Sitting of 22 October 2003

Preamble
The House met at half-past Eleven o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  HEREFORD MARKETS BILL [Lords]
  Read the Third time, and passed.
Oral Answers to Questions
  OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER
  The Deputy Prime Minister was asked—
  OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

    Council Tax
    John Barrett: What estimates he has made of the cost to local authorities of administration of (a) council tax and (b) council tax benefit for 2002–03. [133433]
    The Minister for Local Government, Regional Governance and Fire (Mr. Nick Raynsford): In 2002–03, budgeted council tax benefit administration costs in England totalled £205 million. Council tax collection costs totalled £318 million.
    John Barrett: I thank the Minister for that answer. Given the costs of the administration of council tax, which remains one of the most unjust, unfair and regressive taxes, will the Minister, in the balance of funding review, follow the leader of the Scottish Executive and consider scrapping the council tax and replacing it with a tax based on ability to pay?
    Mr. Raynsford: Yesterday, there was a meeting of the balance of funding review at which we agreed to look at a number of options. The hon. Gentleman will no doubt be pleased to know that the issue of a local income tax is one that we have thought worthy of the consideration. He and his party, however, should not be so optimistic about the potential savings that they have trumpeted—some £500 million. The letter that I have received from the Liberal Democrat spokesman confirms that on virtually every point that I raised they are considering options for the administration of a local income tax. They have not worked it out. It is the usual Liberal
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    Democrat story—their talk is good but they have not done their figures. I suspect that they will be in for a nasty shock.
    Mr. Jon Owen Jones: I hope that the Minister will not be beguiled by the seeming attractions of local income tax. Is it not true that some of my constituents who live in mansions worth millions of pounds would find themselves not paying anything to the local council, whereas hard-working families in much more modest accommodation would find themselves paying thousands of pounds more?
    Mr. Raynsford: My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. That is why we are approaching this whole issue in an extremely open-minded and thorough way. We are not going to come out with glib promises of quick improvements. We want to look at this closely, because it is a serious issue, and my hon. Friend rightly highlights one of the obvious anomalies that would flow from the abolition of the only property tax that currently exists in this country. One of the bizarre features of the Liberal Democrat proposals—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister can tell that to the hon. Gentleman privately.
    Mr. Eric Pickles: Capping would have an effect on the costs of collection. I would like to commend and endorse the views of the right hon. Gentleman on capping. I am sure that he spoke for many in the House when referred in this Chamber on 24 June 1992 to
    "the unfairness and unsatisfactory…process"
    of capping. He concluded:
    "We see a sad and sorry picture of the imposition of centralised diktats by Ministers who cannot possible understand the intricacies and the detailed implications for local communities".—[Official Report, 24 June 1992; Vol. 210, c. 344–46.]
    That is in stark contrast to his present views, expressed in his letter to The Daily Telegraph today. He now threatens to break his promise of no capping for excellent councils. With pensioners on strike and chief constables warning of a breakdown in law and order, is that U-turn evidence that the Government are now panicking because their stealth tax has finally been rumbled by the public?
    Mr. Raynsford: I find that somewhat rich coming from a party that capped, capped and capped again when in power. What the Government are doing is rightly focusing on the real concerns that are felt by many people throughout the country at the unreasonably large council tax increases that have been imposed, interestingly, predominantly by Conservative councils—councils such as Wandsworth, which cut its council tax by 25 per cent. in election year, and put it up by 45 per cent. lastyear—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) should hear the Minister's reply.
    Mr. Peter Pike: Does my right hon. Friend agree that for many people who are just above council tax benefit level, the council tax increases are becoming increasingly unacceptable? That is why I welcome the type of statement that he made a few moments ago—that the Government are looking at the matter in a positive way. In the meantime, will he recognise that councils should look more positively at people who are struggling to pay and not incur a cost by summonsing them if they clearly show that they are going to pay by 31 March? Being late with one or two instalments should be accepted if people are struggling to pay.
    Mr. Raynsford: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that people are increasingly concerned about the council tax increases that have been imposed by some councils. As I said, it was predominantly Conservative councils that had an average increase in council tax this year of 16 per cent., which is by far and away the highest and should cause concern.
    It is right that people should pay council tax, but it is equally right that those responsible for administering it should be sensitive in its collection and accept the fact that some people have difficulties. A firm but sensitive approach is obviously correct.
    Mr. Edward Davey: Will the Minister confirm that the total administration costs of council tax—the figures that he has announced today and other related figures such as the valuation appeals costs—amounted to a massive £569 million last year? Will he also confirm that that means that 4 per cent. of council tax revenue goes on bureaucracy alone? That compares with 1 per cent. for income tax administration costs. Will he therefore say that, in the balance of funding review, the Government will not only get rid of this unfair tax, but make sure that hundreds of millions of pounds of savings can be given back to hard-pressed council tax payers?
    Mr. Raynsford: The hon. Gentleman has not done his figures right, and this is the usual story with the Liberal Democrats. The figures that I have just given show that expenditure on council tax collection and council tax benefit administration is £520 million. I put it to the hon. Gentleman that it is a pretty fantastic proposition to put to the public that the Liberal Democrats expect to save £500 million and that their whole scheme for local income tax could be administered for a mere £20 million. He admits in his letter that he has not yet worked out what administration system he will use, so he is telling us something that is totally non-credible.

    Air Conditioning
    Sue Doughty: What plans he has to introduce inspections of air conditioning systems with an effective rated output of more than 12 kW. [133434]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Yvette Cooper): We plan to introduce inspections of air conditioning with an output of more than 12kW in order to support improvements
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    to energy efficiency as part of the implementation of the energy performance of buildings directive, which needs to be transposed by 2005.
    Sue Doughty: I thank the Minister for that reply, but we need to recognise that the directive could save 9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2010. Given the number of requirements in the directive, would it not be prudent for it to be incorporated in primary legislation so that the Government can get on and deliver as rapidly and effectively as possible the huge environmental benefits resulting from the directive?
    Yvette Cooper: The hon. Lady is right. There are clear environmental benefits from the directive and, as air conditioning becomes more popular, this issue will become increasingly important. As part of the review of building regulations, we are consulting on how the measure should be introduced. I draw the hon. Lady's attention to the information on the departmental website if she is interested in the detail in that respect.

    Councillor Payments
    Bob Russell: When he last discussed with the Local Government Association the level of payments made to councillors. [133435]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Phil Hope): I have not held any recent discussions with the Local Government Association about the level of payments made to councillors. The level of allowances payable to elected members is for each local authority to determine. However, before we introduced the current regulations on councillors' allowances in May this year, we consulted extensively all local authorities and a number of local authority organisations, including the LGA, on the proposed changes.
    Bob Russell: When the Minister next meets the LGA, will he inquire what its view is of the benefits—financial and otherwise—to council tax payers of the introduction of cabinet systems in local government and, with them, the higher payments to councillors? Are council tax payers getting value for money and better democratic decisions as a result?
    Phil Hope:The hon. Gentleman is right to suggest that it is a matter for local councils to determine the level of payments. The new system of basic payments and special responsibility allowances is there to enable local councillors to make their own decisions. They have the freedom to decide the levels, and with that comes responsibility and accountability to the electorate for the levels of payments that they decide to make.
    In addition to the responsibility payments that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, I would also like to refer to the new dependant carers allowances that are now available to local authorities. I hope that they will allow more parents, particularly women, to consider standing for office as local councillors.

    Gypsies
    Julie Morgan: What plans he has to increase access to sites provided for gypsy travellers. [133436]
    The Minister for Housing and Planning (Keith Hill): As a Welsh Member, my hon. Friend will be aware that responsibility for gypsy and traveller accommodation in Wales has been devolved to the National Assembly. In England, over the past two years, the Government have spent £17 million on refurbishing 150 unused or under-used gypsy sites, and a similar amount is available over the next two years. From April this year, the funding is available for the provision of new transit sites.
    Julie Morgan: I thank the Minister for that answer. Is he aware that it is estimated that 30 per cent. of gypsy and traveller families have no legal place to stay? Does he agree that one way forward might be to impose a statutory duty on local authorities to provide and facilitate sites?
    Keith Hill: I am aware that many gypsies and travellers do not have access to authorised encampments. We are aware that that is a growing problem and we know of the great difficulties caused by unauthorised encampments, which is why we are bringing in a new power under the Anti-social Behaviour Bill to allow the rapid removal by the police of illegal encampments. The plain fact is that we need more authorised sites—both transit and residential. I am pleased to say that the number of sites that are privately owned by gypsies and travellers is increasing but there is also a clear need for local authorities to provide more sites. We are keeping all options under consideration.
    Mr. Henry Bellingham: I do not often praise Ministers, but I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on making an effort to get to grips with the problem, because he seems to be coming up with proactive and interesting ideas. Does he agree that the management of sites is important? One of the problems is that there is often fly-tipping, litter and other rubbish on the sites. Until the Conservatives took control of King's Lynn and West Norfolk borough council, the main traveller site at Saddlebow really was one hell of a mess. What will he do to ensure that the sites are better managed?
    Keith Hill: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We are well aware that the appearance of gypsies and travellers can create a nightmare for local residents and that the sites can be left in an appalling condition. We are seized of the issue and anxious that local authorities should have the opportunity to deal with fly tipping. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are introducing further powers on fly tipping in the Anti-social Behaviour Bill and, of course, we expect local authorities to deal with such matters proactively.
    Mr. Mark Todd: Derbyshire county council has tried to extend a site in my area of South Derbyshire. It would make a considerable difference to the potential success of the project if it
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    received full funding rather than the 75 per cent. funding offered by the Government. That would also relieve the pressure of illegal camping, which is a blight on much of my area. Will the Minister reconsider the 75 per cent. contribution?
    Keith Hill: I understand my hon. Friend's point. The Government are making significant investments—£35 million over four years—and we contribute 75 per cent. toward costs. There are always pressures from local authorities to extract more money and there are finite resources for local government. Of course, our ears are open to all representations.
    Andrew Selous: When will the Government ensure that planning law is applied as stringently to gypsies as it is to members of the settled community?
    Keith Hill: We continually keep the matter under review. We are certainly considering the further strengthening of planning powers. We are seized of the fact that the availability of authorised sites has dried up over the years. As to extensive new provision, it is interesting to observe that, from 1968 to 1994, when there was a requirement on local authorities to establish gypsy sites, some 300 sites were brought in-300 of only 324 authorised sites nationwide. Let me assure the hon. Gentleman that we are well aware of the issues. They are under consideration and we expect to come forward with new proposals in due course.

    Regional Government Referendums
    Mr. David Borrow: When he will announce whether the proposed referendums on regional government will be conducted by postal ballot. [133437]
    The Minister for Local Government, Regional Governance and Fire (Mr. Nick Raynsford): Following a series of pilots in local authority elections and thorough evaluation by the Electoral Commission, it is clear that all-postal ballots can significantly increase levels of partici
    ion in elections. We have considered this evidence carefully, and I am pleased to announce today that the Government intend to hold the referendums on elected regional assemblies and on associated local government changes by all-postal ballots.
    Mr. Borrow: I thank the Minister for that reply. It is the one that I hoped to get, and will encourage those of us who intend to campaign for a yes vote because we want to get the devolution of power that we deserve in the north-west.
    Mr. Raynsford: I wish my hon. Friend every success with his campaign. We will do our utmost to ensure a high turnout in those very important referendums, which will determine the scope of devolved power to the English regions.
    Peter Bottomley: Will the Minister confirm that there is no call for a referendum in the south-east? In addition, what level of increased fraud—[Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman's colleagues

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    think this is worth barracking. What level of increased fraud as a result of postal ballots will get him to revise his opinion? Will he keep that under review?
    Mr. Raynsford: The whole principle on which we based our policy is one of choice. Those regions with an appetite for elected regional assemblies can have referendums. Those that have not expressed an interest are not required to do so. It is a simple matter of giving choice to the English regions.
    On fraud, I referred to the Electoral Commission's thorough evaluation of the local government pilots. It found no evidence of increased fraud, although it did find clear evidence of a substantial increase in turnout, and it is on that basis that we are proceeding. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we will continue to look closely at the issue because it is vital to maintain the integrity of the ballot.
    Geraldine Smith: Although regional government may excite some politicians, is it not the case that the soundings exercise in the north-west proved that the vast majority of people were totally uninterested and unenthusiastic about a referendum? Will not those people consider a postal ballot a complete waste of taxpayers' money?
    Mr. Raynsford: No, I profoundly disagree with my hon. Friend. I remind her that there were several thousand responses in the north-west from a wide range of organisations representative of many thousands more people. I am surprised that my hon. Friend is resisting the option given to people in the north-west to determine whether they should have an elected regional assembly. They will decide. That is democracy.
    Mr. Andrew Rosindell: In the same spirit of democracy and choice, will the Minister announce a postal ballot for the people of London so that we can choose to get rid of the monstrous bureaucracy of the Greater London Assembly?
    Mr. Raynsford: I do understand that the hon. Gentleman has only been here a little while, so he will perhaps not be fully aware that the people of London expressed a view in a referendum less than six years ago in favour of a Greater London Authority. When the party that he supports was in government and it abolished the Greater London council, the people of London were given no choice. That is the difference between the parties: we give the people a choice.

    Rural Housing
    Tony Cunningham: If he will make a statement on the results of his visit to Workington to examine rural housing issues. [133438]
    The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. John Prescott): I had a very productive visit to my hon. Friend's constituency of Workington, including discussions with key partners on the delivery of sustainable communities in Cumbria. I am committed to increasing the supply of affordable houses in rural areas. That is why we have increased the Housing Corporation's rural target to provide a total of 3,500 affordable homes over the next two years,
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    restricted the right to buy in rural areas, given councils the power to reduce council tax discounts on holiday homes, and given rural communities a voice on the new regional housing and planning boards.
    Tony Cunningham: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. His visits to my constituency are always greatly appreciated. Does he agree, however, that even if we find available land in rural areas and provide the financial packages to build houses, without greater flexibility in the planning system, we will never build the homes that people so desperately need?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend knows, I am extremely concerned about the restrictions on planning permission for land for affordable housing, which is why I was pleased when I visited the area in February to agree with the Cumbrian strategic partnership that it would set up a review of the impact on economic sustainability of the lack of affordable homes. It will look at the problems of barriers, whether legislative, planning or financial, and its report will be published at the end of the year, giving us a greater understanding of what more we need to do to provide affordable homes.
    David Davis: Despite the Deputy Prime Minister's opening remarks, I shall resist the strong temptation to ask him about ministerial second homes, either in the lake district or elsewhere. In the context of rural housing, does he agree with the following quotation:
    "There is no doubt that the homelessness problem has been increased by the shortage of affordable rented housing…Labour's approach will be founded on the basic aim of ensuring that everyone has the chance to a decent home—both the majority who want to own their own homes and the minority who cannot afford to buy or choose to rent"?
    Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: Yes.
    David Davis: I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman does so, because that quotation about the shortage of affordable rented housing was from the Prime Minister, his boss. Why is it, therefore, that under his Labour Government the construction of social housing in English rural authorities has halved?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: I believe that the right hon. Gentleman has said that before, but it is just not true. The amount of social housing has yet to be determined following the recommendations from the regional boards on housing. I do not know where the right hon. Gentleman got his figure from, but it is not true. Like his first question, it is not accurate.

    Overcrowding
    Ms Sally Keeble: What plans he has for measures to help families living in overcrowded conditions. [133439]
    The Minister for Housing and Planning (Keith Hill): As my hon. Friend will be aware, about 2 per cent. of households are overcrowded under the standard used in

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    the survey of English housing, with about a third of those in London. The Government believe that the way to help overcrowded families is investment in new homes. That is why we are investing £5 billion in more affordable homes over the next two years, double the level of investment that we inherited in 1997.
    Ms Keeble: I welcome the extra investment and the relief that it would provide for families living in overcrowded conditions. Does my right hon. Friend accept, however, that the standards established in 1935 on overcrowding are now out of date? We need some simple standards that will safeguard the well-being of families living in overcrowded conditions.
    Keith Hill: Of course, I agree with my hon. Friend that the 1935 statutory standards are outdated. The problem, however, is that they cannot be raised in isolation from other factors. Some of the current proposals would have the effect of increasing twentyfold the number of households statutorily defined as overcrowded, imposing a quite unrealistic demand on the resources of local authorities and diverting them from the excellent decent homes programme and their responsibilities to homeless families, who often live in far worse conditions than overcrowded households.
    Mr. Gary Streeter: Surely the primary way to overcome overcrowding is to build more affordable homes to rent? Despite what the Deputy Prime Minister has just said, is it not now clear that whereas in 1997 more than 30,000 affordable homes to rent were being completed in this country, the figure has halved and was below 15,000 last year? What is the Minister going to do about that?
    Keith Hill: I will tell the hon. Gentleman what we are going to do about it. In 1997, we inherited a disastrous £19 billion of arrears in the modernisation and refurbishment of social housing. We are putting that right. By next spring, 1 million social homes will be brought up to the decent homes standard and we will have brought all such homes up to that standard by 2010. In addition, this year, we are building more than 22,000 new homes, and we are committed to £5 billion of new investment in affordable housing over the next two years, double the level of investment that we inherited from the Opposition.

    Parks
    Ms Joan Walley: What additional funding is available in this financial year for parks in urban areas. [133440]
    The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. John Prescott): The budget from which local authorities fund improvements to the local environment has been increased by £1 billion over three years in the current spending review. In addition, the sustainable communities plan set out a package of local environment measures worth £200 million over the next three years, including the liveability fund. Finally, the national lottery distributors, particularly the Heritage Lottery Fund, as
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    well as the new opportunities fund and the community fund, also provide substantial funding for parks and other green spaces.
    Ms Walley: I welcome the work that the Government are doing to invest in parks and green spaces, and the fact that the Landscape Institute chose Stoke-on-Trent to launch the liveability policy. When my right hon. Friend considers the bids coming through from local authorities, will he examine closely the bid submitted by Stoke-on-Trent city council? Does he agree that there is an urgent case for an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund for Burslem and Tunstall park?
    The Deputy Prime Minister: The House is well aware that my hon. Friend is a great advocate of investment in green spaces. We have received bids from many authorities for a grant from the liveability fund. The successful bids will be announced shortly, in early November.

  The Prime Minister was asked—
  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr A.J. Beith: If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 22 October.
    The Prime Minister: This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
    Mr. Beith: I welcome the Prime Minister's rapid return to robust health—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Indeed, I should like to see all three party leaders remain in robust health and leaders of their parties. May I turn the Prime Minister's attention, however, to an unacceptable aspect of the war against terrorism—namely, the continued existence of a legal no-man's-land at Guantanamo Bay, where UK citizens and others do not face trial under UK law or US law or according to international law? The Prime Minister has said that there must be a point in time when the issue is brought to a head. Is that point in time not before or during President Bush's forthcoming visit to London?
    The Prime Minister: First, I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his good wishes. Secondly, yes, the issue must be resolved soon. I cannot say exactly when, but there are two alternatives: either sufficient undertakings will be given about the form of trial that the detainees will have under a military commission, or they will be returned to the United Kingdom. The British Attorney-General has been in touch with his American counterpart in order to try to make sure that sufficient undertakings are given. It may not be possible to bring the US rules into conformity with ours, in which case the detainees will be returned to the UK.

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    I want to make a further point to the right hon. Gentleman. It is important to realise that there is a reason why those people have been detained, and there is a reason why it is extremely important that we exercise a great deal of care about how they are tried, not merely for their sake—they are entitled to a fair trial—but for the security of this country.
    Mr. Bill Tynan: My right hon. Friend will be aware that the Fireworks Act 2003 is now on the statute book. [Interruption.] I hoped that would get a cheer. Is my right hon. Friend aware that the major problem that we face is the importation of illegal fireworks? More than 1,000 tonnes have come in through Felixstowe over the past six weeks and are causing enormous problems throughout the country. Would my right hon. Friend try to resolve the problem and make sure that we maintain safety in our communities?
    The Prime Minister: I am happy to respond positively to my hon. Friend's remarks, and I congratulate him on all the work that he did on his Bill on the issue. Fireworks are a real source of antisocial behaviour. That is why the Government support the measures set out in my hon. Friend's Bill. I very much hope that even in advance of those measures coming into effect, people will realise, particularly in respect of the sale of fireworks to young people, that there are strict laws that should be upheld and not breached, and that those who breach them should face the full severity of the law.
    Mr. Iain Duncan Smith: May I personally welcome the Prime Minister back to the Dispatch Box, and say that I am glad to see that he is clearly back to full health?
    Following yesterday's disappointments in Northern Ireland, does the Prime Minister agree that Sinn Fein-IRA have not done enough to demonstrate their commitment to exclusively democratic and peaceful means? In April, the Prime Minister asked Gerry Adams to say that all IRA paramilitary activity would end. Could he tell us where Mr. Adams made that clear in his statement yesterday? Do we not need to be certain that for the IRA the war is over?
    The Prime Minister: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his good wishes.
    In respect of the IRA, two very important things happened yesterday. First, there was a clear statement by Gerry Adams, which was then endorsed by the IRA, that the implementation of the Good Friday agreement means the end of the conflict in Northern Ireland. It is the first time that that has been said in those terms, and that is very important. Secondly, that statement—I do not have the exact text in front of me—made it clear that there should be a cessation of all paramilitary activity. Furthermore, the position of the two Governments—as stated in our joint declaration, paragraph 13 of which lists those paramilitary activities—is that any breach of what is set out there will incur the full sanctions of the Independent Monitoring Commission. The existence of that monitoring commission and those sanctions gives us the best chance not only of having the words which,
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    obviously, are merely words—but of ensuring that the deeds are done and that the IRA or any other organisation can be held to account for what it does.
    Mr. Duncan Smith: On monitoring, there is clearly a need for greater openness on the issue of IRA weapons. We need to clarify the timetable by which illegal weapons are finally to be put beyond use. Last night, the media reported that British officials had spoken in briefings about the kinds of weapons that had been decommissioned. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that if the people of Northern Ireland knew what he knew, they would be satisfied. Can he explain, then, why details of all decommissioned weapons cannot now be placed in the public domain?
    The Prime Minister: I can explain that, although I agree that it is an unsatisfactory situation—we are trying to resolve it at the moment. Under the decommissioning legislation, it is open to paramilitary organisations to decommission with confidentiality as to exactly what has been decommissioned. That is the arrangement that they entered into with General de Chastelain, who, for perfectly obvious and honourable reasons, feels bound by it. He gives certain information not the full information, but certain information—to us, as the two Governments. Although we are not at liberty to disclose that information without his permission, we are working hard to try to find a way in which we can do so, because I believe, on the basis of what we know, that people would be satisfied if they knew the full details.
    I entirely understand that from the perspective of the Unionist community people need, given all the history of this issue, to be sure that what is said to be a substantial act of decommissioning is indeed a substantial act of decommissioning. Over the next few days, we have to try to find a way to resolve this, because that will allow the right atmosphere, conducive to sustainable institutions, to surround the elections in Northern Ireland that take place on 26 November.
    Mr. George Howarth: Does my right hon. Friend agree that once the dust settles on the events in Northern Ireland over the past 24 hours, we are left, still, with the Good Friday agreement? Will he further agree that that is more likely to be delivered in its entirety if there is bipartisan support across this House?
    The Prime Minister: That is true. I hope that people in Northern Ireland realise that it is deeply frustrating and disappointing that we were unable to achieve the full range of agreements that we thought we would be able to achieve yesterday. However, people should not lose sight of the fact that enormous progress has been made in Northern Ireland over the past few years. We have had the quietest summer for some 30 years; we have parties sitting down and talking to each other who some years ago could barely bear to be in the same room together; and we have the economy expanding probably faster than in any other part of the United Kingdom.
    The truth is that there is an enormous prize to be gained if we can get this last bit of the way. As far as the Government are concerned—I am sure that this is true

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    of the Government in the Republic of Ireland—we will carry on working all the way to make this agreement a reality, because it is the only agreement on offer and it is the only prospect of a secure and stable peace for Northern Ireland in future.
    Mr. Charles Kennedy: On a separate subject, in the previous Labour party manifesto, the Prime Minister explicitly stated:
    "We will not introduce 'top-up' fees".
    Does he stand by that commitment to the British public?
    The Prime Minister: We have made it clear on many occasions that because of that commitment, we cannot introduce variable fees until after the next election.
    Mr. Kennedy: That is a lawyer's answer. The Prime Minister said at the time of the general election that he was against university top-up fees, yet he will legislate to introduce them. Given what he has said and what he now proposes to do, how can the British public trust him or his Government?
    The Prime Minister: For the simple reason that I have made it clear that the proposals cannot come into effect until after an election. The issue at the next election will be how we fund universities better and improve access for our students. Three policies are on offer. The Conservative party's policy is to cut the number of students and their funding. The Liberal Democrats' policy is to say that they agree that universities need more money and that there should be greater access, and that the money will come out of a 50p top-rate of tax.
    Let me explain the problem with that policy. I have been looking at Liberal Democrat policies—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] They are an excellent form of relaxation. The top-rate of tax will pay for not merely student fees, but council tax, as well as Liberal Democrats' plans for care for the elderly, and increases in pensions and in spending on the national health service. Furthermore, we have gone through their spending commitments in the past two years.
    Mr. John Bercow: Read them out.
    The Prime Minister: I could not—it would take too long. In 2001–02, the Liberal Democrats had more than 40 different spending commitments. At their conference last month, they pledged another 30. They run into literally billions of pounds. I shall tell Liberal Democrat Members what misleading the British people is. It is telling them they can get something for free when they cannot.
    Hon. Members: More!
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Jonathan Shaw.
    Jonathan Shaw: Granada Television, which runs the popular news programme "Meridian Tonight", is threatening to close its television centre in my constituency, putting jobs at risk. Given that we have only one independent television company, does the Prime Minister share my belief that the
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    regulator should take a robust line to protect the quality and relevance of regional news programmes throughout the country?
    The Prime Minister: I agree that it is important that the regulator takes a robust line, but I hope that my hon. Friend agrees that the decision is a decision for the regulator.
    Mr. Alistair Carmichael: The Prime Minister knows that fishery scientists called again this week for a total ban on cod fishing in the North sea. Will he explain why, if cod stocks are so poor, the Government continue to allow the Danish industrial fishing fleet to fish for almost anything with scales, including a massive by-catch of immature cod?
    The Prime Minister: I understand that the issue is important, not least in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. For that reason, negotiations will take place at the Agriculture and Fisheries Council in December, when we shall make precisely the points that the hon. Gentleman raised. Although more member states agree with our position, more scientific evidence is needed to convince others. We are setting about doing exactly that. I appreciate that we are already convinced, but we must convince the others so that we get a majority behind our position at the Agriculture and Fisheries Council. I hope that we can do that.
    Alan Simpson: On the war on Iraq, will the Prime Minister make one point clear? When the Attorney-General gave his advice about the legality of the war, did he know that the 45-minute warning related only to battlefield weapons and not to weapons of mass destruction?
    The Prime Minister: The Attorney-General's advice was clear, and dependent not on that specific information but on the legal position in United Nations resolutions. I refer my hon. Friend to an excellent article that was written today and makes precisely the same case that the Attorney-General made in his advice.
    Ann Winterton: Will the Prime Minister rule out completely reports in the press that a Labour Government—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order.
    Ann Winterton: Will the Prime Minister rule out a Labour Government using an Englishman's home—his castle as a cash register for the Treasury?
    The Prime Minister: If the hon. Lady means the report about capital gains tax on house sales, that has already been comprehensively denied by the Treasury.
    Mr. Neil Turner: The sure start programme has been hugely successful in tackling the root causes of social deprivation and exclusion. The Wigan borough has two such schemes, neither of which is in my constituency. May I ask the Prime Minister when he will be able to extend the programme to cover areas such as Pemberton, an area of severe deprivation

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    in my constituency, so that we can ensure that the programme will break the cycle of deprivation that passes from generation to generation, and release the full potential of all our people, no matter where they were born?
    The Prime Minister: I cannot give a precise commitment on my hon. Friend's constituency, but he has already drawn attention to the two local sure start programmes in Wigan. I can say that we are increasing spending up to £1.5 billion a year for the sure start unit, which is an enormous undertaking. It is now helping some 400,000 children in some of the most disadvantaged parts of the country, as I saw for myself in Southampton a few weeks ago. The fact is that it is not merely excellent for the children; it is also giving the parents—often lone parents—a chance to get a qualification, a job and some hope in life. It is therefore a huge programme to combat poverty and social exclusion. I hope that it will go from strength to strength, not merely in my hon. Friend's area but throughout the country.
    Mr. Iain Duncan Smith: The Prime Minister once promised to be tough on crime. Can he tell us how many incidents of violent crime were recorded last year?
    The Prime Minister: I cannot tell the right hon. Gentleman the precise figures. I agree that violent crime has gone up. However, crime overall has fallen under this Government, and, of course, crime doubled under the last Conservative Government.
    Mr. Duncan Smith: The answer is that, for the first time in our history, there were more than 1 million victims of violent crime last year. That is an increase of more than 70 per cent. in the past five years under this Labour Government. Will the Prime Minister now tell us how many gun crimes were recorded last year?
    The Prime Minister: Gun crime increased by some 3 per cent. last year. I think that it was an increase of 35 per cent. before that, so that is something of a tailing off. I would also point out that the chances of being a victim of gun crime in this country are lower than in virtually any major country in the industrialised world.
    Mr. Duncan Smith: It is no good the Prime Minister listening to his Home Secretary telling him all about the "eye-catching initiatives". People do not want any more eye-catching initiatives; they want criminal-catching initiatives. The answer to my last question is that, again for the first time, there were 10,000 gun crimes last year. The Prime Minister once said:
    "Crime figures are the measure of whether"—
    his—
    "Government is succeeding or failing".
    Do not the recorded crime figures show that his Government have totally failed?
    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman is on slightly difficult ground here, since the British crime survey makes it absolutely clear that crime has fallen under this Government, not risen. I would also point out
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    that crime doubled under the last Conservative Government. In fact, violent crime actually went up by 73 per cent., mugging went up by 70 per cent., burglary more than doubled and car crime doubled. So our record stands very well in comparison with his. However, he says that we must have measures to do something about this, and I agree. That is why we have a Criminal Justice Bill now going through the House of Lords. Yet measures in that Bill that would have a real impact on violent crime, organised crime and gun crime are being opposed by the Conservatives in the House of Lords. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will say whether he will agree to let those measures through, particularly those dealing with organised crime and the previous convictions of defendants, because it is no use his asking for action, then denying the police the powers to get it.
    Mr. Duncan Smith: The Prime Minister should check his own figures. They show that, overall, crime is up under this Government. [Interruption.] Oh, no. The Home Secretary should calm down. There were 800,000 more offences this year than when the Prime Minister came to power. Those crimes are the ones that were recorded by the police, not by surveys. I remind the Prime Minister that that set of figures is the same set that he used in opposition when he promised to be tough on crime. They show that violent crime is up 70 per cent., gun crime has doubled, detection rates are down and overall crime is up. Everybody in the real world knows that crime has risen. Only in Blair world is crime coming down. Is that not the reason why, when it comes to crime, nobody believes a word he says any more?
    The Prime Minister: First, I repeat the fact that crime has gone down under the Government, but I accept that violent crime has gone up. However, to go back to the record of the last Conservative Government—[Interruption.] It is a useful comparison, I think, that crime doubled under them. The real point is that measures in the Anti-social Behaviour Bill and the Criminal Justice Bill are going to make a difference.
    Let me tell the public what the Conservatives are opposing. We say that where there is a trial involving organised crime and the jury is nobbled by organised criminals, the right to jury trial should be withdrawn. That measure, which the police say is essential to dealing with gun crime and organised crime, is being opposed by the Conservative party. In the second measure, we say that we should make greater use of defendants' previous convictions, because juries are often appalled when they hear the long list of previous convictions read out. The police say that that information is essential to dealing with crime, but the Conservative party is opposed to that proposal, so we will take the Conservatives seriously when they start to support the measures necessary to fight crime.
    Mr. Chris Mole: I am glad that the Prime Minister has mentioned the Criminal Justice Bill. Can he tell me what comfort it will offer to my constituent Lisa Ellinor, who has been continuously stalked for the last 15 years by the same man? She feels that jurors should be given more information about his previous

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    convictions in order properly to protect her from his threatening and unwanted attentions, which are making her life a living hell.
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend makes the very point that I was seeking to make to Conservative Members. The fact is that they are opposing measures in the Criminal Justice Bill right now, while telling the public that they want firm action against crime. The very things that provide firm action against crime they oppose. They are also, incidentally, still opposed to the Proceeds of Crime Bill, which, on a different point, will allow us to seize the assets of drug dealers. That is vital in the fight against organised crime. I really think that before the Conservatives start giving us lectures on law and order, they should get their own policy sorted out.
    Mr. Ian Liddell-Grainger: The Prime Minister may or may not be aware that last week two Somerset colleagues and I had an excellent meeting with the Secretary of State for Education and Skills. We asked to see him because of the scandalous mismanagement of funds by Liberal Democrat-controlled Somerset county council. Does the Prime Minister agree that the three E's of education, education, education are vital for teachers, governors and children in Somerset, and that any county council that misappropriates state funds should learn one of the three R's of arithmetic, arithmetic, arithmetic?
    The Prime Minister: Fortunately, I am not responsible for Liberal Democrat education policy, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman. To be absolutely fair, I know that he would want to point out that, as a result of the Government's extra investment in education. there is an extra £630 per pupil going into Somerset local education authority. That makes the hon. Gentleman's point all the stronger, so it would have been even better if he had mentioned it.
    Ms Joan Walley: May I say to the House that it is good to see the Prime Minister here on top form, fighting inequality? May I also say that much will depend on the outcome of Sir Michael Lyons's report, which will relocate Government Departments from Whitehall and from the south-east? Does the Prime Minister agree with me, other north Staffordshire Members and the North Staffordshire chamber of commerce that the bid from Stoke-on-Trent council—it is leading our bid—is important in order to deliver the Government's agenda and get jobs relocated? Ensuring that jobs go to north Staffordshire, which has wonderful transport facilities and really needs more highly paid jobs and where—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sure that the Prime Minister will manage an answer.
    The Prime Minister: Of course, I cannot prejudge the outcome of Sir Michael Lyons's review, but my hon. Friend makes an important point. It is one reason why we are trying to get more money into regeneration. I know that Stoke Works, which is the single regeneration budget scheme in Stoke, is putting some £8 million into
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    the area between 2003 and 2005. Obviously, a major relocation would help. I am sure that Sir Michael will be interested in my hon. Friend's comments.
    Mr. Nick Hawkins: As a direct result of the Government's policies, sub-post offices are closing all round the country, including in my constituency. Last year, in one of my villages, a sub-post office that is heavily used by pensioners and the disabled closed. Last week, it was announced that the next-door village is also to lose its sub-post office. Will the Prime Minister recognise that pensioners in my constituency are very angry about that, and will he desist from giving them his usual smug answer?
    The Prime Minister: First, let us realise that the Government have put a substantial amount of money into rural post offices. However, the fact is—as the hon. Gentleman knows, because under the last Conservative Government thousands of post offices closed over time, pensioners, for natural reasons, will get more and more of their money through bank accounts. Now, some do not want to do that and that is why we have tried to set up a process that allows them to get their money from the post office in the normal way. But without putting vast extra sums of money in, we cannot guarantee every post office. What we can do is the best we can to work with sub-postmasters and others to introduce greater investment and to save those post offices we can. However, it is irresponsible to say to people that every single sub-post office can be saved, because it cannot.
    Mr. Jim Cunningham: Given my right hon. Friend's commitment to tackling crime and the causes of crime, is he satisfied with policing levels in the west midlands, and Coventry in particular?
    The Prime Minister: It is important to recognise that huge gains have been made by the police in those areas, and it is right to say so. I think that my hon. Friend will realise—I hope that everyone does—that the police recognise that there is still a long way to go. That is why they are making the reforms and changes in the police service and why they are so anxious to have the new powers and legislation. I come back to that point, because one of the other measures that we are introducing in the Criminal Justice Bill is designed to ensure that people who will offend again do not get bail. At the moment, far too many people are let back out on the street again, virtually automatically, where they commit further offences. Yet that measure is running into opposition in the other place, led by Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers. Yes, the police need to improve and they are doing so, but they also need the powers that this Parliament should give them on a united basis.
    Lembit Öpik: Private Cheryl James would have turned 26 today had she not died at Deepcut barracks on 27 November 1995. Her parents, Des and Doreen James, who are my constituents, were told that her death was suicide, but they have never been confident that that was the case.

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    Will the Prime Minister meet Des and Doreen, and other parents in similar circumstances, to hear their concerns and what they feel should happen next?
    The Prime Minister: I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Ministry of Defence, will meet the families once the coroners and the police have finished their business. I would prefer it, if the hon. Gentleman will allow me, that that meeting should take place first, and then we can take it from there if necessary. It is right that after the police and coroners have finished their work he undertakes the meeting that he has already agreed to.
    Mr. Tom Harris: When was the last time the Prime Minister had a clear view of the milky way galaxy? He will know from his close reading of the most recent report from the Science and Technology Committee that the growth of light pollution means that our own galaxy is now viewable from only 30 per cent. of the United Kingdom. Does he share my concern that such inter-stellar vandalism means that generations of children are growing up without ever having an opportunity to see for themselves the beauty of the night sky? Will he now instruct his Ministers to present a positive and constructive response to the report?
    The Prime Minister: I am a little bit outside my area of expertise on that point, but fortunately I have a full brief. It says:
    "Possible question: light pollution. Welcome the Science and Technology Select Committee report. The Government will respond soon."
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    Well—that's what we'll do.
    Andrew George: Decisions on genetically modified crops should be based on sound science, but if the Prime Minister accepts that the report commissioned by the Government shows that consumers do not want GM products, that supermarkets do not want to stock them, that liability issues are far from resolved, and that the science is at best inconclusive, is he satisfied that the Government can make a decision about the permanent release of GMs into the British countryside? If not, when will that decision be made?
    The Prime Minister: We will act according to the scientific evidence. I think the system that we have set up is robust, because it is allowing us to get proper scientific evidence. For some GM crops, for example, there are problems to do with biodiversity, but others are said to have fewer such problems. I know that there is a huge campaign against GM but, to be frank, the Government have no interest in the matter one way or the other, other than to try to do the right thing. However, the biotechnology industry is a vital part of this country's industry. Many people believe that the science of genetics will be the most important science of the first half of the 21st century, and I can tell the hon. Gentleman that other countries are piling investment into this area. Therefore, we must proceed with care. We will proceed only according to science, but we must allow that science to be carried out. When we make a determination on this matter, we must not be prejudiced, either in favour of it or against it.

Northern Ireland
12.31 pm
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Paul Murphy): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about political developments in Northern Ireland. Before I do, however, I want to bring to the attention of the House the bereavement of my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (Mr. Spellar), the Minister of State with responsibility for political development in Northern Ireland, who lost his wife yesterday.
The House will be aware that yesterday, although a day of progress, ended in disappointment. We had high hopes that a sequence of actions involving political parties, the IRA, the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning and the Governments would result in a positive new atmosphere of trust at the beginning of the election campaign.
I believe that we were close to achieving that result. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach devoted much effort to the task both yesterday and in the preceding weeks. But the significant feature of this recent phase of the process was the direct engagement between the leaderships of the Ulster Unionist party and of Sinn Fein.
These discussions and related developments have, in my view, brought us a good deal further than the position that we reached in April. Let us be clear about what has now been achieved.
First, we have concluded that an election should now be held in Northern Ireland. The date, Wednesday 26 November, was announced yesterday. Secondly, we have an important statement from the leader of Sinn Fein, which was endorsed by the IRA. When Mr. Adams says that there will be full and final closure of the conflict and his remarks are endorsed by the IRA, I regard that as a significant and welcome step forward.
Thirdly, with the Irish Government we have established the Independent Monitoring Commission to ensure that the promise of the full and final closure of the conflict is a reality. Fourthly, the IRA authorised its representative to re-engage with the IICD with a view to putting arms beyond use at the earliest opportunity. Fifthly, there was an important act of decommissioning, about which General de Chastelain reported to the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach. He confirmed that the arms dealt with included light, medium and heavy ordnance and associated munitions and that the quantity involved was considerably larger than that dealt with in the previous event. His colleague Mr. Andrew Sens pointed out that the material involved could have caused death or destruction on a huge scale if it had been used.
It is, of course, a matter of great disappointment that the international commission, constrained by the confidentiality insisted upon by the IRA, was unable to report all this in a manner that was sufficiently detailed to enable the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) to make a positive statement about his party's willingness to re-enter a devolved Administration following an election. However, he did say that there were very good things in Mr. Adams's speech which were encouraging.
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The two Governments have made it clear in the joint declaration that arms need to be put beyond use in a manner that is conducive to creating public confidence. That has not so far been achieved.
As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister indicated at Hillsborough yesterday, we shall continue to try to find a way through that difficulty. Further discussions between the parties are obviously essential. The international commission will need to be involved and the British and Irish Governments will do all they can to resolve that problem quickly.
In the meantime, the necessary legal steps need to be taken so that the election announced yesterday can take place. Accordingly, I have made an order to enable fresh elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly to be held on Wednesday 26 November. I have also made an associated order to defer the publication of the new electoral register, due on 1 December, because the necessary work cannot be carried out during preparations for an election. I am putting forward a further order to permit the Electoral Commission access to polling stations.
I cannot hide my disappointment at yesterday's turn of events. I hope and believe that agreement can be reached so that the comprehensive acts of completion for which the Prime Minister called last October can be achieved and we can move to a stable and devolved Government for Northern Ireland.
Mr. Quentin Davies: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his courtesy in giving me a copy of his statement in advance. May I offer my sincere condolences and those of the Conservative party to the right hon. Member for Warley (Mr. Spellar), on his tragic family bereavement?
Despite the Secretary of State's brave attempt to put a good face on it, may I say what an appalling shambles we have had in the past 24 hours in Northern Ireland? I do not blame the right hon. Gentleman personally. I do not think he calls the shots in Northern Ireland—it is my view that things would be rather better if he did. The Opposition really do try to support the Government over Northern Ireland when they are doing, or attempting to do, sensible things, as we showed over Hillsborough in March. I was genuinely hoping to give them a supportive response today, but they surely cannot expect the events of yesterday to pass without comment.
It is the great importance of the prize of peace in Northern Ireland that means that the House must take very seriously indeed mistakes in tactics that endanger that peace. Of course, it is undesirable that the IRA did not allow General de Chastelain to be more open about their act of decommissioning. Indeed, it was very foolish of them, since they have denied themselves on this, as on previous occasions, the full political benefits of their actions. But surely the Government, who were a party to the negotiations since they were offering their own concessions, on elections, for example, and since they take overall responsibility for the peace process—or I think they do—would have dealt with that point in advance and would have been clear about what was coming and whether it was acceptable.
Is it not the case that one of two things has clearly happened? Either the Government left the negotiations in the hands of two of the parties, took it on trust that

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everything had been satisfactorily settled and never asked to see or confirm the details or have them tied down in any way, which was extraordinarily incompetent; or else they thought that the details of the statement that General de Chastelain would make and the extent of transparency displayed were unimportant, which was almost unbelievably naive and showed that they had entirely forgotten the lessons of the two previous acts of decommissioning.
Did the Government even try to negotiate the text of the statement that the IRA were to authorise General de Chastelain to make? If not, will they tell us why they did not try to do so? If they tried, will they tell us what the response from Mr. Adams was and why they accepted it?
If the Government's understanding of what had been agreed was so vague, why did they hype it up and spin up what was supposed to happen yesterday? Has that not made a bad situation even worse? Why get half the world's press corps to go to Belfast to witness what, only yesterday morning, the spin doctors were calling "the greatest day for Northern Ireland since the Belfast agreement"—[Interruption.] Yes indeed, that phrase was all over the media yesterday morning, even though the Government did not know, or had not confirmed, the details of what had been agreed.
Does the Secretary of State agree that one of the many, many tactical errors made on this occasion was to leave out of the circle entirely the Social Democratic and Labour party and the smaller pro-agreement parties? If they had all been party to any understanding, it would have been far less likely that any misrepresentation or slippage could subsequently have occurred, and the Government would have had quite a lot of cover if it had, whereas in fact they have no cover at all.
Will the right hon. Gentleman say specifically why the SDLP, which has done so much, so bravely, to contribute to the peace process since its inception, was so insultingly left out of the loop? Surely, the SDLP—as a member of any potential Executive—is just as indispensable as any of the other major pro-agreement parties?
On a matter that goes beyond Northern Ireland, is it not very sad that this week the Government should again have treated Parliament with such levity? The announcement yesterday that elections would be called in Northern Ireland was not made in this place, as it should have been. I gather that it was made early yesterday morning in a mobile telephone call from No. 10 to a BBC journalist waiting outside Hillsborough Castle, who then announced it to the rest of the world. Once again—but in enormously important, potentially tragically important, circumstances—spin and the media circus were the priorities. The Government took their eye off the essential details and the people of Northern Ireland have been deeply disappointed on what should have been a very good day.
Mr. Murphy: First, I do not think that the holding of elections of Northern Ireland is a concession to anybody. The holding of elections has been argued for by the hon. Gentleman, his party, the Liberal Democrats, other parties in Northern Ireland and many
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others as an important way of ensuring that the momentum of the peace process in Northern Ireland continues. It is not a concession to any one party, but something that is, we believe, the right thing to do. At the same time, however, we have always insisted that, if we can reach an understanding that after elections we achieve a stable Executive that is inclusive of both Unionism and nationalism, which indeed is the only way to get the Executive up and running, it is better to do that.
The hon. Gentleman touched on the question of why only two parties—the Ulster Unionist party and Sinn Fein—were deeply involved in negotiations and discussions about the issues before us. He also touched on other parties, and I shall come to that point in a second. It is important to realise why, just over a year ago, the Assembly was suspended in the first place. It was suspended because there was a collapse of trust, especially between the Ulster Unionist party and Sinn Fein. It was clear to everybody that until that trust was restored—we have not restored it yet—it would be impossible to restore devolved government in Northern Ireland. It was thus clearly sensible for those two parties to meet to try to thrash out their differences.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the SDLP and to other parties. In no way do the Government demean the work, activity, commitment or dedication of those parties; indeed, there would be no Good Friday agreement unless they had been involved. However, those parties were not responsible for the suspension of the Assembly last year and we have to address the issue that was central to that suspension.
It is clear to me that the work of all the parties in Northern Ireland is extremely important in ensuring that the peace process goes forward—course it is. We respect that point of view, but at the end of the day, over the last number of weeks, there have been very many meetings between the Ulster Unionist party and Sinn Fein to try to resolve the difficulties. Clearly, some of those difficulties were resolved; I touched on those in my statement. The re-engagement of the IRA with the Decommissioning Commission, the fact that we now have an election, and the fact that Gerry Adams made a statement that certainly went further than the statement he made back in the spring, are all things to be welcomed, and because I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the prize is the prize of peace, I do not think for a second that we are talking here about hype and spin. What we are talking about is everyone trying to do their best to achieve the peace process and success in that process, and we will keep on trying. We did not succeed yesterday but we will carry on, and I do hope that in the days ahead we might well still succeed.
Mr. Seamus Mallon: I ask the Secretary of State to accept that I share his frustration and disappointment and, to some extent, the anger at the failures yesterday to move the process forward. I would ask him three questions, if I may.
The Secretary of State agrees, I am quite sure, that the population of Ireland—the people of Ireland—took ownership of the Good Friday agreement on the day of the referendum, and subsequently gave custody of it to the political parties in their mandate in the election that followed. Was it not a foolish, and indeed a shabby, decision for the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach to

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give exclusive negotiating rights about the future of the people of the north of Ireland—my future—and the future of the agreement, to two political parties who, in their various ways for various reasons, had damaged the Good Friday agreement, failed to work it and failed to implement it properly? In the light of the debacle that derived from that yesterday, may I ask the Secretary of State to use his good offices to persuade the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach to please return custody of what belongs to us—the Good Friday agreement—so that it can be properly dealt with in the only way: that is, by all the political parties acting equally and collectively?
May I ask the Secretary of State a second question, because my mind boggles at this? For five years, decommissioning has been debated in every nook and corner and every way. Is it not down to this? Did Sinn Fein say in the negotiations that the act of decommissioning would be transparent, and did they renege? Or did the Ulster Unionist party forget to ask them about the confidentiality clause that this Parliament wrote? Can the Secretary of State answer that simply? Can he confirm that it was Sinn Fein deviousness, or was the UUP simply incompetent?
May I ask the Secretary of State a third question? Despite all the problems, will he now ensure that common sense is put back into the thinking in Downing street and Dublin, to ensure that the political process in the north of Ireland regains that which was shabbily and foolishly taken from it by two sovereign Governments?
Mr. Murphy: I understand the point that my hon. Friend is making about the importance of ensuring that all political parties in Northern Ireland are involved in the political process; of course I understand that. He knows that he and I worked for many years together in such a process and I believe that in the weeks and months ahead, during the election period and indeed when we have to enter the review of the agreement in the weeks ahead of us, there will have to be an inclusivity about that process which means that everyone is involved. But I must also remind him—I am sure he would agree with me on this too—that even when we had the Good Friday agreement talks, the peace talks, for many years in Northern Ireland, that did not mean that there were not extensive bilateral talks between parties to try to sort out the difficulties that were between them. My hon. Friend himself would have been engaged in some bilateral talks. Of course he would say that that was in a different context, but nevertheless bilaterals are held between parties that have differences between them, because it is sensible to try to resolve them.
I cannot comment on who said what to whom in those negotiations. Of course I cannot do that because they were negotiations between the political parties. Indeed, hon. Members will have seen on the media that those parties have different and differing views about what was said and what was not said. But, frankly, what we now have to do is go ahead and try to resolve the difficulty that is immediately in front of us. We will not be thanked by the people of Northern Ireland if all we do is recriminate about what has happened over the past few days. We have to deal with the issues in front of us. It behoves all hon. Members and all political parties in Northern Ireland, if they feel that the effort that has
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gone into the negotiations over the past weeks has failed, to come up with an answer and to produce something that succeeds.
Lembit Öpik: The Liberal Democrats welcome the elections that are to be held at long last, but can the right hon. Gentleman guarantee that the elections will proceed on 26 November, without any danger of the outcome of the Ulster Unionist Council influencing the Government and causing a further postponement? The Liberal Democrats also welcome what sounds like a pretty significant decommissioning gesture by the IRA, and I am optimistic that it is an indication of genuine cooperation in the process by that paramilitary organisation. To what extent did the language used by Sinn Fein and, indeed, the IRA signify that they accepted that they had to address all aspects of paragraph 13 of the joint declaration, including paramilitary attacks and exiling? Incidentally, may I ask to what extent the Government have now committed to implementing the comprehensive review, which is scheduled, according to the agreement, to come into effect this December?
Crucially, does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the Government's decision to leave the negotiations to two parties—Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionists—effectively excluded the rest of the organisations, individuals and parties of good will and those who are pro-agreement, who could quite possibly have exerted sufficient pressure to ensure that we had a positive, instead of a negative, outcome yesterday? Does he not accept that he has squandered a large degree of the good will that was being offered to him and the Government by the Alliance party of Northern Ireland and the other parties, one of which has already represented itself in the debate?
To what extent—I close on this—did the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) and Gerry Adams agree regarding the transparency of the information relating to decommissioning? We should already know the answer to that question because the other parties should have been there. I cannot believe that two highly experienced negotiators like the right hon. Member for Upper Bann and Gerry Adams would have done anything other than arrive at a specific and clear agreement in relation to that decommissioning activity. It is in the interests of the very transparency that the right hon. Member for Upper Bann has called for himself that the Secretary of State is now transparent about what was agreed, so that we can determine who has reneged on the deal.
Mr. Murphy: The answer to the first question is yes; there will be elections in Northern Ireland on 26 November. I have signed that order and elections will go ahead. As for transparency, that is precisely what we are trying to deal with in the next few days. The whole reason why we failed at the end of the day yesterday, having succeeded in other areas, was that there was disagreement about how transparent, how detailed and how significant was the act of decommissioning. As I said in the statement, I believe that there was a significant and substantial act of decommissioning—an act that General de Chastelain himself said was considerably greater than the acts that we have seen

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before. Also, of course, had we indeed known the full detail of what was decommissioned, we would have known that it could have caused death and destruction on a massive scale. So it was big, but clearly, it was not enough in terms of illustrating to the people of Northern Ireland and the Ulster Unionist party what indeed was transparent. Obviously, that has to be the core of the talks and discussions in the days ahead.
The hon. Gentleman talks about paramilitary activity. Of course the Governments stand by paragraph 13 in the joint declaration, and the new dimension to all this is that the Independent Monitoring Commission will now be in existence to test paramilitary activity. That is the purpose of that body.
The hon. Gentleman made a point about the Alliance party and others. Again, I met the Alliance party last week. I have talked to David Ford, the leader of the Alliance party, on more than on occasion in the past few days. I will continue to talk with all the leaders of the parties in Northern Ireland and to other party representatives, too. I do not think that we have squandered anything because the leaders of those parties are still determined to try to find a way forward.
Over the years, we have sometimes stopped because the process is inadequate, and found another one. We find the best process that will do the trick and enable us to move forward. For example, some months ago, we tried meetings of the implementation group with all the parties in Northern Ireland, and we got nowhere—they simply did not work. So let us find other ways of doing things. At the end of the day, I believe that it is important that all parties are involved, but we cannot stop, nor should we try to stop, parties resolving the difficulties between themselves.
As for the review, yes, we will have that review, as determined by the agreement itself, before the year is out.
Lady Hermon: First, may I tell the Secretary of State how very saddened we were to learn of the death of the wife of the Minister of State? Please, on our behalf, extend to him and his family our very deepest condolences.
Secondly, may I apologise to the House for the fact that the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble)—my colleague and friend—is not in the House now? It is simply a matter of logistics—he was not able to get here in time for the statement—and I apologise to the Secretary of State and other right hon. and hon. Members for that.
I share the disappointment that the Secretary of State has expressed in the statement, but we are where we are, and, like him, I do not wish to see further recriminations. I wish to build on what the Prime Minister said before he left Northern Ireland. The fact that, after his hospitalisation at the weekend, the Prime Minister came back to Northern Ireland as his first public appearance was very much appreciated by the people of Northern Ireland as a sign of his support for the agreement and the peace process. However, before leaving, he told the people of Northern Ireland that it
"would be something more than faintly ludicrous if we were in a situation where a substantial act of decommissioning has taken place"
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that he, the Irish Government and de Chastelain were aware of, but, unfortunately, the public of Northern Ireland were not aware of. Will the Secretary of State please explain to the House how we resolve this ludicrous situation and how quickly the public of Northern Ireland can be made aware of the latest event of decommissioning? That would be enormously helpful.
Mr. Murphy: The hon. Lady is right to say that much had been achieved, and that it does not make sense to people watching the peace process in Northern Ireland—particularly, of course, the people in Northern Ireland itself—that what seems to be a relatively minor matter is holding up the process, but, as she knows, minor matters can have different significance to different people. What is important is to try to resolve those issues in the next few days, because we have agreed on so much and because there has been a great deal of engagement between her party and Sinn Fein over the past few weeks. There is every reason to commend that engagement, and I want it to continue—of course, we do—so I hope that the parties will be able to talk with one another in the next few days. I hope that they will be able to talk to General de Chastelain, and we in the two Governments will do our utmost to try to facilitate such discussions and bring these things together so that we are able to resolve the difficulties that, quite clearly, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister referred to yesterday.
Mr. Peter Mandelson: First, may I dissociate myself rather strongly from the earlier remarks made by the shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies), which were wholly unbalanced and, in the context, extremely trivialising of what is a very serious and complex situation? The House is entitled to expect greater understanding and greater maturity from the holder of his position.
May I also, on this occasion, decline to join the criticism of republicans in relation to their actions yesterday? I rather endorse the comments made by my right hon. Friend that the statement made by Gerry Adams and accepted by the Provisional IRA and their commitment to the cessation of paramilitary activity, should that now be carried out by PIRA, are both significant statements, and I only wish that they had come earlier in the Northern Ireland process and, indeed, during my time in office.
In the context of the breakdown of trust and confidence that characterises the Northern Ireland peace process at the moment, however, decommissioning in such secrecy is no longer a viable way forward. I understand the difficulties that General de Chastelain has in interpreting the legislation enacted by this House, but the need and, indeed, the environment for greater transparency in these matters has grown, not diminished, since the first act of decommissioning took place in 2000. Therefore, the bottom line if the peace process is to remain strong, as I believe it will, is that non-republicans are entitled to greater satisfaction about precisely what has been decommissioned, and of what order. Will my right hon. Friend please communicate that to General de

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Chastelain and encourage him to use his good office and his interpretation of the legislation to make sure that there is greater transparency in this matter?
Mr. Murphy: My right hon. Friend is right on a number of counts. First, with regard to the nature of the re-engagement of the IRA with the independent commission, he was right that that was very important for the peace process. Secondly, he was right in terms of the statements that General de Chastelain made yesterday on the scope and the scale of the decommissioning, which is also significant. He is also right, however—and he draws on his experience as a former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland—that it is important that transparency is part of the process. I hope that the next couple of days will ensure that that is precisely the issue that is addressed. We know that the general is chairman of an independent commission, and he will have to make his own decision on how he engages with the parties. He, like everybody else, wants to ensure that this process moves on and that, ultimately, we have devolved government in Northern Ireland.
Sir Brian Mawhinney: I, too, welcomed what the president of Sinn Fein said yesterday. Given that we are now three and a half years beyond the point at which all weapons were to have been decommissioned, and given the well-known worries about personal humiliation among those sensitive souls in the IRA, why did the Government permit yesterday's talks to take place at all, given that they would have known in advance that what General de Chastelain was going to say would not get within a million miles of the clarity and transparency that was necessary for yesterday to be the success that most of us hoped it would be?
Mr. Murphy: The right hon. Gentleman, of course, has considerable experience of Northern Ireland. He is right to draw the House's attention to the Good Friday agreement, which says that decommissioning of those weapons is an integral part of that agreement, and it has taken too long for those weapons to be decommissioned. It is also worth mentioning that there are weapons held by loyalists, too, although we were not dealing with that matter yesterday. It is an important matter, however, and one of which the House should be reminded.
On the decommissioning event, as I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson), General de Chastelain heads an independent commission. It was for him to decide how best to reveal what he could to the people of Northern Ireland in the way that he did. Of course, it would have been much better if yesterday we had had the transparency that was required by the Ulster Unionist party and all of us, but it did not happen. I still think that what he did say was significant, however, both in terms of the re-engagement of the IRA with his commission and because the scope, scale and details that were revealed were considerably better than they were previously.
Jeff Ennis: We can all agree that the Good Friday agreement is still the only show in town, and it is not the property of us as
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politicians but of the people of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Does the Secretary of State agree, however, that what is more important now is the decommissioning of minds of all politicians concerned with the continuing agreement, and the fact that they need to make a leap of faith with each other and show a degree of trust, rather than embroiling themselves too much in the issue of decommissioning of weapons?
Mr. Murphy: My hon. Friend is right about the decommissioning of minds, as he puts it, and indeed many minds have been decommissioned over a number of years. There has been an engagement between all parties in Northern Ireland, including those who have not been in favour of the Good Friday agreement, to try to make devolution work—and I believe that it did. In a way, he puts his finger on the issue: it is not just about the decommissioning act itself, but about the trust and confidence between parties that that act represents. Over the next few days, whatever the details of the discussions and negotiations that take place, it will be about trying to re-establish trust and confidence between those parties, and between other parties in Northern Ireland, too.
Mr. Nigel Dodds: May I, on behalf of my hon. Friends, associate myself with the expressions of condolence with regard to the tragic loss of the right hon. Member for Warley (Mr. Spellar)?
The Secretary of State will recall that last week I warned the House that the two parties invited to Downing street to negotiate would not deliver sustainable peace and stability in Northern Ireland, and I have been proved to be absolutely correct. Were the Government taken by surprise by General de Chastelain's report yesterday, or did they think there was a deal in place? Will the Secretary of State confirm that the terms under which the general operates—terms of secrecy—were agreed by the Government, legislated for in this House and agreed by the pro-agreement parties? Indeed, on many occasions the right hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) told us that he would be satisfied with the word of General de Chastelain, while others, including ourselves, warned that it would not be enough.
Does the Secretary of State accept that regardless of issues of transparency or visibility, what happened yesterday in terms of statements and actions fell, to coin a phrase, a million miles short of acts of completion? Where was the commitment by the IRA to disband? Where is even the commitment to paragraph 13 of the joint declaration? Where is the commitment to acts of completion, not another act of decommissioning? I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has committed to elections come what may, and I look forward to the people of Northern Ireland at long last delivering their verdict. Will the right hon. Gentleman accept, however, that when the people speak, he should not put his head in the sand but should listen to the verdict of unionists as well as nationalists when they deliver their verdict?
Mr. Murphy: I hope that I never put my head in the sand. When the elections are held, and when the people of Northern Ireland have spoken, it will be the democratic wish and desire of those people who exercise

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their vote to give the parties their mandates. I was disappointed yesterday, as I said in my statement. I believed that we were on track for success in getting agreement between the two parties concerned that they would go into an Executive together if they were elected into such a position. At the same time, I repeat that there were some good signs yesterday. One sign is that the people will be given their say, which the hon. Gentleman has already welcomed. Secondly, there was the re-engagement of the IRA with the commission, and the fact that there was decommissioning of a different nature than we have had previously. In addition, there were words said by the leader of Sinn Fein that went beyond what was said in the spring.
Taken all together, what was important was the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, East and Mexborough (Jeff Ennis), namely, that trust and confidence had been building up between parties over a number of weeks. Unfortunately, yesterday may have dented that. I sincerely hope, however, that those parties will be able to talk together, along with other parties in Northern Ireland, and exercise their minds as to how best to ensure that we move forward.
Mr. Adrian Bailey: I welcome the progress that has been made over the last few days in these negotiations and the public statements that have been made and recognised on both sides of the House, but regret that we were unable to come to an agreement at the end of the day. The reality is that since the signing of the Good Friday agreement, the threshold of trust within the Unionist community required for the smooth working of the agreement and the Northern Ireland Assembly has risen. Will my right hon. Friend impress upon Sinn Fein the need for a degree of transparency in the decommissioning process, over and above the confidentiality level that was originally agreed, if we are finally to complete this process to everybody's satisfaction?
Mr. Murphy: My hon. Friend, who serves on the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs, is aware of the difficulties that we face in Northern Ireland on these issues. I certainly assure him that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I will do our best to try to ensure that we resolve the difficulties that we currently face, the main one of which, of course, is transparency.
Mr. Andrew Mackay: As a strong supporter of the Anglo-Irish agreement who has been very critical of the fact that it has not been fully implemented, may I put it to the Secretary of State that I was impressed with the president of Sinn Fein's speech yesterday? It seemed a major move forward. Therefore, it was all the more surprising that nobody had seemed to understand that there was a need for much greater transparency in General de Chastelain's statement. May I urge the Secretary of State to ensure that that transparency is forthcoming soon? If it is not, there is going to be a dreadful tragedy.
Mr. Murphy: The right hon. Gentleman has spent many years considering the questions around Northern Ireland. I know that he understands that these things are
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never easy. As I said earlier, issues that appear to be relatively simple can sometimes be very difficult for the parties concerned, for all sorts of historical and other reasons. Nevertheless, the right hon. Gentleman is right. The Governments have a duty to try to ensure that the parties come to some agreement on these issues, and particularly on the issue of decommissioning and its transparency.
Mr. Eddie McGrady: On behalf of my party, may I express our deep sympathy to the right hon. Member for Warley (Mr. Spellar) on his recent bereavement? I reciprocate the sympathy that he has expressed to me.
In terms of the debacle yesterday that had been billed as the most historic event in Irish history, will the Secretary of State perhaps ponder the fact that, by excluding all the custodians of the development and implementation of the Good Friday agreement, he did a grave disservice to it? In negotiating only with Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionist party, he was, in fact, putting our future democracy and development into the hands of the decision making of the army council of the IRA on the one hand and a split and divided Ulster Unionist Council on the other. That has excluded those people who had driven the process all these years, particularly my party, which people seem to forget is the largest party in Northern Ireland, as well as being the most democratic and the one without hang-ups about full implementation. Does the Secretary of State further recognise that the two parties with which his Government were negotiating are the two parties that have failed to implement their agreement, have failed to honour what they agreed to and signed up for five years ago, and have brought down the institutions in the process and put us in the mess that we are now in?
May I make two further points? Will the Secretary of State explain to the House why, in this so-called new beginning, Sinn Fein has not committed itself—it has done the very opposite—to joining and developing the new Police Service of Northern Ireland? Local Sinn Fein representatives refuse to allow the PSNI to enter certain areas of my constituency and instead say that they will administer their own justice.
Will the Secretary of State also address the issue of the continued paramilitary activity by Provisional Sinn Fein and the loyalist paramilitaries? Provisional Sinn Fein kidnapped and abducted one of my constituents 10 days ago, and a Sinn Fein member has been charged with participation in that activity. Is that the sort of peace that this so-called negotiation will deliver to the people of Northern Ireland? If it is, it is doomed to failure before it starts.
Mr. Murphy: Even though my hon. Friend gave me a bit of a hard time, may I welcome him back to the House of Commons after his difficult time over the past few weeks? I wish him well.
On the issue of process, there is no intention by either Government to exclude anybody. I have gone through this on a number of occasions and I will repeat it for my hon. Friend—it is important that if there is to be a settlement between two parties in Northern Ireland—which must be reached for the stability of any future Executive if the elections go a certain way—it is right and proper for them to try to sort out their differences. That is what the past few weeks have been all about.

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I repeat that I do not for one second underestimate the work and the commitment of my hon. Friend's party to the peace process in Northern Ireland. There would not have been a Good Friday agreement had it not been for the work of the SDLP and his colleagues. In particular, we would not be in the position that we are in today with regard to the Northern Ireland Policing Board and the Police Service of Northern Ireland. My hon. Friend's party took courageous action in ensuring that Catholics not only join the board but become policemen and women, too. I think everybody acknowledges its stand on that.
I do not know what lies ahead of us, except that there is nothing wrong in people talking to try to resolve their difficulties. The negotiations, as my hon. Friend put it, between the Governments and the two parties were of an exclusive nature because the two parties have to talk. Of course, they came to the Governments to clarify certain issues but, at the end of the day, the negotiations were between themselves. The success or failure of the negotiations did not determine whether we would have elections. I have announced today that there will be elections irrespective of what now happens. At the same time, I think that it is in everybody's interest for those two parties to try to sort out those differences and move the process ahead.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I gently remind the House that, on a statement, only one question should be put to the Minister. In other words, hon. Members must be brief.
Mr. Jeffrey M. Donaldson: Is it not the case that the Irish Prime Minister, Mr. Ahern, was raising concerns about transparency on Monday, well before the events of yesterday? Will the Secretary of State explain why our Government did not have those concerns before then?
Will the Secretary of State also explain why he said in his statement that he was looking forward to and hoping for comprehensive acts of completion? Does that not imply that what happened yesterday did not represent comprehensive acts of completion? Will he also confirm to the House that the Government have given a commitment to legislate for IRA terrorists who are on the run? What is now the status of the joint declaration?
Mr. Murphy: The hon. Gentleman may have misheard what I said in the statement—I was referring to matters of public confidence. Nevertheless, he raised the issue of transparency, and I have touched on that many times this afternoon. I do not think that there is anything that I want to add to what I have said already.
On acts of completion, the statement yesterday by the leader of Sinn Fein was very significant in that it was much advanced on what happened in the spring. Commitments were made that all of us must welcome. I also welcome the re-engagement with the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning as that is so important to re-establishing public confidence. However, at the moment, I am sure that the hon.
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Gentleman will agree that we now have to address the issues that are immediately in front of us and try to resolve the difficulties that are faced.
Jeremy Corbyn: I thank my right hon. Friend for pressing ahead with the election date and for ensuring that elections will, indeed, be held on 26 November, despite the events of yesterday.
Can my right hon. Friend throw some light on what happened between yesterday morning, when Downing street and his office were trailing the events of yesterday, and the point later in the day when the leader of the Ulster Unionist party apparently had a change of heart and a change of mind? Will he enlighten us on how that was communicated to him and why it came about?
Discussions are taking place about this historic IRA decommissioning statement, but what equivalent statements have been received from loyalist paramilitary groups? What does my right hon. Friend propose to do about the current state of the loyalist paramilitary groups who are not on ceasefire?
Mr. Murphy: My hon. Friend is right to draw the House's attention to the loyalist paramilitary groups because they have not gone away and their decommissioning is also necessary. They told us in the past that they would decommission as soon as the IRA does, but it is our view that acts of decommissioning should happen at the same time—we will continue to make that view publicly known. I do not want to get into a position of talking about who said what to whom and who is to blame because I am not sure that that would help the peace process in Northern Ireland. We have to try to move forward from the substantial, but not complete, progress that was made yesterday to enable us to find the success in what the Ulster Unionist party and Sinn Fein were trying to achieve, which was an agreement between them that they could go into government with each other if the elections fell in a specific way. As I said earlier, that is a matter for the two parties to consider. I must not underestimate for a second the fact that progress was made yesterday morning, although I was disappointed when we reached the afternoon and did not get the transparency or confidence needed to take the process forward. These things happen, so we have to keep trying.
Mr. Andrew Hunter: Will the Secretary of State clarify the specific point, paragraph or sentence in yesterday's speech by Mr. Adams that he regards as adding something to, or being different from, the position that Mr. Adams adopted last April and May? Is it not the case that the Provisionals' position remains that the Belfast agreement contains the potential to remove the causes of conflict, as they see them, and that unless those causes of conflict are removed there will be no final act of completion?
Mr. Murphy: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman read yesterday's speech by Mr. Adams. I mentioned it in my statement when I referred to the full and final closure of the conflict and said that the IRA endorsed those remarks. The significance of that, which the hon. Gentleman knows because he studies these matters carefully, is that the IRA's historical position over the years was that there would be no end to the conflict until

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a united socialist republic of Ireland was created, but that has changed. The reason why there may now be final closure of the conflict is the implementation of the Good Friday agreement, which is a world away from what used to be the case. I believe that full and final closure of the conflict is the intention of Sinn Fein and the IRA.
Mr. Tony Clarke: I wish my right hon. Friend success in future negotiations. Does he agree that the Good Friday agreement can be implemented only when all illegally held weapons, on all sides, and paramilitaries are removed? Do we not run the risk of over-concentrating on transparency and confidentiality, the terms of which, incidentally, were agreed by this House? Do we not run the risk of building trust in one community at the expense of diluting it in another? I echo what was said earlier about the need to move forward on the decommissioning of arms that are illegally held by loyalist paramilitaries that are not participating in allowing us to get the Good Friday agreement implemented in full.
Mr. Murphy: My hon. Friend is aware that the reason why there has been such heavy concentration on republican decommissioning is that Sinn Fein is a party of such a size in the Assembly that the d'Hondt system gives it an entitlement to Ministers. There is no such comparison with loyalist representatives in the Northern Ireland Assembly. My hon. Friend is right that the Good Friday agreement contains a specific reference to decommissioning being essential. He touched on the fact that trust is at the bottom of everything. The balancing act is always to ensure that trust may be achieved right across the political spectrum.
Rev. Martin Smyth: Reference has been made to the decommissioning of minds, and I wonder whether part of the problem is that minds have been decommissioned. You will know, Mr. Speaker, that 26 November is the date that is earmarked for state opening. Was a subliminal message being given to others in Ireland about Northern Ireland's relationship with this House, given that it would not be possible for some Members to be here for that if there were an election in Northern Ireland? May I press the Secretary of State a little further? I agree with the point about the decommissioning of weapons right across the division because not only loyalist groups, but other republican groups, exist. Surely it is in the psyche of the Northern Ireland people, which is fed by the media and intelligence reports, that although the Provisional IRA has been prepared to decommission some weapons, its current chief of staff has been purchasing new pistols that will be used to obviate a forensic trail and used once so that he may continue his extortion rackets.
Mr. Murphy: Obviously, I cannot comment on the last matter, but it is clearly of no use to decommission a quantity of weapons only to replace them. Everyone who was involved in the negotiations that led to the Good Friday agreement understands that decommissioning is a matter of trust as much as a
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matter of decommissioning the weapons themselves. On the hon. Gentleman's first point, the date of the state opening was not in anyone's mind when the election date was discussed.
Mr. Harry Barnes: While Gerry Adams made an important statement yesterday, after things collapsed and he later answered questions asked by an assembled audience he said that there must be no humiliation of the Provisional IRA caused by giving details of its decommissioned arms. However, will not the real humiliation be that caused if it is discovered that insufficient arms have been put out of use and that we are not moving toward acts of completion? Could General de Chastelain at least give us an indication of how close to, or far away from, acts of completion we are, because that will show us all where we stand?
Mr. Murphy: The general indicated yesterday that he had taken inventories of all three acts of decommissioning and that the last act was much bigger than previous acts. He is in a difficult position because he is bound by legislation that includes provisions on confidentiality, although I believe that he said significant things in his statement. When my hon. Friend refers to the speech made by Mr. Gerry Adams and the humiliation of the IRA, I assume that he is referring to the IRA's historical position of not wanting to surrender, to use its terms, and especially not to the British Government. Things have changed dramatically since the Good Friday agreement, as has the way in which we look at each other—the world has changed. The peace process and its success must come first for the IRA and political parties in Northern Ireland.
Mrs. Iris Robinson: Is it not about time that the Government grasped reality and accepted that no deal—secret or otherwise—has any chance of working unless the majority of both Unionists and nationalists support the institutions and the Government value equally the views expressed by all people of Northern Ireland through the ballot box? Will he assure me that he will respect the will of the people after 26 November, especially if the Democratic Unionist party represents the majority of Unionists? Will he allow for new negotiations?
Mr. Murphy: Of course we will respect the democratic wish of the people of Northern Ireland, although we will all have to wait and see what that will be. Responsibility will then fall on the hon. Lady's party and other parties. Her party puts forward views on the renegotiation of the agreement. We know that we have to enter a review under the terms of the agreement, but the larger parties in Northern Ireland, especially, have a responsibility to bring back devolution to Northern Ireland so that local Ministers can make local decisions for local people. We can achieve that for Northern Ireland only if there is agreement between nationalists and Unionists.
Mr. Simon Thomas: We welcome the announcement that there will be elections and that the election date is set in stone. In the light of the parts of the statement on the electoral register in Northern Ireland, will the Secretary of State describe the steps that will be

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taken to ensure that voting in the elections, which might be based on an out-of-date register, will be as transparent and correct as possible? Further to points that have already been made, will he tell us the principles that he will use after the elections to ensure that devolved government begins once again in Northern Ireland as soon as possible?
Mr. Murphy: The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to the electoral register and other changes that have taken place over the past few months. We will use the register published on 1 September 2003. He knows, as other hon. Members do, that many improvements have been made to the way in which people cast their votes in Northern Ireland to ensure probity. I sincerely hope that those measures will be effective.
As for devolution, as a fellow Welshman the hon. Gentleman will know that it can benefit the people of our different nations and regions. I hope that it will happen as quickly as possible in Northern Ireland so that I can shed my direct rule responsibilities and hand them back to people from that part of the UK.

DELEGATED LEGISLATION
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 116(1)(Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),
DELEGATED LEGISLATION

  NORTHERN IRELAND GRAND COMMITTEE
  That the Order of the House [8th September] referring the matter of the future direction of community relations policy in Northern Ireland to the Northern Ireland Grand Committee for consideration on Thursday 23rd October be discharged.—[Charlotte Atkins.]
  Question agreed to.

Motorcycles (Bus Lanes)
1.30 pm
Mr. Bill Wiggin: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to allow motorcycles to use bus lanes.
As possibly the only Member of Parliament who motorcycles to work every day, I am one of more than 1 million motorcyclists in Britain who recognise the pleasure and convenience of filtering past the gridlocked traffic and steering clear of public transport. However, transport policy on motorcyclists is inconsistent and unfair. It does not provide for motorcyclists as vulnerable road users, yet it encourages people to get out of their cars and on to a bike. The Bill seeks to turn promises into actions to give motorcyclists a fairer deal.
The Government recognise the important role of motorcycling. A Treasury consultation document on vehicle excise duty for motorcycles stated in November 2001:
"The Government believes that motorcycles should be encouraged where they replace car use…because of the lower environmental impact and the reduced congestion of travelling",
and that they were
"an affordable alternative to the car".
Despite that recognition, however, the Government's overall policy towards motorcycles is inconsistent. On the one hand, motorcycles are exempt from the congestion charge in order to promote the motorcycle as a more desirable mode of transportation, which I support. That has produced the desired effect, with more than 20,000 motorcycles being bought in London last year, and it could well be a longer-term solution to traffic gridlock. On the other hand, however, the Government are penalising and placing motorcycle users at a disadvantage by not providing for them in road traffic and safety schemes.
The Bill would introduce a national system of bus lane access for motorcyclists. It would require the Government to carry out their commitment to reduce congestion, improve safety and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by giving motorcycle users the extra incentive of traffic isolation, ease of access and life itself. With more than 1 million motorcyclists in Britain today, it is only correct and fair that, as citizens of a free society, we should have the right to ride where it is safest and most convenient. This is about civil liberties and the Government protecting the lives of a growing population of motorcyclists—a group whom they are promoting. By allowing motorcycles in bus lanes, we would be saving lives. Traffic isolation is the key to motorcyclist safety and accident reduction, which pedal cyclists have been afforded through schemes of segregation and access to bus lanes.
Such schemes have proved successful, with pedal cyclist casualty rates decreasing by 22 per cent. since 1997, which is likely to be a direct consequence of road isolation schemes. Most motorcyclist casualties arise from collisions with cars. Allowing motorcycles to travel independently of those vehicles would minimise potential collisions. Thus, motorcyclists nationwide want a share of the benefits of traffic isolation that are currently enjoyed by pedal cyclists across the country. Surely the correct position to adopt is a net safety benefit that takes the casualties of all road users, motorcyclists as well as pedal cyclists, into account.

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I understand that access to bus lanes would mean motorcyclists overtaking in the inside lane. That is a risk, but it would be their choice and decision to do so. Obviously, riders who chose not to do so would travel in other lanes. The point is that motorcyclists should be able to ride where they feel safest. For a great many, including me, that may well be in the segregated bus lane.
The Bill aims to make available nationwide a policy that has been successfully tried and tested in nine places across the country: London, Bristol, Reading, Swindon, Bath, Hull, Colchester, Birmingham and the M4 bus lane. I ask the House to consider the experience of those trials, which have successfully admitted motorcycles to bus lanes. The Government welcomed the pilot studies in their 1998 transport White Paper in order to:
"help inform decisions on whether there is a proper case for motorcyclists to be allowed in bus lanes".
How many successful precedent local authority schemes do the Government need to conclude that that is the best policy for transport, especially as local authorities had to fund the initiatives themselves to provide the Government with the proof that they said they require? The Government stated that the work of the advisory group on motorcycling would be completed by 2004. The Bill would ensure that motorcycle access to bus lanes nationwide was included in their strategy.
In my role as shadow Environment Minister I can highlight the positive environmental impact that results from the replacement of cars by motorcycles. A typical scooter consumes up to 81 per cent. less fuel than a car on the same journey. We should be doing everything we can to have a low-carbon economy, targeting transport as one of the worst climate change offenders. Providing motorcyclists with the option of travelling safely and more conveniently in bus lanes is likely to act as an
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added incentive to travel in that much more environmentally friendly way. Motorbikes do not create demand for new roads and they occupy efficient parking and garaging space. Indeed, five motorcycles can be parked in the space occupied by one car.
It is a simple equation. First, motorcycle admittance to bus lanes would improve motorcycle safety, which equals accident reduction. Secondly, giving people the incentive to filter past the traffic gridlock without the risks they currently face will encourage more to switch from their car, which will alleviate traffic congestion. Thirdly, encouraging people to use a motorcycle benefits the environment, potentially helping the UK to achieve its ambitious commitment of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent. by 2010.
I am grateful for the help of the British Motorcycle Federation in introducing the Bill. It has campaigned widely for freedom of motorcycle travel in bus lanes in the UK. I hope that the Bill will be approved because it can only mean fewer people in cars, the alleviation of traffic gridlock, more lives saved through traffic isolation, a reduction in environmental damage and a fulfilment of people's rights. It is a fair deal for motorcyclists. For those reasons, I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Bill Wiggin, Mr. Don Foster, Angela Watkinson, Mr. Mark Todd, Mr. Stephen Pound, Peter Bottomley, Dr. Brian Iddon, Mr. Robert Key, Mr. Adrian Flook, Mr. Bill Tynan, Mrs. Jackie Lawrence and Mr. Roger Gale.

MOTORCYCLES (Bus LANES)
Mr. Bill Wiggin accordingly presented a Bill to allow motorcycles to use bus lanes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 21 November, and to be printed [Bill 166].
Opposition Day
[19TH ALLOTTED DAY]
Opposition Day

  Iraq (Judicial Inquiry)
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): We now come to the main business on an Opposition motion. Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
  1.38 pm
  Mr. Michael Ancram: I beg to move,
  That this House is concerned at growing public confusion since the summer adjournment as a result of increasingly conflicting accounts of intelligence relating to and events leading up to the recent Iraq war and what has happened since; and calls for the setting up of a comprehensive independent judicial inquiry into the Government's handling of the run-up to the war, of the war itself, and of its aftermath, and into the legal advice which it received.
  The purpose of the motion is not to rehearse the arguments for and against the war in Iraq; nor can the debate clear up the confusion that has grown since the beginning of the summer recess about the Government's handling of the run-up to the war and its aftermath. The House has many strengths as both a legislature and a forum for debate, confronting, testing and holding to account. I am the staunchest of supporters of the parliamentary process, but are we, who are so closely involved in the events surrounding the war, credible arbiters of the truth about them? Let us be frank. In the six months since the end of the war, particularly since the House rose in July, there has been a constant stream of charges against the Government. I do not seek to add to them today—they are there, and they are growing. They relate to the Government's handling of intelligence before the war, the case that they made for the war, the lack of planning for post-war Iraq and the legal advice that they received. They are serious charges made by serious people. They are highly damaging, and they strike not only at the Government's reputation, which I can live with, but at the machinery of government and the integrity of our intelligence services themselves.
  Those charges should be fully answered, but they are not being answered and they are not going away. For all their excellent work and reports, neither the Foreign Affairs Committee nor the Intelligence and Security Committee has managed to make them go away. Indeed, in some areas they have raised new questions that in turn need to be answered. The charges will not go away until we have a comprehensive, independent judicial inquiry with the legal power to get to the very bottom of the facts and make a clear assessment and judgment of the truth. That is what the motion seeks, and that is what we have been seeking since the end of May.
  Mr. Andy Reed: For those of us, especially those on the Government Benches, who opposed the war and still feel that that was the right decision, is not the problem with the motion the fact that it abrogates our responsibility to establish the truth of what did or did not happen? I have listened carefully to the right hon. Gentleman's comments, but should we not table questions in Parliament, not give those
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  responsibilities to an outside body? I fear that we have not learned a great deal from all the machinations of the past few months. It is for each and every one of us to keep making the case in the House, not outside it.
  Mr. Ancram: I have nothing against Members tabling questions or asking the Government questions, but we need to institute a process that will satisfy the public that the truth has been established. Later, I shall refer briefly to the Falklands, about which allegations were made and questions asked, but as there was a full independent commission of inquiry the House and the British public were able to satisfy themselves that the truth had been fully examined and established.
  Mr. Tam Dalyell: I have a factual question. How long does the right hon. Gentleman think that such an inquiry would last? I gave evidence to the Franks committee on the Falklands, which lasted long enough. However, the Saville inquiry shows that these things can go on for a heck of a long time. What is the right hon. Gentleman's estimate of the time that an inquiry on Iraq would take?
  Mr. Ancram: I accept the point made by the Father of the House, but a judicial inquiry can take evidence under oath and can establish the truth in a way that many other forms of inquiry cannot. It can be asked to report within a given time, which would obviously be a reasonable period. Three months ago, I stood at the Dispatch Box making the case for a public judicial inquiry, and was told that that was not needed because parliamentary Select Committees would deal with the issues in a way that would satisfy the public. However, that has not been the case. As I said, those Committees have raised other questions that have still to be answered.
  Mr. Robin Cook: Is it not true that the House can carry out its scrutiny function adequately when the Opposition oppose, and has difficulty carrying out that function when the Opposition act as the major cheerleader for the Government? If the right hon. Gentleman wants us to take seriously his call for a judicial inquiry into whether the Government got it wrong on going to war, should he not be consistent and admit that the Opposition were wrong to support the Government in that very same decision?
  Mr. Ancram: I shall come to that, but if the right hon. Gentleman reads the motion he will see that that is not why I am seeking to establish a public inquiry. A number of allegations have been made, including some by the right hon. Gentleman, about the way in which the Government conducted themselves in relation to intelligence that have not been fully answered—certainly, I gather, not to the right hon. Gentleman's satisfaction. Until they are, I suspect that he will continue to make them. I am proposing a means by which they can be answered satisfactorily, not only for the benefit of the right hon. Gentleman but in the public interest. The longer the allegations stay unanswered, the more damaging it will be to the national interest.
  I want to make it clear that in moving this motion I am not in any way resiling from our support for the Government's decision to go to war. The war in Iraq

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  was justified, and we were right to support it. Saddam Hussein posed a recognised threat to international peace and security—17 United Nations resolutions under chapter VII of the UN charter over 12 years attested to that. Failure to comply with all those resolutions justified military action to remove that threat. Legally, no new resolution is required for the use of force to implement resolution 687. I suggest that hon. Members read Professor Greenwood's article in The Times today, which makes it clear that the legal basis was there, and is still there.
  Mr. Menzies Campbell: While the shadow Foreign Secretary is recommending reading to the House, he might also suggest that hon. Members read the opinion of Lord Alexander of Weedon, which is diametrically opposed to Professor Greenwood's opinion.
  Mr. Ancram: I think I would prefer, because he is an old friend, to read the legal opinion of the right hon. and learned Gentleman himself. On 24 September last year, he said in the House:
  "It may well be true that, legally, no new resolution is required for the use of force to implement resolution 687."—[Official Report, 24 September 2002; Vol. 390, c. 43.]
  He obviously agreed with Professor Greenwood, and I am not sure why he is disputing that now.
  Mr. Edward Garnier: Surely we are not so much interested in opinions, which we can exchange and swap as much as we like, as in the facts? An inquiry is probably the best way of finding out the facts. Parliament is a very good place for political exchange, but not necessarily a good forum for finding facts.
  Mr. Ancram: I agree with my hon. and learned Friend who, as usual, has put admirably succinctly the case that I am taking a little longer to make.
  When considering the war, we should remember that, had we not taken action, Saddam Hussein, his sons and the whole vile regime would not have disappeared. They would have grown and armed themselves further until, inevitably, action would have had to be taken at far greater risk. I repeat that we were right to vote with the Government on 18 March.
  Mr. Edward Leigh: I am glad that my right hon. Friend has made that point. Would we not have avoided all these charges if the Government had been honest from the outset and said, "This is a gangster regime holding its people in slavery. By the way, it is sitting on the world's second largest oil reserves. We are going to get rid of it and bring back peace and democracy"? They should have done that instead of raising the canard of weapons of mass destruction, which apparently were a threat to us. The Government are being assailed on all sides because they misled the public: why were they not honest in the first place?
  Mr. Ancram: If my hon. Friend will allow me, I shall touch on his valid point later.
  Mr. Alex Salmond: If the right hon. Gentleman's case for a judicial inquiry is to be
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  strong he must concede the possibility that it may find that he and his colleagues were misled on the reasons for war, so they may want to reconsider their position.
  Mr. Ancram: Obviously, one cannot predict the outcome of a judicial inquiry, but that did not stop Lady Thatcher, after the Falklands war, setting up a commission of inquiry. She wanted to make sure that the truth was established. She was not afraid of the truth, so she called for a commission, and I am suggesting that the present Government do the same.
  I have made it clear that in backing the Prime Minister's decision to go to war we were not signing up either to everything that had gone before or to everything that was to come after. We backed the Prime Minister because what he was seeking to do was right. Equally, I made it clear that we would not hesitate to criticise him when we believed that what he was doing was not right. The failure to plan adequately for the foreseeable problems of post-war Iraq was culpable. Whenever my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) and I raised that before the war we were told that it was in hand. The Prime Minister assured the House on 3 February that
  "We are well aware that we must have a humanitarian plan that is every bit as viable and well worked out as a military plan"—[Official Report, 3 February 2003; Vol. 399, c. 36.]
  As we now know, there was no plan. I saw for myself in Iraq in July the vacuum of civilian reconstruction four months after the war ended. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short), who was involved in drawing up those plans, admitted in June this year:
  "The preparations for post-conflict were poor".
  So what went wrong? Why did the Government fall down on that? I believe that we will find the answer only through an independent judicial inquiry.
  I am mystified by the Government's opposition to an inquiry. If they were confident of their position, they would support the motion tonight. An independent judicial inquiry would end the confusion and the rumours. Their rejection of such an inquiry can only suggest that they are less than confident in their case. The Prime Minister does not seem to understand the very real damage that the continuing allegations are doing to the reputation of this country abroad or to the reputation of our intelligence services at home. This should be a matter not of the Government's interest, but of the public interest, which would be best upheld by the sort of inquiry that we seek. It is still not too late for the Government to follow the example of Lady Thatcher.
  Mr. Neil Gerrard: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Ancram: No. I shall make some progress.
  The charges that are causing public confusion and concern fall broadly into four categories: first, the Government's failure to plan for the aftermath of war, which I have touched on already; secondly, the manipulation of intelligence and misrepresentation of what was intelligence and what was not; thirdly,

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  questionable information and statements about weapons of mass destruction, both before and after the war; and, lastly, the basis of the Attorney-General's legal advice on matters pertinent to the war.
  The most serious of those charges, to my mind, relates to the handling of intelligence. Parliament, particularly at a time of military threat, has a right to be able to trust the Government on that, and manipulation of intelligence is therefore an extremely grave charge. It is what the Prime Minister himself referred to on 28 August as a resigning matter. It is the charge that has been made in relation to the dossier of 24 September last year. What is unresolved and highly damaging is whether the evidence in that dossier amounted to evidence of a "current and serious" threat to this country. That was the claim made by the Prime Minister in his foreword to the dossier, against the advice of his chief of staff, Jonathan Powell.
  There is evidence that the dossier was, at the very least and at the instigation of non-intelligence sources, considerably toughened up or, to use the word of one defence intelligence official, "over-egged". We need to ask why it was "over-egged". How could it be that a last-minute change to the dossier was made following an e-mail to John Scarlett of the Joint Intelligence Committee from Jonathan Powell? Should we believe that the JIC had "ownership", as was claimed by Mr. Scarlett, of the September dossier, when at the last minute a "problem" passage was replaced with a more helpful version, again at the behest of Jonathan Powell, apparently without the JIC even seeing the amendment?
  What was the justification for that over-egging? In summary, was the September dossier a genuine intelligence resumé of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, as it was claimed to be, or was it a propaganda device to bring doubting Labour Members onside? These are serious questions, and they are surely best answered in the ordered environment of a judicial inquiry.
  Alan Howarth: The right hon. Gentleman said that one should not prejudge the outcome of any inquiry. Will he therefore take the opportunity to repudiate the criticism of Mr. Scarlett's integrity reported to have been made by the Leader of the Opposition in The Mail on Sunday on 12 October? Will he acknowledge that if the Leader of the Opposition did indeed speak in those terms, he perpetrated an odious slur on a public servant of complete integrity and outstanding ability, honourably endeavouring to perform exceptionally difficult duties? If the Leader of the Opposition did say what he is reported to have said, the slur was as odious in its substance as it was in its language.
  Mr. Ancram: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman, after his many years of political experience, has learned not to believe everything he reads in the press.
  The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Jack Straw): But is the right hon. Gentleman repudiating that report?
  Mr. Ancram: I do not remember whether the report was in the Daily Mail or The Mail on Sunday. I read reports about things that I am supposed to have said. I do not believe everything I read in the newspapers, and I do not believe that.
  Mr. Straw: We are not talking about whether the right hon. Gentleman believes everything he reads in the newspapers. Did he or did he not believe this thing that he read in the newspaper?
  Mr. Ancram: I say again what I said earlier. John Scarlett chairs an important Committee. That Committee has been called into question by the allegations that have been made in relation to the lead-up to the war. It is vital that any judgment is made not on the basis of speculation or press reports, but on the basis of a public inquiry that can properly assess the facts.
  The charges relating to the second so-called dodgy dossier are, if anything, even more grave. The document was described by the Prime Minister in the House as "further intelligence". Those were his words. Two days later it was prayed in evidence by the United States Secretary of State in the United Nations Security Council, where he described the detail as "exquisite". We were all led to believe that it was an intelligence-based document. Certainly, nothing said by the Government suggested that it was anything less. The Foreign Secretary, astonishingly, confirmed to me at the end of July that he was not aware until three days after its publication that it was not an intelligence document. That was after the Prime Minister and Colin Powell had referred to it as such.
  That raises extraordinary questions. Was the Prime Minister aware that the document was not "further intelligence", as he set it out to be, when, as the Foreign Affairs Committee concluded, he misrepresented to the House that it was? Did Alastair Campbell mislead the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary about the origins of the document? Why, anyway, was a spin doctor in charge of putting together such a sensitive document? Was the JIC equally in the dark about the dossier? In short, is this another tale of propaganda, or a saga of unutterable incompetence and chaos on a most serious matter at a most serious time? Either way, it is gravely disturbing, highly damaging to the credibility of the Government and another urgent reason for the inquiry that we seek.
  Then there are the charges of questionable information about weapons of mass destruction. We must be honest with ourselves. There was generally before the war
  "a valid assumption that Saddam Hussein had continued with the biological and the chemical weapons programmes and a reasonable assumption that he was trying for a nuclear capability".
  Those were the words of the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) on the Frost programme on 11 August last year, and that view was widely shared.
  However, the Prime Minister went much further. On 8 July he told the Liaison Committee that he had
  "no doubt at all that we will find WMD programmes".

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  To have "no doubt" suggests that he had actual evidence, yet that evidence has not been forthcoming. The next day his official spokesman went even further and said:
  "The Prime Minister is also absolutely confident that we will find evidence not only of his WMD programmes but concrete evidence of the product of those programmes as well".
  Three months later there is not only no concrete evidence of programmes or products, but no concrete evidence at all.
  Why, then, did the Prime Minister on 31 May tell Sky News that he was waiting to publish what he described as a "complete picture" of both intelligence gained before the war and "what we've actually found"? He went on to say in that interview:
  "What we are going to do is assemble that evidence and present It properly".
  That was four months ago. Where is the "complete picture"? What had actually been found at the time when he made those remarks? When will it be presented properly? It is clear that if nothing is found the conclusion will inevitably and understandably be drawn that at the time of the war there was no concrete evidence of weapons of mass destruction.
  We would all have a right to feel let down on a matter on which Parliament and the nation as a whole had the right to rely on the word of the Prime Minister on matters of intelligence. More seriously, it would suggest either that the Prime Minister received wrong intelligence from the intelligence services, or that he—if I may put it politely—grossly enlarged upon the information that he had received in order to back up the case that he so passionately made to Parliament. Each of these possibilities would raise the gravest of questions, the first about the credibility of our intelligence services, and the second about the credibility of the Prime Minister. Either would have the most serious implications.
  Once again, the most effective way of clearing this up, setting to rest the suspicions and restoring credibility is for the Prime Minister to submit the evidence and information that he had before the war, and that which he has now, to be assessed once and for all by an independent judicial inquiry.
  Mr. Andrew Miller: The right hon. Gentleman referred to his beliefs at the beginning of the war, prior to the publication of the dossier. He said that he had good reason—he used some such phrase—to believe that there were weapons of mass destruction. Will he put on record the basis for his good reasons for believing that? If those were relevant, surely they are relevant to all of us in the House.
  Mr. Ancram: My reasons include that to which the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife alluded last year—that we had heard over a long period, and in the course of several United Nations resolutions, that the UN Security Council believed that there were programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction.
  Mr. Douglas Hogg: I am sorry about my voice—I hope that my right hon.
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  Friend can hear me. Does he agree that we can never get to the bottom of the matter unless we have access to the private communications between the Prime Minister and President Bush—in particular, the minutes of the various meetings that they had last year?
  Mr. Ancram: My right hon. and learned Friend makes his point. I am keen that there should be a judicial inquiry that is able to call for the evidence that it believes it needs in order to establish the truth. If it is to be independent, it is important that we do not try to push it in a particular direction.
  David Wright: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Ancram: No, I want to make some progress.
  Then there are the recent allegations of cover-up made against the Prime Minister and the Government. It is alleged that they concealed the extent to which the joint chiefs had reservations about our military capacity in the face of Government-induced overstretch; covered up the reservations of the JIC about the possible impact of military operations on the terrorist threat to the United Kingdom; and covered up the private minutes of reservations sent by the Foreign Secretary to the Prime Minister shortly before action began. Now that the war is over, it is surely in the public interest to explore those allegations and to test them against the actual outturn. What better way of doing that than through an independent judicial inquiry?
  In the background to all this is the opaque figure of the Attorney-General. A number of allegations have been published about his role, particularly as regards the legal advice that he gave to the Government before the war. I accept that that is a sensitive area that might not necessarily benefit from the sharp spotlight of public scrutiny. I respect that, as does my hon. Friend the shadow Attorney-General, who will in due course deal in greater detail with the questions that need to be asked. Suffice it to say that the controlled and disciplined and, where necessary, discreet environment of a judicial inquiry might well be the best arena in which to respond to those questions. Clearly, it is vital that they be responded to in the interests of restoring the reputation and integrity of the office of the Attorney-General.
  Then there are the extraordinary and tragic events of the summer and the Hutton inquiry. I do not intend to get involved in the intricacies of the complex evidence placed before the learned and noble judge, who will make his report in due course, but it is almost impossible to separate much of the evidence presented at the inquiry from the wider issues. In considering the case for a judicial inquiry, it is therefore pertinent to comment on one or two of the more amazing contradictions that have arisen.
  The Prime Minister says that he was not involved in the process that led to the naming of Dr. Kelly; the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence says that the Prime Minister was. Who is right? It cannot be both, so the credibility of one or the other is critically at

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  stake. No Minister seems prepared to accept responsibility for either the first or the second dossier. It must have been somebody, so who was it?
  Mr. Straw rose—
  Mr. Ancram: The Foreign Secretary wants to speak. Was he responsible for either of those dossiers; and were they published in the name of the Foreign Office?
  Mr. Straw: The point that I want to put to the right hon. Gentleman is this: does he not accept that the issues that were properly raised before Lord Hutton, and on which he has taken evidence, are matters for him?
  Mr. Ancram: As I said, Lord Hutton will report in due course. However, the issues that I am raising are pertinent to a wider inquiry, and should be put before such an inquiry as part of the whole picture.
  I ask again: who was responsible for the dossiers? This is the Government all over. Whenever there is a problem, no one accepts the blame—they all point at each other. This Government, who were elected on a slogan of trust, are now showing in technicolour that they do not even trust each other. Is it any wonder that the country no longer trusts them?
  In normal circumstances, I would not be concerned at the current discomfiture of the Government over the confusion and suspicion that surrounds them—I might even take some quiet pleasure in it—but when it affects the national interest, it affects us all. It is damaging to the national interest when there is a major and continuing question mark hanging over the credibility of the Prime Minister, the Defence Secretary and the Government as a whole. It is damaging to the national interest when there is a serious question mark hanging over the effectiveness and accuracy of our intelligence services; when there is a question mark hanging over the basis and reasons why we went to war in Iraq; and when confusion reigns and the truth appears increasingly to be the victim of spin and counter-spin. The confusion must be ended, the truth must be established, and the Government must be held to account. We need a comprehensive independent judicial inquiry to answer these questions, and we need it now.
  2.5 pm
  The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Jack Straw): I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
  "notes that the Intelligence and Security Committee, established by Parliament by statute, and the appropriate body to consider the intelligence relating to Iraq, and the Foreign Affairs Committee have both carried out inquiries into matters relating to the decision to go to war in Iraq; further notes that substantial oral and written evidence, by and on behalf of the Government, was provided to both inquiries; believes that there is no case for a further inquiry, including a judicial inquiry; and further believes that, following the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1511 on 17th October 2003, attention should now be focused on building a better future for Iraq and its people, and on offering full support to the coalition, including British military and civilian personnel, and the United Nations in this endeavour."
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  Iran is a subject that should be a matter for vigorous debate in this House. [HON. MEMBERS: "You said Iran."] If I said Iran, I must still be in an Iranian time zone. Iran, too, should be the subject of vigorous debate in this House.
  Mr. Tim Boswell: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Straw: I want to make some progress first.
  There will be a written ministerial statement on Iran in due course. If the shadow Leader of the House wishes to arrange for Opposition time to debate Iran, I shall be happy to give the House further information about it. In fact, most of the members of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs are there at the moment.
  Iraq should be subject of vigorous debate in the House. Indeed, there have been many such debates, including two before the summer break—on 4 June on a Liberal Democrat motion, and on 16 July on a Conservative motion.
  There are many important and current questions relating to Iraq, including the steps that the Iraqi people are taking to establish a representative Government and the considerable efforts that the coalition provisional authority is making, not so much to put the country back on its feet, but to make it far better than ever it was under Saddam. Those questions are not just important for Iraq; they are surely among the most vital challenges facing Britain, the European Union, the United States and every country with an interest in peace and prosperity in the middle east.
  That is the reason for the intense negotiations in recent weeks at the United Nations to agree a new Security Council resolution in respect of Iraq, culminating in the unanimous adoption of Security Council resolution 1511 on 16 October. That sets a deadline of 15 December by which the Iraqi interim governing council should provide a timeline and a programme leading to an Iraqi constitution and to democratic elections. It also confirms the central role of the UN in the reconstruction of Iraq and encourages UN member states and international bodies to support that process. The next step will be the Madrid donors conference that is being held tomorrow and on Friday, where Her Majesty's Government will be represented by three senior Ministers—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and my noble Friend Baroness Symons, the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
  In Madrid, the United Kingdom will pledge a further £300 million of assistance over two years. Together with money already committed, that will bring UK assistance for the three years from April 2003 to £550 million. That is on top of the contribution that we are making through our commitment of British troops.
  Mr. Ancram: The Foreign Secretary is setting out some important facts, and we are grateful to him for doing so. He says that Iraq, which is, I agree, a very important subject, has now been debated three times since June—twice on Conservative motions and once on a Liberal Democrat motion. If it is so important, why

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  has it not been debated in Government time? We have not exactly been weighed down by Government business over the past four weeks.
  Mr. Straw: I appreciate that the Opposition are in a state of terminal torpor, but I should have thought that even they would spot the improbability of our tabling, in Government time, a resolution calling for a judicial inquiry into the cause of the war. However, should lightning strike and a Conservative Government appear, perhaps we can look forward to such eccentricity.
  On whether I have kept hon. Members informed about issues that relate to Iraq, even my worst enemy would accept that I have been assiduous in going to and from the House. I have made endless statements and I have not waited to be asked here. I have also appeared before the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Intelligence and Security Committee. Several debates on defence motions have taken place in Government time.
  Mr. Chris Bryant: Before the Foreign Secretary was interrupted, he was setting out some of the ongoing issues in Iraq. I am sure that he has noticed that the Conservative motion refers to an inquiry into not only what has happened but into the aftermath of the war in Iraq. Does my right hon. Friend believe that the aftermath is over or has the process of bringing democracy only just begun? Is not the motion at least premature?
  Mr. Straw: An inquiry into the aftermath would be a huge diversion of effort. Whatever people's views on the causes of the war, there have already been two full inquiries into the background to the decision to go to war and there is also the Hutton inquiry into one aspect. There has therefore been more extensive investigation into the causes of the military action than into any other such action in our history, leaving aside large-scale wars such as the second world war.
  Mr. Leigh: We should all like one central question answered, and my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary posed it in his few remarks. At the time of going to war, was evidence of the existence of weapons of mass destruction available to the Government? If so, will the Foreign Secretary share it with us?
  Mr. Straw: I shall deal with that point later.
  Lynne Jones: Has not the Hutton inquiry exposed the inadequacies of the parliamentary inquiries into the reasons for going to war? Would not a full inquiry establish what the Government knew or know about links between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda? The Prime Minister said that there were unquestionably links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda and the Secretary of State for Defence said that there were clear links although he did not know precisely what they were. Yet when the Minister for Trade and Investment was asked directly about that, he did not mention any links between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda, and the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport told the Press Gallery:
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  "Ordinary Americans made an inextricable link between al-Qaeda and Iraq. We have never done that".
  How can we find out the truth?
  Mr. Straw: We certainly do not need a judicial inquiry to establish a negative. I have been absolutely clear about that, and my hon. Friend can go though all the things that I have said in the House and elsewhere. I never saw—therefore neither did my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—any evidence linking al-Qaeda with the events which took place on and before 9 September. There was tenuous evidence, at best, relating to possible links after that date.
  Bob Spink: Will the Foreign Secretary give way?
  Mr. Straw: No, I must make some progress.
  We never suggested for a second that there were any links, particularly given what I have just said, remotely related to the case for war. As I shall show, that case was directly related—that was the heart of the issue—to Iraq's palpable failure to meet its obligations under international law in a string of United Nations Security Council resolutions over 12 years.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Straw: I have already taken five interventions, and I want to make progress.
  The issue of Iraq landed on my desk within two weeks of my arrival in my post in June 2001. Why? Because of its palpable failure to accede to its obligations under Security Council resolution 1284, which required the regime to readmit United Nations weapons inspectors. Their position had been made untenable and they had to withdraw at the end of 1998 because of the behaviour of the Saddam regime. In the first half of last year, our concern increased greatly and we wanted the international community to take Iraq more seriously and recognise that the policy of containment was not working.
  Moreover, we wanted the matter to revert to the United Nations. The dossier that was issued on 24 September was published in response to many demands, not least from the Foreign Affairs Committee. It set out the case for dealing with the problem of Iraq, but neither purported to make nor made the justification for military action. The history of the period will show that, between the date of its publication and 29 May this year, the dossier was remarkable only for the lack of attention that it received.
  Parliament debated Iraq at a recall sitting on 24 September 2002. During the following weeks, I worked hard to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis. Negotiations with my counterparts on the United Nations Security Council culminated in resolution 1441, which was passed unanimously on 8 November.
  In that resolution, all 15 members of the Security Council, including Russia, China, France and Syria, recognised the
  "threat posed to international peace and security"
  by Iraq. That was the essential trigger for the use of chapter VII, which may authorise military action under the UN charter. The resolution went on to say why

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  members acknowledged the threat posed by Iraq's long-range missiles, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and non-compliance with 12 years of mandatory chapter VII UN Security Council resolutions.
  Mr. Miller: I want to follow up the question that I asked the shadow Foreign Secretary. I presume that the evidence adduced in the resolution was based not on the whims of politicians but on proven facts provided by inspectors.
  Mr. Straw: My hon. Friend makes my point. It was based on the experience and judgment of 15 sovereign member states of the United Nations. The entire membership, including Syria, concluded that Iraq posed a threat to international peace and security. That conclusion was reached not as a result of American pressure or any insights from a British dossier but from members' experience of Iraq and their assessment of the threat from the regime.
  Syria knows rather more about Iraq than any other member state of the United Nations because of its proximity to that country and its once close association, from which it has subsequently detached itself, with the Ba'athist regime. Those who know Syria and my counterpart there, Dr. ash-Shara, realise that he is no United States puppet, still less does he take orders from us. He knew what the resolution said and he decided that Iraq posed a threat to international peace and security because of its proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. I have been asked what the evidence was and I point out that Syria had sufficient evidence to reach that conclusion. It knew that the rest of the resolution declared that Iraq had remained in material breach of resolutions going back to 678 and 687. Resolution 678 authorised all necessary means and resolution 687 widened the scope of that. Syria's conclusion was based on its experience.
  Moreover, the Security Council was clear in resolution 1441. It warned Iraq that it had a final opportunity to comply. It defined a further material breach, having already stated that Iraq remained in material breach. Operational paragraph 13 stated that "serious consequences" would follow if it failed to comply. Diplomatic parlance is often ambiguous, but on that occasion, every nation, including Syria, that voted for the resolution—and Iraq, the subject of it—was under no illusion about what "serious consequences" would entail.
  Mr. Kenneth Clarke: Will the Foreign Secretary give way?
  Mr. Straw: I shall give way to the right hon. and learned Gentleman shortly, but I want to concentrate on the heart of the case that the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) made. He argues that there should be an inquiry into the contents of the intelligence dossier. I shall show later that such inquiries have already taken place. They are more substantial and, I dare to say it, independent and systematic than the commission of inquiry—the Franks inquiry—that the right hon. Gentleman gave as Mrs. Thatcher's example that we should follow. Either that is the nature of the inquiry that the right hon. Gentleman wants, in which
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  case we have already had inquiries, or he is saying that we should ask a British judge to hold an inquiry into why the United Nations came to a unanimous view that Iraq posed a threat—
  Mr. Clarke: No, no, no.
  Mr. Straw: The right hon. and learned Gentleman says no, no, no, but the answer is yes, yes, yes. From that, there can be no resiling. Our point is simply that we shared a judgment with the international community. It was not based on an intelligence dossier. It was based on the facts as we knew them, which were published in report after report of the weapons inspectors, and on our own judgment of the conduct of the Saddam regime, going back over 25 years. That was the basis on which the United Nations came to its decision on 9 November 2002. It said that Iraq posed a threat to international peace and security.
  When we came to debate this matter after weeks of the most intensive scrutiny in the House and efforts in the United Nations to gain a second resolution, the central case that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I made to the House—and which formed the core of the motion that we put before the House—was Iraq's breach of United Nations Security Council resolutions. The motion was there to uphold the authority of the United Nations as set out in resolution 1441 and many others preceding it. Indeed, paragraph 3 of the opening report of the Foreign Affairs Committee says—this much at least was unanimous—that the war was fought
  "to enforce unanimous Resolutions of the Security Council."
  Mr. Clarke: Will the Foreign Secretary give way?
  Mr. Straw: I will in a moment.
  On the question of a wider inquiry that covers areas other than those that we have already inquired into, I think that the lament of the right hon. Member for Devizes is that those inquiries have failed to come up with the right answer Let him be clear that the scope of such an inquiry would have to cover why the other 14 members of the Security Council came to the same conclusion as us, namely that there was a threat from Iraq because of its proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. That is at the heart of the matter. I give way to the former Chancellor.
  Mr. Clarke: I am astonished to hear the Foreign Secretary using language worthy of George Orwell to describe how we went to war at a time when we knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction posing a threat to anybody. The background to the United Nations discussions was surely that the threat of war had been looming throughout the last year, with the United States talking about the need for regime change and threatening to intervene. The other nations voted for the Security Council resolution, as did most Members of this House, as an alternative to war—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Hon. Members know very well the view that Mr. Speaker takes about electronic devices going off in the middle of important

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  debates. May I also remind the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) that he is making an intervention?
  Mr. Clarke: Resolution 1441 was voted for by this House, in support of most of the nations in the Security Council, as a possible alternative to war, so that we could put inspectors back in by coercion in the belief that they would demonstrate conclusively whether there was any threat from weapons of mass destruction. The issue became one of whether Mr. Blix, who had been working there for only a few months, could find any evidence of any threat emerging. We went to war because the Government said that there was an imminent threat and that they were not prepared to wait for Mr. Blix any longer. That was not the position of the Syrian Government, nor of many Members of this House.
  Mr. Straw: It was also not the position of the British Government, because we never, ever said that there was an imminent threat. Never, ever did we say that. Neither my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister nor I ever, ever said that.
  Gregory Barker: Will the Foreign Secretary give way?
  Mr. Straw: No, I wish to make some progress.
  I would say to the former Chancellor that there was convincing intelligence that Iraq had active chemical, biological and nuclear programmes, and the capability to produce chemical and biological weapons. Iraq was also continuing to develop ballistic missiles. That was the judgment reached by the Intelligence and Security Committee, which carried out the most thorough of investigations—I am witness to that, because I gave evidence before it—over a great many weeks.
  The issue before the United Nations and this House was, in the end, to what degree Iraq was in clear further material breach of its obligations under resolution 1441, and if it was, whether we should still allow the weapons inspectors more time to do their work, or whether we should take military action. That is essentially a political judgment. Never once did I come to this House and say that I believed that we should not give the weapons inspectors more time because I did not think that they were going to get any more co-operation than they had had in the past. The judgment was based not on any intelligence but on what I could see with my own eyes and hear with my own ears in respect of what was happening in Iraq. The idea that we should now find a judge who is willing to second-guess the most explicit of political judgments is absurd, and, frankly, only illustrates the turmoil at the heart of the Tory party.
  Tony Wright: Knowing what we know now, will the Foreign Secretary tell the House directly whether he now believes that the Iraqi regime did represent a clear and present danger to this country?
  Mr. Straw: Yes, I do. I regret the fact that the Iraq survey group—[Interruption.] It has done a great deal
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  of work and found a good deal of evidence. I regret that, because of the environment in which it has been working, it has not so far been able to find more. However, nothing that it has found so far has diminished my view of the threat. While opinion has differed within the Security Council—as we well know—about whether it was appropriate to take military action at the time, I have heard no member of the Security Council who was there when resolution 1441 was passed, and who signed up to it, saying subsequently, "Oh, by the way, we did not happen to think that Iraq was a threat." Of course, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) was right to say that this was an issue, partly for the reasons that he suggested. Each member of the Security Council was capable of making their own judgment. It does not lie in the mouth of the right hon. and learned Gentleman or anyone else to claim that that they were under pressure in November, and that that was the only reason that they came to that decision, when, palpably, in March, they were under even greater pressure, and most members came to a different decision, which is why we were unable to get a second resolution.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Straw: No, I shall not give way. I want to make some progress.
  Listening to what the shadow Foreign Secretary had to say just now, one might think that the only reason why military action was supported was that there was some secret intelligence briefing that has now turned out to be wrong. If that is the case, it is remarkable that neither his speech nor that made by the Leader of the Opposition on 18 March mention the word "intelligence" once. The shadow Foreign Secretary's whole gravamen was about Saddam's publicly known conduct. Indeed, the Leader of the Opposition said that Saddam had
  "lied to the UN for 12 years"
  and that
  "it should be evident to everyone that he remains in breach of his obligations under 1441."
  He was absolutely right about that. He then listed the deadly materials identified not in an intelligence dossier but by Hans Blix in his report of 7 March, and recommended that
  "every Member of this House read"—
  that report—
  "before passing judgment."—[Official Report, 18 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 775.]
  It is also worth reading the conclusion of that speech by the Leader of the Opposition, if only to highlight how far and how quickly the Opposition have since fallen. He said:
  "There are matters at stake that rise above party politics. It is the duty of the Government to act in the national interest, and it is the duty of the Opposition to support them when they do so. The Prime Minister is acting in the national interest today. That is why he is entitled to our support in doing the right thing."—[Official Report, 18 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 779.]
  The scale of the official Opposition's subsequent opportunism was captured eloquently by the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack)

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  in the debate in the House on 16 July. He has written to me to apologise for his absence, for reasons that I fully understand, this afternoon. This is what he said in July:
  "It grieves me deeply that my party…should have started nitpicking when it was so right to give support on the principal issue. It also grieves me that those young men and women in Iraq at the moment…are wondering whether we have lost our marbles in this place."
  He was referring to his own side. He went on:
  "We spend our time looking at these silly accusations, which have no substance, and I am ashamed of my party for doing it…Let us move on."—[Official Report, 16 July 2003; Vol. 409, c. 328.]
  Sadly, so many of his pleas have been in vain.
  Gregory Barker: On the very eve of war, the Foreign Secretary was extremely clear about the reasons for committing British troops. He said that
  "the Cabinet has decided to ask the House to support the United Kingdom's participation in military operations, should they be necessary, with the objective of ensuring the disarmament of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction".—[Official Report, 17 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 704.]
  That was it. No broader case was made; the object was to ensure the disarmament of Iraq's WMD. Given that not a single weapon of mass destruction has been found six months later, can the Foreign Secretary not understand why the British public are demanding a judicial inquiry?
  Mr. Straw: That shows again how detached the Conservative party is. I do not deny that one or two people have adopted a completely honourable position in respect of the war. They, including many of my right hon. and hon. Friends and some Opposition Members, opposed it in the first place. It seems to me that they are entitled to say that they were right and they wish to find further and better particulars as to why they were right. But I find the official Opposition's position extraordinary. Far from being reluctant supporters of military action, about 18 months before the war they were trying to entice us to take military action without going anywhere near the United Nations, yet they now complain about finding no WMD. If the hon. Gentleman believes that Iraq was not a threat, I suggest that he examines not just Dr. Blix's last report, but all those before it and all the United Nations Special Commission reports before that. He should hear what President Khatami said to me and then said at a press conference held yesterday in association with Dominique de Villepin and Joschka Fischer in Tehran. He said, "We have every reason to know about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction: they have been used on our people." The British people understand that truth, even if the right hon. Gentleman and Conservative Front Benchers no longer understand it.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Straw: I give way to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond).
  Mr. Salmond: Surely the Foreign Secretary does not want to be judged on his commitment to the United Nations by the standards of the Conservative party. If he describes the terminal torpor of the Tory party as a problem for the Tory party, is it not also a problem for
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  democracy? I do not believe that the Foreign Secretary could get away with the convoluted nonsense about the reasons for war if there were an Opposition vigorously questioning and opposing the Government's underlying assumptions. Would not a judicial inquiry answer questions such as who forged the documents on uranium imports from Niger? Or is the Foreign Secretary pursuing that matter through other means?
  Mr. Straw: I doubt very much whether an inquiry could get to that, and we already know that the documents were forged—[Interruption.] Let me tell the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan that he is not speaking very well of his own attempts at opposition when he says that it was so lousy.
  Bob Spink rose—
  Mr. Boswell rose—
  Mr. Straw: No, I am going to make two final points, the first of which, as it has become current, is the issue of the legal basis for military action, which was raised by Lord Alexander of Weedon. I am glad that the right hon. Member for Devizes at least detached himself from Lord Alexander's profoundly weak argument. It is important for me to put on the record the Government's position on what Lord Alexander said. He claimed that the Government were scraping the legal barrel in relying on the legal authorisation for military action given by Security Council resolution 678. That authorisation was, however, revived by the failure of Iraq to comply with its obligations imposed under resolution 687, in respect of which the Security Council, when it passed resolution 1441, found Iraq to be in material breach.
  To describe that as "scraping the legal barrel" and "risible" is extraordinary when successive Conservative and Labour Governments have taken the position that the authority of resolution 678 had only been suspended by the Gulf war ceasefire, and could be revived. That was the position when the Government of the day supported military act ion in Iraq in January 1993 and it was also the position when the Government of day—my Government—supported military action in December 1998.
  It is for the Opposition to make their own judgment about the rightness or otherwise of military action pursued by Governments. As it happens, I sat for 18 years in opposition, and on most occasions—certainly in respect of the Falklands and the Gulf war—our Front Benchers decided to support military action. It was contentious in my own party, but I believe that it was right to do so, and I have never resiled from that view. I have never gone through the contortions that the right hon. Member for Devizes has gone through today in calling for a further public inquiry.
  As to the legal basis for taking military action in the recent war, the Attorney-General answered a question in the House of Lords on 17 March 2003. Alongside that, in an official letter to the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, I gave more detail of our view of the legal position than has ever before been given in the run-up to military action. That shows very clearly the basis on which we took the decision to start military action. It was based on resolutions 678, 687 and subsequent

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  resolutions, and on 1441, which confirmed that those earlier resolutions remained in force. Resolution 1441 also referred in operational paragraph 4 to circumstances in which further material breaches would occur: a failure to provide a full disclosure—which for sure there was, and no one ever disputed that—and any other failures wholly, completely and promptly to comply with the obligations of the United Nations. Again, that applied. Under operational paragraph 12, the matter had to go back to the Security Council for consideration, but not for decision. There was never a requirement for a second resolution.
  Conservative Members should recall that, from the moment when I reported to the House on resolution 1441 on 24 November 2002, I made it clear that we did not believe we had to have a second resolution. We said that we wanted one, but that we did not believe we needed one. That was why we spent two months arguing with the French, among others, because we were not willing to sign up to a resolution that required it. Operational paragraph 13 made it clear that serious consequences would follow.
  Mr. John Bercow rose—
  Sir Peter Tapsell rose—
  Mr. Straw: I need to make progress, but I shall give way in a moment. I have already referred to the fact that there have already been two clear and very substantial inquiries into aspects of the war. The Foreign Affairs Committee had an inquiry into the decision to go to war and the Intelligence and Security Committee had a related inquiry into the intelligence and assessments. As I have already said, the ISC inquiry went into the intelligence background—it saw all the raw material on intelligence reports that it needed—in huge detail.
  The House is part of the high court of Parliament. It is Parliament's job—not that of Ministers, but of every Member in the House—to hold Ministers to account. Of course there are occasions when it is right to set up judicial inquiries, as, for example, in the specific case of the death of Dr. David Kelly. However, in terms of holding us to account for what are palpably and essentially political decisions, the House is the right body. There has been a greater degree of scrutiny of our decision—and the background to it—than there has ever been before in similar circumstances.
  Mrs. Alice Mahon rose—
  Mr. Straw: I want to make an important point.
  The right hon. Member for Devizes shifted away from calling for a judicial inquiry and somehow elided that with saying—I took down his exact words—that we should have a commission of inquiry following the example of Lady Thatcher. I do not believe that any High Court judge or Law Lord would be an appropriate individual for holding an inquiry into what is essentially a political issue. It would be bound to involve questions as to why the United Nations came to the decision that it reached in November. Without that decision, no military action in my judgment would have been right or appropriate.
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  The right hon. Gentleman referred to the Franks inquiry, so let me tell him who was on that commission of inquiry. In my judgment, the Intelligence and Security Committee was both better qualified and more up-to-date, and its methods were better than those of Franks. The Franks commission comprised Lord Franks, of whom my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) said in a debate on 16 July that he was frankly—no pun intended—rather old by that stage. It included other individuals of known impartiality, such as the noble Lord Barber, a former Conservative Chancellor better known to some of us for his boom of the early 1970s. There was the noble Lord Watkinson, once—though not for long, which is why the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) is furrowing his brow—a transport Minister, though less well known than one of his immediate predecessors, Ernie Marples.
  Mr. Boswell rose—
  Mr. Straw: I shall give way in moment.
  There was Lord Merlyn Rees, a great friend of ours, but who never claimed to be a judicial figure. Another member was Patrick Nairn, a personal friend of mine, who was the permanent secretary at the Department of Health, but before that had spent his working life at the Ministry of Defence. The members of the Franks inquiry were fine upstanding individuals, but my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow, who had some experience of it, complained in the House about its methods, which were not forensic. There was much criticism of its report, and the inquiry was accused of a whitewash by my right hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes). The ISC has done a far more thorough job than such an inquiry could ever do.
  Mr. Ancram: I mentioned the Franks inquiry because it showed that when we were responsible for military action we were prepared to have an inquiry into its outcome as well as the reasons for it. If the Foreign Secretary reads the Order Paper, he will know that every day since our motion earlier in the summer we have tabled a motion calling for a tribunal of inquiry under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921. That is the type of inquiry that we have sought all along.
  Mr. Straw: I dealt with that point comprehensively last time. Such an inquiry would see us well past the next general election, so the idea that a conclusion could be reached on which the British public could come to a view in advance of the election is spurious.
  Mr. Ancram: Not true.
  Mr. Straw: Well, the scope of the comprehensive inquiry that the right hon. Gentleman seeks would go far beyond the Hutton inquiry, and even that has taken longer—
  Mr. Ancram: The Hutton inquiry is very narrow.
  Mr. Straw: I agree, and that is my point. The Hutton inquiry is very narrow in scope, but it will take at least six months. The right hon. Gentleman wants a

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  comprehensive inquiry, but that would take years. The Bloody Sunday inquiry—on, I suggest, a rather less complicated issue, given the fact that it does not involve other sovereign states—has now been sitting for five years.
  Mr. William Cash: Oh, come on!
  Mr. Straw: Well, one of the reasons why the Saville inquiry has taken so long is that the rights of individuals under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921. All of us would have those rights. The Scott report, on which my right hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) did so brilliantly at the Dispatch Box, took three and a half years to do its work, and it stretched across a general election. It is extraordinary for the right hon. Member for Devizes to argue for a comprehensive judicial inquiry on the basis that it is the way to hold the Government to account, when the certain result of an inquiry under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921 into the causes of war in Iraq would be to kick the issue into the long grass until well beyond the general election.
  Sir Peter Tapsell: The Foreign Secretary started the present section of his speech by rubbishing the legal opinion of Lord Alexander of Weedon, a former chairman of the Bar, who said that resolution 1441, taken together with previous resolutions, did not provide a justification for war. That is why France, Germany and Russia did not support it at the United Nations. As the Foreign Secretary knows very well, resolution 1441 said that there would be "serious consequences" if Iraq did not comply. It did not say that the United Nations would go to war without a second resolution, and the Government failed to get that second resolution. That is the legal position and that is why the Attorney-General has been discredited.
  Mr. Straw: The hon. Gentleman should calm down. Lord Alexander, whether he was chairman of the Bar or not, was wrong on this issue. The factual basis of what he said was wrong. He claimed on the radio that resolution 1441 required that the matter went back to the United Nations Security Council for decision, but that was not the case. He was wrong about that, and the hon. Gentleman should at least have the good grace to agree with that. Lord Alexander has many merits—I know and like him—but that was not the most impressive work that he has done.
  Mr. Bercow: Curiously, I find it difficult to get worked up either way about the arguments for or against a judicial inquiry. I see no reason to disagree with the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition when he said:
  "Saddam Hussein has the means, the mentality and the motive to pose a direct threat to our national security."—[Official Report, 18 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 775]
  I believe that statesmanship was required, statesmanship was delivered and statesmanship was welcome, so I have no regrets about voting for military action.
  Mr. Straw: I am glad to hear that, and I know that the Leader of Opposition will take that intervention as a declaration of loyalty to him.
  Mr. Dalyell: It may be my fault, but I have not heard an answer to the question posed about half an hour ago
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  by the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. It would be greatly helpful to the House if we knew the date on which the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister first knew that the reference to 45 minutes and weapons of mass destruction referred to battlefield weapons.
  Mr. Straw: I cannot give my hon. Friend the exact date off the top of my head. I saw the JIC intelligence assessment, which we received in September, so I guess that it was around that date—but I will check that. Although the 45-minute claim became a huge issue following the Gilligan interview on 29 May, it was not an issue before that. Indeed, as I said at the beginning of my speech, in the whole period from the publication of the dossier until 29 May—my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (David Wright) got the Library to analyse it—the issue was scarcely, if ever, mentioned in the House, and only once or twice outside it.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Straw: I have given way a great deal and I must now come to a conclusion. The House established the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Intelligence and Security Committee was established by parliamentary legislation. Both Committees made thorough reports, and those reports and the manner of the Committees' inquiries undermine the case now being made for a further judicial inquiry. The Committees were rigorous with their witnesses—some might say, too rigorous. The ISC was patently scrupulous with the intelligence material; and, where they felt it was warranted, both Committees were unsparing in their criticism of the Government. Let me remind the Opposition that both Committees also reached the same conclusion: that the claims made in the Government's September dossier were well-founded on the basis of the intelligence then available.
  Given the fact that we have now had the ISC report, the case for a judicial inquiry is even weaker than it was on 16 July when the right hon. Member for Devizes last made the same speech as he made this afternoon. He made it then with rather more conviction. It is time for the House to move on. It is time that we devoted our time to the vital issue of building a secure, prosperous Iraq from the ashes of Saddam's dictatorship. That is the issue that has preoccupied the United Nations in recent weeks. It is also at the forefront of the minds of all Iraqi people, irrespective of their religious denomination or political leanings. They would, I am certain, find the Conservative motion somewhat bewildering and entirely irrelevant. We surely owe them better than that. I urge the House to reject the motion and to support the amendment.
  2.48 pm
  Mr. Menzies Campbell: The Foreign Secretary referred, I think in error, to Iran, which allows me the opportunity to express—it may be the only matter on which we agree this afternoon—relief and pleasure at the apparent outcome of his visit there with his French and German counterparts. The Liberal Democrats have consistently supported the principle of engagement, and we are aware that he has invested much time and effort in maintaining the opening with Iran. We hope that that continues to prove profitable.

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  I hope that the Foreign Secretary will recollect that on one of our Opposition days we tabled a motion relating to the United Nations and we discussed the topic of how best the reconstruction of Iraq, and the imposition of stability on the country, could be effected.
  We propose to support the Conservative motion, although not necessarily for the reasons put forward by the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram). He quoted from my speech of 24 September, and I stand by what I said wholly and completely, because—entirely inadvertently, I am sure—the right hon. Gentleman found himself guilty of selective quotation.
  The point that I made in the House both then and subsequently is that the Security Council and its resolutions are not the only source of international law. Many people have argued correctly that resolutions 678 and 687 contained an authority for the use of military force, but in what other way was the bombing campaign—which began immediately after Richard Butler withdrew the UN inspectors in, I think, 1998—justified?
  UN Security Council resolutions must be seen against the background of customary international law. It is illegitimate to use military force, except as a last resort when all other diplomatic and political resources have been exhausted. The Foreign Secretary and others may remember that the amendment moved and voted on on 18 March would have allowed the inspectors further time to complete their inspections. That is, it would have met Dr. Blix's request for some additional time to fulfil his mandate.
  In my view, therefore, we had not reached the position of last resort. A further principle of international law, to which Lord Alexander refers, holds that the use of military force must be proportionate. As he points out, there is no justification for regime change. In particular, article 2.4 of the UN charter expressly forbids that. The military force proportionate to making a country fulfil its disarmament obligations may be—and in my judgment in this case was—significantly different from the military force expressly designed to achieve regime change. That was the avowed purpose in Washington, and the Government inevitably hitched themselves to it—albeit, after 18 March, with the authority of the House of Commons.
  David Winnick: Clearly, the right hon. and learned Gentleman does not agree with my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary's assessment of the position in respect of international law, but why should we apologise for overthrowing what was one of the most murderous of tyrannies? Is it not a fact that most people in Iraq—whatever their reservations about the occupation and the need for elections as soon as possible—welcome their country's liberation from Saddam's tyranny?
  Mr. Campbell: The Iraqi people do indeed, but is the hon. Gentleman positing the principle that the end justifies the means in all circumstances, and that that principle is apposite in international relations? If so, I ask him to consider the position between India and Pakistan. The view across the line of control is that a
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  pre-emptive strike might be the better way of ensuring the protection of one or other of those countries. Establishing a precedent of the sort created on the occasion of the war against Iraq means that a pattern would be established that others would follow and which it would be extremely difficult to criticise.
  Of course, everyone is relieved—even rejoices at the fact—that Saddam Hussein has gone, but that is not a justification for a breach of international law. If we claim that a benevolent outcome will always retrospectively justify military action, we are opening up a chapter in international law whose consequences are difficult, if not impossible, to predict.
  As the right hon. Member for Devizes pointed out, a motion for an inquiry under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921 is still on the Order Paper, but the motion being debated today does not propose that sort of inquiry. Until I heard the right hon. Gentleman, I thought that that was a recognition of the innovative and far-reaching role of Lord Hutton's inquiry. I think that the Hutton inquiry has become the benchmark, and that it will remain so. Those who are aggrieved or who want some controversy resolved will want nothing less that a Hutton-style inquiry into the war.
  The Hutton inquiry has been characterised by speed, independence and, as most would agree, rigour. It is important to note that, so far as we know, no one refused Lord Hutton's summons to give evidence, and no relevant or material documents were concealed from him—again, so far as we know. If a Hutton-style inquiry were to be launched, one would have to be satisfied that maximum co-operation would be available, that all relevant information would be put forward, and that all witnesses with relevant information would be prepared to appear and give evidence.
  I do not intend to try to anticipate Lord Hutton's conclusions, but it is fair to say that he appeared to define and interpret his remit rather narrowly. In the nature of things, however, the trawl through Government and especially through No. 10 Downing street—where I imagine the e-mail has become a forbidden method of communication—has thrown up further information which, in my judgment, requires further investigation. It is legitimate to say that Hutton has shone a light into many dark corners of the Government machine.
  The central question remains: did we go to war with Iraq on a prospectus that was flawed, either because the intelligence behind it was inadequate or because that intelligence was mishandled once it had been obtained? I shall set out some of the issues and facts that lead me and others to believe that that central question still has to be answered.
  First, Mr. Jonathan Powell reportedly warned on 19 September that the dossier should avoid presenting Iraq as an imminent threat, either to its neighbours or others. That seems to contradict the warning in the foreword to the dossier published five days later, on 24 September, that Iraq posed a "current and serious threat". Exactly what were those words intended to convey to the ordinary reader? What was intended to be conveyed by the use of the expression "clear and present danger"? The provenance of the phrase is the US constitution, but it was used by Ministers here. What were they endeavouring to convey by the use of that expression?

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  In addition, a sentence omitted from the same foreword apparently stated that Iraq was not capable of launching a nuclear strike on the UK. Moreover, the word "programmes" was removed from the dossier's title, which gave the impression that weapons of mass destruction were present rather than that Iraq had the potential to produce them.
  Another problem is the ambiguity of the 45-minute claim. We know now that it related to battlefield weapons and was based on hearsay evidence from a single, uncorroborated source. The claim gave rise to newspaper headlines such as the one that appeared in the Evening Standard, which stated "45 Minutes from Chemical Attack". That proposition was never denied by Ministers. Sir Richard Dearlove described the 45-minute claim as "misleading". Dr. Kelly apparently called it "risible", and the Intelligence and Security Committee employed its usual moderate language to call it "unhelpful".
  In addition to those matters, the following facts need to be borne in mind—that no weapons were deployed at 45 minutes' notice, that no weapons capable of being deployed at 45 minutes' notice have been found, and that no deployable weapons of any kind have so far been found. I add to that the concerns about the contents of the dossier expressed by Dr. Brian Jones of the defence intelligence staff. Another official, known only as Mr. A., said that the Government were clearly "clutching at straws".
  The circumstances of the decision to name Dr. Kelly are a matter for Lord Hutton, but the evidence of witnesses to the inquiry, and Lord Hutton's attitude towards them, may well raise substantial questions about the Government's credibility that are relevant to the wider issues.
  Finally, I bring to the House's attention two other apparent contradictions. First, the provenance of the claim that Iraq sought to buy yellowcake from Niger was rejected by Dr. el-Baradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency, but the UK Government apparently still insist that the claim is valid. Secondly, the intelligence assessment was not only that war would increase the likelihood of terrorist attacks on the UK, but that an attack on Iraq would increase the likelihood of weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorists.
  Some of the matters that I have raised are matters of fact, others of inference. However, if they do not give rise to sufficient anxiety to justify an inquiry of the kind proposed in the motion, I find it difficult to envisage circumstances in which such an inquiry would ever be thought to be necessary.
  Mr. Reed: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is making the case that Parliament should discuss these matters rather well. As he knows, I agree with much of his assessment of the questions, but is it not the case that we should be holding the Government to account, not passing that duty on to some judicial inquiry? I can assure Opposition Members that on the basis of what I have heard today, I shall support the Government this evening, even though I opposed the war.
  Mr. Campbell: I have not said this publicly before, but I imagine that it took a great deal of courage for the hon.
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  Gentleman and other hon. Members who are normally loyal supporters of their Front Bench to take that decision on 18 March. I have two points to make. First, and I say this with some deference—with even more deference given that no members of the Foreign Affairs Committee are here—I doubt whether anyone would regard the Committee's performance in this matter as unimpeachable. Its inquiry was bedevilled by a lack of access to information. There was a great deal of division, although not always along party lines, and the conduct of its work was sadly disfigured by leaks. If the way in which that inquiry was carried out is to become some sort of paradigm, Lord Hutton may do one thing for us—he may prompt us to have a wholesale review of the way Select Committees operate in this place.
  We need an inquiry of a public nature. That is why, I guess, the Prime Minister felt that Lord Hutton and the mechanism that he has employed were the way to deal with an issue of such public importance as the death of the unfortunate Dr. Kelly. For those two reasons—that our performance so far has hardly been brilliant and the fact that we are trying to deal with public confidence—an inquiry of the type being postulated is the way to proceed.
  Mr. Straw: Whether or not the right hon. and learned Gentleman's criticisms of the Foreign Affairs Committee are well founded, none of those criticisms can possibly apply to the Intelligence and Security Committee, which conducted its investigation very thoroughly, scrupulously and on an all-party basis. Does he accept that the ISC's report is well founded?
  Mr. Campbell: The report is a useful and effective contribution to the debate, but as I said a moment ago, we need something that is in the public arena. Given the necessary constraints on the way in which the Committee operates, a large part of its proceedings were conducted in private—indeed, on this occasion it was all of its proceedings. These are issues of such fundamental public importance that an inquiry that is accessible to the public, and shows them that we are not so precious about our responsibilities and performance in this place that we are unwilling to allow external scrutiny, is much more likely to command public confidence.
  Mr. Cash: I am much impressed by the way in which the right hon. and learned Gentleman is dealing with the question. I want to clarify one matter. He called in aid the opinion and lecture of Lord Alexander of Weedon. He will know that Lord Alexander suggested that this matter should go to the courts. I certainly would not agree, and I suspect that he will not do so either.
  Mr. Campbell: The fact that one recognises that Lord Alexander of Weedon has made a powerful contribution to the debate does not commit one to accepting every line of every part of the lecture and the article that he subsequently wrote.
  Mr. Edward Garnier: I hope that I am not wasting the right hon. and learned Gentleman's time by asking him this question. Does he accept that this Chamber and this House—no matter how well motivated we are as individuals or collectively—do not have the procedures to embark on an examination of the facts that is required to reach a sound conclusion to

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  allow us each to reach separate, different or agreed opinions about the rights or wrongs of the Government's conclusion?
  Mr. Campbell: The hon. and learned Gentleman makes a sound point. I have served on Select Committees and I confess that exercising political judgment seems much easier than getting to the facts of, for example, the case of the Iraqi supergun, which arose while I was a member of the Trade and Industry Committee in the 1987–92 Parliament. Indeed, if anyone of a sufficiently historical bent wants to read that Committee's report on the issue, he will see that the problems of establishing the facts are well laid out. I am glad that I gave way to the hon. and learned Gentleman while we are still entitled, at least for the moment, to call each other Queen's Counsel.
  Some people would argue that some of the issues that I have outlined are contentious. I shall now detail some that are uncontested—for example, Mr. Jonathan Powell's apparent reference to the lack of imminent threat; the fact that the intelligence related to battlefield weapons and that those weapons posed no threat to the UK or its forces; and the fact that the risk of weapons of mass destruction falling into terrorists' hands was likely, on the assessments, to be increased by an attack on Iraq. I very much doubt whether, if those facts had been in the public domain, British public opinion would have been sympathetic to the case for going to war. If those facts had been in the public domain, I wonder how many more hon. Members would have taken the courageous decision of the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Reed) and voted against war and in favour of more time for inspections.
  We have to some extent anticipated the question of the Attorney-General. The Prime Minister was pretty dismissive of any arguments in relation to the Attorney-General based on Professor Greenwood's opinion, which I commend to those who are interested in these matters. It is important to realise that in the exercise of the giving of any legal opinion, it is essential to know the factual basis on which the opinion was given. That is why I want to know whether to any extent the opinion of the Attorney-General—partially published—was based on the dossier of September 2002. Did he take that dossier at its face value to any extent? Did he know, for example, that only battlefield weapons were involved? If he took it at its face value and did not know that such weapons were involved, does that not inevitably raise a substantial question about the validity of the opinion that he gave?
  We are entitled to see the whole opinion and the statement of facts upon which it was based. Lord Alexander argues powerfully that we are entitled to know if the Attorney-General considered the doctrine of necessity as his last resort, or indeed the principle of proportionality. He also argues that we are entitled to see the whole of the Attorney-General's opinion. I agree wholeheartedly for the reason that while we are told that by convention the Attorney-General's advice should not be published, conventions can be broken. Indeed, we broke one on 18 March in this House. In any event, that convention has already been broken because the Attorney-General published part of his opinion. When
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  he did so he broke with the convention. Either the convention rules or it does not. If one abandons it partly, in my view one abandons it completely.
  We are debating a Conservative motion and we shall support it because we believe that the inquiry for which it calls is essential. I hope that I may be forgiven for saying that Conservative indignation after the event would be a little more easily received if they had shown some more scepticism in advance of it. The House should consider this. Who said on 1 September 2002:
  "We can choose to act pre-emptively or we can prevaricate."?
  Who said:
  "Those who genuinely seek evidence in support of potential military action in Iraq will find there is plenty of it: those who oppose intervention at all costs will never find enough."?
  And who said:
  "The only question remaining is will he choose to strike against Britain. I believe so."?
  Those were the words written on Sunday 1 September in an article in the home news section of The Sunday Times by the leader of the Conservative party. He had made up his mind before the dossier was published and before the Attorney-General issued his partial opinion.
  The reality is that this motion is intellectually and politically much more consistent with the position of the Liberal Democrats than with that of the Conservative party. It would be churlish in the extreme not to thank the Conservatives for their generosity in allowing us the opportunity to show that that is so. That is why the motion will have our support.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before I call the next speaker, I remind the House that Mr. Speaker has placed a 12-minute limit on all Back-Bench speeches, which applies from now.
  3.10 pm
  Mrs. Helen Liddell: As the first non-lawyer to speak in the debate, may I break up the lawyer fest that has been going on for the past hour or so? If only we could import lawyers' job creation schemes into the wider economy, we should be even more successful than we are already.
  I am rather disappointed that the Leader of the Opposition has tabled this motion. The reason for my disappointment is that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short), the former Secretary of State for International Development, made clear, the Cabinet received the same briefings on intelligence matters as the Leader of the Opposition, so it is disingenuous of him now to question the nature of that material and to seek, as he did in an article published in The Mail on Sunday, to traduce the officials who were responsible for drawing the intelligence together.
  I am also disappointed that the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) should associate himself with the Conservative motion. He and I have discussed the subject on many occasions and I have the highest respect and admiration for him. However, I believe that this debate is about opportunism; its purpose is to give Conservative

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  Members something around which they can at last unite. It gives them an opportunity to play to the gallery from the point of view, if I may mix my metaphors, of the lowest common denominator.
  Whenever we consider the circumstances surrounding the background to our engagement in Iraq much is said about United States intelligence and about United Kingdom intelligence. What we must bear in mind, however, is that for 12 years, before resolution 1441, intelligence to most major countries indicated the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The clearest intelligence of all was the fact that Saddam Hussein had actually used weapons of mass destruction not only against his neighbours but against his own people.
  Several right hon. and hon. Members have referred to the fact that, six months on, no weapons of mass destruction have been found. It is a pity that not all the Members who are currently in the Chamber were here an hour before the debate started, because we have been looking for weapons in Ireland for more than 30 years and discussions over the past two days have been mainly about whether adequate supplies of those weapons have been identified and whether they could have been used for the type of destruction described yesterday by General de Chastelain.
  The weapons inspectors are not playing some form of geopolitical spot the ball. The difficulties of finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are extremely significant and we should stop the hysteria of suggesting that within six months of the cessation of hostilities it will be easy to find such weapons. I should have liked answers to several questions that arose during previous debates. Saddam Hussein knew that coalition forces were at the door, so, if he had nothing to hide, why did he not say so? Why did he not welcome back the weapons inspectors, giving them the opportunity and the information that they required to determine whether the weapons had existed and whether they had been destroyed? Furthermore, where are the answers now—in October—to the questions that Hans Blix posed in March this year? There was a dossier of 173 pages, but we do not yet have those answers.
  When I joined the Cabinet I did not think that I would have to take a decision that would send the sons and daughters of other people to war. One must not assume that only those who resign from the Government examine their conscience on such matters. Those of us who stayed also had to examine our conscience. The decisions were not easy; they had to be based not only on the information available at the time but on Saddam Hussein's previous behaviour.
  I want to share with the House something that was a significant factor in my decision: the implications for the United Nations. For 12 years Saddam Hussein had, appallingly, ignored the UN. If, at the eleventh hour, we had walked away from a challenge to Saddam Hussein, the damage to the UN would have been irreversible and the message to dictators in other rogue states would have been considerable. That is the background against which the decisions were taken.
  We are gathered here today to discuss whether there should be judicial review. Earlier, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary pointed out that one has the sense that those who seek judicial review want review after
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  review after review until they get the answer that they want. The Intelligence and Security Committee has conducted a full review and the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, despite reservations expressed by some people with the benefit of hindsight, has also conducted a full review. Although it would be wrong to go into too much detail about the Hutton inquiry, the House should bear in mind the fact that it was set up by the Prime Minister. Never before have a Government made information available to such a degree, when they could comfortably have hidden behind the 30-year rule. As far as possible, the Government have been open, although I do not dispute that there are matters where they cannot be as open as they might want to be. After all, there are requirements to protect the safety and security of intelligence sources.
  I recognise that there is a valid and genuine debate in the country about the circumstances of our going to war. It will continue for many generations, as it did after the first world war and the second world war. However, using those issues for party political purposes, as is happening increasingly, reduces the real sacrifices made by others than us—those who had to prosecute the war in Iraq.
  Much has been said on the allegations about the availability of weaponry, be it battlefield or otherwise, within 45 minutes, so I do not want to delay the House unduly on the matter. I followed every debate in the House at the time of the publication of the dossier and, in my recollection, no one raised the 45-minute issue. It makes little difference whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that could be deployed in 45 minutes or 45 days; people would be just as dead after 45 days as they would be after 45 minutes. We have to take that into account.
  It is regrettable that we are holding this discussion. I share the view of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary: we should be looking to the future. I share the view, too, that we should look to the achievements of our forces, especially in Basra, in bringing about a much better Iraq.
  In conclusion, there is one point on which my conscience troubles me: it is that I and many others did not listen more closely to my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) whenever she brought to our attention the real consequences of what Saddam Hussein was doing to his people. We have deposed Saddam Hussein from power, but he is still around and he will continue to wreak his vengeance until we find him. We must give the people of Iraq confidence and courage that a true, safe and prosperous country can be rebuilt. Lawyers dancing on the head of a pin will not secure that; we have to move forward and we have to do it now.
  3.20 pm
  Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I think that the decision to go to war in Iraq was the worst military decision taken by this country since the Suez invasion, and history will judge that it poses several of the same issues: a bogus reason was given to the House of Commons for embarking on the war in the first place; no clear forethought had been given to what would happen in the event of our being militarily successful, which was strongly likely in both cases; and when we are sufficiently far from now and able to look back properly,

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  it will pose quite big questions about what the role of this country is in the modern world. I think that most hon. Members are committed to the Atlantic alliance, but this issue poses the biggest questions yet about what kind of Atlantic alliance we are in and what is Britain's part in getting the balance right on both sides of the Atlantic and trying to exercise some influence on the formation of policy.
  I shall not rehearse the arguments that I have advanced in the past because that is not the purpose of today's debate. I only briefly remind the House of the view that I always took from the first: I opposed the war because I was not persuaded—I had expressed strong doubts—that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, or biological or chemical weapons, that posed any current threat to his neighbours or to ourselves.
  I also expressed strong reservations about the aftermath of warfare, which I think correctly anticipated that we would win with comparative ease and very little loss to our side. I doubted that it would be easy to put in place a stable new regime in Iraq. I feared that it would not add to the stability of the middle east or make it significantly easier to make much progress on the wider middle eastern problems. In addition, I thought it might set us back in the war against terrorism.
  I hope that the forebodings I have always expressed about this matter prove to be wrong; I hope that my forecasts of difficulty are gainsaid by the facts, because I do not wish to see such cheerless conclusions unfold. However, as we are all agreed, the most important thing we should turn to in due course is the question of what happens next, and at the moment things are not going well. I believe that the world is a more dangerous place than it was before the invasion of Iraq and I am not satisfied that we are going in the right direction in Iraq, or in the middle east, or in the war against terrorism, as a result of what we have done.
  Bob Spink: Does not my right hon. and learned Friend accept, however, that there is an opportunity for a democratic model to emerge in Iraq, based on the Kurdish democracy that has operated under the no-fly zone over the past 10 years, with a federal solution, and that that would give stability and a model for the whole of the rest of the middle east?
  Mr. Clarke: We must achieve the most stable and democratic regime possible in Iraq as quickly as we possibly can. I am not convinced that the conquering and occupying forces there now are able, without a change of policy, to achieve that very quickly. If I have time, I will return to the case that we must make for internationalising the process much more, giving the United Nations a bigger role, bringing in other countries and getting away from the policy of thinking that a largely Iraqi exile-dominated Government of very pro-western people can emerge, get elected and stay in power for long.
  I would make a case for a judicial inquiry on the basis of the first argument that I advanced: that I still believe, and nothing that has happened since has persuaded me to the contrary, that we were given a bogus reason for
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  the war. We certainly were not given the full reasons that had played a part in the making of the decision. It has been said that there have been inquiries into that, and the Hutton inquiry was mentioned.
  The Hutton inquiry obviously turns on the tragic death of Dr. Kelly. I am not sure why the Prime Minister so promptly announced a judicial inquiry into that, when he has been resisting a judicial inquiry into the bigger questions of why we went to war, when we went to war and whether Parliament was told the truth about it. The Hutton inquiry, although important, is essentially about a footnote issue. I do not want to be too flippant about it, but it is essentially about the warfare between Alastair Campbell and the BBC and how far that affected the conduct of business inside the Government. What the Hutton inquiry has done is, first, to cast light on the way in which business was being transacted, which was not very attractive; I hope that those in Whitehall will address the way in which they conduct these things in future. It has also given us insights into what lay behind the veil of the intelligence and the arguments that were going on to make the case on weapons of mass destruction, and they merely add to my doubts that we were ever given the true reason, and my feeling that what was going on was an attempt to manufacture a case that this was all about weapons of mass destruction and United Nations resolutions and so on, to which people unfortunately lent themselves.
  I listened to the right hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Mrs. Liddell), who still clings to the view that in the end we shall all find out that there really were programmes for weapons of mass destruction that posed a threat. I admire her sturdy confidence. I have not even heard the Prime Minister advance that view for the past month, and I thought he was the last person in the country who believed it. It is obvious now that no programmes had reached a stage where there was any likely deployment against anybody. We discover that intelligence officials were warning that if Saddam had already got them he would use them when we had an invasion. We crushed and overran the regime and there was no appearance of any biological, chemical or nuclear weapons, because he had none that he could use in defence of the regime. So even those who believe that case must surely, eventually—I do not know when—come to accept that it was totally and utterly wrong, and that our forces conquered, indeed, massacred, an army that had only rather inadequate conventional equipment and was incapable of defending itself against the huge force that was deployed.
  Therefore, the main issue is, why did we go to war? The more we look at what has just begun to emerge from Hutton and other inquiries, the less able we become to get rid of the idea that this war was never decided on in this country on the grounds of the threat from weapons of mass destruction anyway. I suspect that most of us in the House know American politicians of one kind or another. We all follow the debate on the senior side of the Atlantic, where the real power is held, and most of us have quite a lot of contact with people who hold positions of authority there, or who have held them in the past. The debate in this country about the war always ran in curious parallel to the debate in the United States, which has always been about slightly different things. The reason why the Foreign Secretary was engaging in these arguments in the United Nations at

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  the end of last year, using convoluted language worthy of "Animal Farm" or "Nineteen Eighty-Four" to explain the history of the motions he was resolutely defending, is that the rumblings of warfare were already sounding. In my opinion, the real decisions to go to war had been taken in Washington months before, and the arguments there were quite openly about regime change. They were advancing what they regarded as a worthwhile case for regime change. To popularise it in America, they were linking it with the war against terrorism and al-Qaeda—they still do.
  I can assure the House that a very senior American, favourable to the present Administration and in a position of great influence and control, once expressed exasperation to me, saying, "I do not understand why we are making all this fuss about weapons of mass destruction. We only raised them because our European friends wished us to do so."
  The problem in the United States was that it had a clear policy. The Republican Administration believed that the Clinton Administration had been wet and useless, along with its European allies, on all these things and that they would strengthen America's forces. There was a case for the proactive use of force for good, and they thought that they could change the middle east by taking the opportunity to invade Iraq and putting in a more pro-western and democratic regime. They thought that they would do that easily because they would be greeted as liberators and that Mr. Chalabi, or someone like him, and his friends would take over, which would lead to a further succession of benign events throughout the middle east. They thought that they would be able to coerce Syria and that there would be an uprising in Iran, which would produce a more democratic regime there, and so the process would unfold. It did not work. There was no plan B when it did not work once they had conquered Baghdad, and we now need to turn to finding a plan B to see how we move on because those hopes were not realised.
  I believe that that was the true background of the war, and it has never been debated in the House, so what we need a judicial inquiry to look at is not who drafted which sentence of the dossier, although I am a lawyer and although I am very attracted to the opinion of Lord Alexander, which I prefer to that of the Attorney-General. The unfortunate Attorney-General and the unfortunate intelligence community were doing their best to serve their colleagues and their masters when they drafted what they did. I do not think that even the legalities turn on that.
  The key issue is whether we all feel confident that we know when the decision was made by our Prime Minister to support the President of the United States in warfare in Iraq. Do we believe that we have all been told exactly what policy was behind that? Do we believe that all the accounts given to the House were an accurate narrative of what led to the events that have since unfolded? I do not hold that view. I think that, if we do not hold a judicial inquiry into these matters, in due course, in the fullness of history, there will be an exposition of what really lay behind the whole escapade.
  It was 10 or 20 years before we discovered from memoirs and such papers as have emerged that what most sensible people suspected in their bones about Suez was true. If we are not careful, we will wait another 10 or 20 years and we will probably discover that the right
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  hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) and his colleagues were telling us the plain obvious, and that Parliament ignored it.
  I conclude on this: I can address the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Reed) and others who are worried about voting for what they see as an opportunist motion, although, of course, I find it easier to do so. I am absolutely delighted to hear that my colleagues, whose first reaction was to tell the Government that they had to make the case for the war—an injunction that Alastair Campbell took only too seriously—have now come round. They are now on our side, and Parliament will betray itself if, for party reasons of any kind, some Members suddenly decide—even people who have been as courageous as the hon. Member for Loughborough and others—to find some funny reason for not voting against their own side because those on the other side are asking for what they really want.
  I voted with the hon. Member for Loughborough. I voted with the right hon. Member for Livingston, and I voted with the Liberal Democrats and quite a few Conservatives. The Conservative party is now offering itself up to ask what we should all be asking for: a judicial inquiry, so that Parliament, on which the hon. Gentleman places so much importance, can pave the way to discovering the truth behind this war, and it is important that we know that.
  3.32 pm
  Mr. Chris Smith: Colleagues will know that I did not support the military action in Iraq at the time that it took place in the way that it happened for the reasons that were stated at the time and without proper international endorsement or support. I remain strongly of that view, but I cannot and will not support the Opposition motion in the Division Lobby tonight. I say that partly because it is a Tory motion, and I have never in my life been in the habit of supporting Tory motions. It is not just a Tory motion, but an entirely meretricious motion, coming from a party that offered slavish support for the military action in the first place. What is more, I am not sure that a further judicial inquiry is what we need.
  We have had a thorough inquiry already, led by Lord Hutton, albeit one that examined a narrow point about the tragic circumstances surrounding David Kelly's death. In the process of examining that narrow point, Lord Hutton has unearthed a huge amount of revealing, sobering, illuminating and, at times, damning information about what went on in the run-up to war. What we need now is not a further inquiry, but a proper sifting, analysis and debate about what we know from the Hutton inquiry.
  What we know is pretty clear. It pains me to say it, but we went to war—we were taken to war—on a deeply flawed basis. I do not doubt the bona fides of those who took those decisions. I even respect some of the underlying reasons, such as the passionate hatred of Saddam Hussein's brutal regime, although I would argue that that was not the right way to go about removing it. The facts remain, however. The intelligence was flawed, the dossiers were incorrect or misleading, the reasons given in speech after speech were invalid, and the weapons of mass destruction are nowhere to be seen. Surely we must now acknowledge, after all that we

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  have learned and all that we know, that mistakes were made. Decisions, however difficult, were wrongly taken, and things should have happened differently.
  Recognising that, we must look to the future and not simply dwell on the past. That means learning some lessons. Lesson one is that we need to find the right relationship with our friends and colleagues in the United States. America is a great country. It has sacrificed much, over many decades, for the greater cause of a wider humanity. It deserves our friendship and our support in times of difficulty in return. However, that does not mean that we should endorse every decision taken by every American President. If my right hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) is right in his reporting of a Cabinet meeting early in 2002, it is very revealing. The desire to—I quote from his diaries—"stay close to America" to gain influence and keep it engaged with the world became the paramount factor determining policy. Surely the role of a candid friend, not always uncritical, would have been better than such a desire.
  Lesson two is that the doctrine of pre-emptive action, supposedly to remove potential danger rather than actual, imminent or visible threat, must surely be reconsidered. Any such action will inevitably be based primarily on intelligence assessments, and we know a lot more now about their reliability than we did previously. Striking before one is struck may in some circumstances be the right course of action. Striking because one has been told by someone somewhere that at some unidentified future date one might be struck is surely more problematic.
  Lesson three is that there may be times when a regime is so brutal, oppressive, genocidal or evil that its removal, even though it rules a sovereign state and poses no threat to other countries, may be a desirable objective. Any such decision, however, must be made
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  under a proper framework of international law. It cannot be the province of one nation, however powerful, or even of two, to make such a decision and such an intervention. It can only be the international community as a whole, through its proper decision-making structures, that should make such a move.
  That brings me to lesson four. There is now an urgent need for us to help to rebuild the shattered authority of the United Nations. We need the United Nations in this fractured world of ours. We need a body that establishes and sustains a framework of rules for international behaviour. That is especially true when world affairs are dominated so comprehensively by one superpower. It was not the French who broke the back of the United Nations before the war; it was the determination of the President of the United States to go to war whatever the United Nations decided. If we have any influence at all with that President as a result of all that has happened over the past eight months, now is the time to use it. Britain is in a unique position as a member of the Security Council to take a lead in the rebuilding of the United Nations, on which we all ultimately depend.
  There should be no new inquiry but there are urgent lessons to be learned and followed from what we now know. Perhaps—just perhaps—there will be a recognition that we got some things wrong. That recognition is the starting point for understanding, for wisdom and, indeed, for moving on.

  DEFERRED DIVISION
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): I now have to announce the result of the Division deferred from a previous day.
  On the question on the recovery plan for cod and the recovery of the northern hake stock, the Ayes were 251, the Noes were 168, so the Ayes have it.
  [The Division List is published at the end of today's debates.]

  Iraq (Judicial Inquiry)
  Question again proposed.
  3.41 pm
  Sir Peter Tapsell: The seriousness of the allegations that the Prime Minister in particular and the Government as a whole would have to answer at a judicial inquiry is beyond doubt. Only a judicial inquiry will reveal the truth. Our constituents and the House are entitled to know whether we went to war because of an honest mistake or on a pretext designed to disguise a conspiracy.
  This was never a national war; it was a ministerial war. However, did Ministers mislead the House and the country about the reasons that they gave to take us to war? Without clarification of that, a dark cloud of suspicion will always hang over the reputation of those in the Government and the intelligence services who led this country into an invasion of Iraq in which more than 50 British servicemen have already lost their lives, including my brave constituent Captain David Jones, who has left behind a newly married widow and heartbroken relatives.
  The fundamental accusation could not be more grave morally, legally and in its constitutional implications. To trick the House of Commons and the country into making war on false pretences would be one of the most scandalous and wicked things that any Prime Minister could do. Yet that is the crime with which our present Prime Minister is widely charged. The majority of my constituents believe that to be the case.
  It is no adequate defence of that charge to argue that Saddam Hussein was a tyrant and a mass murderer. The Prime Minister repeatedly assured us that regime change was not the purpose of, or justification for, the war. In his speech to the House on 18 March asking for parliamentary support for war, he specifically said:
  "I have never put the justification for action as regime change."—[Official Report, 18 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 772.]
  He always knew that he was unlikely to gain a parliamentary majority for war on those grounds. So instead he relied emphatically and emotionally on the pretext of an alleged serious threat to Britain from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. At no time did the Prime Minister ever admit to any possible doubt about their continued existence or the seriousness of the threat that they immediately posed. As late as 30 April in reply to me at Prime Minister's questions, he said:
  "I am absolutely convinced and confident about the case on weapons of mass destruction."—[Official Report, 30 April 2003; Vol. 404, c. 296.]
  He predicted that I would have to eat my words. When is he going to eat his words?
  The Prime Minister's only possible defence would be to claim that he was misled by the intelligence services, but even that would be a resigning matter. Prime Ministers who allow themselves to be misled on great national issues are not fit to hold their office. I do not believe that the Prime Minister was misled. We were misled; the country was misled. The Government reverted to an old trick that was often used in the past by disreputable foreign politicians who were looking for a casus belli. The so-called dodgy dossier was a rather clumsy update of Bismarck's doctoring of the Ems
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  telegram. Both wanted to persuade Europe of the unavoidability of war that they had planned to wage for other reasons.
  It cannot be argued—not that it would affect the issue in this debate—that critics of the Prime Minister are simply being wise after the event about the absence of weapons of mass destruction. As the Prime Minister said to me on 4 June:
  "I do not think that I ever persuaded the hon. Gentleman of the case for action".— [Official Report, 4 June 2003; Vol. 406, c. 1681.]
  Nor did he, which was why I voted on 26 February for the amendment that included the words
  "but finds the case for military action against Iraq as yet unproven".
  The reason why I voted for the amendment was not that I was relying on my undoubted psychic powers or even my long personal knowledge of Iraq and the middle east. Everyone with great knowledge of Iraq and the area whom I consulted in the run-up to the war, including professional Arabists of distinction and seniority, and former members of the Joint Intelligence Committee, told me most emphatically that they did not believe that Saddam Hussein still possessed weapons of mass destruction that were a threat to Britain. Several, including former British ambassadors to Baghdad, Damascus and Riyadh, wrote letters to the national press to say that. It is inconceivable that those doubts were unknown to the Prime Minister, yet in his war speech to the House on 18 March he made no reference to any possibility of uncertainty about the reality of the threat from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. He brushed aside warnings about the non-discovery of the weapons from Dr. Blix and the United Nations inspectors in Iraq. Indeed, a deliberate undercover campaign was mounted to try to discredit Dr. Blix as ineffectual and unreliable.
  As long ago as 25 November 2002, which was four months before the start of shock and awe—words that were characteristic of the manic hysteria of the time—I said:
  "It seems to me that we shall get into difficulties if the inspectors are given a free and unfettered right to search for weapons of mass destruction, if that continues without interference, and if they are unable to find any such weapons. Surely we could not, at that point, say that, because we believe that those weapons were there last September, a nil return would justify an attack on Iraq. That would be difficult to explain to the British people.—[Official Report, 25 November 2002; Vol. 395, c. 70.]
  Well, it is difficult to explain it to the British people—indeed, it has become well nigh impossible. That is why we must have an independent judicial inquiry to give us the explanation. If that is denied, many of us will assume that the explanation is that, as part of our Prime Minister's vainglorious strutting of the international stage, he entered into a secret agreement with President George W. Bush at some time in 2002 to attack Iraq in the cool season and then cooked the intelligence books to justify the war to the House of Commons and the British people.
  3.49 pm
  Mr. Kerry Pollard: I visited Iraq twice just before the war and am perhaps one of only two or three hon. Members to have been there at that time. I opposed the war and voted against it. Indeed, I led the march against the war alongside Jesse Jackson and

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  Bianca Jagger, both heroes of mine. The war was wrong then and I have not changed my mind on that. I am sure that the Prime Minister was sincere in his belief that he was right, but I believe that he was wrong. However, it is now time to stop picking the scab of the sore of Iraq and to move forward by rebuilding the country and establishing democracy. We must return prosperity and peace to that benighted country.
  When I was in Basra 18 months ago, there was little clean drinking water. I visited a hospital where there was little medicine. Children were regularly dying from dysentery because of the lack of clean water. I visited a school that had raw sewage in the playground, although that was a result of Saddam Hussein's activities and had nothing to do with the war. I have contacts in Iraq. They tell me that things in Basra are much improved. The people are pleased that the British, not the Americans, are there. They would like British administration throughout the country rather than just in Basra because they have more confidence in the British.
  We have to rebuild the economy. The region is the cradle of civilisation. Iraqi civilisation is older than British civilisation. We need to bring security and prosperity back to that country.
  3.51 pm
  Mr. Elfyn Llwyd: Ironically, the motion tabled by Her Majesty's Opposition is partly a result of the failure of Her Majesty's Opposition to scrutinise the situation before the attack on Iraq and subsequently. Even now, after all that we have heard and seen over the past few months, the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) said that he still believed the war was right. With respect, a competent official Opposition could and should elicit answers to many of the questions posited for the tribunal.
  I also take issue with the Foreign Secretary who referred to the high court of Parliament. That may or may not be true, but those are merely words because we are not able to see the Attorney-General's legal advice, which is crucial. It should have been made available to magistrates courts, let alone the high court of Parliament. I feel strongly about that. It made me a bit wobbly to hear the right hon. Gentleman refer to Iran as the next contestant in this ghastly game.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Bill Rammell): Will the hon. Gentleman reflect on what he just said? Nothing that the Foreign Secretary said indicated that there was an intention to move towards Iran. Quite the opposite. The work that he has been doing in Iran in the past day underlines that.
  Mr. Llwyd: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has had a humour bypass. The Foreign Secretary mentioned it in passing. It was a slip of the tongue and meant to be taken in a flippant way.
  Several hon. Members mentioned Lord Alexander's opinion. Whether one accepts it or not, he is a legal heavyweight. In his interesting article, he refers to every conceivable argument being deployed to justify the war.
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  One month it was self-defence; a little later it had become humanitarian intervention; in the end, it was apparently to bring democracy and freedom to the people of Iraq. Yet none of those political arguments could be used to justify invasion under international law.
  Article 51 is the important article on self-defence. It clearly states that there has to be an immediate specific threat to a specific country. That did not happen. The idea of a pre-emptive strike, which has been mentioned, is a grey area and does not have the force of international law. Nor should it, because it is often based on subjective material such as intelligence material and so on and may give carte blanche to rogue states that wish to attack others.
  Turning to the resolutions that form part of this debate, my reading of resolution 678 is that it authorised force against Iraq specifically to eject it from Kuwait. Resolution 687 imposed on Iraq obligations to continue to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction to restore international peace and security. Speaking on behalf of my party, Plaid Cymru, and the Scottish National party, I, like many others, believe that resolution 1441 did not sanction belligerent action. Since the very beginning, we have consistently believed that there is no threat. Indeed, containment appeared to be working at the time.
  Apart from Lord Alexander, several other people have declared that resolution 1441 did not provide a mandate for war. On 6 March 2003, a group of distinguished international lawyers sent a letter to the Prime Minister, which was published in The Guardian:
  "There are currently no grounds for a claim to use such force in self-defence. The doctrine of pre-emptive self-defence against an attack that might arise at some hypothetical future time has no basis in international law. Neither security council resolution 1441 nor any prior resolution authorises the proposed use of force in the present circumstances."
  The letter was signed by professors at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, London and Paris as well as the London School of Economics.
  I agree with many people that resolution 1441 did not authorise war. It stopped short of doing so, and that is acknowledged in the central role proposed for the United Nations. The US and the UK tacitly recognised that in their promotion of a second resolution in March. However, when they realised that they would not obtain a majority on the Security Council, in wild west fashion, they decided to ignore the United Nations altogether. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) said on 1 June:
  "I have concluded that the PM had decided to go to war in August and he duped us all along. He had decided for reasons that he alone knows to go to war over Iraq and to create this sense of urgency and drive it: the way the intelligence was spun was part of that drive…We were misled: I think we were deceived in the way it was done".
  Secretary of State Colin Powell recently said of the alleged sale of yellowcake by Niger:
  "It turned out to be untrue; that happens a lot in the intelligence business".
  The dossier said that aluminium tubes that Iraq had tried to buy could be used for nuclear weapons, but the

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  US Energy and State Departments dismissed the claim. That very month, the US Defence Intelligence Agency concluded:
  "There is no reasonable information on whether Iraq is producing or stockpiling chemical weapons."
  As for the UN inspectors, former inspector Bernd Birkicht said that he believed that the CIA had made up intelligence on weapons of mass destruction to provide the legal basis for the war. He told The Guardian that supposedly top-secret, high-quality intelligence had led the inspectors into an absurd wild goose chase. He said:
  "We received information about a site giving the exact geographical co-ordinates, and when we got there we found nothing. Nothing on the ground. Nothing under the ground. Just desert."
  Mr. Birkicht said that the so-called decontamination trucks in satellite photographs were, in fact, fire engines.
  The Government believe that resolutions 687, 678 and 1441 together authorised the use of force, but many of us continue to believe that that is wrong. I shall not labour the point, as I have made it repeatedly. Any reliance on resolution 678 was restricted to what was strictly necessary to enforce the disarmament provisions of resolutions 687 and 1441 with the objective of restoring international peace and security to the area. An assessment of the quality, reliability and strength of the evidence that was made available to the Government, and in particular to the Attorney-General, is therefore essential to establish whether there was any lawful basis for the invasion of Iraq on the Attorney-General's legal advice.
  The current position is that there are occupying powers. Articles 43 and 64 of the Geneva convention are clear. Order must be maintained, life must be respected and the occupying powers are a policing power until their role is taken over by the United Nations. The regulations and the convention thus recognise that occupation may occur, and they recognise the right of an occupying power to make changes to existing institutions in the occupied territory. However, the right to make changes is not unconditional. In the main, it is available in order to allow the occupying power to uphold its duties under regulations and the convention in respect of the maintenance of public order and safety, orderly government and its own security. It follows that civilians are entitled to protection.
  In a parliamentary answer to my hon. Friend the Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price), the Secretary of State for Defence stated on 7 October that the Government had no idea how many non-combatants in Iraq had been killed since the forces of occupation took over. That is unacceptable. It appears to fly in the face of the fourth Geneva convention. We must ensure that the people are properly respected and protected. Such a cavalier response is not good enough, and perpetuates the idea held by some people that a Muslim life is somehow worth less than a Christian or a western life. That is nonsense, but if we say in answer to a reasonable question that we have no idea how many have been killed, we give that impression. It is the wrong impression. None of us in the Chamber, no member of the Government and no sane person would adhere to the view that one life was worth less than another, but that is the impression that is given. That is part of the reason for the great vacuum between east and west.
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  The threat of weapons of mass destruction was a justification for the war. We were told that they were there, but they have not come to light, as we know. There are many questions that need to be answered. I support the idea of a judicial inquiry somewhat reluctantly, even though I am a practising barrister. It will take some time to set up and to publish its findings. However, I, like others, am impressed by the way that the Hutton inquiry was set up and is proceeding. That could well be a model.
  It grieves me that the Foreign Secretary speaks of the high court of Parliament, yet we are not allowed to see the evidence. One wonders whether a Hutton-type inquiry would be able to do so. I still say that we are entitled to see the Attorney-General's full opinion and the factual basis upon which he received his instructions.
  Mr. Cash: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that for an inquiry to be set up under the 1921 Act, there would have to be a resolution of both Houses of Parliament? Presumably, Labour Members who are not inclined to go down the route of judicial inquiry because they say they want to move forward would effectively be contradicting what they did when they voted against the war in the first place, when they decided to vote against the Government on a motion.
  Mr. Llwyd: That is one interpretation of the situation, and I can see the logic of the hon. Gentleman's contention.
  Over the past nine months or so, I have had some pretty acrimonious exchanges with the Prime Minister over Iraq. I did so because I thought it was right; he did what he did because he thought it was right. I did not believe the war to be necessary, legal or moral. I am proud to proclaim on behalf of my party—Plaid Cymru—and the Scottish National party that we remain firmly of that opinion. If a judicial inquiry does not bring out the truth, the International Criminal Court might have to do it in future.
  4.4 pm
  Tony Wright: I do not want to rehearse the substantive arguments about Iraq, on which we have already heard some important and, in some respects, devastating contributions, particularly from the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), who is no longer in his place. In a sense, he undercut the Opposition motion, because his analysis told us precisely what we wanted to know about why we had the war—in a nutshell, because the United States had decided upon a policy of regime change to which, for a variety of reasons, we attached ourselves. Everything else flowed from that. Indeed, some of us felt that the United Nations process had become a charade because the essential political, strategic decision had already been taken. We do not need an inquiry to tell us that. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) said, we need to reflect on what was done and what now flows from it.
  I want merely to say a few words about inquiries and about Parliament in that context. This morning, I happened to receive a communication from the Marconi Corporation inviting me to read its brochure explaining the benefits to my constituents of broadband. That took

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  me immediately back to 1912 and the Marconi scandal, which occurred when the Liberal Government of the day decided to set up a series of radio stations across the empire. Using the information that they acquired, certain Government Members, including the Attorney-General and the Chief Whip, started to buy Marconi shares, from which they made a vast amount of money. The Chief Whip also bought them on behalf of the Liberal party.
  I raise that not only for the sordid reason that whenever the Liberals got near to power in the early part of the 20th century we had a series of scandals—whether to do with selling honours or sorting out contracts—but because the House decided as a result of the Marconi case to set up a Select Committee to inquire into what had happened. Of course, the Government ensured that they had a majority on that Committee, and when its report, which became known historically as the "whitewash report", came back to the House, Members divided on party lines. As a result, Parliament began to lose the ability to investigate issues of major public interest. Instead, as a consequence of a Member of Parliament making certain allegations about the behaviour of officials in the Ministry of Munitions, we passed the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921, which is constantly referred to nowadays. At that significant moment, Parliament passed the responsibility for inquiries away from itself and over to judges.
  Given what has happened since, we should ask ourselves whether we are content for that to be so, because it means that even in a case such this, which essentially turns on a political judgment, all we can say is, "Let's ask the judges to have a look at it."
  Mr. Garnier:Surely the hon. Gentleman's analysis is not quite right. It appears clear to me that judges and inquiries have one sort of capability and function and the House of Commons another. We should not criticise or denigrate the powers of an inquiry when compared with those of the House simply because the House of Commons is not the same as an inquiry and the latter can find facts that the former cannot. If we acknowledge our separate functions, we shall better understand the basis of the debate.
  Tony Wright: I acknowledge the separate functions, but I am arguing that an essentially political judgment was made to go to war, and that Parliament is therefore obliged to interrogate the political decision and not tell judges, "You investigate it." That is an abdication of responsibility. Either we are content with that or we are not.
  We have reached the stage where, as politicians, we are always demanding inquiries. Indeed, when we cannot think of what else to say, we demand an inquiry. We probably do that daily in relation to one subject or another. It usually means that we do not have an opinion, cannot make one up or do not want to reveal it. Sometimes we ask for a debate. If we genuinely cannot make up our minds, we say that we will have a great national debate. That is part of our daily rhetoric. However, we must do better than that.
  Mr. Cash: The hon. Gentleman may be in danger of missing a substantial point, and that surprises me. An inquiry under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921 has the overriding quality that it can provide for taking evidence on oath. That is why such an inquiry is used infrequently and for important subjects. The hon. Gentleman has only to look at the contradictions that have emerged from the Hutton inquiry and at Ministers contradicting each other on the Floor of the House and arguing, to realise that evidence must be given on oath to get to the bottom of questions that other Committees have failed to resolve.
  Tony Wright: The hon. Gentleman takes us to an interesting subject. The Opposition motion does not ask for an inquiry under the 1921 Act; it simply requests a judicial inquiry, which could be a Hutton-style inquiry. There is a paradox about such inquiries. Hutton has no formal powers, only the authority that he has demanded for himself. Yet the House of Commons is equipped with all the powers to send for persons and papers. It could do that if it wished. It is therefore absurd but revealing to ask for a Hutton—a judge with no formal powers—to do something that we, with our formal constitutional powers, appear unable to do. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) for raising that point.
  As has been said, it is difficult to take seriously the proposition of Conservative Members who resolutely refused to ask the sort of questions that needed to be put at the time and might have made some difference to the course of events, but decided afterwards that there were questions to ask. Of course, we know how that happens. We all play a game. Perhaps it is time to tell the public about it. We rally round, do nothing that gives comfort to our opponents and support our side. Only any notion of public interest loses out. When I consider the evidence of the Hutton inquiry, my question is, "Who spoke for the public interest during all these events?" It is hard to find the answer.
  Like some other hon. Members, I was a Member of Parliament during the Scott inquiry in the 1990s. It was huge and lasted two or three years. Scott found, among other things, that Ministers had behaved in ways that they should not. That produced a motion of censure on the Floor of the House. What happened? With only two honourable exceptions, hon. Members voted strictly on party lines because we were playing the usual game. Who was speaking and voting for the public interest on that occasion? We are back to Marconi, and the result of that is the passing of investigative power from Parliament to the judges. Either we are content with that, or we do something about it.
  There are major questions to be asked about Iraq, and of course there are grounds for having further reflective inquiries of the kind to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury referred. The Intelligence and Security Committee has raised a variety of questions that need to be explored. The Hutton inquiry itself will raise questions that will need to be explored. The Public Administration Committee, which I have the honour of chairing, has already said that it will be looking at some of the implications for the machinery of government of what Hutton says. So,

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  although I say what I say about judicial inquiries, I think that the Government would be ill advised to say that no further inquiries of any kind are required.
  The Public Administration Committee has said that it wants to hold an inquiry into inquiries. We have them, we demand them, but do we really know what we are doing? Why do we have inquiries? There is a range of reasons. What kind of inquiries do we have? Why do we choose one model rather than another? What do we then do, systematically, to ensure that we learn the lessons of those inquiries? We need to take inquiries seriously if we are demanding them all the time.
  The Foreign Secretary was quite right to say that the decision to go to war in Iraq was essentially a political decision. It was a political decision that we, as politicians in Parliament, must now reflect upon, explore and take further. That cannot be done for us by judges. Judges can find out certain facts forensically, but we have to interrogate the big strategic political judgments, and there is nothing to stop Parliament doing that. We could set up an inquiry under the 1921 Act—it would require a resolution of both Houses—if we wanted to. We could set up a Select Committee to take further the inquiry into the events surrounding the Iraq war, if we wanted to. There is nothing to stop Select Committees taking on counsel if they feel that that would help them in their inquiries. We could insist on our rights—which we formally possess anyway—to send for persons and papers.
  One of the great indictments of this place during the whole Iraq inquiry period has been the way in which the Select Committees have been shown to be so dependent on the Executive in relation to seeing material, calling witnesses and so on. But that is for us to put right. We do not require anyone else to do it. We do not require Governments or judges to do it for us. We can do it, if we want to. We are terribly good at saying what other people should do, but we are charged with exercising these powers. If we do not exercise them, the fault is ours, and nobody else's. From now on, whenever an issue arises, the cry will go up, "Send for Hutton!", but the more we say that, the more we acknowledge our own deficiencies here.
  I have come to the conclusion that we have a choice, and it is a very important one. We must either equip ourselves to hold the sort of inquiries that need to be held, or abandon the field altogether and leave it to the Lord Huttons of this world. That is the decision before the House of Commons, and it turns on issues such as these. The Opposition have clearly decided on one option, which is to send for Lord Hutton, as it were. I would like the House to take the other option, which is to do in practice the things that in theory we are charged with doing. Let us try to find mechanisms that will keep the notion of the public interest alive, even as we play the party battle that we necessarily play. It is not enough to demand inquiries; we must put in place the machinery to get things done.
  It was essential for the reputation of Parliament that we pressed against prerogative power to ensure that Parliament could vote before war was committed to, and it was good for Parliament that that happened. However, it is essential now to have the means at our disposal to investigate the background to the war, and to have the will to employ those means. Simply to ask
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  for a judicial inquiry about an essentially political decision is not an assumption of parliamentary responsibility, but an abnegation of it.
  4.20 pm
  Mr. Peter Lilley: I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) and other Conservative Front Benchers on bringing forward today's motion. In so doing, they are performing a valuable service. I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright), who raised many salient points about the powers of the House. Personally, I would not mind if the objectives of the motion were achieved by a parliamentary Committee of similar power and authority to that invoked in the motion.
  The reason why the Government reject the motion is clear—they are afraid of the outcome of any inquiry, and they probably have good reason to be. However, I submit that, in the long term, they might have more to fear from not having an inquiry and allowing the distrust that has been sown among the British people—by the failure to find the weapons that were held to be the cause and justification of war—to spread from the issue of Iraq to the whole range of their responsibilities, from the Government to politicians in general, and from politicians to the institutions of this country. That will be the consequence if we do not bring light to bear on the inquiry. Distrust is like dry rot: it continues to spread unless and until it is exposed to sunlight. Unless the light of inquiry is brought to bear on the issues underlying the debate, distrust will continue to spread.
  I recall that Lenin once said that the key question in politics was "Who? Whom?". At first sight, the key issue here is who misled whom. Did Ministers mislead the public, or were Ministers themselves misled by erroneous intelligence? That is clearly one of the central issues that any inquiry would have to examine.
  I suspect that the Government would like to cast off responsibility for the failure to find the weapons that they so confidently asserted were there and stress the misleading and erroneous intelligence. The Government are developing a doctrine of ministerial responsibility to the effect that if advice is wrong, the officials are to blame; if it works out all right, Ministers take the credit. However, the traditional doctrine of ministerial responsibility in this country is that Ministers are responsible full stop. They are responsible for the advice that they take. They are not passive recipients of advice because it is their job to probe, question and evaluate it, and then to bring it to the House and act on it. In doing that task, they should be aware of the bias that may be present—we all have biases and prejudices—and of the vested interests of the institutions and departments that may be advising them. Again, all institutions have vested interests and in-house views. The intelligence services are no different from others in that respect.
  There is a sort of law to the effect that no institution whose original purpose declines in importance volunteers to fade away or diminish its responsibilities. Anyone briefed by the intelligence services, as I was as soon as I became a Minister—I imagine that it still goes on—will soon get a whiff of their inherent biases. The briefing took the form of, "Well, Minister, with the decline of communism, you have to be aware that the

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  world has not become less risky, but more, as new threats have replaced old threats. The Soviets may no longer be threatening to bury us, but there are threats from terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, instability and so forth." It was manifest that here was an organisation which, like all organisations, had to talk up the threats for which it had responsibility. I am not over-assessing, and nor am I suggesting that those threats do not exist. I do not suggest that officials ever falsify or distort the information and intelligence they give to Ministers, but it is ultimately for Ministers to evaluate those threats. They must probe and question, and see how well founded is any intelligence that they receive.
  Could Ministers have known at the time from the intelligence that they received that the Iraqi Government probably did not possess any weapons of mass destruction? We know that the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), the former Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House, reached that judgment on the intelligence that he received. I submit that not only could Ministers have reached that judgment, but the House—on the basis of the intelligence information that the Government put forward—could have reached a similar conclusion. An inquiry could examine that issue, but we should think about it carefully to see whether we fulfilled our role of scrutiny and holding to account.
  Although institutions such as the intelligence services will lean towards not understanding the risks and the threats that faced us in Iraq, we can be certain that they would not have told untruths. Officials love to tell the truth, but they do not have an obligation to tell the whole truth or to disabuse people of convenient misunderstandings. So what was important when reading the documents the Government published, including the summary of the UN briefing, was what people did not say. It struck me at the time that none of those documents included any claim that the Government, or any other Government, were in possession of current, direct intelligence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. That may surprise right hon. and hon. Members because the Government talked in those terms, but the documents did not make the claim—or anything that resembled such a claim—that they had intelligence direct from an agent or through wire tapping or any other means that showed first hand the continuing existence of such weapons.
  Instead, the documents talked about "capabilities". On biological weapons, for example, the September dossier gave its conclusions in one succinct sentence. It said:
  "The JIC concluded that Iraq had sufficient expertise, equipment and material to produce biological warfare agents within weeks using its legitimate bio-technology facilities."
  I cannot recall anybody else—I certainly did not at the time—noticing the word "legitimate". The conclusion was that the Iraqis possessed legitimate equipment that would enable them to produce biochemical agents within weeks. I suspect that that is true of every OECD country in the world. On chemicals, the dossier said that
  "the JIC assessed that Iraq retained some chemical warfare agents, precursors… These stocks would enable Iraq to produce significant quantities of mustard gas within weeks and of nerve agent within months."
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  Overall, the JIC concluded:
  "These chemical and biological capabilities represented the most immediate threat from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction."
  So the most immediate threat was from something that would take weeks or months to manufacture.
  The embarrassing conclusion is that Iraq probably did not possess currently usable weapons of mass destruction. That is why the Government made so much of the 45-minute claim. We know now, but did not know then, that that claim was inserted quite late into the dossier. It was inserted at four different points, and it distracted attention away from the fact that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction and could not make them for weeks or months. It did that by implying that Iraq must have the weapons if it could deploy them in 45 minutes. In fact, deployment would have taken weeks or months, because that is how long it would have taken to make the weapons.
  The House possessed information that made it clear that the Government did not have real evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Any suggestion otherwise was merely the result of inference and deduction. Why were hon. Members so poor at analysing the situation? The answer is that the Government were quite good at preventing us from examining complex material, and the House's procedures are bad at letting us examine such material. Often, we get such material after a statement about it has been made or, at best, coincidentally with such a statement. For example, the Foreign Secretary deployed Hans Blix's final report to allay the scepticism that was widespread in the House about the existence of weapons of mass destruction. He told the House that the report set out in
  "173 pages of painstaking detail the terrible nature of the weapons that Saddam has sought with such determination to develop."
  The Foreign Secretary urged us to read the document and promised to put copies in the Library. He gave one illustration of what it contained when he said that
  "the inspectors found evidence of anthrax where Iraq had declared there was none."—[Official Report, 10 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 21.]
  The clear impression was created that the UN MOVIC inspectors had found this evidence hot off the press. I went to the Library and found that there were no documents that we could take away. I had to raise a point of order before we could take a document away. I finally got one, and discovered that the reference was to traces of anthrax found in 1986 or before that date by the previous set of inspectors.
  We were all led to believe that there was new evidence, when the truth was that old evidence was being recycled. We had neither the time nor the opportunity to examine it. Once again, the document contained no evidence as to the current intelligence or other information that the weapons existed.
  Mr. George Osborne: I hate to disagree with my right hon. Friend, as I agree with him on so many other matters, but he seems to be saying that the House would have come to a different decision in respect of military action against Iraq if hon. Members had examined matters more carefully and had had access to more documents. I do not believe that that was the case.

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  There was an overwhelming majority in the House for military action, and nothing that we could have been shown before 18 March would have changed that.
  Mr. Lilley: In a sense, I agree with my hon. Friend. I must draw my remarks to a close, but the one conclusion to be drawn from the documents made available was that Saddam Hussein had the past form, the current intent and the future capability to use the weapons and destabilise his neighbours. I therefore voted—in the full supposition that there were no actual or current weapons of mass destruction—for pre-emptive military action to change the regime. That was the real reason for the war, but the Government could not admit as much because they could not risk alienating Labour Members.
  Another reason for the Government's action was, I suspect, that they were bound by the advice of Law Officers. Such advice is always taken as binding, and it stated that a pre-emptive war to secure regime change was not legitimate. We need better ways to hold the Law Officers to account over their advice, because the law is highly subjective when it comes to matters of national defence. It is very unwise, therefore, to ask for advice which, once given, is taken as definitive and cannot be counteracted by the Government.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I call Mr. Ross Cranston.
  4.34 pm
  Ross Cranston: In my view, the establishment of a judicial inquiry would be an abrogation of our responsibilities. It is not the role of a judge to second-guess political judgments of this nature, and in that sense I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright).
  The right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram), the shadow Foreign Secretary, mentioned Franks, although he resiled from citing that inquiry as a model. Franks was not a judicial inquiry. It was not a public inquiry. It was set up to provide a narrative of what led up to the Falklands conflict.
  Mr. John Taylor: On that subject, in the context of this House abrogating its powers, if those powers were used as the hon. Member for Telford (David Wright) suggested, would not an essential concomitant of that be to have the Law Officers here and answerable on matters known to them, to give us their advice? The hon. and learned Gentleman is a former Law Officer.
  Ross Cranston: I do not agree. I will deal with that matter in a moment because I think the Law Officers' advice on the matter was clear. Also, the convention is that candour is encouraged by the confidentiality of the advice. There is also the problem we are getting into here the Law Officers are being blamed for judgments made by other Ministers. For that reason, I do not think that it will advance the argument in any way to have access to the Attorney-General's advice.
  Franks was a specific inquiry, designed to answer two questions: could the conflict have been foreseen, to which the answer was no, and could the invasion have been prevented, to which the answer was also no. The
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  Privy Councillors who made up that inquiry took issue with certain decisions that had been made, but on the whole approved of what the Government had done.
  We were reminded this morning of what a judicial inquiry would involve. The Saville inquiry is just about to leave Central Methodist hall and go back to Londonderry—five years, 842 witnesses and £120 million later. Ultimately, it will cost £150 million and the lawyers have made £62 million out of it. The BSE inquiry received 12,000 items of correspondence, looked at 1,200 witness statements, heard 333 witnesses, cost £27 million and took three years. The Scott inquiry took three years to investigate Matrix Churchill.
  I am not criticising the length of time taken by those inquiries as they were looking into complex matters, but let us consider what an inquiry of the nature proposed in this motion would involve. The House will appreciate that it is not a practical suggestion. On constitutional grounds, the idea would not attract support. It is dangerous for judges to get involved in high matters of state. Our system relies heavily on the mutual trust and respect between members of the Executive and judges. There has to be a comity between the two branches of government—a self-denying ordinance and self-restraint on both sides. If judges become involved in these high matters of state, that mutual trust and respect could well break down.
  Mr. Cash: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman accept that one feature of this whole saga was illustrated well when the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) made her resignation statement, in which it was crystal clear that she felt that she had been misled by the Prime Minister, and said so? To resolve those very questions it seems to me that relying on the vagaries of the parliamentary system is simply not sufficient. The fact is that we need a judicial inquiry on oath to get to the bottom of this matter—for example the differences between what Sir Kevin Tebbit and the Prime Minister said in respect of the Kelly inquiry.
  Ross Cranston: Whether my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) thought that she was misled is not a matter for a judicial inquiry; it is a political issue and it should be dealt with at a political level.
  I do not want to say a great deal about the legal justification, but I utterly reject the attacks on the integrity of the Attorney-General or his office in this matter. As I said before, the advice given in answer to the question on 17 March is clear. The Attorney-General refers to resolution 1441, which stated that Iraq was in material breach of its obligations, that it had a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations and that serious consequences would follow if it did not do so. The preamble to 1441 refers to the ceasefire resolution—687—and to resolution 678, which authorised action against Iraq. The Attorney-General makes it plain in the advice that 678 was suspended but not terminated by 687, the ceasefire resolution. He goes on to say that if Iraq continues to be in material breach of 1441, the authority to take action under 678 is revived.
  I concede that international lawyers dispute these issues, but in important legal matters there are always disputes between lawyers as to the right approach.

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  However, the Attorney-General's approach is the better one. Critics such as Lord Alexander of Weedon ask how a resolution that is more than 10 years old can be revived. Unfortunately, Lord Alexander, in a long lecture, failed to address what happened between the passing of resolution 687 in 1981 and resolution 1441 in November 2002. He treats that period as a legal desert, but it was not. Depending on when one starts to count, there were 17 or 18 resolutions condemning Iraq. As early as August 1991, when Iraq was dragging its feet, resolution 707 stated that it was in breach of its disarmament obligations. Resolutions 1060, 1134 and 1205 all said that Iraq was in flagrant breach or violation of its obligations to disarm.
  The second argument advanced by Lord Alexander—it was referred to by the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd)—was that action must be grounded in the UN charter, which allows armed force only in self-defence or if there is specific authorisation from the Security Council, and that this was not a case of self-defence. That absolutist view was taken by the international lawyers who signed the letter to The Guardian, but it cannot account for a range of actions taken in the 50 or more years since the charter was agreed. It cannot justify the US blockade of Soviet missiles to Cuba in 1961. It cannot justify the Tanzanian ousting of Idi Amin from Uganda in 1979. It cannot justify the actions taken by the West African states in the Liberian civil war in 1990. It cannot justify the humanitarian intervention in Kosovo in 1998. It cannot justify what the Conservative Government did in 1991—which I supported—when they set up no-fly zones to protect the Kurds and the Shi'as in Iraq. That absolutist view of international law cannot accommodate those and many other actions. That view of the charter is frozen in time and I do not accept it.
  Mr. Cash: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
  Ross Cranston: I am sorry but I must decline; I have already taken two interventions and a third will eat into my time.
  Much has been made of the presence or absence of weapons of mass destruction. Dr. Kay's inquiry is still under way. However, to focus on the presence or absence of WMD is to misunderstand Iraq's obligations under international law. From the time of Security Council resolution 687 until resolution 1441, the obligation was that Iraq must demonstrate that it had disarmed. Whether Iraq had had weapons of mass destruction was not the major issue; it had to demonstrate that it did not have them.
  The onus was on Iraq, as 1441 made clear. Of course, UNSCOM was obstructed and it left Iraq in 1998. Resolution 1441 gave the unanimous judgment of the international community that Iraq was in material breach; it had not disarmed. In fact, even after the conflict, in May 2003, in Security Council resolution 1483, the international community again reaffirms the importance of Iraq's disarming itself of weapons of mass destruction and confirming that to the international community.
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  Much has also been made of the September dossier. The right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) used the phrase he has used on a number of occasions about going to war on a false prospectus. The right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) got very heated about the issue. The right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) also majored on it.
  However, in my view, this is a very Anglo-centric view of the world. It is also seeing the world through the eyes of hindsight. It is misconceived because it assumes that we became involved on that basis and that basis alone. As the Foreign Secretary asked, are we suggesting that when France signed up to 1441 it was using our dossier? Are we suggesting that Russia, China or Syria were using our dossier? Of course not. One only has to state the proposition to realise how ridiculous that notion is.
  Apart from 1441—there has been some discussion about the factual basis of the Attorney-General's opinion—we had the Blix reports, which are available in Command Papers and on the UN website. I do not have time to go through them, but in the January report there was the famous phrase from Dr. Blix:
  "Inspection is not a game of 'catch as catch can'".
  He also spoke about co-operation involving substance as well as process. It was not enough to open doors. He said about the VX nerve agent:
  "UNMOVIC however, has information that conflicts with this [the Iraqi account]."
  He said about anthrax—this was a reference back to the history:
  "There are strong indications that Iraq has produced more anthrax than it declared."
  There was a February report, to which I shall not refer. In the March report, Dr. Blix again referred to 1441 and quoted the words about the requirement for
  "immediate, unconditional and active cooperation".
  He said that, yes, there might be now, after three or four months, active co-operation, but it
  "cannot be said to constitute 'immediate' cooperation. Nor do they necessarily cover all areas of relevance."
  Details of the unresolved disarmament issues were attached to the report. Therefore, in my view, once we had 1441 and the Blix reports, the September dossier faded away. It was subsumed by the new evidence.
  I want to speak briefly about what the Security Council has said about the post-war situation. I have mentioned resolution 1483 in May. There was then resolution 1500 and resolution 1511 last week. Resolution 1483 begins by recalling all the previous relevant resolutions: 1441 and the 17 resolutions including 678 and 687. These resolutions say two important things about the Saddam Hussein regime. First, they say clearly that the members of that regime must be made accountable for the crimes and atrocities committed while governing Iraq, that countries cannot provide them with a safe haven, and that countries must bring them to justice. Secondly, resolution 1511 condemns in the strongest possible terms—as terrorism and attacks on the Iraqi people, the international community and the UN—the various terrorist bombings which we know about so well. The international community is saying, in that unanimous

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  resolution, that in carrying out those attacks the remnants of the previous regime are unequivocally in breach of international law and must be brought to justice.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.
  4.50 pm
  Mr. Tim Boswell: I played no speaking part in the debates leading up to the Iraq war—indeed, this is the first speech on foreign affairs that I have made for a very considerable number of years—so I owe it to the House at least to give some account of the thoughts that I suspect may have been going through the minds of many hon. Members leading up to that time and the balance of conflicting pressures that led us to the decisions that we individually took.
  I should say at the outset that, along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) and, of course, most Conservative Members, I voted for that war, and in no sense do I wish to resile from the decision that I took. I am glad that the war was brought to a broadly quick initial conclusion and that Saddam has gone, as I think we all are. I remain broadly optimistic that, although there are real, present difficulties, they can and will be overcome, with the good will of all interested parties in the international community and, of course, the United Nations, but aspects of the process, rather than the political conclusion, and the Government's conduct in bringing those decisions before the House worry me.
  In rehearsing the different thoughts in my mind, I listed three aspects on both sides of the argument. The first aspect in a sense draws on my own experience as a Government Whip at the time of the first Gulf war. Perhaps what I learned from those days and still retain is a sense of how hon. Members, whatever their party affiliation, will stick to or break away from the establishment on what we might call a 50:50 ball, and one can form a fairly firm view of how people will react. I realise that I will probably go for the establishment if the issue is broadly not concluded otherwise.
  The second aspect is that I understand, as many Conservative Members do instinctively, and appreciate that measures have to be taken from time to time that may be unpleasant or even distasteful—including, of course, the use of force—but that those measures may be, and occasionally must be, used in the interests of the state and its allies and those of the wider international community.
  My third positive point is that I recognise the importance of our enduring alliance with the United States. I believe that it is a powerful influence for good in the world and that it is better to be broadly with it and influencing it than antagonistic to it. Alongside that, I wish to mention that, although the constitutional systems are clearly radically different, one of the interesting aspects of the United States is the way in which its people will rally behind its President on points of difficulty. There is a kind of compact that he, as the commander-in-chief and head of the executive branch, will rise above the party debate to discharge the national interest. That was very evident at the time, although there was not enough critical discussion internally about the motives that drove that country's decisions, but I pass from that at the moment and store it for later.
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  I come to the other three factors that I had in mind. First, I recognise—we all do; we need not go on about it—the real consequence of any decision to take military action: the loss of life not merely for British or indeed opposed service people, but, of course, the civilian population as well. We have to admit that that is a heavy price.
  Secondly, I have a continuing suspicion of what used in the 19th century to be called forward policies for Government, particularly outside the traditional boundaries of British influence or interest, although, of course, Britain has been traditionally involved in Iraq. The fact that someone is behaving badly is not ipso facto a justification for intervention, although it may lead to conduct that does justify that intervention. However, we—I include the United States—need to understand that we cannot simply undertake to weed every garden in the world.
  My third major reservation relates to the legal position. Not being a lawyer, I am perhaps unduly deferential to those great persons who give opinions on such matters. Again, I am jealous of the rights of sovereign states, and we must realise the consequences if we open ourselves to external scrutiny, which is often a matter of concern in relation, for example, to the European Union.
  Mr. John Taylor: I thought that my hon. Friend was being too self-effacing in saying that he was not a lawyer. Perhaps he will take it from me—I am a lawyer—that the great difference between the lawyer and the layman is that the lawyer knows the precise legal answer and the layman knows that it does not matter.
  Mr. Boswell: That is a helpful insight. What I was going on to say was that good lawyers can always be found to argue on both sides of the case, and international law is a particularly opaque and controversial area. We know, of course, that the Attorney-General's powerful arguments were countered from the right as well as the left in this debate.
  What we need to bear firmly in mind, especially when we are launching war across international frontiers, is that there must be the clearest possible case and justification for intervention. There must be some clear and present danger and the maximum prior effort to obtain or broker an agreement. I believed that that was the case, but some of the subsequent revelations have somewhat undermined my trust, especially in relation to the Government's over-justification for hostilities. I do not want to dwell on the much-rehearsed discussion of weapons of mass destruction, but I want to touch on two related issues.
  The first issue is pre-emption. In principle, I do not like pre-emption. Appropriate deterrence is preferable to pre-emption, and pre-emption should not be used as the poor man's deterrence. In a world of rogue states and asymmetric warfare, however, I do not rule out the case for pre-emptive intervention. Clearly, it can be easier, and sometimes I suspect more principled, to stop something rather than let it run on to escalate, creating additional ill and oppression internally, raising the eventual costs of deterrence or even leading to the eventual failure of deterrence.

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  The burden of proof in this process, however, is higher than it would be for deterrence. An invading enemy, including Saddam in Kuwait in 1990, speaks for himself. The issue is patent and obvious—there has been an act of aggression. A potential invasion, however, is more difficult to identify and justify. As an example of pre-emption, a move on to Baghdad at the end of the first Gulf war might have been appropriate. Sadly, however, that did not happen. There must be a real and clear justification for pre-emptive action. We were told a great deal about Saddam Hussein, most of which sadly turned out to be true. His was a hateful regime, but hatefulness is not in itself a justification for intervention.
  That leads me to the second issue on which I want to touch, which is trust in the Government.
  Mr. John Taylor: My hon. Friend has just said that hatefulness is not a cause to intervene. Is the killing of thousands of one's fellow citizens a reason to intervene?
  Mr. Boswell: That is an interesting point. It is possible to justify the humanitarian case, and I was impressed by what the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) said in the debates. We must think long and hard about such an intervention, however, before plunging into it.
  What I wanted to concentrate on was the role of the Government, because that is the substance of our motion today. There is a necessary asymmetry of information between Government and Back Benchers and most Members of the House. Any support given by us, as it was in this case, arises from a readiness to believe what we have been told. Necessarily and properly, such material derives, through Government, from intelligence sources. Their findings need to be portrayed as fully, and certainly as fairly, as possible. Given that we are not all necessarily equipped with either the means or the time to carry out detailed pointillist scrutiny of, for example, Hans Blix's reports, we need to have a view from a Government who have clean hands. Once one starts publishing intelligence material, the danger is that it will be assumed to be authoritative. That inevitably takes the eye off the debate of all those but the experts. Inevitably, that raises the ante, and also requires a particularly high standard of proof.
  To put it simply, if the Prime Minister metaphorically looks me or colleagues in the eye over a security-related matter, I am inclined in the first instance to believe him. If subsequent evidence suggests that, at the very least, there is some doubt about what I have been told by that Prime Minister, I am not likely to be as tractable on a future occasion.
  I remember taking part in Prime Minister's questions when I said that, in the fraught circumstances a month before war, there was an absolute need for frankness and integrity. I asked the Prime Minister to issue a
  "binding instruction that the spinning has to stop".—[Official Report, 12 February 2003; Vol. 399, c. 856.]
  I fear that it has not stopped. We now know that the systematic changes in the dossier were all in one direction; they were not just drafting corrections one way or the other.
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  The Government now seek to shut down debate by precluding a judicial inquiry for reasons that I can only think are about their potential embarrassment. In the light of what we know now and the conflicting reports that we have received and that have been drawn out painstakingly—for example, in the Hutton evidence—we need to ask what we as a House can do to restore trust in Government. In my view, only a judicial inquiry that is independent of all influence and that is untrammelled can investigate and justify the actions that the Government then took. Only then can we reflect on the historic discharge of their trust and, perhaps more important, re-establish a basis for Government credibility in any future situation should it arise.
  5.2 pm
  Mr. Bob Blizzard: On 18 March, at the end of an historic debate in the Chamber, I voted for a motion that said that the case for war had not yet been made. I then voted against the motion to authorise war against Iraq. To vote that way, I resigned my humble position as a Parliamentary Private Secretary.
  It was not an easy decision. I had supported the Government on every single vote for which I was able to be present since I was elected in 1997. I believed then, and I still believe, that the Government have a great record, and I am still behind virtually all the policies that they have on other issues. We have a Prime Minister who has not only transformed the Labour party, but has renewed and refreshed the country. He shows a quality of leadership that is rarely seen.
  It was not too difficult, however, to vote as I did. The case had not been made. To fire the first shot in a war—something this country has very rarely done in modern times—one must be absolutely sure. War must be a last resort. I am not a pacifist. I supported action in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, and I supported the invasion of Afghanistan. I also support the more general war on terrorism. War is justified if we or our allies are being attacked or are about to be attacked or if we need to act to prevent genocide or a military assault that would destabilise the world order.
  Mr. John Taylor: The hon. Gentleman was suggesting that military intervention would be justified in the case of genocide. Does he not think that this was a case of genocide?
  Mr. Blizzard: Genocide was taking place 12 years earlier when the hon. Gentleman's party was in power but did nothing about it. I cannot understand why the world suddenly decided 10 or 12 years later that it had to act on the grounds of preventing genocide.
  I put it to the House that none of the criteria that I outlined applied to Iraq. I made a judgment not to support the war and because I believed that one cannot compromise one's views on war, I voted accordingly. I made my judgment and other hon. Members made theirs—most of us made solemn judgments. The whole argument about Iraq is based on the fact that we made different judgments. The argument is not about what was or was not written in dossiers and how they were prepared, about who said what to whom or about the intelligence itself, but about the judgments that were made from the intelligence and those made after taking

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  account of overall circumstances. I recently met a moderate Republican member of the United States Intelligence Committee. His view was the same because he said that even in his country the judgment made from the intelligence, rather than the intelligence itself, was looking increasingly suspect.
  I could not see the immediate threat from Iraq to ourselves, our allies or Iraq's neighbours. Saddam Hussein was pinned down by the no-fly-zone air patrols. The weapons inspectors were actively engaged in Iraq and making progress. Some 70 al-Samoud missiles had been chopped up in the three weeks before the war. It seemed well worth giving Dr. Blix longer because he had not yet come back to say that he thought he was wasting his time.
  As I said, I support the general war on terrorism. I spoke strongly in the Chamber in favour of the shoulder-to-shoulder policy with the United States after 9/11. However, attacking Iraq did not follow on as a logical step in the war on terrorism—in fact, I thought that it was a diversion from the war on al-Qaeda. There was no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11 or that he gave any significant support to al-Qaeda. Iraq was a secular state, whereas al-Qaeda is a fundamentalist terrorist organisation that wants to destroy our whole way of life and certain ways of life that exist in Iraq.
  Of course, Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush have publicly stated that Saddam Hussein was not involved in 9/11, although they had allowed up to 70 per cent. of US citizens to believe that for many months. The British people did not believe that, because the myth that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 was not really pushed here. For all the reasons that I suggested, the British people were strongly against the war by a margin of two to one right up until it started, and there was so little international support for the war at the United Nations for the same reasons. It was not only the French with the aid of the Germans who did not support the war: there was no support from Russia and China, and not even Mexico or Chile supported the proposals.
  David Winnick: Would it not be true to say that there was undoubted support in Iraq itself? Despite the terrorism and all the difficulties that have occurred since the overthrow of Saddam, evidence shows that the majority of people in Iraq are glad that one of the worst tyrannies of all has been overthrown.
  Mr. Blizzard: I do not think that there is anyone in the House who is not glad that the tyranny no longer exists, but the question is whether it was right to deal with it in such a way at that time, which is what this debate is about.
  My hon. Friend's intervention is relevant to the fact that the decision to rush into the war on Iraq had a negative consequence on the war on terrorism because the international coalition that had been so strong and widespread after 9/11 was seriously damaged. Before the war, we were getting co-operation in the war on terrorism from generally unreliable countries in the middle east, but such co-operation is less forthcoming now.
  Months later, I am even more sure that I made the right judgment. No weapons of mass destruction were used by Saddam Hussein during the war. I cannot
  720
  believe that he would have held back if he had them even in a half-usable form. I asked about that several times on my recent visit to the US. I asked the Pentagon and the State Department why Saddam did not use weapons of mass destruction. All I got in reply was, "That is a good question." I never got a proper answer. As we know, we have found no weapons. The only conclusion can be that there was no immediate threat to make the war necessary.
  There was one possible justification at the time: the possibility of Iraq feeding weapons of mass destruction to al-Qaeda. It is odd, however, that that scenario was not argued strongly or specifically before the war. Was that because the chance of that happening would increase if Iraq was invaded? Could an invasion motivate it to get rid of them by giving them to someone else? Would the ensuing chaos provide it with the capacity for doing that? The argument that that might be a good reason for war fell apart after Saddam's statue was toppled. We were told that the reconstruction of Iraq was the top priority, not the finding of weapons of mass destruction. If the war was all about stopping those weapons falling into the hands of al-Qaeda, surely that had to be the top priority after the war because of the possibility of that happening in a power vacuum.
  Months on, in the recent Kay report, it is clear that the weapons have not been found. Either they were never there or they have fallen into the hands of al-Qaeda, and I genuinely hope that they have not. We can now ask: is Dr. Kay's report the same report that Dr. Blix would have produced had he been given more time? Increasingly, that was the mood that I found in Washington and other places in the US, especially as the American people faced the $0
  $87 billion additional bill and 100 American troops killed since the statue was toppled. The Pentagon admitted that it had made the wrong planning assumptions on what might happen in the war. Moderate Republicans were prepared to describe as "na ve" the judgment to go to war and the expectations that it would be over and cleared up quickly.
  My central argument is that we are talking about different judgments. I think that the Government made a monumental error of judgment. Saddam has fallen, but so have many of our troops, many US troops and many thousands of Iraqi civilians. No amount of argument or judicial inquiry can bring those people back. We had a summer of judicial inquiry into the personal tragedy of Dr. Kelly's death, and Hutton revealed much about how this Government—and, I suggest, all Governments—work. Further judicial inquiry will get us nowhere. The debate centres on judgments made at the time. We should move on. We have a country to run. We need to reconstruct Iraq for the Iraqis to run. I think that the British people want us to move on. They are switched off by endless arguments about who said what to whom. People have formed their views about which judgment on the war they thought was right. No end of judicial inquiry will alter the individual views of citizens as to which course of action they thought correct.
  Let us remember something else. The Conservative party made a judgment. Its Front-Bench spokesmen and most of its Back Benchers thought that war was right. In debate after debate and in Prime Minister's Question Time after Prime Minister's Question Time,

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  the noises from the Conservative Benches were more pro-war than those from the Prime Minister. In fact, they frequently challenged his caution and egged him on to act without UN support, before any dossiers were produced. The Conservatives were as gung-ho and hawkish as the neo-conservatives in Washington.
  The ultimate judgment—less of a judgment, perhaps, and more of an impulse—about going to war was made on a ranch in Crawford, Texas. We can only speculate why, but the decision was made to go for regime change pure and simple. Those were the words that were used— there was no regard for international law, United Nations weapons inspections or evidence about 9/11. Our Prime Minister, to his credit, tried hard to take George W. Bush down legitimate pathways, through the UN and so on, and tried to build an international consensus, travelling the world many times to do so. He got close to the President and got him to engage with the UN, but he paid a price—when George W. Bush decided that time was up, he had no choice but to go with him. All the arguments about intelligence and so on are therefore meaningless. The decision was about regime change, and we each have a view on what that meant and whether it was right.
  Finally, I should like to go back to 18 March. It has been said that hon. Members were deceived, but I do not agree. Each hon. Member made a judgment and knew what was really going on. Many of us felt that we could not support the war. Some felt that it was the right move in the war on terrorism; some wanted Saddam to be removed to liberate the Iraqi people; some thought that the preservation of a North Atlantic alliance was paramount; some simply backed the Prime Minister out of loyalty, regardless of their views on Iraq. It was about making judgments. That is the nature of politics—we are here to make judgments, not to hand those judgments over to judges. I have said that the case for war was not made on 18 March. I do not think that the case for a judicial inquiry has been made this evening.
  5.16 pm
  Mr. Paul Marsden: I am proud that the Liberal Democrats opposed the war on Iraq. There was a credible, peaceful and lawful alternative to war: pursuing the United Nations route to achieve more time for the inspectors to do their job of trying to ensure Iraq's compliance with the UN resolutions through disarmament of weapons that it was then believed to have. I do not want to rehearse the arguments for going to war. Weapons of mass destruction may well be found in future. There may be underground silos with vast arsenals of shiny missiles just waiting to be found but, strangely, after six months, an entire army of inspectors has so far failed to find anything.
  Mr. Boswell: Can the hon. Gentleman suggest a reasonable deadline for deciding whether or not there were weapons after all?
  Mr. Marsden: It was not unreasonable for Dr. Hans Blix to say in his evidence in March 2003 that what was required was not years or weeks but months. We are now six months down the road. Dr. Hans Blix has as
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  much expertise as anybody else to pontificate on how much time is required, but a line has to be drawn at some point. If those weapons are not found by then, it is highly unlikely that they ever will be, even if the search stretches years ahead.
  Tonight's debate focuses on a judicial inquiry on Iraq, and what happened in the lead-up to war. I support that call, because we need to get to the bottom of whether intelligence was misused and whether Parliament was misled. If that is the case, war was clearly not a necessity and should not have been prosecuted. I believe that Parliament was misled in what was laid before it, and that the country was misled, particularly by the media, in what the Government said at the time. We should not overlook the fact that the resulting war took the lives of more than 370 United States and British armed service personnel. It has taken the lives of at least 7,000 Iraqi civilians, and injured and maimed possibly over 20,000 more. Ultimately, the events surrounding the build-up to the war and its aftermath took the life of Dr. David Kelly. We should never forget that human aspect. What the Government were telling the country and Parliament ultimately led to those deaths, which I believe were preventable.
  What sort of Government do we want? We want an open, transparent and accountable Government who are perceived as such. The British people have clearly lost faith in the Prime Minister and in the Government because of the scandal, the sleaze and the spin that have been exposed through the Hutton inquiry. The hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright) eloquently set out his concerns about inquiry-itis and argued that we should not have more and more inquiries. He suggested that Parliament could do the job as well as any judge. However, we have already had two inquiries, and the one by the Foreign Affairs Committee pointed out the problems associated with such an inquiry. In the conclusions and recommendations in its July report, under point 15, it stated:
  "We conclude that without access to the intelligence or to those who handled it, we cannot know if it was in any respect faulty or misinterpreted."
  In point 29, the Committee went on to say:
  "We conclude that continued refusal by Ministers to allow this committee access to intelligence papers and personnel, on this inquiry and more generally, is hampering it in the work which Parliament has asked it to carry out."
  It is clear that Parliament cannot do the job. We need a judicial inquiry to get to the bottom of what has been going on.
  Mr. Rammell: The hon. Gentleman makes great play of the comments of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Does he accept that the Intelligence and Security Committee, which had access to the intelligence information, stated:
  "we accept that there was convincing intelligence that Iraq had active chemical, biological and nuclear programmes and the capability to produce chemical and biological weapons"?
  Mr. Marsden: The Minister has ably demonstrated the perceived weakness of the Government's position. That Committee meets in private. We want to get to the bottom of what has been going on in a clear and transparent manner that does not jeopardise national security but answers many of the questions arising from

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  the two Committee inquiries. If it is true that Parliament has been misled, we cannot be satisfied with a Committee that sits in private being quoted to justify what has gone on.
  Mr. Blizzard: Is the hon. Gentleman impugning the honour of the hon. Members who sit on that Committee?
  Mr. Marsden: I do not impugn the honour of the Prime Minister. I am setting out a series of questions and points to show that there are inconsistencies, that there appears to be a misunderstanding of intelligence, and that somebody is culpable. The question is who. Is it the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, or intelligence agencies that have misused the intelligence and raw data that they were given? Somebody somewhere has clearly made mistakes. That cannot be in dispute after what we have learned from the Hutton inquiry in particular, and we need to get to the bottom of it. If the House cannot do so, somebody else must.
  There seem to be three main reasons why the Government said that they would go to war. The first was that there was a "current and serious threat" from weapons of mass destruction. Secondly, the United Nations resolutions, especially resolutions 678 and 687, had to be enforced to allow the UN inspectors unfettered access in Iraq. Thirdly, human rights abuses were going on in Iraq under the regime of Saddam Hussein. Lest the Government try to argue that Iraq's contravention of the UN resolutions was the main reason for going to war, we should refer to the March 2003 document entitled "Iraq: Military Campaign Objectives". It said:
  "The prime objective remains to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction and their associated programmes and means of delivery, including prohibited ballistic missiles".
  That was the Government's main reason for saying that the country had to go to war. Two weeks before the publication of the September dossier, the Prime Minister said:
  "Let it be clear that he"—
  that is, Saddam Hussein—
  "must be disarmed."
  I remind hon. Members of the night of 18 March, when we all voted. Although I respect those who say that war was necessary, the motion before the House clearly stated:
  "That this House…recognises…that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles, and its continuing non-compliance with Security Council resolutions, pose a threat to international peace and security".
  It went on to authorise
  "all means necessary to ensure the disarmament of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction".
  Mr. Michael Connarty: Presumably, the hon. Gentleman had already reached a conclusion and voted against the war because he did not believe what he was told in the motion. Since, like me, he did not accept the Government's argument, why have a judicial inquiry?
  Mr. Marsden: I do not think that many hon. Members would change their view, even with the benefit of
  724
  hindsight, but that is not what this is about. The public need to be certain that they were not misled, that the facts were put before them as accurately as possible, and that no one in the Government actively tried to mislead them. We must give back to the public confidence in the way that Parliament works, particularly in relation to the intelligence services and how the intelligence was used.
  In his winding-up speech on 18 March, the Foreign Secretary repeatedly said that disarmament by force was the only way forward and that active disarmament of the regime was required. Towards the end, minutes before the vote, he said:
  "Saddam will not disarm peacefully."—[Official Report, 18 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 902.]
  Anybody listening to that would have concluded that our prime motivation was to do what was required to end the regime.
  Only eight of the 50 pages of the fateful September dossier are on human rights: its main thrust concerns weapons of mass destruction. As the Foreign Affairs Committee found, prominence was given to all sorts of claims that are now being discredited and backtracked. In the foreword, the Prime Minister writes:
  "I wanted to share with the British public the reasons why I believe this issue to be a current and serious threat to the UK national interest…Saddam Hussein is continuing to develop WMD…What I believe the assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt is that Saddam has continued to produce chemical and biological weapons, that he continues in his efforts to develop nuclear weapons".
  The policy seemed to be one of trying to frighten people. Although the Prime Minister may have genuinely believed those words, we have to ask on what intelligence they were based.
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) asked whether that same intelligence was given to the Attorney-General in order to try to justify the legality of war. If so, given that it was clearly flawed, the House deserves to know what the Attorney-General said. In the light of subsequent events, he may have reflected on it and come up with a different viewpoint.
  The executive summary of the September dossier stated:
  "As a result of the intelligence we judge that Iraq has: continued to produce chemical and biological agents".
  It goes on to consider the command and control arrangements for the use of chemical and biological weapons. Page 6 discusses the development of missiles
  "capable of reaching UK Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus".
  The dossier was explicit about the genuine belief, based on intelligence—or so we were told—in a threat to the United Kingdom national interest. Hindsight tells us that that was patently not the case.
  The September dossier made four mentions of the 45-minute claim. They were clearly based on a single source, yet they were given great and unjustified prominence. The same applies to the chemical and biological weaponry that was supposedly available to Saddam Hussein. The dossier gave numerous examples of Iraq having
  "useable chemical and biological weapons capability…Iraq can deliver chemical and biological agents…and ballistic missiles".

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  The Foreign Secretary described the discredited February dossier as "a complete Horlicks" but the Prime Minister said that it provided further intelligence. There are genuine questions to be asked about how the intelligence was captured and whether it was misused and misunderstood, thereby misleading Parliament.
  5.31 pm
  Mr. Doug Henderson: I did not originally intend to try to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I was intrigued by the way in which the debate developed. I now have an opportunity to explain why many Labour Members are both "Labour against the war" and "Labour against the Conservative motion".
  I agreed with the views that the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) articulated. I know that a significant number of other members of the Conservative party share his view and have expressed it consistently in the past 12 months. I hold them in high regard, but it is opportunistic of Conservative Front Benchers to table a motion such as this.
  The preparation of such motions is always weird and wonderful and I appreciate that advisers usually have some say in the matter. I do not know whether the Conservative party continues to have advisers but if so, they probably told the Leader of the Opposition that it would be wise to steer clear of health, in which the Labour Government had brought about substantial improvements that were felt by the people, and of education, because the public know that Conservative proposals would lead to a reduction in standards throughout the country. I believe that the wise men in the Corridors behind the Chamber decided, "You should have a crack at Iraq, because the Government are having difficulties with that."
  Mr. Boswell: We are enjoying the hon. Gentleman's robust style and delicious line in fantasy. I had no part in formulating the motion and speak from the Back Benches on this occasion. Will he answer a question to which the Foreign Secretary declined to reply? Does he believe that any questions remain outstanding from the process that has taken place? If so, in what forum should they properly be resolved?
  Mr. Henderson: I am pleased that I gave way because the hon. Gentleman has identified several key matters, with which I shall try to deal. If he will forgive me, I shall not do so immediately.
  I am not, thankfully, a lawyer, although members of the legal profession have made some interesting, high-quality contributions today. However, as I understand it, the case for a judicial inquiry is that the public deserve and need to know something that they are not being told. I believe that, in a democracy, that is absolutely the case. Three or four months ago, I supported the case for an inquiry—judicial or otherwise, but at a high level—into the position of my Government in relation to Iraq. I opposed the war, and I still oppose it. I think that it was the wrong thing to do and history will demonstrate that that is the case. Increasingly, the first few months of history are demonstrating that. At the heart of the issue
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  of whether to hold an inquiry is the question of whether the public have a right to know. As I said, I supported the case for an inquiry three or four months ago, but I do not think that it is the best way forward now.
  There is undoubtedly ambiguity involved in this issue. As someone who opposed the war, I always believed that we had to give the Government many months to demonstrate that there were weapons of mass destruction, because that was the Government's principal reason for going to war and for advising the House to support them. I believed that it would be reasonable to give the Government 12 months or so. That argument was completely cut away when Donald Rumsfeld, the American Defence Secretary, said in April or May, "I'm sorry, but we did not expect to find any weapons of mass destruction." If he could say that then, surely he had not changed his mind from two months earlier, when the American Secretary of State was leading discussions at the United Nations. That raised the question of why the Americans went to war, and why we did so. The Hutton inquiry was then set up. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) said, we have learned a lot from the Hutton inquiry, some of it not very favourable, about the way in which government is conducted in this country. However, that is a secondary issue.
  Two significant points arise from what we know of the Hutton evidence so far that create further ambiguity about why we went to war. First, Jonathan Powell, the chief of staff in the Prime Minister's office, said in an email that he sent seven days before the Prime Minister spoke to the House on the issue that he was not convinced that there was evidence in the dossier that led to the conclusion that the country should go to war or that the Government should seek Parliament's support for that. So far as I am aware, we do not know what the consequences of that memo were. We do not know where it went, or who commented on it, but we do know that the Government had that information before their decision was reached.
  A second piece of information came from John Scarlett. In his evidence, he said that the information on weapons of mass destruction related to battlefield weapons rather than to weapons driven by longer-range missiles. If hon. Members recall, we all believed at the time that, if there was a threat from weapons of mass destruction, we should be worried about Cyprus and other British interests in the middle east. The question of battlefield weapons was quite different.
  We have heard from our legal friends that, if we were to establish a judicial inquiry today, it would be impossible for it to be a short, sharp inquiry, which might have been possible if we had set one up in June or July. However, now that Hutton has taken nearly six months, I do not think that this bigger question could be dealt with, or a final report produced, in anything less than a year or two—perhaps three. That does not satisfy my criteria regarding the British people needing to know, because they would not know until the other side of the general election. They have a right to know before the general election that the Labour Government acted straight and had the right evidence, which they believed to be accurate—whether it was accurate or not is another matter—and which led to the decision to go to war.

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  A second reason why I do not think that a judicial inquiry is the right way forward is that any evidence given to such an inquiry is going to be superseded by events in the United States. If hon. Members recall, the original debate in the United States was very low key. The public there were typical of a mid-western public, saying, "We've got to get these guys, they're terrorists, they're people we don't know, and they cause trouble in their own country. We've got to take them out." That was the view that prevailed in the United States about 12 months ago, and that was the political background against which the United States Administration made their decision. Then they were faced with the difficulties at the United Nations, when we persuaded them to go along the United Nations route. Of course, they then recognised some of the points that had been made before, perhaps by the Secretary of State and others in the Administration.
  They recognised that, if they were to convince the international community, they needed much more specific evidence. They also recognised that their best ally, the United Kingdom, would have great difficulty at home and with Parliament if the only reason for going to war was getting rid of Saddam Hussein rather than coping with an immediate threat to British interests or those of Britain's friends. The Americans then began to say—they had found their reason—that it was all about weapons of mass destruction. However, that was killed by Rumsfeld—and by Wolfowitz in the same week— when he more or less admitted that that was not the reason why the Americans went to war.
  From about June to September there was some hiatus in the US, but congressional committees have quietly begun investigations into all these matters. With the body bags coming home almost daily, American public opinion is beginning to focus much more closely on why their country went to war and why American soldiers are being killed in Iraq. The Democratic nomination process has further developed that trend. All the candidates are rightly being asked their views about the war and what they believe should be done in Iraq now. They are being interrogated in that way, and the results are very interesting.
  General Wesley Clark was, until recently, Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO. I know that he has access to every piece of relevant intelligence that the British and American defence departments have. He has that knowledge. He has retired and is now a candidate for the Democratic nomination. About 12 days ago, he said on American television during a public debate in Phoenix, Arizona that he did not believe that there was a case for war, and that he would not have gone to war. That raises a huge question. If one of the principal generals in the US army, who had access to so much intelligence, believed that there was no case for war, how did the politicians in the Pentagon or the State Department come to believe that there was such a case, and how did politicians in the House here come to believe it? The momentum of that development will supersede events over the next few months.
  What should the British Government do? Initially, it would have been wise—I supported an inquiry, judicial or otherwise, back in June—for them to build trust with the public and give all the evidence to an inquiry, which could then exonerate them. However, that is no longer a feasible option: it would take too long and be
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  superseded by events. I believe that the British Government should now "come clean", in the words of the tabloids.
  The Government should tell us more about their information on what the weapons were, where they were based, where they were targeted and what threat they constituted. If they can tell us that, it will clear the way for rebuilding trust. The public need to know what happened; we can then concentrate our energies on reconstructing Iraq.
  5.43 pm
  Mr. Edward Garnier: I have been Upstairs in Committee so I have not been able to gather the full thread of the debate. I had to leave at about 4.30 pm. I certainly respect and understand the views of the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson), who has been consistent on the whole question of military activities in Iraq. He reflects the political and public disquiet about the current state of affairs in Iraq.
  It may not be original but it is true to say that we won the war with impressive efficiency and speed and with minimal loss of allied lives. We are now trying to establish the new Iraq and to maintain law and order there. The picture is not clear, certainly not here in London. I gained a much clearer picture when I was in Iraq last June.
  One thing that I have learned from the debate is that there is a degree of confusion among our constituents—and, indeed, some hon. Members—about what we can do and what we ought to do. I was especially impressed by the speeches by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) and the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell), both of whom—from marginally different perspectives—admirably and clearly expressed some interesting points of view.
  I want an inquiry to be set up, not necessarily to deal with what is happening in Iraq now, but to establish why we are there and why we went there in the first place. It is said that Parliament should do that job and it is right that Parliament should hold the Executive to account, but we are not equipped to perform the work of an inquiry, which is essentially to find facts, not to make political judgments. Legal textbooks say:
  "The task of a tribunal of inquiry is to investigate certain allegations or events with a view to producing an authoritative account of the facts, attributing responsibility or blame where it is necessary to do so. Tribunals of inquiry do not make decisions as to what action should be taken in the light of their findings of fact, but they may make recommendations for each action."
  That is true, and it describes the difference between a political body such as this and a dispassionate, fact-finding body such as an inquiry under the chairmanship of a judge.
  It is essential that the Opposition, who have tabled the motion, should provide the House with the terms of reference of any inquiry that we wish to see set up. My attention has been drawn to the wording of motion 23 on page 3003 of the Order Book, which sets out—as it does every week—the Opposition's view of what the tribunal should do once it has been established. Hon. Members can read it for themselves, but I suggest that the terms of reference should be along these lines: "to review the way in which the responsibilities of

  729
  Government were discharged, and to establish the circumstances in which, during the period leading up to the commencement of hostilities against Iraq by the United Kingdom in March 2003, taking account of all such factors in previous years as are relevant, the Government recommended to the House of Commons that such action was warranted, and to report." Others will have better ideas, but that—for what it is worth—is what I think an inquiry, headed by a judge or some other independent chairman, should be required to look into.
  At the moment we are exchanging opinions, more or less informed by our views about the wisdom and legality, or otherwise, of going to war, but we have few facts on which to stick those judgments. We are, of course, free to have opinions, but they would be more valuable if they were based on some agreed facts. Unless we have an inquiry, I suspect that the facts will be difficult to find.
  Mr. Dalyell: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman have any idea of the time scale for an inquiry? When would his inquiry report?
  Mr. Garnier: Well, it should not start until Lord Hutton's inquiry has been completed and it should accept or adopt the findings of that inquiry as its own findings, rather than reinvestigate the facts involved. If the inquiry can be concluded speedily, it is right that it should be done speedily. The Opposition motion refers to six months, but that is probably a counsel of perfection. It would probably take something like 12 months, but it should not take the same time as the Saville inquiry, which has been going on for about five years. The issues that would be discussed and discovered by a judicial inquiry into the Iraq war would not involve individuals in quite the same way as those in the Saville inquiry into the Bloody Sunday incident.
  I do not pretend that the Government are itching to hold an inquiry. Of course they are not: they think that it would be a waste of time, and that it is time to move on. They consider that investigating the matter would be politically embarrassing, and would provide their critics with further opportunities to revisit what has been an unfortunate summer, which has been marked by the appearance before the Hutton inquiry of the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Defence, and other persons of whose existence we were previously unaware. Those people have been under the public gaze and have suffered the indignity of being examined and cross-examined.
  However, the Government should not be too shy about holding an inquiry. Although it could be politically embarrassing for them, it might be just as embarrassing for the Opposition. I voted in favour of the Government motion in March, when we debated the question of going to war. It may be suggested that Opposition Members have much to answer for, given their enthusiastic support—and I hold up my hand in this respect—of the military invasion of Iraq. The political outcome could therefore have two sides, and the Government should not be frightened of an inquiry. They should exhibit the self-confidence obvious in a Government prepared to be examined by an inquiry. I suggest that allowing an inquiry to be held would
  730
  demonstrate strength rather than weakness on the part of the Government. I invite the Government to adopt that course.
  It might be best to hold an inquiry under the 1921 Act. I did not hear his speech, but I am sure that the hon. and learned Member for Dudley, North (Ross Cranston), a former Solicitor-General, will have detailed the powers available under that legislation, so I shall not rehearse them. However, that is not the only option. If we are not to have an inquiry under the 1921 Act, why not have one held by a committee of Privy Councillors? It could be chaired by a senior judge from the Court of Appeal or the House of Lords, as those judges are members of the Privy Council. If that were not acceptable, it could be chaired by an eminent Member of the House of Lords who is no longer actively engaged in party politics but who has Government—and preferably Cabinet-level—experience in the Home Office, the Foreign Office or the Ministry of Defence. Such a person would also have experience of working with the intelligence services. The inquiry could sit in private, if it was thought that national security would be put at risk by public hearings.
  As I said in response to the intervention by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), an inquiry need not take an excessive amount of time. Other inquiries—into all sorts of things, not necessarily matters of foreign and defence policy like this—have been able to get to grips with the relevant issues and to find out where the facts are. That allows politicians, journalists and the public at large to comment on those facts. I cannot believe that the Government have anything to fear from an inquiry, if they have confidence in the policy that they advocated in the period leading up to the war.
  As I said at the outset, I draw a distinction between post-conflict Iraq and pre-conflict Iraq. I want the House to give the Government permission to hold an inquiry, so that the facts on which the Government recommended that we went to war can be found.
  I appreciate that the Attorney-General will be shy about giving the public sight of his advice, although I accept the point made by the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) that he has rather broken convention by giving us a summary—or a little view—of what he said. However, if we cannot see the Attorney-General's advice, surely we are entitled to see the factual basis or instructions given to him by the Government and on which he was asked to advise. The Government claim that those facts provided them with a legitimate reason for going to war. It is the Attorney-General's opinion based on those facts and the Prime Minister's word that I accepted when I voted for the war in the early part of this year. If the Prime Minister is as good as his word, he should be prepared to have it examined dispassionately by a non-political tribunal so that, whether or not we agree with the decision that he took, in a year's time we will be able to say that we at least know the facts upon which he based his decision to invite us to vote for war.
  5.55 pm
  Mr. Nigel Beard: We had no call for a judicial inquiry when troops went into Kosovo, Afghanistan or Sierra Leone. Why, then, is this inquiry needed for Iraq? The Franks inquiry has been quoted as a precedent, but why should a precedent from 20 years ago guide us?

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  The circumstances of the Falklands war were very different from the invasion of Iraq. That war came out of the blue after substantial errors were made in appreciating the situation. The survey ship Discovery had been withdrawn at a crucial time when tension was building. The ambassador's warning that Argentina was mobilising for war had been ignored. We gave many signs that if Argentina pressed its case by military action, we would not resist. As a result, when Argentina invaded the Falklands, the whole team of Foreign Office Ministers led by Lord Carrington felt that they had to resign.
  The Franks inquiry was essentially into that failure of policy. There is no parallel with Iraq, where the crisis had been in gestation for 12 years and the case had been fully debated in the House of Commons and the United Nations. To treat the Falklands crisis as a precedent for what should happen over Iraq would be entirely false.
  Mr. Lilley: Surely the difference between the Falklands and Iraq was that in the case of the former Ministers resigned for underestimating the threat, whereas on this occasion Ministers have refused to accept responsibility for overestimating the threat—the existence of weapons of mass destruction.
  Mr. Beard: With the Falklands, Ministers encouraged the threat by withdrawing ships and not sending any cruisers to sea to persuade the Argentines that we were serious.
  The case for an inquiry may be to establish the facts that led to the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Or it may be an investigation of the decisions based on the evidence available. Those two are quite different. I want to explore both of those potential justifications for the proposed judicial inquiry.
  The media have made much of the intelligence dossier published in September 2002 as though it and it alone was the trigger for the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. It was a presentation of the intelligence information that was available to the Government at that time. As with all such intelligence reports, it was incomplete and no doubt partly inaccurate, but it never pretended to be more than an appreciation of the situation derived from raw intelligence, which had been assessed by the procedure long established for that purpose. Under that procedure, the Joint Intelligence Committee was responsible for the final professional evaluation before the case was presented to the Government. This House's own all-party Intelligence and Security Committee has examined the way the dossier was compiled and, essentially, approved it as a reasonable interpretation of the available intelligence.
  If anyone still believes the BBC's discreditable and preposterous assertion that the Government, to stir up war fever, invented and inserted the claim that Iraq would be ready to deliver chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes, I remind them that the inquiry by Lord Hutton has covered that point in some depth. People have heard the evidence, and Lord Hutton will deliver his conclusions shortly. There can be no grounds there for adding another inquiry to the Hutton inquiry.
  The media, for their own purposes, gave overwhelming emphasis to that September dossier as the basis for the invasion of Iraq. I did not vote on that basis
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  in this House and I know no one, whichever way they voted, who was solely or mainly influenced by that dossier. The case presented to the House by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary in 12 statements and five full debates was deeper and more comprehensive than was provided in the dossier.
  Let us discard what was not said in those debates and statements, although some commentators have enriched their indignation by their creative recall. Neither the Prime Minister nor the Foreign Secretary claimed that the threat from Iraq was imminent, still less did they use the American phraseology of the threat from Iraq being a "clear and present danger". What they did say was that the containment of the Iraq regime through sanctions was failing and that Saddam Hussein was determined to acquire an armoury of biological and chemical weapons and the capability to produce them. Moreover, following the 11 September 2001 outrage in New York, and given Saddam's past record, my right hon. Friends said that there was a danger of that capability being used to arm terrorist organisations—not just al-Qaeda, which was, I agree, the most remote possibility, but Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and others yet unknown—which could pose a threat to north American and western European cities.
  The case for believing that Saddam Hussein still had those weapons was that he had them before the first Gulf war. Iraq still had the weapons and the scientific expertise. If not, why did Saddam Hussein refuse to co-operate with the United Nations inspectors and to give them free range, as he had agreed in the 1991 ceasefire? Why did he put his country through 12 years of UN sanctions, bringing suffering, destitution and death to the Iraqi people, when co-operation with the UN inspectors and evidence of the destruction of the biological and chemical weapons would have lifted those sanctions?
  Throughout the 1990s, culminating in resolution 1441 last November, why did the UN Security Council unanimously recognise that Iraq had biological and chemical weapons that were a threat to world peace? Why did it demand that Iraq disarm? Are we to suppose that all those nations, which voted 17 times in the UN Security Council to demand co-operation on disarmament, were the hapless puppets of right-wing American zealots?
  Some might argue that the implication was only that there was a technological capability, not necessarily the intention to use such weapons. However, the evidence of a policy of aggression and expansion is shown by the invasion of Iran, when more than 1 million people were killed. It can be seen in the invasion of Kuwait, a sovereign country that could never be a threat to Iraq. We do not need to infer likely intentions. The evidence of psychopathic ruthlessness was shown by the gassing of the people of Halabja and by the brutal treatment of the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs. It was seen when 300,000 men, women and children were executed by the regime for political reasons.
  Those are the facts. We no more need a judicial inquiry to establish them than we needed such an inquiry into Hitler's invasion of the Rhineland, Czechoslovakia and Poland to understand the case for war in 1939. The Government faced those inalienable facts and recognised the possible consequences of

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  indefinite inaction. The first question to arise was, "If not now, when?" If the time was not ripe to deal with Saddam Hussein, when would it have been right?
  Undoubtedly, if matters had drifted, with sanctions weakening and Saddam Hussein triumphant in his defiance, he would have been a threat to stability in the middle east. The United Nations would have lost its credibility to handle such crises in the future and it would have sunk into impotence, as the League of Nations did before it.
  The second consequence of inaction was the increasing risk to the United Kingdom of chemical, biological and possibly radiological weapons falling into terrorist hands. The threat is all too real, as intelligence services have warned. It is the threat of an anthrax or radiological weapon exploding in London, Washington, Paris or Berlin and—quite apart from the casualties—making a major part of the city a no-go area for decades. After 11 September 2001, do not let anyone pretend that such a scenario can be discounted.
  The third possible consequence of inaction for the United Kingdom and the rest of the European Union is the risk of America defending national interests with no allies and ultimately reverting to a fortress America strategy. We are not talking about Britain as America's poodle here. I believe Britain and the rest of the European Union have a vital strategic interest in maintaining the strength of the Atlantic alliance.
  It was those major consequences for this country, not the minutiae of an intelligence dossier or the bruised egos of those compiling it, that the Government had to consider and judge in deciding to join in the invasion of Iraq. It is the intention of the Opposition motion, it seems, that a judicial inquiry be held to second-guess the strategic judgment of a democratically elected Government. The House was involved in the decision to an unprecedented extent and voted to join the invasion of Iraq. Are we to have the constitutional innovation of decisions made by Government and Parliament being subjected to a judicial review? We are elected to the House as representatives of our constituents, with a duty to exercise our judgment on their behalf. Executive decisions are devolved to Government, from whence comes their democratic authority.
  Mr. Garnier: Would the hon. Gentleman allow me?
  Mr. Beard: I really do not have time.
  There could be no legitimacy in a judicial review attempting to overturn or question the decisions of a democratically elected Parliament and Government. The sovereignty of Parliament, derived by great sacrifice over centuries, is at issue in this resolution.
  That great champion of representative democracy, Edmund Burke, set out the principle 230 years ago when he told his constituents that a Member of the House should not sacrifice his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment or his enlightened conscience to any man or set of men living. Today the members of his party are willing to sacrifice those principles of representative democracy as they thrash around, desperately and cynically, in search of political advantage. That is the true meaning of the motion.
  6.7 pm
  Mr. George Osborne: I very much enjoyed the speech I just heard, not least because the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr. Beard) put an excellent neo-Conservative case for the action that was taken in Iraq. Sadly, he has been a lone voice in much of the debate, certainly in terms of Back-Bench contributions, because we have largely heard from people who opposed the war and voted against it, whose opinions are well known and who have expressed those opinions again today.
  It is worth reminding the House that on 18 March the House voted by a huge majority to go to war. As I said in an intervention on my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley), I do not believe that the result of that vote would have been substantially different if we had known then what we know now. It is also worth stating in the House that the decision taken that day was right, and that those who supported it should not be defensive about the way they voted.
  Moreover, those who supported the decision should not feel defensive about saying that those who opposed the war in that vote were wrong. They were wrong when they prophesied a long and bloody war of attrition. They were wrong when they prophesied a mass slaughter in Baghdad. They were wrong when they forecast a humanitarian catastrophe, which never arose. They were wrong when they predicted an exodus of millions of refugees, which did not happen. Indeed, they are wrong now when they say that post-war Iraq is a disaster and that the world is a more dangerous place because we have got rid of Saddam Hussein. We who supported military action should have the confidence to take on and demolish the arguments that we successfully took on and demolished in March.
  The first argument that is made is that post-war Iraq is a mess, that our forces are unwelcome and that, in the words of that infamous BBC report, ordinary Iraqis are somehow now worse off than they were under the Saddam regime. Well, I prefer the words I read recently from an Iraqi university lecturer, who lives above a bakery in Baghdad where political prisoners used to be burned alive. He says:
  "I feel as if I have been born again. Iraq was a prison above ground and a mass grave beneath it."
  Indeed, when an opinion poll—itself a sign of political freedom in Iraq—was held last month, 62 per cent. of Iraqis thought that getting rid of Saddam Hussein was worth the suffering and 67 per cent. thought that their lives would be better five years from now.
  We are right to be optimistic and those Iraqis are right to think that their lives will be better five years from now because thousands of new businesses are opening in Iraq, the markets are bustling and food prices are lower than under the Hussein regime. There is a new currency and a new banking system. Employment is up and real salaries, both private and public sector, are up. Some 1,500 schools have been refurbished and 5 million textbooks are being printed by UNESCO. Finally, it is worth pointing out that 22 million vaccinations have been given to Iraqi children in the past couple of months. So education, commerce and prosperity are returning to a region that was the birthplace of education, prosperity and commerce.

  735
  Perhaps even more importantly, for the first time Iraqis now have a say in their country's future. Torture and imprisonment have been replaced by 200 new newspapers and 70 political parties. The Iraqi governing council brings together for the first time Shi'ites, Sunnis, Kurds, Christians and Turkomens in a range of representative opinion that is unrivalled in the Arab world. Of course, they face massive challenges, not least that of security—we all feel for members of that council who have been killed or intimidated—but let us not detract from the enormous achievements.
  Those achievements have been noted by the Iraq Foundation—a totally non-partisan organisation. It reports:
  "Self-government, long advocated for Iraq, appears to be working well when put into practice."
  I very much welcome the UN resolution, not least because it sets out a clear timetable for moving towards greater self-government in Iraq. Surely in the House of all places, we should celebrate that fact and value the democratic freedom that we are starting to bring to Iraq, rather than unquestioningly assuming that everything in Iraq is a mess.
  The second argument that is used against those of us who supported the war is that, somehow, military action in Iraq has made the world a more dangerous place by encouraging the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons, as rogue states seek immunity from unilateral American action. That argument is put most persuasively by my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie), but I am afraid he is wrong. Indeed, current events prove that he is wrong.
  What is happening in this post-Iraq-war world? For a start, Iran has this week agreed to sign up to tougher UN inspections of its nuclear facilities, to suspend the enrichment of uranium and to declare that it does not intend to develop nuclear weapons. That does not sound like a rogue state seeking nuclear weapons to protect itself against unilateral military action. Similarly, North Korea is apparently now seeking some form of security pledge from the United States in return for ceasing its nuclear programme. Who can seriously think that any middle east state would now consider starting a chemical or biological weapons programme? It is early days, but the Iraq war seems to be achieving one of its explicit objectives: to send a message to rogue states that the civilised world is not prepared to allow proliferation and the development of weapons of mass destruction.
  The third argument used against those of us who supported the war is that the presence of American and British troops in the middle east is somehow radicalising Islamic opinion. This is not the time to start a lengthy discussion of what we can do about radical Islamic opinion, but I would just say that the biggest challenge to Islamic terrorists would be an Arab state that was free, prosperous, plural and fairly governed, because the likes of al-Qaeda rely on autocratic, economically stagnant and backward regimes that provide them with a ready supply of frustrated, angry, radicalised young men and women. I am optimistic that Iraq can become a progressive Arab state that can provide young people in its society with real economic and political opportunities and diminish the lure of fundamentalism.
  736
  Indeed, only by creating a plural, progressive and economically dynamic Arab world will we deal with the root causes of Islamic terrorism.
  The final argument used against us is that the action by the US and UK Governments in Iraq dangerously undermined the international institutions on which our collective security depends. Of course, it is a great shame that the United Nations felt unable to support the second resolution. The world would be a much better place and it would have been far preferable if the United Nations had supported that second resolution. It is refreshing, however, that so soon after many people said that that was the death of the UN, it has come together and unanimously supported another resolution, and is re-engaging with what is happening in Iraq.
  It is also heartening that, around the world, NATO—one of the mistakes of the US and British Administrations was that they neglected NATO to a degree—is now taking over operations in Afghanistan, and Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation is calling this week for increased measures to stop the spread of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Those international institutions are vital in demonstrating the collective opinion of the civilised world. It suits the United States' broader interests to support those institutions. After all, NATO, the UN and the World Trade Organisation are the post-war creation of American Administrations. Perhaps belatedly, the United States is coming to understand what the dean of the Harvard school of government, Dr. Nye, has called the soft power of the United States, which comes from its values, cultures and economic prosperity, as well as its undoubted hard power—its military might. It is welcome that a Republican Administration has increased US foreign aid by 50 per cent. this year—a sign that it understands the value of its soft power.
  Contrary to the opinion expressed by many people today, post-war Iraq is a place of optimism, a place where self-rule is a real prospect and where we are starting to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons in other rogue states. It is an example of where we are providing a challenge to Islamic fundamentalism. In short, we were right on 18 March to support the action in Iraq—I am proud to have taken part in that Division—and we are right now to insist that we finish the job.
  6.17 pm
  Mr. William Cash: I am glad to follow the robust speech that we have just heard with regard to the question of whether we made the right decision at the time of the vote on the war. I want to make it clear from the outset that our call for a judicial inquiry, and the comments that I will make with respect to the Attorney-General's role and the legal advice, is without prejudice to the fact that we in no way resile from our support for the war for the right reasons.
  It does not follow that the reasons that were given by the Government are necessarily the reasons that we had. Perhaps the Government have been somewhat presumptuous in making that assumption. The reality, however, is that the motion demands a judicial inquiry. What I find astonishing, having observed Labour Back

  737
  Benchers' manoeuvrings this evening and this afternoon, is that they all seem to have had one main gear—move forward. They are determined to make it clear that they do not want a judicial inquiry, although 130 of them, if I have my figures more or less right, felt that it was a matter of such important principle that they rebelled against their own Government. Because of the idea of moving forward, despite the many unresolved questions, including serious constitutional and legal questions, and the consequences flowing from that, they have gone into a collective funk.
  Mr. Reed: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman understands that those of us who opposed the war do not wish to move forward just for the sake of it but disagree fundamentally, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) said, that a judicial review would be beneficial at this stage and would achieve anything more than further nit-picking. The fundamental issues of why we opposed the war still stand, and we should raise them. There have been plenty of arguments this afternoon from both the Labour Benches and the Opposition Benches that clearly state why we should not have gone to war, but those cases have been made forcefully in the House, which is the proper place for that to happen.
  Mr. Cash: As the hon. Gentleman knows, I have enormous respect for him. We worked together on a number of things in the past and the not-so-distant past, and I can only say that I simply do not buy his argument. We have heard accusations of opportunism and the word "meretricious" has been used about our motion. I shall explain why it is important to have a judicial inquiry and I shall also consider the role of the Attorney-General.
  As my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary said, problems arise largely because there is still a residual problem of confusion and suspicion. There has been a constant stream of serious and damaging charges both during and after the conduct of the war, and they have been damaging to the United Kingdom. Let us leave aside party politics, because the reality is that a stream of charges that must be properly answered has undoubtedly damaged the national interest.
  The reasons for a judicial inquiry are quite simple and they are set out in the motion before the House and in the other motion that has been permanently on the Order Paper. They simply come down to the fact that there have been an enormous number of contradictions and misleading statements. We even have a situation in which very senior Cabinet Ministers—members of the War Cabinet, a point that has not been brought out today—have accused one another of contradictions and misleading statements.
  I have an article that was written by the entirely absent former Secretary of State for International Development, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short). She has not even attended the debate despite the extent to which she was intimately involved in all these matters. The article appeared in the New Statesman on 9 June 2003 under the headline "How
  738
  the Prime Minister deceived us". The right hon. Lady says:
  "Yet the drums of war beat louder. There was mounting worry in Whitehall about the legality of war. We had no advice from the Attorney General. Officials had informed me that Foreign Office lawyers had disagreed about the legality and that, as became public, one had resigned."
  The fact is that the right hon. Lady ultimately accepted the advice of the Attorney-General, and I want to put it on the record that I too agree with what he said in his opinion. It is ably reinforced by an extremely good article today by Professor Greenwood, who set outs with the benefit of hindsight, as well as the law and the facts as they have developed, that the war was legitimate and legal at that time and remains so. I do not need to go into the arguments; they are there for people to read.
  When the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood resigned, she said in her letter to the Prime Minister:
  "I am afraid that the assurances you gave me about the need for a UN mandate to establish a legitimate Iraqi government have been breached."
  There are therefore two separate questions with which there are serious problems.
  The first is the issue of the facts in relation to the September dossier and the question of whether the instructions to the Attorney-General were based on absolutely accurate information and therefore whether he was in possession of all the facts. The other question relates to the former Secretary of State for International Development and refers to the aftermath and the occupation of Iraq. As far as I can remember, that point has not really been raised today, but it was the subject of the right hon. Lady's resignation letter and the article in which she said that the Prime Minister had deceived her.
  I would have thought that those questions create serious problems for Parliament, let alone for the Government. They raise matters of considerable importance. It is quite clear that we shall not get at the truth when there are such contradictions in the accounts of senior Ministers who were in the know. They were in the War Cabinet, so there must be a way of elevating the argument to an arena in which the truth may be established.
  Many proper tributes have been paid to the Hutton inquiry, from which an enormous amount of extremely important information has come. It has been said that although we do not know the inquiry's results, the Government had the confidence to set it up. That was the right thing to do—they were doing the right thing for the right reason. However, in practice, they have given no indication that they would be prepared for the two issues on which the Attorney-General's advice was requested to be examined properly. I admit that the matter was considered by the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Intelligence and Security Committee, which is not a Select Committee because it was set up under the Intelligence Services Act 1994. However, both Committees' procedures have inherent difficulties. I shall not criticise members of the Committees and I do not have time to analyse the composition, power and procedures of the Committees.

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  However, the Committees do not lend themselves to dealing with the serious problems that lie at the heart of the questions that the House is considering.
  Some people seem to have forgotten the extraordinary fact that although the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), who is not in the Chamber, resigned over the war to the applause of Back Benchers, he made an unequivocal statement on the no-fly zone on 18 December 1998. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office website carried an interview with the right hon. Gentleman—the then Foreign Secretary—who said:
  "we are absolutely clear that we have thorough clear backing in UN resolutions…Last February Saddam was warned in the Security Council resolution that there would be the severest consequences"
  note those words—
  "if he broke his undertakings."
  It is astonishing that the then Foreign Secretary could take that view, presumably on the basis of advice from the Foreign Office and, almost certainly, the Attorney-General, yet consider it necessary to resign a few years later. I do not criticise him for taking a decision on a point of principle, but there is no doubt that his position on legal advice in 1998 does not fit easily with his decision to resign.
  I want to talk about the Attorney-General and the question of confidentiality. Over and over again, Ministers have refused to give the legal basis for the Government's decisions. I am pleased to recall that the Government made available a summary of the Attorney-General's opinion, and I was somewhat responsible for that because I tabled a question to the Prime Minister on Friday 14 March. The question was as follows:
  "To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the legal basis for military intervention against Iraq."
  The answer said:
  "There is a longstanding convention, followed by successive Governments and reflected in the ministerial code, that legal advice to the Government remains confidential. This enables Government to obtain frank and full legal advice in confidence, as everyone else can."—[Official Report, 14 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 482W]
  It is clear that the Government intended to give the impression that the information was going to be full and frank, but it would have been far better if they had provided the House with the full opinion. Even now, that full opinion should be made available to us and the public at large.
  Mr. Llwyd: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Is he aware that the ministerial code allows the Government to use their discretion to provide the document in full? That would not breach the code and it is imperative that it is done.
  Mr. Cash: I was coming to that. I am not going to criticise the Attorney-General. Once he formed his opinion, no doubt in good faith, based on the facts provided, the responsibility—this is where it becomes uncomfortable for the Government—fell to Ministers, in particular the Prime Minister. Let us bear it in mind that the former Secretary of State for International Development said that the Prime Minister deceived her on one opinion, so she resigned.
  740
  "Erskine May", our bible on such matters, says:
  "The opinions of the law officers of the Crown, being confidential, are not usually laid before Parliament, cited in debate or provided in evidence before a Select Committee, and their production has frequently been refused; but if a Minister deems it expedient that such opinions should be made known for the information of the House, he is entitled to cite them in debate."
  That is by no means as unusual as is sometimes thought. There is ample precedent, especially in the context of the Attorney-General's interpretation of international law and the production of his full and whole opinion on matters of similar importance. For example, during the 1970s the Law Officers' legal opinion on the effect of the Simonstown agreement relating to the sale of arms to South Africa was published, as was the opinion on European matters and the Customs (Import Deposits) Act 1968. Those instances have been overtaken, however, by a greater and greater determination by Government, especially this Government, not to release information in the public interest that would enable the House and the public to be fully satisfied.
  The precedents go back as far as 1865. Lord Palmerston, then Prime Minister, said:
  "I do not apprehend that there is anything contrary to the Rules of the House in reading or quoting any opinion of the Law Officers. It is a question of discretion on the part of the government, not one bearing on the Orders of the House. There may be occasions when they may be properly read. As a general rule, no doubt, they are not laid before Parliament, and for this reason, not because it would be against an Order of the House, but because the Law Officers would be more cautious in expressing an opinion if they knew that it was to be laid before Parliament and the public."
  I was told, however, that the Government were not going to publish on the grounds that they wanted the opinion to be frank and full.
  Mr. Blizzard: How does the hon. Gentleman square his concerns about the legal basis for war with the position adopted by his Front-Bench spokesmen in the months leading up to it? They wanted Parliament to support the President of the United States in a war against Iraq whatever the UN said and before any dossiers or legal opinions were put in the public domain.
  Mr. Cash: I have made it clear that I do not dispute the legal basis as such; I am talking about the process. The key question is the breach of the resolutions. The weapons of mass destruction issue and the dossier are important, but the constant breaches of the resolutions are vital. The former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Livingston resigned over that matter, and gave similar reasons in December 1998 for the basis on which it was right and legal to take action on the no-fly zone.
  Sir Peter Tapsell: By far the most helpful precedent for the Opposition is the fact that when the opinion of Sir Patrick Hastings, the Attorney-General, on the Zinoviev letter was made public, it brought down the first Labour Government.
  Mr. Cash: Absolutely. That was in 1924, and the Ramsay MacDonald Government fell because the Cabinet effectively pressurised the Attorney-General into giving advice that altered the basis of his previous advice.
  Mr. Garnier: The Attorney-General's opinion may be eminent and may be one with which we agree. That does

  741
  not matter: what is important is its factual basis. Surely, that is what we want to know. It may be nice to ask for the Attorney-General's opinion but, frankly, we are not going to get it, so why do we not concentrate on trying to get the facts?
  Mr. Cash: That is exactly what I said. My hon. and learned Friend may not have heard me correctly, as I said that the instructions and the facts on which the Attorney-General, no doubt in good faith, arrived at his conclusion were the key issue. We cannot simply dismiss his opinion as though it does not matter, because it does. However, the basis of that opinion is crucial.
  Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I do not want my hon. Friend to retrace his argument, because he has demonstrated exhaustively that the Government have complete discretion about whether to waive their privilege and publish the opinion or keep it confidential, but does he not agree that the real choice is whether to disclose the opinion in full or say that it is confidential and not disclose it? On this occasion, we have the worst of all worlds—a selective, edited version of the opinion has been produced, and requests for the opinion, because it has been cited, to be put before the House in its entirety have been refused.
  Mr. Cash: As my right hon. and learned Friend knows, that is exactly what I have been saying. It is extremely important that the full opinion be made available, and there is ample opportunity under the rules and conventions of the House for that to take place. Indeed, I would go further—the responsibility for deciding whether or not the opinion should be made available in full is the Prime Minister's. The Government do not want to reveal it in full because there is something in the instructions, the dossier or whatever that would show that the Attorney-General was relying on facts that may not have been what other people were told. The fact that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood accused the Prime Minister of deceiving her and Parliament in an article is evidence of the problems that the Government would face if the whole thing were revealed.
  As regards the time scale of a judicial inquiry, many matters have already been investigated, but a number of residual questions remain. There is no reason why such an inquiry should take an undue length of time. Analogies have been made with the Bloody Sunday inquiry, its costs and time scale, but there is no reason why an inquiry on Iraq should not be completed in a relatively short period. We have suggested six months, but it may take a little longer. This is an important matter, about which Labour Members felt so strongly that they rebelled against their own Government. However, when it comes to the question of whether or not it is legitimate to investigate the process and the facts behind the events leading up to war, in one speech after another they funked the opportunity to demand an inquiry, simply saying that they want to move on. That is a massive collective funk on the part of Labour Members. I shall be interested to hear the Minister's reply. The bottom line is that the Government are condemned by the attitude of their own Back Benchers.
  6.40 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Bill Rammell): We have had an instructive and worthwhile debate, but I am not sure that anyone in the House or outside has changed their view in the course of it. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), who summed up for the Opposition, for giving us an advance taste of the legal clarity that would be brought to these matters if we had an independent judicial inquiry. That is meant lightheartedly, but there is a serious point behind it.
  If the Opposition were genuine in the position that they took in March this year when they supported the case for military action, and if they truly want to focus on rebuilding Iraq, I do not understand why the motion was tabled. I shall start by explaining why there is no case for a judicial inquiry. I shall then move on to the real issue—what we are doing to help develop a stable, prosperous and democratic future for Iraq and all its people, which should properly be the priority and the responsibility of the House and the Government.
  The Opposition say that we need a judicial inquiry, yet the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Intelligence and Security Committee have already undertaken substantive and detailed investigations. Both inquiries, on a cross-party basis, concluded that the claims that were made in the Government's September dossier were well founded on the basis of the intelligence that was then available. Crucially, given that this is the key accusation that has been made against the Government, they concluded that the Government did not, in the current terminology, sex up the dossiers. In light of those conclusions, the Opposition are struggling to make a case for an independent inquiry.
  The question whether we were right to take military action involved, for me, a balance of political judgments—weighing up the pros and cons. I acknowledge that it was the most difficult political decision to which I have ever been party. But it was a political decision, which was rightly taken by the Government and endorsed by a vote in the House.
  Mr. Reed: Those of us who opposed the war respect those who had to make such difficult decisions. It was a political decision based on a wide range of facts. We have heard the arguments rehearsed once again today. I do not think that anyone has changed their mind. I do not suggest that the Tories tabled the motion just to cause some distraction on a difficult day for them. We made a decision based on hundreds of factors before us, and we have all come to different conclusions. We as parliamentarians should rehearse those arguments time and again as to why we opposed the war, not leave it to judges and, with all due respect, to the lawyers who dominated the Benches this afternoon.
  Mr. Rammell: My hon. Friend and I took a different view on the case for military action. Even though we disagreed, I respected the decision that he took. He is right. He has been consistent in his arguments, in stark contrast to some of those on the Opposition Benches. He was right to say that the decision was a political judgment, not a decision for a judge to make at the time,

  743
  and it should not be a decision for a judge to approve or disapprove in retrospect. The place for such debates and arguments is the House of Commons.
  Mr. Cash: Does the Minister agree that there remain very serious differences between Cabinet Ministers and ex-Cabinet Ministers, and that these matters are therefore of such great importance that evidence should be taken on oath?
  Mr. Rammell: We would be on a slippery slope if we were to say that there is a case for a judicial inquiry every time a Cabinet Minister disagreed with the Prime Minister and resigned from the Government. When Lord Heseltine left Lady Thatcher's Cabinet, having decided that he could not serve in that Government with honour, Conservative Members did not call for an independent judicial inquiry, nor should they on this occasion.
  Let me deal with some of the points that hon. Members raised. The hon. Member for Stone made great play of the fact that the Attorney-General's advice has not been published. As he knows, there is a longstanding convention that such advice is not put in the public domain. However, on 17 March, the Attorney-General gave a reply to a parliamentary question that clearly set out the legal basis for taking the decision to commit to military action and go to war, so the hon. Gentleman's argument is somewhat lacking in that respect.
  Tony Wright: The Government made a strong case for not having a judicial inquiry on an essentially political judgment, but why did they go further than that in their amendment by saying that they are against any kind of inquiry? That presumably includes an inquiry by this House, yet we shall no doubt want to inquire into matters such as the Intelligence and Security Committee's view that there was a lack of balance and qualification in the intelligence assessments and questions raised about the machinery of government by the Hutton inquiry.
  Mr. Rammell: The Foreign Secretary has given me his permission to say that the amendment is infelicitous. We shall make a judgment about that at a later stage. The key point is that we have already agreed to two inquiries that were independent of Government and produced substantive conclusions. [Interruption.] If hon. Members are questioning the integrity and veracity of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which looked at the raw intelligence and concluded that the Government did not mislead the House and the country, they will find that argument difficult to uphold.
  Mr. John Maples: The Minister said that in answer to a parliamentary question the Attorney-General published part of his legal advice. I entirely accept that Iraq was in breach of the revived ceasefire resolution and resolution 1441, but I have never understood whether it is part of the legal argument that one or two members of the Security Council can take it upon themselves to use military force to enforce a resolution without explicit authority from the Security Council. Can the Minister clarify that?
  Mr. Rammell: In terms of resolution 1441, there was clearly no requirement to go back to the Security
  744
  Council for further authorisation before undertaking military action. Some nations attempted to insert such a requirement during its drafting, but that was not agreed to. On that basis, there was a 15:0 vote in favour of 1441. With respect, that demolishes the hon. Gentleman's argument.
  Although I disagreed with some of what the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) said in support of a public inquiry, he made a telling point when he underlined the disingenuousness of Conservative Members in calling for an independent judicial inquiry. He quoted the emphatic arguments cited by the Leader of the Opposition in an article published in The Times well before publication of the September 2002 dossier. If Conservative Members were convinced of the arguments prior to the publication of the dossier, they cannot claim that they were misled by it and should not call for an independent inquiry.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Mrs. Liddell) presented powerful arguments against premature judgments on the whereabouts of weapons of mass destruction. She also tellingly said that, even now, there were no answers to Hans Blix's 167-page report, which contained key questions to the Iraqi regime about their whereabouts. That argument was fundamentally right.
  My hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr. Pollard) took a different position from mine, but he has a respectable stance on the issue. Indeed, he travelled widely in Iraq before the conflict. He underlined the sincerity of the Prime Minister and the Government in reaching their conclusions even when he took a different view. I agree that we need to look forwards, not backwards at this stage. I was struck by comments from my hon. Friend's contacts in Basra that the position has improved greatly since the military conflict.
  Mr. Cash: Of course it has.
  Mr. Rammell: That is not the impression that much of our media give, and the debate is therefore especially important.
  I welcomed the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright), who underlined his view that disagreements on the matter are essentially political and that resolving them is fundamentally a matter for Parliament, not judges. I agree that referring every disagreement of this nature to the judiciary is an abdication of parliamentary responsibility. I believe that that view is increasingly widely shared by Labour Members.
  It is important to look forwards.
  Mr. Kenneth Clarke: The Minister argues that the House made a political decision, that we should move on and that holding a judicial inquiry every time such a situation arises would be pointless. However, two Cabinet Ministers resigned and one of them made it clear that she believed that the House had been misled about the origins of a war. Many people continue to assert that. It continues to be relevant because in looking forwards, one has to consider not only the important position in Iraq but the way in which policy will evolve towards Syria, Iran and the road map. We are not considering an ordinary political decision; it continues

  745
  to be relevant both to whether the House was misled on the basis of our alliance with America and to future middle eastern policy. [Interruption]
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal): Order. The House must come to order. Many conversations are taking place in the Chamber.
  Mr. Rammell: Although I have always had the greatest respect for my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short), the former Secretary of State for International Development, I believe that her judgment was fundamentally wrong on the issue that we are considering.
  It is important to focus on the successes that we have already experienced in reconstructing Iraq and to be candid about the challenges and problems, especially given the difficult security situation that we continue to face. Significant progress has been made in the six months since the cessation of hostilities. We have an Iraqi governing council, which has established, for the first time in a generation, a governing structure that is truly representative of the Iraqi population. Twenty-five Ministers intervene on a daily and weekly basis in the key political and economic decisions that are of interest to the Iraqi people.
  Recently, we rightly argued strongly for the unanimous adoption of UN Security Council resolution 1511. Many people believed that such a resolution would not be possible, yet owing to our efforts and those of others it was a significant and major achievement that strengthens the coalition, the United Nations and international support for Iraq. Crucially, it also enables a timetable for elections to be set in 10 weeks.
  Dr. Gavin Strang: Does my hon. Friend agree that, in the real world in Iraq, as he rightly described it, it is disturbing that the United States military do not even attempt to record the number of Iraqis that they have killed since the end of major combat operations? Is that not another reason why the sooner coalition forces are replaced by a United Nations force, with troops from other nations, the better?
  Mr. Rammell: I have not heard information to that effect and it must be substantiated if we are to respond to it.
  The resolution that was passed in New York last week ensures a strengthened United Nations role in the partnership with the Iraqis and the coalition in underpinning the political process for a constitution and elections. It also gives UN authorisation to the multinational force that is helping to secure Iraq, which is a high priority for us. Security remains our No. 1 priority, and we are working hard to enable the Iraqis to play a greater role in assuring the security of their country. The recent injection of an additional 1,200 UK troops will provide significant support in tackling terrorism, but it is also critical that we build up the civilian support within the police force, so that the Iraqis can police their own people with consent. Nearly all Iraq's 400 courts are now functioning, and for the first
  746
  time in more than a generation, the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent. That should be a cause for celebration in the House and across the world.
  We are backing up our political support with significant financial support. The Secretary of State for International Development recently announced the &£544 million that the Government have committed over three years from April 2003. I hope that, at the Madrid donors conference this week, similar contributions will be forthcoming from across the board.
  There are difficulties in the security situation, but there has also been a great improvement in the delivery of essential services. Nearly 240 hospitals in Iraq are now open and functioning, and 1,500 schools have been rehabilitated. With the help of UNICEF, more than 22 million doses of vaccine have been provided, and health expenditure is now significantly higher than it was under Saddam's regime.
  Mr. Lilley: Does the Minister realise that millions of people in this country are disillusioned because they were told that we went to war to remove weapons of mass destruction, none of which have been found? They will not believe that he can get through a debate today without addressing that question and explaining how it came about.
  Mr. Rammell: First, that is not the issue that has been put down in the Conservatives' motion. Secondly, we went to war because resolution 1441 gave Saddam a last chance to comply with the united will of the international community and he did not do so. Thirdly, it is premature, to say the least, to make judgments about the existence of weapons of mass destruction just five short months after the end of the conflict. Look at the experience in post-conflict situations elsewhere in the world, where it has taken much longer than that.
  Despite the fact that we are making progress, we are having real difficulty in getting that message across. I am therefore grateful to Jon Snow and "Channel 4 News" for their very objective reports from Iraq this week on the real situation on the ground—[Interruption.].
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I must ask once again for quiet in the Chamber while the Minister is replying to the debate.
  Mr. Rammell: Jon Snow, in one of his reports this week, said:
  "Despite the daily assaults, the US-led Administration here is making headway on a number of fronts…It's a risky thing to report, but things in Baghdad seem to be getting better. The streets hum with activity. Fewer power cuts, and sidewalk cafes coming back to life."
  It is worth underlining those facts, because that message is not getting across. Whatever view any of us took on this issue, it is important that we report the facts. It is also the case that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis support the actions that we have taken.
  I believe that we were right to take military action in Iraq. Nevertheless, I respect those, many of whom are in my party, who took a different view. What I do not and cannot respect is a Conservative Front-Bench team who supported military action on principle but who now seek

  747
  to cut and run for what they perceive to be short-term, narrow, party political gain. I urge the House to reject the Opposition motion.
  David Maclean rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
  Question,That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.
  Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 190, Noes 303.

  Division No. 335]

  [6:59 pm

  AYES

  Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

  Forth, rh Eric

  Allan, Richard

  Fox, Dr. Liam

  Ancram, rh Michael

  Francois, Mark

  Arbuthnot, rh James

  Gale, Roger (N Thanet)

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

  Garnier, Edward

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  George, Andrew (St. Ives)

  Bacon, Richard

  Gibb, Nick (Bognor Regis)

  Baker, Norman

  Gidley, Sandra

  Barker, Gregory

  Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

  Baron, John (Billericay)

  Goodman, Paul

  Barrett, John

  Gray, James (N Wilts)

  Bellingham, Henry

  Grayling, Chris

  Bercow, John

  Green, Matthew (Ludlow)

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Greenway, John

  Blunt, Crispin

  Grieve, Dominic

  Boswell, Tim

  Hague, rh William

  Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

  Hancock, Mike

  Bottomley, rh Virginia (SW Surrey)

  Harvey, Nick

  Hawkins, Nick

  Brady, Graham

  Brake, Tom (Carshalton)

  Heald, Oliver

  Brazier, Julian

  Heath, David

  Breed, Colin

  Hendry, Charles

  Brooke, Mrs Annette L.

  Hoban, Mark (Fareham)

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Hogg, rh Douglas

  Bruce, Malcolm

  Horam, John (Orpington)

  Burnside, David

  Howard, rh Michael

  Burt, Alistair

  Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

  Butterfill, John

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

  Cable, Dr. Vincent

  Hunter, Andrew

  Calton, Mrs Patsy

  Jack, rh Michael

  Cameron, David

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Campbell, rh Menzies (NE Fife)

  Johnson, Boris (Henley)

  Cash, William

  Keetch, Paul

  Chope, Christopher

  Kennedy, rh Charles (Ross Skye & Inverness)

  Clappison, James

  Clarke, rh Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Key, Robert (Salisbury)

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  Kirkwood, Sir Archy

  Collins, Tim

  Knight, rh Greg (E Yorkshire)

  Conway, Derek

  Laing, Mrs Eleanor

  Cotter, Brian

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Cran, James (Beverley)

  Lamb, Norman

  Curry, rh David

  Lansley, Andrew

  Davey, Edward (Kingston)

  Laws, David (Yeovil)

  Davis, rh David (Haltemprice & Howden)

  Leigh, Edward

  Lewis, Dr. Julian (New Forest E)

  Djanogly, Jonathan

  Liddell-Grainger, Ian

  Donaldson, Jeffrey M.

  Lidington, David

  Doughty, Sue

  Lilley, rh Peter

  Duncan, Alan (Rutland)

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Duncan, Peter (Galloway)

  Loughton, Tim

  Duncan Smith, rh lain

  Luff, Peter (M-Worcs)

  Evans, Nigel

  McIntosh, Miss Anne

  Ewing, Annabelle

  Mackay, rh Andrew

  Fallon, Michael

  Maclean, rh David

  Flight, Howard

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Flook, Adrian

  Malins, Humfrey

  748

  Maples, John

  Soames, Nicholas

  Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury & Atcham)

  Spelman, Mrs Caroline

  Spink, Bob (Castle Point)

  Maude, rh Francis

  Spring, Richard

  Mawhinney, rh Sir Brian

  Stanley, rh Sir John

  May, Mrs Theresa

  Steen, Anthony

  Mercer, Patrick

  Streeter, Gary

  Moore, Michael

  Stunell, Andrew

  Moss, Malcolm

  Syms, Robert

  Norman, Archie

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Oaten, Mark (Winchester)

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Öpik, Lembit

  Taylor, John (Solihull)

  Osborne, George (Tatton)

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Page, Richard

  Taylor, Sir Teddy

  Paice, James

  Teather, Sarah

  Paterson, Owen

  Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

  Pickles, Eric

  Tonge, Dr. Jenny

  Portillo, rh Michael

  Tredinnick, David

  Prisk, Mark (Hertford)

  Trend, Michael

  Pugh, Dr. John

  Turner, Andrew (Isle of Wight)

  Randall, John

  Tyler, Paul (N Cornwall)

  Redwood, rh John

  Viggers, Peter

  Reid, Alan (Argyll & Bute)

  Waterson, Nigel

  Rendel, David

  Weir, Michael

  Robathan, Andrew

  Whittingdale, John

  Robertson, Angus (Moray)

  Widdecombe, rh Miss Ann

  Robertson, Hugh (Faversham & M-Kent)

  Wiggin, Bill

  Wilkinson, John

  Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

  Willetts, David

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Williams, Hywel (Caernarfon)

  Rosindell, Andrew

  Williams, Roger (Brecon)

  Ruffley, David

  Willis, Phil

  Russell, Bob (Colchester)

  Wilshire, David

  Salmond, Alex

  Winterton, Ann (Congleton)

  Sanders, Adrian

  Winterton, Sir Nicholas

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  (Macclesfield)

  Selous, Andrew

  Wishart, Pete

  Shephard, rh Mrs Gillian

  Yeo, Tim (S Suffolk)

  Shepherd, Richard

  Young, rh Sir George

  Simmonds, Mark

  Younger-Ross, Richard

  Simpson, Keith (M-Norfolk)

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

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Angela Watkinson and

  Smyth, Rev, Martin (Belfast S)

  Mr. Mark Field

  NOES

  Adams, Irene (Paisley N)

  Brennan, Kevin

  Ainger, Nick

  Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

  Ainsworth, Bob (Cov'try NE)

  Bryant, Chris

  Alexander, Douglas

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Allen, Graham

  Burgon, Colin

  Anderson, Janet (Rossendale & Darwen)

  Burnham, Andy

  Caborn, rh Richard

  Armstrong, rh Ms Hilary

  Cairns, David

  Atherton, Ms Candy

  Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Cmpbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Bailey, Adrian

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Baird, Vera

  Caplin, Ivor

  Barron, rh Kevin

  Casale, Roger

  Beard, Nigel

  Caton, Martin

  Beckett, rh Margaret

  Cawsey, Ian (Brigg)

  Bell, Stuart

  Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

  Benn, rh Hilary

  Clark, Mrs Helen (Peterborough)

  Bennett, Andrew

  Clark, Dr. Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

  Benton Joe (Bootle)

  Berry, Roger

  Betts, Clive

  Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

  Blackman, Liz

  Clarke, rh Charles (Norwich S)

  Blears, Ms Hazel

  Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

  Blizzard, Bob

  Clelland, David

  Blunkett, rh David

  Clwyd, Ann (Cynon V)

  Boateng, rh Paul

  Coaker, Vernon

  Borrow, David

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  Bradley, rh Keith (Withington)

  Connarty, Michael

  Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

  Cooper, Yvette

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Cousins, Jim

  749

  Cranston, Ross

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Crausby, David

  Humble, Mrs Joan

  Cruddas, Jon

  Hurst, Alan (Braintree)

  Cryer, Ann (Keighley)

  Hutton, rh John

  Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

  Iddon, Dr. Brian

  Cummings, John

  Ingram, rh Adam

  Cunningham, Jim (Coventry S)

  Irranca-Davies, Huw

  Cunningham, Tony (Workington)

  Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

  Curtis-Thomas, Mrs Claire

  Jenkins, Brian

  Darling, rh Alistair

  Johnson, Alan (Hull W)

  Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

  Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield

  David, Wayne

  Davidson, Ian

  Jones, Kevan (N Durham)

  Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

  Jones, Lynne (Selly Oak)

  Dean, Mrs Janet

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

  Dhanda, Parmjit

  Jowell, rh Tessa

  Dismore, Andrew

  Joyce, Eric (Falkirk W)

  Dobbin, Jim (Heywood)

  Kaufman, rh Gerald

  Dobson, rh Frank

  Keeble, Ms Sally

  Doran, Frank

  Keen, Alan (Feltham)

  Drew, David (Stroud)

  Kelly, Ruth (Bolton W)

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

  Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

  Kidney, David

  Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

  King, Andy (Rugby)

  Edwards, Huw

  King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green & Bow)

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Ennis, Jeff (Barnsley E)

  Knight Jim (S Dorset)

  Farrelly, Paul

  Kumar, Dr. Ashok

  Field, rh Frank (Birkenhead)

  Ladyman, Dr. Stephen

  Fitzpatrick, Jim

  Lammy. David

  Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

  Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

  Flint Caroline

  Laxton, Bob (Derby N)

  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

  Francis, Dr. Hywel

  Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

  Gapes, Mike (Ilford S)

  Love, Andrew

  Gardiner, Barry

  Lucas, Ian (Wrexham)

  Gibson, Dr. Ian

  Luke, Iain (Dundee E)

  Gilroy, Linda

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Godsiff, Roger

  McCabe, Stephen

  Goggins, Paul

  McCartney, rh Ian

  Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

  McDonagh, Siobhain

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  MacDonald, Calum

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  MacDougall, John

  Grogan, John

  McFall, John

  Hain, rh Peter

  McGuire, Mrs Anne

  Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

  Mclsaac, Shona

  Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

  McKechin, Ann

  Hamilton, David (Midlothian)

  McKenna, Rosemary

  Hanson, David

  McNulty, Tony

  Harman, rh Ms Harriet

  MacShane, Denis

  Harris, Tom (Glasgow Cathcart)

  Mactaggart, Fiona

  Havard, Dai (Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney)

  McWalter, Tony

  Mahmood, Khalid

  Healey, John

  Mallaber, Judy

  Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

  Mann, John (Bassetlaw)

  Hendrick, Mark

  Marris, Rob (Wolverh'ton SW)

  Hepburn, Stephen

  Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

  Heppell, John

  Marshall, David (Glasgow Shettleston)

  Hermon, Lady

  Hewitt, rh Ms Patricia

  Martlew, Eric

  Heyes, David

  Meale, Alan (Mansfield)

  Hill, Keith (Streatham)

  Merron, Gillian

  Hodge, Margaret

  Michael, rh Alun

  Hood, Jimmy (Clydesdale)

  Milburn, rh Alan

  Hope, Phil (Corby)

  Miller, Andrew

  Howarth, rh Alan (Newport E)

  Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N & Sefton E)

  Moffatt, Laura

  Mole, Chris

  Howells, Dr. Kim

  Moonie, Dr. Lewis

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  Moran, Margaret

  Hughes, Beverley (Stretford & Urmston

  Morgan, Julie

  Morley, Elliot

  750

  Mountford, Kali

  Smith, Geraldine (Morecambe & Lunesdale)

  Mullin, Chris

  Munn, Ms Meg

  Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

  Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

  Smith, John (Glamorgan)

  Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

  Speller, rh John

  Murphy, rh Paul (Torfaen)

  Starkey, Dr. Phyllis

  O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

  Steinberg, Gerry

  O'Neill, Martin

  Stevenson, George

  Organ, Diana

  Stewart, David (Inverness E & Lochaber)

  Owen, Albert

  Palmer, Dr. Nick

  Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

  Pearson, Ian

  Stinchcombe, Paul

  Perham, Linda

  Stoate, Dr. Howard

  Picking, Anne

  Strang, rh Dr. Gavin

  Pickthall, Colin

  Straw, rh Jack

  Pike, Peter (Burnley)

  Stuart, Ms Gisela

  Plaskitt, James

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Pollard, Kerry

  Tami, Mark (Alyn)

  Pond, Chris (Gravesham)

  Taylor, rh Ann (Dewsbury)

  Pound, Stephen

  Taylor, Dari (Stockton S)

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

  Taylor, David (NW Leics)

  Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

  Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

  Thomas, Gareth (Harrow W)

  Prescott, rh John

  Timms, Stephen

  Primarolo, rh Dawn

  Tipping, Paddy

  Prosser, Gwyn

  Todd, Mark (S Derbyshire)

  Purchase, Ken

  Touhig, Don (IsIwyn)

  Purnell, James

  Trickett, Jon

  Quin rh Joyce

  Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

  Quinn Lawrie

  Turner, Dr. Desmond (Brighton Kemptown)

  Rammell, Bill

  Rapson, Syd (Portsmouth N)

  Turner, Neil (Wigan)

  Raynsford rh, Nick

  Twigg, Derek (Halton)

  Reed, Andy (Loughborough)

  Tynan, Bill (Hamilton S)

  Robertson, John (Glasgow Anniesland)

  Walley, Ms Joan

  Watson, Tom (W Bromwich E)

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

  Watts, David

  White, Brian

  Roche, Mrs Barbara

  Whitehead, Dr. Alan

  Rooney, Terry

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Williams, rh Alan (Swansea W)

  Roy, Frank (Motherwell)

  Williams, Betty (Conwy)

  Ruane, Chris

  Wills, Michael

  Ruddock, Joan

  Winnick, David

  Russell, Ms Christine (City of Chester)

  Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

  Salter, Martin

  Woodward, Shaun

  Sawford, Phil

  Woolas, Phil

  Sheerman, Barry

  Wright, Anthony D.(Gt Yarmouth)

  Sheridan, Jim

  Shipley, Ms Debra

  Wright, David (Telford)

  Simon, Siôon (B'ham Erdington)

  Wright, Tony (Cannock)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Wyatt, Derek

  Smith, rh Andrew (Oxford E)

  Smith, Angela (Basildon)

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Smith, rh Chris (Islington S & Finsbury)

  Mr. Fraser Kemp and

  Joan Ryan

  Question accordingly negatived
  Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order 31 (Questions on amendments):—
  The House divided: Ayes 293, Noes 141.

  Division No. 336]

  [7:14 pm

  AYES

  Adams, Irene (Paisley N)

  Armstrong, rh Ms Hilary

  Ainger, Nick

  Atherton, Ms Candy

  Ainsworth, Bob (Cov'try NE)

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Alexander, Douglas

  Bailey, Adrian

  Allen, Graham

  Baird, Vera

  Anderson, Janet (Rossendale & Darwen)

  Barron, rh Kevin

  Beard, Nigel

  751

  Beckett, rh Margaret

  Foster, rh Derek

  Bell, Stuart

  Foster, Michael (Worcester)

  Benn, rh Hilary

  Foster, rh Derek

  Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings & Rye)

  Bennett, Andrew

  Benton, Joe (Bootle)

  Francis, Dr. Hywel

  Berry, Roger

  Gapes, Mike (Ilford S)

  Betts, Clive

  Gardiner, Barry

  Blackman, Liz

  Gibson, Dr. Ian

  Blears, Ms Hazel

  Gilroy, Linda

  Blizzard,Bob

  Godsiff, Roger

  Boateng, rh Paul

  Goggins, Paul

  Borrow, David

  Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

  Bradley, rh Keith (Withington)

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

  Grogan, John

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

  Brennan, Kevin

  Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

  Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

  Hamilton, David (Midlothian)

  Bryant, Chris

  Hanson, David

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Harman, rh Ms Harriet

  Burgon, Colin

  Harris, Tom (Glasgow Cathcart)

  Burnham, Andy

  Havard, Dai (Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney)

  Caborn, rh Richard

  Cairns, David

  Healey, John

  Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

  Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

  Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

  Hendrick, Mark

  Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

  Hepburn, Stephen

  Caplin, Ivor

  Heppell, John

  Casale, Roger

  Hermon, Lady

  Caton, Martin

  Hewitt, rh Ms Patricia

  Cawsey, Ian (Brigg)

  Heyes, David

  Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)

  Hill, Keith (Streatham)

  Clark, Mrs Helen (Peterborough)

  Hodge, Margaret

  Clark, Dr. Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)

  Hood, Jimmy (Clydesdale)

  Hope, Phil (Corby)

  Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

  Howarth, rh Alan (Newport E)

  Clarke, rh Charles (Norwich S)

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N & Sefton E)

  Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

  Clelland, David

  Howells, Dr. Kim

  Clwyd, Ann (Cynon V)

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  Coaker, Vernon

  Hughes, Beverley (Stretford & Urmston)

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  Cooper, Yvette

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Cousins, Jim

  Humble, Mrs Joan

  Cranston, Ross

  Hurst, Alan (Braintree)

  Crausby, David

  Hutton, rh John

  Cruddas, Jon

  Iddon, Dr. Brian

  Cryer, Ann (Keighley)

  Ingram, rh Adam

  Cryer, John (Hornchurch)

  Irranca-Davies, Huw

  Cummings, John

  Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

  Cunningham, Jim (Coventry S)

  Jenkins, Brian

  Cunningham, Tony (Workington)

  Johnson, Alan (Hull W)

  Curtis-Thomas, Mrs Claire

  Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)

  Darling, rh Alistair

  Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

  Jones, Kevan (N Durham)

  David, Wayne

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

  Davidson, Ian

  Jowell, rh Tessa

  Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

  Joyce, Eric (Falkirk W)

  Dean, Mrs Janet

  Kaufman, rh Gerald

  Dhanda, Parmjit

  Keeble, Ms Sally

  Dismore, Andrew

  Keen, Alan (Feltham)

  Dobbin, Jim (Heywood)

  Kelly, Ruth (Bolton W)

  Dobson, rh Frank

  Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

  Doran, Frank

  Kidney, David

  Drew, David (Stroud)

  King, Andy (Rugby)

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green & Bow)

  Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

  Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

  Knight, Jim (S Dorset)

  Edwards, Huw

  Kumar, Dr. Ashok

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Ladyman, Dr. Stephen

  Ennis, Jeff (Barnsley E)

  Lammy, David

  Farrelly, Paul

  Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

  Field, rh Frank (Birkenhead)

  Laxton, Bob (Derby N)

  Fitzpatrick, Jim

  Leslie, Christopher

  Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

  Levitt, Tom (High Peak)

  Flint, Caroline

  Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

  Follett, Barbara

  Liddell, rh Mrs Helen

  752

  Linton, Martin

  Roche, Mrs Barbara

  Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

  Rooney, Terry

  Love, Andrew

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Lucas, Ian (Wrexham)

  Roy, Frank (Motherwell)

  Luke, Iain (Dundee E)

  Ruane, Chris

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Ruddock, Joan

  McCabe, Stephen

  Russell, Ms Christine (City of Chester)

  McCartney, rh Ian

  McDonagh, Siobhain

  Salter, Martin

  MacDonald, Calum

  Sawford, Phil

  MacDougall, John

  Sheerman, Barry

  McFall, John

  Sheridan, Jim

  McGuire, Mrs Anne

  Shipley, Ms Debra

  McIsaac, Shona

  Simon, Siôn (B'ham Erdington)

  McKechin, Ann

  Smith, rh Andrew (Oxford E)

  McKenna, Rosemary

  Smith, Angela (Basildon)

  McNulty, Tony

  Smith, Geraldine (Morecambe & Lunesdale)

  MacShane, Denis

  Mactaggart, Fiona

  McWalter, Tony

  Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

  Mahmood, Khalid

  Smith, John (Glamorgan)

  Mallaber, Judy

  Spellar, rh John

  Mann, John (Bassetlaw)

  Starkey, Dr. Phyllis

  Marris, Rob (Wolverh'ton SW)

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

  Stevenson, George

  Marshall, David (Glasgow Shettleston)

  Stewart, David (Inverness E & Lochaber)

  Martlew, Eric

  Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

  Merron, Gillian

  Stinchcombe, Paul

  Michael, rh Alun

  Stoate, Dr. Howard

  Milburn, rh Alan

  Strang, rh Dr. Gavin

  Miller, Andrew

  Straw, rh Jack

  Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)

  Stuart, Ms Gisela

  Moffatt, Laura

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Mole, Chris

  Tami, Mark (Alyn)

  Moonie, Dr. Lewis

  Taylor, rh Ann (Dewsbury)

  Moran, Margaret

  Taylor, Dari (Stockton S)

  Morgan, Julie

  Taylor, David (NW Leics)

  Morley, Elliot

  Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)

  Mountford Kali

  Thomas, Gareth (Harrow W)

  Mullin Chris

  Timms, Stephen

  Munn, Ms Meg

  Tipping, Paddy

  Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

  Todd, Mark (S Derbyshire)

  Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

  Touhig, Don (Islwyn)

  Murphy, rh Paul (Torfaen)

  Trickett, Jon

  O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

  Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Turner, Dr. Desmond (Brighto Kemptown)

  Organ, Diana

  Owen, Albert

  Palmer, Dr. Nick

  Turner, Neil (Wigan)

  Pearson, Ian

  Twigg, Derek (Halton)

  Perham, Linda

  Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

  Picking, Anne

  Tynan, Bill (Hamilton S)

  Pickthall, Colin

  Walley, Ms Joan

  Pike, Peter (Burnley)

  Watson, Tom (W Bromwich E)

  Plaskitt, James

  Watts, David

  Pollard, Kerry

  White, Brian

  Pond, Chris (Gravesham)

  Whitehead, Dr. Alan

  Pound, Stephen

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

  Williams, rh Alan (Swansea W)

  Prescott, rh John

  Williams, Betty (Conwy)

  Primarolo, rh Dawn

  Wills, Michael

  Prosser, Gwyn

  Winnick, David

  Purchase, Ken

  Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

  Purnell, James

  Quin, rh Joyce

  Woodward, Shaun

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Woolas, Phil

  Rammell, Bill

  Wright, Anthony D. (Gt Yarmouth)

  Rapson, Syd (Portsmouth N)

  Raynsford, rh Nick

  Wright, David (Telford)

  Reed, Andy (Loughborough)

  Wyatt, Derek

  Robertson, John (Glasgow Anniesland)

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry NW)

  Mr. Fraser Kemp and

  Joan Ryan

  753

  NOES

  Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

  Francois, Mark

  Allan, Richard

  Gale, Roger (N Thanet)

  Ancram, rh Michael

  Garnier, Edward

  Arbuthnot, rh James

  George, Andrew (St. Ives)

  Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)

  Gibb, Nick (Bognor Regis)

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Gidley, Sandra

  Bacon, Richard

  Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

  Baker, Norman

  Goodman, Paul

  Barker, Gregory

  Gray, James (N Wilts)

  Baron, John (Billericay)

  Grayling, Chris

  Barrett, John

  Green, Matthew (Ludlow)

  Bellingham, Henry

  Grieve, Dominic

  Bercow, John

  Hague, rh William

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Hammond, Philip

  Blunt Crispin

  Hancock, Mike

  Boswell, Tim

  Harvey, Nick

  Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

  Hawkins, Nick

  Bottomley, rh Virginia (SW Surrey)

  Heald, Oliver

  Heath, David

  Brady, Graham

  Hendry, Charles

  Brake, Tom (Carshalton)

  Hoban Mark (Fareham)

  Brazier, Julian

  Hogg, rh Douglas

  Breed, Colin

  Horam, John (Orpington)

  Brooke, Mrs Annette L.

  Howard, rh Michael

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

  Burnside, David

  Hunter, Andrew

  Burt, Alistair

  Jack, rh Michael

  Butterfill, John

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Cable, Dr. Vincent

  Johnson, Boris (Henley)

  Calton, Mrs Patsy

  Keetch, Paul

  Cameron, David

  Key, Robert (Salisbury)

  Cash, William

  Kirkwood, Sir Archy

  Chope, Christopher

  Knight, rh Greg (E Yorkshire)

  Clappison, James

  Laing, Mrs Eleanor

  Clarke, rh Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  Lamb, Norman

  Collins, Tim

  Lansley, Andrew

  Conway, Derek

  Laws, David (Yeovil)

  Cotter, Brian

  Leigh, Edward

  Cran, James (Beverley)

  Lewis, Dr. Julian (New Forest E)

  Curry, rh David

  Liddell-Grainger, Ian

  Davey, Edward (Kingston)

  Lidington, David

  Davis, rh David (Haltemprice & Howden)

  Loughton, Tim

  Luff, Peter (M-Worcs)

  Djanogly, Jonathan

  McIntosh, Miss Anne

  Donaldson, Jeffrey M.

  Mackay, rh Andrew

  Doughty, Sue

  Maclean, rh David

  Duncan, Alan (Rutland)

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Duncan, Peter (Galloway)

  Malins, Humfrey

  Duncan Smith, rh Iain

  Maples John

  Evans, Nigel

  Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury & Atcham)

  Ewing, Annabelle

  Fallon, Michael

  Maude, rh Francis

  Flight, Howard

  Mawhinney, rh Sir Brian

  Flook, Adrian

  May, Mrs Theresa

  Forth, rh Eric

  Mercer, Patrick

  Fox, Dr. Liam

  Moore, Michael

  754

  Moss, Malcolm

  Stanley, rh Sir John

  Norman, Archie

  Steen, Anthony

  Osborne, George (Tatton)

  Streeter, Gary

  Page, Richard

  Stunell, Andrew

  Paice, James

  Syms, Robert

  Paterson, Owen

  Taylor, David (NW Leics)

  Pickles, Eric

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Portillo, rh Michael

  Taylor, John (Solihull)

  Prisk, Mark (Hertford)

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Pugh, Dr. John

  Taylor, Sir Teddy

  Randall, John

  Teather, Sarah

  Redwood, rh John

  Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

  Reid, Alan (Argyll & Bute)

  Tonge, Dr. Jenny

  Rendel, David

  Tredinnick, David

  Robathan, Andrew

  Trend, Michael

  Robertson, Angus (Moray)

  Turner, Andrew (Isle of Wight)

  Robertson, Hugh (Faversham & M-Kent)

  Tyler, Paul (N Cornwall)

  Viggers, Peter

  Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

  Waterson, Nigel

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Weir, Michael

  Rosindell, Andrew

  Whittingdale, John

  Ruffley David

  Widdecombe, rh Miss Ann

  Russell, Bob (Colchester)

  Wiggin, Bill

  Salmond, Alex

  Willetts, David

  Sanders Adrian,

  Williams, Hywel (Caernarfon)

  Wilshire David

  Sayeed Jonathan,

  Willis Phil

  Selous, Andrew

  Wilshire, David

  Shephard, rh Mrs Gillian

  Winterton, Ann (Congleton)

  Shepherd, Richard

  Winterton, Sir Nicholas (Macclesfield)

  Simmonds, Mark

  Simpson, Keith (M-Norfolk)

  Wishart, Pete

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

  Yeo, Tim (S Suffolk)

  Young, rh Sir George

  Smyth, Rev. Martin (Belfast S)

  Younger-Ross, Richard

  Soames, Nicholas

  Spelman, Mrs Caroline

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Spink, Bob (Castle Point)

  Mr. Mark Field and

  Spring, Richard

  Angela Watkinson

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House notes that the Intelligence and Security Committee, established by Parliament by statute, and the appropriate body to consider the intelligence relating to Iraq, and the Foreign Affairs Committee have both carried out inquiries into matters relating to the decision to go to war in Iraq; further notes that substantial oral and written evidence, by and on behalf of the Government, was provided to both inquiries; believes that there is no case for a further inquiry, including a judicial inquiry; and further believes that, following the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1511 on 17th October 2003, attention should now be focused on building a better future for Iraq and its people, and on offering full support to the coalition, including British military and civilian personnel, and the United Nations in this endeavour.

  Housing (Aylesbury)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Heppe.]
  7.26 pm
  Mr. David Lidington: I am grateful for the opportunity to draw to the attention of the House the concerns of a large number of my constituents in Aylesbury and surrounding villages about the proposals, announced in the Deputy Prime Minister's so-called communities plan, for large-scale additional housing developments in Buckinghamshire—and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire—between 2001 and 2031. Although I shall deal mostly with the issues as they concern my constituency, the Minister will know that the Government's Milton Keynes and south midlands study encompassed many different constituencies, and I am delighted to see my hon. Friends the Members for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) and for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) in their places today. Both have constituents who will be seriously affected by these proposals.
  I start by offering the Minister at least one slim olive twig, although there may not be too many in the course of the debate. I accept that there will be a need for some further development, both residential and commercial, in the Aylesbury area, and I will go so far as to agree that some of that development will have to take place on greenfield sites—I hope as little as possible, but some is inevitable. In addition, Aylesbury Vale district council's draft local plan does provide for some 8,600 new houses in the period up to 2011 and Buckinghamshire county council is working on plans for development beyond that date.
  However, many of my constituents have serious concerns about the Government's most recent proposals. The Government target for Aylesbury Vale is that there should be 16,400 more homes by 2016, including more than 10,500 in and around Aylesbury itself. Further growth on a large scale is anticipated for the period between 2016 and 2031. Studies carried out by the South East England regional assembly project that as a minimum the same number—15,000 or 16,000—would be built in that period as are projected to be built in the period up to 2016, and that in the Aylesbury area we could be looking at as many as 30,000 additional houses in the second half of the Government's 30-year time frame.
  My first criticism of the Government's approach is that it seems to me that the targets for new housebuilding for the whole of the Milton Keynes and south midlands area are not derived from projections of natural growth or local need—they are arbitrary. They are what the Council for the Protection of Rural England has described in its submission as
  "a case of Predict and Provide' at its worst".
  In addition, the Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Local Government and Planning, in its report published in April 2003, said that the Committee felt that the Government's plans overall were unlikely to have any impact in reducing house prices. The Committee was not convinced that the enlarged housebuilding programme could be accommodated in the south-east without seriously affecting the quality of the environment.
  756
  The Select Committee, with a Labour majority, felt that the Government's plans would not deliver the Government's declared objectives. There is an irony in the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister first announced his communities plan within two week's of his Department's own inspector entirely removing a major development area from the Aylesbury Vale draft local plan on the ground that such additional provision was not needed.
  I have to tell the Minister that there is considerable resentment locally, not just about the substance of the plans, but about the lack of adequate public consultation. A couple of weeks ago, I went to a public meeting in the village of Stoke Mandeville—very close to Aylesbury—attended by more than 400 of my constituents. When SEERA published its report on 18 July, it allowed for a consultation period of 12 weeks, which, of course, encompassed the main holiday period of the year. During those 12 weeks, the assembly has done virtually nothing to explain directly to the local people who will be affected, what is being proposed and why it is being proposed. At that public meeting, there was probably even greater indignation about that lack of consultation than about what the proposals would involve.
  I am willing to accept that that sort of fault is not unique to the present Government—it is perhaps endemic in Whitehall—but from the experience of this episode in my own patch, I can say that that failure to trust and consult the people affected erodes dramatically the trust and confidence that people feel in the Government as an institution and in the ability of the political system to respond to their democratically expressed wishes.
  Andrew Selous: I completely agree with my hon. Friend's remarks. Does he agree that that is a shocking way to treat locally elected councillors? What does it say about local democracy, when those very important issues are taken out of the hands of local representatives?
  Mr. Lidington: My hon. Friend is right. The responsibility for drawing up plans for future housing and commercial development should rest with local authorities, which can judge not just local opinion, but the future economic and domestic needs of the populations whom they are elected to serve and who can kick them out if they do not like the decisions that those councillors take on their behalf.
  I wish to refer to my specific criticisms about the Government's proposals for the Aylesbury area. The plans published by SEERA are far too specific about the location of new developments. Even if one accepted the Government's overall figures and strategy—clearly, I do not—it should still be for local authorities to work out, after proper planning and consultation, how best to provide the housing demanded from them. Yet, to take the most pressing example in my area, there is a proposal for 3,000 additional houses on the last area of green fields that separates the Bedgrove estate in Aylesbury from the village of Stoke Mandeville. Such things should not be handed down from on high from an unaccountable regional office or a Whitehall Department; they should be the subject of local democratic debate and decision.

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  That proposal has some problems. Aylesbury is already a net exporter of commuters. It seems likely that a big development to the south side of the town will be very attractive to people who travel to London to work or to the high housing cost areas of south Buckinghamshire. It has been decided that Aylesbury and Stoke Mandeville should, in effect, coalesce, but that decision was taken without accountability to local people although it will dramatically affect their community. That is plainly wrong.
  My mistrust of the regional assembly's abilities is only reinforced when I read paragraph 2.10 of its consultation document, which states:
  "Opportunities to develop higher density mixed-use developments around public transport nodes like Stoke Mandeville station"
  should be fully exploited. I do not expect the Minister has visited Stoke Mandeville station, but I have done so many times. That paragraph of the assembly's document could not sensibly have been written by anybody who had visited the place about which they were writing.
  Secondly, the Government need to be much more open about the extent of their future ambitions. They published a consultation document, which only takes us up to 2016, which provides for only about 45 per cent. of the overall published housing targets in the communities plan. Tucked away in paragraph 2.13 on page 41, we have a statement that, after 2016, building should be
  "between existing urban area and the proposed southern distribution road and south of Stoke Mandeville".
  The implication of that for my constituency is stark. It would mean that a decision has been taken in Whitehall that Aylesbury, a large town, should grow to coalesce with the nearby villages—separate, distinct communities—of Stoke Mandeville, Weston Turville, Aston Clinton, Wendover and Halton. They would be swallowed up as suburbs of a greater Aylesbury stretching from the existing town right to the edge of the green belt. Nobody has explained that to local people or bothered to ask their views.
  If those plans go ahead, some practical consequences must be faced, which the local authorities, confronted with those edicts from central Government, must consider now. How will new transport be provided for all those additional people? On rail, I welcome the statement that the east-west orbital route scheme would go ahead. The Strategic Rail Authority, however, has previously rejected it. Is it going to he built? Is the money going to be forthcoming, given the pressures on the SRA's budgets? The SEERA document contains a discussion of a spur line from Aylesbury to Bletchley, which I would support, but the SRA's proposals for the west coast main line envisage not an increase but a reduction in service levels at Bletchley. There seems to be a lack of joined-up government in the proposal.
  On roads, I have already mentioned the southern distributor road. What will be the scale of that road? It is causing worry locally. How will it be financed? It is unrealistic to expect developer contributions to be enough. How will the enhanced quality bus corridors be provided as promised when all the main feeder roads into Aylesbury—the A41 Tring road, the A4010 Lower
  758
  road and the A413 Wendover road—are too narrow for bus lanes unless severe restrictions are imposed on access by cars and lorries?
  There is a lack of strategic thinking about what a development on that scale will mean for roads. The A418 Aylesbury-Wing road will be upgraded but not, we are told, until after the houses have been built. There would then be two major roads—the A418 and the A41—linking Aylesbury to the trunk road network, both of which would disgorge their traffic at the end of the town with no link between them. The county council says that the logical consequence of all that is that a major new road link will be needed going around Aylesbury and linking it to the economic centres of the Thames valley to the south. That has a dramatic consequence for the Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty and for either the A41 or the A418. It is not even mentioned, however, in the document published by the regional assembly.
  I could make comparable points about the other public services. SEERA's estimate is that other public services would require spending of some £214 million for the Aylesbury area alone if these schemes come to pass, and there is no guarantee from the Government yet that that money, or anything like it, will be forthcoming. On health, Stoke Mandeville hospital is closing wards, not opening new beds, and children in the Aylesbury Vale primary care trust area face a 14-month wait for speech therapy. On police, I received a letter from the chief constable today saying that he has fewer officers per head of population than any other force in the country bar one. As for the fire service locally, the chief fire officer believes that the
  "Integrated Risk Management Plan will…show areas of unacceptable risk even before the anticipated growth in population".
  What about the environment? We have had no strategic environmental assessment of these plans and no reference to biodiversity action plans in the regional consultation document. Higher density housing is proposed and that means a greater demand for open space. Altogether, the plan will mean a need for 250,000 more people to live cheek by jowl with the Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty. I would welcome a proposed linear park around the edge of Aylesbury, but the site for the linear park is the same as the site for proposed future expansion and building after 2016. It just does not add up.
  I am not so inexperienced in this place as to expect the Minister to announce that she has seen the light and that she will reverse all the Deputy Prime Minister's previous statements and proposals on this matter, so I ask for just two things. First, I ask for an undertaking that the consultation now taking place and the examination in public next year will be more than just a bit of spin before the Government's original plans are rubber-stamped and pushed through. I want to be able to tell my constituents that they will be able to influence the shape and scale of the Government's proposals.
  Secondly, if the Government are making these plans, I ask that they will guarantee that the money will be provided so that we do not simply get the houses, but

  759
  have good quality public services to care for the needs of the people who will live in them and their neighbours who are already my constituents.
  Mr. John Bercow rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. Has the hon. Gentleman the permission of the hon. Member who introduced the debate and the Minister?
  Mr. Lidington indicated assent.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Yvette Cooper)indicated assent.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Very good. I call the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow).
  7.41 pm
  Mr. Bercow: I am very grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Perhaps I can briefly echo the concerns that my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) so eloquently expressed.
  I am not opposed to all development. We cannot live in a museum-piece economy. There is a widespread recognition that there is a big demand for additional housing and that that demand will, in part at least, have to be met. My constituency will doubtless have to make a contribution to the process. My concern, based on the historical record, is that unless we receive cast-iron assurances to the contrary, we shall get the development without the accompanying infrastructure that is necessary for that development to be sustainable.
  In case the Minister wonders why I have this concern, I inform her that I raised the matter with the Deputy Prime Minister when he appeared before the Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning and Local Government earlier this year. He expressed confidence that the infrastructure would be forthcoming. I challenged him whether, in the light of that confidence, he would confirm that the go-ahead for the development would not be given unless and until there were written undertakings about the infrastructure. He laughed and said that he was sure that I would like such a commitment, but that he did not intend to go down that road. I hope that the Minister will understand why I, on behalf of my constituents, am so concerned.
  We do not want the additional air pollution, the greater traffic congestion, the increased pressure on hospital places and the problems in terms of inadequate school provision. We want to ensure that there are sustainable communities, a principle to which the Government are already signed up.
  My hon. Friend dwelt in some detail on the important issues. I just want to reiterate the following. First, we need commitments on expenditure and on guarantees that the infrastructure will be delivered at the same time as the housing gets under way. Secondly, we want to be assured that if we are co-operative in the process, as Aylesbury Vale district council fully intends to be, we will be granted local autonomy in deciding which sites are most suitable for the additional development. Thirdly, we have to be sure that historic infrastructure
  760
  deficits are addressed, notably in the insufficiency of beds at Stoke Mandeville hospital, but in a number of other respects too.
  I underline to the Minister that there is a certain absurdity in generalised talk about plans for the east-west rail link phase beyond 2011 when very specific plans for large-scale housing that might get under way substantially sooner are being confirmed and championed by the Government. We need plans for the east-west rail link and a link between the A41 Aston Clinton road to the east of Aylesbury and the A418 from Milton Keynes because, after all, that is a spoke in the regional transport strategy. We also need many other commitments from the Government.
  My hon. Friends and I are not taking a dogmatic view or engaging in ritualistic opposition, but trying to stand up for the legitimate interests of our constituents. I hope that the hon. Lady is sympathetic to that position and that she can offer some assurances in her reply.
  7.45 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Yvette Cooper): I congratulate the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) on securing the debate and choosing to discuss a subject that is so important to his constituents. I shall briefly set out the background to the current situation before addressing the points that he and the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) made.
  The Milton Keynes and south midlands study was an independent study that was commissioned by regional and local partners in 2001 to examine the potential for growth in the area. The large study area covered all of Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire, Milton Keynes and Luton unitary authorities and Aylesbury Vale district council in Buckinghamshire. The study recognised that stakeholder engagement was critical when reaching its conclusions, and representatives from 147 organisations were invited to a series of meetings. The study concluded that there was considerable potential for further growth in the area, but that that should be concentrated on urban areas.
  Further independent and individual studies were then undertaken at all the key towns in the Milton Keynes and south midlands study area, including Aylesbury. The studies endorsed the growth agenda required to continue the economic success of the area and also identified broad strategic areas for further growth and the infrastructure required for their delivery. There has been a detailed study, so the hon. Member for Aylesbury was wrong to say that the figures had been somehow plucked out of thin air. Extensive work and study has been done on the need for growth as a result of local and regional demands.
  In February 2003, the Deputy Prime Minister announced a programme of action—the sustainable communities plan—which made it clear that a step change was essential to tackle the challenges of a rapidly changing population, the needs of the economy and the serious housing shortages in London and the south-east. The action programme set out the policy, resources and partnerships required to achieve that change. It also set out the need for key growth areas such as the Milton Keynes and south midlands area, which was already demonstrating a dramatic capacity for economic success.

  761
  The progress report that was published in July identified the Milton Keynes and south midlands growth area as a key link between the midlands and the south-east. It also made it clear that regional and local partners have launched proposals for public consultation on total growth, which would provide 134,000 new homes by 2016 in the main growth locations throughout the sub-region—and thus generate an additional 44,000 homes by 2016 above current planning targets.
  Andrew Selous: Will the Minister kindly tell the House what is wrong with having a much larger number of smaller-scale developments integrated organically into existing communities rather than four massive areas around London, which will come with a whole host of social problems?
  Yvette Cooper: The hon. Gentleman is right that we need new developments with different kinds of housing and mixed developments whenever possible. We have strongly promoted such developments on brownfield sites in existing communities—that is the direction in which we are moving. Additionally, we have identified key growth areas where detailed local studies have shown that substantial further expansion can be supported and, indeed, where such expansion is required because of the extent of the need for additional local housing that is coming from London and the south-east and the genuine pressures that we must all recognise. That means that Aylesbury Vale district council's existing regional planning guidance allocation of 11,400 extra homes by 2016 will increase to 16,400 extra homes, and the three regional assemblies are formally taking that proposal forward through the planning process. The regional assemblies include local councillors. When completed, the planning proposals will alter existing regional planning guidance.
  The planning consultation for the area was published in July, with the 12-week initial consultation period ending on 13 October. During that time, two public consultation events were held at Aylesbury in August. Given the understandable insistence on the need for consultation, I assure hon. Members that that stage was the first part of an extensive round of public participation undertaken before finalising the regional planning guidance towards the end of next year.
  Before the proposals are finalised, there will be a public examination, run by an independent panel; that will be held in March 2004. It will scrutinise all the proposals, including those for Aylesbury. Further public consultation on the proposed changes will be undertaken later in 2004 before the alterations are finalised. We are still some way off the end of the consultation process. Once regional planning guidance is finalised, local development documents will cover the area and will involve consultation arrangements for the locality.
  I stress that the proposals are draft proposals by the regional assemblies. They will continue through the process of public consultation for some time. The regional planning documents are not intended to be site specific, but to give a broad strategic view of the way
  762
  forward. It may reassure hon. Members to know that the Government's response to the current consultation is that the draft proposals are too site specific and that more strategic criteria are required to allow local communities to determine where and how the additional development is provided.
  The proposals present considerable opportunities to Aylesbury Vale district council and Aylesbury itself in terms of the role and functions it may develop. It might be possible to utilise the growth to deliver urban renaissance, especially in the town centre, and to attract higher-value inward investment. Opportunities are likely to be sought to promote urban intensification of existing residential areas and, through the redevelopment of redundant employment land, to minimise development on greenfield land. We should recognise that many of those areas have relatively low density of housing compared with other regions.
  Hon. Members mentioned infrastructure. That is extremely important. The communities plan sets out that growth areas must not be dormitories; they must be communities. That also depends on providing good quality community infrastructure.
  I recognise the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Buckingham about the historical record. New developments have taken place without the necessary infrastructure being in place. The purpose of the communities plan is to indicate a substantial change in that approach and to recognise the importance of infrastructure.
  We have already provided additional Government funds of £11.4 million to pump-prime the delivery of growth in Milton Keynes and Aylesbury, showing our commitment to the area. Aylesbury Vale district council prepared a number of bids from the additional money. Its bid for specialist advice and a strategy action plan, together with a study for promoting and unlocking opportunities and areas for mixed development, were successful. We are considering the Kingsbury project, which would help to regenerate Kingsbury town centre. In addition, we are also funding studies covering the whole growth area, including one relating to health and hospital provision.
  We are also considering transport infrastructure. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport announced on 9 July a package of improvements worth £2.2 billion across the growth areas. That will support links from Milton Keynes to Aylesbury and public transport improvements that are being worked up in Aylesbury itself.
  Mr. Bercow rose—
  Yvette Cooper: I cannot give way because I am short of time. I am, however, happy to discuss the issue with hon. Members after the debate.
  We are at the beginning of the process. Many infrastructure issues will need to be dealt with over the coming period. That is why we are funding a local delivery vehicle for Aylesbury to involve local partners and to anticipate what the infrastructure needs might be. At the Milton Keynes and south midlands level, we are establishing an inter-regional board to be chaired by my noble Friend Lord Rooker. It will bring together representatives from the delivery agencies at the highest

  763
  possible level to focus on the areas where high-level executive intervention is necessary to achieve the delivery of the sub-regional infrastructure. The board will start by establishing infrastructure priorities and core needs to deliver the growth area proposals. Much of that work still needs to be done, and will include infrastructure and services such as highways, education, health services, environmental requirements, utilities and community facilities, as well as other infrastructure such as public transport, emergency services, community support and social services. All the key organisations need to be involved.
  We recognise that infrastructure is critical to ensure that the growth areas are successful. There are considerable opportunities for Aylesbury Vale district council to take advantage of, both in new inward investment and opportunities for growth, and I hope that the local partners will work together to make the most of them. The Government are keen to support the developing opportunities to build the Aylesbury communities so that they can prosper in future.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at four minutes to Eight o'clock.

  Deferred Division

    RECOVERY PLAN FOR COD AND THE RECOVERY OF THE NORTHERN HAKE STOCK
    That this House takes note of European Union Documents No. 9081/03, draft Council Regulation establishing measures for the recovery of cod stocks, and No. 10980/03, draft Council Regulation establishing measures for the recovery of the Northern hake stock; welcomes the Government's support of the adoption of recovery plans for cod and hake in which effort control and other measures can play a part, and also supports the Government's intention to ensure a close dialogue with the fishing industry in developing these plans.
    The House divided: Ayes 251, Noes 168.

    Division No. 334]

    AYES

    Ainger, Nick

    Cummings, John

    Ainsworth, Bob (Cov'try NE)

    Cunningham, Jim (Coventry S)

    Alexander, Douglas

    Cunningham, Tony (Workington)

    Allen, Graham

    Dalyell, Tam

    Armstrong, rh Ms Hilary

    Darling, rh Alistair

    Atherton, Ms Candy

    Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)

    Atkins, Charlotte

    David, Wayne

    Bailey, Adrian

    Davidson, Ian

    Banks, Tony

    Davies, Geraint (Croydon C)

    Beard, Nigel

    Dean, Mrs Janet

    Beckett, rh Margaret

    Denham, rh John

    Benn, Hilary

    Dhanda, Parmjit

    Bennett, Andrew

    Dismore, Andrew

    Berry, Roger

    Dobbin, Jim (Heywood)

    Betts, Clive

    Doran, Frank

    Blackman, Liz

    Drew, David (Stroud)

    Blair, rh Tony

    Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)

    Blizzard, Bob

    Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)

    Blunkett, rh David

    Edwards, Huw

    Boateng, rh Paul

    Ennis, Jeff (Barnsley E)

    Borrow, David

    Farrelly, Paul

    Bradley, rh Keith (Withington)

    Field, rh Frank (Birkenhead)

    Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)

    Fitzpatrick, Jim

    Bradshaw, Ben

    Flint, Caroline

    Brennan, Kevin

    Follett, Barbara

    Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

    Foster, Michael (Worcester)

    Bryant, Chris

    Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings & Rye)

    Buck, Ms Karen

    Burnham, Andy

    Francis, Dr. Hywel

    Cairns, David

    Gapes, Mike (Ilford S)

    Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)

    Gardiner, Barry

    Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)

    Gerrard, Neil

    Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)

    Gilroy, Linda

    Caplin, Ivor

    Goggins, Paul

    Casale, Roger

    Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

    Caton, Martin

    Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

    Cawsey, Ian (Brigg)

    Grogan, John

    Chaytor, David

    Hain, rh Peter

    Clark, Mrs Helen (Peterborough)

    Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)

    Clark, Paul (Gillingham)

    Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

    Clarke, rh Charles (Norwich S)

    Hamilton, David (Midlothian)

    Clarke, rh Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

    Hanson, David

    Clarke, rh Tom (Coatbridge & Chryston)

    Harman, rh Ms Harriet

    Havard, Dai (Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney)

    Clelland, David

    Clwyd, Ann (Cynon V)

    Healey, John

    Coaker, Vernon

    Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

    Coffey, Ms Ann

    Heppell, John

    Cooper, Yvette

    Hermon, Lady

    Corbyn, Jeremy

    Hewitt, rh Ms Patricia

    Cousins, Jim

    Heyes, David

    Cranston, Ross

    Hill, Keith (Streatham)

    Crausby, David

    Hodge, Margaret

    Cruddas, Jon

    Hope, Phil (Corby)

    Cryer, Ann (Keighley)

    Hopkins, Kelvin

    765

    Howarth, rh Alan (Newport E)

    Palmer, Dr. Nick

    Hoyle, Lindsay

    Perham, Linda

    Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

    Picking, Anne

    Humble, Mrs Joan

    Pickthall, Colin

    Iddon, Dr. Brian

    Pike, Pater (Burnley)

    Jackson, Glenda (Hampstead & Highgate)

    Plaskitt, James

    Pollard Kerry

    Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

    Pond, Chris (Gravesham)

    Jenkins, Brian

    Pound, Stephen

    Johnson, Alan (Hull W)

    Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)

    Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)

    Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)

    Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

    Prosser. Gwyn

    Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

    Purchase, Ken

    Jowell, rh Tessa

    Quin, rh Joyce

    Keeble, Ms Sally

    Quinn, Lawrie

    Keen, Alan (Feltham)

    Rammell, Bill

    Kelly, Ruth (Bolton W)

    Raynsford, rh Nick

    Kemp, Fraser

    Reed, Andy (Loughborough)

    Kidney, David

    Robertson, John (Glasgow Anniasland)

    King, Andy (Rugby)

    King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green & Bow)

    Roche, Mrs Barbara

    Rooney, Terry

    Knight, Jim (S Dorset)

    Ross, Enie (Dundee W)

    Kumar, Dr. Ashok

    Ruddock, Joan

    Ladyman, Dr. Stephen

    Russell, Ms Christine (City of Chester)

    Lammy, David

    Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

    Ryan, Joan (Enfield N)

    Laxton, Bob (Derby N)

    Salter, Martin

    Lazarowicz, Mark

    Savidge, Malcolm

    Leslie, Christopher

    Sawford, Phil

    Levitt, Tom (High Peak)

    Shaw, Jonathan

    Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

    Sherman, Barry

    Liddell, rh Mrs Helen

    Sheridan, Jim

    Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

    Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)

    Love, Andrew

    Smith, rh Andrew (Oxford E)

    Lucas, Ian (Wrexham)

    Smith, Angela (Basildon)

    Luke, Iain (Dundee E)

    Smith, rh Chris (Islington S & Finsbury)

    McAvoy, Thomas

    McCabe, Stephen

    Smith, Geraldine (Morecambe & Lunesdale)

    McCartney, rh Ian

    McDonagh, Siobhain

    Smith, John (Glamorgan)

    MacDonald, Calum

    Starkey, Dr. Phyllis

    MacDougall, John

    Steinberg, Gerry

    McFall, John

    Stewart, David (Inverness E & Locheber)

    McGuire, Mrs Anne

    Mclsaac, Shona

    Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

    McKechin, Ann

    Strang, rh Dr. Gavin

    McKenna, Rosemary

    Stuart, Ms Gisela

    McNulty, Tony

    Sutcliffe Gerry

    MacShane, Denis

    Tami, Mark (Alyn)

    Mactaggart, Fiona

    Taylor, Dari (Stockton S)

    Mahmood, Khalid

    Taylor, David (NW Leics)

    Mahon, Mrs Alice

    Thomas, Gareth (Harrow W)

    Mallaber, Judy

    Timms, Stephen

    Mann, John (Bassetlaw)

    Tipping, Paddy

    Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)

    Todd, Mark (S Derbyshire)

    Marshall, David (Glasgow Shettleston)

    Touhig, Don (Islwyn)

    Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

    Martlew, Eric

    Turner, Dr. Desmond (Brighton Kemptown)

    Merron, Gillian

    Michael, rh Alun

    Turner, Neil (Wigan)

    Miliband, David

    Twigg, Derek (Halton)

    Miller, Andrew

    Tynan, Bill (Hamilton S)

    Moffatt, Laura

    Walley, Ms Joan

    Mole, Chris

    Wareing, Robert N.

    Moran, Margaret

    Watson, Tom (W Bromwich E)

    Morgan, Julie

    Watts, David

    Mountford, Kali

    White, Brian

    Munn, Ms Meg

    Wicks, Malcolm

    Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)

    Williams, rh Alan (Swansea W)

    Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)

    Williams, Betty (Conwy)

    O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

    Winnick, David

    O'Neill, Martin

    Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)

    Organ, Diana

    Owen, Albert

    Woolas, Phil

    766

    Wright, Anthony D. (Gt Yarmouth)

    Wright, Tony (Cannock)

    Wyatt, Derek

    Wright, David (Telford)

    NOES

    Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

    Hawkins, Nick

    Allan, Richard

    Hayes, John (S Holland)

    Ancram, rh Michael

    Heald, Oliver

    Arbuthnot, rh James

    Heath, David

    Bacon, Richard

    Hendry, Charles

    Baker, Norman

    Hoban, Mark (Fareham)

    Barker, Gregory

    Holmes, Paul

    Baron, John (Billericay)

    Howard, rh Michael

    Barrett, John

    Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

    Beith, rh A. J.

    Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)

    Bellingham, Henry

    Hunter, Andrew

    Bercow, John

    Jenkin, Bernard

    Beresford, Sir Paul

    Johnson, Boris (Henley)

    Blunt, Crispin

    Knnedy, rh Charles (Ross Skye & Inverness)

    Boswell, Tim

    Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

    Key, Robert (Salisbury)

    Brady, Graham

    Kirkwood, Sir Archy

    Brake, Tom (Carshalton)

    Knight, rh Greg (E Yorkshire)

    Brazier, Julian

    Laing, Mrs Eleanor

    Breed, Colin

    Lait, Mrs Jacqui

    Brooke, Mrs Annette L

    Laws, David (Yeovil)

    Bruce, Malcolm

    Letwin, rh Oliver

    Burnett, John

    Lewis, Dr. Julian (New Forest E)

    Burnside, David

    Liddell-Grainger, Ian

    Burt, Alistair

    Lidington, David

    Butterfill, John

    Lilley, rh Peter

    Cable, Dr. Vincent

    Llwyd, Elfyn

    Calton, Mrs Patsy

    Loughton, Tim

    Cameron, David

    Luff, Peter (M-Worcs)

    Campbell, rh Menzies (NE Fife)

    McIntosh, Miss Anne

    Carmichael, Alistair

    Mackay, rh Andrew

    Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)

    McLoughlin, Patrick

    Malins, Humfrey

    Chope, Christopher

    Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

    Maples, John

    Cormack Sir, Patrick

    Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury & Atcham)

    Cotter, Brian

    Davey, Edward (Kingston)

    Maude, rh Francis

    Davies, Quentin (Grantham & Stamford)

    Mawhinney, rh Sir Brian

    May, Mrs Theresa

    Davis, rh David (Haltemprice & Howden)

    Moore, Michael

    Moss, Malcolm

    Djanogly, Jonathan

    Norman, Archie

    Dodds, Nigel

    O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)

    Donaldson, Jeffrey M.

    Öpik, Lembit

    Doughty Sue, S

    Osborne, George (Tatton)

    Duncan, Alan (Rutland)

    Paice, James

    Duncan, Peter (Galloway)

    Paterson, Owen

    Duncan Smith, rh Iain

    Pickles, Eric

    Evans, Nigel

    Portillo, rh Michael

    Ewing, Annabelle

    Prisk, Mark (Hertford)

    Fallon, Michael

    Pugh, Dr. John

    Field, Mark (Cities of London & Westminster)

    Randall, John

    Reid, Alan (Argyll & Bute)

    Flight, Howard

    Robathan, Andrew

    Flook, Adrian

    Robertson, Angus (Moray)

    Francois, Mark

    Robertson, Hugh (Faversham & M-Kent)

    Gale, Roger (N Thanet)

    Garnier, Edward

    Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)

    George, Andrew (St Ives)

    Robinson, Mrs Iris (Strangford)

    Gibb, Nick (Bognor Regis)

    Roe, Mrs Marion

    Gidley, Sandra

    Rosindell, Andrew

    Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

    Ruffley, David

    Goodman, Paul

    Russell, Bob (Colchester)

    Gray, James (N Wilts)

    Salmond, Alex

    Grayling, Chris

    Sanders, Adrian

    Green, Damian (Ashford)

    Sayeed, Jonathan

    Green, Matthew (Ludlow)

    Selous, Andrew

    Grieve, Dominic

    Simmonds, Mark

    Hague, rh William

    Simpson, Keith (M-Norfolk)

    Hammond, Philip

    Skinner, Dennis

    767

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

    Taylor, Ian (Esher)

    Taylor, John (Solihull)

    Smyth, Rev. Martin (Belfast S)

    Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

    Spelman, Mrs Caroline

    Taylor, Sir Teddy

    Spicer, Sir Michael

    Teather, Sarah

    Spink, Bob (Castle Point)

    Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

    Spring, Richard

    Tredinnick, David

    Stanley, rh Sir John

    Turner, Andrew (Isle of Wight)

    Syms, Robert

    Tyler, Paul (N Cornwall)

    Tapsell, Sir Peter

    Tyrie, Andrew

    768

    Waterson, Nigel

    Williams, Hywel (Caernarfon)

    Watkinson, Angela

    Williams, Roger (Brecon)

    Webb, Steve (Northavon)

    Willis, Phil

    Weir, Michael

    Wilshire, David

    Whittingdale, John

    Winterton, Ann (Congleton)

    Wiggin, Bill

    Winterton, Sir Nicholas (Macclesfield)

    Wilkinson, John

    Willetts, David

    Younger-Ross, Richard

    Question accordingly agreed to.

Preamble
[DAVID TAYLOR in the Chair]

Law Commission Report (Child Deaths)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—[paul Clark.]
9.30 am
Dr. Desmond Turner: The publication of the Law Commission report represents what I hope is nearly the end of a saga. For me, it has been going on for at least five years; for many others involved in child protection, it has been going on much longer.
Over the past five years, while the topic has been under earnest debate, approximately 750 children will have been killed or seriously injured by their parents or carers. That gives us an insight into the scale of the problem. Of those deaths and injuries, few will have resulted in prosecution—and virtually none in prosecution for an offence that reflects the gravity of the crimes that have been committed.
The problem first came to my attention when a series of babies in my constituency died over a number of years. Only with the last two deaths was it realised that the deaths were not accidental but were the result of gross neglect and physical abuse. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children reports of those cases made the same sort of harrowing and grisly reading as the account given in the Climbié report.
Not unnaturally, the matter was taken very seriously. It was the result of a total failure on the part of the child protection services, and it led to a prosecution. The parents were jointly charged with murder. However, the trial did not proceed far: the judge stopped it, I think even before the prosecution had finished their case, on the ground that it was not possible to bring a safe conviction against either parent because, from the evidence given to the court, it was not possible to decide who had done it.
That is the nub of the problem of joint enterprise. Everybody knows that one or both members of a couple—or even more—must be guilty of a serious crime, yet it is impossible to find evidence to decide which of them struck the fatal blow. I hasten to add that there was a successful prosecution of the couple in the end, but only for neglect. They received prison sentences of one and a half years and two and a half years respectively, and were probably released almost immediately.
My first action on hearing of that case was to see the then Home Secretary, together with the detective inspector who had been involved in the case, and relatives, to put to him the seriousness of such cases and the fact that gaps not only in the provisions of the law but in court procedures and rules of evidence had prevented a successful prosecution. The Home Secretary was sympathetic and promised that he would refer the case. He then referred it to Lord Justice Auld, who was conducting a review of the judicial system. It
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was later referred to the Law Commission for consideration. After years of earnest deliberation, we finally have the commission's report.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children convened a working group with the aim of gaining an idea of the number of such cases in the country. The same detective inspector undertook an intelligence-gathering exercise involving 43 police forces in England and Wales, the results of which were disturbing. He found that in the three years covered by the investigation, an average of three children under 10 were either killed or seriously injured every week. Of those cases, 83 per cent. involved children under two. In 61 per cent. of cases, there was no prosecution because of decisions taken by the police or the Crown Prosecution Service. There were convictions in only 27 per cent. of those cases, and those were only for the relatively minor offences of neglect or cruelty.
The disturbing situation is that murder—the only reasonable desrciption—is being committed with impunity by parents or carers, and that there are no prosecutions because of the conundrum of not knowing who did it. If neither party is prepared to give evidence against the other, it is difficult to decide who did it. I cannot imagine that the police or the CPS would allow an adult murder to go unpunished and unprosecuted so easily.
It is a sad fact that the authorities do not pursue cases involving the deaths of small children with the vigour appropriate to the gravity of murder. I put it to hon. Members that the unlawful death of a human being is equally grave whether the victim is one month old or 70 years old. How can we resolve the imbalance of justice that allows the most serious of crimes to go unpunished in literally hundreds of cases? The balance of justice is very much tilted in favour of the perpetrator of the crime because of the perfectly natural and laudable legal principle that before a person can be convicted of a serious crime, one must be absolutely confident that he or she did it.
Unfortunately, that principle gets in the way of successful prosecution. That is echoed in the Law Commission's early consultative report, which states:
"We conclude that there is ample evidence from disparate sources that the present rules of evidence and procedure which apply in criminal trials represent a significant obstacle to effective investigation into and identification and punishment of those who are guilty of the most serious offences against the most vulnerable member of society. Furthermore, the alternative offences, for which the present rules and procedures do permit convictions, do not appear satisfactorily to reflect the responsibility for the death of a child, either through the labelling of the offence which attaches to the conduct or in the severity of the penalties available."
I doubt whether anyone would disagree with those words. What we need now is action. For many years, learned colleagues have cogitated on it and, until now, failed to find a way through the dilemma. Sooner or later, in every judge's deliberation, the classic case of Lane and Lane comes up, and we can go no further.
The question is what to do in a situation in which it is known, beyond all reasonable doubt, that either one or both of two people were responsible for a capital offence. Clearly, it is not possible to prosecute for the full gravity of murder in such circumstances. However, the original proposal, which was the line of thinking of

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the then Home Secretary, was a slightly lesser offence of killing as a result of cruelty, which would carry a sentence of, say, up to 14 years, which can be prosecuted according to the lesser standard of evidence, as long as we are confident that the murderer or murderers were part of a couple. That is what we have come back to.
I submit that that is reasonable, because even if one of the couple was completely innocent of throwing the baby at the wall, for example, they were complicit in, or at the very least accessories to, the act of murder by virtue of their silence, given that they knew the circumstances, and of their failure to take steps to protect the child. It would be reasonable, in such circumstances, to prosecute for joint enterprise. That also means changing the rules of evidence and procedures in court, and the Law Commission's recommendations coincide reasonably with the amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill tabled by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) and me. We did not press it to a Division, as we were awaiting the outcome of the Law Commission's report, which is now before us.
I remind the Minister that Baroness Gould tabled the same amendment in the House of Lords, which corresponds to, takes into account and anticipates the Law Commission's recommendations. There is still time for the Government to incorporate them into the Criminal Justice Bill by accepting the amendment. I await my hon. Friend's response to that fact with great interest.
Alternatively, the Government could proceed by putting the Law Commission's recommendations into effect on their own. I hope that my hon. Friend will tell me that they will do so. The recommendations are couched at great length in legal language, but the nub of them is fairly simple: the offence of killing by cruelty; a further offence of failing to protect; the requirement for a judge to allow the full case to be presented to the court before intervening to prevent the possibility of what he believes could be an unsafe conviction; and for the court to be able to draw conclusions from the silence of either or both of the accused, so that the court can bring in a verdict under the conditions of joint enterprise.
If the Government are not minded to accept the amendment, which is currently being considered in the House of Lords, I seek an assurance that they will legislate to put the recommendations into effect at the earliest opportunity. The current Home Secretary, Lord Falconer and the Solicitor-General have assured me that the Government have a strong will to do so. I will put my hon. Friend on the spot—that is what Ministers are for—by seeking from him an assurance that the Government will accept the legislative opportunity offered by our amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill or that the Queen's Speech will announce a domestic violence Bill that incorporates the new charges and changes to rules of evidence that arise from the report's recommendations.
This is a very serious matter. The current situation totally undermines the work of child protection agencies. It is not that prosecution by itself is necessarily a deterrent—we know that the abolition of the death penalty made no difference to the incidence of murder—but that society expects a reasonable degree of
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punishment for a very serious offence. It can do nothing for the morale of social workers, investigating police officers or health visitors, who must go through some difficult exercises to do their work, to know that they will end up with no result other than a dead child. It is therefore essential that this large gap in the operation of the legal system should be plugged at the earliest opportunity. We do not guarantee that this will stop parents from neglecting, battering or murdering their children, but it will contribute to a reduction in the incidence of such horrendous occurrences.
9.49 am
Tim Loughton: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this subject, in which I have been interested for a number of years, both as Front-Bench spokesman on children's issues and from constituency experience, which the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner) knows well. I congratulate him on raising the subject again in this Chamber. As he said, he has been involved with it before. Uncharacteristically, I want wholeheartedly to support his case and the comments that he eloquently made. As he says, there is a gap in the law that must be plugged: it amounts, literally, to adults getting away with murder.
We in Sussex know—all too well, sadly—the problems of child abuse, cruelty and murder. The hon. Gentleman recounted several cases from his constituency, and I want to refer to a specific case that happened in my own. There was the murder of Sarah Payne a few years ago. I have been attempting to push the child rescue alert scheme, which was piloted by Sussex police, as a means of countering child abductions. The Minister knows that we currently have a few problems with that; I am glad that I shall meet his colleagues in due course.
Part of the problem nationally is that too many children are still being killed, let alone suffering abuse and serious injury, at the hands of their parents or carers. The number of children who die at the hands of their parents or carers is still said to average 79 or 80 a year, of whom—incredibly—over half are under the age of one. That figure has been fairly consistent over a number of years, despite improvements in the system of detection, and a greater awareness of child abuse problems, and it is still alarmingly high. We hope that improvements will take place as a result of Lord Laming's Climbié report, and the Green Paper that the Government announced last month, which we greatly welcome—but the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, and we need to see much more detail. We hope that, as part of the linking exercise between those who come into contact with children—be it social workers, teachers, GPs, other health workers, or police—that we can do something to bring down that number of deaths. At the same time, the point of today's debate, and the required legislation, is to ensure that the deterrent against those parents or carers who commit such heinous crimes is of sufficient severity to discourage them from doing so. A two-pronged approach is needed, which is why it is right that the hon. Gentleman proposes changes in the law.
The NSPCC, working with the Sussex police child protection unit, has done a lot of work on the subject. The hon. Gentleman referred to a study in which it

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considered a number of cases of non-accidental child deaths at the hands of carers, and surveyed 366 cases. In 225 cases, no further action was taken, not even the charging of parents or carers with a lesser offence—those cases never even proceeded to court. The perpetrators obviously got away with their crimes scot free. There were convictions in only 99 of those 366 cases, very few of which were for murder, as most were on lesser charges. The indictment rate for such cases has also been falling in recent years. It seems that the law is not being tightened up; if anything, it is going the opposite way.
I have taken up the issue in most of the six years that I have been in the House. Earlier this year, I revisited the subject with a private Member's Bill, urging the Government to do something about the joint enterprise loophole. What brought my attention to it was the case in my constituency in 1999. A four-year-old, John Smith, who I think was in the care of Brighton and Hove social services, had been placed with foster carers in Fishersgate in my constituency. The carers were the child's prospective adopters and were apparently sufficiently trusted by social services to put him in their care.
On Christmas eve 1999, the child died from brain injuries after six months of systematic abuse, resulting in 54 bruises, three adult bite marks and numerous burns being found on the body when the child eventually succumbed to the abuse. Those responsible, Simon and Michelle McWilliams, were prosecuted. In 2001, they were jailed for eight years, but on a charge of cruelty rather than murder, because each one denied responsibility and did not try to pin it on the other, so the joint enterprise loophole came into play. Amazingly, the couple appealed against their conviction, but fortunately the appeal was turned down and they are still serving part of that eight-year sentence—they could well be out in four years for good behaviour.
The verdict was an enormous blow to all the people who knew that the parents were guilty of a much more serious offence than cruelty. The report had enormous ramifications: social workers lost their jobs and health workers, including my constituents, were heavily criticised. Systemic failures were exposed in the case, and we hope that the Green Paper recommendations will resolve them. The frustration and demoralisation of professional workers who just want to do their best for the young people in their care is enormous when they see people getting away with murder altogether or facing much lesser charges.
The Government must revisit this issue. Whether through the amendment in the House of Lords, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, or otherwise, we need to find a solution to plug the loophole. I am not a lawyer and do not know the technicalities of what would and would not wash in the legal system. However, I do know that a solution must be found and I support his proposal, as I, too, have suggested that there should be a charge of killing by cruelty, for which the sentence would typically be a maximum of 14 years.
The hon. Gentleman spoke about a responsibility on a parent or carer to have a joint duty of care for the welfare of the child and to take action if he or she reasonably believes that the partner is abusing the child. We can learn from the Scottish system. Changes made
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to Scottish law in the 1990s introduced a duty of care over children for whom parents or carers had a joint responsibility.
I do not suggest any practical, specific solutions at this stage, but I add my weight to the case advanced by the hon. Gentleman. The number of children who are abused and killed in our society is a terrible indictment of it, certainly when compared with the experience in other European countries. There must be a two-pronged solution. We need a better system working to prevent such cases, with properly joined-up professionals who are properly in touch with the intelligence on the ground and who have the power and the teeth to do something about it. The buck should stop with the person who can ensure that something is brought to bear. Equally, the law must be tightened up so that anyone who is minded—incredibly—to inflict the terrible injuries on children that we all find extraordinary will think twice about the odds of being prosecuted and the severity of the implications of a successful prosecution. At present, the chances of a serious prosecution with serious consequences are simply not high enough to act as a deterrent.
I hope that the Minister will take those points on board and that we can see a change in the law to make such child killings a real offence, punishable by a charge equivalent to murder.
9.59 am
Vera Baird: First, I apologise for my late arrival, which was attributable to the Victoria line for about the 15th time in the past few weeks. It is discourteous of me, and it also means that I did not hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner) said. If I start to repeat what he said, I hope that someone will pull a face at me. I pay tribute to both him and the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). Both have worked with great fortitude to change the anomaly in the law, and I am pleased to be able to add my support.
Reference has been made to the work done by an NSPCC committee, which collected figures on children who are killed or receive serious injury. I heard the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham talking about the numbers—476 children in three years, which amounts to three a week. On those figures, by far the highest homicide rates for both males and females are among infants. A casual thinker might guess that young men between the ages cf 18 and 20 or 25 were the most likely people to be killed. In fact, 33 such young men per million are killed by homicide, whereas 44 little boys per million are murdered.
The causes of death are almost as horrific as the numbers. More than 60 per cent. of the 476 deaths were caused by either a skull fracture or an intracranial injury, including a haemorrhage, which suggests that the child was shaken, thrown against a wall or banged on the head. Another 10 per cent. of deaths were from suffocation or strangulation. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham noted the different figures. Let me specify the important one: only a quarter of the cases that were reviewed resulted in a successful prosecution.
As the hon. Gentleman demonstrated, and I am sure that it was said earlier too, that is principally because few cases go to court. When cases reach court, the

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conviction rate is well above average, but few get there. The point has also been made that although the rate is above average, convictions are often for a lesser offence, under section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1963.
Like others, I must pay tribute to the NSPCC's work and the "Which of You Did It?" working group, which has been chaired by Judge Isobel Plumstead and in progress since 2000. A principal reason why convictions are difficult is that more than one person often bears direct responsibility for the child's death. Even when they are not killed, small children are often unable to say who harmed them, and a child old enough to give information is rarely able to go to court.
Carers cannot be compelled to give an account, as there is a justifiable privilege against self-incrimination in court. I have never understood why people are surprised about that privilege. People cannot be forced to talk; we do not torture them. However, we can back up the exercise of that right with consequences if it is unreasonably exercised.
As I am sure that others have referred to the case of Lane and Lane, I shall do so fleetingly. It ruled that in the absence of evidence that indicated which person of several had inflicted assault or that they acted together, none of the people involved could be convicted of murder or manslaughter. In some cases, conviction for cruelty or neglect under section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1963 might follow, but there is no reason to settle for that. If a person has been killed at the hand of another, the right charge is murder or manslaughter, depending on how the facts marry up. There is nothing to justify having only lesser charges available when the killing is of the most vulnerable youthful members of society.
Section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1963 has served as an excellent back-stop in many cases, but even that is sometimes difficult to achieve. The law was not designed to be the way it is, and nobody wants it to be so. We have a common-law system and a non-codified criminal system, which means that if an issue arises in a trial or on appeal, the decision in strict law is made in a piecemeal way and is specific to the case. That then stands as a precedent for other cases that cannot be distinguished from it, unless or until it is overturned by a higher court.
One could never have expected the Lane and Lane case to be overturned in a higher court, because it conforms to the main principles of criminal evidence and justice. The courts do not say, "This is not how it should be, so we will change it." They apply the law; they do not take into account what might be called public policy if it conflicts with ordinary criminal law. They take little account of what is desirable in society, or in that case, of what is utterly undesirable. In Lane and Lane, the Court of Appeal said that, distressing though it may be, a serious crime is likely to go unpunished. It is absolutely certain that one of two people in that case, and in most such cases, committed the most serious offence known in law on a child, so that statement was a significant understatement.
Lane and Lane took place in 1987. The verdict was never morally correct, as opposed to technically correct in the limited confines in which judges are allowed to
262WH
think. For 17 years that has been the law, and nobody has done anything significant about it, although many social workers and CPS lawyers have tried to find a way around it, usually through section 1. However, that law has prevailed, many children have been killed, and many deaths have gone unpunished for an extremely long time.
For the courts, it represents what Lord Justice Buxton described to the Law Commission as a
"depressingly accurate account of the way in which the courts have felt obliged to subordinate the particular interests of child protection to the demands of general and non-situation specific rules of English procedure".
It is curious that judges have the responsibility to apply the law systematically and almost mechanistically. When they see, as they must, something wrong with that application, there is no systematic channel for ensuring that that news passes to those who could, many years ago if the will and knowledge had been available, have done something to change it.
Before I discuss the current proposals for change, I want to point out that the figures collected by Judge Plumstead's working group showed a large discrepancy in the outcome of such cases among the police forces that were surveyed. The figures are small, so not too much can be based on them, but it is worth noting that although the West Midlands force achieved a successful prosecution in 50 per cent. of all cases that came to it—not just those that it took to court—in Essex, there were only four successful prosecutions, which represent 8 per cent. of the total. The remainder of cases in Essex resulted in no further action and did not get near court. That is a massive discrepancy between the two.
It is possible that, because of Lane and Lane, which has existed for so long, police, CPS lawyers, lawyers at court and judges may have developed the idea that there is not much prospect of success if there is a possibility that two or more people committed the offence. That may then become a self-fulfilling prophecy, rather analogous to the way in which rape has historically been treated. If there is perceived to be only a remote prospect of a successful outcome, it is probable that less effort is put in all the way along—for example, there might be insufficient active investigation to try to secure evidence that would point to A as opposed to B.
There is also the possibility of the impact of imminent legislative changes. I am strongly opposed to the admission of previous convictions in prosecutions because those convictions are there. However, if the Criminal Justice Bill successfully completes all its stages and is implemented, it will be possible for previous offences, acquittals and violent behaviour to be admissible, where relevant, in cases of this kind.
Before turning to the new proposals, I shall make only one further point, because it is difficult, in a debate of this sort, to have the sort of debate that one would have in Standing Committee about the technical nature of the law. However, I shall make that point as strongly as I can.
There is powerful evidence that cruelty to children, assaults on children, and killing of children are closely linked to domestic violence in general. As long ago as 1996, evidence presented by Brandon and Lewis showed that in half of 105 cases of children who had been killed or injured by a carer, domestic violence had taken place in those families.

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Two conclusions may be drawn from that. First, with regard to what I said earlier about the Criminal Justice Bill and the proposed wider admissibility of evidence of previous conduct, if domestic violence has occurred, there may be evidence of earlier violent conduct by one party or another, demonstrated by police call-outs.
Secondly, the domestic violence victim is a potential witness, particularly if the woman concerned called out the police. As we know, 90 per cent. of domestic violence is man on woman, so I shall speak as if the woman was the victim, while taking due regard of the fact that it is sometimes the other way around. As is fairly well known, women tolerate a very great deal in domestic violence cases. They sometimes ask for help and often stay even after the help has come, but it is often when an assault has occurred on a child that the link breaks, and the woman realises that she must make the move. An assault that results in death or serious injury can happen suddenly, so the woman has no time to protect against it or to leave, but in that situation she may be a useful witness, rather than a defendant.
However, the approach taken must be a cautious one. Women do not easily talk about domestic violence; it fills them with shame and guilt, and they are sometimes too afraid to talk about it. That represents a challenge for the police. They must be aware that there is a well-proven link between child killing or child injury and domestic violence against an adult partner, but it is critical that that issue is approached with care. It is also critical that policewomen be involved in that delicate area, and that both parties are represented by solicitors who understand the implications.
Even now, prior to any change in the law, some steps could be taken that might mean that more cases are successfully prosecuted. I have discussed the provisions of the Criminal Justice Bill and the understanding of the potential impact of domestic violence, which is likely to have been present, and have asked the question whether the existence of Lane and Lane for so long has led to a state of mind in which the police and the CPS do not pursue cases as actively as they should.
I respectfully suggest that a thematic review by the inspectorate of constabulary and the inspectorates of the CPS of how such cases are prosecuted would be a good step, pending legislation—I do not know when it will be possible to legislate, and I am as keen as other hon. Members who have spoken to encourage it quickly. That would not be like the usual inspections of police forces in, say, Cleveland or Essex; rather, we should look at all the police forces and ask how they are doing this. Is there best practice that can be learned from? Is there best practice that can increase the rate of conviction, even on the law as it currently stands?
In 2002 there was such a thematic review of the law on rape and how rape is prosecuted, which was very important indeed in unlocking some of the measures that are now being taken to improve prosecutions and convictions. A similar course could unlock some of the no further action cases and lead to more being carried on with, irrespective of any changes in the law. However, there are also good recommendations from the Law Commission for changes in the law, and I, too, urge that they be taken up quickly.
At trial, the prosecution go first and present their evidence. Given the evidence, they might say, "It's more likely to have been A," or, "It's more likely to have been
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B," or, "The circumstances suggest that they were working together on this," or, "In the instant when the action took place, they were of the same mind and are parties to a joint enterprise." If so, the case just stops, because the defence then have a right to say, "We don't have anything to answer here, as there is no case against either A or B." That has happened many, many times. A and B will have said nothing in the police station, and will of course never have to face the prospect of saying anything in court, because only the prosecution are heard from. The two do not have to answer if there is no case presented against them at court.
It is not the work of wicked lawyers to tell people not to speak, however. In the aftermath of Lane and Lane it would be gross negligence if a lawyer did not say to a person in the police station, "You must say what you wish, but let me tell you, if there is no evidence that picks out that it's either you or her, there will be no conviction against either of you."
There is an inference in the law from silence, but it does not work at that early stage, when the prosecution case is being called. It therefore cannot carry someone over that halfway stage, because they have not been given a chance to speak or say nothing in court in order to rectify their silence in the police station, so the inference does not work. There is an excellent proposal from the Law Commission that echoes the amendment that my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown and I tabled in Committee, which is that the right to submit that there is not a case for a defendant to answer should be deferred to the end of the defence case and not taken at the end of the prosecution case.
At first sight there is a logical inconsistency about that proposal, because it is a bit funny to make a submission that there is no case to answer after one has given one's evidence or chosen not to do so. However, that is just a pedantic turn of phrase. We need a system in which, because solicitors will perhaps for the first time not give such advice so freely, people will have to consult their conscience about what they intend to do. Their child or a child whose care they were responsible for has been killed. They are now before a court, a case has been presented and the jury are looking to them. Can they sit throughout the case when the judge says to their barrister, "Have you told this person that now is their opportunity to give their explanation? Have you told them that it can be held against them if they don't?" In such circumstances, people will find it far harder to keep their heads down and their mouths closed through that stage, and more are likely to speak.
The Law Commission also has a proposal to beef up the adverse inference that would follow if either or both of the accused did not speak. Once one has passed the end of the prosecution and has started on the defence, the adverse inference works—juries can draw such inference as they think proper from the failure of defendants to speak, and in many cases they will. However, there is an irony in that. Because one cannot carry the adverse inference over from the end of the prosecution case and set up a case to be answered, if there is no more evidence at the end of the defence case because the defence have not spoken at all, but have kept mum and brazened it out, there is no more evidence than there was at the halfway mark. Logically, the adverse inference should not carry one any further in the absence of positive evidence one way or the other.

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That is why the Law Commission proposes beefing up the process by setting up a statutory duty on a person who has care of a child, so that should anything happen to that child, he or she would have to give an account of how it occurred and what he or she knows about it. The Law Commission believes that that is key. It will permit more powerful adverse inference to be brought into play: in court, the moral pressure will be twice as large if one does not merely recite the ordinary rules but says, "You have a statutory duty to speak now," and the person still remains quiet. The Law Commission's view is that if somebody remains quiet in the face of that, the adverse inference should be large enough to allow for a conviction.
Mr. Dominic Grieve: Clearly, it will remain the case that, notwithstanding any adverse inference, if the evidence is not there at the close of the defence case—even with the statutory obligation to give an account—some prosecutions will have to be thrown out by the judge. That issue has troubled me, too. Can the hon. and learned Lady give examples of cases in which the statutory duty to give an account will make a difference if the evidence is not there in the first place that would have carried the prosecution through under the present rules?
Vera Baird:I know exactly what the hon. Gentleman means. While I was in durance vile on the Victoria line, I went step by step through the proposals, trying to cast my mind around what difference it would make in practice.
First, we should think about the period before trial and consider the police investigation. It would be a potent tool for police to tell people that they had a statutory duty to tell them what had happened, and that if they did not speak out either then or when the matter came to court, everybody would know that they had failed in their statutory duty. When the matter came to trial, it would also be a powerful tool for the judge to announce in the face of a jury that the person would be failing in that statutory duty by not speaking. I hope that the impact will be to encaurage more people to speak, but it might work in the odd case even if they do not.
Dr. Turner:Is this not a lesser problem than it might seem, because we are talking strictly about a situation in which we have hard evidence of every element apart from which defendant did it. We know that there is a dead child, and we are confident that one or both of the two people were responsible. It is a self-confining and self-defining situation, and the proposed new rules will put enormous pressure on both defendants, if they wish to defend themselves, to speak. If they fail to speak, they can be reasonably assumed to be guilty.
Vera Baird:I am grateful for my hon. Friend's intervention, although I do not entirely accept his last point. For instance, one would have to be very careful in a case where domestic violence could have taken place, because the victim of that violence may be intimidated and so not speak. Only the adverse inference that it is proper to draw can be drawn. If the jury think that A is
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not speaking because A is scared, or is protecting B rather than himself or herself, that will still lead to some difficulty. Creating a statutory duty, rather than leaving the law as it is now, can make a difference. All the pressure that I have referred to will come to bear on people, and will enter the mind of the jury as a factor for consideration.
A judge who thinks at the end of a defence case that there is no evidence that points either way or shows joint enterprise will still have a duty to throw out the prosecution. Some cases will have to be withdrawn; we are not legislating to achieve 100 per cent. convictions. In fact, it is probably not appropriate to have 100 per cent. convictions. However, we are trying to improve matters in the ways that we can.
As my hon. Friend said, one could envisage that in certain circumstances, where there was a dead child, the jury would see A and see B and assess from their silence in the face of their statutory duty whether the evidence about the circumstances allowed the view to be formed that the two might well have acted together. There are juries that convict because it is clear that two defendants are acting together in deciding not to speak. Members of the jury take back an inference that if the defendants are conspiring to keep quiet, it is probable that they conspired together before.
All such circumstances need to be examined carefully, and the jury will have to ask whether there is something in the evidence that, coupled with the silence of A and of B, makes it possible to be satisfied either that A is responsible, or that A and B were acting together. The extra power that the Law Commission proposes to add to that inference is probably important. It also suggests an extension of the section 1 offence, which would include neglect or assault from which death follows. That would be helpful, but it cannot be a substitute for charges of murder and manslaughter.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown and I toyed with another approach. That was to state that anybody with a duty to protect who is present when a child is killed or injured, is guilty, unless they could say that they took all reasonable and practical steps, and could satisfy the court that they did so. In other words, they would have to speak or they would be convicted. That would not reverse the burden of proof once they had spoken; that is, in a sense, the Law Commission's idea of a duty to explain—backed up by a conviction. That approach, however, is probably a step too far.
In the 1997 case to which the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham referred, an inquiry took place in Sussex. In April 2000, the police met the then Home Secretary, now Foreign Secretary, who said that the Home Office was urgently considering changing the law. The "Which of You Did It?" working group has been sitting since 2000.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown and I raised the issue at the outset of the Criminal Justice Bill. We both raised it in Committee. The then Home Office Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Hilary Benn) said that it is wrong that those who abuse children should be able to play the system and get away with it. The Law Commission was asked to produce a consultative document in haste, in the hope that something could be

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put into the Criminal Justice Bill. On Third Reading, the Home Secretary said that he was keen to legislate. Finally, last week, on 15 October in the other place, Baroness Scotland said that the Government were immensely keen to legislate. All of that has passed, the Law Commission has done its best and the final report of "Which of You Did It?" is imminent and is going to be far more about procedure and less about the law, because the Law Commission has dealt with that.
My question is now: have we not passed the stage at which asking as a tool for examination the rhetorical question, "Which of you did it?" has got to change to asking the Government directly, "When are you going to stop it?"?
10.30 am
Mr. David Heath: I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner) on having secured the debate. We have already heard two very important contributions. Sadly, the 10 minutes allotted to the Front Bench in these circumstances is barely adequate to cover a matter that has been niggling away for years. I pay tribute both to the hon. Members who have already spoken and to organisations such as the NSPCC and various constabularies, particularly that in Sussex, for taking the subject so seriously. They do so because all of us consider infanticide to be a uniquely repugnant crime and all of us are concerned about the apparent gap in the law that is so amply demonstrated by the huge disparity in the prosecution rates for those suspected of killing a child in their care and those suspected of killing a child who is a stranger. That tells an important story.
As has been said, we had a canter down this course during the Committee stage of the Criminal Justice Bill. I see many of the contributors to that debate in the Chamber today. As the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown and the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) know, in Committee I was very supportive of their amendment, with one exception. They included a provision for admitting pre-trial incriminating statements made by one defendant against another. I was unhappy with that, feeling that it was likely to be a breach of human rights legislation, and I am happy that the Law Commission formed the same view.
We need to dwell on what the Law Commission has said in dealing with the narrow legal points, but we should also recognise that there is a wider aspect to the matter. Improvements need desperately to be made in protection—I do not say deterrence, because I accept the view expressed by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) that deterrence is of limited value in this area. Protection is certainly a proper concern, and we should provide a better service to children and young people.
I would also consider investigation. I wholly endorse what the hon. and learned Lady said about a thematic review of both investigation and prosecution procedures. That is a sensible suggestion that should be acted on at the earliest opportunity. I also feel that there is a gap in paediatric pathology that needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. We do not necessarily have experts who are doing the job as well as they should be, and that has been illustrated in a number of cases.
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I am pleased that the Law Commission is absolutely clear about the need for the prosecution to prove that a crime has been committed before the rest of its provisions come into force. There have been serious question marks over some cases that have been brought even though it is not clear that a crime has been committed, and people have been wrongly convicted on the basis that a crime has been committed, although the event was happenstance or accident. We must clearly distinguish such cases, because to put them together is to confuse the situation.
Various hon. Members have referred to Lane and Lane, and I am not going to quote others unnecessarily. I think that the hon. and learned Lady quoted Lord Justice Croome Johnson. It is a huge misfortune that, so many years after that case, nothing has been done. Looking back, I was surprised that the royal commission on criminal justice in 1993 came to such a weak conclusion about identifying an area of difficulty. It did not accept an argument about evidence at that stage, and expressed sympathy about the public concern over such cases but did not come to firm conclusions. That was an error.
Since then, some cases have provided partial remedies. The Law Commission refers to them: in relation to inferring joint enterprise it refers to the cases of Marsh and Marsh v. Hodgson, and Russel and Russel, as well as matters relevant to increasing the penalties for lesser offences. However, it does not get to grips with the basic issue that the Law Commission has now addressed.
As we have heard, the Law Commission has made proposals relating to the evidential and procedural arguments, and to new offences, with the statutory statement of responsibility. I believe that that is a productive and beneficial move, which ties in with what hon. Members proposed for the Criminal Justice Bill. A knock-on consequence, which has been referred to briefly, is a requirement for separate legal advice for the parties in the case, because the possibility of conflict of interest becomes so much greater. That must apply from the moment of arrest and interview at the police station. A change in solicitors' procedure may be needed for such cases.
The second point made by the Law Commission is that in certain cases the judge may not decide whether the case should be withdrawn from the jury until the close of the defence case. The hon. and learned Member for Redcar explained the consequences of that. Her analysis is correct, and I support her in it. The Law Commission has also dealt with the inference from failure to provide evidence.
As to the new offences of cruelty contributing to death and failure to protect a child, I cannot believe that anyone would argue about the first of those. It is self-evidently a valuable prosecution tool that that offence should be available, to he treated with the greatest seriousness. There is an argument for extending the offence of failure to protect a child, to make it apply more widely than to those with the connections set out in the Law Commission framework, resulting in a wider and more general duty to protect a child. I can see that it would be a difficult matter to enforce or prosecute, but it might also be a useful deterrent in statute. I should like to explore that possibility further.

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The other question that needs to be discussed in relation to failure to protect a child is the maximum penalty of seven years. I can see the balancing act that the Law Commission is trying to carry out. Clearly, the offence is a lesser one than murder, but in some cases it may be a substitute for a murder charge. Is seven years the appropriate maximum penalty? I am not sure. In due course we shall need to address that matter.
What the Law Commission has come up with is a viable framework for reform, which appears in the draft Bill on offences against children. We have already heard that the Government are committed to act on this. The then Home Office Minister, who is now Secretary of State for International Development, said:
"We are committed to legislating en the matter, once we have found the right solution."
That was keeping the door open. He went on:
"We will then proceed with legislation as quickly as possible, either in the Bill if there is still time,"—
he was referring to the Criminal Justice Bill—
"or in a future Bill, because we are committed to making a difference on that aspect of the law."—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 4 March 2003; c. 1269.]
It is clear to me that the matter that we are considering is one of urgency in the law. The Law Commission has done good work on it. There remains theoretically an opportunity to amend the Criminal Justice Bill. I would understand if the Minister's response was to say that there are so many interconnections between the proposed legislation and other legislation currently passing through the House that it would be better to have a freestanding Bill in the next Session. If that is his argument, I will accept it, provided that there is indeed a freestanding Bill in the next Session. What I cannot countenance, and I hope that he will not accept this either, is the matter simply sitting on a shelf gathering dust while the situation described by the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown continues. This problem is susceptible to a remedy, which the Law Commission has pointed out, and it behoves Parliament to do its job by producing legislation at the earliest opportunity.
10.40 am
Mr. Dominic Grieve: This debate has been needed for a long time, and the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner) is to be warmly congratulated on bringing this matter to our attention.
I declare at the outset that I am in favour of a reform to the law in this area, so I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I start with two words of caution before I talk about the details of the Law Commission's proposals. The first point, which my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) made very tellingly, is that the number of incidents in which very young children are killed by their carers or parents is surely an indication less of wilful evil in those carers or parents and more of an appalling and systematic failure in socialisation and the teaching of parenting skills in this country.
It is noteworthy that that failure has been constant for a very long time. I therefore do not believe that we should look to legislation that may raise the conviction
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rate in such cases to provide a deterrent against the perpetration of the offences. I very much doubt that if we were to increase the rate of conviction to 90 per cent., there would be a substantial diminution in the number of these terrible killings.
We have always hoped that society would evolve and become a better place through education and the intervention of social services, and that we would be able to see an improvement. The terrible truth, which I know from numerous episodes in my constituency, is that social services departments are ill equipped to deal with these problems, which continue from one generation to another. Parents who are likely to be violent to very young children, out of frustration or because they have violent personalities that have never been subdued and contained through the usual processes of education in their own childhoods, have often been subjected to violence themselves. The remedy that we are looking for in legislation will not solve that problem.
The second issue, which the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) properly highlighted, is that there is no point in saying that Lane and Lane is an outrageous statement of the law. Lane and Lane is merely a statement of the general principles of our law, which no one, as far as I am aware—certainly no one during the passage of the Criminal Justice Bill through Parliament—has said they want to tear up, applied to the particular problem that arises when two or three people must have committed the offence but no one can tell who did it.
The only reason why we focus on this problem in this particular framework is that it happens over and over again that a young child is killed by carers, one of whom must have committed the offence, but there is a risk of convicting the person who had nothing to do with it if we start tinkering with the existing rules and principles of our law, which state that the prosecution must satisfy the jury that they are sure that the defendant was involved in the offence. The difficulty in such cases is that it is a question that the court knows only too well the jury will be unable to answer—as in cases such as Lane and Lane, where there is no evidence on which one could decide which of the two people did it.
I am sympathetic to seeing what could be done to try to address that problem. However, I must tell the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown and others who have participated in the debate that we must be careful not to construct special rules that do away with the general principles of our law. Although one or two hon. Members have suggested that they should be done away with, on the whole such a move is resisted, and the Government have never suggested that they should go. Indeed, the human rights convention, which is now incorporated into our law, derived many of its principles from the way in which our common law had been applied. The privilege against self-incrimination, the right to a fair trial and the burden of proof being on the prosecution are all principles that I would not wish to be done away with.
It seems to me that the Law Commission has come up with an interesting formula. I have no difficulty with the principle of changing evidential and procedural rules for murder and manslaughter, as suggested by the Law Commission, in order to allow a decision to be taken at the end of the defence and not at the end of the prosecution case. If it has the beneficial result that the

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hon. and learned Member for Redcar suggests, I would be wholly comfortable with it. I question the extent to which that may happen, but I emphasise that we should not raise too many hopes that it will lead to a revolutionary new position in respect of murder or manslaughter trials of two carers or parents accused of killing a young child. It may lead to some benefit, but it will not lead to a major shift. Indeed, the Law Commission considered a number of draconian proposals that would do away with the general principles of English law, but it rightly decided to reject them.
I am also quite happy about emphasising to the jury that they should take into account the responsibility on carers or parents for the welfare of a child when considering whether an inference can be drawn against the defendant or whether the case has to be withdrawn at the close of the defence's case. However, as I pointed out in an intervention, although that may help in one or two limited grey area cases, as defendants often stay silent until the end of the defence case, and as their lawyers argue that there is no evidence to say which of the two people did it and no evidence of joint enterprise, I think that we will still see acquittals under the commission's proposal.
I believe that the Law Commission is right to look beyond that to whether there should be changes in the substantive law, and the principle that an offence of child cruelty under section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1963 that leads to death should incur a much bigger penalty. Again, I think that it is right to consider whether 14 years is the correct maximum. That is a matter that the Government should take on board.
I also welcome the idea of a new offence, where a person who undertakes responsibility for a child fails, so far as is reasonably practical, to protect that child from serious harm deriving from ill-treatment. The merit of such an offence is that it would enable action to be taken if a parent or carer had allowed the other parent or carer to carry out a systematic campaign of cruelty towards that child, potentially leading to its death.
These are important proposals, and I welcome the opportunity to discuss them. However, they are complicated. If they were to come back as an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill—as a Lords amendment, to he discussed in the Commons—it would be rather difficult to be satisfied that we had achieved the correct outcome. I would urge the Government to introduce a short Bill in the next Session—I assure the Minister that the Opposition would co-operate to achieve short Bills on discrete issues—or to use the vehicle of the proposed domestic violence legislation. There is certainly a close correlation between the two offences. I look forward to the Minister's response.
10.49 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Paul Goggins): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner) on securing this important debate. He said that he became interested in the issue with a constituency case, and that is often the driving force for hon. Members to raise issues of national importance and policy. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) reminded us of the dreadful case of John Smith. He, too, has rooted his concerns in that constituency case.
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I pay tribute to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) and others, who have assiduously pursued the issue at each and every opportunity. We have had debates on the matter on the Criminal Justice Bill and, as recently as 15 October, in the House of Lords. Baroness Gould moved amendments that were not the same as those moved by my hon. Friend and his colleagues in the House of Commons. My noble Friend Baroness Scotland asked for those amendments to be withdrawn, given the assurances—I give them again—that the Government will introduce legislation at an early date.
I pay tribute, as other hon. Members have done, to the work of the NSPCC. The "Which of You Did It?" initiative has clearly been instrumental in informing and expanding the campaign, and the analysis provided is very helpful. The deeply worrying conclusion that only one quarter of cases result in a successful prosecution should concern us all. The challenge—as simple as it is complicated—is how to prosecute a case in which a child is looked after by two people, in which the Crown can prove beyond reasonable doubt that the child has suffered non-accidental death or injury, and in which it is clear that one or both must be guilty of the offence, but either through silence or because they blame each other, it is impossible to say precisely who. Parliament is united in a deep conviction that it is entirely wrong that, whatever reason is given, people can walk away from the court, one guilty and neither convicted.
Whether that is a cynical ploy on the part of the two people involved, or the result of domestic violence, it is clearly a matter of deep concern. My hon. and learned Friend spoke about the issue of domestic violence and how it is relevant. I accept that, for many women in domestic violence situations, this is the breaking point at which they decide that enough is enough. I can only begin to imagine the anguish of a woman who cannot protect her child and at the same time cannot protect herself. We also need to bear that scenario in mind.
We now have the Law Commission's report and recommendations. It is a detailed analysis on which it has consulted widely. We are always grateful for the commission's thinking on issues involving extremely complex areas of the law, particularly in a case such as this, in which the issues have seemed intractable for such a long time. The analytical part of the report brings home how widespread the problem may be, so it is good to read its conclusions and believe that it may have helped us to get a little closer to the solution.
The Law Commission proposes two new offences and a number of procedural measures designed to tackle the problem. The first builds on the current offence of child cruelty in cases in which the child dies. The second applies to a much wider group of people and goes beyond circumstances in which a child is killed. I assure the House that we are carefully considering those offences with a view to introducing firm proposals. We have been working closely with the Law Commission and shall continue to do so, but I do not think that we have yet arrived at the complete answer.
The Law Commission published its report on the non-accidental death or serious injury of children on 15 September 2003. The report recommends two changes to the substantive law. First, an offence of cruelty contributing to death—a new and aggravated form of child cruelty offence—should be created. Secondly,

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there should be a new offence of failure to protect a child, which would be committed if a person responsible for a child failed to take reasonable steps to prevent the commission of the offence. The commission also advocates evidential and procedural changes, to which my hon. and learned Friend referred. They include a statutory responsibility on all those responsible for the child when he or she sustained the injury or was killed to give the police or the court such account as they can of how that came about.
There is a second recommendation, that in certain cases the judge must not decide whether the case should be withdrawn from the jury until the close of the defence case, so the defence will have to decide whether to give or call evidence without the protection of the present obligation on the court to consider a submission of no case to answer at the conclusion of the prosecution case. It also recommends that if a defendant in such a case fails to give evidence, the jury should be permitted to draw such inferences as may be proper from that failure.
Helpful as the Law Commission's work has been, we are concerned that the two offences that it proposes do not solve the problem. The first offence would still require there to be a causal link between the assault or neglect, the child cruelty offence, and the eventual death. That means that we would need to know a considerable amount about how the child died and, probably, who committed the act as a result of which the child died.
We are not sure that building on the child cruelty offence is the best way forward. Child cruelty and neglect are mainly offences that are proved on the basis of past abuse. In those circumstances, both defendants may be found guilty, but it does not follow that the court will accept that one or both can be found guilty of a more serious offence when the prosecution has been unable to prove who was responsible for the fatal blow.
The second Law Commission offence is of failing to protect a child. It is drawn very widely to include any relative of the child. It requires the prosecution to prove that the defendant had not taken reasonable steps to prevent the offence, but it would apply to the risk of an
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offence taking place anywhere, so the parent who knows that the child may be attacked or injured by a bully at school but does not take action, or the 16-year-old babysitter who knows that a child is at some risk from someone and does nothing about it would be caught. That is to draw the offence very widely indeed, and deals with a different set of issues from that of ascertaining who actually killed the child.
We are considering the evidential and procedural measures proposed by the Law Commission. There is merit, for example, in the proposal to delay the point at which the judge decides whether a case should be withdrawn until after the defence has presented its case. We are keen, too, to ensure that inferences from silence should be capable of being drawn in appropriate circumstances. We need to think carefully whether a statutory duty to co-operate with the police would provide further help in these cases.
We need to consider carefully how any new offence would interact with the procedural and evidential measures that have been proposed. As far as possible, we wish to produce a coherent and integrated set of proposals that will encourage people to give evidence and is targeted on the problem cases that we have discussed.
It seems from previous comments that I am the last in a long line of Ministers who have promised hon. Members that we intend to legislate. I make that promise again today. I cannot confirm to my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown precisely when the measure will be announced or when it will be introduced, but it will be at an early opportunity. We must be confident that the offence is correctly drawn up, and about how it will interact with the procedural changes that we may also introduce. We have to know that it is compatible with human rights legislation and we must have an appropriate Bill within which to include it. In dealing with this matter, soon is not soon enough, but we must introduce the legislation properly so that killers are brought to justice and those who stand by are brought to account. I cannot confirm when, but I can confirm that the Government will introduce the legislation.

Zimbabwe
10.59 am
Kate Hoey: As the Minister knows, I visited Zimbabwe during the summer under cover. I am grateful to both the Minister and the Foreign Secretary for taking a copy of my report and spending some time discussing it with me. Among the many brave people whom I met while I was there were some of the staff of The Daily News. That was a vital and precious source of information for the oppressed people of Zimbabwe as it was the only daily newspaper not controlled by Mugabe's ZANU-PF. I saw how, whether they are photographers, reporters, directors or street corner news-vendors, those people and their families live in fear of violent attack from gangs dispatched by the ruling ZANU-PF regime.
The crisis in Zimbabwe has now dragged on for a very long time. Every time it plumbs new depths we are told that it can plunge no deeper and the regime must surely soon collapse. That is not so. Since my visit, when things were already desperate, the situation has taken a grave turn for the worse. The ban on The Daily News closed down the last vestige of independent reporting. Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, the newspaper group that launched The Daily News in March 1999 and The Daily News on Sunday in May 2003, refused to register with the state-run Media and Information Commission because it regarded the law that established it, the infamous Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, as unconstitutional.
On 11 September the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe ruled that because it had not registered, the ANZ was operating illegally. The following day police raided The Daily News offices and printing works to stop production, occupied the premises and confiscated all computers. After the Supreme Court ruling, the ANZ unsuccessfully applied for registration with the MIC, which rejected its application on the basis that it was an "illegal" organisation and did not meet the requirements of the law. The ANZ has now appealed to the administrative court to have the MIC's decision overturned, claiming that the commission was both biased against it when it rejected its application and improperly constituted.
The closure of The Daily News is the culmination of a long campaign of intimidation by ZANU-PF; in January 2001 its printing presses were bombed and its editorial staff have endured frequent harassment and detention. Every day, journalists who worked on the newspaper are still being called in by police and face prosecution. On 25 September I chaired a meeting in the Jubilee Room to help to mobilise an international response from media and human rights lawyers, trade unionists and press organisations. Among the organisations represented were the International Bar Association and the Commonwealth Press Union, both of which have played a magnificent part in alerting their respective professions to developments in Zimbabwe and in mobilising a response.
One of the most moving contributions made at that meeting came from Ephraim Tapa, President of the Zimbabwe Civil Service Employees Association, and a member of the general council of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. In February 2002 he and his
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wife Faith were abducted, and he was held hostage for nearly a month, during which time he was regularly beaten and tortured. He told us that thanks to the fact that he was able to smuggle notes to The Daily News, which then told the people of Zimbabwe and the wider world what was happening to him, just as his captors were preparing to kill him he was freed and his life was saved. He stressed that under a tyrannical dictatorship such as that of Robert Mugabe an independent press is not simply a debating forum; it can be, as in his case, a matter of life and death.
Also at that meeting in the Jubilee Room less than a month ago was Beatrice Mtetwa. She is the courageous lawyer who has defended many of those whom the regime has sought to persecute. We saw her on our television srceens berating officials as they bundled Andrew Meldrum, The Guardian correspondent, out of Zimbabwe in May this year. She was also, for a time, a director of the ANZ. I had met Beatrice when I was in Harare in July. When she came to London I spent some time with her, and even managed to get her on to the London Eye. I think that she was able to forget, for a few moments, the terrible things that are happening in her country.
Last week, we heard that Beatrice had suffered severe bruising and cuts to her body after being beaten by the police. That incident occurred on 12 October, when she called the police to assist her after thieves had attacked her car. When the police arrived, they accused her of driving while under the influence of alcohol. She was held in custody for three hours and beaten by a policeman in the car on the way to, and while at the police station. She was kicked all over her body and sustained blows to her face that rendered her unrecognisable to colleagues. The assault was in full view of other policemen, who refused to intervene. On her release from custody, Beatrice sought medical treatment for her injuries and had them documented. The fact that one of the police officers told her that, "The tables have turned," shows that the police knew who she was, and that the attack was clearly a vicious act of retribution for her past legal work, or an attempt to intimidate and silence her. She will not be silenced.
I thank the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for sponsoring Beatrice's visit to this country. Similarly, I congratulate the Government on standing firm on refusing to break the EU travel ban on named members of the Mugabe regime by not granting visas to attend the Inter-Parliamentary Union annual conference, which was due to be held here next March. The conference will now be held elsewhere, but it would have been entirely unacceptable to welcome the Speaker of the Zimbabwean Parliament, Mnangagwa, who is Mugabe's right-hand man. He is a former head of the dreaded state security service and is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Matabele people in the massacres of the early 1980s. The action of Her Majesty's Government in upholding not only the letter but also the spirit of the travel ban stands in stark contrast to some of our partners in the EU, who are prepared to waive the ban at almost any opportunity.
The EU has been an unnecessary constraint on Government policy on Zimbabwe. France, in particular, appears to see any split between Britain and its former colonies as an opportunity to extend French influence. It has been difficult for us to hold the EU to a

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firm stance. Our policy has been to maintain EU unity on the issue, which has meant accepting the lowest common denominator for EU support. Will the Minister consider taking action without waiting for EU agreement?
So far, when Britain has acted, it has by and large done so only as an EU member; for example, with targeted sanctions against the ZANU-PF leadership. We have avoided having our own policy on Zimbabwe. If the aim of that approach was to deflect Mugabe's anger, it has not worked. Britain is still singled out and vilified far more than any other EU member.
Britain has historic responsibilities towards Zimbabwe that we have tried hard to observe. We strongly disapproved of white racist minority rule, so we refused to recognise Smith's regime, and we imposed sanctions for 15 years at considerable cost to our own economy. We then guaranteed a democratic settlement and supervised elections, helping to usher in majority rule. We gave the new Government every assistance, including development aid and financial support for land reform.
That all means that Zimbabwe is a very special case for Britain, yet our high commissioner in Harare is routinely the target of insults and outrageous allegations from Mugabe and other members of his Government. Only last week, Sir Brian Donnelly was accused of conspiring to wreck the Zimbabwean economy by colluding with so-called Zimbabwean traitors to engineer shortages of fuel.
Her Majesty's Government make no reply to many such allegations. Even when we are alleged to be acting illegally—plotting war, or conspiring with the opposition—our responses, when there have been any, have been extremely mild. The most extreme example of that happened when I was in Zimbabwe: Mugabe openly threatened to use British and US citizens in Zimbabwe as hostages in the event of any Anglo-American attempt at regime change. At the very least, we might have declared in no uncertain terms that we would not tolerate such threats to British subjects, but we did not. The headlines of The Daily News on Sunday stated that Mugabe had warned the US that if it attacked Zimbabwe, US children would be killed. That was also a warning to Britain.
The general message is that the regime is free to use Britain as an Aunt Sally whenever it wishes. The US mission also attracts Mugabe's criticism, but it is not vilified to anything like the same extent, even though the US has been far more outspoken against the Mugabe regime than we have.
I am sure that the Minister knows that the demonisation of Britain has virtually nothing to do with the way it behaves. It is an imperative of the mobilisation of the ZANU-PF faithful that Mugabe should re-fight the colonial struggle, putting us in the dock despite the fact that his fight was with Smith, not the British. We were his ally as a co-liberator, and the midwife of independence, handing over power after the elections.
I want my Government to adopt a far more robust attitude in refuting the lies and misrepresentations put out by Mugabe's propaganda machine. They are all too
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easily and conveniently accepted at face value by world leaders who should know better. The targeted travel bans and assets freeze against 79 individuals were portrayed in the communiqué from the recent Southern African Development Community summit in Tanzania as sanctions that hurt ordinary people.
Our food aid should be extended only on the basis that food supplies must be for the needy, without discrimination on any grounds other than need. We cannot trust ZANU-PF on aid, and I hope that the Minister, together with colleagues at Department for International Development, will continue to examine ways to ensure the fair and impartial distribution of food, free from interference from ZANU-PF. Food distribution should also sometimes be done independently of aid officials, who need to send back glowing reports to ensure that their careers are not set back by an admission of failure.
Britain's response to Mugabe has been constrained by a wish to maintain Commonwealth unity, which, in practice, has meant trying to keep Presidents Mbeki and Obasanjo on side. President Mbeki in particular has given advance notice that he wants Zimbabwe to be accepted back into the Commonwealth by the end of the year, without debate. He reckons that, as soon as Mugabe and the Movement for Democratic Change can be said to be talking to each other, there can be no grounds for excluding Zimbabwe. He will try to rally an African and Commonwealth majority to his view. If Mugabe, who is an acknowledged torturer, murderer and election-rigger, were accepted back into the fold, all the Commonwealth's democratic pretensions would fall away.
If we are honest—I hope that the Minister will be honest today, as he always is—we acknowledge that President Mbeki of South Africa has been a huge constraint. Like Mugabe, he is domestically fearful of the trade unions as a political threat to ANC supremacy. He has little time for Morgan Tsvangirai and the large number of his supporters with roots in the trade union movement. President Mbeki also tried to rig the verdict of election monitoring teams to say that Mugabe was properly elected. He provides electricity and other resources on credit to Mugabe, and continually insists that the problem is on the verge of solution, which is merely a way of buying more time for Mugabe and protracting the suffering of the Zimbabwean people. The latest version of that is to insist that Mugabe may be going soon—never now, always six months later on a constantly receding horizon.
For a long time President Mbeki insisted that the Zimbabwe problem should be left to his quiet diplomacy, which was simply a cover to support Mugabe. It is now more than three years since the Victoria Falls conference in April 2000, when he publicly undertook to resolve the Zimbabwe crisis, and all his attempts have utterly failed. Dialogue does not work, but just buys more time for Mugabe and his kleptocratic colleagues to pillage Zimbabwe.
There will be celebrations in London this week to mark 10 years of majority rule in South Africa, and senior figures of the South African Government will be in London. I hope that the Minister will take every opportunity to remind them of the international support that was mobilised in support of their struggle. I am struck by how many of those who are standing up

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against the ZANU-PF regime in Zimbabwe also stood up against apartheid and the Rhodesian Front regime. The South African Government must face up to their responsibilities and stand alongside the people of Zimbabwe in their hour of need, and their struggle for freedom and democracy.
Any celebrations of majority rule in South Africa will be hollow as long as its Government organise vetoes at the UN and other international bodies of any resolutions referring to the lack of respect for human rights in Zimbabwe. The South African Government's blind solidarity with the corrupt and violent regime of Robert Mugabe, rather than with the suffering of the oppressed people of Zimbabwe, stands in sad contrast to the noble battle fought by many around the world for freedom in South Africa. Sometimes we have to tell our friends the truth. That is why there will be a picket this weekend to call on South African Foreign Minister Zuma to acknowledge the situation in Zimbabwe.
EU targeted sanctions such as travel bans and assets freezes on senior PF officials must be stringently enforced. Many people that I met in Zimbabwe urged that spouses and children should also be included in the ban, since both groups are able to escape the hardships that the party has created in Zimbabwe, and they may act as a means of moving illegally acquired wealth out of the country. Will the Minister respond to that specific question? Britain has decided that it must defer to South Africa on the matter, which is tantamount to deferring to Mugabe.
We must remind Commonwealth Heads of Government, and the Commonwealth's own election observers, that they concurred with the USA and EU that President Mugabe rigged the last election and so cannot be considered a legitimate Head of State. The human rights abuses of which he has been guilty have steadily worsened, so there is no prospect that he can be allowed back into the Commonwealth if that body preserves any pretensions to democracy.
During my visit I met many victims of torture and, as a Member of Parliament, met a number of Opposition MPs who had been tortured and abused. The accounts were horrifying. In January this year, one Opposition MR Job Sikhala, was tortured by having electrodes attached to his genitals and given electric shocks. He was beaten on the soles of his feet with planks of wood and forced to drink toxins and urine. I spent an evening with an MP whose election agent had been abducted and is presumed murdered; he has never been seen again. Intimidation against the MDC is constant.
We must ensure that these stories are widely known amongst Commonwealth parliamentarians so that Mugabe's charade of pretending that the crisis is about land reform can finally be laid to rest. The chaotic and illegal fast-track land reform process has not resulted in the resettlement of the landless poor. It has been a tool for a dictator's patronage: coveted farmsteads have been handed out to keep party officials sweet. Meanwhile, the rich agricultural land reverts to bush and skilled farm workers are prevented by force from cultivating even small plots for their own subsistence—I saw the effects of that for myself. They are made to depend on food handouts paid for by the UK and USA—the countries that Mugabe vilifies at every opportunity. Have the Government seriously examined ways of ensuring that the human rights violators who
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now occupy so many of the farmhouses are not able to get rich quick by selling plundered produce through British markets?
Ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting—an important conference that will be held in Nigeria at the beginning of December—we must constantly remind African, Caribbean and Pacific members of the Commonwealth that this crisis has lasted for more than three and a half years, in which time Mugabe has abided by none of the agreements made. He seems to be listening to no one. I would be interested to hear from the Minister what steps the Government have taken to disseminate reports of human rights violations by the Mugabe regime and to alert other Commonwealth members to Zimbabwe's many breaches of its obligations under international law. What will the Government do if Mugabe turns up, without an invitation, at the meeting in Nigeria?
The crackdown continues day to day. Only two weeks ago, on 8 October, when the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions called a national demonstration, heavily armed police arrested more than 150 protesters in Harare, Mutare and Bulawayo, including the secretary-general of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, the president of the ZCTU, Lovemore Matombo, and the union's secretary-general, Wellington Chibhebhe. When trade union demonstrators were injured in running battles, police refused ambulances permission to carry them to hospital.
The attack on trade unions has led to widespread international protest from other trade unions. I have with me a copy of a letter from Derek Simpson, the general secretary of Amicus, which is the largest private sector trade union, with 1.1 million members, to the Zimbabwe high commission. He writes:
"We are appalled to hear that members of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions … were arrested.
We believe that this action by the Zimbabwean Government is a violation of human and trade union rights and urge the Zimbabwean Government to release immediately all those trade unionists arrested this morning.
Amicus firmly believes that the right to peaceful demonstration is a right that should be afforded to every person throughout the world and is a fundamental human right."
We are seeing more and more activity from trade unions in the UK, which are not prepared to allow the situation in Zimbabwe to continue.
I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us how he plans to go about alerting the world to the fact that Mugabe's dictatorship grows more vicious month by month. An abiding impression that I brought back with me from my visit to Zimbabwe was that Zimbabweans of all backgrounds expect that the British Government should be able to do something to help them. They feel no animosity—although some feel forgotten or overlooked. It was interesting to see that more black than white Zimbabweans now have close links with the UK. They either have family members living here or were educated here. The bonds between Zimbabwe and the UK are more than an historical accident; they are a current reality. Zimbabweans feel that we owe them a responsibility in this time of crisis.
The Daily News may have been silenced for the time being, but until there are free and fair elections in that beautiful country the people of Zimbabwe will never

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give up. I know that the Minister may not like The Daily Telegraph, but I shall conclude by reading the final section of an editorial on the position of Zimbabwe which appeared in that newspaper yesterday. The editorial examines the different things that have happened—the history and the terrible abuse of human rights—and ends as follows:
"Almost exactly a year ago, Tony Blair publicly pledged himself to Africa. Yet in the country where Britain has the most recent responsibility, he has been reluctant to act. Far more could be done, with active support for pro-democracy activists"—
and trade unionists—
"and genuine sanctions against the regime's supporters, including the seizure of their assets pending possible compensation claims by their victims. It is too late to avert disaster, but at least we can salvage some honour."
11.19 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Chris Mullin):My hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) raises a very serious issue. Her commitment to the cause of democracy in Zimbabwe is well known and much appreciated. She sets out in graphic detail the oppression faced by journalists, democrats and many other people in Zimbabwe. I shall not rehearse the facts in the short time available, except to say that the events that she desrcibes are wholly unacceptable, and to pay tribute to the many brave Zimbabwean journalists and others who work daily in a climate of fear and intimidation and who are continually at risk of arbitrary arrest.
It is not without irony that a newspaper in the 1960s called the African Daily News was banned by Ian Smith's Government for questioning the policy of the Rhodesian Front regime. Nearly 40 years later, the Government of the new Zimbabwe behave in exactly the same way as the old colonialist regime. The man who was the founding editor of the African Daily News is now ZANU-PF's Secretary for information.
I understand that The Daily News has appealed in the administrative court against the commission's decision not to grant it a licence and that a ruling is likely to be made on Friday. I shall follow proceedings with great interest.
My hon. Friend will be aware that there was a strong international reaction to the closure of The Daily News. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary made two robust statements. The European Union made a statement and plans further representations to the Government of Zimbabwe. The World Association of Newspapers protested to the Zimbabwean Government. The International Press Institute unanimously condemned the events, and the Commonwealth Press Union spoke out. The South African National Editors Forum raised the issue with the Government of South Africa. In many people's view, The Daily News has become a symbol of the oppression and lack of respect for human rights that are a daily reality in Zimbabwe.
There are still one or two other independent newspapers, although they are published weekly, not daily, and even those have been threatened of late. The
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head of the Media and Information Commission is reported to have said recently to a journalist from one of those newspapers, "Oh, you're from The Standard. We will be coming for you." The Information Minister described the remaining independent newspapers as "trash" and "imperialist running dogs", but those newspapers continue to operate in that atmosphere. Again, I pay tribute to the brave journalists who continue to work.
State-run newspapers now have a monopoly of the daily market. One of the strangest things in Zimbabwe's wonderland world is that the access to information Act makes it an offence to publish any statement knowing it to be false, yet the state-run newspapers print blatantly false information every day, and they form the only source of written information available to many Zimbabweans.
I understand and share my hon. Friend's frustration at the apparent lack of progress in Zimbabwe. As she said, South Africa has a key role to play, and we see increasing signs that many South Africans are keen to play that role. I mentioned the South African National Editors Forum. Other important South African bodies, notably the Congress of South African Trade Unions, have also called for an improvement in the situation in Zimbabwe. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who we would all agree is a truly great South African, recently said:
"The time has come for African leaders to stand up and express their concern over the deteriorating human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. If human rights abuses continue to worsen, the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe will be difficult to heal."
I agree with that.
My hon. Friend mentioned the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. As she knows, Zimbabwe is suspended from the councils of the Commonwealth, and President Obasanjo of Nigeria and the Commonwealth secretary-general have confirmed that, in line with precedent, Zimbabwe and Pakistan, which also does not have a democratically elected Government, have not been invited. The question of Mr Mugabe's attendance therefore does not arise. President Obasanjo has said publicly that it would take a sea change in Zimbabwe for him to change his mind. I would welcome any such change, but at present there is no way in which the Prime Minister, or several other Commonwealth Heads of Government, would wish to attend a summit in which Mr Mugabe participated.
Kate Hoey:My point was about our position if Mr. Mugabe turned up anyway. What would it be?
Mr. Mullin:As I said, President Obasanjo made it clear that Mr. Mugabe is not invited, and the Nigerians naturally control access to Nigeria. I repeat: there is no way in which our Prime Minister, or several other Commonwealth Heads of Government, would want to attend a summit with Mr. Mugabe. That is clear.
We are discussing Zimbabwe's role in the Commonwealth with many other Commonwealth partners. Some, such as the Pacific Islands Forum countries, have gone on record about their abhorrence of the degrading human rights situation. Others, including a number of African and Caribbean countries, take a similar line with us in private. If it is Mr Mugabe's aim to split the Commonwealth along racial lines, he is failing.

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My hon. Friend suggested that the UK should be more outspoken on Zimbabwe. We have not been quiet, and I cite the Foreign Secretary's recent statements about The Daily News and the arrests of trade unionists as evidence. My hon. Friend quoted The Daily Telegraph, so let me quote back to her an interview that Morgan Tsvangirai gave to that paper in June, which I always bear in mind. In it, he said that Britain should keep a low profile to avoid
"playing into Mugabe's hands and giving him an excuse to launch more nonsense propaganda".
We will not be silenced on Zimbabwe, but nor will we give Mugabe and his supporters the chance to ignore the real causes of their country's crisis by pretending that it is all our fault.
The right approach is to work multilaterally with partners who share our analysis of the situation in Zimbabwe, which is why we work closely with our partners in the EU. ZANU-PF would say that the EU has a common position on Zimbabwe simply because the UK dragged its partners into it. If only working in the EU was so easy—the EU has a common position, because its member states decided unanimously to make a stand against the human rights abuses taking place in Zimbabwe. It is because we take that common position seriously that we took our stand on the Inter-Parliamentary Union conference, which was planned to take place in London next year but now will not.
My hon. Friend raised the idea of putting the families of human rights abusers on the banned list. We have not done that yet, as there are strong arguments that spouses and children should not suffer for the actions of their fathers or mothers. However, there are also arguments that such people are the chief beneficiaries of the elite's constant feathering of their nests, and so their travel and assets should be frozen. I am sure that that will be discussed when the EU next debates the Zimbabwean banned list.
My hon. Friend also suggested that some of the other EU countries are not as robust in enforcing sanctions as we are. France recently refused Robert Mugabe a transit visa, for which he applied to travel to the United Nations, and I am sure that she will agree that that is a welcome sign.
The problems facing The Daily News are a clear symptom of the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe, and it is especially important that the world focuses on the daily erosion of human rights. The Commonwealth secretary-general, speaking in Johannesburg last week, stated that Zimbabwe would have to meet five conditions to be readmitted to the Commonwealth. I do not have time to set them out, but it was a robust statement. I look forward to the day that Zimbabwe meets those conditions and those who are friends of Zimbabwe can get together to help its people reconstruct democracy in their beautiful country.
11.29 am
Sitting suspended until Two o'clock.

Police Funding (Norfolk)
2 pm
Norman Lamb: I welcome this opportunity to raise serious concerns about the funding situation facing Norfolk police, and I want to make it clear from the start that Norfolk MPs of all three parties have presented a united front in arguing the case for a fairer deal for Norfolk. I am pleased to see here the hon. Members for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson), for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham), for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon), and for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Wright), and I know that the right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard) would have been here, but she is away from Westminster today.
Norfolk is a widely dispersed rural county, and that presents policing problems. The Minister will be aware of a widespread perception in rural Norfolk, and in comparable areas, that people are unprotected and vulnerable. Crime rates might be relatively low, but fear of crime is very real. Norfolk police have done what they can with the resources that are available to them to maximise their presence. They have introduced three mobile police stations that tour rural areas and stop off in village centres. However, the fact remains that Norfolk has the fourth lowest ratio of police officers to population in the country.
I shall describe the financial pressures with which the police authority has to grapple. Norfolk police authority inherited in 1995 a force that was seriously under-resourced as a result of many years of underfunding. There were insufficient support staff; it was one of the few forces with no information and communications technology infrastructure—essential for effective policing, I am sure we all agree—and there had been little investment in other technology and equipment, or in the estate. Staff were working from poorly maintained and inappropriate buildings, and they had no dedicated air support unit, which is particularly important in a geographical area that is as large as Norfolk.
That was the situation in 1995. What has happened since then? It is important to acknowledge that there has been a significant increase in financing for Norfolk police. The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy confirms that there has been a 21 3per cent. increase between 1995–96 and 2002–03—from £86 million to £104 million. I welcome that. However, I have serious concerns about how some of that money is spent. My main case is that the increase in the number of police officers that we have achieved should not be put at risk. Indeed, the force wants to see the number of officers increase still further. The authority has undertaken a review, and it has concluded that the minimum police officer establishment in Norfolk should be 1,800. We currently have about 1,500, and there is no hope of getting anywhere near the total that the authority believes is needed.
I also want the police authority to be in a position to complete the development of the ICT infrastructure. There are several other aspirations, including full-time air support coverage. Those objectives must be achieved without putting a still heavier burden on those on low incomes, including many pensioners.

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That brings me to the current financial situation. As things stand, it looks as though the average budget increase that local forces are likely to receive for 2004–05 is 3.3 per cent. However, it is estimated that, simply to stand still, forces will require a 6 per cent. increase in funding. I understand that that comprises about 3 per cent. for pay and price increases, 1.5 per cent. for police pension costs and another 1.5 per cent. for information and communications technology, forensic science and other technology costs. The problem is that for every 1 per cent. shortfall in police force budgets, it is necessary to increase the council tax precept by some 4 per cent.
Norfolk is therefore facing a likely increase in the police precept of around 15 per cent. That comes on top of last year's increase of 21.5 per cent. That situation is not unique; the Association of Police Authorities is so concerned about the national situation that it has launched its own campaign. Our impression is that the Home Secretary shares these concerns. To some extent this debate is an opportunity to strengthen the Home Secretary's hand in his negotiations with the Treasury.
The Government should be in no doubt that the funding situation is dire. If nothing changes, the prospect is of totally unacceptable increases in council tax or the Government-imposed capping of increases, which could lead to painful and damaging cuts in frontline services. The Association of Chief Police Officers has warned of possible reversals in civilianisation programmes and a loss of some civilian staff, which would result in police officers having to replace them and losing their presence on the front line.
The burden on the Norfolk council tax payers has shifted over the past few years. The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy has produced figures that show a dramatic increase in the extent to which council tax funds the Norfolk police. Funding from the council tax—a heavily regressive tax—has increased by 104 per cent. from 1995–96 to the current year. In 1995–96, just over £13.5 million of the Norfolk police budget came from the council tax, whereas the figure is now more than £27.6 million. There has also been a steady decline in the Home Office contribution as a proportion of the total funding of the Norfolk police authority. The proportion of council tax has inevitably had to increase to offset that. In Norfolk over that eight-year period, it has increased from 15.5 per cent. of total financing to 26.5 per cent.—a steeper increase than the average for other non-metropolitan police forces in England.
There is a growing recognition that the council tax has reached the limits of public acceptability—a view shared by the Minister for Local Government, Regional Governance and Fire. A Government who purport to believe in progressive taxation can no longer justify the shift to such a regressive system of taxation to finance local services, including the police. Pensioner households on low fixed incomes are bearing the brunt of financing our police forces and other local services.
There is a sense of gross injustice in my constituency of North Norfolk, which has one of the highest proportions of pensioners anywhere in the country. My mailbag—I am sure that other hon. Members' mailbags
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are no different—shows the strength of feeling among local people. Until the Government accept the case for the abolition of the council tax and its replacement with a fairer and more progressive system, they must provide sufficient support.
There is also a widespread view that bureaucracy has burgeoned, which takes money away from policing. The APA points out that in 1995–96 there were only two sources of ring-fenced grants, whereas now there are a staggering 28, which include funding for police community support officers, the Airwave police radio project, the street crime initiative and the crime-fighting fund for additional officers. Those are all good, but the funding is ring-fenced. Most of those initiatives involved a bidding process, which can be enormously time-consuming. It ties up authority and force staff in unproductive work, and fails to allow police authorities, in Norfolk and elsewhere in the country, to determine their own local priorities and to decide where they want to spend the money to meet local needs. A simplification of the funding system is surely long overdue.
There has been a substantial increase in the extent to which performance is measured and monitored locally, and that is then interpreted nationally. I have been told by an authoritative source that the Home Office has now increased the number of civil servants dealing with its own bureaucracy, enforcement and micro-management to nearly 10,000. That is twice the number of extra officers on the front line.
In Norfolk, there appear to be about 83 staff who might be defined as unproductive. That excludes staff working for the police authority; it consists of those working on the bureaucratic burdens that I have described. Measuring performance is important, but it seems that the balance is horribly wrong. Another result of centralised control is that Home Office rules sometimes get in the way of pragmatic, practical solutions.
For example, Norfolk desperately wants and needs full-time coverage for air support. I understand that Home Office rules provide for a possible 50 per cent. of the funding for a new helicopter. The problem is that Norfolk police authority cannot afford the other 50 per cent. from its budget, which is already under intense strain, so it came up with a practical solution. The authority planned to purchase a second-hand helicopter for half the price so that the Home Office would pay for it. That would have involved no extra cost to the Home Office and Norfolk would have got its helicopter. However, that is not allowed under the rules; funding is permitted only at the 50 per cent. level.
What about a grant to allow the force to extend the rental agreement with the current provider? That would be an excellent example of public-private partnership in action, but Norfolk police authority tells us that that is not permitted under the rules either. Its efforts to think outside the box and to come up with new ways of sorting out the problem were thwarted by over-restrictive Home Office rules. Would the Minister agree to look into that, and to get back to us?
One other problem faces Norfolk police authority. It has relatively few capital assets. The main police station in Norwich, on Bethel Street, is occupied on a licence from the city council. That goes back to the local

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government re-organisation in 1974. However, the consequences of the arrangements fixed in 1974 continue to hold back the authority.
Many other forces have been able either to sell assets to finance investments, such as information and communications technology, or to use assets as collateral to borrow money. Norfolk cannot do that. The authority surveyed 39 other police authorities and found that Norfolk had the 10th lowest stock of assets. That means that one alternative route for funding investment is not open to it. Can the Minister investigate that? Could an authority's level of assets not be taken into account in determining Home Office grants to local police authorities? It clearly constrains how they are able to raise money for local investment.
I have raised a number of issues and I hope that the Minister will respond constructively. We are confronting the issue on an all-party basis. We want the best for Norfolk police authority, and for Norfolk policing. We know that there is enormous pressure from the authority and local people for a good level of policing in our county. We are held back at the moment by over-restrictive rules and unfairness in the allocation of money to authorities. In our view, Norfolk is not getting a fair deal.
2.13 pm
Mr. Anthony D. Wright: I congratulate the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) on securing the debate. The hon. Gentleman has spoken well. I am sure that many of the facts, figures and issues will be repeated in the debate.
It is important that we in Norfolk build on the successful partnership that has been developed between the Government and Norfolk police authority in a clear and transparent way. That is certainly true with regard to the potential shortfalls for 2004–05 that were outlined by the Norfolk police authority. Although I differ from my Norfolk colleagues on many issues surrounding the unprecedented policing standards achieved over the past five years, which were achieved through investment in the Norfolk police constabulary and the hard work of the force, I agree with their call for the funding gap faced by the constabulary to be closed as quickly as possible.
The gap, which is primarily the result of an increase in the cost of pay and pensions, represents a threat to the continued increase in standards that we have come to expect from the force. It must be made clear as soon as possible whether the additional resources to close that funding shortfall, which are estimated at about 6 per cent., will come from the Government or from increased council tax contributions. A reduction in force effectiveness by making cuts to front-line services—a radical way of addressing the funding gap—is an unacceptable third alternative that should be avoided at all costs, because it could hamper the good partnership that the Norfolk constabulary and the Government have forged in bringing safety and security to our county.
With regard to safety from criminal activity in Norfolk, Sue Howl, crime reduction director for the eastern region, welcomed the 2003 figures on crime in the east. She said:
"It is reassuring that this region is still one of the safest places to live and work, and that across the board we fare well. That however does not make us complacent and we are working hard
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alongside the police forces and local crime and disorder reduction partnerships to make sure people are—and crucially feel—safer in their own homes."
In line with a broader national initiative backed by the Home Office, the force is setting tough targets on tackling domestic violence, and it is investing in order to raise the numbers of arrests made in cases of domestic violence to 60 per cent. in 2003–04.
The Department for Work and Pensions, the Pension Service, the immigration service, Norwich and district citizens advice bureau, the Norfolk fire service and the First bus company have worked in partnership to establish a mobile bus service to help to address rural concerns in the county. By fielding various inquiries and visiting 40 locations every month, the bus provides a vital link to our communities. It shows how integrated partnership between the Government and the Norfolk constabulary can go to the heart of our community.
Funding of the Norfolk family protection unit has been an essential strategy of the Norfolk constabulary. In line with new legislation brought in by the Home Office in 2002, new victim focused supporting witness suites are to be introduced throughout the county. The county's intention to invest in those centres, and in police premises in general, received another boost with a recent Government announcement that as well as the 4 per cent. funding increase, which is inclusive of centrally spent funds and ring-fenced monies that the Norfolk constabulary will gain this year, the constabulary can also submit two bids with a maximum capital grant of £500,000 each, as part of the premises improvement fund. For the second year, the fund is channelling an additional £20 million to forces throughout England and Wales.
Operation Harrier is another example of money well spent on the Norfolk constabulary. More than 200 arrests were made during the first month of an operation to deal with those who perpetrate drug, theft, burglary and other offence. The Norfolk constabulary is prepared to respond toughly to criminal activity. That operation is coupled with community partnerships to deal with criminals.
When examining how funding has improved Norfolk's crime fighting figures in general, we have to remember the positive achievements that I have already outlined, and realise that changes in the reporting of crime statistics make comparison with previous years impossible. Despite those changes, which led to higher crime rates being officially recorded, the figures show that Norfolk suffered only a marginal increase in the reporting of burglary and vehicle crimes. The increase of 4.5 per cent. in burglary and 9.6 per cent. in vehicle crime is not a true reflection of the increases in relation to past years, and I believe that in 2004 the rigorous targets set by the Norfolk constabulary in conjunction with the Home Office will be more than met.
However, I am concerned about the increase in violent crime, because although the rise of around 75 per cent. this year was largely due to the change in reporting measures, part of it cannot be based on that. I am looking to the constabulary to find new and innovative ways of tackling the increasing problem in Norfolk.
The policing of Norfolk, backed by continued investment and support from the Government, includes new, fresh and innovative ways of tackling local issues

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in a community-centred way. In addition to what I have already outlined, the air support unit has assisted in more than 782 cases, and has directly assisted in more than 130 arrests. Ring-fenced funding for Airwave is bringing state-of-the-art technology to the battle against crime on the front line in Norfolk. In areas with fixed and mobile cameras, serious accidents have reduced by more than 50 per cent., indirectly saving the local health authority hospitals an estimated £4.6 million and providing another example of money well spent.
Perhaps the Minister will comment on that aspect, and will say something about directing resources into those initiatives. Those success stores should be built on through addressing the funding gap. That is what we are achieving through the investment and partnership that the Government have promoted over the past five years.
I want to show what increased central spending and strong joint Home Office and polio targets have meant for the Norfolk constabulary. The constabulary's annual report and policing plan summary of July 2003 stated:
"The year 2002/03 ended with the largest number of police officers Norfolk has ever seen. The Constabulary's target of 1,500 officers meant there would be another 26 officers to police our county in addition to the 46 extra officers of 2001/02. Not only was this achieved, the year actually ended with 1,505 officers. This is 5 over target and reflects the importance that the Police Authority, within the resources available, attaches to increasing officer numbers."
Additional resources were also provided in Norfolk for 12 community police support officers: funding for those officers totalled £136,000. They will be an excellent addition to the Norfolk constabulary in its fight against crime. It will bring more police on to our streets with the powers to arrest and detain people In Norfolk, and they will be greatly aided by the powers in the Anti-social Behaviour Bill.
In the past five years there has been continued investment in human resources, resulting from an overall increase in Government investment for the service, coupled with stronger legislation and higher standards in the fight against crime. In Norfolk, the combined total of the police grant, transitional grant, police standard spending assessment, SSA reduction grant, central support protection grant and capital financing SSA increased from £86.5 million in 2000–01 to £91.5 million in 2001–02—an increase of 5.8 per cent. The Home Secretary announced a further rise in the budget that local forces will be expected to receive in 2004–05, from an average 2.5 per cent. for this year to an estimated 3.3 per cent. next year.
That increase is part of the continued improvement in funding of local police authorities that Norfolk constabulary has benefited from since 1997. However, owing to pay and price increases of 3 per cent. and the rise in the cost of police pensions of 1.5 per cent., as well as a 1.5 per cent. increase for ICT, forensic and technology costs, a funding gap has emerged this year. Norfolk police will require a 6 per cent. increase to maintain their current structure and service without risking a loss in front-line services or increasing local council tax charges by around 14 or 15 per cent., which would be unacceptable.
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In view of that, I ask the Government to look seriously into the potential funding shortfall, which is largely caused by pension and pay increases within the police force, and to decide whether the burden of the increase should be borne nationally by the Government or locally through an increase in council tax—I hope not the latter. The Government should state clearly whether capping powers would be enforced in relation to police forces that are attempting to close the deficit.
Through the clear and defined approach to the funding shortfall that the Association of Police Authorities has announced, the police will be able to continue the rapid movement towards increasing police standards and further driving down crime figures. With regard to ring-fenced funds, in the spirit of partnership that I have mentioned, there must be a true understanding of the need for local police forces to be flexible about community needs and for the Government to ensure that the priorities that they set to increase our safety and security are met in the most effective and economical way.
The increase in funding for Norfolk police authority of around 4 per cent. next year will be reduced to 2.5 per cent. after account has been taken of central costs and centrally ring-fenced funding for projects such as Airwave. Concern has grown about the relative merit of such ring-fenced initiatives. In my opinion, the right balance has been struck. As the annual report for 2003 stated:
"The current roll-out of our high-tech computer support systems is vital to the provision of information technology and underpins the delivery of information, applications and modern infrastructure facilities across the county."
The Government want to ensure that that happens in Norfolk, providing mobile forces with access to information on the ground to fight crime more effectively. That will continue to be implemented.
I commend the Norfolk constabulary on its performance, and support its request that the funding shortfall that it has predicted for next year is adequately filled. That is in line with the Government's commitment over the past five years to better county police forces. Year on year, past neglect has resulted in shortfalls in funding and personnel. I certainly do not want us to return to those days of neglect, or for this issue to become a party political matter, but I am concerned that a true and practical consideration of the matter could be lost, despite the cross-party support that we have seen today.
We have moved on in Norfolk, thanks to the new partnership developed between the Government and the police. I do not want cross-party politics to hijack that partnership or to take away from any investment in the force. I refuse to have the campaign for better resources in Norfolk and Great Yarmouth hampered by prejudice.
I urge the Minister to give a clear response. How does she propose to make up the shortfall, and to ensure that the benefits that have been brought to the Norfolk constabulary in the past five years will not be forgotten?
2.25 pm
Mr. Keith Simpson: I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) on initiating this important debate.

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Norfolk MPs may have a sense of déjà vu because we debated similar issues a year ago, not only on police funding, but on the local government finance settlement. We have not progressed very far in one year. Sadly, our pessimistic conclusions have become a reality, and we are here again, putting our case to the Minister.
Last year, local government funding was taken directly from the shire counties and redistributed to other areas. Whatever Ministers say, that is a fact, and one that is known by local Norfolk councils of all political background, and by local council tax payers. Alas, we face the prospect that that will be repeated this year. As two hon. Gentlemen have pointed out, central Government's grant for local policing is falling well short of the amount required to keep policing at a standstill position, as the hon. Member for North Norfolk put it.
Last year, the national gap was £162 million. This year, it is estimated to be £250 million. Last year, the average precept rise by authorities across the country was 25 per cent., which was, on average, slightly more than that in Norfolk. That was a great shock to our taxpayers. Nationally, the highest level was 76 per cent. According to the latest Home Office information, the average budget increase that police forces are likely to receive in the year 2004–05 will be 3.3 per cent. Authorities will be subject to a floor of 2.6 per cent. and a ceiling of 3.5 per cent.
I cannot emphasise enough that forces will require at least a 6 per cent. increase simply to achieve a standstill position. In Norfolk, a standstill position would entail a similar uplift in budget. Nationally, an average precept increase of 14 to 15 per cent. would be required to hold services at their current level. It is estimated that, for the Norfolk police authority, that would be about the same, or slightly higher, at 19 per cent.
Local government and police authorities, not only in Norfolk but nationally, are between a rock and a hard place. The Norfolk police authority is determined to protect front-line operational services, and to maintain the progress made since 1995 in officer numbers and resources, as the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Wright) put it. However, it is aware that any significant increases in the precept or council tax will be opposed, particularly by pensioners. I am sure that the Minister is aware, from her own constituency, of how much anger there is.
I would like to hear from the Minister on the Government's policy on this issue. We hear a lot about joined-up government, but we seem to get conflicting messages on capping. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is on record as having threatened capping but, in a meeting attended by the Prime Minister, Ministers, chief constables and police authorities, the Home Secretary gave the impression that police authorities will not be capped. Who is correct: the Deputy Prime Minister or the Home Secretary? We need to get that clear today.
Those budgetary decisions will have a real impact on the police, the public and crime in our county. Norfolk is the second largest county in the United Kingdom, with a very long coastline. It has large urban areas such as Yarmouth, King's Lynn and Yarmouth, where there is social deprivation. There is also social deprivation in rural areas in mid-Norfolk, such as in my constituency.
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We have between 3 million and 5 million visitors and tourists to the county every year. Many of them—the overwhelming majority—are honest and law-abiding, but a minority are not, so we have enormous churning in our population.
We not only have local crime, but we are vulnerable to commuting criminals from the east midlands. If my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) is lucky enough to speak, he may comment on the repercussions of the case of his constituent Mr. Tony Martin. We also have criminals commuting from Essex and London. Fear of crime in rural areas is real, precisely because the police appear either not to be there at all or to be a long way away, which does not mean that they cannot respond, but that perception is very strong indeed.
As the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth put it, the Norfolk police authority and the chief constable are now successfully targeting crime. The previous chief constable, Ken Williams, put in motion many of the things that his successor, Andy Hayman, is now carrying out. Operation Harrier is but one high-profile operation to take the offensive against criminals. I had the pleasure of being at the police headquarters on 30 July for the launch of the Norfolk home watch association, which is an important, active part of police operations.
As the hon. Member for North Norfolk pointed out, we now have three mobile police stations, which I commend. They are working in my constituency and are an excellent example of the police showing their presence and gathering information. In the market town of Reepham in my constituency there is a one-stop community office, for which the police are paying the rent and where there is a police presence, the old police station having been closed down—I can well understand the reasons behind that.
The problem for the Norfolk police authority is that the budget is being squeezed owing to central Government devolving more and more responsibilities and new costs. National insurance is an obvious example and is affecting all the public sector. A lot of the budgets, as other hon. Members have said, are top-sliced and ring-fenced. One aspect of the Norfolk police authority budget which creates a great deal of cynicism among councillors and the police is the best value exercise, which costs the authority £650,000 a year. Norfolk does not think that it gets very much out of that exercise, and it would rather have the £650,000 to deploy itself—perhaps to acquire a helicopter permanently.
The Norfolk police authority has a long priority list for funding. I want to conclude by emphasising merely two of them. First, will the Minister confirm that any changes to the police funding allocation do not disadvantage Norfolk and that ring-fenced funding that is currently outside the formula, such as the rural policing fund and the crime fighting fund, will continue to be provided at least at the current levels? If they are not, we are in for an even worse budget than we thought.
Secondly, the hon. Member for North Norfolk made the point that I took up with the Minister's predecessor a year ago, which is the need for dedicated air support. Norfolk is one of only four forces in England and Wales that does not have a helicopter available round the clock. Will the Minister consider that again, to see if the

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Home Office can provide some funding, or at least some flexibility in funding? We are the second largest county, with a very long coastline. We are lucky at times to have the support of the Royal Air Force, which provides support that it is not legally forced t o provide. I shudder to think where we would get the necessary air support from if there were a major terrorist incident in Norfolk.
Will the Minister look again at that serious issue, and can she guarantee the funding that Norfolk receives already under the rural funding? That would go some way to meeting our concerns. Our concern is that a standstill budget, which is the best that we have to look forward to, would mean that we should have to cut back on the operational effectiveness that the Government have already provided for Norfolk. That would have a detrimental effect on our constituents.
2.35 pm
Mr. Richard Bacon: I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak, and add my congratulations to the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb). I am grateful also because it is not often, after one takes part in a debate and the Minister has wound up, that one has a chance to wind up on the Minister's winding-up. In the debate on the police the other day, she mentioned the question—referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson)—of extra burdens on the police. She was worried about my description that
"the need to introduce diversity in the police force and to deal with child protection"—[Official Report, 15 October 2003; Vol. 411, c. 219.]
were bureaucracy. I was quoting from the chief constable of Norfolk's report to the police authority, and I hope that she will accept that I was enumerating a list of burdens. Whether good or bad, they are still burdens. I shall not list them all again, but they are at column 208, and include everything from best value—which is of questionable value, as my hon. Friend said—to things such as activity-based costing, the recommendations of the Climbié report, and equal opportunities. I was making the point that whether such things are good or bad, if the Home Office requires local constabularies—including Norfolk—to do them, they impose extra time and resource costs.
I also want to pick up on my hon. Friend's point about helicopters, and the fact that we do not have air cover. I have read a study published by the Public Accounts Committee on the royal family's air and rail travel. By adopting a more flexible approach, and by starting to lease and charter more, the royal family succeeded in more or less doubling the miles that they flew while cutting overall costs from about £17 million to £5 million. The Government constantly remind us that they are accruing assets for the future by paying for them over a period, such as the private finance initiative building for the Home Office, never mind that for the Treasury, so what is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander. During our visit to the chief constable of Norfolk's top team, we were told that the Home Office had said, "We will give you a cheque now for half the capital costs of the helicopter, but the rules do not allow you to lease or charter". That seems insane. I hope that the Minister will take that seriously.
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I want to raise four issues: first, the effect of under-policing in rural areas, such as parts of my South Norfolk constituency; secondly, custody provision in the central area, including the city of Norwich, the urban parts of Broadland district and all of south Norfolk; thirdly, the special constabulary; and fourthly, Government targets.
The central area is central to the operation of Norfolk constabulary because it includes the city of Norwich. As one officer told me, if central area is performing well, Norfolk constabulary is performing well. The central area comprises the urban parts of Broadland and all my constituency, which includes some very rural areas, down to the Waveney valley and along the south-east to the borders of Yarmouth—some of the most rural and sparsely populated parts of Norfolk. Under-policing has an even more dramatic effect in those rural areas. The majority of crime occurs in the area around Norwich, so the biggest gains are made by deploying most of the central area's resources in and around Norwich. As a result, there is a constant battle in my constituency of South Norfolk to get anything even approaching adequate cover. The police sector that is managed from Diss, which excludes the north-west of my constituency around Wymondham but includes almost all the rest, covers a population of some 70,000 people and an area of about 270 square miles, but has only two police vehicles and four officers. Greater London is just over 600 square miles, so the area is about half the size of Greater London. To use an example closer to the Minister's home patch, the city of Manchester—not Greater Manchester—is 45 square miles, so the area is six times bigger than the city of Manchester. As I said, there are four officers in two vehicles, and that is assuming that nothing happens. That thin cover can be removed when there is the slightest problem.
The entire custody provision for the central area is undertaken in Bethel street police headquarters in Norwich. I visited those facilities to see the conditions in the early hours of the morning, and I can vouch for the fact that the quality and quantity are insufficient. On a busy night, it is not uncommon for the Bethel street custody suite to be closed simply because it is full, so that officers who apprehend people have to take them elsewhere.
A few months ago, a police night crew arrested someone in Loddon in my constituency and had to transport the individual to King's Lynn, which is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham). That is some 55 miles by road, so it is a three-hour return journey, which more or less renders the crew inoperable for the rest of the shift. If we add on the processing time once they get there, they are not only inoperable, but out of area for the rest of the night. If there is then just one extra incident in the city of Norwich that requires one extra crew to be called in from South Norfolk, as sometimes happens, an area half the size of Greater London has no police cover at all. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk was correct to say that this is sometimes a matter of perception, but unfortunately it is also sometimes a reality that very large swathes of rural England, covering many tens of thousands of people, have no police cover for long periods.

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That brings me to my third point, which is about specials. In Diss, there used to be 12 members of the special constabulary; there are now eight. Nationally, the figures have fallen significantly—by several thousand. The Government should look into that seriously, because apart from anything else, providing specials is financially smart. It is also good recruiting ground for the regular constabulary. It may be appropriate to pay a bounty. I think that some forces are doing so. When I was in the Territorial Army, a bounty was paid. It was not significant and I certainly did not join the Territorial Army because of it. I joined because I wanted to play my part in ending the cold war, and I am pleased to say that within five years of my joining the Territorial Army, the cold war had ended. I felt, therefore, that I could leave.
My fourth point is about Government targets. There are targets for burglaries, robberies and vehicle crime, as has been said, but one officer said to me that when he meets people in my constituency, in police forums and at parish councils, he finds that for the most part those are not typically the crimes that people worry about. He said that people worry mainly about crimes such as graffiti, vandalism and the other low-level crime that we hear so much about, and certainly people complain directly to me about that sort of incident. The problem is that the targets lead the police to take those issues rather less seriously, even though they know that those are the main concerns of local residents. The incentive is to prioritise other crimes, which people do not necessarily complain about quite so much.
Those are the key issues that I wanted to raise. I again congratulate the hon. Member for North Norfolk on initiating this Adjournment debate, and I look forward to the Minister's reply.
2.43 pm
Mr. Henry Bellingham: I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) on securing this important short debate. I also praise the Norfolk police authority and particularly its chairman, Jim Wilson, for the excellent briefing with which he provided Norfolk Members, for the consistent pressure that he has been applying and for the considered and effective way in which he has always argued his case.
In recent years, the situation has improved for the Norfolk constabulary in terms of police numbers, initiatives and resources, but that was not always the case. It is worth remembering that, from 1997 to 2000, when I was outside Parliament, there were cuts in Norfolk's police budget, with the result that we had fewer officers. Only now has the nominal roll of police officers in Norfolk been made up to the 1997 level. However, progress has recently been made, which 1 will describe later in my remarks.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) mentioned my constituent, Tony Martin. I had not intended to refer to Tony Martin, but I will do so because it was as a result of that case that the Norfolk constabulary came into public focus. As a consequence of the case, several important initiatives were introduced and, as a consequence of those initiatives, one or two important measures are now in place of which we can be rightly proud.
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One of those initiatives was to set up a beat station in Terrington St. John, in west Norfolk. There is now a beat station in that marshland area of Norfolk, which is sparsely populated and where policing is difficult because of the distances involved. In the past, policing in that subdivision was carried out from Downham Market.
The use of Ford Galaxies and mobile police stations are excellent ways of enabling the police to get out into the community and provide a much more visible police presence.
I should like to congratulate chief superintendent Alan Hayes, who has been an extremely proactive and imaginative area commander in our area. He believes in a zero tolerance policy. He takes the view that if a crime is important to local people, it is important to him. It does not matter if the crime is broken windows, graffiti or other antisocial behaviour, it is important to him to try to sort it out, and he will make every effort to prioritise it.
I have attended several parish council meetings with chief superintendent Alan Hayes. His can-do, no-nonsense attitude and zero-tolerance approach to policing, which is, I gather, endorsed by the chief constable, Andy Hayman, has done a great deal to reassure the public and build up local confidence in the police.
I should also like to congratulate Alan Hayes and his team on the way in which they responded to Tony Martin's release. When a high-profile prisoner such as Tony Martin is returned into the community with hundreds of press and cameramen in attendance, who pursued him relentlessly after his return to Bleak house, imaginative and sensitive policing is required. Obviously, such policing can take place only in the context of what the individual is prepared to put up with and co-operate with, but in that situation the police were marvellous. I should like to put on record my gratitude to them and also congratulate them on the way in which they responded to a difficult and sensitive situation.
We have heard today about some of the current budget challenges. The hon. Member for North Norfolk mentioned that a 6 per cent. increase will be necessary simply to stand still. I agree with what he said about the bidding process for the different schemes—bidding for those costly "pots" is far from simple and straightforward, and takes up a great deal of time, resources and effort. I have spoken to many police officers who find the whole process very stressful.
I am sure that the Minister will discuss the overall figures for police budgets. We must remind her that, although they may look good on paper, much of the global figure is being kept back by the Home Office. Some £155 million is being held back for centrally controlled national initiatives and priorities. Top-sliced funding of £586 million will be held centrally by the Government and earmarked for more specific initiatives. If the Minister wants to avert what will undoubtedly be a serious funding crisis, it would help if those schemes could be made simpler, but it would also be helpful to trust local constabularies to run schemes that will suit the problems and conditions on the ground. Rather than holding all that money back, why not give it to the police forces and trust them? When there are chief constables of the competence of Andy

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Hayman, and area commanders of the ability of Alan Hayes, surely they can be trusted to get the job done locally. They do not have to be put in a bureaucratic straitjacket and be drip-fed funds from different pots. They should be left to get on with it.
I endorse what several hon. Members on both sides of the House said about air support. The response to Norfolk constabulary's reasonable request for a helicopter was Government pigheadedness gone mad. Some common sense is needed to cut through the prevailing Whitehall attitude.
I will bring my speech to a close, as we want to hear from the Front Bench spokesmen, and especially the Minister, as we will be very pleased with what she has to tell us. No one would deny that excellent progress has been made, as the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth said, but that is threatened. Morale will suffer enormously if there is not the opportunity and ability to continue with the schemes.
I endorse what several hon. Members have said: it would be completely unfair and utterly perverse to place a burden beyond the rate of inflation on the council tax payers of Norfolk. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk said, many of them are on fixed incomes and it would be wrong to ask those people to pay more money when there have been year-on-year inflation-busting increases in the council tax.
I look forward to the Minister's reply. We have an increasingly effective local police force and we want that to continue.
2.51 pm
Mr. David HeathI congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) on securing the debate. Being surrounded by a posse of Norfolk Members on all sides of the Chamber must be of great help in pressing the case for Norfolk. The boundary commission was hardly imaginative in naming constituencies in the county, which have a marked similarity to each other.
It is a coincidence that yesterday the Government published their police performance monitoring book for 2002–03. I looked at the entry for Norfolk, and took seriously the Minister's point in her press release that the diagrams are simple to look at. That may be so, but to understand them is a different concept. I am not yet convinced by the spidergram as a useful tool for understanding.
Setting aside the crime statistics—I take the point made by the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Wright) that there is a heavy qualification on the figures for this year—what worried me in Norfolk's case was the score for those residents who think that the police do a good job. It was shown as 43 per cent., one of the lowest of any force in the country. From what I have heard in the debate and elsewhere, the Norfolk constabulary are not doing too bad a job with their available resources, but there is a mismatch between the public perception of the efforts made by the chief constable and his officers and the results on the ground. That should concern all of us, not least the Minister, as it is reasonable for her to say that extra resources have been put into policing in the past year or so.
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I entirely agree with the point made by the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) that when the Government took office they delayed putting extra resources into policing. There are now extra police, yet public confidence is not increasing, and we should take careful note of that. Despite extra personnel in Norfolk and in almost every other force, resources are stretched to breaking point and beyond. Despite falling crime in some areas overall, the perception of vulnerability to crime, particularly in rural areas, is growing exponentially. Somehow, a way must be found to reconcile those issues.
Two concerns for Norfolk have been expressed today. The first is rural policing, which is a subject dear to my heart in my constituency. The second is the council tax increase. I would like to talk briefly on both topics.
Many people in rural areas suffer from a small crime rate in comparison with the national or international average. However, it is also true that their level of concern has increased over recent years, because they feel intensely vulnerable, and do not believe that they have a level of police service that is consonant with the level that they want in order to feel reassured. That feeling can be picked up in almost any village or small town in the country. It is made worse by the influence of larger conurbations, as referred to by the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon) in his comments on Norwich. Norwich is hardly the crime capital of the country, but it is a significant large city. From the point of view of my constituency, Bristol is unfortunately a significant area for crime.
The fact that resources are constantly sucked into the cities away from rural areas has a real and immediate effect on the level of policing in rural areas. Now is the time to address rural policing differently, although I am not about to deliver a new policing policy on behalf of my party. I am rapidly reaching the conclusion, which I think is shared by others—I hope for a serious and sensible debate—that the issues of serious, organised and national crime are interfering with keeping the peace throughout most of Britain. We must separate the tiers of responsibility and the functionalities of the police to give a better deal and a more efficient system. That needs to be considered carefully, and I think that all three parties are coming to a similar conclusion.
We need a much closer relationship between the level of policing in rural areas and the aspirations of the local crime reduction partnerships and local authorities. We need almost a contractual arrangement for a minimal level of service, which would mean that police officers would not be continually abstracted from the rural beat to help out with the latest national policing objective in the big cities.
We must consider how to achieve a higher visibility for the patrol function in rural areas. I understand why there are no longer police officers in small rural police stations or police houses in villages, and why the police need to be on the move and in a car. However, local communities need to see visible signs that they are being policed. We need more of what I have always called intelligent patrols, to ensure that the police are seen in the right places at relevant times. In that way, people are reassured and can share in community policing by passing on low-level intelligence when they see police officers. I do not know what the Norfolk police

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telephone system is like, but I must say that the system in my constituency is a disaster for the public who want to get in touch with a local police officer.
Mr. Bellingham:One of the complaints that I keep getting is that people ring the Norfolk switchboard and talk to someone in Wymondham who does not know the nooks and crannies of small villages in north-west Norfolk. I am sure that my three Opposition colleagues agree that that is a real problem.
Mr. Heath:I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He has confirmed what I suspected. This is not just a problem for my constabulary; it is a national problem. The more efficient we make these call centres, the less well they serve the public because they are more remote and it is more difficult to get the right message through to the right person in the right place at the right time. That is a concern.
There are things that could be done immediately. I have long argued that we need a new status of police officer in rural areas. We need the retained officer, which is not so different from what the hon. Member for South Norfolk described. We have done it for firefighters for years. We could not run a fire brigade in Norfolk, certainly not in Somerset, without the retained firefighter, and yet there is no such category of police officer. We rely on either the special police constable or the regular full-time police officer. I accept that there are now some part-time officers, but we have nothing analogous to the retained officer. That is a mistake. If we want visibility in policing in rural areas, that is one way to achieve it.
The rural crime fighting fund has plugged some gaps but it is centrally administered. There is no certainty of continuity. If we are convinced that there is a problem with the formula as it applies to rural areas, let us wrestle with that and get the formula right rather than constantly adding little bits to try to put it right later. That is not the way to run a distribution formula, and it puts rural forces at a huge disadvantage.
We are quickly reaching a crisis in council tax increases. I will not repeat either the figures for Norfolk or the national figures. The public and we, on behalf of the public whom we represent, are saying that enough is enough. It is simply not acceptable to have huge increases in the council tax year after year without a corresponding increase in the level of service. Like my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk, I have grave doubts about whether council tax is an appropriate mechanism for raising the funds for local authorities and whether there are not better alternatives. Even within the context of the current tax, the gearing on it and the reduction of effective support from central Government have resulted in an unsustainable situation. People are being asked to pay a lot more each year without getting an improved service.
Years ago we asked people whether they would be happy to pay an extra fiver in return for a better police force, and they said yes. There is no shortage of good will here, but people are not prepared to pay a 14 or 15 per cent. increase in their precepts this year on top of the double-figure percentage increase that they paid last year if they cannot see any results. There will be a real problem for the Government unless they address it
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before the announcement of the support levels for next year. We know what the Treasury's intention is and that it is entirely inconsistent with what the Home Office is trying to achieve in policing levels.
We cannot have that argument in this Chamber. We can merely support the view that the Home Office has to be extremely clever at presenting its case with the Treasury and that the present projections simply will not work. The hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) pointed out the inconsistency between the Home Secretary's intentions and the Deputy Prime Minister's plans for capping. We need clarity on that because it is important to police authorities in planning their budget for next year. However, even if there is the utmost clarity it will not help the poor council tax payer who will receive an increased bill unless something else gives.
Constabularies such as Norfolk need "a new deal", to use the new Labour term. Let us have a new deal for rural policing that recognises the difficulties besetting these forces. Let us recognise that there are bigger issues that perhaps are properly dealt with at a different tier. Many Members referred to the air support that is available to Norfolk. When I was chairman of the Avon and Somerset police authority some 10 years ago, I was in the same position, as we had no air cover, so we ended up making collaborative arrangements with our neighbouring police authority in Gloucestershire, in which one helicopter served both areas. However, I agree that the current rules are a nonsense and should be changed.
If we are to see a real and sustainable improvement in policing and increase the figure of only 43 per cent. of residents in Norfolk thinking that the police do a good job, we will need security of funding that goes a long way beyond what is now available. Unless the Home Secretary acts quickly, we will see a great deal of trouble in the near future.
3.5 pm
Mr. James PaiceI was interested in the opening comment of the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) about the Boundary Commission's unimaginative terminology for Norfolk constituencies. Given the problem that many Members have in pronouncing Somerton and Frome correctly, the general geographical approach adopted for Norfolk is probably wiser.
I was also interested in the hon. Gentleman's statement that he would not announce a new Liberal Democrat policy; we await with interest an announcement that there is one at all.
I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) on securing the debate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) said, it is a re-run of one that has taken place before. We could have a similar debate on every force in the country—if I were not debarred because I am on the Front Bench, I could introduce one about Cambridgeshire. However, it is particularly appropriate that we are debating Norfolk, because Jim Wilson, chairman of the Norfolk police authority, is leading for the Association of Police Authorities on the problem of next year's funding.
My constabulary in Cambridgeshire shares a secretariat with Norfolk, which shows what co-operation can take place. It seems odd that I receive all

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my communications about Cambridgeshire police from Wymondham in Norfolk, but that is the way that the force operates.
All hon. Members referred to council tax and increasing bureaucracy. The hon. Member for North Norfolk was generous to the Government in saying that just under 10,000 civil servants are employed in the central part of the Home Office, as the figure is actually nearer 11,000. That is nothing to do with any of the other non-police departments, and as he said, it exceeds the number of extra police officers.
Hon. Members also spoke about Home Office impositions. Some referred to the request for a helicopter and asked why the Home Office could not provide 100 per cent. funding for a second-hand one instead of 50 per cent. for a new one, or why it could not help arrange a naval leasing. I have some sympathy with the Minister, as I am sure that she will not be able to explain the basis for that decision. It is not her decision, or even the Home Office's: it will have been imposed by Treasury rules. Those of us who have been lucky enough to be in government know that the Treasury's fingers are in everything—that seems even more so under the present Chancellor.
As several Members have said, the issue of police funding is rapidly coming to a head. I am sure that the Minister will laud the Government's achievements and describe the extra resources that the police have received. It would be foolish to argue that they have not put more money into the police, as there has been a welcome increase in police officers in the past three years—the second half of the Government's period in office: the first half was spent running down police numbers. However, it is no use the Government talking about increased resources only in global terms when they are also increasing the burden of cost on police authorities and on other public service. We have seen massive increases in costs during the past few years.
The hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Wright) referred to Airwave, which has been on the stocks for a long time. I do not know anyone who is opposed to Airwave—unless it means erecting a Tetra mast in our constituency, when we all find a reason to oppose it. However, it is a huge extra cost. Simply saying that the Government are spending all this extra money while ignoring the extra costs is only half the argument.
National insurance increases and considerable changes to the police pay structure are now coming into play, and they will put huge extra costs on the police force. The Association of Police Authorities estimates that that will result in an average of 6 per cent. expenditure next year. It forecasts that next year's council tax will have to increase by 15 per cent. on average just to stand still. As Members from all parties have said, we cannot go on raising council tax. There has been a more than 70 per cent. average overall rise in the police precept since the Government came to office, and in last year alone it rose by 25 per cent.
I agree with the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome that the Government will shortly reap their own harvest. The public will not tolerate ever-increasing hikes in council tax. I understand one of the reasons why the Government have adopted that approach: it is easy
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to blame somebody else, such as local authorities. They can shift the burden on to council taxpayers, and then say that if local authorities have not been able to make efficiency savings that is their fault. The Secretary of State for Education, who is another Norfolk MP, tried that last year—this present financial year—with schools in Norfolk, but he had to eat his words. It was obvious that the fault was nothing to do with local education authorities, but was the responsibility of the Government Department, which had got its figures wrong. I fear that that will happen across the board with the police and other public services.
Several hon. Members have referred to the issue of top-slicing—that is the phrase that I like to use—in relation to central specific projects. It is perfectly true—I am sure that the Minister will claim that it is—that such money is eventually spent on policing and some of it goes to police authorities. However, as the hon. Member for North Norfolk and others have said, that system creates a huge bureaucracy of its own, because forces have to bid for the money, often to no avail or for very small sums. I am told that there is one fund of just £2 million for video facilities. If the 43 police forces have a crack at bidding for that, I suspect that an equal amount of money will be spent just on the bidding process. In my opinion, that is central-controlled top-slicing gone mad.
Last year, there was a 58 per cent. increase in the amount of money withheld at the centre for specific grants. That is a worrying trend, because it is another example of the Home Office taking ever more control over how we go about our policing. The other aspect of all these specific funds is that many of them are time limited. At the end of the day, the force is faced with deciding whether to go on with a certain form of expenditure or curtail it; it then faces the resulting opprobrium of doing that. We need only consider the example of community support officers. Without going into the rights and wrongs of such a scheme, which we have done on many occasions, Home Office funding for community support officers, which this year starts at 100 per cent., goes down to 50 per cent. in 2005–06. If those forces that have taken up community support officers want to continue with them, there will be a huge shift of burden from the specific fund to the general fund, and I very much doubt that sufficient money will go into the general fund.
I shall turn now to how the money is being spent and how well we are using it for improvements in policing in Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, the metropolitan area and elsewhere. As several hon. Members have said—including the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth, who finds himself in a difficult position in this debate—there have been improvements in policing. Of course, Norfolk police, along with others, have developed new initiatives and new partnerships, and have improved things. Nobody denies that. However, as several hon. Members have also said, public perception is that crime is getting worse, particularly in rural areas, and that fewer police are visible and available to respond to a call-out. Now when people ring up they just get given an incident number so that they can claim on their insurance.
The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome referred to yesterday's figures. The sad fact is that about 97 per cent. of crimes that involve a victim—rather than retail crime—never result in a conviction. People might say that we live in a peaceful society, but that figure shows

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that that is not the case. I will not pretend that the country is lawless, but the situation is far from satisfactory.
Contrary to the assertions of the Prime Minister in the House earlier today, the problem is not primarily with the criminal justice system. I am not defending that system as it is far from perfect, but well over 50 per cent. of those who are prosecuted end up being convicted. The big problem is detecting the crime and getting to the point of prosecution—that is where the largest proportion of that 97 per cent. fall out of the system.
Part of the problem is the ever-increasing central control that the police are being put under. As a result, police authorities and chief constables are unable to concentrate on the needs of their own area. They are for ever responding to Government pressures—funding pressures for special funds, meeting national policing plan arrangements, and so forth. In a nutshell, police officers are spending more and more time chasing targets and less time chasing the criminals, which is what we expect them to do.
There must be a dramatic change: responsibility must be shifted away from central Government to local police authorities. They should be given a transparent, block grant, and allowed to decide whether they want a new or a second-hand helicopter and how many police officers and community support officers they need. They should make the decisions and set the targets, and account to local people if they fail to meet them.
We also need a quantum shift in the number of police officers. I welcome the increase that there has been in the last few months, but it is nowhere near enough. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) and I have repeatedly made the point that the force should be increased by about a third—approximately 40,000 officers. We would make resources available to police authorities for them to achieve that.
The constant centralisation of control, of targets and of the management of the funding, combined with the Treasury rules that we have heard about, will come back to haunt the Government. I hope that the Minister has a way out of this predicament.
3.17 pm
The Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing, and Community Safety (Ms Hazel Blears):I am delighted that the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) managed to secure this debate. It has provided a useful opportunity to air local concerns. I was not the Minister responsible for policing when a similar debate took place last year, so I have appreciated hearing from a range of Members from all parties about the issues in their communities. A couple of weeks ago, I had a chance to go to Newmarket to have a question and answer session with the police authorities—I think that it lasted for two and a half hours. I got a real flavour of what the concerns were in that local community.
I am pleased to have this opportunity to respond to what has been said, and I hope that I will be able to answer most of the questions that have been raised. I intend to make an announcement on the 2004–05 provisional police funding settlement in about mid-November. Therefore, Members will have to have a bit of patience and bear with me, because I will not be in a position to give specific information until I make that announcement.
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To reply to the point made by the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson), we have not yet set floors and ceilings, so no figures have been decided. We will announce them at the same time as the settlement. Expenditure on policing supported by the Government has increased by 30 per cent. over the past three years, which is a significant investment. I acknowledge that hon. Members have recognised that. That will be increased by a further 4 per cent. next year. That increase covers the general grant through the formula spending, specific grant and Home Office direct expenditure.
Mr. Bacon:I would be most grateful if the Minister could tell me the total cost of the extra civil servants employed in the Home Office since 1997. If she cannot, I should appreciate her writing to me.
Ms Blears:I was going to come to that in responding to what the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) said. I understand that many of them are employed as asylum caseworkers processing much of the shambles that was left to us to sort out. I will gladly provide the hon. Gentleman with full details and let him know exactly what is done. His comments are similar to the argument that is often raised about administrators in the health service. When we come to unpick the issue, we find that such people are cleaners and porters and are doing a useful job. Let us have the facts out. I shall write to the hon. Gentleman.
On the general financial situation, the Home Secretary has said that under the 4 per cent. figure no police authority will receive an increase of police authority general grant below the level of inflation, which we estimate at the moment to be around 2.5 per cent.
Several hon. Members referred to the pressures on council tax in general and precepts for the police in particular. We acknowledge that those pressures have existed for a couple of years. The public, especially people on lower incomes, are struggling with some of the council tax rises. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Home Office are speaking with one voice on council tax rises and the required precept.
I know that police authorities have been constructive in talking to their local communities and seeking to justify their precepts. I want them to continue to make well-justified cases for any increases. I know that they will want to consolidate the gains that we have made in recent years where they are able to do that. The gains in the numbers of police and community support officers have universal public support. However, the police authorities must bear in mind the Government's concern that the current trend in council tax rises is unsustainable.
There have been one or two large precept rises at the margins, the highest being 76 per cent. That is not a reasonable position for us to be in. I am conscious of the different pressures out there. The ODPM has said that next year it could use targeted capping powers if people have acted unreasonably. That applies as much to police authorities as it does to local authorities as a whole.
This year Norfolk was allocated a general policing grant of £79.6 million—an increase of 3.7 per cent. That was considerably higher than the floor. Some 19

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authorities got only 3 per cent. Norfolk increased its budget by 8.8 per cent. because it wanted to provide an increase in services to the community. The precept was increased by 21.5 per cent. Although that seems like a large increase, it amounts to 42p per week, increasing the amount to £122 a year. Sometimes the percentage increases do not reflect the tangible sums asked for. The increase in Norfolk was a little bit lower than the general increase of around 28 per cent in shire authorities.
Several hon. Members raised the issue of the fairness of the funding formula. There is an element in the funding formula that takes account of capital receipts and whether there are a great deal to dispose of, and another element takes account of people on holiday in an area—it takes account of overnight visitors, not just the resident population. The funding formula was updated last year to try to be a little more sophisticated and sensitive to the needs of different communities, and it has wide buy-in from a range of stakeholders. We will consider with the policing community how we can make the formula more sensitive and responsive to local people's needs.
Specific grants, as well as the general grant, have been developed in recent years—whether one calls them ring-fenced, top-sliced or whatever. I am trawling the budget for room to manoeuvre to maximise the general grant where possible. However, I am sure that hon. Members would not want the rural policing grant put into that pot; they probably still want it as a separate pot. We need to recognise the problem of the sparsity of policing in rural areas, and we should try to ensure that we keep that separate pot available.
Norfolk gets £3.07 million from the crime fighting fund. I assure the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk that the crime fighting fund for recruits will continue indefinitely; we have no plans to roll that back into general grants. I am pleased to be able to give that reassurance.
There is also £3.23 million for Airwave. I am delighted that Airwave is a robust and resilient mobile communications service for the force, which is taking it up extremely well. I hope that the use of the text and data applications as well as the mobile communications will give extra value, and will help the force to reduce form-filling and bureaucracy. Norfolk also gets funding for community support officers; there are 12 in Norwich, and there is permission to recruit another 18. Community support officers are proving extremely popular.
There is £500,000 for direct basic command unit funding, £500,000 in special priority payments and nearly £750,000 for DNA funding so that forces can utilise forensics and technology in supporting what they do.
Many ring-fenced or top-sliced grants are for things that the police have themselves declared to be a priority. I was interested to note that during the 1990s the previous Government provided funds in the general pot for an extra 5,000 police officers. I am told that practically none were delivered, as police authorities spent the cash on other priorities. So there is often a balance to be drawn between having things in a general pot and having them ring-fenced.
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Norfolk's share of the rural policing fund was £2.08 million; it was one of the top four beneficiaries of that fund. That is an important fund for the area. We do not envisage changes to that. Police authorities do not have to bid for rural grants; the grants are allocated, so there is no bureaucracy. They add 2.5 per cent. to Norfolk's policing budget; that is a significant amount, which can do some of the extra things that hon. Members have talked about.
Police numbers are at record levels in Norfolk, I am delighted to say, as they are throughout the country—there is more high-visibility policing. Hon. Members have raised the issue of pensions; they are an important consideration for the whole of the service. I am considering some proposals, which clearly will not help us this year. However, in years to come I am prepared to grasp the nettle on pensions to see whether we can make improvements for the future. I am very conscious of a bulge of people coming through, which will be a huge burden for many authorities.
I am intrigued by the question of air support. My information is that we agree to provide part funding for air support, provided that forces are also prepared to put something in the pot. Norfolk was not able to do that. However, I understand that it made an application to purchase a second-hand helicopter. I hate to call it that—it sounds a terrible description for a helicopter—perhaps "pre-used" is better. However, there was a question about that helicopter's suitability for its purpose. If we can reach an agreement in which Norfolk would make a contribution, I will certainly consider the matter, as I have already said in correspondence to hon. Members. However, I am not aware that it has put a bid in for next year. If it is prepared to come to the table and make a contribution, we are prepared to consider it. So far that bid has not been made. I am prepared to reconsider the matter if there are some genuinely constructive ways forward.
Hon. Members have rightly raised the issue of specials, whose numbers have gone down. We now have a big programme with pilot schemes to pay some specials to see whether that makes a difference. Specials are torn on the matter of payment: some say that they would like to remain volunteers, others say that they would like payment. I am really keen to get more specials.
I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Wright) has been present to explain the positive things going on in his area. He has a policing priority area in the Regent ward in Great Yarmouth, where they are doing tremendous work to achieve a closer partnership. I know that the hon. Gentleman, unlike the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), thoroughly supports the Government's Anti-social Behaviour Bill and the powers that it will give us to make communities safer. I hope that the Liberal Democrats will reconsider their ill thought-out position on the whole antisocial behaviour agenda, which it would serve them well to do.
Finally, Norfolk is a pretty safe place to live. I know that people want to see more police on the streets, but the force is doing an extremely good job, led by a very able chief constable and a good local authority, and is having a real impact on Norfolk. I hope that hon. Members thoroughly enjoy living there and being part of the community in the years to come.

Visa Charge(International Students)
3.30 pm
John Barrett: I welcome the opportunity to debate the impact that the new Home Office visa charges will have on non-European Union international students studying in the United Kingdom.
I want to thank Jim Thompson, the welfare officer, and Sarah Nicholson, vice-president for representation, of the Edinburgh University Students' Association, who first raised the issue with me and helped me to prepare for this debate. They have been campaigning hard on this issue, as have universities, colleges and students organisations throughout the UK. I hope that the debate will give the Minister an opportunity to respond to some of their concerns. I know that they will be listening closely to her words.
The debate stems from the press release issued by the Home Office on 11 July 2003, which announced that from 1 August all foreign nationals applying to extend their stay in the UK would have to pay a charge for the processing of their applications. The Home Office stated that applications by post would cost £155, and that the so-called premium same-day service for personal callers would cost £250. That cost would have to be paid each time an application was made. One of the largest groups of foreign nationals who are now subject to this charge are international students who are living and studying in the UK and who originate from outside the EU.
The British Council's figures show that there are some 187,000 such students in the UK, 16,000 of whom are north of the border. The charges will have a major impact on the thousands of international students in my home city of Edinburgh. Edinburgh universities have a long and proud tradition of attracting students from all over the world. Well over 3,500 non-EU international students attend Edinburgh university, Heriot-Watt university, Queen Margaret university college and Napier university, and hundreds more attend Stephenson college, Edinburgh college of art and Telford college, which is based in my constituency. Almost all those students, from a total of almost 4,000, will have to pay the Government's new charges to extend their visas.
Before I talk about the principle of the charges, I want to comment on the very disappointing way in which the charges were announced and introduced. Four years ago, during the passage of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999—the Act that established the principle of visa charging—the then Home Office Minister, the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien), gave specific and quite categorical assurances to those in further and higher education that international students would be given special consideration. More importantly, however, he promised that universities and colleges would be fully consulted before the introduction of any visa charges.
The Government not only completely reneged on the promise to give students special dispensation, but announced the charges without any consultation whatsoever with universities, colleges or student bodies. The way in which the Home Office announced these charges treated the further and higher education sectors with contempt. It has left many students and chancellors dismayed and confused as to why the assurances that they were given proved to be so hollow.
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I anticipate that it is probably too much to expect an apology from the Minister today. I hope, however, that she will at least recognise that the charges could have been introduced in a much better way. Unless the Home Office shows that serious lessons can be learned for the future, universities and colleges will have no reason to believe the Government when similar assurances are given again.
Sue Doughty: This is a very important subject. Is my hon. Friend aware that I had to bring to the attention of the House the treatment of these students by the Home Office and the real problems that they experienced in obtaining visas, which were constantly being lost? That created a very bad impression of the British Government and the British way of life. Only this week, I received a letter from 138 Chinese students at the university of Surrey on this issue.
John Barrett:I am aware of some of the problems for which students are having to pick up the tab because of Home Office errors, and I shall come to that.
The announcement of the charges, without consultation, was made all the worse by the way in which they were introduced. The Home Office announcement on 11 July stated that the new system would start on 1 August. It gave relevant student organisations and student welfare officers a mere 21 days to prepare. As the principal and vice-chancellor of Edinburgh university, Professor Timothy O'Shea said:
"With only three weeks' advance notice ahead of the implementation of these charges, universities have had no opportunity to highlight their impact nor to forewarn the students about them."
He went on to say:
"The charges have been launched at a time of year, shortly before the start of the new academic year, guaranteed to hit the higher education sector hardest."
Can the Minister tell me why the Home Office chose 11 July to announce the new charges? Was any consideration given to the impact that the timing would have on the further and higher education sectors?
Mr. Graham Brady: The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the problems for the further and higher education sectors. He might also be interested to know that it is a major problem for overseas students attending boarding schools. A market worth over £200 million to this country has been thrown into chaos by the changes.
John Barrett:I take note of that point.
What about the impact of the charges? International students represent the largest single group of applications for extensions in the UK. It cannot be argued that students represent the most well-off group in society, so the new visa charges will, without doubt, impact on them to a greater degree than they will on other non-EU visitors working to extend their stays. As the Minister will know, many international students do not have access to yanking facilities, as banks often refuse to issue them with debit cards or cheque books. That will force many of them to pay the visa charges by postal order, adding again to their costs.

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Even without postal order charges, the cost is already considerable. As I mentioned, the charge will be at least £150 per application, which bears no resemblance to the likely charge of £90 of which the hon. Member for North Warwickshire advised the Standing Committee on the Immigration and Asylum Bill in 1999. As the Council for International Education pointed out, there has not been 72 per cent. inflation since then. Can the Minister tell us how the figure off 150 was reached and give an indication as to why the original estimate proved to be so far out? In addition, why do the charges compare so unfavourably with similar application fees, such as the £36 for an initial student visa?
I ask these questions because the answers are important and have not, so far, been forthcoming. Unlike those for many other foreign nationals, the new visa charges will not be one-off charges for the students who have to pay them. Despite central guidance, many students are not given permission to stay which covers their entire courses, and they need to extend their stay to complete their degree or even to attend graduation. Many short-term students are granted entry on conditions that preclude them from working as other international students can. Those students must then apply for a change in conditions. In all such cases, students will have to pay the Home Office's new charge.
The trouble does not stop there. Students in further education and, for example, on English language courses are often given permission to stay for only a year at a time. Others only get permission to extend for each of their short courses. Those students might have to pay the charge four or five times. What about research students, who are approaching the end of their studies? At present, they often have to make several applications for short extensions to cover final write-ups, re-submissions or further oral examinations. What about students who are on pre-sessional or foundation courses in preparation for degree courses? Such students will have to extend their stay after completing their first courses. How about the many students who are here thanks to scholarships and are on particularly limited budgets?
Finally, what consideration has the Minister given to students—I can assure her that there are many—who need to correct mistakes that have, as my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Sue Doughty) said, been made by entry clearance officers in their home countries or by an immigration officer on entry into this country? Should they be charged for the Government's incompetence? All those students will be hit hard by the new charges, and without question there is a risk that the charges will deter foreign students from studying in the UK. That is despite the Prime Minister's clearly stated and repeated aim of attracting more international students to the UK.
Mr. Barry Sheerman: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that our country is at the leading edge in international education provision, and that the charges represent a tax on that education and on a thriving industry?
John Barrett:I certainly do agree. Other countries are well aware of the contribution that students can make to
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their way of life, to their education system and to their economies, and while we are adding tax many other countries are trying to get students to go and attend their educational establishments. It is a double-edged sword.
Edinburgh university has been particularly keen to respond to the Prime Minister's initiative. However, the new visa charges have severely hampered its efforts, and for what reward? The Minister for Citizenship and Immigration, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Beverley Hughes), said in the original Home Office press release that
"charging will help us to continue to improve the efficiency and speed with which we process these applications, leading to ever higher levels of customer service."
Unfortunately, neither I nor those working in our colleges, universities and boarding schools are convinced that that will be the case.
The chief executive of Universities UK has asked whether the immigration and nationality directorate will be able to provide a level of service that is appropriate to the level of charge. If the Government think that the Home Office proposal of a maximum of 13 weeks for processing an application is a high level of service, they ought to be prosecuted under the Trades Descriptions Act.
Where do we go from here? Naturally, I and many other hon. Members would like the Home Office to do an about-turn and remove the charges. That may be a little unrealistic, despite the fact that such a move would receive the overwhelming support of colleges and universities. Nevertheless, the Government could take some simple and relatively straightforward steps to help to mitigate the very negative impact of the Home Office's new policy.
What consideration can the Minister give to postponing the charges at least until the new year? Such a deferral, although short, would make an enormous difference to those organisations that are still trying to get to grips with the Government's recent and sudden announcement. Not only would it allow for greater consultation on the implications of the charges, but those students who are affected will have more time to become fully aware of the new rules and to begin budgeting for the charges.
The Minister should be aware that advice services at many educational institutions are coming under great pressure because of the charges, especially as it comes at their busiest time of the year. That is certainly the case in Edinburgh. A deferral of the charges would allow the consideration of new and different systems—perhaps differential fees for shorter or longer extensions—and for the publication of new guidance on the length of student visas for different courses.
Whether or not the charges are postponed, will the Minister assure me that new guidance will be issued to immigration officers at UK ports and to entry clearance officers abroad on granting consistent entry extensions in order to minimise the potential for mistakes and the need for repeat extension applications? If the Minister believes that the charges will result in an improved service, will she assure me that additional and better trained staff will be placed at ports, to avoid students having to make applications to the Home Office soon after their arrival?

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Will the Minister also make clear her intention to provide a means by which students can dispute permissions that are incorrect or that fail adequately to meet their circumstances without the payment of additional fees? Such a commitment would go a long way to allaying concerns that students may be picking up the bill for the mistakes of the Home Office.
A strong consensus has now emerged on the issue. The Council for International Students, Universities UK, the National Union of Students, the Council for International Education, and vice-chancellors, rectors, student unions and associations throughout the UK, have lined up to urge the Government to reverse their position on visa extension charges. I am delighted that hon. Members from six parties have already signed early-day motion 1729 in my name, which calls on the Home Office to consider the issue again. There is a consensus that the Government cannot and must not ignore.
I am keen to ensure that the Minister has as much time as possible to respond to my points. I hope that I have made clear the seriousness of the Home Office actions, and the depth of feeling on the issue. I appreciate that she may not be able to answer all my questions in the short time that she has to respond, but the debate has given me an opportunity to put the case of universities, colleges and students, and to put on record some important and, in some cases, detailed questions. I also ask that she and her officials respond in writing to any points that cannot be addressed today, so that the concern and dismay felt by those in further and higher education can finally be brought to an end.
Overseas students contribute to our education system and our economy. We should follow the example of other countries, which not only encourage them in their studies but facilitate their long-term involvement with the country. The current actions of the Government are short-sighted and must be reconsidered.
3.45 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Fiona Mactaggart):I welcome the opportunity to respond to this debate on behalf of the Government. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett) is right to say that the subject has not been fully aired in public, and I am glad of the opportunity to respond to the points that he has made.
Historically, in administering people's applications to remain here as students, we have provided a service that has, at times, been flawed. The Government's view, as expressed in the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, was that the service should properly be paid for by the people who benefit from it. The fees are set, in accordance with Treasury rules, to cover the full administrative cost entailed in considering each application, and no more.
The hon. Gentleman asks how the policy was developed and why it has been introduced now. Those are important subjects, and they connect with the issue of service raised by the hon. Member for Guildford (Sue Doughty), who has left the Chamber. The Home Office recognises that, at the standard of service that was common in the past, it would be difficult to sustain a charging regime. Quite properly, we therefore ensured that the Department was able to provide a proper quality of service before fee proposals were introduced.
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As a consequence, substantial investment was made to get the service to a level of effectiveness and efficiency that would merit charging.
We have set stringent service standards. The aim is that 70 per cent. of postal applications will be dealt with within three weeks of receipt in the immigration and nationality directorate, with the remainder being dealt with within 13 weeks. Of course, we recognise that 13 weeks is not a high quality of service, but we aim to guarantee that as a maximum. I have assured myself that, within just 13 weeks of the announcement, only I per cent. of the applications made in the week following the announcement are still to be decided. We are meeting those standards, and I understand that we are exceeding the three-week target for 70 per cent. of applications.
Personal callers with correct documentation who do not require further inquiries will get a decision on the same day, and we are delivering that for 100 per cent. of personal callers. In comparison, a year ago, only 50 per cent. of postal applications were considered within three weeks, and only 87 per cent. of personal applications received a same-day service, so there has been substantial improvement in the service.
If we had not made the investment that we have put in because of the charging regime, the service improvements could not have been delivered. My aim is to deliver further improvements because I share the view that 13 weeks for the determination of a case is longer than one would want. It is not appropriate for a student, whether at school or university, to wait that long for a decision to be made. We can make improvements only through a charging regime, as there are already too many demands on public funds. Would that be a disincentive to students; would it cause them problems? It is important to recognise the size of the charge compared with the other costs of studying in the UK. It is substantially smaller than the cost of student fees and tuition fees, the cost of living here and so on.
When the subject was first debated—
Mr. Sheerman:Will the Minister give way?
Fiona Mactaggart:If I may, I shall first finish the sentence.
When the subject was first debated, it was quite easy for overseas students to work for up to 20 hours a week in addition to studying. That automatic permission to work was introduced in 1999, and it made it much easier for students to meet additional costs while they were here.
Mr. Sheerman:Surely the point is whether the charge is fair, and whether it will stop students coming here? International students provide 12 per cent. of the income of UK universities. As a governor of the London School of Economics, I know that many institutions will face bankruptcy if they lose a substantial share of that market. The cost is still high.
Fiona Mactaggart:Frankly, compared with the other costs of overseas study, £150 is not very high. I do not accept my hon. Friend's point that the cost will substantially deter students. If we compare fees in the United Kingdom to those in other countries that have

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had fees in place for some time, our regime—which has been in place for only a matter of weeks—sits between the charges made by Australia and those made by America, our major competitors as English language nations that offer places to overseas students.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: What consultation took place with the universities?
Fiona Mactaggart:I was coming to that point. It is regrettable that there was no extensive consultation on the matter. There are two reasons for that. First, getting everything into place to allow delivery to take place was more complex than the Department understood. We were in a position to do that only shortly before the announcement was made. That created real difficulties of timing and of creating opportunities for consultation.
Secondly, and most important, in the period of just under three weeks between the announcement and the introduction of the fees, the number of applications was two and a half times the usual number. It is quite possible that, had we undertaken extensive consultation before the charge was introduced, the service improvements that I described could not have been sustained. That would not have been acceptable.
We find ourselves in the regrettable situation of having introduced the fee without the quality of consultation that we might have hoped for. There was no possibility of consulting over the level of fee, as it is determined by Treasury rules, although we could have consulted properly on some of the details. I apologise to the universities for that. I can announce today that, in looking at what has happened so far and at what should happen in the future, we will engage with universities and student organisations.
I will be happy to hear representations from student organisations that have been burdened by the advanced consequences of the charge. We need to learn from the early weeks of the experiment to ensure that, if there were any unintended consequences or impacts, we can see whether steps can be taken to remedy the impact. I recognise that the lack of consultation caused complications for institutions and individuals. That is regrettable, and I can confirm that, although it is not possible to do what the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West wants, which is to unpick the fees paid to date, it is possible to learn from the process, to listen to representations on how to proceed and to invite universities and student unions to comment. We are currently considering how that consultation should go forward.
John Barrett:Will the Minister say who was consulted?
Fiona Mactaggart:We used the negative resolution procedure, so the only consultation was within the Government. I understand that that is not a satisfactory procedure, and there were two reasons for that. The first was the need to be confident that we had in place the service improvements, which were necessary precursors to charging. The second reason was the potential consequences of the closing-down sale on our ability to
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sustain that quality of service, partly because of its timing. That is in the past, and we will now proceed with consultation of the quality for which we have aimed.
Treasury rules on full cost recovery are completely clear. However, the timing, and some of the issues raised by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West, such as the length of visas and the advice to immigration officers, can be consulted on.
Mr. Jim Cousins: The different categories of overseas students were raised at the beginning of the debate. I was shocked to be told, in a letter from the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Beverley Hughes), that the Home Office accounting structure does not provide for differential fees. Will the Minister tell us when that problem will be put right, so that we can consider differential fees?
Fiona Mactaggart:No, I cannot; that is the honest answer. That is one reason why we are examining the terms of future consultation. We have managed significant service improvements, and that has been the priority, rather than the development of highly sophisticated charging regimes. If, in response to what has happened so far, there is an overwhelming demand for a complex system of different charges, we may consider that. However, my judgment is that the cost of introducing complex differentials is probably not worth the cost of that infrastructure.
Mr. Sheerman:My hon. Friend is generous in giving way again, and I appreciate the tone of her response. I do not want a complex system of fees, but what would she say about reconsidering the repeat fees? That goes to the heart of the question.
Fiona Mactaggart:I can confirm that, in phase 2 of the consultation, we will consider having differential fees. We have instituted systems to try to ensure that, to reduce repeat fees, the entry clearance officers or immigration officers grant leave for the full length of the course.
As the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West pointed out, there are problems when people take an English course, and then a further course. Frankly it is not right or possible for the Home Office to give someone leave for longer than the length of their course. However, we have instituted measures to allow immigration officers to give concurrent leave to people who have completed their course so that they can return, for example, for their award ceremony. We must consider people in subjects such as science and engineering who might stay to get work experience at the end of their course.
We are trying to reduce some of the consequences of the measures, and I think that we will be able to minimise some of them; they are already being sorted out in practice. The first introduction has been a motor for the improvement of the quality of service. In my view, the lack of quality of administration of applications by overseas students was a bigger barrier to their being able to come to Britain to study than the level of fee. In the second layer of consultation, we need to ensure that we improve the way in which we deal with fees.

Electoral Registers
4 pm
Chris Ruane: I welcome this opportunity to raise the important issue of under-registration on electoral registers. I was first made aware of this issue some five months ago by my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Brown).
I tabled a written question asking for a list of the 100 constituencies with the greatest fall in electorate, which I forwarded to the Minister. In my constituency, the drop was some 5.2 per cent., or 3,140 electors over a six-year period. I followed up the question with some research from the Library, which gave me a ward-by-ward breakdown of the loss in electorate in my constituency. The greatest drop occurred in the wards with the greatest social deprivation, and the greatest increase occurred in the most affluent wards.
In the West ward of Rhyl, which is the most deprived of 850 council wards in Wales, there was a 30 per cent. drop from 3,602 in 1997 to 2,489—1,113 electors were lost from the register. The ward contains hundreds of houses in multiple occupation, which may account for part of the drop, as it is very difficult for electoral or party-political canvassers to get beyond the front door of a house in multiple occupation, which may contain more than 50 people. Having said that, it was the case five years ago, too; the houses were there, and the people behind the doors still lived there, so why has the drop occurred?
The ward with the second biggest drop, of 15.2 per cent., or 210 electors, was Denbigh Central, which also contains a number of houses in multiple occupation. The South West ward of Rhyl had the third biggest drop of 13.2 per cent., or 492 electors, but that ward is of a different nature. It is a more settled, stable community; two-thirds of the residents are in social housing. My street-by-street analysis of the ward, which is where I grew up, showed that the streets with the greatest loss of electors, some with as much as a 30 per cent. loss in the electorate, were those with the most deprivation, and those with the greatest incidence of registration were the wealthier, more affluent streets.
Why do people forgo the fundamental democratic right to register and to participate in the electoral process? The Electoral Commission's excellent report on the electoral registration process summarises a number of possible reasons for the decline in registration, including disengagement from the political process and politics generally. People do not register because they are not interested in voting, but because that means that they are avoiding the authorities; the report states that that might be for criminal or other reasons. I am not sure whether that is the case; perhaps some research is needed on the matter.
Another reason may be the wish to avoid debt collectors. An official register is the debt collector's first port of call and if people's names are on it there is the risk that the debt collectors may come after them. I had dinner today with members of the North Denbighshire citizens advice bureau and we discussed that issue. By January next year, they will be able to tell me, on a ward-by-ward, street-by-street basis, where the people suffering from being in debt live. If it matches the non-electors, it may prove the case conclusively.
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The report also states that the fact that the register is used for other reasons may be a factor in under-registration, although this may have been limited by regulation changes in 2002. Insufficient data-sharing of personal details between the authorities and resentment by some members of the public about supplying their details to different council departments at different times is cited as another reason. The report goes on to say that anecdotal evidence suggests that some members of the public believe that if they give their personal details to the council tax department, it will automatically relay them to the electoral registration department.
I shall examine a couple of the reasons put forward for non-registration by the Electoral Commission in the context of my constituency. Is under-registration a legacy of the poll tax? Do people think they have more of a chance of avoiding the council tax if they are not on the electoral register? In my county, the council had one of the worst records in Wales for collecting council tax and council rents. The council had a purge on non-payment and now has one of the best records in Wales. That has happened over the past three years. Is non-registration the public's response to this crackdown? I do not know, but research could help us to ascertain that.
Political disengagement was cited as another reason. People in these wards may feel disconnected from the political process. They may feel that they are not being listened to by their MP, their Assembly Member or their councillors. If that is the case, I take some of the blame. Unemployment in Rhyl West and Rhyl South West has been halved in the past six years but it still accounts for 40 per cent. of the unemployment in my constituency and 33 per cent. of the unemployment of the whole county. There are 33 wards in the county and two of them account for 33 per cent. of the unemployment.
A young person has eight times the chance of going to university in the richest ward in my constituency, Tremeirchion, which had the highest increase in electorate, than they do in the poorest, Rhyl West. Primary schools in the west and south-west of Rhyl receive as little as £1,300 per pupil compared with £6,000 per pupil in some of the smaller rural schools. That may illustrate why people feel disconnected from the political process.
Deprivation in my constituency has had an impact on registration. The three wards with the biggest drops are in the poorest quartile of council wards in Wales. There are 850 council wards in Wales. The three wards with the biggest increase in electors are in the richest quartile. What may be the case in my constituency will not necessarily be the case in all constituencies. Some hon. Members to whom I have spoken accept that the decrease in their electorates is down to rural depopulation or a Bight from the inner cities, but I believe that it should be a key focus of any research that is commissioned. One of the recommendations made in the document, "Turnout in Local Elections", issued in May 2000, was that immediate research be undertaken. That was also a key recommendation of the Electoral Commission's report on electoral registration published in May 2003.
There has been a three-year gap in which research has not taken place. I tabled a parliamentary question last week, which was answered last night. I asked what

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research had taken place and what research would take place. The Minister conceded that no research had taken place in the past three years but that research will take place and be completed next year. I am glad about that. However, when I rang the Electoral Commission on Monday it was a little unsure about that. It may take place at the end of the next financial year, perhaps not. Perhaps the Minister can clarify exactly what type of research has been commissioned and when it will report. I urge the Minister to consider commissioning this research urgently and to consult with the Electoral Commission, MPs and other elected representatives, as well as the electoral returning officers.
I also ask the Minister to take immediate action to increase the electoral registration and not just to wait for this report. Certain actions can be taken straight away to ensure that electoral registration is increased. Research has been carried out and best practice has been gleaned from around the country and there are a number of lessons for us to learn from that. There are wide variations between local authorities. Some have been highlighted in the document "Turnout at Local Elections", published in May 2000 by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. The report states that there is a considerable range in local authority budgets for electoral registration, as measured by the amount spent per head. London boroughs with the best registration spent five times as much as those with the poorest.
In a parliamentary question last week, I asked for a list of the amount per head spent by each local authority, and the reply was that the information was not held centrally by the Department. I urge that it should be, so that it becomes possible to keep a finger on the pulse, and find out how seriously local authorities take the issue.
Another issue highlighted in the report is the design of the registration forms. Eighty per cent. of local authorities have changed the design in the past five years. Some were able to quantify the effect of those changes, and I urge Ministers to study the results, and perhaps to issue a standardised form to all local authorities, or, at a minimum, to remind electoral officers which forms are best, so that they can use them.
Some local authorities stress the importance of registration in obtaining consumer credit. People who want consumer credit, or want to start a bank account, need to be on the electoral register. A check is done automatically. That is being used as the worm on the hook to get people registered. It is a sad day when one must appeal to the electorate's consumerist tendencies, rather than their democratic tendencies, to get them on the first rung of the ladder, which is registration.
Other authorities have introduced an extensive training programme for their canvassers, and given them small, more manageable areas to cover. There are those who have paid by results: not necessarily by the number of houses that canvassers call at, but by the numbers signed up. Some authorities use telephone to contact non-responders, or leave a calling card.
A carrot and stick approach has sometimes been adopted. I believe that one authority says that if people fill in their electoral registration form they can have six months' free attendance at the local baths. Perhaps it
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should up the stakes to gain appeal, but at least lateral thinking has been used. That was the carrot. Other authorities have told people that if they do not register, they will take them to court, where they can be fined £1,000. Perhaps the carrot and stick approach should be considered more widely. Some electoral registration officers have said that, when they have taken people to court—something that takes up a great deal of officer time—only a £10 fine has been imposed, so it was not worth repeating the exercise.
Other sound advice offered in "Turnout at Local Elections" includes liaising with other departments in the council. Often, council departments are reluctant to share information, because of the Data Protection Act 1998. The Act is used by many officers—and others—as a reason for inaction. I urge the Minister to go into the specifics of the issue, and to set out guidelines on what is acceptable or unacceptable in the sharing of data between local authority departments.
The two streets in my constituency with the highest levels of non-registration are on a council estate. Both the housing department and the council tax department have the details of who lives at those addresses. Information exchange could easily lead to a rapid increase in registration, but the officers need guidance.
Another sensible suggestion is that local authorities should work in consortiums to encourage registration. They may want to engage in joint advertising. In north Wales four authorities have, I believe, clubbed together, and are advertising on the back of buses. We should also carefully consider the matter of anonymous registration. If people believe that they can register anonymously, they may be more willing. The relevant wording needs to be correct.
Many of the measures for improving voter registration that I have outlined have been aimed at local government electoral registration departments. I have spoken to several electoral registration officers and to MPs and listened to their point of view. The officers would like central Government, or the National Assembly for Wales, to help promote registration. Some felt that central Government could undertake more central advertising in the local as well as the national press. Many electoral registration officers are overworked. Do they have the time, the training or the budgets to hold seminars and training on best practice?
Mr. Russell Brown: I congratulate my hon. Friend on succeeding where I failed, in securing the debate. He and I would agree that one of the major issues that has led to the decrease in numbers on the register is legislation that was recently passed in this House. In 2002, Scotland lost 140,000 electors. I do not believe that the electoral registration officers were prepared for that legislation. Would he agree that we need to encourage electoral registration officers and their staff to ensure that there is a follow-up on every doorstep, as we do at census time?
Chris Ruane:Yes, my hon. Friend raises some valid points that I have put to the Minister. He has written to me on the matter and has pointed out that the changes that we introduced two years ago allow local authorities a two-year carry-over: if a person registers in one year, he can stay on for two years. In the past, the law allowed

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only one year. I point out to the Minister that that might have been the law, but the common practice was that those people stayed on in that house until somebody new went into it. Law and practice need to be considered.
Some electoral registration officers feel that MPs, councillors and National Assembly members could play a visible role in encouraging the electorate to register. If I had been asked not long ago what role I or other hon. Members had played in helping to encourage registration, I would have had to say that I had done nothing. Since I have been made aware of the issue, I have put down parliamentary questions and sponsored this debate. We have an important role, and we have to be careful how we approach the electoral registration officers. They do a good job with limited budgets, and often do not have the status that they deserve; people are interested in them only at election time, then they fade into the background. We need to work in co-operation with them, and to recognise their professionalism.
I have mentioned data exchange between council departments. Will the Minister also look at data exchange between Whitehall Departments and local authorities? What information could be legitimately exchanged, for example, with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority? The United States has introduced "motor voter"—when one goes to licence a car one is automatically put on the electoral register. Could we adopt similar policies in this country?
The main areas of non-registration are, as I have mentioned in the poorest wards. Should the Benefits Agency give details to the electoral registration departments? Again, whenever such initiatives are mentioned, the blinds go down and we are told, "Data Protection Act; we cannot do anything." If the rules on data protection allow the exchange from certain Whitehall Departments to local authorities, please can advice and guidelines be issued to encourage those Departments and authorities to take it up? If the rules do not allow it, can the Minister ask Cabinet colleagues to review data protection legislation in order to allow it?
In summary, I ask the Minister, first, to commission research on electoral registration, taking into account key factors such as poverty; secondly, that he collate practices that he knows to have increased voter registration and circulate them; thirdly, that he carefully monitor key elements of electoral registration, such as budgets allocated to local authorities' electoral departments, electoral registration figures and the take-up of best practice; and fourthly, that he undertake a massive, centrally funded advertising campaign, especially in the constituencies that are known to have electoral under-registration, while urging MPs to get involved in that process.
Will the Minster also have a word with the Boundary Commission? That is key. It has freeze dates at which the electoral roll is recorded—the one in my constituency was last December, and there are now 3,000 potential electors in my constituency who have not been taken into account. Such figures should be taken into account. Finally, will he work closely with other Ministers to ensure maximum information exchange between Whitehall and local government? If all the above were successful, registration would dramatically improve and so would the democratic process
4.19 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs (Mr. Christopher Leslie):I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) on securing the debate. He motored through myriad good and interesting suggestions and made important points that merit a lot of scrutiny. In the short time available to me, I shall try my best to answer some of those points. I thank him for being so assiduous and determined to pursue this issue through parliamentary questions and elsewhere, because it is a topic that does not often receive as much attention as it deserves.
My hon. Friend was correct to say, at the outset, that voter registration is the fundamental building block of the democratic process. That might seem obvious, but it is true, and it is the basis for all our other electoral processes. We fully recognise the importance of an accurate and up-to-date electoral register. Without being on the electoral register, a person cannot exercise their right to vote. A significant drop in registration levels, if it were due simply to eligible persons not, for whatever reason, registering to vote, would be a matter for serious concern.
Let us consider how the electoral registers are assembled. We recognise that local authorities have a key part to play in publicising voter registration arrangements and in ensuring that people complete and return voter registration forms. The Representation of the People Act 1983 requires electoral registration officers to compile the electoral register. Regulation 23 of the Representation of the People Regulations 2001 permits an electoral registration officer to require anyone to give information required for the purposes of his duties in maintaining registers of parliamentary and local government electors. My hon. Friend wanted to see those powers given to registration officers, and I am glad to see that they have been granted, at least in part, in more recent regulations.
It is an offence punishable on conviction by a fine not exceeding £1,000 to fail to comply with a request for information from an electoral registration officer, or to give false information. Prosecutions for non-compliance are initiated at local discretion. Although no central record is kept of such prosecutions, I understand that they are relatively rare—only a handful over the past year or so.
What are the possible reasons for the apparent fall that my hon. Friend mentions in the statistics that he has compiled through parliamentary answers? It is not clear what is behind those falls in registration levels. A decline in population may be one cause in certain areas; a number of constituencies involved are inner-city seats where there has been an established trend of a fall in population. Under-registration of certain categories of voters, such as young people and minority ethnic communities, may also be an issue, as might the general sense of disengagement from the political process. Differing promotional strategies adopted by electoral administrators have also been mentioned as a possible factor.
However, the laudable tidying-up of the electoral register, bringing greater flexibility and, more important, greater accuracy, following some of the new measures, may also have inflated some of that cyclical

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decrease. A newer register might be a more accurate reflection of the genuine position than the apparently larger, but older and more outdated register. In any event, we should take care not to prejudge the work being undertaken on registration issues by the Electoral Commission, which my hon. Friend asked me about, and which I shall talk about shortly.
What action are the Government taking on the important issue of voter registration? We have taken a number of steps to improve procedures. Following recommendations made by an all-party working group on electoral procedures in 1999, we introduced provisions for a number of changes in the Representation of the People Act 2000.
Those measures included rolling registration. That enables people to register at any time of the year, whereas previously electors had only one chance to register, which was each autumn. If they missed it, they had to wait until the next year before they could register. The change has been particularly helpful for people who move during the year, as they may now apply to register at their new address as soon as they take up residence. It also assists others who may have missed the annual canvass for whatever reason or who find that somehow they have been missed off the register. Rolling registration makes it easier for individuals to register to vote and for electoral registration officers to achieve more accurate and up-to-date electoral registers.
The 2000 Act recognised that registration officers should continue to be required to review the electoral register each year, to sweep up people who may have moved and not registered under rolling registration. In response to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Brown), I can tell him that there continues to be an annual canvass, which is conducted with reference to residence on a particular date—15 October is the current date—alongside rolling registration. The changes mean that, for the first time, people without a permanent address can register to vote by making a declaration of local connection. That formally separates the franchise from property for the first time. That means that homeless people, patients in mental hospitals and prisoners on remand can now register to vote.
The 2001 regulations also provide for electoral registration officers to retain a person's details on the register for an extra year when he or she has not returned the annual canvass form. That means that an elector can continue to appear on the register without any confirmation from them that they are resident and eligible to vote, if the electoral registration officer is satisfied that they should still be registered. Only if a person has not completed the annual canvass form for two consecutive years will that person's details be removed from the register. That contrasts with the previous arrangements, in which registration officers were required to remove a person's name after only one failure to renew.
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Some concern was voiced about that change resulting in voters being wrongly removed from the register, but, as I have explained, we have relaxed the previous arrangement in which names were required to be removed after one failure to return the canvass form. We now allow persons to stay on the register for two years before they are removed. I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd will agree that it is reasonable that after two years, the registration officer should require confirmation that a person is still resident at a particular address and eligible to vote before they are included on the register. That is a sensible measure, which was recommended by the all-party working group that I mentioned earlier.
My hon. Friend also mentioned data and data sharing and suggested that we should not rely only on electoral registration officers to find information. The new powers also allow electoral registration officers to inspect records kept by the local council that appointed them and those kept by a registrar of births, deaths and marriages to enable them to maintain accurate details on the register. That means that when, for example, an electoral registration officer suspects that a person should be registered but has not received a canvass form, he can confirm that person's residence by reference to other data.
The point about the poll tax effect and people being scared off registering to vote because it will make them eligible to council tax is not a concern. Regulations prohibit council tax officials from using the electoral register as a taxation base, so the idea that information will feed back should not deter people from registering to vote. Other changes, including those to service voter regulations, also mean that the electoral register can now be more accurate.
Under-registration requires attention, and some research suggests that certain people, especially younger people and minority ethnic communities, are concerned about registration. We will not be complacent and will continue to work on that. My hon. Friend asked about the Electoral Commission's research; it is reporting on several matters. It is independent of Government, and it is right for it to focus on different issues. It recognises that there is a problem with under-registration; it has a publicity strategy for long-term registration activities, and it is undertaking a lot of further research. I understand that it plans to complete its research early next year, and I will examine my hon. Friend's suggestion about the date of commencement. We welcome the commission's work.
Registration levels are central to the democratic process, and it is right that we should be interested in them. We must ensure that all aspects are understood and taken into account in deciding whether there is a genuine problem and, if so, in considering any solution. The Electoral Commission will no doubt assist in that, and I confirm that we will consider seriously any of its proposed solutions.
It being half-past Four o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the sitting lapsed, without Question put.

PRIME MINISTER

  Dr. David Kelly
  Dr. Julian Lewis
  To ask the Prime Minister what disciplinary action he has taken against his official spokesman, Mr. Tom Kelly, in respect of his spokeman's remarks to journalists about the late Dr. David Kelly. [133459].

  The Prime Minister
  My official spokesman unreservedly apologised to Dr. Kelly's widow and her family. Lord Hutton is conducting an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr. David Kelly and the Government are awaiting his report.

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

  Local Government
  Helen Jackson
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the future financing of local government administration. [133441]

  Phil Hope
  In April this year, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister launched a review into the current balance of funding for local government. The review has recently completed a period of extensive consultation, and we are now considering a range of options.

  Local government has received a record 25 per cent. increase in Government grant in real terms since we took office in 1997—compared with a real terms cut of 7 per cent. under the last four years of the party opposite's time in office.

  Leisure Facilities
  Mr. Todd
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what guidance he gives to local authorities on the obligations of housing developers to provide sports and leisure facilities. [133442]

  Yvette Cooper
  Planning Policy Guidance note 17 on Open Space, Sport and Recreation (2002) states that local authorities should ensure provision is made for local sports and recreational facilities where planning permission is granted for new developments, especially for housing.

  These facilities can be secured through planning obligations, also known as Section 106 agreements, which are agreed between developers and local planning authorities.

  Council Housing
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will fund council housing departments on the same basis as arm's length management organisations; and if he will make a statement. [133443]
  566W
  Keith Hill
  My hon. Friend asks if the Government will fund council housing departments on the same basis as Arms Length Management Organisations, and the answer to that is no.

  As my hon. Friend is aware, the funding available for social housing, although greatly increased under this Government, is inevitably limited; and we wish to use it in ways that will most improve the lives of tenants.

  The evidence is that Arms Length Management Organisations enhance the quality of service to tenants. It provides the extra funding needed to improve their homes and the local environment; and it enables the local authority to focus on its strategic housing role.

  Mr. Skinner
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what the average council rent is for those(a)local housing authorities with non-transferred housing stock and (b) local council areas where housing stock has been transferred to housing associations and other bodies. [133766]

  Keith Hill
  A table showing the rent comparison by local authority area and English region is available in the Libraries of the House.

  East Midlands Councils
  David Taylor
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what recent representations he has received about the impact on councils in the East Midlands of the new formula funding arrangements. [133444]

  Mr. Raynsford
  The East Midlands received £220 million more this year than last, an increase of 7 per cent. in general grant and, along with the West Midlands, the largest increase of any region in England. We have not subsequently received many representations from the Midlands. During the earlier consultation on changes to the local government finance system, 20 representations from local authorities and Members of this House were received which related to the East Midlands.

  Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act
  Huw Irranca-Davies
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the impact of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002. [133446]

  Keith Hill
  The Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 provides a fairer balance between the rights of landlords and leaseholders. Key provisions of the Act, applying to England, were introduced on 30 September 2002. These included a new Right to Manage, improved rights for leaseholders to challenge unreasonable charges and improved tribunal dispute resolution procedures.

  For details of commencement dates in Wales, which I understand are after those of England, I would advise my hon. Friend to speak to the Welsh Assembly.

  Council Tax
  Tom Brake
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what recent assessment he has conducted of the impact of council tax on pensioners. [133447]
  567W
  Phil Hope
  The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has not conducted such an assessment. However, council tax benefit, administered by the Department for Work and Pensions, is available to help low income pensioners pay their council tax. Council tax benefit is paid to around 3.9 million households in England, of which around two million are pensioners. With the recent introduction of pension credit, some 1.6 million pensioners will gain benefit and 310,000 will be entitled to benefit for the first time.

  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will publish the advice that he has offered to Kent County Council on their desire to fix the level of council tax increases for pensioners at the rate of inflation. [133638]

  Mr. Raynsford
  The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister arranged for a copy of my letter of 6 October 2003 to Kent County Council to be available in the Library of the House.

  Behavioural Neurosciences Centre (Cambridge)
  Mr. Lansley
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister when he(a) received and (b) expects to publish the Inspector's report into the planning appeal against South Cambridgeshire District Council's refusal of planning permission for a Behavioural Neurosciences Centre at Huntingdon Road, Cambridge. [133445]

  Keith Hill
  This report was received in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on 17 March 2003. It is under active consideration and my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister will issue a decision as soon as possible.

  Flooding
  David Taylor
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what powers parish councils have to pay for flood prevention schemes. [132480]

  Mr. Raynsford
  Section 137 of the 1972 Act permits parish councils to spend up to a given amount in a financial year on items that are 'of direct benefit to their area' in relation to which no other powers of expenditure exist. Flood prevention schemes might be regarded as such an item.

  Primary responsibility for flood prevention measures is borne by other public bodies, however, with responsibility for ordinary watercourses generally falling to district and unitary councils.

  Housing Developments
  Mrs. Anne Campbell
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what steps he is taking to ensure that major new housing development is adequately served by public transport. [133418]

  Keith Hill
  All major housing development is assessed against PPG13 as part of the planning system, which requires full account to be taken of the provision of, and effects on, public transport.

  In addition, in the four growth areas identified in "Sustainable Communities: Building for the Future", proposals for growth are set out in proposed changes to Regional Planning Guidance, which is subject to consultation and examination in public. As part of this
  568W
  process we are working very closely with the Department for Transport to assess the transport implications and needs of future housing provision. One of the purposes of the RPG process is to test sustainability of proposals for new housing in the Growth Areas, including access to good public transport for new developments.

  Housing Stock Transfers
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the role that the Audit Commission plays in advising local authorities who are undertaking large scale voluntary transfer of their housing stock. [133636]

  Keith Hill
  Where the Audit Commission, through the district audit service, is an authority's external auditor, it is a resource that is available to an authority. Therefore, it could advise on the implications of, and risks that, an authority faces in implementing any of the options for delivery of the decent home target for social housing, one of which is to undertake a large scale voluntary transfer.

  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will publish the advice given to local authorities on communications strategies for those authorities which are undertaking large scale voluntary transfer of their housing stock. [133637]

  Keith Hill
  Advice to local authorities on drawing up their communication strategies for Large Scale Voluntary Transfers is contained in section 4 of the Housing Transfer Manual 2003, published in March 2003.

  Voluntary Tenancy Deposits
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what proportion of(a) landlords and (b) tenants have signed up to the voluntary tenancy deposit pilot scheme. [133605]

  Keith Hill
  The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister estimates that 16,000 tenancies were covered by the voluntary tenancy deposit pilot scheme. Not all of these were located strictly within the five pilot areas, so that the estimated take-up rate of 7 per cent. is subject to a margin of error.

  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what assessment his Department has made of the value of making membership of a tenancy deposit scheme a legal requirement for(a) landlords and (b) tenants. [133606]

  Keith Hill
  Last autumn, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister issued a consultation paper on options for Government intervention in landlords' and letting agents' handling of tenancy monies. This included an assessment of having a mandatory scheme (or schemes). The assessment was based partly on the evaluation of the pilot Tenancy Deposit Scheme carried out by the University of York.
  569W

TRANSPORT

  Airport Capacity (South-East)
  John McDonnell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what assessment his Department has made of the need for further terminal capacity at Heathrow Airport in the event that a third runway is built. [133330]

  Mr. McNulty
  For all options for additional capacity that were studied in SERAS, including those on which the Government consulted, an assessment was made of the scale of facilities needed to cater for the forecast additional throughput (eg passenger and freight handling, maintenance, aircraft stands, aprons, cargo, car parking). Layout plans based on those assessments were produced and their impacts appraised. Paragraph 6.6 of "The Future Development of Air Transport in the United Kingdom—South East" made clear that these layouts were not definitive proposals. Detailed design will be a matter for the relevant airport developer.

  John McDonnell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether he plans to stop any further developments at Heathrow, if a third runway is approved. [133331]

  Mr. McNulty
  The air transport White Paper later this year will provide a framework of Government policy looking forward to 2030, including where any new airport capacity should be provided.

  John McDonnell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether decisions on terminal capacity for the options set out in the SERAS consultation paper will he made without public consultation. [133332]

  Mr. McNulty
  For each of the options presented in the consultation document, the layouts illustrated allowed for adequate terminal capacity to be provided. The precise location of terminal and other facilities would be determined as part of the planning process for any relevant airport development.

  John McDonnell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what steps his Department will take immediately following the publication of the White Paper on the future of airport expansion in the UK later this year. [133334]

  Mr. McNulty
  Action by the Department following publication of the White Paper will depend on the decisions announced in it.

  Bechtel
  Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list contracts for consultancy or work carried out by Bechtel in each year since 1997 stating in each case(a) the nature of the work, (b) the value of the contract and (c) the duration of the contract; and if he will make a statement. [133854]

  Mr. McNulty
  The Department was formed on 29 May 2002 and has not awarded any contracts to Bechtel.

  Blue Badge Scheme
  John Barrett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what plans he has to propose 570W
  legislation on the Blue Badge Scheme following the recommendations of the Disabled Persons' Advisory Committee;[133504]

  (2) what progress has been made towards the formation of a central database of Blue Badge holders;[133505]

  (3) how much money was raised from charges for applications for Blue Badge disability vehicle stickers in each year since 1990; and what percentage each of these figures represents of the estimated cost of administering the badges in those years;[133506]

  (4) how many people have been prosecuted for abuse of the Blue Badge disability vehicle sticker system in each year since 1990;[133511]

  (5) what discussions he has had with the Scottish Executive regarding new common guidance on the issuing of Blue Badge disability vehicle stickers. [133512]

  Mr. McNulty
  Following the review of the Blue Badge Scheme, we are taking forward DPTAC's recommendations through changes to primary and secondary legislation, research and in new guidance to local authorities on the Scheme.

  We are pursuing a suitable legislative slot for those changes requiring primary legislation. In the meantime, we have begun work on those recommendations which require amendments to secondary legislation and we will also be letting a number of research projects (including one looking at the feasibility of establishing a central database) shortly. New guidance, which will cover all aspects of the Scheme, will be issued when changes have been introduced.

  In taking forward the review, the Department has, and will continue to, work closely with colleagues in the Devolved Administrations. In terms of the new guidance, they will be involved throughout its development.

  Timing for introduction of the changes will be subject to the outcome of the research, consultations and the parliamentary process as appropriate. I am not able at this stage to give a firm timetable, but would reassure the hon. Member that we are firmly committed to introducing the changes at the earliest possible opportunity.

  The administration of the Blue Badge Scheme is the responsibility of local authorities. Under the regulations they can charge up to £2 for each badge they issue to contribute to their administrative costs. The level of the fee is being reconsidered following the recent review of the Scheme.

  Although the Department and the Devolved Administrations currently ask for information as part of their annual Blue Badge statistical survey of local authorities, details do not extend to the funds collected by individual local authorities or their overall administrative costs. Neither does the statistical information include the number of prosecutions for abuse of Blue Badges. There is no legal requirement for local authorities to hold such records or to make them available to the Department.
  571W

  Lingo-cellulosic Feedstock
  Mr. Wiggin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what products would be included in the lingo-cellulosic feedstock materials referred to in the Budget; [133284]

  (2) what production systems he has examined on the production of bioethanol from lingo-cellulosic feedstock materials. [133285]

  Mr. McNulty
  Various production techniques are currently being developed which could allow the production of biofuels from diverse feedstocks including wood, straw, grass and municipal green waste. As set out in the Energy White Paper, published in February 2003, the Government are keen to support the development of these technologies because they have the potential to deliver significant carbon savings over conventional transport fuels. My officials are in regular contact with representatives from a number of companies, both in the UK and elsewhere, which are developing these new technologies.

  Network Rail
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport pursuant to the statement of the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Mr. Jamieson) of 3 June 2003,Official Report, column 41W, what assurance he has received from Network Rail that it will comply with the consultation and notification arrangements in respect of vegetation management. [132783]

  Mr. McNulty
  Network Rail advises that it is currently concluding the implementation of the revised local consultation process set out in the 3 June 2003 adjournment debate.

  Railways
  Chris Ruane
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list the improvements to railway stations in Wales, broken down by(a) location and (b) cost in each of the last five years; and what the proposed improvements are for the next three years. [133054]

  Mr. McNulty
  In September 2002 £2.4 million was provided by the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) for the installation of 'Inform Cymru' at 46 stations in Wales; in April 2002 £99,000 for additional car parking spaces, improved security and better passenger facilities at Haverfordwest Station; and £1.1 million for a new waiting room, toilet with disabled access, CCTV and Customer Information Service/PublicAnnouncement (CIS/PA) at Trefforest Station.

  The new Wales & Borders franchise agreement which was signed on 20 October 2003 provides £400,000 for improving car parks, including those at Cardiff Central (Wood Street) and Newport. Under the Vale of Glamorgan scheme the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) is meeting the costs for the building of the two new stations at Rhoose and Llanwit Major. The Vale of Glamorgan line is expected to re-open in December 2004. The Welsh Assembly Government has also set aside £4.5 million for Wales & Borders to improve 47 of their stations before April 2004. The Ebbw Valley
  572W
  scheme, which provides for up to six new stations, is still under consideration by the Welsh Assembly Government.

  Bob Russell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he asked the Strategic Rail Authority to consider how the Great Eastern Main Line capacity can be increased; and what the response was. [133360]

  Mr. McNulty
  The Directions and Guidance to the Strategic Rail Authority, first published on 11 April 2002, require it "to develop a policy for the utilisation of network capacity" — a copy is available in the Library of the House. The Strategic Rail Authority has developed a 'Capacity Utilisation Policy' to determine the most efficient use of the existing network. Individual 'Route Utilisation Strategies' (RUS) are being developed which will help inform the need for new services or infrastructure. The SRA plan to consult on the RUS for Greater Anglia in spring 2005.

  Vehicle Emissions
  Gregory Barker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many registered vehicles run on hydrogen in the UK. [133704]

  Mr. McNulty
  At the present time there are only a small number of prototype/demonstration vehicles running on hydrogen, worldwide. Transport for London will shortly begin demonstration trials of hydrogen fuel cell buses on public bus routes, with financial support from the Government's New Vehicle Technology Fund, as part of a European-wide demonstration programme, Clean Urban Transport for Europe (CUTE). Ford will be carrying out trials of hydrogen fuel cell and internal combustion cars next year.

  Gregory Barker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many tonnes of(a) fine particulates and (b) ultrafine particulates were emitted into the atmosphere in the UK by the (i) diesel powered vehicle pare, (ii) petrol powered vehicle pare and (iii) road fuel gas vehicle pare in the latest year for which figures are available. [133705]

  Mr. McNulty
  The following table, based on data from the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory, presents emissions of particulate matter by fraction, in kilotonnes, from road transport in 2001.

  Emissions of particulate matter by fraction(kilotonne)

  Vehicle type

  Particulate

  fraction

  Diesel

  Petrol

  Road fuel gas

  Coarse

  PM10

  26.9

  3.17

  0.02

  Fine

  PM2.5

  25.94

  3.06

  0.02

  Ultrafine

  PM0.1

  13.42

  1.58

  0.01

  Vehicle kilometres covered (billion)

  135.4

  354.8

  1.7

  10includes all particles with an aerodynamic diameter of less than 10m (likewise PM2.5 includes all particles smaller than 2.5m, and so on), thus the finer particle totals are a subset of the coarser particles.
  573W
  Figures for PM2.5, PM1 and PM0.1are estimated from those for PM10 and the mass fractions in these size ranges available for different emission sources and fuel types. These figures assume the following:
  100,000 LPG vehicles in pare, travelling the same distance per year as passenger cars (industry source);
  emissions from LPG vehicles assumed to be same as average PM factor for petrol vehicles (no PM emissions data available for LPG vehicles); and
  850 HDVs running on CNG (industry source), their emissions of PM being 90 per cent. lower than a Euro II HDV running on diesel.

  Gregory Barker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what measures he has in place to reduce the emissions of ultrafine particles from the UK vehicle pare. [133706]

  Mr. McNulty
  The Government place a high priority on reducing emissions of air pollutants from road transport. Emissions of particles (PM10) from road transport have reduced by some 50 per cent. over the last decade as a result of progressively tighter vehicle and fuel quality standards. Emissions of ultrafine particles from road transport are much harder to measure. The UK has been at the forefront of an international programme to develop appropriate ways of measuring emissions of these small particles. Once this has been completed, the Government will be in a position to take further steps, should the health evidence indicate that this is necessary.

  Vehicle Excise Duty
  Mr. Simmonds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many(a) untaxed and (b) uninsured vehicles he estimates were on UK roads in each year since 1997. [133727]

  Mr. McNulty
  Estimates of unlicensed vehicles in use on the road are obtained through periodic roadside surveys. The results in Great Britain and in Northern Ireland for the years in which surveys were undertaken were:

  Thousand

  Great Britain

  Northern Ireland

  1994

  1,559

  —

  1996–97

  —

  63

  1999

  1,522

  70

  2002

  1,757

  77

  Note:

  The figures for Northern Ireland include vehicles in the private light goods, and the heavy goods vehicle categories. The figures for GB include all licence categories.

  DfT does not have reliable information on the number of vehicles in use on the road without valid insurance.

  Road Building
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what guidance he has issued to the Highways Agency and local authorities to encourage the use of recycled rubber in road building and surfacing. [132669]
  574W
  Mr. McNulty
  The Code of Practice for Maintenance Management, of which the Department is a co-author, strongly recommends local authorities to maximise the use of products made from recycled materials in order to develop and support local markets for these.

  The Government are actively fostering the development of new applications for tyre crumb in both asphalt and concrete roads, through research by the Universities of Dundee, Liverpool, and Nottingham. Additionally, the Highways Agency is supporting a project monitoring, the performance of recycled shredded tyre toppings in French drains.

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

  Agriculture and Fisheries Council
  Mr. Hood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) what the outcome was of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council on 13 October; what the Government's stance was on the issues discussed, including its voting record; and if she will make a statement; [133016]

  (2) what the outcome was of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council on 13 October; what the Government's stance was on the issues discussed, including its voting record; and if she will make a statement. [133592]

  Margaret Beckett
  My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary represented the United Kingdom at a meeting of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council in Luxembourg on 13 October. No Ministers from the Devolved Administrations or Northern Ireland were present.

  The main items for substantive discussion were on Fisheries, the most important of which was agreement of a proposal for a regulation on the management of fishing effort in Western Waters. As you know this proposal had been on the table for some time but its adoption had been held up while the Presidency struggled to find a compromise acceptable to as many of the key member states as possible—the UK, Ireland, France, Spain and Portugal. In the event the compromise adopted was acceptable to ourselves, France and Portugal but was opposed by Spain and Ireland, with Belgium abstaining.

  The agreed regulation makes provision for an effort-based regime with member states' effort allocations to be based on fishing activity in the reference period 1998–2002. Management zones are to be based on ICES sea areas. This means there is no separate management zone for the Irish Sea as we wished but the Council and Commission have made a joint statement to the effect that fishing effort in previously restricted areas will be closely monitored. In other respects the final outcome is one that offers the UK significant improvements over the text originally tabled last December. These include, in particular:
  the exclusion of under 15 metre vessels from the scope of the regime in all areas except in a special biologically sensitive area off the south west coast of Ireland ("the hake box") where it will apply to all vessels over 10 metres;
  the list of vessels able to fish in Western waters is not restricted to those with a previous history of doing so;

  575W
  except for when entering and exiting the hake box, vessels will no longer have to hail in and out on entry and exit from Western waters zones, so substantially reducing industry's compliance costs;
  there are arrangements for adjusting member states' effort allocations to let them take their quotas in full or increase fishing activity on non-quota stocks;
  reduction in the number of fisheries from 5 to 3—demersal, scallops and edible/spider crabs.

  The compromise text on the table therefore represented a very good outcome for the United Kingdom with all our major areas of concern being addressed.

  There was also a brief presentation by the Commission of proposals to manage fishing in the Mediterranean which the Council will return to at a later date.

  On agriculture, there was a brief discussion of the Commission's outline ideas for reform of the cotton and olive oil regimes. Producer member states emphasised the importance of both crops to their farming sectors and the need to maintain a significant level of production-linked aid to ensure continued activity in the sectors. The United Kingdom joined other non-producers in arguing for changes in these regimes to follow closely the pattern of reforms agreed in June for others. In particular, a substantial level of decoupling should be the norm, with the option for more if member states wished to move in that direction.

  Carbon Dioxide Emissions
  Mr. Wiggin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) if she will make a statement on the steps to be taken to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 60 per cent. by 2050; [131068]

  (2) if she will make a statement on implementation of the energy policy of cutting emissions of carbon dioxide by 60 per cent. by 2050. [131069]

  Mr. Morley
  The Government has set a domestic goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent. below 1990 levels by 2010. The policy framework for delivering this goal is set out in the UK Climate Change programme.

  In the Energy White Paper, we accepted the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution's (RCEP) recommendation that the UK should put itself on a path towards a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of some 60 per cent. from current levels by about 2050. The Energy White Paper sets out long-term strategies and shorter-term policies to put us on this path. The Sustainable Energy Policy Network comprising units from Central Government, energy regulators, devolved administrations and key delivery organisations will ensure that these goals and policies are delivered. Part of this is a cross governmental network reporting to a Ministerial Committee co-chaired by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the
  576W
  Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. Further details of the implementation plans are set out on SEPN's website http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/sepn/index.shtml.

  To put ourselves on course to cut the UK's carbon dioxide emissions by 60 per cent. by 2050, we will need to achieve cuts of around 15–25 million tonnes of carbon (MtC) by 2020 in addition to the carbon savings from existing policies including the Climate Change Programme. The actual measures needed to reach this goal will be shaped by economic and technological developments. However, in reducing carbon dioxide emissions the government's priority is to strengthen renewables and energy efficiency.

  Environmental Sustainability
  Mr. Wiggin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) if she will make a statement on her Department's policy on environmental sustainability; [131064]

  (2) what measures are in place to protect natural capital sources classed as vital to environmental sustainability [131065]

  Mr. Morley
  The Department's policies on sustainable development and protecting natural resources are set out in the departmental report and in Defra's sustainable development strategy 'Foundations for our Future' and other policy documents on the Defra website.

  Fluoridation
  Mr. Ainsworth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what research she has undertaken into the impact of fluoridating water supplies on the aquatic environment; and if she will make a statement. [132772]

  Mr. Morley
  A review of the effect of fluoride on a range of aquatic life was carried out for the Environment Agency when deriving a non-statutory environmental quality standard (EQS) for fluoride in water, which was published in 2000. The review drew on research carried out by a range of recognized scientific laboratories and the majority of available data indicated that effects on aquatic life from fluoride occur at concentrations between 9.0–350mg/1.

  Where fluoridation schemes are in place, fluoride is added to maintain a concentration of 1.0 mg/1 in drinking water which is well below these levels. Any discharges will be further diluted upon entry to the aquatic environment through the process of collection and treatment of waste water.

  Food Labelling
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on introducing labelling of country of origin for each constituent ingredient of pre-cooked food products. [132304]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  I have been asked to reply.
  577W
  Origin labelling rules are agreed at European Union level. The Government is not aware of any plans to introduce origin labelling rules for each constituent ingredient of food products. The Food Standards Agency is, however, actively pressing for changes to labelling requirements to improve information on origin of fresh and frozen meat and the meat ingredient in food products.

  River Cherwell
  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will place in the Library a copy of the full report entitled, River Cherwell Catchment Monitoring Study 1998–2000 Project Report. [133109]

  Alun Michael
  The River Cherwell Catchment Monitoring Study 1998–2000 Project Report concerns a study undertaken on behalf of Rhone-Poulenc Agriculture to quantify farmyard contamination of

  £ million

  2001–02

  2002–03

  Regions/Unit

  Original budget

  Revised budget

  Spend

  Original budget

  Revised budget

  Spend

  North East

  0.5

  0.4

  0.2

  0.7

  1.2

  1.0

  West Midlands

  1.0

  0.8

  0.6

  1.4

  2.1

  2.0

  South West

  1.5

  1.2

  0.2

  2.0

  2.5

  1.9

  North West

  1.0

  0.8

  0.3

  1.3

  1.6

  1.3

  East Midlands

  1.1

  0.9

  0.4

  1.5

  2.5

  1.7

  East of England

  1.0

  0.7

  0.5

  1.1

  1.7

  1.4

  Yorks and Humber

  1.0

  0.7

  0.3

  1.2

  1.8

  1.9

  South East

  0.7

  0.6

  0.3

  1.0

  1.7

  1.6

  National

  0.2

  0.1

  0

  1.8

  0.5

  0.2

  Total

  8.0

  6.2

  2.8

  12.0

  15.6

  13.0

  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the running costs were of the Rural Enterprise Scheme, broken down by region, in each year since the scheme was established(a) in cash terms and (b) as a percentage of the scheme's budget. [132627]

  Margaret Beckett
  The Rural Enterprise Scheme (RES) is delivered by Defra's Rural Development Service (RDS), but running costs are not available broken down by both scheme and region. In 2001–02 many RDS operational staff made a substantial contribution to work related to the foot and mouth disease outbreak and were not employed on their normal duties for much of the year. In consequence, it is not possible to provide an accurate figure for RES running costs in 2001–02.

  In 2002–03 RES accounted for 75.7 staff years of RDS effort at a total estimated cost of £2.6 million. RDS running costs are not funded from RES programme expenditure, however £2.6 million expressed as a percentage of the final RES budget for 2002–03 is 16.7 per cent. It is important to note that 2002–03 running cost expenditure relates not just to the in-year budget, but also to the assessment and approval of projects which will incur expenditure in subsequent years; forward funding commitments at the end of 2002–03 amounted to £15.4 million.
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  surface waters. As the report belongs to Rhone-Poulenc Agriculture (now Bayer CropScience) and has not been published it is not possible to place a copy in the House Library.

  Rural Enterprise Scheme
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) what the budget was for the Rural Enterprise Scheme, broken down by region in each year since the scheme was established; [132625]

  (2) how much money has been paid in grants under the Rural Enterprise Scheme, broken down by region, in each year since the scheme was established. [132626]

  Margaret Beckett
  The following table shows: (i) the original programme budgets, (ii) revised budgets reflecting in-year reallocations in order to maximise the use of the programme funding available, and (iii) grant paid in respect of the Rural Enterprise Scheme for 2001–02 and 2002–03:

  Solar Power
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what grants are available to(a) public landlords and (b) owner-occupiers to install solar power in housing; and how many properties in Leeds have received such assistance. [132734]

  Mr. Timms
  I have been asked to reply.

  There are two Government schemes supporting the installation of solar panels in houses. The first is the £20 million First Phase of the Major Photovoltaics Demonstration Programme (PV MDP). 50 per cent. grants are available to individual householders for small PV systems, and 60 per cent. to public bodies, including social housing groups, for medium-large scale installations. The second is the £10 million Clear Skies initiative, which offers flat rate grants of around £500 to individuals wishing to install solar water heating panels, and grants of up to 50 per cent. to community groups.

  So far, under the PV programme, one householder in Leeds has received a grant and two applications for medium—large scale installations have been approved. They are for Park Lane College and the Ridings Housing Association.
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  Under Clear Skies, no applications have been received from public landlords in Leeds for solar water heating on housing, although two grants have been awarded for solar on community buildings. For individual households, three have received assistance.

  for more information on these schemes please see: www.solarpvgrants.co.uk and www.clear-skies.org

  Soya Milk
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on what basis soya milk was withdrawn as an undesirable food for babies and young children; and on what basis it was recommended for premature babies. 129759]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  I have been asked to reply.

  Soya milk drinks and soya based infant formulas have not been withdrawn and are still available. The Department's advice is that soya-based infant formula should only be given on the advice of a doctor or health visitor and can be prescribed for babies allergic to cow's milk. It is not recommended for premature babies.

  Waste Management
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans she has to introduce new charging arrangements to finance the Environment Agency's work in the current financial year and afterwards on(a) implementation of the Water Framework Directive, (b) development of the Revised Bathing Waters Directive, (c) regulation of the spreading of sewage sludge on agricultural land, (d) the reduction of agricultural waste and mines and quarries waste and (e) exemption from Waste Management Licensing. 129356]

  Margaret Beckett
  The charging arrangements are as follows:

  (a) Implementation of the Water Framework Directive

  The Environment Agency's costs of implementing the Water Framework Directive during the current financial year are funded by a combination of grant in aid and income from charges for consents for discharges to controlled waters and for water abstraction licences. Similar arrangements will apply during the implementation of the Directive.

  (b) Revised Bathing Waters Directive

  During the annual review of the Environment Agency's charges, an assessment will be made, both for the current and future financial years, as to whether extra charges for effluent discharges will be needed to fund development of the Revised Bathing Waters Directive.

  (c) The Sludge (Use in Agriculture) Regulations 1989

  These regulations are currently being revised. The revised draft regulations on the spreading of sewage sludge on agricultural land provide for the Environment Agency to recover its regulatory costs through charges and as part of these regulations a new charging scheme is being developed to take effect on implementation of the revised regulations which is expected in 2004.
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  (d) Reduction of Agricultural and Mines and Quarries Waste

  The regulations applying to the Waste Framework Directive's controls to agricultural and non-mineral mines and quarries waste are currently being drafted and will be issued for public consultation. The Environment Agency's Waste Management Licensing Charging Scheme will apply to the recovery or disposal of these types of waste under a licence as it currently applies to other types of waste. We do not propose to apply charges to the recovery or disposal of agricultural waste under a registered licensing exemption. Regulations will be in place by mid 2004.

  (d) Exemption from Waste Management Licensing

  Draft Regulations to implement the review of the exemptions in Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994 provide for the Environment Agency to extend charging to six existing exemptions and one new exemption for the burning of dunnage at the dockside. The existing exemptions affected are:

  land treatment

  use of waste for land reclamation

  use and storage of building waste composting

  storage and spreading of sewage sludge

  waste recovery at sewage treatment works.

  It is intended that charges should be incorporated into the Agency's Waste Management Licensing Charging Scheme to take effect on the Regulations' implementation. The draft Regulations were issued for public consultation on 19 June with a view to being implemented early in 2004.

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

  Analogue Transmission
  Bob Russell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what plans she has to assist those receiving television through communal systems when the analogue system of transmission ends; and if she will make a statement. [132799]

  Mr. Caborn
  We recognise the importance of those living in multi-occupancy dwellings being able to access digital television services. The Digital TV Project Team is looking at how digital equipment will operate in such dwellings and how best to promote digital television among landlords responsible for communal systems. We will consider whether any specific measures are needed in this area before switchover begins. We have published an information leaflet aimed at encouraging landlords to take up digital television. A copy can he found on the website: www.digitaltelevision.gov.uk.

  New Opportunities Fund
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how much capital the New Opportunities Fund has directed to(a) Birkenhead, (b) Wirral and (c) Merseyside since its inception. [133589]

  Mr. Caborn
  According to information supplied by distributors for the Department's Lottery Awards Database, the New Opportunities Fund has awarded
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  £3,744,140 to the Birkenhead constituency, £16,536,709 to the Wirral Local Authority area and £62,371,292 to Merseyside.

  Youth Development (Football)
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport pursuant to her Answer on 28 April 2003,Official Report, column 188W, on Youth Development (Football), when the Government will begin to contribute the money that has been committed to the Football League's Youth Development Scheme. [133243]

  Mr. Caborn
  All of the clubs in the Football League's Youth Development Scheme have already received the first quarter payment for the new football season 2003–04. All the funding partners have agreed in principle to funding the scheme until 2005–06 and we are currently discussing the details with the funding partners.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Fertilisers
  Mr. Lidington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of competition in the manufacture and supply of fertilisers. [132662]

  Jacqui Smith
  The Department of Trade and Industry has not looked at this issue.

  British Trade Promotions
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what estimate she has made of the cost of promoting British branding and identity overseas in the last year for which figures are available; and what element of this expenditure promotes(a) Welsh, (b) Scottish and (c) Irish branding and identity as a distinct component of that of the United Kingdom as a whole. [131946]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  British Trade International, through the activity of Invest. UK and Trade Partners UK, contributes circa £900,000 towards the promotion of the branding and identity of the United Kingdom as a whole.

  The Devolved Administrations and the Regional Development Agencies have their own budgets for overseas promotion.

  Construction Industry
  Mr. Bellingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how much Quality Mark work was taken up by the construction industry in each year since its introduction. [132846]

  Nigel Griffiths
  The total declared turnover for Quality Mark warranty purposes in 2002 was £17 million. In 2003 the declared turnover has been approximately £21.5 million up to the present time. The value of work undertaken through affiliating scheme members is not yet available.
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  Electricity
  Mr. Tynan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what level of installed electricity generation capacity above(a) average demand and (b) peak demand was available in 2002–03; and what level she expects will be (i) available and (ii) available but mothballed in (A) 2003–04, (B) 2004–05 and (C) 2005–06. [132434]

  Mr. Timms
  In the winter of 2002–03, installed generating capacity for England and Wales was 67.6 GW. Actual peak demand was 54.8 GW and adjusting this to average cold spell (ACS) weather conditions and adding back estimated voluntary demand reduction at peak, gives a figure of 55.1 GW. Peak demand under average winter weather is reckoned by National Grid Company (NGC) to be about 96 per cent. of peak demand under ACS conditions.

  In the July 2003 Update to their Seven Year Statement, NGC published the following projections for ACS demand and installed capacity:

  GW

  ACS demand

  Installed capacity

  2003–04

  55.9

  65.1

  2004–05

  56.8

  66.9 to 67.2

  2005–06

  57.7

  67.7 to 68.9

  The range of projections shown for installed capacity reflects the extent to which plant not yet under construction comes forward. The projections for installed capacity do not allow for any plant closures not yet announced, for return of currently mothballed plant, or for new generating capacity yet to enter transmission contracts with NGC.

  PowerGen announced on 19 August 2003 its intention to return a 650 MW unit at Grain to service for the coming winter. It also announced on 15 October 2003 that it had started work that could bring a further 650 MW unit at Grain back for this winter. On 16 October 2003, International Power announced its intention to return a 250 MW unit at Deeside to service from 20 October 2003. NGC will take these announcements into account for the October 2003 Update to the Seven Year Statement, due to be released later this month.

  Further information on the prospects for gas and electricity security for the coming winter, and on the outturn for last winter, can be found in the "Winter Operations Report", issued by National Grid Transco (NGT) on 14 October 2003, a copy of which is in the Library of the House. That report estimated that there is some 4.2 GW of mothballed generating capacity capable of returning to service within 24 months or less, of which 0.8 GW could be returned in less than three months. However, the report does not take account of the announcements of 15 and 16 October 2003 referred to above.

  All figures for installed capacity include the full capacity of the interconnectors with France and Scotland.
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  NGC consider ACS conditions as a level of demand that has a 50 per cent. probability of occurring within any winter. Since 1990, actual peak demand has never exceeded ACS corrected peak demand, although this may be due in part to voluntary demand reduction at peak periods.

  The NGC Seven Year Statement, and updates to it, can be found at: www.nationalgrid.com/uk/library/documents/sys_03/default. asp

  Fireworks
  John Barrett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) what discussions she has had with(a) representatives of the fireworks industry, (b) local authorities and (c) police representatives since the passing of the Fireworks Act 2003;[133509]

  (2) what plans she has to make use of her powers under the Fireworks Act 2003. [133510]

  Mr. Sutcliffe
  The Department is committed to implementing and ensuring proper enforcement of the Fireworks Act 2003. We hope to implement those parts of the Act dealing with anti-social issues before Christmas. Discussions have taken place with the fireworks industry with regard to enshrining the voluntary air bombs ban in legislation under the Act.

  Discussions have also taken place with local authorities and police representatives on the creation of a curfew for the use of fireworks between the hours of 11 pm and 7 am and creating an offence for possession of fireworks by those under 18 years of age respectively.

  The Act's other principal provisions—setting a maximum noise limit for fireworks, licensing of suppliers, rules for public firework displays, importation of fireworks and training of display operators—require more detailed consultation with all the interested parties. We will start implementation of this part of the Act in the new year.

  HSE Inspectors
  Mr. Bellingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether bonus arrangements for Health and Safety Executive inspectors include a target to reach a certain number of prosecutions per year. [132903]

  Mr. Browne
  I have been asked to reply.

  Health and Safety inspectors are not paid bonuses for achieving target numbers of prosecutions in any year.

  Imports (Asia)
  Denzil Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the value was of goods imported from(a) the People's Republic of China, (b) India and (c) Japan into the (i) United Kingdom and (ii) European Union in the last year for which figures are available. [132750]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  According to figures published by Eurostat, UK and European Union imports of goods from the People's Republic of China, India and Japan in 2002 were as follows.
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  UK and EU imports of goods from China, India and Japan, 2002

  £ million (current prices)

  UK

  EU

  China

  10,539

  51,196

  India

  1,845

  8,175

  Japan

  8,339

  42,876

  Industrial Tribunals
  Mr. Bellingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many industrial tribunal cases have been brought in each year since 1997. [132863]

  Mr. Sutcliffe
  Statistics on the number of Employment Tribunal applications are collated on a financial year basis.

  Employment Tribunal applications for Great Britain

  Financial year

  Number of registered applications

  1996–97

  88,910

  1997–98

  80,435

  1998–99

  91,913

  1999–2000

  103,935

  2000–01

  130,408

  2001–02

  112,227

  2002–03

  98,617

  Source:

  Employment Tribunals Service annual reports and accounts

  Knowledge Economy
  Mrs. Helen Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps she has taken to implement recommendation 15 of the Cross—Cutting Review of the Knowledge Economy published in December 2000; and if she will make a statement. [131988]

  Ms Hewitt
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to her by my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary on 15 October 2003,Official Report, column 282W.

  Manufacturing
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what investment has been made in research and development in manufacturing in the UK since 1997. [133135]

  Jacqui Smith
  The Office for National Statistics Business Enterprise Research and Development survey provides the following data on research and development in manufacturing in the UK since 1997:

  Expenditure on research and development performed in UK businesses in the manufacturing sector, 1997–2001

  £ million

  Cash terms

  Real terms (2001 prices)

  1997

  7,608

  8,360

  1998

  8,142

  8,707

  1999

  8,995

  9,392

  2000

  9,231

  9,429

  2001

  10,040

  10,040

  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on her plans for supporting manufacturing. [133136]
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  Jacqui Smith
  The Government's Manufacturing Strategy published in May last year, identified seven key areas of activity for Government and industry that are crucial for manufacturing success. We are taking action in all of those areas to support UK manufacturers.

  for example, the Manufacturing Advisory Service has been a real success as a major source of advice and support for small and medium sized manufacturers. Since it launched in April 2002, the Manufacturing Advisory Service has handled over 17,000 inquiries from manufacturing companies and has carried out over 3,000 diagnostic and advisory visits. Over 1,000 firms have benefited from in-depth consultancies to help them improve their productivity. The total value added benefit to firms helped by the Manufacturing Advisory Service is £18 million.

  Mr. Bellingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what estimate her Department has made of the supply of manufacturing labourers throughout the United Kingdom. [132853]

  Jacqui Smith
  Official statistical sources, such as the Labour Force Survey and Employers Surveys, do not provide estimates of the supply of manufacturing labourers.

  There were 3.7 million workforce jobs in the manufacturing industry in the UK in June 2003.

  Mine Shafts (Householders' Insurance)
  David Winnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on the proposed insurance scheme and related matters for householders whose properties are affected by mine shafts. [133555]

  Nigel Griffiths
  [holding answer 21 October 2003]: At the end of last month, the Coal Authority launched an initiative to provide alongside every residential mining report it produces, insurance cover which will mitigate against any loss of property value, up to a maximum of £20,000, attributable to any material change of the mining information revealed in any subsequent mining report on the same property. At the same time the Authority introduced an interpretive mining report service which will provide more detailed analysis and advice about mine entries including a risk assessment as to whether, in the expert opinion of the Coal Authority, the main building of a property is inside or outside the possible zone of ground movement from any reported mine entry.

  The Coal Authority has developed these services under the auspices of the Department's Mineshafts Working Group, established last year to explore initiatives which might ameliorate the blighting effect which the proximity of historic coal mineshafts is perceived to have on certain properties, particularly in the West Midlands. The Coal Authority is also investigating the scope for development of non-invasive detection techniques capable of locating mining features in built-up environments. The Authority continues to work closely with property practitioners at a local level with a view to raising awareness of the very low statistical risk which historic mineshafts represent.
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  Mobile Phone Companies
  Jeff Ennis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether mobile telephone companies are categorised as statutory undertakers using the same criteria as apply to electricity and gas companies. [133181]

  Mr. Timms
  'statutory undertaker' is a concept found in a wide range of legislation across different sectors. In the electronic communications sector, a person or undertaking (such as a mobile telephone company) is not likely to satisfy any definition of 'statutory undertaker' unless they have had the electronic communications code applied to them by a direction by Ofcom pursuant to section 106 of the Communications Act 2003. The electronic communications code gives certain powers to operators vis-a-vis the installation of apparatus. The criteria which Ofcom must consider in deciding whether or not to apply the electronic communications code to a person or undertaking are set out in section 107(4) of the Communications Act 2003. The position in the gas and electricity sectors is different, as gas and electricity still have a licensing-based regime, whereas electronic communications does not.

  National Investment Bank
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will establish a national investment bank to oversee industrial development and assist growth industries. [133138]

  Jacqui Smith
  I have no such plans. A range of facilities are offered by Government, the devolved Administrations and Regional Development Agencies to assist businesses reach their full growth potential

  Norwich Airport
  Dr. Gibson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans she has to assess the sale of Norwich airport for value for money.131216]

  Mr. McNulty
  [holding answer 14 October 2003]: I have been asked to reply. The Government do not plan to assess the sale of Norwich airport. It is the duty of the Directors to act in the best interest of the company, and thereby in the best interest of the shareholding authorities. Moreover, the sale would be subject to scrutiny by the District Auditor.

  Post Office Card Accounts
  Mr. Gordon Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what activity her Department is undertaking to publicise the Post Office card account. [133387]

  Mr. Timms
  None. The promotion of Post Office products and services is a matter for the company. Post Office Ltd. is providing information to customers and guidance to sub-postmasters on the range of banking options available at post offices, including the Post Office card account.

  Mr. Gordon Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment she has made of the impact of customers opening Post Office card accounts on the viability of sub-post offices. [133388]
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  Mr. Timms
  The number of customers who will eventually choose to open a Post Office card account is difficult to predict, at this stage. However, the Post Office card account is only one of a range of banking options available at post offices. All the major high street banks are providing access to a basic bank account through post offices. In addition, the Alliance and Leicester, Barclays and Lloyds/TSB are providing electronic access at post offices to all their current accounts—some 20 million accounts in total. The Post Office also provides cheque based banking services for customers of the Cooperative bank and the internet banks, Smile and Cahoot. The Post Office is in discussion with the banks to modernise these services and to extend commercial arrangements to cover other financial institutions. Universal banking services, together with the Post Office's plans for an expansion of commercial banking arrangements, should lead to an increase in the number of people using post offices to do banking transactions. Wider access to bank accounts at post offices opens up a very much larger market than benefit recipients alone, and this should benefit sub-postmasters both directly and through increased footfall.

  Post Office Closures
  John Barrett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many proposed post office closures under the Urban Reinvention Programme have been reversed following public consultation. [133507]

  Mr. Timms
  Decisions on post office closure proposals under the urban reinvention programme following public consultation are an operational matter for Post Office Ltd. and I have asked the Chief Executive to reply direct to the hon. Member.

  Unsolicited E-mail
  Mr. Bellingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans she has to protect British businesses from unsolicited e-mails; and if she will include measures to protect businesses when the relevant EC Directive is implemented later this year. [132850]

  Mr. Timms
  The EU Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications has been implemented in the UK by the Privacy-and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (SI 2003 No 2426), which come into force on 11 December this year. The Regulations will introduce opt-in consent requirements for unsolicited e-mail marketing to individual subscribers, including sole traders and some partnerships. The Government decided not to extend the opt-in consent right to corporate subscribers (including limited companies) because of concerns about the impact on business to business marketing, but the Government's response to consultation on the new rules has made it clear that we are prepared to review this in the light of working experience of the new rules.

  Subscribers of all kinds will benefit from a requirement in the Regulations not to send commercial e-mail which disguises or conceals the identity of the person on whose behalf it is sent, or does not provide a valid address to which a request that communications cease may be sent.
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  Tariffs
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry pursuant to her answer of 16 June 2003,Official Report, column 50W, on trade tariffs, what strategic controls are placed on British exports to non-EU countries. [133318]

  Nigel Griffiths
  The Strategic controls that are routinely placed on British exports to non-EU countries are set out in:1. The Export of Goods (Control) Order 1994, as amended.
  2. Council Regulation (EC) No. 1334/2000, as amended.
  3. The Dual Use Items (Export Control) Regulations 2000, as amended.

  Waste Electrical and Electronic Goods Directive
  Mr. Bellingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on the likely effects of the introduction of the WEEE Directive on small retailers; what estimate she has made of the number that are likely to be put out of business because of the Directive; and how many retailers have contacted her Department to express their concern. [132865]

  Mr. Timms
  The Government are concerned to implement the WEEE Directive with a light regulatory touch, consistent with achieving its environmental goals. We would not expect small retailers to be put out of business because of this Directive.

  The Government consulted widely on this Directive earlier this year following its entry into force and received responses from a range of organisations and individuals, including 54 retailers or their representative organisations.

  The UK successfully negotiated flexibility in the Directive's provisions on retail takeback and the Government are now considering how to take advantage of this in its implementation. In this context, it is in discussions with retailers, including the British Retail Consortium.

  The Government intends to publish its proposals for implementation of the Directive, including retail take-back, later this autumn for consultation. After this, it will issue draft implementing Regulations for consultation next spring.

DEFENCE

  Afghanistan
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has to increase UK military support for the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Mazar-e-Sharif and the five surrounding provinces in Afghanistan consequent to United Nations Resolution 1510. [133163]

  Mr. Ingram
  I anticipate the UK-led Provincial Reconstruction Team based in Mazar-e Sharif will increase slightly in size by the end of the year. This expansion is part of the planned evolution of the Provincial Reconstruction Team and is coincidental to UNSCR 1510.
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  Angus Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many rounds of depleted uranium ammunitions have been fired in Afghanistan by UK troops; how many rounds of depleted uranium ammunition have been recovered during UK-led clean-up operations; and if he will make a statement. [133714]

  Mr. Ingram
  Depleted uranium (DU) ammunition has not been used by Allied Forces in recent operations in Afghanistan and hence there has been no need for clean-up. I do not have information on its use by other nations or forces in past conflicts in Afghanistan.

  Military Deaths
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to the statement made by Surrey Police on the conclusion of their investigations and his Answer of 16 September 2003,Official Report, column 705W, on Deepcut and Catterick barracks, if he will order an independent public inquiry into the way that unnatural deaths at Catterick and Deepcut barracks have been investigated; and if he will make a statement. [133398]

  Mr. Ingram
  Responsibility for investigating unnatural deaths at army barracks lies with the appropriate civil police authorities. The Surrey Police have suggested, in the context of their investigation of deaths at Deepcut, that a broader inquiry into army deaths may be warranted. Her Majesty's Coroner has yet to complete his work in relation to the Deepcut deaths and the Surrey Police have yet to produce their final overarching report. The case for a public inquiry will need to be considered in the light of these events and other studies already completed.

  Defence Fire Service
  Mr. Grogan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many people are employed in his Department's fire service. [133428]

  Mr. Ingram
  Within the Ministry of Defence there are currently around 2,370 military and civilian personnel employed in fire fighting and related duties in both the UK and overseas. Precise details of current day-to-day manning levels are not held centrally as personnel below the officer grades in the civilian defence fire service are locally recruited.

  Gulf War Syndrome
  Mr. Tyler
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will publish the letter from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence to Lord Morris of Manchester of 9 October, on vaccines used for UK troops deployed in the 1990–91 Gulf War; and what steps he is taking to prevent recurrence of the problems identified. [132897]

  Mr. Caplin
  [holding answer 20 October 2003]: The text of the letter (reference: D/MIN(DP)/WB/13/1/2/3) was published in the House of Lords on 9 October 2003, Official Report, columns WA 67–79. A copy of the letter was placed in the Library of this House on 10 October.

  Subsequent analysis of the 1990–91 Gulf Conflict revealed shortcomings at the time in medical record keeping and medical preparedness. In October 2001 the
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  Ministry of Defence published the paper: "Medical Records in the Gulf" which explained how the Service medical documentation system was used during that conflict and the generic reasons why a medical record may no longer exist. The paper is available on the internet at: http:www.mod.ukyissues/gulfwar/info/m

  Since that conflict, we have made significant improvements in medical record keeping through the introduction of a new operational medical record. This does ensure that health events while on deployment are more systematically recorded than in the past. Care is taken to ensure that accurate records are maintained by recording all vaccinations on individuals' medical records. Further improvements in medical record keeping will be achieved over the next few years with the progressive introduction of new information technology systems. A number of personnel were not up to date with their Service standard vaccinations. Our policy guidance has been modified to ensure that all troops are now immunised routinely. In June 2002, we announced that our Voluntary Immunisation Programme against anthrax would be expanded, in phases, to the whole of the Armed Forces, including reserves and those essential civilians who were likely to deploy on operations, beginning with those units that were held at the highest readiness. This takes account of lessons identified post the 1990–91 Gulf Conflict.

  Hutton Inquiry
  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) for what reason he authorised the creation of an environment intended to simulate that of hearings of the Hutton Inquiry at the Civil Service College at Sunningdale; on what date the authorisation was given; and what the cost of the exercise was;[133112]

  (2) how many officials who appeared at the Hutton Inquiry were given coaching and training prior to their public appearance; and at what cost. [133113]

  Mr. Hoon
  I did not authorise the creation of any facility, at Sunningdale or elsewhere, to simulate the hearings of the Hutton Inquiry, and no Ministry of Defence officials were given coaching or training prior to their giving evidence to the Inquiry.

  Manning Control Points
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence for what reason no soldiers have been discharged following manning control reviews in the last 17 months; and if he will make a statement. [133353]

  Mr. Caplin
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy (Dr. Moonie) gave on 5 June 2003, Official Report, columns 507–08W.

  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether all soldiers subject to discharge at their manning control point have been shown their A FB130A (Application for Discharge) and allowed to appeal against the Commanding Officer's decision before the soldier's discharge is approved by the army; and if he will make a statement. [133354]
  591W
  Mr. Caplin
  Soldiers who have been recommended for discharge under Queen's Regulations for the Army 1975 Para 9.413, 'Not Required for a Full Army Career', are shown their Army Form B130A and are given an opportunity to appeal against the recommendation.

  Mr. Terry Jeans
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make an exception to the next-of-kin rule to facilitate the attendance of Mr. Terry Jeans at the trial in Croatia of the people alleged to have murdered his son. [133732]

  Mr. Caplin
  In July 2002 public funds were exceptionally made available to enable Mr. Jeans to be present at the trial of those accused of killing his son. It was made clear to Mr. Jeans at that time that this action constituted a one-off payment for a final trip to Croatia which in no way constituted a precedent. It was also made clear to Mr. Jeans that the Ministry of Defence could not envisage making any further public funds available to support him. This remains the position.

  Official Travel
  Mr. Rosindell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many official overseas visits each Minister in the Ministry of Defence has made in each year since 1997. [132123]

  Mr. Caplin
  A list of all visits overseas undertaken by Cabinet Ministers costing £500 or more during each financial year since 1997 is available in the Libraries of 592W
  the House. The lists provide details of the dates, destinations and purposes of all such visits and the costs of Ministers' travel and accommodation where appropriate.

  I also refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 16 July 2003, Official Report, columns 327–28, to my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Plaskitt).

  Service Families (Voting Arrangements)
  Angus Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what arrangements are in place to allow families of Scottish soldiers stationed outwith Scotland to vote in Scottish elections; and if he will make a statement. [133653]

  Mr. Caplin
  It is the individual responsibility of each member of the Armed Forces and their family to register to vote annually. Scottish service personnel outwith Scotland, and their spouses, can choose to register as service voters by means of a service declaration, but they can then only vote by proxy. Those, including eligible children, who choose to register on their local electoral register will be able to vote either by post or proxy if they are overseas or away from Scotland during any election, provided they have registered to vote in Scotland. Every effort is made by ships, units, and stations to give reasonable assistance to personnel overseas to register or vote in line with their individual electoral registration choice.
  593W

EDUCATION AND SKILLS

  School Exclusions
  Huw Irranca-Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make it his policy to permit schools in England and Wales to receive(a) financial and (b) legal support from their local education authority in dealing with legal action taken against the school by outside parties in respect of fixed-term exclusions. [133359]

  Mr. Miliband
  There is existing provision with the regulations governing school funding for schools to receive contingency financial assistance from their local education authority if the costs of legal action, or amounts awarded by a court, cannot be met from a school's budget share without damaging pupils' education. Legal support may be purchased by a school either from the authority under a service level agreement or from an independent source.

  A-Level Grades
  Mr. Damian Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what percentage of pupils in England achieved A-levels in(a) mathematics and (b) English achieved grades A or above in (i) the best performing local education authority and (ii) the worst performing local education authority in 2002–03. [133671]

  Mr. Miliband
  The information requested is given in the following tables:

  Mathematics

  Percentage of A level passes in mathematics that were grade A in 2003

  Local education authority

  Percentage

  Highest percentage

  Reading

  61.0

  Lowest percentage

  Portsmouth

  8.0

  English

  Percentage of A level passes in English that were grade A in 2003

  Local education authority

  Percentage

  Highest percentage

  Reading

  34.0

  Lowest percentage

  Hackney

  3.2

  Careers Services
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on arrangements for(a) delivering of services, (b) funding and (c) professional validation and development of careers services operated by higher education institutions, with particular reference to their relationship with other careers and guidance services. [133424]

  Alan Johnson
  Career guidance services in higher education are diverse and varied. There is no statutory obligation for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to provide careers advice and guidance. However, most 594W
  HEIs have established their own dedicated careers service. Some use other means, for example through academic departments or other student services; others use a combination of both approaches.

  Higher Education Careers Services are funded by HEIs themselves. Each institution makes its own decisions about the level of funding it allocates to careers and other services from its overall funding allocation, according to its individual circumstances.

  The 2001 report 'Developing Modern Higher Education Careers Services', published following a review commissioned by my Department, included the recommendations that universities should place increased emphasis upon:
  (a)defining core services that every Careers Service should provide
  (b)considering their policies towards their Careers Services in relation to their Operational Plan
  (c)reviewing their funding distribution to ensure they are able to deliver the core careers services
  (d)ensuring their careers service staff are appropriately trained and qualified.

  The Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS), in conjunction with the University of Reading, offers a range of tailored professional qualifications. AGCAS now sets a condition that members must have achieved or be working towards the matrix standard, which is the national quality standard for any organisation delivering information, advice and guidance services on learning and work. In addition the Higher Education Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) has developed a voluntary code of practice for careers education, information and guidance in higher education. The majority of HE Careers Services are members of local Information Advice and Guidance partnerships which are funded by the Learning and Skills Council and which ensure coherence of all adult careers services in their local areas.

  Criminal Records Bureau
  Mr. Pickthall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many employees in the education service require CRB checks; what the total cost of those checks is; and who pays for them. [133301]

  Mr. Miliband
  All new employees in the education service who have regular contact with children require a CRB check on appointment and some staff need to be checked when they move between posts. Fees for CRB checks are set at 24 for a Standard Disclosure and 29 for an Enhanced Disclosure. Disclosures for volunteers are free of charge. I am not able to provide information on numbers of employees or the total costs involved as my Department does not hold this information. The cost of Disclosures falls to individuals, but some employers may decide to pay the fee on their behalf.

  Faith Schools
  Mr. Damian Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many(a) primary, (b) secondary and (c) both primary and secondary schools that select some or all of their pupils on the basis of faith have (i) opened and (ii) closed in each year since 1997, broken down by local education authority. [133684]
  595W
  Mr. Miliband
  The following tables show the number of primary and secondary maintained schools, designated as having a religious character, which have opened and closed in each year since 1997, listed by LEA

  1997

  Openings (i)

  Closures (ii)

  Local education authority

  Primary (a)

  Secondary (b)

  Total (c)

  Primary (a)

  Secondary (b)

  Total (c)

  Lincolnshire

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Liverpool

  1

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Middlesbrough

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Oxfordshire

  0

  0

  0

  2

  0

  2

  Wiltshire

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Total

  1

  0

  1

  5

  0

  5

  1998

  Openings (i)

  Closures (ii)

  Local education authority

  Primary (a)

  (i) Secondary (b)

  Total (c)

  Primary (a)

  Secondary (b)

  Total (c)

  Birmingham

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Camden

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Essex

  0

  0

  0

  I

  0

  1

  Hampshire

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Harrow

  1

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Kent

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Liverpool

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Manchester

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Salford

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Wigan

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Total

  1

  0

  1

  6

  3

  9

  1999

  Openings (i)

  Closures (ii)

  Local education authority

  Primary (a)

  Secondary (b)

  Total (c)

  Primary (a)

  Secondary (b)

  Total (c)

  Bradford

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Cambridgeshire

  1

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Cumbria

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Hertfordshire

  1

  0

  I

  0

  0

  0

  Lancashire

  0

  0

  0

  2

  0

  2

  Manchester

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Medway

  1

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Redbridge

  1

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  South Gloucestershire

  1

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  St. Helens

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Sunderland

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Total

  5

  0

  5

  7

  0

  7

  2000

  Openings (i)

  Closures (ii)

  Local education authority

  Primary (a)

  Secondary (b)

  Total (c)

  Primary (a)

  Secondary (b)

  Total (c)

  Croydon

  1

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Lancashire

  0

  0

  0

  2

  0

  2

  Leicestershire

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  North Yorkshire

  1

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Stockton-on-Tees

  1

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Suffolk

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Windsor and Maidenhead

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Total

  3

  0

  3

  4

  1

  5

  596W
  area. These schools are permitted to give priority to pupils of their faith or denomination, if over subscribed, but the Department does not maintain records of those that do so.
  597W

  2001

  Openings (i)

  Closures (ii)

  Local education authority

  Primary (a)

  Secondary (b)

  Total (c)

  Primary (a)

  Secondary (b)

  Total (c)

  Birmingham

  0

  1

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Bradford

  0

  1

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Dorset

  1

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  East Sussex

  1

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Manchester

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Nottinghamshire

  1

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Surrey

  0

  1

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Tower Hamlets

  0

  1

  1

  0

  0

  0

  West Sussex

  1

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Total

  4

  4

  8

  1

  0

  1

  2002

  Openings (i)

  Closures (ii)

  Local education authority

  Primary (a)

  Secondary (b)

  Total (c)

  Primary (a)

  Secondary (b)

  Total (c)

  Birmingham

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Herefordshire

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Knowsley

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Middlesbrough

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  2

  Oxfordshire

  1

  0

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Shropshire

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  St Helens

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Sunderland

  0

  1

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Tower Hamlets

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Warrington

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Wirral

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  1

  Total

  1

  1

  2

  7

  3

  10

  2003

  Openings (i)

  Closures (ii)

  Local education authority

  Primary (a)

  Secondary (b)

  Total (c)

  Primary (a)

  Secondary (b)

  Total (c)

  Bury

  0

  0

  0

  2

  0

  2

  Bedfordshire

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Hertfordshire

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Northamptonshire

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Northumberland

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Stockton-on-Tees

  1

  1

  2

  0

  0

  0

  Stoke-on-Trent

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Wandsworth

  0

  1

  1

  0

  0

  0

  Worcestershire

  0

  0

  0

  1

  0

  1

  Total1

  1

  2

  3

  8

  0

  8

  1To 13 October 2003

  The tables exclude schools that opened or closed as a result of amalgamations, mergers or reorganisations, and also former community schools that closed and re-opened with a religious character.

  GCSE Grades
  Mr. Damian Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what percentage of pupils in England achieved GCSEs in(a) mathematics and (b) English and (c) both achieved grades A or above in (i) the best performing local education authority and (ii) the worst performing local education authority in 2002–03. [1336721

  Mr. Miliband
  The percentage of pupils achieving grade A* or A at GCSE in (a) Mathematics and (b) English and (c) both in the highest and lowest performing LEAs are shown in the following tables.
  598W

  English

  Percentage of pupils achieving grade A or above in GCSE English in 2003

  Local education authority

  Percentage

  i) Highest percentage

  Sutton

  32.1

  ii) Lowest percentage

  Isles of Scilly

  0.0

  Maths

  Percentage of pupils achieving grade A or above in GCSE Maths in 2003

  Local education authority

  Percentage

  i) Highest percentage

  Sutton

  28.5

  ii) Lowest percentage

  Isles of Scilly

  0.0

  599W

  English and Maths

  Percentage of pupils achieving grade A or above in GCSE English and Maths in 2003

  Local education authority

  Percentage

  i) Highest percentage

  Sutton

  21.6

  ii) Lowest percentage

  Isles of Scilly

  0.0

  Grant-maintained Schools
  Mr. Damian Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many former grant-maintained schools have gained(a) specialist, (b) beacon and (c) city academy status in each year since 1997, broken down by local education authority. [133685]

  Mr. Miliband
  The information requested has been placed in the Libraries.

  School Transport
  Bob Russell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what representations he has received on proposals by Essex Local Education Authority to charge travel costs for pupils attending faith schools; and if he will make a statement. [132809]

  1995/96

  1996/97

  1997/98

  1998/99

  1999/2000

  2000/01

  2001/02

  2002/03

  Biological Sciences

  37,576

  36,641

  38,890

  38,785

  39,376

  40,455

  40,526

  42,608

  Chemistry

  36,279

  35,154

  36,544

  37,640

  37,699

  38,797

  39,067

  40,854

  Physics

  35,727

  34,541

  36,205

  37,205

  37,532

  38,455

  38,640

  40,051

  Single Award Science

  62,844

  54,631

  52,383

  50,182

  48,565

  49,886

  51,662

  52,998

  Double Award Science

  434,946

  439,480

  431,348

  441,897

  445.100

  464,389

  466,469

  473,966

  Other Science

  5,344

  4,881

  3,826

  3,423

  3,106

  2,977

  2,785

  2,742

  Total Science

  612,716

  605,328

  599,196

  609,132

  611,378

  634,959

  639,149

  653,219

  Part (b)

  The number of entries in advanced level science subjects by 16 and 17-year-old students in all schools and FE colleges in England since 1995/96 are:

  1995/96

  1996/97

  1997/98

  1998/99

  1999/2000

  2000/01

  2001/02

  2002/03

  GCE A level

  Biology

  37,905

  42,144

  43,405

  41,723

  41,204

  40,250

  41,448

  39,810

  Chemistry

  30,589

  32,295

  32,922

  31,670

  31,407

  30,422

  29,298

  27,839

  Physics

  25,541

  26,192

  27,004

  26,849

  25,548

  25,557

  25,601

  23,868

  Other Science

  4,456

  5,612

  5,902

  5,694

  5,795

  5,740

  6,950

  8,012

  Total Science

  98,491

  106,243

  109,233

  105,936

  103,954

  101,969

  103,297

  99,529

  GCE Advanced Supplementary level

  Biology

  2,314

  2,518

  2,524

  2,688

  2,774

  1,483

  —

  —

  Chemistry

  1,008

  1,205

  1,241

  1,155

  1,180

  781

  —

  —

  Physics

  1,534

  1,808

  1,758

  1,727

  1,614

  750

  —

  —

  Other Science

  1,839

  1,995

  1,995

  1,859

  1,961

  501

  —

  —

  Total Science

  6,695

  7,526

  7,518

  7,429

  7,529

  3,515

  —

  —

  GCE Advanced Subsidiary level

  Biology

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  49,868

  51,698

  53,840

  Chemistry

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  34,048

  35,145

  36,745

  Physics

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  29,545

  30,393

  29,401

  Other Science

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  6,353

  13,739

  14,206

  Total Science

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  119,814

  130,975

  134,192

  VCE A level

  Science

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  195

  385

  352

  600W
  Mr. Miliband
  I have received representations from people objecting to Essex LEA's proposals to charge for home-to-school transport where children attend a denominational school in preference to the local school designated by their LEA. The policy issue is one for the LEA, but several correspondents have raised concerns about the way in which the consultation was carried out. My officials have requested information from the LEA to find out whether the consultation has been conducted in accordance with our regulations.

  Science Education
  Mrs. Gillan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many pupils(a) up to the age of 16 years, (b) up to the age of 18 years and (c) beyond the age of 18 years were studying sciences in each year since 1 January 1996. [132331]

  Mr. Miliband
  [holding answer 21 October 2003]: The answers to parts (a), (b) and (c) are as follows:

  Part (a)

  The number of entries in GCSE science subjects by 15-year-old pupils in all schools in England since 1995/96 are:
  601W

  1995/96

  1996/97

  1997/98

  1998/99

  1999/2000

  2000/01

  2001/02

  2002/03

  VCE Double Award

  Science

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  11

  564

  520

  AGNVQ Science

  —

  —

  515

  609

  692

  624

  —

  —

  Part (c)

  The number of UK domiciles at English higher education and further education institutions, aged 18 or over studying science subjects in 1995/96 to 2001/02 are:

  1995/96

  1996/97

  1997/98

  1998/99

  Subject Group

  Post Graduate

  Under Graduate

  Post Graduate

  Under Graduate

  Post Graduate

  Under Graduate

  Post Graduate

  Under Graduate

  HE in HE institutions

  Medicine and dentistry

  6,216

  17,971

  7,076

  19,115

  7,227

  19,529

  7,408

  19,832

  Subjects allied to medicine

  10,067

  84,869

  11,051

  106,280

  12,151

  112,528

  13,610

  126,266

  Biological sciences

  8,678

  40,805

  9,677

  45,676

  9,791

  49,961

  10,207

  50,606

  Veterinary science

  238

  1,470

  306

  1,496

  252

  1,595

  255

  1,691

  Agriculture and related subjects

  786

  8.671

  807

  8,643

  896

  8,755

  969

  8,854

  Physical sciences

  9,769

  43,471

  9,790

  43,061

  8,941

  41,584

  8,719

  41,167

  Mathematical sciences

  2,210

  11,783

  2,050

  12,050

  1,845

  12,487

  1,666

  12,757

  Computer science

  6,601

  45,666

  7,036

  48,228

  7,480

  50,590

  8,398

  54,727

  Engineering and technology

  12,565

  74,939

  12,270

  68,939

  12,281

  65,384

  12,468

  63,464

  Architecture, building and planning

  6,564

  27.197

  7,210

  24,389

  6,776

  23,080

  7,007

  21,868

  Total Sciences

  63,694

  356,842

  67,273

  377,877

  67,640

  385,493

  70,707

  401,232

  HE in FE institutions

  Biological sciences

  0

  277

  74

  349

  97

  332

  64

  307

  Agriculture and related subjects

  63

  1,625

  75

  1,893

  49

  2,025

  34

  1,845

  Physical sciences

  0

  441

  8

  256

  15

  258

  20

  229

  Mathematical sciences

  0

  6

  0

  0

  0

  0

  0

  1

  Computer science

  0

  3,593

  0

  3,741

  0

  4,463

  0

  5,425

  Engineering and technology

  0

  22,246

  0

  20,728

  0

  20,760

  0

  20,010

  Architecture, building and planning

  0

  6,348

  0

  6,154

  0

  5,854

  27

  5,817

  Other Science

  0

  1,721

  18

  2,359

  87

  3,053

  81

  3,187

  Total Sciences

  63

  36,257

  175

  35,480

  248

  36,745

  226

  36,821

  1999/00

  2000/01

  2001/02

  Subject Group

  Post Graduate

  Under Graduate

  Post Graduate

  Under Graduate

  Post Graduate

  Under Graduate

  HE in HE institutions

  Medicine and dentistry

  7,668

  20,029

  7,854

  20,906

  8,167

  21,952

  Subjects allied to medicine

  14,205

  134,987

  15,611

  138,661

  17,623

  143,445

  Biological sciences

  10,569

  51,164

  10,813

  51,405

  11,042

  51,516

  Veterinary science

  243

  1,796

  230

  1,939

  259

  2,177

  Agriculture and related subjects

  1,015

  8,511

  1,225

  8,729

  1,367

  8,715

  Physical sciences

  8,494

  40,082

  8,221

  38,746

  8,287

  36,896

  Mathematical sciences

  1,766

  12,638

  1,815

  12,439

  2,141

  12,437

  Computer science

  8,844

  58,341

  9,096

  66,402

  9,112

  71,309

  Engineering and technology

  11,324

  61,459

  12,798

  61,419

  12,915

  61,735

  Architecture, building and planning

  6,376

  20,985

  6,376

  20,970

  6,781

  21,450

  Total Sciences

  70,504

  409,992

  74,039

  421,616

  77,694

  431,632

  HE in FE institutions

  Biological sciences

  69

  546

  7

  573

  7

  503

  Agriculture and related subjects

  23

  2,531

  0

  1,978

  0

  2,128

  Physical sciences

  15

  165

  13

  159

  10

  159

  Mathematical sciences

  0

  4

  0

  38

  0

  37

  Computer science

  0

  7,415

  0

  7,223

  0

  7,348

  Engineering and technology

  0

  18,648

  0

  17,447

  0

  15,917

  Architecture, building and planning

  28

  5,375

  27

  4,819

  48

  4,445

  Other Science

  55

  3,297

  55

  3,297

  20

  2,836

  Total Sciences

  102

  35,534

  102

  35,534

  85

  33,373

  602W 603W

  Sixth Forms
  Mr. Hepburn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what percentage of children in(a) the Jarrow constituency, (b) South Tyneside, (c) the North East and (d) the UK remained in education after the completion of their GCSEs in each year since 1997. [133226]

  Mr. Miliband
  Data on the percentage of students staying on in full-time education and education and training is not calculated for areas smaller than LEAs as reliable estimates cannot be made.

  The percentage of 16-year-olds participating in full-time education, and in education and training, in South Tyneside local education authority, the North East and the UK for end 1997 to end 2000, the latest available year, are shown in the table.

  Participation by 16 year olds

  End 1997

  End 1998

  End 1999

  End 2000

  Full-time education

  South Tyneside LEA

  52

  53

  57

  57

  North East Region

  60

  61

  64

  65

  United Kingdom

  70

  71

  72

  73

  Education and training

  South Tyneside LEA

  —

  76

  81

  78

  North East Region

  78

  82

  86

  87

  United Kingdom1

  80

  79

  80

  79

  1 Great Britain only up to end 1999, and England and Wales only for end 2000. The education and training figures in this row do not include part-time education.
  Note:
  Participation rates by LEA for 16 and 17 year olds are published in an annual statistical bulletin, 'Participation in Education and Training by Young People Aged 16 and 17 in Each Local Area and Region, England'.

  Teachers/Assistants
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many(a) teachers and (b) teaching assistants were employed in (i) the West Midlands and (ii) Coventry in each of the last three years. [133583]

  Mr. Miliband
  The numbers of teachers and teaching assistants in the West Midlands Government office region (GOR) and Coventry local education authority (LEA) in the last three years are given in the following tables.

  Teachers1

  Region

  2001

  2002

  2003

  Coventry LEA

  2,870

  2,920

  2,910

  West Midlands GOR

  47,400

  47,800

  48,200

  1Full-time equivalent regular teachers in service in the maintained sector in January of each year.

  Source:

  618G

  Teaching Assistants1

  Region

  2001

  2002

  2003

  Coventry LEA

  800

  670

  640

  West Midlands GOR

  10,410

  11,120

  13,050

  604W
  1Full-time equivalent teaching assistants in maintained primary, middle and secondary schools, special schools and pupil referral units in January of each year. Includes nursery assistants, special needs support staff, minority ethnic pupil support staff.

  Source

  Annual Schools' Census

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

  Departmental Contracts
  Mr. Robathan
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if he will list contracts awarded by his Department in each of the last three years in excess of £100,000, giving the names of the successful bidder and the purpose of the contract. [133002]

  Hilary Benn
  The information requested has been placed in the House of Commons Library.

  Development Agencies
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what response the Government has made to the Brazilian President's suggestion of a global arms trade levy for funding development agencies. [132743]

  Hilary Benn
  The Government welcomes in principle any idea which seeks to reduce global hunger, and believes that all such proposals should be properly assessed. We are committed to finding the most effective way of mobilising the additional development resources which are needed if the Millennium Development Goals are to be met. This is why the UK has proposed an International Finance Facility.

  The Government endorses the work which the IMF and World Bank are currently carrying out on development financing mechanisms. This work will include all proposals for international taxes designed to generate additional development resources. The IMF and Bank have been asked to report to the Development Committee at the 2004 Spring Meetings, and to the IMFC at the 2004 Annual Meetings.

  International Housing Rights
  Angus Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development pursuant to his Answer of 25 September, if he will list representations(a) he, (b) members of his Department and (c) other representatives of the Government have received since 1997 on international housing rights law and breaches thereof; what (i) countries and (ii) regions these representations referred to; and if he will make a statement. [133212]

  Hilary Benn
  Data on representations made to Government, since 1997, on international housing rights law and breaches thereof, is not held centrally, and it would incur a disproportionate cost to obtain the information the right hon. Member is seeking.

  I can however confirm that DFID has no record of representations made to members of my department or to me, since 1997, concerning international housing rights law, or breaches thereof, other than the hon. Member's question, reference 133212, to which provided a written answer on 25 September.
  605W

  Iraq
  Mr. Paul Marsden
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development pursuant to his answer of 15 July 2003,Official Report, column 176W, on Iraq, which medical drugs are in short supply in Iraq; and in what quantities. [132417]

  Hilary Benn
  Recent assessments by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Iraqi Ministry of Health indicate that there are no major shortages of essential medical supplies in Iraq. There are however still reported shortages of some very specialised supplies such as antisera (eg anti snake venom) and some anti-cancer medicines. The supply of anti-tuberculosis medicines has improved after a period of shortage immediately after the war. Some health facilities have reported intermittent shortages of local anaesthetic, probably caused by periods of high demand.

  New medicine supply systems in Iraq are not yet fully operational and clear data remains difficult to obtain. WHO is working closely with the Ministry of Health, Kimadia (the Iraqi medical supply distribution agency) and the CPA to address immediate shortages and to establish formulae for likely consumption rates of priority medicines.

  Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development whether families who have lost their primary earners as a result of coalition forces' military action against Iraq have been identified as part of the process for prioritising targeted aid to Iraqi civilians. [133315]

  Hilary Benn
  DFID's policy is to provide assistance which responds to the needs of people, especially the poorest, irrespective of the causes of those needs. The main current form of support for vulnerable Iraqis is the Public Distribution System for food rations. DFID is providing assistance to the Ministry of Trade to ensure the continued smooth-running of the system. We are also assisting with plans to reform the system in the medium-term, with a view to ensuring that the needs of the most vulnerable continue to be met.

  Kosovo
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what recent assessment has been made of the human rights situation in Kosovo; what plans he has with European colleagues to address abuses in the region; and if he will make a statement. [132941]

  Mr. Gareth Thomas
  The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which forms part of the United Nations Interim Administrative Mission in Kosovo, is the lead agency responsible for the monitoring and protection of human rights in Kosovo. OSCE reports regularly on human rights concerns with regard to. For example, property rights, ethnic minorities and the judicial system.

  DFID engages with these assessments to ensure that our activities consider important human rights issues. In particular, we share the OSCE's view that the development of an effective justice system that operates in accordance with international standards is an essential step in improving the human rights situation in
  606W
  Kosovo. We are funding two major programmes, one on justice-sector policymaking and another on community policing, to help improve the safety, security and access to justice of the people of Kosovo, through the inter-ministerial Global Conflict Prevention Pool.

  In addition, our contributions through the European Commission are also being used to strengthen justice systems in Kosovo. The European Agency for Reconstruction is supporting the improvement of court administration, and is also funding a highly successful civil legal aid programme that has so far assisted some 11,000 vulnerable people.

  Microcredit Schemes
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what discussions his Department has had with(a) UN officials and (b) regional development banks regarding the use of microcredit schemes to tackle world poverty. [133139]

  Hilary Benn
  DFID supports the contribution that microcredit can make to achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, and is working with a range of multilateral and bilateral partners to improve the effectiveness of microfinance. Along with the UN, the World bank and the Regional Development Banks, DFID is a member of the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) which works as a multilateral donor organisation specialising in microfinance, and seeks to harmonise donor approaches to the industry. We encourage all those working in this area to provide assistance within the context of country-owned development strategies. I very much welcome the work of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Mircofinance which I addressed on 21 October.

  Poverty Reduction
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what measures his Department is taking in conjunction with other countries to direct money for the reduction of poverty towards the poorest people. [133141]

  Hilary Benn
  By 2005–06, we aim to provide 90 per cent. of our bilateral assistance to low-income countries and will increase our annual bilateral assistance for Africa to £1 billion. Where possible we work through partner governments in the poorest countries in support of poverty reduction strategies that aim to strengthen their efforts to reduce poverty. We coordinate our programmes with other donor countries and are working closely with multilateral donors such as the World Bank, UN, EC and others to support and influence their assistance to have a strong poverty focus.

  Reproductive Health
  Angus Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development pursuant to his answer of 14 October 2003, reference 131802, what the delivery strategy for the Contraceptives Supply and Logistics programme in Bolivia was; what(a) local, (b) national, (c) regional and (d) international organisations are involved in this programme; what discussions (i) he, (ii) representatives of his Department and (iii) members of the UK representation in Bolivia have had with

  607W
  representatives of (A) the Government of Bolivia, (B) local communities and (C) the Church with regard to this programme; and if he will make a statement. [133192]

  Hilary Benn
  The Contraceptives Supply and Logistics programme supports the Government of Bolivia's National Sexual and Reproductive Health programme by assisting them in the purchase and distribution of contraceptives and by improving the quality of, and demand for, contraceptive services. The programme is managed by UNFPA and the Government of Bolivia with components implemented by CEASS (Central de Abastecimiento de Suministros) and the Population Council.

  Regular planning and monitoring meetings are held with the Government of Bolivia and local stakeholders are consulted and involved in programme implementation as is appropriate to each locality. This includes local health defence committees, evangelical churches and the Catholic Church, municipal governments and local non-governmental organisations.

  Angus Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development pursuant to his answer of 14 October 2003,Official Report, columns 70–71W on reproductive health, what the (a) structure, (b) aims and (c) methods of the HIV/AIDS Umbrella Programme in Uganda are; when his Department last assessed the progress of this project; what the main conclusions of this assessment were; what assessment his Department has made of the impact of the Lord's Resistance Army's activities on (i) the reproductive health of the population in Uganda and (ii) the functioning of the HIV/AIDS Umbrella Programme; and if he will make a statement. [133194]

  Hilary Benn
  The HIV Umbrella Programme in Uganda has an allocation of £6.2 million for 2002–05. Its purpose is to improve the coordination and monitoring of the Uganda's Strategic HIV/AIDS Framework in support of its Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP). It also aims to improve the Government of Uganda's capacity to take effective action against HIV/AIDS, and supports service delivery and research on HIV/AIDS by civil society organisations.

  The programme was last assessed in September 2003. The review concluded that overall the programme's approach was both strategic and effective. However, the review noted that progress in building the Uganda AIDS Commission's (UAC) capacity to coordinate and monitor the National Strategic Response was slower than anticipated. In response to this finding, DFID will he funding an HIV Adviser, to be located in UAC from November 2003, to assist its staff in technical and organisational management issues, and help facilitate the HIV Partnership in Uganda.

  Insecurity in Northern Uganda has made access to health services difficult for many and there is some evidence that the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has targeted health centres (for drugs) and health workers in their attacks. Anecdotal evidence from NGOs suggests that life in crowded camps encourages earlier sexual activity, leading to a higher teenage pregnancy rate and increased spread of HIV. However, no data is available to date on this point, although a nationwide prevalence survey is due to be carried out at the end of the year.
  608W
  LRA activities are not directly impacting on the functioning of the HIV Umbrella Programme. However, the continuing insecurity in the North is hampering the ability of some of the civil society organisations supported under the programme to scale up their activities.

  Angus Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development pursuant to his Answer of 14 October 2003,Official Report, columns 70–71W on reproductive health, what the (a) structure, (b) aims and (c) methods of the Social Marketing of Contraceptives project in Ethiopia are; when his Department last assessed the progress of this project; what the main conclusions of this assessment were; what the annual cost of the programme has been since its inception; and if he will make a statement. [133195]

  Hilary Benn
  The project provides support through DKT International, which is a US based non-governmental organisation registered in Ethiopia, working on nationally led family planning and HIV prevention programmes. They make condoms and contraceptives available to poor people, and high risk groups, at low cost through commercial outlets.

  We regularly review their performance, through quarterly project progress reports against agreed targets and visits by DFID advisers. A formal review of their work will be conducted in 2004. We are satisfied with the progress that the project has made so far, and should be able to make a more in depth assessment when the formal review takes place in 2004.

  Our support for the project is £2 million over two years.

  Angus Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development pursuant to his Answer of 14 October 2003,Official Report, columns 70–71W on reproductive health, what the (a) structure, (b) aims and (c) methods of the Reproductive Health, Freetown and Newly Accessible Areas in Sierra Leone are; when his Department last assessed the progress of this project; what the main conclusions of this assessment were; what areas of the country are now considered to be accessible; what issues (i) he and (ii) members of his Department have raised with representatives of the Government of Sierra Leone regarding the programme; and if he will make a statement. [133196]

  Hilary Benn
  All areas of Sierra Leone are now accessible. The main aims of the project are to provide access to affordable, high quality and innovative sexual and reproductive health (SRH) information and services; to increase awareness of basic health and SRH issues among beneficiary communities; and to increase the capacity of key stakeholders in providing SRH services and developing national health strategy and policy guidelines. The project aims to achieve these objectives through the existing Marie Stopes Sierra Leone centre network (four Reproductive Health Centres, two obstetric hospitals, and two laboratories) and outreach programmes.

  We receive quarterly progress reports on the project from Marie Stopes International. Our advisers last visited the project in March 2003. The main conclusion of their assessment was that the project provides high quality services and is reasonably well utilised. More can

  609W
  be done to improve the use of contraceptives, but awareness raising campaigns are addressing this. We have raised with Marie Stopes International the sustainability of the services provided by the project.

  DFID health advisers have regularly discussed issues concerning primary health care with the Government of Sierra Leone Ministry of Health and Sanitation. These discussions have not focussed specifically or exclusively on SRH.

  Angus Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development pursuant to his answer of 14 October 2003,Official Report, column 75W on reproductive health, if he will list the activities at country level funded until the end of 2003 what the (a) structure, (b) aims, (c) methods and (d) annual funding need for each of the activities were; how much the UK has (i) pledged and (ii) delivered to each of the activities since January 2001(A) in monetary terms, (B) as a percentage of the funding total and (C) as a percentage of the yearly balance from the one-off UK contribution; and if he will make a statement. [133197]

  Hilary Benn
  Further to my previous answer of 14 October 2003,Official Report, column 75W, the whole of the UK's £25 million contribution is used to meet commodity needs in developing countries and for condoms in countries with a high prevalence of HIV. This is a multi-donor programme, worth $96 million. Of this, 45 per cent. has been distributed to Least Developed Countries and 66 per cent. to those in most need of assistance to meet the goals from the landmark International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). Part of the UK's contribution is being used to support capacity strengthening activities to assist countries to forecast and plan their commodity requirements.

  The detailed information requested in the question could only be provided at disproportionate cost. This £25 million one-off contribution is in addition to the UK's core funding to UNFPA (£18 million in 2003). This is disbursed in line with the overall framework for the UK's partnership with UNFPA, set out in the Institutional Strategy Paper (ISP) published in June 2001.

  Angus Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development pursuant to his Answer of 14 October 2003,Official Report, columns 75–76W on reproductive health, what the (a) structure, (b) aims and (c) methods of the Bolivia Post-Abortion Care Project are; what discussions (i) he, (ii) representatives of his Department and (iii) members of the UK representation in Bolivia have had with representatives of (A) the Government of Bolivia, (B) local communities and (C) the Church with regard to this programme; and if he will make a statement. [133199]

  Mr. Gareth Thomas
  The most recent official statistics from Bolivia (1992) put the maternal mortality rate at 390 for every 100,000 live births. This is one of the highest figures in Latin America and is disproportionately high for a country of the economic status of Bolivia. A key cause of mortality is unwanted pregnancy and subsequently complications resulting from illegal abortion. The aim of the Post Abortion Care (PAC) Services programme is to help Bolivia 610W
  progress towards the Millenium Development Goal of a 75% reduction in maternal mortality by 2015. The approach of the programme is to increase access by poor women experiencing post-abortion complications to high quality, cost-effective Post Abortion Care (PAC) Services under the Basic Health Package. The programme supports the provision of outpatient PAC with manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) services at five tertiary-level hospitals, strengthened training capacity for PAC with MVA at five teaching hospitals, the institutionalisation of PAC training for medical residents, the introduction by Government of Bolivia of the PAC-with-MVA model in secondary-level hospitals in rural areas, and the strengthening of the supply of PAC-with-MVA medical equipment and drugs, for present and future services.

  The programme is managed in partnership with the Government of Bolivia and supports its Sexual and Reproductive Health Programme. Local communities are closely involved in discussions on the introduction of PAC with MVA in Secondary level hospitals, and the church is consulted in the context of discussion on national reproductive health strategies.

  Angus Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development pursuant to his answer of 25 September 2003,Official Report, columns 69–70W on Malawi, if he will list each of the reproductive health programmes in Malawi supported by his Department; what review his Department has undertaken of reproductive health programmes supported by his Department in Malawi in 2002–03; and if he will make a statement. [133211]

  Hilary Benn
  DFID supports the following programmes in Malawi that are concerned in whole or part with reproductive health:The DFID Sexual and Reproductive Health Programme, which supports the National Sexual and Reproductive Health Programme and the National HIV/AIDS Strategic Framework including the National AIDS Commission;
  The Safe Motherhood Project covering the Southern region;
  The Integrated Sexual & Reproductive Health Programme which is implemented by Banja la Mtsogolo, a local non-governmental organisation, with a focus on the reproductive health needs of youth, including HIV/AIDS;
  The National Tuberculosis Programme, which has activities on the TB-HIV link.

  The Malawi Ministry of Health and Population conducted a joint review of the DFID and Integrated Sexual and Reproductive Health Programmes and the Safe Motherhood Project in November 2002 with DFID and other development partners. The review reported some progress in all activities, but also noted that there were factors beyond the control of the programmes that inhibited progress. These included critical shortage of health personnel, lack of other resources and the rising impact of HIV/AIDS. The international financial institutions and donors including DFID are working with the Malawi Government to address the underlying issues, such as wage policy and macro economic management, that contribute to the problems affecting the health sector.

  The National AIDS Commission undertook a joint stakeholder review in March 2003. The review concluded that progress was encouraging. It recommended that the

  611W
  Commission proceed with organisational re-structuring and that donors provide financing through a pooled funding arrangement, instead of through separate individual agreements.

  Angus Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what the structure, aims and methods of the(a) DFID/Zambia HIV/AIDS Programme approved in June and (b) the Sector Wide Approach Project approved in 2000 are; and if he will make a statement. [133337]

  Hilary Benn
  The information is as follows:

  (a) DFID/Zambia HIV/AIDS Programme

  The DFID HIV/AIDS Multisectoral Programme in Zambia is supporting the national multi-sectoral response to HIV/AIDS, spearheaded by the National AIDS Council. The overall aim of the programme is to reduce HIV transmission and to reduce the socio-economic impact of the disease, in accordance with the Zambia National HIV/AIDS Strategic Framework.

  The DFID programme, approved in June 2003, is worth £20 million over six years. The programme has four components: (i) strengthening the capacity of the National AIDS Council; (ii) supporting public sector services such as supplying essential commodities; (iii) supporting the civil society response in behaviour change, impact mitigation and promotion of human rights; and (iv) expanding the private sector response.

  (b) Sector Wide Approach to Health

  DFID is supporting the health sector in Zambia through the Sector Wide Approach to Health programme. The main implementing partner is the Central Board of Health. The programme aims to improve the health status of all Zambians through increased access to better quality health services.

  The DFID programme, approved in July 2000, is worth £20 million over six years. The programme has contributed to a common funding basket, together with other development partners, to enable the sustainable delivery of cost effective basic health services. Other inputs include the provision of drugs and medical supplies, technical assistance for capacity building, and the provision of impregnated bed nets to prevent malaria.

  Angus Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what the structure, aims and methods of the DF1D Reproductive Health Support Project in Zambia are broken down by projected per annum expenditure for the three year allocated budget approved in 2001 and if he will make a statement. [133338]

  Hilary Benn
  Reproductive health encompasses the services for family planning, contraception and childbearing that make an important contribution to increasing women's choice and opportunity, and to preventing unplanned or unwanted pregnancy. DFID is committed to promoting reproductive health and fighting HIV/AIDS.
  612W
  Since 2001, DFID direct support to reproductive health in Zambia has been through the Reproductive Health Support Project worth £2.9 million. Financial year spending has been:

  £

  2001–02

  78,839

  2002–03

  1,221,582

  2003–04

  11,580,000

  1Estimate for the full year

  The aim of the project is to increase the use of modern methods of family planning and the use of condoms for the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. The project is managed by the Central Board of Health, which is the statutory body set up by the Zambian Government to implement health policies. Through this programme, and its forerunner, contraceptive distribution and use have increased.

  Russia
  Harry Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what projects his Department is supporting to(a) measure poverty in Russia and (b) promote public access to the data; and if he will make a statement. [133278]

  Mr. Gareth Thomas
  DFID is supporting two projects to measure poverty in Russia and promote public access to data:(a)"Poverty statistics and monitoring" project in partnership with the World Bank, the Russian Ministry of Labour and Social Development and State Statistics Committee. The project purpose is to establish an improved information base and analysis for policy makers. The overall budget is £1.5 million over the period from April 2002 to December 2005.
  (b)"Review of poverty issues in Russia" project implemented by London School of Economics. The overall budget is £90,000 for four years (February 2002 to February 2005). The project purpose is to inform the Russia programme on poverty measurements with particular respect to two oblasts, Leningrad and Nizhniy Novgorod, where DFID is supporting partnership programmes.

  Both projects pursue the following goals:
  To develop improved poverty measurement methodology for Russia, based on international experience;
  To identify a system of indicators for on-line poverty monitoring and poverty level forecast and establish a poverty monitoring system;
  To provide open access for external users to the State Statistics Committee's Household Budgeting Survey data;
  To prepare poverty reduction recommendations in the form of an official report containing a detailed analysis of poverty level, profile, sources and socioeconomic policy efficiency.

  Understanding the extent and depth of poverty in Russia and monitoring its trend is a key part of DFID's Russia Programme and the Government of Russia's long-term social-economic modernization plan (the Gref plan). Current estimates of the number of poor people in Russia vary widely from 20 per cent. to 40 per cent. of population, depending on the source of data, the methodology used and the definition of poverty. Accurate data and proper poverty analysis will help the Government of Russia to target resources to poor people more efficiently.
  613W

  Southern African Development Community
  Angus Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development pursuant to his answer of 14 October 2003, reference 131644, if he will list the programmes run by the Southern African Development Community in(a) Botswana, (b) Namibia, (c) Lesotho and (d) Swaziland, with specific reference to national projects undertaken under the auspices of the Southern African Development Community's HIV/AIDS Programme and including an outline of each programme's methods; and if he will make a statement. [132908]

  Hilary Benn
  The SADC Regional HIV/AIDS programme aims to promote improved effectiveness and co-ordination of HIV/AIDS programmes in Botswana,

  Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland. It operates five programmes in each of the four countries:
  Improved management of sexually transmitted infections, focused particularly on cross border sites;
  Support to strengthen and co-ordinate the work of National AIDS Commissions;
  Condom social marketing;
  Support to people living with HIV and AIDS;
  Support for behaviour change communication campaigns.

  More detail on the individual national components and their methods is available from the SADC HIV/ AIDS Programme at Private Bag X828, Pretoria 0001, South Africa. SADC's website is at www.sadc.int

  Uganda
  Mrs. Spelman
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development pursuant to his answer of 4 July 2003,Official Report, column 512W, (1) which humanitarian requests they have decided to respond to in Teso, Uganda;[133545]

  (2) what recent assessment he has made of the humanitarian situation in Teso, Uganda. [133546]

  Hilary Benn
  It has been estimated by the World Food Programme that 305,899 people are currently displaced in the Teso region.

  A public health expert funded by DFID Uganda recently visited Teso to assess the humanitarian situation. She reported that the most pressing immediate needs are food for the displaced, and maintenance of adequate water and sanitation services in areas of high population density.

  DFID has therefore made available a further £1.87 million to the World Food Programme for the purchase and distribution of food, and is currently discussing further humanitarian support requirements with UNICEF and the Red Cross.

  UN Greater Darfur Initiative
  Angus Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what the structure, aims and methods of the UN Greater Darfur Initiative are; what the projected total funding needs for the UNGDI are; how much of this has already been pledged, and by whom; how much of the pledged UK funding has 614W
  already been contributed; how far the setting up of the UNGDI has progressed since its launch; and if he will make a statement. [133339]

  Hilary Benn
  On 3 September, the Government of Sudan and the Sudan Liberation Army agreed a ceasefire for Darfur in western Sudan. The UN estimates that some 500,000 people have been displaced in Darfur; 300,000 of which as a result of the recent conflict. It is estimated that there are about 70,000 refugees in Chad. High rates of malnutrition have been reported in Darfur. The UN responded with an Initiative to mobilise funds for the region.

  The objectives of the UN Greater Darfur Special Initiative (GDSI) are: to help the most seriously affected populations; defuse local tensions; and begin to address the underlying causes of the conflicts in the Greater Darfur region of Sudan. The Initiative includes accelerated humanitarian relief and longer-term assistance. The GDSI has not only raised the profile of the situation in Darfur, but also improved access to vulnerable groups in the region.

  The total funding requirement for the UN GDSI is $22.8 million (approximately £15 million). The UK responded to the Initiative with a pledge of £1 million. We are currently in the process of committing this pledge against specific proposals recently circulated by the various UN agencies, the Red Cross and non-governmental organisations. We stand ready to respond further, as the situation in Darfur determines. We have already committed £0.5 million to Save the Children UK to provide humanitarian assistance to displaced people and other vulnerable groups in North Darfur. Norway has pledged $0.75 million (approximately £0.5 million) to the GDSI. Others donors, including US Agency for International Development and the Humanitarian Aid Office of the European Commission (ECHO), are also contributing to the provision of humanitarian assistance in the region.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Asbestos
  Mr. Hume
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many deaths in Northern Ireland resulting from asbestos-related illnesses there were in each of the last 10 years, broken down by specific illnesses diagnosed. [133005]

  Mr. Pearson
  The following table gives the number of deaths resulting from asbestos-related illness, registered in Northern Ireland from 1992 to 2002. Separate figures are given for the two main primary causes of death, mesothelioma and 'asbestosis'.

  Table: Number of registered deaths by year in Northern Ireland resulting from asbestos related illnesses (mesothelioma and 'asbestosis')

  Mesothelioma

  'Asbestosi'

  Total

  1992

  47

  4

  51

  1993

  43

  4

  47

  1994

  29

  4

  33

  1995

  34

  5

  39

  1996

  32

  4

  36

  1997

  42

  0

  42

  615W

  Table: Number of registered deaths by year in Northern Ireland resulting from asbestos related illnesses (mesothelioma and 'asbestosis')

  Mesothelioma

  'Asbestosis'

  Total

  1998

  40

  6

  46

  1999

  46

  4

  50

  2000

  37

  6

  43

  2001

  54

  9

  63

  2002

  42

  12

  54

  Cardiac Care
  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many people are waiting(a) to see a cardiologist and (b) for cardiac surgery in Northern Ireland. [133871]

  Angela Smith
  The number of people waiting for a first out-patient appointment and for in-patient admission by specialty is returned to the Department on a quarterly basis by Trusts. The returns provide information about the number of people waiting for a first out-patient appointment and in-patient admission on the last day of each quarter. Information in this answer is provided for Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery specialties. The information in this answer relates to the position at 30 June 2003 (the most recent information available):(a) At 30 June 2003 there were 4,181 patients awaiting a first out-patient appointment in the cardiology specialty and 139 patients awaiting a first out-patient appointment at a Cardiac Surgery clinic.
  (b) At 30 June 2003, 430 patients were awaiting admission to the Cardiac Surgery specialty in Northern Ireland, while 1,363 patients were awaiting admission to the Cardiology specialty.

  Decommissioning Commission
  Mr. Dodds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the total costs were of the International Independent Commission on Decommissioning for the last full year of its operation; and what proportion was borne by(a) Her Majesty's Government and (b) the Irish Government. [131676]

  Jane Kennedy
  The Commission's running costs are shared equally between the British and Irish Governments. The British Government's share of the costs, for the financial year 2002–03, is £309,600.

  Equality Commission
  Mr. McGrady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what discussions(a) Ministers and (b) officials from the Department of Finance and Personnel have had with the Equality Commission on the exclusion of Irish nationals from reserved posts. [131916]

  Mr. Pearson
  On 27 August 2003 officials from the Department of Finance and Personnel met Equality Commission staff for a general discussion on progress on the Senior Civil Service Review and Associated Action Plan. The discussion covered a range of issues, including the application of nationality rules to reserved posts. There have been no formal discussions between Ministers and the Equality Commission on this matter.
  616W

  EU Directives
  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the Northern Ireland departments in breach of EU Directives in each of the last three years, broken down by total amount of fines incurred. [128290]

  Mr. Paul Murphy
  Proceedings for non-compliance with EU directives can only be taken at the level of the member state. To date there have been no fines levied against the UK for any breach of EU directives.

  Farming
  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what measures have been introduced to assist(a) the early retirement of farmers and (b) new entrants into farming in Northern Ireland. [R] [133343]

  Mr. Pearson
  Early in 2002 independent research was commissioned from Queen's University Belfast (QUB) and University College Dublin (UCD) to investigate the viability of both a New Entrants and an Early Retirement Scheme in Northern Ireland. This research concluded that there could be economic benefits from a New Entrants Scheme in the form of an interest rate subsidy but that the latter would not offer good value for money. I have not seen any other analyses which would cause me to dispute the research project findings.

  A draft New Entrant Scheme was put out to consultation on 19 May 2003. The consultation produced a positive response and I hope that an announcement about a scheme will be made shortly.

  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many participants have enrolled in(a) the Organic Farming Scheme and (b) the Countryside Management Scheme, in each of the last three years. [R] [133345]

  Mr. Pearson
  There are currently 59 individuals participating in the Organic Farming Scheme. There were 40, 13 and four new participants during 2000–01, 2001–02 and 2002–03, respectively. To date in 2003–04 there have been two new entrants to this scheme.

  There are currently 2,129 participants in the Countryside Management Scheme, 655 entered during 2001–02, 1,023 during 2002–03 and 451 have entered to date in 2003–04. There were no entrants during 2000–01.

  Prescription Fraud
  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the estimated cost of prescription fraud in Northern Ireland was in each of the last three years. [133344]

  Angela Smith
  The best estimate for the cost of prescription fraud in 2000–01 was £9.5 million, in 2001–02 it was £8.6 million and in 2002–03 it was £8.3 million.

  It should be noted that the figures include the situations where a patient has deliberately set out to defraud the system and cases where a patient has misclaimed exemption from prescription charges in error.
  617W

  Public Administration Review
  Mr. Dodds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will publish proposals on the future of the Review of Public Administration; and what consultation he will undertake. [131859]

  Mr. Pearson
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the statement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, 24 June 2003, on the progress and priorities for Northern Ireland.

  My right hon. Friend indicated that the Review team would prepare a paper for publication in the autumn, which will form the basis for discussions with local political parties and key stakeholders.

  A consultation paper is now at an advanced stage of preparation and it is my intention that this will be published in the near future.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Bolivia
  Angus Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment his Department has made of the current social unrest in Bolivia; how many UK citizens are known to remain in La Paz and El Alto; when(a) he and (b) members of his Department last had discussions with (i) Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, (ii) members of his Cabinet, (iii) representatives of his Government in Bolivia and representatives of his Government in the UK; what the central issues of the discussions were; and if he will make a statement. [133321]

  Mr. Rammell
  Up to 20 October we believe that those British visitors who wanted to leave La Paz and El Alto have now done so. We further estimate that there are 90 British citizens remaining in those cities. Our ambassador in Bolivia met President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada on 4 September and the Bolivian Foreign Minister on 16 October when he discussed the situation.

  The most recent ministerial contact in the UK was when my hon. Friend the then Minister of State at the Department of Trade and Industry (Mr. Wilson) met the Bolivian Energy Minister in January 2003. I most recently met the Bolivian ambassador on 6 October 2003.

  Following the resignation of President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada on 17 October the situation in Bolivia now appears to be rapidly returning to normal. We have kept in close touch, as this crisis has unfolded with our EU partners, particularly with regard to the safety of EU citizens in Bolivia. We will continue to monitor the situation closely as it develops over the next few days. We hope that Bolivia can now address its problems through peaceful dialogue and negotiation.

  Burma
  Mr. Best
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what reports the UK Government received of action by the Burmese authorities against the(a) Karen, (b) Karenni and (c) Shan peoples. [133095]
  618W
  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  We receive regular reports from International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs), the UN's Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Burma and the British Embassy in Rangoon on the disproportionate suffering of ethnic groups in Burma, including the Karen, Karenni and Shan.

  China
  Lady Hermon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made to the Chinese Government regarding the imprisonment of Gong Shengliang; and if he will make a statement. [133182]

  Mr. Rammell
  We have raised Pastor Gong Shengliang's case with the Chinese authorities on a number of occasions. Most recently we supported an EU demarche in Beijing on 18 July. The Chinese authorities said the allegations of torture and ill-treatment were untrue and that he was in good health.

  We also raised Pastor Gong's case directly with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On 31 July they told us that Pastor Gong had had stomach problems before he was imprisoned and that following treatment the problems had stabilised. His relatives had visited him four times.

  Gibraltar
  Mr. Rosindell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will bring forward proposals to enable Gibraltar to participate in elections to the UK Parliament. [133527]

  Mr. MacShane
  We have no plans to do so. Overseas Territories, including Gibraltar, are not part of the metropolitan UK.

  Global Conflict Prevention Pool
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the progress of the Global Conflict Prevention Pool and its achievements since its creation. [133142]

  Mr. Rammell
  Setting up the Global Conflict Prevention Pool (GCPP) has helped the partner departments (FCO, MOD and DFID) work more closely together in the field of conflict prevention. This is also helping the departments carry out more detailed and consistent policy analysis, and establish a more integrated approach to developing and implementing programmes on the ground. The Pools are therefore strengthening the UK's contribution to international conflict prevention, efforts by ensuring that initiatives are based on evidence of what works and are well targeted.

  In FY 2002–03 the total spent on GCPP programmes was £66 million. The budget for FY 2003–04 is £74 million. Details of the GCPP Strategies are set out in the recent publication the GCPP: The Global Conflict Prevention Pool—A joint UK Government approach to reducing conflict, which is available in the Library of the House. A copy of the booklet has also been placed on the FCO website (www.fco.gov.uk) accessible under Global Issues-International Organisations-UN-Conflict Prevention.
  619W
  Since its start in April 2000, the GCPP has funded several hundred projects under a range of geographic and thematic strategies. It has been engaged in:
  Post conflict reconstruction work in Afghanistan, the Balkans, and now in Iraq.
  Helping to create security, stability and encourage peace negotiations in Belize and Guatemala, Nepal, Indonesia, the Middle East and North Africa, and Sri Lanka.
  Supporting more stable and democratic systems in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union.
  In encouraging contact between India and Pakistan over Kashmir.
  Building capacity to undertake conflict prevention work in international organisations such as the UN and OSCE.
  Developing understanding and promoting activity on security sector reform as a means of longer-term prevention of conflict, and a reduction in the levels of small arms and light weapons.

  An independent evaluation is being undertaken this year to look at how the Pools are run and assess the impact of their work to date.

  Central Africa
  Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how UN Security Council Resolution 1484 on the African Great Lakes region is being implemented; and what monitoring of the implementation is taking place. [132500]

  Mr. Rammell
  UN Security Council Resolution 1484 authorised the deployment until 1 September of an Interim Emergency Multinational Force (IEMF) in Bunia.

  The IEMF deployed to Bunia in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo in June. As framework nation, France provided the military commander and the majority of the force. A number of EU member states and non-EU nations contributed. The UK provided an engineer detachment and Hercules transport to assist with the deployment; in addition we deployed five staff officers to serve with the operation HQ. It was the first EU led operation outside Europe.

  The IEMF were replaced on 1 September by the UN's Organisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) Ituri Brigade operating under a more robust mandate.

  Indonesia
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when a permanent secretary or under-secretary in his Department has visited Indonesia since 1973; and what the purpose was of each visit. [133127]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  To compile the information requested for 1973 to 1999 would incur disproportionate costs. However, since 2000:4–5 July 2000 Permanent Secretary, to discuss bilateral and multilateral issues.
  12–16 September 2000 Director General (Deputy Under Secretary) Wider World, familiarisatio and to discuss bilateral and multilateral issues.
  22–24 November 2000 Group Chief Executive (Permanent Secretary equivalent), British Trade International (a joint DTI/FCO Department), to discuss trade and investment issues.
  620W
  30 July-3 August 2001 Director (Assistant Under Secretary) Asia/Pacific, to discuss bilateral and multilateral issues.
  12–14 December 2001 Permanent Secretary (designate), as part of a programme of visits to familiarise himself with as many overseas posts as possible.
  4–5 July 2002 Director (Assistant Under Secretary) Economic, to discuss economic and trade policy issues.
  7–10 January 2003 Director (Assistant Under Secretary) Asia/Pacific, accompanying the Prime Minister on his visit to Indonesia.
  14 May 2003 Director (Assistant Under Secretary) Asia/Pacific (designate), to attend an ASEM senior officials meeting.
  21–25 July 2003 Director (Assistant Under Secretary) Asia/Pacific, accompanying the Minister to the ASEM Foreign Ministers Meeting.

  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when files on the visit to Indonesia by department officials in October 1975 will be released. [133128]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The file containing papers relating to a visit to Indonesia by department officials in October 1975 is due for review in 2005 for consideration for release under the 30-year rule in January 2006.

  Iraq
  Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs pursuant to his written statement of 17 September 2003,Official Report, column 53WS, on Iraq, what provisions have been made to ensure security against theft of arms and other related military material exported to Iraq. [132491]

  Mr. Rammell
  The Government takes very seriously the security of arms and military equipment approved for export to Iraq. Provisions, determined on a case-by-case basis, include the condition that equipment will remain under the control of the end user at all times, be stored securely, and removed from Iraq at the end of its period of use.

  Mr. David Stewart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many barrels of oil have been exported from Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein; what value this represents; and what use has been made of the proceeds. [133158]

  Mr. Rammell
  Between May and 14 October around 85.2 million barrels of oil were exported by the Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organisation. The total sales revenues amounted to around $2.14 billion. Under UN Security Council resolution 1483 all proceeds from Iraq's oil sales must be paid into the Development Fund for Iraq. The money in this fund is to be used to meet the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people, for the economic reconstruction and repair of Iraq's infrastructure, for the continued disarmament of Iraq, and for the costs of Iraqi civilian administration and other purposes benefiting the people of Iraq as specified in the resolution.

  Denzil Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will place in the Library a copy of Order 39, issued by Mr. Paul Bremer III. [132749]

  Mr. Rammell
  Copies of Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) Order 39 have been placed in the Library of the House. Orders are also available on the CPA website at www.cpa-iraq.org.
  621W

  Middle East
  Mr. Kaufman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with the US Administration on its approach to ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. [133151]

  Mr. Rammell
  The establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel is at the heart of President Bush's vision of a final settlement, as set out in his speech of 24 June 2002. My right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, the noble Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean and FCO officials are in constant touch with US colleagues to realise that vision. We agree with them that the Quartet roadmap provides the right mechanism, and are working with them to implement it.

  Mr. Kaufman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps the Government is taking to persuade the Israeli Government to pursue a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians; and what assessment he has made of the possible use of targeted sanctions. [133152]

  Mr. Rammell
  The Government constantly urges the Israeli Government at the highest level and through the EU to fulfil its obligations under the roadmap, which is agreed by both parties and the international community to be the route to a peaceful settlement in the Middle East. The Government believe that, as a friend of Israel and the Palestinians, we can best exert influence and encourage both sides to take the steps needed for progress through close engagement with them. We do not believe that targeted sanctions would bring the parties any nearer to a peaceful resolution.

  Mr. Kaufman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent discussions he has had with his EU colleagues on the development of a mechanism for monitoring the roadmap for peace. [133153]

  Mr. Rammell
  EU Foreign Ministers discussed the mechanism for monitoring the roadmap at their meeting on 29 September. We agreed that"the EU will continue to work closely and consistently with the US and with other Quartet partners on all issues linked to the successful implementation of the roadmap by the parties".
  The EU co-ordinates the work of the Task Force on Palestinian Reform and is ready to contribute to a credible and effective monitoring mechanism.

  Mr. Blunt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the deportation by the State of Israel of persons against whom no charges have been laid; and what action he plans to take consistent with Articles 146 and 147 of the 4th Geneva Convention. [133068]

  Mr. Rammell
  We are deeply concerned by the Israeli government policy of relocating certain Palestinians to Gaza. We believe such actions are inconsistent with international law. We have previously raised our concerns with the Government of Israel and urged them not to carry out expulsions. We will continue to do so.

  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make it his policy to condemn the bombing of Syria by Israel; and if he will make a statement. [132354]
  622W
  Mr. Rammell
  We deplore Israel's attack on Ayn Sahib on 5 October. As our Ambassador to the United Nations told the Security Council, this was unacceptable and represented an escalation of the situation in the region. While we understand Israel's need to protect her citizens from terrorism, we urge all sides to exercise restraint and refrain from actions that escalate tension.

  Russian Polar Medal
  Mr. Dhanda
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what progress has been made on discussions to enable Arctic Convoy Veterans to accept the Russian Polar Medal. [133544]

  Mr. Rammell
  Officials are continuing to research the possibility of an exception to the present rules to permit veterans to accept the Defence of the Soviet Arctic Region Medal, should the Russian Government formally seek the Government's authority to award the medal to British citizens. We hope that the work will be completed before the end of the year.

  Russia
  Norman Baker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on what date the Department last made representations on seal clubbing to the Russian authorities. [131828]

  Mr. Rammell
  The British Embassy in Moscow last raised the issue of seal clubbing with the Ministry of Natural Resources on 22 April and followed by a letter to the Ministry on 23 April. The Embassy also raised the issue through letters to the Russian Fisheries Committee on 23 February and to the All-Russia Scientific Research institute under the Fisheries Committee on 13 February.

  The issue of seal clubbing is also regularly raised with the Russian Embassy in London.

  Syria
  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the US imposition of sanctions on Syria. [132507]

  Mr. Rammell
  The imminent passing of the Syrian Accountability Act through Congress is an internal matter for the US. The UK remains committed to a policy of constructive and, where necessary, critical engagement with Syria. This allows us to support change for the better while clearly communicating our views on issues of concern.

  UN Security Council
  Mr. Spring
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the Government's policy on the representation of the(a) United Kingdom and (b) European Union on the UN Security Council[131513]

  Mr. Rammell
  We support continued British Permanent membership of the Security Council. Britain supports enlargement of the Security Council, but we do not support a European Union seat.
  623W

  Vietnam
  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on relations with Vietnam. [132841]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  2003 marks the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the UK and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Visits to the UK in September by the Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister, Vu Khoan, and four other Vietnamese Ministers are testimony to the growing breadth and depth of relations. We have regular engagement with the Vietnamese Government on a range of issues: development, trade and investment, and education, as well as political issues, including human rights. The UK is a major investor in Vietnam and DFID's aid programme to Vietnam, currently £25 million, is its fastest growing aid programme in the world.

TREASURY

  Correspondence
  Mr. Kaufman
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he will reply to the letter to him dated 27 August from the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton, with regard to Mr. M. Galian, passed to him by the Department for Transport. [133841]

  John Healey
  The letter from my right hon. Friend arrived in the Treasury on 21 October. I have replied.

  EU Constitution
  Mrs. Dunwoody
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether direct taxation will remain the responsibility of Her Majesty's Government if the draft EU Constitution is ratified by the UK. [132558]

  Dawn Primarolo
  Any changes to the provisions of the existing EU Treaties, including in relation to direct taxation, require the unanimous agreement of all member states. The Government have made it clear in their White Paper, "The British Approach to the European Union Intergovernmental Conference 2003", that they will insist that tax matters continue to be decided by unanimity.

  European Constitution
  Mr. Bellingham
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the implications of the proposed European Constitution on the UK's ability to set corporation tax. [133414]

  Dawn Primarolo
  Any changes to the provisions of the existing EU Treaties, including in relation to corporation tax, require the unanimous agreement of all member states. The Government have made it clear in their White Paper, "The British Approach to the European Union Intergovernmental Conference 2003", that they will insist that tax matters continue to be decided by unanimity.
  624W

  National Insurance
  Mr. Chope
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the cost to the Treasury of removing the obligation on those who have paid or been credited with 44 years of national insurance contributions to make further payments prior to their retirement. [133532]

  Dawn Primarolo
  Reliable information is not readily available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Mr. Chope
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many people aged under 65 who have contributed for 44 years and have qualified for a 100 per cent. retirement pension paid employee national insurance contributions in the last year for which figures are available. [133533]

  Dawn Primarolo
  Reliable information is not readily available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Unused Airline Tickets
  Richard Ottaway
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what procedures are in place for refunding taxes on unused airline tickets; and if he will make a statement. [133038]

  John Healey
  Air passenger duty (APD) is payable by aircraft operators. Nearly all airlines pass on the duty charge to their passengers via fares, though whether or not they do so is a decision for the airlines, and it is normal commercial practice for them to charge their customers at the time of ticket sale.

  No liability to APD arises if a flight is cancelled, or a passenger is unable to travel on a pre-booked flight. Whether the airline makes a refund to the passenger in such circumstances is a commercial matter between them. If passengers consider that they have been misled, they can contact their Local Trading Standards Office, who can investigate and prosecute traders in such circumstances.

  Working Tax Credit (Scotland)
  John Barrett
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many people are in receipt of working tax credit in Scotland, broken down by(a) parliamentary constituency and (b) local authority; and what percentage each of these figures represents of the number of people eligible for the credit. [133000]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The number of families in each constituency and local authority who were receiving child and working tax credit at 11 July 2003 are shown in "Child and Working Tax Credit Statistics. Geographical Analyses. July 2003." This is available on the Inland Revenue website at: www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/stats/personal-tax-credits/geog-analysis-jul03.pdf

  No estimates are available of the number of families eligible by local constituency or local authority.
  625W

WORK AND PENSIONS

  Workplace Stress
  Mr. Bellingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what plans his Department has to introduce regulations on businesses in relation to the reduction of stress in the workplace. [133412]

  Malcolm Wicks
  Existing legislation (Health and Safety at Work, etc Act 1974, and the Management of Health and Safety Regulations 1999) places a general duty on employers to protect the health and safety of their employees and to carry out an adequate risk assessment. These duties apply equally to work-related stress as any other work-place hazard.

  Following public consultation during 1999 the Health and Safety Commission decided that a legislative approach would be hard to define. Consequently there are no plans to introduce further legislation, although the need for an Approved Code of Practice will be kept under review.

  To assist employers to tackle the problem of work-related stress the Health and Safety Executive are currently piloting draft management standards with the intention of launching them in late 2004. The standards will have the status of guidance and will provide a yardstick against which employers can measure their progress in measuring work-related stress.

  Bereavement Payment
  Mr. Robathan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many claims for Bereavement Payment were made in tax year 2002–03; and what estimate he has made of how many people(a) failed to make claims for Bereavement Payment and (b) there were whose claims were made after the three month deadline. [133493]

  Mr. Pond
  64,000 claims for Bereavement Payment were received in 2002–03. We have made no estimate of the number of people who have failed to make a claim, or whose claims were made outside the time limit.

  We have extended the time limit for claiming a Bereavement Payment from three to 12 months for all cases where death occurred on or after 1 April 2003.
  Note:
  Rounded to nearest thousand
  Source:
  DWP Data

  Child Poverty
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what progress has been made in eradicating child poverty; what assessment has been made identifying further work that needs to be done; and if he will make a statement. [132945]

  Mr. Pond
  Poverty is a complex and multi-dimensional problem. We published 'Opportunity for all—Fifth Annual Report' (Cm 5956) in September 2003, which sets out the Government's strategy for tackling poverty and social exclusion and presents information on the indicators used to measure progress against this strategy.
  626W
  In April 2002, we published 'Measuring child poverty: a consultation document' to gather views on an appropriate measure of child poverty for the long term. We published the preliminary conclusions of our consultation on 14 May 2003. The report states that further technical work is necessary before finalising any new measure of child poverty and that we intend to publish final conclusions by the end of 2003.

  Both reports are available in the Library.

  Crown Immunity
  Huw Irranca-Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will make a statement on his policy on the removal of Crown Immunity from prosecution. [132980]

  Malcolm Wicks
  The Government stands by its commitment to remove Crown immunity from statutory health and safety enforcement and will seek a legislative opportunity, when parliamentary time allows.

  Health and Safety Executive
  Andrew Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions when he expects the Health and Safety Executive will conclude negotiations on the 2003 annual pay increase. [132537]

  Mr. Browne
  We are not able to say when the negotiations will be concluded. That is a matter for the Health and Safety Executive and the trade unions and will depend upon their ability to reach an agreed settlement.

  Andrew Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions by what means principal inspectors in the field offices of the Construction Division of the Health and Safety Executive are supervised from remote locations. [132539]

  Mr. Browne
  Principal Inspectors are managed using a variety of techniques including face to face meetings (either individually or as a group), video conference, telephone or e-mail contact. The Health and Safety Executive has a detailed staff appraisal system which is supported by management information systems and the review of samples of work in accordance with HSE's quality systems.

  Andrew Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what proportion of notification of building sites (F10 forms) received in local offices of the Health and Safety Executive resulted in an inspection visit by a fully qualified inspector in the last 12 months. [132540]

  Mr. Browne
  The information is not held centrally and can be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Andrew Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions whether the field inspectors and work contract officers of the Health and Safety Executive will prosecute companies who do not possess an employer's liability compulsory insurance certificate; and how many such prosecutions there have been in the past 12 months. [132542]
  627W
  Mr. Browne
  Where an employer has not got appropriate employers' liability insurance, or does not produce a valid certificate of insurance when required to do so, then the Health and Safety Executive will consider prosecution.

  Each case must be considered on its own merits, and in accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors. Prosecution decisions will also take account of the time since the date of offence, because offences under ELCI Act 1969 are triable only summarily, which means there is a six-month time limit from the date of the offence to commencing a prosecution.

  Where there is evidence of non-insurance, and the case is within the statutory time period, then HSE will normally prosecute.

  During the period 15 October 2002 to 14 October 2003, there were a total of 10 prosecution cases heard for prosecutions brought by HSE for failure to have insurance.

  In addition to prosecution, the issue of 'Notices to Produce' (NTPs) is an important part of HSE's enforcement of ELCI. NTPs require the employer to produce a valid certificate of insurance to HSE. During the same period, HSE issued a total of 73 NTPs.

  Insurance Premiums
  Mr. Bellingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what assessment he has made of the last six months of problems for small and medium sized enterprises caused by the recent increases in insurance premiums. [132843]

  Malcolm Wicks
  A survey by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) found that price increases were most concentrated on a limited number of companies. Nearly half of all companies had no price rise or less than 20 per cent. However, between 5 per cent. and 12 per cent. of businesses saw premiums at least double and often increase by several hundred per cent. More recent figures from Datamonitor, a leading business information company, show less extreme pricing trends than the OFT survey but support the general picture. Overwhelmingly, these were small and medium sized companies, mostly in sectors traditionally associated with high accident risks.

  In the First Stage Report of the Review of Employers' Liability Compulsory Insurance (ELCI) the Department noted that many SM Es have faced real difficulties including:
  reduced profit margins tied to an inability to pass on increased costs, with a potential knock-on affect on business investment;
  curtailment of business activity in some sectors deemed to be too high risk by insurers;
  difficulties with business planning caused by uncertainty;
  according to some business representatives, being forced to make staff redundant or reduce rates of pay;
  anecdotally, the linking of increased EL premiums to business failure; and reports of trading uninsured.

  The Department has been looking at ways of alleviating the difficulties in the Second Stage of the Review and will report in the autumn on the progress that has been made and on the further steps that we intend to take.
  628W
  Mr. Bellingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what discussions his Department has had with the insurance industry over the past six months regarding the issue of notice periods for the renewal of employers liability insurance; and what the outcome of such discussions was. [132844]

  Malcolm Wicks
  The Department has had a number of discussions with the Association of British Insurers (ABI) and the British Insurance Brokers' Association (BIBA) about Employers' Liability Compulsory Insurance (ELCI) over the last six months. The discussions covered a range of issues including the issue of notice periods for the renewal of ELCI.

  The ABI and BIBA recently announced a statement of good practice, which recommends that liability insurance policy holders receive at least 21 days' notice of their renewal terms.

  The Department welcomes the initiative on the part of the ABI and BIBA.

  In addition, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has recently consulted on whether it should set an 'in good time' requirement or a 21 day notice period for renewals for commercial customers, and is currently considering responses to its consultation.

  Mr. Bellingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will set out in his Department's second report into Employers Liability Compulsory Insurance a list of trade organisations that he has met. [132848]

  Malcolm Wicks
  Yes.

  Mr. Bellingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what criteria his Department will use in deciding the content of the follow-up report on Employer's Liability Compulsory Insurance due for publication in the autumn. [132854]

  Malcolm Wicks
  The content of the Second Stage Report will accord with the commitments given in the First Stage Report, namely that the Department will continue to monitor developments in the Employers' Liability Compulsory Insurance market and will report on the progress that has been made against the agenda for action that was set out in the First Stage Report. The agenda for action comprised:working with interested parties to help develop the basis for more risk-related premiums;
  working with stakeholders to maximise the benefits for EL of current initiatives within the legal system. In parallel, discussing with stakeholders the options for alternative dispute resolution arrangements;
  engaging with business, industry and other stakeholders to further evaluate the evidence for separating long-term occupational disease risks from accident risks—more evidence would be needed to assess whether a radical separation is justified;
  making rehabilitation play a more central role in the UK workers' compensation system, to improve outcomes for employees and to let compensation reflect this;
  reforming the arrangements for enforcement of EL, to tackle the unfairness of competition trading illegally without insurance cover and to better protect employees.
  629W
  Mr. Bellingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what assessment his Department has made on the impact of long tail insurance on the level of premiums. [132892]

  Malcolm Wicks
  The Department is aware that the Association of British Insurers (ABI) has commissioned research to develop proposals in this area. We have discussed this with the ABI and other stakeholders. We await the results of the research with interest.

  Mr. Bellingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pursuant to his answer of 18 September,Official Report, column 904W, to the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe), when he expects the follow-up report on employer's liability compulsory insurance to be published. [132904]

  Malcolm Wicks
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe) on 18 September,Official Report, column 904W. The position remains the same.

  Mr. Bellingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pursuant to his answer of 18 September 2003,Official Report, column 904W, to the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe), what steps his Department is taking to make an assessment of the number of small and medium sized enterprises that have stopped trading in the past 12 months as a result of increased insurance premiums. [132905]

  Malcolm Wicks
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe) on 18 September,Official Report, column 908W. The position remains the same.

  Pension Credit
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) how many applications for pension credit there have been, broken down by region; and how many have been successful;[133639]

  (2) if he will make a statement on take-up of pension credit. [133673]

  Malcolm Wicks
  I refer my hon. Friend to the written statement made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on 14 October 2003,Official Report, column 5WS.

  Pensions (Means-testing)
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will make a statement on means testing of state pensions on(a) 1 October 1997 and (b) 1 October 2003. [133588]

  Malcolm Wicks
  This Government is targeting money where it is most needed. And that means targeting more money on the poorest pensioners. In 1997, the rate of income support from age 60 was £68.80 for single persons and £106.80 for couples. In April 2003, the rate of minimum income guarantee from age 60 increased to £102.10 for single persons and £155.80 for couples.

  Pension credit, introduced on 6 October 2003, abolishes the old weekly means test, replacing it with a less intrusive form of assessment. From age 65, most pensioners will have their awards fixed for five years at
  630W
  a time. In addition, pension credit is intended to reward rather than penalise those people who have modest amounts of second pension or other savings.

  Compared with the 1997 system as a result of the Government's measures including pension credit, on average, from October 2003, pensioner households are £1,250 a year better off in real terms, around £24 extra a week, and the poorest third of pensioner households will have gained £1,600 a year in real terms.

  Royal Mint
  How Irranca-Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will make a statement on the health and safety record of the Royal Mint in Llantrisant. [132979]

  Malcolm Wicks
  The Royal Mint at Llantrisant is treated by the Health and Safety Executive the same as any other similar manufacturing operation, and irrespective of the issue of Crown Immunity, to the same regulatory regime and standards.

  There have been three fatalities since the operation has been on this site; one in 1987, one in 1992 and one in June 2001. The fatality in June 2001 resulted in Crown Censure proceedings. Substantial remedial measures were put in place following this tragedy.

  Over the last few years reportable accidents at the Mint have been falling; 34 in 2001, 26 in 2002 and 10 to date in 2003. This is below the national average for manufacturing industry for last year (November to November).

  In 2001 a Crown Improvement Notice was served on the Royal Mint requiring risk assessments associated with workplace transport to be carried out. This was complied with fully by the Royal Mint and the Notice discharged.

  In June 2003 there was a breakout of molten metal from an induction furnace on site. There were no injuries. Following investigation the Mint management produced an action plan and have acted positively upon this plan, and the advice given by HSE inspectors. No formal enforcement action arose out of this matter.

  Activities at the site require that the Royal Mint submits a safety report to the HSE under the Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations 1999. This report was submitted in January 2002 as required by those Regulations. HSE will carry out inspections and interventions on the Royal Mint site taking into account the safety report, as it would for any other site with similar industrial risks.

HEALTH

  Care Homes
  Bob Russell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what representations he has made to Essex County Council over proposal; for the sale of the council's care homes; and if he will make a statement;[132802]

  (2) what powers he has to intervene on proposals by Essex County Council to sell care homes owned by the Council. [132803]
  631W
  Dr. Ladyman
  The Government cannot influence decisions taken by local councils or decide for them how they should manage their services. It is for local councils to make such decisions and I have no plans to intervene.

  The twelve care home homes are being transferred, either through leasehold disposal or sale of the freehold, to the independent sector. I understand the council is pursuing this option as a way of increasing residential care capacity and strengthening partnership working with the independent sector.

  Ambulance Service
  Mr. Alan Duncan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what percentage of category B emergency calls were answered within 19 minutes in(a) the East Midlands Ambulance Trust area, (b) Rutland county and (c) Melton borough in each of the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement;[132824]

  (2) what percentage of category A emergency calls were answered within eight minutes in (a) the East Midlands Ambulance Trust area, (b) Rutland county and (c) Melton borough in each of the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement;[132825]

  (3) what percentage of emergency calls from GPs' surgeries were answered within 15 minutes in (a) the East Midlands Trust area, (b) Rutland Council area and (c) Melton borough in each of the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement;[132826]

  (4) how many times in each of the past 12 months an ambulance has taken over (a) 15, (b) 30, (c) 50, (d) 60 and (e) 90 minutes to respond to category A emergency calls in (i) the East Midlands Ambulance Trust area, (ii) Rutland county and (iii) Mellon borough: and if he will make a statement;[132827]

  (5) on how many occasions in each of the past 12 months an ambulance has taken over (a) 30, (b) 50, (c) 60 and (d) 90 minutes to respond to category B emergency calls in (i) the East Midlands Ambulance Trust area, (ii) Rutland county and (iii) Melton borough; and if he will make a statement. [132828]

  Dr. Ladyman
  This information is not centrally available in the format requested. However, the latest information about the proportion of emergency calls resulting in an ambulance arriving at the scene of the reported incident within the Governments target response times for all ambulance trusts can be found in the Department of Health Statistical Bulletin, "Ambulance Services, England 2002/2003".

  Copies of the bulletin are available in the Library and also on the Department's website at www.doh.gov.uk/public/sb0313.htm.

  Cancer Specialists
  David Davis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many patients in(a) 2002 and (b) 2003 in Hull and the East Riding waited longer than eight weeks after being referred to a cancer specialist. [132396]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  Information on the number of patients waiting longer than eight weeks after being referred to a cancer specialist is not collected by the Department. Statistics are collected on the number of 632W
  patients who wait more than 28 days for a first outpatient appointment following general practitioner urgent referral with suspected cancer. For Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals National Health Service Trust, when the referral was received within 24 hours, one patient waited more than 28 days to see a cancer specialist in 2001–02 and three patients waited longer than 28 days in 2002–03.
  Source:
  Department of Health form QMCW.

  Deep Vein Thrombosis
  Mr. Mike Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the Answer from the Secretary of State for Transport of 15 September,Official Report, columns 499–500W, on deep vein thrombosis, when the research will be published; and if he will make a statement. [131931]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  A research project on the public perceptions of the risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and the awareness and use of information sources relating to DVT was commissioned earlier this year on behalf of the Aviation Health Working Group. A draft report is currently being peer reviewed and will be published in 2004.

  Dementia
  Mr. Berry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people with dementia live in residential care; and how many people with dementia in residential care are funded by the NHS. [132639]

  Dr. Ladyman
  Information is not available centrally in the form requested.

  Midwifery
  David Davis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many beds were available in the Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust in the last two quarters for which figures are available. [133218]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  [holding answer issued on 20 October]Information on the number of beds is collected and published on an annual basis. In 2002–03, the average daily number of open and staffed beds in the Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals National Health Service Trust was 1,391.Source:
  Department of Health form KH03.

  North Cheshire Hospitals NHS Trust
  Helen Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) which organisations and individuals have so far been consulted by North Cheshire Hospitals NHS Trust on their plans for future service provision;[133021]

  (2) when North Cheshire Hospitals NHS Trust intends to publish its plan for the re-organisation of services; and what the timetable is for consultation on these proposals. [133023]

  Miss Melanie Johnson[holding answer 21 October 2003]
  The chief executives of North Cheshire Hospitals National Health Service Trust and Warrington and Halton primary care trusts are working together to
  633W
  build on recent discussions with general practitioners and hospital clinicians from Halton and Warrington concerning developments to surgical services.

  The trust plans to discuss the views of its clinicians and those within primary care at its next board meeting on 6 November 2003. Following the trust board discussion, the Overview and Scrutiny Committees of Warrington and Halton will need to take a view on whether formal consultation is required. The North Cheshire Hospitals NHS Trust is not planning to undertake a major re-organisation of its services.

  Helen Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what steps he will take to ensure that people living in areas of health deprivation in North Warrington are consulted about future service provision at North Cheshire Hospitals NHS Trust;[133022]

  (2) what steps he is taking to ensure that the needs of people living in the most deprived areas of Warrington North are met by any future re-organisation of services at North Cheshire Hospitals. [133024]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  [holding answer 21 October 2003]Warrington Primary Care Trust (PCT) will continue to be closely involved in the development of acute services in North Cheshire. In conjunction with North Cheshire Hospitals National Health Service Trust, Warrington PCT will engage with Warrington Borough Council and the Overview and Scrutiny Committee to ensure appropriate consultation with Warrington residents in relation to developments in health care.

  If plans require formal consultation, Warrington PCT will ensure that local people have a range of opportunities to give their views and every effort will be made to ensure equity issues are addressed.

  There is a programme of activity in Warrington to address deprived areas. Warrington Health and Well Being Partnership, which is led by Warrington PCT, are in the process of compiling the Health Improvement Plan. Deprivation in Warrington Central is the key priority of this plan. There is a programme of activity in Warrington to address deprived areas. Warrington Health and Well Being Partnership, which is led by Warrington PCT, are in the process of compiling the Health Improvement Plan. Deprivation in Warrington Central is the key priority of this plan.

  Travel Vaccines
  Dr. Starkey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidance his Department has issued to general practitioners on(a) the provision of travel vaccines and (b) the appropriate charge for such vaccines. [133591]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The guidance for vaccines provided on the National Health Service are listed in the Statement of Fees and Allowances, which is known as the Red Book.

  General practitioners may only charge for travel vaccinations where they receive no remuneration for providing such a vaccination from the NHS. In such circumstances the charge levied is a private matter between the patient and their GP.
  634W

  Vehicle Emissions
  Mr. Amess
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the impact on human(a) health, (b) mortality and (c) morbidity of the emission of ultrafine particles by the UK vehicle part. [132755]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The evidence on the biological effects of ultrafme particles has been described in the 2001 report, Airborne Particles, by the expert panel on air quality standards. The panel noted that only limited evidence was available on the effect of ultrafme particles on health in humans. For this reason, the Department has not at this stage assessed the impact of ultrafme particles from vehicles on human health.

  The report is available on the website of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs at www.defra.qov.uk/environment/airquaritv/aqs/air measure/index.htm.

  Viruses
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what research he has commissioned to create new mutations of viruses that can be deprived of their species' specific properties; and which of these viruses(a) are being and (b) have been used for genetic engineering. [130424]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  [holding answer 16 September 2003]Genetically disabled viruses are widely used in scientific and medical research. The focus of funding provided by the Department is primarily on research that brings the benefits of new medicines into the National Health Service. Basic scientific research of the type referred to in the question is mainly commissioned through the Medical Research Council.

CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS

  Divorced Parents (Removal of Children from UK)
  Sir Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs what research has been commissioned by his Department on the number of divorced fathers who manage to maintain effective contact with their children should the children's mother be granted leave to remove them from the United Kingdom; and what steps his Department takes to monitor the welfare of such children. [133034]

  Mr. Lammy
  My Department has not commissioned research into this issue. We do not monitor the welfare of children who live abroad with their mothers with the agreement of the court.

  Sir Nicholas Winter ton
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs how many applications were made by(a) mothers and (b) fathers in each of the last five years for which figures are available for leave to remove children from the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom courts; and how many of those applications were (i) granted and (ii) rejected. [133035]
  635W
  Mr. Lammy
  The number of orders made under Section 13 of the Children Act 1989 for removal from the jurisdiction since 2000 (when figures were first collected) were as follows. The figures in brackets were the number of those made by consent.2000–190 (41)
  2001–292 (65)
  2002–333 (88)
  2003–1344 (190)
  1Figures for January to September inclusive.

  No separate figures are held for mothers or fathers, nor is information available about the number of applications that were refused.

  Sir Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs what information his Department holds about(a) the research findings and (b) other formal evidence available to the courts about the impact upon (i) mothers seeking leave to remove children from the United Kingdom should their application be denied and (ii) the impact upon children of losing access to their father should such leave be granted to the mother. [133036]

  Mr. Lammy
  We are not aware of any research or other formal evidence in relation to this issue.

  European Elections
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs what plans the Department has to encourage the electorate to participate in European Elections. [133347]

  Mr. Leslie
  The Government introduced the European Parliamentary and Local Elections (Pilots) Bill on 17 September. This will permit innovative voting systems to be piloted in selected regions at next year's European Parliamentary elections building on the experience gained from the piloting of innovative systems at local election level. This is designed to adapt to the needs of today's changing lifestyles and the work and family commitments which people have.

  In addition, the Electoral Commission has a statutory responsibility to promote public awareness of current electoral systems, including the European Parliamentary elections. It recently conducted research on people's attitude to the European Parliamentary elections and the findings will inform their campaign to encourage greater participation by the electorate al next year's elections. A copy of that research 'Public opinion and the 2004 elections' is available on the Electoral Commission's website at www.electoralcommission.org.uk. The Institute for Citizenship is also running a 'Get the Vote Out 2004!' campaign (with support from the Electoral Commission) to raise awareness and encourage participation. The Government fully supports these initiatives.

  Franchise (EU Citizens)
  Andrew Mackinlay
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs, what measures he proposes to take to enable citizens of countries who will be admitted to European Union 636W
  membership in April 2004 to be admitted to the franchise in time for local government and European elections in June 2004; and if he will make a statement. [132696]

  Mr. Leslie
  The local and European Parliamentary Elections (Registration of Citizens of Accession States) Regulations 2003 (SI 2003/1557) and the Representation of the People (Form of Canvass) (England and Wales) Regulations 2003 (SI 2003/1899) were introduced earlier this year in time for the annual electoral registration canvass, which permit citizens of States that are due to accede to the European Union next year who are resident in this country to register to vote in local government and European Parliamentary elections to be held on or after 1 May 2004.

  Young Voters
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs what changes to the voting system are planned to encourage young people to vote. [133348]

  Mr. Leslie
  The Government are keen to encourage young people to participate in elections. My Department has contributed to the Children and Young People Unit's work in the Department for Education and Skills on the engagement of young people in democracy. We fully support the Electoral Commission's campaigns and competitions aimed specifically at young people and the addition of 'citizenship studies' to the school curriculum. All these developments recognise the importance and value of voting and aim to increase the interest, understanding and involvement of young people with democratic processes. The use of new technology to vote, as piloted in recent local elections, is also regarded as having particular appeal for younger voters.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Asylum Seekers
  Mr. Matins
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what efforts are made to prepare a local population for the reception of dispersed asylum seekers in their area prior to arrival of the asylum seekers; and what guidance is given by his Department on this. [124117]

  Beverley Hughes
  The Home Office National Asylum Support Service (NASS) has systems in place to ensure local authorities and other agencies in an area to which asylum seekers are to be sent for the first time are fully consulted to minimise the risk of asylum seekers being placed inappropriately in an area.

  However, I do not believe this is appropriate and in future NASS staff will be responsible for ensuring that consultation and a joint approach is developed at local level. Primarily, this will be achieved by the regionalisation of NASS, a process ensuring the successive devolution of NASS staff and functions to regional offices. This will enable the dialogue and joint work with regional consortia, local authorities other agencies and NASS to develop.
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  Burglary
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will estimate the cost of burglary to(a) the commercial sector, (b) the public sector and (c) private individuals in each year between 1995 and 2002. [128546]

  Ms Blears
  The Home Office made estimates of the economic and social cost of crime in England and Wales in 1999–2000. Estimates were published in Home Office Research Study 217 (HORS 217), "The economic and social costs of crime". This study estimated that the average burglary in a dwelling costs society around £2,300 (including £830 in property stolen and damaged). The average burglary not in a dwelling costs society around £2,700 (including £1,200 in property stolen and damaged). It is currently not possible to make a distinction between public and commercial sector burglary in respect of costs.

  These figures for numbers of burglaries recorded can be applied to the estimates of the average costs of burglaries presented in HORS 217. This gives total costs of recorded burglary as follows:

  Table 1—Total economic and social cost of burglaries recorded by the police, 1995 to 2002–03 (constant 2000 prices)

  £ million

  Burglary and aggravated burglary in a dwelling

  Burglary and aggravated burglary other than in a dwelling

  1995

  1,480

  1,609

  1996

  1,385

  1,519

  1997

  1,194

  1,339

  1997–98

  1,154

  1,314

  1998–99

  1,088

  1,293

  1998–99

  1,089

  1,296

  1999–2000

  1,018

  1,252

  2000–01

  927

  1,169

  2001–02

  990

  1,210

  2002–03

  1,007

  1,219

  However, these figures do not take into account those burglaries which are not reported to the police. The British Crime Survey (BCS) collects information on household burglaries which are both reported and not reported, and figures for numbers of household burglaries for the period 1995 to 2002–03 are reported in HOSB 07/03. These can be used to derive estimates for the total costs (in constant prices) of household burglary over this period are given in Table 2. The BCS does not provide information on burglaries in premises other than households.

  Table 2—Numbers of household burglaries reported in the British Crime Survey, with estimated total economic and social costs (constant 2000 prices), 1995 to 2002–03

  £ million

  Burglaries

  Total cost

  1995

  1,743,000

  4,009

  1997

  1,589,000

  3,655

  1999

  1,261,000

  2,900

  2001–02

  966,000

  2,222

  2002–03

  974,000

  2,240

  638W

  Correspondence
  Mr. Keith Bradley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what criteria are used in deciding whether a detailed reply to letters from members of the public is appropriate. [132688]

  Mr. Blunkett
  [holding answer 20 September 2003]The Department follows the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information, Second Edition (1997). The Code supports the policy of extending access to official information and responding to reasonable requests for information. The approach to the release of information in all cases is based upon the assumption that information should be released except where disclosure would not be in the public interest as specified in Part II of the Code. Where information cannot be provided under the terms of the Code an explanation will normally be given.

  Responses are not sent to correspondence that is considered to be offensive. Examples of such letters include those that are gratuitously sexually explicit or threaten violence.

  Interpreters
  Mr. Andrew Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the cost is of(a) interpretation facilities and (b) interpreters to each (i) police force and (ii) probation service area. [132142]

  Ms Blears
  This information is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Media Training
  Mr. Flight
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the cost was to his Department of media and voice training for ministers and officials in each year since 1997. [123131]

  Fiona Mactaggart
  Media training is available to Ministers and given to selected officials, mainly Prison Service Media Liaison Officers, immigration officers and senior appointees.

  No Ministers or officials have been on training courses exclusively for the purpose of voice training. However one minor element of the Government's Centre for Management and Policy Studies' (CMPS) Creating Personal Impact course attended by senior officials does include an introduction to effective use of the voice. It is not possible to break down the cost of this element but since 1997 costs associated with the whole course total around £5,000.

  Details and costs of all individual training courses are not held centrally and could be collated only at disproportionate cost.

  Police Custody (Deaths)
  Mr. Amess
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many deaths there have been of civilians while in police custody in police stations in(a) Southend-on-Sea and (b) Essex in each year since 2001. [132756]
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  Ms Blears
  There have been no such deaths in police stations in Southend-on-Sea or any other part of Essex in the period referred to.

  Prisoner Transportation
  Mr. Best
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what assessment of procedures ensuring the safety of prisoners travelling in police vans will be made by(a) his Department and (b) another regulatory body;[132224]

  (2) if he will issue guidance on the introduction of safety belts for prisoners in police security vans;[132225]

  (3) if he will make a statement on recorded injuries to prisoners travelling in police vans in the past five years. [132226]

  Ms Blears
  Information is not collected centrally on injuries to people travelling in police vans. Cellular vehicles are not required to have seat belts but under the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations (as amended), all new vehicles built after 1 October 2001 require appropriate anchorage points. The Association of Chief Police Officers issues operational guidance on the use of protected police vehicles. The safety and transportation of people in police vehicles is a matter for the chief officer of police for that area.
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  Terrorism Act
  Mr. Gerrard
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when, and for what areas, he has signed authorisations for the use by the police of section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. [131584]

  Ms Blears
  The use of the section 44 Stop & Search power is authorised by a senior police officer of at least the rank of Assistant Chief Constable. The role of the Secretary of State is to confirm those authorisations.

  Between 19 February 2001 and 30 September 2003 a total of 653 authorisations by a senior police officer under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 received confirmation from the Secretary of State. 583 of these relate to English police forces, and 70 to Welsh police forces.

  It has been a longstanding policy of this and previous administrations not to comment on anti-terrorist operations. To provide a more detailed breakdown of the areas and times covered by Section 44 authorisations would put into the public domain, information that could prove valuable to terrorists.

  Many forces run short term, localised operations for a variety of situations, that are supported by section 44 powers. These can include protective security operations for events or VIPs, intelligence gathering operations or measures taken in response to intelligence and threat assessments. To disclose detailed information on the times and locations of such operations could compromise their future effectiveness.

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

  National Forest Company
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr. Ben Bradshaw)
  I am pleased to announce that I have arranged for copies of the National Forest Company's annual report and accounts for 2002–03 and its corporate plan for 2003–04 to be placed in the Libraries of the House.

  The report is being made available on the company's website http://www.nationalforest.org/

  Veterinary Surveillance Strategy
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr. Ben Bradshaw)
  Later today, the Chief Veterinary Officer will launch the UK's veterinary surveillance strategy (VSS).

  This strategy will form an integral part of the developing animal health and welfare strategy for Great Britain which aims to improve the health and welfare of animals kept by man and to protect public health from animal disease. The veterinary surveillance strategy launched today seeks to enhance veterinary surveillance to enable faster, better targeted disease prevention and control measures.

  The core objectives of the ten year strategy will be to deliver earlier warning and more rapid detection and analysis of disease threats, provide open and transparent prioritisation of surveillance activities, to give a clear, well defined evidence base for all animal health and welfare related policies, and to make better use of the data collected.

  The launch follows extensive consultation across Government and with the veterinary, farming and wildlife sectors.

  Copies of the strategy document have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Campsfield House
  The Minister for Citizenship and Immigration (Beverley Hughes)
  Campsfield House opened as an immigration centre in November 1993 following its closure as a young offenders institution. In February 2002 the Home Secretary expressed concerns about the quality of the accommodation and it was concluded that it should close. However, Campsfield has proved invaluable in recent months in holding short term 40WS
  detainees. Furthermore, during the refurbishment of Harmondsworth, its South East location makes the establishment strategically important.

  Consequently, and as part of a wider review of the removal estate, we have examined the possibility of maintaining Campsfield. We now propose to modernise and develop the centre, bringing the facilities up to an acceptable standard so as to maximise the capacity of the removals estate and retain a valuable resource.

HEALTH

  Patient and Public Involvement in the NHS
  The Minister of State, Department of Health (Ms Rosie Winterton)
  The Government's response to the Seventh Report of the House of Commons Select Committee on Health, on Patient and Public Involvement in the NHS, Cm 6005, has been published today. Copies have been placed in the Library.

TRADE, AND INDUSTRY

  Community Interest Companies
  The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Ms Patricia Hewitt)
  I announced in a written ministerial statement to the House on 26 March 2003,Official Report, column 14WS, that a joint DTI/Home Office&/Treasury consultation document on proposals for a community interest company (CIC) was being published. The consultation document set out proposals for a new type of company, not for profit, and working for the public benefit.

  I am today publishing a report on the outcome of the consultation. The consultation ended on 18 June and the Government received over 130 formal responses. The overall reaction to the consultation has been extremely positive, with the concept of the CIC receiving widespread support. This is consistent with the response to the outline proposal on CICs in the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit report of September 2002 "Private Action, Public Benefit". Respondents suggested that this new type of company, with the features proposed, could potentially benefit a range of organisations, particularly those looking to work for community benefit within the relative freedom of the non charitable form, but with a clear assurance of not for profit status.

  The Government are encouraged by the confirmation of strong support for the CIC concept which this consultation demonstrated. As I announced in July 2003, we intend to proceed with legislation on CICs as soon as Parliamentary time allows.

  In the light of the responses to the consultation, and further consideration of the technical issues, the Government intend that the key features of the CIC will be largely as proposed in the March 2003 consultation paper. However, we intend to clarify and in some respects amend the detail of the proposals, as described in the report. In view of the responses on stakeholder consultation, we do not propose that there should be a statutory requirement for CICs to carry out such consultation.
  41WS
  Nonetheless, there will be a strong presumption that CICs should take steps to engage their stakeholders where appropriate. As the consultation paper suggested, there will be a requirement on CICs to report annually on what has been done to involve stakeholders and this will be supported by guidance on good practice. We also intend that the CICs should report to stakeholders on key issues such as directors' remuneration.

  Copies of the report on the public consultation and the Government's intentions are available in the Libraries of both Houses and on the DTI website.

WORK AND PENSIONS

  Pensions
  The Minister for Pensions (Malcolm Wicks)
  Today we have published proposals to amend the statutory priority order when a defined benefit pension scheme subject to the minimum funding requirement is wound up and draft regulations to bring these proposals into effect.

  The draft regulations are intended to ensure that, where there are insufficient assets to meet all liabilities, they are shared as fairly as possible between non-pensioner and pensioner scheme members.

  As outlined in "Action on Occupational Pensions" the degree of protection offered by the new priority order reflects the length of time a member has been contributing to a scheme and also gives priority to the rights of non-pensioners over the future indexation of pensions in payment.

  We are consulting on the draft regulations and proposed new priority order and should welcome views on both by 3 December 2003. We aim to lay these regulations by early 2004 so that they come into force as soon as practicable.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Proliferation Security Initiative
  The Minister for Europe (Mr. Denis MacShane)
  Members of the proliferation security initiative (PSI) met on 9–10 October in London. Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States took part in the meeting. The London meeting built on the firm foundations laid during earlier meetings in Madrid, Brisbane, arid Paris.

  The PSI aims to expand capabilities to conduct maritime, aviation and land interdiction operations in order to help counter the threat of WMD proliferation. At the Paris meeting, PSI participants agreed a statement of interdiction principles, outlining the aims and scope of the initiative and making clear that all action will be in accordance with international law. Following its publication, we have been drawing governments' attention to, and eliciting support for, the statement.
  42WS
  At the London meeting, we analysed the responses to date. So far the results have been very good: over 50 countries have already expressed support for the PSI. We hope to build on this over the coming weeks and months. WMD proliferation is a global threat –we need to encourage a global response.

  The London meeting also agreed a short statement on the focus of the PSI efforts. This makes it clear that the initiative does not target any particular country—there are no blacklists—but aims to impede and stop trafficking of WMD, their delivery systems and related materials by any state or non-state actor engaged in or supporting WMD proliferation programmes, at any time and in any place.

  The PSI is a global initiative with an inclusive mission. It is an activity, not an organisation. Successful interdiction of trafficking in WMD, their delivery systems and related materials requires the widest possible co-operation between states. It was agreed at the London meeting that participation in the PSI should be open to any state or international body that accepts the Paris statement of interdiction principles and makes an effective contribution. Participation will vary with the activity taking place, and the contribution participants could provide. Some countries have particular experience, assets or expertise relevant to all PSI activities; other countries or organisations could be expected to contribute according to their particular capabilities. I hope that we can therefore ensure as wide participation in the initiative as practically possible, including—where appropriate—contributions from the EU and NATO.

  The London meeting also developed further a series of interdiction training exercises, which will be taken forward over the coming months.

  In short, we have agreed the broad direction of the PSI. We now have to work to fill in the detail. In doing so, we are keen for the PSI to be an open and transparent process. As such, the chairman's summary was agreed as a public document, and is available on the FCO web-site at www.fco.gov.uk/internationalsecurity, under the heading "Counter-Proliferation".

CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS

  Libra Project
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs (Mr. Christopher Leslie)
  The House was informed in July 2002 that the Libra project would be delivered by way of three separate contracts. The delivery of the infrastructure underpinning the system was contracted to Fujitsu Services until 2006–07 at the time of that announcement. I can inform the House that the remaining contracts are now in place. Accenture (UK) Ltd, has today been awarded a five year, £38.5 million contract to deliver a service using specialised software for case management and tracking, payment of fines and court administration to the magistrates' courts in England and Wales. Case management seeks to speed up the courts process by implementing better ways of working. The contract to develop and support the special software was awarded
  43WS
  in January 2003 to STL Technologies, part of the Technology Group. That five year contract is worth £35 million.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

  Montserrat
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr. Gareth Thomas)
  Further to written statements on 17 July 2003 and 15 September 2003,Official Report, columns 86WS and 42WS by my right hon. Friend the (then) Minister of State for International Development and me respectively, DFID has continued to work closely with the Montserratian authorities to alleviate the impact
  44WS
  upon the island community of the volcanic activity which affected Montserrat between 12 and 14 July this year.

  I can now confirm that an additional £3.5 million in budgetary assistance has been made available to the Government of Montserrat (GoM) to fund Montserrat's ash clearing assistance programme (ACAP). The programme, designed jointly by DFID and GoM, entails clearance of the volcanic ash from residential and business properties as well as from roads and public facilities. We have contracted a manager for the programme, who is responsible for overall co-ordination of the ash clearing exercise. His work includes liaison with key GoM staff to ensure that management of equipment, staffing, materials and other resources is coordinated effectively.

  DFID's total budget for Montserrat in the current financial year, including this latest additional provision, is now more than £23 million.

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Sheffield.

NHS Hospital Treatment: Overseas Visitors
Baroness Boothroyd Baroness Boothroyd asked Her Majesty's Government:
What action is being taken to recover the amount owing to the National Health Service by overseas visitors, known as National Health Service tourists, who have unlawfully obtained free medical treatment.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Warner): My Lords, the National Health Service (Charges to Overseas Visitors) Regulations 1989 place a duty on NHS trusts to establish whether a patient is eligible for free NHS hospital treatment and, if not, to levy a charge for any treatment provided. The Government are consulting on proposals to strengthen the charging regulations.
Baroness Boothroyd: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the concern in the National Health Service at the amount owed to it by illegal overseas patients? Can he give an indication of that debt and say how much has been recovered by overseas patient officers and debt collectors? Am I to understand that we can look forward to new regulations that may well be brought in to help to tighten up what can only be described as exploitation of the National Health Service?
Lord Warner: My Lords, under this and the previous government, it has been down to local hospitals to collect charges in accordance with the regulations. We do not collect information on the issue at the centre. As the House knows, devolution is the world that we live in, and we do not want to increase bureaucratic demands on the frontline National Health Service.
In 2001–02, £1.2 million was written off by local health trusts for uncollected debts in the area. However, it is not possible to qualify the total costs that may be lost.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, as a former member of a hospital trust board, I am astonished that that important information is not among the millions of pieces of information that the board must yield to the central authorities. How did that oversight occur? Do the Government intend to use a future policy on identity cards to check whether
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people are liable to pay for healthcare? If so, what sort of identity card are we talking about—the Home Secretary's or the Foreign Secretary's?
Lord Warner: My Lords, as the noble Baroness knows, the Cabinet is still discussing the matter. It would be wrong to pre-empt the outcome of that discussion.
Earl Howe: My Lords, what methods are currently in place in the NHS for checking someone's entitlement to free NHS services?
Lord Warner: My Lords, where there are concerns about whether someone is required to pay charges in those circumstances, the usual arrangement is that an overseas visitor manager will arbitrate, taking account of the requirements in the charging regulations.
Lord Rotherwick: My Lords, who decides whether there is such a concern about someone who comes to a hospital? Surely, that is a difficult task, since some overseas visitors speak extremely good English. Who is responsible for deciding whether a person should have healthcare?
Lord Warner: My Lords, as I thought I made clear, under the charging regulations it is down to the local hospital. I have explained the local system to the noble Earl.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, how much money do we owe French and other authorities for treatment in those countries?
Lord Warner: My Lords, I have no idea, but I will be happy to inquire and to write to the noble Lord.
Lord Walton of Detchant: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that, if overseas visitors come to this country without any intention of seeking medical care but happen to fall ill during their visit, they are entitled to the services of the National Health Service? We are referring to those who come specifically for medical treatment and who must carry the cost of that treatment.
Lord Warner: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for expressing that point of view. We have made clear all along to the NHS that urgent treatment needed to save life or to prevent a condition becoming immediately life-threatening should not be withheld. The NHS remains a humanitarian service.

Carbon Management Strategy
2.41 p.m.
Lord Ezra Lord Ezra asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they consider that the United Kingdom should develop a long-term carbon management strategy, including fossil fuels, as recommended in

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the report of the Department of Trade and Industry technology service mission to the United States and Canada.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Sainsbury of Turville): My Lords, the Government's energy White Paper provides a long-term strategy for the reduction of carbon emissions in line with the recommendation of the Royal Commission on Environmental Protection for a 60 per cent reduction by 2050. Fossil fuels are recognised as an important part of the energy mix in the strategy. My department is currently considering the development of a carbon abatement technologies programme for fossil fuel power generation. We will develop that new programme with the full involvement of UK. industry.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that fairly encouraging response. Nevertheless, has the Government's record so far in carrying out a carbon management strategy not been somewhat patchy? They have given substantial support to certain renewables, notably wind power, but less support to other means of dealing with carbon emissions, such as the recovery and treatment of methane from coal mines, combined heat and power including micropower, in which I declare an interest, and clean coal technology with carbon extraction.
Is the noble Lord aware that, according to the mission's report, in North America, the clean use of fossil fuels, notably coal, is regarded as a key component in developing a sustainable energy future, and a number of clean coal technology plants already operate or are under construction there? When can we expect such plants to operate in the UK?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, we have what is, in effect, a carbon management strategy with different parts. Part deals with the renewables obligation and other parts are appropriately best dealt with by research. Research is taking place on areas such as carbon capture and storage, renewables and, as I said, we are developing a carbon abatement technologies strategy that will cover such things as carbon capture and storage, co-firing of fossil fuel with biomass and higher power plant efficiency.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, clearly we must have a carbon management strategy for the long term. The Minister appears to be satisfied with his own strategy, but what about that of China and other developing nations?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, I was recently in China discussing this matter. This is a huge opportunity for British industry, which has good experience of clean coal technology, to sell into a huge market that is now very keen to deal with its environmental problems. China is keen to get clean coal technology because of its large quantities of coal.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, in the past, nature has provided the necessary balance between the amounts
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of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere and being taken out of it. Are not today's practices upsetting that balance, especially in industrial and urban areas?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, that is clearly the case. That is why the energy White Paper went into the question of dealing with the problems of climate change in such length. We have a major programme to increase renewables precisely to deal with this type of problem.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, the Government have an aspirational target of 20 per cent of energy to be produced by renewables by 2020. Will the Minister recognise that, by that time, all but one of the nuclear power stations will have closed, so the net gain will be nil?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, the nuclear plants last slightly longer than that, but we have already said that we will keep the nuclear option open in case we cannot, by the means that we have set out, achieve the targets that we believe to be very important.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, this country used to be at the leading edge of clean coal technology. What has happened to the research programme on that technology? Has it been maintained?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, the clean coal technology programme has been maintained. There will be another call this year for programmes within that framework so that we continue to maintain our position in that technology.
Lord Woolmer of Leeds: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, mentioned the work on clean coal technology in the United States. Is not one of the problems that arose with nuclear energy that we engaged in too many types of nuclear plant instead of learning from existing proven technologies? Why are we not doing more research in this area? Why are we not using clean coal technologies that have been developed in the United States to make quicker progress?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, we looked at the whole question of clean coal technology plant review and whether there should be a demonstration project. That was part of the clean coal technology demonstration project that published its report in 2001. We found that most of the commercially available technologies had already been fully demonstrated and that there was little support for major demonstration projects so far as the industry was concerned. As we go forward with some of these technologies, international co-operation with the United States, Canada or the EU is a sensible and important proposition.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, will the Minister explain how the Government will manage to keep the nuclear option open when the skills have been run down, the technology has been in decline for a long time and the research effort is almost nil?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, I am not sure that any of those points is correct. A considerable
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amount of training is still going on. Research continues and we take part in research projects on an international basis. The foundations are there, so if we brought the nuclear option back in due course it would need to be ramped up very quickly. Nevertheless, it could be done.
Baroness Lock wood: My Lords, coal mines are still being closed. Would it not be better for the Government to give more support to the clean coal industry and try to maintain a reasonable output from British coal mines before the whole industry disappears?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, as I said, we are keeping the clean coal technology programme going. However, the industry's main problem is not that but the fact that today it is very easy to import coal from much cheaper sources from around the world. However, we are keeping that technology programme going and we are about to have a carbon abatement technology strategy. That is on a slightly wider basis, but will help to deal with the problem.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, the Minister and his colleagues regularly refer to keeping the nuclear option open, as does the White Paper. However, since it takes about 15 years from decision to operation, when will they come off the fence?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, we have said that we will keep the decision under review. If it appears that we cannot meet our targets with renewables, we will open that option again.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, how can we keep the nuclear option open, if we do not make a decision on the management of nuclear waste?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, the whole question of how we deal with nuclear waste is subject, at the moment, to consultation. That is as it should be. If we are to make progress, we must get consensus on the best way of doing it.

Faith Communities
2.50 p.m.
Lord Peston Lord Peston asked Her Majesty's Government:
Why a committee has been set up to consult "faith communities" on policy making, while non-religious people are not similarly consulted.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Scotland of Asthal): My Lords, the Government have a manifesto commitment to review the ways in which they consult the faith communities. The time-limited steering group taking that forward is identifying the most effective ways for departments to involve faith communities in developing and implementing policy, where appropriate. It is not itself a mechanism for
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consultation. Bodies representing non-believers, such as the British Humanist Association, are frequently consulted on policy. That will continue to be the case.
Lord Peston: My Lords, I must extend the usual courtesy to my noble friend and thank her for that Answer, but I cannot see any connection between it and the Question. I wish noble Lords to know what precisely there is about the nature of these religious groups and public policy itself that makes the Government think that the two should be conjoined. What is there about secular views that makes it appropriate not to have any formal mechanism for taking them into account in the same way? Why are the two being treated differently?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I am disappointed that my Answer did not find favour with my noble friend. He will know that 76.8 percent of the United Kingdom's population regard themselves as having some religious affiliation.
For many people, their faith determines the way in which they conduct their life and the values that they hold. By consulting faith groups, the Government can ensure that all the issues raised by different faith communities are given full consideration in the development of policy. As I said, the review is not inviting consultation on policy issues but is seeking to discover better ways of consulting those who have faith.
I can reassure my noble friend that Fiona Mactaggart is holding meetings with secularists and humanists separately to discuss the review and other policy issues. She met the National Secular Society on 24th September and will meet the British Humanist Association on 20th November.
Lord Marsh: My Lords, given that 76 per cent of people have deeply held religious views, which one must respect, would it not be easier just to include the other 24 per cent and call it an election?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, we have already had one of those, and it was entirely successful for the Government.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that it is very difficult to find out—from the Home Office website or otherwise—the names of the members of the committee that advises Miss Mactaggart? Having discovered who they are, I ask the noble Baroness whether she is satisfied that they are truly representative of the faiths in this community. Many people believe that, if we are going to conduct such an exercise, it should be based on the widest possible consultation. The members seem to have been chosen from a rather narrow range of beliefs.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I do not agree that they have been chosen from a narrow range. The point is that, regrettably, the faith communities have not been as good as many other groups at making their views known. Some do not have a proper method
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of consulting. We hope that, by having the steering group, we will be able to understand better what we need to do to make sure that they can make a full consultation.
The noble Lord will know that many faith groups deliver on-the-ground services to many people in our community. Understanding what they do and how they do it, so that we can help, is rather important.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that many people with a secular outlook have, nevertheless, a strong social commitment? We care very much about what happens to our fellow citizens. I speak as vice-president of the British Humanist Association. It seems to me that we are not consulted in the same way as faith organisations, and we ought to be. We represent a large number of people, and we have a great deal to contribute.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I agree that many people who have secular views have much to contribute and do contribute. We have taken every opportunity to consult. Secular and humanist societies are consulted on many occasions by most departments. We do not think that we are detracting in any way from that. We are trying to deepen and enhance the opportunities for people to come together to do a bit of good.
Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, is it not a fact acknowledged by the Government and the Opposition that the faith communities play an important role in tackling social challenges? Often, they find themselves on their own. Is the Minister aware that their basis of faith is often the reason for their exclusion from public funding? Will she look into the issue of the poor access to funding from which some faith-based charities suffer? The matter might be considered as part of the current review of the Government's interface with faith communities.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I hear what the noble Lord says. I agree that faith communities can have an important role in helping to tackle social issues, as do many other groups. That is important.
I cannot say that I agree with the noble Lord that such groups are excluded improperly from assistance, but I shall inquire into the matter and write to him about what is available.
The Lord Bishop of Chester: My Lords, after all the rhetoric about moving towards a post-Christian society to which we were subjected in the latter decades of the 20th century, over 70 per cent of the population of England and Wales—over 80 per cent in Cheshire and the North West—declared themselves to be Christian. To that must be added the other faith communities. Does the Minister agree that the need to consult the faith communities is one of the key
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priorities of the 21st century? World events have demonstrated that, if we can achieve peace between religions, we are well on the way to achieving aspects of world peace.
In saying that, however, I must emphasise that, in no way do we want the consultation to be exclusive. It must be part of the full range of consultation with bodies in society. However, no one should underestimate the importance of consultation with faith communities.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I have tried to make it clear that we think that it is important to consult all groups. The review seeks better ways of consulting the faith communities. I agree with the right reverend Prelate that that is of importance.
Lord Smith of Clifton: My Lords, many faiths ascribe a lower status to their female adherents. What are the Government doing to offset such bias? Secondly, how is it that the Chief Rabbi has been selected to represent Jewry, when he cannot speak for liberal or reform Jewry?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, in the review, we do not seek to get involved in the differences within religions. As your Lordships will know, we have laws on gender bias that apply to everyone, irrespective of race, religion or ethnicity. The views of liberal Jewry are, in fact, represented.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, can the noble Baroness tell us how the 70-odd per cent of religious people in this country are split? The Bishops might be interested in that.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I can certainly write to the noble Lord. All I can do is affirm—with some pleasure, I confess—that 76.8 per cent regard themselves as having some religious affiliation.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, the noble Baroness said that liberal views are represented. But is she aware that if one looks at the list of those in this curious group, only the Chief Rabbi is listed? Therefore, reform Jews, liberal Jews and secular Jews like myself are not represented on the committee and would strongly resent the idea that the Chief Rabbi spoke on our behalf on matters of government policy.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, this group is not speaking about policy matters in relation to government policy. The group is seeking to find better ways of consulting faith communities. The group is not involved directly in consultation on government policy at the moment. Your Lordships will also know that there are other advisers to the steering group who can make appropriate inputs in relation to broader issues. I absolutely take what the noble Lord says; namely, that there is a broad spectrum. Liberal Jews are indeed represented on the panel of advisers.

European Union: Defence and Security Co-operation
3.1 p.m.
Lord King of Bridgwater Lord King of Bridgwater asked Her Majesty's Government:
What recent changes they have made in their policy towards the proposal for structured defence and security co-operation between European Union member states.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Symons of VernhamDean):My Lords, government policy remains unchanged. Nothing whatever must put at risk our essential defence guarantees in NATO. As agreed at the European Council of Nice in 2000, NATO remains the basis for collective defence of its members. Operationally, we are open to ideas on how to strengthen the European Union's capacity for action, provided such ideas are consistent with our principles. We have concerns about some of the proposals currently before the IGC—concerns shared by many partners. We shall continue to advance our position vigorously.
Lord King of Bridgwater: My Lords, I thank the Minister for the opening sentence in which she made clear the Government's absolute commitment to the NATO alliance, and the clarity with which she gave it. Perhaps I may say that that sentiment will be shared by all Members of the House. Is it not clear that if there are new ideas for defence circulating in Europe, they should be the subject of the closest consultation with the United States; not least because of the considerable sensitivity over events in Iraq between the United States and many countries in Europe at present?
Is it not clear that the statement by the US ambassador to NATO, Mr Nicholas Burns, suggested that the EU proposal represented the greatest danger to the trans-Atlantic alliance? It is clear that that consultation has not proceeded as it should. Will the Minister further recognise that there are elements in the United States that would be doubtful about the value of the NATO alliance and may see in the present disturbances an opportunity to press their case? In those circumstances, there is a need for absolute clarity by the British Government to make clear their position so that there is no uncertainty as to the strength of the trans-Atlantic alliance.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I hope that I have made clear to the whole House that the commitment of Her Majesty's Government to NATO is undiminished and as strong as ever. I have also made clear that some of the concerns we have about current proposals before the IGC are shared with quite a number of our European Union colleagues.
In relation to consultations with the United States, I noticed in your Lordships’ discussion on this matter on Monday that the noble Lord, Lord Howell of
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Guildford, raised the matter. I am bound to say that I am told that the US ambassador was quoted out of context in his interview with Radio Free Europe. He said:
"The UK is the closest ally of the United States and we have a perfect understanding of each other and we are working closely together and there are no problems between the US and the UK on this issue".
I hope that that assurance allays some of the noble Lord's concerns.
Lord Harrison: My Lords, in working towards a common defence policy—as agreed in the Maastricht Treaty—does my noble friend agree that there are considerable savings to be made on behalf of the British taxpayer by avoiding unnecessary duplication of resources for our Armed Forces and the lack of interoperability that now exists between those same forces?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, yes, I agree that the genesis of this came from the Maastricht Treaty. However, I would point out to my noble friend that it is considerably clarified by the Amsterdam Treaty. He is entirely right that our policy must be aimed at avoiding any unnecessary duplication, provided—I stress the point again—it does not undermine our policy as regards NATO. Of course, such organisations as OCCAR are designed to ensure that there is no duplication of effort. It is important that the European Union pulls its weight on defence matters.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, will the Minister agree that since the late 1950s the United States has pushed for stronger European co-operation in NATO, but every time the Europeans move towards stronger European co-operation in NATO, there are those in Washington who get terribly anxious and begin to protest? What the noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, described accurately as an outburst from the US ambassador represents, yet again, that semi-contradictory approach. Does she admit that the Western European Union (WEU) was a perfect example of structured co-operation among members of the European Union and that, now that the WEU has been merged into the European Union, it would not be inappropriate for that kind of thing to continue?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I hope that I made it clear that there is a view that the United States ambassador was quoted out of context. I understand that the guidance from the State Department is still supportive of ESDP. It is important for your Lordships to realise that. On the question of the WEU, we must ensure that there is no duplication with the NATO commitment and that the European Union's capabilities are strengthened in an operational sense so that we are able to deploy, as we did through a national headquarters, for the Petersberg tasks in the Congo.
Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, in the light of the noble Barones’s first reply to my noble friend Lord King, can she assure the House that the three articles introducing a common defence guarantee and an inner defence corps will be excised from the final treaty text as they clearly create an unnecessary rival to NATO?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I am unable to give specific guarantees about specific clauses at this point. However, in relation to the IGC, we have two concerns. First, we do not agree that any treaty should allow those who are in the initial structured co-operation group to decide who joins structured co-operation arrangements. Secondly, the draft treaty implies that a small group of EU countries could set up a small defence collective for the purposes of neutral defence. That would cut across NATO and in its current form it is unacceptable.
Lord King of Bridgwater: My Lords, I should like to point out to the Minister, if we have time—
Noble Lords: Time!
The Lord President of the Council (Baroness Amos): My Lords, there is sufficient time for the noble Lord to ask his question.
Lord King of Bridgwater: My Lords, I am grateful to the Leader of the House. While the Minister said that the US ambassador's remarks were quoted out of context, the Minister is aware that there were exchanges in NATO and that the American ambassador called specifically for an emergency meeting of ambassadors to discuss the matter. That does not sound to me as though that was entirely out of context. Does the Minister agree that it is vitally important that the United Kingdom, as a key ally of the United States, is absolutely clear where it stands on this issue? When the Americans ask for consultation, it is not sufficient to allow the French to say that it is none of the United State’ business.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I hope that nothing I said detracted from that point. I was merely making a point about a specific quote mentioned in your Lordship’ House on Monday, which may have caused a number of your Lordships some alarm. Our ambassador to NATO has made the UK's position clear; it is a position shared by other partners. We will not support anything which undermines NATO. Any treaty change would have to be based on a unanimous vote. Therefore, if we do not agree, it simply cannot happen.

Northern Ireland
3.9 p.m.
Baroness Amos: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to repeat a Statement made earlier today in another place by my right honourable friend
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the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The Statement is as follows:
"1 should like to make a Statement about political developments in Northern Ireland. The House will be aware that yesterday, although a day of great progress, ended in disappointment. We had high hopes that a sequence of actions involving political parties, the IRA, the Independent International Commission for Decommissioning and the governments would result in a positive new atmosphere of trust at the beginning of the election campaign.
"I believe that we were close to achieving that result. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach devoted much effort to the task both yesterday and in the preceding weeks. But the significant feature of this recent phase of the process was the direct engagement between the leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party and of Sinn Fein.
"These discussions and related developments have, in my view, brought us a good deal further than the position we reached in April. Let us be clear what has now been achieved.
"First, we have concluded that an election should now be held in Northern Ireland. The date, Wednesday, 26th November, was announced yesterday.
"Secondly, we have an important statement from the leader of Sinn Fein which was endorsed by the IRA. When Mr Adams says that there will be full and final closure of the conflict and his remarks are endorsed by the IRA, I regard that as a significant and welcome step forward.
"Thirdly, with the Irish Government, we have established the Independent Monitoring Commission to ensure that the promise of the full and final closure of the conflict is a reality.

"Fourthly, the IRA authorised its representatives to re-engage with the IICD with a view to putting arms beyond use at the earliest opportunity.
"Fifthly, there was an important act of decommissioning about which General de Chastelain reported to the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach. He confirmed that the arms dealt with included light, medium and heavy ordnance and associated munitions, and that the quantity involved was considerably larger than that dealt with in the previous event. His colleague, Mr Andrew Sens, made the point that the material involved could have caused death or destruction on a huge scale if it had been used.
"It is, of course, a matter of great disappointment that the IICD, constrained by the confidentiality insisted upon by the IRA, was unable to report all this in a manner sufficiently detailed to enable the right honourable Member for Upper Bann to make a positive statement about his party's willingness to re-enter a devolved administration following an election. He did, however, say that there were good things in Mr Adam’s speech which were encouraging.
"The two governments have made clear in the Joint Declaration that arms need to be put beyond use in a manner that is conducive to creating public confidence. This has not so far been achieved.

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"As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister indicated at Hillsborough yesterday, we shall continue to try to find a way through this difficulty. Further discussions between the parties are obviously essential. The IICD will need to be involved and the British and Irish Governments will do all they can to resolve this problem quickly.
"In the mean time, the necessary legal steps need to be taken so that the election announced yesterday can take place. Accordingly, I have made an order to enable fresh elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly to be held on Wednesday, 26th November.
"I have also made an associated order to defer the publication of the new electoral register due on 1st December because the necessary work cannot be carried out during preparations for an election. And I am putting forward a further order permitting the Electoral Commission access to polling stations.
"I cannot hide my disappointment at yesterday's turn of events. I hope and believe that agreement can be reached so that the comprehensive acts of completion which the Prime Minister called for last October can be achieved, and we can move towards a stable, devolved government in Northern Ireland.
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
3.13 p.m.
Lord Glentoran: I thank the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for repeating the Statement made by the Secretary of State in another place. Members on this side of the House are also very disappointed at the outcome of yesterday.
I agree with the noble Baroness that things have certainly moved forward over recent weeks in the attempts to maintain the momentum of the Belfast agreement, and we support the Government's decision to hold elections. However, I must ask the noble Baroness a few questions as to how yesterday ended in such a complete shambles.
First, did the Prime Minister or anyone else know that General de Chastelain had been confined to strict confidentiality by the IRA as to what he could reveal before he went public? Secondly, had the Government not verified with Mr Adams and Mr Trimble exactly what each thought the deal was, and as it is the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach who have made clear in the Joint Declaration the need for "creating public confidence", had they not assured themselves that sufficient had been delivered and in such a way as to achieve that objective? If not, does the noble Baroness agree that to have run the government spin machine, seriously over-hyped the possible outcome of yesterday's events and brought the Prime Minister almost from his sick bed, was a huge mistake?
Furthermore, does she agree that the over-spinning of the outcome could have been misinterpreted by republicans as triumphalism on the part of the Government—hence having a negative effect on the process?
The noble Baroness spoke about a number of positive developments that have taken place, such as the speech made yesterday by Mr. Adams,
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subsequently endorsed, as we understand and the noble Baroness has just confirmed, by the IRA. The Prime Minister said earlier today that Mr Adam’s speech satisfied his demand—made in April—that all IRA paramilitary activity would end and that the IRA would cease to exist as an effective paramilitary force. Perhaps for the record and for the sake of clarity, the noble Baroness will tell the House exactly where in Mr Adam’s speech this has been stated in those terms.
Moreover, if it is the Government's belief that the speech made by Mr Adams means that paramilitary activity will end, why can Mr Adams still not bring himself to use precisely those words?
Another development to which the noble Baroness referred was the third act of IRA decommissioning that took place yesterday, as witnessed by General de Chastelain. Obviously we welcome that act in so far as we know what it actually entails. But do not the events following the general's statement yesterday afternoon underline the need for a much greater transparency on the whole issue of decommissioning, and on whether the so-called war is over?
I shall quote from what my leader Iain Duncan Smith said to the Prime Minister today in another place:
"Last night, the media reported that British officials had spoken in briefings about the kinds of weapons that had been decommissioned. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that if the people of Northern Ireland knew what he knew, they would be satisfied".
Surely the time has come to end the secrecy over this act of decommissioning and put the full details into the public domain so that the people of Northern Ireland can judge for themselves what has been done.
Surely there is now an urgent need for the Government to give us the details of what has been agreed about an ongoing process of decommissioning that will lead to all illegal weapons finally being put beyond use. Only then will the necessary trust and confidence be established so that, once the elections are out of the way, there is a chance of reforming the executive and of moving this process to the successful conclusion that we all want.
3.18 p.m.
Lord Smith of Clifton: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for repeating the Statement made by the Secretary of State in another place. Yesterday marked a disappointing but hardly surprising turn of events. At least there is now to be an election for a new Assembly which noble Lords on these Benches have been calling for long since. I correctly forecast last October that the suspension of the Assembly was likely to be very prolonged. In May and June I argued that a new Assembly be elected so that negotiations about the formation of a new executive could take place between the pro-agreement parties within the Assembly whose mandates would have been renewed. That, six months later, is what will now happen.
In pursuing the course of actions adopted., the Government wasted six months. But worse than that delay has been the huge collateral damage inflicted

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on those political parties which have effectively been excluded from the negotiations. By confining negotiations to Sinn Fein and the UUP, the Government, with Dublin's compliance, has sidelined the SDLP, the Alliance, the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition and the PUP to all intents and purposes. This will have severely impaired them in the forthcoming election. It will not be held on a level playing field.
Practising the black arts in smoke-filled rooms—I speak metaphorically now that Dr John Reid is no longer Secretary of State for Northern Ireland—with an attempt to exercise rigid control on the part of No. 10, has proved not to be the best way to resume democratic devolution. As we saw yesterday—and as could have been predicted—the UUP/Sinn Fein deal fell apart in the Government's hands. Trying to manipulate the process in this way has been counter-productive and is the very antithesis of inclusive democratic dialogue. The Government must now rue the day they peremptorily and unilaterally aborted the May election.
At least there is now going to be an election, and that is to be welcomed. After that, the pro-agreement parties— along with, I suspect, the DUP—will seek to establish an executive. I hope they succeed. In the mean time, the Government would be well advised to back off trying to choreograph down to the last detail some kind of a deal between Sinn Fein and the UUP. Will the Government now proceed with a much lighter rein and go in for much less micro-management? Even if the duopolistic deal can be revived, there is no guarantee that David Trimble can deliver given the ruptures within his own party and in the wider Unionist community.
Let the people of Northern Ireland now speak; let their freshly elected representatives attempt to form a power-sharing executive; and let us hope that it is successful.
3.21 p.m.
Baroness Amos: My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their comments but, before I answer the specific questions that have been raised, let me say that I am a little disappointed with their response. Considerable progress has been made and it is not helpful to describe the outcome of yesterday's discussions as a shambles when talks are still ongoing and we are in the midst of very delicate negotiations. We all know how difficult peace processes are; we all know how difficult it is to reach the stage where negotiations are concluded; and we all know that there will be points where we take steps backwards rather than forwards. Of course we are deeply disappointed—we will have to consider what happened yesterday—but, at the same time, recriminations are not helpful.
Talks have been going on between the UUP and Sinn Fein. The Government have not been a party to those talks. The leaders of the two parties have been engaged in those talks and that is a considerable step forward given the position of the parties only a few months ago.
Specific questions have been asked in regard to confidentiality in decommissioning and inclusivity in the talks. The decommissioning legislation expressly
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provides for the principle of confidentiality if the organisation doing the decommissioning asks for it. The Government are clear that they would like to see greater transparency, but that is the nature of the legislation. It was considered necessary when the system was established in order that decommissioning should take place at all. We all agree that we need a system to deliver complete decommissioning, but it should be done in a manner which is conducive to creating public confidence. That is the next stage. In answering questions in another place today, the Prime Minister made clear that we would be working on finding a way to disclose and that the talks will continue. I hope that that will reassure the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran.
As regards hype, this is entirely a matter of confidence between the parties. The process has not been orchestrated by the Government. We have done all we can to facilitate engagement between the parties and we shall continue to do so. We shall try and try again in relation to that.
The issue of inclusivity was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton. Devolved government was suspended because of a lack of confidence between two of the parties. Restoration of confidence has been a key requirement for moving forward and, as noble Lords will know, there have been a large number of meetings between those two parties. However, it is important to put on record that we would not have made the great advances of recent times without the collective effort of all the pro-agreement parties. I pay tribute to the courage and commitment of them all. As I said in the House earlier this week, there have been ongoing discussions with the other parties.
As regards the speech of Mr Adams, as I said in the Statement, he called for a full and final closure of the conflict—and that was endorsed by the IRA.
3.25 p.m.
Lord Dubs: My Lords, on the basis of the information made available to us, the two Governments are to be congratulated on having brought the talks so close to success. Many of us wonder why the talks failed because, technically, the differences appear to be slight. Was there a reason for the breakdown? Given the assurances of the Prime Minister, does my noble friend agree that if everyone knew what he knew we would be satisfied? Will not the parties in Northern Ireland think again about the outcome—which has not succeeded so far—and redouble their efforts to bring these talks to a conclusion? We have been so close that it would be a tragedy if they cannot bring it off this time.
Baroness Amos: My Lords, I agree that we are so close that it would be a pity if we were not able to come to a conclusion. As I said in answer to questions from the noble Lords, Lord Glentoran and Lord Smith of Clifton, we will try and try again. It is good that the

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parties will continue to talk. As the Prime Minister said earlier today, we are working on finding a way to disclose on the issue of decommissioning.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, the Irish and British Governments set up the monitoring commission to observe whether the acts of completion were being carried out as part of the run-up to, and condition of, the election. But in his speech Mr Adams dismissed the monitoring commission with the greatest contempt. Can the Lord President assure the House that, nevertheless, the IRA will be required to allow people in the Irish communities—who are still being terribly treated by IRA paramilitaries—to testify to the commission? Is that one of the requirements to be placed on Mr Adams as proof of genuine good faith?
Baroness Amos: My Lords, the noble Baroness asked me earlier in the week about the commission. I hope that she has received my letter in response.
The draft international agreement establishing the commission was published early in September. Once signed and ratified the agreement will formally confer functions on the commission and set out the terms of its operation. I do not want to anticipate its terms of operation. There was a recent announcement in regard to the setting-up of the commission and the work it is anticipated it will do. I should like to check the facts relating to the noble Barones’s question and write to her.
Lord Rogan: My Lords, I, too, welcome the Statement. I agree with the Minister that recrimination takes us nowhere and that we should try to make progress. But that does not take away the disappointment that everyone in Northern Ireland— and, I am sure, in the House—felt at the turn of events yesterday when General de Chastelain failed to give transparency to the IRA's act of decommissioning.
Like other parties, Ulster Unionists wish to see the election of a government in Northern Ireland. However, what we saw yesterday fell far short of our expectations. We expected greater transparency from the IRA and greater clarity from the IICD about precisely what had been decommissioned.
The Prime Minister has continually pointed to a lack of confidence among Unionists in Ulster. If, as the Prime Minister suggested last night, the IRA has undertaken a substantial act of decommissioning and is now finally and fully committed to the political process, will the Government now assist in rebuilding lost confidence by disclosing the details of yesterday's decommissioning event?
The Prime Minister, Ministers and officials continually refer to the decommissioning legislation as constraining their ability to disclose fully the decommissioning information. Can the noble Baroness pinpoint where in the legislation this confidentiality clause actually is? Can she further tell us to whom or to what exactly this confidentiality
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clause applies; or does it just apply to the IICD and General de Chastelain, thus excluding the Prime Minister from this obligation?
Baroness Amos: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, for his general comments and his recognition of the work which has gone into this process. I entirely agree with him about the nature of the disappointment.
It is open for a group to decommission with confidentiality. This was agreed to and, as my right honourable friend the Prime Minister made clear in another place earlier today, he is not at liberty to disclose without the general's permission.
As I said earlier, the Government would like more transparency. We will work to achieve that greater transparency because it is an important way of restoring confidence. I can only repeat what my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said earlier today—that we will work on finding a way to disclose.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, does the Lord President of the Council agree that the vast majority of ordinary people in Northern Ireland want to see an end to political and criminal violence? Further, can she confirm that I am right in thinking that there have already been three substantial rounds of IRA disarmament, but on the other side of the equation, I believe that so far only nine obsolete weapons have been produced for destruction by loyalist paramilitaries? Does that not indicate a rather asymmetrical situation, and does she see a prospect for remedying that?
Finally, can the noble Baroness confirm that full and final closure of the conflict is intended to encompass such events as beatings, shootings in the leg, exilings, death threats and intimidation? Is that not a consummation greatly to be desired?
Baroness Amos: My Lords, I think we are all agreed that the statement made by Mr Adams yesterday, which was endorsed by the IRA, that there would be full and final closure of the conflict, marks a very significant and welcome step forward. In terms of the application of that to specific areas, which is what the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, is asking me, I am afraid I am not able to go into those specific areas, but if I can give the noble Lord any further information, I will be happy to do so.
I entirely agree with the noble Lord that we are all seeking an end to the political and criminal violence in Northern Ireland. That is something the people of Northern Ireland desperately want.
On decommissioning, it was confirmed yesterday by General de Chastelain that the quantity involved was considerably larger than that dealt with in the previous decommissioning event. I hope that reassures the noble Lord that the decommissioning process applies not just to the IRA but to all paramilitary groups.
Lord Shutt of Greetland: My Lords, in welcoming the Lord President's Statement, I, too, was very pleased to learn and hear about the discussions that had taken place between Mr Trimble and Mr Adams. We are told there have been several. However, I also saw that that could create problems because others have not been involved. What I did not bargain for was that as a result of those discussions and what was supposed to happen yesterday, it would appear that the two parties did not know what they had agreed. This seems very strange indeed.
There is supposed to be choreography; it seems to me that what was lacking was a clerk to the choreography. Could the Government assist in making certain that where these things happen, people at least know what they are supposed to have agreed, because that—to me, at any rate—was the tragedy of what happened yesterday?
Baroness Amos: My Lords, the important thing as we see it is that the Government's role is to try to facilitate the process where the parties are talking. That is very much the approach that we have taken.
I am unable to comment on the noble Lord's point with respect to a clerk being needed to take a note of the conversations. The important thing is that these conversations are taking place at all. I think and hope that as a result of yesterday the parties will now look very seriously at what has happened and will think through what steps they need to take to build on the confidence which is already being created to enable us to take the process to the final step.
Lord Fitt: My Lords, since the signing of the Belfast agreement, it has always been known by elected representatives in Northern Ireland that the question of decommissioning would be of crucial importance in bringing about any settlement. Indeed, the paramilitaries—the IRA—had given an undertaking that total decommissioning would take place within two years. Repeatedly in this House, it has been drawn to the Government's attention that the whole question of decommissioning must be made more transparent. I have a copy of Hansard in my hand, containing a speech I made in this House on 12th September, when we came back after the summer recess. I stressed that it was crucial that the people of Northern Ireland should be made aware of what took place under the aegis of the de Chastelain commission.
I heard only yesterday—as, I think, did other noble Lords—that the secrecy built into the de Chastelain commission was insisted upon by one of the paramilitary organisations. The very fact that secrecy was built in has led to great suspicion, but then all communities in Northern Ireland, particularly the Unionist community, feel very insecure. I listened to some of the speeches made in the other place this morning; we were told that if the IRA decommissioned, the loyalist murder gangs—the paramilitaries—would decommission in support of that. Does anyone really believe, at this moment in time, that the loyalist murder gangs of the UDA and UVF will rush to decommission because of what happened yesterday?
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Northern Ireland politicians were placed in a very distressing situation yesterday. The noble Baroness said that the British Government had no involvement in the discussions between the two parties. Then why have all these meetings been taking place in Downing Street over the past weeks? The two parties that were involved were in and out of there like yo-yos. However, other political parties, such as the SDLP, the party which I formerly led, and the Alliance party—I agree with what has been said on the Liberal Democrat Benches—although instrumental in and constructive about the process, were totally excluded. What happened yesterday—and I hesitate to predict this and hope that I am wrong—means that in the forthcoming election Sinn Fein will take seats from the SDLP and the so-called Democratic Unionist Party will take seats off the official Unionist Party. In what situation will the Government and the people of Northern Ireland then find themselves?
I refer to the fact that the Government agreed that the de Chastelain scheme would be surrounded by such secrecy. I repeat what I said on 12th of this month in relation to the Monitoring Commission—that if the same secrecy is going to surround the activities of that body, there is too much secrecy in Northern Ireland. The people who are in a position to decide to cast their votes must be made totally aware of what is happening, so that they can vote in their interests in Northern Ireland.
Baroness Amos: My Lords, first, I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, that given the history, we need to be sure that Unionists and others in Northern Ireland are clear that there is a substantial act of decommissioning. I entirely agree with him on that. However, I remind him that, when the system of decommissioning was established, it was considered necessary to have the confidentiality clause, because it was felt that decommissioning would not happen at all with out it. The confidentiality requirement is set out in the decommissioning scheme, which is based on Sections 3(1 )(c) and (d) of the Northern Ireland Arms Decommissioning Act 1997. It has been in place for some time.
On the question that the noble Lord raised with respect to inclusivity, I repeat what I said in relation to earlier questions. The suspension occurred because of a lack of confidence and trust between two parties, which have been engaged in discussions to enable us to work towards restoring, or beginning to establish, that confidence and trust. That is why the focus has been on those two parties. Having said that, there have been meetings with other parties. Indeed, in the past two weeks there were two meetings between my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and the SDLP.
Lord Molyneaux of Killead: My Lords, like most old hands, the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, and I might be tempted to say that this high-wire act, like many before it, is in very real danger of collapsing after five years. However, I want to be positive.

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I do not expect a reply today, because the Minister has not had notice of the question. Will Her Majesty's Government consider a plan for administrative devolution designed by a former government, endorsed in 1979 by the entire United Kingdom electorate, but sabotaged by the Foreign Office and its allies on the grounds that—to use their own words— "It was not enough"? The problem with "not enough" is that it usually means that you get nothing; I have said that before. But surely the time has come to revise that modest plan after a vacuum of 22 years, and this time build it on really solid foundations.
Baroness Amos: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for making it clear that he does not require an answer to that question today. It is something that we must go away and consider, and I will of course write to him.
Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, should we not reflect on the years that preceded the Good Friday agreement and the deaths, violence, carnage and hatred in the two intractably opposed communities in Northern Ireland? We should reiterate and welcome the progress that we have made since then, and not least pay some credit to the leadership of David Trimble. In very difficult circumstances, he has persevered against all the odds, both inside and outside his party and across the communities in Northern Ireland. Many of us admire the courage that he has shown.
Although the process may today be in some disarray, the fact that there is a process at all is something that we should welcome, and be optimistic and strong about. Over the summer, such a personal relationship has developed between David Trimble and Gerry Adams; that could never have happened before the Good Friday process. There may be stumbles and a faltering approach, but this is the way in which we will see normality in Northern Ireland, the entrenching of democratic institutions and the proper way towards peace. The Government should be congratulated on facilitating those things and helping the process along.
Baroness Amos: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, first for reminding us of some of the recent history and, in particular, of the situation before the Good Friday agreement. We have had the quietest summer in Northern Ireland for some 30 years. The noble Lord is quite right.
We should pay tribute to the collective efforts of all the parties in Northern Ireland for their courage and commitment. For example, without the SDLP's commitment to the policing process several years ago, we would be much less far forward than we are now. The noble Lord referred to the courage and bravery of David Trimble. Others too numerous to mention have been engaged in the process and have stuck with it because the ultimate prize is peace.

Extradition Bill
3.45 p.m.
Report received.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns Baroness Anelay of St Johns moved Amendment No. 1:
Before Clause 1, insert the following new clause—
"PURPOSE) OF THIS ACT
The purpose of this Act is to make provision about extradition and to give effect to the Council Framework Decision of 13th June 2002, on the European arrest warrant and the surrender procedures between Member States."
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, after nine days in Grand Committee, this important Bill now reaches the Floor of the House. I welcome the fact that the Government have listened to some of the arguments put in Grand Committee and have tabled a total of 158 amendments to the Bill. I give advance notice that some of the government amendments on the significant issues will need to be further amended. That reflects the fact that the Government listened to some of the arguments put in Grand Committee, but also, sadly, that they have set their face against the argument of principle that we pressed on the issue of the European arrest warrant. Today, therefore, we have ahead of us some important amendments.
The objective of Amendment No. 1 is to set out clearly the purpose that underpins this legislation, and ensure that a reference is made to surrender procedures right at the start. We had a substantial debate on the amendment in Grand Committee, and my noble friend Lord Hodgson raised the issue briefly in a debate on the Criminal Justice Bill earlier this month. I shall therefore abide by the guidance on the Report stage and try to be as brief as possible.
The Long Title of the Bill states that it is a Bill to make, "provision about extradition". We believe that that is misleading. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, pointed out in Grand Committee that Parts 1 and 2 of the Bill serve different purposes and are based on distinctly different procedures. Another of the Minister's many noble friends, the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, made the same point, when he said that,
"while the Bill concerns extradition, Part 1 especially seeks to give effect to the framework decision about the European arrest warrant and surrender procedures which are explicitly stated in that decision to be the object of the Union".—[Official Report, 3/6/03; col. GC 122.]
The new extradition system for category 1 countries does not correspond in any way to the meaning of the word "extradition" as understood by the public. To them, extradition means a fully judicial process involving home and overseas judicial authorities, with appropriate checks and balances. Under this proposal, in Part 1, those checks and balances are too few.
Perhaps we should not be surprised, because the European arrest warrant is contained in a Council framework decision in paragraph 5, of which the preamble reads:
"The objective set for the Union to become an area of freedom, security and justice leads to abolishing extradition"—
I emphasise "abolishing"—
"between member states and replacing it by a system of surrender between judicial authorities".
A sample of the warrant to be used is included later in the document. Paragraph (i) of the warrant refers to:
"contact details of the person to contact to make necessary practical arrangements for the surrender".
We propose nothing more sinister than clarity in stating that the purpose of the Bill is not straightforward extradition but, in Part 1, surrender as well. I beg to move.
Lord Dholakia: My Lords, the main issue before us today is an attempt to remove Part 1, which concerns the European arrest warrant, or to restrict it to terrorist offences. I make clear that if that is the main aim, we shall certainly support the Government on the matter.
The noble Baroness talked about the European arrest warrant. We simply want to ensure that it will simplify and speed up extradition procedures. In particular, it will be unnecessary to provide prima facie evidence in support of an application for extradition. However, that is not a major change in the law, because all European Union member states are already party to the Council of Europe Convention on Extradition, which dispenses with the need to provide prima facie evidence.
The argument is likely to be based mainly on the restriction of dual criminality, to which we shall come later, and which is a rule that forbids extradition unless the relevant offence is a crime under the laws of both the territory requesting extradition and the territory receiving the request. Under the framework decision setting up the European arrest warrant, Article 2.2, concerning EU members, states that dual criminality must not be applied for the 32 categories of offences listed in the article if the minimum sentence for that offence in the requesting territory is at least two years.
We accept that on the ground that people are required to observe the law of the territory in which they are present and, in the case of serious offences, should not be able to escape extradition on the technical ground that the offence with which they are charged does not correspond to a specific offence under UK law.
Later, we shall debate large groups of amendments led by Amendments Nos. 3 and 6.I am dealing with the matter now because I do not want to pop up on every amendment in those groups simply to say that we will not support them.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, there is often, but not always, good reason for a purpose clause in a Bill. In this case, the reason is compelling. I am sure
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that my noble friend has not moved the amendment as a gesture; there is a need for a purpose clause. If the Bill is to be properly understood now and in future, it must make clear that it has the two distinct purposes to which my noble friend referred. Its aim is to speed up existing extradition procedures with countries outside the European Union and also to include in English and Scots law the European Union framework agreement already accepted by the Government.
As my noble friend said, in its preamble the framework states that it will lead to the abolition of extradition and its replacement with a system of surrender. The Bill abolishes extradition and introduces a system of surrender. It also improves extradition with states outside the Union. Surely it should say so. The Short and Long Titles do not state that. My noble friend suggested that they are misleading; they are. There must be a purpose clause. I hope that the Government will agree to that; that would do them no harm and make for clarity in future. I support the amendment.
Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I have come to the opposite conclusion. Everything that could be said in favour of the amendment ought to be said in speeches, not spelt out in the Bill. Many Bills come before the House of which people observe that certain matters ought to be stressed. That is right. The purposes spelt out in the amendment are entirely appropriate, but that is not a matter for the Bill. I hope that the noble Baroness will not press the amendment to a Division, because it would be counter-productive.
Lord Carlisle of Bucklow: My Lords, I shall briefly support my noble friend Lady Anelay on the amendment. When we debated an identical amendment upstairs in Committee, the then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, said that he would reflect on what we said. Although he held out no great hopes of agreeing with our proposal, he nevertheless made clear that he would reflect on it. He said that he believed it important that the Bill's purpose be made clear.
The amendment is important and a purpose clause justified in this case because this is a major Bill that makes substantial change to existing law. On Second Reading, I had the temerity to suggest that it was difficult to say that this is merely a Bill to simplify the Extradition Act 1989 when it extends to many clauses and pages and is far longer than the Act that it claims to simplify.
In two vital ways, the Bill changes the law for category 1 countries, in that it does away with the requirement for the Secretary of State to have an executive role in returning those for whom extradition has been asked; and because it does away with the rule of dual criminality, which has always been accepted. A Bill as fundamental as that should make clear in its purpose clause what it does, which is as my noble friend Lady Anelay described.
Does the Minister have any real objection to including the clause? In particular, does she agree—as, it appears, it was implicitly accepted in Committee— that the words of the purpose clause, whether or not it

1629
is necessary, accurately reflect what the Bill does? If I am right about that, is there any harm in having that written into the Bill?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for tabling this amendment, but I must say that I am sorry that we must start the debate in this way, with the Government being accused so boldly of being misleading. Nothing could be further from the truth. Noble Lords will know that both in the other place and in Grand Committee the Government have strenuously defended our position and been open and frank about the purposes for which the Bill is to be used. There has been no attempt to mislead, hide or cover our purpose.
I must endorse everything that the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, said and thank him for the clarity and succinctness with which he outlined the purpose of this part. Unsurprisingly, I also agree with the comments of my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis. I refute the charge made in its entirety. The framework decision cleared scrutiny in both this House and another place well before the Bill was even introduced. At every stage, the Government explained that the framework decision and the European arrest warrant would be implemented by Part 1 of the Bill and have ensured that the way in which the Bill transposes the provisions into United Kingdom law is clear. There has been no secret there either: the link between the Bill and the framework decision is transparent.
It is important that we get the Bill right, because it will govern the law in the United Kingdom; as all noble Lords know, the framework decision has no legal force.
We believe that the Long Title of the Bill—
"to make provision about extradition",
is clear and accurate. Extradition is about the transfer of a wanted fugitive after due judicial process—a definition which applies equally to Part 1 of this Bill as much as it does to Part 2 and, for that matter, to the Extradition Act 1989.
If I may say so, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, seems somewhat preoccupied with the term "surrender". I believe that term was also used by the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy. As the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, rightly said, it is a term used in the framework decision, but for the purposes of this Bill and our system in the United Kingdom we believe that it is clearer and more accurate to refer consistently to extradition throughout the legislation. The Bill is about extradition—the process of sending back wanted criminals to face justice after due judicial process. It is simply wrong to claim that the Bill puts in place surrender arrangements which somehow deviate from that.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, mentioned, we dealt with this matter in passing in a different context in Committee on the Criminal Justice Bill. I urge the noble Baroness and noble Lords opposite not to press the amendment. As my noble friend Lord Filkin promised, we reconsidered the matter. We considered whether it had merit and we came to the conclusion that that which we have now expresses the truth of the
1630
situation and is clear, honest and straightforward. Therefore, we do not think that there is any need to amend further. I ask the noble Baroness not to press the amendment.
4 p.m.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I perfectly understand the position taken by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia. The Liberal Democrats made their position clear throughout Grand Committee and spring no surprises on me. The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, is deputising for the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, who is the Liberal Democrat spokesman on the Bill but who is unavoidably absent. I accept that he has taken the proper course in saying that he will not speak to each and every group of amendments.
I am grateful for the support of my noble friends Lady Carnegy and Lord Carlisle of Bucklow regarding the need for a clear statement of purpose. The Minister said that the Government preferred to refer consistently simply to extradition and that they have been clear and open about what the Bill is about The Government pepper the Bill with references to surrender. We simply seek greater clarity. Later we shall discuss government Amendment No. 308, which seeks to insert the European framework list on the face of the Bill. Subsection (3) of the new clause in that amendment refers to the surrender procedures between member states. So in a sense we are at one on how we consider that the framework list should operate. However, we believe that we need clarity. As my noble friends have said, we believe that a purpose clause is needed. I wish to test the opinion of the House.
4.3 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 88; Not-Contents, 155.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Ackner, L.

Ferrers, E.

Ampthill, L.

Fookes, B.

Anelay of St Johns, B.

Hanham, B.

Astor of Hever, L.

Hayhoe, L.

Attlee, E.

Higgins, L.

Biffen, L.

Hooper, B.

Bridgeman, V.

Howe, E.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Howe of Aberavon, L.

Caithness, E.

Hurd of Westwell, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Hussey of North Bradley, L.

Carlisle of Bucklow, L.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Jopling, L.

Carrington, L.

Kimball, L.

Crickhowell, L.

King of Bridgwater, L.

Denham, L.

Kingsland, L.

Dixon-Smith, L.

Knight of Collingtree, B.

Donaldson of Lymington, L.

Lamont of Lerwick, L.

Dundee, E.

Lane of Horsell, L.

Elton, L.

Lang of Monkton, L.

Feldman, L.

Lindsay, E.

1631

Lucas, L.

Renton, L.

Luke, L. [Teller]

Renton of Mount Harry, L.

Lyell, L.

Roberts of Conwy, L.

McColl of Dulwich, L

Rotherwick, L.

Mancroft, L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Marlesford, L.

Sanderson of Bowden, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Seccombe, B. [Teller]

Molyneaux of Killead, L.

Selkirk of Douglas, L.

Monro of Langholm, L.

Selsdon, L.

Monson, L.

Shaw of Northstead, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Shrewsbury, E.

Naseby, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Noakes, B.

Stevens of Ludgate, L.

Norton of Louth, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

O'Cathain, B.

Strathclyde, L.

Palmer, L.

Swinfen, L.

Park of Monmouth, B.

Taylor of Warwick, L.

Pearson of Rannoch, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Peel, E.

Trumpington, B.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Ullswater, V.

Plumb, L.

Waddington, L.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Wakeham, L.

Reay, L.

Warnock, B.

Rees, L.

Wilcox.B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Faulkner of Worcester, L.

Addington, L.

Filkin, L.

Alton of Liverpool, L.

Fitt, L.

Amos, B. (Lord President)

Gavron, L.

Andrews, B.

Geraint, L.

Archer of Sandwell, L.

Gibson of Market Rasen, B.

Ashton of Upholland, B.

Golding, B.

Barker, B.

Goldsmith, L.

Barnett, L.

Goudie, B.

Bassam of Brighton, L.

Gould of Potternewton, B.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Berkeley, L.

Grocott, L. [Teller]

Bernstein of Craigweil, L.

Guildford, Bp.

Billingham, B.

Harris of Richmond, B.

Blackstone, B.

Harrison, L.

Bledisloe, V.

Haskel, L.

Borrie, L.

Hogg of Cumbernauld, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Bradshaw, L.

Holme of Cheltenham, L.

Brett, L.

Hooson, L.

Brooke of Alverthorpe, L.

Howarth of Breckland. B.

Brookman, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Campbell-Savours, L.

Hoyle, L.

Carter, L.

Hughes of Woodside, L.

Chan, L.

Hunt of Kings Heath, L.

Christopher, L.

Irvine of Lairg, L.

Clark of Windermere, L.

Islwyn, L.

Clement-Jones, L.

Jay of Paddington, B.

Clinton-Davis, L.

Jones, L.

Corbett of Castle Vale, L.

Jordan, L.

Crawley, B.

King of West Bromwich, L.

David, B.

Kirkhill, L.

Davies of Coity, L.

Lea of Crondall, L.

Davies of Oldham, L. [Teller]

Lester of Herne Hill, L.

Dholakia, L.

Linklater of Butterstone, B.

Dixon, L.

Lipsey, L.

Donoughue, L.

Listowel, E.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Lockwood, B.

Dubs, L.

Lofthouse of Pontefract, L.

Eatwell, L.

Macdonald of Tradeston, L.

Elder, L.

Mclntosh of Haringey, L.

Erroll, E.

Mclntosh of Hudnall, B.

Evans of Parkside, L.

MacKenzie of Culkein, L.

Evans of Temple Guiting, L.

Mackenzie of Framwellgate, L.

Ezra, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Falconer of Thoroton, L. (Lord Chancellor)

Maclennan of Rogart, L.

Maddock, B.

Falkland, V.

Mallalieu, B.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Mar and Kellie, E.

1632

Marsh, L.

Scotland of Asthal, B.

Mason of Barnsley, L.

Scott of Needham Market, B.

Massey of Darwen, B.

Sharp of Guildford, B.

Merlyn-Rees, L.

Sheldon, L.

Mitchell, L.

Shutt of Greetland, L.

Morris of Aberavon, L.

Simon, V.

Morris of Manchester, L.

Smith of Clifton, L.

Newby, L.

Smith of Leigh, L.

Nicol, B.

Stallard, L.

Parekh, L.

Strange, B.

Patel of Blackburn, L.

Symons of Vernham Dean, B.

Pendry, L.

Tanlaw, L.

Peston, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Pitkeathley, B.

Temple-Morris, L.

Plant of Highfield, L.

Thomas of Gresford, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Thomson of Monifieth, L.

Puttnam, L.

Tope, L.

Radice, L.

Tordoff.L.

Ramsay of Cartvale.B.

Turner of Camden, B.

Razzall, L.

Varley, L.

Redesdale, L.

Walmsley, B.

Rendell of Babergh, B.

Warner, L.

Richard, L.

Watson of Invergowrie, L.

Richardson of Calow, B.

Weatherill, L.

Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.

Whitaker, B.

Rooker, L.

Whitty, L.

Roper, L.

Wilkins, B.

Russell-Johnston, L.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Sandberg, L.

Woolmer of Leeds, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
4.14 p.m.
Clause 1 [Extradition to category 1 territories]:
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, line 6, leave out "Order in Council" and insert "order made by the Secretary of State"
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving the amendment, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 5.
I hope that your Lordships will welcome and agree to the government amendments. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for tabling Amendment No. 5, which is concerned with the designation of territories under Part 1. However, I believe that in the light of the additional protection and scrutiny offered by the government amendments, Amendment No. 5 will not be necessary or appropriate.
The group is the first of a number of groups of government amendments which we will discuss today. I hope that it will set the tone for those to come, as I imagine it will be welcome to your Lordships. The amendments, like many to come, respond to points raised in Grand Committee. We have gone away and considered many of the points raised, and in many cases have been able to come forward with government amendments designed to meet the concerns.
In this case, we are dealing with an issue that was raised not only by noble Lords in Grand Committee, but by the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform. That committee recommended that orders designating countries as extradition partners should be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, even though that represents a much higher level of parliamentary scrutiny than we have at the moment. We have taken those comments to heart.
The main purpose of the amendments is therefore to provide that, henceforth, the designation of the United Kingdom's extradition partners will be by the affirmative resolution procedure. For the avoidance of doubt, I should also put on record that any orders to disapply the prima facie evidential requirement for any country, and any orders to vary the period within which a Part 2 country has to supply full papers following provisional arrest, are also subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. Again, that is in line with the recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.
I should explain why in a number of places in the Bill we are changing Orders in Council to Secretary of State orders. Simply, there is no reason why designation orders should be Orders in Council. They are at the moment, but that is a legacy of the Extradition Act 1870, passed when the world was a very different place and we legislated in a very different way. Using Orders in Council makes life much more difficult, not least because timing is very much constrained by the timetable of Privy Council meetings. The key point—I should stress it—is that making the change has absolutely no impact on the level of parliamentary scrutiny that the orders receive. That is determined by the rest of the Bill and, as I have just explained, we are providing for all designation orders to be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.
Amendment No. 5 would restrict the countries which could be designated under Part 1 to those which had signed the framework decision on the EAW, which are the member states of the EU, Norway and Iceland. The issue was debated at some length in Grand Committee. On 3rd June, the Grand Committee's first sitting, my noble friend Lord Filkin explained the Government's thinking on which countries would be in Part 1. Having considered the matter further, our position is unchanged. We remain of the view that it is not desirable to limit the countries which could be designated under Part 1 to those countries which had signed the framework decision on the EAW.
However, we do not believe that we should limit the room for manoeuvre of our successors if they decide that they want to put a non-European country into Part 1. On previous occasions, we have discussed the possibility—I must stress that it is only a possibility— of putting a Commonwealth country such as Australia, New Zealand or Canada into Part 1. Those are countries with established democracies, where the rule of law is respected, and it does not strike us as impossible that there may be a strong case for putting them in Part 1 at some point in future. I therefore believe that the Bill needs to retain a modicum of flexibility to cope with the situation.
I know that the noble Baroness has concerns about what criteria would be used to determine whether a country might be added to Part 1. As I have indicated, the Government have no plans to designate any non-European countries in Part 1. That being so, we do not believe it appropriate to set out the criteria now for the designation of a country which may or may not
1634
happen at some specified point in future. By bringing forward the government amendments in the group, the designation of any country under Parts 1 and 2 will be subject to the affirmative resolution of both Houses of Parliament.
Therefore, if at the appropriate time it is deemed desirable to add a non-European country to Part 1, we have made sure there will be an opportunity for Members of both Houses to consider the basis of that proposal and whether the designation is justified. The affirmative resolution procedure is an important procedural safeguard and gives the appropriate level of parliamentary scrutiny. Once that is in place, I suggest that it would not be appropriate to limit the flexibility of Part 1 any further.
I hope that that gives the noble Baroness sufficient reassurance to agree not to press her amendment I beg to move.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I welcome this group of government amendments. They respond properly and fully to the objections put first in another place by my honourable friends and subsequently by me in this House where I was supported by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart. Indeed, the Minister is right to refer to the excellent report of the Delegated Powers Committee.
I am grateful to the Minister for addressing my concerns in Amendment No. 5: what happens if any government want to extend the list? I find comfort in some of her earlier comments because she said that the Government would expect the extension to be those of an established democracy where the rule of law was respected. That is just what we want to hear.
I shall not press the matter to a Division today. I want merely to put on the record our concern that we are leaving to uncertainty—albeit an affirmative statutory instrument—the extension of a system of surrender extradition, which will be a swift and powerful weapon. We have made that point and are grateful for the Government's recognition of the importance of these orders. They have rightly changed them from an Order in Council to a statutory instrument, which reflects what happens in the real world.
I have a question of which I was unable to give the Minister notice, but I do not believe that it will trouble her too much. It relates to the further report issued today by e-mail by the hard-working Delegated Powers Committee. I commend the committee on the expedition with which it has done so. It makes another recommendation relating to negative instruments being changed to affirmative ones—and that is the Government's Amendment No. 313 to Clause 315. For the convenience of the House, is the noble Baroness in a position to indicate whether by Monday, the second day on Report, the Government will be able to table an amendment which will meet the point of view expressed by the Delegated Powers Committee— a point of view which we fully support?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, the noble Baroness is right in saying that the report has only

1635
recently been issued on e-mail and therefore she will not be surprised to learn that we have not had time to give it the full consideration that it deserves. I undertake to look at the matter fully and properly and at our next meeting on the Bill to come forward with an answer. If we reach a swifter conclusion, I shall seek to indicate that to both Front Benches so that they can address appropriate comments.
Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, I hope that that was the Minister answering the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, before she sat down rather than her closing speech, otherwise I shall be debarred from speaking. Taking it as such, I, too, welcome the fact that the Government have moved to this sensible solution.
I share the Minister's view that it renders Amendment No. 5 unnecessary, but I want to ask a question about the criteria which will be used for designation. Is it the Government's intention to designate a country only if it has a system of extradition which is reciprocal to the system in Part 1 or at least is moving rapidly towards that? I hope that we shall not see a situation in which we are extraditing under a Part 1 system to a country which is not giving us the equivalent reciprocal powers.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I was a member of the Delegated Powers Committee and I took part in Grand Committee and I, too, welcome the amendments that the Minister has made. Without wanting in any way to be ungracious, I believe that the House should remember what the Government once thought was the right way of proceeding. They believed that additions to the list of countries to which a United Kingdom citizen could be surrendered—could be sent back—unprotected by the existing extradition procedure could be decided by Parliament without discussion or agreement in both Houses.
The Government have changed their mind, but they believed that until now. It illustrates that they have convinced themselves that they are simply tweaking the extradition laws, which was borne out by the noble Baroness, and doing no more. It is a great deal more than that and it is having a big effect on the liberty of the citizen. It is interesting that the Government needed a push to make the change.
I do not want to be ungracious, but we should put that on the record. As we proceed through the Bill, we must ensure that we are looking carefully at the effect of, in particular, Part 1 on the liberty and freedom of United Kingdom citizens.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I repeat that the countries which may be considered are those with established democracies and where the rule of law operates. Noble Lords will know that the difference between EU countries in Part 1 and other countries in Part 2 is that we are in comity with the EU countries— we share similar values and traditions and we have made certain binding agreements with them in partnership. It is, if you like, the family of Europe. We will be looking carefully at the matter. The Government would not seek to suggest that any country with which we did not have
1636
similar strong ties and reflect similar values could in any way be involved in Part 1. I hope that that reassures noble Lords. As I said, we have no such intention at the moment. The provision simply allows us the possibility of doing so if the need arises.
Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, I fully understand what the Minister is saying about similar values and ties. My question was: will we insist that they have reciprocal arrangements so that we can get people back here for trial as easily under an equivalent Part 1 system rather under an old-fashioned system requiring much more? It seems wrong that we should allow other people easy extradition if they do not give us easy extradition.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I understand what the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, is saying. The whole point of Part 1 is that we have total reciprocity. I can only anticipate that anyone who wants to participate in Part 1 must participate on the same terms as all the others. I cannot bind the Government on that, but it would be my reasonable expectation. There is a difference between Parts 1 and 2 because, as the noble Viscount knows, there are those with whom we do not have parity of treatment.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
4.30 p.m.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns Baroness Anelay of St Johns moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 1, line 6 at end insert "and only applies to persons who have been charged with or convicted of terrorist offences"
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 3, with the leave of the House I shall speak to the very large number of amendments grouped with it. To save time for the House later when speaking to the group headed by Amendment No. 6, which would delete the whole of Part 1, I shall try to amalgamate the arguments so far as is reasonably possible.
The amendments in this group have one straightforward objective. They would confine the use of the European arrest warrant to terrorism offences alone. We have argued consistently in both Houses that we believe that Part 2 does enough to fulfil the Government's objectives—that is, to speed up our extradition procedures and to remove the ability of criminals to evade justice by unnecessary and convoluted appeals.
We welcome now, as we always have done, the streamlining of our extradition procedures. We recognise that a reform of our extradition law is necessary and we welcome the Government's commitment that cases which currently take 18 months or more will, under Part 2 of the Bill, in future be dealt with in about six months. That seems to us to be right as an objective. We agree that the current delays in extradition impede the delivery of justice and that they are an unwarranted burden on the victims of the offences for which extradition is sought.
I stress all that because, when I re-read the Hansard report of our debates on these amendments in Grand Committee, it seemed to me that, from time to time,

1637
the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, implied that, by hoping to restrict Part 1 to terrorist offences or, indeed, by hoping to knock it out altogether, we were somehow being soft on criminals and assisting them to commit their crimes with impunity. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. If that were the case, then the Government are doing precisely the same thing in Part 2, and I would never accuse them of trying to do that.
Therefore, why do we try to restrict Part 1 of the Bill to terrorism alone? The answer is that we do not agree with the Minister on the essential focus of Part 1. The noble Lord, Lord Filkin, told us in Grand Committee:
"We do not see why those who commit serious crimes should not also be subject to the fast-track procedures that we propose for Part 1, which strike the right balance between ensuring the right to fair treatment under the law as well as speed of decision".— [Official Report, 3/6/03; col. GC 150.]
We on these Benches believe that the removal of key safeguards from Part 1—in particular, the removal of the ministerial right of decision as the final decision on every extradition case and the removal of the protection of dual criminality from the list of 32 offences—does not ensure the right to fair treatment under the law, which we seek to guarantee to all our citizens.
Of course, it is true that the measure will achieve speedier decision-making—the Government are right about that. They say that it will reduce decision-making to three months. However, we believe that for the sake of three months—that is, six months in Part 2 and three months in Part 1—we are giving up too many freedoms for our citizens. This is not about siding with the criminals as opposed to the victims; it is about fundamental, basic rights, which, at present, our judicial system provides for our citizens, and about whether we feel that those should be compromised by accepting Part 1 in its current form.
I hope that, thus far, I have justified both these amendments and those that will follow in the group headed by Amendment No. 6. Therefore, when we come to the later amendments, I shall not repeat what 1 have said.
It is unfortunate that, because of the way in which, quite rightly, we deal with amendments, I have to invite the House to consider our second preference first—that is, to confine the Part 1 operation to terrorism offences only—before we can then go on to consider our first preference, which is to delete Part 1 from the Bill altogether.
We recognise that terrorism is, indeed, a unique threat. The Government argue that benefit in relation to other serious crimes will be gained from Part 1 procedures and that it makes no sense to differentiate between terrorism and other offences. I believe otherwise. First, other serious crimes can be dealt with by Part 2 procedures, which may take just three months longer but should ultimately deliver justice of the same quality. Secondly, in this country terrorist activities are officially recognised as being of a different nature from ordinary criminal activities.
1638
After all, we have a definition of terrorism in the Terrorism Act, and it is that definition that we use in our amendment.
Therefore, as a whole, this group of amendments would remove all references to an extradition offence in Part 1 of the Bill and all references to offences outlined in the European framework list with regard to the broad issue of offences. It will narrow them down and replace them with a definition of a terrorist offence. If the Government are determined to resist our request in the next group of amendments to excise Part 1 from the Bill, then of course we shall decide now that we believe Part 1 should be for terrorist offences only. This is the second best option: we have saved the best till last. I beg to move.
Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, I find this amendment remarkable. A short while ago, the noble Baroness moved Amendment No. 1 to explain that:
"The purpose of this Act … is to give effect to the Council Framework Decision of 13th June 2002".
As I understand it, the Council framework decision of 13th June 2002 lists a very large number of crimes to which this procedure is to apply. For those of your Lordships who are not already grossly over-bored with this matter, they will find that list in Amendment No. 328. Obviously, a large number of the serious crimes listed there are not terrorist offences.
Ten minutes after telling us that we should say that the Bill is intended to give effect to the Council framework decision, the noble Baroness moved an amendment designed to ensure that it does not give effect to about 75 per cent of that framework decision. I am never surprised by inconsistency among politicians, but this takes even me somewhat aback.
Lord Dholakia: My Lords, we cannot support the amendments in this group, which would restrict the European arrest warrant to terrorist offences. I listened with great care to what the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, said. Our position remains the same as we spelt out in Grand Committee. I shall repeat the words of my noble friend Lord Goodhart, who, as was mentioned, is not present as he is on important business abroad. He said:
"I can see no justification for confining Part 1 to terrorist offences. If Part 1 is not suitable for people charged with other serious offences up to and including murder, it cannot be suitable for people who are charged with but not, at that stage, convicted of terrorist offences. They must be entitled to the same kind of defence against improper extradition as anyone else".—[Official Report, 3/6/03; col. GC 144.]
That is why we cannot support the amendments in this group.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, as to my noble friend's consistency, I have to say, in her support, that her first amendment was not carried by the House. Had it been, she certainly would not have moved this amendment. One sometimes has to have failsafe amendments. Indeed, if the removal of Part 1 were voted for by the House, she would not be moving this amendment. Therefore, the noble Viscount should

1639
forgive her for that. Even if she did seem to be talking in two different directions, one has to take account of the procedure of the House. I believe that that is only fair.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I am astonished that the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, should be surprised at inconsistency in political matters. Politics is full of inconsistencies, as we note every day in this Chamber.
I am certainly in favour of the amendment, and the Minister will remember that I raised this matter both at Second Reading and in Grand Committee. I believe that, had the process of introducing a European arrest warrant gone forward in the usual way, it probably would not have turned out as it has. Indeed, the impetus given to it, the reason it was introduced so quickly and the reason we are discussing it on Report now is because of the terrorist act on 11 th September 2001. It is perfectly plain from the discussions of the European Parliament that the arrest warrant would not have received a blessing as quickly or as fully as it did were it not for 9/11.
I am extremely worried by Part 1 of the Bill. It is perfectly proper and desirable to have an amendment to the general extradition procedure. That probably had become outdated, although I am no expert on the matter. Putting the European arrest warrant in the Bill—putting Part 1 in the Bill—explodes the myth that the Bill is about extradition. Part 1 is not about simple extradition; it is about harmonisation of the judicial process between our country and the European Union and it is a step further towards judicial integration.
I do not believe that that should have been wrapped up in a Bill that is supposed to be about extradition. I note that the Government were good enough to write to me about the matter, but unfortunately they did not convince me and I am sure that they did not expect to convince me. Despite their efforts, I support the amendment and if there is a Division on it I shall support it in the Lobbies.
Lord Donaldson of Lymington: My Lords, the second approach—to get rid of Part 1—is the logical approach. If we do not do that we can consider whether it should be confined to terrorist offences. The Minister said that the basis upon which we propose these special arrangements with EU countries is that they all embrace the same view of the rule of law and they are all part of the judicial family. I regret to say that I find absolutely no signs of that whatever. Perhaps they are all striving to get there, but many of them have a very long way to go and the situation will be even worse when the EU is enlarged.
For my part, the Bill, with its surrender provisions, is premature. When we are all one family it may be fine. If the proposal were to bring in Canada, the situation would be different altogether. Perhaps then I would be an enthusiastic supporter because it would be more justifiable.
1640
I find myself in the position of not liking this system of surrender without adequate precautions within our own community to ensure that there is a just surrender. But I accept that in our view of the law we have to take account of the realities of terrorism. We have tried— to some extent successfully—to preserve the liberties of the individual, even if someone is accused of acts of terrorism and even if there is very strong evidence that he or she is guilty. We have tried and I believe that we have more or less succeeded, but it must be accepted that we have introduced modifications to the law to meet the case of terrorism.
Against the background that, from my point of view, the Part 1 changes to the law are premature and at present wholly unsatisfactory, I would go along with the possibility that they could be applied to terrorism, but to terrorism only. Accordingly, I support the amendment.
4.45 p.m.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, I follow exactly the reasoning of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson. I am deeply sceptical of the presumption that all EU countries have fairly equal justice systems that justify the need for any other country to scrutinise the fairness of extradition to such a country. Frankly, I find it a little unconvincing that we should retain the controls in relation to the United States but abolish them in relation to other EU countries.
Not so long ago we had a request for extradition from the United States in relation to a British citizen of Algerian descent. The British courts threw out the case because in the opinion of the court the United States’ prosecuting authorities did not offer evidence that was convincing enough. Quite rightly, many British newspapers took the opportunity to comment on how that showed the independence and the robustness of the British courts system. Despite the tremendous pressure and the atmosphere at that time, the court considered the evidence and decided, despite political pressure from the United States Government, not to concede. I took pride in the fact that we have courts that are independent in that way.
Of course, in future no such court could take such a stance in relation to a request from an EU country. Under one of the amendments proposed by my noble friend on the Front Bench, extradition would be allowed for a terrorist offence. However, as she has explained, her real objection is to the whole of Part 1 and the limitation to terrorism is a fall-back if the first amendment is rejected.
It seems to me that it is difficult to make this point about other systems. When the matter was raised in Grand Committee the noble Baroness who led for the Government rather blandly said that everyone thinks their system is the best and different countries have different strengths. I am sure that there is some truth in that. I am not someone who believes that everything in this country is better than in other countries. But I believe that our legal system and our courts system is one of the most uncorrupt in the world and I believe

1641
that it has stood the test of time. I also believe that far less controversy surrounds our courts system than surrounds the courts and justice systems in certain other countries.
This is a difficult point to raise, but I believe that the noble Baroness did not answer this point when it was raised in Grand Committee; nor did the noble Lord, Lord Filkin. I appreciate that they would probably prefer not to address the matter, and they have not addressed it. There are instances in relation to EU justice systems that cause concern and, I believe, justify the need to retain a right for the British courts to have a handle, perhaps through dual criminality, on a case so that there can be a hearing.
Perhaps I could refer to what has happened in Belgium. We know, without going into the grisly details, that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the legal system there. A quarter of a million people took to the streets of Brussels to demonstrate against the judges, the judicial system and the handling of the Dutroux case. One of the peculiar points about the Dutroux case—whatever we may think of Mr Dutroux—is the justification for holding a man on remand in prison for eight years. I do not believe that that is easily justified. Public concern with the Belgian system undoubtedly exists.
Turning to Italy, the Prime Minister of Italy has made very clear his views of the Italian legal system. He says that judges in Italy are politically motivated and corrupt. I am sure that many Members of the House believe that Mr Berlusconi is wrong, although others say that he bribed a judge. In that case the Italian justice system has something to answer even if Mr Berlusconi is in the wrong.
At Second Reading, I quoted what Mr Strauss-Kahn, a former finance Minister of France, said about the French justice system. According to the European Convention, a person is meant to be presumed innocent until proved guilty. He said:
"In our system you are presumed innocent until declared guilty. The reality is you are seen as guilty from the moment the judicial system is interested in you".
Only last week I happened to have dinner with someone who had been Prime Minister of a European country. He is a major advocate of European integration. When we were discussing a particular case, he said to me: "Well, you have to recognise that in France and in Italy, justice and judges are strongly influenced by politics". I shall not embarrass the gentleman by giving his name.
If the concerns were examined honestly and without embarrassment people would agree that they have some force. I think that the noble Baroness should answer the issue. She refused to answer it before and she brushed the matter aside. She just said "Well, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses". However, the concern is shared by Liberty, an organisation which most people think to be fairly dispassionate. It said:
"The EAW is based upon the presumption that EU countries all have fair and equal systems of justice which should remove the need for any other country to scrutinise the fairness of extradition to such a country. This presumption is seriously open to question".
1642
It goes on to make this important point:
" In the 13 years since the Extradition Act 1989 was enacted, UK courts have intervened to refuse extradition following habeas corpus or judicial review proceedings in a significant number of EU cases, and the Home Secretary has refused to extradite in a significant number of other cases where extradition would have been plainly wrong and unjust… For example, in Re Barone (1997) the Divisional Court held that it would not be right to extradite the defendant to Italy because he had been convicted in his absence and would have no right to appeal against his conviction. In Re Gale (2001) Portugal persisted with a request for the extradition of a young mother even though it conceded that she could not, legally, be convicted there for the alleged defence. The High Court held that her extradition would be oppressive. These are just two examples of the type of injustice which can occur even with EU partners".
Liberty goes on to say,
"We are very concerned that the Bill would not prevent such injustice from occurring … The Eurowarrant proposals would seriously increase the risk of injustice in such cases by removing the power of the High Court and Secretary of State to scrutinise the merits in an individual case. Moreover, in R (Ramda) v. Secretary of State, 27th June 2002, the High Court said that it was no answer for the Secretary of State to invoke France's status as a signatory to the Convention (and hence that the defendant could always apply to the Strasbourg court)".
That, it ruled, was not an answer to complaints about the fairness of the trial. Time after time, whenever we raised such concerns on the Bill, we have heard chanted, "The convention, the convention, the convention". The courts have not taken that view. I put it to the Minister that, although it is embarrassing to discuss, we must consider justice for our citizens. To remove completely the rights of courts to scrutinise in any way—I am of course aware, before the noble Baroness mentions it, of what changes have been made—and the removal of dual criminality in the way that the Bill proposes is reckless and poses risks for justice. That is why I support the amendment put forward by my noble friend on the Front Bench.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, your Lordships will not be surprised that I do not support these amendments. We have been very clear throughout about the purpose to which these provisions should be put. I can be telegraphic in responding to these amendments. I endorse absolutely the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, in his recitation of the succinct summation made by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, in Grand Committee. I join with the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, in his slight bemusement, but I understand the position in which the noble Baroness is placed.
The noble Baroness says that Part 1 should be restricted to terrorist offences. She knows that I disagree with the narrowing of the provision to terrorism, not least because of a real difficulty in separating pure terrorist acts from subsidiary terrorist acts. We know, regrettably, that many terrorists groups participate in other forms of criminal activity of a very serious nature. To differentiate between those two would be intolerable.
The amendments would lose the great benefits afforded to this country by the framework decision. We would lose the very real benefit of being able to seek the return of nationals from countries who

1643
currently refuse to extradite their own nationals. We would lose the benefit of being able to extradite those who commit fiscal offences. We would also lose the benefits of the efficient and effective extradition that the instrument would give us with our fellow member states.
I cannot accept the analyses of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, or my noble friend Lord Stoddart. My noble friend said that everything was being done in order to harmonise European law. In fact, this is the antithesis of harmonisation, because these revisions seek to respect the integrity of the internal system of each state and to apply the law on that basis. I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, says. He challenges me to go further than I did in Committee. I am afraid that I feel unable to give him greater satisfaction. We have said very clearly that the systems in Europe comply with the European Convention on Human Rights. We have dealt quite extensively with the provisions in Articles 6, 8 and others. That would benefit from further repetition.
Therefore, I disagree with the noble Baroness that the narrowing of the provision is proper or justified in any way. Furthermore, to seek to expunge the framework decision, which in effect is what the provisions seek to do—is fundamentally flawed and would be outwith what we agreed. Therefore, I ask the noble Baroness not to press the amendment. However, if pressed, I shall resist.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I begin by addressing the very proper remarks of the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, who tried to take me to task on the basis that I appeared to be inconsistent. Indeed, he thought I was inconsistent. The Minister rode to my defence, and I hope to improve it even more. I was not able to leap to my feet and say, "But excuse me, it is not quite as bad as it looks" because the rules on Report say that I have to sit and await my opportunity.
The first amendment I moved today looked at the Bill and found it wanting, in the sense that the Government lacked a definition of its own purpose. I was therefore trying—mischievously perhaps the Government might say—to assist them by putting in a proper purpose clause. But that was the purpose as they see it. This amendment says something about how I see the Bill and what I want to do about it. So in that sense I was not being inconsistent. It perhaps shows a difference between the Government's approach and my approach to Part 1.
Like the Minister, I shall try to be brief after that explanation—it is not an excuse—to the noble Viscount. Unlike the Minister, I accept the analysis put by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, her noble friend Lord Stoddart of Swindon and my noble friend Lord Lamont. It would have taken a Damascene conversion for either of us to resile from the position that we have taken. She will therefore understand why I wish to test the opinion of the House.
5 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 3) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 101; Not-Contents, 163.

Division No.2

CONTENTS

Ampthill, L.

Lucas, L.

Anelay of St Johns, B.

Luke, L. [Teller]

Astor, V.

Lyell, L.

Astor of Hever, L.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

Attlee, E.

Mancroft, L.

Biffen, L.

Marlesford, L.

Blackwell, L.

May of Oxford, L.

Bowness, L.

Monro of Langholm, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Monson, L.

Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, L.

Montrose, D.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Caithness, E.

Naseby, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Noakes, B.

Carlisle of Bucklow, L.

Norton of Louth, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

O'Cathain, B.

Colwyn. L.

Palmer, L.

Craigavon, V

Park of Monmouth, B.

Crickhowell, L.

Pearson of Rannoch, L.

Cumberlege, B.

Peel, E.

Denham, L.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Dixon-Smith, L.

Pumb, L.

Donaldson of Lymington, L.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Dundee, E.

Rawlings, B.

Eden of Winton, L.

Reay, L.

Elton, L

Rees, L.

Ferrers, E.

Renton of Mount Harry, L.

Fookes, B.

Roberts of Conwy, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Rogan, L.

Rotherwick, L.

Geddes, L.

Ryder of Wensum, L.

Glentoran, L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Greenway, L.

Sanderson of Bowden, L.

Hanham, B.

Seccombe, B. [Teller]

Hanson, L.

Selkirk of Douglas, L.

Hayhoe, L.

Selsdon, L.

Higgins, L.

Sharples, B.

Hooper, B.

Shaw of Northstead, L.

Howe, E.

Shrewsbury, E.

Howe of Aberavon, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Howell of Guildford, L.

Stevens of Ludgate, L.

Jopling, L.

Stewartby. L.

Kildooney, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Kimball, L.

Strathclyde, L.

King of Bridgwater, L.

Swinfen, L.

Kingsland, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Kirkham, L.

Trumpington. B.

Knight of Collingtree, B.

Ullswater, V.

Lamont of Lerwick, L.

Waddington, L.

Lane of Horsell, L.

Wakeham, L.

Lang of Monkton, L.

Wilcox, B.

Lindsay, E.

Wolfson, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Barnett, L.

Addington, L.

Bassam of Brighton, L.

Alton of Liverpool, L.

Berkeley, L.

Amos, B. (Lord President)

Bernstein of Craigweil, L.

Andrews, B.

Billingham, B.

Archer of Sandwell, L.

Blackstone, B.

Ashton of Upholland, B.

Bledisloe, V.

Avebury, L.

Borrie, L.

Bach, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Barker, B.

Bradshaw, L.

1645

Brennan, L.

Mclntosh of Hudnall, B.

Brett, L.

MacKenzie of Culkein, L.

Brooke of Alverthorpe, L.

Mackenzie of Framwellgate, L.

Brookman, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Campbell-Savours, L.

Maclennan of Rogart, L.

Carter, L.

Mallalieu, B.

Chan, L.

Mar and Kellie, E.

Christopher, L.

Marsh, L.

Clark of Windermere, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Clement-Jones, L.

Mason of Barnsley, L.

Clinton-Davis, L.

Massey of Darwen, B.

Colville of Culross, V.

Merlyn-Rees, L.

Corbett of Castle Vale, L.

Methuen, L.

Crawley, B.

Miller of Chilthorne Domer, B.

David, B.

Mitchell, L.

Davies of Coity, L.

Morris of Aberavon, L.

Davies of Oldham, L. [Teller]

Morris of Manchester, L.

Desai, L.

Newby, L.

Dholakia, L.

Nicol, B.

Dixon, L.

Parekh, L.

Donoughue, L.

Patel of Blackburn, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Pendry, L.

Dubs, L.

Peston, L.

Elder, L.

Pitkeathley, B.

Evans of Parkside, L.

Plant of Higlifield, L.

Evans of Temple Guiting, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Falconer of Thoroton, L. (Lord Chancellor)

Puttnam, L.

Radice, L.

Falkland, V.

Ramsay of Cartvale, B.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Randall of St. Budeaux, L.

Faulkner of Worcester, L.

Razzall, L.

Filkin, L.

Redesdale, L.

Gavron, L.

Rendell of Babergh, B.

Geraint, L.

Rennard, L.

Gibson of Market Rasen, B.

Richard, L.

Golding. B.

Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.

Goldsmith, L.

Rooker, L.

Goudie, B.

Roper, L.

Gould of Potternewton, B.

Russell-Johnston, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Sandberg, L.

Grocott, L. [Teller]

Scotland of Asthal, B.

Guildford, Bp.

Scott of Needham Market, B.

Harris of Haringey, L.

Sharman, L.

Harris of Richmond, B.

Sheldon, L.

Harrison, L.

Shutt of Greetland, L.

Haskel, L.

Simon, V.

Hogg of Cumbernauld, L.

Smith of Clifton, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Smith of Gilmorehill, B.

Holme of Cheltenham, L.

Smith of Leigh, L.

Hooson, L.

Stallard, L.

Howarth of Breckland, B.

Strange, B.

Howie of Troon, L.

Symons of Vernham Dean, B.

Hoyle, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Hughes of Woodside, L.

Temple-Morris, L.

Hunt of Kings Heath, L.

Thomas of Gresford, L.

Islwyn, L.

Thornton, B.

Jacobs, L.

Tope, L.

Janner of Braunstone, L.

Tordoff, L.

Jay of Paddington, B.

Turner of Camden, B.

Jones, L.

Varley, L.

Jordan, L.

Walmsley, B.

King of West Bromwich, L.

Walpole, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Warner, L.

Lea of Crondall, L.

Warwick of Undercliffe, B.

Lester of Herne Hill, L.

Watson of Invergowrie, L.

Levy, L.

Weatherill, L.

Linklater of Butterstone, B.

Whitaker, B.

Lipsey, L.

Whitty, L.

Livsey of Talgarth, L.

Wilkins, B.

Lofthouse of Pontefract, L.

Williams ofElvel, L.

Macdonald of Tradeston, L.

Winston, L.

Mclntosh of Haringey, L.

Woolmer of Leeds, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
5.11 p.m.
[Amendments Nos. 4 and 5 not moved.]
Baroness Anelay of St Johns Baroness Anelay of St Johns moved Amendment No. 6: Leave out Clause 1.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in speaking to the previous group of amendments, I made it clear that I was putting forward to the House my arguments for both that group and this one, led by Amendment No. 6. This group seeks to delete from the Bill the whole of Part 1.I have given my arguments about why we feel that the European arrest warrant is not acceptable in its present form. When I have given the Minister the opportunity to speak, I will respond to her remarks, but I will not test the patience of the House further at this stage. I beg to move.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, everything has been said in relation to this matter. I regret that I am unable to accept the amendment moved by the noble Baroness and do not intend to trouble the House by saying any more.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I do intend to trouble the House by testing the opinion of the House.
5.13 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 6) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 96; Not-Contents, 165.

CONTENTS

Anelay of St Johns, B.

Hanson, L.

Arran, E.

Hayhoe, L.

Astor, V.

Higgins, L.

Astor of Hever, L.

Hooper, B.

Attlee, E.[Teller]

Howe, E.

Blackwell, L.

Howell of Guildford, L.

Bridgeman, V.

James of Holland Park, B.

Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, L.

Jopling, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Kimball, L.

Caithness, E.

King of Bridgwater, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Kirkham, L.

Carlisle of Bucklow. L.

Knight of Collingtree, B.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Lamont of Lerwick, L.

Crickhowell, L.

Lane of Horsell, L.

Cumberlege, B.

Lang of Monkton, L.

Denham, L.

Lindsay, E.

Dixon-Smith, L.

Lucas, L.

Donaldson of Lymington, L.

Luke, L.

Dundee, E.

Lyell.L.

Eden of Winton, L.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

Elton, L.

Mancroft, L.

Ferrers, E.

Marlesford, L.

Fookes, B.

May of Oxford, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Miller of Hendon, B.

Geddes, L.

Monro of Langholm, L.

Gilmour of Craigmillar, L.

Monson, L.

Glentoran, L.

Montrose, D.

Hanham, B.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

1647

Naseby, L.

Sanderson of Bowden, L.

Noakes, B.

Seccombe, B. [Teller]

Norton of Louth. L.

Selkirk of Douglas, L.

O'Cathain, B.

Selsdon, L.

Park of Monmouth, B.

Sharples, B.

Pearson of Rannoch, L.

Shaw of Northstead, L.

Peel, E.

Shrewsbury, E.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Plumb. L.

Stevens of Ludgate, L.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Stewartby, L.

Rawlings, B.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Reay, L.

Strathclyde, L

Rees, L.

Swinfen, L.

Renton, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Renton of Mount Harry, L.

Trumpington, B.

Roberts of Conwy, L.

Ullswater, V.

Rogan, L.

Waddington, L.

Rotherwick, L.

Wakeham, L.

Ryder of Wensum, L.

Wilcox, B.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Wolfson, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Finlay of Llandaff, B.

Addington, L.

Fitt, L.

Alton of Liverpool, L.

Gavron, L.

Amos, B. (Lord President)

Gibson of Market Rasen, B.

Andrews, B.

Golding, B.

Archer of Sandwell, L.

Goldsmith, L.

Ashton of Upholland, B.

Goudie, B.

Avebury, L.

Gould of Potternewton, B.

Bach, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Barker, B.

Greengross, B.

Barnett, L.

Grocott, L. [Teller]

Bassam of Brighton, L.

Guildford, Bp.

Berkeley, L.

Harris of Haringey, L.

Bernstein of Craigweil, L.

Harris of Richmond, B.

Billingham, B.

Harrison, L.

Blackstone, B.

Haskel, L.

Bledisloe, V.

Hogg of Cumbernauld, L.

Borrie, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Holme of Cheltenham, L.

Bradshaw, L.

Hooson, L.

Brennan. L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Brett, L.

Hoyle. L.

Brooke of Alverthorpe, L.

Hughes of Woodside, L.

Brookman, L.

Hunt of Kings Heath, L.

Campbell-Savours, L.

Irvine of Lairg, L.

Carter, L.

Islwyn, L.

Chan, L.

Jay of Paddington, B.

Christopher, L.

Jones, L.

Clark of Windermere, L.

Jordan, L.

Clement-Jones, L.

King of West Bromwich, L.

Clinton-Davis, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Lester of Herne Hill, L.

Corbett of Castle Vale, L.

Levy.L.

Crawley, B.

Linklater of Butterstone, B.

Dahrendorf, L

Lipsey, L.

David, B.

Livsey of Talgarth, L.

Davies of Coity, L.

Lofthouse of Pontefract, L.

Davies of Oldham, L. [Teller]

Macdonald of Tradeston, L.

Desai, L.

Mclntosh of Haringey, L.

Dholakia, L.

Mclntosh of Hudnall, B.

Dixon, L.

MacKenzie of Culkein, L.

Donoughue, L.

Mackenzie of Framwellgate, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Dubs, L.

Maclennan of Rogart, L.

Elder, L.

Mallalieu, B.

Evans of Parkside, L.

Mar and Kellie, E.

Evans of Temple Guiting, L.

Marsh, L.

Falconer of Thoroton, L.(Lord Chancellor)

Mason of Barnsley, L.

Massey of Darwen, B.

Falkland, V.

Merlyn-Rees, L.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Methuen, L.

Faulkner of Worcester, L.

Miller of Chilthorne Domer, B.

Filkin, L.

Mitchell, L.

1648

Morris of Aberavon, L.

Sharp of Guildford, B.

Morris of Manchester, L.

Sheldon, L.

Newby, L.

Shutt of Greetland, L.

Nicol, B.

Simon. V.

Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay, L.

Smith of Clifton. L.

Parekh, L.

Smith of Gilmorehill. B.

Patel, L.

Smith of Leigh, L.

Patel of Blackburn, L.

Stallard. L.

Pendry, L.

Strange. B.

Pitkeathley, B.

Symons of Vernham Dean, B.

Plant of Highfield, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Temple-Morris, L.

Puttnam, L.

Thomas of Gresford, L.

Radice, L.

Thornton, B.

Ramsay of Cartvale, B.

Tope, L.

Randall of St. Budeaux, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Razzall, L.

Varley, L.

Rea, L.

Walmsley, B.

Redesdale, L.

Walpole, L.

Rendell of Babergh, B.

Warner, L.

Rennard, L.

Warwick of Undercliffe, B.

Richard, L.

Watson of Invergowrie, L.

Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.

Weatherill, L.

Rooker, L.

Wedderburn of Charlton, L.

Roper, L.

Whitaker. B.

Russell-Johnston, L.

Whitty, L.

St. John of Bletso, L.

Wilkins, B.

Sandberg, L.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Scotland of Asthal, B.

Winston, L.

Sharman, L.

Woolmer of Leeds, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
5.24 p.m.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns Baroness Anelay of St Johns moved Amendment No. 7:
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause—
"PART 1 WARRANT: AUTHORITY TO PROCEED

(1) When the designated authority receives a Part 1 warrant it shall make an application to the High Court or, in Scotland, to the Court of Session, for authority to proceed with the warrant under this section.

(2) The court must make an order giving authority to proceed with the warrant under this Part if it is satisfied that the person in respect of whom the warrant is issued faces charges, or has been convicted of, an offence in a category 1 territory which involves conduct which, if it occurred in or outside the United Kingdom, would constitute an offence under the law of the United Kingdom.

(3) In any other case, the court may make an order giving authority to proceed with the warrant under this Part of this Act if, having regard to all the circumstances, it is satisfied that it is in the interests of justice to do so.

(4) A decision of the High Court in an application, or the Court of Session in an application, to make an order giving authority to proceed under this section shall be final and shall not be subject to appeal.

(5) A person shall not be dealt with under this Part of this Act except in pursuance of an order made under subsection (2) or (3).

(6) The Lord Chancellor shall make an annual report to both Houses of Parliament on the cases in which the High Court has exercised its discretion under subsection (3) to make an order giving authority to proceed.

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(7) The following provisions of this Part are subject to the provisions of this section."

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, Amendment No. 7 would introduce a new clause after Clause 1 entitled "Authority to proceed". Its objective is to provide a backstop power in instances in which extradition is requested for an offence that is not an offence in the United Kingdom.
At Second Reading and in Committee, I rehearsed the reasons why we thought that this aspect of the Bill—the removal of the dual criminality requirement for the 32 generic offences set out in the European framework list—was of most concern to British citizens. 1 shall not repeat the arguments. In brief, we have a dual criminality requirement in Part 2 and a requirement for the involvement of the Secretary of State in every decision on extradition. That is the appropriate procedure for Part 2, but it should also apply to Part 1.
As the Government will note, the amendment has changed substantially since Grand Committee. We listened to the criticisms made by some Members of the Committee. In particular, the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, criticised the fact that, under our amendment, it would be the National Criminal Intelligence Service or, in Scotland, the Crown Office that would decide whether the warrant had been issued for an offence that had an equivalent in the UK. The noble Lord said:
"So we have a dual criminality test that was previously a matter for the courts being applied by NCIS—or the Crown Office, in Scotland. That seems slightly curious".—[Official Report. 9/6/03; col. GC 5.]
Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, had trouble with the referral to the Secretary of State of any extradition request to which dual criminality did not apply. His criticisms were based on the fact that it was unclear in what circumstances the Secretary of State would refuse such a request and that his decision would be subjective and could be subject to judicial review, something that we all try to avoid.
We took both those points into consideration when we drafted the amendment. Noble Lords will appreciate that the key alteration that we have made is that every extradition request received by NCIS or the Crown Office must be referred to the High Court or, in Scotland, to the Court of Session. The court will then decide whether dual criminality applies and will grant authority to proceed. If dual criminality does not apply, the court may still allow the request to proceed, if it deems that that would be in the interests of justice, as subsection (3) says. The amendment picks up the wording employed in the Extradition Act 1989.
The flexibility that the amendment would give the High Court would be a welcome addition to the Bill. It has been recommended to us by specialist extradition lawyers whom we consulted in the interim between Grand Committee and Report. In subsection (4), we have also added a provision that states that the final decision made by the High Court will not be subject to judicial review or appeal. We hope that that might counter the argument that any decision made about proceeding with an extradition request could fall foul of judicial review, causing further delay.
Because of that new procedure, it is right that we should keep an annual report in the Bill. That forms part of the amendment. The onus would be on the Lord Chancellor or whoever replaces him to provide details of how that aspect of the Bill works. That would not be too hefty a task; there are roughly 100 extradition requests every year. Even with the increases that the Government anticipate, as a result of the simplification and extension of surrender procedures, it should not cause too great a problem for the Department for Constitutional Affairs or whoever takes on the work.
Although the number of extradition requests is relatively small, it is right to get the procedure as; good as it can be. That is why we have tabled an amendment that is different from the one that we tabled in Committee. We hope that it might find favour this time round. I beg to move.
Lord Carlisle of Bucklow: My Lords, I made it clear in Committee and earlier at Report stage that I am concerned about doing away with the rule of dual criminality. As I understand it, my noble friend's amendment would—while accepting that the House has accepted Part 1, relating to the European arrest warrant—require that the safeguard of dual criminality should still apply to any application from a category 1 country.
My concern has always been that the list of 32 is very wide. Although it may be argued that the Bill should cover matters such as terrorism and murder, there are the lesser offences, and someone may be extradited back to a country for committing an act that would not have been a crime in this country. That is wrong. My noble friend Lady Anelay of St Johns is taking a fallback position, but the Government should seriously consider providing for the continuation of the safeguard of dual criminality.
5.30 p.m.
Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, I confess to being puzzled about the procedure intended by the amendment. Perhaps I may go through the amendment and the noble Baroness could interrupt me if I have got it wrong. The warrant is received from abroad by the particular magistrate’ or sheriffs court designated to receive it. That court automatically makes an application to the High Court—let us consider England because I know rather more about it. Quite how it does that, I do not know. The concept of one court applying to another is unusual. Does it instruct counsel to make the application on its behalf? Anyhow, the warrant gets to the High Court.
The High Court asks whether it is a dual criminality case. As I understand it, if it is, the High Court sends the warrant back to the magistrate’ court to go through the remaining hoops in the act. If the High Court says that the case is not one of dual criminality, it then has to decide whether it is satisfied, in the interests of justice for the warrant to be proceeded with. Does that mean that the High Court then does the same procedure as happens at the moment; that is,

1651
it looks at all the evidence, decides whether the case is suitable for trial, looks at whether the man may be unfairly treated and looks at the stability of the case?
If the High Court decides that it is in the interests of justice to do so, it sends the warrant back to the magistrate’ court, which goes through the same hoops in the act. Seemingly, this is a matter which can go to any judge in the High Court. Whereas, under the present system, specialist magistrates deal with such cases, there will be varying judges who may come to different approaches on law. Since these cases are not subject to appeal, no one will ever be able to resolve those differences of approach. Could the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, indicate whether I have accurately summarised the effect of her amendment?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, with the leave of the House, it seems that I must break the rules, but only because I am looking directly at the Woolsack. The rules state that on Report I may not speak. I can only introduce the amendment, then I can respond to it. Therefore, perhaps I may enlighten the Committee as to the procedure rather than answering the questions, which I shall be delighted to do when I am allowed to do so.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: My Lords, despite the advocacy of the noble Baroness, we remain unable to support the amendment.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I think that it is worth repeating what I said in Grand Committee. My fear is, I think, the fear of many ordinary people in this country who have studied the Bill. A citizen from this country could go abroad and inadvertently commit a crime which he or she did not know was a crime in that country. It is possible that that could happen. The person would return home and there would be no way in which Ministers could defend them. They would be extradited; possibly simply to be held in a cell for some weeks while being interrogated. That is a worst-case scenario, but it could happen.
The dual criminality rule is there to protect people when they have done something in another country, which is not a crime in this country, and that they were unaware was a crime. I must make that point as it is a very ordinary one which lawyers do not always enjoy because of all the technicalities involved.
Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, does she not realise that if a person goes abroad and innocently commits an offence and gets arrested out there, he or she will be tried for it? What difference does it make if a person gets on an aeroplane and comes back here before being arrested? In either case, on going to another country a person should find out its laws before disobeying them.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, quite simply, the difference is what happens to the person, who cannot be protected by their own country. I do not think that this big, happy family of Europe, which I
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hope will become bigger and happier, should have that effect. People simply cannot be protected politically by their own Ministers. That is the point. It is a big difference.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, as ever, I am grateful for the courteous way in which the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, argued her amendment with her customary clarity. The noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, got to the bottom of that clarity rather well and deconstructed the noble Barones’s amendment rather well too.
We need to focus on what the amendment proposes. As we understand it, it would provide that whenever we receive a Part 1 extradition request, there must be a court hearing before the High Court or its territorial equivalent. That would be in addition to the main extradition hearing. From the outset, the Government's intention to simplify and speed up extradition procedures would be harmed. The noble Baroness made the point that she did not consider that a hefty task— there are approximately 100 extradition requests every year. That is not the point. It is not about volume; it is the length of proceedings with which we are concerned. We want to simplify and truncate the proceedings, but leave all the important protections in place.
In effect, we would have not just one single hearing, we would have two separate hearings. We cannot see the advantage in that. Indeed, one of the weaknesses of the present system, which we are seeking to remedy, is that the authority to proceed stage requires the Secretary of State to consider each case twice for no good reason.
At the extra hearing, the High Court would be required to determine whether the extradition request is concerned with conduct which would constitute an offence if it had occurred in the United Kingdom or over which the United Kingdom takes extra-territorial jurisdiction; that is, whether the dual criminality test is satisfied. That may sound simple. Clearly, for certain conduct—say, murder or rape—it is a relatively easy matter to determine that the United Kingdom has an exact equivalent offence. But that is by no means always the case.

Noble Lords who have attended an extradition hearing—I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, has done exactly that as part of her preparation—would concede that, currently, a great deal of time is devoted to arguments about dual criminality. Questions about whether certain types of conduct—say, computer fraud—would be criminal in this country, and, if so, by virtue of which particular section of the Computer Misuse Act, can, and do, give rise to a great deal of argument.
From the start, the extra new hearing could become long and complex. Certainly, both the requesting state and the person whose extradition has been sought would want to be represented at that hearing and to advance legal arguments. At the conclusion of the hearing, the High Court would be required to reach a conclusion as to whether the dual criminality test has been satisfied. That is obviously an important decision, so it is somewhat surprising to discover that there is no possibility of appeal.

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If the High Court decides that the dual criminality test is satisfied, all well and good; the case can proceed as normal. If the High Court concludes that the conduct would not constitute a United Kingdom offence, it has to decide whether the case should proceed. It does that by deciding whether it would be "in the interests of justice".
Precisely how the court is meant to perform this test is not made clear. Courts exist to interpret the law and to adjudicate on disputes about it. How a court would determine where the interests of justice lay when it comes to bringing a person to justice who is accused of a crime in another country, I do not know. Again, it seems to be a crucial decision which warrants the right of appeal.
For all those practical reasons we cannot support the amendment, which would prolong the extradition process and add time and expense. I am unsure what benefits would be achieved as a consequence.
Perhaps I should say something about the broader issue of dual criminality because it has been a matter of concern for many noble Lords taking part in this short debate and, of course, it is one of the key aspects of the Bill. I think we need to be clear about what the Bill does and does not say. No one will be extradited in respect of conduct which occurs in the United Kingdom which is not contrary to our law. So those comments that have been made about people being extradited for writing a ludicrous article in the Sun newspaper or reading books about Biggies are fanciful in the extreme. What the Bill does provide is that if a person goes to another EU country and while there breaks the law of that country, they can expect to face justice, even if the United Kingdom would not regard the particular conduct as criminal.
To be frank, I do not see how anyone can logically object to that. If a person breaks the law of another EU country and is arrested there and then, no one would complain about it. Why should such a person escape justice simply because they have fled across a border before being apprehended?
This has to work both ways. We rightly expect all those in the United Kingdom to abide by our laws while they are here. Our courts would never accept as a valid defence the fact that the conduct in question was not criminal in the person's native country or the fact that the person did not know that the conduct was illegal here. So if a person from another country breaks our laws and then conveniently disappears, we would want to be able to bring that person back to stand trial.
Lord Carlisle of Bucklow: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, am I right in saying that no other country has yet implemented this agreement in their domestic law? Is that still the situation? If so, then what the Minister has said must be wrong.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, my understanding from our deliberations in Committee is that we explained that all member states are in the process of implementing the framework document. I believe it is the case that Spain is more advanced than
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are we in this regard. It has to be right that we should not seek to give sanctuary to those who have committed criminal acts in other EU member states.
I apologise for having spoken at some length, but I respect the fact that this is an issue of concern. However, I think that we are right to insist on our approach, creating simpler and more clear-cut procedures. That is widely understood to be the best way forward.
Obviously the noble Baroness has given a great deal of thought to her revised amendments, but while she has attempted to improve their quality, we take the points made in particular by the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, during this debate; that is, that the amendments are confused in their extent and purpose. I turn once more to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Carlisle. It is the case that all countries will implement this process by 1st January 2004. 1 shall correct what I said a moment ago and explain that both Spain and Denmark have already done so. We are on track and working together with our European partners. Having listened to my response, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, perhaps it would be more courteous if I begin by addressing the questions quite rightly put to me by the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe. One of the difficulties of debate on Report is that one is not able to respond immediately, as is the case in Grand Committee.
The noble Viscount directed me to respond to two important questions. The first concerned the determination of the interests of justice and how that might be obtained. He asked whether the court would follow the procedure that it does now with the full process of bringing evidence, asking questions and so forth. My answer to that is yes, and it is obvious that the Minister assumed that in his response when he appeared to accuse me of wanting to prolong proceedings, but not to prolong them for long enough—I have not allowed for quite as many appeal procedures as he would consider consistent with my argument.
What we are seeking to make clear here is that in the Government's drafting of the Bill there does not appear to be sufficient scrutiny of the reasons why someone is to be packed off overseas. We are not trying to prevent extradition, but we want to ensure that it takes place in the right way. The noble Viscount will appreciate that this amendment is one of many that seek to put into the Bill safeguards which in themselves may appear, when considered individually, sometimes a little defective. When they are taken together, however, we think that they would provide a valuable service.
The noble Viscount also asked how much consideration would the court give. This is one of the difficulties of the Government's own drafting and, taking into account their responses to our questions put in Grand Committee, we do not feel that we have been given a sufficient explanation of exactly how the court is expected to gather the relevant information. Much has been left unsatisfied in that regard.

1655
The second matter directed to me by the noble Viscount concerned the proper question of whether to specify the judge. At present the job is done by specialists. He will appreciate that the district judges sitting at Bow Street court have particular expertise in this area. Magistrates consider these matters on a daily basis. Although there is no specialist training as such, they train one another within a system of continuous training. I imagine that it would be very difficult for other judges to take on such work.
While I take the noble Viscount's point entirely, I would answer it by saying that the Government have not specified which judges in England shall hear these cases. Indeed, I understand that they intend to roll out extradition and the specialist expertise required to other parts of the country beyond Bow Street; I tabled amendments in Grand Committee on that point.
Finally, I see that the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie, is in his place on the Liberal Democrat Front Bench. As a Scot he will appreciate that, in this case, the Bill is kinder to Scotland than it is to England. That is because in Scotland, the specific judge who will hear these cases—the office holder—is identified later in the Bill.
Those are my responses to the noble Viscount. While of course I understand the explanation given by the Minister, I would argue that we are trying to put into the Bill an essential element of safeguard to which my noble friend Lord Carlisle of Bucklow has spoken. I endorse entirely his arguments. I wish to test the opinion of the House.
5.47 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 7) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 99; Not-Contents, 160.

Division No. 4

CONTENTS

Anelay of St Johns, B.

Elton, L.

Arran, E.

Fookes, B.

Astor of Hever, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Attlee, E.

Geddes, L.

Blackwell, L.

Gilmour of Craigmillar, L.

Bowness, L.

Glentoran, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Gray of Contin, L.

Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, L.

Hanson, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Higgins, L.

Buscombe, B.

Hooper, B.

Caithness, E.

Howe, E.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Howe of Aberavon, L.

Carlisle of Bucklow, L.

Howell of Guildford, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Hunt of Wirral, L.

Colwyn, L.

James of Holland Park, B.

Crathorne, L.

Jopling, L.

Crickhowell, L.

Kilclooney, L.

Cumberlege, B.

Kimball, L.

Denham, L.

King of Bridgwater, L.

Donaldson of Lymington, L.

Kingsland, L.

Dundee, E.

Kirkham, L.

Eden of Winton, L.

Knight of Collingtree, B.

1656

Laird, L.

Renton, L.

Lamont of Lerwick, L.

Renton of Mount Harry, L.

Lane of Horsell, L.

Roberts of Conwy, L.

Lang of Monkton, L.

Rogan, L.

Liverpool, E.

Rotherwick, L.

Lucas, L.

Ryder of Wensum, L.

Luke, L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Lyell, L.

Sanderson of Bowden, L.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

Seccombe, B. [Teller]

MacGregor of Pulham Market, L.

Selkirk of Douglas, L.

Selsdon, L.

Mancroft, L.

Sharples, B.

Marksford, L.

Shaw of Northstead, L.

Miller of Hendon, B.

Shrewsbury, E.

Molyneaux of Killead, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Monro of Langholm, L.

Stevens of Ludgate, L.

Montrose, D.

Stewartby, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Stoddart of Swindon. L.

Noakes, B.

Strathclyde. L.

Northbrook, L.

Swinfen, L.

Norton of Louth, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

O'Cathain, B.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

Park of Monmouth, B.

Trumpington, B.

Patten, L.

Ullswater, V.

Peel, E

Waddington, L.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Wakeham, L.

Rawlings, B.

Wilcox, B. [Teller]

Reay, L.

Wolfson, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Falkland, V.

Addington, L.

Farrington of Ribbleton. B.

Amos, B. (Lord President)

Faulkner of Worcester, L.

Andrews, B.

Filkin, L.

Archer of Sandwell, L.

Finlay of Llandaff, B.

Ashton of Upholland, B.

Fitt, L.

Avebury, L.

Gavron, L.

Bach.L.

Gibson of Market Rasen, B.

Barker, B.

Golding, B.

Bassam of Brighton, L.

Goldsmith. L.

Berkeley, L.

Goudie, B.

Bernstein of Craigweil, L.

Gould of Potternewton. B.

Billingham, B.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Blackstone, B.

Greengross, B.

Borrie, L.

Grocott, L. [Teller]

Boston of Faversham, L.

Harris of Haringey. L.

Brett. L.

Harris of Richmond, B.

Brooke of Alverthorpe, L.

Harrison, L.

Brookman, L.

Haskel, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Hayman, B.

Campbell-Savours, L.

Hilton of Eggardon, B.

Carter, L.

Hogg of Cumbernauld. L.

Chan, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Christopher, L.

Holme of Cheltenham, L.

Clark of Windermere, L.

Hooson, L.

Clement-Jones, L.

Howarth of Breckland, B.

Clinton-Davis, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Hoyle, L.

Corbett of Castle Vale, L.

Hughes of Woodside, L.

Craig of Radley, L.

Hunt of Kings Heath, L.

Crawley, B.

Irvine of Lairg, L.

David, B.

Islwyn, L.

Davies of Coity, L.

Janner of Braunstone, L.

Davies of Oldham, L. [Teller]

Jay of Paddington, B.

Desai, L.

Jones, L.

Dholakia, L.

Jordan, L.

Dixon, L.

King of West Bromwich, L.

Donoughue, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Lea of Crondall, L.

Dubs, L.

Linklater of Butterstone, B.

Elder, L.

Lipsey, L.

Evans of Parkside, L.

Livsey of Talgarth, L.

Evans of Temple Guiting, L.

Lofthouse of Pontefract, L.

Falconer of Thoroton, L. (Lord Chancellor)

Macdonald of Tradeston, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

1657

McIntosh of Hudnall, B.

Roper, L.

MacKenzic of Culkein, L.

Sainsbury of Turville, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Sandberg, L.

Maddock, B.

Sandwich, E.

Mallalieu, B.

Scotland of Asthal, B.

Mar and Kellie, E.

Sharman, L.

Marsh, L.

Sharp of Guildford, B.

Mason of Barnsley, L.

Sheldon, L.

Massey of Darwen, B.

Shutt of Greetland, L.

Merlyn-Rees, L.

Simon, V.

Miller of Chilthorne Domer, B.

Smith of Clifton, L.

Mitchell L

Smith of Gilmorehill, B.

Morris of Aberavon, L.

Smith of Leigh, L.

Morris of Manchester, L.

Stallard, L.

Ncwby L

Sutherland of Houndwood, L.

Nicol, B.

Symons of Vernham Dean, B.

Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay, L.

Taverne, L.

Parekh L

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Patel of Blackburn, L.

Temple-Morris L

Pendry, L

Thomas of Gresford, L.

Pitkeathley, B.

Thornton, B.

Plant of Highfield, L.

Tope, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Tordoff, L.

Puttnam, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Varley. L.

Radice, L.

Walmsley, B.

Ramsay of Cartvale, B.

Walpole, L.

Randall of St. Budeaux, L.

Warner, L.

Razzall, L.

Warwick of Undercliffe, B.

Rea, L.

Watson of Invergowrie, L.

Redesdale, L.

Weatherill, L.

Rendell of Babergh, B.

Whitaker, B.

Rennard, L.

Whitty, L.

Richard, L.

Wilkins, B.

Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Rooker, L.

Woolmer of Leeds, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
5.57 p.m.
Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, perhaps I may suggest to the noble Lord on the Woolsack that one vote should be deducted from those who were Not-Content on the ground that the Minister casting that vote was plainly out of order, as every person in the Chamber noticed.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Tordoff): My Lords, if the noble Lord on the Woolsack was entitled and allowed to speak on matters of order, he might do so. But as the rubric states that he is not, I cannot answer that.
Clause 2 [Part 1 warrant and certificate]:
Lord Bassam of Brighton Lord Bassam of Brighton moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 1, line 15, leave out second "an" and insert "a judicial"
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I can be brief in moving this amendment and speaking to the other amendments in the group. I say that for two reasons: First, they are very simple amendments; secondly, I anticipate that they will be welcomed by all sides of the House.
The amendments arise from points raised in Grand Committee, which were strongly put by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, my noble friend Lord Wedderburn and the principal opposition spokespersons from the Liberal Democrat and Conservative Parties—a fairly formidable team of opponents.
The Government like to show that we see the sense and force of good argument in debate. For those reasons, we have brought forward our own amendments, which we are confident are robust and will do the job that they set out to do. We recognise the force of the argument and that is why I am bringing forward these amendments today. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
6 p.m.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns Baroness Anelay of St Johns moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 2, line 4, leave out "is accused" and insert "faces charges"
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 9, I shall also speak to Amendment No. 15, and my noble friend Lord Lamont will speak to Amendments Nos. 11,12 and 13.
These amendments address another issue that has been of the utmost importance to noble Lords during our discussions at Second Reading and in Grand Committee. The question is whether someone can be extradited to a category 1 territory for the purpose of interrogation after merely being accused rather than for the purpose of prosecution when there is already substantive evidence to warrant a trial. I note that in another place the Government and all other groups are on the same side on this matter. The Government tabled amendments to this clause which sought to clarify that a person should be extradited only if there was a case to answer if they were to be prosecuted. Our difficulty is that we feel that the clarification is not yet sufficient.
The Minister has tried to assure us that the drafting of the Bill already guarantees that a person can be extradited only for the purposes of prosecution and not for evidence gathering. I will not repeat the matters discussed in Grand Committee, particularly at col. GC 24 of Hansard. There were objections from around the Committee pointing out that as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, and my noble friend Lord Carlisle, said earlier today, other jurisdictions differ considerably in the manner in which they take forward their criminal cases.
Our other difficulty is that we feel there is a danger that our citizens could be extradited to jurisdictions where, instead of facing a trial immediately, as we would expect in this country, there could be some investigation or fishing expedition. Our amendments put the matter beyond all doubt by replacing "is accused" with "faces charges" and by expanding and defining the phrase,
"for the purpose of being prosecuted".
I know that my noble friend Lord Lamont will speak more fully on this matter and give some examples of where we think the problems lie.
I believe that these amendments—mine in particular—deserve to be on the face of the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 11, 12 and 13 in my name, while

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supporting those of my noble friend Lady Anelay. The purpose of my amendments, as with hers, is to deal with what I think is a well known situation, whereby foreign magistrates have been known, quite frequently, to detain people purely for the purposes of questioning. They may detain people for quite long periods—no charges are ever laid and people are released. These amendments would make it clear that nobody should be extradited and fall victim to this practice in Europe. I would be grateful for the Minister's attention.
That this is the practice is, I think, widely accepted. John Mortimer QC, a supporter of the party opposite, went out of his way in a recent article to warn people not to be arrested in Belgium, Italy or Spain because they might find themselves locked up and interrogated until a judge decided he had applied enough pressure to get out of them the information he wanted.
This point is of concern not just to me and my noble friend—it has been highlighted by Justice, Liberty, the Law Society and Fair Trials Abroad. The situation arises where there are juges d'instruction, magistrates who are both investigators and prosecutors. A person may be accused of a crime but that does not mean that they will ever stand trial. Investigation can continue while the person is accused, held in prison and then dropped. This may go on for many, many months.
The point was very succinctly and more clearly expressed by Mr Leolin Price QC in his comments on the code of practice on extradition. He said:
"In some member states, arrest—although the legal system of that state may regard arrest as the beginning of the process of prosecution—is the beginning of an investigation; and the decision whether to charge the arrested person, or release him without taking the case to trial, will occur while the arrested person is in custody, perhaps for many months. In those circumstances the arrested person may never be, in our common law language, accused ofthe offence or any offence, and there may never be a charge clearly formulated".
That is his opinion, and I think it is widely accepted. That is why some of us have had great worries that the legislation might result in people being accused and extradited.
For that purpose, I asked a Written Question of the Foreign Office. It asked:
"Whether they will publish a table showing the total number of British citizens in prison in each country in the European Union; and how many, if any, in each country have been held in custody for longer than three months (a) without being given bail and (b) without being charged". —[Official Report, 20/6/03; col. WA 200.]
The House may be interested to know that the number of prisoners in EU gaols—I am sorry, I meant gaols in EU countries; we have not quite got to that stage yet— is 815. The number held over three months without being given bail is 275. The number held over three months without being charged was given, in the Answer from the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, as zero in each country. I seriously question that Answer.
I tabled a further Question for Written Answer asking the Minister what was the definition of being charged. Did it simply mean that the person was accused or did it mean that the person had been told they would stand trial? The Answer I was given was that the Foreign Office
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was not aware of anyone having been held in gaol for three months without being charged. That is hardly an answer to the question, "What is the definition of being charged?". All I was given as an Answer was a repetition of the Answer I had already been given. In view of the seriousness of this issue—I will be surprised if other people do not, to some extent, share that belief—not giving the definition of "charged" was very inadequate.
I then tabled a further Written Question, asking for an expansion of the table, whose figures apply to 31st March this year. I asked how many people had subsequently been released without being charged. That would have been a very good indicator of the definition of the word "accused" or "charged". The reply was that the expense of answering the Question would be disproportionate. I put it to the House that when we have such an important issue coming up in the Bill, that is not an adequate Answer. I know the Foreign Office is very busy, arranging the Queen's birthday party and attending EU functions, but it is not above answering very important questions.
I then asked a further Question about whether we could have some information on the 12 people held in Belgium for longer than three months and what they had been charged with. Again, I was told that to find that out for 12 people would incur disproportionate cost. I question whether the Foreign Office can be carrying out its consular function if it does not have that information. I repeat that I regard that as a highly unsatisfactory Answer.
That it is important whether someone is actually charged or just accused is indicated by the fact that the Irish have attached a declaration in relation to the European arrest warrant in Article 1(1). It states that the issuing authority with an arrest warrant must either give an undertaking that surrender is only sought for the purpose of charging the person with, and trying him or her for, the offence concerned, or a statement in writing that the person has been charged and a decision to try him or her for the offence concerned has been made.
I hope that we can have a serious answer to a serious question, and I hope that the Minister accepts that I am asking it in a genuine spirit of trying to ensure that there are no miscarriages of justice.
In Committee, the Government stated repeatedly that they were not aware of such an event happening. The noble Lord, Lord Filkin, said that he had not been aware of any problems of someone since 1999 being extradited and not being prosecuted. He said:
"I would be open to being educated if any Members of the Committee know of any examples of that being the case".— [Official Report, 9/6/03; col. GC 22.]
I should like to give one example, although I do so with considerable hesitation, for a reason that I shall make clear.
As Members of the Committee know, I have been interested in extradition for some time, and have been interested in the whole concept of the European arrest warrant. I first wrote an article about it in the Daily Telegraph in 2001. Having described what I saw as the dangers of extradition and its procedures, and the risk

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of being accused without being charged, it never occurred to me that someone I knew very well would actually get into that very situation. I would not want anyone in the House or elsewhere to feel that in making these remarks I was motivated by a financial interest or some special factor.
I wish to refer to the case of a Mr Vahid Alaghband— someone who is known to the Government and has from time to time advised the Government and the Cabinet Office. He is a citizen of this country, and a dual citizen; he is an Anglo-Iranian, and has given advice to the Government on several occasions. When Mrs Mowlam was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, he gave some advice to the Cabinet Office on her visit there. He has also given advice to the British Embassy in Teheran, and given considerable help. He is a prominent businessman in this country, and at one stage employed nearly 20,000 people. He appears in the Sunday Times rich list.
I said that I would not wish my motives to be misunderstood. I have declared in the Register of Lord’ Interests that I am a director of a company that Mr Alaghband owns. He is the chairman of it, but it is not a company that is involved in any way in the matter that is the subject of the legal dispute to which I wish to refer. I have no connection with those events beyond my connection with him. I am uneasy about raising this case, but I simply felt that it made no sense for me to speak in these debates without referring to something that, by a terrible coincidence, I have witnessed and watched, and which absolutely exemplifies what has worried me about the proposals from the word "go".
Mr Alaghband was arrested in Switzerland, at the request of a German magistrate, when he was one of the main speakers at the Davos Conference in January. He was accused in connection with the take-over of an unquoted company in Germany, a company of which he owned 95 per cent. He is accused of breaking German law in the take-over of the company, on two grounds: a breach of fiduciary duty and fraud. Those are the two precise accusations that have also been made against Mr Ackermann, the chairman of the Deutsche Bank, in relation to the take-over of Mannesmann by Vodaphone. Indeed, the magistracy in the Dusseldorf area has been extremely active in commercial law and in indicting large numbers of prominent German businessmen.
What Mr Alaghband is alleged to have done—and indeed did—was to borrow money to buy a company and then use cash within the company to repay the loan. That is known as a leveraged buyout, which is largely not an offence in British or American law, but can be an offence in German law. None of that surfaced until there was a move by the company to make some redundancies and to move the headquarters of the company out of Germany to London, when allegations about breaking the law arose.
I emphasise that I do not know the facts of the case, or the rights or wrongs; I have not been involved in any way and am not part of the company that was
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involved. I personally believe in Mr Alaghband; he is someone whom I deeply admire and respect. He is known to quite a number of people in this House. I was perfectly content and happy to write a letter supporting his application for bail in Switzerland, and a Labour Peer did exactly the same—believing, as I do, that he is an honourable man. 1 am not suggesting on this matter that the Government should do anything, or that they have failed to do anything. I simply wish to describe the legal procedures in this case. That is what concerns me at this point—not whether Mr Alaghband is innocent or guilty.
Mr Alaghband was arrested in Switzerland. The British ambassador, who knew him personally, to try to facilitate bail said that he was prepared to guarantee that British embassies and consulates would not issue him another passport and that he would surrender his passport. That was not enough, and he was refused bail. He was then extradited to Germany, in conditions that I shall not describe as they are not relevant to what we are discussing, but which are highly alarming. He was taken to Germany and has now been there, in prison, for four months, having been six months in Switzerland. He has been in gaol for more than 10 months, and has not been charged. He has been accused, but the prosecutor has not made up his mind whether to recommend charges to the judge, and the judge has made no decision about whether he should be prosecuted.
The important point is that Mr Alaghband has only been accused; that is the language that is used in the Bill. The word is "accused". In tabling our amendments, my noble friend Lady Anelay and I believe that a person should be extradited only if he is definitely going to be prosecuted. I know that the Minister will say that it is impractical to propose that people should be extradited only if they are going to be charged and stand trial within six months, and that if they do not stand trial within six months they should be returned. I can understand why she would say that would be impractical. However, regardless of that, the issue of someone simply being accused and not being charged is a very real one.
The noble Lord, Lord Filkin, said that he would be educated if someone could provide an example, and I believe that I have provided an example of someone who has been in prison for a long time without actually being charged, and with no indication that he will be charged. The term has been extended for six months— and then possibly there will be another six months.
An interesting point arising from the case, which is very relevant to the issue of extradition, is the contrast between the treatment of Mr Alaghband and the treatment of the chairman of Deutsche Bank, Mr Ackermann—a case that aroused enormous publicity and fears in the German business community. Mr Ackermann is also accused of fraud and breach of fiduciary duty, but he is a Swiss citizen resident in Germany. He is not detained, because he is a well-known figure in Germany. A foreigner in Germany is in a much more difficult position; he is at a disadvantageous position because of the risk of flight.

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I put it to the noble Baroness that it is very unsatisfactory that someone can be detained in such circumstances. The Minister—not the noble Baroness, but the noble Lord, Lord Filkin—challenged us to come up with a single example, and I was horrified that I knew of one from my own experience. I think that the case illustrates that there is a very real problem in that people can be detained without being charged. The Answer to my Written Questions was, frankly, deplorable. The Foreign Office should have answered those Questions and indicated to me whether there are other situations like this in other EU countries. The case raises a fundamental question of civil liberties. Answering, or not answering, in such a cavalier manner is an abuse of Parliament. It shows that Parliament is being treated in a highly cavalier manner.
I have discussed this case with a number of lawyers who say that this situation is not uncommon. One Queen's Counsel said to me, "If the Government think that there are no people in that situation they just ought to ask a few British lorry drivers, plenty of whom are languishing in prison while they are investigated for drugs or smuggling immigrants". What often happens in these cases, I am told, is that the accused—having been accused but not actually charged in our sense, and having been detained for many months—are given a sentence for the time they have already been in prison, in order to avoid their taking legal action against those who accused them. Enormous pressure is therefore put on people to strike a bargain with the judicial authorities.
For all those reasons I believe that, if not the precise words in my amendments, some such provision should be included in the legislation, to ensure that people cannot be extradited from this country for the purpose of questioning. It would be all too easy for the extraditing country to use the word "accused" to indicate that it is operating "with a view to" a prosecution, as the Bill states, when they do not know whether they will prosecute. They may think they will prosecute, but they do not know. As Mr Leolin Price QC said in his evidence, that is the common way in which these investigating magistrates proceed, by continuing to investigate while detaining someone. If that someone is a foreigner, he is at a very considerable disadvantage compared with the locals of those countries.
On the basis of their Answers when we have raised this issue, the Foreign Office and the Government seem not to be aware of this real and serious problem. I hope that the noble Baroness will reflect and come up with a more satisfactory approach.
Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, I support at least the spirit behind these amendments, though which of them I know not. I suspect, in fact I know, that the Minister also supports the spirit behind them because she has consistently stated that it is clearly the Bill's intent that one shall be extradited under Part 1 only to face trial and not to be interrogated. However, while the noble
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Baroness said earlier that all the countries within the family of the EU share common values, their criminal procedures are undoubtedly different. They may be no worse, but they are different. Undoubtedly there are many countries where one is arrested expressly for the purpose of being examined so that someone can thereafter decide whether or not to try one.
As the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, says, everyone knows that British citizens are languishing in EU prisons and being interrogated. They have not got there by being extradited because, at the moment, before you can be extradited the country has to prove sufficient facts to put you on trial. Therefore, to have challenged the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, to come up with examples where someone has been extradited and then held for questioning was asking the wrong question. A fact that no one would dispute is that in many countries people are held without bail—if they are foreign, they are particularly likely to be held without bail—for the purposes of being extradited. If there is any loophole in the Bill that might allow extradition to be used for that purpose then that loophole must be blocked.
It is important to remember that when one is interpreting the words "is accused of and the warrant is issued with a view to his arrest, it is not a matter which will be decided de novo by the English court. The Bill requires a statement in the warrant by the foreign court that that is what they are doing. The English court is basically bound by that statement in the warrant. A foreign court, with its procedure, could perfectly legitimately say, "A man is accused"—as the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, has pointed out—"of the commission of an offence, and I am issuing a warrant with a view to his arrest and extradition for the purpose of his being prosecuted". They might, in the light of their procedure, find it perfectly legitimate to make such a statement, although an English court in the same situation would not have been able to make that statement because the words meant something different. That is why the words in this part of the Bill have to be superabundantly clear, that you can issue this warrant with this statement in it only if you say, "I've got my tackle in order. I've got the evidence to prosecute him. That is why he is coming here—to be prosecuted".
I urge the Minister, at the very least, to say that she will take the matter away and devise a form of wording that is not capable of being innocently misinterpreted by a foreign court to achieve a result that no one, particularly the noble Baroness herself, wants to achieve.
Lord Donaldson of Lymington: My Lords, I concur in everything that the noble Viscount said. He said it with a great deal more up-to-date knowledge than I have. However, I would add this. It may be that those who are not lawyers will not appreciate quite how different the continental system is from the British system. I particularly have that in mind as there was one occasion when I was a judge in the Queen's Bench Division when

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someone applied to me for a writ of habeas corpus which was directed to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, either to charge the arrested person or to release him. As the Commissioner did not deign to take any notice of my presence, I gave instructions at the lunch adjournment that the writ was to issue unless by two o'clock he had appeared and explained which he proposed to do. Come two o'clock there was not a sign. So I said, "Right; the writ will issue". Two minutes later, a perspiring sergeant arrived and said, "We have charged him".
That is the difference. I forget the exact time period involved, but four or five days was probably the limit within which the accused had to be released or charged. When one compares that with the experience of the sort of case described by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, it really is staggering that the Minister can say that we all belong to the same judicial club.
Lord Carlisle of Bucklow: My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, said that he suspected that there was very little difference in spirit between the views of the Government and those of my noble friend Lord Lamont on this matter. I would suggest that probably everyone in the House at the moment agrees totally on what is desired.
Before the Minister responds, I refer her to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, in Grand Committee. He said:
"It is clear that a Part 1 warrant under Clause 2(3)(b) can be valid only if it is for the purpose of a prosecution. A request from a member state to this country for extradition for the purpose of investigation or interrogation would not be lawful".—[Official Report, 9/6/03; col. GC 23.]
Therefore, it seems to me that the only outstanding issue is whether the wording in the Bill which refers to "accused" is adequate, or whether, for the reasons given by the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, the matter should be looked at again to produce words which clearly carry out the intention of both sides.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, I should make it clear—if I have not done so—that the warrant in the case to which I referred contained the word "accused". That was an extradition case from Switzerland to Germany.
Lord Carlisle of Bucklow: My Lords, that confirms what I said. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, did not appear to be totally clear that the wording in the Bill met the aim. I say with respect to the Minister that the matter should be looked at again to ensure that the Bill's wording is adequate to achieve the end that everyone desires.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, when the noble Baroness replies, will she answer one simple
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question? Is there anything to guarantee that member states of the European Union will not in the future change their law for the worse in this respect?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, we have had much discussion on this matter and on this particular clause. There is no doubt of the wording of Clause 2(3). I shall read it out so that I understand it. It states:
"the person in respect of whom the Part 1 warrant is issued is accused in the category 1 territory of the commission of an offence specified in the warrant".
That is what the Bill states. However, Article 1 of the framework decision, under the heading, "Definition of the European arrest warrant and obligation to execute it", states:
"The European arrest warrant is a judicial decision issued by a Member State with a view to the arrest and surrender by another Member State of a requested person, for the purposes of conducting a criminal prosecution or executing a custodial sentence or detention order".
There is nothing there about people being accused of offences. The wording is quite clear. It states:
"for the purposes of conducting a criminal prosecution".
That means that the matter is presumably settled. It is not a question of extraditing a person who has been accused of something, but rather someone who is already guilty of something and is going to be tried. If I am wrong, it seems to me that either I have not read the Bill correctly or I have not read the framework document correctly because the two things do not seem to tie up. The Minister should insert the words of the framework document, which do not mention accusation. Then we could all get on to the next amendment and we would all be happy and our people would be safe from being accused and whipped over to a continental country and questioned by a magistrate for months on end. Why does she not do that?
Lord Lucas: My Lords, I have so often said that the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, talks rubbish. However, on this occasion I think that he is entirely right.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, is very warmed by that generous support.
I make it absolutely clear that the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, is right to say that the Government acknowledge the spirit of this amendment. Where we differ is that we say that the current drafting is clear. We looked very carefully at the difficulties that were raised in Committee to ensure that we reflected that which all noble Lords on all sides of the House wished to see secured. Therefore, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and to the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, for having tabled these amendments. I hope that I can put beyond doubt the Government's view of these provisions.
I reassure my noble friend Lord Stoddart that the clarity with which he accurately assessed the framework document is reflected in the Bill that we now have. He is right to point out that surrender for

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the purposes of conducting a criminal prosecution was what everyone agreed to in that document, and nothing else.
I am not persuaded by the merits of these amendments. We believe that they are unnecessary. As the noble Lord, Lord Carlisle of Bucklow, said, the issue was quite properly debated at length in Grand Committee. My noble friend Lord Filkin put on record the assurance sought by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, on that occasion. That assurance was correctly recited today by the noble Lord, Lord Carlisle of Bucklow.
I repeat that this Bill, as it is currently drafted, allows extradition for the purposes of prosecution only in accusation cases. The Bill does not allow extradition for the purposes of questioning, investigation or, of course, interrogation. My noble friend Lord Filkin agreed to reflect on further issues raised by Members of the Grand Committee. As I said earlier, we have done that. I think that we are clear on all sides about the objective.
Although this is Report, it is worth looking at what the current extradition legislation says. Section 1 of the Extradition Act 1989 provides for extradition procedures where a person "is accused" of the commission of an offence. It goes no further than that on the subject and the phrase "is accused" is not qualified in any way. Your Lordships will know that that is the law that we have had for the past 14 years since 1989 and that it has not been an issue between ourselves and our partners. In contrast, the Bill is very explicit. It goes on to say that a warrant must have been issued,
"for the purpose of being prosecuted for the offence".
Those additional words strengthen and underline the purpose of the warrant. As I say, this is more than we have at the moment and we are pleased to have had the opportunity to make that point very clear.
I suggest that concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, about fishing trips are simply unfounded. We are not aware of any such problems under the current system, where the test is far less clear, and we certainly do not anticipate them in future. I listened with great care to the example concerning Germany and Switzerland that the noble Lord gave. However, that certainly does not relate to any extradition, or experience of extradition, that we have had with our partners.
Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, does the noble Baroness recognise that one could not have had that problem in this country because one would have had to put before the court the evidence one had before one could secure extradition?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, as I just said, there is not a dissimilarity between the phraseology of "accused" and the form that has to be proven. In fact, we are making the provision stronger, not weakening it. As the noble Viscount will know, some people will seek robustly to interrogate these
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matters when they come before the court. They will know the precise nature of the framework document. They will also know what will be in the warrant. It will be our judges who will interpret the provisions.
My next point is on what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, and the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, about others changing the law. Whatever is in the framework document, it is the Bill, if it comes into law, that will determine how matters are adjudicated on in our country. This is the law that will apply, and these are the provisions that will bite when the matter comes to be determined.
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, I accept what my noble friend says, but our court will be presented with the warrant. It will be presented with a view to an arrest, for the purpose of being prosecuted. In such jurisdictions as I know about in one or two European countries, that may well lead to detention for a very long time before there is any sniff of a trial. Surely she knows that that happens. In Italy and Spain, as well as Germany, it is not unknown.
The phrase,
"for the purpose of being prosecuted",
is a subjective formula, as would be quite honestly felt by those issuing the warrant abroad. Is the Minister really satisfied that we should have no guarantee about how long such a person on extradition under the Bill— I do not care about the present position—will be detained in gaol before they are brought to anything near a trial?
6.45 p.m.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, perhaps it is right that I remind the House of the current position, although I hear what my noble friend Lord Wedderburn says about not wanting to dwell on that. Noble Lords will know that in 1991 the country had the fortune—1 will not say whether it was good or bad—to have a government other than our own. Since that year, the position on extradition arrangements has been that EU countries have not had to provide prima facie evidence in the relevant regard. It is very easy for us to forget that position. As now, the term "accused" was in operation, but without the extra safeguard of making absolutely clear that it is for the purpose of being prosecuted for the offence. It is on that basis that we can be confident on how the issues will be interpreted.
I presume that if there were a problem with people being extradited for evidence-gathering or interrogation, it would have manifested itself fairly early on, and the Conservatives would certainly have sought to amend our extradition legislation, particularly if they held the views then that they hold now. We can draw some comfort from the fact that no attempts were made to amend our legislation, implying that the problems that the proponents of the amendments seek to remedy are unlikely to exist. We have had the provisions for 12 years. It is said that things can take a little time to ripen, but we would have had the problem by now if we were going to have it.

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We already have well established extradition arrangements with all the countries with which we will be involved through the European arrest warrant. None of them currently seeks extradition for the purposes of investigation or interrogation, and the European arrest warrant is being implemented across Europe on the basis of that understanding. I was pleased that my noble friend Lord Stoddart emphasised the basis on which the agreement for the European arrest warrant was made.
I shall not take up the House's time with unnecessary detail, but there are already a number of instruments concerning mutual legal assistance and judicial co-operation with our international partners. The relevant authorities in each country have dedicated contacts and systems for such work. It is that route, rather than abuse of the extradition system, by which we co-operate with other countries on investigative work. If a warrant were issued for the purposes of investigation, which is clearly the point at issue, that warrant could not be certified or executed in the United Kingdom. It would not be a Part 1 warrant as defined in the Bill.
Amendment No. 15, on which the noble Baroness touched briefly, demands that,
"sufficient evidence has already been gathered to bring a prosecution and to commit to trial the person in respect of whom the warrant is issued".
Presumably the only person who could judge that is the district judge, who would be required to examine the evidence against the person which had been gathered in the requesting state. That sounds very much like the reimposition of an evidential test. As I said, such a test has not been imposed on extradition requests from our EU or ECE partners since 1991.
As the government in 1991 saw no problem in disapplying the prima facie requirement, we find it difficult to understand the rationale for reintroducing it now. That is what the noble Baroness suggests. We have asked about that before, but I do not recall having been given an adequate answer. I do not know whether she wishes to give one today. I think that all noble Lords would be interested to know if it really were being suggested that we reintroduce the prima facie evidential requirement for all our extradition partners and, if so, why.
I shall deal briefly, I hope, with the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont. The same general points apply, and perhaps there is no need for me to repeat them. However, I would like to address his Amendments Nos. 12 and 13, which would introduce a requirement that the requesting territory guarantee that the person be prosecuted within six months of his extradition. If that change were made to the Bill, we would be unable to make an arrest on any warrant unless it contained that guarantee, and it would not be a Part 1 warrant. The framework decision does not include that requirement, so it will be highly unlikely that any warrant will contain the appropriate guarantee. That would make us unable to extradite anyone to another EU member state.
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I am aware that the noble Lord has concerns about the European arrest warrant—that he would like to expunge it from the face of the Bill, if not of the world—and the nature of the agreement with our European partners. Nevertheless, I cannot believe that he really intends that our extradition arrangements with them should come to an entire halt. Perhaps I am being too optimistic. I am sure that your Lordships will understand that it would not be for the United Kingdom to impose such conditions unilaterally— that is what is being suggested—after the framework decision has been agreed.
The noble Lord's third amendment goes one step further. It would mean that the statement would have to say that the person would be prosecuted within six months of his extradition. If he is not, it provides that he will be returned to the United Kingdom. As well as unilaterally imposing extra conditions on other EU states, the Bill would then unilaterally impose a sanction on the requesting state if it failed to meet the terms of the unilaterally imposed condition. The sanction would be that the person was returned to the United Kingdom to walk free.
I acknowledge that the noble Lord has difficulties with the Bill and that he has tabled amendments which he believes will strengthen it. However, I do not agree that that is the result. The amendments would greatly weaken the Bill, weakening the provisions beyond all recognition. There are many reasons why the prosecution may legitimately take longer than six months to begin. For example, if the person were suffering some extreme illness the trial might have to be delayed. The person might quite legitimately ask for extra time to prepare his defence.
The amendments make no allowance for such circumstances and, where they occurred, they would see the fugitive walk free. I would go further and say that the amendments would create a loophole which fugitives would undoubtedly seek to exploit. The sanction of unconditional release means that it would be in the fugitive's interest to delay the bringing of a prosecution for as long as possible, realising as he would that simply by delaying matters he would be able to get off without any punishment at all. It would be a wonderful incentive. I also have to ask what would happen if, in those circumstances, another country refused to return the person to the United Kingdom. He would be out of our jurisdiction, so presumably we would have to resort to other alternatives.
Although views of the Bill may differ, I thought that all sides of the House had agreed that the law on extradition needed updating. I heard everything the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, said about the Questions for Written Answer he had asked my noble friend Lady Symons and her stand that she had properly answered them. It is by no means cavalier for the Government on occasion to say that it would involve disproportionate cost to answer. Regrettably, answering some Questions involves the Government in considerable cost. I know, for example, that answering the noble Lord's June Question involved the Government in very considerable costs indeed. It is a position to which many governments of all

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complexions have had to resort when costs are disproportionate. All courtesy and propriety has been addressed. The noble Lord indicated further questions and I know that my noble friend Lady Symons, with her usual courtesy and propriety, will seek to give a full and proper answer to all of them.
It would not be proper for me to comment on the case the noble Lord mentioned. I understand the reasons why he hesitated so long and hard and he may on reflection feel that he should have hesitated even longer. But I believe the latter two amendments would create more difficulties than solutions. I have sought to explain that the Bill imposes a much more stringent test than we have at the moment. The words,
"for the purpose of being prosecuted for the offence"
are new and far more explicit than anything that can be found in previous extradition legislation. The much looser formulation that we have at the moment has not given rise to problems, so I fail to see why it is anticipated that a much higher test will do so.
I really do not believe that we should be contemplating re-introducing the prima facie evidential requirement for Council of Europe extradition partners. I hope that I have said sufficient to convince your Lordships that we need to be satisfied with what we have done so far. I have given great thought to everything that has been said and we believe that the balance is now about right.
Lord Donaldson of Lymington: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, perhaps I may ask a question. As I understand what she says, if another EU country honestly issues a warrant in the terminology of the Bill, but it can be shown that in practice the words have a different meaning to that used by its judicial authorities and that someone is being arrested with a view to seeing whether it is possible to prosecute him, it would not in the eyes of the Government be a European arrest warrant. If that is right, will it be open to the British courts, faced with the document which prima facie complies, to investigate whether it does comply on the ground?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I hear what the noble and learned Lord says and perhaps in reply I may explain how the system will work. The arrest warrant will come through the usual official channels, as has been the case for the past n-number of years. Two methods of working are conducted between ourselves and our European partners. The first is in relation to investigative and other work where we co-operate and work together. The second is when approved warrants come through the correct channels and it is clear that they are compliant. If such a warrant has come through the proper channels and is compliant, it will be safe and satisfactory for the courts to work on the premise that it is a proper warrant issued pursuant to the proper procedures.
Furthermore, there was concern in relation to a number of countries about how the European arrest warrant would work in practice. For instance, while I was in the Lord Chancellor's Department I worked with
1672
my Spanish colleague, Jose Maria Michavila, to try to get the procedure that we will each adopt right. We looked at practices such as video conferences which take place between our country and our partners to see whether we could produce an exemplar of how procedures will work in practice. Whether all our European colleagues then want to emulate the practical arrangements we have made between us, we must wait to see.
Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, is not the short answer to the noble and learned Lord that if the warrant makes the statement in the words of the clause, it will not be open to the court to question what the issuing court meant by them and what its intention was?
Lord Roper: My Lords, we are now at Report stage and noble Lords are limited to interventions before the Minister sits down.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, 1 will indicate immediately that much has been said by noble Lords which causes me to believe that I must take this whole group of amendments seriously. I shall look at them between now and Third Reading to decide which to bring back for the House to consider.
I also give the Government a little more leeway for another reason. In Grand Committee I asked them specific questions about the code of practice and its drafting. That drew attention to the Government's concern that there might be confusion when the police tried to exercise their duties in relation to these powers. At col. GC9 of Hansard for 10th September, the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, the then Minister, said that he would take away the thrust of my questioning and return to the matter when the Government were able to produce a draft in response to all the replies to their consultation. I appreciate that that consultation concluded only in September and that in October we now have some of the replies in print. Therefore, I do not in any way criticise the Government for failing to come forward today with a response.
However, there is an underlying concern about the effectiveness of these powers. I intend to give the Government every opportunity at Third Reading to persuade the House that there is sufficient clarity for it not to be concerned. We are all on the same side with regard to that.
The Minister asked me why we accept that the 1989 Act, which deals with, for instance, procedures on placing charges, prima facie requirements and abolition, works. As she knows, I expatiated at Second Reading and in Grand Committee on why knocking away all the major supports and safeguards in Part I meant that it was not acceptable also to knock away the support of prima facie requirement.
There is much to consider and I shall do so. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 10 to 15 not moved.]
Baroness Anelay of St Johns Baroness Anelay of St Johns moved Amendment No. 16:
Page 2. line 15, leave out from "including" to end of line 17 and insert "a description of the circumstances in which the offence was committed, including the time, place and degree of participation in the offence by the requested person, the nature and legal classification of the offence and the applicable statutory provision;"
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, Amendment No. 16 is supported by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart. It focuses on the information which must be contained in the arrest warrant as set out in Clause 2(4)(c). When we put forward the amendment in Grand Committee, we did so together with an alternative proposal that the content of a warrant must conform to the model arrest warrant appended in the framework decision. Since then, we have not only listened carefully to what noble Lords have said but we have had discussions outside the House. In particular, we listened to the Minister's examples of how the Bill already incorporates requirements to be contained in the model warrant. I had particular discussions with the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, before bringing forward this joint amendment, which we consider should be the best way forward.
Subsection (4)(c), as was pointed out to us by Liberty, paraphrases Article 8(1) of the framework decision. We agree with Liberty that there are dangerous consequences in paraphrasing the article, especially as certain criteria are omitted from the list of what should be included on the warrant. The framework decision states at Article 8(1) that the warrant should contain information such as the following: the identity and nationality of the requested person; the name, address, telephone and fax numbers and e-mail address of the issuing judicial authority; evidence of an enforceable judgment, an arrest warrant or any other enforceable judicial decision having the same effect, coming within the scope of Articles 1 and 2; the nature and legal classification of the offence, particularly in respect of Article 2; a description of the circumstances in which the offence was committed, including the time, place and degree of participation in the offence by the requested person; the penalty imposed if there is a final judgment or the prescribed scale of penalties for the offence under the law of the issuing member state if there is no judgment just yet; and, if possible, other consequences of the offence.
Our objection is that the Bill itself requests scant information. It asks for the person's identity, details of any other warrant for his arrest, how long his sentence would be if convicted, and then—the catch-all—
"particulars of the circumstances in which the person is alleged to have committed the offence, including the conduct alleged to constitute the offence and the time and place at which he is alleged to have committed the offence".
We believe that the drafting of the Bill should be clearer than that. I beg to move.
7 p.m.
Lord Dholakia: My Lords, we on this side of the House support the amendment. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Goodhart has attached his name to it. I stress that the amendment reflects what is already
1674
included in the annex to the framework agreement, as explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. The words are directly taken from that document, which sets out the form of the warrant.
Why should that cause a problem? We have something that is explained in ordinary language. Is it not better to use those words rather than paraphrase the words in subsection (4)(c)? In trying to legalise the language, the Government, as has rightly been pointed out, have missed out certain parts of the wording— particularly those relating to the legal basis. We backed this issue in an amendment in Grand Committee and we back it again.
I read very carefully the reply given in Grand Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Filkin. He may have complied with the framework decision but perhaps I may spell out what he said. He said that the matter of identity is covered by virtue of Clause 2(4)(a) and that the matter of judicial information is covered by Clause 2(4)(b). He then said that the sentence which may be imposed is covered by virtue of Clause 2(4)(d). He went on to refer to information about convictions in absentia being supplied in Clause 20, and he then went on to talk about information on 32 generic offence categories being supplied to comply with Clauses 10 and 63.
Is that all necessary? In the amendment we ask only that all the requirements be included. I believe that most people find this legalised jargon difficult to understand. Perhaps I may suggest to the noble Baroness that she reconsiders the matter carefully. I feel that the amendment deals with much of the problem and it is very much in line with the framework document.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I always take to heart accusations from the noble Lord about legalised jargon. If I may respectfully say so, one striking aspect of this Bill is that the draftsman has been rather clear and the drafting is simple.
I am very grateful to the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for tabling this amendment so that we can explore the interesting area of what information should be contained in an incoming Part I warrant. Clause 2(4) of the Bill sets out—in Part I accusation cases—what information an incoming warrant needs to contain, as the noble Baroness and the noble Lord both made clear. However, the information in question is: details of the identity of the person whose extradition has been sought; particulars of the domestic arrest warrant that has been issued for the person in question; details of the offence of which the person is accused, including details of the time and place where the offence was committed; and details of the penalty that could be imposed.
I am sure that your Lordships will see why that is all relevant information which should be included in any warrant. The amendment seeks to change part of the

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wording of Clause 2(4) and, in particular, it seeks to remove some of Clause 2(4)(c) and insert substitute wording. It is not difficult to see where the proposal has come from. I believe that it has been lifted almost directly from the framework document, and I can understand why it has come from there.
However, your Lordships will see that, in trying to craft the Bill, we have not simply filleted the framework document and put it straight into our law. We have had to frame it so that it is consistent with our own structure and understanding of the law to try to make it clear. We thought that the draftsman had been rather successful. Indeed, phrases such as "the degree of participation" of the wanted person in the offence and the "legal classification" of the offence do not sit very neatly in a piece of UK legislation because it is outwith the way that we would normally deal with these matters. As I said, we are not obliged to copy the wording of the framework decision.
I listened carefully to what both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord said. I think that we have probably got it right. But I am happy to take away the matter and look at it again, particularly in relation to the details of the law of the requesting country which the person is alleged to have broken.
To be absolutely frank, I am not sure that we shall return with an improvement to the wording because I tend to think that this is, if I may say so somewhat colloquially, fine. If the noble Lord and the noble Baroness really want us to reconsider the matter, we shall do so. However, I anticipate that I may come back saying that we have done our homework in the best way that we can and that we have marked it 10 out of 10, although others may take a different view.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her customary openness and honesty in her responses, which we always value. I appreciate that the Government feel that the draftsmen have it right. The Government are saying, "We are not slavishly copying the framework decision; we are trying to achieve some kind of consistency throughout". Of course, I can then point the Minister to Amendment No. 328 in the Government's name, which will impose on the framework list of 32 offences the European general wording that has been agreed.
We are saying that we consider it appropriate for the proper wording to be put on the face of the Bill. We accept that the Government have made considerable progress in the way that they have defined this part of the Bill. However, I have to say that, for the safeguards that we believe are necessary, the progress is not sufficient. I wish to test the opinion of the House.
7.8 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 16) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 112; Not-Contents, 106.

Division No.5

CONTENTS

Addington, L.

Miller of Hendon, B.

Anelay of St Johns, B.

Monro of Langholm, L.

Arran, E.

Monson, L.

Astor, V.

Montrose, D.

Attlee, E.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Avebury, L.

Newby, L.

Barker, B.

Noakes, B.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Northbrook, L.

Blatch, B.

Northesk, E.

Bowness, L.

Norton of Louth, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay, L.

Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, L.

O'Cathain, B.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Palmer, L.

Buscombe, B.

Park of Monmouth, B.

Carlisle of Bucklow, L.

Pearson of Rannoch, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Peel, E.

Colville of Culross, V.

Rawlings, B.

Colwyn, L.

Reay, L.

Crathorne, L.

Redesdale, L.

Crickhowell, L.

Rennard, L.

Cumberlege, B.

Renton, L.

Dahrendorf, L.

Renton of Mount Harry, L.

Denham, L.

Roberts of Conwy, L.

Dholakia, L.

Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.

Fookes, B.

Roper, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Rotherwick, L.

Glentoran, L.

Ryder of Wensum, L.

Gray of Contin, L.

Saatchi, L.

Harris ofRichmond, B.

Sanderson of Bowden, L.

Higgins, L.

Scott of Needham Market, B.

Hooper, B.

Seccombe, B. [Teller]

Hooson.L.

Selkirk of Douglas, L.

Howe, E.

Selsdon, L.

Howe of Aberavon. L.

Sharp of Guildford, B.

Hunt of Wirral, L.

Sharpies, B.

James of Holland Park, B.

Shrewsbury, E.

Jopling, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Kimball, L.

Stewartby, L.

King of Bridgwater, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Kirkham, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Knight of Collingtree, B.

Taverne, L.

Lamont of Lerwick, L.

Thomas of Gresford, L.

Lang of Monkton, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Linklater of Butterstone, B.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

Liverpool, E.

Tope, L.

Lucas, L.

Tordoff, L.

Lyell, L.

Trefgarne, L.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

Trumpington, B.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Ullswater, V.

McNally, L.

Waddington, L.

Maddock, B.

Wakeham, L.

Mar, C.

Wallace of Saltaire, L.

Mar and Kellie, E. [Teller]

Walmsley, B.

Marlesford, L.

Wedderburn of Charlton, L.

MashamofIlton, B.

Wilcox, B.

Miller of Chilthorne Domer, B.

Wolfson, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Bassam of Brighton, L.

Ahmed, L.

Berkeley, L.

Alli, L.

Billingham, B.

Amos, B. (Lord President)

Blackstone, B.

Andrews, B.

Bledisloe, V.

Archer of Sandwell, L.

Bragg, L.

Ashton of Upholland, B.

Brett, L.

Bach, L.

Brooke of Alverthorpe, L.

1677

Brookman, L.

Jones, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Burlison, L.

Lea of Crondall, L.

Campbell-Savours, L.

Lofthouse of Pontefract, L.

Carter, L.

Macdonald of Tradeston, L.

Chandos, V.

Mclntosh of Hudnall, B.

Clinton-Davis, L.

MacKenzie of Culkein, L.

Corbett of Castle Vale, L.

Mallalieu, B.

Crawley, B.

Massey of Darwen, B.

David, B.

Mitchell, L.

Davies of Coity, L.

Morris of Aberavon, L.

Davies of Oldham, L. [Teller]

Newcastle, Bp.

Dixon, L.

Nicol, B.

Donaldson of Lymington, L.

Parekh, L.

Donoughue, L.

Patel, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Patel of Blackburn, L.

Dubs, L.

Pendry, L.

Elder, L

Pitkeathley, B.

Evans of Parkside, L.

Plant of Highfield, L.

Evans of Temple Guiting, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Falconer of Thoroton, L. (Lord chancellor)

Ramsay of Cartvale, B.

Falkender.B.

Randallof St. Budeaux, L.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Rea, L.

Faulkner of Worcester, L.

Rendell of Babergh, B.

Richard, L.

Filkin, L.

Rooker L

Gibson of Market Rasen, B.

Sainsbury of Turville, L.

Goldsmith, L.

Sawyer, L.

Gould of Potternewton, B.

Scotland of Asthal, B.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Simon V.

Greengross, B.

Smith of Gilmorehill, B.

Grocott, L.[Teller]

Smith of Leigh, L.

Hannay of Chiswick, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Harris of Haringey, L.

Temple-Morris, L.

Haskel, L.

Thornton, B.

Hayman, B.

Turner of Camden, B.

Hilton of Eggardon, B.

Walpole, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Warner L

Howe of Idlicote, B.

Warwick of Underclifle, B.

Hughes of Woodside, L.

Watson of Invergowrie, L.

Hunt of Kings Heath, L.

Weatherill, L.

Inge, L.

Whitaker, B.

Irvine of Lairg, L.

Wilkins, B.

Islwyn, L.

Williamson of Horton. L.

Jay of Paddington, B.

Woolmer of Leeds, L.

Resolved in the affirmative, and amendment agreed to accordingly.
7.18 p.m.
[Amendments Nos. 17 to 19 not moved.]
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendments Nos. 20 and 21:
Page 2, line 42, leave out paragraph (a).
Page 2, line 46, leave out paragraph (a).
On Question, amendments agreed to.
[Amendment No. 22 not moved.]
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 23:
Page 3, line 2, leave out "Order in Council" and insert "order made by the Secretary of State"
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 24 not moved.]
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 25:
Page 3, line 3, leave out "Order in Council" and insert "order"
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 26 not moved.]
Clause 3 [Arrest under certified Part 1 warrant]:
Viscount Bridgeman Viscount Bridgeman moved Amendment No. 27:
Page 3, line 27, at end insert—
"( ) For the purposes of this section—
"constable" shall be a constable of the United Kingdom, and "customs officer" shall be a United Kingdom customs officer."
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 27 I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 40, 193 and 203.
The amendments focus on the definition of who is entitled to make an arrest or a provisional arrest under Parts 1 and 2 of the Bill. Our debate on those issues in Committee was quite productive, but I am still not completely satisfied with the drafting of the Bill as we now have it.
Initially my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts put forward a series of amendments aiming to ascertain whether Royal Parks Police and the other types of police as listed in Section 86(3) of the Police Reform Act 2002 would be eligible to make an arrest under a warrant. The problem with the clause as it is drafted is that there is no clear definition of "constable". The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, was able to satisfy us in part, and the omission of "customs officer" from those allowed to make a legitimate Part 2 arrest has been rectified by a later government amendment.
It is clear that we all agree that non-UK constables should not be allowed to arrest our citizens and that all extradition requests should be carried out using our police. However, we are still concerned that the Bill as drafted leaves a loophole and does not provide an adequate safeguard to stop a foreign constable making an arrest.
Since the Bill was first printed in the Commons, we have made progress on Clause 3, but subsection (2) still reads:
"The warrant may be executed by a constable or a customs officer in any part of the United Kingdom".
Our amendments would amend Clauses 3, 5, 72 and 74 to make it crystal clear that "constable" and "customs officer" mean United Kingdom constables and customs officers. I do not think that the assurance from the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, that the common-law definition of "constable" would bar any foreign constable from making an arrest for extradition is a satisfactory guarantee. Our amendment would put the question beyond any doubt. I hope the Minister will look at it with some sympathy. I beg to move.
Lord Bassarn of Brighton: My Lords, I put on the record at the outset that I continue to be puzzled by this amendment. I am puzzled because I thought we

1679
had satisfied noble Lords opposite. I shall take them very carefully through the issue. They said they were satisfied.
In another place, the issue of who could carry out an arrest in this country was a big bone of contention, and there was much champing on it. The Opposition went so far as to suggest that the Bill would allow foreign police officers and other foreign law enforcement personnel to come to the United Kingdom to carry out arrests; and they were not having any of it. That has never been the Government's intention and we amended the Bill in another place to put the matter beyond any possible doubt.
Indeed, in Grand Committee, the official Opposition positively bridled at the suggestion of foreign police officers enforcing a European arrest warrant in this country. Indeed, it might assist your Lordships if I reminded them what the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, said during our discussions on the point. He said:
"The Government say that they have no such plans. I made it punctiliously clear … that we never said that the Government had any such plans … It is clear beyond peradventure that the Minister and his colleagues elsewhere in government do not wish non-UK constables to arrest people in this country".—[Official Report, 18/6/03; col. GC 306.]
So the noble Lord accepted the position. He made it quite plain that he believed we were absolutely right in saying that we had no intention of enabling non-UK police personnel to come to this country and conduct an arrest. So, if it was accepted then, why not now? Therefore I ask: why are these amendments necessary? I reiterate my puzzlement.
It is possible that noble Lords opposite may argue that, while they accept that the Government have no intention of letting foreign police officers exercise arrest powers in this country, we cannot be certain about future governments and that the drafting of the Bill might leave some ambiguity.
Let me try to demonstrate why that is not the case. Perhaps I could deal with the amendments in turn, starting with Amendments Nos. 27 and 40, which are concerned with Part 1 of the Bill. Part 1 provides that a European arrest warrant can be executed by any constable, customs officer or service policeman. The term "service policeman" is clearly defined in the Bill, and as these amendments are not concerned with service police officers I assume that the Opposition are happy with that.
Similarly, the term "customs officer" is very clearly defined in Clause 212(6), so I hope the Opposition will accept that the parts of their amendments dealing with customs officers are unnecessary. No foreign customs officer could fall within the definition found in Clause 212.
I turn to the term "constable". The office of a constable has been established in common law for a very long time. On appointment, every constable in the police force must,
"be attested as a constable by making the appropriate declaration".
The use of the phrase "a constable" is common in other legislation, for example, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE), the Terrorism Act 2000 and
1680
the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. No foreign police officer could make the necessary declaration or be attested, so there can be no possibility of a foreign police officer falling within the term "constable".
Therefore, I suggest that these amendments are unnecessary. Moreover, if we seek to give a statutory definition to the term "constable" we could call in to question all other legislation using the term and on the basis of the common law definition. That is my answer to the question: what harm would the amendments do? I repeat, this would be a step out of line with precedent, which is acknowledged and accepted by noble Lords opposite, and it would, I argue, provide lawyers with a field day as they sought to challenge the myriad other pieces of legislation—many of which were enacted by the party opposite when in government—which do not contain a statutory definition of "constable". This is a dangerous road to go down for noble Lords opposite. We have never seen fit to define that term. That has not given rise to any problems, ambiguity or challenge. I do not see why we should change our practice now.
I should put on record one other matter which was covered in recent correspondence sent by my noble friend Lady Scotland to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, suggested in Grand Committee that the Crime (International Co-operation) Bill contains a definition of "constable". In fact, it does not and, like this Bill, it relies on the common law definition.
I wish to turn briefly to Part 2 of the Bill, which Amendments Nos. 193 and 203 seek to change. There the powers of arrest are conferred on a constable or any person to whom a warrant issued by a UK judge is directed. There is a simple, well-tried and tested reason why we have gone for that formulation. Virtually identical wording can be found in Section 8(5) of the Extradition Act 1989.I can report that that has not given any difficulties; nor has there ever been any suggestion that a UK district judge has ever contemplated directing a warrant to anyone other than a UK law enforcement officer.
The arguments in Part 2 are unnecessary and potentially harmful for the reasons that I have given. I reiterate that the Bill does not allow overseas police officers to carry out arrests here; nor does it contain any ambiguity. So, from our perspective, there is no need to amend the Bill; not least because to do so would call into question many existing statutes concerned with the police service. I hope that this time the noble Viscount can assure his colleagues that we have got it right, and that he is safe in withdrawing the amendment and not moving the others grouped with it.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, the noble Lord gave a statement about the definition in various statutes of the word "constable". Does the same apply to Scotland?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, there has been a very useful nod from the corner of the Chamber. I can confirm that that is the case.
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, for that very comprehensive

1681
reply. He is right in saying that our only point at issue was whether the Government's intention was correctly and permanently reflected in the drafting of the Bill. I shall look very carefully at what the Minister has said. In the mean time, 1 beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 28 not moved.]
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I beg to move that further consideration on Report be now adjourned. In moving the Motion I suggest that the Report stage begin again not before 8.32 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

Patients’ Forums (Membership and Procedure) Regulations 2003
7.32 p.m.
Earl Howerose to move, That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the regulations, laid before the House on 14th August, be annulled (S.I. 2003/2123).
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I begin by making it clear that neither of the Motions standing in my name has been moved with a view to dividing the House. Nevertheless, the regulations provide us with an appropriate opportunity to debate some of the serious concerns relating to patients’ forums and to the emerging shape of patient and public involvement more generally.
At the outset, it is only right for me to give the Government credit where it is due. When we last debated the issues, 1 expressed my grave disappointment that there was to be a gap of three months between the abolition of community health councils and the establishment of patients’ forums—a gap that would make a mockery of the Government's promise of a managed transition from the old system to the new. Since then, the abolition of CHCs has been put back by three months. That was clearly a welcome decision. In addition, I acknowledge the efforts of the Department of Health to consult as widely as it could on the content of the regulations and its willingness to make changes in the light of the comments received.
There are, however, two pivotal issues that the regulations fail to address, and on which the success of patients’ forums depends. The first is the infrastructure from which patients’ forums will operate. The second is the relationship between patients’ forums and other associated organisations. We all believed, when we debated the legislation last year, that the precise way in which the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health would fulfil its role of providing staff, funding and premises to patients’ forums would be set out in regulations. Instead, the regulations effectively give the commission a carte blanche discretion to set about those tasks however it wants.
That, I contend, is not within the spirit of the Act. In practice, we see that it is leading to results that can only be viewed as highly regrettable. On 6th December
1682
2001, Parliament was assured by Hazel Blears that there would be a pathway for staff of CHCs who want to take part in the new system. Nobody understood that to mean a guaranteed meal ticket. But the benefit of such a pathway would be that the expertise and knowledge of CHC staff would not be lost to the local community. Instead, we are now witnessing a wholesale contracting out of the staff support function to the voluntary sector, to be called local network providers.
That decision has, in effect, left CHC staff out in the cold, unless they are prepared to compete in the job market for short-term contracts in small voluntary sector bodies—a far cry from their present terms of employment with the NHS. In other words, there is no pathway for those experienced staff. The commission is recreating the very thing that Ministers told us would be stripped out of the new system—the middle layer of administration standing between the commission and local communities.
There was absolutely no consultation about the decision. It runs contrary to the picture painted by Ministers in Parliament that patients’ forums would directly employ their own staff who would be men and women provided by the commission. It is certainly not the managed transition that was promised so as to make the best possible use of the local knowledge base.
As it is, many of the local network providers have no connection whatever with the communities for which they are to be responsible. Scope, based in Birmingham, is covering forums in south London. The College of Health, based in east London, is covering Essex—rather, it was going to, but it is now going into liquidation.
Local community knowledge for patients’ forums is not just an optional extra; it is vital to counterbalance the increasing trend in the NHS towards larger provider trusts, some of which cover several local authority areas. Some network providers, although expert in one field, have no expertise in others. With the best will in the world, Age Concern Harrow is hardly geared up to provide support on mental health, maternity or children's services. I wonder, too, about the Scouts, another local network provider. Some staff will be answerable to more than one forum at a time. Different forums will find that they have different levels of support, some with a reasonably good understanding of local needs and others with practically none.
All that spells one thing: a less than satisfactory structure for supporting patients’ forums. It is a recipe for patchiness and complexity. It is also a recipe for bureaucracy, as each local network provider will be governed by a contract that will have to be managed. That is the exact opposite of the consistency, evenness and simplicity that we were promised when we debated the legislation.
We were told that ICAS would be delivered through every PCT patients’ forum. That now looks unlikely to happen until 2005. Meanwhile, the PALS service is tasked with advising patients on how to access ICAS. ACHCEW has just surveyed 100 PALS services by

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telephone. Only 54 of the 100 received a direct personal response; others got an answerphone or no reply at all. Only 27 out of the 54 were able to direct the caller to the ICAS helpline, which started on 1st September. The survey reflected only those trusts that have a PALS service; many still do not.
We were also promised one-stop shops. It is both surprising and disappointing that the regulations do not cover that. Whether we will get one-stop shops remains to be seen, but the auguries are not promising, judging by the very small offices generally occupied by the network providers. A one-stop shop requires the right kind of premises in the right place. Many CHC premises are ideal for the purpose, but the commission shows no signs of wanting anything to do with them. That is a wasted opportunity and a giant waste of public money. Many CHC premises are newly refurbished and at high street locations, with disabled access and private rooms for confidential discussions. Yet a number of CHC premises are now empty and boarded up. Others, including their equipment, are being made over willy-nilly to the NHS. Others, again, are to be offered to house clearance traders.
The local network providers are being largely left to deal with the whole matter. I hope that, in due course, the Minister will be able to answer a Written Question from me on the total cost of the abolition of CHCs and the setting-up of the new system, including premises disposal and redundancies. When that figure is available it will stand as a measure of what might have been. In other words, it will be a measure of the properly managed transition that we were promised but have not had. Because the contracts governing the local network providers are managed by the commission, it is very hard to see how the forums themselves will have any control over the quality of service that they deliver. If the forums are unhappy with the support that they are getting, they have no power to question the commission about it, and the commission under the regulations need do absolutely nothing. Yet the forums will be performance managed by the commission as if they did have control over their staff support.
It is true that, under Regulation 8(2), staff in the local network providers must work to the direction of the forums, but the forums themselves have no contractual leverage over the providers and no means of ensuring that they receive a fair share of time and attention from them. If a local network provider is supporting 33 forums—as was going to be the case with the College of Health—what can a forum do if it feels that it is getting short shrift? All 33 forums will be competing for the same limited pool of staff.
The remaining uncertainty is about how patients’ forums are meant to work together. We debated that issue extensively during the passage of the Bill. Patients’ forums need to work together for many reasons, not least to inform the work of the overview and scrutiny committees. There therefore needs to be a coherent joint committee of patients’ forums relating to the same area. Equally, large NHS trusts ought not to find that they are being pulled in different directions
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by four or five PCT patients’ forums as well as their own. There has to be a mechanism for getting all those patients’ forums around a table, but there is nothing in the regulations that brings clarity to this issue. Co-operation is mentioned but is nowhere defined.
There will be an awful lot of forums about. One can easily postulate that a single PCT patients’ forum will have to co-operate with an ambulance trust forum, all the forums of the relevant specialised trusts, the forums of the acute trusts from which its PCT commissions services and forums in neighbouring areas. One way or another that is a great deal of co-operation, and if it is to be done well—or done at all— it will require the right degree of support and co-ordination by staff. Frankly, it is difficult to see how such support can be provided by half a full-time post per forum, which in many instances is what is in prospect.
I am sorry to put the Minister on the spot in this way. He was not involved in the legislation or the setting up of the commission and I do not blame him personally for what is now happening. However, ministerial undertakings in both Houses of Parliament given in good faith have not now been met. There has been no managed transition because CHCs have been allowed to disband early and their premises are being disposed of. There has been no harnessing of the skills of CHC staff, as we were promised there would be, and those skills have therefore been lost to the NHS. Not one member of CHC staff has been transferred directly to the commission.
We were promised an ICAS system delivered through every PCT patients’ forum. There is a long way to go before we can be confident that patients can access it, and the promised one-stop shop that we debated so many times in this House is still a pipe dream.
This is a very poor start to an important new system. I look forward to any words of comfort that the Minister feels able to give. I hope that he will be able to take away with him the concerns that I have raised and examine them urgently. I beg to move.
Moved, That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the regulations, laid before the House on 14th August, be annulled (S.I. 2003/2123).— (Earl Howe.)
7.45 p.m.
Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, I rise to support strongly what the noble Earl, Lord Howe, said in his Motion. I thought, if anything, that the noble Earl was quite generous in his opening remarks. However, following them he made a devastating indictment of government policy on patient and public involvement and the implementation of that policy. It has been a sorry tale of government commitments not honoured and of a Gothic divide-and-rule architecture of patient and public involvement. It strikes me that the Government are really rather fond of Gothic architecture—we see that in the opening parts of the latest Bill.

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It seems to be a divide-and-rule policy of the Government to split existing institutions in the NHS asunder in a way that makes them unworkable. The ramshackle implementation of even that architecture has been wondrous to behold. I am delighted see the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in his place. It is rather like him returning to the scene of the crime. He was very strong in his justification of the current architecture and I hope that he has some qualms when he sees the way in which that has been implemented.
The noble Earl, Lord Howe, went through a series of issues such as the absence of managed transition. There has been no managed transition between CHCs and patients’ forums or between ACHCEW and the commission. As I understand it, there has been absolute opposition by the commission to managing that transition. The Department of Health has reneged on its commitment to establish one-stop-shops—the number of quotes that I could present to the Minister on the subject are legion. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in reply to a Written Question said:
"Patients’ forums in primary care trusts will act as one-stop shops by advertising locally their presence and the services they provide in person, over the phone or over the Internet and by being based in premises that are accessible".—[Official Report, 4/ 11/02; col. WA60.]
That is a very clear commitment.
On the commitment to staffing, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said:
"Staff will be provided by the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health to primary care trust patients’ forums".—[Official Report, 4/11/02; col. WA 60.)
What do we now see? Local network providers, which involve a very new different concept that was not heralded in ministerial statements at all.
We now find that the Charities Commission has had referred to it the whole issue of whether it is proper for charities to act in this way. We await the outcome of that with considerable interest.
On the commitment on ICAS, Hazel Blears said:
"To summarise, every NHS trust and PCT will have a patient advocacy and liaison service, ensuring that concerns are dealt with before they become a serious problem, and Patients’ Forum, ensuring that the local public have a vehicle to express their view about matters relating to health".—[Official Report, Commons Standing Committee E; 22/5/02; col. 325.]
That has not happened.
On the transfer of skills and knowledge, as the noble Earl, Lord Howe, made a clear point. David Lammy MP said:
"The Government takes the view that community health council (CHC) staff have valuable skills which are important to the smooth running of the National Health Service".—[Official Report, Commons, 2/12/02; col. 610W.]
That smooth transition has not taken place.
A great many commitments have not been fulfilled. The noble Earl, Lord Howe, described the survey carried out by ACHCEW—and it is a good thing that we still have ACHCEW in order to at least carry out surveys at this juncture. We will not have it for very much longer. It carried out surveys in April and October 2003. April 2003 was a year after PALS were meant to have been set up in every trust, and October
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2003 was 18 months after that date. The results in April 2003 were totally unsatisfactory as the noble Earl, Lord Howe, mentioned, and the results in October 2003 demonstrated absolutely zero improvement. That is the bottom line of that survey— totally unsatisfactory.
I have a few minor questions. I could probably go on for about 20 minutes on all the regulations, but, perhaps unusually, I am not going to torture the Minister. However, I am going to go through a number of the different regulations. I turn first to No. 2124—The Patients’ Forums (Functions) Regulations. Why must patients’ forums have to have regard to any advice given by the commission? That seems a pretty heavy hand. What is meant by "shall have regard"? Is that a directive? Does it effectively mean that patients’ forums have to respond in those circumstances?
We have issues about access under Regulation 3. It is unfortunate that access for patients’ forums to prison health services and health facilities in detention centres for asylum seekers is not explicitly included in the regulations. Also, as we know, we have a mixed economy. NHS patients will be treated in private hospitals and clinics. I see no right of access there.
The Department of Health has strengthened Regulation 5 by creating a requirement for NHS bodies to provide information within 20 working days, but there is no mention of the quality of the information or of information required on national and regional NHS services, prison health services, private providers, local authorities or primary care providers.
Regulation 6 deals with restrictions on the disclosure of information. There is no provision that deals with the sensitive issue of doctors or nurses who may have been referred to the National Clinical Assessment Authority or are otherwise regarded by the trust as having displayed weaknesses in their practice. It should be possible for patients’ forums and trusts to share sensitive information in that way.
Regulation 7, relating to referral to the overview and scrutiny committee, is too narrow and weak. It represents a missed opportunity. It should have included general encouragement to refer any key issues to the OSC, and it should have referred specifically to Section 19(2) of the National Health Service Reform and Health Care Professions Act 2002, which allows the patients’ forum to refer any matter to the overview and scrutiny committee concerning the health of local people. That signpost is not in the regulations.
Regulation 8(3) fails to include overview and scrutiny committees in the list of organisations to which the patients’ forum should send reports on service reviews.
SI 2003/2123, the Patients’ Forums (Membership and Procedure) Regulations 2003, is equally full of flaws. The bit relating to the membership of patients’ forums, NHS trusts and PCTs is, perhaps, the worst bit of the regulations. We have a basic patients’ forum of seven members, and we have a PCT patients’ forum

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of, potentially, nine. There are provisions about sub-committees involving two members. That is a very small base on which to build a patients’ forum. What happens if members of a patients’ forum are away or on holiday or are sick? Instantly, we are emasculating the power of patients’ forums. The small size envisaged for patients’ forums is a major problem.
Regulation 3(1) does not require that the powers will be exercised. I will be happy if the Minister can give an indication that they will be required. The regulation says that the patients’ forums "may" appoint a chair; it does not say that they "shall" appoint a chair. Given that, in Regulation 8(2), it is the members who are described as directing staff provided by the commission, the risk of confusion could be a major problem. How can the members exercise proper control collectively over the staff provided for the forum?
I mentioned the problems with sub-committees. They could be major problems. Even in Regulation 10, which relates to meetings and proceedings, there is no requirement to hold a minimum number of meetings. It appears that a patients’ forum can meet whenever it wants and with a regularity chosen by the members. On the basis that the Bill that we are debating so frequently and nocturnally appears to envisage the withering away of patients’ forums, Regulation 10 is an open invitation to have the patients’ forum meet rarely, if at all.
I have said enough to demonstrate not only the flaws in government policy but the sheer lack of commitment demonstrated by Ministers to genuine patient and public involvement and the flaws that are inherent in the regulations.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, this brings us back to the happy days when we discussed the setting up of the new arrangements and the abolition of community health councils. I probably delight more in Gothic architecture than the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and I remain convinced that the proposals and the new structure will produce a greater scale of patient involvement and more effective handling of patient complaints than we ever had from community health councils. The evidence is that, over 30 years, some did excellent work, while others did not. I remain convinced that the establishment of patients’ forums and of powers of independent advocacy will lead to a stronger, more user-friendly NHS.
The noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, mentioned statements made by Ministers, including me, during the passage of the Act that set up the new arrangements. Those statements were made in good faith. It was my firm intention that the arrangements would be established in the way that I described. I regret that, as it turned out, the arrangements were, unfortunately, not made in time. I apologise to noble Lords for that and accept any responsibility that I must take for that situation. There was no malevolence involved. The task was great, and the commission was slow to get off the ground. I suspect that it spent too much time talking to the
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department about money rather than getting on with the job. The commission must also share some responsibility.
The question now is how we ensure that the new arrangements are effected as efficiently as possible. I share some of the concerns about the performance of the commission. Reports have reached me from the health service of a certain inflexibility of approach. I regret that. Like the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, I wonder why, for instance, SI 2003/2124 says that the patients’ forums "shall have regard to" the advice of the commission. The commission has an important role to play in ensuring and reviewing the performance of each patients’ forum, but it is not there to manage the patients’ forums. They are not local branches of the commission. It is important that they are seen to be independent. I give notice that I shall return to the matter, if I detect signs that the commission is seeking to have too much influence on the activities of individual patients’ forums.
On the question of local network providers, I do not think that the principle is unreasonable. It was a good decision by the commission to recognise that, given the huge number of people to be appointed, using local providers seemed sensible. However, those local providers must have local knowledge. They have a great responsibility to ensure that the people appointed to patients’ forums are up to the job. I worry about those who provide the service but are not based in the locality for which the patients’ forum is being appointed. I hope that my noble friend might take that message back to the commission.
I have two or three issues to raise. The first is that it was always the intention that patients’ forums would appoint one of their number to be a non-executive on the board of NHS trusts. Word reaches me that that has been put into abeyance. I would be grateful if my noble friend could tell me the position on that. I always thought it to be a very important provision that patients’ forums would have that direct connection with the board of each NHS trust and primary care trust.
My second question is about foundation trusts. I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for one, will not agree with me. We are discussing legislation that would not require a foundation trust to appoint a patients’ forum. Yet word reaches me that the commission, none the less, is insisting that those NHS trusts which are going forward as applicants are establishing patients’ forums for those trusts. The noble Lord will no doubt move an amendment on Report to require that but at the moment they are not required to do so. I suggest to the commission that, surely, there is room for some flexibility in relation to the first wave of foundation trusts. Surely they should hold off the appointment of those patients’ forums until the matter has been decided by Parliament.
Parliamentary involvement brings me to another issue. In the Bill, the Act and the regulations, there are references to patients’ forums, not to patient and public involvement forums. I ask my noble friend: why are these organisations to be called patient and public

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involvement forums? That may be a minor point, but as my noble friend knows, I have raised it in relation to the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Bill where governing bodies are named as governing bodies. Yet my good friends in many applicant foundation trusts have produced consultation documents which refer to them as member councils.
Either Parliament is here to determine what happens in the NHS or it is not. If Parliament determines that governing bodies are called governing bodies, it is not for the NHS or the department to suddenly say, "You can use another name". We did not establish patient and public involvement forums; we established patients’ forums. My concern is that the commission has ordained that the name should be changed because it considers these local organisations to be branches of the national commission. That is not what the legislation intended. They are not local branches of the commission. The commission has an important role to play in ensuring that patients’ forums are given the right advice and information and that they are enabled to do their job properly.
I get very concerned when the commission takes it upon itself to change wording that is in the legislation and seeks to over-manage what those patients’ forums do. 1 do not hold my noble friend responsible for that at all. We set up the commission as an independent body; it is right that they should be independent. My goodness—the commission has a responsibility, too, to Parliament, to act in the way that Parliament intended and ordained.
8.2 p.m.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for giving your Lordships the chance to hear about the progress of setting up patients’ forums and for his interesting speech. With the demolishing of community health councils, several of your Lordships, including myself, were concerned that there would not be an independent voice for patients and the public. Community health councils have closed down or are closing down before, it seems, the forums are set up and in place.
With the fragmentation and confusion to the public while the many different professional bodies are sorting themselves out, the patients’ voice, which was supported by the CHCs, seems to be left in limbo. Because he has been a director of social services, I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Warner, the Minister replying, will understand how confused and vulnerable patients or their relatives need support and information.
I hope that the noble Lord will give us some assurances today that suitable patient support bodies will be set up. CHCs were able to delay the closure of hospitals—in a way, rather like the House of Lords— giving the Government a chance to think again. CHCs could give the Secretary of State for Health a chance to listen to the public and think again. Will there be any body which will be able to do that now? What functions are the patients’ forums to have?
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It was of great concern to read this week about the epileptic children in Leicestershire. There seemed to be no mechanism for patients and health workers to get any satisfaction about the deplorable situation which was going on around them. No one seemed to want to listen. The Minister will no doubt say that he cannot comment on an individual case, but there were more than 600 young lives being damaged, having been given unnecessary drugs.
The noble Earl, Lord Howe, is to be congratulated on bringing up this matter. What is to be the membership and procedure of the patients’ forums? Will they really represent patients? What will happen to all the information gathered over the years by CHCs? Is it to go into a bin? I should like to ask the Minister: why will foundation hospitals not need to have a forum? While other health bodies and hospitals will have them, will that not add to the present confusion? Are dentists to have forums?
I hope that the Minister will be able to take up the challenge and put in place a satisfactory, supportive and independent body which has time to help patients and advise managers on the needs of their communities. The present forums, as stated in the statutory instruments, do not seem satisfactory, as stated by your Lordships tonight. The criticism of CHCs was that they did not have enough teeth: these forums seem to have none.
8.6 p.m.
Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, I should declare an interest as a former director of the Association of Community Health Councils. However, on this occasion I have not had the benefit of sight of the interesting review and survey carried out by the association. None the less, that will not stop me commenting on the regulations.
I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for his commitment not to divide the House on these regulations because we must get on with establishing patients’ forums. If the Prayer were to succeed, the consequence would be even more confusion, even more of a hiatus and even more of a gap than might otherwise be the case. Nevertheless, it is valuable to have an opportunity to discuss and debate some of the rather interesting issues that appear to be in the regulations.
I speak as someone who is not a lawyer, something of which I am inordinately proud. As a lay person, it seems that there are a number of issues in the regulations that it would be helpful for the Minister to clarify.
In SI 2123 on membership and procedure, for example, Regulation 2(4)(b) on membership seems to suggest that the commission may decide that all kinds of other bodies might be represented on the patients’ forum. That could be very helpful, but it would be interesting to be given some sense of what Ministers have in mind here. It is self-evident that local authorities or parish councils within the area of a PCT are bodies that represent members of the public. Perhaps they might have a representative on the

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forum. It could even be argued that Members of Parliament represent the people in the area and therefore might be allowed to send a member of their staff to become a member of the patients’ forum. That is an interesting concept, but I am not sure whether it is quite what was in mind. Local neighbourhood watch schemes may even seek representation. What exactly does this part of the regulations intend to achieve?
I turn to Regulation 10(5). The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, drew attention to some of the issues surrounding meetings and proceedings. However, this regulation provides that the only meetings which must be held in public are those dealing with the items set out in paragraph (4). The much-maligned community health councils were subject to access to information provisions and there was a presumption that all meetings would take place in public. Given that such a body is considering the services being provided for local people, it is an important provision. I am not sure what is to be gained by allowing this potential restriction.
Regulation 8(1) and (2) address the central questions of funding and resources. I would welcome a clear statement from the Minister that Regulation 8(2) would apply even if staff are associated with supporting a patients’ forum only on a part-time basis. Do they then come under the direction of the members? What will define the point at which they would stop being under the direction of the members and under the direction of someone else?
Regulation 2 of Statutory Instrument 2124 covers functions. I suspect that those lawyers drafting these regulations may have raised a number of issues which they did not intend—or perhaps they did intend to do so, in which case the aim may have been to make the job of the new patients’ forums almost impossible to complete. Regulation 2(2), for example, states:
"Where an NHS trust provides services under arrangements made by more than one Primary Care Trust, the Patients’ Forums established … shall co-operate".
The word "shall" is powerful. Presumably every PCT in the country receives services from Great Ormond Street hospital or from one of the other national institutions. Does that mean that no comment can be made unless every patients’ forum in the country has co-operated? That seems to be the implication here. I do not understand why the word "shall" as opposed to "may" has been used. No doubt there is a good reason and the Minister will share it with us.
Regulation 3( 1 )(a) is excellent stuff, giving the PCT patients’ forum the most impressive powers of entry and inspection. If I read it correctly, where it states,
"any body mentioned in paragraph 3",
that would mean access to any primary care trust, any local health board, any local authority—presumably anywhere in the country—any NHS trust—presumably anywhere in the country—and so forth. That is an incredibly wide power which, while extremely useful, no doubt could lead to all kinds of fishing expeditions being made by patients’ forums if they have the staff and the
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members to do so. That might mitigate against some of things that apparently concerned Ministers about the CHCs.
A similar point arises in respect of Regulation 5(1) on information. Subject to Regulation 6, which covers not disclosing personal information about individuals, it seems that any of the bodies referred to in Regulation 5(3) must produce for the patients’ forum any information,
"which appears to the Patients’ Forum to be necessary".
Again, I commend that power. It is absolutely wonderful that patients’ forums may require such information from any of these bodies; that is, any strategic health authority, any NHS trust, any primary care trust and, indeed, the commission itself. That would be interesting, because it is one of the most open of bodies. No doubt it will be happy to make available all this information. Again, these are wide powers and no doubt the Minister will want to commend and support their use. I look forward to hearing his explanations.
However, the fundamental issue that must be addressed, and to which no doubt my noble friend on the Front Bench will respond, is that there are some real weaknesses in what is actually happening. The point has already been made about the commission's decision to contract out some of the staffing and administrative arrangements. I thought that the real strength behind establishing the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement is that it would enable common standards to be set, along with a common set of procedures and common arrangements across the country. That was a strength and would mark how these new arrangements would be better than those for the CHCs, but that has been thrown away. I would be interested in the Minister's views on that, and whether he thinks it is working well in the light of experience so far.
I turn to the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. Both noble Lords are suspicious about the phrase "will have regard" to the points made by the commission. I am rather more sanguine about this because it seems to be precisely the role that the commission should play. Again, however, I would be interested to know the Minister's views about how that will apply and whether it is about achieving common standards and enabling common information from patients’ forums in relation to their work to be made available.
My final point comes back to the question of funding. When the Bill passed through the House it was quite clear that what was being proposed could be a better system than previously existed, but it would always have been naïve to assume that it could have been achieved on the same level of funding as CHCs or even on an enhanced level of funding. The messages I am getting from all around the country is that an attempt is being made to do this on the cheap. I will be interested to hear from the Minister, not so much about the costs of winding up and start up but about the real, expected resources that will be available for

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patients’ forums in the future and, again, my noble friend's judgment of whether they will be sufficient to enable the patients’ forums to do the job that the House and the public expect them to do.
8.15 p.m.
Lord Warner: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for giving the House an opportunity to debate this issue. After listening to the speeches, I have a slight sense of being someone who has blundered into a reunion party without having paid his dues. I shall do my best to earn my entrance fee. I was quite touched by the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that I might have something of the night about me.
Before responding to the points raised by noble Lords, perhaps I may start by paying tribute to the staff and members of CHCs for all that they have contributed over the years to protect and promote the interests of patients. None has done so more than my noble friend Lord Harris, who made a typically robust contribution. He will not be surprised to hear that I shall not be able to answer all his detailed questions tonight, but where I do not pick up on points I shall reply to him. I was grateful for his statesmanlike approach in encouraging us to think about the future rather than dwell too much on the past.
I recognise that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, have made great contributions in trying to improve the arrangements we have in place for patients. I am grateful that I have been found personally not guilty and for the fair-minded tone of many of the noble Earl's comments.
I accept that he and others have reservations about the process by which we have reached the present position. But we have a new structure in place which comprises 570 patient and public involvement forums—we can discuss later whether that is the right title—serviced by 68 local network providers. We are reliably assured by the strategic health authorities that patient advice liaison services now cover 98 per cent of NHS trusts and PCTs. There is a new regional independent complaints advocacy service offering support across the whole of England to those who wish to complain. It may well be that an easier road to reform could have been taken, but we are where we are and it is important that we look to the future as well as thinking about what went on in the past.
I have listened to the comments made about the commission. We should recognise that a huge effort has been made in the past 10 months by the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health and others to put the new arrangements in place and that there are some good early signs as well as problems. We have to give these new arrangements a chance to flourish. Certainly having been a change manager in the public sector in a number of areas, I fully recognise that transition is never easy. In the transitions in which I have been involved, I have observed that there is a tendency to don rose-tinted glasses about the past and to be suspicious about the future. I am not making accusations, but there is a tendency somehow to see the past as a little better than it might have been.
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A number of noble Lords referred to the issue of money. I do not have detailed evidence of the cost of the transition. What I can say—I hope that noble Lords will find this reassuring—is that the money spent on patient and public involvement last year was around £23 million and we are expecting to spend a little more than £35 million this year. So a penny-pinching approach is not being adopted in this area. I acknowledge that that does not deal totally with the issue of whether in the past people would have spent the extra money in this particular way, but we are certainly not doing this on a wing and a prayer. We are certainly putting in resources to make it work effectively.
Noble Lords have raised a number of issues with which I shall attempt to deal. 1 would like to deal head-on with the idea and the setting up of local network providers. While acknowledging that this was not the Government's original idea, it is possible to see the commission as having been rather creative and innovative. It is also possible to see this as a genuine effort to work with and involve the voluntary and community sectors more effectively. Given my background, I have a lot of sympathy with that approach.
Our job in the department—I do not want to distance it from the commission—is to ensure that the commission carries out its functions within the scope of the legislation. The local network providers’ approach does this, even though it is probably not the approach people would have thought would emerge when this was being discussed at an earlier stage. It is different from the Government's original thought that the commission would employ staff locally, but we have to respect its independence. It has produced an alternative approach of achieving its main goal, and we have to give that a chance to work before we rush to criticise.
It is worth bearing in mind that in a 10-month period the commission has managed to get in place this series of networks by awarding 140 contracts by 1st September. That is a very considerable achievement. Network providers will undoubtedly work differently from the staff support arrangements that were provided to CHCs. But not all CHC arrangements were universally popular. There were some great success stories but there were some areas where things did not work quite as well, and we must bear that in mind.
Staff of the local network providers may support more than one forum. That does not mean that the forums will be in any way less supported than CHCs have been; the approach can encourage forums to work with other forums where they share a network adviser, something that people were concerned about in the debate. They can work to promote the sharing of ideas between forums. There will be local network providers which have an overview about groups of forums and the way in which they are working.
I detected, once or twice, a kind of enthusiasm for a traditional public sector committee structure, and a feeling that something was not quite right in these

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arrangements. It is fair to say that we do not necessarily want all patients’ forums to work like old-style committees, with a rather static secretariat support. We want them to be flexible; we want them to use modern technology to generate and sustain interest.
We have been rather programmed—rather institutionalised—when it comes to always having a chair, but we think that should be left to local forums. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, does not like me even implying that he might be a bit fuddy-duddy about this, but we want to leave this to local decision-making. From time to time I am accused of being one of the great centralisers, but we are trying to devolve responsibility down to the local level. The local network providers can provide services by making more use of telephone and Internet services and disseminating good practice information. I mention these points to show that there is another approach and another point of view.
Let me turn to the specific points raised. On one-stop shops, local providers will provide support to PCT forums to carry out this role. There has been no change of heart; the commission is committed to one-stop shops. Rome was not built in a day, we have not got there yet, but there is no backtracking on that issue, as I understand it.
Why do patients forums have to have regard to commission directions? One criticism made of CHCs was that there was unevenness of standards across the country. That provides for the commission to ensure that standards are adhered to and there is greater consistency across the country—consistent with a fair degree of local devolution. One wants to be able to ensure that most parts of the country receive a consistently good and supportive service.
My noble friend Lord Hunt became very concerned about whether the commission has changed the name agreed by Parliament. One can argue that there is something rather respectable about patient and public involvement. The commission has used its own title in effect to brand that work. I am not versed in the background to the issue. I do not promise to change things, but I shall reconsider the matter so that I, at least, understand it. I shall return to the issue of how I might communicate with noble Lords after the debate.
The policy on patients forum members as NEDs has not been changed. We are agreeing a timescale and will amend membership later next year. The regional offices are trying to ensure that local network providers cover adequately the country as a whole, which raised some concern.
I share the views of the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, on vulnerable people. I cannot comment on the tragedy of epilepsy that she raised, although I can understand her concerns.
A question was raised about why there was no mention of prisons in the regulations. There is no need for that; from next April, healthcare in prisons will begin to be commissioned by primary care trusts and, as such, will be a service that can be monitored and
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reviewed by patients forums. There is no bar to entry. Arrangements will have to be agreed with the Prison Service on the way in which prisons are entered, but there is no intention to exclude prisons in any way.
The primary legislation does not give rights of entry to patients forums in respect of care provided in the private sector, but we recognise that, increasingly, care is provided outside NHS settings. We shall be issuing directions to primary care trusts requiring contracts that they have with the independent sector to cover arrangements for dealing with patients forums.
Some noble Lords expressed concern about whether PALS have adequate coverage. As I said earlier, we are assured that 98 per cent coverage of PALS is in place.
Much concern was expressed about whether the Independent Complaints Advocacy Service was answering the phone adequately and properly. Such services are often difficult in the early days. However, our understanding is that, although the service was very busy in the early days, things are working much better now. Demand has stabilised and the phones are being answered reasonably. However, I shall check again on that to reassure noble Lords.
I do not want to go over future ground. We shall come back to patients forums and foundation trusts in the debates on the Bill, and I have given a commitment to consider again some of the issues on those matters. The debate has been useful, and I am grateful to noble Lords for their contributions. I have not been able to respond to all the points that were made, but I shall write to noble Lords about many of the points I was unable to deal with in detail.
We have a new structure in place, and it is important that it should be allowed to work effectively to improve patient and public involvement in the NHS. I am sure that the commission will heed the concerns and criticisms voiced by noble Lords. Without in any way wishing to sound as if I were reverting to a traditional centralism, I shall ensure that the commission is aware of the concerns that have been expressed. I will want to seek some reassurances from it on some points that noble Lords have raised.
Given the work that the House has done in this sphere, I think it fair that noble Lords should know and be confident about how we are moving forward. However, I hope that we can avoid rushing to judgment on how well the new arrangements will work. The commission knows that it will be judged by results, and we have to give it time to demonstrate those results. I hope that we do not dwell too much on the past. I think that we can put that past behind us. We need to give these new arrangements a chance to show their worth and what they can do. With that reassurance, I hope that we can successfully move forward.
Earl Howe: If I may, in the two minutes available to me, I should like to thank the Minister very much for his constructive response. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this extremely useful debate. I agree with the Minister that it is the future that is important. I also agree that transition is not easy. I think, though, that he will have gained a sense from the contributions this

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evening that, without too much more effort, the transition could have been made a lot easier than it has turned out to be.
The commission is to be applauded in many ways, not least for taking what I acknowledge is an innovative approach to supporting the patients’ forums. The voluntary sector has a great deal to offer the patient and public involvement system, just as it has been an intrinsic part of the CHC system, although its role will now be more as a provider than an impartial contributor. Nevertheless, it is an imaginative idea.
The commission has, however, to be set up properly. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, was absolutely right. Those who support the forums must have local knowledge. While the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, might be accused of being a fuddy-duddy, I had great sympathy with what he said about the committee structure. The fact is that having one person serving a number of patients’ forums is a recipe for muddled accountability and potentially for conflict of interests. I think that that has to be guarded against and, if I may respectfully suggest, at one remove to the commission. I hesitate to criticise the commission openly in the House when it has no means of answering back directly, but it does have to pay close attention to the decisions that Parliament took. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, was right to highlight that, especially its own relationship with the forums once they begin. The forums are independent entities. They are not to be line managed, nor are they local branches of the commission.
I am sure that I speak for all of us here in wishing the patients’ forums well, and indeed the commission, as they go about their important task. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Patients’ Forums (Functions) Regulations 2003
Earl Howehad given notice of his intention to move, That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the regulations, laid before the House on 14th August, be annulled (S.I. 2003/2124).
Motion not moved.

Extradition Bill
8.33 p.m.
Consideration of amendments on Report resumed.
Clause 4 [Person arrested under Part 1 warrant]:
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lyell): My Lords, if Amendment No. 29 is agreed to, I will not be able to call Amendments Nos. 30 to 32.
Lord Dholakia Lord Dholakia moved Amendment No. 29:
Page 3, line 30. leave out subsection (2) and insert—
"(2) A copy of the warrant must be given to the person as soon as practicable after his arrest."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 29, which is in the name of my noble friend Lord Goodhart, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 33, 194, 198, 204 and 208, all of which are in this group.
In Grand Committee we explained that our amendment was intended to ensure that the arrested individual was always given a copy of the warrant— not the original, obviously, but a copy—either on arrest or as soon as practicable thereafter. For the arrested person the warrant contains vital information including why he or she is being arrested and the grounds on which extradition is sought. We argued that the warrant should be provided automatically to the arrested individual. Arrested persons should: not have to ask to see it.
I therefore welcome the Government's Amendment No. 30 which provides that the arrested person is not required to ask to see the warrant. However, I hope that the Government will go a little further on the matter. We would still prefer that the arrested person should be entitled to be given a copy of the warrant and to keep it.
The European arrest warrant annexed to the framework decision will contain a great deal of vital information for the arrested person. That is a step in the right direction and further meets the obligation relating to the framework.
This matter is very much about the rights of the individual. If there are circumstances in which a person's rights are affected, we must ensure that that individual has all the information which he or she can use to defend themselves. The automatic availability of warrants would ensure that the individual was fully aware of why he was arrested and the grounds of his extradition. That is the purpose of the amendment. I beg to move.
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendments Nos. 33, 198 and 208 which stand in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Hodgson and the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart.
I welcome the government amendments in this group. They properly reflect the points which were made in Committee by my noble friend Lord Hodgson. Indeed, six of these are identical to amendments we tabled in Committee to leave out,
"and he asks to be shown the warrant",
and to replace "request" with "arrest".
The other two amendments—Amendments Nos. 42 and 43—make sure that in the Part 1 provisional arrest clause there is also an obligation to show the warrant, or a copy of it, to the arrested person as soon as practicable after his arrest. When we originally came to table our amendments for Report we decided to back the reworded version of the subsection which the Liberal Democrats proposed as a more straightforward way of making the change. However, the only difference between the Liberal Democrat amendment and the new government ones here is the word "given" instead of "shown". The one word difference is not something on

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which we would insist or on which we would make a stand. I am happy to accept the government amendments in this group as a welcome concession.
Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, on the contrary, I believe that there is a world of difference between "given" in Amendment No. 29 and "shown". "Given" is patently right. I very much hope that the noble Baroness will accept that.
The whole problem here arises from the use of the word "warrant". We are used to the word "warrant" denoting something that authorises someone to search my house or me, for example. That must be shown before the search takes place. In the case that we are discussing the warrant is a document which is effectively the equivalent of a charge or an indictment, though it is rather more detailed. It tells one what one is charged with, what the nature of the offence is and so on and so forth. After a certain amount of badgering in Grand Committee, the Government admitted that one is invariably given a copy of a charge document or an indictment. The person concerned will want to take it to whoever advises him and say, "Look, this is what I am charged with, or this is why I have been arrested. Does it justify my arrest?" He will want to look at it. Incidentally, that solves the problem of language. He will obviously want to look at it in English, because the questions will be about what an English tribunal will think of the warrant and whether it complies with English law.
People will want a copy. Once they have a copy, translation facilities can be provided. To be shown it is the recipe for disaster. Let us imagine that someone is shown the document. He is probably fairly flustered. He gets everything wrong and says to his advisers, "I was shown the document and it said such and such". The advisers give him some advice, on which they and he act. Then when the advisers get to see the document, they see that the person has got everything wrong. I cannot conceive of why the Government should object to the person who has been arrested having in his hand a copy of the document that justifies his arrest, tells him for what he has been arrested, and enables him to discuss with his advisers whether he will be extradited, whether a bull point prevents him being extradited, and so on.
The only consequential problem that I see is if, by inadvertence, bad management or whatever, someone is not given a copy of the warrant. I fully agree with what the Government said in Grand Committee; namely, that that should not lead to automatic discharge. That has been boldly tackled by those on the Conservative Front Bench in Amendment No. 33. I am not sure that I am totally convinced by it, because it states that failure to provide the warrant will not result in automatic discharge. The amendment does not say what that will result in. I assume that it means that the magistrate will have discretion to say, "That was flagrant. I'm going to discharge him", or, "That was an error, but you got one half a day later. You are
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now in a position to deal with the matter. Don't let's make too much fuss about that and let's get on with the realities".
I seriously urge the Government to take on board that what needs to be done is to give a copy of the document to the person who has been arrested as soon as reasonably practical. All the rest flows. That gets out of the translation problems and the questions of whether someone was shown a copy, and if he does not have it whether he was shown it for long enough, had time to read it and understood it. If someone has the piece of paper, he knows what he is in court for and can take advice on it. Please could we have a little reality and accept Amendment No. 29?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, this has been quite a sparky little debate. I give great credit to the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, for sparking off some further thoughts, certainly on our Benches. I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, for moving the amendment and arguing the case for it very clearly. I am also extremely grateful for the words of support from those on both opposition Benches for the government amendment. We are not far away from playing on the same football pitch on the issue; we are in the same territory.
We are concerned that a person arrested in connection with an extradition case is aware of the reason for the arrest. That goes to the heart of the point made by the noble Viscount. In many cases, the police will be in possession of the warrant at the time of the arrest and will show it to the person at that point—I shall come to the issue of giving and showing in a moment—but that will not always be the case, of course. One has to be realistic and accept that. The details of those wanted for extradition purposes will be entered on the police national computer, so a police officer could come across such a person by chance.
That will not happen often, given the small number of cases involved. I suggest that it will not happen with great regularity, but it could happen, say, as a result of a stop-and-search exercise or some sort of traffic stop. We cannot therefore expect every officer to carry a copy of every single outstanding arrest warrant. There will be occasions when a person is arrested by an officer who is not in possession of the warrant and would not be in a position to show it. That is not what we expect to be the case in every single instance.
As the Bill is currently drafted, there is a requirement in such circumstances for the person to be shown the warrant if he requests it. That is in line with normal domestic procedures that we all understand. In Grand Committee, both opposition parties forcefully made the case that the person should automatically be shown the warrant without waiting for him first to request it. Indeed, that is the broad purpose of their amendments today.
The noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, forcefully suggested that such people should be given on request a copy of the warrant. Effectively, that will happen because clearly the person arrested will want to have legal advice and rightly he should have it. I would

1701
argue, and it will be the case, that at that stage his legal representative will want to see and have access to the warrant. There is also the important issue of interpretation and the documentation will need to be in the appropriate language. No doubt we will provide more detail for that in guidance.
In general, we are happy to go along with the notion which the opposition parties moved in earlier amendments in Committee. The domestic situation is not completely analogous. After all, a domestic warrant is simply an instrument for arrest whereas a Part 1 warrant will contain all the details of the crime for which the extradition is sought. Accordingly, we have brought forward amendments which provide that a person who is not shown the warrant at the time of his arrest must be shown it as soon as practical thereafter. There is therefore no longer a requirement for that person to ask for it first.
Without being unduly immodest, I believe that the amendments standing in the name of my noble friend Lady Scotland are neater and better drafted than those put forward by the Opposition. That is hardly surprising as we have access to expert parliamentary counsel. I therefore hope that I have reassured the noble Viscount on the point which he forcefully argued. I am grateful that welcome has been given to government Amendments Nos. 30,32,42,43,195,197, 205 and 207.I hope that noble Lords will feel happy to support them today.
8.45 p.m.
Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I fully accept that it may not be practical instantly to give the person a copy of the warrant. I suspect that cases in which the arresting officer does not have it may be more frequent than the Minister believes. After all, these are serious crimes and the person's identity may be flashed all over the country. The warrant may be in London and the person may be detected like someone in The Thirty-Nine Steps crossing the Tay Bridge.
I am not fussed about that, but I am concerned about the moment when it is possible for the constable to show the person a copy of the warrant. It is possible within half an hour to give it to him because, presumably, most police stations have photocopying machines. The difference between showing and giving is considerable. I am not asking for urgency and for disaster to strike if it does not happen, but I say that it is not satisfactory if the person has to wait until a legal adviser comes along. He can ask for it, so why should not the person involved have it if he can see it? An intelligent English speaking person, if he can see it, can follow it, so why should not the poor handicapped person who does not speak English well or who does not have a good memory have a document that he can take to his legal adviser?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I indicated earlier that I had heard what the noble Viscount said and I believe that what he describes will, in effect, be how it works. I believe that the noble Viscount has put his finger on it: it may well be that the person to whom
1702
one is showing the document will not be in any better a position if he is given the document. My guess is that, once he has a legal representative and is in possession of a photocopied version of the document, he will be in a rather better position. I can go no further than that this evening.
Lord Dholakia: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. He gave two examples. In the first, he referred to someone being arrested following the stop and search procedure, but that is not what we are talking about. This is a completely different issue. If a person is arrested on a warrant for extradition, that is a separate matter and that information will have been available prior to the arrest.
Secondly, the Minister said that he would provide examples of the difference between showing and giving but he did not say why the warrant should not be given to the individual. He did not explain that point. My position is precisely the same as that of the noble Viscount. Perhaps I may ask the Minister to look seriously at this issue.
Ultimately, it is not simply a case that if someone has legal representation, he should be given a copy or allowed to see the documentation; more importantly, an individual must see the document so that he can then decide what kind of legal representation he wants, and on that basis he will seek legal advice. If he does not have the basic information, other than being shown rather than being given the documentation, that will make the case very complicated.
Perhaps I may suggest that the Minister takes back this matter rather than trying to resolve the problem at this stage. We can then return on Third Reading to see whether there are alternative means by which an individual may have access to the information. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal Baroness Scotland of Asthal moved Amendment No. 30:
Page 3, line 31, leave out "and he asks to be shown the warrant"
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Viscount Bridgeman Viscount Bridgeman moved Amendment No. 31:
Page 3, line 32, after "him" insert "in English, or, if he requests it, in any official language of a category 1 territory"
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 31, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 196, 206, 231 and 240. These amendments refer to the language in which the warrant should be presented to the accused person. I have taken into account the views expressed in Grand Committee and have redrafted the amendments to meet some of the points raised then—in particular, those of the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, and the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart. Perhaps even the Minister will look at these amendments with a more sympathetic eye.
We are all fighting the same corner on this matter. I was heartened by the Minister's opening remarks in response to the amendments on the issue of language

1703
in Grand Committee. The amendments were not in my name; they were in the name of my noble friend Lord Hodgson. The Minister said:
"this is a proper challenge to seek to balance the interests of justice in bringing to trial people charged with serious crimes and the risks of an infringement of civil liberties as a consequence of that process. That is why I support the spirit of what is being attempted but not the mechanism".—[Official Report, 18/6/03; col. GC 324.]
We all agree that anyone arrested in this country deserves to be able to understand the reasons for his arrest and what the charge against him is. How, then, do our amendments address this issue? The first amendment is to Clause 4, which concerns the arrest of a person under a Part 1 warrant. We argue that the person must be shown a copy of the warrant,
"in English, or, if he requests it, in any official language of a category 1 territory".
The other four amendments, which deal with procedures under Part 2—both arrest and provisional arrest under a Part 2 warrant and the final decision for extradition supplied to the defendant by the judge or the Secretary of State in Clauses 93 and 101 respectively—amend the Bill so that the warrant or information must be provided to the person,
"in English, or, if he requests it, in a language which he understands".
Part 1 deals not with domestic warrants, but with warrants issued abroad. The European arrest warrant is a transitional arrangement, as my noble friend Lord Hodgson and others pointed out in Grand Committee. Might it not be more pertinent to look further than our current obligations for translation, as set out under the ECHR? I believe that there are clear grounds for accepting this amendment on the basis of the annex to the framework decision about language. That, if I may be permitted to read it, states:
"This warrant must be written in. or translated into, one of the official languages of the executing Member State, when that State is known, or any other language accepted by that State".
The noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, pointed out that in regard to warrants issued for the extradition of a person from the United Kingdom, the warrant would probably be in English. However, we are talking about an agreement made between several EU member states. With agreements made between our European partners we constantly have the problem that documents have to be translated into the various official languages of member states. That is why we have proposed Amendment No. 31. Under normal circumstances we would expect the warrant to be shown to the person in English, but if he or she requests otherwise, it could be produced in the language of any category 1 country.
The phrase "if he requests it" appears in all five amendments and is a direct response to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, and the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe. Both have commented that it may be impossible to know what language the defendant understands. He may keep silent and then claim that he does not understand English and so uses that as an excuse to be discharged. Therefore, we have proposed a presumption that primarily the warrant be shown to the
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person in English. It should be translated into another language—either a category 1 territory official language in the case of Part 1 or any other language in the case of Part 2—if the person requests that. Therefore the person cannot decline to say what language he understands and then evade justice.
One important reason why I believe that these amendments should be introduced into the Bill relates to the case of reciprocal standards. At Committee stage, my noble friend Lord Hodgson outlined the shocking case of Teresa Daniels and the ordeals that she suffered being charged, being allowed to go free and then being re-arrested without any knowledge of what was going on or what stage the proceedings had reached. That happened because the lawyers and the judge were speaking in Spanish, discussing a warrant in Spanish, without the interpreter translating the relevant facts to her.
This is an important point of principle. We may have obligations already under ECHR and under the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 to provide interpreters, but we should not be shy of putting in another provision to assist the defendant to understand his or her case. We know that other countries have been more than a little remiss with their translation services, so it would be constructive and in the spirit of co-operation with our partners in extradition if we were to provide a translation at the request of the defendant. I beg to move.
Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, the noble Viscount has suggested that this amendment answers my objection. It may answer one of my objections but it produces another. The noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, is over-naive about the co-operativeness of people arrested under such warrants. He suggests that they will ask for the warrant to be translated into a language that they understand. If a difficult person is arrested he may say, "Please translate it into Estonian". In south-east Scotland, where I believe the designated authority sits, there may not be many people who could rapidly translate a warrant into Estonian, but on the basis set out by the noble Viscount, such a person could insist that it is translated into any language of a category 1 territory, regardless of the fact that having had the warrant translated into that language he promptly puts the warrant in the bin because he does not understand a word of that language.
9 p.m.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the noble Viscount has a more succinct line than those that follow under the word "resist" in my brief, but I had better go through the points.
It is true to say that these amendments follow on neatly from the amendments that we have just discussed. The issue of language is important. A common concern in extradition cases is that the person arrested may not have a good or an adequate grasp of English and so will not understand the warrant. Clearly, if justice is to be served the person has to be

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able to comprehend why he or she has been arrested and in connection with what conduct the extradition is sought.
Amendments Nos. 31, 196 and 206 would require a police officer, on request, to translate the content of the warrant into,
"a language which he [the person] understands".
I question whether that is the right way forward. The noble Viscount has powerfully put his finger on the point.
We have already explained one safeguard in these circumstances, which is that everyone arrested in an extradition case has an entitlement to free legal advice. A lawyer acting in this capacity will be able to understand the warrant, even if his client does not.
I suggest to your Lordships that requiring the police to translate the contents of the warrant could create practical we have been given good examples of that—and genuine legal difficulties.
On a practical level, are we seriously suggesting that any police officer who may be required to handle an extradition case should have the linguistic skills to be able to translate the content of a warrant into any conceivable language? I suggest that that is somewhat unrealistic.
I have great admiration for the police. They do a brilliant job in difficult circumstances. But in those circumstances in a court somewhere in south Scotland, that might be just one demand too far. On reflection, the noble Viscount may think it better to withdraw the amendment. Even though it is couched in an understandably sympathetic language, as I would expect of him, I encourage him to withdraw the amendment.
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, my argument has been neatly undercut by the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, assisted by a very comprehensive explanation from the Minister. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Bassam of Brighton Lord Bassam of Brighton moved Amendment No. 32:
Page 3, line 32, leave out "request" and insert "arrest"
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 33 and 34 not moved.]
Lord Bassam of Brighton Lord Bassam of Brighton moved Amendment No. 35:
Page 3, line 35, leave out "the person must be taken to be discharged" and insert "and the person applies to the judge to be discharged, the judge must order his discharge"
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is another set of amendments in which the Government are responding to concerns that were quite properly and well raised in Grand Committee. In this particular case—although 1 do not think he is in his place today—my noble friend Lord Wedderburn of Charlton voiced concerns. However, we sensed that he had the support of quite a few other noble Lords present on that occasion. I am pleased that we have been able to accommodate his points.
As your Lordships will know from the amendments which we have just discussed, following arrest in an extradition case the person must be brought swiftly before a court. In most cases, the requirement is that he should be brought before the court as soon as practicable, but in Part 1 provisional arrest cases it must be within 48 hours, together with the full papers, of course.
These amendments concern what happens if those deadlines are not complied with. As currently drafted, the Bill provides that if the various deadlines applying to a person's first court appearance are not complied with, the person is "taken to be discharged". In Grand Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, suggested that this wording was ambiguous and my noble friend Lord Filkin undertook to consider whether it could be improved.
Your Lordships may be interested to know that during the summer the police also expressed to the Government their concerns about the form of words in the Bill, which they feared could put their officers in the position of having to decide whether a person should be released. So, for a combination of reasons, we have tabled these amendments.
The amendments remove the references in the Bill to a person being "taken to be discharged" if statutory deadlines are not complied with. Instead, they provide that the person can apply for a discharge if he considers that the deadlines are not complied with. If the judge takes the view that the person is right, he must—I stress "must"—discharge him. I am hopeful that noble Lords will feel that this is a better solution. For those reasons, I urge noble Lords to agree to the amendments I beg to move.
Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, I still think that the amendment is too kind to the criminal—or the person arrested, as we must assume him to be. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, spoke about cases where someone is not brought before a court within 24 hours. But the provision also applies if the person arrested is not shown the warrant as soon as reasonably practicable. That has now become an automatic obligation.
I see no reason why such an administrative failure should lead to the automatic discharge of someone who is at least suspected and accused by a foreign country of having committed a very serious offence. I confess that I much preferred Amendment No. 33, in the names of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Front-Bench Members, which gave the judge in question discretion.
I think that it was the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew of Twysden, who said in Grand Committee that it was all very academic because if the person arrested was automatically discharged, he would get two yards outside the cell door before being re-arrested and the whole process would start again. If that is right, it is not a very charming farce. Surely, the mere failure of a policeman to show the person arrested a warrant as soon as reasonably practicable— because he was very busy—should lead to discretion on whether to discharge rather than an automatic discharge.

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The only alteration that the government amendment would make is that the smart criminal who knows his rights will apply to be discharged and get out, whereas the more ignorant poor fool who does not know that there is an easy way of getting out of gaol without passing "Go" will not take advantage of it. Surely, in those circumstances, it should be up to the judge to ask whether the police have wildly disregarded the detainee's rights, in which case he can go, or whether there has been a mild administrative mess-up that stopped the warrant getting to the arrested person for a couple of hours— when he was asleep, anyhow—and that it can be overlooked.
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, we thoroughly support the amendments, which bring a great deal more clarity to the current drafting in the Bill—in particular, the phrase "taken to be discharged". Like the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, I found the phrase ambiguous and potentially confusing. We welcome any amendments that would make this complex legislation more user-friendly in its language and phraseology.
However, I have one query that I do not wish to overlook. The same point was raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe. Clause 4(4), if amended as the Government propose in Amendment No. 35, would read:
"If subsection (2) or (3) is not complied with and the person applies to the judge to be discharged, the judge must order his
discharge".
Can we be certain that, by that stage, the person will have been informed by the police or a legal representative that, if he has not been shown a copy of the warrant as soon as practicable after his arrest, or if he has not been brought before the appropriate judge, it is up to him to apply to the judge before the judge can order his discharge? If we can be sure of that, I have no problem with the amendments. But I seek assurance from the Minister about how the arrested person will know at each stage of the proceedings that it is up to him to apply for discharge.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I can confidently give the assurance that the noble Viscount seeks. That is how we expect it to work. I hope that that reassures him.
In response to the comments made by the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, there is a balance to be struck in the language of the Bill. We think that we have got it right. We are supported in that by the way in which the police and all quarters of the Committee expressed concern. I take the noble Viscount's point, but we must have confidence in getting the processes absolutely spot on. We will do that because of the serious nature of such cases. I hear what the noble Viscount says, but he must trust us to take into account the points made. In the circumstances, the wording that we have proposed can be lived with, is practical and will work.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 36 not moved]
Clause 5 [Provisional arrest]:
Viscount Bridgeman Viscount Bridgeman moved Amendment No. 37:
Page 4, line 3, leave out "reason to believe" and insert "reasonable grounds for believing"
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, in moving this amendment, I will also speak to Amendment No. 191. They are both supported by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart.
When the Law Society proposed that these amendments should be tabled in Committee, I doubt that it expected that it would unearth such a hornets’ nest when it proposed to change the wording in Clauses 5 and 74 from a subjective to a more objective test. If I may paraphrase the subsection, Clause 5 states that,
"a constable … may arrest a person without a warrant if he has reason to believe … that a Part 1 warrant has been or will be issued",
and that it is issued by a legitimate "judicial authority". I hope that that is a fair paraphrasing.
We are trying to provide greater protection to our citizens. The Law Society of Scotland believes that "reasonable grounds for believing" carries more weight than "reason to believe". This case was argued by the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, who I am very pleased to see in his place, and by my noble friend Lord Lamont. One may have "reason to believe", but this may not be confirmed by any facts of evidence whereas having "reasonable grounds for believing" implies that one's belief is motivated by information that one finds compelling. I am not a lawyer, but I find that argument convincing.
A stronger more objective test is obviously preferable when we are talking about a case of "provisional arrest". I have some concern with this clause in the first place: if the constable were to be challenged along the lines of, "What reason did you have to believe that a warrant had been issued?", what would he reply? Would he have to provide concrete evidence or could he say that he suspected that a warrant might have been issued? We do not want anyone to be arrested for the purposes of extradition unfairly, wrongly or because of the mistaken belief of a constable.
The same argument stands for the decision made by the judge about provisional arrests in Part 2. What sort of criteria should a judge or a constable use to make these decisions on provisional arrest?
I now turn to the "semantic issue" itself. We feel that "reasonable grounds for believing" is a stronger test than "reason to believe". I shall quote my noble friend, Lord Lamont, since I believe he put the matter most succinctly. He said:
'"Reason to believe' implies any reason to believe—a slight reason as opposed to a significant reason. 'Reasonable grounds’ implies looking at something in the round—at all the evidence available and whether the conclusion is reasonable".—[Official Report, 18/6/03; col. GC 341.]
However, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, was adamant that there was no substantial difference between "reason to believe" and "reasonable grounds for believing". However, he was subsequently challenged by the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, who suggested that his words could be used as a Pepper v Hart statement with potentially disastrous implications—what one might think of as a field day for the lawyers. This is an area where we must get the drafting right. We cannot simply say that two different formulations of words mean the same thing. We must think how this could be interpreted in the courts at a later date because what we are trying to produce today is workable legislation not a legal minefield.
I would also like to point out that in trying to justify his point, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, spoke about having "good reason to believe" that a warrant "will shortly be issued". The words "good" and "shortly" are not part of this Bill. They bring implications and suggestions that the more simple straightforward language of the Bill does not contain. We must be careful to look at the words we see before us in the Bill otherwise the danger is the sort of complications and wordy wrangling that we experienced when we debated this point in Committee. I beg to move.
9.15 p.m.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: My Lords, as was so excellently trailed by the noble Viscount, not only does my noble friend agree, so do the rest of us. I am pleased to support the amendments, which were inspired by the Law Society of Scotland.
Amendment No. 37 would bring the Bill into line with Section 14 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995. Amendment No. 191 is slightly different: it calls for objectivity to be required of the judge when a warrant is prepared for issue. We would support the noble Viscount, if he were to press the amendments.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, it would be a great pity if my noble friend Lord Lamont of Lerwick did not contribute to the debate. His views on the matter have been widely quoted.
Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, as the noble Lord seems not to be rising to the temptation proffered by the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, I shall say that this rather esoteric debate about the words trespasses on the grounds considered by the Judicial Committee of your Lordship’ House in the case of Liversidge v Anderson in 1942. Can the Minister tell us whether, if he says that the words are adequate, he assumes that the majority was right in that case or, as is normally thought, that the dissenting judgment of Lord Atkin is to be preferred?
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, it is interesting that the reason why the Law Society of Scotland is keen on the change of wording is that the Bill would then say what appears in Scots law, whereas the wording used in the Bill is what appears in English law. The society suggests that it would be a sounder basis for the action of a constable or Customs officer.
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In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, said:
"If I have reasonable grounds for believing that a warrant will be issued, then I have reason to believe that that will be the case. If I do not have reasonable grounds, I do not have reason to believe that it will be so".—[Official Report, 18/6/03: col. GC 339.]
However, one could have "reason to believe" without any grounds. The noble Lord did not take that point.
The point was beautifully illustrated by the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn of Charlton—I do not think that he is going to speak—who said that he might believe that the noble Lord, Lord Lamont of Lerwick, was his cousin because his aunt had told him so but might also, if he went into the matter in some detail, find that there were no grounds for it. I thought that that story was conclusive. Probably, in this case, Scotland has better wording, and the Minister might consider making a small change.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, it is with some discomfort—no, pleasure—that I rise to answer. I should telegraph early on that, on this occasion. I shall raise the white flag. I thought that that would make one or two people smile.
We are, of course, ever grateful to noble Lords for expressing their wisdom on such semantic issues. In Committee, I tried to put up as robust a defence as possible of my position. I thought that I had not made too bad a stab at it, but we are prepared to give the matter some further thought.
The noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, put his finger on it: in this Bill—as with all legislation, actually—the Government's desire is to have simple and straightforward language. The noble Viscount gave us credit for that. We have had an esoteric discussion of the issue. Cases from as far back as 1942 were quoted, and Scots law was invoked. What can I do to resist such an onslaught?
I am happy to give the commitment that we shall take away the amendment to determine what we can do to accommodate the wishes of the Grand Committee, in the first instance, and the wishes expressed fairly and properly on Report. At Third Reading, we shall bring forward a government amendment to incorporate the term "reasonable grounds for believing" in all the appropriate places. With that, I hope that the noble Viscount will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, did I hear the skirl of the pipes?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, it is Report stage. I cannot possibly respond to that.
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam. I feel that it is not a. white flag but an honourable armistice. We shall look forward to receiving the redrafted clauses at Third Reading. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Viscount Bridgeman Viscount Bridgeman moved Amendment No. 38:
Page 4, line 4, leave out "or will be"
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 38, I welcome government Amendment No. 45 grouped with mine. We return to the matter of the provisional arrest, which has caused considerable outrage among outside organisations, as well as among Members of this House and another place. Clauses 5 and 74 deal with provisional arrest.
We accept that there is some merit in having a means of provisional arrest in cases where an arrest warrant has been issued but has not found its way into the hands of the British authorities. That could be vital in catching a notorious terrorist whom we suddenly recognise at Heathrow airport. In such circumstances, we would want our constables to be able to arrest the offender and hold him in custody for 48 hours while we secure his arrest warrant from the requesting countries.
That example is what we consider to be the legitimate use of a provisional warrant, although with the caveat that we are still uneasy about the "reason to believe" issue as we discussed earlier—but let that pass. However, there is what I believe to be a potential danger in the drafting of Clause 5, but it is a danger that does not appear in Clause 74. In Clause 74, the justice of the peace must be satisfied in writing and have evidence in front of him that would justify the issue of a warrant for the arrest of the accused. In Clause 5, a constable with reason to believe that a warrant has been or will be issued can make an arrest and hold a person for 48 hours.
We have no further information about how the constable should come to this decision. Could he merely say, "I thought it might be possible that a warrant might be issued"? How can he make such a hypothetical judgment? On what should his belief be based? If he has had communication with police forces in the category 1 territory and they are chasing a notorious criminal, it should not take long for an arrest warrant to be processed. The foreign authorities can then inform the constable and he can make the arrest knowing that a warrant has been issued but is not yet in his possession. However, the provision before us is open to misuse.
In speaking to their Amendment No. 45, grouped with mine, I hope that the Government have tabled a foolproof amendment which may address that point. I await their explanation on how such an abuse can be avoided. I beg to move.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, as ever, I am grateful for the noble Viscount for having tabled his amendment. What we are concerned with here is the provision in Part 1 of the Bill which allows the police to arrest a person on the basis that they believe that a warrant has been issued or will be issued. I acknowledge that, at first sight, the drafting of the clause might seem a trifle strange; namely, allowing officers to arrest a person purely if they have reason to believe that a warrant will be issued and not just if they believe that a warrant has been issued.
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The opposition amendment seeks to remove the reference to a warrant that will be issued. What I should like to do is set out why we believe those words are necessary, but then go on to explain the solution we have determined in order to meet some of the concerns that, rightly, were expressed in Grand Committee.
The reason why we think the power to arrest on the basis of a belief that a warrant will be issued is needed can be illustrated by the simple example which we used in Grand Committee. Let us imagine that a person commits a bank robbery in France and jumps on board a hovercraft in Calais just before the French police can catch up with and apprehend him. In such circumstances it would not be unreasonable to expect the French police to telephone their counterparts in Dover and ask for the person to be detained on arrival.
Doubtless the French police would confirm that they would be going to a magistrate to seek a European arrest warrant, but at the moment that the person arrives in the United Kingdom, the Kent police would have every reason to believe that a European arrest warrant would be issued, but not that it had been issued. The question noble Lords have to ask is whether they believe that, under such circumstances, the person should be arrested. In simple and straightforward terms, and in particular in terms of law enforcement, the Government believe that they should be arrested.
The alternative is to let the person go, even though by the time confirmation arrives that the warrant has been issued, both the person and the proceeds of the crime might have disappeared. That would be the consequence and effect of accepting the Opposition amendment.
We accept that such cases are likely to be rare, but that does not meet the point that we can simply ignore the need to cater for them. Further, perhaps it is worth reminding noble Lords that this does not apply only to those on their way to the UK by plane, ferry or Channel Tunnel train. We must never forget that the United Kingdom has a land border and that this scenario could well occur in the case of a person crossing from the Republic of Ireland. As I am sure your Lordships know, the window of opportunity to arrest serious criminals and terrorists in particular can be very limited and those chances need to be taken. It would be a tragedy if United Kingdom legislation on extradition closed off our ability to react quickly to deal with that kind of threat.
When we discussed this matter in Grand Committee, there was some recognition among those noble Lords present that the situation which I have just outlined, although rare, could arise and that we need to be able to prevent the person from getting away. However, the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, highlighted what he saw as a particular problem with the "or will be" formulation. I cannot do better than to quote what the noble Lord said:
"Is there anything in Clauses 5 and 6 to prevent the following scenario from happening? The French authorities ring up Inspector Knacker of the Yard and say, 'Will you arrest this man? We promise that we will get you the papers within 48 hours’. The inspector arrests the man, the French authorities fail to get the

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papers there within 48 hours and the man has to be discharged. However, just before he is discharged, the French ring up Inspector Knacker and say, 'Look, I'm sorry we haven't made it in time, but we absolutely promise you that we will get it to you in another 48 hours, so please arrest this man again, as soon as he is discharged'. Is there anything in the Bill to prevent that from happening?".—[Official Report, 18/6/03; col. 349.]
The answer is that there was nothing explicit on the face of the Bill, although we doubt that the police would have gone along with such an obvious abuse.
However, we have decided that we ought to make it absolutely clear that a person can be provisionally arrested only once, and that is the purpose of the government amendment. It provides that if a person is provisionally arrested pending receipt of the papers and then released, he cannot be provisionally arrested again. He can be re-arrested only if the full papers, including the warrant, have been received. I hope that noble Lords will welcome that as an extra and important safeguard.
For the reasons I have outlined, I cannot advise noble Lords to accept the Opposition amendment. It would be wrong to allow criminals to slip through our fingers, even in those rare cases. However, we have introduced to the Bill an extra protection to ensure that there can be no abuse of the power to arrest in cases where no warrant has yet been issued. I invite noble Lords to agree to the government amendment and I hope that, in the light of the careful explanation I have given, the noble Viscount will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, 1 am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, for that explanation. I am particularly reassured by the introduction of new subsection (8), which addresses the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.30 p.m.
Lord Bassam of Brighton Lord Bassam of Brighton moved Amendment No. 39:
Page 4, line 6, leave out from first "authority" to end.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 40 and 41 not moved.]
Clause 6 [Person arrested under section 5]:
Lord Bassam of Brighton Lord Bassam of Brighton moved Amendments Nos. 42 to 45:
Page 4, line 33, at end insert—
"(4A) The Part 1 warrant or a copy of it must be shown to the person as soon as practicable after his arrest."
Page 4, line 34, after "(2)" insert "or (4A)"
Page 4, line 34, leave out "the person must be taken to be discharged" and insert "and the person applies to the judge to be discharged, the judge must order his discharge"
Page 4, line 38, at end insert— "(7) Subsection (8) applies if—

(a) a person is arrested under section 5 on the basis of a belief that a Part 1 warrant has been or will be issued in respect of him;

(b) the person is discharged under subsection (5).

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(8) The person must not be arrested again under section 5 on the basis of a belief relating to the same Part 1 warrant."
On Question, amendments agreed to.
[Amendment No. 46 not moved.]
Clause 7 [Identity of person arrested]:
Baroness Anelay of St Johns Baroness Anelay of St Johns moved Amendment No. 47:
Page 5, line 9, leave out "on a balance of probabilities" and insert "beyond reasonable doubt"
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to move Amendment No. 47. After the tour de force of my noble friend Lord Bridgeman, who managed to obtain a government concession, I hope for more presents from the Government.
In moving Amendment No. 47, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 48, 219 and 220, all of which are supported by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart. The amendments address the issue of the standard of proof to be adopted when establishing the identity of a person who has been arrested.
We are not content at present with the drafting of Clause 7, which covers the identity of the person arrested, and its consequential Part 2 clause, Clause 79. Both clauses deal with the identification of the person arrested, which is the first thing that has to be established when the defendant comes before the judge at the initial hearing.
When we discussed this point in Committee, there was concern on all sides that the Bill as drafted was not satisfactory. It was obvious that if we were to send the wrong person back for prosecution, for trial, it would be a miscarriage of justice.
As the Minister helpfully pointed out in Committee, there has been some movement in the drafting from the time the Bill was first introduced into another place. Originally there was no indication of what test or standard of proof should be used when the judge made the decision about whether the person before him was the person named in the warrant.
I and others referred to the high-profile case of Mr Derek Bond, who found himself in the position of being arrested in South Africa while on holiday—this is an example simply of the problem of identity; we are not intimating that there will be this kind of extradition case—when he was not the person who should have been the subject of the extradition request from America. The case raised concerns both in this House and among the public.
After some debate in another place, the Government decided to specify the standard of proof. However, they selected the civil burden of proof—the balance of probabilities—rather than the criminal test of beyond reasonable doubt, which we prefer. We accept that it was right for the Government to specify the standard of proof, but we believe that they have chosen the wrong one.
At the initial hearing the judge is given no prima facie evidence about the offence with which the defendant is charged. All that takes place is a kind of identification— we are not convinced that it is sufficient—of the person, a discussion of the remand, the rights of the person to

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legal aid and the issue surrounding the consent to extradition. In other words, an administrative and procedural arrangement goes forward once the judge has decided that the Mr Smith before him is the same Mr Smith as named on the arrest warrant, and the extradition proceeds without further ado to the hearing.
Our amendment seeks simply to change the phrase "on the balance of probabilities" to "beyond reasonable doubt". We seek to insert the criminal test, not the civil test. This would provide the greater degree of certainty required and give greater protection to the defendant from being incorrectly extradited.
I note that the Government have tabled a clutch of amendments on the burden of proof on other matters to do with retrial and they have made helpful clarifications in rewriting the retrial clauses, to which we will come later. I have asked for them to be degrouped because they address a different problem. But that still leaves the same old problem in this clause. Whatever the Government have done with other parts of the Bill in regard to the burden of proof, they have specifically chosen not to change the burden of proof on identification from the balance of probabilities to beyond reasonable doubt. I beg to move.
Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, it is important to distinguish precisely what one is dealing with here. I think the noble Baroness trespassed against this at one stage. This part of the Bill deals only with whether the person up in front of the magistrate is the person named in the warrant, not whether he has anything to do with the person who committed the crime and has that name.
The noble Baroness referred to Mr Bond. He was the person named in the warrant, as I understand it, but he should not have been named in the warrant because they got Mr Derek Bond of 45 Railway Cuttings, or wherever he came from, instead of Mr James Bond, 007, of somewhere else. The only question here is, "Are you the person named in the warrant?". To ask for that to be proved in front of the magistrate beyond reasonable doubt is asking too much. I think that the burden should be on the prosecution to show that he more probably is.
Is anything being done to deal with the example I raised in Grand Committee where the person is named in the warrant but is patently not the person who committed the crime? I gave the example of a person named in a warrant who had been sitting on the Woolsack in your Lordships’ House at the very moment the crime was committed. Can the Government do anything to deal with the case of somebody who, although accurately named in the warrant, is patently not the person who ought to be extradited because he is patently not the person who committed the crime in question although he may have the same name and even the same address. He may be the father of the criminal, if he comes from one of those tiresome families whose members give their children the same Christian names they bear themselves.
Lord Carlisle of Bucklow: My Lords, the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, says the only issue we are
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concerned with is whether the person is the person named in the warrant, as if it is a matter of little concern. It seems to me absolutely vital.
As I understand the way in which the system works, a category one country issues a warrant for the arrest of a person in this country who, it claims, has committed an offence in that country. He is then arrested, which is stage two, and brought before the magistrate. It seems that about the only power the magistrate has is to confirm that he is the person named in the warrant. If the magistrate decides that is the case, he can remand the person in custody for that purpose. The person is then referred to another hearing, which has no power to go into dual criminality; it has no power regarding whether there is a prima facie case, and no control of the Secretary of State over the decision to extradite. Therefore it seems that one of the most important steps is the confirmation by the judge to whom the person arrested is taken that he is the person named in the warrant.
Let us take the noble Lord, Lord Bassam. The noble Lord appears in the court as the person arrested and the judge has to decide whether he is the person named in the warrant. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, claims he is not, knows nothing about the matter and has nothing to do with this. It must be someone who has the good fortune to look like the noble Lord, who has been mistaken for him. Is it really adequate for the judge to say, "I think on the balance of probabilities it is Lord Bassam, and I think therefore that it is the Lord Bassam who is mentioned in the warrant"?
All of us have our double. If I may do so in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, I remind the House that when I first entered Parliament, when I looked rather younger than I do now, he and I were often mistaken for each other. If I appeared before the magistrate with a warrant that claimed that I had committed an offence while in France, and if I had never been near the place and had been mistaken for the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, would it be adequate that the court should decide the issue only on the balance of probabilities, or should the judge at least be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt? I am sure that neither myself nor the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, nor the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, would want to be returned to the European country merely on the basis that a magistrate said that on the balance of probabilities he felt that he had the right person before him.
Since the adjournment, the Minister has been very generous in conceding amendments from the Opposition and accepting that matters needed to be reconsidered. I hope that he recognises the serious intent behind the amendment and will be prepared to consider again the burden of proof.
Lord Dholakia: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 47 and 48 have the support of these Benches. During the Grand Committee stage, my noble friend Lord Goodhart made a strong case for avoiding the use of the words, "beyond reasonable doubt". Those words are somewhat out of date. They are no longer

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used in giving direction to juries in criminal trials, where the judge is now required to say, "You must be sure".
In the absence of subsection (3), I am given to understand that a court would normally apply the criminal standard of proof or something very close to it. We do not believe that the balance of probability is appropriate in this clause.
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, I hope that my noble friend the Minister looks on the amendments in spirit, with favour. It is said that the only issue is identity, but I cannot think of a more important matter than identity. Take the case of my noble friend Lord Bassam's twin, who lived his life in America and who changed his name from something to Lord, in the American fashion. If he or his twin were up in the box, I could not think of anything more important than that it should be proved beyond reasonable doubt. We might use the wording, "unless the court is sure", or the Government might take the amendment away and insert suitable words.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I must confess that, listening to the debate, I have been intrigued by how one would weigh the balance of probabilities. After all, a probability is a fraction of an actuality. How does one put probabilities in the scales and weigh them? It is a phrase that should be completely rejected in law, which is why I strongly support the amendment.
9.45 p.m.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I answer the amendments with a smile. My mother would be extraordinarily amused at the way in which noble Lords have referred to the Bassam name in the course of the debate—and not least with the notion that I might have a twin somewhere in the United States of America.
We are happy to respond to the amendments, and to the important issue that they get to the root of. They relate to the specific issue of the standard of proof relating to the person's identity at the initial hearing. When shortly we reach the group of amendments with Amendment No. 69, we shall have a more generalised discussion on the issue of the burden and standard of proof. 1 will try not to stray too much into that more general territory in my remarks on this group of amendments.
As I am sure those who have been studying the Bill will know, the first thing that happens after a person has been arrested is that he is brought before a United Kingdom district judge for an initial hearing which takes place very shortly after arrest. It has been said that the magistrates’ only power is effectively to determine whether the person in front of them is who he says he is. Although that is an extraordinarily important task, the district judge also has other tasks. He must inform the person of the contents of the warrant; give him information about the possibility of, and the consequences of, consenting to extradition; fix a date for the main extradition hearing;
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and decide whether to grant the person bail or remand him in custody. All of those tasks have important consequences and great import for the person affected.
However, before the judge does any of that, he must take a view on the person's identity. He must decide whether the person before him is the person whose extradition has been sought. At that stage the judge is not considering whether the extradition should take place, still less the issue of whether the person is guilty of the crime in question. He is simply reaching a view as to whether the person whose extradition has been sought and the person before him are one and the same. If the judge concludes that the person before him is not the right person, the person must be released automatically and without any further ado. There are no further proceedings or appeals. It is quite simply the end of the matter. I ask your Lordships to bear that in mind as you consider this issue.
The Bill, as it was originally introduced, did not specify the standard of proof that the judge should apply when considering the person's identity. During Committee stage in another place it was suggested that that was unduly ambiguous and that the Bill should stipulate the standard of proof to be applied. The Government accepted that that was a sensible suggestion and accordingly brought forward an amendment, which was accepted during Report stage, for exactly that purpose. The amendment made in another place imposed the balance of probabilities test. I think that I should explain why that was chosen and why I cannot suggest to your Lordships that you should accept these amendments from the Opposition which would instead substitute the criminal "beyond all reasonable doubt" standard.
Perhaps I could cite a real and, I think we would all agree tragic, example to illustrate the potential pitfalls if we were to make the change suggested by the amendments. I am sure that your Lordships are all too painfully aware of the awful case of Detective Constable Stephen Oake, who was murdered in a flat in Manchester in January 2003. Given the circumstances of the case, there was not too much doubt about who was thought to be responsible for that appalling crime. The person concerned was duly arrested and brought to court. He was charged under the name of Kamel Bourgass. The Times of 18th January 2003 reported:
"However, the court was told yesterday that police still do not know if this is his true identity. 'Inquiries are going on to determine whether this is his name or not', said Susan Hemming for the prosecution".
It also became apparent that the prosecuting authorities did not even know what nationality he was.
Dangerous criminals of that kind are exactly the kind of people who feature in extradition cases. Those are the very people who very deliberately have no identity papers or, equally possible, possess three or more different passports, all in different names. In such circumstances the district judge may very well not be able to have certainty, beyond all reasonable doubt, as to the person's identity. Do we really want dangerous criminals, potentially terrorists, to be able to escape extradition and justice just because they are

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so adept at disguising their identity? It is certainly not what the Government want, and I suspect that on reflection it is not what your Lordships want.
It is certainly not what Nick Hawkins, the leading Opposition spokesman on the Bill in another place, wants. He accepted, as we do, that there is a difficult balancing act to be struck. He concluded:
"I accept the choice that the Government made for the reasons set out by the Minister today".—[Official Report, Commons, 25/ 3/03; col. 173.]
Would it really be justice if a suspected terrorist or other serious criminal was able to walk free just because he had two different passports and the judge could not have absolute certainty—because that is what is being suggested—about his identity?
I am confident that in genuine cases of mistaken identity the person will be able to satisfy the judge that he is the wrong person even on a balance of probabilities test. I really do not believe that we should be tipping the balance so far in favour of the identity fraudsters as would be the effect of these amendments. I do not think that that is what Members of your Lordships’ House want.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, the Minister commented on the balance of probabilities. I hope that he will forgive me if I was out of the Chamber when he mentioned the relevant case, but will he comment on the South African case where the United States authorities sought the extradition of a British citizen who was the victim of a case of mistaken identity? The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, shakes his head as though that is an inappropriate question. However, he has just advanced the case that these matters are easily resolved. The man in question suffered terribly from being mistakenly identified.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I greatly respect the noble Lord's sincerity in advancing an alternative case, as it were. However, he is asking me to make a judgment. I am not prepared to make that judgment. It would be wrong of me to do so. It is not right for me to comment on that particular case.
I referred to a case which I believe supports the principles behind the Government's legislation. It is a serious matter which needs to be taken into consideration. I invite the noble Lord and other Members of your Lordship’ House to reflect very carefully on that before they seek to press these amendments. I hope that, having heard the serious import of what I said, the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, indulged in much rhetoric in trying to portray those who support the amendments as "do badders" who are keen to allow the worst terrorists to flee. He knows that that is not the case. I shall not indulge in the same kind of rhetoric. We are trying to catch the kind of circumstance that was recounted very carefully by the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, in Grand Committee, and which we
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tried to hint at in the amendment. There are occasions when someone is patently innocent and should not be subject to extradition proceedings. I confess freely that we have not found a way of addressing what we consider to be the vital point that the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, raised. I shall continue to address that point.
As noble Lords around the House said tonight, none of us would want an innocent person to be subject to these proceedings. None of us would want to sign up to legislation that would allow to go free a person who is accused of killing a member of our forces or our police or who is accused of an act of terrorism or a serious criminal act. However, we must serve the whole public. I shall consider how we can return to the matter at a later stage. I undertake to talk to the noble Viscount between now and Third Reading to see whether we can find an amendment which properly serves our joint objective. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 48 and 49 not moved.]
Clause 8 [Remand etc.]:
Baroness Anelay of St Johns Baroness Anelay of St Johns moved Amendment No. 50:
Page 5, line 34, at end insert—
"( ) ensure that the person has had the opportunity to receive independent legal advice about the implications of giving or withholding consent to extradition;"
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 50, 1 wish to speak also to Amendments Nos. 201 and 211 with which it is grouped.
The point at issue here is the provision of legal aid at the initial stage of proceedings and in connection with the giving or withholding of consent to extradition. When we debated the matter in Committee we thought again about how our amendments were phrased. We listened to the points made in Committee and studied Hansard carefully. Many noble Lords drew to our attention the drafting error in our amendments. We heeded their advice and changed them.
It is clear that we all agree that we must ensure that no one gives their consent to extradition unless they have had at least the opportunity to receive legal advice. The Government have already shown us their commitment to that principle through the amendments to Clauses 44 and 127. They put significant safeguards into the clauses on consent, which we certainly welcomed.
Our amendments are on the same theme, but are designed to strengthen the Government's commitment to the provision of independent legal advice throughout the Bill. Clause 8 lays an obligation on the judge to proceed under it by fixing a date for the extradition hearing, informing the person of the contents of the warrant, giving the person the required information about consent, and remanding the person in custody or on bail.
Initially, we intended to amend the clause by removing the duty on the judge to give the person the required information about consent, and by placing

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instead a positive obligation on the judge to ensure that the person had received independent advice about consent issues. We felt that that approach was flawed, so our new amendment maintains that independent legal advice should be provided to the defendant at the initial hearing. We have already explained that that is advisable. At the moment, the judge must tell the defendant that he can consent to extradition or not, how the procedure will work if he does consent, and that consent is irrevocable. In Clause 44, we see that the person can give his consent only if he has had access to legal advice, and is either legally represented at the time of giving consent or has refused legal aid having been given the opportunity of it.
We are concerned about the timing. At what stage will the lawyers have access to the defendant in order to run through the issues involved in giving consent? We want to make sure that the person has had time to talk matters through and reflect on which course is appropriate to the situation, without in any way opening the gate to people who want simply to extend the process for their own purposes rather than proper judicial reasons.
Under Clause 44, the person who has been arrested may have had legal aid for only a matter of hours before he is required to make his decision. We want the Bill to make sure that such a short time frame is not the case. By introducing a requirement for the defendant to have access to legal aid at the stage that Clause 8 describes, we would try to provide certainty that he had time to consider the very serious decision before him.
I make it clear that all the amendments are strictly probing. We are trying to get a picture on record of how the provisions will work. I beg to move.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, as ever I am extraordinarily grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for having tabled the amendments and explained their purpose. She always gets her explanations spot on.
The amendments relate to the important issues of consent to extradition and, more specifically, of the legal advice available to a person in such circumstances. It may be worth recording that somewhere between a quarter and a third of those who are the subject of extradition proceedings in this country consent to extradition, so it is not an insignificant issue. It is also very significant for the individual concerned. Deciding whether to consent to the extradition request or to go back voluntarily is a very important decision.
That makes it absolutely vital that those concerned understand the full implications of granting that consent. For that reason, the judge is required at the initial hearing to explain to the fugitive about the possibility of giving consent and also about the implications and consequences of so doing. In particular, the judge must set out the consent procedure and make sure that the person is aware of the very important fact that once consent has been given it cannot be revoked.
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The amendments would impose an additional requirement on the district judge at that initial hearing. He would also be required to ensure that the person has had the opportunity to receive legal advice about the implications of consenting to his extradition.
I am sure that many of your Lordships will regard this as a sensible proposition, as do I.I do not disagree with the underlying sentiment behind the amendments, but I want gently to suggest that they are superfluous. I remind noble Lords, first, that anyone who is the subject of extradition proceedings is entitled to legal aid. Every person who is arrested in an extradition case has the same entitlement as those arrested in purely domestic cases. That entitlement is to independent legal advice.
The duty solicitor scheme is designed precisely to ensure that this advice is available before the first court appearance. In the extradition context, that means that the legal aid is available before the fugitive has any opportunity to consent to extradition. So the advice is there before he is put in the position of considering consent.
As your Lordships will see from the draft code of practice on police powers, which we put out for consultation, the first duty of the custody officer following a person's arrest in an extradition case is to ensure that he is informed at the first instance of his right to free, independent legal advice. So right at the outset it is the duty of that custody officer to make that crystal clear.
I want to take this opportunity to put on the record one other point which arose in Grand Committee. My noble friend Lady Scotland has written to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, about it. The Government are engaged on a consultation exercise about possible changes to the duty solicitor scheme. However, extradition cases are of such a seriousness that they would not be affected by any such changes. We wanted that to be widely known and understood. In other words, the duty solicitor scheme will continue to be available to all those arrested in connection with extradition.
However, my reason for suggesting that these amendments are unnecessary goes beyond that. If noble Lords care to take a careful look at Clause 44 and the corresponding Part 2 provisions in Clause 127, they will see that they make clear that the district judge cannot accept a person's consent to extradition unless that person is legally represented or has had the opportunity to have legal advice. In other words—and I have chosen these words very carefully—it will never be possible for a person to consent to his extradition unless he has had the opportunity to take legal advice. That is what the Bill already provides for and, accordingly, I do not believe that these amendments are appropriate or necessary. I hope that, having heard that, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, will feel not only reassured but confident in withdrawing her amendment.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. He has put the Government's arguments on the record more clearly than in Grand Committee. I certainly accept his assurances on those matters.
He was right to refer to legal aid. I asked questions in Grand Committee because I was concerned about the continuation of legal aid being available for serious cases. I was grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, for writing to me to confirm that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I beg to move that consideration on Report be now adjourned.
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Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

Hereford Markets Bill [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to.
House adjourned at four minutes past ten o'clock.

CORRECTION
In col. 1549 on Tuesday 21st October, the first two sentences of the Lord Livsey of Talgarth on Amendment No. 4 to the Hunting Bill should read, "The passing of Amendment No. 2 incorporates specifically the principles of registration and exemption. The new clause contained in Amendment No. 4 clarifies and defines registration."
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  Police Service: Paperwork
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  Police Performance Monitors
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  Asylum Applicants: Language Analysis
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  Campsfield House
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  Millennium Dome
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  NHS Patient and Public Involvement: Government Response to Select Committee
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  Magistrates’ Courts: IT Contracts
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  Late Payment
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  Arms Brokers: Registration
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  Measuring Equipment (Liquid Fuel and Lubricant) (Amendment) Regulations 2003
  Measuring Equipment (Liquid Fuel and Lubricant) (Amendment) Regulations 2003
  Iraq: Costs of Military Campaign and Reconstruction
  Iraq: Costs of Military Campaign and Reconstruction
  Government Debt: EU Requirements
  Government Debt: EU Requirements
  Wage Inflation: Health and Education
  Wage Inflation: Health and Education
  State Pension: Arrangements with the Philippines
  State Pension: Arrangements with the Philippines
  Bovine Tuberculosis
  Bovine Tuberculosis
  Strategic Rail Authority
  Strategic Rail Authority
  Merchant Shipping and Fishing Vessels (Port Waste Reception Facilities) Regulations 2003
  Merchant Shipping and Fishing Vessels (Port Waste Reception Facilities) Regulations 2003