a) Cleethorpes constituency and (b) Grimsby constituency who will receive the increased winter allowance of £300. [111473]

  Maria Eagle
  The information is not available in the format requested. However, there are around 4,100 people in Cleethorpes constituency and 3,800 in Grimsby constituency who are aged 80 or over. If these people are entitled to a winter fuel payment, they will also be entitled to an additional payment.

  Health and Safety at Work
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many work-related deaths have occurred in each year since 1997; and who is responsible for investigating work-related incidents. [110828]

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  The information on the number of work-related deaths which have occurred in each year since 1997, reported to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and local authorities under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995, is in the table:

  Employee

  Self- employed

  Member of the public

  Total

  1996–97

  207

  80

  367

  654

  1997–98

  212

  62

  393

  667

  1998–99

  188

  65

  369

  622

  1999–2000

  162

  58

  436

  656

  2000–01

  213

  79

  444

  736

  2001–021

  204

  45

  384

  633

  2002–031,2

  126

  35

  325

  486

  1 Provisional

  2 First nine months.

  Notes:

  1. Figures refer to Great Britain, and planning years from 1 April to 31 March.

  Figures for members of the public include acts of suicide and trespass on railway systems. In 2001–02 such incidents accounted for 275 of the total fatal injuries to members of the public.

  HSE and local authorities are responsible for investigating work-related health and safety incidents which are reportable to them, according to the Health and Safety (Enforcing Authority) Regulations 1998.
  815W

HOUSE OF COMMONS COMMISSION

  Parliamentary Website
  Sandra Gidley
  To ask the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire, representing the House of Commons Commission which company is contracted to manage the parliamentary website search engine; how many years this company has held the contract; how much has been paid to this company in each year for which figures are available; when the contract is up for renewal; and if he will make a statement. [111871]

  Sir Archy Kirkwood
  The parliamentary website has two search facilities. The first is a search function supplied as part of the service provided by The Stationery Office Ltd., for the electronic publication of House of Commons publications. The company has provided the service since it was first launched in 1996 and most recently was awarded a five-year contract, with the possibility of extension for up to a further two years, from 1 April 2000. This service was modified in July last year, as part of the redesign of the Parliamentary website, by the provision of a new front end search menu and the inclusion of the ability to search across the remainder of material on the parliamentary website.

  The second relates to the more specialised searches that can be undertaken within the POLIS system. This system is due to be replaced by the end of 2004 and, as part of the tendering exercise that is already well under way, options for the replacement of the search facility will be evaluated. In both cases the search functions are part of a larger service and so it is not possible to identify the specific costs incurred in providing them. In any case, as a matter of policy, the House does not disclose the cost of individual contracts, which are commercially confidential.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

  Malaria
  Mr. Dalyell: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what contributions she has made to the control of malaria in Africa since the Abuja meeting on tropical disease in 2000. [110623]
  Clare Short
  DFID is committed to the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goal to halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria by 2015, as well as to supporting the principles and targets set out at the African Summit on Roll Back Malaria held in Abuja in April 2000.

  At the 1998 G8 summit in Birmingham the UK Government pledged 60 million in support of malaria activities, and financial commitments since then have far exceeded this figure. Nearly 48 million has already been disbursed to the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) initiative, and my Department has since reaffirmed our commitment to combating malaria by pledging $200 million over five years to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM). DFID also supports malaria control activities at country-level through our bi-lateral country programmes, as well as globally through a number of means such as support to the Medical Research Council
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  (MRC) and to the Malaria Consortium Resource Centre, developing knowledge to improve evidence—based interventions. Further investments have been made in the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) and other initiatives to help find new low-cost malaria treatments, and to ensure these are made accessible to the poor.

  If drugs and commodities for malaria and other diseases are to be accessible to the poor, then it is also vital that health systems are strengthened to deliver these services safely and sustainably. Accordingly DFID focuses much of its health work on building and strengthening health systems and has committed over 1.5 billion since 1997 to this end.

  Counselling Services
  Mr. Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what arrangements are made in her Department to allow staff to access counselling services. [111932]

  Clare Short
  DFID has in-house staff counsellors in both its HQ offices in London and East Kilbride, who provide a service to all UK based staff at home and overseas. Staff appointed in country in our regional offices overseas can also access the service by e-mail or telephone if they wish.

  We are currently in the process of organising an enhanced counselling service in the form of an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) for all our staff in regional offices.

  The Department is committed to helping all its employees deal with their concerns both inside and outside the workplace.

  Entertainment Costs
  Mr. Gray
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development when she has entertained Labour hon. Members at public expense in the last 12 months; and at what cost. [106399]

  Clare Short
  I have not entertained Labour Members at public expense in the last 12 months.

  Heavily Indebted Poor Countries
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what progress the International Financial Institutions Department within her Department has made on publication of a list of shame of creditors not complying with the HIPC process; and if she will make a statement. [111562]

  Clare Short
  My Department, together with HM Treasury, has pressed the World Bank and the IMF to take concrete action to secure the full participation of non-Paris Club creditors in the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. Several of these, including, both official bilateral creditors and commercial creditors have yet to deliver debt relief. In response to pressure from us the Bank and Fund now include in their HIPC progress reports details of those creditors who have yet to agree to deliver any HIPC relief. For most HIPC countries, the amounts of relief owed to them by non-Paris Club creditors are small, but the
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  potential costs are much higher, in the form of penalty interest and legal fees. The World Bank and IMF staffs have intensified their discussion with non-participating creditors, and Libya, one of the largest such creditors, has now agreed to participate in the Initiative. Discussions continue with the other creditors.

  Iraq
  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what studies have been conducted to assess the(a) short-term and (b) medium-term economic requirements of Iraqi households. [111455]

  Clare Short
  With slowly improving security, UN agencies and NGOs are beginning to assess immediate humanitarian needs on the ground in Iraq.

  Most agency assessments are available from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) website at: www.agoodplacetostart.org

  As soon as practicable the World Bank in collaboration with the International Monetary Fund, UN and others plan to conduct a detailed needs assessment to collect baseline information relating to human development, infrastructure, economic policy needs, institutional capacity and resources.

  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment has been made of the likely tax-base in Iraq. [111456]

  Clare Short
  No assessment has yet been made of the likely tax-base in Iraq. As soon as practicable the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund plan to conduct a detailed needs assessment to collect baseline information relating to the Iraqi economy.

  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment her Department has made of the(a) vulnerability and (b) prospects for retention of agents for food distribution programmes in Iraq. [111457]

  Clare Short
  It is important to get a food distribution programme re-established as soon as possible. 16 million Iraqis depended on the Oil for Food Programme before the conflict and are therefore vulnerable to disruptions in food supply.

  Early indications from WFP and the Iraqi Ministry of Trade suggest that the food distribution network has, in those provinces that have been assessed, survived the conflict. In Basra province WFP has been able to retrieve the records of all 1.8 million beneficiaries of food rations. Assessments are underway in other governorates. It has been reported that many food agents want to resume work and have been reporting to distribution centres.

  Primary Education/Gender Parity
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if the Government will make meeting the millennium development goals on 818W
  universal primary education and gender parity in access to primary education a priority at the G8 summit; and if she will make a statement. [111561]

  Clare Short
  We continue to work with the G8 and other governments to achieve the Millennium Development Goals for universal primary education by 2015 and gender parity by 2005. We are working to increase the effectiveness of bilateral resources by improving international co-ordination in support of high quality country-owned strategies, as set out for low-income countries in Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and linked to national budget processes.

  The Fast Track Initiative, which includes all members of the G8 (except Russia), offers the potential to increase dialogue and improve donor harmonisation in the education sector. My Department will continue to work to make the initiative more effective.

  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what discussions she has had with G8 governments regarding meeting the Millenium Development Goals on universal primary education and gender parity in access to primary and secondary education; and if she will make a statement. [111579]

  Clare Short
  We continue to work with the G8 and other governments to achieve the Millennium Development Goals for universal primary education by 2015 and gender parity by 2005. We are working to increase the effectiveness of bilateral resources by improving international co-ordination in support of high quality country-owned strategies, as set out for low-income countries in Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and linked to national budget processes.

  Venezuela
  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what discussions she has had with(a) the USA, (b) the EU and (c) Spain regarding the restoration of full democracy and stability in Venezuela; and if she will make a statement. [111641]

  Clare Short
  My colleagues in the Foreign Office are in regular and extensive contact with EU partners and members of the Group of Friends of Venezuela supporting the Organisation of American States (OAS) facilitation efforts, in which they have stressed the importance of respect for the constitution and for democratic principles.

  Mr. Pike
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what discussions she has had with non-governmental organisations regarding working with Venezuelan authorities and NGOs to restore stability in Venezuela; and if she will make a statement. [111642]

  Clare Short
  The British Embassy is in regular contact with local NGOs in Venezuela and provide support for a number of those NGOs.
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HOME DEPARTMENT

  Asylum Seekers
  Mr. Gerrard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what research his Department has commissioned into the impact of detention on children in asylum seeking families. [111263]

  Beverley Hughes
  We have not commissioned any research into the impact of detention on children in asylum seeking families.

  Mr. Gerrard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department under what powers he detains children who are seeking asylum. [111264]

  Beverley Hughes
  Families with children who are seeking asylum may be detained under the detention powers contained in paragraph 16 of Schedule 2 to the Immigration Act 1971. Detention in such cases would normally be used in the following circumstances: initially, while identity and basis of claim are being established; where there is a risk of failure to comply with the terms of temporary admission or release; or to effect removal from the United Kingdom. In addition, detention may be appropriate if it appears that the asylum claim is straightforward and capable of being decided quickly using fast-track procedures.

  Unaccompanied asylum seeking children are only ever detained in the most exceptional circumstances and then normally only overnight, with appropriate care, while alternative arrangements for their care and safety are made.

  Mr. Rosindell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what measures are being taken to encourage asylum seekers from Iraq living in the United Kingdom to return to their home country. [111298]

  Beverley Hughes
  We are working now to ensure that Iraqis can be assisted to return to their homeland as soon as practicable. Many Iraqis in the UK have skills which will be of value to the reconstruction of Iraq. The government are committed to helping clear the way for them to do so. We will work closely with the Iraqi communities in the UK and sector experts on voluntary return.

  Linda Perham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many Asylum and Immigration cases were actioned by hon. Members in the last 12 months. [111769]

  Beverley Hughes
  The Home Office received a total of 33,895 written inquiries and representations from hon. Members on asylum and immigration cases during the period 1 April 2002—31 March 2003.

  Badgers
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the legal protection for badgers. [110326]

  Mr. Morley
  I have been asked to reply.

  Badgers are protected by the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, which makes it illegal to kill, injure or take badgers or to interfere with a badger sett. Interference with a sett includes blocking tunnels or damaging the
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  sett in any way. Badgers are further protected from certain cruel acts by the Wild Mammals (Protection) Act 1996.

  A detailed assessment of the status of the badger population was carried out by scientists at Bristol university and was published in 1997. This compared national surveys of badgers carried out before and after the introduction of the Protection of Badgers Act in 1992. The research showed a 77 per cent. increase in the badger population between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s. The survey also reported a halving of the incidence of illegal digging of badger setts over the same period, and concluded that reduced persecution had allowed the badger population to recover.

  In view of this evidence, we believe that current legislation is making an effective contribution to the protection of badgers.

  Road Traffic Offences
  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what plans he has to submit his proposals for new categories of offences for causing death by driving to public consultation; which proposals will be submitted for public consultation; and if he will make a statement; [109717]

  (2) what plans he has to introduce new categories of offences for causing death by driving; if he will list each new offence he is planning to introduce; and if he will make a statement; [109715]

  (3) what discussions he has had with other Departments about introducing new categories of offences for causing death by driving; and if he will make a statement. [109716]

  Mr. Bob Ainsworth
  [holding answer 28 April 2003]The Home Office has been in discussion with the Department for Transport about existing road traffic offences, including those of causing death. We are currently considering the possibility of carrying out a review.

  Correspondence
  Mr. Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will reply substantively to the letter from the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight dated 30 January, concerning Lawrence Gimblett. [110967]

  Hilary Benn
  [holding answer I May 2003]A reply was sent to the hon. Member on 7 May 2003.

  Forensic Science Service
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to his answer of 24 February 2003,Official Report, column 315W, when the findings of the review into the Forensic Science Service will be published. [110920]

  Mr. Bob Ainsworth
  As announced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) on 23 July 2002,Official Report, column 1078W, the principal provider of forensic science services to the police, the Forensic Science Service, is currently subject to an independent review, which is looking at the delivery, performance and responsiveness

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  of the Service and the ways in which we can maximise its contribution to the work of the police and through them to the wider criminal justice system.

  The findings of the results of the review will be made public after Home Office Ministers have given consideration to its recommendations and decided the best way forward for the organisation.

  Prison Education
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to his Answer of 25 March 2003,Official Report, column 151W, what his estimate is of the total number of education hours lost throughout the Prison Service over the last 12 months due to staff shortages; and if he will estimate the financial cost of these lost hours. [110889]

  Hilary Benn
  Records of hours ordered and delivered are kept by individual prison establishments, but have not been centrally collected, collated or aggregated for the period in question. The costs of doing so would be disproportionate.

  Red Squirrel
  Joyce Quin
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much his Department has spent on programmes run(a) by his Department and (b) by environmental organisations related to the preservation of red squirrel populations in each of the last five years. [110337]

  Mr. Morley
  I have been asked to reply.

  The Department through English Nature have spent £125,602 over the past five years. The main projects have been:
  Thetford Forest—grey squirrel management and red squirrel reintroductions. Joint project with the Forestry Commission.
  Feasibility study for the development of a vaccine against squirrel parapoxvirus.
  Preparation of management plans for priority woodlands in northern England. Joint project with the Forestry Commission.
  Isle of Wight project. Partnership with Wight Wildlife, Forestry Commission and others to link fragmented woodland on the Isle of Wight to benefit squirrels.

  The Forestry Commission, who are the lead partners for the Red Squirrel Species Action Plan have spent the following amounts in activities related to enhancing the status of this species.

  £000

  FC England

  FR (GB)1

  1998–99

  38.2

  116.0

  1999–2000

  48.3

  95.5

  2000–01

  46.6

  78.5

  2001–02

  52.8

  32.6

  2002–03

  73.2

  12.0

  Total

  259.1

  334.6

  1FR is a FB Agency of the FC

  Note:

  In addition the FC has grant aided the establishment of new woodlands to link fragmented woodland on the Isle of Wight. The expenditure was £81.6k in 2001–02 and £56.7k in 2002–03.

  Rape Victims
  Vera Baird
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what budgetary provision the Home Office has made to provide rape counselling and support services to match the change in the number of rape complainants resulting from the passage of the Sexual Offences Bill. [110720]

  Hilary Benn
  The Department has made no specific budgetary provisions regarding support services to rape victims as a result of the passage of the Sexual Offences Bill through Parliament. We are, however, currently considering whether there are ways in which further support could be provided generally to victims of sexual offences.

  Special Advisers
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the salary bill was for special advisers in his Department in 2002–03; and what it is expected to be in 2003–04. [108510]

  Mr. Blunkett
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer provided by my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley, South (Mr. Alexander) on 28 April 2003, Official Report, column 45W.

  Young Offenders
  Mr. Hepburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the reconviction rate of(a) youth offenders and (b) first time youth offenders was in (i) the UK, (ii) Tyne and Wear, (iii) South Tyneside and (iv) the Jarrow constituency in each year since 1997. [111672]

  Hilary Benn
  Reconviction rates for juvenile offenders since 1997 were most recently published in February 2003 in Home Office Online Report 18/03. The unadjusted reconviction rate for the first half of 1997 was 33.7 per cent. The rates for July 1999, July 2000 and first quarter 2001 are 38.2 per cent., 26.4 per cent. and 26.4 per cent. respectively. These rates exclude juveniles given custodial sentences.

  When comparing reconviction rates over time it is necessary to take account of the changing mix in the characteristic of offenders and the speeding up of justice. Unadjusted reconviction rates do not do this.

  For first time juvenile offenders the unadjusted reconviction rates for the first half of 1997, July 2000 and the first quarter of 2001 are 21.2 per cent., 19.1 per cent. and 12.4 per cent. respectively. July 1999 figures are not available.

  The reconviction rates relate to England and Wales only and do not apply to Scotland or Northern Ireland. Information on regional and local rates are not available.

TRANSPORT

  Criminal Offences
  Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list, broken down by Act, the criminal offences created in legislation sponsored by his Department and its predecessors since 1997. [110991]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The following are the provisions of Acts of Parliament which have been sponsored since 1997 by the Department for Transport or by its predecessors (in relation to transport) and which have either created criminal offences directly or provided for their creation by subordinate legislation:

  Merchant Shipping and Maritime Security Act 1997

  Section 1 (unlawful entry into a temporary exclusion zone).

  Section 5 (provision for offences in respect of waste reception facilities at harbours).

  Section 10 (contravention of requirements related to moving of ships).

  Section 11 (offence relating to ships receiving trans-shipped fish).

  Section 16 (provision for an offence relating to compulsory insurance).

  Section 24 (provision for creation of an offence relating to the protection of wrecks outside UK waters).

  Schedule 1, paragraph 5 (offence relating to detention of ships).

  Finance Act 1997
  Schedule 3, paragraph 4 (using or keeping certain exempt vehicles on a public road).

  Greater London Authority Act 1999

  Section 180 (providing London local bus service without permit).

  Section 187(6) (contravention of condition of a London bus service permit).

  Section 234 (3) (intentionally altering etc. document to be produced to PPP Arbiter).

  Schedule 17, paragraph 7(2) (failure to provide name and address for the purpose of a penalty fare) and paragraph 9(2) (power to apply provisions regarding penalty charges to qualifying train services).

  Schedule 23, paragraph 25 (committing acts with intent to avoid payment under by a road user charging scheme), paragraph 26 (intentional obstruction of a person authorised to enter a motor vehicle by a charging authority) and paragraph 27 (unauthorised removal or interference with an immobilisation notice or intentional obstruction of authorised persons).

  Schedule 24, paragraph 16 (intentionally providing false or misleading information in connection with application for workplace parking levy licence) and paragraph 31 (workplace parking levy: intentionally obstructing person exercising rights of entry to premises).

  Transport Act 2000

  Section 3 (provision of air traffic services without a licence).

  Section 18 (application of Fair Trading Act 1973 provisions including false and misleading information).

  Section 25 (failure to provide information or destroying information etc).

  Section 38 (failure to comply with directions in interests of national security and wrongful disclosure).

  Section 46 (failure to provide information or destroying information etc).

  Section 56 (application of Competition Act 1985 provisions to shadow directors including prohibition on dealing in share options).

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  Section 71 (failure to provide information or destroying information etc).

  Section 82 (non compliance with regulations relating to assessment and collection of air navigation charges).

  Section 93 (failure to comply with directions providing for control of aviation assets in time of hostilities etc).

  Section 94 (provision for offences arising out of orders for possession of aerodromes etc in times of hostilities etc).

  Section 101 (false statements).

  Section 143(6) (prohibited disclosure of information to local transport authorities).

  Section 144(11) and (12) (provision for offences relating to penalty charges for bus lane contraventions).

  Section 148 (failure to provide half-price travel to persons holding travel concession permits).

  Section 173(5) and (8) (committing acts to avoid payment under road user charging scheme).

  Section 173(6) and (8) (making or using false documents with the intent to avoid payment under road user charging scheme).

  Section 173(7) and (9)(removal of penalty charge notice from vehicle).

  Section 174(3) and (4) (obstruction of exercise of powers relating to examination of vehicles etc.).

  Section 175(2) and (5) (interfering with immobilisation devices).

  Section 175(3) and (6) (removing an immobilisation device).

  Section 175(4) and (6) (obstructing exercise of charging scheme powers).

  Section 188(4) and (5) (providing false or misleading information in connection with application for workplace parking licence).

  Section 190(4) and (5) (intentionally obstructing exercise of power to enter premises in connection with workplace parking levy licensing scheme).

  Section 247(1) and (6) (provision for offences relating to railway standards).

  Section 255(11) (provision for offence for failure to give notice of street works).

  Section 256(7) (provision for offences for failure to give notice in relation to prolonged street works).

  Section 266 (driving etc. a vehicle, in contravention of a direction relating to drivers' hours).

  Section 273 (extension of corporate offences to directors etc).

  Schedule 2, paragraph 10 (failure to provide information relating to air traffic administration orders).

  Schedule 3, paragraph 12 (failure by air traffic administrator to send copies of discharge of air traffic administration order).

  Schedule 9, paragraph 6 of (wrongful disclosure of information).

  Schedule 20, paragraph 2 (contravention of railway byelaws).

  Schedule 21, paragraph 14(4) (alteration etc of document required in connection with railway transfer scheme).

  Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001

  Section 85 (provision for offences relating to the provision of aviation security services).

  Section 86 (non-compliance with directions relating to detention of aircraft for aviation security purposes).

  Section 87 (false documentation relating to air cargo).

  Vehicles (Crime) Act 2001

  Section 28 (knowingly etc selling plates which are not vehicle registration plates).

  Section 29 (supplying a plate etc. to an unregistered person etc.).

  Finance Act 2002
  Schedule 5, paragraph 8 (being registered keeper of unlicensed vehicle).
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  Private Hire Vehicles (Carriage of Guide Dogs etc.) Act 2002

  Section 1 (offences relating to the booking of private hire vehicles for the carriage of disabled persons accompanied by assistance dogs).

  Section 2 (provision for offences relating to the carriage of disabled persons and their dogs in private hire cars).

  Cycling
  Mr. Colman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what discussions his Department has had with local authorities on the use of the revenue from parking meters and parking permits for improved cycle networks and cycle parking facilities. [111848]

  Mr. Jamieson
  We have had no discussions with authorities on this specific matter. Section 55 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 provides that surplus on-street parking income may be used for provision and maintenance of off-street parking facilities, the provision and operation of public passenger transport services and highway improvements. In addition, London local authorities may use surplus on-street parking income for purposes specified in the London transport strategy, which include on-street measures to promote cycling.

  Document Classification
  Harry Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many documents are held by his Department that are subject to security classification, broken down by category of classification. [107353]

  Mr. Jamieson
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given by my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr Alexander) on Wednesday 7 May 2003,Official Report, column 696W.

  EU Committees
  Mr. John Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list(a) the names, titles and grades of the officials who sit on the EU advisory committee for the application of legislation on the development of the Community railways, (b) the number of times, and the dates, on which it has met since January 2002, (c) the agenda items it has considered since January 2002, (d) the decisions it has made since January 2002 and (e) the means used to communicate the decisions to the House. [110299]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The information is as follows:

  The official currently sitting on the Developing European Railways Committee is the Grade 7 Head of Economic Regulation Branch, in the Department's Railways Directorate.

  The Committee met on 21 July 2002 and 31 January 2003.

  The agenda comprised mainly reports from the regulatory bodies working group and other working groups dealing with particular topics.

  The Committee proposed for adoption by the Commission an amendment to Annex III of Directive 2001/14, which concerns the process for allocating train slots in the annual timetable.

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  This amendment will be reflected in regulations that are in preparation to transpose the directives.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list(a) the names, titles and grades of the officials who sit on the EU committee on the development of trans-European transport networks, (b) the number of times, and the dates, on which it has met since January 2002, (c) the agenda items it has considered since January 2002, (d) the decisions it has made since January 2002 and (e) the means used to communicate the decisions to the House. [110300]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The information is as follows:

  The official currently sitting on the trans-European transport network Committee is the Grade 7 Head of the Department's European Transport Policy Branch or the SEO deputy.

  The Committee met on 16 May and 26 November 2002, and on 4 March 2003.

  The meetings discussed progress towards completion of the transport network, and preparatory work in connection with a forthcoming proposal to revise to the guidelines governing its development. There were also information updates on a number of other network related issues.

  (d) and (e) The Committee functions in an advisory capacity only.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list(a) the names, titles and grades of the officials who sit on the EU committee on the transfer of ships from one register to another within the Community, (b) the number of times, and the dates, on which it has met since January 2002, (c) the agenda items it has considered since January 2002, (d) the decisions it has made since January 2002 and (e) the means used to communicate the decisions to the House. [110298]

  Mr. Jamieson
  Since January 2002, this committee has met onceߞon 16 December 2002. The UK was represented by a Principal Surveyor from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) and Permanent Representatives were invited by the European Commission to attend a consultation meeting, to consider a possible revision to regulations. No decisions were taken at the meeting.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list the names, titles and grades of the officials who sit on the EU committee on the development of trans-European transport networks, the number of times and the dates on which it has met since January 2002, the agenda items it has considered since January 2002, the decisions it has made since January 2002 and the means used to communicate these decisions to the House. [110490]

  Mr. Jamieson
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I have given today [ref 110300], at column 829W.

  Fatalities
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what the assessment costs per fatality are for passengers
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  by (a) road, (b) rail and (c) air in terms of the capital expenditure allocated to try to prevent this from occurring. [111867]

  Mr. Jamieson
  My Department recommend that investment for both road and rail aimed at avoiding fatalities is appraised using the value set out in the Departments 'Highways Economic Note No. 1:2001' a copy of which is in the Library.
  The Department does not have a formal value for appraising safety related investment in aviation.

  London Underground
  Mrs. Dunwoody
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what the timetable is for Metronet's planned upgrade and refurbishment of their London Underground lines; [110810]
  (2) when the proposed refurbishment of the Bakerloo line will commence. [110808]

  Mr. Jamieson
  Under the contracts drawn up between Metronet and London Underground the work to upgrade and refurbish parts of the London Underground will be carried out as a rolling programme across the network. Metronet have already announced that in the first year of the contracts, enabling works will start on the upgrading of the Victoria Line, and the design for the new trains to be introduced on that line will also begin. Metronet will be spending around £1 billion on maintenance and capital projects in each of the first three years. I understand that initiatives to improve asset availability are expected to improve the overall reliability of all assets by 10 per cent. by the end of the first year, and by around 30 per cent. on the subsurface lines and 20 per cent. on their deep tube lines by the end of the third year. Metronet is committed to increasing the number of trains available for service on the Central Line in 2004 and again in 2005, and on the Bakerloo and Victoria Lines in 2005. Around 36 stations will have been refurbished and a further 10 modernised by the end of the third year of the contracts.
  The contracts set out the latest date by which the upgrading work can be completed for each line as follows:

  Line

  Latest completion date

  Bakerloo

  31 March 2020

  Central

  4 March 2006

  Victoria

  17 August 2013

  Waterloo and City

  3 March 2007

  Subsurface Lines

  3 March 2018 Southern Section,

  28 February 2015 Northern Section

  However, London Underground and Metronet are committed to upgrading these lines well before these deadlines.

  Rail Safety
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the recent occasions on which a train protection and warning system has been disabled. [111866]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The Health and Safety Executive advise that, since April 2001, the Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS) has correctly operated and brought the 828W
  train to a stop on 157 occasions. In none of these instances was the TPWS system disabled. However, on eight occasions the driver took action to reset the TPWS and continued forward without first contacting the signaller for authorisation, which is a contravention of the Rule Book. Action is being taken by the rail industry to rectify this type of driver behaviour.

  Thameslink
  Mr. Pollard
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what plans he has(a) to ensure speedy commencement of the Thameslink re-franchising process and (b) to enable further investment in rolling stock to be made in the Bedford to Brighton service. [111401]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) currently plans to negotiate an extension of the existing franchise while the Thameslink 2000 programme is taken forward. A tendering process for the revised Thameslink 2000 franchise would follow. The SRA are reviewing rolling stock deployment and investment in the South East which could include Thameslink services.

EDUCATION AND SKILLS

  Higher Education
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans he has, in conjunction with HEFCE, for improving the sensitivity of the existing postcode premium in encouraging higher education institutions to improve access for disadvantaged students. [110880]

  Margaret Hodge
  From 2003–04 HEFCE has reformed the widening participation allocation to take into account previous educational attainment and age of students together with where they live. This reform recognises the extra costs associated with recruiting and supporting undergraduate students from disadvantaged backgrounds. As our higher education White Paper makes clear, we are working with HEFCE to explore more sensitive and appropriate measures, and HEFCE will consult further as data becomes available.

  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills whether the proposed new higher education grant will be made available to existing students on its introduction in 2004.[110881]

  Margaret Hodge
  No. As we made clear in the booklet issued at the time that the HE White Paper was published, explaining to students and parents what the changes meant, the grant will be made available to new students starting courses from autumn 2004 onwards.

  Higher Education
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans he has to improve access to higher education for those combining studies with full-time employment. 1110088]

  Margaret Hodge
  We want the provision of higher education to be flexible to enable people to combine studies with work, where they wish. Our recent White Paper "The future of higher education" sets a
  829W
  framework for some of this flexible provision. For example, we are improving support for those studying part-time. We have introduced foundation degrees, which offer flexible modes of study and can be combined with employment, reducing the barriers to learning. We are also supporting the development of the Universities project and welcome other flexible forms of provision, such as the online degrees recently announced by Ultralab. Through HEFCE we are trying to encourage a more widespread and consistent use of credit across higher education that will enable a more flexible approach to learning for students.

  Children's Centres
  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what steps are being taken to ensure that the proposed new Children's Centres have a senior manager with an early years teaching qualification. [109298]

  Maria Eagle
  Children's Centres will provide integrated care and education for young children, health services, family support, and a base for child minders. Managers of Children's Centres will need to have the leadership and management skills to co-ordinate a multi-disciplinary team.

  Children's Centres will be required to have strong support for the teaching and learning offered. This should be secured by the employment of qualified teachers so that children using the centre have their activities planned and substantially led by a teacher with early years training or experience. After listening to representations from the teaching profession, the Sure Start Unit has identified that in most centres the employment of an early years teacher on a half-time basis would achieve this objective. However, we expect that this would be a minimum which many centres would exceed, and that others would build on over time.

  SARS
  Mr. Dismore: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what guidance he has issued to schools to ensure children of Chinese origin are not discriminated against, bullied or intimidated as a result of public concern over SARS; and if he will make a statement. [111784]
  Mr. Stephen Twigg
  [holding answer 7 May 2003]: Officials wrote to all schools in England on 14 April drawing their attention to Government advice on SARS

  Act

  Section

  Offence

  Education Act 1997.

  40(6)

  Wilfully to obstruct an inspector conducting an inspection of a LEA

  School Standards and Frameword

  Schedule 26 paragraph 18(4)

  Wilfully to obstruct an inspector conducting an inspection of a nursery

  Act 1998

  Learning and Skills Act 2000

  57(6)

  Wilfully to obstruct any person exercising functions in relation to inspection by the Adult Learning Inspectorate.

  63(5)

  Wilfully to obstruct the Chief Inspector in the exercise of his functions in relation to inspection of further education institutions.

  79(5)

  Wilfully to obstruct the Chief Inspector for Wales in the exercise of his functions in relation to inspection of education and training brought within his remit by Part IV of the Act.

  118(7)(a)

  Wilfully to obstruct a person carrying out or participating in inspection of services to encourage, enable or assist young persons in education or training.

  119(4)

  Disclosure of information supplied for the purpose of provision of services to encourage, enable or assist young persons in education or training.

  122

  Wilfully to obstruct a person carrying out or participating in inspection of careers services.

  830W
  on the Department of Health (DH) website. Schools are able to inform and reassure their pupils, which should reduce the tendency to victimise all those of Eastern origin. Any bullying or abuse which does take place should be dealt with in line with anti-bullying polices on which we have issued general advice which has recently been the subject of positive evaluation. This advice refers explicitly to racist bullying and schools are required to report all incidents of racist bullying, including name calling, to their LEA. We would expect schools' standard policies to ensure that no child is discriminated against and therefore have not issued any separate guidance to schools.

  Civil Service (People with Disabilities)
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what progress has been made in meeting targets for the proportion of people with disabilities in senior posts in the Department. [110519]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  My Department is committed to increasing the proportion of people with disabilities amongst its Senior Civil Service (SCS) staff. A substantial proportion of SCS positions are openly advertised, research is underway to help decide how best to attract more applicants from under-represented groups and a Disability Co-ordinator has been appointed to advise and support disabled staff and actively manage action to make reasonable adjustments to enable them to work as effectively as possible.

  My Department's aim is that by 2005, 3 per cent. of those in the SCS should be people with disabilities. The current proportion is 0.7 per cent., and has not changed significantly in the last 2 years.

  GCSEs
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on his plans for compulsory GCSEs in all subjects, with particular reference to mathematics. [111713]

  Mr. Miliband
  There are no plans for compulsory GCSEs in any subject.

  Criminal Offences
  Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will list, broken down by Act, the offences created in legislation sponsored by his Department and its predecessor since 1997. [112110]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The information sought is summarised in the table.
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  Act

  Section

  Offence

  Special Educational Needs and

  19

  Without reasonable excuse, failing to comply with procedural requirements of the Tribunal.

  Disability Act 2001

  Education Act 2002

  159(1)

  To conduct an independent school which is not a registered school.

  159(6)

  Wilfully to obstruct the Chief Inspector conducting an investigation into an allegation of an offence under Section 159(1) of the Act.

  164(7)

  Wilfully to obstruct a person in the exercise of his functions in relation to the inspection of a registered school.

  165(9)(a)

  Failure of a proprietor of a school to comply with an order made under Section 165(8) of the Act.

  167(9)(a)

  Failure of a proprietor of a school to comply with an order of the tribunal made under Section 167(5) of the Act.

  Schedule 13 paragraph 2

  Contravention by any person of the requirements of Section 79H(3)-(5) The Children Act 1989.

  Departmental Invoices
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will list the occasions on which(a) his Department, (b) agencies and (c) non-departmental public bodies sponsored by his Department failed to pay valid invoices within 30 days or after the agreed credit period in the financial year 2001–02. [104327]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Information on the occasions where my Department and non-departmental public bodies failed to pay valid invoices within 30 days or after the agreed credit period can be obtained only at disproportionate cost. However, I am able to say that the percentage of bills which were paid by my Department within 30 days of receipt of a valid invoice was 95 per cent. for the financial year 2001–02. In addition, the percentage of bills paid by my Department's executive non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs), where the information was available, is shown in the following table. I have no Agencies.

  Percentage

  NDPB

  Paid within 30 days

  Adult Learning Inspectorate

  90

  HEFCE

  99

  Learning and Skills Council

  95

  Qualifications and Curriculum Authority

  61

  Teachers Training Agency

  97

  CITB

  95

  British Educational Comms and Tech Agency

  N/A

  Engineering Construction ITB

  N/A

  Energy consumption (GWh per year)

  Energy expenditure (£ million per year)

  Energy/m2 (kWh/m2 per year)

  Savings over 1997–98 (percentage)

  Engergy efficiency spend (£000 per year)

  1997–98 DfEE

  32.98

  1,347,403

  305.36

  —

  45

  1998–99 DfEE

  29.90

  1,056,810

  287.46

  6

  63

  1999–2000 DfEE

  30.58

  1,111,660

  288.77

  5

  27

  2000–01 DfES

  35.16

  1,025,894

  341.69

  -12

  11

  2001–02 DfES

  34.90

  1,120,938

  339.17

  -11

  14

  Notes:

  Energy consumption: this is weather-corrected in the usual manner, using annual degree days relative to the 20-year average for 1990–91. The figures are those reported on for the Central Government Estate campaign, and generally include each Department's main estate plus all agencies, but not NDPBs.

  Energy expenditure: this is actual spend, and from April 2001, includes the Climate Change Levy.

  Energy/m2: this variable allows for changes in both weather and estate size on energy consumption. So annual changes will generally reflect efficiency changes.

  Savings over 1997–98: these have been expressed as percentage savings relative to the first year quoted here, and are based on the figures in the preceding column.

  Energy efficiency spend: note that this is not necessarily a good measure of an effective energy efficiency policy. For example, when a new building is commissioned or an existing one refurbished, good design can actually reduce capital costs, e.g. by avoiding air conditioning. The costs of an effective energy management team may also not be included.
  832W

  Percentage

  NDPB

  Paid with in 30 days

  General Teaching Council

  N/A

  Investors in People

  N/A

  National College for School Leadership

  N/A

  Student Loans Company

  N/A

  Document Classification
  Harry Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many documents are held by his Department that are subject to security classification, broken down by category of classification. [107360]

  Mr. Stephen Twigg
  The information could be provided only at disproportionate cost. My Department follows the Cabinet Office guidance on document marking and control.

  Energy Policy
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills 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. [108866]

  Mr. Stephen Twigg
  The information for my Department is as follows:
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  Information on energy consumption by the Department's NDPBs is not held centrally.

  The Energy White Paper, "Our Energy Future—Creating a Low Carbon Economy", made clear the importance the Government attach to improving energy efficiency in their own estate. This is reflected in several targets. There is currently an interim target of a one per cent. per annum on-going reduction in weather-corrected carbon emissions, pending the development of new indicators and targets based on benchmarking the performance of each Department's largest buildings. These new targets are planned to be in place later this year. New targets for Government Departments' use of CHP generated electricity will also be established during 2003.

  In addition, the review of Government procurement has identified areas where procurement could reinforce the achievement of these targets, and arrangements are being made centrally for Departments to purchase goods with high energy efficiency standards and which provide good value for money.

  On the purchase of renewable electricity, Ministers agreed the following target in May 2001:
  "All Departments will ensure that by 31 March 2003, at least five per cent. of their electricity comes from renewable sources that are exempt from the Climate Change Levy or from self generation, provided this does not entail excessive cost. This will rise to at least 10 per cent. supply from such sources by 31 March 2008, but will be reviewed after 31 March 2003 to take account of market conditions following the introduction of the renewables obligation. The review of 2003 will include consideration of increasing or bringing forward the target".

  Teacher Training
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what resources he has allocated to fund the Education Fast Track Initiative; and if he will make a statement. [111577]

  Mr. Miliband
  The Fast Track teaching programme is a programme of accelerated professional development, designed to attract, retain and rapidly develop transformational school leaders of the future. The total investment in the Fast Track programme in 2002–03 was just over £8 million. The total investment allocated for 2003–04 is £13.5 million, an increase which reflects the rapid growth in numbers on the Fast Track programme, from 249 teachers and trainee teachers in September 2002 to an estimated 600+ expected by September 2003.

  This allocation funds all aspects of the programme, including the practical resources for teachers and schools: enhanced Initial Teacher Training; Fast Track bursaries; national professional development events; regional and local events; a network of Area Coordinators; in-school mentors; a facilitated on-line community; additional teachers' pay; laptops and associated software and hardware; and individualised support for professional development.

  Free School Meals
  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills whether his Department has 834W
  informed local education authorities of the free school meals available to children from low-income households as a result of the child tax credit. [111447]

  Mr. Stephen Twigg
  Information was issued to all local education authorities on 15 January 2003, which outlined the changes to free school meal eligibility that would apply from April 2003. Further information, which dealt specifically with the new free school meal (tax credit) eligibility category, was issued to all local education authorities on 28 February 2003. From 6 April 2003, children whose parents receive the following 'support' payments are eligible to receive free school meals: income support; income based jobseeker's allowance; support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999; and child tax credit, provided that they do not also receive working tax credit and have an annual income (as assessed by the Inland Revenue) that does not exceed £13,230.

  Mr. Blizzard
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what steps he is taking to monitor and assess the quality of(a) selection of trainees, (b) in-school training and (c) overall outcome of the Graduate Teachers programme. [111779]

  Mr. Miliband
  All entrants to initial teacher training in England must satisfy the requirements that my right hon. Friend has laid down in "Qualifying to Teach: Professional Standards for Qualified Teacher Status and Requirements for Initial Teacher Training". The selection of individual candidates is, however, the responsibility of training providers themselves. The Teacher Training Agency's functions include the enhancement of quality of both conventional and employment-based training routes. In this context, measures taken by the Agency to promote high-quality employment-based training include the creation, from September 2002, of 80 Designated Recommending Bodies responsible for the allocation of most places on the Graduate Teacher Programme (GTP) and the supervision of in-school training. The Agency also oversees the monitoring and peer review of candidates' training plans and an annual survey of employment-based trainees whose main focus is the level of their satisfaction with the training received.

  Intense competition for places on the GTP has ensured a high standard of entrant to the programme. This is reflected in the fact that, since the programme was created in 1998, over 90 per cent. of GTP trainees have consistently succeeded in gaining Qualified Teacher Status.

  Information Technology
  Mr. Flight
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills 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. [107181]

  Mr. Stephen Twigg
  (a) The contribution by DfES to the Total Managed Expenditure can be measured by the total of spending under resource and capital budgets, less non-cash items in AME. Data for 1998–99 to 2001–02 were published in the 2002 Departmental

  835W
  Report (Cm 5402). New estimates will be published in the same table in the 2003 Departmental Report, in May 2003.

  (b) Estimates of spending on all Information Technology are not held centrally, and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. However figures are available for administrative capital spending on Information Technology i.e. computers, telecommunications and software. This was 11.3 million in 1997–98, 9.0 million in 1998–99, 8.9 million in 1999–2000, 7.6 million in 2000–01, 8.7 million in 2001–02 and provisionally 7.5 million in 2002–03.

  Proportion with Investors in People recognition

  Proportion working towards recognition (committed)

  Establishment

  Total number in England

  Percentage

  Percentage

  Universities

  95

  47

  49

  6

  6

  Higher Education Colleges

  41

  7

  17

  3

  7

  Further Education Colleges

  306

  133

  43

  40

  13

  Sixth Form Colleges

  104

  44

  42

  —

  —

  Language Teaching
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) if he will make a statement on the teaching of languages in secondary schools; [111711]

  (2) what assessment he has made of the effects of languages being non-compulsory at GCSE level. [111712]

  Mr. Miliband
  Our National Languages Strategy document, published in December 2002, makes clear our intention to ensure that the opportunity to learn languages has a key place in the transformed secondary school of the future. At Key Stage 3, all pupils will continue to have an opportunity to learn at least one language and develop cultural understanding. We also want to raise standards and enrich the language learning experience.

  The current National Curriculum requirements at Key Stage 4 include modern foreign languages. However, we do not believe that requiring schools to teach languages to every young person beyond the age of 14 is the best way forward. Around 36,000 pupils currently do not study a language at Key Stage 4 under the present disapplication arrangements. We therefore intend to amend the statutory requirement at Key Stage 4 so that schools will no longer be required to teach modern foreign languages to all pupils. However, every pupil has an entitlement to study a modern foreign language and are therefore required to ensure as a minimum that they are available to any pupil wishing to study them. Our ultimate goal is to move to a position where young people are motivated to study modern foreign languages, rather than being forced to do so.

  Music Lessons
  Dr. Kumar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) what percentage of state-educated pupils in each government office region had access to musical instrument lessons during school hours and on school premises in(a) 1992, (b) 1997 and (c) 2002; [111684]
  836W
  (c) As information is not held on all Information Technology spend, data is not available on a comparable basis to total managed expenditure.

  Investors in People
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what proportion of(a) universities, (b) colleges of higher education, (c) general further education colleges and (d) sixth form colleges have Investors in People status. [104958]

  Margaret Hodge
  The proportion of educational establishments which have or are working towards Investors in People is as follows.

  (2) how many pupils in each year group (a) had access to and (b) took up musical instrument lessons in the latest year for which figures are available. [111688]

  Mr. Miliband
  This information is not collected centrally.

  However, music is taught to all children in Key Stages 1–3 (ages five to 14) through the National Curriculum. The Government also provides just under £60 million per annum to LEA Music Services through the Music Standards Fund to give pupils access to high quality musical experiences, including instrumental lessons.

  Dr. Kumar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what steps are being taken to assist talented musicians from state schools to achieve excellence as musicians. [111685]

  Mr. Miliband
  My Department is strongly committed to music education and we have a number of projects under way to identify and nurture talented young musicians.

  The Music Standards Fund offers just under £60 million per year for musical activities delivered through LEA Music Services, including instrumental tuition and programmes for the gifted and talented. The Music and Dance Scheme has allocated just under £65 million to gifted and talented young musicians since 1997 through its Aided Pupil Scheme; and we are supporting the work of the National Youth Music Organisations to enable them to increase access and opportunities for young musicians throughout the country. The gifted and talented education programme includes support for talented young musicians, for example, through the gifted and talented strand of Excellence in Cities and the national summer school programme for 10 to14 year-olds.

  Dr. Kumar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many(a) peripatetic and (b) staff musical instrument teachers work in state schools in the UK; how many full-time equivalent staff

  837W
  there are; and what the average number of hours worked per week was in the latest period for which figures are available. [111687]

  Mr. Miliband
  This information is not collected centrally.

  Nursery Provision
  Bob Russell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when the Neighbourhood Nurseries Initiative commenced; how many nurseries have(a) been approved and (b) started operating; how much of the available funds have (i) been allocated and (ii) remain unspent; and what his plans are to support the establishment of further nurseries in the most disadvantaged areas. [108556]

  Maria Eagle
  We launched the Neighbourhood Nurseries Initiative on 24 July 2001 with a target of creating 45,000 child care places. Our latest figures show that 161 nurseries have opened and a further 1,174 nursery projects have been approved by the local authorities and are in development, bringing the total number of neighbourhood nurseries to 1,335. The entire Neighbourhood Nurseries budget of £346 million has been allocated to those local authorities taking part in the initiative. This includes £100 million of capital from the New Opportunities Fund.

  We are also making £435 million available to local authorities to develop children centres. This will incorporate nursery provision in the 20 per cent. most disadvantaged areas and will create a further 43,000 child care places by 2006.

  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans there are to(a) increase and (b) extend the provision of nursery school development funding. [109299]

  Maria Eagle
  The Department's nursery school development grant programme, worth £5 million a year, will continue until 2005–06. It provides additional ring-fenced support to help Maintained Nursery Schools develop and extend their services enabling them to take advantage of the wider development and expansion of Neighbourhood Nurseries and Children's Centres.

  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans are in place to ensure existing Maintained Nursery Schools are protected from the threat of closure. [109300]

  Maria Eagle
  The revised school reorganisation guidance which we intend should come into force in June 2003 will include a clear presumption against the closure of Maintained Nursery Schools. The guidance will make clear that closure proposals should not generally be approved, unless the local education authority (LEA) can demonstrate that the proposals are clearly in the best interests of local children and families and that it has duly considered:the quantity, quality, value for money and convenience to parents (in hours offered) of provision at the individual nursery school, and proposed replacement provision;
  the impact of the potential loss to the locality of the nursery school's experience and knowledge in delivering early years education; and
  alternatives to closure.

  Schools
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on the meetings he has had with Devon teachers to discuss the budgetary allocations for 2003–04 in the last six months. [111858]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  I have had no such discussions.

  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what funds his Department has allocated to partnerships between the independent and state school sectors; and if he will make a statement. [111677]

  Mr. Miliband
  In its first five years, 1998–2003, the independent/state school partnerships grant scheme was allocated £3.3 million of Departmental funding. Independent evaluation of the scheme has found that it is achieving its aims and objectives and provides good value for money. As a result, the scheme has been allocated a significant increase of funding over the next three years: £1.25 million in 2003–04 rising to £2 million in 2005–06. We expect to announce the outcome of the recent application round in June.

  We believe the independent sector can and is making a substantial contribution to our education system, through a range of collaborative models and policy initiatives, such as joint professional development, sharing of ideas on curriculum development and classroom observation. In addition, independent schools which meet the criteria and are willing to work with schools in the maintained sector will be able to participate in the next round of the Leading Edge programme later this year.

  Fiona Mactaggart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what guidance he has given to local education authorities on fixing dates for school terms, with particular reference to areas where many children attend schools in an authority other than where they live. [111465]

  Mr. Miliband
  Responsibility for deciding the dates of school terms and holidays rests with local education authorities or school governing bodies depending on the category of school. We would encourage adjoining authorities as far as possible to set similar dates.

  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what steps his Department is taking to improve the cleanliness and hygiene of school toilets. [111126]

  Mr. Stephen Twigg
  [holding answer 6 May 2003]: It is a requirement of The Education (School Premises) Regulations 1999 that
  "Every part of a school building and of the land provided for a school shall be such that the health, safety and welfare of the occupants are reasonably assured".

  Servicing of washrooms is covered by this requirement. It is the responsibility of the school, through the head teacher and governing body to ensure that standards of cleanliness are maintained.
  839W

  Sickness Absence
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many staff in his Department were on long term sick leave in each of the last five years. [109259]

  Mr. Stephen Twigg
  My Department is committed to managing sickness absence effectively and to maintain its efforts to try and meet the 2003 target for reduced sickness absence as set out in its Service Delivery Agreement.

  My Department does not hold this information centrally and could provide it only at disproportionate cost.

  Strategic Area Reviews
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on the timetable and progress of Strategic Area Reviews by local Learning and Skills Councils. [110884]

  Margaret Hodge
  All local Learning and Skills Councils are conducting Strategic Area Reviews of post-16 LSC-funded provision. These started in April 2003 and will be completed by March 2005. Nine local LSCs have been identified as pathfinders: one in each region plus a pathfinder involving all five local LSCs in the London region. The process will undergo early evaluation and lessons learnt will be shared with local LSCs across the country.

  Student Debt
  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the average level of debt accumulated by university students and students in higher education at the end of their course of study was(a) in the most recent year for which figures are available and (b) in 1997; and if he will make a statement. [106593]

  Margaret Hodge
  Student loan borrowers are liable to repay their loans from the April after they finish or leave their course, depending on their income. They are described as "entering repayment status" from that date. Students that started their course from the 1998/99 academic year will repay income contingent loans. Loans for those who started their course before 1998/99 are repayable on a mortgage style basis. The table shows estimates of average student loan debt at the point at which they entered repayment status for borrowers who became liable to repay their loans in financial years 1998–99 and 2002–03.

  New student support arrangements were introduced from academic year 1998/99. Most new students in that year (apart from specified exceptions) received support for maintenance expenditure through means-tested grants (about 25 per cent. of the support available) and non-means-tested student loans (about 75 per cent. of the support). From 1999/2000, students who entered higher education after 1998/99 received support for maintenance expenditure through loans. About three quarters of the value of these loans is not subject to means-testing. The repayments on these loans are on an income contingent basis.
  840W
  Students who started their course up to 1997/98, and those who entered in 1998/99 under the existing arrangements, are eligible for mortgage style loans. Students in this category received support for maintenance through non-means-tested loans (about 50 per cent. of the support available), and means-tested grants for those that qualify (about 50 per cent. of the support).

  The first cohort of students on a three-year degree course who entered higher education under the new student support arrangements became liable for repayment in April 2002. That cohort includes a disproportionate number of students on shorter courses as well as those who have left higher education before completing their courses. Therefore the average level of debt will not be representative of the average debt experienced by those who complete their courses.

  Average student loan debt on entering repayment status1,2

  Financial year entered repayment status3

  Mortgage style loans £4,5

  Income contingent loans £6

  1998–99

  2.870

  7ߞ

  2002–03

  5,160

  6,000

  1Data rounded to nearest £10. Includes interest.

  2Excludes any repayments which may have been made before borrowers enter repayment status.

  3Borrowers enter repayment status in the April following their graduation or otherwise leaving their course.

  4Loans made to students who entered higher education up to 1997/98 or who entered in 1998/99 under existing arrangements. Includes loans repayable to the private sector following the sale of two portfolios of student loans.

  5Includes loans sold in the two portfolios of student loans which are administered by the Student Loans Company.

  6Loans, repayable on an income contingent basis, available to students who entered higher education from academic year 1998/99. These loans were subject to a repayment holiday until April 2000. Includes hardship loans and the fixed rate loans (£500) to eligible part-time students.

  7Not applicable.

  Source:

  Student Loans Company

  Data on debts for which there is no public subsidy, such as overdrafts, credit cards, and informal debts to family and friends, are not available centrally.

  Sure Start
  Mr. Willis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills which senior members of staff within the Sure Start Unit have a specialist early years teaching qualification. [109297]

  Maria Eagle
  Senior staff in the Sure Start Unit have a range of different qualifications, including in early years teaching, and a number have worked in the early years and child care fields. The unit and Ministers have access to specialist expertise in a range of ways through advisers, consultative groups, research contracts and informal contacts.

  Working Hours
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what policy on(a) core hours and (b) flexible working hours is operated by his Department and each agency and non-departmental public body for which his Department is responsible. [107645]
  841W
  Mr. Stephen Twigg
  My Department is committed to accommodate requests from staff to work flexibly, subject to overriding operational requirements, and therefore does not require attendance for core hours beyond the opening and closing times of its offices. My Department has a standard working week of 41 hrs for full-time staff working in the London pay area and 42 hours for full-time staff working elsewhere. These totals include 5 hours for paid meal breaks.

  With the exception of staff in the Senior Civil Service, and at Grade 7 and Grade 6 level, all staff in my Department are eligible to work a formal flexitime arrangement. Managers are expected to make every effort to accommodate individual preferences for working hours, which are consistent with delivering the Department's business. Grade 6 staff and Grade 7 Team Leaders are also able to work alternative full or part-time flexible working patterns outside the formal flexitime arrangement with the agreement of their line manager.

  In addition, my Department supports a wide range of flexible working arrangements to help staff achieve a good balance between their home and work life. This includes part-time working, job-sharing, homeworking and term-time working.

  It has not been possible to provide the requested information for my Department's NDPBs and agencies without incurring disproportionate costs.

SOLICITOR-GENERAL

  Al Mujaharoon
  Mr. Dismore
  To ask the Solicitor-General if she will investigate the public statement made by the leader of Al Mujaharoon, on 1 May 2003 on suicide bombing and on British Muslims joining its jihad; and if she will make a statement. [111875]

  The Solicitor-General
  While I take all allegations of this type extremely seriously, I do not have any powers to investigate criminal matters. The police have responsibility for investigating criminal matters and for deciding whether or not to charge an offender. It would not therefore be appropriate for me to comment further.

  Crown Prosecution Service
  Simon Hughes
  To ask the Solicitor-General how many complaints were made against the Crown Prosecution Service in each year since 1997 to 2003; and what the outcome was. [111121]

  The Solicitor-General
  The Crown Prosecution Service holds records of complaints dating back to 1998. The number of complaints received in each year for which figures are available were as follows:

  Number

  1998

  2,423

  1999

  2,192

  2000

  2,793

  2001

  2,815

  2002

  3,080

  842W
  However, no central record is held of the outcome of complaints. The majority of complaints relate to prosecutions handled locally by the 42 areas of the Crown Prosecution Service. The details of complaints and the responses to them could be ascertained only by examining the individual case records held in each Crown Prosecution Service office.

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

  Iraq (Cultural Heritage)
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what information her Department has collated on the contribution made by British academic institutions to the safeguarding of Iraqi museums and cultural sites. [110887]

  Tessa Jowell
  Newcastle University and University College London provided lists of key sites of cultural and historical interest in Iraq to the MOD before the start of the conflict in Iraq. Troops were briefed accordingly and avoided key sites of cultural and historic interests as far as possible during the conflict.

  Youth Sport Trust
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (1) what discussions she had with the Department for Education and Skills on the impact on schools of the Youth Sport Trust initiative; [111555]

  (2) what assessment her Department has made of the effect of the purchasing of chocolate of encouraging children to collect tokens from confectionery to provide for sporting equipment under the Youth Sport Trust initiative; [111542]

  (3) what discussions took place between her Department and (a) Cadbury, (b) schools, (c) local authorities and (d) parents of children regarding the Youth Sport Trust initiative to encourage children to collect tokens from chocolate bars to provide for sporting equipment; [111541]

  (4) how long the Youth Sport Trust initiative will last; what estimates she has made of the number of extra pieces of equipment schools will gain from the initiative; and when the initiative will be reviewed. [111543]

  Mr. Caborn
  Although the Cadbury's 'Get Active' campaign has similar objectives to the Government's national strategy for physical education, school sport and club links, it is not a Government initiative, and as such, the Department has not had any discussions with any other Department or organisation about it. Nor has the Department made any assessment of the effect in the purchasing of chocolate of encouraging children to collect tokens from confectionary to provide for sporting equipment. 'Get Active' is about promoting a healthy lifestyle through increased levels of activity. It will be worth up to £8 million a year, over the next five years, with Cadbury's contributing 15p in every £1 spent on promotional packs on the purchase of sports equipment for schools.

DEFENCE

  European Rapid Reaction Force
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what discussions he has had with European colleagues regarding the progress of the ERRF; and what exercises are planned to test capability. [110028]

  Mr. Hoon
  Although the EU is seeking to strengthen its rapid response capability, there is no standing European Rapid Reaction Force nor any EU agreement to create one: existing national or multinational forces, declared under the Helsinki Headline Goal, will be made available to the EU on a voluntary, case-by-case basis when required for a crisis management operation. Units declared to the Headline Goal may participate in national, multinational or NATO exercises but there is no specific EU exercise programme to test military capability. The EU does, however, have an agreed programme of exercises to validate its crisis management procedures including a joint EU/NATO exercise planned for November 2003. I regularly discuss the European Security and Defence Policy with European colleagues. The Headline Goal, on which the EU continues to make progress, and rapid response capabilities were discussed most recently at an informal meeting of EU Defence Ministers in March 2003.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what discussions he has had with his French counterpart on the future of the European Rapid Reaction Force. [111874]

  Mr. Hoon
  There is no standing European Rapid Reaction Force nor any EU agreement to create one: existing national or multinational forces, declared under the Helsinki Headline Goal, will be made available to the EU on a voluntary, case-by-case basis when required for a crisis management operation.

  I regularly discuss the European Security and Defence Policy with my French counterpart. Our last meeting was at the Le Touquet summit in February 2003, where we jointly recognised that developing the capacity for rapid reaction was a European priority and agreed to step up co-operation between our national planning and operations staff in order to enhance the interoperability of our Armed Forces to prepare for contingencies where they may be called upon to act together at very short notice.

  Gibraltar
  Mr. Rosindell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence on what basis permission was given by RAF Gibraltar on 29th April for Spanish military jets to enter Gibraltar airspace. [111698]

  Mr. Ingram
  Two fast jets of the Spanish Air Force conducted a sortie in the vicinity of Gibraltar on 29 April 2003. The aircraft did not enter Gibraltar airspace and no request was made for permission to do so. The Spanish authorities gave RAF Gibraltar advance notice of the aircraft's intentions and the crew remained in contact with RAF Gibraltar Air Traffic Control throughout their time in the vicinity of the Rock. We very much welcome the co-operation of the Spanish authorities which ensured that the jets posed no risk to commercial flight safety.
  844W

  Home and Special Forces Secretariat
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the remit and terms of reference are of the Home and Special Forces Secretariat; and who sits on this body. [111852]

  Mr. Ingram
  The Home and Special Forces Secretariat is a directorate within the Central Staff of the Ministry of Defence Headquarters. It is one of a number of directorates whose role is to formulate policy and provide advice on military capabilities and operations (including to Ministers, the Chiefs of Staff. other Government Departments and civil authorities), and handle related public and parliamentary business. It currently comprises 12 civil servants.

  Iraq
  Jeremy Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what latest estimate he has of the death toll from current hostilities in Iraq amongst(a) UK forces, (b) US forces, (c) Iraqi forces, (d) Iraqi civilians arid (e) other civilian non-combatants. [109665]

  Mr. Ingram
  Basra and its environs are likely to contain a significant number of unexploded munitions from the Iran-Iraq war as well as mines laid by Iraqi forces, unexploded ordnance fired or dropped during recent hostilities and stores of ammunition and other ordnance left by Iraqi military and paramilitary forces.

  Providing a safe, secure and risk free environment for the Iraqi people is a key aspect of restoration activity for the Coalition. When unexploded munitions are discovered Coalition forces' normal practice is to destroy them in situ.

  Jeremy Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many cluster bombs have been dropped on Iraq since the start of current hostilities by(a) UK and (b) US forces; and what information is held on the location of their target. [110270]

  Mr. Hoon
  [holding answer 28 April 2003]: As of 29 April 2003, United Kingdom forces have dropped about 66 RBL 755 cluster bombs in the Iraq conflict. These have been used against large troop concentrations, armour and artillery in the open. A detailed record of the areas where cluster bombs are known to have been used in Iraq is maintained by the coalition in Theatre. We do not comment on numbers of munitions dropped by other nations.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what instructions have been issued to Coalition troops about seizing documents as evidence of crimes against humanity. [111614]

  Mr. Hoon
  [holding answer 6 May 2003]: United Kingdom Commanders are advised that any evidence believed to be linked to war crimes or crimes against humanity in Iraq is to be preserved and secured so that it may be properly examined by investigating authorities. Where evidence is time-sensitive, and a delay might result in it being lost, it may be seized and retained.

  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the rules of engagement are for the use of lethal force in Iraq. [111843]
  845W
  Mr. Hoon
  Access to information on Rules of Engagement is restricted for reasons of operational security. I am therefore withholding this information under Exemption 1 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.

  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence which Army units will remain in Iraq and Kuwait; when he expects them to be withdrawn; what replacements are to be made available; and if he will make a statement. [112021]

  Mr. Ingram
  I refer the hon.Member to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence's two Written Ministerial Statements on Iraq Force Level Adjustments of 11 April 2003 Official Report, columns 38–39WS and 30 April Official Report, columns 15–16WS. We will continue to inform the House as and when decisions on force adjustments are made.

  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence which UK forces will be committed to stabilisation and security operations in Iraq over the next year; and if he will make a statement. [112086]

  Mr. Ingram
  I refer the hon. Member to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence's two written ministerial statements on Iraq Force Level Adjustments of 11 April 2003,Official Report, columns 38–39WS and 30 April 2003, Official Report, columns 15–16WS). We will continue to ensure that appropriate forces remain in Iraq to fulfil our military campaign objectives of setting the conditions for the stabilisation and reconstruction of Iraq. We will continue to inform the House as and when decisions on force adjustments are made.

  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence to what extent it is possible to assign costs incurred by his Department in connection with the conduct of operations in Iraq(a) to periods (i) before the actual start of military action, (ii) while military action was taking place and (iii) subsequent to the conclusion of high intensity military action and (b) for the purposes of (A) preparing forces and resources and deploying them to the theatre of operations, (B) the conduct of military operations in theatre and (C) the recovery and repatriation of equipment, unused supplies and personnel. [112091]

  Mr. Hoon
  I will write to the hon. Member and a copy of my letter will be placed in the Library of the House. The data that we might be able to provide may not meet exactly the categorisation requested.

  Mr. Kidney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what opportunities for modern apprenticeships he makes available in the armed forces. [110761]

  Dr. Moonie
  As part of the ongoing training programme, the Ministry of Defence sponsors its personnel for qualifications and awards and seeks external accreditation within the National Qualifications Framework. These qualifications include Foundation and Advanced Modern Apprenticeships (MA) in a number of areas. These areas include: Agriculture; Business Administration; Construction; Engineering; Health, Care and Public Services; Hospitality; Leisure, Sport and Travel; Media and Design; Retailing and Customer Services; and 846W
  Transportation. We estimate that 11,392 personnel within the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force and the civil service are currently registered for an MA.

  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what measures his Department has taken to safeguard the impartiality and independence of aid agencies delivering aid in Iraq. [108045]

  Mr. Ingram
  Aid agencies providing humanitarian assistance in Iraq are fully independent of coalition military forces. The Humanitarian Operations Centre in Kuwait City and the Humanitarian Aid Co-ordination Centre in the US Embassy in Amman encourage them to contact coalition forces in the area in which they will operate, in order to ensure they have up-to-date advice, but they are under no obligation to do so. The headquarters of the United Kingdom 1st Armoured Division in Basra includes two humanitarian advisors from the Department for International Development who provide advice on relief activities.

  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what percentage of food aid to Iraq the US and UK military aim to import via Umm Qasr. [108054]

  Mr. Ingram
  The import of food aid into Iraq is largely the responsibility of a number of Agencies which are independent of the United Kingdom or other Governments. It is difficult to judge, therefore, what proportion of the aid will come through Umm Qasr. However, the rail link from Umm Qasr to the rest of the country is likely to make the port more viable for the import of bulk supplies than road routes. For this reason we believe that a substantial amount of aid will enter Iraq via Umm Qasr once the port is fully open to shipping.

  Joint Rapid Reaction Force
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans the Government has to undergo a Joint Rapid Reaction Force exercise to demonstrate the capability of medical services; and if he will make a statement. [110555]

  Dr. Moonie
  Joint Rapid Reaction Forces exercises are designed to practise joint, including medical, capability. Medical personnel took part in Exercise Saif Sareea II in autumn 2001, and in Exercise Joint Venture 02 in May 2002. Medical personnel have also recently demonstrated their capability in operations in Iraq. Several further joint exercises are planned for 2004.

  Merchant Shipping (Terrorism)
  Dr. Julian Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what capacity the Royal Navy has available to protect merchant shipping in UK waters from possible terrorist attack. [111310]

  Mr. Ingram
  Within the United Kingdom, terrorism is a crime and is therefore the responsibility of the police. The Home Office are the lead Government Department for terrorist matters and the Department for Transport for transport issues. The terrorist threat in UK waters, as in the UK itself, is kept under constant review. The Royal Navy has a number of graduated response options available to assist the civil authorities in the protection of merchant shipping in UK waters,
  847W
  depending on the level of threat. These range from routine advice and guidance to merchant shipping to more proactive measures, including RN support to the Police, HM Customs and Excise or other civil power, if necessary. Forces available are drawn from those routinely tasked with the maintenance of the integrity of UK waters. In addition, specialist Ministry of Defence elements with dedicated maritime counter terrorist roles are kept at high readiness.

  Operational Costs
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make it his practice to identify and disclose the full costs of specific operations, as well as the additional costs. [112092]

  Mr. Hoon
  The current policy is to identify only the additional costs of operations. I do not foresee a change to that policy, not least because of the practical difficulties that this would involve.

  Overseas Postings
  Mr. Jenkin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many British service personnel are deployed or stationed in(a) Germany, (b) Northern Ireland, (c) Bosnia, (d) Kosovo, (e) Cyprus, (f) Sierra Leone, (g) Afghanistan, (h) the Gulf region, (i) Turkey, (j) Gibraltar, (k) Belize, (l) Kenya, (m) Brunei and (n) Canada. [109155]

  Mr. Ingram
  The approximate numbers and locations of armed forces personnel deployed on operations and other military tasks or stationed in the locations specified, as at 1 April 2003 (unless specified otherwise) are shown as follows.

  Location

  Approximate numbers

  Germany

  11,530

  Northern Ireland

  14,260

  Bosnia

  1,400

  Kosovo

  1,100

  Cyprus1

  4,671

  Sierra Leone

  120

  Afghanistan

  330

  Gulf Region1

  36,988

  Turkey

  180

  Gibraltar

  400

  Belize

  20

  Kenya

  50

  Brunei

  1,140

  Canada

  270

  1As at 27April 2003.

  SA80
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the operational effectiveness of the SA80 during operations in Iraq. [111821]

  Mr. Ingram
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 6 May 2003,Official Report, column 576W, to the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Flook).

  Sea Harrier
  Dr. Julian Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what methods are planned to defend Royal 848W
  Navy vessels and land-attack aircraft in a conflict occurring after the withdrawal of the Sea Harrier in 2006; [111317]

  (2) what assessment he has made of the ability of Type 45 destroyers to fulfil the role of the FA2 Sea Harrier after 2006. [111340]

  Mr. Ingram
  I refer the hon. Member to the answers I gave on 23 January 2003,Official Report, column 454W, and 16 January 2003, Official Report, column 702W.

  Sri Lanka
  Mr. Gardiner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if his Department will assist Landmine Action in their discussions with the government of Sri Lanka on the non-use of anti-personnel mines. [111070]

  Mr. Ingram
  The Government is fully committed to the universalisation of the Ottawa Convention. My officials are in regular contact with Landmine Action, and we support their efforts to encourage non-States Party, including Sri Lanka, to sign up to the Convention.

  The United Kingdom is in the early stages of assisting the Sri Lankan Army in a restructuring process. This will cover many strands, of which one will be the issue of anti-personnel landmines.

  Stevens Inquiry
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what instructions he has received concerning cooperation with and disclosure to the Inquiry of Sir John Stevens. [111638]

  Mr. Ingram
  None. The Ministry of Defence's policy and practice is to co-operate fully with all police inquiries.

  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the military status of Brian Nelson has been since his release from prison in 1997. [111850]

  Mr. Ingram
  Brian Nelson had no military status from his release from prison in 1997 until his death in April 2003.

  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what sums of money have been paid to Brian Nelson, his heirs and successors since his release from prison in 1997. [111851]

  Mr. Ingram
  I am withholding this information under Section la of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.

  Troop Deployments
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what proportion of British troops are on active deployment; if he will make a statement on the levels of commitment; and what plans he has to reduce the number of deployments. [110027]

  Mr. Ingram
  The figures for the average number of personnel from each Service deployed on Military Tasks overseas for the quarter ending 31 March 2003, the most recent comprehensive figures available, are shown in the table. The figures do not include personnel either
  849W
  preparing for or recovering from deployments on Military Tasks. They also exclude personnel on duties in the United Kingdom such as firefighting.

  4th Quarter 2002–03 (January—March 2003)

  Number

  Percentage of trained strength

  Navy (inc. Royal Marines)

  8,091

  21.5

  Army

  36,073

  35.4

  Air Force

  6,947

  14.3

  The Department's plans for reducing deployments were set out in the Written Ministerial Statement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence on 30 April 2003, Official Report, column 15WS.

  Warships
  Dr. Julian Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence which Royal Navy vessels are(a) listed and (b) scheduled for future withdrawal from the fleet. [1113191

  Mr. Ingram
  All Royal Navy vessels have a scheduled withdrawal date at some stage in the future when their capability is replaced by another platform. The listed Royal Navy vessels have been withdrawn from the Fleet but their final destination has yet to be determined:

  HMS Scylla: replaced by Type 23 Frigates

  HMS Boxer: replaced by Type 23 Frigates

  HMS Brave: replaced by Type 23 Frigates

  HMS Intrepid: to be replaced by Landing Platform Dock (LPD(R))

  HMS Fearless: HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark

  In line with the 1998 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) recommendations, a force level reduction of two submarines (SSN) is planned by 2006.

  The Ministry of Defence routinely considers changes to the Defence programme to ensure the required level of capability is maintained to meet its current and contingent operations. Improvements currently planned for the Fleet, introducing more modern and capable vessels as replacements for scheduled outgoing capability are:
  Three River Class Overseas Patrol Vessels (OPV) will replace the Island Class OPV capability by early 2004. The remaining Island Class OPVs are scheduled to be withdrawn from service having reached their end of service lives.
  Four Landing Ship Dock (Auxiliary) vessels are scheduled to enter service between 2004 and 2005, replacing four existing Landing Ship Logistic (LSL) vessels that have completed their planned service lives.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Iraq
  Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment has been made of the capacity of Iraqi civil society to participate in the rebuilding of Iraq; and if he will make a statement on the measures being taken to foster Iraqi participation in the future governance of Iraq. [110982]
  850W
  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The role of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) is to help facilitate the rebuilding of Iraq. A series of meetings (which began in Nasiriyah and Baghdad) will draw together Iraqi consensus from a broad range of opinion in order to establish an Iraqi Interim Authority in four weeks time. It will be for the Iraqis themselves to decide the shape of their future government. It is too early to predict when elections can be held and Iraqi self-governance attained.

  Mr. Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what estimates he has(a) made and (b) received of the number and sterling value of (i) antiquities, (ii) cultural artefacts and (iii) works of art which have been looted from Iraq since coalition forces occupied the country. [110600]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  It is too early to make any accurate assessment. The Director of Research of the Iraq Museum provided information on some items which have been looted from the Museum to a seminar of professionals at the British Museum on 29 April.

  Mr. Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with the United Nations regarding the security of antiquities and works of cultural value remaining in Iraq. [110601]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  We are talking to our partners on the UN Security Council about this issue with a view to ensuring that it is not overlooked when sanctions are lifted. We will be arguing for language which calls for member states to facilitate the return of any stolen artifacts and impose a moratorium or other prohibitions on trade in Iraqi artifacts until their provenance can be established.

  Mr. Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with the United Nations concerning export criteria on(a) works of art, (b) items of cultural value and (c) antiquities in Iraq, in the event of the lifting of trade sanctions; and if he will make a statement. [110602]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  We condemn the illicit trade in Iraqi antiquities. We are therefore working to ensure that Iraq's cultural assets are respected when sanctions are lifted; and we are discussing with other Security Council members the best way of restricting the export of these assets. Under the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property we and other signatory countries have an obligation to prevent the import of stolen Iraqi antiquities.

  Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about sanctions on Iraq. [110974]

  Mr. Rammell
  The Government favours lifting sanctions on Iraq as soon as possible.

  Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans there are to parole and vet Iraqi soldiers prior to their involvement in reconstruction activities. [110975]
  851W
  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  Coalition forces are working on plans for a programme of Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDK). This will
  concentrate on processing former Iraqi military personnel for integration into the new Iraqi National Defence Force. Those deemed unsuitable will be returned to civilian life, unless they face criminal investigation.

  Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about what co-ordination there has been with the United Nations regarding the future governance of Iraq. [110976]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  We are in close touch with members of the UN Security Council and the UN Secretary General about various aspects of our policy on Iraq. These include exploring a UN role in the political process leading to the emergence of a new Iraqi Government.

  Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment his Department made of civilian infrastructures and what plans were made for the restoration of essential services in Iraq, prior to military action; and if he will make future plans publicly available. [110977]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The US led Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) has with UK support taken the lead in restoring essential services. Prior to the conflict the Government recognised the need to provide early post-conflict relief and allocated £210 million for rehabilitation projects in Iraq. Future plans will be made public, as they become available.

  Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether journalists operating in Iraq for British publications and broadcasting outlets have to have permission from General Jay Garner to carry out their reportage in Iraq. [111240]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  No. Journalists representing the British media currently have permission from CENTCOM (the coalition's central command).

  Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps he has taken to authenticate documents claimed to have been found in Baghdad by journalists working for British-based publications that purport to establish a link between the former Iraqi Government and Al-Qaeda terrorists. [111243]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  We have not seen these documents and therefore cannot comment.

  Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he had with the former Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, Tariq Aziz, between 1 January and the day he surrendered. [111244]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  There have been no discussions with Tariq Aziz since the last Gulf War.

  Joan Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps he is taking to ensure that Iraqi women and Iraqi women's852W
  organisations are included in all stages of preparation for the Iraqi interim authority and the preparation of a new Iraqi constitution. [111909]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  We are seriously exploring the option of holding an Iraqi women's conference to produce representatives. The UK funded "Towards Freedom" television channel will soon be transmitting programmes to encourage women to participate in this process. Our military on the ground and our secondees in the Coalition's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) are aware of their responsibilities under Resolution 1325. A gender expert from the Women's Equality Unit at the Department for Trade and Industry will soon join ORHA to focus on these issues.

  Arms Sales
  Joyce Quin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has collated on the extent of compliance by EU countries with the EU code of conduct on arms sales since its introduction. [111252]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  Information on the extent of compliance with the EU Code of Conduct is published in the Annual Report on the EU Code of Conduct. Copies are available from the Libraries of the House.

  We work closely with our EU partners to ensure that all member states apply the Code in a consistent manner. Member states share information on refused arms export licences and if another member state wishes to approve an essentially similar licence, they must first consult before doing so. If they ultimately approve the licence application they must inform the consulted member state accordingly.

  Regular meetings are held where all EU member states can discuss issues and concerns. If other partners or we have any concerns these would be raised both in the relevant forum and directly with the country concerned.

  Chechnya
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with the Russian Government on their intervention in Chechnya. [112100]

  Mr. MacShane
  My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has raised the human rights and humanitarian situation in the republic in meetings with the Russian Foreign Minister, and stressed the importance of a political solution to the conflict. He has also pressed the Russian government to renew the mandate of the OSCE Assistance Group to Chechnya.

  Chemical Weapons
  Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will place in the Library copies of papers submitted by the United Kingdom to the Review Conference of the Chemical Weapons convention; and if he will make a statement on progress made with compliance with the convention. [111235]
  853W
  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The United Kingdom has tabled a total of nine papers at the CWC Review Conference. A further UK paper on Challenge Inspections has been adopted as an EU Paper. This represents by far the largest contribution of any State Party. I will place copies of all 10 papers in the Library of the House, together with a copy of the UK national statement to the Conference. In this we welcomed the progress made towards universality of the convention and the extensive world-wide inspection and monitoring regime that has been put in place by the OPCW. The UK also stressed the central importance of compliance with all the obligations of the CWC and urged other States Parties to follow the lead the UK has set in actively seeking clarification of national declarations. The UK believes that the CWC can play a significant role in deterring offensive CW programmes and in the war against terrorism.

  Conflict Diamonds
  Mr. Colman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what his estimate is of the proportion of conflict diamonds reaching European markets. [110746]

  Mr. Rammell
  There is no definitive figure for rough diamonds sold illegally to fund civil conflict. Industry analysts estimated that, during the time of the conflicts in Sierra Leone and Angola, these diamonds accounted for some 4 per cent. of the world trade in rough diamonds. With the establishment of peace in both countries, that estimate has been revised down to less than 2 per cent.

  John Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what(a) representations he has received from and (b) discussions he has had with the Democratic Republic of Congo on diamond smuggling in the Central African Republic. [111331]

  Mr. Rammell
  Foreign Office officials attending the Kimberley Process plenary session in Johannesburg from 28–30 April held extensive discussions with the head of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) delegation. DRC officials explained the problems their country continued to face, in view of the improving but still difficult internal situation and the activities of their immediate neighbours, in particular in relation to the removal of rough diamonds from the DRC. In response the UK delegation underlined the need to enhance the transparency and monitoring provisions of the Kimberley Process certification scheme in order to highlight trade anomalies and possible illegal practices.

  The plenary session resulted in agreement on the detail of the regular exchange of statistical data and on the screening of all members and applicants to ensure their laws and regulations meet the minimum common standards required by the scheme, two helpful initiatives on transparency and monitoring. The meeting also agreed to send a specific monitoring mission to the Central African Republic in the near future in order to assess compliance.

  John Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent discussions he has had with the Belgian Government on Belgium's annual import of diamonds from the Central African Republic. [111341]
  854W
  Mr. Rammell
  Foreign Office officials have had regular contact with their Belgian, French and European Commission counterparts over the situation in the Central African Republic following events there on 15 March. In particular, the European Community made it clear to other members of the Kimberley Process that in the immediate aftermath of the coup in Bangui the Kimberley Process should temporarily withdraw recognition of the CAR Kimberley certificate, thereby effectively suspending all exports of rough diamonds from that country.

  The Kimberley Process has since agreed to lift the suspension, but only in exchange for agreement to send a monitoring mission to determine whether the controls exercised in the CAR meet the minimum common standards required by the Kimberley certification scheme. A member of the Foreign Office's Kimberly implementation unit will be part of that mission.

  John Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what estimate he has made of the Central African Republic's(a) annual production of diamonds and (b) annual export of diamonds. [111343]

  Mr. Rammell
  Although there are no recent export figures available, we understand that the Central African Republic, before the change in government in mid-March, was reporting exports of rough diamonds worth approximately $ 100 million per year, most to Belgium. The authorities in Bangui have reportedly suspended the licences of diamond operators in the country, pending their review and re-issuing.

  Meanwhile the Kimberley Process will send a monitoring mission to the Central African Republic in the near future to determine whether the internal controls regulating the diamond industry meet the minimum common standards set by the Kimberley certification scheme.

  John Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent discussions he has had with President George W. Bush regarding measures to combat the trade in illegal conflict diamonds. [111344]

  Mr. Rammell
  FCO officials have made several representations in Washington about the need for a US legal base for implementing the Kimberley Process certification scheme for rough diamonds, the principal international tool for tackling conflict diamonds, and for effective interim domestic measures. We were pleased that President Bush signed into law, on 25 April the Clean Diamond Trade Act. This has strengthened compliance with the scheme and will encourage many other countries hoping to be part of the Kimberley Process to ensure their legislation, regulations, rules and procedures are completed as soon as possible.

  John Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent discussions he has had with compliant participant countries in the Kimberley process regarding other participant countries who have broken agreements on the trade of conflict diamonds. [111345]

  Mr. Rammell
  The Kimberley Process certification scheme met in plenary session in Johannesburg from 28–30 April to discuss, among other things, compliance
  855W
  issues. The meeting produced agreement in several areas, including the establishment of an internal committee to ensure that all current and future members of the Kimberley Process have adopted laws, regulations, rules and procedures that meet the minimum common standards set by the scheme.

  The meeting also agreed to send a monitoring mission to the Central African Republic, following the coup d'etat on 15 March, to check that the internal controls required to meet the scheme's standards remain effective. A separate Kimberley Process mission to Liberia will take place if requested by the United Nations under the terms of current UN Security Council resolutions on Liberia.

  John Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of international measures to break the link between the trade of rough diamonds and armed conflict. [111347]

  Mr. Rammell
  The Kimberley Process certification scheme on the trade in rough diamonds is an international agreement adopted last November by 45 governments, the European Community, representatives of civil society and the World Diamond Council. It requires its members to ensure that it produces, exports and imports only rough stones certified by member governments as free of conflict diamonds. Since its adoption a further 25 countries have applied to join, making the Kimberley Process a truly inclusive scheme, embracing all diamond producers and major trading and processing states.

  Implementation of the scheme began on 1 January 2003. At its first review meeting in Johannesburg from 28–30 April, the members of the Kimberley Process agreed further measures to increase effective implementation and to ensure consistent compliance with the minimum common standards laid down in the scheme. Initial results are very encouraging, helped by peace processes in Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone. A further more detailed assessment will take place at the next Kimberley meeting in October.

  John Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what proportion of the annual global diamond trade he estimates is made up of conflict diamonds. [111348]

  Mr. Rammell
  Industry analysts estimate that, following the cessation of hostilities in Sierra Leone and in Angola, less than 2 per cent. of the world's trade in rough diamonds is made up of conflict diamonds, that is stones sold illegally to fund civil war.

  Criminal Offences
  Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list, broken down by Act, the criminal offences created in legislation sponsored by his Department since 1997. [111791]

  Mr. Straw
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) on 16 May 2002,Official Report, column 808W. No relevant legislation has been enacted since then.

  Middle East
  Mr. Dismore
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of the reports from Israel that the terrorist responsible for the suicide bombing on 29 April in Tel Aviv and his accomplice were British citizens: and if he will make a statement. [111876]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The Metropolitan Police Service Anti-Terrorist Branch is liaising very closely with the Israeli authorities and is carrying out inquiries into all relevant aspects of this case, including reports that the terrorist and his accomplice were British citizens. A team of UK officers travelled to Tel Aviv on 2 May to talk to the Israelis.

  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what measures have been put in place to exert pressure on Israel and the Palestinian Authority to comply with the roadmap for peace in the Middle East. [111324]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  We expect both sides to work enthusiastically to implement the roadmap, recognising that the interests of both peoples are best served by ending the violence and negotiating a just and lasting settlement, in the way it sets out. Exerting external pressure at this early stage would, we believe, send quite the wrong message about the roadmap's intrinsic merits.

  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what independent monitoring mechanisms will be put in place to ensure compliance with each phase of the roadmap for the Middle East. [111327]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The roadmap contains provision for third party monitoring of the agreement. The quartet is currently in the process of drawing up a mechanism to achieve this. We shall expect all parties to co-operate with it fully and are ready to provide whatever assistance we can to ensure its success.

  Mr. Blunt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what reports he has received from(a) the Israeli Defence Force and (b) the United Nations on the killing of Mr. Ian Hook: and if he will place these in the Library. [110909]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The Israelis have reported privately to Mr. Hook's family on the findings of their investigation. A copy of the UN report has been passed privately to Mr. Hook's family. The UN has not published its report and has no plans to do so at this stage.

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

  Enterprise Zones
  Paddy Tipping
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what assessment has been made of the effectiveness of enterprise zones: and whether he plans to bring forward a successor scheme when enterprise zones end in 2005. [111377]

  Mr. McNulty
  Enterprise Zones have been subject to continuous monitoring since 1981. Monitoring of the remaining zones will continue until the final
  857W
  designations come to an end in 2006. To date there have also been three evaluation studies of Enterprise Zones. A final evaluation will be conducted in 2007. There are no plans at present to extend or replace the Enterprise Zone programme.

  Fire Service (Somerset)
  Mr. Flook
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many man hours have been lost in the Somerset Fire Service as a result of strike action in the past 12 months. [111657]

  Mr. Raynsford
  Information on the exact number of man-hours lost in the Somerset Fire Service due to strike action is not held centrally, and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  However, there are two shifts in a 24-hour period. Twenty shifts were severely affected by strike action by members of the Fire Brigades Union in November 2002, six in January 2003 and four in February 2003.

  Housing
  Ms Buck
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what assessment he has made of the impact of the proposed withdrawal of Local Authority Social Housing Grant upon the number of new social housing starts in(a) inner London, (b) London and (c) England after the current transitional arrangements are withdrawn. [111759]

  Mr. McNulty
  Local Authority Social Housing Grant is being ended to allow the resources to be better targeted to achieve the objectives set out in "Sustainable Communities: Building for the Future". No estimates have been made on the impact this will have on the number of social housing dwellings provided, either in total or in particularly locations. That will depend on a number of factors, including, in particular, the recommendations from the new Regional Housing Boards on what and where the available resources should be spent.

  Bercow
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what representations he has received about the Regulatory Reform (Housing Management Agreements) Order. [111733]

  Mr. McNulty
  Fifty three responses were finally received as a result of the consultation paper on the proposed changes in the Order. Responses had also been received from an earlier consultation, five of which were from persons different to those received from the consultation paper. Details of the majority of the representations can be found in the Explanatory Document on the website of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister at:http://www.housing.odpm.gov.uk/information/hma/index.htm.

  Dr. Phyllis Starkey
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister (1) what classes of workers are included in the category of key worker; [111010]

  (2) what criteria his Department uses to identify key workers in relation to the provision of affordable housing; [111009]

  (3) what plans he has to include prison officers in the category of key worker for the provision of affordable housing.[111011]
  858W
  Mr. McNulty
  The key worker groups prioritised for assistance under the Starter Home Initiative and the Challenge Fund are teachers, police, nurses and other essential health workers. This reflects the importance the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister attaches to addressing recruitment and retention problems in the key public services of education, health, and policing.

  From 2004–05 funding for the provision of key worker housing will be integrated into the Housing Corporation's main affordable housing programme and will target key public sector workers. The Housing Corporation expects to invite bids for key worker housing schemes at the same time as bids for other affordable housing schemes, around September 2003. It will be made clear by that stage which key worker groups will qualify for assistance.

  Parliamentary Boundaries (Wales)
  Mr. Evans
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what progress the Boundary Commission has made with its report on the new parliamentary boundaries for Wales: and when it is expected to complete its deliberations. [111591]

  Mr. Leslie
  The Boundary Commission for Wales announced the start of its review of parliamentary constituencies in Wales on 16 December 2002. It expects to publish draft recommendations for all the Welsh counties towards the end of this year: and to make its report to my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister early in 2005.

  Parliamentary Questions
  Mr. Pickles
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many answers to(a) written and (b) oral parliamentary questions have required correction by his Department in each of the past two years. [103232]

  Mr. Leslie
  The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister was created on 29 May 2002. During the period from 29 May 2002 to 14 April 2003, one pursuant parliamentary question has been tabled by the Office.

  People with Disabilities
  Mr. Soley
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether his proposed planning legislation will require new developments to incorporate access rights for people with disabilities. [111254]

  Mr. McNulty
  Clause 38 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill requires those responsible for preparing regional and spatial strategies and local development documents to exercise those functions with a view to contributing to the achievement of sustainable development. Sustainable development will be defined in guidance, but is already clearly set out in the Government's statement on sustainable development 'A Better Quality of Life—A Strategy for sustainable development for the UK—May 1999'.
  This will mean that planning policy makers, developers, and decision makers at national and local levels must take full account of the social, economic and environmental impacts of proposed developments—including the needs of people with disabilities.
  859W
  Another measure to help bring about accessible environments is for local planning authorities to engage in better quality and wider consultation with local communities, including disabled people, at the start of the planning process. The new planning legislation will require local authorities to prepare Statements of Community Involvement which will set out how they will consult with local communities on preparing their local development plans.

  Standards Board
  Sir Michael Spicer
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister in how many, and in what percentage, of the cases that have been referred to the Standards Board for England the Board has found a serious breach of conduct. [111771]

  Mr. Leslie
  It is for the Adjudication Panel for England to determine whether there has been a breach of the code of conduct.

  To 30 April 2003 the Standards Board for England had received 3,211 allegations of misconduct. Of these 1,216 (38 per cent.) have been referred for further investigation and, of 569 cases so far completed, 121 (21 per cent. of completed investigations) have been referred to the Adjudication Panel for England. Since January 2003 the Panel have considered 44 cases, of which 38 (86 per cent. of Adjudication Panel Cases) have led to disqualification from office, two (5 per cent.) to suspension, one to a reprimand and in one case no breach was found: of the remainder one was withdrawn and the other case was suspended.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

  Courts
  Mr. Edward Garnier
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, what plans there are for the temporary closure of courts as a result of departmental overspending: which courts are likely to be affected: an on what basis they are selected. [110165]

  Yvette Cooper
  There are no plans to close any Crown or County Courts in England and Wales temporarily in order to contain expenditure.

  Decisions to close, or retain, Magistrates' Courts are not made by my Department, but by locally based Magistrates' Courts Committees (MCC).

  Mr. Garnier
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department whether the Lord Chancellor plans to introduce reduced sitting days for courts. [110213]

  Yvette Cooper
  The Lord Chancellor has no present intention of doing so.

  In fact the planned number of sitting days in the Crown Court for 2003–04 has been increased from 101,297 in 2002–03, to 101,500. This is to take account of the increase in workload.

  Criminal Offences
  Simon Hughes
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if she will list, broken 860W
  down by Act, the criminal offences created in legislation sponsored by the Lord Chancellor's Department since 1997. [110989]

  Yvette Cooper
  An exhaustive list of new offences could be provided only at disproportionate cost. I can however provide the following information about new offences enacted since 1 May 1997.

  The Access to Justice Act 1999 created two offences: misrepresentation in relation to the Community Legal Service/Criminal Defence Service, and unauthorised disclosure of personal information supplied for enforcing warrants. The first offence replaces the similar offences in relation to legal aid under the Legal Aid Act 1988.

  The European Communities (Lawyer's Practice) Regulations 2000 (SI 2000/1119) created an offence for a European lawyer to practice in England and Wales and Northern Ireland without registering with the relevant competent authority. This was a regulation made by the Lord Chancellor implementing a European directive.

  The Land Registration Act 2002 creates two new offences, of suppression of information and improper alteration of the registers.

  Market Testing
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what the estimated level of saving to the Department is from the use of market testing in 2002–03. [107762]

  Ms Rosie Winterton
  My Department did not carry out any market testing exercises in 2002–03.

CHURCH COMMISSIONERS

  Lambeth Palace Library
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, representing the Church Commissioners what plans the Church Commissioners have for Lambeth Palace Library: and if he will make a statement. [111842]

  Mr. Bell
  In response to the report, "Resourcing Archbishops", the Commissioners have in consultation with the other National Institutions of the Church of England initiated a review of the arrangements for the housing and conservation of the 'documentary heritage' held by the National Institutions. The review will consider in particular the future of Lambeth Palace Library and, through consultation, will seek to define the purposes and role of the collections and examine ways of increasing public access. It will also consider the current preservation requirements and resourcing issues.

  The terms of reference have been agreed by the Commissioners' Bishoprics and Cathedrals Committee and Board of Governors, and the membership of the Review Group is now being drawn together.

  It is envisaged that the review will report next year.

HEALTH

  Human Trafficking
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will place in the Library the paper on the setting up by West Sussex County Council of safe houses for children and young people who have been trafficked into the United Kingdom. [112049]

  Jacqui Smith
  There is no paper, prepared by the Department of Health, on the setting up by West Sussex County Council of its safe house for trafficked children.

  The establishment of safe house arrangements for these children was undertaken by West Sussex County Council, in pursuit of its duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in its area, in accordance with the Children Act 1989.

  Benzodiazepines/Anti-depressants
  Dr. Naysmith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what quantity of each individual(a) benzodiazepine and (b) antidepressant was prescribed by doctors in England in 2002. [111470]

  Jacqui Smith
  Quantities of individual benzodiazepine and antidepressant drugs dispensed in the community in England for the most recent 12 months, for which data are currently available, have been placed in the Library.

  Vaccines
  Tim Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the link between mercury in vaccines given to babies and(a)autism and (b) heart disease. [109928]

  Ms Blears
  Thiomersal is an ethylmercury-containing compound that has played an important role either as a preservative or in the initial stages of the manufacture of some vaccines for over 60 years. As with all medicinal products, the Medicines and Healthcare Products RegulatoryAgency (MHRA) and the Committee on Safety of Medicines (CSM) keep the safety of thiomersal-containing vaccines under continual review. The CSM has reviewed the safety, including postulated neurological adverse effects, of thiomersal-containing vaccines on a number of occasions.

  CSM has recently reviewed two UK-based epidemiological studies that have provided reassuring results regarding the safety of thiomersal in vaccines, in relation to neurodevelopmental disorders. One of these studies, which used the United Kingdom's general practice research database (GPRD), specifically investigated whether there is any link between early thiomersal exposure through immunisation and autism. This study concluded that administration of thiomersal through childhood immunisation in the UK was not associated with an increased risk of developing a neurological developmental disability, including autism.
  862W
  The CSM has carefully considered the results of a recent study, by Geier and Geier, that suggests an association between thiomersal exposure through the United States childhood immunisation schedule and the development of autism and heart disease. CSM advised that the methodology in this publication had been inadequately described and that the authors conclusions regarding the association between thiomersal in vaccines and autism, speech disorders and heart disease are not justified. The CSM has advised that, with the exception of allergic reactions such as redness and swelling at the injection site, there is no evidence of harm from thiomersal contained in vaccines. The CSM has advised that the benefits of immunisation with thiomersal-containing vaccines outweigh any potential risks of vaccination.

  Tim Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to phase out the use of mercury in vaccines given to babies. [109929]

  Ms Blears
  The only vaccines used in the United Kingdom routine childhood immunisation programme that contain a mercury compound are diphtheria, tetanus and whole cell pertussis and diphtheria and tetanus vaccines. The mercury is present as ethylmercury in the excipient thiomersal.

  While there is no evidence of harm caused by thiomersal in vaccines, the European Medicines Evaluation Agency recommended that it would be prudent to promote the use of vaccines without thiomersal as a precautionary measure. The Committee on Safety of Medicines has endorsed this recommendation and continues to do so. Manufacturers are actively developing research programmes to eliminate, substitute or reduce thiomersal in vaccines following these recommendations. This may take time because manufacturers are required to ensure that the reduction, replacement or elimination of thiomersal does not affect the safety, quality and efficacy of the final vaccine.

  To date, a number of UK licensed vaccines have had levels of thiomersal reduced or removed completely from the manufacture of the component antigens or from the final vaccine. These developments are regularly reviewed and on 1 April 2003, a letter was sent from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to UK vaccine marketing authorisation holders, asking for an update on progress in reducing or removing thiomersal from vaccines.

  Care Homes (North-West)
  Mr. Woodward
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many beds were available in(a) St. Helens, (b) Merseyside, (c) Wigan and (d) Warrington in the care home sector in each of the past five years. [110007]

  Jacqui Smith
  The latest available information on the number of residential and nursing care home places in St. Helens, Merseyside, Wirral and Warrington is shown in the table.
  863W

  Residential and Nursing home places in St. Helens, Merseyside, Wigan and Warrington 1997–2001

  Total number of care home places1

  As at 31 March

  1997

  1998

  1999

  2000

  2001

  St. Helens and Knowsley area2

  2,860

  2,960

  2,750

  2,890

  2,760

  Merseyside area3

  18,910

  20,060

  19,260

  18,900

  18,490

  Wigan and Bolton area4

  4,250

  4,920

  5,070

  5,060

  4,680

  North Cheshire area5,6

  n/a

  n/a

  3,060

  3,170

  3,170

  1Total includes places in residential LA staffed, independent and dual registered homes, and beds in general and mental nursing homes, private hospitals and clinics.

  2 Nursing data refers to St. Helens and Knowsley health authority. Residential data refers to Knowsley and St. Helens metropolitan districts.

  3 Residential data for Merseyside refers to Knowsley, St. Helens, Liverpool, Sefton and Wirral metropolitan districts. Nursing data refers to St. Helens and Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton and Wirral health authorities.

  4 Nursing data refers to Wigan and Bolton health authority. Residential data refers to Bolton and Wigan metropolitan district.

  5 Nursing data refers to North Cheshire health authority. Residential refers to Halton and Warrington Unitary Authorities.

  6Halton and Warrington Unitary Authorities did not exist prior to 1999, therefore data for 1997 and 1998 is not available.

  Source:

  RA Form A and RH(N) forms, Department of Health

  n/a—not available

  Continuing Care
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the results were of the exercise his Department commissioned from Strategic Health Authorities to assess the numbers of people who have been incorrectly denied continuing care funding: what actions he is taking in the light of the results: what guidance he gave to ensure consistency of approach by strategic health authorities: which strategic health authorities(a) replied by the deadline, (b) have yet to reply and (c) have replied but about which the Department has queries: and if he will publish the submissions sent to the Department by each strategic health authority. [112113]

  Jacqui Smith
  As a result of the assessments carried out by Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs), the Department, working closely with SHAs, has agreed a procedure for estimating the numbers of people who may have been wrongly denied continuing care.

  All SHAs replied by the deadline and based on the information received, further clarification of this information has been requested from SHAs.

  All GP Practitioners1 and HCHS Medical & Dental staff per head of population in North West region, as at 30 September 2001

  Number (headcount)

  All GP practitioners1

  All medial and dental staff2

  Population

  All GP practitioners per head of population

  All GP practitioners per 100,000 population

  All medial and dental staff per head of population

  All medical and dental staff per 100,000 population

  North West Region

  4,052

  9,571

  6,450,535

  0.0006

  62.8

  0.0015

  148.4

  Of which:

  East Lancashire HA

  302

  527

  517,563

  0.0006

  58.4

  0.0010

  101.8

  North West Lancashire HA

  268

  776

  451,001

  0.0006

  59.4

  0.0017

  172.1

  South Lancashire HA

  180

  180

  312,982

  0.0006

  57.5

  0.0006

  57.5

  1All GP Practitioners includes: GMS Unrestricted Principals, PMS Contracted GPs, PMS Salaried GPs, Restricted Principals, Assistants, GP Registrars, GP Retainers, Salaried Doctors (Para 52 SFA) and PMS others

  2Includes Hospital Medical Hospital Practitioners and excludes Hospital Practitioners and Clinical Assistants. most of whom are GPs working part-time in hospitals

  Sources:

  Department of Health General and Personal Medical Services Statistics

  Department of Health Medical & Dental workforce census

  ONS 2001 resident based population estimates
  864W
  There is no intention at this time to publish the information received from SHAs.

  Correspondence
  Sandra Gidley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many acknowledgement letters and cards were dispatched by his Department in each year since 1997, for which figures are available: and what the estimated average cost was per letter and card. [111868]

  Mr. Lammy
  Figures for 1997 are not available.

  Between 1 January 1998 and 31 December 2002, 84,715 acknowledgements were sent.

  Costs were minimal, with replies generated electronically and most sent to hon. Members by internal courier.

  Doctors
  Mr. Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many doctors there are per head of population in(a) Lancashire and (b) the North West of England. [111154]

  Jacqui Smith
  The information requested is shown in the table.
  865W
  Dr. Iddon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recourse a general practitioner has who wishes to complain about unacceptable behaviour of(a) a patient and (b) an associate acting on the patient's behalf. [109995]

  Mr. Hutton
  Patients have a duty to use the health service responsibly. General practitioners (GPs) should have a local policy in place to ensure that the unacceptable behaviour of patients, or their associates, is tackled. These policies may form part of a wider primary care trust strategy for dealing with violent and abusive patients. As a final recourse a GP is free to remove any patient from their list.

  Fire Incidents
  Dr. Evan Harris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many(a) fires and (b) false fire alarms there were in the NHS in each year since 1997. [110820]

  Mr. Hutton
  Reporting of fire incidents and false alarms by national health service trusts became mandatory in 1998. The information requested is shown in the table.

  Hospital, Public Health Medicine and Community Health Services (HCHS)–Medical and dental staff by employing organization

  Number (headcount)

  HHS medical and dental

  Hospital medical and dental

  As at September each year

  All staff

  Consultants

  All staff

  Consultants

  1999

  Sunderland area

  396

  143

  381

  143

  Sunderland City Hospitals NHS Trust

  RLN

  353

  125

  338

  125

  Wearside Priority Health Care NHS Trust

  RLH

  43

  18

  43

  18

  2000

  Sunderland area

  403

  144

  390

  144

  Sunderland City Hospitals NHS Trust

  RLN

  361

  126

  348

  126

  Wearside Priority Health Care NHS Trust

  RLH

  42

  18

  42

  18

  2001

  Sunderland area

  409

  160

  400

  160

  Sunderland City Hospitals NHS Trust

  RLN

  366

  139

  357

  139

  Wearside Priority Health Care NHS Trust

  RLH

  43

  21

  43

  21

  Source:

  Department of Health medical and dental workforce census

  Mr. Cummings
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many nurses in(a) Sunderland Royal Hospital, (b) Hartlepool General Hospital, (c) North Tees Hospital and (d) University Hospital Durham are training to become nurse practitioners. [111200]

  Jacqui Smith
  The information requested on nurses training to become nurse practitioners is shown in the table.

  Trus

  Nurse practitioners in training

  City Hospitals Sunderland National Health Service Trust (Sunderland Royal Hospital)

  8

  County Durham and Darlington Acute Hospitals National Health Service Trust (University Hospital of Durham)

  2

  North Tees and Hartlepool National Health Service Trust (University Hospital of Hartlepool and University Hospital of North Tees)

  6

  866W

  Fire incidents

  False alarms

  2001–02

  6,271

  25,137

  2000–01

  5,730

  25,317

  1999–2000

  5,625

  23,777

  1998–99

  6,229

  20,747

  Note:

  Figures for 2002–03 are not yet available.

  The incidents identified in the above table represent the number of occasions when fire services attended NHS sites. As such, it includes incidents of varying degrees of severity, with the vast majority resulting from circumstances such as burnt toast, smoke or steam from cooking and contractor activity.

  Health Professionals
  Mr. Cummings
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many hospital-based doctors and consultants have left NHS hospitals in Sunderland in the last three years. [111199]

  Jacqui Smith
  The information requested is not collected centrally. The number of consultants employed by national health service trusts in Sunderland is shown in the table.

  Cancer Services (Havering)
  Mr. Rosindell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what proportion of(a) throat, (b) prostate, (c) bowel, (d) breast and (e) lung cancer patients in the London Borough of Havering were treated successfully in the last 12 months for which figures are available. [110585]

  Mr. Hutton
  The Department does not collect the information requested.

  Hospital Reconfiguration Reviews
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the NHS hospitals which are subject to reconfiguration reviews. [110947]

  Mr. Hutton
  The Department does not collect information centrally on configuration reviews and there is no obligation on the National Health Service locally to report on every service change they are considering.
  867W
  All strategic health authorities are in the process of agreeing local delivery plans for the next three years. These show systematically how improvements will be made locally to deliver the increases in capacity and quality set out in the document 'Improvement, Expansion and Reform: Priorities and Planning Framework 2003–2006' and include acute hospital services.

  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he plans to publish the results of the consultation on the future configuration of NHS hospitals. [110953]

  Mr. Hutton
  'Keeping the NHS Local—A New Direction of Travel' was published on 14 February. The service models in the document are presented for consultation, which were presented to stimulate discussion and debate. The consultation closes on 14 May in line with Cabinet Office guidelines and we will be publishing a short summary of responses on the configuring hospitals website in due course.

  Ambulatory Care
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health where the Government is piloting the hospital models for local ambulatory care. [111028]

  Mr. Hutton
  "Keeping the NHS Local—A New Direction of Travel" highlighted the developing role of ambulatory care in the provision of local health services. Many variations on this theme have already been put into practice across England, so the development work for the guidance has not included establishment of additional ambulatory care pilots.

  Looked After Children
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for ealth what discussions his Department had with the(a) Department for Education and Skills, (b) the Social Exclusion Unit and (c) local authorities regarding the revision of educational targets for looked after children. [111045]

  Jacqui Smith
  Officials in the Department of Health and the Department for Education and Skills have worked closely with the Social Exclusion Unit (SEU) on all aspects of their project on the educational attainment of looked after children, including on the development of the new targets. The SEU's work has involved extensive written and oral consultation with key stakeholders, including local government. This consultation sought views on a wide range of issues affecting children in care, including the appropriate nature and level of targets for this group.

  Maternity Units
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many midwife-only maternity units are in operation at non-acute hospital sites: and if he will list them. [110955]
  868W
  Jacqui Smith
  This information is not collected centrally. The Department does not advocate any one single model of maternity care in preference to others, but acknowledges that midwife-led units play important role in the local network of services available to women during pregnancy and labour and after birth.

  The maternity records collected through the Hospital Episodes Statistics system are usually identified only to trust level, rather than to any specific unit within the trust. Some trusts provide information regarding the staff group with lead responsibility for care, for example, midwife-led or consultant-led, but this does not allow the identification of midwife-only units.

  ME
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what treatments the NHS provides for patients with ME; and what rehabilitation courses the NHS offers to such patients. [110837]

  Jacqui Smith
  [holding answer 1 May 2003]: Decisions on what treatments and rehabilitation services a patient needs are best made by the clinicians in charge of treatment. We do not hold information centrally on the treatments and rehabilitation services available to these patients.

  Care Standards
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what representations he has received about the National Care Standards Commission (Registration) (Amendment) Regulations. [111731]

  Jacqui Smith
  I have received no representations about the National Care Standards Commission (Registration) (Amendment) Regulations.

  National IT Programme
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health for what reason Kellogg Brown and Root was selected to lead the national IT programme: and what experience they have in major IT projects. [107798]

  Mr. Hutton
  [holding answer 7 April 2003]: An Official Journal of the European Community (OJEC) contract notice for programme management services was issued on 12 February 2003. Following the open procurement exercise Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) has been Appointed to provide independent and professional support for planning activities, risk analysis, cost modelling, contracting, procurement and implementation management for the national programme for information technology.

  KBR was selected due to its established record of successfully providing such services to the UK public sector and private and public sector clients worldwide. KBR is a world class company specialising in the management of such complex programmes.

  Older People
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the funding of the National Service Framework for older people in(a) 2001–02, (b) 2002–03 and (c) 2003–04. [110324]
  869W
  Jacqui Smith
  Implementation of the national service framework (NSF) for older people is supported by the substantial additional investment that has been provided for the National Health Service since the NSF's publication in 2001. In 2001–02 and 2002–03, the NHS received average annual increases of 6.3 per cent, above inflation. Cash allocations to primary care trusts in the three years from 2003–04 will provide an average increase over the three years of more than 30 per cent

  NHS Pilots
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when the next stage of appraisal of the pilots at the(a) Central Middlesex, (b) Bishop Auckland and (c) West Cornwall hospitals will be completed: and if he will make a statement. [111027]

  Mr. Hutton
  The National Co-ordinating Centre for the service delivery and organisation research and development programme is commissioning a national research project to evaluate all three of the hospital pilots. The closing date for outline applications was 16 April. Full proposals will be invited shortly.

  NHS Trusts
  Ms Drown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he last made a direction to(a) an NHS trust and (b) all NHS trusts: and what that direction was. [95617]

  Mr. Hutton
  As stated in my earlier reply to my hon. Friend on Wednesday 29 January, Official Report, column 899W, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has not issued any directions recently to individual National Health Service trusts.

  The most recent direction that was made that affected all NHS trusts, was on 30 April 2003, and was entitled 'NHS Trust Schedules for the transfer of charitable funds'.

  Hospital Discharges
  Dr. Gibson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will estimate the number of NHS beds which could be released by programmes of earlier planned discharges. [111180]

  Jacqui Smith
  There has been a continued reduction in delayed discharges in England since September 2001 freeing up national health service capacity. The latest figures show that in December 2002, there were 4,586 people delayed on any one day, compared to 7,065 in September 2001. The provisions of the Community Care (Delayed Discharges etc) Act 2003 will ensure that this reduction continues, to reach the target of minimal delays by 2006.

  PET Scanners
  Tim Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many full positron emission tomograph scanners are available in the NHS; and where they are located. [109926]

  Ms Blears
  There are five positron emission tomography (PET) scanners in National Health Service hospitals in England used for routine clinical assessments. They are situated at Guys, St. Thomas',870W
  Middlesex, Mount Vernon and Hammersmith Hospitals. Four other PET scanners are used primarily for research and are located in dedicated research facilities in London, Cambridge and Manchester. In addition, three private facilities, including a new mobile PET scanner in London, are available for NHS patients.

  Tim Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the average waiting time is for PET scans. [109927]

  Ms Blears
  Data is not collected centrally on waiting times for positron emission tomography (PET) scans. The length of time that a patient may have to wait for any scan is dependent on their clinical condition. Emergency cases need to be seen immediately. Other cases will be carried out as quickly as possible, dependent on the clinical priority of all patients waiting to be scanned.

  Where a scan forms part of the diagnostic process for a patient urgently referred with suspected cancer, this will be covered by the target of a maximum two months wait from urgent referral to first treatment, which will be in place for all cancers by the end of 2005.

  Prisoners (Mental Health)
  Hywel Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what provision there is in the prison health service for the delivery of mental health services through the medium of Welsh to Welsh prisoners held in jails in England. [111106]

  Jacqui Smith
  Mental health services at individual establishments are planned and delivered by local management and its national health service partners, drawing on jointly completed local health needs assessments and the more general guidance in "Changing the Outlook A Strategy for Developing and Modernising Health Services in Prisons" (December 2001). The strategy drew particular attention to the culturally diverse nature of the prison population and made it clear that prisons are expected to identify the needs of every element of their population and ensure that the mental health services provided are sensitive to them. This includes providing information in languages other than English and ensuring that, where necessary, prisoners have ready access to interpreters.

  School Nurses
  Tim Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what mechanisms there are for school nurses to address the particular needs of young carers. [109935]

  Jacqui Smith
  School nurses work within schools and local communities. They are ideally placed to help to identify young people who are young carers and either directly support them in their role within the family or act as an advocate to help them find the support they need from other services, such as education and social services.

  Senior Nurses
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether all hospitals in England have in place for
  871W
  2002–03 senior nurses with a ward environment budget of over £5,000; and whether his Department monitors this centrally. [110824]

  Mr. Hutton
  Information on the number and value of ward environment budgets is monitored centrally. Data for 2002–03 is not yet available.

  SARS
  Mr. Burstow
  ; To ask the Secretary of State for Health what powers he has to detain suspected cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome: and on what basis he would exercise the power. [108517]

  Ms Blears
  [holding answer 10 April 2003]The Public Health (Aircraft) Regulations 1979 does provide the power to detain for examination any person leaving an aircraft where there are "reasonable grounds" for suspecting that they are suffering from or have been exposed to infection. There is a similar provision in the Public Health (Ships) Regulations.

  We remain vigilant to the threat posed by severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) to public health in this country and keep our policy under regular review.

  Specialised Commissioning
  Mr. Berry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how he will monitor and report the effectiveness of the new arrangements for specialist commissioning. [111140]

  Mr. Hutton
  Strategic health authorities and collaborative commissioning groups and associated service-specific consortia will report regularly to their member primary care trusts and should report at least annually on a formal basis to them. In addition, the individual PCTs will cover the commissioning of specialised services in their annual reports.

  Mr. Berry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether Level 2 groups for specialised commissioning have scope to set up a national group for planning purposes. [111141]

  Mr. Hutton
  If Level 2 specialised services commissioning groups wish to set up a national group for planning purposes they are free to do so. One such group, (severe) Burn Care Services has already been established.

  Mr. Berry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether regional specialised commissioning groups may continue to commission specialised services where constituent primary care trusts so determine. [111142]

  Mr. Hutton
  Primary care trusts are required to belong to collaborative commissioning groups for specialised services and agree the remit, powers and rules of engagement of these groups. Level 2 collaborative commissioning groups, which will generally cover the same or similar area to the former regional specialised commissioning groups, commission those specialised services with planning populations around three to six million. Level 1 collaborative commissioning groups cover services with planning population of one to two million.
  872W
  Mr. Berry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether the decisions of a commissioning consortium for specialised services will be binding on a primary care trust which declines to join the consortium. [111143]

  Mr. Hutton
  The remit, powers and rules of engagement of collaborative specialised services commissioning groups are agreed by the member primary care trusts (PCTs) and the decisions of these groups are binding on all members. Strategic health authorities performance manage such arrangements and ensure all PCTs belong to an appropriate collaborative commissioning group.

  It is up to the collaborative commissioning group to decide whether to set up service-specific consortia and what form these will take.

  Mr. Berry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what action will be taken if a primary care trust declines to join a commissioning consortium as recommended in the recent guidelines on specialised commissioning. [111144]

  Mr. Hutton
  It is a requirement for all primary care trusts to belong to collaborative commissioning groups and it is the strategic health authority's responsibility to ensure that all their primary care trusts do so. It is up to the collaborative commissioning group to decide whether to set up service-specific consortia and what form these will take.

  Mr. Berry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will protect spending on specialised services in real terms for a further year. [111145]

  Mr. Hutton
  To ensure stability during 2002–03, whilst primary care trusts (PCTs) assumed responsibility for commissioning specialised services, they were asked to honour previously agreed financial commitments and programmes of service reviews for specialised services. This commitment will not be extended to 2003–04.

  Mr. Berry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether the preparedness of primary care trusts to assume responsibility for specialised commissioning has improved since the Department of Health conducted a review last year. [111146]

  Mr. Hutton
  In January 2002, the Department undertook a survey of commissioning arrangements for specialised services. At that time, health authorities were the bodies responsible for commissioning. The survey did not therefore consider the role of primary care trusts, which have been responsible for commissioning since April 2002.

  Dr. Richard Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how he will monitor and report the effectiveness of the new arrangements for specialised commissioning; [111777]

  (2) whether regional specialised commissioning groups will continue to commission specialised services where constituent primary care trusts so determine. [111776]

  Mr. Hutton
  I refer the hon. Member to the responses I gave my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Mr. Berry) above.

  X-Rays (Digital Transmission)
  Chris Grayling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health where the digital transmission of x-rays is in use. [110951]

  Ms Blears
  A list of the health care sites where digital transmission is used to transfer information from x-ray machines is not held centrally.

  Young Carers
  Tim Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what mechanisms will be included in the Children's NSF to ensure that health and social services professionals consult young carers on their needs. [109934]

  Jacqui Smith
  The national service framework (NSF) will help to ensure that care is centred on the child or young person and that health and social services are designed and delivered around their needs. It will also ensure that young people and their families can take an active part in making decisions about their care.

  An expert working group has been established to focus specifically on the needs of 'children in special circumstances', which is intended to include young carers. The NSF aims to narrow the gap in outcomes between children in special circumstances and their peers by putting in place systems to identify children such as child carers, offer them high quality, holistic assessment, and to promote and safeguard their health and wellbeing. The NSF will ensure that health and social care professionals are aware of the needs of young carers, and actively consult with them in planning any decisions which affect them. In support of this work, a wide-ranging series of consultations have been held with different groups of children in special circumstances, including one with a young carers group.

  Table 1.2: NIO Resource Budget

  £000

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  2001–02

  2002–03

  2003–04

  Consumption of resources by activity

  Outturn

  Outturn

  Estimated Outturn

  Outturn

  Plans

  Plans

  Police

  608

  608

  685

  847

  848

  111

  of which

  Ongoing operational costs

  608

  608

  656

  733

  691

  752

  Patten Report reforms and Civilianisation

  0

  0

  4

  18

  11

  11

  Patten Report downsizing

  0

  0

  25

  97

  146

  14

  Criminal Justice

  32

  31

  28

  36

  46

  78

  Public Prosecution Service

  11

  11

  12

  13

  10

  10

  Prisons

  146

  253

  -2

  110

  108

  112

  Compensation Agency

  109

  73

  77

  73

  94

  66

  Bloody Sunday Inquiry/Weston Park Inquiry

  7

  12

  16

  19

  5

  0

  Other

  17

  55

  43

  58

  67

  57

  Total Northern Ireland Resource Budget

  929

  1,043

  859

  1,157

  1,179

  1,101

  of which

  NIO departmental expenditure limit (DEL)

  964

  956

  916

  1,057

  1,092

  984

  Non-cash items in AME

  54

  179

  -60

  52

  51

  66

  of which

  Depreciation

  26

  28

  29

  30

  33

  39

  Cost of capital charges

  28

  28

  29

  29

  35

  40

  Changes in provisions and other changes

  0

  123

  -119

  -6

  -18

  -13

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. [101564]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  Within the Northern Ireland Office, including its Agencies but excluding NDPBs, the total cost for accountancy services in the financial year 2001–02 was £25,730.56.

  Within the Northern Ireland administration, excluding Agencies and NDPBs, the total cost for accountancy services in 2002 was £833,344.

  Administrative Costs
  Mr. Win Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the administrative costs were of the Northern Ireland Office as a percentage of total spending since 1999. [103810]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  Full details of the administrative costs and total annual expenditure for the Northern Ireland Office from 1999 were set out in the NIO 2002 Departmental Report, which is available in the Parliamentary Library. Copies of the relevant pages from the Report are as follows. The 2003 Departmental Report will be published in May.

  The percentages of the administrative costs against the Resource Budget, using the figures from the 2003 report, are as follows (approximately):

  Percentage

  1998–99

  16.5

  1999–2000

  15.4

  2000–01

  15.9

  2001–02

  12.5

  2002–03

  18.8

  875W

  Table 1.4: NIO Administration

  £000

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  2001–02

  2002–03

  2003–04

  Outturn

  Outturn

  Outturn

  Estimated Outturn

  Plans

  Plans

  Gross Administration Costs

  Paybill

  137

  133

  115

  120

  —

  —

  Other

  23

  37

  30

  39

  —

  —

  Total Gross Administration Costs

  160

  171

  146

  159

  152

  154

  Related Administration Cost Receipts

  -7

  -8

  -8

  -9

  -7

  -8

  Total net administration costs

  154

  162

  138

  151

  145

  146

  of which

  Departmental expenditure limit (DEL)

  154

  162

  138

  151

  145

  146

  Non-cash AME

  Total net administration costs by activity:

  Police

  5

  4

  4

  4

  4

  4

  Criminal Justice

  4

  3

  5

  6

  11

  11

  Public Prosecution Service

  7

  6

  6

  7

  6

  6

  Prison

  123

  114

  97

  95

  90

  91

  Compensation Agency

  5

  3

  3

  3

  4

  3

  Bloody Sunday Inquiry/Weston Park Talks

  1

  1

  1

  1

  1

  —

  Other

  9

  31

  23

  33

  29

  31

  Total Net Administration Costs

  154

  162

  138

  151

  145

  146

  Controls and limits:

  Administration costs limits for gross controlled areas

  NIO

  154

  165

  139

  151

  145

  —

  Total administration costs limits for gross controlled areas

  154

  165

  139

  151

  145

  —

  Anglo-Irish Secretariat
  Mrs. Iris Robinson:
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will ensure that all information and documentation relating to staff and security staff who worked at the former Anglo-Irish secretariat at Maryfield in Belfast is removed from site prior to its closure. [91391]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  All information and documentation relating to staff and security who worked at the former Anglo-Irish Secretariat at Maryfield was removed prior to its closure in December 1998.

  Antisocial Behaviour
  Rev. Martin Smyth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what plans he has to introduce new measures to deal with anti-social behaviour in Northern Ireland. [103344]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  I am considering measures to deal with anti-social behaviour, and in particular, whether something similar to an Anti-Social Behaviour Order could be developed that could operate within the different local government structures which exist in Northern Ireland. In doing so I will be informed by current developments in England and Wales.

  Assets Recovery Agency
  Lady Hermon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on progress in bringing the new Assets Recovery Agency within the remit of the Chief Inspector of Criminal Justice. [110908]

  Mr. Browne
  I am currently considering whether or not it would be appropriate for the Assets Recovery Agency to come within the remit of the Criminal Justice 876W
  Inspector and am seeking the views of the Director of the Agency and the Home Office. I will write to the hon. Lady when a decision has been reached.

  Autism
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what respite care is available for young people suffering from autistic spectrum disorders aged(a) 15 years and (b) 16 years. [111409]

  Mr. Browne
  There are no specific respite care services for children with autistic spectrum disorders in that age group. They have access to respite services available for children with disabilities including residential provision, domiciliary care, host family and fostering services, holiday schemes and day care. In recognition of a need 10 increase the volume of respite care places, additional funding has been made available in the current financial year for this purpose. In addition, Health and Social Services Boards have been asked to bring forward costed proposals for enhancing autism services, particularly diagnostic and assessment services.

  Civil Contingencies
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on his Department'sa) responsibilities and (b) assets with regard to civil contingency planning: what funds are committed; what action he is taking within his Department to improve such planning; and what action he is taking in collaboration with other departments. [102631]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  I refer the hon. Member to the Cabinet Office response to this question on 21 March 2003. In Northern Ireland all government departments are responsible for ensuring that they have contingency
  877W
  planning arrangements in place to deal with any emergency falling within the areas for which they have responsibility.

  The Northern Ireland Office contributes (currently 5.7 per cent.) to the costs of the Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear (CBRN) Police Training Centre at Winterbourne Gunner where a cadre of officers from the Police Service of Northern Ireland has been trained in CBRN response.

  The Department is collaborating with the Civil Contingencies Secretariat (CCS) in the Central Coordinated Exercise Programme to develop and promote resilience, and, along with the Central Emergency Planning Unit (CEPU) of the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, is liaising with CCS on Northern Ireland aspects of the Civil Contingencies Bill.

  CEPU seeks to promote and encourage the development of effective civil protection across Northern Ireland Departments and their agencies. It does so by:

  encouraging them to develop their emergency planning capabilities;

  helping them set priorities in the field of emergency planning;

  assisting them in the writing, review and exercise of their plans;

  providing emergency planning training to meet identified needs.

  Consultation document

  Issued

  Closes

  The Independent review of the Parades Commission and the Public Procession (NI) Act 1998 conducted by Sir George Quigley

  7 November 2002

  30 April 2003

  Review of the State Pathologists Department in Northern Ireland "The Way forward"

  22 January 2003

  30 April 2003

  Road Traffic Penalties Consultation

  10 March 2003

  9 June 2003

  Within the Northern Ireland administration details of all public consultation documents that have been issued from 1 January 2002 can be accessed from the following website: www.consultationni.gov.uk. The website or the documents themselves also include details of closing dates for submitting submissions. In addition, details of consultation documents can also be found by following the departmental links on www.northernireland.gov.uk.

  Criminal Offences
  Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list, broken down by Act, the criminal offences created in legislation sponsored by his Department since 1997. [111789]

  Mr. Browne
  The legislation, both Acts and Orders in Council, sponsored by the Secretary of State's Department since 1997 which create criminal offences are the following:The Protection from Harassment (Northern Ireland) Order 1997 created three offences: Article 4 created the offence of harassment: Article 6 created the offence of putting people in fear of violence: and Article 7 created the offence of breach of a Civil Order or Restraining Order.
  The Public Order (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 1997 created one offence: Article 4 created the offence of failure to surrender alcohol at public processions.
  The Criminal Justice (Children) (Northern Ireland) Order 1998 created four offences: Article 4 created the offence of failure to respond to a summons issued to a parent or guardian of a child Article 22 created the offence of breach of reporting restrictions.
  878W
  CEPU is a small Unit, which includes a dedicated Emergency Planning Development Officer who works closely with Northern Ireland Departments to establish structured development programmes across all departments.

  To ensure that contingency planning arrangements in Northern Ireland are on a par with those in the rest of the UK CEPU monitors developments within the Cabinet Office to ensure that:
  Northern Ireland interests are taken into account in the work being taken forward in GB;
  Northern Ireland Departments are kept informed of these developments, which may impact on their contingency planning arrangements.

  Consultation Documents
  Rev. Martin Smyth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the consultation documents issued by his Department and its agencies in the last 12 months which remain open for submissions. [105472]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  Within the Northern Ireland Office the following consultation documents have been issued by the Department in the last 12 months and were open for submission at the time this question was asked.

  Article 42 created the offence of harbouring or concealing a child required to be brought to a Juvenile Justice Centre; and Article 54 created the offence of assisting the escape of a child from a Juvenile Justice Centre.

  The Police (Northern Ireland) Act 1998 created five offences; section 63 created the offence of disclosure of information obtained by the Police Ombudsman; section 66 created the offence of assaulting or obstructing a constable in the execution of his duty: section 67 created the offence of impersonation of a police officer; section 68 created the offence of causing disaffection amongst the police: and section 69 created the offence of obtaining a pension by self-inflicted injury.

  The Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order 1999 created one offence: Article 35 created the offence of giving false unsworn evidence.

  The Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 2002 created two offences: section 48 created the offence of failure to comply with the request for a document from the Chief Inspector of Criminal Justice or obstructing him: and section 81 created the offence of assaulting a Court Security Officer.

  Departmental Annual Report
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when the annual report of his Department will be published. [107880]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  I am sorry for the delay in replying.

  The spring 2003 departmental reports are to be published between by 16 May 2003. We shall publish our departmental report within this time, and are aiming for publication on 15 May.

  Departmental Invoices
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the occasions on which(a) his Department, (b) agencies and (c) non-departmental public bodies sponsored by his Department failed to pay valid invoices within 30 days or after the agreed credit period in the financial year 2001–02. [104324]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  The information is as follows:

  Within the Northern Ireland Office, in the financial year 2001–02:

  (a) NIO Core received 31,733 invoices—81 per cent. of which, were paid promptly. 6,010 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.

  (b) NIO Agencies received 27,997 invoices—91 per cent. of which, were paid promptly. 2,462 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.

  (c) NIO-sponsored NDPBs received 76,523 invoices—92.2 per cent. of which, were paid promptly. 5,951 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.

  Set out are details of the invoice payment performance of each of the Departments and their agencies and NDPBs in the Northern Ireland administration in the financial year 2001–02:

  Department for Social Development

  (a) The Department for Social Development received 6,439 invoices—93.0 per cent. of which, were paid within 30 days or contract period. 452 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.

  (b) Agencies of the Department for Social Development received 24,814 invoices—96.1 per cent of which, were paid within 30 days or contract period. 963 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.

  (c) NDPBs sponsored by the Department for Social Development received 487,903 invoices—79.4 per cent. of which, were paid within 30 days or contract period. 100,307 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.

  Department of Culture, Arts And Leisure

  (a) The Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure received 1,066 invoices—92.40 per cent. of which, were paid within 30 days or contract period. 81 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.

  (b) Agencies of the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure received 2,127 invoices—97.13 per cent. of which, were paid within 30 days or contract period. 61 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.

  (c) NDPBs sponsored by the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure received 12,508 invoices—76.65 per cent. of which, were paid within 30 days or contract period. 2,920 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.
  880W
  Department of Agriculture and Rural Development

  (a) The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development received 41,777 invoices—92 per cent. of which, were paid within 30 days or contract period. 3,541 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.

  (b) Agencies of Department of Agriculture and Rural Development received 12,632 invoices—95 per cent. of which, were paid within 30 days or contract period. 693 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.

  (c) NDPBs sponsored by the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development received 8,111 invoices—97 per cent. of which, were paid within 30 days or contract period. 210 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.

  Note:

  For one NDPB the financial year is 1 January to 31 December. The figures included relate to their 2001 financial year.

  Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM)

  (a) OFMDFM received 9128 invoices—93 per cent. of which were paid within 30 days or contract period. 599 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms. These figures also include details of payments made by three NDPBs whose payment process is fully integrated within the Departments.

  (b) OFMDFM does not have responsibility for any agencies.

  (c) OFMDFM sponsors one NDPB which make its own payments. Information for this NDPB is not readily available. However, based on a sample of invoices, 69 per cent. the of invoices were paid within 30 days or contract period.

  Department for Regional Development (DRD)

  (a) The Department for Regional Development received 11,507 invoices—95.6 per cent. of which were paid within 30 days or contract period. 492 were paid outside 30 days or the contract payment terms. These figures also include details of payments made by NDPBs.

  (b) Agencies of DRD received 145,305 invoices—95.2 per cent. of which were paid within 30 days or contract period. 6,971 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.

  (c) DRD sponsors one advisory NDPB, which does Dot make its own payments.

  Department of Health Social Services and Public Safety (DHSSPS)

  (a) The DHSSPS received 7,963 invoices, 92.6 per cent. of which were paid within 30 days or contract period. 587 invoices were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.

  (b) Agencies of the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure received 2,127 invoices—97.13 per cent. of which, were paid within 30 days or contract period. 61 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.
  881W
  (c) NDPBs sponsored by the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure received 12,508 invoices—76.65 per cent. of which, were paid within 30 days or contract period. 2,920 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.

  Department of Finance and Personnel

  (a) The Department of Finance and Personnel received 41,952 invoices—84.6 per cent. of which were paid within 30 days or contract period. 6,458 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.

  (b) Agencies of the Department of Finance and Personnel received 15,575 invoices—95.76 per cent. of which were paid within 30 days or contract period. 660 were paid outside 30 days or contract period.

  (c) The Department of Finance and Personnel does not sponsor any NDPBs.

  Department of Education

  (a) The Department of Education received 1875 invoices—94.51 per cent. of which were paid within 30 days or contract period. 103 invoices were paid outside 30 days or contract period.

  (b) The Department of Education does not have responsibility for any Agencies.

  (c) NDPBs sponsored by the Department of Education received 940,316 invoices—58.08 per cent. of which, were paid within 30 days or contract period. 394,181 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.

  Department of the Environment

  (a) The Department of the Environment (Core) received 3476 invoices—98.7 per cent. of which were paid within 30 days or contract period. 44 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.

  (b) Agencies of the Department of the Environment received 33,001 invoices just over 94.8 per cent. of which, were paid within 30 days or contract period. 1696 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.

  (c) NDPBs sponsored by the Department of the Environment received 1829 invoices—92 per cent. of which were paid within 30 days or contract period. 154 invoices were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.

  Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI)

  (a) The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment received 12,915 invoices—96.68 per cent. of which, were paid within 30 days or contract period. 429 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.

  (b) DETI sponsors one agency it received 4,171 invoices—98.56 per cent. of which, were paid within 30 days or contract period. 60 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.

  (c) The fours NDPBs sponsored by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment received 13,601 invoices—91.3 per cent. of which were paid within 30 days or contract period. 1,179 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.
  882W
  Department for Employment and Learning (DEL)

  (a) In the financial year 2001–02 the Department for Employment and Learning received 12,415 invoices—98.3 per cent. of which were paid within 30 days or contract period. 211 invoices were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms.

  (b) The Department for Employment and Learning is not responsible for any agencies.

  (c) NDPBs sponsored by DEL received 10,489 invoices, 99.96 per cent. of which were paid within 30 days or contract period. 4 were paid outside 30 days or contract payment terms. Information on two NDPBs sponsored by DEL have not been included as the information is not available in the format requested and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Departmental Pay
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what progress has been made with the pay review in his Department, agencies and non-departmental public bodies for which he is responsible, with particular reference to the gender pay gap: and if he will make a statement. [106728]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  The Government made a commitment in response to the Equal Opportunities Commission Task Force "Just Pay" report, that all Departments and agencies would review their pay systems by April 2003 and prepare action plans to close any unequal pay gaps.

  The Northern Ireland Office Equal Pay Review is ongoing. The Department continues to meet with unions to discuss the issues, and will report back to the Cabinet Office and staff at the review's conclusion.

  The Northern Ireland Administration, including its Agencies, carried out a review of its pay and grading arrangements in 1998, which examined the gender gap between administrative grades (majority female) and professional and technical grades (predominantly male). A programme of work that aligns the salaries of the two groups will be complete by April 2003. The need for a further equal pay audit is currently under consideration.

  District Policing Partnerships
  Mr. Dodds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many people convicted of an offence for which a sentence of five years or more was passed have been appointed to District Policing Partnerships in Northern Ireland. [105905]

  Jane Kennedy
  Under the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000, a person is disqualified for being an independent member of a District Policing Partnership if he or she has at any time been convicted in Northern Ireland or elsewhere of any offence and has had passed on him or her a sentence of imprisonment (whether suspended or not).
  883W
  The answer in relation to political members appointed by District Councils could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Electronic Tagging
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the recent trial of electronically tagging juvenile sex offenders: how many individuals were involved: what cost was incurred: how much the retention of these individuals in prison would have cost: and what plans he has to implement this policy with adult offenders. [111411]

  Mr. Browne
  There has been no such trial of electronically tagging juvenile sex offenders in Northern Ireland. Indeed, there is no legal authority to allow electronic monitoring of offenders in this jurisdiction.

  Environmental Protection
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what steps have been taken by the Environment and Heritage Service of the Department of the Environment to(a) measure the decline of saltmarsh on the shores of Strangford Lough and (b) develop a strategy to prevent further declines in this habitat. [111532]

  Angela Smith
  The Environment and Heritage Service (EHS) of the Department of the Environment has in place a monitoring programme covering Strangford Lough which assesses the condition of all the habitats and species of national and European importance. As part of this programme, the quality and quantity of saltmarsh is monitored. The information currently available to EHS does not indicate that there is any significant decline in the extent of saltmarsh around Strangford Lough.

  In September 2002, the Department launched a voluntary management scheme to maintain and enhance the habitats and species of Areas of Special Scientific Interest. This scheme is aimed at land managers and will play an important role in, among other things, helping to prevent any further decline of saltmarsh by ensuring that inappropriate management and potentially damaging activities are discouraged.

  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what plans the Environment and Heritage Service of the Department of the Environment has to designate special protection areas to conserve the habitat of the Hen Harrier. [111538]

  Angela Smith
  No sites have yet been selected in Northern Ireland for the Hen Harrier under the UK Special Protection Area (SPA) Review. There have been several reasons for this. There has been limited information until now about the geographical distribution and continuity of breeding site use in relation to the species. Moreover, much of the relevant nesting habitat is commercial forest, whereas the Department's policy has been to select as SPAs only areas of natural and semi-natural habitat. Nevertheless, some sites with habitat suitable for the Hen Harrier have been designated as Areas of Special Scientific Interest and/or Special Areas of Conservation, one such example being Slieve Beagh, although none of these sites lists the Hen Harrier as a selection feature.
  884W
  However, EHS now plans to review the position based on analysis of new data on geographical distribution and breeding site use. This will be used to determine whether any site merits designation for its breeding Hen Harrier population. In arriving at this decision, EHS will take into consideration a number of criteria, including the proportion of the all-island breeding population held at the site, the density of breeding birds and the history of occupation. The process will also take into account if the southern portion of sites that straddle the border that have been identified as significant for this species by the Republic of Ireland authorities.

  It is planned to complete the review during the current financial year and, depending on the findings, to undertake public consultation thereafter.

  In the meantime, Hen Harriers and their nests continue to be afforded fall protection under the Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order 1985. Furthermore, they are listed as a Northern Ireland priority species of conservation concern, and EHS intends to publish a Species Action Plan in the near future to address their conservation needs.

  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what steps the Environment and Heritage Service of the Department of the Environment has taken to implement the recommendations of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report on Areas of Special Scientific Interest. [111533]

  Angela Smith
  The Department of the Environment is still considering the Report on Areas of Special Scientific Interest (ASSIs), which was published by the Comptroller and Auditor General on 27 March 2003. However, the Department had already identified a number of the issues which that report addressed: and steps had been taken to deal with them.

  Among these actions were, firstly, the introduction last year of the Management of Sensitive Sites scheme to provide financial incentives to landowners to encourage the proper management of ASSIs; secondly, the enactment in February this year of the Environment (Northern Ireland) Order 2003 to strengthen the Department's powers to protect and manage ASSIs; thirdly, the allocation of additional resources to the Environment and Heritage Service of the Department in the 2002 Northern Ireland Budget, for the designation, management and protection of ASSIs.

  These actions deal with key aspects of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report. The remaining conclusions and recommendations of the report are under consideration.

  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what plans the Environment and Heritage Service of the Department of the Environment has to eradicate the Ruddy Duck in Northern Ireland. [111534]

  Angela Smith
  The establishment of the American Ruddy Duck as a breeding species in Europe has been widely acknowledged as a threat to the native European White-headed Duck. The UK Government accepts in principle that the Ruddy Duck should be eradicated as a wild species in the UK and the rest of Europe, in
  885W
  accordance with Article 8 of the Convention on Biological Diversity. In practice, the Government is investigating alternative methods of controlling the population.

  Great Britain, with around 5,800 birds, holds by far the largest population in Europe. Northern Ireland's population is thought to be about 125. The Ruddy Duck is currently protected under Northern Ireland legislation.

  As Ruddy Duck are known to be elusive, I have asked the Environment and Heritage Service (EHS) to confirm the scale of the problem in Northern Ireland by undertaking a survey of small water bodies in the area where they are known to occur. I have also asked EHS to investigate and advise me on the possible need for a change in the legislative status of the species. As well as undertaking these studies, EHS will monitor research taking place into the most efficient and humane method of eradication, and advise me on how these findings might be applied in Northern Ireland.

  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what plans the Environment and Heritage Service has to establish a formal enforcement policy for the protection of areas of special scientific interest as promised in the EHS Corporate Plan for 1996–97. [111535]

  Angela Smith
  In November 2001, the Department of the Environment published for consultation proposals for legislative changes to strengthen the management and protection of ASSIs. These took account of comments received during earlier public consultation in March 2001. The proposals were given statutory effect in the Environment (NI) Order 2002.

  The Environment and Heritage Service (EHS) of the Department already has in place a policy for addressing issues of compliance with the legislation on areas of special scientific interest by landowners and occupiers. The policy was ratified in November 2002 and implemented with immediate effect. I am arranging for a copy of the document, entitled "Compliance Policy and General Guidance" to be placed on the EHS website (www.ehsni.gov.uk), and it should be available by the end of May 2003.

  Additional policy guidance on the protection of ASSIs is contained in:
  Guidelines for the Selection of Biological ASSIs;
  The Habitats Regulations: A Guid for Competent Authorities; and
  Planning Policy Statement 2: Planning and Nature Conservation:

  The first two documents are also available on the EHS website; the third is available on the website of the Department's Planning Service (www.doeni.gov.uk/
  Planning/).

  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what steps have been taken to protect and manage the Ballynahone Bog Area of Special Scientific Interest. [111536]

  Angela Smith
  On 13 September 2000, the Environment and Heritage Service (EHS) of the Department of the Environment declared a large 886W
  portion of Ballynahone Bog Area of Special Scientific Interest as a National Nature Reserve (NNR). Management as a NNR strengthens the protection of the nature conservation features of the site. It is managed jointly by the Ulster Wildlife Trust and Friends of Ballynahone Bog.

  EHS owns some 70 per cent. of the land within the ASSI. It has also offered to acquire the interest of most of the other landowners within that area with the specific aim of extending the NNR.

  Essex Street Weapons Find
  David Burnside
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the(a) origin and (b) age of the(i) timer/power units, (ii) handguns, (iii) AK47 assault rifle, (iv) ammunition, (v) telescopic sights and (vi) other equipment discovered by the police last weekend in Essex street, Lower Ormeau road, Belfast. [105535]

  Jane Kennedy
  On 22 March 2003 as a result of a police operation, an AKM assault rifle, a large quantity of ammunition, along with other items were discovered in Essex street, Lower Ormeau road, Belfast. A number of items have been sent for forensic examination, and at this stage it is too early to provide details as to the origin and age of the weapons, timer power units and the other items seized. Two persons have been charged in connection with this incident and police inquiries are continuing.

  EU Directives
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the EU Directives and Regulations which have been implemented by his Department since 17 April 2002.[106831]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  The Northern Ireland Office has not implemented any EU Directives or Regulations since 17 April 2002. The Northern Ireland Administration has implemented, within Northern Ireland, 991 Directives since 17 April 2002. The Northern Ireland administration ensures Directives are implemented within Northern Ireland, and as such plays a significant role in the UK's EU policy as regards EU Directives.

  Department

  Directive

  Transposition Date

  DETI

  98/24/EC

  24/01/03

  98/24/EC

  24/01/03

  98/24/EC

  24/01/03

  2001/59/EC

  24/01/03

  92/32/EEC

  20/09/02

  99/45/EC

  20/09/02

  2001/41/EC

  20/09/02

  91/155/EEC

  20/09/02

  91/410/EEC

  20/09/02

  92/37/EC

  20/09/02

  93/2 I/EC

  20/09/02

  93/72/EC

  20/09/02

  93/101/EEC

  20/09/02

  93/112/EC

  20/09/02

  94/69/EC

  20/09/02

  96/54/EC

  20/09/02

  97/69/EC

  20/09/02

  98/73/EC

  20/09/02

  887W

  Department

  Directive

  Transposition Date

  98/98/EC

  20/09/02

  2000/32/EC

  20/09/02

  2000/33/EC

  20/09/02

  2001/58/EC

  20/09/02

  2001/59/EC

  20/09/02

  2001/60/EC

  20/09/02

  DEL

  1999/70/EC

  01/10/02

  1993/104/EC

  06/04/03

  1994/33/EC

  06/04/03

  DARD

  91/494

  06/12/02

  92/118

  06/12/02

  93/121

  06/12/02

  97/78

  07/11/02

  97/79

  07/11/02

  99/74

  30/07/02

  99/87

  01/10/02

  99/89

  06/12/02

  99/105

  19/12/02

  2000/75

  19/02/03

  2001/64

  28/01/03

  2001/99

  17/09/02

  2001/103

  17/09/02

  2001/109

  01/10/02

  2002/5

  23/07/02

  2002/18

  17/09/02

  2002/23

  23/07/02

  2002/28

  16/09/02

  2002/29

  16/09/02

  2002/37

  17/02/03

  2002/42

  03/03/03

  2002/48

  17/02/03

  2002/63

  03/03/03

  2002/64

  17/02/03

  2002/66

  03/03/03

  2002/71

  03/03/03

  2002/76

  03/03/03

  2002/81

  17/02/03

  2002/100

  03/03/03

  DHSSPS (FSA)

  2001/471/EC

  10/6/2002

  98/53/EC

  29/7/2002

  2001/22/EC

  29/7/2002

  2002/26/EC

  29/7/2002

  2001/27/EC

  29/7/2002

  2002/69/EC

  28/6/2002

  2002/441/EC

  28/6/2002

  2001/15/EC

  5/8/2002

  2001/102/EC

  16/9/2002

  2002/1/EC

  16/9/2002

  2002/79/EC

  23/9/2002

  2002/233/EC

  23/9/2002

  2002/678/EC

  23/9/2002

  2002/80/EC

  4/10/2002

  2002/679/EC

  4/10/2002

  2001/62/EC

  30/11/2002

  2001/79/EC

  16/9/2002

  DARD

  91/494

  06/12/02

  92/118

  06/12/02

  93/121

  06/12/02

  97/78

  07/11/02

  97/79

  07/11/02

  99/74

  30/07/02

  99/87

  01/10/02

  99/89

  06/12/02

  99/105

  19/12/02

  2000/75

  19/02/03

  2001/64

  28/01/03

  2001/99

  17/09/02

  2001/103

  17/09/02

  2001/109

  01/10/02

  2002/5

  23/07/02

  888W

  Department

  Directive

  Transposition Date

  2002/18

  17/09/02

  2002/23

  23/07/02

  2002/28

  16/09/02

  2002/29

  16/09/02

  2002/37

  17/02/03

  2002/42

  03/03/03

  2002/48

  17/02/03

  2002/63

  03/03/03

  2002/64

  17/02/03

  2002/66

  03/03/03

  2002/71

  03/03/03

  2002/76

  03/03/03

  2002/81

  17/02/03

  2002/100

  03/03/03

  DHSSPS (FSA)

  2001/471/EC

  10/6/2002

  98/53/EC

  29/7/2002

  2001/22/EC

  29/7/2002

  2002/26/EC

  29/7/2002

  2001/27/EC

  29/7/2002

  2002/69/EC

  28/6/2002

  2002/441/EC

  28/6/2002

  2001/15/EC

  5/8/2002

  2001/102/EC

  16/9/2002

  2002/1/EC

  16/9/2002

  2002/79/EC

  23/9/2002

  2002/233/EC

  23/9/2002

  2002/678/EC

  23/9/2002

  2002/80/EC

  4/10/2002

  2002/679/EC

  4/10/2002

  2001/62/EC

  30/11/2002

  2001/79/EC

  16/9/2002

  DHSSPS (FSA)

  2002/16/EC

  30/11/2002

  2002/72/EC

  30/11/2002

  2002/17/EC

  3/1/2003

  2002/82/EC

  11/3/2003

  2001/101/EC

  11/3/2003

  2002/86/EC

  11/3/2003

  DOE

  1996/36 & 1996/38

  01/09/02

  2001/09

  01/11/02

  2000/30

  01/02/03

  2001/11

  01/04/03

  1998/11

  01/05/02

  1996/47 & 1997/26

  20/01/03

  96/62/EC

  17/01/03

  80/778 (amended by 98/83/EC

  28/11/02 partial implementation

  98/101/EC

  27/9/02

  99/5 I/EC

  27/02/03

  91/338/EEC

  11/03/03

  2001/91/EC

  27/02/03

  96/61/EC

  31/03/03

  2000/2037/EC

  Partially transposed

  96/29/EURATOM

  2/04/03

  94/63/EC

  25/02/03

  1999/22/EC

  31/03/03

  2001/18/EC

  15/04/03

  1figure as at 8 April 2003

  The Northern Ireland administration have implemented 13 Regulations since 17 April 2002 EC Regulations are, in general, directly applicable in the member states, without the need for further incorporation into national law. However, some Regulations require UK measures to make them workable and enforceable. Some Regulations enact small or technical amendments.

  889W

  Department

  Regulations

  DARD

  2001/999

  2001/1248

  2001/1326

  2002/270

  DRD/DARD

  The Harbour Works (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2003. The regulations implement Council Directive 85/337/EEC (as amended by Council Directive 97/1 I/EC) in the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment, in respect of certain harbour works.

  DHSSPS (FSA)

  466/2001

  563/2002

  2013/2001

  2200/2001

  256/2002

  104/2000

  2065/2001

  DOE Department of the Environment (Road Safety and Vehicle Standards Division)

  ECE Regulation 10—Revisions 10.01 & 10.02

  Fibromyalgia
  Lady Hermon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the range of services provided under the NHS to patients with fibromyalgia in Northern Ireland. [111329]

  Mr. Browne
  Patients suffering from fibromyalgia may experience a wide range of symptoms such as pain, fatigue, a tingling sensation in arms and legs, swelling in the joints, headaches, depression, anxiety and irritable bowel syndrome. There is no specific diagnostic test or cure for this illness and I fully appreciate how this may lead to great distress and frustration for sufferers.

  As the symptoms in each sufferer vary greatly, patients receive treatment through a range of services in both the primary and secondary care settings. This may include access to rheumatology, neurology and mental health services. Management of the condition also involves self-help initiatives such as aerobic exercise programmes, relaxation therapy, and medication to treat symptoms such as painkillers or anti-depressants, and psychological interventions such as cognitive behavioural therapy.

  General Practitioners
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what plans he has to increase the number of general practitioner posts in Northern Ireland. [111800]

  Mr. Browne
  The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety is not aware of any general recruitment difficulties associated with this group of independent contractors. Nevertheless, the position will be kept under review through the Department's workforce planning process.

  Housing Maintenance
  Mr. McGrady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what action will be taken to address the backlog of maintenance and improvement work to(a) Housing Executive and (b) housing association homes. [89601]
  890W
  Mr. Browne
  Maintenance and improvement of its stock is the Housing Executive's top priority and in the current financial year £113 million has been allocated for this purpose. I will continue to seek the necessary funding to ensure that the Housing Executive has adequate resources to deal with its continuing needs and priorities in this regard. The Housing Executive is at present formulating a maintenance investment strategy to re-appraise expenditure priorities over the next 10 years.

  Registered Housing Associations are responsible for maintenance and major repairs work to their own properties and fund the necessary works from their own resources. There is no backlog in these areas, but housing association maintenance/improvement activities are audited on a regular basis to ensure compliance with the Department's requirements which includes the Tenants' Guarantee and the Right to Repair Scheme.

  Industrial Action
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many working days were lost owing to industrial action by staff in(a) his Department, (b) its agencies and (c)non-departmental public bodies in 2002. [101508]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  Within the Northern Ireland Office there were no days lost owing to industrial action by staff in 2002.

  Within the Northern Ireland Administration the available information on the number of working days lost by NI Departments, Agencies and associated non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) due to industrial action during 2002 is as follows:

  Days

  Core NI Departments

  20.5

  Agencies

  619.5

  NDPBs

  6,053

  Figures for the core Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety, its Agency—Health Estates—and one of its two NDPBs—the Mental Health Commission—are not available as unauthorised absence is recorded as unpaid leave along with properly authorised absence such as career breaks or additional maternity leave, and cannot be disaggregated.

  Iraq
  Rev. Martin Smyth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what action has been taken to ensure that Northern Ireland companies have an opportunity to bid for reconstruction and other work in Iraq.[111720]

  Mr. Pearson:
  British Trade International (BTI) are taking the lead on this issue and are managing a database of companies interested in bidding for reconstruction work in Iraq.

  The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, through Invest Northern Ireland is in regular contact with the Iraq desk at BTI and as a consequence prepared information for circulation to client companies in late March. Details of how to register on all relevant databases and other contact

  891W
  information about the humanitarian and reconstruction situation in Iraq is available to companies through Invest Northern Ireland's website at www.investni.com.

  In addition, a workshop is being scheduled to further ensure that local companies are aware of the humanitarian and reconstruction contracts in Iraq. This workshop will take place in June 2003.

  Justice (Northern Ireland) Act
  Lady Hermon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what plans the Northern Ireland Office has to bring forward legislation to amend section 46(1) of the Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 2002 to include the harbour and airport police within the remit of the Chief Inspector of Criminal Justice. [110939]

  Mr. Browne
  Consultation with these organisations is continuing, and I am planning to meet with representatives of Belfast International Airport, Belfast City Airport, Belfast Port and Larne Port shortly. The hon. Lady shall be duly informed when a decision is reached.

  Ministerial and Official Meetings
  Mr. Dodds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many meetings(a) Ministers and (b) officials have had with (i) Ministers and (ii) officials of the Irish Republic since May 2002. [103253]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  Ministers from the Northern Ireland Office have met with Irish Ministers on 26 occasions since the appointment of the present Secretary of State.

  British and Irish officials are in frequent contact on matters of common interest. Details of these meetings are not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Musgrave Park Hospital
  Rev. Martin Smyth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many operations were carried out in Musgrave Park Hospital, Belfast in(a) July 2002 and (b) August 2002; and how many operations are scheduled for the same months in 2003. [111719]

  Mr. Browne
  The information is as follows:(a) During July 2002 there were 412 operations carried out at the Musgrave Park Hospital.
  (b) During August 2002 there were 521 operations carried out at the Musgrave Park Hospital.

  Building work is ongoing at Musgrave Park Hospital to introduce two new Modular Theatres at a cost of £3.83 million. This will result in the temporary closure of a number of theatres during the summer months. Consequently no operations are planned for July 2003. There are 299 operations planned for August 2003.

  Occupational Therapy
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many vacancies for occupational therapists there are within the national health service in Northern Ireland. [111797]
  892W
  Mr. Browne
  As at the 30th September 2002 there were occupational therapy vacancies amounting to a Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) of 46.31. Occupational therapy vacancies detailed by Trust are given in the table below.

  Trust1

  Whole time equivalent

  Homefirst Community

  20

  North and West Belfast

  7

  Sperrin Lakeland

  0

  Armagh and Dungannon

  0

  Causeway

  3

  Mater Hospital

  0

  United Hospitals Group

  0

  Craigavon and Banbridge

  0

  Altnagelvin

  0

  Foyle (including Westcare)

  2

  Royal Group of Hospitals

  4

  Belfast City Hospital

  3

  Newry and Mourne

  0

  Craigavon Area Hospital

  0

  Ulster Hospital

  3

  Green Park

  2

  South and East Belfast

  2.31

  Total

  46.31

  1The above figures do not include vacancy numbers from Down Lisburn HSS Trust

  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many individuals are awaiting speech therapy assessment in Northern Ireland; and how many have been waiting for longer than six months. [111802]

  Mr. Browne
  Information on the number of individuals awaiting speech therapy assessment is not collected centrally, and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. However, information is collected centrally on completed waiting times for a first outpatient appointment of an episode of care with a community speech and language therapist. In the quarter ending 31 December 2002, 2,480 persons attended their first out-patient appointment. Of these, 209 (8.4 per cent.) had waited for six months or more.

  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many people are awaiting occupational therapy assessment in Northern Ireland; and how many have waited more than six months. [111798]

  Mr. Browne
  At 31 December 2002 (the latest date for which such information is available), there were 9,784 persons awaiting assessment by community occupational therapists, of which 3,697 (37.8 per cent.) had been waiting for six months or more.

  Pharmacies
  Rev. Martin Smyth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) when he last met the National Pharmacy Association (Northern Ireland), the Pharmacy Contractors Committee (Northern Ireland), the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland and the Ulster Chemists' Association to discuss the Office of Fair Trading report, The Control of Entry Regulations and Retail Pharmacy Services in the UK; and if he will make a statement: [105529]

  (2) if he will publish his response to the Office of Fair Trading report The Control of Entry Regulations and Retail Pharmacy Services in the UK; [105530]
  893W
  (3) what assessment he has made of the impact of the Office of Fair Trading report, The Control of Entry Regulations and Retail Pharmacy Services in the UK on the provision of health promotion and prevention services in Northern Ireland with special reference to the provision of primary care services and facilities, in line with DHSS&PS plans and priorities; [105531]

  (4) when he last had discussions with his Scottish counterpart on the implications of the Office of Fair Trading report, The Control of Entry Regulations and Retail Pharmacy Services in the UK on health services in Northern Ireland and Scotland. [105532]

  Mr. Browne
  I announced on 26 March 2003 that
  I would not be accepting the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) report on retail pharmacies for Northern Ireland, and the Secretary of State fully endorsed that decision. I carefully considered the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) report, the comments received from a wide range of interested parties in Northern Ireland and the views expressed by MLAs and MPs from the political parties. I concluded that simple and complete deregulation, as set out in the OFT report, is not a realistic option and is not, therefore, the way forward for Northern Ireland.

  I indicated that I planned to continue to develop Northern Ireland community pharmacy services within the context of the forthcoming Community Pharmacy Strategy. This will provide the opportunity to consider how pharmacy services, including health promotion and health protection policies, in the future can best respond to the interests and needs of patients and consumers in Northern Ireland, particularly in terms of quality and best value. I also intend to negotiate a new contract for community pharmacies. The main thrust of these negotiations will be the implementation of the new Strategy, but I will also consider how the existing regulatory arrangements can be improved to take account of changing health policies.

  While I did not personally meet with representatives of the pharmaceutical profession here in regard to this matter, they provided very detailed submissions on the report which I took fully into account in reaching my decision. I have not had the opportunity to formally discuss this matter with the Secretary of State for Scotland, but the Department's officials have been working closely with their counterparts in Scotland, as well as with those in England and Wales, in the evaluation of the content of the OFT report.

  Overseas Nurses
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many overseas nurses are employed in Northern Ireland within the national health service; and how many vacancies for nurses there are. [111799]

  Mr. Browne
  As at 31 March 2003 the total number of overseas nurses employed in Northern Ireland within the NHS is 560. The number and country of origin of these nurses, detailed by Trust, is given in the table.894W

  Trust

  Country of Origin

  Number

  Craigavon Area Hospital

  Philippines

  45

  Craigavon and Banbridge

  None

  0

  Newry and Mourne

  Philippines

  6

  Armagh and Dungannon

  None

  0

  Altnagelvin Hospitals

  Philippines

  12

  Sperrin Lakeland

  Philippines

  25

  Foyle

  None

  0

  Causeway

  None

  0

  United

  Philippines

  17

  Homefirst1

  Philippines

  5

  Royal Group of Hospitals

  Philippines

  243

  Austrialia

  1

  Belfast City Hospital

  Philippines

  31

  Yugoslavia

  1

  Africa

  2

  Palestine

  1

  Greenpark

  Philippines

  22

  Bulgaria

  1

  India

  1

  Kenya

  1

  New Zealand

  1

  Ulster Community and Hospitals

  Philipines

  96

  Down Lisburn

  India

  24

  North and West Belfast

  None

  0

  South and East Belfast

  None

  0

  Mater Infirmorum

  India

  25

  Total

  560

  1Homefirst Trust is currently recruiting additional nurses from India

  Details of hospital and community nursing, midwifery and health visiting vacancies by HPSS Organisation are given in the following tables.

  Hospital nursing, midwifery and health visiting vacancies by HPSS organization

  HPSS organisation1

  Vacancies WTE2

  Royal Group of Hospitals HSS Trust

  257.58

  Altnagelvin Hospitals HSS Trust

  78.17

  Mater Infirmorum HSS Trust

  46

  Belfast City Hospital HSS Trust

  67.45

  United Hospitals HSS Trust

  59

  Craigavon Area Hospital Group HSS Trust

  35.1

  North and West Belfast HSS Trust

  16

  South and East Belfast HSS Trust

  13.5

  Causeway HSS Trust

  12.97

  Northern Ireland Blood Transfusion Service

  8.55

  Foyle HSS Trust

  20

  Green Park Healthcare HSS Trust

  41

  Ulster Community and Hospitals HSS Trust

  44.46

  Sperrin Lakeland HSS Trust

  24

  Newry and Mourne HSS Trust

  5

  Homefirst Community HSS Trust

  4

  Craigavon and Banbridge

  2

  Armagh and Dungannon HSS Trust

  1.8

  Total

  736.58

  1The above figures do not include vacancy numbers from Down Lisburn HSS Trust

  2Whole Time Equivalent

  895W

  Community nursing, midwifery and health visiting vacancies by HPSS organization

  HPSS organization1

  Vacancies

  Hometirst Community HSS Trust

  26

  South and East Belfast HSS Trust

  16

  North and West Belfast HSS Trust

  10.27

  Foyle HSS Trust

  9

  Armagh and Dungannon HSS Trust

  7

  Craigavon and Banbridge Community HISS Trust

  6.71

  Ulster Community and Hospitals HSS Trust

  3

  Altnagelvin Hospitals HSS Trust

  2.1

  Sperrin Lakeland HSS Trust

  2

  Causeway HSS Trust

  2

  Total

  84.08

  1The above figures do not include vacancy numbers from Down Lisburn HSS Trust

  Police
  Mr. Dodds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the targets were for police recruitment in Northern Ireland in each year since 2001; and how many police officers were recruited in each year. [106237]

  Jane Kennedy
  The targets for police recruitment in each year since November 2001 have been 540 trainees per year.

  The number of police trainees recruited between November 2001 and November 2002 was 534. The shortfall was caused by the withdrawal of six successful applicants for various personal reasons.

  In the context of the implementation of the PSNFs Human Resources Strategy, the Policing Board stated in a press release issued on 2 April that the Personnel and General Purposes Committee had been advised that the PSNI are on target to recruit 540 police trainees in this year.

  Year

  Maghaberry

  Magilligan

  Hydebank Wood

  Maze

  Belfast

  Total

  1993

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Nil

  1994

  1

  —

  —

  —

  2

  3

  1995

  1

  —

  —

  —

  1

  2

  1996

  3

  —

  —

  —

  —

  3

  1997

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  1998

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  1999

  1

  1

  1

  ߞ

  ߞ

  3

  2000

  ߞ

  1

  2

  ߞ

  ߞ

  3

  2001

  ߞ

  ߞ

  ߞ

  ߞ

  ߞ

  ߞ

  Nil

  Note:

  2002ߝ03: Three deaths in custody awaiting Coroner's inquest

  Property Portfolio
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the estimated value is of the property portfolio held by his Department. [108368]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  The total value of the property portfolio held by the Northern Ireland Office as recorded in the NIO Asset register in the year 2001ߝ02 is £9,080,803.38.
  896W
  Rev. Ian Paisley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many police officers the Police Ombudsman has suspended from duty pending investigation since her appointment to the post. [107481]

  Jane Kennedy
  The Police Ombudsman has no power to suspend police officers. However where, during the course of an investigation, there are indications that the conduct of a police officer did not meet the appropriate standard, the Ombudsman is required to immediately notify the appropriate authority, and provide all relevant material, to enable that authority to consider suspension. In the case of a non-senior officer (up to Chief Superintendent) that authority is the Chief Constable and in the case of a senior officer the authority is the Northern Ireland Policing Board. The Chief Constable advises that since the appointment of the Police Ombudsman on 6 November 2000 a total of 15 police officers have been suspended, following such notifications, pending investigation by the Ombudsman's office.

  Prerogative of Mercy
  Mr. Donaldson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland pursuant to his Answer of 20 March 2003,Official Report, column 895W, on the Prerogative of Mercy, if he will name each individual convicted of a terrorist offence who has been granted the Royal Prerogative of Mercy in each year since 1998; and what the reasons were in each case for the exercise of the Royal Prerogative. [106104]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  It is Government policy not to comment on individual cases.

  Prisons (Self-Inflicted Deaths)
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many self-inflicted deaths in Northern Ireland Prison Service accommodation there were in each establishment in each of the last 10 years. [110451]

  Jane Kennedy
  The information requested is as follows:

  The total value of the property portfolio held by the Northern Ireland Administration as recorded in the 2001ߝ02 audited accounts was £1,648.1 million.

  Public Order
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what rank of officer in the RUC press office was responsible for giving comments to the press and media covering disturbances on the evening of
  897W
  17 March 1999; what opinion was expressed on the public order consequences of (a) the public gathering of a Lambeg drum competition in Corcrain Orange Hall and (b) the funeral wake for Rosemary Nelson; and if he will place transcripts of interviews and released statements in the Library. [102638]

  Jane Kennedy
  The officer in the RUC Press Office on the evening of 17 March 1999 held the rank of Sergeant.

  The relevant transcripts have been placed in the Library.

  Royal Victoria Hospital
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the recent investigation at the Royal Victoria Hospital into the disappearance of donated money. [111689]

  Mr. Browne
  As this matter is currently subject to a police investigation it would not be appropriate to make any statement at this time.

  Saville Inquiry
  Mr. Dodds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the cost has been of accommodation provided at public expense to those attending the Saville Inquiry in London. [106236]

  Mr. Browne
  The Northern Ireland Office has agreed to meet the accommodation costs of a limited number of family members of those killed or injured on Bloody Sunday who are attending the Inquiry in London, as well as the families legal representatives and the counselling organisation Cunahm, which is providing support to the families. Up to the end of February 2003 the cost was £181,268. Accommodation is obtained at rates used for civil service staff staying in London on business.

  Document Classification
  Harry Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many documents are held by his Department that are subject to security classification, broken down by category of classification. [107359]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  The information requested can be provided only at a disproportionate cost.

  Special Olympics
  Lady Hermon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what measures are being taken by the Northern Ireland Office to mark the arrival of the Special Olympics Torch in Bangor, County Down on 13 June. [110940]

  Angela Smith
  The Special Olympics Torch 'Flame of Hope' will arrive in Bangor County Down on 13 June 2003 before being carried to Dublin for the opening ceremony of the 2003 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Croke Park, Dublin on June 21. The Royal Navy has agreed to bring the Olympic Flame across from Scotland to Bangor on the morning of 13 June to commence the ceremonies throughout Ireland prior to the Opening Ceremony.
  898W
  A RAF helicopter will lift the Flame and the appointed guardian of the Flame from the deck of the designated ship onto the Central Pier at Bangor Marina. The Flame will pass through the hands of 100+ International Law Enforcement Officers who will include officers from the Police Service NI and the Garda Siochana and will be presented to two local Special Olympic athletes.

  The Bands of the Royal Irish Regiment will provide music. There will also be a parade of local school children. Arrangements for the reception including ceremonies and speeches have yet to be finalised.

  Departmental Staff
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many staff were employed by his Department in(a) 2001–02 and (b) 2002–03. [1069691

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  The following number of staff were employed within the Northern Ireland Office and its Agencies and NDPBs, as at 1 January 2002:

  Full-time equivalent numbers:

  1,390 Northern Ireland Civil Servants

  173 Home Civil Servants

  1,753 Prison Grades

  2 special advisers

  Actual staff numbers:

  1,469 Northern Ireland Civil Servants

  184 Home Civil Servants

  1,753 Prison Grades

  2 special advisers

  The following number of staff were employed within the Northern Ireland Office and its Agencies and NDPBs, as at 1 January 2003.

  Full-time equivalent numbers:

  1,449 Northern Ireland Civil Servants

  174 Home Civil Servants

  1,764 Prison Grades

  1 special adviser

  Actual staff numbers:

  1,525 Northern Ireland Civil Servants

  185 Home Civil Servants

  1,764 Prison Grades

  1 special adviser

  Staffing figures for Civil Service Departments and Agencies are published twice yearly by press notice, copies of which are laid in the Libraries of both Houses. The latest information, for October 2002, was published in February this year. The figures are also made available via the world-wide web at: http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/statistics/document/pdf/staffing_03.pdf

  Within the Northern Ireland Administration on 1 January 2002 and 1 January 2003 there were 9,026 and 9,848 staff (full time equivalents) respectively employed. This figures exclude staff employed in Agencies.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many staff in his Department, agencies and non-departmental public bodies received
  899W
  paid leave to undertake union duties; how many days they are allocated; and what has been the cost to public funds in 2002. [106779]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  In 2002, 25 staff employed by Northern Ireland Office, including its agencies and non-departmental public bodies, were allocated a total of 126 days paid leave to undertake union duties at a cost of £8,621.

  In 2002, 767 staff employed within the Northern Ireland Administration, including its agencies and non-departmental public bodies, were allocated a total of 11,777 days paid leave to undertake union duties at a cost of £961,256.

  Statutory Instruments
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the statutory instruments issued by his Department in the last 12 months, indicating(a) the purpose of each and (b) the cost of each to (i) public funds, (ii) businesses and (iii) individuals. [106322]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  More than 400 statutory instruments (including statutory rules) were issued by the Northern Ireland Office, and the various Northern Ireland Departments of which since October last year the holder of my post has had direction and control, in the calendar year 2002. Lists of these instruments can be found on www.northernireland-legislation.hmso.gov.uk.

  The information requested in relation to the costs to public funds, businesses and individuals is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Sunset Clauses
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the sunset clauses included in legislation from his Department since 1997. [106937]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  So far as I am aware a sunset clause has only been included in one piece of primary legislation made by my Department since 1997, that being section 47 of the Police Act (Northern Ireland) 2000. The Police (Northern Ireland) Bill 2003 currently before Parliament contains a sunset clause in relation to the recruitment of specialist officers.

  As regards subordinate legislation we do not hold central records and the information requested could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Terrorism
  David Burnside
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the level of threat from domestic and international terrorism at Belfast International Airport, with particular reference to manpower and resources available at the airport for security. [106899]

  Jane Kennedy
  It would not be appropriate to comment on the specific level of terrorism at Belfast International Airport. The hon. Member may however be interested to know that local police, the Airport Authorities and RAF Aldergrove regularly engage in 900W
  dialogue to review security at the International Airport, and its perimeter, in line with perceived threats, whether they are domestic or international.

  I am content that there are adequate police and security resources at the Airport to meet with current DfT and NIO security requirements.

  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) what progress has been made in securing convictions against those responsible for the(a) bomb at Courtaulds factory in Carrickfergus on 1 May 1972, (b) bomb in Oxford Street, Belfast on 26 May 1972 and (c) bombs in Belfast on 21 July 1972; [104133]

  (2) what progress has been made in securing convictions against those responsible for the (a) bomb attack on a BBC land rover on Brougher Mountain, County Tyrone on 9 February 1971, (b) bomb at the Northern Ireland Electricity Service office, Malone Road, Belfast on 25 August 1971 and (c) bomb at the Four Step Inn on the Shankill Road in Belfast on 29 September 1971; [104132]

  (3) what progress has been made in securing convictions against those responsible for the (a) bomb in McLaughlin's Bar, New Lodge, Belfast on 5 April 1975, (b) bomb in Mountainview Tavern, Shankill Road, Belfast on 5 April 1975 and (c) bomb and gun attack in the Strand Bar, Short Strand, Belfast on 12 April 1975; [104137]

  (4) what progress has been made in securing convictions against those responsible for the (a) bombs on the Ormeau Road in Belfast on 2 November 1971, (b) bomb at McGurk's public house in North Queen Street in Belfast on 4 December 1971, (c) bomb on the Shankill Road in Belfast on 11 December 1971, (d) bomb at the Abercorn Restaurant in Belfast on 4 March 1972 and (e) bomb in Lower Donegall Street, Belfast on 20 March 1972; [104135]

  (5) what progress has been made in securing convictions against those responsible for the bombs in (a) Claudy, County Londonderry on 31 July 1972, (b) bomb in Ship Street, Belfast on 31 October 1972, (c) bomb in Leenan Gardens, Creggan Estate, Londonderry on 25 February 1973 and (d) bomb in Railway Street, Coleraine on 12 June 1973; [104134]

  (6) what progress has been made in securing convictions against those responsible for the (a) bomb in Trainor's public house near Loughgall, County Armagh on 19 February 1974, (b) bomb in Conway's public house, Greencastle on 29 March 1974, (c) bomb in Crescent Bar., Sandy Row, Belfast on 30 March 1974, (d) bomb in the Rose and Crown public house, Ormeau Road, Belfast on 2 May 1974, (e) bomb and gun attack on Silverbridge Inn, near Crossmaglen, County Armagh on 19 December 1975 and (f) bomb in Central Bar, Gilford, County Down on 31 December 1975; [104138]

  (7) what progress has been made in securing convictions against those responsible for the (a) bomb in Killyliss, Dungannon, County Tyrone on 21 April 1975, (b) bomb and gun attack in the Bayardo Bar, Shankill, Belfast on 13 August 1975, (c) bomb and gun attack in McGleenan's Bar, Upper English Street,

  901W
  Armagh on 22 August 1975 and (d) gun and bomb attacks in Belfast and County Antrim on 2 October 1975. [104136]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  It would be at disproportionate cost to provide the information requested.

  Traffic Cones
  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many accidents have occurred on Northern Ireland roads and motorways as a result of stray traffic cones in each of the last three years. [110579]

  Jane Kennedy
  The PSNI and the Department of the Environment do not keep statistics of accidents on roads and motorways caused solely by stray cones.

  Travel Costs
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the cost was of travel by train by staff in his Department in 2002. [106340]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  The Northern Ireland Office spent £21,550 in the period from 1 April 2002 to 28 February 2003, the latest date for which figures are available.

  Within the Northern Ireland Administration, the information required is not held in the format requested and could be obtained only at a disproportionate cost.

  Victim Support
  Stephen Hesford
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what steps he is taking to help victims of crime in Northern Ireland; and if he will make a statement. [106594]

  Mr. Browne
  The Government remains committed to improving access to justice for victims of crime in Northern Ireland. A key part of this is the implementation of the Criminal Justice Review recommendations on victims which are currently being implemented.

  Since 1998 the Government has allocated £20 million+ to fund initiatives to support victims of the Troubles. In 2002–03 the Government will be investing funding of around £1.6 million to Victim Support Northern Ireland, an independent voluntary organisation which helps people come to terms with the experience of being a victim of crime.
  902W
  Mr. Donaldson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will grant additional funding to victims groups who provide support to the victims of terrorist violence and who are encountering serious financial consequences as a result of a shortfall in core funding made available by the Community Relations Council. [106063]

  Mr. Browne
  Since 1998 this Government has allocated more than £20 million to fund victims' initiatives.

  More than £6 million—around 30 per cent.—of this has gone to pay the core running costs of victims' groups. This is in recognition of the valuable work that victims' groups do and I continue to press the case for more money for victims' initiatives. In allocating any further such funding that may become available I will of course have regard to this work. Equally, I must take into account the fact that many victims do not align themselves with victims' groups.

  Working Hours
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what policy on(a) core hours and (b) flexible working hours is operated by his Department and each agency and non-departmental public body for which his Department is responsible. [107648]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  Within the Northern Ireland Office and the Northern Ireland Administration guidance on these matters is set out in a common Code of Practice for Flexible Working Hours. There are normally two core hours each morning (e.g. 10:00–12:00) and each afternoon (e.g. 14:00–16:00) constituting the essential part of the day when all staff should be present unless their absence has been authorised. Outside this core time, staff can vary their hours of attendance providing no adverse effect on efficiency and service to the public results.

  From 6 April 2003 parents of children under the age of six (or 18 in the case of a disabled child) have a statutory right to request to work flexibly and employers will have a duty to consider such requests seriously.

  Given the number of alternative working patterns in existence, details of the various core time and flexible working hours patterns operating throughout the Northern Ireland Office and the departments of the Northern Ireland Administration are not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate costs.

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

  Sites of Special Scientific Interest
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr. Elliot Morley)
  I have today placed in the House Library copies of the Code of Guidance,Sites of Special Scientific Interest: Encouraging Positive Partnerships. This Code applies to England only. It was laid in Parliament on 5 February and debated in the House of Commons on 26 February. Approval was given in the House of Commons on 4 March and it was debated and approved in the House of Lords on 4 April. The new Code reflects the substantial changes in legislation governing sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs) introduced by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 and replaces with immediate effect the existing Code of Guidance published in 1982.

  As required by section 33 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, the Code sets out advice, recommendations and information for everyone involved in managing SSSIs, including English Nature, public and private bodies, and individual owners and occupiers. It is also a valuable reference for those whose activities and functions might be affected by the legislation protecting SSSIs, or whose activities might have an impact on SSSIs. It imposes no additional burdens on owners or occupiers, and helps establish a clear understanding of the basic legislative regime for protecting and enhancing our SSSIs.

  SSSIs are the best examples of our natural heritage of wildlife habitats, geological features, and landforms. Over one million hectares of land, or 7 per cent. of the total area of England is designated as SSSI. By increasing understanding of the framework for their protection and management, the Code will be an important step towards the Government's PSA target to ensure 95 per cent. of the SSSI area is in favourable condition by 2010, and to achieving the objectives of the biodiversity strategy for England, published in October last year.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Global Opportunities Fund
  The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Jack Straw)
  I am today launching the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Global Opportunities Fund (GOF) to support the Government's key foreign policy objectives. The Fund was established in the last spending review with an allocation of £120 million for the next three years.
  38WS
  The GOF will be used to support existing programmes on human rights and legal reform, democracy and good governance, the environment and international security. The GOF will also support our growing science and technology work overseas.

  In this first financial year, we will be launching five new GOF programmes. These reflect the FCO's Public Service Agreements for 2003–06 as well as the emerging conclusions of the FCO's longer-term strategic review. The new programmes are:
  Governance in EU accession and candidate countries and near neighbours
  Counter-terrorism
  Engagement with the Islamic world
  Climate change and energy
  Strengthening our relations with emerging markets

  The Fund will bring together the resources of the Human Rights Project Fund, the Environment Fund, the Counter-Terrorism Assistance Fund and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy to ensure that long-term investment is better co-ordinated and focused.

  Investing in positive change of this kind has never been more important. By tackling terrorism and threats to our security, promoting good governance and human rights, and addressing injustice, poverty and conflict we promote the interests of the citizens of Britain and elsewhere. In doing so, we can only contribute to a safer, fairer and more prosperous world.

DEFENCE

  Afghanistan
  The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Geoffrey Hoon)
  The commitment of the United Kingdom to helping the people of Afghanistan rebuild their country is well established. We are already extensively engaged in a range of activities from security to reconstruction to humanitarian aid. In conjunction with our international partners and the Afghan Transitional Authority (ATA), progress has already been substantial, particularly in Kabul.

  Looking to build upon that progress, as my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr Ingram) informed the House in answer to a Parliamentary Question on 9 April, Official Report, column 296W, from my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock), we have been interested in leading a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) and were conducting the necessary preparatory planning work. We have had wide-ranging discussions with the ATA, the United Nations, regional leaders and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). As a result of these talks and planning, we have decided to participate in the coalition's deployment of PRTs. The role of these teams is to aid the extension of the ATA's capacity, the development of a stable and secure environment in the Afghan regions and to stimulate security sector reform and reconstruction. Overall, there are expected to be eight such teams. From July 2003, the United Kingdom will lead the PRT in Mazar-e Sharif and the five surrounding provinces.
  39WS
  The UK PRT will initially be military-led and deploy for up to two years. It will initially comprise some 50 troops who will liaise with Afghan military forces in the region and provide the Team's support and protection. The PRT will include civilian staff from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development (DFID) who will be responsible for providing political and development advice respectively. DFID will also provide funding for the PRT to support appropriate development programmes in close connection with the central and local Afghan authorities. We have invited the ATA to provide a representative to work with the PRT, which will also employ directly a small number of local staff. By encouraging and facilitating dialogue between all the political groups and militias around Mazar-e Sharif, the
  40WS
  Team will contribute towards the Afghans themselves creating a safer and more stable environment. We therefore anticipate the structure of the PRT may change over time and we shall in any event be seeking to include personnel from other members of the coalition as soon as is practicable. In the future, we may also look to contribute British personnel to PRTs in other regions.

  The PRTs are not a part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul. Our decision to lead the Mazar-e Sharif PRT is additional to our commitment to the ISAF. We shall retain our current ISAF commitment for the duration of the joint German—Dutch leadership of the Force. We expect to remain a significant troop contributor when a NATO headquarters is deployed in August 2003 as part of the Alliance's package of measures to enhance its support to the ISAF.

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

Royal Assent
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Brabazon of Tara): My Lords, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

European Parliament (Representation) Act,

National Minimum Wage (Enforcement Notices) Act,

Electricity (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act,

Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Act,

Industrial Development (Financial Assistance) Act.

Courts Bill [H.L.]
11.6 a.m.
Report received.
Clause 1 [The general duty]:
The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (Baroness Scotland of Asthal)The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (Baroness Scotland of Asthal) moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 2, line 3, leave out "business of the courts referred to in subsection (1)" and insert "way in which he has discharged his general duty in relation to the courts"
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, moving an amendment in Committee on this point, asked me to assure the House that the annual report would cover more than just the business of the courts. This amendment underlines the assurance I gave in Committee that the operations of the new agency will be covered in the annual report.
The amendment provides that the Lord Chancellor must publish an annual report which covers the,
"way in which he has discharged his general duty".
His general duty, as defined in Clause 1, requires him to,
"ensure that there is an efficient and effective system to support the carrying on of the business"
of the courts,
"and that appropriate services are provided for those courts".
I beg to move.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I thank the Minister for responding to the concerns I expressed in Committee. It is a helpful start. I hope the day goes on as usefully.
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My amendment in Committee referred to the manner in which the Lord Chancellor would discharge his duty. I was taken to task by the drafting wizard on my own Benches, the noble Lord, Lord Renton, who made it clear that the word "manner" was not felicitous. I was trying to find another word. The Government saved me that search by finding the right one. I support the amendment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns Baroness Anelay of St Johns moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 2, line 3, at end insert—
"(5) The Lord Chancellor shall discharge his general duty in relation to the courts in accordance with an annual national strategic plan ("the national plan").
(6) The national plan must be approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament before the beginning of the year to which it relates.
(7) The national plan may be modified by the Lord Chancellor during the year to which it relates provided such modification is approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament prior to its being made.
(8) The Lord Chancellor shall discharge his general duty in relation to the courts in each of the areas specified under section 4(2) in accordance with an annual local strategic plan for each area ("a local plan").
(9) The Lord Chancellor shall submit a local plan to each area justice board established under section 4 containing his proposals for discharging his general duty in relation to the courts in that board's area.
(10) A local plan must be approved by the hoard to which it has been submitted before the beginning of the year to which it relates.
(11) The Lord Chancellor may modify a local plan during the year to which it relates provided such modification is approved by the board to which it has been submitted prior to its being made."
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the noble Lord. Lord Goodhart, and I have agreed a large grouping of amendments so that we can debate the core issues underlying the Government's creation of a unified courts administration and its impact on the administration of the magistrates', Crown and county courts.
Amendments Nos. 2 to 17,162 and 163 are mine and are supported by the noble Lords, Lord Goodhart and Lord Phillips of Sudbury; the Government have put down Amendments Nos. 18, 20 and 24. Amendment No. 19 is my amendment to government Amendment No. 18 and Amendments Nos. 21, 22 and 25 are Liberal Democrat amendments to government amendments. I wholeheartedly support the Liberal Democrat amendments.
I apologise in advance for taking much longer than would be my normal custom in proposing the amendments. That is not simply because of the huge group of amendments but because we are here debating changes to a system of the administration of the magistrates' courts that has been settled for more than a generation. It is right that we put on record today, for both magistrates and the wider public, how we have arrived at the position we take now.
The objective of the opposition parties and the Cross Benches has been to try to overcome the objections to the Government's proposals in the Bill

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expressed across the Chamber in Committee, at cols. 1062 to 1072 and 1088 to 1118 of the Official Report, on 28th January. The sheer number of pages reflects the level of concern of Members of the Committee.
We have had to develop our position from that which we argued in Committee to take account of the views expressed in those debates and subsequently by the Magistrates' Association and the Central Council of Magistrates' Courts Committees. We had to accept that we did not command substantial support to carry forward our first position. I took particular note of the arguments made by the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, and the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis. I welcome the fact that, as ever, both noble Lords are in their places. They argued that any system created by the Bill must work as appropriately for Crown and county courts as for magistrates' courts.
Since then, the Government have been left in no doubt about the unpopularity of their original proposals among magistrates. Letters have flooded into the LCD from chairs of Benches in every quarter of the United Kingdom. I know because they were kind enough to copy those letters to me. The one point of agreement for the Government from the chairs of Benches and noble Lords is that the organisation of the courts should move forward to a unified courts administration.
Before the Easter Recess, the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, and I had a meeting with the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland. I thank her and her officials for the time they spent with us and the productive results of that meeting. The noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, was unfortunately unable to attend but has been kept in the loop throughout the process.
Over the recess, the Government then tabled a vast number of amendments covering the whole Bill. Those have generally improved the Bill—indeed, I am tempted to say out of all recognition. But there is still progress to be made. The amendments to Clauses 4 and 5 go some way to meeting our objections, but four significant objections remain. If they are addressed, then, and only then, can we accept the Government's new clauses.
Our objections to new clauses 4 and 5 are represented by the opposition amendments to government amendments today. Those four amendments are Amendment No. 19 in my name and Amendments Nos. 21, 22 and 25 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Goodhart and Lord Phillips. I will of course leave the noble Lords, Lord Goodhart and Lord Phillips, to put the case for their amendments in detail.
Amendment No. 19, in my name, refers to the importance of courts boards being coterminous with police forces. I have left a degree of flexibility in the amendment so that the number of courts boards may change if and when the number of police forces changes in the future. However, the principle remains constant. We debated it at length in Committee, so I shall not do so today. The amendment would ensure that courts boards are local in their extent and effect, which is vital to maintain the local nature of the delivery of justice
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that has proved so important to the success of the magistrates' courts system. That local involvement, influence and responsibility must continue into the unified courts administration.
I am also aware that my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern has some concerns about one part of the drafting of government amendments. I am delighted to see him in the Chamber today, and I am sure that he will put his case later.
Since our last debate on the matter, the Government have held their consultation exercise and completed it. They sent a letter on the results of that exercise to me and to other noble Lords who have taken part in the debates. It says:
"There is also a clear message emerging that the 42 criminal justice areas should be the building block for the new organisation and that, at least initially, the number of Boards should follow suit, although the particular needs of London needed to be looked at closely".
Amendment No. 19 would achieve just that. As I am in such harmony with the results of the consultation, I have hopes that the Government will wish to accept my amendment. If they feel that it is not properly drafted, I will give them the opportunity to say so and promise to bring it back at Third Reading. I wait with bated breath.
I turn briefly to outline the purposes of the amendments to Clause 1, to put on record what we are trying to achieve. However, to save time I shall refer only to the points on which they differ from the government amendments.
Our amendments rename the dreaded CACs—the acronym infelicitously given by the Government—area justice boards. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, conjured up that name from the ether, and I give him credit for it. It is an appropriate name to convey the fact that we believe that the boards should be local and businesslike, with functions to match. I am pleased that the Government have abandoned that dreaded word "CAC" and given those bodies new life under the businesslike name "courts board", which is a definite improvement.
Our amendments would, in general, give Parliament the right to approve the national business plan; give the area justice boards the right to accept or reject the local business plan; allow the Lord Chancellor to submit a modified plan to both Parliament and the area justice board; give the area justice board the right to give or refuse consent to the appointment by the Lord Chancellor of the chief officer of the area; make the Lord Chancellor have regard to the need to ensure that the area justice boards were coterminous with police areas; and, if the Lord Chancellor specified a different area, require him to lay before Parliament a statement giving his reasons. The amendments would also ensure that there were two magistrates rather than one on the board and that appointments were made under the Nolan system. Finally, it would provide for the regulations that govern Clause 5 to be issued by order. That package provided a good basis for our discussion with the Government in the past month.
Amendment No. 3, inserting a new Clause after Clause 1, is a retabling of an amendment from the Committee stage, so I shall not detain noble Lords long on it. The amendment would give a statutory basis to the courts agency that the Lord Chancellor intends to establish and set out clearly in the Bill the functions of the agency. Since I moved that amendment, and having had a meeting with the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, the Government have kindly sent me a written statement of the legal advice that they have received as to why they rejected my original amendment. I was not impressed in Committee simply to be told, "You can't have that because it has not been done before". That is not how we work. The Government have kindly gone much further than that and given full legal advice as to why it would be inappropriate in law to have two seats of power in a national administration—one in the Lord Chancellor's Department and one locally. I should be grateful if the Minister would put on record what that advice is, and put the advice in the Library for other noble Lords to consult.
We are now prepared not to press our amendments to Clause 1, or those consequential upon them, although we regret that. We accept government new Clauses 4 and 5, but only if our four remaining objections are addressed. Since Easter, the Magistrates' Association has carried out its own consultation and has published a detailed paper saying why it accepts all the government amendments. At the end of that paper, it says that it accepts our modest amendments to the government amendments. The Central Council of Magistrates' Courts Committees accepts our amendments to the government amendments, but it continues to have very grave concerns about the Government's position. I have received a few letters from chairs of benches so far; no doubt noble Lords and Members in another place will receive many more as the Bill progresses.
I believe that we can still make progress. Our amendments to the government amendments make that limited but practical and vital progress. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: My Lords, my noble friend Lady Anelay has gone to a tremendous amount of trouble with this rather complicated group of amendments, but they are fundamental. Up to a point they overlap and coincide with amendments in the same group tabled by the Government. This breaks new ground, which is necessary bearing in mind that the magistrates' courts are being transferred from the Home Secretary's responsibility to that of the Lord Chancellor.
In basic principle, however, the views put forward by my noble friend Lady Anelay would be workable and are sound. Therefore, I hope that the Government will feel that even if they wish to modify some of the detail, the views that my noble friend Lady Anelay has put forward should be accepted.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern: My Lords, mention has been made of a difficulty that I have with new Clause 5 which the Government have proposed. To my mind,
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a perhaps completely novel procedure—if it is not completely novel, it is certainly exceptional—has been adopted for modifying the statutory functions of the boards as prescribed in new Clause 5. It provides that the Lord Chancellor can by guidance supplement the functions conferred on the boards by the statute. I am not aware of any other situation in which guidance has been used as an instrument for amending primary legislation. There is a good deal of talk, as there has been over the years, about the propriety of amending statutes by secondary legislation, but this is a step further. Without the ordinary process for such change, in practical terms, it is difficult to know how a person who is not very familiar with the statutes can in years to come find out the current functions of these boards. I do not think that it would occur to one to look through the guidance issued to find the changes.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I have my name to a number of the amendments in this group. From my point of view, and I should think from that of many noble Lords, placing such a huge number of crucial amendments in one group makes it extremely difficult to have sensible and effective discussion of them. I much regret this grouping.
I speak in support particularly of the early amendments in this group in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay of St Johns, my noble friend Lord Goodhart and myself, particularly Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 which make amendments to Clause 1 and would give the new courts boards more significant power. The proposed arrangements, even as amended by the new set of amendments tabled by the Lord Chancellor, do not give any power to the courts boards.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, implied, from the Government's point of view our amendments in this group are a good deal milder than the ones which we debated at length late on the night of 28th January. Many noble Lords who are now in the Chamber took part in that extended and important debate. I believe that these amendments deal with the principal objection raised—with which I can concur or at least sympathise—namely, that there needs to be a separation of powers between the executive under the so-called unified system and the courts boards, that requirement being particularly acute vis-à-vis Crown and county courts, which of course are part of the new aegis with magistrates' courts.
As we all know, justices of the peace have in effect run their own courts and made their own decisions in relation thereto for nigh on 1,000 years. So the amendments at the beginning of the group to which I am speaking keep the board non-executive, but give it one specific power—namely that of approving annual local strategic plans which the Lord Chancellor would be required to produce to them as a subset of the annual national strategic plan that the amendment would require him to produce and have approved by each House.
That may sound a major change from what is already in the Bill, but I do not believe that it is. The Lord Chancellor already has the obligation, under

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Clause 1(4), to produce an annual report after the event, so to speak. However, in his own new amendment to Clause 5, he gives the new courts boards a duty,
"to consider draft and final business plans relating to those courts".
So the Government seem to have conceded that the preparation in advance of plans which need to be considered by courts boards is already an agreed point. Of course we welcome that. However, we go further and say that those annual local plans need to be approved by the local courts boards.
I should say now that Amendment No. 21 in my name—I have to refer to it now because it is in the same group—requires that those draft plans are draft strategy as well as business plans. I put the amendment forward in a probing way in the hope that the Minister can assure me that the phrase already in their amendment, "final business plans", is intended to be construed widely to include matters of strategy in relation to local courts.
So what these early amendments in the group boil down to is that local plans do not come into effect until approved by each courts board. We believe that that will go a considerable way towards amending what we and very many magistrates—indeed, a growing number of magistrates—see as the principal defect of the proposed unified system. If that approval were part of the Bill, we would expect that, in practice, because of the need for it, there will be a much closer and more effective interaction between the boards and their chief executives. Short of giving the boards decisive powers, which we are no longer seeking, this arrangement gives each board a practical, irreducible assurance that their views really will count.
The Minister's repeated powerful and eloquent protestations throughout the consideration of the Bill and in the very many letters that she has written which I have seen—protestations about proper consultation, proper regard for the views of boards and so on—can provide only, as I am sure she must admit, a limited and temporary comfort. Ministers change. Governments get overthrown. Financial and policy priorities change.
It is because we are dealing with the ancient, established, embedded institution of magistrates' courts that we do not believe the present board arrangements of an advisory and recommendatory nature are sufficient.
I am aware that our amendment requiring approval by local boards provides no tie-breaker for potential deadlock between a board and its chief executive. That dilemma is often found in arrangements for boards of directors in private companies and in certain types of contract. I have come across it many times in my professional life, and there are two schools of thought about it. One school, the more conventional, is that there must be a tie-breaker. The other—the one which we prefer in this context—is that the boards, being as they are composed of a much wider group than most magistrates' courts committees currently are, will in effect have to come to a compromise solution with the
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chief executive. I believe that they will. However, if the Government consider that to be the stumbling block to this amendment—we shall soon hear whether it is there is time enough for a sensible contrary view with a suggested tie-breaking arrangement to be considered at the next stage.
I should like to say a word about the depth and extent of discontent in the magistracy over these central arrangements, which as I said are not essentially altered by the amendments tabled by the Lord Chancellor. In a nutshell, all the decisive powers of lay justices in running their own courts are being removed. Those powers are, as I said, being replaced by only advisory and recommendatory powers. Therefore, if push comes to shove, and of course it will, the executive agency and its employees will rule the roost in the future. I think that one can reasonably predict that few of the chief officers will have hands-on experience of magistrates' courts, or indeed of any courts. I could give examples of chief administration officers under the present regime who have been appointed to their position without any knowledge or experience whatever of the law or courts. Not merely that but on the new courts boards the magistrates, far from having, as they presently do, a majority, will be entitled only to a single representative. En passant I speak to Amendment No. 25 in the group which stands in my name. A minimum of two on these new boards for magistrates must surely make sense and go a little way towards mitigating their extreme discomfort with, and lack of confidence in, the proposed arrangements.
On 26th April a meeting took place in London attended by 150 people, most of them elected chairs of magistrates' courts Benches, of which there are around 300. So nearly half the chairs of magistrates' Benches attended the meeting. They came from 37 of the 42 magistrates' courts committees. I am sure the House will be interested to know that that extraordinarily—how shall I put it?—responsible, respectable and—
11.30 a.m.
Lord Renton: Representative.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I thank the noble Lord, Lord Renton. I adopt the epithet "representative" and add to it the fact that magistrates are extremely cautious of anything remotely approaching politics. They feel so strongly about what is going on and about the inadequate advocacy of their point of view that they have now formed a national forum which, somewhat late in the day but not too late, will put their views in relation to this and other aspects of the Bill and, indeed, in relation to the many statutory instruments and orders that will follow its enactment.
Whatever the Government may think, there is now a powerful and growing sense that the price to be paid for the new unified service as it stands under the Bill is too high and against the public interest. Whatever the Government may think, there is also a settled conviction that without an amendment such as the one we are discussing—it is fairly minimalist—the morale of lay justices, and hence the retention of justices of the peace and recruitment of quality new ones, will be

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progressively undermined. There is much anecdotal evidence coming through even at this stage of magistrates throwing in the towel and saying that they are fed up with the bureaucratic demands being placed upon them, let alone the never ending complexities of their role, and also of a failure to attract the very sort of rugged, quality, experienced individuals who make the best magistrates.
It is an irony that we are discussing a measure which will centralise and inevitably bureaucratise the running of the courts in this country at the very same time as the other place is discussing the very reverse process vis-à-vis the NHS. Foundation hospitals are put forward by the Government. in my view broadly correctly, on the basis that the centralised, bureaucratic, managerialist system that prevails within the NHS is simply incapable of delivering the goods, most specifically in terms of its impact on the morale of the staff of the NHS and the doctors. That has never been so low. More and more doctors are retiring at the earliest possible moment. We have a crisis of manpower or womanpower on the wards and elsewhere.
I believe that so much of the thrust of the Bill, especially as regards the inability to see the impact that it is having, and will have, on the morale of the magistracy, is moving in precisely the opposite direction from the insights which underlie the proposals vis-à-vis foundation hospitals. The endless organisational tinkering from on high, which has characterised successive governments' stewardships of the NHS, has yielded less than nothing. As I say, morale is crucial.
It is not even as if there is an assurance in the Bill, or in the later amendments of the Lord Chancellor, that the 42 boards, themselves only brought into being under the Access to Justice Act 1999, will be retained. As the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, rightly said, this is a minimalist amendment that we believe must be placed in the Bill. The logic of so much of the Government's argument with regard to the reorganisation will lead inexorably, many people believe, to ever greater local justice areas justified on the same assumptions of economies of scale, consistency and increased flexibility which underlie the reasoning put forward for this central and unified structure.
The boundary problems between courts about which the Government have made much play—some of it justified, some of it exaggerated—will always exist so long as there are boundaries. One begins to wonder whether the new managerial regime will not over time press for bigger and bigger and fewer and fewer areas.
Many Bench chairmen have said or written to me to the effect that although the unified service will be easier to control, the quality of what is controlled will perforce decline unless the safeguards contained in the amendments proposed by noble Lords from this side of the House are put in place. It is rather like an underpowered car that may be easier to drive but only because it has less punch under the bonnet.
If one really wants independent justices of the peace of the highest quality, one must expect some turbulence from them, some lack of consistency between one court and
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another and some awkwardness. But surely we are wise enough in this House to realise that there are times when efficiency and effectiveness—the great mantra of this Government—work in opposite directions. Bureaucratic convenience and managerial control may make the paperwork neater and more consistent—several people have pointed out to me some of the micro-criticisms raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, in her speech on 28th January—but the long-term basic effectiveness of magistrates' courts as a whole is undermined through loss of independence, loss of a sense of autonomy and the accompanying loss of esteem. As I say, that is not a. price worth paying.
I am sorry to have spoken at some length but, as I say, we are dealing with a group containing some 20 amendments. If the Government do not listen to me and noble Lords on these Benches, I hope very much indeed that they will take heed of the very many letters which I understand have been written by a great many highly distinguished lay justices on this very set of issues.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I wish to address the general debate on this large group of amendments and also specifically to address Amendment No. 22, on which mine is the lead name.
Lord Justice Auld's report recommended that the administration of the magistrates' courts should be merged with the administration of the other courts in England and Wales and that the staff now employed by the magistrates' courts committees should therefore be merged with the staff of the courts agency. We on these Benches accepted that principle. We acknowledge that it is difficult to justify having a single authority for the management of the county courts, the Crown Court and the High Court for the whole of England and Wales in the form of a courts agency but at the same time retaining 42 separate authorities for the management of the magistrates' courts.
The problem thrown up by this proposed merger was how a single national agency could combine sufficient local input into decisions about the administration of the courts. The Bill as it stands and, indeed, as it has stood ever since it was published, gives what are called the court administration councils powers only to make general recommendations.
In Committee amendments were put down in the joint names of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to turn the court administration councils into corporate bodies which had management powers over the administration of the courts in their areas. It was recognised that that was a holding operation. We recognised that those amendments would in effect have retained most of the powers of the magistrates' courts committees and, indeed, extended them to the other courts, and thereby the objectives of the Bill would have been defeated.
We have therefore come hack on Report with a more limited group of amendments. I draw particular attention to Amendment No. 2, which provides for what can be described as codetermination. Under it, the Lord Chancellor must produce both national and

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local strategic plans for the work of the courts agency nationally and in each area. It suggests that the national plan must be approved by Parliament, and the local plans by what we called area justice boards, which I think will now be called courts boards.
The amendment deliberately created a potential deadlock. In order to get the local strategic plan, the Lord Chancellor and the boards would have to reach an agreement. Along with other reasons, that stimulated a response from the Government, who produced their own amendments to Clauses 4 and 5 and a substantial new schedule before Schedule 1. Those government amendments come some way towards what we and the magistrates wanted to achieve. They strengthen the role of the courts boards in the Bill.
One important feature is that the amendments have proved acceptable to the Magistrates' Association. That is something that we have to take into account as an important consideration. However, the proposals are not acceptable to all members of the Magistrates' Association. In particular, they seem to have caused problems with the chairs of the various benches.
Even if we limit ourselves to the government amendments, we can see that they plainly still need strengthening. As the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, said, the Magistrates' Association has approved four amendments to the government amendments. The lead name on one of those is hers, that on another is mine, and that of my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury is on the other two. Those are Amendments Nos. 19, 21, 22 and 25.
We certainly support Amendment No. 19, spoken to by the noble Baroness, on the importance of the coterminosity of the areas to be created under the Bill with the existing 42 areas. Most magistrates are anxious that there should not be major interference with the existing boundaries, which have themselves been introduced only fairly recently.
I understand that a merger might be welcome in some areas. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford, who is unable to be here, has indicated that there is some pressure for a single courts board to cover the whole of Wales—it is currently split into four areas—and perhaps to include Cheshire as well, to maintain an area based on the old Wales and Chester circuit. Amendment No. 19 is not prescriptive. It would not prevent a merger where that was the wish of the people involved in the area, and we are happy to support it.
My noble friend Lord Phillips explained Amendment No. 21, so I shall turn to Amendment No. 22. The Government's Amendment No. 20 proposes a new Clause 5, the first subsection of which states:
"Each courts board is under a duty, in accordance with guidance under this section … to scrutinise, review and make recommendations about the way in which the Lord Chancellor is discharging his general duty in relation to the courts with which the board is concerned, and … for the purposes mentioned … to consider draft and final business plans relating to those courts".
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Subsection (2) then states:
"In discharging his general duty in relation to the courts, the Lord Chancellor must give due consideration to recommendations provided by the boards under subsection (1)".
We believe that that needs strengthening. As an alternative to the original suggestion of deadlock we propose that, if the Lord Chancellor rejects a recommendation as to the final version of a business plan, he must give the board whose recommendations he has rejected written reasons for doing so. I can understand his reluctance to accept the possibility of deadlock, but it is at the very least essential that he give serious consideration to the recommendations of boards about the business plans that affect them.
The need to give reasons concentrates the mind very considerably. The courts agency officer responsible will have to say in writing, "Is this recommendation really unacceptable? If so, why?". He will have to say to himself, "Can I explain the reasons in words that can be understood and accepted by members of the boards?". Ultimately, those reasons would have to stand up to judicial review, so they would have to be serious. I believe that Amendment No. 22 would significantly strengthen the position of the courts boards. Without it, their position is still plainly too weak.
There are two further amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Phillips. Amendment No. 21 has already been mentioned, but we also strongly support Amendment No. 25. The existing magistrates' courts committees are entirely in the hands of the magistrates. Replacing them with courts boards will require only one magistrate. Of course, the remit of the courts boards is wider than that of the magistrates' courts committees, because it includes the other courts. However, the magistrates' courts are plainly the backbone of our criminal justice system. They deal with the great majority of criminal cases that come to trial in this country.
If there were only one magistrate on the board, he might be ill or have some unavoidable other commitment. There could therefore be a meeting of the courts board at which no magistrate would be present. That would be absolutely wrong. The Bill would say that at least one magistrate must be a member of the board, which does not prevent there being more than one. However, we believe that there should be a guarantee of at least two magistrates.
On these Benches, we are very much in agreement with the line taken by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. We hope that the Government will be willing to accept the amendments proposed to their amendments.
11.45 a.m.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I want to say straightaway how grateful I am to noble Lords who have spoken, and to single out the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, for their very constructive contributions to the development of the clauses. As the noble Baroness rightly said, we had a very productive meeting following from Committee, and I am very grateful to all those who participated in it.

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The Government have listened carefully to the concerns raised in Committee. As a number of noble Lords have said, we have tabled a very substantial package of amendments, which we hope will satisfy those concerned. I am pleased to acknowledge the satisfaction that the noble Baroness indicated to many of the amendments. I will seek to concentrate on those issues that still cause concern. For the sake of completeness, and to make sure that there is clarity on the issue because all the amendments have been lumped together, I shall take a little time to go through where we are.
These amendments rename the court administration councils as courts boards. I know that the noble Baroness and others have found that old name lacking in felicity. But the change to courts boards is not a mere change of name; it is a much more robust statutory definition of their function. The amendments make clear that the boards will have an ongoing role in relation to the courts in their area—scrutinising local plans and reviewing their implementation, and contributing their own ideas. The amendments guarantee that boards will have that role.
The amendments make provision for much more detail to be provided in secondary legislation, through regulations. Our intention is that those regulations will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, so that Parliament has the opportunity to examine the detail of the new organisation.
I turn to Amendment No. 18—the proposed new Clause 4. The new clause clarifies the procedure for setting and altering the courts boards' areas; requires that each courts board will be known by a name specified in an order; and provides that a new schedule, setting out the constitution and procedure of courts boards, is to have effect. Provisions about the membership of the boards which are currently found in Clause 4 are set out in this schedule.
The amendment deals with a concern raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Fraser, that boards should have a say in what their boundaries are to be. Before making any order altering the boards' areas, the Lord Chancellor must consult those affected; and the original order which establishes the areas will be subject to affirmative resolution, so that Parliament is able to ensure that the area structure is appropriate.
Amendment No. 19, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, proposes an amendment to the new Clause 4. It would require the Lord Chancellor to,
"have regard to the desirability",
of coterminosity with the police areas in specifying the courts boards' boundaries under Clause 4(2).
I understand that there remains a desire to create an express "link" to the criminal justice areas. We do not object to the idea that the Lord Chancellor must bear in mind the structure of other criminal justice agencies in specifying the areas for the courts boards—indeed, as the noble Baroness rightly said, we have already said that the 42 criminal justice areas will be the building blocks of the courts boards' areas. But there are a great many other factors which must also be taken into account—the effective fit with other agencies in the
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civil and family jurisdictions; the needs and nature of local communities; the volume of workload in each area; and the distribution of court houses.
Participants in discussion groups emphasised the need to take into account the needs of different parts of the country—Wales and London in particular. I am also aware that on the Wales and Chester circuits there is particularly strong feeling because of the historical links between Wales and Chester, and that they may wish to have a joint board. Those are issues that we must take seriously and listen to, because they may affect how matters will be managed.
The implication of this amendment is that the link to the 42 areas is the single most important factor and an end in itself. With the greatest respect, it is not. The single most important factor is that the structure chosen must support the effective and efficient administration of the courts—it must enable us to deliver a better service across England and Wales. That must be the overriding criterion. In order to do so, we must take into account the sensitivities and needs of those in different areas of the country and try, if we can, to give effect to the voices that we are hearing in regard to those issues.
Our amendment provides that the order specifying the areas will be by affirmative resolution, so that Parliament can ensure that the structure selected is appropriate—bearing in mind all the criteria I have mentioned—and so that Members of this House and another place will have an opportunity to have their say.
I gently suggest that the amendment suffers from the same defect as one tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, in Committee: it refers to the police areas, implying that the courts boards should share the same boundaries as the police. I know that the noble Baroness's intention is that courts boards should share the same boundaries as most of the criminal justice agencies—that is to say, the 43 police authority areas, but with the Metropolitan and City of London police areas treated as one.
New Clause 5, proposed in government Amendment No. 20, sets out a more robust statutory definition of the role of the courts boards—to,
"scrutinise, review and make recommendations",
about the way in which the Lord Chancellor is discharging his duty, and in particular to scrutinise draft and final business plans. This puts into statute what we had set out in a published statement; namely, that the boards will contribute to the development of local strategy and keep the delivery of that strategy under review. So I am happy to confirm to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, that his analysis of that point is correct.
The amendment makes clearer how guidance issued to the boards will be used: to explain how they should carry out their functions, in particular their role in relation to local business plans. That aspect of the role is fundamental. It enables the boards to influence priorities and the way in which resources—staff, estates and financial resources—are used to deliver services in their area.

1201
The new clause does not include the limitation of courts boards' remit to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Fraser, objected in Committee. This clarifies our intention that courts boards will have a local focus, but that they should be able to influence the national framework within which they work.
Amendment No. 21, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, seeks to amend proposed new Clause 5. It would require courts boards to scrutinise draft and final "strategy" and business plans. As I have said, our intention is that final business plans will set out how resources will be used to run the courts in the area to improve performance and to deliver services which meet local needs—in other words, the strategy for the area. They will include the area's estate strategy; its staffing structures, and its recruitment and retention strategy; spending priorities for the year; and any local projects.
In the light of that clarification, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able not to press his amendment. I note, if I may respectfully say so, a thumbs up from the noble Lord, so I have taken that as his assent.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for giving way and for her remarks. However, all the examples she gave related to financial matters. I was seeking clarification on whether this would include policy issues as well as financial and estate matters—as I thought she was saying.
Noon
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, "strategy" will include the broad spectrum. We have no difficulty with the issues that the noble Lord raises as regards local areas.
Amendment No. 22, standing in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Goodhart and Lord Thomas of Gresford, seeks to amend the proposed new Clause 5. It would require the Lord Chancellor to give written reasons to a board if he were to reject its recommendations on a final business plan.
I believe that what the noble Lords want to achieve is to create an additional incentive to encourage the Lord Chancellor to think carefully before rejecting a board's views. I reassure the noble Lord that there is already a very clear incentive in the Bill: one of the reasons for giving the boards a statutory identity was to give them their own "voice"; I do not doubt that they will be quick to object if they feel that their views are being unfairly disregarded.
We intend that boards and chief officers will work in partnership to develop the plans for their area—that requires a certain amount of freedom for each party to contribute and to discuss the plans. At what point would we consider that a recommendation had been "rejected" for the purposes of this amendment? Would that be when a chief officer first rejects it, or when the national chief executive gets involved? Must the Lord Chancellor personally issue the rejection? Or
1202
should written reasons be provided at every stage of the process? That sort of relationship does not sound much like a partnership.
We have provided in new subsection (5) that the procedures to be followed in relation to business plans are to be set out in guidance; I would fully expect that to provide that, if the Lord Chancellor were to finalise a business plan without the agreement of the courts board, the board would be entitled to an explanation in writing. Giving written reasons is an appropriate matter for such guidance rather than for the Bill itself. Other matters which the guidance might cover could be the length of time that courts boards should be given to consider draft business plans; the information that boards need; and guidance on when they should take their recommendations to the agency chief executive or even to the Lord Chancellor personally. It could also define a whole range of circumstances in which boards would be entitled to an explanation about what the Lord Chancellor intended to do with their recommendations, and not only their recommendations about business plans. There may be other matters about which they want a written explanation and they should rightfully be entitled to that.
Within that context, it would seem rather odd to single out one aspect of the procedure for inclusion in the Bill and to leave the other aspects to one side. That would be a productive way of responding to that issue. Our intention is to have the draft guidance available when the regulations will be debated so that Members will have the opportunity to scrutinise the whole package.
In light of the assurance that that is one of the matters that would be included in the guidance I hope that the noble Lord will not press the amendment.
I turn to government Amendment No. 24, which contains a new schedule. The amendment creates a power to make regulations about the appointment of members of courts boards; the selection of chairmen; terms of office and provisions about resignation, suspension or removal from office; the procedure of boards; and the validation of proceedings in the event of a vacancy or defect in appointment. I hope that the House will be content that the opportunity for scrutiny of such regulations means that the Lord Chancellor will not have unbridled power to appoint and remove members from the boards on a whim.
The amendment contains a redraft of the categories of membership. It makes it absolutely clear that the numbers set out in the Bill are minima not maxima. It provides that lay justice members must be assigned to a local justice area that is at least partly in the board's area. That point was drawn from an amendment tabled in Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, who is in his place. It provides that all board members must be selected from one of the Bill's four categories. The Lord Chancellor would not therefore have discretion to appoint members who do not qualify under those categories.
I turn to Amendment No. 25. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, proposes a further amendment which would require a minimum of two magistrates. I make

1203
no apology for repeating what I said many times in Committee; that is, that the Bill sets out a framework so that there can be variation between local areas. The discussion groups that we have held so far have been unanimous in their agreement that one size does not fit all. It is likely that many of the courts boards will have more than one magistrate among their membership, but we do not believe that that should be prescribed as the minimum.
The courts boards are not intended as a replacement for proper channels of communication and consultation between magistrates and the administration of their courts. That is why we have tabled an amendment to Part 2, which guarantees that those channels will be established. Magistrate members of the courts boards are not intended as "representatives" of local Benches. A minimum of one, along with a minimum of one judge, is therefore appropriate.
I turn to specific issues raised by the noble Baroness and others. The noble Baroness asked whether we would be kind enough to put the legal advice given to her in the Library. Yes, we will do so very willingly. I thought that that advice was already in the Library but I am delighted to confirm that if it is not there, we shall certainly ensure that it is there.
The noble Baroness also asked me to highlight and place on the record some of the features of that letter. I am happy to do so. It is an important principle of administrative law that a public authority to which the function, power or duty has been given by Parliament, cannot delegate that power. Where functions that are entrusted to a Minister of the Crown are performed by officials who are employed in the Minister's department, including any agency that has been constituted within the purview of the department, there is generally in law no delegation because the officials and decisions are constitutionally those of the Minister. That is the Carltona doctrine. Decisions made within departments are susceptible to being challenged by way of an action of judicial review which names the relevant Minister as the defendant.
In amendments dated 31st March 2003, Clause 1 remains in place—I refer to the noble Baroness's approach. The Lord Chancellor has the statutory function and duty of running the courts. The new clause that was proposed but which has now been abandoned provided that he must establish a courts agency that would be responsible for the administration of all the courts. Those two provisions are mutually incompatible. Statute cannot give the same function to two separate bodies. Parliament does not know whether to hold the Lord Chancellor or the courts agency to account. An aggrieved person seeking judicial review does not know whether to challenge the Lord Chancellor or the courts agency for acting unlawfully in the course of the responsibility for running the courts. We have set that out more fully, but that is probably the kernel of what is in the letter.
The noble Baroness and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, also raised the issue relating to guidance. The guidance would not amend primary legislation. It can only specify supplementary
1204
functions, which supplement the five subsection (1) functions. The amendment provides that the guidance will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses. We hear what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, said about that. The Government are absolutely committed to getting the phrasing of that correct. I am more than willing to look at the way in which it is currently phrased to ensure that the concern that the noble and learned Lord raised is addressed. We say that, although this is a new and unprecedented departure, it is merited in this regard for the reasons that I gave on the previous occasion. In view of the length of time for which I have now been speaking, noble Lords will be relieved to hear that I am not going to repeat all that was said last time.
I have already dealt with the issue in relation to the business plan raised by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. I may have to deal with a few additional issues raised by him because the noble Lord talked of the tiebreaker and about the boards of directors. Perhaps I may respectfully say that the board and the local chief executive system are very different. Making clear how decisions will be taken and where the buck will stop—to put it colloquially—concerns accountability to Parliament, as I have just sought to indicate.
I also want to lay to rest the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, in relation to senior court managers and who will get the post of chief officer. We have a cadre of very good people working within the service. I would go so far as to say that there are extremely good staff in the Court Service and in magistrates' courts. I am sure that they will have an excellent chance of putting themselves forward for such appointments. I do not believe that the noble Lord need be concerned that the talent will not be there from which to make a good choice.
The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, also raised the issue about fewer and fewer areas. I was not clear whether that was about the courts boards areas or the local justices areas. If it is the first, I do not know whether he is saying that we should not necessarily follow any changes in the police areas. I have tried to explain that we believe that there are other factors that need to be taken into account and that we would seek to reflect them.
I have already dealt with the issue of coterminosity, but if the noble Baroness feels that further assistance on that point is necessary at this stage I shall be happy to say more. Unless she indicates that that is necessary I shall move on.
The magistrates' views were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. Effectiveness and efficiency of the courts and the way in which they work are matters of real importance to those who appear before them. To have access to justice assured and delivered in a way that creates equality across the country is a matter of great importance. We believe that what we have done assures that.
I was disappointed that the noble Lord felt that magistrates were throwing in their hands. We have done a great deal to ensure that their proper concerns were addressed. As I have said on a number of

1205
occasions before, particularly in Committee, the basis upon which those on all Benches have taken this matter forward has been very similar. We wish to achieve the same end. We have been struggling with the best way to achieve that. We have been able to do a huge amount of good work together to ensure that that has been achieved.
I believe that I have now dealt with all the issues that have been raised, including those raised by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart. If I have not addressed some issues I shall be more than happy to deal with them.
Lord Renton: My Lords, perhaps the Minister will clarify a matter in relation to Amendment No. 24, a government amendment that deals with the constitution and procedure of courts boards. In relation to the composition, paragraph 2 makes it clear that one member should be a judge, one a lay justice and then we find that two members should have,
"appropriate knowledge or experience of the work of the courts",
and two more members should be,
"representative of people living in that area".
I find sub-paragraph (c) puzzling. Are those with,
"appropriate knowledge or experience of the work of the courts",
the officials of the courts or the local police? Whom have the Government in mind?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, for the membership of the courts boards we intend to have as wide a representation of the local area as possible. We have not prescribed that they could not be someone in the employ of the authority, but the intention is that they would be independent people who would be able to give an additional flavour. Guidance will be given. I shall certainly see what further clarification I can give on that issue. The whole idea of making them inclusive is to include those who may be involved in the area but who may not be directly involved in the courts, so that a different dimension is brought in.
12.15 p.m.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate. It may have taken just over an hour but I believe that it is an hour that has been valuably used. I am particularly grateful to the Minister for the care and attention that she has paid to the amendments to government amendments and generally to the arguments put by noble Lords. I particularly thank my noble friend Lord Renton for his late intervention and for eliciting further explanation about membership of courts boards. I am grateful to the Minister for saying that she will consider this matter and perhaps send more information to noble Lords. Further clarification for Third Reading may benefit all.
I am also grateful to my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern for raising his concerns on Clause 5. I am grateful to the Minister for saying that
1206
she will look at that again. I shall consult with my noble and learned friend as to what he may wish to do by way of clarification at Third Reading.
It would not be right for me to draw any conclusions on behalf of the noble Lords, Lord Phillips of Sudbury and Lord Goodhart, both of whom are well able, as experienced lawyers and advocates, to put their own case. Suffice it to say that I agree 100 per cent with every one of the arguments that they adduced.
On Amendment No. 19, the Minister did her best to shoot my fox. At the moment I see it as wounded, but I am on the side of the fox and I shall take it to the vets between now and Third Reading. I believe that it is vital to consider the size of courts boards because only within that will we guarantee the local delivery of justice. As I have made it clear that I shall take further action for clarification and I shall possibly press the matter at Third Reading, I shall not go into detail now. I take note of all the arguments put by the noble Baroness, but I undertake, twixt now and 19th May when, currently, we are told that Third Reading will take place, to consult both the Magistrates' Association and the Central Council of Magistrates' Courts Committees. At this stage I beg leave to withdraw Amendment No. 2.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 3 not moved.]
Clause 2 [Courts officers, staff and services]:
Lord Bassam of Brighton Lord Bassam of Brighton moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 2, line 9, leave out subsections (2) and (3) and insert—
"(2) The civil service pension arrangements for the time being in force apply (with any necessary adaptations) to persons appointed under subsection (1) as they apply to other persons employed in the civil service of the State.
(3) "The civil service pension arrangements" means—

(a) the principal civil service pension scheme (within the meaning of section 2 of the Superannuation Act 1972 (c. 11)), and

(b) any other superannuation benefits for which provision is made under or by virtue of section 1 of the 1972 Act for or in respect of persons in employment in the civil service of the State."

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment is in a separate group. We have reviewed the provisions in Clause 2 and bring forward this amendment to clarify the Civil Service pension arrangements on the face of the Bill. This matter was raised at an earlier stage. The effect of the amendment is to clarify that those eligible employees who transfer to the new agency from magistrates' courts committees or local authorities and become civil servants will be eligible for membership of the Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme (PCSPS) and any "other superannuation benefits", which includes the partnership pension account. The current draft of the Bill makes reference only to the PCSPS. However, since October 2002, some employees—those excluded from, or who have opted out of that scheme, have been offered participation in a partnership pension account. Although in Committee we clarified that eligible staff will become civil servants and of course will be eligible for membership of the scheme, we

1207
thought that it was preferable to state the Civil Service pension arrangements on the face of the Bill. I hope that clarification puts minds at rest. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Thomas of Walliswood): My Lords, before calling Amendment No. 5, I must inform your Lordships that, if it is agreed, I cannot call Amendment No. 6 for reasons of pre-emption.
Lord Bassam of Brighton Lord Bassam of Brighton moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 2, Line 14, leave out subsections (4) and (5) and insert—
"(4) Subject to subsections (5) and (6), the Lord Chancellor may enter into such contracts with other persons for the provision, by them or their sub-contractors, of officers, staff or services as appear to him appropriate for the purpose of discharging his general duty in relation to the courts.
(5) The Lord Chancellor may not enter into contracts for the provision of officers and staff to discharge functions which involve making judicial decisions or exercising any judicial discretion.
(6) The Lord Chancellor may not enter into contracts for the provision of officers and staff to carry out the administrative work of the courts unless an order made by the Lord Chancellor authorises him to do so.
(7) Before making an order under subsection (6) the Lord Chancellor must consult—

(a) the Lord Chief Justice,

(b) the Master of the Rolls,

(c) the President of the Family Division, and

(d) the Vice-Chancellor, as to what effect (if any) the order might have on the proper and efficient administration of justice.

(8) An order under subsection (6) may authorise the Lord Chancellor to enter into contracts for the provision of officers or staff to discharge functions—

(a) wholly or to the extent specified in the order,

(b) generally or in cases or areas specified in the order, and

(c) unconditionally or subject to the fulfilment of conditions specified in the order."

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment relates to issues raised about Clause 2(4) in this House and by the unions. In Committee, we gave an undertaking to reconsider and discuss the matter further with the unions. We have done so. I hope that the unions are content but also the noble Lords, Lord Goodhart and Lord Thomas of Gresford, who have tabled amendments today.
The effect of Amendment No. 5 is to recreate the current requirement in Section 27 of the Courts Act 1971 to provide that contracting out under Clause 2 in respect of staff carrying out the administrative work of the courts should be after the making of an enabling order and—importantly—subject to prior consultation with the senior judiciary.
In Committee, noble Lords raised concerns about Clause 2(4), particularly with regard to the fact that we had not included a requirement for my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor to obtain an order and to consult the four senior judges before contracting out administrative functions. We have therefore decided to
1208
bring forward an amendment that will require contracting out in respect of administrative staff functions to be in accordance with an enabling order and, again, subject to prior consultation with members of the senior judiciary.
I want to put it on the record that we are most grateful to your Lordships' House and to the unions for drawing this matter to our attention. I hope that this amendment satisfies and addresses the concerns raised. Amendments to Clauses 22, 32, 46 and 56 are consequential to the amendment to Clause 2. So I trust that noble Lords will not wish to press their amendments. I beg to move.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, Amendment No. 6 in this group stands in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford. It is virtually identical to part of the new amendment introduced by the Government. Therefore, I obviously welcome what the Government have done and I shall not be moving my amendment. I also understand from correspondence that the unions involved in this are content with the new arrangements that have been made. So I am happy to support all the amendments in the group.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I welcome the government amendments. As a result of seeing those, I withdrew my amendment to Schedule 1, which went rather broader than the government amendments. However, it was intended only as a device to try to stimulate debate. The Government not only have the debate but the amendment. I support them.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 6 not moved.]
Clause 4 [Establishment of court administration councils]:
[Amendments Nos. 7 to 17 not moved.]
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 18:
Leave out Clause 4 and insert the following new Clause—
"ESTABLISHMENT OF COURTS BOARDS
(1) England and Wales is to be divided into areas for each of which there is to be a courts board.
(2) The areas are to be those specified by an order made by the Lord Chancellor.
(3) Each area established by an order under subsection (2) is to be known by such name as is specified in the order (but subject to subsection (4)).
(4) The Lord Chancellor may make orders altering the areas.
(5) "Altering", in relation to an area, includes (as well as changing its boundaries)—

(a) combining it with one or more other areas,

(b) dividing it between two or more other areas, and

(c) changing its name.

(6) Before making an order under subsection (4), the Lord Chancellor must consult any courts board affected by the proposed order.
(7) Schedule (Constitution and procedure of courts boards) contains provisions about the constitution and procedure of courts boards."
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 19, as an amendment to Amendment No. 18, not moved.]
Clause 5 [Role of court administration councils]:
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 20:
Leave out Clause 5 and insert the following new Clause—
"FUNCTIONS OF COURTS BOARDS
(1) Each courts board is under a duty, in accordance with guidance under this section—

(a) to scrutinise, review and make recommendations about the way in which the Lord Chancellor is discharging his general duty in relation to the courts with which the board is concerned, and

(b) for the purposes mentioned in paragraph (a), to consider draft and final business plans relating to those courts.

(2) In discharging his general duty in relation to the courts, the Lord Chancellor must give due consideration to recommendations provided by the boards under subsection (1).
(3) The courts with which a courts board is concerned are—

(a) the Crown Court,

(b) county courts, and

(c) magistrates' courts, in the board's area.

(4) The Lord Chancellor must prepare and issue the boards with guidance about how they should carry out their functions under subsection (1).
(5) The guidance may in particular contain provisions—

(a) about the procedures to be followed in connection with draft and final business plans;

(b) conferring on the boards functions supplementing their functions under subsection (1).

(6) The Lord Chancellor may from time to time issue the boards with revised guidance and revoke previous guidance.
(7) Guidance issued under this section must be laid before both Houses of Parliament."
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 21, as an amendment to Amendment No. 20, not moved.]
Lord Goodhart moved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 20, Amendment No. 22:
Line 12, at end insert—
"(2A) If the Lord Chancellor rejects a recommendation made by a courts board about a final business plan under subsection (1) he shall give to the board written reasons for so doing."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is an important amendment. The noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, gave reasons for rejecting it. I was not convinced by them. There would not be any practical difficulty in deciding which the relevant recommendations were because I believe that it will be obvious. The final business plan will be put forward as a final draft and submitted to the Lord Chancellor for approval. In those circumstances, I shall not repeat what I said earlier, but I wish to test the opinion of the House.
12.26 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 22) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 98; Not-Contents, 83.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Maddock, B.

Ackner, L.

Maginnis of Drumglass, L.

Addington, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Alderdice, L.

Mayhew of Twysden, L.

Allenby of Megiddo, V.

Methuen, L.

Alton of Liverpool, L.

Molyneaux of Killead, L.

Anelay of St Johns, B.

Monro of Langholm, L.

Astor of Hever, L.

Montrose, D.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Brittan of Spennithorne, L.

Newton of Braintree, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Noakes, B.

Buscombe, B.

Northover, B.

Byford, B.

Norton of Louth, L.

Caithness, E.

O'Cathain, B.

Carlisle of Bucklow, L.

Oppenheim-Barnes, B.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Patten, L.

Chan, L.

Phillips of Sudbury, L.

Cope of Berkeley, L.

Pilkington of Oxenford, L.

Crathorne, L.

Plumb, L.

Dean of Harptree, L.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L

Dixon-Smith, L.

Prior, L.

Elles, B.

Quinton, L.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Reay, L.

Falkland, V.

Roberts of Conwy, L.

Finlay of Llandaff T,B.

Roper, L.

Fookes, B.

Ryder of Wensum, L.

Freeman, L.

Saatchi, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Sandwich, E.

Geddes, L.

Seccombe, B. [Teller]

Glentoran, L.

Sharp of Guildford, B.

Goodhart, L. [Teller]

Shaw of Northstead, L.

Greenway, L.

Shutt of Greetland, L.

Hanham, B.

Skelmersdale, L.

Hanningfield, L.

Smith of Clifton, L.

Harris of Richmond, B.

Soulsby of Swaffham Prior, L.

Henley, L.

Stern, B.

Higgins, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, L.

Taverne, L.

Home, E.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Hooson, L.

Thomas of Walliswood, B.

Howe, E.

Tope, L.

Howell of Guildford, L.

Tordoff, L.

Hunt of Wirral, L.

Ullswater, V.

Hylton, L.

Vivian, L.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Waddington, L.

Kimball, L.

Walmsley, B.

Lang of Monkton, L.

Walpole, L.

Liverpool, E.

Wilcox, B.

McNally, L.

Windlesham, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Brett, L.

Ahmed, L.

Brooke of Alverthorpe, L.

Andrews, B.

Brookman, L.

Archer of Sandwell, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Bach, L.

Campbell-Savours, L.

Bassam of Brighton, L.

Carter, L.

Bernstein of Craigweil, L.

Clinton-Davis, L.

Billingham, B.

Craig of Radley, L.

Blackstone, B.

Crawley, B.

Borrie, L.

David, B.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Davies of Coity, L.

1211

Desai, L.

Macdonald of Tradeston, L.

Dixon, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L. [Teller]

Dormand of Easington, L.

Dubs, L.

MacKenzie of Culkein, L.

Elder, L.

Mackenzie of Framwellgate, L.

Evans of Parkside, L.

Massey of Darwen, B.

Evans of Temple Guiting, L.

Mitchell, L.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Morris of Manchester, L.

Faulkner of Worcester, L.

Nicol, B.

Fyfe of Fairfield, L.

Patel of Blackburn, L.

Gale, B.

Pendry, L.

Goldsmith, L.

Peston, L.

Gordon of Strathblane, L.

Plant of Highfield, L.

Goudie, B.

Ramsay of Cartvale, B.

Gould of Potternewton, B.

Scotland of Asthal, B.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Sewel, L.

Grocott, L. [Teller]

Sheldon, L.

Haskel, L.

Simon, V.

Hayman, B.

Stone of Blackheath, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Strabolgi, L.

Howells of St. Davids, B.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Thornton, B.

Hoyle, L.

Tomlinson, L.

Hughes of Woodside, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Irvine of Lairg, L. (Lord Chancellor)

Uddin, B.

Varley, L.

Jones, L.

Weatherill, L.

King of West Bromwich, L.

Wedderburn of Charlton, L.

Layard, L.

Whitaker, B.

Lipsey, L.

Whitty, L.

Lockwood. B.

Williams of Mostyn, L. (Lord Privy Seal)

Lofthouse of Pontefract, L.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment No. 22, as an amendment to Amendment No. 20, agreed to accordingly.
12.36 p.m.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns Baroness Anelay of St Johns moved Amendment No. 23:
After Clause 5, insert the following new clause—
"DUTIES OF A JUSTICE
( ) The Lord Chancellor shall consult the magistrates for local justice areas on any matters relating to the duties of a justice.
( ) Rules may make provision for the purposes of this section."
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 23. It was tabled after consultation with the Magistrates' Association. Its objective is to provide a method by which there is guaranteed consultation of magistrates by the Lord Chancellor on any matters relating to the duties of a justice. I very much welcome the Government's amendment. I know that they took care over the past two or three weeks to reach a form of drafting that would be more suitable than mine.
I hope that noble Lords will excuse me if I point out briefly that the reasons for the Magistrates' Association wanting to include the provision on the face of the Bill was that it felt that Benches need to be consulted and informed about how the courts are organised. It is a matter of general good working relationships between the new courts agency and all levels of the judiciary, paid and unpaid, in a particular area. It pointed out that it is not enough for local administrators and court staff to be the only ones in the loop. It believes that, once that is recognised, the unified administration must work with magistrates to enable them to work efficiently at local level.
I am grateful to the Government for tabling their amendment. I thought that it was not appropriate at such a late stage to withdraw mine, as it would not have been possible to produce reprints of the Marshalled List. Although I beg to move, I look forward to withdrawing the amendment.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Anelay and Lady Seccombe, for their amendment, whose aim I entirely support and agree with. The partnership between judges, magistrates and the agency is fundamental to the work of the courts; therefore, good communication at all levels is essential. However, the noble Baronesses' amendment places an unqualified obligation on the Lord Chancellor to consult magistrates. Such a broad remit would have left the noble and learned Lord open to judicial review for, for example, not consulting every individual magistrate. Our amendment offers magistrates a guarantee that they will be kept informed of matters affecting them, and they will be given the opportunity to give their views.
I am particularly grateful to the Magistrates' Association for its constructive discussion of the matter and its support for the amendment. I n due course, I shall beg to move Amendment No. 50.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I thank the Minister and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 24:
Before Schedule 1, insert the following new schedule—

CONSTITUTION AND PROCEDURE OF COURTS BOARDS
Constitution
1 The members of each courts board are to be appointed by the Lord Chancellor.
2 Each board must have—

(a) at least one member who is a judge,

(b) at least one member who is a lay justice who is assigned to a local justice area the whole or a part of which is included in the board's area,

(c) at least two other members who are persons appearing to the Lord Chancellor to have appropriate knowledge or experience of the work of the courts in the area for which the board acts, and

(d) at least two more members who are persons appearing to the Lord Chancellor to be representative of people living in that area, and may have such other members of a description mentioned in sub-paragraphs (a) to (d) as the Lord Chancellor considers appropriate.

3 Regulations may make provision in relation to the appointment of members of courts boards, including in particular provision about the procedures to be followed in connection with appointments.
Chairman
4 Regulations may make provision as to the selection of one of the members of each courts board to be its chairman.
Tenure of office
5 (1) Regulations may make provision as to—

(a) the term of office of chairmen and members of courts boards;

(b) their resignation, suspension or removal.

(2) Subject to the regulations, a person is to hold and vacate office as a member of a courts board in accordance with the terms of the instrument appointing him.
Payments in respect of expenses, etc.
6 The Lord Chancellor may make such payments to or in respect of members of courts boards by way of reimbursement of expenses, allowances and remuneration as he may determine.
Procedure
7 Regulations may make provision about—

(a) the procedure of courts boards (including quorum);

(b) the validation of proceedings in the event of a vacancy among the members of a courts board or a defect in the appointment of a member.

Interpretation
8 In this Schedule "regulations" means regulations made by the Lord Chancellor."
Lord Phillips of Sudbury Lord Phillips of Sudbury moved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 24, Amendment No. 25:
Line 8, leave out "one member who is a lay justice who is" and insert "two members who are lay justices who are"
The noble Lord said: My Lords, we discussed this matter at some length in Committee and earlier this morning. I am not persuaded by the reasons given by the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland of Asthal, for not agreeing that two members of the board should be magistrates. They will be overwhelmingly the main carriers of business as between Crown Courts, county courts and magistrates' courts. The magistrates' courts will, I imagine, carry 80 to 90 per cent of the business. Accordingly, I will test the opinion of the House.
12.40 p.m.
On Question, Whether Amendment No. 25, as an amendment to Amendment No. 24, shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 95; Not-Contents, 85.

Division No. 2

CONTENTS

Addington, L.

Carlisle of Bucklow, L.

Alderdice, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Allenby of Megiddo, V.

Chan, L.

Ampthill, L.

Chelmsford, Bp.

Anelay of St Johns, B.

Coe, L.

Astor of Hever, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Cope of Berkeley, L.

Brittan of Spennithorne, L.

Crathorne, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Dean of Harptree, L.

Buscombe, B.

Dixon-Smith, L.

Byford, B.

Elles, B.

Caithness, E.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

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Finlay of Llandaff, B.

Oppenheim-Barnes, B.

Fookes, B.

Patten, L.

Fowler, L.

Phillips of Sudbury, L. [Teller]

Freeman, L.

Pilkington of Oxenford, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Plumb, L.

Geddes, L.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Glentoran, L.

Prior, L.

Goodhart, L.

Quinton, L.

Greenway, L.

Reay, L.

Hanham, B.

Redesdale, L.

Hanningfield, L.

Rennard, L.

Harris of Richmond, B.

Roberts of Conwy, L.

Henley, L.

Roper, L.

Higgins, L.

Ryder of Wensum, L.

Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, L.

Sandwich, E.

Home, E.

Seccombe, B. [Teller]

Hooson, L.

Sharp of Guildford, B.

Howe, E.

Shaw of Northstead, L.

Hunt of Wirral, L.

Shutt of Greetland, L.

Hylton, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Jellicoe, E.

Smith of Clifton, L.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Soulsby of Swaffham Prior, L.

Kimball, L.

Stern, B.

Liverpool, E.

Strathclyde, L.

McNally, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Maddock, B.

Thomas of Walliswood, B.

Mayhew of Twysden, L.

Tope, L.

Methuen, L.

Tordoff, L.

Monro of Langholm, L.

Ullswater, V.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Vivian, L.

Noakes, B.

Waddington, L.

Northover, B.

Walmsley, B.

Norton of Louth, L.

Walpole, L.

Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay, L.

Wilcox, B.

O'Cathain, B.

Windlesham, L.

Wright of Richmond, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Ahmed, L.

Grenfell, L.

Andrews, B.

Grocott, L. [Teller]

Archer of Sandwell, L.

Haskel, L.

Bach, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Bassam of Brighton, L.

Howells of St. Davids, B.

Bernstein of Craigweil, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Billingham, B.

Hoyle, L.

Blackstone, B.

Hughes of Woodside, L.

Borrie, L.

Irvine of Lairg, L. (Lord Chancellor)

Brett, L.

Brooke of Alverthorpe, L.

Jones, L.

Brookman, L.

King of West Bromwich, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Layard, L.

Campbell-Savours, L.

Lipsey, L.

Carter, L.

Lockwood, B.

Clinton-Davis, L.

Lofthouse of Pontefract, L.

Craig of Radley, L.

Macdonald of Tradeston, L.

Crawley, B.

McIntosh of Haringey, L. [Teller]

David, B.

Davies of Coity, L.

MacKenzie of Culkein, L.

Davies of Oldham, L.

Mackenzie of Framwellgate, L.

Desai, L.

Mallalieu, B.

Dixon, L.

Massey of Darwen, B.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Mitchell, L.

Dubs, L.

Morris of Manchester, L.

Elder, L.

Nicol, B.

Evans of Parkside, L.

Patel of Blackburn, L.

Evans of Temple Guiting, L.

Pendry, L.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Peston, L.

Faulkner of Worcester, L.

Plant of Highfield, L.

Fyfe of Fairfield, L.

Ramsay of Cartvale, B.

Gale, B.

Sainsbury of Turville, L.

Gavron, L.

Scotland of Asthal, B.

Gordon of Strathblane, L.

Goudie, B.

Gould of Potternewton, B.

1215

Sewel, L.

Thornton, B.

Sheldon, L.

Tomlinson, L.

Simon, V.

Turner of Camden, B.

Slim, V.

Uddin, B.

Stone of Blackheath, L.

Wedderburn of Charlton, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Whitaker, B.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Whitty, L.

Temple-Morris, L.

Williams of Mostyn, L. (Lord Privy Seal)

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment No. 25, as an amendment to Amendment No. 24, agreed to accordingly.
On Question, Amendment No. 24, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Abolition of magistrates' courts committees: transfers]:
Lord Bassam of Brighton Lord Bassam of Brighton moved Amendment No. 26:
Page 54. line 11, after "with," insert "or are otherwise attributable to"
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 26. 27, 28, 29, 30 and 31 are put forward to add greater clarity and certainty to paragraph 1 of Schedule 1, relating to the transfer of property. We have reviewed the provisions in Schedule 1 and put forward Amendments Nos. 26 and 27 to ensure that all the various categories of property, which should by virtue of paragraph 1(1) be transferred to the Lord Chancellor or another Minister of the Crown, may be included in a property transfer scheme.
Paragraph 8A of Amendment No. 29 is, in substance, the same as existing paragraph 13 but, again, it is a clarifying provision. Similarly, Amendment No. 30 is tabled to improve the drafting and clarity of that provision. Amendment No. 31 is consequential to the other amendments made to this schedule. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Bassam of Brighton Lord Bassam of Brighton moved Amendments Nos. 27 to 31:
Page 54, line 23, at end insert—
"( ) Without prejudice to the generality of paragraph (b) of sub-paragraph (1), any property, rights or liabilities are to be treated as falling within that paragraph if the Lord Chancellor issues a certificate to that effect."
Page 54, line 26, at beginning insert "In this Part of this Schedule"
Page 56, line 13, leave out from beginning to end of line 44 on page 57 and insert—
"Supplementary provisions in property transfer scheme
8A A property transfer scheme may make such supplemental, consequential or transitional provision for the purposes of, or in connection with, a transfer made by the scheme as the Lord Chancellor considers appropriate.
PART 2 STAFF TRANSFERS
Interpretation
8B In this Part of this Schedule—

(a) "TUPE" means the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981 (S.I. 1981/1794),

(b) "the appointed day" means the day immediately before the abolition day,

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(c) references to a responsible authority are to an authority which is a responsible authority under the Justices of the Peace Act 1997 (c. 25),

(d) references to a responsible authority's relevant functions are to its functions under that Act, and

(e) references to a transferred employee are to an employee transferred to the Lord Chancellor's employment by virtue of paragraph 8C or 8D.

Application of TUPE
8C For the purposes of TUPE—

(a) the functions of each magistrates' courts committee are to be treated as transferred on the appointed day from the committee to the Lord Chancellor, and

(b) each such transfer is to be treated as the transfer of an undertaking.

8D (1) For the purposes of TUPE—

(a) the relevant functions of each responsible authority are to be treated as transferred on the appointed day from the authority to the Lord Chancellor,

(b) each such transfer is to be treated as the transfer of an undertaking, and

(c) each person falling within sub-paragraph (2) (but no other person) is to be treated as employed in the undertaking immediately before the appointed day.

(2) A person falls within this sub-paragraph if—

(a) immediately before the appointed day he is employed by the responsible authority under a contract of employment,

(b) he spends a substantial part of his time on duties connected with the relevant functions of the authority, and

(c) the Lord Chancellor certifies that in his opinion it is expedient that the person be transferred to the Lord Chancellor's employment.

(3) Where TUPE applies by virtue of this paragraph, it applies as if regulation 5(4B) were omitted.
8E A reference in any enactment to a person appointed under section 2(1) includes a transferred employee.
Restrictions on employment of aliens not to apply to transferred employees
8F Nothing in—

(a) section 3 of the Act of Settlement 1700 (c. 2),

(b) section 6 of the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act 1919 (c. 92), or

(c) any rules prescribing requirements as to nationality which must be satisfied in the case of persons employed in a civil capacity under the Crown, applies to the employment of a transferred employee by the Lord Chancellor following his transfer by virtue of paragraph 8C or 8D.

Compensation for responsible authorities
8G The Lord Chancellor may, to the extent he thinks fit, compensate a responsible authority in respect of costs incurred by the authority as a result of this Act in respect of a person who—

(a) immediately before the appointed day is employed by the authority under a contract of employment, and

(b) spends part of his time on duties connected with the relevant functions of the authority, but who is not transferred to the Lord Chancellor's employment by virtue of paragraph 8D.

PART 3 MISCELLANEOUS AND SUPPLEMENTARY".
Page 58, line 19, leave out "person falling within paragraph 1(1)(a) or (2)" and insert "magistrates' courts committee, and each person falling within paragraph 1(2)"
Page 58, line 21, leave out from "with" to end of line 27 and insert"—

(a) the exercise of any powers exercisable by him in relation to a property transfer scheme, or

(b) Part 2 of this Schedule."

On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 8 [Local justice areas]:
[Amendment No. 32 not moved.]
Clause 10 [Appointment of lay justices etc.]:
Baroness Seccombe Baroness Seccombe moved Amendment No. 33:
Page 5, line 7, at end insert—

"(1A) The Lord Chancellor shall appoint such a number of lay justices as appears to him to be appropriate for the purposes of discharging the work of the magistrates' courts.

(1B) To assist him in discharging his duties under subsections (1) and (1A). the Lord Chancellor shall publish within six months of Royal Assent a national recruitment strategy for the recruitment of lay justices."

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, many of your Lordships will remember Amendment No. 33 from Committee stage when it provoked much debate. It goes to the heart of our argument in what we are seeking; that is, to ensure that the Lord Chancellor will appoint sufficient lay justices to ensure that local justice is preserved.
I am grateful to the Minister for her helpful reply to this amendment in Committee, but I believe it necessary to consider it once more in order to clear up one or two points which are, as yet, outstanding. In particular, we are keen to establish exactly when the strategy for recruitment will be published. We have been assured that the strategy will be published early this year—certainly within the six-month period that we proposed. If this is so, would it be possible to have this assurance on the face of the Bill?
My thoughts on the lay magistracy are well known and I am keen to ensure that there is a clear commitment to the continuation of their appointment and work within the court system. I beg to move.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I rise briefly to support these sensible and constructive amendments.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, the first of these amendments to Clause 10 would require the Lord Chancellor to have a duty to appoint as many lay justices as necessary for the magistrates' courts effectively to carry out the work. As I said in Committee to the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, we believe that such a provision in statute is unnecessary and indeed inappropriate. The effective running of the courts requires an appropriate number of magistrates. It is therefore implicit that the Lord Chancellor is under a duty to try to appoint sufficient justices for this purpose.
Furthermore, the duty to appoint magistrates implies taking the best measures one reasonably can in the prevailing circumstances to appoint the right numbers and the right calibre of justices. There is a balance to be struck between these two necessary aims. Putting in statute a provision that suggests that the
1218
Lord Chancellor appoint as many justices as necessary to run the courts would inappropriately emphasise numbers over calibre. If a court were to hold that the Lord Chancellor had not complied with his duty to appoint enough magistrates and ordered him to do so, would it be satisfactory if this could be done only by appointing unsuitable people? I know that that is not what the noble Baroness would want.
The second part of the amendment sets out that the Lord Chancellor should produce a national recruitment strategy for lay justices within six months of the Courts Bill having received Royal Assent. In Committee, I said that we are committed to a national recruitment strategy for lay justices. However, this level of detail on a one-off piece of administrative work, and its timing, is not appropriate for primary legislation. If all departments were to sign up to their administrative programmes in this fashion, the legislative machinery probably would be overwhelmed.
I said in Committee that we were hopeful of publishing the strategy this year—that is, within six months of the Royal Assent time period. Of course I note the concern of the noble Baroness on this issue. I think that I am confident enough to restate the hope as an undertaking. I hope that that is helpful. On that basis, I trust that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, for his support. The point of bringing this amendment before the House was to ensure that we retain the present balance of district judges and lay magistracy and that we do not drift into different proportions. I accept the assurance and the undertaking that the Minister has given. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 34:
Page 5, line 14, at end insert—
"(4) Rules may make provision about the training courses to be completed before a person may exercise functions as a lay justice in any proceedings or class of proceedings specified in the rules.
(5) Subsection (3) is subject to section (The supplemental list) (entry of names in the supplemental list)."
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, we debated the need for these amendments in Committee. I sketched our provisional thoughts on what our amendments on this theme might look like and, indeed, we have followed fairly closely what we contemplated. It may be helpful if I recap the thinking behind these amendments.
I shall deal first with the proposed new clause after Clause 15. This clause gives statutory underpinning to the important roles played by the bench training and development committees (BTDCs) in the training, appraisal and development of magistrates. These roles include—as I said in Committee and as many noble Lords will be aware—managing the bench appraisal and mentor scheme; identifying training needs; referring those magistrates deemed not to have

1219
demonstrated the required level of competence to advisory committees; and responsibilities in relation to magistrates qualified to preside in court. Apart from the last role, these currently have no statutory backing. That is not an entirely satisfactory situation given the great importance of these issues.
The amendment to Clause 10 clarifies that the Lord Chancellor has a general power to prescribe training requirements in respect of all magistrates' jurisdictions. I say "clarifies" because it is arguable that, as head of the judiciary or as the responsible Minister, the noble and learned Lord has such residual powers now. Furthermore, as noble Lords may know, magistrates' undertakings, which they sign on appointment, include undertakings to undergo appropriate training. So magistrates understand that this is a condition of their holding office. But we believe, especially under a unified administration, where in the future training will be more consistent across the country and overseen by the Judicial Studies Board, that it is necessary to clarify this power. There are rule-making powers in the Bill that enable the Lord Chancellor to require magistrates to undergo training in respect of specialist functions, such as chairing in court, youth work and family work. It is consistent that this cannot be done for all jurisdictions.
It will not have escaped the notice of noble Lords that subsection (3) sets out a statutory obligation on the Lord Chancellor to provide training and training materials for magistrates where he requires them to undergo training. So magistrates will have a new statutory assurance in this regard.
I explained in Committee that we hoped in our amendment to cover more ground than the amendment tabled by the noble Baronesses, and I assume that I do not need to go into the detail of that amendment again. In its treatment of bench training and development committees, the amendment does not cover many of the roles of those committees. The role it suggests is one in fact carried out by the Judicial Studies Board. Additionally, we would not want to lose the scope to confer new functions on the BTDCs in the future. We believe that our amendment is broader than that suggested and that it makes a more comprehensive provision for the training and development of lay magistrates.
I hope, therefore, that the amendment of the noble Baronesses will be withdrawn in favour of the amendment I have proposed on the Lord Chancellor's behalf. I hope, too, that it meets all their requirements. I beg to move.
1 p.m.
Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, in supporting the government amendments, I wish to speak also to Amendment No. 46 tabled in my name. I raised this matter in Committee and the amendment has been tabled as a result of consultation with the Magistrates' Association.
It is essential that a clear commitment is set out on the face of the Bill to provide adequate training for lay magistrates, along with an ongoing commitment to ensure that the highest possible standards are upheld.
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In Committee the Minister accepted the thrust of our amendment, and I am pleased that the Government have tabled an amendment which fulfils the criteria we had proposed. As a consequence, I shall not move Amendment No. 46 when we come to it on the Marshalled List.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Waddington Lord Waddington moved Amendment No. 35:
Page 5, line 14, at end insert—
"( ) This section shall have effect subject to section (Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Lancashire)."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, as it stands, the Bill takes from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster his current responsibilities for the appointment of magistrates within the duchy and gives those responsibilities to the Lord Chancellor. Although they look complicated, the amendments have the effect simply of leaving things as they are at present.
I have registered my concern about this matter on a number of occasions, and I thank the noble Baroness for her patience both on the Floor of the House and in letters to me. She could not have been more courteous and punctilious.
I am not suggesting that this is one of the most important issues in the Bill; of course it is not. However, in expressing my concern, I know that I am reflecting the views of many people in Lancashire who attach a great deal of importance to the work of the duchy and the office of Chancellor. They feel as I do; namely, that the Government's determination to go ahead with the proposal to take away from the Chancellor an important power is an example of the Administration's obsession with modernisation for modernisation's sake and of its love of change for the sake of uniformity rather than when it is necessary to achieve economy or efficiency. It also shows a rather sad contempt for history and tradition.
No one would suggest that successive Chancellors of the Duchy have not carried out their duties efficiently and in conformity with the highest standards. I know that my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral, who has added his name to the amendment, was most assiduous and conscientious in the carrying out of his duchy duties. Furthermore, no one has alleged that any Chancellor of the Duchy, at least during my time in Parliament, has allowed different criteria to be applied in the making of appointments to the Bench in the duchy area from those applied in the making of appointments elsewhere in the country. Therefore, no one could suggest that what is being proposed by the Lord Chancellor will lead to consistency where consistency is now lacking. So, in view of the acceptance of the need for consistency, the fact that the Lord Chancellor is to launch a national recruitment strategy for lay magistrates—an argument raised by the noble Baroness—seems neither here nor there. In short, I know of no mischief which needs to be addressed or which would be removed by the change. Furthermore, I certainly know of no public call for such a change.
I am sure that the Minister knows that the proposal has caused great annoyance where I come from, not least because it follows a similar proposal put out to

1221
consultation in 2000 and withdrawn when the consultation exercise showed minimal support for change. The likes of myself, along with many others in public life in the North West, were consulted in that year but were not written to a second time before the publication of the Bill to be told that there would be no second consultation exercise. In a letter from the Minister dated 14th February, I am told that what happened was that,
"a transfer of responsibility was cleared with the Chancellor of the Duchy".
Such a clearing between two departments does not begin to justify a change any more than would any other say-so of government.
However, the Minister did point out in her letter to me that, after publication of the Auld report, the Government sought comments on Sir Robin's recommendations, and that over 80 per cent of those who responded supported his view of the matter. But when one looks to see what was Sir Robin's view, one does not find any comfort for the Government whatever. He certainly does not support the line taken by the Lord Chancellor in the Bill. Some noble Lords may have failed to appreciate that. This is not a case of the consultation exercise undertaken in 2000 taking place but then, as it were, being rendered obsolete by the Auld report. Quite the contrary.
One has to start by looking at paragraph 62 in chapter 4 of the report where Sir Robin emphasises that the local advisory committees in the duchy area are constituted in precisely the same way as advisory committees in the rest of the country, and that their manner of working is the same. In paragraph 63 he goes on:
"This anomaly of a 'fourth' criminal justice Minister, with no formal role in the system, other than to appoint magistrates for this relatively small part of the country, is one of the interesting relics of the acquisition by Henry IV in 1399 of the estates and jurisdiction of the Duchy of Lancaster. Consideration has recently been given to removing it. That would no doubt be tidy. But local traditions matter and if, as appears to be the case, this one creates no harmful inconsistencies as between the Duchy and the country as a whole, I can see no reason for changing it so long as the magistrates' courts remain separate from the Crown Court".
He concludes by saying,
"But, if, as I recommend in Chapter 7, they become part of a unified Criminal Court, there would be little justification of practical sense in preserving the anomaly".
We know that Sir Robin's recommendation in Chapter 7 was not accepted by the Government; that the magistrates' courts will remain separate from the Crown Court and will not become part of a unified criminal court. So in no way can the Government suggest that the Auld report is a reason for rejecting these amendments. Quite the contrary. In no way will a unified courts administration make impossible, or even inconvenient, the power of appointment of magistrates in the Duchy remaining with the Chancellor of the Duchy.
We should keep old traditions when they cause no harm and in no way militate against the public interest. There is no point in scrapping arrangements which have stood the test of time—which are part of the rich
1222
tapestry of our history and which have formed a part of our system of justice since the 14th century—if they work perfectly well. That is why I have tabled these amendments today. I beg to move.
Lord Hunt of Wirral: My Lords, I strongly support my noble friend, who has spoken so eloquently and convincingly on this issue. He is right to put the Auld report in context. I respectfully point out to the Minister that she did not quote all the relevant sections of the Auld report in the letter that she wrote to my noble friend on 14th February and which she copied to me. Now that my noble friend has read in full the relevant sections he has put the matter more fully into context. He has done the House a service in reminding us of the words in the Auld report.
As I understand it, it is to be a decision for the Prime Minister. It would be helpful if the noble Baroness could indicate the extent of the discussions that have been held with the Prime Minister. On several occasions I have heard him refer to the "importance of history". I even recollect a phrase he used—which he asserted was not a cliché—when he said that he could feel the hand of history on his shoulder. The hand of history is now on the shoulder of the noble Baroness. As my noble friend pointed out, this subject has a long history. Chancellors of the Duchy have made these appointments since the 14th century.
There have been two major occasions since the 14th century on which close scrutiny and consultations were carried out. One was in 1948, when a Royal Commission was appointed formally to examine what was described at that time—no doubt by a Minister equally inspired by the Treasury to move for uniformity—as an "anomaly". That Royal Commission concluded that the existing system should continue as opinion in Lancashire favoured doing so and it seemed that little damage would be caused as a result.
There was then a consultation in 2000, only three years ago. As I have pointed out to the Minister on more than one occasion, the list of those consulted was enormous. It included all Members of Parliament; a range of political parties; a range of representatives of local government; a range of legal representatives; and all former Chancellors of the Duchy. We spent some time and effort in responding to the consultation initiated by Marjorie Mowlam, who concluded—as had the Royal Commission—that the weight of opinion was strongly in favour of continuing this practice by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
The noble Baroness said that the majority of respondents supported the retention of the Chancellor's role and added the words "at that time". With my noble friend I have sought to re-examine the issue with a number of people who were consulted at that time. All of those to whom I have spoken told me that they had not been consulted again and that they had not changed their mind. Although the Minister may say that the respondents "at that time" supported the Chancellor of the Duchy, I am not aware of anyone who has changed their mind since the last consultation.
My noble friend has done the House a great service in raising this issue again. I very strongly support him.
1.15 p.m.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for speaking to the amendment with such charm and eloquence. I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that I do indeed feel the hand of history pressing heavy on my shoulder.
I very much regret that the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, believes that the Government have a sad contempt for history. I sincerely wish to disabuse him of that view because we have a high and proper regard for the value and importance of the lessons of history. That can be seen through a proper scrutiny of what the Government have done.
In what I say next I cast no aspersion whatever on the previous incumbents of the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster or on the present incumbent, who is greatly esteemed by us all. He follows a long tradition of high quality Ministers.
I say straightaway that I cannot accept the amendment and will resist it. The noble Lord, Lord Waddington, is right. There will not be a unified criminal court. But there will be a unified administration of the courts—a significant distinction which Sir Robin Auld commended. In order to deliver on a unified court administration it will be important, as we have established, that the procedures for appointing magistrates are common across the country.
The noble Lords have proposed amendments that seek to reinstate the responsibilities of the Duchy of Lancaster in regard to the appointment and removal of magistrates in the Duchy area. In Committee, we had a short exchange on an earlier amendment and, as the noble Lord said, we have had, through correspondence, many exchanges in relation to this amendment. As I said then, I hope that we have demonstrated our regard for the magistracy and that we have been sympathetic to its concerns.
I know that noble Lords are concerned that the transfer of the Duchy's responsibility is unwelcome to sonic magistrates in the region. At Second Reading, several noble Lords spoke out in similar terms in regard to the supplemental list. We made no bones about accepting the list's reinstatement. But the current split between the Duchy and the Lord Chancellor is more difficult to retain.
As outlined in Committee on 4th February, the Lord Chancellor is committed to a national recruitment strategy for lay magistrates, an issue we have discussed today. This is a vitally important step which is intended to raise the profile of the lay magistracy and to ensure that magistrates represent the communities they serve. It will apply across the jurisdiction. Providing the Lord Chancellor with responsibility for the appointment of all magistrates in England and Wales complements that strategy and should be seen as part of the Auld package of reforms.
The current split of responsibility is anomalous even under the current system. It does not apply to professional judges. It does not apply to other ancient Duchies. It is claimed that the Duchy magistrates are treated differently—or rather, I should ask whether that is the claim, because I do not believe that it ever
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has been the case that the Duchy magistrates are treated differently from the way in which magistrates are treated in other areas. Indeed, I do not believe it to be so, or that that makes the split indefensible. I do not know whether it is suggested that they are treated similarly. If so, the Bill should not prejudice them.
Transferring the Duchy's responsibilities does not realistically affect the local connection. Both the Lord Chancellor and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster appoint magistrates on behalf of her Majesty the Queen. Offices currently based in London are processing the recommendations of advisory committees. In both cases, advisory committees are the most meaningful links to local communities. There is no suggestion that the role and responsibilities of advisory committees would undergo change as a result of the delegated appointing authority moving from one ministry to another. The local connection would be fully preserved.
In any event, however arguable the split may be currently, under the other changes made by this Bill, it will not make sense at all. There will be a nation-wide unified administration. There is to be a single commission area; magistrates will have a national jurisdiction—as do professional judges. I ask rhetorically: how can it be right that two Ministers should appoint or remove magistrates, according, presumably, to the area to which they are first assigned on appointment but they retain national jurisdiction?
I turn to consultation—an issue upon which I wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, and one that has been raised again this morning. As I said in my letter, the noble Lord is right to say that there was a consultation exercise on the transfer of these responsibilities in 2000. Although a number of respondents saw the case for change, the majority of respondents at that time supported the retention of the role of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. So the matter was not pursued at that stage.
The possibility of transferring responsibility was then raised again by Sir Robin Auld in his authoritative review of the criminal justice system. The noble Lord, Lord Waddington, read out the recommendation made by Sir Robin, two parts of which I should like to emphasise. First, he specifically said:
"In the event of the establishment of a unified criminal court the present division of responsibility … between the Lord Chancellor's Department and the Duchy of Lancaster should be reviewed".
At that time he envisaged that, in the creation of a joint unified criminal court, there would be a joint administration to manage the court. He then went on to say that,
"there would be little justification or practical sense in preserving the anomaly",
if that unification took place.
With the greatest respect to the noble Lord, I do not believe that one can separate the two and say, "You didn't have a unified criminal court, so that idea goes out of the window". The nature of the unification was to enable the courts' administration to act together, one would have a greater flow from one court to

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another, and there would be a degree of synergy. That is what we are trying to create with a unified administration.
The Government sought comments on Sir Robin's report. The responses that I have seen do not suggest to me a unified rejection of this proposal even from within the Duchy area. In fact, of the several specific responses on the point, Duchy and non-Duchy, the substantial majority support a review of the split. There are several further responses, which, without mentioning the Duchy. express general support for Recommendation 8. The latter include the Duchy's Advisory Committee for the Metropolitan Petty Sessions Area of Trafford.
I can provide details in that respect, if required. The Merseyside Magistrates' Association said that it wished to support the status quo, for reasons of local tradition. But one Duchy Bench—North Sefton—supported a review of the current split. The Greater Manchester Magistrates' Court Committee also responded and supported a review of the split. I have not found other local MCCs or advisory committees expressing a view in favour of the split. Therefore, on a less local note, the Association of Justices' Chief Executives thought that the Auld review provides an opportunity for consolidating these responsibilities under the Lord Chancellor.
Although the Government have stopped short of establishing a unified criminal court, they have decided to unify the management of the courts and provide much closer alignment between the magistrates' courts and the Crown Court, and to provide a national jurisdiction for magistrates. The transfer from the Duchy of Lancaster to the Lord Chancellor is fully consistent with those changes.
I know that this is an emotive rather than a strictly practical issue. However, I hope that I have explained why we do not believe that the amendment can reasonably be accepted. I believe that there is now an outline agreement with the Duchy Office that will, or may, provide a solution to one of the issues taxing Duchy magistrates. In the event of amalgamation, the Lord Chancellor's Department has agreed to supply the Duchy Office with a list of all new appointments of lay magistrates in the County Palatine so that the Duchy Office can issue a certificate or letter to those magistrates thanking them for volunteering their services to local justice in the Duchy. That will be in addition to the letter of appointment that will be signed by the Lord Chancellor.
In approaching the matter in a practical way, we hope that the link between the Duchy and the magistrates appointed in the Duchy area will be re-emphasised and highlighted; and, indeed, that it may go some way towards meeting the emotional concerns—I say "emotional", but there is an issue of sentiment and connection involved against which we do not wish to trespass. I hope that that practical way of dealing with the process will enable us not only to
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achieve the unification that will inure to the benefit of all the people in the Duchy of Lancaster but also to ensure that the link will be preserved in a way that many may feel is both complementary and pleasing. I trust that noble Lords will feel satisfied with my response.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for her gracious and emollient reply. On 20th January, I disturbed the tranquillity of the proceedings by pointing out that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor had, in recent years, grasped to his bosom a number of new responsibilities. Here is one that he need not have treated in that way. I am saddened by his determination to do so against the wishes of local people. But there it is; I have to accept the position.
Perhaps the noble Baroness could suggest to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor that both he and she would be showing their respect for history by considering his making of appointments in the Duchy area in the name of the Chancellor of the Duchy. That is a matter that the noble Baroness could consider before Third Reading. I do not think that anything would be gained by pressing the matter to a Division. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I believe this to be a convenient moment for a break in our proceedings on the Bill. I beg to move that the Report stage be adjourned until after Starred Questions.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 1.29 to 2 p.m. for Judicial Business and to 3 p.m. for Public Business.]

The Lord Chancellor: Leave of Absence
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Irvine of Lairg): My Lords, before business begins, I take this opportunity to inform the House that I will be undertaking a ministerial visit to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia from Monday 19th to Thursday 22nd May, when the House will sit. Accordingly, I trust that the House will grant me leave of absence.

University Campuses: Health Centre Practices
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords. I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as I am a patient of such a practice.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what provision will be made under the proposed new general practitioner contract to ensure continuance of general practitioner health centre practices on university campuses.
Baroness Andrews: My Lords, the proposed new contract for general medical services has been negotiated between the NHS Confederation and the General Practitioners Committee of the BMA. If accepted by the profession, the new contract will provide health centre practices on most campuses with the same method of funding and earning opportunities that will be available to all GMS practices.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply, but my concern is that a situation may arise, as it did in dentistry, whereby the BDA accepted and agreed a contract which has resulted in the total destruction of dentistry in the capital and in many other parts of the country. The Imperial College health practice, of which I am a patient, has 11,000 students and about 1,000 to 1,500 local people, young and old. It runs a model practice. I am told by the doctors there that under the new weighting of young people, which will be greatly reduced in terms of expenditure for each young person requiring health care, they will not find it viable. They claim that the same situation will exist in Bristol, Reading, Southampton, Sussex, York and possibly other areas. What can be done about this?
Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I can give the noble Baroness and the practice concerned solid assurances that there is no question that the practice will not be viable. The noble Baroness is quite right that the formula has been changed. It is now redistributive; it has been driven by the profession and by the NHS Confederation so that the new contract will reflect the real workload of doctors where their patients are more elderly or more sick. University practices, where there are young people, will have a different basis for calculation too, but the minimum practice income guarantee will guarantee that they will not lose out on their current earnings. That guarantee is not time-limited and it will be in place for whatever length of time is necessary. Not only will the guarantee be there and be sound but under the proposed contract, if it is accepted, new practices will be able to organise their workload more flexibly and earn additional money by bidding for additional enhanced services. In the case of universities, that might include sexual health or sports injuries.
Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, the Minister is implying that this is essentially a communications issue, and that the new GP contract, with its minimum guarantee payments, which is a very important contract, will guarantee existing levels of income. But it was only on 17th April that the chairman of the British Association of Health Services in Higher Education complained that its letters to the negotiators had not been effectively answered and it was concerned that student health practices will remain disadvantaged in the short and medium term, such as that the only option will be cuts in staff, including nurses and doctors. Clearly, communication has not been good enough. What does the noble Baroness say about that?
Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I certainly repeat my reassurances in relation to the issues that the noble Lord has raised. There was some difficulty originally with the communication from the British Medical Association because, in the press of time, incomplete information was given. But I can assure noble Lords that when it is appropriate, we will place a full set of papers in the Library to give everyone as much information as possible. In addition, the BMA website now includes a very full and clear account of the contract and what it proposes.
Lord Walton of Detchant: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that these general medical practices on university campuses not only play an important part in offering medical services to university staff and students but many fulfil a vital teaching role as many medical students receive experience of general practice in such practices? Is this not something that must be preserved at all costs?
Baroness Andrews: Yes, my Lords, I entirely agree, and there is no threat to them.
Earl Howe: My Lords, the Minister said that the minimum practice income guarantee would be in place for as long as was necessary. Who will decide when it is no longer necessary?
Baroness Andrews: My Lords, the contract is radical; it puts 33 per cent more money into primary care. Because it is radical and new—it is a departure from tradition—we will be watching its progress and it will be under review from October 2004. I predict that every practice will be able to call on that review process.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff: My Lords, I declare an interest as a doctor practising in Wales. Could the Minister explain why general practitioners in Wales do not have the same concerns as those in England? Indeed, the expansion of academic general practice in Wales is generally being encouraged. What are the Government doing to cope with the anxieties that have been expressed by general practitioners in England and how are they being dealt with?
Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I know that in Wales and in Scotland the professionals have welcomed the new contract. We very much hope that on 14th May, when the BMA has its own meeting, the contract will receive a similar welcome, because we believe that it will bring immense benefits. To reassure practitioners, we are encouraging the fullest possible information about the contract, and that information will be as clear as possible. The NHS Confederation website also offers a very clear explanation of the new contract. I hope that, between the BMA and the NHS Confederation—the two parts of the negotiating arrangement—general practitioners will be very well informed.
Baroness Perry of Southwark: My Lords, does the noble Baroness accept that while it is true in the general population that elderly people make bigger demands on general practice than young people, students are in a rather different position, partly because they often live in hostels where infections can spread very fast—we have several examples of that—and also because they often suffer from stress and emotional problems, which take them to their GP? Could not the Government reconsider the formula, particularly in relation to students in university hostels and campuses?
Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I have already said that there will be absolutely no difference in the treatment of university health centres. Indeed, the health centres will be able to contract in to do other sorts of work which will assist the students. In that context, the noble Baroness probably knows the Universities UK report which came out last November. It is extremely positive and has received positive responses from the DfES on student services as a whole. A directory of good examples of innovative practices for student support is about to be published. In addition, the National Service Framework for Mental Health puts a lot of emphasis on the mental health needs of young people.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, while welcoming the 33 per cent increase in expenditure in this field to which the noble Baroness has referred, can she say where the money is coming from and how much it is in cash terms? Is it another case of robbing Peter to pay Paul, or is it new money?
Baroness Andrews: No, my Lords, it represents £1.9 billion of new money.

Iraq: Antiquities
3.9 p.m.
Lord Rea Lord Rea asked Her Majesty's Government:
What steps are being taken to recover the antiquities looted from Iraq's museums after they came under coalition control.
The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Blackstone): My Lords, we deplore the looting of Iraq's museums and have taken steps to ensure that looted items are apprehended and returned. The UK is a signatory to the 1970 UNESCO convention, and the Government are supporting a Private Members' Bill which will strengthen UK law in respect of trade in illicit antiquities. We have also secured the help of the UK art trade in identifying
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looted material, and are working with international bodies to establish a database for stolen items. We have alerted Customs to the need to enforce the current embargo.
Lord Rea: My Lords, I am delighted that my noble friend Lady Blackstone is answering the Question. In fact, we have heard only in the past day or two that a substantial cache of items has been recovered in Iraq, but very much more remains to be found.
Are the Government taking steps, together with the United States, to strengthen the search for items within Iraq, before they are exported on to the international market? Is consideration being given to a reward system? I am aware that that would be difficult, because some items have already been returned freely, and the people who returned them would have to be considered in any compensation. An amnesty has been announced, but that might be an additional incentive.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, in response to my noble friend's final question, I am not sure that consideration has been given to providing rewards for people who return looted material. However, an amnesty is in place, and that is probably the right route to take at present.
Some good news is coming out of Iraq. Some of the goods that were stolen or looted from the museum in Baghdad appear to be in safe hands. However, the picture is still very unclear. It is not known exactly what has been taken. Donny George, the head of research in the museum in Baghdad, was in London last week. He estimates that probably around 10 per cent of the museum's collections have been stolen, looted and vandalised in some way. As there were 170,000 items in that museum, that amounts to some 17,000 items.
Baroness Buscombe: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the repeated attempts made by my noble friend Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn to forewarn her Majesty's Government as early as February this year of the potential risks to archaeological sites and antiquities in Iraq in the aftermath of military intervention? Those attempts were entirely frustrated by the Government's failure to provide an adequate reply.
Does the Minister agree with the Illicit Antiquities Research Centre at Cambridge University that it would make sense to establish a UNESCO-approved repository for Iraqi material, which could be kept in safe storage and returned to Iraq when the situation there has stabilised?
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, the Government welcome any attempts to provide a repository of that sort. We are working closely with international organisations, such as UNESCO, Interpol and ICOM—the International Council of Museums—to secure as best we can any items that have disappeared and eventually to return them to Iraq.

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I am aware that the noble Lord, Lord Renfrew, was concerned about what might happen in the event of military conflict. I am sorry if he believes that his attempts to warn the Government were frustrated; I do not believe that they were. Our military in Iraq were given clear information about those possibilities and did their best to ensure that, in the southern part of Iraq, where the UK military were based, the kind of looting that occurred in Baghdad did not take place.
Lord Redesdale: My Lords, we welcome the Government's support for the Private Members' Bill being put forward in another place by my honourable friend Richard Allan and the response of the DCMS in sending members of the department to Baghdad. However, will the Minister ask our Armed Forces whether they will supply transportation to members of the Iraqi Department of Antiquities in the Basra sector, and ask the Americans to do the same? Not only artefacts were looted in Baghdad; the entire fleet of vehicles that the Department of Antiquities used to get round in to monitor all the other sites was also taken.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, coalition forces obviously have an enormous number of demands on their transport fleets, so I could not possibly give a guarantee as to the availability of vehicles of any kind for work of that sort. I am willing to pass on that request, but it will be a matter of establishing what the priorities are for transport.
Lord Sheldon: My Lords, while welcoming the initiative of my noble friend, will she comment on the outcome of a valuable initiative by Neil MacGregor, the director of the British Museum? He got together a consortium of international museums and alerted them to the problems that we now face.
Will the Minister also comment on the surprising indifference to the protection of museums, as well as banks and government offices, in the closing stages of the conflict?
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, like all noble Lords, I am enormously grateful to the intervention of Neil MacGregor, the director of the British Museum. He has been stalwart in the work that he has already undertaken to try to support his colleagues in the museum in Baghdad. I am sure that that will apply to other museums where that might be helpful at a later time. He has put together a consortium of archaeologists from museums in France, Germany and from the Hermitage in Russia, as well as from the United States, under the auspices of UNESCO. Their work over the next months will be of enormous importance.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords—
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Williams of Mostyn): My Lords, I am afraid that we are out of time.

Speech and Language Therapy
3.16 p.m.
Lord Quirk Lord Quirk asked Her Majesty's Government:
What steps they are taking to reduce waiting times for access to speech and language therapy.
Baroness Andrews: My Lords, we have increased the number of speech and language therapists employed in the National Health Service by 17 per cent since 1997, and the number of people in training for those professions by 21 per cent since 1999–2000. We are encouraging service redesign by improving and developing joint working between health and education, and by developing the roles of support staff in order to make the best use of professional skills.
Lord Quirk: My Lords, in declaring an interest as a past president of the Royal College, I thank the Minister for that very encouraging reply. Would she agree that early assessment and intervention are important for anyone suffering from language impairment, but especially so for children and vitally so for pre-school children?
Has the Minister seen the recent report by Maria Luscombe, which shows that a child of three will wait somewhere between six months and two years before therapy can even start? Two years is a long time when you are three, is it not, when you know that your peak period of language development is slipping away and when your anxious parents know that also slipping away is the chance of a decent education?
Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I quite agree with the noble Lord; I could not disagree with anything that he said. Obviously, delay with such young children is crucial. Having recruited an additional 810 new speech and language therapists, we hope that we will be able to make an impact on the figures. Part of the challenge is that, because so many initiatives have been put in place, such as Sure Start, which depend on hacking-up contact with children and families with such provisions as speech and language therapies, we have more speech and language therapists but a steady vacancy rate. That is a challenge, and that is why we are glad to see an increase in training places.
Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, we should bear in mind the fact that the Sure Start scheme is run by the Department for Education and Skills. The SEN code of practice says that,
"since communication is so fundamental in learning and progression, addressing speech and language impairment should normally be recorded as educational provision unless there are exceptional reasons for not doing so".
Clearly, there are unacceptable waiting times for those services. To achieve joined-up provision, is it not time that provision of and responsibility for those services was handed over to the DfES?
Baroness Andrews: My Lords, the noble Lord raises complex, sensitive and indeed historic issues. The

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Department of Health and the DfES are working closely and collaboratively to develop a plan to facilitate more joint working. We very much look forward to the outcome of that. Speech and language therapy is very fertile ground for joint working. There is no excuse why the workforce confederations and the local education authorities should not be working more closely together. Children's trusts, for example, will create opportunities for such work. We have some extremely good practice. Mansfield District PCT, for example, has an early intervention programme, and Amber Valley has a jointly funded speech and language therapy post. I shall write to the noble Lord—and anyone else who is interested—and give some examples of that good practice. It is such an important programme and direction in which we should go.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, as the patients include people recovering from strokes and severe head injuries, does the noble Baroness agree that this therapy is much needed to help them resume life in the community?
Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord. The National Service Framework for Older People draws attention to the need for better and more extensive therapy services for stroke victims. Just as it is important to intervene promptly with children, it is extremely important to intervene promptly and build up the confidence of the stroke victim who has lost his capacity for speech.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, I also declare an interest as a past president of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists. When I was there, I learned that the need for speech therapy for children and for adults arose from many different causes. As a consequence, responsibility was divided between Health, Education and Social Services—with inevitable confusion, some overlap and many misunderstandings, all of which contributed to the delay mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Quirk. So far as I can see, the joint working to which the Minister referred has not been outstandingly successful. The efforts so far at co-operation, co-ordination and unification also have not been dazzling. Will the Government therefore come up with different initiatives from the ones that we have had so far?
Baroness Andrews: My Lords, we shall certainly be looking at good practice where it exists to see how we can universalise it and encourage other local areas to adopt it. The noble Lord is quite right. The need for joint working was a theme running throughout the report from the Audit Commission last November on special needs. Clearly we want to take more effective action.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I declare an interest as someone who has suffered two strokes. In undertaking the invaluable work that my noble friend
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has indicated, will she look at the practice of the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead where there is absolutely no waiting time at all? Does she agree that although the issue which has been raised is extremely patchy, the best is not necessarily the enemy of the good?
Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I am delighted to hear of the noble Lord's positive experience. In overcoming his own difficulties he is an example to many of us. I think that he is an inspiration to all of us. I certainly take the point about the Royal Free and how much we can learn from best practice. The NHS is a learning organisation and we want to learn across the whole organisation.
Baroness Billingham: My Lords, if I may, I should like to press the Minister further and refer back to the points on children made by the noble Lord. Lord Quirk. He is perfectly right that three year-olds have a very short time in which to have this remedial work, which will affect not only their educational but possibly their behavioural performance when they get into school. It is such a crucial issue. The Minister talked about what is happening in the future. What hope for the next two years can she offer parents whose children are currently being diagnosed with problems in order to redress the problems that are here and now?
Baroness Andrews: My Lords, in the past three years the number of people in training has increased from 457 to 553. Next year we are expecting even bigger increases, to almost 600. People want to become speech therapists. It is our responsibility to enable them to do so and to ensure that we cut down the delays.

European Defence
3.25 p.m.
Lord Howell of Guildford Lord Howell of Guildford asked Her Majesty's Government:
How the new proposals for a core European defence entity, as announced by France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg, relate to the St Malo accord between the United Kingdom and France.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Bach): My Lords, at their recent summit, the heads of state and government of France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg agreed proposals for a European security and defence union, whose members would commit to go,
"faster and further in strengthening their defence co-operation",
including making a commitment to bring,
"mutual help and assistance in the face of risks of all natures".
The St Malo accord did not envisage such commitments, and Her Majesty's Government do not, and will not, support any proposals which might lead to common defence within the EU framework.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his clear and in some ways reassuring

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reply. However, in a way it does not completely answer the doubts and the questions. Does not the new agreement which has been announced involve setting up a completely independent European Union military headquarters which is to be located at Tervuren in the suburbs of Brussels? Did not the letter of intent for the St Malo agreement specifically rule out that kind of thing? Has not the new agreement been roundly condemned by the United States and by the Prime Minister here, whereas the United States grudgingly accepted the St Malo agreement because it was going to be within the embrace of NATO? It is difficult to see. Can the Minister explain how the approaches in these two completely different philosophies of the defence of Europe can be reconciled? How can they coexist? Is it not time that we review the St Malo agreement to see whether it fits in with the preconceptions of France and Germany as they face their new defence ambitions?
Lord Bach: My Lords, the noble Lord is right when he says that the Brussels summit on 29th April went too far. It went too far in two particular ways. One was the attempt to duplicate NATO's work, and the other was the European security and defence union idea for those countries which commit themselves, as I said, to bringing,
"mutual help and assistance in the face of risks of all natures".
However, we do not think for one moment that that takes away from the strengths of the European security and defence policy as first thought out and discussed at St Malo. That was and remains an appropriate policy for this country and for the European Union.
It is for that reason that we regret that the meeting was held between those four countries—our four partners—on 29th April. I should add that that meeting did make sensible comments about NATO as the basis of the European collective defence and the only organisation capable of delivering it. It also discussed—perhaps not exactly in the terms that we would like—and commented on improving the European military capability which, after all, is really the crucial question.
Lord Redesdale: My Lords, further to the Minister's reply, what efforts are the Government making to create new European military capabilities to meet the challenges set by the Prague summit and the requirements in the Helsinki headline goals?
Lord Bach: My Lords, we are making progress on improving military capabilities. It is being taken forward within the European Capabilities Action Plan—ECAP—which is addressing capability shortfalls against the targets set in the Helsinki headline goal. Defence Ministers from member states will soon be considering proposals to meet those shortfalls. The United Kingdom will be looking for member states to make firm
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commitments to improve capabilities, including the implementation of short-term solutions to fill gaps until a longer-term programme is delivered.
Lord Carrington: My Lords, can the Minister tell the House whether the four countries concerned discussed these proposals in NATO and, if so, what was the reaction?
Lord Bach: My Lords, I do not believe that the four countries discussed their proposals with NATO so I am afraid that I am not able to tell the noble Lord what NATO's reaction might have been, although I think he and I can guess.
Lord Craig of Radley: My Lords, will Her Majesty's Government be able to give an assurance to the colleagues that they are talking to about further defence that there will be no reduction in Her Majesty's Government's contribution to defence?
Lord Bach: My Lords, as the noble and gallant Lord knows, last year's Comprehensive Spending Review contained the largest increase in defence spending for many years. I cannot guarantee that defence spending will remain as it is or be increased in the next review. I should be foolish to do so. However, I believe that all that has happened during the course of the past couple of years, and in particular in the past three months, indicates that the last thing that should be reduced is defence spending. If I may say so, that also goes for our European colleagues.
Lord King of Bridgwater: My Lords, although I strongly support the key point made by my noble friend Lord Howell, the success of any defence cooperation is also critically dependent on the compatibility of equipment and the compatibility of systems. Did the Minister notice the very interesting article in The Times written by General Wesley Clark? He commented on some of the lessons learnt in Iraq and on the great success of, and the tremendous respect he has for, British troops and the quality of our personnel, but he also expressed great concern about our ability to remain compatible with the Americans given the scale of our equipment and its level of sophistication. If there is to be close co-operation in these areas—irrespective of whether the United Kingdom, the United States or any other defence alliance is involved—as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, said, there will need to be a sustained level of defence expenditure.
Lord Bach: My Lords, I cannot disagree with what the noble Lord says, especially given his vast experience in these fields. I read the article to which he refers. There is much truth in it, although it ought to be said that the equipment that the UK forces used in the recent conflict in Iraq by and large proved to be extremely successful. We welcome the recognition in the summit I mentioned of the importance of strengthening European defence capabilities, including the acceptance of a British

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proposal that the European Union should have an agency to focus primarily on the development of defence capabilities. That matter will be discussed again shortly.
Lord Hardy of Wath: My Lords—
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I am afraid that we are well beyond time.

Courts Bill [H.L.]
3.33 p.m.
Consideration of amendments on Report resumed.
Clause 11 [Retirement and removal of lay justices]:
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 36:
Page 5, line 16, leave out subsections (1) to (4).
The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 36 I wish to speak to all the amendments with which it is grouped.
Your Lordships will know that the Supplemental List would have been abolished under the original provisions of the Bill. However, the Government have listened very carefully to the appeals of a number of your Lordships at Second Reading who set out the magistracy's view on the matter. We are restoring the Supplemental List through this package of government amendments. Many magistrates have stated that they regard being added to the list as recognition of good service for retired magistrates. The Government recognised the need to reward justices' valued service to the community and so are bringing forward these amendments to restore the Supplemental List to statute. I hope that that will give particular pleasure to the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, as well as to the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby. Although the noble Viscount is not present, he advocated strongly that the Supplemental List should be restored.
I hope that the amendment of the noble Baronesses was meant in a spirit of gentle reminder and may now be withdrawn. We have tinkered with it a little. I hope that they will allow for that. We have correspondingly amended Clause 11, which sets out the position on ceasing to hold office as a justice of the peace, and we have allowed for the possibility that a serving Bench chairman, or a justice whose case goes part-heard, could remain an active JP until after the age of 70.
The amendments also retain provision for magistrates who retire before 70 after many years of service to be included on the list. There are some small changes to the current position. As with the amendment of the noble Baronesses, there is no statutory reference to continuing powers to perform certain acts as the majority of these do not require statutory authority to be carried out and can be done by most people and not justices alone.
The use of the Supplemental List as a disciplinary mechanism has been removed. This reflects the way in which the Supplemental List has evolved since its
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introduction in 1941. At that time it was used to introduce a retirement age for justices of the peace who refused to resign despite being unable to carry out their functions, as we discussed on a previous occasion. Today the list is seen more as a "roll of honour" for retired justices and as a form of gratitude for the valuable service magistrates have provided society. With great pleasure I beg to move.
Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment No. 44 and to support government Amendments Nos. 39, 40 and 41.
The amendment provoked much debate in Committee and, I am pleased to say, received much support. I shall not take up time going over old ground on the amendment except to say that I stand by my previous comments on the matter. I believe that the abolition of the list would be a mean-spirited act which would serve no purpose.
I am therefore very grateful to the Government for tabling their amendments which fulfil the function we sought and ensure that the Supplemental List will continue to provide recognition of those who have selflessly given up their time to fulfil a role in the community.
I say rather flippantly that in an idle moment I put a few figures together. If one considers that each daily session is four hours minimum, and that on average magistrates do 40 sessions per annum—which is 160 hours per annum—over 15 years that would be 2,400 hours. If one considers that the maximum number of hours that can be ordered under one community service order is 240, that means that over 15 years magistrates perform at least the equivalent of 10 maximum community service orders. That is surely a worthwhile contribution to the community.
In Committee I said that I looked forward to returning to the issue and that I hoped that I would hear wonderful news. I am pleased that I have heard just that. Having mentioned the phrase "mean-spirited", I wish to add that in no way do I accuse the Minister of such feelings. Indeed, I pay tribute to the generous way in which she has responded to my amendment and to the part she has played in bringing forward the government amendments that are before us today.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I am happy to support the government amendments. They constitute an entirely harmless and almost cost-free method of acknowledging the admirable service which many justices of the peace have performed by continuing to allow them to describe themselves as justices of the peace when they are no longer sitting as members of the court. That is entirely welcome. I am very glad that the Government have given way on the matter.
The Earl of Sandwich: My Lords, I cannot speak for my noble friend Lord Tenby, but he would want someone from the Cross Benches to thank the Government for that concession.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 37:
Page 5, line 33, leave out second "or" and insert—
"( ) on the ground of a persistent failure to meet such standards of competence as are prescribed by a direction given by the Lord Chancellor, or"
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor has tabled the amendment to clarify that magistrates may be removed for persistent failure to reach the standards of competence required. Under Section 5 of the Justices of the Peace Act 1997, the Lord Chancellor has a general power to remove magistrates from office. However, the grounds on which he may do so are not specified. The current removal powers could apply to the case of a magistrate who has proved incapable of meeting the required level of competence in the judicial role.
I stress that that power is currently recognised, with the procedure to be followed in such cases set out in the directions to advisory committees published by my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor. The original drafting of Clause 11(6), however, restricts the removal powers in respect of magistrates to incapacity, misbehaviour or neglect of duty. That may create difficulty with removing a lay magistrate who has persistently failed to meet the competencies prescribed for magistrates.
The amendment will ensure that the current position is maintained, and it is tabled with the support of the Magistrates' Association. I beg to move.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, how often has the Lord Chancellor's current power been exercised?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I do not have specific numbers at the moment. I can certainly tell the noble Lord that it has been very rare indeed. It is not a frequently used power, but there may be occasions when it proves necessary. That is why the power has to be there. I shall be more than happy to write to him to give him whatever figures we have available, if they are available.
Lord Borrie: My Lords, I am slightly anxious about the wording of the amendment. It suggests that the second "or" in line 33 should be left out, and then that certain words should be inserted. If the second "or" is left out, the amendment seems to mean that "misbehaviour" is defined,
"on the ground of a persistent failure to meet such standards of competence",
and so on. The Minister will know very well that "incapacity or misbehaviour" is a phrase commonly found in the grounds for dismissal of public officers of various kinds. Indeed, it is to be found in Clause 17 in relation to district judges and Section 24 of the Courts Act 1971 in relation to circuit judges.
If the Minister feels the need to add another ground for removal of a lay justice, I can quite understand that. However, if the result of agreeing to the
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amendment is to limit "misbehaviour" so that it no longer applies to committing criminal offences, for example, it would seem as though the drafting had gone all awry. I hope that I have misunderstood the Minister, but I am slightly anxious about the wording of the amendment.
Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, we on these Benches welcome the amendment. We understand that it meets the requirements of the Magistrates' Association, as the Minister said.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I do not think that one can be too careful in considering legislative powers to remove judges; of course, justices of the peace are judges. I think that I am right in saying that a High Court judge can be removed only by Parliament itself. Although the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, refers to the power of removal of district judges under Clause 17, that does not include a provision such as that inserted by the amendment.
Perhaps I have an excess of concern about preserving the independence of justices of the peace, but I think that the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Clinton, is very germane. I had a few words with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, about the amendment before he had to go elsewhere. He was unaware of occasions during his tenure as Lord Chancellor of having to remove on the grounds specified in the amendment.
The other question that occurs to me—I would be grateful if the Minister were to comment on it when she winds up the debate—is to ask who will judge persistent failure. Obviously the Lord Chancellor will have to act on the basis of reports, but who will compile those reports? Will the person about whom they are drawn up have any possibility of commenting on them, in order to defend himself or herself against the charge of persistent failure to meet standards of competence?
So far as I am aware. the existing prerogative power has worked perfectly well over very many centuries. Is it really necessary to make the amendment? I hope that no one will think that I am beginning to cast aspersions—I am plainly not—but extreme caution is called for about such matters. It occurs to me to ask whether putting a power in the Bill on a quite different ground from any existing one might not create a legislative tool that an unscrupulous or biased Lord Chancellor might be inclined to use in the case of a justice of the peace who gave him or her extreme stress or distress.
3.45 p.m.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I want to ask the noble Lord a question before he concludes his remarks. He referred to the noble Lord, Lord Clinton. I have looked around and I cannot see him. Was he referring to me?
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I apologise. I meant the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, whom I have known for so many years. That was a rather late intervention, I thought.

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I wonder whether one is putting a legislative tool in the way of potential misuse, especially as, in the circumstances conjectured, there seems to be no guard for the justice of the peace who will be removed. I would be interested to hear what the noble Baroness has to say.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I want to follow up on what was said by my noble friend Lord Phillips—Lord Phillips of Sudbury, I should point out. The amendment provides that the Lord Chancellor will prescribe in a direction the standards of competence required. Those directions, which will obviously be general directions, do not require any parliamentary procedure. As I understand it, the Delegated Powers Committee, which has just reported on the government amendments, has not suggested that they should.
On the other hand, it certainly seems that publicity is required for the directions, so that people learn what the prescribed standards are. Therefore, would it not be appropriate to require that directions should at any rate be laid before Parliament, even if there were no parliamentary process for their approval?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I shall try to deal with all the issues raised. I shall first further clarify an answer that I gave earlier. We do not think that the power has ever been exercised. Generally, the experience has been that magistrates in these positions tend to resign. But we shall certainly make the trawl to ascertain the real position.
This provision is supported by the Magistrates' Association, primarily because it has a real and a proper interest in making sure that the highest possible standards are maintained by those who discharge this very important function. That is a view with which we concur.
Before responding to the points made by the noble Lords, Lord Phillips and Lord Goodhart, perhaps I may deal with the matter referred to by my noble friend Lord Borrie. The "or" does not add a paragraph to the subsection. What it does is to create a new ground—hence "(a), (b) 'or' (c)". Stylistically, given the way in which the Bill is drafted, when alternatives are put forward the "or" comes immediately prior to the final paragraph. I hope that that clarifies the point.
Safeguards will apply to the removal of magistrates. As the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, mentioned, there is a procedure set out in directions to the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee. We believe that this provision is compatible with Article 6. It is also open to judicial review if needs be.
The competencies already exist. They are known as the magistrates' national training initiative competencies. Recently, they have been revised in consultation with the Magistrates' Association. It is envisaged that these would be formalised, so that the appraisal system would be administered by the Judicial Studies Board against clear competencies. Appraisal results will be considered
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by the Bench training and development committees, by advisory committees and by the Lord Chancellor. So there is a clear structure against which any lack of competence would be set out before any suggestion of removal.
The recollection of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, as reported by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, is probably right. We do not recollect any occasion when it has been used under this Administration either.
I hope that that satisfies your Lordships—first, that this is a perfectly proper clause; secondly, that the competencies will be properly defined; and, thirdly, that there will be a proper system through which they will be applied. I hope that noble Lords will be content with that response.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, perhaps I may ask whether the magistrate who is being removed will have an opportunity to know about that, and to make a response before the decision is taken?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, of course it will be very important that all magistrates who are trained are trained properly. They will be assessed. In accordance with the rules of natural justice, if action is to be taken against a magistrate that magistrate should properly be told the reason for the action and given an opportunity to make a response. If the proper procedures were not adopted, as I said earlier, it would be open to that magistrate, were he or she so minded and there were grounds on which to justify it, to take the decision to judicial review.
I have attempted to set out as clearly as I can the process that will be adopted for the assessment. I know that the magistrates' courts association is very pleased that the Judicial Studies Board will become involved in the issues of training and competencies, because these are matters about which it feels fairly strongly. It wants to make sure that magistrates receive the proper training that they need, that their competencies are enhanced to enable them to continue to discharge their duty with the propriety that all would wish.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I hope the Minister will forgive me for intervening again on a small point. Following the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, stylistically, if one is going to remove the second "or" and place it as the Minister says, and if that is perfectly correct, one ought also to take out the first "or" and put a comma there.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I can assure your Lordships that the drafting pecularities will be addressed. But I am told that the draftsmen are content with the perfection that is currently before your Lordships.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 38 not moved.]
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendments Nos. 39 to 41:
After Clause II, insert the following new clause—
"THE SUPPLEMENTAL LIST
(1) A list, to be known as "the supplemental list", must be kept in the office of the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery.
(2) A lay justice whose name is entered in the supplemental list is not qualified as a justice of the peace to do any act or to be a member of a committee or other body.
(3) No act or appointment is invalidated by reason of the disqualification of a lay justice under subsection (2)."
After Clause 11, insert the following new clause—
"ENTRY OF NAMES IN THE SUPPLEMENTAL LIST
(1) Subject to subsections (2) and (3), the name of a lay justice who has reached 70 must be entered in the supplemental list.
(2) The name of a lay justice who, when he reaches 70, is chairman of the lay justices assigned to a local justice area need not be entered in the supplemental list until the term for which he is serving as chairman has ended.
(3) Where—

(a) proceedings are, or are expected to be, in progress on the day on which the lay justice reaches 70, and

(b) the lay justice is exercising functions in those proceedings as a justice of the peace, the Lord Chancellor may direct that the name of the lay justice need not be entered in the supplemental list until the proceedings have ended.

(4) The name of a lay justice must be entered in the supplemental list if—

(a) he applies for it to be entered, and

(b) the application is approved by the Lord Chancellor.

(5) The Lord Chancellor may direct that the name of a lay justice is to be entered in the supplemental list on the ground of incapacity."
After Clause 11, insert the following new clause—
"REMOVAL OF NAMES FROM THE SUPPLEMENTAL LIST
(1) A person's name must be removed from the supplemental list if he ceases to be a justice of the peace.
(2) A person's name must be removed from the supplemental list if—

(a) his name is in the list as a result of section (Entry of names in the supplemental list)(4) or (5), and

(b) the Lord Chancellor directs its removal."

On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 13 [Records of lay justices]:
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 42:
Page 7, line 1, leave out paragraph (c) and insert—
"(c) the fact that a lay justice assigned to the area has ceased to be a justice of the peace or that his name has been entered in or removed from the supplemental list."
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 43 and 44 not moved.]
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 45:
After Clause 15, insert the following new clause—
"TRAINING, DEVELOPMENT AND APPRAISAL OF LAY JUSTICES
(1) Rules may (in addition to making provision under sections 10(4) and 15(6)) make provision for, or in connection with, the training, development and appraisal of lay justices.
(2) Such rules may make provision for committees, constituted in accordance with the rules, to have such functions as may he specified in the rules, including, in particular—

(a) providing advice and support to lay justices in connection with their functions as lay justices;

(b) identifying the training needs of lay justices:

(c) appraising lay justices and reporting on the results of appraisals;

(d) giving or withholding approval for the purposes of section 15;

(e) advising the Lord Chancellor in relation to authorisations of lay justices as members of family proceedings courts or youth courts;

(f) granting or revoking such authorisations on behalf of the Lord Chancellor.

(3) The Lord Chancellor must ensure that appropriate training and training materials are provided for lay justices with a view to enabling them to comply with requirements as to training imposed by rules under section 10 or 15 or this section."
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment Nos. 46 and 47 not moved.]
Clause 16 [Rules about chairmen, deputy chairmen and the bench: supplementary]:
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendments Nos. 48 and 49:
Page 8, line 24, leave out "14 and 15" and insert "10, 14, 15 and (Training, development and appraisal of lay justices)"
Page 8, line 25, leave out "14 or 15" and insert "10, 14, 15 or (Training, development and appraisal of lay justices)"
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 50:
After Clause 16, insert the following new clause—
"DUTY TO CONSULT LAY JUSTICES ON MATTERS AFFECTING THEM ETC.
The Lord Chancellor must take all reasonable and practicable steps—

(a) for ensuring that lay justices acting in a local just ice area are kept informed of matters affecting them in the performance of their duties, and

(b) for ascertaining their views on such matters."

On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 17 [Appointment etc.]:
Lord Bassam of Brighton Lord Bassam of Brighton moved Amendment No. 51:
Page 8, line 37, leave out from "1871 (c. 48)" to end of line 38.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 52 and 175.
Clauses 17 and 19 largely re-enact the provisions in the Justices of the Peace Act 1997 with regard to district judges (magistrates' courts) and deputy district judges (magistrates' courts). Subsection (2) of each clause provides that these judges may not take the oath of allegiance and the judicial oath before a lay justice. We have now clarified that this is already the position under the Promissory Oaths Act 1871, so that it is unnecessary for these clauses to say the same thing again.
Under Clause 19(2) a deputy district judge (magistrates' courts) may take the oaths before a district judge (magistrates' courts). This was the effect of the Bill providing that district judges (magistrates' courts) are to be judges of the Crown Court. On reflection, we think it preferable that both deputy district judges (magistrates' courts) and district judges (magistrates' courts)—and lay justices—should take the oaths before a judge of a higher rank; that is to say, a circuit judge or above. The amendment therefore removes paragraph (b) of Clause 19(2).
Finally, noble Lords will be heartened to know that we have taken the opportunity to update the wording of the 1871 Act, in the consequential amendments in Schedule 6. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 19 [Deputy District Judges (Magistrates' Courts)]:
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 52:
Page 9, line 16, leave out from "1871 (c. 48)" to end of line 19.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 22 [Justices' clerks and assistant clerks]:
Baroness Anelay of St Johns Baroness Anelay of St Johns moved Amendment No. 53:
Page 10, line 17, at end insert ", and
(c) appointed after consultation by the Lord Chancellor with the chairman or chairmen and deputy chairmen of the justices assigned to the local justice area or areas to which the Lord Chancellor intends to assign the justices' clerk."
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving this amendment, I shall speak also to my Amendment No. 55 and to government Amendment No. 54.
We return here to the theme of the importance of the relationship that is built up between the magistrates and their justices' clerk. It is a relationship built on mutual trust and is vital to the effective delivery of justice locally. We debated this matter at length in Committee.
Clause 22 gives total responsibility for the appointment of justices' clerks to the Lord Chancellor. In my amendments, both in Committee and today, we have not sought to remove or reduce that power. However, we do believe that, before making any appointment, the Lord Chancellor should consult the chairman and deputy chairman of the local justice area to which he intends to assign the justices' clerk. In my amendment, I also made allowance for the fact that the Lord Chancellor may assign the clerk to more than one local justice area. I hope that the amendment is modest and workable.
By virtue of Section 42(6) of the Justices of the Peace Act 1997, the local Bench of magistrates must currently be consulted concerning the appointment or removal of a justices' clerk for the area. The Government are removing that statutory consultation procedure and may place it in secondary legislation. We are rather left in doubt.
I return to the matter only because of our debate in Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, stated that his understanding was that the Government would ensure that proper consultation took place. He went on to say that there would be maximum consultation and that he just wanted to avoid anything going into the Bill. He did not specify what the Government would consider to be proper or maximum consultation. I tabled the amendment to secure clarification from the Government.
I shall be very brief on Amendment No. 55 simply because it is met—in spirit, at least—by the second half of government Amendment No. 54. That amendment, which is in the name of the Lord Chancellor, introduces new subsections (2A) and (2B), the latter of which addresses the kind of issues that I sought to address in Amendment No. 55. I welcome with open arms the first part of government Amendment No. 54. I could make too much of that but I shall not in case I scare it away from the Floor of the House.
The Government are to be congratulated on thinking further on this matter. It is always nice to see one's words return in the form of a government amendment. The original drafting was put together by non-lawyers and has been tidied up beautifully by the Government. I raised the matter in Committee and pressed it to a Division. Sadly, we lost the vote. The Government are to be congratulated on this occasion for listening to the 97 noble Lords who voted against the Government. I am glad that the Government thought that the views of those noble Lords should perhaps be paramount and tabled that amendment. I am delighted that it will be added to the Bill. I beg to move.
4 p.m.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I shall begin with Amendment No. 54. It will place on a statutory footing the assurances that I endeavoured to provide in Committee; namely, that justices' clerks will be assigned to local areas and that the local Bench chairman or deputy chairmen will be consulted before the Lord Chancellor changes a clerk's assignment and assigns him or her to another area.
My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor proposed the amendment. Its principal effect will be to put beyond doubt the fact that justices' clerks will be assigned to local areas, and confirm the duty on him of consultation.
We have listened carefully to the persuasive arguments put forward in your Lordships' House. My noble friend Lady Scotland met representatives from the Justices' Clerks' Society. The society's main concern was a perceived threat to the independence of its members. It has been argued that the Bill as drafted could give the Lord Chancellor free rein to move a justices' clerk around the country pretty much at will if he did not like the advice that that clerk was giving. Despite the assurances we have given that that will not happen in practice, I well understand the society's concerns.

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I also reaffirm that the Government have a regard for the close relationship that can exist between Benches of magistrates and their justices' clerks. Amendment No. 54 addresses those concerns by requiring the Lord Chancellor to assign clerks to specific areas and to consult the local Bench before changing a clerk's assignment. The Lord Chancellor would not, therefore, have the alleged free rein to move clerks at will. I can confirm with some confidence that the Justices' Clerks' Society is happy with the changes that we are proposing. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, nods her head in assent.
We were grateful for the important debate that we had last time and, as the noble Baroness said, to the 97 who have, despite losing the vote, prevailed on this occasion by persuading us of the strength of their feelings and the merit of their argument. In light of that and the amendment that we have tabled, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment. I will move Amendment No. 54 at the appropriate time.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I shall not detain the Government for long after this agreement across the Chamber. I am aware—and want to state this clearly and not simply by nodding my head—that the Justices' Clerks' Society welcomes the government amendment. I will not proceed with my amendment. I place on the record my thanks to the Justices' Clerks' Society for its briefings throughout the passage of the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Bassam of Brighton Lord Bassam of Brighton moved Amendment No. 54:
Page 10, line 22, at end insert—
"(2A) The Lord Chancellor—

(a) must assign each justices' clerk to one or more local justice areas, and

(b) subject to subsection (2B), may change an assignment so as to assign the justices' clerk to a different local justice area or to different local justice areas.

(2B) Before changing an assignment of a justices' clerk so that he is no longer assigned to a local justice area, the Lord Chancellor must consult—

(a) the chairman of the lay justices assigned to that area, or

(b) if it is not possible or not practicable to consult the chairman, the deputy chairman or such of the lay justices assigned to or acting in the area as appear to the Lord Chancellor appropriate."

On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 55 not moved.]
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 56:
Page 10, line 25, leave out "arrangements made by him under" and insert "a contract made by virtue of
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 23 [Functions]:
Baroness Anelay of St Johns Baroness Anelay of St Johns moved Amendment No. 57:
Page 11 line 19, leave out subsection (7).
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the amendment relates to Clause 23, which covers the functions of justices' clerks. When we debated this matter in Committee, my noble and learned friend Lord Mayhew suggested to the Minister that subsection (7) was superfluous. He said:
"Subsection (7) seems entirely superfluous. The subsection relates to subsections (4) and (5). Subsection (4) begins:
'The functions of a justices' clerk include'.
"Subsection (5) begins:
'The powers of a justices' clerk include'.
"Therefore, of course those subsections,
'do not limit … the powers and duties of a justices' clerk or … the matters on which justices of the peace may obtain assistance from their clerk"'.—[Official Report, 10/2/03; col. 499.]
As my noble and learned friend said, in any Bill it is worth saving some space. I tabled the amendment to seek clarification from the Minister and to establish whether she has subsequently sought advice on the matter. If so, with what result? I beg to move.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, Clause 23 remodels Section 45 of the Justices of the Peace Act 1997. It makes no changes to the powers or functions of justices' clerks or their assistants.
The noble Baroness proposes an amendment to Clause 23. The purpose of the amendment would be to delete subsection (7). As she said, that point was first raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew. He queried the need for subsection (7) and my noble friend Lady Scotland responded in a letter to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, following up points raised in Committee on 10th and 11th February. That correspondence was copied to noble Lords who took part in the debate.
As was explained at the time, Clause 23(7) is based on what is currently Section 45(7) of the Justices of the Peace Act 1997 and, before that, Section 28(4) of the Justices of the Peace Act 1979. Subsections (4) and (5) of Clause 23 and Section 45 of the 1997 Act set out the functions and powers of justices' clerks. Those are not exhaustive lists; that is reflected by the appearance of the word "include" in both subsections.
It could be argued that subsection (7) appears to be superfluous. However, it puts beyond doubt the fact that subsections (4) and (5) do not contain exhaustive lists. Given that that formulation has stood us well for 24 years, we are reluctant to change it now. Indeed, it could be argued that by removing the section it may be taken to have more meaning than is currently intended; for example, someone may argue that notwithstanding the use of "include" in subsections (4) and (5) the purpose must have been that those subsections limit the functions and powers of clerks. I hope that that explanation helps and that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Lord Borrie: My Lords, I did not find that answer very convincing. The Minister repeated what the proposer of the amendment said: that both subsections (4) and (5) use the word "include"; therefore on the face of the clause it is clear that those are not exhaustive as to the functions or

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the powers of the justices' clerk. No doubt the historical references of my noble friend are correct, but they are not convincing as to why we should continue with superfluous words in 2003.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I am grateful for the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Borrie. I have to agree with him. I am not convinced and, to be honest, I am also more confused than I was in the first place. As it is a matter that was primarily raised by my noble and learned friend Lord Mayhew, I am duty bound to withdraw the amendment today and to ask my noble and learned friend whether he wants to seek further clarification of the obfuscation by the time we get to Third Reading. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.15 p.m.
Clause 25 [Places, dates and times of sittings]:
Baroness Anelay of St Johns Baroness Anelay of St Johns moved Amendment No. 58:
Page 11, line 42, at end insert—
"( ) In exercising his powers under subsection (1), the Lord Chancellor shall have regard to the need to ensure that court-houses are locally accessible by persons resident in each local justice area."
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the objective of the amendment is to require the Lord Chancellor to have regard to the needs of local residents to be able to have reasonably straightforward access to a magistrates' court. Clause 25 gives the Lord Chancellor the power to direct when and where magistrates' courts shall sit. The Explanatory Notes tell us that,
"This would allow magistrates' courts' business to be conducted at any place in England and Wales".
That brings the magistrates' courts in line with other courts.
That makes it possible for the Lord Chancellor to control sittings of magistrates' courts within the unified courts administration set up by the Bill. It gives him considerable flexibility in deciding where magistrates' courts shall sit or whether they should sit at all. I am not against such flexibility, certainly when it is used constructively and not merely as a cost-cutting measure. I can see that in some circumstances it could lead to a magistrates' court being given the chance to sit in an area where one had previously been closed down, perhaps by being directed to sit in another court building that has survived court closures—a Crown or county court. So there could be advantages to that procedure.
The problem is that such flexibility in the hands of a centralised bureaucracy, as set up under the Bill, could tempt a future cost-cutter—forbid that we should consider the current incumbent of that office as such—to close down even more magistrates' courts on the basis that one could hold the court in a Crown Court building further away and people could travel that little further without too much difficulty or cost to the individual.
We must ensure that flexibility is used to make courthouses at least as accessible as they are now, and if possible more accessible. In the past the Lord Chancellor has sought to avoid the blame for court closures by pointing out that technically the magistrates' courts committees give sanction for the closure of a court. In future, under the Bill, it will clearly be his responsibility.
This clause could open up the way for further reductions in magistrates' courts venues unless we make it clear on the face of the Bill that the Lord Chancellor should consider access for residents in local justice areas. I am not proposing anything that is mandatory or prescriptive: he has only to consider the matters. I hope to impose that clarity on the face of the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I support the amendment. I have three points to make of a purely practical kind. First, these days one-way traffic causes people to travel quite long distances in a city or a town. Therefore we must ensure that courts are not placed in positions where people can get to them only by a roundabout route if they are in a vehicle or a taxi.
Secondly, many people will have to arrive in vehicles as they may be disabled or they may have to carry a number of books and other things for their court attendance—that applies particularly to barristers and solicitors. Therefore there must be a suitable stopping place in front of the court building where people can park for a few moments while they get in or out of a vehicle.
Thirdly—this point follows my second point—it would be highly desirable, if feasible, for a good many vehicles to be parked quite close to the court. I know that that will not always be easy. I have some experience of the courts in London and I know that many of them have no parking facilities whatever—indeed no easy stopping place close to the court. A standard example is Bow Street which is fairly close to here. There is no pavement outside and taxis cannot wait there for long.
I hope that the Government will do their best to overcome that problem. I grant that it will not always be easy, but I hope that strenuous efforts will be made to deal with it.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, on behalf of these Benches I am happy to support the amendment. Few matters have caused more concern in respect of court administration over recent years than the closure of magistrates' courts, particularly in rural areas where the alternative is often to travel some 20 or 30 miles to the nearest town. We believe it is of the highest importance that justice, particularly in magistrates' courts, should be local. That is in the interests of all concerned. It is in the interests of the defendants and more importantly in the interests of the victims and other witnesses. It is in everyone's interest that they should have access to a court reasonably close to where they live and should not be compelled to travel what are in some cases substantial distances to the nearest magistrates' court. Given the large number of cases

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that are dealt with by magistrates' courts, we believe that the Lord Chancellor should be required to bear that in mind.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, the measures in the Bill and in the Licensing Bill should make courts more accessible by removing restrictions as to where magistrates' courts may sit and by allowing the use of non-court buildings where appropriate. Giving the new unified administration control of the entire court estate will also afford greater opportunities for co-location of county courts within magistrates' courts in rural areas. I take on board what the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, said about the difficulties that have been caused by the movement of courts and what the noble Lord, Lord Renton, said about the difficulties with traffic and matters of that kind.
The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, proposes an amendment to Clause 25. It will require the Lord Chancellor, when directing places at which magistrates' courts may sit, to have regard to the need to ensure that courthouses are locally accessible by persons resident in each local justice area. The amendment is similar in nature to Amendment No. 56 which the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, moved in Committee.
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising again such an important issue. I say straightaway that I understand her concerns. However, as my noble friend Lord Bassam said in Committee on 10th February, improved access to local courts can he achieved by unifying the administration of the courts. That will allow better use of the court estate. For example, we have identified around 70 county courts where there is potential for co-location of hearings with magistrates' courts. Joint use will make those courts more viable than maintaining under-used facilities that might otherwise be threatened with closure.
As my noble friend Lord Bassam also made clear, the rural White Paper of 2000 ensures that rural needs are taken into account as part of the formal policy-making process from April 2001 onwards. The Lord Chancellor would have to have regard to this rural-proofing process when making directions under this clause.
Furthermore, provisions in Clause 25 and elsewhere in the Bill and the Licensing Bill, currently in another place, will remove statutory restrictions on where magistrates' courts can sit. That will introduce greater flexibility and allow the use of non-court buildings in local areas where appropriate. Certainly, one can see how that might be useful if there were specific difficulties which needed to be overcome and which could be best met by having a local point at which to resolve matters.
The Lord Chancellor will take into account the ease of access to a court. He is required, for example, to ensure access for the disabled under the Disability Discrimination Act.
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In order to help, I conclude by saying that we hope that the agency will be a platform for other improvements. For example, we are conKdering whether we can increase the number of places where civil and family hearings take place, possibly by as many as 30 to 40 outlets to make access more convenient. We shall consult court users and other stakeholders on that issue later this year.
In Committee, a number of noble Lords said that there have been cases where, if co-location had occurred, certain courts would not have closed and a valuable resource would have been retained for the people in that area and the local community. We concur with that view. Therefore, this gives us the opportunity to look at the needs of each locality and try as best we can to use the court estate to its best effect. In view of what I have said, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Renton and the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, for their support, and to the Minister for her careful response. I agree entirely with her, as I hope I expressed in my opening remarks. that if there is flexibility and proper use of the estate, then the provisions in the Bill could open up—she used the term "co-location"—more opportunities. My concern is to have clarity on the face of the Bill and to bring together the guarantees and the different parts, whether it is rural-proofing—I am not too sure what the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, would make of "rural-proofing", but that is for another day—or whatever.
Of course Front-Benchers are not allowed to have a personal view. However, if I were allowed such a personal view, I would have to say that I am very passionate about the matter of access. It is because I have that passion for access that I believe that I should test the opinion of the House on the amendment today.
4.25 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 58) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 90; Not-Contents, 89.

Division No. 3

CONTENTS

Addington, L.

Buscombe, B.

Alderdice, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Alton of Liverpool, L.

Clement-Jones, L.

Ampthill, L.

Colwyn, L.

Anelay of St Johns, B.

Cope of Berkeley, L. [Teller]

Astor of Hever, L.

Craig of Radley, L.

Avebury, L.

Craigavon, V.

Barker, B.

Crickhowell, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Dixon-Smith, L.

Biffen, L.

Ezra, L.

Blatch, B.

Ferrers, E.

Bradshaw, L.

Finlay of Llandaff, B.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Flather, B.

Burnham, L.

Fookes, B.

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Geraint, L.

Roberts of Conwy, L.

Goodhart, L.

Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.

Harris of Peckham, L.

Roper, L.

Harris of Richmond, B.

Russell, E.

Holme of Cheltenham, L.

St. John of Bletso, L.

Howe, E.

Sandberg, L.

Howe of Idlicote, B.

Sandwich, E.

Hurd of Westwell, L.

Seccombe, B. [Teller]

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Selsdon, L.

Kirkham, L.

Sharp of Guildford, B.

Lester of Herne Hill, L.

Shaw of Northstead, L.

Luke, L.

Shrewsbury, E.

Lyell, L.

Shutt of Greetland, L.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

Skehnersdale, L.

McNally, L.

Smith of Clifton, L.

Maddock, B.

Stewartby, L.

Marlesford, L.

Strathdyde, L.

Mayhew of Twysden, L.

Swinfen, L.

Methuen, L.

Tebbit, L.

Molyneaux of Killead, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Monson, L.

Thomas of Walliswood, B.

Newby, L.

Tope, L.

Noakes, B.

Tordoff, L.

Northover, B.

Ullswater, V.

Norton of Louth, L.

Vivian, L.

Phillips of Sudbury, L.

Wakeham, L.

Rawlings, B.

Walmsley, B.

Razzall, L.

Weatherill, L.

Redesdale, L.

Wigoder, L.

Rennard, L.

Willoughby de Broke, L.

Renton, L.

Windlesham, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Haskel, L.

Ahmed, L.

Hayman, B.

Amos, B.

Heaky, L.

Andrews, B.

Hollick, L.

Archer of Sandwell, L.

Ashley of Stoke, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Ashton of Upholland, B.

Howells of St. Davids, B.

Bach, L.

Hoyle, L.

Bassam of Brighton, L. [Teller]

Hughes of Woodside, L.

Berkeley, L.

Irvine of Lairg, L. (Lord Chancellor)

Bernstein of Craigweil, L.

Billingham, B.

Judd, L.

Blackstone, B.

King of West Bromwich, L.

Borrie, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Brett, L.

Layard, L.

Brooke of Alverthorpe, L.

Lea of Crondall, L.

Brookman, L.

Burlison, L.

Lipsey, L.

Carter, L.

Macdonald of Tradeston, L.

Clarke of Hampstead, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Clinton-Davis, L.

MacKenzie of Culkein, L.

Crawley, B.

Mackenzie of Framwellgate, L.

Davies of Coity, L.

Massey of Darwen, B.

Davies of Oldham, L.

Merlyn-Rees, L.

Desai, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Mishcon, L.

Dubs, L.

Mitchell, L.

Elder, L.

Evans of Parkside, L.

Morris of Manchester, L.

Evans of Temple Guiting, L.

Ouseley, L.

Evans of Watford, L.

Pitkeathley, B.

Falconer of Thoroton, L.

Ramsay of Cartvale, B.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Rendell of Babergh, B.

Fyfe of Fairfield, L.

Rooker, L.

Gale, B.

Sainsbury of Turville, L.

Gavron, L.

Scotland of Asthal, B.

Gibson of Market Rasen, B.

Gordon of Strathblane, L.

Sewel, L.

Goudie, B.

Sheldon, L.

Gould of Potternewton, B.

Simon, V.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Stone of Blackheath, L.

Grocott, L. [Teller]

Strabolgi, L.

1254

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Whitaker, B.

Turner of Camden, B.

Whitty, L.

Walker of Doncaster, L.

Wilkins, B.

Warwick of Undercliffe, B.

Williams of Mostyn, L. (Lord Privy Seal)

Wedderburn of Charlton, L.

Woolmer of Leeds, L.

Resolved in the affirmative, and amendment agreed to accordingly.
4.35 p.m.
Lord Bassam of Brighton Lord Bassam of Brighton moved Amendment No. 59:
Page 12, line 2, after "distribution" insert "and transfer"
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 59, 102 and 103 clarify that a magistrates' court transferring a criminal or civil matter to another magistrates' court must have regard to directions made by the Lord Chancellor, with the concurrence of the Lord Chief Justice, under Clause 25(2). That will ensure, in particular, that when deciding whether to transfer a criminal matter, the magistrates' court takes account of the needs of victims, witnesses and other interested parties.
The principal effect of the amendments would be to put beyond doubt that the directions to be made by the Lord Chancellor will cover the transfer as well as the distribution of general business of the magistrates' courts.
I am sure that all noble Lords present today will recall that in Committee, on Amendment No. 73, which was tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Kingsland and Lord Hunt, I confirmed, as the Minister speaking for the Government, that I would table an amendment to Clause 25. Amendment No. 73 would have amended Clause 41 to require a magistrates' court to hear representations from all parties before transferring a criminal matter. At that stage, I said that the amendment was unnecessary, given the provisions of Clause 25(4), which states that the directions to be made under Clause 25(2) may, in particular, require the court to take account of where the offence was committed, where the witnesses or the majority of witnesses reside, or where the person charged with the offence resides. However, on reflection, I said that we would consider Clause 25(2) again. I also acknowledged that the wording could perhaps be improved or clarified to refer to "the transfer" as well as "the distribution" of the business of magistrates' courts. Happily, I can tell the House that Amendment No. 59 makes that change.
Amendments Nos. 102 and 103 introduce new subsections to Clauses 41 and 43 which make clear that the power to transfer criminal or civil proceedings under these clauses must be exercised in accordance with any directions made under Clause 25(2).
With that careful explanation of why we have tabled the amendment at this stage, I hope that noble Lords will be happy with what the Government have done. I beg to move.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his further reflection on those matters. They arose as a result of an amendment tabled and moved by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 31 [Fines officers]:
Lord Bassam of Brighton Lord Bassam of Brighton moved Amendment No. 60:
Page 14, line 36, leave out "(whenever passed)"
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I will deal with all the amendments in this group together, as they all flow from the clarification of the meaning of "enactment" introduced by Amendment No. 160 to Clause 97. That amendment introduces to the Bill a definition of "enactment" to ensure that there is no doubt that the word also includes subordinate legislation and that it refers to an enactment whenever passed or made. The amendment also makes clear that the clauses dealing with Northern Ireland are also included.
The other amendments in the group all flow from that amendment. Amendments Nos. 60 and 85 simply remove the words "whenever passed" where they appear after the word "enactment" in those clauses. Amendments Nos. 114 and 122 both remove the words "whenever passed" and ensure that those provisions also refer to revoking an enactment. As noble Lords will no doubt know, "revoke" is the correct term when referring to subordinate legislation. Amendments Nos. 129 and 157 simply ensure that reference is included to revoking an enactment. This is a technical drafting matter. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Seccombe Baroness Seccombe moved Amendment No. 61:
Page 15, line 4, leave out "Schedule 2, or"
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 62 and 63.
This is the first amendment on the important issue of tines. The Bill enables the Lord Chancellor to amend the operation of the fines collection scheme that is being piloted. That means that the scheme that will ultimately be implemented may bear little resemblance to the one debated in the House. The amendment would delete the power of the Lord Chancellor to modify or alter Schedule 2 without the approval of Parliament.
We realise that the scheme must have some flexibility in order to produce the best possible scheme to be implemented. However, we feel that the Bill allows too much. Allowing fines officers to have a quasi-judicial function is a large step, and it must be monitored. It is vital that we do not blur the line between administration and the Bench. The European Convention on Human Rights requires punishment to be imposed by an independent and impartial tribunal, after a fair and public hearing. The Bill could be interpreted as not complying with that requirement. I beg to move.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, we support the amendment. If we are to come up with a schedule that is substantially modified, as compared with that which appears in the Bill, there ought to be a proper parliamentary procedure, involving affirmative rather than negative resolution.
4.45 p.m.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, the provisions of Clause 31 are necessary if we are to implement the best possible fines collection scheme. By piloting different elements of the scheme in different areas, we will ensure that the effectiveness of the new measures can be evaluated. We will then be able to adjust any parts of the scheme that are found to be ineffective and put to Parliament for approval a package of tried and trusted measures for national roll-out.
Amendments Nos. 61 and 62, in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Anelay of St Johns and Lady Seccombe, would prevent the modification of Schedule 2 before or after the pilot schemes for which Clause 31 allows. Amendment No. 63 would make the regulations setting out the detail of the fines collection scheme subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. I am grateful to the noble Baronesses for raising again the important issue of appropriate parliamentary scrutiny. I understand their concern to ensure that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, said so eloquently on the previous occasion,
"what we see is what we get".—[Official Report, 10/2/03; col 510.]
The Bill provides for the use of the negative resolution procedure for the details of the pilots and, subsequently, the affirmative resolution procedure for the entire package, as determined in the light of the pilots. Thus, the scheme finally arrived at will receive full parliamentary scrutiny. However, as I said in Committee on 10th February—I refer noble Lords to col. 511 of Hansard—the provision in Clause 31(5), which allows modifications of Schedule 2, is necessary if we are to get full value from the pilots. As several noble Lords made plain during the debates, the enforcement measures are a significant departure from existing practice, and the Government believe that they should be thoroughly tested before implementation. Amendment No. 61 would remove the flexibility to test different parts of the scheme in different areas, defeating the point of having a pilot scheme.
The Government are further considering how to develop the arrangements. We are considering whether to add to the scheme by making wider use of attachment of earnings and deductions from benefits in the fines collection scheme, particularly for offenders with a track record of default. We are also considering whether to create a new offence penalising those who fail to provide means information and/or the financial details necessary to allow an attachment order to be made. In the light of such considerations, I give the House early warning that we may introduce further amendments to the schedule in another place. Noble Lords will, of course, have the opportunity to consider them in due course.
In addition, the Home Office is examining the feasibility of alternative sentences, including unpaid work instead of fines in particular circumstances. If the new amendments and alternative sentences are taken forward—I say "if" because it is right for the House to be apprised of the fact that that is within contemplation

1257
and is likely to occur after the Bill leaves this place—they will need to be piloted along with those already set out in Schedule 2.
Under the current provisions, once the pilot schemes have been evaluated, the Lord Chancellor may make an order under Clause 31(8) modifying Schedule 2 and associated legislation, in the light of experience gained. Amendment No. 62 would remove that power. The effect would be that, even if an element of the scheme were found to be ineffective or unworkable, it would have to remain in the scheme, because it would be impossible to modify or remove it. I cannot believe that that is what noble Lords on the Benches opposite or the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, would wish. Furthermore, any temporary alterations to existing enactments in connection with the operation of the pilots would not be made permanent. That would render the whole scheme unworkable on implementation.
As the scheme stands, any permanent modifications to Schedule 2 and/or existing enactments would be subject to affirmative resolution by virtue of Clause 98 before the scheme was rolled out nationally. We would have an opportunity to taste and see if it was good. If it was good, we could bring it back to the House, which would have the opportunity to consider it using the affirmative resolution procedure. If it were not satisfactory, we would not have to proceed with it. We would have a basis on which this House and another place would be able to make an informed decision. That is the better way.
Amendment No. 63 would go further, by making any regulations on fine enforcement made under the Bill subject to affirmative resolution. As I made clear in Committee, the Government do not believe that the detailed arrangements for the Schedule 2 pilots should require a high level of parliamentary scrutiny. That view was accepted by the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform, which found that making the power for fines regulation subject to negative resolution represented appropriate delegation and the correct level of parliamentary control.
The Government understand the concerns expressed about modifications to the scheme without explicit consent through affirmative resolution, but the Bill already prevents the fines collection scheme from being implemented nationally, unless Parliament has approved the final scheme in that way.
In the light of what I said—it was as clear an explanation as I could muster—I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment. The scheme that we have set out provides the House and another place with the clarity and opportunity that they, rightly, should have.
Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, for his support. We are in a whole new world of human rights legislation, so there is much to consider. I thank the noble Baroness for her very detailed reply and her explanation of the new
1258
thinking in the Lord Chancellor's Department. It may be enough for us not to bring the amendment back at Third Reading, but because there is so much in what she said, we should like to consider. However, at this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 62 and 63 not moved.]
Baroness Seccombe Baroness Seccombe moved Amendment No. 64:
After Clause 31, insert the following new clause—
"POWER OF THE COURT TO ORDER FINES OFFICERS TO REPORT BACK TO COURT
A magistrates' court may require a fines officer to report to it on the conduct of any case."
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, we are very concerned about the removal of powers from magistrates to fines officers. Currently, there is nothing in the Bill to ensure that magistrates can keep control of a case and exercise their judicial function rather than handing it over to the fines officers. We were told by the Minister in Committee that the court may reserve a case to itself by not making a matter subject to the fines collection scheme or that a fines officer simply can refer a case back to a court. However, there is nothing in the Bill to state this.
We are particularly concerned with the issue of a court being able to keep control of a case when the punishment will concern a clamping order. If such an order needs to be made, it should be made by the magistrate or the judge concerned with the case. It is imperative that magistrates keep judicial control of a case even where it is useful to use the functions of a fines officer. Again, this relates to the issue of human rights. It makes sense to include in the Bill provisions for magistrates to keep control of a case and manage the fine even if they are not dealing with the administration. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: My Lords, in this Bill we are dealing with a new and very unusual power. Although I support the amendment proposed by my noble friend as far as it goes, I say with deep respect to her and to my noble friend Lady Anelay that the proposed new clause does not go far enough. I think that instead of it just being an enabling power, it ought to be an automatically compulsory power. In other words, it should read:
"The fines officer shall report to the court on each case".
After all, the court was responsible for fines in each case and has the right and responsibility to consider what has been done in each case. Therefore, I very much hope that at Third Reading—even if this amendment is accepted by the Government now—we could have an even stronger provision.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, of course I hear the anxiety expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Renton, and, indeed, by the noble Baroness. I hope that I shall reassure noble Lords that that anxiety is misplaced. The fines collection scheme is designed to reduce the burden on judicial and court time by transferring administrative responsibilities—the collection of fines—to the fines

1259
officers. There is nothing in these provisions or in the scheme to prevent the court from monitoring particular cases if that is thought by the court to be desirable. So there is nothing in the provisions which would prevent the court from saying, on any given case, precisely what it requires of the fines officer; precisely under what conditions it would expect to have the matter referred back to it for consideration; and keeping control of any individual case in a manner which it deems to be appropriate and specific to the needs of that case.
Noble Lords will know that there is a wide variety in the nature of cases and defendants who come before the court. Some come for the first time; some come after having many appearances. The court has to make an assessment as to the most appropriate way of dealing with each case and fashion both the sentence and the methodology adopted to that particular case. To require each and every case to be referred back to the magistrates may put an unnecessary burden upon them which they would not seek themselves.
The new clause after Clause 31 proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, would allow the court to place a requirement on the fines officer. Although I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising such an important issue and I understand her concerns, in responding to a similar amendment in Committee tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Kingsland and Lord Hunt of Wirral, I made it clear that the fines officer can refer the case back to the court at any time. There is also nothing to prevent the court from stipulating at point of sentencing that it wishes the fines officer to report back on the progress of a particular case within the fines collection scheme, if that is thought desirable. In addition, I should add that the court can take the matter back if the offender asks for the matter to be referred after a discretionary decision of a fines officer.
We suggest that the right balance is as currently structured. I draw the attention of the noble Baroness to paragraph 8 of Schedule 2 which provides that the offender can appeal to the court against the fines officer's decision. Therefore, we suggest that this amendment is unnecessary.
Lord Renton: My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, she referred to the opportunity of the court to get a report from the fines officer. The decision that the court would have to make as to whether to ask for that information surely would place a much bigger burden on the court than just being told what has happened in each case. Would that not simplify matters?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I should emphasise—the noble Lord, Lord Renton, will know—that the fines officer will be an officer of the court. There will be a record kept of what happens in relation to each and every case, and the court will be seized of that information. I was seeking to make clear that when a magistrate comes to hear a particular case, the magistrate is, in accordance with propriety, told about the background of the defendant and the nature of the case, and makes the informed decision as to the most appropriate sentence.
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It is open to the magistrates to say the precise basis upon which they are making the order, what they wish the fines officer to do and, if they so desire, the events which would trigger the matter coming back to them for further consideration. All that is perfectly possible under the scheme. It allows the magistrates to choose those cases which they find troubling or concerning, where they think that opportunity should be seized themselves. Of course it is open, too, to the defendant, if he disagrees with the way in which the discretion is being discharged, to have the matter referred back to the magistrates for them to look at it also. Therefore, it meets the needs of both parties in that regard.
We think that it would enable the fines officers to be of great assistance to the magistracy in discharging their duty. The administrative reduction of the burden would be welcome. It is not meant in any way to take away the primary role and function that the magistrates will have to impose the sentence and to manage the case.
5 p.m.
Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that detailed explanation. In my experience, when defendants appear before the court for sentencing and a fine is imposed, at that stage, almost all are optimistic about how they will pay it. They agree readily to pay the fine within 28 days. However, I am concerned that if that fails and a defendant does not pay the fine, even when instructed to do so by instalments, the fines officer is then able to issue a clamping order. That action changes the character of the case. At that point, I should have thought that the court ought to be able to look again at the case and make the order, rather than leaving that power to the fines officer.
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Renton for his suggestion. We feel that there is much to consider before Third Reading, but for the moment I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 65 not moved.]
Schedule 2 [Collection of fines by fines officers]:
Lord Goodhart Lord Goodhart moved Amendment No. 66:
Page 61, line 34, leave out sub-paragraphs (2) and (31 and insert—
"(2) Interest shall be payable from the date of default on the amount of the fine for the time being unpaid at the rate of interest payable on judgment debts."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this large group of amendments, most of which are consequential, deals with one issue; that is, instead of being faced with a lump-sum increase in the fine, a defaulter should be required to pay interest on it.
Paragraph 9 of Schedule 2 to the Bill provides for a once-and-for-all increase in the fine in the case of default. Such "default" means that a person has failed to pay the fine on the date when it was due. The purpose of the amendments is to replace that once-and-for-all liability of the defaulter to an increase in

1261
the fine with a running liability to pay an increase which will accrue from day to day while the fine remains unpaid.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for giving way. Does any other enactment include a provision of the kind now being proposed?
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, not that I am aware of, but I am also not aware of any other legislation that provides for a fine to be increased on default.
Under paragraph 6 of Schedule 2, a discount can be made available for payment made in due time. That is perfectly acceptable. It is a principle already used quite widely as regards, for example, parking fines. A discount is available for prompt payment. But paragraph 9—while I am not sure whether it is unique, it is certainly highly unusual—provides for an increase on default. In effect, it duplicates paragraph 6 by providing that if the fine is paid on time, the discount is available, but if the fine is not paid on time, not only is the discount lost, but potentially one becomes liable to an increase.
Although I would like the Minister to confirm it, I assume that the amount of the increase will be fixed by the regulations and will not be a matter left to the discretion of the fines officer. However, under paragraph 11 the fines officer will have the power to waive or reduce the amount of the increase.
I suggest that that is the wrong approach. A substantial increase on the default, over and above the loss of the discount, may create hardship. Furthermore, a one-off increase presents no further incentive for the defaulter to pay thereafter. I believe that it would be better to impose a more gentle increase, but one that would keep on running until the date of payment. Such an increase would be interest. I suggest that the appropriate rate of interest would be the rate of interest due by statute on judgment debts. It would be simple interest, of course, and I do not believe that it would be a problem for the fines officer to calculate the amount of interest and then to tell the defaulter what is due.
That would be a fairer and better way of achieving the result that the Government intend and which we support; that is, of ensuring that someone who defaults on the payment of a fine is not left unscathed by the delay. However, for the reasons I have set out, I think that this would be a better method than the one that has been chosen by the Government. I beg to move.
Lord Clinton-Davis: I am not disposed to speak against the idea that has been proposed, but I do not think that, in practice, it should be encouraged. My uncertainty stems from the fact that, while a reduction in the fine as envisaged in the Bill serves as an incentive to prompt payment, the aspect that has been outlined by the noble Lord is rather uncertain. In my view, that uncertainty is inimical to the purposes of the legislation.
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The proposal adumbrated by the noble Lord is not totally foreign to my views, but having regard to what I have said, I think that the element of uncertainty that would be introduced is something that should not be encouraged. However, I shall wait to hear what my noble friend has to say in response.
Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, we on these Benches support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart. I shall cite my experience once again. Those who do not pay their fines usually have a string of other debts, and it is for that reason that they do not pay their fines either. However, they avoid paying fines for an added reason: their other debts do increase as a result of interest being added to them. So, naturally, the debt that is pushed to the bottom of the pile is the fine.
We believe that it would be helpful to have such a form of—how can one put it?—incentive so that fine defaulters will know where they stand. Their fines will be put in the same position as any other form of debt.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I seem to be repeating these words rather often today, but I do understand the concerns that lie behind this issue. Perhaps I may go through how we have sought properly to address it.
Amendments Nos. 66 to 79, 82 and 84 tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Goodhart and Lord Thomas of Gresford, would replace the existing arrangements set out in Schedule 2 to the Bill which allow for an increase in the fine on default, with a regime of charging interest on the fine for every day that any amount of it remains unpaid. It is that point which we believe would be quite difficult, because interest rates may or, indeed, will change. Calculations made on a day-to-day basis may prove to be a challenge. I shall amplify on that later in my remarks.
I am pleased that we now have the opportunity to debate this issue. It was raised both at Second Reading and in my letter of 23rd December, when I touched on it in response to the points then made. The subject was raised again in Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, and by the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe.
The Government understand the concerns which have prompted these amendments. They seek, first, to ensure that the fines officer does not, by activating an increase in the fine upon default, stray into judicial territory and, secondly, to ensure that the defaulter can repay the fine at a more reasonable rate rather than facing a single uplift.
The Government have taken great care to ensure that the fines officer does not have the power to alter the decision of the court. It is for the court to make a collection order under Schedule 2. The fines officer then exercises discretion within the constraints of that order. The fines officer has no power to determine the level of the increase. Thus I can reassure the noble

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Lord, Lord Goodhart, that the amount of the increase will be fixed by regulations and will not be set at the discretion of the fines officer. The increase is an automatic consequence of default under the terms of the collection order, which will be waived on subsequent co-operation.
The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, mentioned the issue of fixed penalty fines for road traffic offences. He will know that there are provisions that, just as you can get a discount for prompt payment, there can be an increase for delayed payment. So this is not a novel departure.
The level of increase will be set in the regulations made by the Lord Chancellor and expressed as a percentage of the original fine. The proposed pilot schemes will enable the effectiveness of different levels of increase to be assessed, and we shall consult the magistrates' courts community before the level that will apply to the final scheme is set.
Of course, measures already exist allowing for interest to be levied on unpaid confiscation orders under Section 10 of the Drug Trafficking Act 1994—which is due to be replaced by Section 12 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002—but applying such a model to fine enforcement would have a number of disadvantages.
First, the procedure would be administratively complex. The fines officer would have to perform a fresh calculation whenever it became necessary to check the amount outstanding, whether for the purpose of reminding the defaulter of the sum now due or for the purpose of ensuring that the amount owed, plus interest, has been accounted for. Both the fines officer and the offender would, in effect, be attempting to hit a moving target.
There would be enormous scope for confusion and for appeals arising from disputed calculations. The likelihood of small over-payments or under-payments could not be ruled out and would give rise to onerous administrative work for court staff, greatly increasing the running cost of the scheme. Calculating the interest daily would be a huge amount of work for even very small sums of money. For example, on a £100 fine, the interest at a rate of 8 per cent per annum is £8 per year, or just over 2p per day.
Of course similar drawbacks may be said to apply to charging interest on confiscation orders. However, the number of cases of confiscation orders in default and where interest is charged is considerably lower than the number of fines in default. In 2000, 836 confiscation orders were made in relation to drug trafficking offences; in the same year, more than 1 million fines were imposed. Furthermore, the sums involved in confiscation orders are often considerably higher than the average fine. In 2000, the average confiscation order was just under £6,000; the average fine was £143.
The administrative burden that the noble Lord's proposals would impose would not be inconsiderable. I agree with my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis that such uncertainty and variation should not be encouraged.
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The amendments set no ceiling on the amount of interest that could be charged. In extreme cases this could lead to defaulters owing sums that they were simply unable to pay. There is a danger that this could lead to a disinclination to face up to the problem, pushing the defaulter into taking out further credit or causing him to commit further crimes in order to raise the money. There may also be disputes over the period the fine has been outstanding, especially in courts where there are not the facilities to accept immediate cash payments.
I take on board the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, about making sure that there is an incentive for the fines not to be pushed to the bottom of the pile and for other debts to take precedence. We believe that the scheme we propose will achieve this without the undue complexity of the calculations envisaged in the amendment.
As it stands, Schedule 2 allows for a single increase upon default. This will be a percentage of the original fine, restricted to a maximum of 50 per cent. That is a far simpler calculation for the fines officer. It sets a limit on the amount that could fall to be paid by the defaulter, and the defaulter will know immediately how much extra he will have to pay in consequence of default or could avoid paying by compliance.
Finally, the 50 per cent set in the legislation for increase and discount are maximums designed to limit the Lord Chancellor's power. There is no presumption that the actual figures used will be 50 per cent or that the percentage discount will necessarily be the same as the percentage increase. We hope that the pilots will enable us to determine the optimum percentage.
We understand the concerns expressed but we believe that the noble Lord's proposals are far more complex than the measures we propose. The pilots will assist us to see whether we have got it right and, in accordance with the other issues, we shall be able to assess and make further comment through the procedures I have outlined. With those assurances, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, the noble Baroness's arguments against our proposals do not really bear close examination. In particular, that applies to the argument that it will be very difficult to calculate such interest. My view is that any competent fines officer should be able to do the calculation in about 30 seconds on a pocket calculator. It would certainly be perfectly simple to set up a program on the office computer. It would simply be a matter of entering the amount of the fine, the date of the default and the date of payment. The program would then calculate the amount due within a few seconds. I cannot see that that would cause any problems.
The suggestion has also been made that the interest might eventually lead to the accumulation of sums that defaulters would be unable to pay. At present, it is proposed that an increase could be made of up to 50 per cent in one go, which would take effect immediately. However, if interest is charged at the rate

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applicable to judgment debts, which I believe currently ranges between 5 per cent and 6 per cent, it would take eight years to build up to the level of a 50 per cent—
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I tried to make it clear that the 50 per cent would not automatically apply; it is a maximum that would set a limit against which the Lord Chancellor could not fix it. It is by no means sure that 50 per cent will be the appropriate figure adopted.
Lord Goodhart: I appreciate that, my Lords. However, I also assume that it will not be a 5 per cent or a 10 per cent increase, because that would not really make much difference. One is probably looking at an increase of, say, 25 per cent, which means that it will take about four years before the interest becomes equivalent to the amount of the increase. For the reasons outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, there is a very clear incentive on people who have fines not to pay them simply because, unlike personal debts, they do not increase.
We are dealing with an important group of amendments. Therefore, I wish to test the opinion of the House.
5.19 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 66) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 75; Not-Contents, 89.

Division No. 4

CONTENTS

Addington, L.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Alderdice, L.

Lester of Herne Hill, L.

Anelay of St Johns, B.

Luke, L.

Astor of Hever, L.

Lyell, L.

Barker, B.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

McNally, L.

Bradshaw, L.

Marlesford, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Mayhew of Twysden, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Methuen, L.

Burnham, L.

Montagu of Beaulieu, L.

Buscombe, B.

Newby, L.

Clement-Jones, L.

Noakes, B.

Colwyn, L.

Northover, B.

Cope of Berkeley, L.

Norton of Louth, L.

Craigavon, V.

Phillips of Sudbury, L.

Crickhowell, L.

Prashar, B.

Dixon-Smith, L.

Rawlings, B.

Ferrers, E.

Redesdale, L.

Finlay of Llandaff, B.

Rennard, L.

Flather, B.

Renton, L.

Fookes, B.

Roberts of Conwy, L.

Fraser of Carmyllie, L.

Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.

Glenarthur, L.

Roper, L.

Goodhart, L.[Teller]

Russell, E.

Hanningfield, L.

St. John of Bletso, L.

Harris of Richmond, B.

Sandberg, L.

Holme of Cheltenham, L.

Seccombe, B. [Teller]

Howe, E.

Selsdon, L.

Howe of Idlicote, B.

Sharp of Guildford, B.

Hunt of Wirral, L.

Shrewsbury, E.

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Shutt of Greetland, L.

Tordoff, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Smith of Clifton, L.

Ullswater, V.

Swinfen, L.

Wakeham, L.

Tebbit, L.

Wallace of Saltaire, L.

Thomas of Walliswood, B.

Walmsley, B.

Tope, L.

Weatherill, L.

Windlesham, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Haskel, L.

Ahmed, L.

Hayman, B.

Alton of Liverpool, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Amos, B.

Howells of St. Davids, B.

Andrews, B.

Howie of Troon, L.

Archer of Sandwell, L.

Hoyle, L.

Ashton of Upholland, B.

Hughes of Woodside, L.

Bach, L.

Irvine of Lairg, L. (Lord Chancellor)

Bassam of Brighton, L. [Teller]

Bernstein of Craigweil, L.

Judd, L.

Billingham, B.

Kilclooney, L.

Blackstone, B.

King of West Bromwich, L.

Borrie, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Brett, L.

Layard, L.

Brooke of Alverthorpe, L.

Lea of Crondall, L.

Brookman, L.

Lipsey, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Macdonald of Tradeston, L.

Burlison, L.

MacKenzie of Culkein, L.

Carter, L.

Mackenzie of Framwellgate, L

Clarke of Hampstead, L.

Massey of Darwen, B.

Clinton-Davis, L.

Merlyn-Rees, L.

Crawley, B.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Davies of Coity, L.

Mishcon, L.

Davies of Oldham, L.

Mitchell, L.

Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, B.

Morris of Manchester, L.

Desai, L.

Pitkeathley, B.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Ramsay of Cartvale, B.

Dubs, L.

Rendell of Babergh, B.

Elder, L.

Rooker, L.

Erroll, E.

Sainsbury of Turville, L.

Evans of Parkside, L.

Scotland of Asthal, B.

Evans of Temple Guiting, L.

Sewel, L.

Evans of Watford, L.

Sheldon, L.

Falconer of Thoroton, L.

Simon, V.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Stone of Blackheath, L.

Fyfe of Fairfield, L.

Temple-Morris, L.

Gale, B.

Turner of Camden, B.

Gavron, L.

Walker of Doncaster, L.

Gibson of Market Rasen, B.

Warner, L.

Gordon of Strathblane, L.

Warwick of Undercliffe, B.

Goudie, B.

Whitaker, B.

Gould of Potternewton, B.

Whitty, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Wilkins, B.

Grocott, L. [Teller]

Williams of Mostyn, L. (Lord Privy Seal)

Harris of Haringey, L.

Woolmer of Leeds, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
5.30 p.m.
[Amendments Nos. 67 to 79 not moved.]
Lord Goodhart Lord Goodhart moved Amendment No. 80:
Page 63, line 2, at end insert "(other than a clamping order)"
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendment No. 80 concerns clamping orders. Paragraph 13 of Schedule 2 sets out a number of further steps which can be taken against defaulters by the fines officer. Those steps include the classic methods of enforcing debt, such as

1267
distress warrants or an attachment of earnings order. I see no problem with the fines officer making routine enforcement orders of that kind.
The further steps which can be taken include a vehicle clamping order. That is not primarily a method of getting the money, though it could eventually lead to the money being obtained by the sale of the vehicle, but is intended to put pressure on the defaulter to pay the fine by making life particularly difficult for him or her. Depending on the circumstances, it may make life very difficult indeed. The clamping order could deprive the defaulter of the means to travel to work. It could deprive the defaulter's spouse or partner of the means to travel to work. It could deprive the defaulter of the means to take his or her children to school. A clamping order is therefore a very powerful weapon to ensure the payment of a fine.
I accept that there should be power to make a clamping order. It is, no doubt, a very effective method of getting a fine paid. But we believe that such a power should not be wielded by a fines officer, who is not a judicial officer. If the fines officer thinks that a clamping order is needed, he should be required to refer the case back to the magistrates in order that they can make the clamping order themselves if they see fit. I beg to move.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, Amendment No. 80 would remove the sanction of clamping from the list of measures available to the fines officer as further steps which may be taken against persistent defaulters. Similarly, Amendment No. 81 alters the wording of paragraph 13(3) of Schedule 2 to restrict the making of a clamping order to the court.
The National Audit Office has recommended delegating more enforcement responsibilities to administrative staff. The fines collection scheme will allow for this. It will be for the court to make a collection order under the scheme. But once the collection order is made, we believe it right that the fines officer should take the purely administrative decision as to the best way of enforcing it. In some cases, that will involve making a clamping order. However, only the court will be able to order the sale of a vehicle if the fine then remains unpaid.
The Government believe that clamping a defaulter's car will prove an effective method of encouraging payment. As I said in Committee when we debated a similar amendment, we know that vehicles are sometimes the closest thing to individuals' hearts—closer, sometimes, even than their family members. Therefore, as I said then, vehicles must be jealously protected. Faced with the choice of paying a fine or having the precious vehicle clamped and possibly sold by order of the court, we believe that many defaulters will find the money.
The knowledge that the fines officer can and will use this sanction without the need to return to the court, should be a powerful incentive to pay up. If it works as intended—and this will be determined by the pilot schemes—the number of defaulters who are actually
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deprived of the use of their vehicles for substantial periods, or whose vehicles are subsequently sold, is likely to be small.
The pilot schemes will reveal whether clamping will cause significant problems. Should any element of the scheme fail to operate as intended, we will take the opportunity provided by Clause 31 to make any necessary adjustments before putting the final scheme to Parliament for approval.
There is already a precedent for vehicle clamping without a court order. The legislation for congestion charging allows for a vehicle found to be within the congestion zone to be clamped if that vehicle has three outstanding fines. There does not need to be a prior reference to the court, and authorised enforcement officers are able to order the clamping of the vehicle. This would obviously be a matter about which the court could express a view at the time of imposing the sentence. It could caution or advise the defendant that this may be a method which would be used to enforce those decisions.
We think this is a useful incentive. Once we have evaluated the results of the pilot, we will of course reflect on whether it proves to be as effective as we hope. However, we have a way of expunging this proposal if it is not as successful as one would like. On that basis, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, the other amendment in this group is in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Anelay and Lady Seccombe. Although they did not speak to it, I understand, as the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, said in a previous debate, that their view is the same as ours.
I will of course consider carefully what the Minister has said. We will have to consider, as no doubt the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, will consider, whether an amendment in one or other of these forms should be brought back on Third Reading. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 81 and 82 not moved.]
Lord Goodhart Lord Goodhart moved Amendment No. 83:
Page 64, line 11, at end insert—
"( ) The magistrates' court may (either before or after the end of the period of 10 working days) extend the time for appealing under this paragraph."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the amendment is more important than it may look at first sight. It is concerned with the strict time limits on the steps to be taken by a defaulter under Schedule 2 for an appeal against an order by a fines officer. Paragraph 15 imposes a 10-day limit on an appeal by a defaulter against a further steps notice.
My amendment is defective, in that other 10-day limits should have been included. For example, an appeal made under paragraph 8 from a decision by the fines officer under paragraph 7 is subject to the 10-day

1269
limit, as is an appeal under paragraph 11 from a decision made under that paragraph. However, the amendment is sufficient to raise the issue.
The time limits are strict, and well established legal authority exists that states that if there is a time limit in a Bill and the Bill says nothing about a power to extend that time, the time cannot be extended however unfortunate the circumstances. Of course, it is right that an appeal should be brought within 10 working days if there is no good reason for failing to do so. However, undoubtedly there are problems in that regard.
First, the period of 10 working days is measured from the date of the decision, not from the receipt of notice of the decision. The actual time for the appeal may be as little as seven working days. Although first-class post is in theory delivered within one day—and I assume that regulations will require that the notice is to be delivered by first-class post—it is well known that first-class post, especially if it is posted at the end of the working day, as much office post is, does not necessarily arrive on the morning of the next working day.
Furthermore, there is the possibility, which in many cases will be fact, that a defaulter will have left his or her home for work before the delivery of the post and will not get the notice until the evening. If one assumes that the post is not delivered until the second morning, and is not opened until that evening, that reduces the time available to seven days. At the very least, the Government should be prepared to reconsider that point. Will they consider whether the limit should be 10 working days from the receipt of the notice rather than from the date of the decision?
Secondly, and even more importantly, there may easily be entirely legitimate reasons for the notice of the decision not being brought to the attention of the defaulter in time for an appeal. A defaulter may be working away from home or on holiday—even defaulters are entitled to take holidays. There may be a family illness, which requires the defaulter to be in a different part of the country. There are perfectly good reasons why a 10-day time limit may be broken.
When tight time limits are imposed and no power is given to extend those time limits for any reason whatever, an injustice is bound to occur. The Minister said in her letter that that could be sorted out by the pilot scheme. However, such a scheme has to operate within the boundaries of Schedule 2 as it now stands, and it cannot be part of a pilot scheme to give leave to extend the time. I would go further and say that absence of a power to extend the time is so plainly unreasonable that I see no need to await the results of the pilot. The Government should accept the amendment without waiting for the results of the pilot. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: My Lords, Schedule 2 is complicated and at times rather obscure. We surely have an obligation to ensure that justice will be done, in spite of its complexity. In particular, I think that paragraph
1270
15 of Schedule 2 needs to be clarified and expanded. I warmly support Amendment No. 83, which I think will ensure that justice will be done.
5.45 p.m.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I again find myself saying that I understand the noble Lord's concerns. However, as I set out in my letter, I think that we have the route to satisfy those concerns. I should perhaps emphasise that we would not be expecting an appeal to be completed in 10 days, only for the intention to appeal to be lodged so that a date can be set. However, I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising this issue, which he also raised in Committee. I should like to reassure him if I can.
As I indicated to the noble Lord, we intend to pilot the Schedule 2 fine enforcement measures prior to implementation in order to evaluate their effectiveness. The Bill provides that for the purpose of the pilot schemes any aspect of Schedule 2 may be modified. Consequently, we already have the power to pilot the appeals measures with a longer time period, allowing us to test whether the 10-day period is sufficient. If experience of the pilots shows that the 10-day period is insufficient, then my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor has the power under Clause 31(8) to amend this provision in Schedule 2. The final scheme will then be put before Parliament for approval under the affirmative resolution procedure.
We have used the date of the decision because the date of receipt of the decision can vary and is arguable. We think that that may be the clearest way of dealing with the matter. It may be that, following the pilots, an amendment using the Clause 31(8) procedure along the lines of Amendment No. 69 could prove the best way forward. However, we do not know whether that is the case now. Given that assurance and the fact that the provisions allow for a longer pilot period, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
If I may, I should like to make a further point on the ability to increase interest. Although I realise that the Government have won the day on that issue, I also hope that I have already demonstrated that we do not stop thinking just because we have won. I still think that we are right. However, I should like to reassure the noble Lord that the proposed increase would take effect only if the offender refused or failed to cooperate, and would be waived if the offender contacted the court and agreed to make new payment terms. I do not think that I made that absolutely clear in responding to the earlier amendment. I hope that it gives the noble Lord some comfort in his defeat.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords. the noble Baroness may not be entirely surprised to hear that I am not satisfied with the answers that she has given. Experience in other circumstances where there are rigid statutory time limits has certainly convinced me that rigid time limits, particularly when they are quite short, as they are here, are a serious source of injustice. That might just as well be recognised now as when a pilot scheme has proved it. Of course it is different when there are

1271
very long time limits, as there are in the limitation of actions when one has a period of three, six or 12 years depending on the type of proceedings brought. In this case, the 10-day time period is very short.
I do not intend to take the matter further now because, first, as I indicated beforehand, my amendment is defective. Secondly, it does not specifically raise what I think really ought to be raised by a separate amendment; namely, the problem of the 10 working days being noted from the date of the decision rather than from the date when notice of the decision is received, which is of course a much more common form of starting the time running. In those circumstances I shall withdraw Amendment No. 83 but I give notice that it is likely that I shall bring back a revised form of that amendment on Third Reading.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, in referring to Clause 31(8) procedure I may have referred to Amendment No. 67. I think that I should have referred to Amendment No. 83. If I have referred to an amendment in error, I should like to correct that for the purposes of the record.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 84 not moved.]
Clause 32 [Designated officers and magistrates' courts]:
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendments Nos. 85 and 86:
Page 15, line 23, leave out "(whenever passed)"
Page 15, line 27, leave out "arrangements made by him under" and insert "a contract made by virtue of"
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 36 [Disqualification of lay justices who are memhers of local authorities]:
Lord Goodhart Lord Goodhart moved Amendment No. 87:
Page 18, line 4, leave out subsection (5).
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment proposes to leave out subsection (5) of Clause 36. Clause 36 provides that a lay justice who is a member of a local authority may not sit as a judge in proceedings brought by or against or on appeal from a decision of that authority or a committee or officer of that authority. That is a statement of the obvious. Clearly, any lay justice in that position should not sit in that case.
Subsection (5) then states:
"No act is invalidated merely because of the disqualification under this section of the person by whom it is done".
Any justice of the peace who is a councillor must surely realise that he or she, as an interested party in the proceedings by or against the local authority of which he or she is a member, or on appeal from a decision of that authority or a committee or a member of that authority, should not be sitting as a judge. A tribunal containing such a justice of the peace cannot, I believe, be regarded as impartial or independent for the
1272
purposes of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights as incorporated by the Human Rights Act.
It is true that in this case the Joint Committee on Human Rights accepted the explanation by the Lord Chancellor that the inclusion of the word "merely" left it open for the other party to the case to challenge a decision on Article 6 grounds. I have great respect for the Joint Committee but I believe that the Joint Committee allowed itself to be too easily persuaded. I cannot see how any case of this kind could avoid a successful challenge by a discontented other party.
As was pointed out in Committee by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson of Lymington, there is, of course, a principle that a decision of a court taken in excess of its authority is treated as valid unless and until it is challenged. The removal of subsection (5) would not, of course, affect that principle. A decision taken by a court which included a disqualified justice of the peace would stand until it was challenged.. But the effect of subsection (5) is that a decision of a court is valid even if it is challenged. I believe that it conflicts with Article 6.
To avoid the effect of subsection (5) it would be necessary to show something more than the fact that one of the members of the tribunal was disqualified. In effect, it would be necessary to show actual bias. That is as far as one can stretch the meaning of the word "merely". "Merely" must mean that it is not enough to show simply that a person sat who was disqualified. It must be necessary to go the next step and show that that person was guilty of actual bias. But under Article 6 the mere presence of an interested party as a member of the court prevents the tribunal being independent and impartial without the need to show actual bias. Therefore, I believe that there is a conflict between subsection (5) and Article 6 of the European convention. I believe that to avoid that incompatibility subsection (5) should be deleted. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I regard this as an important amendment. The provision is in complete contradiction with subsections (1) and (2), which are emphatic in saying that:
"A lay justice who is a member of a local authority may not act",
in the circumstances described. That applies to,
"the Crown Court or a magistrates' court",
under subsection (1), and,
"the Common Council of the City of London",
under subsection (2). However, subsection (5) states:
"No act is invalidated … because of the disqualification… of the person by whom it is done".
That seems to obliterate the effect of subsections (1) and (2). I implore the Government to give sympathetic understanding to the amendment, as it is very important.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I support this important amendment. I am certainly grateful to my noble friend Lord Renton for the clarity with which he put his case. I also agree with the noble Lord,

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Lord Goodhart, that, if a justice of the peace who is disqualified sits, effectively the tribunal cannot be impartial for the purposes of Article 6 of the human rights convention.
The very existence of subsection (5) surely means that a party who complains about the presence of a councillor on the tribunal would have to bring new proceedings. Those proceedings might then have to investigate the circumstances of a decision in the original proceedings, in order to discover whether the tribunal had indeed been independent and impartial, despite the presence of and perhaps participation by the disqualified local authority member. That seems unwieldy. It is expensive, time-consuming and complicated. It seems much more practical simply to knock out subsection (5).
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, suggested, he has brought back the amendment asking for the removal of subsection (5). I listened very carefully to what he said on the previous occasion and indeed today, and also to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Renton. I have also reconsidered the matter, as I promised.
Our conclusion is that we are content with the draft as it stands. It does not prejudice anyone's rights under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has agreed with that. I am very reluctant to second-guess the Joint Committee on the grounds suggested in Committee, and by implication today, by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, that it is "too easily persuaded". On this occasion I find his bravery commendable if, some may think, slightly foolhardy.
As I explained in Committee, the use of "merely" in the clause is crucial. If a local authority justice were to adjudicate where Article 6 of the convention was engaged and in circumstances where that article was violated by his so doing, that would be unlawful by reason of Section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998. It will always be open to a party to appeal if it is felt that Article 6 bites in any instance. Clause 36(5) does not, therefore, override the requirements of impartiality imposed by Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights or by English common law, nor does it purport to do so.
As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, said in Committee, there is authority for the proposition that the participation of a disqualified person in the proceedings of a court renders the proceedings voidable but not void. The clause as drafted merely clarifies that decisions taken by a disqualified tribunal, where those decisions bear no prejudice from that disqualification, should not automatically fall. A listing officer or the magistrate himself, if it is realised that a magistrate is disqualified under the clause, will not let him sit in that case. If, as a result of the officer's failing to realise, a disqualified sitting goes ahead, that decision will stand unless and until it is challenged, in any event.
It is true, of course, that the effect of subsection (5) is to place a burden on the challenger to show that the judicial decision should be declared invalid, rather
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than merely that the tribunal was disqualified. But I am not so sure that that is a noticeably worse alternative than doing without subsection (5). In practical terms, I am not sure that there is likely to be much difference. Unlike the noble Lord. I can conceive of interlocutory decisions where the potential interest played no part, or in the circumstances no other decision was likely—for example, standard directions, or an extension of a time limit given on good grounds.
It seems to me burdensome, and potentially an abuse, for a challenger to delay matters more easily by demanding a re-hearing in such circumstances. Again unlike the noble Lord, I am not entirely sure that a magistrate would always have at the front of his mind circumstances that might lead to disqualification. The clause is quite wide; for example, I question whether—if as per subsection (3)(b) a joint committee or board on which the authority was represented was party to the action—it might be possible for disqualification to be overlooked, and for that disqualification of itself to have little effect on the course of the decision.
I also want to point out that the phrase in question is a re-enactment of Section 66(6) of the Justices of the Peace Act 1997, as I said in Committee. Prior to that, it has been extant since the Justices of the Peace Act 1949. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, may feel that that is not an adequate reason to retain it. However, I should be very surprised to be informed that it had caused injustices or problems in all that time—if it has, I have certainly not heard of any, nor has anyone to whom I have referred the matter—or that it had affected people's faith in the criminal justice system for the worse.
Since the advent of the Human Rights Act we are, of course, even more aware of the requirement for independence and impartiality; but they were perfectly familiar concepts to our predecessors as well, and we do not believe that the position has changed so much that subsection (5) has now become wholly unacceptable.
I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment. I reiterate that we have given this matter very careful and detailed reconsideration. Having done so, I am afraid that on this occasion we have come to the same conclusion.
6 p.m.
Lord Renton: My Lords, while I greatly admire the way in which the noble Baroness handles some very complicated matters arising on the Bill, I ask her to bear in mind that this clause has to be interpreted within its own terms. She referred, as I understand it, to the Human Rights Act as a way of explaining what the effect of subsection (5) would be. But surely, if there is to be a doubt about its interpretation—and it is clear from what the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, said that there could be serious doubt—the Government have a duty

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to remove that doubt. Otherwise, injustice will be done. I do hope that the noble Baroness will think about this matter still further.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Renton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for their support. Once again, I am by no means satisfied with the Minister's answer.
I find it impossible to interpret subsection (5) as meaning anything other than that it is not sufficient to invalidate the original decision merely to show that one of the parties who took that decision was in fact a disqualified person under Clause 36(1) and (2). If that is correct—I believe that it is—the only way in which one could invalidate the original decision is to go beyond the mere fact of disqualification and show that there was actual bias or at least grounds for believing that there might have been actual bias. That is clearly contrary to the case law involved in Article 6, which shows that the fact that an interested party sits as a member of a tribunal—I refer, for example, to the well-known case from the Channel Islands, the McGonnell case—will in itself be sufficient to invalidate the decision even if there is no evidence of actual bias in that case.
I will consider the Minister's response and discuss the matter with one or two colleagues, who are experts—perhaps more expert than I am—in human rights law. I may well come back to the issue but, for today, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 37 [Effect of Act of Settlement on existing justices of the peace]:
Lord Goodhart Lord Goodhart moved Amendment No. 88:
Page 18, line 26, at end insert—
"( ) Nothing in that section shall disqualify any person from being appointed or acting as a justice of the peace."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment arises in relation to a very odd and almost inexplicable situation. Clause 37 provides that nothing in Section 3 of the Act of Settlement 1700,
"invalidates … any appointment before 31st January 2002 of a justice of the peace".
Section 3 of the Act of Settlement excludes anyone who is born outside the United Kingdom, Ireland or the Commonwealth from enjoying any office or place of trust unless they were born of English parents—"English", it should be noted; it is not sufficient to be born of Scottish or Irish parents.
Section 3 has been excluded in relation to a considerable number of offices or places of trust. For many years, no attention has been paid to Section 3 in relation to the appointment of justices of the peace. I do not know the background to this clause but I can only assume that on or about 31st January 2002, it was decided—presumably on the basis of legal advice—that Section 3 prevented someone who was born outside the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth from being appointed a justice of the peace unless they were born of English parents.
The effect of Clause 37 is to reinstate those who were appointed before the 31st January 2002, but to retain the exclusion for those who were not appointed before that date. That seems to me to be a completely absurd restriction. It discriminates against people on the ground of their national origin.
I believe that at least some judges of the higher courts have been born outside the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth of non-English parents. I happen to know that the late Sir Michael Kerr., who was an extremely distinguished Lord Justice of the Court of Appeal, was born in Germany of German parents. Was he disqualified, although no one realised at the time? If he was not disqualified from holding the very high office that he held, why should someone be disqualified from being appointed as a justice of the peace?
The purpose of Amendment No. 88 is to exclude appointments of justices of the peace altogether from the operation of Section 3 of the Act of Settlement. That seems to me to be a matter of obvious common sense and fairness. I hope that the Government will see that that is the case and will accept the amendment or agree to bring back their own amendment to the same effect. I beg to move.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I support the amendment. When I sat as a magistrate on the North West Surrey Bench I sat in a community where 15 per cent of the population had come to this country as primary migrants. Not only are they a part of the community, but they are a valuable part. About 11 or 12 per cent of the population of the Woking area come from one particular area in Pakistan and the rest of the overseas population come from China and Italy. We have a vibrant Sicilian culture in a part of Woking close to where I live.
I find it extraordinary that such people should be discriminated against. The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, has made a cogent case. Section 3 refers to "English parents". When I looked at this I considered it in its broader sense and I was shocked that I had not realised that they were disqualified. In my area I am sure that we would welcome such people onto the magistrates' Bench because they have a valuable part to play in dispensing justice.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, while we have every sympathy with the intention of the amendment we believe that it is inappropriate for this Bill. This is an amendment to Clause 37 which has not previously been tabled. It seeks to avert the effect of Section 3 of the Act of Settlement, thus enabling my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor to appoint foreign nationals as lay magistrates.
The Government plan to introduce a new Bill, the Crown Employment (Nationality) Bill, that will initiate changes designed to alter nationality requirements for certain holders of offices under the Crown. Both the professional judiciary and the lay magistracy are included in the ambit of that Bill. If the amendment were accepted as it stands, it would have the effect of creating an anomaly between the lay magistracy and the

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professional judiciary to whom the nationality requirements would still apply. Furthermore, it would create presentational difficulties—if I can put it that way—for the Crown Employment (Nationality) Bill.
We would prefer that this amendment be remitted so that we can consult with those handling the Crown Employment (Nationality) Bill and clarify whether it will cause presentational difficulties for them before addressing the meat of this amendment. Should that not be the case, we can revisit the amendment at a later date and consider how best it could be introduced into the Bill. I hope that that is a satisfactory response to the plea that has been made by the noble Baroness and by the noble Lord.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I am absolutely astounded by the revelation that Sir Michael Kerr, who, as I said, was one of the most distinguished judges of the past 50 years, never actually qualified for appointment to the Bench.
However, I hear what the noble Baroness says about this matter. I am glad that the Government intend to take the point in hand. But that could presumably take some time. Clearly, the Bill will not be passed in this Session of Parliament. No doubt it will have to fight its way onto the list for the next Session. In the absence of any undertaking, which clearly the Minister cannot give, as to the date when it is to be introduced, it seems that there is a great deal to be said for dealing with this very simple and obvious point now rather than waiting.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, my noble friend said that she would want to consider this matter again at a later stage while we are considering this Bill. What is wrong with that?
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I do not think that the noble Baroness has gone far enough. Unless there is a clear intention to bring a more far-reaching change on to the statute book, either in this Session or, as is more likely, the next Session of Parliament, I think that we should press for the amendment to be incorporated into this Bill.
I should be interested to know how and why this point came to be raised in the first place—whose opinion it was and how the question was ever raised. However, I shall of course consider what the noble Baroness has said and whether this matter should be brought back at a later stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 40 [Power to make rulings at pre-trial hearings]:
[Amendment No. 89 not moved.]
Schedule 3 [Pre-trial hearings in magistrates' courts]:
[Amendment No. 90 not moved.]
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 91:
Page 68, leave out lines 30 to 32 and insert "—

(a) the magistrates' court commits or sends him to the Crown Court for trial for the offence charged in the information, or

(b) a count charging him with the offence is included in an indictment by virtue of section 40 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988."

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this clause and schedule set out the provision for making pre-trial binding rulings in the magistrates' court. This is an important new power in the context of the integrated court structure that this Bill will introduce and the wider criminal justice reform programme, which will improve the preparation and progression of cases through the criminal justice system.
Under this clause and schedule, a pre-trial ruling can be made by a judge or magistrates at a pre-trial hearing in a criminal case that is to be tried summarily in the magistrates' court, as to issues of substantive law and admissibility of evidence which have been identified by the parties and would benefit from early resolution.
Since the noble Lord has not moved Amendments Nos. 89 and 90 I shall not explore the matter further unless any noble Lord indicates that that would prove helpful.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 92:
Page 68, line 34, leave out from "section" to end of line 39 and insert "no report of matters falling within subsection (2) may be published in England and Wales."
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I wish to speak to this extensive group of amendments en bloc. Schedule 3 sets out the provision for making pre-trial binding rulings in the magistrates' court. Under the schedule, a pre-trial ruling can be made by a judge or magistrate at a pre-trial hearing in a criminal case that is to be tried in the magistrates' court. Pre-trial rulings will encompass issues of substantive law and admissibility of evidence that has been identified by the parties and would benefit from early resolution.
Amendments Nos. 92 to 100 deal with the restrictions on the reporting of pre-trial hearings in magistrates' courts. Although there is no jury in a magistrates' court, reporting restrictions have been included to ensure that defendants, or defendants in linked proceedings in the Crown Court, are protected from possible adverse publicity. Such publicity might jeopardise the fairness of the trial should the case be heard ultimately in the Crown Court.
Amendment No. 92 deals with the territorial extent of the restrictions on reporting. The reporting restrictions in the Bill extend only to England and Wales, rather than to the entire United Kingdom, as do the restrictions in the Criminal Justice Bill. The narrower territorial extent is considered adequate for the purposes of the power that we are introducing to the magistrates' courts, which will generally be applicable to cases unlikely to attract widespread press interest.
Amendment No. 94 allows reporting of basic factual matters and is intended to ensure that a defendant's right to a fair trial is adequately balanced against the public interest in maintaining free and open reporting of court proceedings.
Amendments Nos. 95 to 100 would extend reporting restrictions and the offences associated with breach to cover electronic communications, including publication on the Internet. Those amendments also make the reporting restrictions in the Bill consistent with the provisions in the Criminal Justice Bill.
Amendment No. 100 extends liability to prosecution for offences in connection with reporting committed by a corporate body to specified officers of the corporate body in question. We consider that the modern methods of electronic communication present a greater threat of the dissemination of adverse publicity, which might jeopardise the fairness of a trial. We have therefore strengthened protection against that risk by extending liability to specified officers of a corporate body. Those provisions are consistent with the measures in the Criminal Justice Bill. There are safeguards in that an offence must be proved to have been committed with the officers' consent or connivance, or to be attributable to their neglect. I beg to move.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I wish to ask a question as a layman, as I may have misunderstood the Minister's explanation. On the precautions that she said were being taken against the publication of information relating to pre-trial hearings, the Minister said that she did not think it a problem that something could be published in Scotland, for example, as it is unlikely to be the kind of information that people would know about, so it would not be reported there anyway. In certain headline cases, such as Soham, information on a pretrial review might be published in Scotland. Scottish publications are readily sold throughout England; therefore, it is not just a matter of it being irrelevant whether the limited audience in Scotland could get hold of information because nobody here would hear about it. Scottish newspapers are in the House of Lords Library and are sold throughout the country. Have the Government thought through how information could be made available in a particular area? A magistrate hearing a case could see the information in a newspaper, or, if the case goes to the Crown Court, the jury there might see it.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I must confess that it is not thought that that will be a major problem or issue. The noble Baroness will know of the limits that apply when we make rules that are referable to England and Wales. She has raised an interesting issue, and I will write to her about it. I do not think that it will be a problem, but, if it is, I shall look into the matter and reply. I shall place a copy of any appropriate letter in the Library.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 93:
Page 69, line 21, leave out from "matters" to end of line 22.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendments Nos. 94 to 100:
Page 69, line 24, at end insert—
"(6A) Subsection (1) does not apply to a report which contains only one or more of the following matters—

(a) the identity of the court and the names of the justices;

(b) the names, ages, home addresses and occupations of the accused and witnesses;

(c) the offence or offences, or a summary of them, with which the accused or any of the accused are charged;

(d) the names of counsel and solicitors in the proceedings;

(e) where the proceedings are adjourned, the date and place to which they are adjourned;

(f) any arrangements as to bail;

(g) whether a right to representation funded by the Legal Services Commission as part of the Criminal Defence Service was granted to the accused or any of the accused.

(6B) The addresses that may be included in a report by virtue of subsection (6A) are addresses—

(a) at any relevant time, and

(b) at the time of their inclusion in the publication.

(6C) In subsection (6B), "relevant time" means a time when events giving rise to the charges to which the proceedings relate are alleged to have occurred."
Page 69, line 26, leave out from first "on" to end of line 27 and insert "the publication of a report of any matter"
Page 69, line 29, leave out paragraph (a) and insert—
"(a) references to publication of a report of matters falling within subsection (2)—

(i) include references to inclusion of those matters in any speech, writing, relevant programme or other communication in whatever form which is addressed to the public at large or any section of the public (and for this purpose every relevant programme is to be taken to be so addressed), but

(ii) do not include references to inclusion of those matters in a document prepared for use in particular legal proceedings;"

Page 69, line 37, leave out "or included in a relevant programme"
Page 69, line 40, leave out "written"
Page 69, line 43, leave out paragraph (b)
Page 70, line 4, at end insert—
"( ) in the case of any other publication, any person publishing it.
(1A) If an offence under this section committed by a body corporate is proved—

(a) to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or

(b) to be attributable to any neglect on the part of, an officer, the officer as well as the body corporate is guilty of the offence and liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.

(1B) In subsection (1A), "officer" means a director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body, or a person purporting to act in any such capacity.

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(1C) If the affairs of a body corporate are managed by its members, "director" in subsection (1B) means a member of that body."
On Question, amendments agreed to.
[Amendment No. 101 not moved.]
Clause 41 [Power to transfer criminal cases]:
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 102:
Page 19, line 35, leave out "again."" and insert "again.
(4) The power of the court under this section to transfer any matter must be exercised in accordance with any directions given under section 25(2) of the Courts Act 2003.""
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 43 [Power to transfer civil proceedings (other than family proceedings)]:
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 103:
Page 20, line 22, leave out "proceedings."" and insert "proceedings.
(4) The power of the court under this section to transfer a hearing must be exercised in accordance with any directions given under section 25(2) of the Courts Act 2003.""
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 46 [Court security officers]:
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 104:
Page 22, line 18, leave out "arrangements made by him under" and insert "a contract made by virtue of"
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Hunt of Wirral Lord Hunt of Wirral moved Amendment No. 105:
Page 22, line 19, at end insert—
"(1A) Anyone appointed or designated under subsection (1) must be a person who has been subject to and passed a police check."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, we now move to consider some the issues that we dealt with in Committee relating to court security officers. I shall speak only to Amendment No. 105, as my noble friend Lord Swinfen wishes to speak to Amendments Nos. 106 and 107 in their place on the Marshalled List.
Amendment No. 105 would insert a provision to ensure that anyone appointed or designated as a court security officer must be,
"a person who has been subject to and passed a police check".
In Committee, we tabled an amendment to probe the nature of the conditions that will have to be met before a person can be appointed as a court security officer. I recall that, although the Minister said that it would be unhelpful to state specifically in the Bill exactly what qualities would be required for the role, he also said:
"The role carries significant responsibility, so it is crucial that a certain standard should be met before a person can become a court security officer".
In particular, the noble Lord stated:
"it is envisaged that there will be a full criminal records check to make sure that applicants are of good character".—[Official Report, 11/2/03; col. 592.]
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Like other noble Lords, I have reflected on the Minister's words and have taken advice elsewhere. The Minister will be aware that there are now tighter controls on private security staff, wheel dampers, bouncers and so on. The Security Industry Authority regulates the industry and makes it compulsory to obtain a licence. Those who wish to obtain a licence must prove that they have had no involvement in any sort in crime for up to five years.
Exactly what checks on applicants for the position of court security officer will the Minister commit the Government to? The Law Society has expressed its concern on this matter and has stated that,
"where any civilian exercises powers usually only exercised by the police, it is important to ensure that these powers are properly regulated and that those exercising them are accountable".
It would be helpful if the Minister would clarify whether court security officers will come under the bracket of private security staff. If not, will they face the same checks as those who come under that category? In that context, I beg to move.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Borrie: My Lords, I have no doubt that in a moment or two my noble friend the Minister will give the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, the reassurances that he seeks. But when I looked at the amendment and Clause 46(2) to which he referred, I saw no case for the amendment. Clause 46(2) refers to regulations to provide the conditions to be met before anyone can be designated a court security officer. What case can there be for particularising one condition and setting it forth in the Bill when other conditions are to be set out in regulations? I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has made a case for that. I suppose that he is probing further than at the earlier stage in order to get the Minister to talk more about it. If that is the case, that is splendid, but there really is no case for having this on the face of the Bill.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, I should like to confirm what my noble friend Lord Hunt said. I shall speak to my two amendments separately and not conjoined with this one.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I was intending to deal with both Amendments Nos. 105 and 106 because they are grouped together.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, Amendment No. 106 is paving to Amendment No. 107.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords. in that case I shall try to deal with just Amendment No. 105. Clause 46 deals with the appointment and designation of court security officers. Under the current system of court security, the only courts in which there is statutory provision for a court security officer are the magistrates' courts. Although there is some security provided in other courts, as I am sure noble Lords will appreciate, the standard and rigour vary considerably and the number of security-related incidents in courts is rising. As we discussed in Committee, this is an issue

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ofconcern. For that reason the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has made a commitment to improve court security across the system. The creation of the role of court security officer should begin to equalise the security provisions across all courts and combat the rise in incidents involving violence or threatened violence.
The proposition moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is to add to the Bill that anyone appointed or designated by the Lord Chancellor as a court security officer must first have been subject to and passed a "police check". I presume that this is meant in the sense of a check on an individual's criminal record, although that is not made clear in the amendment. The Government understand the importance of ensuring that court security officers have passed appropriate background security checks prior to designation or appointment. We are grateful to the noble Lord for raising this very important point.
The noble Lord was right to remind me of my words in Committee. But I am advised that access is limited to police records and that no routine procedures exist by which an external party can instigate a "police security check" of the nature envisaged by the noble Lord. Where checks are carried out, they tend to be on an occasional basis as a result of a reciprocal agreement generally between the police and the local court managers. To require the police to carry out such checks for every person designated or appointed would be very resource intensive for the police. We argue that it could seriously detract from their other important statutory duties.
However, prior to appointment, several different methods of carrying out background checks can be used. The department is aiming to use the basic disclosure service offered by the Criminal Records Bureau which, as noble Lords know, was recently established, but which currently and famously is working on its backlog. Once that service becomes available, it will provide a criminal record check incorporating several levels of disclosure for different types of employment. Indeed, that is the basis on which it has been established.
In the meantime, the Lord Chancellor's Department carries out checks on all service contractors and court service staff, including in-house security guards. All employees and contractors must be subject to the basic check which verifies the identity of the person concerned. The counter-terrorist check must be carried out for all first and second tier Crown Courts, although in practice it is carried out for all courts. It includes both a criminal record check and verification with the security services. In addition, the two security companies with which the Court Service works are affiliated to the British Security Industry Association and, as a consequence, are required to complete a 10-year employment history for all employees, together with a formal declaration of criminal records. Those background investigations are extensive.
I hope it will be apparent that the current checks undertaken by the Lord Chancellor's Department in relation to all security staff go some way beyond the
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level of detail provided by occasional police checks. Because of the importance of the issue raised by the noble Lord, this regime will continue and it will certainly be the case when the current procedures give way to access to the Criminal Records Bureau once the service is fully operational.
I hope that my detailed explanation, along with a clear statement that we are going well beyond what was envisaged by the noble Lord, will enable him to feel confident about withdrawing his amendment.
Lord Hunt of Wirral: My Lords, not only am I confident, I am certain that I shall be following the right course in withdrawing the amendment. The Minister has answered not only the points I raised, but he has also responded very effectively to the rather curious intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Borrie. I sought to follow the traditional course, which is to probe and check on such an important area as the need to ensure that court security staff are subject to adequate checks. The Minister has now given me the assurances I sought. Therefore I have pleasure in withdrawing my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Swinfen Lord Swinfen moved Amendment No. 106:
Page 22, line 23, at end insert "; and
(c) the procedure to be followed by court security stall- in the discharge of their functions"
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 106, I shall speak at the same time to Amendment No. 107. Clause 46(2) enables the Lord Chancellor, by regulation, to make provision for court security officers to be properly trained, and to set out the conditions to be met before a person may become a court security officer. Amendment No. 106 would enable the Lord Chancellor, by regulation, to lay down the procedure to be followed by court security staff in the discharge of their functions. This would include their powers of search.
Amendment No. 107, if accepted, would remove from the Bill the limitations on a search included in Clause 47(2). As the House knows, we live in an age of fast-moving and rapidly changing terrorist tactics. As the Bill is drafted, it would require another Act of Parliament to change court security officers' powers of search. That is not something that can usually be done in a hurry, in particular if such a change was needed when Parliament was in Recess.
The two amendments are designed to give the Lord Chancellor much greater and much-needed flexibility in changing the powers of search to meet new conditions as and when they arise. If the amendments are accepted, Amendment No. 107 will override Amendment No. 108, tabled in the name of the Lord Chancellor which, in my view and with great respect, does little to improve the Bill. I commend the amendment to the House. I beg to move.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, Clause 46(2) gives the Lord Chancellor a power to make regulations concerning training courses to be completed by court security officers and the conditions to be met before a person may be designated as such. Effective training is a crucial part of effective court security. The regulation-making power will ensure that this is provided for court security officers in England and Wales. In addition, the power to make regulations regarding conditions to be met prior to appointment or designation will ensure that all officers meet a satisfactory minimum acceptable standard of competence, background and qualities.
The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, seeks to give the Lord Chancellor an additional power to make regulations providing for the procedure to be followed by court security staff in the discharge of their functions. The Government fully recognise the importance of ensuring consistency in the procedures followed by court security staff and we are grateful to the noble Lord for raising this important point. However, for several reasons, the Government consider that in this instance regulations are an inappropriate vehicle for dealing with the procedure to be followed by court security officers in the discharge of their functions.
Changes in training and conditions of employment are different from procedural change. The former are matters that evolve steadily, allowing plenty of time for necessary alterations to be identified and for the correct mechanisms to be put in place to facilitate change. Accordingly, these areas are suitable to be dealt with by regulations, particularly as, being subject to the parliamentary process, amending regulations can take time. Conversely, procedural matters often need to be varied rapidly in response to a particular event or situation—for example, a new terrorist threat—and so containing prescribing procedure in regulations is likely to prove inflexible.
Some issues that may fall under the umbrella of "procedural matters" may also be connected with training. As I have said, formulating regulations can be time-consuming and resource intensive, and so the Government are keen to avoid duplication wherever possible.
Publishing the procedure to be followed by court security staff could also compromise security. The public would have access to regulations that could highlight information through which to exploit the system.
The proposed amendment refers to "court security staff' rather than to "court security officers". This is at odds with the remainder of Part 4 of the Bill, which refers throughout to "court security officers".
The Government appreciate the need for clear, defined procedure relating to the discharge of court security officers' powers, which should be implemented uniformly across all courts. However, it is considered that regulations are not the appropriate mechanism for
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ensuring this. It is preferable for these procedures to be laid down through the production of internal security bulletins and guidance notes. This will be more flexible.
Lord Hunt of Wirral: My Lords, I support my noble friend. I am a little concerned about the Minister's reliance on the time-consuming nature and cost of drafting these regulations. My noble friend stressed the importance of the procedures to be followed. Recent terrorist activity has indicated that the courts could well be targets—the Minister has assured the House in the past that the authorities are aware of this—but a public debate of the procedures to be followed need not touch on secret matters which should be kept from the public. This would enable the House and another place to discuss some of the serious issues arising from the threat now posed to society, and especially to our courts.
6.45 p.m.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the noble Lord makes a perfectly respectable point. No one is suggesting that there should not be other opportunities for such a debate to take place. However, the mechanism suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, is time consuming and is not perhaps flexible enough to deal with an urgent situation that may arise from time to time.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, I realise that the drafting of regulations can take time, but the essence of my argument on both amendments is that the procedure is being laid down in a Bill. It will require an Act of Parliament to pass through both Houses, with three opportunities in this place and two in another place to amend it. Regulations can be drafted fairly quickly and, in some instances, can be brought into effect before their due date.
It may not be appropriate to this debate, but in the past we have dealt with various orders relating to shellfish and shellfish poisoning that were brought into effect on the day that they were laid before Parliament as an important safety measure. We are discussing a safety matter for the public, the court officials, the court staff and anyone attending court.
In Committee I mentioned the long delay in changing the procedure for security in courts. The noble Lord will recall that that is the only point that I have raised on the Bill. In my view, it is extremely unwise to state in a Bill what a security officer may or may not do. We live in a very fast-moving age compared with the days of the spear and the bow and arrow in which the noble Lord seems to be stuck. We live in an age of electronic devices that can set off explosives within split seconds. We need to be a great deal more flexible. I do not believe that the noble Lord is addressing the problem.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, in some senses, the noble Lord appears to be agreeing with me. We are seeking to retain that flexibility so that we can be more responsive. That is why we believe it will be preferable for the procedures to be laid down through the

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production of internal security bulletins and guidance notes. In our view, the latter approach is more flexible than the regulations approach that the noble Lord is recommending. It also avoids the prospect of compromising security—a concern that I believe the noble Lord shares—while ensuring clarity and uniformity of procedure. I invite the noble Lord to reconsider his position on that amendment.
Amendment No. 107 would remove Clause 47(2). The subsection limits a court security officer's power of search by authorising the officer to require the removal of only,
"a coat, jacket, gloves or hat".
This reflects a justified concern, expressed at great length in Committee, to ensure that the security provisions included in the Bill are sufficient to protect court users. We are most grateful to noble Lords for raising this point, not just today but also on previous occasions.
The Government gave an undertaking to consider the wording of the subsection to ensure that it is adequate. This has been done with Amendment No. 108. Although the conclusion remains that subsection (2) should be retained, we have accepted that the wording needs to be changed. The Government consider that the combined "search on entry" measures and procedures that will be in place will be adequate to deal with the level of terrorist threat faced by court premises.
On entering the Royal Courts of Justice and all Crown Court buildings, a person must pass through a metal detection arch. If that is activated, the court security officer will then use a metal detection wand to identify more precisely where the metal is located. Both the metal detection arch and the wand will pick up metallic elements in wires and timing devices, or power sources attached to explosives that may be strapped to the body of a terrorist.
The provisions in the Bill do not prevent a non-intimate physical search in the manner of a frisk by airport security officers if,' for instance, this should prove necessary to identify the nature of an object detected by the wand. Combined with the removal of outer clothes, as permitted under subsection (2), this will be sufficient for court security officers to identify the presence of explosives strapped closely to the body. If a court security officer remains in doubt as to the intentions of a person, he may either exclude the person from the court building or request the presence of a police officer with the powers to conduct a more intimate search. The Government consider that the combination of these factors is sufficient to combat the current level of terrorist threats posed to the courts.
Subsection (2) provides a restriction on the power of search that is akin to restrictions on similar powers in other Acts. Importantly, it reflects the position of court security officers in Northern Ireland, as contained in Section 80(2) of the Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 2002. It should be noted that this Act was passed after the atrocity of 11th September 2001, when
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terrorism fears were at their height. With this in mind, it would be hard to justify giving court security officers in England and Wales an unfettered power of search that would be substantially wider than that of their Northern Ireland counterparts.
Significantly, the Terrorism Act itself also limits an authorised constable's powers of search in public to requesting the removal of an outer coat, headgear, gloves, jacket and footwear.
As I have mentioned, the Government have tabled an amendment to subsection (2) to widen it to include footwear. Particular account was taken of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, that subsection (2) is ethnocentric. In recognition of this, it is proposed that the word "hat" be replaced with the term "headgear". It is appreciated that the removal of certain items may be subject to religious guidelines, and guidance will be produced to ensure that situations are handled with the appropriate sensitivity.
We are grateful to those who have raised an important consideration in this debate and appreciate the concerns by which they were prompted.
I think Amendment No. 109 is in this group—no, we have not got there yet. In that case, I think that deals with the amendments that have been raised so far.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, I think the noble Lord may have been misled by the grouping and has therefore taken the amendments in numerical order rather than in the order of thought. He may have forgotten what was said or perhaps he did not pay sufficient attention to what was said by those on the Liberal Democrat Front Bench and, indeed, behind him. I remember that the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, supported me in Committee.
The Minister has not satisfied me, and I should like to test the opinion of the House.
6.53 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 106) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 40; Not-Contents, 72.

Division No. 5

CONTENTS

Addington, L.

Howe of Aberavon, L.

Alderdice, L.

Hunt of Wirral, L.

Anelay of St Johns, B.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Astor of Hever, L.

Lester of Herne Hill, L.

Barker, B.

Luke, L.

Blatch, B.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

Buscombe, B.

Marlesford, L.

Cope of Berkeley, L.

Monson, L.

Craigavon, V.

Noakes, B.

Ferrers, E.

O'Cathain, B.

Flather, B.

Rawlings, B.

Fookes, B.

Rees, L.

Goodhart, L.

Roberts of Conwy, L.

Hanningfield, L.

Russell, E.

Harris of Richmond, B.

Sandberg, L.

Howe, E.

Seccombe, B. [Teller]

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Sharp of Guildford, B.

Swinfen, L. [Teller]

Shrewsbury, E.

Tordoff, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Ullswater, V.

Smith of Clifton, L.

Wallace of Saltaire, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Goudie, B.

Ahmed, L.

Gould of Potternewton, B.

Alton of Liverpool, L.

Grocott, L. [Teller]

Amos, B.

Harris of Haringey, L.

Andrews, B.

Haskel, L.

Archer of Sandwell, L.

Hayman, B.

Ashton of Upholland, B.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Bach, L.

Howells of St. Davids, B.

Bassam of Brighton, L. [Teller]

Hughes of Woodside, L.

Bernstein of Craigweil, L.

Irvine of Lairg, L. (Lord Chancellor)

Billingham, B.

Blackstone, B.

King of West Bromwich, L.

Borrie, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Brennan, L.

Lea of Crondall, L.

Brett, L.

Lipsey, L.

Brooke of Alverthorpe, L.

Macdonald of Tradeston, L.

Brookman, L.

MacKenzie of Culkein, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Mackenzie of Framwellgate, L.

Burlison, L.

Massey of Darwen, B.

Carter, L.

Mitchell, L.

Clarke of Hampstead, L.

Pitkeathley, B.

Clinton-Davis, L.

Ramsay of Cartvale, B.

Crawley, B.

Rendell of Babergh, B.

Davies of Coity, L.

Rooker, L.

Davies of Oldham, L.

Scotland of Asthal, B.

Dean of Thomton-le-Fylde, B.

Sewel, L.

Desai, L.

Simon, V.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Stone of Blackheath, L.

Dubs, L.

Temple-Morris, L.

Elder, L.

Uddin, B.

Evans of Parkside, L.

Walker of Doncaster, L.

Evans of Temple Guiting, L.

Whitaker, B.

Evans of Watford, L.

Whitty, L.

Falconer of Thoroton, L.

Wilkins, B.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Williams of Mostyn, L. (Lord Privy Seal)

Gale, B.

Gibson of Market Rasen, B.

Woolmer of Leeds, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
7.3 p.m.
Clause 47 [Powers of search]:
[Amendment No. 107 not moved.]
Lord Bassam of Brighton Lord Bassam of Brighton moved Amendment No. 108:
Page 22, line 32, leave out "gloves or hat" and insert "headgear, gloves or footwear"
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Hunt of Wirral Lord Hunt of Wirral moved Amendment No. 109:
Page 22, line 36, at end insert—
"(4) Where a court security officer reasonably believes that a more thorough search is required arrangements should be made for this to take place in private."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, we now move to Amendment No. 109 which would insert a provision, where a more thorough search is required, to allow the court security officer to make arrangements for that to take place in private. This debate gives noble Lords the opportunity to review some of the data collection which
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the Minister has kindly made available. This data covers 68 per cent of the Crown Courts in England and Wales. It discloses that 22,500 items were confiscated during searches which began in May 2002 for the south- eastern, northern and midland regions. That figure is broken down as follows: 85.3 per cent of the items were knives; 14.5 per cent were tools, including items such as screwdrivers; and 0.17 per cent were firearms. It is rather disquieting to realise that the knives ranged from penknives to samurai swords. That reminds us of the dangers that we face from the increasing threat from terrorism as we discuss changes in the security arrangements. I was also concerned to hear from the Minister that anecdotal evidence from courts managers and security guards suggested that incidents requiring a physical intervention were increasing.
I move this amendment to press the Government for reassurance that court security officers will not just conduct a superficial search of those entering court buildings. They should be able to carry out a full search if they believe that it is necessary in the interests of the safety of the court. I beg to move.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, we have been over much of the ground discussed by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in previous exchanges. We are grateful to the noble Lord for returning to the matter as it enables the Government to make plain the thorough approach which we intend to be adopted by court security services.
The noble Lord's amendment would require that arrangements should be made for "more thorough" and apparently intimate searches to take place in private. It is an entirely proper amendment. I understand the sentiment and strength of feeling behind it. The amendment would give the court security officers a more comprehensive power of search without allowing them to carry out more intimate searches.
But if the amendment proposing the removal of all restrictions on a court security officer's powers of search were to be accepted, the proposed amendment requiring more thorough searches to take place in private would be of some benefit, although, as currently drafted, and particularly if subsection (2) were to be removed, it is unclear how much more thorough the search would be. For the reasons I gave when I addressed Amendment No. 107, the Government consider it appropriate and justified to retain that restriction.
In summary, these reasons are centred on the fact that we consider the present powers to be adequate to deal with the threat that they are designed to address. We also acknowledge the need for the Bill to be consistent with the limitations on similar powers of search in other legislation. Consideration is given to Article 8 of the convention which addresses the right to respect for private life.
With that in mind, the amendment proposing more thorough searches by court security officers is in our view unnecessary as the officers will not have the power to carry out such searches. Where a court security officer considers that a more intimate search

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is necessary, he or she will have to request the attendance of a police officer who will then carry out that search. We believe that that is a more appropriate way of dealing with the matter although I entirely understand why the noble Lord sought to have the provision put in place.
The noble Lord referred to statistics, some of which I believe that we discussed in Committee. Recent statistics have introduced a more in-depth analysis of the knives that were discovered. Nearly all were small knives under three inches; that is, penknives or similar, and would have been immediately detected by the metal detection equipment. We are confident that the security arches that we have in place and, no doubt, the wonderful waving wands, will do the job. We are very mindful of the threats that even such small weapons could pose to staff, members of the public and members of the judiciary. We take the issue seriously, and think that we have the balance of measures and the technology right. However, we will review the matter from time to time and monitor it very carefully.
Lord Hunt of Wirral: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his understanding, and am very pleased to hear that steps are being taken to refine the figures. I understand that it is now a requirement that all the regions collect the information to which we have referred, which is very reassuring. I am also grateful to him for clarifying the way in which the more detailed searches will be carried out. In the light of that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 48 [Powers to exclude, remove or restrain persons]:
Lord Hunt of Wirral Lord Hunt of Wirral moved Amendment No. 110:
Page 23, line 17, at end insert—
"( ) The Lord Chancellor shall ensure that sufficient resources are allocated in order to discharge the functions in subsections (2) and (3)."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, nowhere in the Bill can I find a commitment from the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor that he will provide adequate resources to enable security officers to carry out their duty. That is why I tabled the amendment. I beg to move.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, the noble Lord proposes a clearly understandable addition to the Bill requiring the Lord Chancellor to ensure that sufficient resources are allocated for a court security officer to carry out his powers of exclusion, removal or restraint under Clause 48. However, it should be borne in mind that my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor is committed to improving court security and, even without significant additional funding or other resources, the Bill will do that. The provisions will provide court security officers in all courts with significant, effective and uniform powers, and also extensive training to enable them to exercise their powers safely, efficiently and lawfully.
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It is anticipated that the number of court security officers in place will remain at least the same after the implementation of the Bill. Funding is available to develop the necessary training programmes, guidance notes and other matters that need to be in place prior to the start-up of the new system. That will ensure that the new security provisions will be more effective even without funding for additional court security officers. From that point of view, I respectfully suggest that the amendment is unnecessary. I am afraid that it is practically unworkable. I am glad to see that the noble Lord is content for me to dispense with explaining why.
Of course, the Government accept that funding is the key to the pace and scope of improvement in security in the courts. However, security remains high on the agenda of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, and the importance of planning for improvement remains. I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for raising the important point but, for the reasons that I have given, the amendment is inappropriate for inclusion in the Bill. I therefore invite him to withdraw it.
Lord Hunt of Wirral: My Lords, I accept the noble Baroness's invitation. I am grateful to her for the reassurances that she has given, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 54 [Functions of inspectors]:
Baroness Anelay of St Johns Baroness Anelay of St Johns moved Amendment No. 111:
Page 25, line 18, at end insert "including information technology services"
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the amendment would ensure that one of the functions of the inspectors of court administration would be to inspect and report to the Lord Chancellor on IT systems.
Information technology systems are becoming increasingly important throughout the justice world. They are already vital to the business world, but justice is catching up. They are important for the smooth and efficient running of the court system, and provide an effective way of ensuring that information is stored correctly and available when needed. When the fines system is set up, the matter will be even more important, as it will be one not only of sharing information on cases as they go through, but of tracking. In this modern age, it is essential to have an up-to-date and cost-effective IT system throughout the Lord Chancellor's Department, so that information can be shared electronically with other courts, and to enable the transfer of electronic information to other enforcement agencies.
Earlier, the Minister explained the Government's thoughts as regards extending penalties in relation to fines, and she referred to benefit payments. The Benefits Agency, very early on, went through a rather painful but ultimately successful exercise in transferring its information systems to IT. Its system is up and ready and it is important that the system in the Lord Chancellor's Department—if it is to interact with the agency on fines collection enforcement—should be compliant.
We on these Benches believe that it is necessary for the inspectors to monitor such an essential system, particularly in the light of the current IT systems failures within the Lord Chancellor's Department. I referred to the matter in relation to a different kind of amendment in Committee.
The system which is currently in place and would have to be monitored was set up under the private finance initiative with ICL—now known as Fujitsu Services—is called "Libra". The project has already cost the taxpayer twice the estimated cost. It is now costing about £390 million.
I raised a rather different amendment in Committee. Since my remarks about IT then, the National Audit Office has issued its report, New IT systems for Magistrates' Courts: the Libra project, which I have in front of me. The report concludes that, despite 20 years of throwing money at courts—I recognise that this goes back beyond 1997 but it must be said that that report seems to apportion blame on this occasion only post-1997—there is still no working system of IT within them and that the Lord Chancellor's Department has made "some truly basic mistakes".
We understand that it is extremely difficult to set up IT systems in any event, but particularly within the justice system; and it is costly. It is vital, therefore, that we should be assured that, in future, it will be the task of the inspector within the unified courts administration, as part of his or her job, not only to report on the setting up of these systems and on their implementation and effectiveness, but to make recommendations as to how they might be better developed in the future.
I hope that the Minister will be able to give assurances about the role of the inspector under the new UCA and an indication of the Government's response to the report by the National Audit Office. I do not expect her to give a detailed response, but to say how the Government have taken the report into account in drafting the Bill and in terms of how its provisions will be taken forward. I beg to move.
7.15 p.m.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, as always, I have listened with great interest to the arguments advanced by the noble Baroness in support of the amendment. However, I believe that it is unnecessary.
Noble Lords will undoubtedly recall that during the debate on 20th January on Amendment No. 3 (at cols. 532–536 of the Official Report) I explained that "services" included information technology services, and an amendment identical to this one standing in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, and the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, was subsequently withdrawn.
Clause 54 places a duty on the inspectors to inspect and report to my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor on the system that supports the carrying on of the business of those courts listed in Clause 54(2)—currently, the Crown Court, county courts and magistrates' courts—and the service provided for those same courts. Those services include, among
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others, information technology, security and catering. The noble Baroness rightly said that information technology is playing an increasing role in the operation of courts. One example is that of video conferencing, which I hope will mean that increasingly we can make real progress without having to transfer prisoners inappropriately backwards and forwards.
It is our intention that all of those services, including information technology services, will be subject to inspection. I therefore hope that the noble Baroness feels that her amendment is not necessary and that she will withdraw it.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her response and her assurances that the inspector of court administration will indeed report on IT services. I took from her remarks a caution for myself: I shall not send her some of my more well-meaning arrangements about withdrawing amendments in future. I shall have to consider the implications of that. Her reference to the fact that a similar amendment in Committee, which stood in the names of my noble friends Lord Kingsland and Lady Seccombe, who is in her place, had been withdrawn rather implied that it had been withdrawn because we were satisfied with the answer that was given to Amendments Nos. 3 and 15. I believe that Amendment No. 15 was grouped with Amendment No. 3 on that occasion. That was not the case. We withdrew that amendment because the Chief Whip, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, had become increasingly exercised about the time that we were taking that evening. In a spirit of good humour I offered to withdraw the amendment. Gosh, I must think about that in future!
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I do not want to discourage the noble Baroness from so doing but usually she kindly indicates when she will return to an amendment that she is withdrawing. I rather thought that that amendment had been withdrawn in that spirit. If I misunderstood her, I withdraw any such comments; I should hate to discourage her from continuing along her happy path in terms of the way in which we co-operate on this and other Bills.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, our happy paths will continue, not necessarily in parallel lines or even overlapping; but we will carry on our merry way. At this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 56 [Rights of entry and inspection]:
Lord Bassam of Brighton Lord Bassam of Brighton moved Amendments Nos. 112 and 113:
Page 26, line 15, leave out "arrangements made by the Lord Chancellor under" and insert "a contract made by the Lord Chancellor by virtue of"
Page 26, line 20, leave out "arrangements made by the Lord Chancellor under" and insert "a contract made by the Lord Chancellor by virtue of'"
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 59 [Power to alter judicial titles]:
Lord Bassam of Brighton Lord Bassam of Brighton moved Amendment No. 114:
Page 28, line 28, leave out "or repealing any enactment (whenever passed)" and insert ", repealing or revoking any enactment"
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 4 [Further functions conferred on District Judges (Magistrates' Courts)]:
Lord Bassam of Brighton Lord Bassam of Brighton moved Amendment No. 115:
Page 70, line 33, leave out "sitting as a judge of the Crown Court"
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this and the next two minor amendments make minor changes to statutory references to the functions in Schedule 4. They are all technical amendments and delete unnecessary words, which I am sure will delight noble Lords. They also clarify the drafting and make the legislation easier to follow. That is an unarguable case. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Bassam of Brighton Lord Bassam of Brighton moved Amendments Nos. 116 and 117:
Page 71, line 7, at end insert—
""Interpretation"
Page 71, line 17, leave out paragraph 9 and insert—
"9 In Schedule 5 (terrorist investigations: information)—

(a) in paragraphs 5(1) and (5), 6(1), 10(1), 11(1), 12(1) and (2) and 13(1), after "Circuit judge" insert "or a District Judge (Magistrates' Courts)", and

(b) in paragraphs 5(4)(a) and 7(1)(b), after "Circuit judge" insert "or the District Judge (Magistrates' Courts)"."

On Question, amendments agreed to.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I beg to move that consideration on Report be now adjourned.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

Literature: Removal of Barriers
7.24 p.m.
Lord Addington Lord Addington rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what measures are being taken to remove all barriers to literature for those who have difficulties accessing books in traditional print formats.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Question was inspired by a Starred Question that was debated a while ago. The Government were asked about the imposition of a higher VAT rating on audio books than on ordinary literature. I cannot remember the exact details of the exchange but I do recall that the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, who wears many hats—many of them very comfortably—found himself rather struggling with his brief. When I asked him whether he regarded the extra VAT payments on audio books as a tax on literature, he replied along the lines that audio books are not just for disabled people but that he
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enjoys them as well. That was a rather odd answer because literature in our society, as in most, defines one's intellectual place. It is a status symbol, not simply a tool. It allows one to join the top table.
Of all the noble Lords who have been kind enough to agree to take part in this debate, the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, sits among us as a bright and shining light. She represents those who provide us, through their writing, with a commonality of interest and a point of intellectual exchange. If she writes another book I wonder how gently she will treat noble Lords.
Literature is denied to many people for many different reasons. Primarily those who experience great difficulties with reading fall into two groups. There are those who have problems with literacy generally; that is understanding symbols on a screen or on a page, an aspect that concerns me as I am dyslexic. I include in that group those who have had interrupted schooling. Such people are excluded from literature, although there are ways around the problem. There are also those who have visual problems and therefore have physical difficulties in seeing what is on a page or a screen and so are unable to interpret it. We need to address both groups as millions of people are affected. Neither group should be excluded from such a major input.
Books are a sign by which we define ourselves intellectually. To be well read and to be familiar with books is probably the greatest sign of an intellectually competent person in our society. That is a historical fact. With my noble friend Lord Russell in the Chamber I feel slightly nervous about saying anything of a historical nature, but I hope that he will not dispute what I am about to say. When the printing press and the production of paper came together to produce a book, the opportunity to spread information more widely than ever before was created. That has fundamentally changed the way in which society operates and we have embraced that totally. Thus anything we do that stops that exchange of information must be regarded with horror because it has allowed intellectual matters to be shared among everyone.
Once that technical innovation came about, no longer was knowledge confined to a small group of people, but became easily accessible. The spread of ideas and the changes in our society that were made possible through the technology have been massive. It has changed society probably more fundamentally than anything else.
Those who have problems seeing what is on a page and those who have problems in interpreting the written symbols in the past have been excluded from that vast expansion. We now have the technical ability to change that or to reduce its impact. The most glaring example is audio books. The removal of VAT on them would mean that cassettes, disks and so on can become available to everyone on even terms. Production costs will be slightly different, but the difference will not be that great. It will mean that everyone can join in this interchange of information and that we shall have a chance to go forward. If the

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Government refuse to do that, they will effectively be helping to exclude groups on which they spend vast amounts of money and time trying to bring into the literate world.
We are surrounded by a barrage of adverts which state that, "You must learn to read. You must become literate." In one of the latest campaigns featuring gremlins, there is the person who is embarrassed at a counter because he cannot read. However, that is only a small part of what being illiterate means to someone. It is not the functional ability to write one's name and tick the right boxes; it is the ability to join in the interchange of information in our society. It means that one can actually turn around to someone and say, "Yes, I shall check up on that. I will return to it and read it", and not need to have a person explain the issue to you. If we can manage to get more information on to tape and other forms of electronic recording, we shall enable people to join in more fully in our society.
In relation to people with a visual-based problem, the variety of changes that have already taken place are encouraging. We must congratulate the Government on having passed the Copyright (Visually Impaired Persons) Act. But, as I am always saying to the Government, the fact that they have done more or better things than previous governments is right because that is where they are at this point in the historical process. They must do more.
I wonder whether the Bill dealing with disabled people will include such items as the launch of a new reading initiative or proper co-ordination of accessible textbooks for children in schools. There are still problems despite the Government's legislation. Making sure that there is an audio textbook in basic subjects would, I should have thought, sit rather well with many other pieces of legislation we have passed; for example, the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act.
The Government should be expected to introduce initiatives so that those people who merely have slight problems with vision, compared with those people who have severe problems, should not be excluded any more. We must make sure that there is better access to their established way of receiving information. Large print, Braille and other forms of accessible printing should be encouraged at every level.
If we do not start to address these problems we shall build on a historical problem. It is the historical inequality where a whole group of people are excluded from the major form of intellectual life of our nation—the "them and us" idea writ large—by not transferring as much literature as possible to an audio format. We can all probably appreciate the reverse of that, which is how many schoolchildren are put off the theatre for X number of years by having to read a play badly.
If we can create a format so that people can appreciate what is going on and the magic that can be created by the writer—to access that world and that store of information—we will remove one of the major social barriers in our society to those with visual and, indeed, degenerative problems. We will stop a group of
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people being excluded, or at least being greatly restricted, from a main area of activity, which is the norm. Unless the Government start to take a more proactive stand on the matter and do things such as slightly change their tax base in order to enable people to join in, they will restrict the activity and possibly the economic capacity of large sections of our society. Making greater information and literature available will encourage people to become better members of our society and will help them in everything from communication to job prospects.
I hope that, at the end of the debate, we will hear of a series of positive initiatives by the Government and some philosophy. It is always nice to hear, not just a list of what we will do, but why we are going to do it.
7.35 p.m.
Baroness Bendell of Babergh: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Addington, on introducing this important subject in the form of an Unstarred Question. I only regret that I did not think of doing so myself. In speaking on the subject of accessible literature for the visually impaired, I declare an interest as an author of fiction all of whose books appear as audio books. I shall try not to repeat what the noble Lord, Lord Addington, has said, but it is such an important subject that it will not matter much if I do. We should all know, and think, about this subject.
The majority of people think of audio books as useful for their entertainment on long car drives. They forget, or have never considered, that audio books are the sole gateway to literature for many thousands. The blind and partially sighted, and patients recovering from severe injury or with physical disabilities, may be dependent on audio books. Also among them are those unable to hold conventional books and people with brain tumours who have difficulty focusing on a printed page. It is an irony that for those severely disadvantaged men, women and children—the very people for whom books should be readily and cheaply available—access to reading costs more than for the fully-sighted and the non-disabled.
Audio books can sometimes be twice as expensive as printed paper versions. Young, visually impaired Harry Potter fans are indignant at having to pay, in some cases, seven times more for a CD or cassette version than sighted children pay for the hardback or paperback. The most recent Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, costs £76.99 on audio CD as against £10.49 for the hardback, and £42.49 on audio cassette as against £5.59 for the paperback. That is because audio books attract the full rate of VAT, which is 17.5 per cent, while printed books are—as they should be—zero-rated.
Why is this? Her Majesty's Customs and Excise classes audio books as "performance" rather than books. When VAT was introduced to the United Kingdom in 1973, books, newspapers and related items were zero-rated because it was thought inappropriate to impose a tax on literature. At that time, the audio book industry was

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virtually non-existent, and apparently no one foresaw how it would gather momentum. Elderly and middle-aged people, born blind or late afflicted by sight damage, could never have imagined, when they were young, that such a solace, comfort and boundless resource would one day be available to them in the form of the recorded work of their favourite writers—not only permanently popular fiction and the best sellers of the day, but time-honoured world literature. We should consider particularly those who, while they had the faculty of sight, were great readers, unable to imagine existence without something to read. Audio books are a lifeline to such people, amounting to a reason for living for many.
To put oneself in another's shoes is often the best imaginative feat in attempting to understand someone's plight. I can picture how it would be for me, as someone who reads for some hours every day, if I were deprived of reading matter. If the rules governing VAT were rewritten now, when audio books are the mainstay of the blind and partially sighted, making the difference between misery and contentment, no right-thinking, compassionate person who has given the matter consideration would argue for the retention of such a tax.
If audio books were zero-rated, a standard two-cassette audio book pack currently selling at £9.99 would retail at £8.49—closer to the price of the paperback version of the same book. A six-cassette pack. costing £19.99 at present, would sell at £16.99 and would, therefore, be nearer in price to a hardback hook. The current difference in price between audio and print books is discriminatory. In fact, it is a classic example of discrimination against the incapacitated. It penalises those who have no option but to read the audio version. It is also illogical. The content of published work is the same, whether presented in print, in Braille, on a screen via computer disc or by means of a voice recording.
Commercially and—I might say—intellectually, zero-rating on audio books would stimulate the audio book market so that a wider range of reading materials would become available to people unable to read printed books. At present, only about 2 per cent of titles appear in recorded form each year. If Her Majesty's Government will acknowledge that the present system is unfair, it should be possible for a solution to be found.
In answer to a Starred Question that I asked a year ago, my noble friend Lord McIntosh of Haringey said that the exemption that we already had from VAT on books and newspapers, children's clothes, food and public transport fares would be put at risk by attempting to secure it for audio books. I am afraid that I did not understand that reasoning then, and I do not now. Surely, we are not going to fall into the trap of having VAT suddenly slapped on food and fares because we seek exemption for recorded reading matter. Surely, Her Majesty's Government could make a strong case to the European Union for zero-rating in that one instance, without jeopardising the status of printed works.
7.41 p.m.
Lord Sandberg: My Lords, I add my congratulations to my noble friend Lord Addington on seeking the debate and speaking so eloquently on the subject, as he always does.
I must declare an interest. A couple of years ago, I suddenly developed macular degeneration. I had not realised that it was such a problem. My happiness in life has certainly been made difficult by it. About 2 million people in this country have a sight problem. Four out of five sufferers are aged more than 65—again, I must declare an interest, sadly—and most of them suffer from macular degeneration.
Most literary and other works produced in accessible form for people such as ourselves are produced by voluntary sector organisations such as the Royal National Institute of the Blind, the National Library for the Blind and the Calibre cassette library, another voluntary organisation that does great work. Recently, we passed legislation to remove the requirement to seek copyright clearance. That has helped us considerably. In the past, that requirement delayed the production of accessible copies of books. Again, that progress is due mostly to the voluntary sector.
A new service from the National Library for the Blind and RNIB, called Reveal, is to be launched in June. It has received start-up funding from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and it will make it much easier for people with sight problems to locate copies of accessible books. It will be possible to access a database containing a record of every accessible publication. I hope that we can receive an assurance from the Minister today that this vital service will continue to receive not only the blessing of the Government but their financial backing.
These are positives. However, there are other issues which are not so positive to which I should like to refer. Last year the RNIB and others called for a major new access to reading fund, to which a range of providers could apply to expand provision of books in accessible formats. Precious little financial support has been provided by the UK Government—in stark contrast to the more generous public funding in the USA and many other countries.
The Government are apparently resisting this demand. I should like the Minister to set out what action the Government are taking to encourage the publishing industry to publish more works in accessible formats. There would, for example, be a huge market for books in clear print which would benefit 85 per cent of people with vision problems. The market for audio books, previously mentioned, is also significant and growing among people with sight problems and other print disabilities. Yet there is no financial or other incentive to the industry to make these possible.
Public libraries could and should play a stronger role in opening up literature to people with sight problems. They should be encouraged to build their own stocks of audio and large-print books and increase access to literature for those who cannot read standard print. Yet the Government's latest strategic

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review of libraries, entitled, A Framework for the Future, fails to identify this as a strategic objective. Indeed, it fails even to mention access for people with disabilities. This serious omission must be made good.
The barriers to literature for those with sight problems and other disabilities are all surmountable. It is high time for a concerted effort by government and the publishing industry, who need Government incentives to level the playing field for people with sight problems who want to access literary works but cannot.
7.49 p.m.
Baroness Wilkins: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for having secured this debate and for his untiring efforts in bringing this important subject to the attention of the House. I apologise for not being present at the start of his speech.
Perhaps I should declare an interest in that I am slightly dyslexic. I do not have the difficulties with spelling and print which many face, being just a slow reader with a poor short-term memory. But in terms of daily frustration, in particular when dealing with the volume of papers in your Lordships' House, I can assure noble Lords that it is far more annoying than being in a wheelchair.
Last year we took the important step of removing copyright barriers to reading for visually impaired people. The Copyright (Visually Impaired Persons) Act 2002, ably steered through the House by my noble friend Lord Morris of Manchester, was a major leap forward in opening up the world of books to blind, partially sighted and physically disabled people. At Second Reading of that Bill, I raised the need for further action to secure equal access to works of literature for visually impaired people, and I should like to return to that theme today.
As I am sure we are all aware, the process of transcribing a book into accessible formats such as large print, audio or Braille, can be expensive and time-consuming. The National Library for the Blind has pointed out that current Braille technology allows a book in Braille to be printed in approximately 20 minutes. However, it takes around four months to scan, edit and format a print book to create an electronic Braille file for production. Due to this lengthy process, it costs the NLB approximately £750 to produce an average book of adult fiction in Braille. Obviously the time and cost associated with Braille production seriously limits the number of books that can be produced annually across the UK. The NLB itself produces only around 400 Braille books each year.
However, if Braille producers were able to receive electronic text files directly from publishers, much of the scanning and editing process would be avoided. If all publishers were to do this, the number of Braille books produced would double. The National Library for the Blind has been approaching publishers to
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establish such agreements. Major publishers such as Random House and Penguin have agreed in principle, and numerous smaller publishers have signed up to the scheme. The NLB has also approached authors directly to provide digital text of their books, so that newly published books can be made available at the same time as print books. Most recently it was able to produce Michael Palin's Sahara in Braille even before it was available in the shops.
Such bilateral agreements are obviously very welcome, but progress might be faster if there was a central repository for such files. Almost four centuries ago, the law established that a copy of every piece of published material should be deposited with the British Library so that it could be accessible to anyone who wanted to read it. It is to be hoped that that soon could be extended to copies of electronic publications. A central repository, whether in the British Library or one of the other deposit libraries, of electronic text copies of every publication to which approved bodies such as the RNIB and the NLB had constant access, could bring immense benefits. It could encourage arrangements whereby material was produced as and when required, to each individual's preferred format, rather than in bulk.
This also highlights the need to create copyright exceptions, where necessary, for other groups of print disabled people. Many with severe dyslexia face exactly the same kind of issues as visually impaired people—the dearth of audio and clear print formats and the inconvenience of endlessly scanning books to produce accessible formats—only they still have unjust copyright barriers to contend with.
Journalist Sunil Peck, who is visually impaired, feels it is outrageous that, in this information age when vast documents can be zapped between computers on the superhighway in seconds, he is left with no option but manually to transcribe any books he wants to read. Braille books are still few and far between. As we have heard, audio books are either too expensive or too abridged. Electronic books are usually incompatible with screen reading equipment. So Sunil has to get a print book and scan each page, one by one, into his PC. Depending on the length of the book, that can take anything from a few hours to a few days. It is both time-consuming and tedious.
Writing on the BBC's "Ouch" website, Sunil has suggested that publishers should release books for sale as text files or on a compact disc, and that they could be sold alongside printed copies in bookshops. He has argued that it is time for publishers to wake up and realise that blind people represent an untapped market of literary consumers. Publishers' profits would increase, and thousands of visually impaired people would seize the chance to get their hands on the latest titles in order to read them while they are still hot off the press. His plea to us is this:
"Please politicians, publishers and anyone else wielding enough influence to get things moving—sort something out to prevent accessing new books being like the thirteenth labour of Hercules".
I hope that the Minister will hear his plea and be able to give us some encouragement today that the Government are taking action in this important area.
7.55 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Addington for introducing this Question and for the extremely powerful and moving way in which he did so. I have never heard a more effective description of what it feels like to be on the wrong side of a harrier to learning.
My late wife remembered when she encountered that harrier at the age of two and a half and decided that she must learn to read. She was in the car when her parents drove past a Guinness advertisement. Everyone in the car but her burst into hoots of laughter and she had absolutely no idea what they were laughing about. The frustration, she said, made her determined to break through that harrier. She told me that she was reading two and a half weeks after that.
We do not all have the privilege of that kind of experience but some of us have had some remarkable ones. Two weeks ago it was my privilege to propose the health of William Shakespeare on his birthday. In the course of preparing my talk I discovered that William Shakespeare's father was illiterate. It is hard to think of a longer journey culturally traversed in one lifetime.
There are a few lines—almost totally unknown as they happen to be in Henry VI, Part II—in which there is an indication that that may have caused a good deal of tension in the Shakespeare family. There are words put into the mouth of Jack Cade, who complains that, for his forefathers, tally and score were good enough but there had been created things scarce worthy of naming in a Christian society, like a noun and a verb. One cannot help wondering whether there is something semi-autobiographical in that.
I am not saying that everyone will make a transition across a barrier as big as that but, by the law of averages, among all the people who are the wrong side of the barrier there should be at least one.
I declare a number of interests. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, I declare an interest as an author. I recall to my content that I was invited to waive all of my privileges in the way of a Braille edition of my first book. No one thought that my subsequent hooks were worth doing it for, which is a matter of great regret to me.
My father's rule was that the academic value of any work was in exact inverse proportion to its commercial value. I have not yet been reduced to his position of having to pay the publisher to publish my books, but here we have an example of how the market operates in a detrimental way. We have here representatives of fact and fiction but, having read and very much enjoyed the Blood Doctor, it is not for me to say which is which. But I enjoyed it very much indeed.
I recall very vividly sitting in the round room of the Public Record Office opposite a senior colleague of very great distinction; a person who restored manners to debate in our field, where they were very badly needed; who brought us to the end of the days when R.H. Tawney could say that an erring colleague is not an Amalekite to be smitten hip and thigh. He was in his first week back after an operation for a detached retina. He was about the height of the noble Lord, Lord Gilmour
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of Craigmillar, so one can imagine how low he had to bend to read a 17th century manuscript. But, recovering from his detached retina, he crouched down in an effort to read the document with an immense jeweller's lens screwed into one eye. One could feel the sense of frustration coming across the room. He was one of the most eminent 17th century historians who lived this century. I felt for him at that moment.
If it does not get taken out that way, it gets taken out another way. John Milton—or so my mother told me when I was young—suffered acutely from his frustration in being unable to read Greek. He taught his daughters the Greek letters so that they could pronounce the words, but he did not teach them what the letters meant. So they were reading what was, to them, double Dutch.
We read in recent newspaper reports that four out of five women between the ages of 50 and 80 are more or less full-time carers. That is the other place where the frustration falls, if it does not fall on the technology. I do not think that it is an improvement. That frustration, too, deserves remembering in the course of tonight's debate.
On the question of large print, I remember in days gone by sitting close enough to the Woolsack to observe the print in which scripts delivered from the Woolsack were being read. They were of the sort that I envied the occupant of the Woolsack. They were of the sort that are not regularly available, and certainly not in supermarkets. I do not regard myself as being visually impaired, though perhaps I should. I did once when I broke my spectacles in the course of speaking on a very long Bill. However, when shopping in supermarkets, I have often had to ask someone for assistance in reading the small print on certain products because I am unable to read it. If I cannot do it, who else cannot read small print? In the course of considering great literature, I hope that we may also consider great food; the frustration of being shut out from it may be equally great.
The noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, was able to say that all her books have been translated into Braille. It would be a good idea if we could all follow her example. It would be a good idea if authors were able to take a part in the responsibility for cataloguing, for listing, and for publicising their work. After all, it is their own work that they are publicising and it is perfectly fair that they should be asked to do so. But when it comes to digital reproduction, here I must plead that it is I who am on the wrong side of the barrier to learning: I simply cannot do it. When we reach that point, I hope that I may live to receive the sympathy that I offer to those who are on the wrong side of it at present.
I strongly agree with the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, about VAT. I appreciate the importance of the doctrine of a level playing field within the European Union. Fair competition is necessary if one is to dismantle tariff barriers, but we should not treat the EU as if it were the latest version of the Berlin Wall. After all, it has been known to

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renegotiate its rules. In fact, the number of ministerial Statements that we have heard in this House in which it has been described as having done
so is considerable.
Therefore, because we sometimes find that an element of the European rules is not what we think it should be, we should not throw up our hands in horror and say, "Oh, the European Union; it is impossible. We can't possibly do anything". Visual impairment is not confined to the British Isles. When we come across that sort of thing, I do not understand why we should not undertake a little quiet negotiation with people who experience exactly the same problems to see whether they would consent to doing something about the situation. That does not seem to me to be an impossible request.
Of course, and inevitably, points will be made about cost, and so they should be, because costs are real. I have indicated that authors should take a share of the cost, and I am willing to put my money where my mouth is. But I also think that one ought to consider what economists call the dependency ratio—the proportion of the population which is earning as against the proportion of the population which cannot earn and has to live on the dependency of others. Suppose William Shakespeare had never learnt to read—what would that have done for the dependency ratio? Think of the number of actors who would have been out of work.
If you can enable people to use talents—real, rich, profitable talents, which they otherwise could not use—you create earners. If you create earners, you create taxpayers. If you create taxpayers, you create revenue. The annual reports from the Government actuary show that the number of taxpayers matters quite as much to the total revenue raised as the rate at which tax is paid—in fact, probably rather more. It always fluctuates faster than the Government actuary expects. So I think we might find that a little generosity was not only for the enlargement of the human spirit, not only for the enlargement of human rights, but even for the enrichment of the Treasury.
8.6 p.m.
Lord Luke: My Lords, it is a great privilege for me to follow the noble Earl, Lord Russell. He has a completely unique way of putting his arguments and making us think. We are all most grateful, of course, to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for raising this important matter and making an eloquent speech.
There are, as we have heard, over 2 million people in this country with uncorrectable sight loss, and many more who cannot easily read small print. At the same time, it appears that only 5 per cent of material published in print is eventually produced in accessible formats such as Braille, large print or audio. Quite clearly, therefore, the RNIB has a strong argument when it says that these people are being discriminated against.
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In February this year, the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit published its report on public libraries in which the foreword, by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, says:
"Equality of access to information and learning is vital if we are to offer everyone the opportunity to achieve their full potential … my ambition is to take this vision of what libraries can offer to a wider audience".
It states in the body of the report:
"The value of reading stretches far beyond just to the individual—it brings social benefits. It is hard for people to be active citizens unless they can read newspapers and Government publications".
I am not so sure about Government publications.
It is clear that the intention is there, but what is actually being done to implement those wholly admirable aspirations? Can the Minister tell us of any concrete plans? We know that the RNIB is dissatisfied, as we heard today, with the services provided by public libraries to blind and partially sighted people. Would it not be possible to ring-fence grants to local authorities so as to target specific requirements such as the essential special staff training, appropriate equipment and, of course, more titles in alternative formats? It appears that only 25 per cent of public libraries have a specific budget for services to the blind and partially sighted.
As so often in this country, when there is a lack of services provided for particular groups of people, at least some of the shortfall is made up by voluntary organisations, headed in this case by the RNIB. The RNIB provides an audio book service comprising some 12,000 titles. Two and a half million books are sent out to members each year.
There is also the Talking Newspaper Association, which reaches more than 200,000 visually impaired listeners. That body receives some funding from the national lottery, but it has been turned down by the Home Office for government funding on the grounds that it operates a "leisure service". What better illustration of how the Government can speak, sadly, with two voices? They say how important reading newspapers is for producing active citizens on the one hand and, on the other, fail to persuade the Home Office to get off its backside—please excuse the phrase. At any rate, we are hugely indebted to the voluntary sector.
We have heard some excellent speeches this evening, and I look forward to the Minister's reply. I hope that he may at least be able to promise to bring to the attention of his friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the eloquent arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, as to the iniquitous tax on audio books for no good reason.
8.11 p.m.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, this has been a most impressive debate, powerfully introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, followed by a series of very significant speeches in which a number of important points were made. I shall do my best to reply to all of them. I assure the House, and especially the noble Lord, Lord Addington, who introduced the

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debate, that of course we regard the issue as very important. We embrace the issue enthusiastically as the debate is established.
Access to books and publications are fundamental to the social inclusion agenda. I assure the House that the issue rightly has a high priority. The Government are committed to ensuring that those with disabilities and those who might be excluded can participate fully in all aspects of life. Across Government, different departments are tackling the question of access with a variety of innovative approaches, often establishing positive partnerships with charities and representative organisations. I hear and applaud what the noble Lord, Lord Luke, said about the important role played by charities and organisations. We all recognise that they do extremely valuable work in this area, and the Government's role is to support, encourage and listen to charities when they put forward propositions that deserve very serious consideration.
The debate illustrates the effect of activity in this area. I offer some obvious examples. Public libraries have always been in the forefront of helping those with reading problems, whatever those problems may be. As the noble Lord, Lord Luke, noted, in February the Department for Culture, Media and Sport published the first national vision for public libraries, the Framework for the Future. The document offers a vision of libraries and information services in the next decade, to be supported by an action plan.
The framework's main thrust is that libraries and library authorities have a responsibility to respond to the needs of their communities, and reminds practitioners that reading and access to literature is a powerful tool for social inclusion. Its absence, as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, emphasised, means that when barriers exist to effective reading the cost is borne massively by the individual and the wider society too.
The framework goes on to suggest that local authorities should consult widely when considering what services should be available and take full advantages of the benefits that today's technology has to offer. We must not forget that people have many different needs. There is a range of disabilities where the requirements and demand for books and publications in alternative formats—audio tape, large print, Moon or Braille—vary very considerably.
Let us take, for example, books available on audio tape. Demand for that format, particularly in unabridged versions, is undoubtedly increasing rapidly. Loughborough University's libraries, information, and statistics unit researched this matter in 2001 and found that 62 per cent of those with sight problems prefer to read fiction via audio books. Set that trend against the rise in public library lending of audio formats—up to 13.2 million loans in 2000–01—and it is clear that the right sort of service is being made available against increasing demand.
It is important that those working with or on behalf of those with sight or access problems are aware of current trends. As the House will know, a wealth of evidence-based good practice is available and needs
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to be promoted as widely as possible. In October 2000, Resource, the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, produced Library Services for visually impaired people: a Manual of Best Practice. Updated last year, it remains a definitive guide on good practice.
The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals also has a key role to play in promoting good practice in social inclusion and equal opportunities. One approach is its "Libraries change Lives" programme which acknowledges significant contributions to social equity. The 2003 award in this area was made, only last week, to the Portsmouth City Council library service for its work for those with sight problems. All that is important, and this debate plays its part, in publicising the achievements of the limited few in order that we can extend such achievement to the many. Indeed, both central and local government have made important strides to harness the extraordinary potential of modern technology, thereby improving services and access for disabled people. We know that the right technology can transform many people's experience of the written word, whether it be publishing on demand or other innovations.
The new technologies are a powerful ally in helping people with reading problems. As the new technologies develop—such as books online with variable type sizes onscreen and digital sound for those with hearing problems—I am sure that many other opportunities will arise. The Government must be vigilant and take advantage of the changes as they develop.
The Office for the E-Envoy has established a working group of representatives from the website design industry to improve access for those with access problems by encouraging the use of larger font sizes and audio options. I salute the work of the Royal National Institute for the Blind in that respect. I was present at its awards ceremony last year when it indicated those who had taken great trouble with their websites in order to meet exactly this need. It is an important innovation and we must encourage others to follow that pattern.
We are all aware that when it comes to considering matters of public expenditure there will always be competing priorities. The Government are inevitably mindful of that. However, funding is being targeted at disability groups. For instance, all applications for capital modernisation funding to support the UK Online network, the Government's web-based guide to information and services, was obliged to include access provision for those with physical, learning or sensory disabilities. UK Online includes a public library element, "The People's Network", funded by the National Lottery through the New Opportunities Fund which allows each computer to be configured for those with sight problems.
The Department for Education and Skills' schools access initiative supports the implementation of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act. I recall that the noble Lord, Lord Addington, played his part in the passage of that Bill through this House. Last

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year, £70 million was available to support that initiative. The sum has been increased to £100 million this year and for each of the next two years. That funding can be used only for the provision of items of equipment that improve access to premises, the curriculum or information.
There is legislation designed to improve or enhance access. The Disability Discrimination Act 1995, in particular the goods and services section of the Act, places a duty on those who provide a service to the public to take reasonable steps to change policies, practice and procedures or to provide additional services to help those who would otherwise find it difficult or impossible to use that service. In January, Andrew Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, announced his intention to publish a draft disability Bill later this year. The scope and content are still being finalised, but may include a duty on public bodies concerning the equalisation of opportunities for disabled people. That is an important issue for the partially sighted or those with a sight impairment.
An important recent legislative change has been the Copyright (Visually Impaired Persons) Act 2002, to which the noble Lord, Lord Sandberg, paid tribute. The Act introduces two new situations in which producing copies of accessible material will not infringe existing copyright. That is an extremely important consideration. The benefits will be felt by individuals with sight problems and not-for-profit organisations and educational establishments which exist to support them. The RNIB is currently working on a licensing scheme to give full implementation to the Act. Once this is complete a commencement order will be put in place. The legislation was designed to deal with the problems, often lengthy, encountered gaining clearance for copyright and I believe that it successfully balances the interests of those with sight problems and copyright owners. Those with sight problems require increased opportunities.
The noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, referred to the issue of dyslexia. That is an important dimension of the problem we are discussing. The Department for Education and Skills issued a statutory Special Educational Needs Code of Practice in November 2001. This recognises the importance of early identification, assessment and provision for any child with special educational needs, including dyslexia. Dyslexia is also being addressed through the Government's National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies and by the Adult Basic Skills Strategy Unit. This includes support for teachers taking forward their responsibilities under the Special Educational Needs Act to which I referred earlier, and specific guidelines on providing for pupils with dyslexia.
I turn to the question of VAT on audio tapes. That issue was addressed this evening with typical force by my noble friend Lady Rendell who brought this issue before the House a year ago in a debate on this very matter. As she indicated, on that occasion the Government did not give as positive a response as she had wished. I hope that I can give a slightly more positive response this year although I cannot promise
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to solve all the problems of British taxation in regard to the European Community in the course of the next three minutes.
Suffice to say that there is a real problem about debating issues of zero-rating with the European Community, not least because at present we have extended zero-rating more widely than have most other countries in the Community. Our legitimate fear is that an attempt to debate the issue of zero-rating would leave the door wide open to potential challenges from the Community.
I heard what the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said in that regard. If I had not done so, I have no doubt that he would reiterate the point at this very moment; namely, that the European Community has a certain degree of flexibility. We intend to test that. We seek to participate fully in opportunities to which the European Community is committed at the present time to consider reduced rates of taxation. That may not mean that we meet every dimension that has been stressed, but it means that, in a way that was not possible last year in response to my noble friend, I am able to say this evening that the Government will engage in the negotiations positively, with a view to getting the rate of VAT down on audio tapes of books.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister, who is being most helpful. However, I was going to suggest a different point—that there may be other ways in which we could improve our negotiating stance within the European Union.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am sure that there are, but the noble Earl is not going to tempt me at this stage into a widespread debate on the merits of adopting a more constructive stance on the European Community. Although I have no doubt that he and I could entertain each other for many an hour on that point, I have a rather narrower brief to cope with this evening.
I shall mention the obvious point with regard to audio books. Of course the VAT issue is something on which we would want to make progress, and I do not belittle its significance, because it forms a percentage of the costs of the books. However, my noble friend emphasised that the acute problem is that books for the partially sighted or unsighted are enormously more expensive than the comparable books that the rest of us very readily enjoy, in terms of their cost in the marketplace. That is not an easy issue to resolve.
Reducing the gap between the costs is certainly an aspiration to which we should drive, but my noble friend will recognise that when audio books are produced, someone has to perform the act of reading them. If some people pay David Beckham for his footballing skills with Manchester United, it is only right that Stephen Fry is paid for his reading skills when he produces an audio book. It may be thought that such a benign service ought to be produced by people for free, out of the goodness of their hearts. However, my noble friend will recognise that an awful

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lot of people in the acting profession who are drawn on as readers for such books are not in a position to give their services free, and that there are costs involved.
Lord Addington: My Lords, I totally appreciate what the Minister says, but there a few differences. If someone wants a conventional book, they want it with a nicely bound cover. If they want the special edition, that is fine, and they pay a little extra for it. We are talking about a basic product.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I understand what the noble Lord has said, and I will bear it in mind. I want to emphasise that the debate this evening has thrown up a number of very interesting suggestions on how we could make progress. I respect what he said about how we drive the costs of the books down.
I have somewhat extended my time over the allotted span. The debate has been enormously constructive. The Government believe that we have a good record in this area. In Britain, we have a strong tradition of
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support for those with disabilities, and initiatives that I have outlined this evening bear witness to that. I also want to emphasise the extent to which the Government are open-minded and seek to be constructive on the number of valuable suggestions made.
There is growing recognition of the importance of free and fair access. I assure the House that we will continue to work with key players on the matter to develop good practice in widening accessibility. Social inclusion is a principal part of that.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, asked at the beginning of the debate why we could not discuss an element of philosophy as well as issues of practice. I assure him that the Government are serious about the concept of social inclusion. That means that we have to have due regard for the needs of the groups that we have identified this evening. I am grateful for the constructive contributions to the debate, which will advance that cause.
House adjourned at twenty-nine minutes past eight o'clock.

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