Sitting of 11 May 2004

Preamble
The House met at half-past Eleven o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
  FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
  The Secretary of State was asked—
  FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

    Hong Kong
    Mr. Mohammad Sarwar: If he will make a statement on the development of democratic institutions in Hong Kong. [171829]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Bill Rammell): We have repeatedly said that we hope to see early progress on universal suffrage at a pace in line with the wishes of the people of Hong Kong. We are concerned about the recent decision by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress to set limits on constitutional development in Hong Kong. We have made our concerns known to the Chinese Government.
    Mr. Sarwar: I thank my hon. Friend for his reply. As the Prime Minister of China is in the United Kingdom and has held discussions with our Prime Minister, can my hon. Friend confirm that our Government have impressed on the Chinese Government the fact that delaying elections in Hong Kong would lead to greater instability and is unacceptable to the British Government?
    Mr. Rammell: I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. This is an issue that we are actively discussing and which was raised by the Prime Minister with the Chinese Premier yesterday. It is particularly disappointing that the NPC acted before the Government of the Special Administrative Region completed its consultation. We have a shared interest with the Chinese Government in the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong, and we believe that the best way to secure and sustain that is an early move towards universal suffrage.
    Mr. Michael Fallon: Given the seriousness of the decision by the National People's Congress what will the Government do if the Chinese Government continue to take no notice of those protests?
    Mr. Rammell: It is a statement of the obvious that we do not run Hong Kong any more, and are therefore
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    dealing with a sovereign Government. Nevertheless, we retain an historical commitment, and strongly believe that the best way to secure stability for the people of Hong Kong is an early move towards universal suffrage at a pace in line with their wishes. We will continue to express that view.
    Mr. Ben Chapman: Does my hon. Friend appreciate that if the one nation, two systems solution for Hong Kong is seen by the Chinese as the ultimate solution to bring Taiwan back to the motherland, its actions regarding universal suffrage will not be welcome in that territory? Does he also appreciate that this appears to an outsider in the United Kingdom and to the people of Hong Kong to be a significant departure from the substantial degree of autonomy that they were promised?
    Mr. Rammell: I wholly agree with my hon. Friend in his last remarks. We have expressed concern because the decision by the NPC appears to be inconsistent with the high degree of autonomy that was put forward in the joint declaration. We have expressed that view both publicly and privately, and we will continue to do so.
    Tony Baldry: How has China breached the Basic Law in Hong Kong? Would it not be better, having allowed China to take over the sovereignty of Hong Kong, to trust the people of China to get this right? They have shown good faith in relation to Hong Kong to date, and British berating will probably not be particularly productive.
    Mr. Rammell: Since the handover in 1997—we report on this twice a year to Parliament—the one country, two systems arrangement has generally worked well. Nevertheless, it is right that we should voice our concerns. We have publicly voiced our concern that the decision appears to be inconsistent with the high degree of autonomy in the joint declaration. With respect, that view commands majority support across the Chamber.

    Middle East
    Ms Meg Munn: What assessment he has made of Mr. Sharon's plan to remove settlements from Gaza and its effect on the road map. [171830]
    Mr. Jim Cunningham: In what ways the Government are carrying forward their commitment to the success of the middle east peace plan. [171839]
    The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Jack Straw): The removal of settlements and the withdrawal of the Israeli army from positions in the occupied territories are in line with Israel's commitments under phase 1 of the road map. For this reason, the plans of the Israeli Government were welcomed by the Quartet, as Kofi Annan spelled out last week. It is the road map, internationally agreed and endorsed by the United Nations Security Council, which is fundamental to a peaceful settlement in the middle east. Despite the setback of the recent Likud referendum, we, the European Union, and the Quartet

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    are fully engaged in making what progress we can. Last week, I met Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Maher and Nabil Shaath and Salam Fayyad of the Palestinian Authority.
    The United Kingdom's position is identical to that of the Quartet. In the latter's statement of 4 May, it said that any withdrawal by Israel must not prejudice the final status negotiations between the parties nor undermine the two-state solution of Israel being in security and at peace with its neighbours, and Palestine established as a contiguous and viable state.
    Ms Munn: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the majority of ordinary Israelis do indeed want peace? Does he further agree that it is essential that the Palestinian Authority be involved in negotiations with Israel? What steps should now be taken by both sides in order to get negotiations started?
    Mr. Straw: I entirely share my hon. Friend's views. The steps are set out in the road map and include more activity by the Palestinian Authority in respect of security, and withdrawals by the Israeli Government. So far as security is concerned, there have been some improvements in the organisation of security forces inside the Palestinian Authority, and we continue to offer what advice we can to that authority.
    Mr. Cunningham: Given the recent statement by the President of the United States that progress towards the implementation of the Palestinian state is slipping, what discussions has the Foreign Office had with my right hon. Friend's counterpart in the United States to clarify the situation? Can my right hon. Friend give us an assurance that any future discussions between the Israelis and the Americans will also involve the Palestinians, and will not repeat what happened a few weeks ago, when the Palestinians were left out of discussions about the settlements?
    Mr. Straw: I have a great many discussions with Secretary Powell of the United States and I shall be seeing him again this Friday to discuss the middle east, among other things. The United States is one of the four members of the quartet and is as fully committed as the other three members of the Quartet to the two-state solution set out in the road map and to the lines of progress described by the road map, which include full involvement by the Palestinians and the Palestinian Authority.
    Mr. Elfyn Llwyd: The right hon. Gentleman will know about the International Development Committee report in January entitled "Development Assistance and the Occupied Palestinian Territories", which condemned the damage to the Palestinian economy and blamed Israel's incursions, curfews, checkpoints and so on. The Palestinian economy is being choked and decimated. What is the right hon. Gentleman doing about that?
    Mr. Straw: We were grateful to the Select Committee for the report. As it highlighted, after the United States, the United Kingdom is the largest single donor of aid within the Palestinian area. We have had continuing discussions with the Israelis and I raised these matters
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    again last week when I saw Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom about the need for them to lift the restrictions, which are unquestionably making life, which is always difficult, much more difficult in the occupied territories. At the same time, it must be put on record that the sooner the Palestinian Authority gets a real and convincing grip on rejectionist terrorist groups operating within those territories, the easier life will be—and the easier it will be, too, for the Israeli Government to lift some of those restrictions.
    Sir Peter Tapsell: Despite the uncertain impression made by the Prime Minister on his most recent visit to Washington, can the Foreign Secretary confirm that the British Government remain fully committed to the full implementation of United Nations resolutions 242 and 338?
    Mr. Straw: I confirm that, and I also make it clear to the House that in his press conference alongside President Bush as well as on many other occasions, the Prime Minister was categorical in his support for the British Government's long-established policy of supporting resolutions 242 and 338.
    David Cairns: I welcome my right hon. Friend's opening remarks that there is no inconsistency between Israel's obligations under the road map and a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza strip. Is it not time that instead of complaining about that, other parties to the road map recognised their own phase 1 obligations under the road map—namely, the complete cessation of terrorist violence? Is not the reason why the timetable is slipping and the road map is not being implemented that Hamas set out last summer to destroy the road map through bus suicide terrorist bombs?
    Mr. Straw: There is no doubt that reasonable progress was being made in the implementation of the road map between the end of June and 19 August, and it was the planting and detonation of a terrible bomb in the middle of Jerusalem on that day which has marked the decline of progress and much bloodshed since then. The road map lays down obligations on each party there—Israel and the Palestinian Authority separately—and on the international community. What is crucial is that each party—Israel and the Palestinian Authority—instead of complaining about the other, take the steps that it is obliged to take to implement the road map.
    Mr. Gary Streeter: Whatever the contents of the revised Sharon plan when it finally emerges, will the Foreign Secretary confirm that the Government's response and subsequent actions will continue to focus on getting the parties talking to each other again and on getting the road map back on track? Does he agree with President Bush that a Palestinian state in 2005 is no longer realistic? Given the lack of progress since 2003, is it intended that new time lines will be introduced into the road map?
    Mr. Straw: Of course, a key part of our approach is to encourage both parties into direct collaboration. There is always some collaboration—often more than meets

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    the eye—and that is of crucial importance. That is one of the reasons why I met representatives of the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli Foreign Minister last week. On time lines, our position remains as set out in the road map. Of course it is the case, given what has happened since last August, that delay is more likely than rapid progress, but the road map set out obligations, and it is our responsibility as an indirect member of the quartet, through the Security Council and the European Union, to do all that we can—as we are—to ensure that the road map's implementation is as consistent as possible with the time line.
    Mr. Ernie Ross: My right hon. Friend will be aware that there is despair among the Palestinian community here and in the middle east following the meeting between Prime Minister Sharon and President Bush and the subsequent hype made of it by Prime Minister Sharon. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the communiqu?#x00E9; issued on behalf of the Quartet last Tuesday makes it clear that final negotiated positions with regard to refugees and borders must be based on resolutions 242, 338, 1397 and 1515, the Madrid peace process and the Prince Abdullah initiative, which was accepted in Beirut, and that that is our Government's position?
    Mr. Straw: I confirm all of that. I also remind the House, as I did a few minutes ago, that the United States is a key member of the Quartet, and that it signed up to the road map and to these conclusions. Although I understand the concern of many of our friends in the Palestinian community, both here and abroad, about what happened in the rose garden three weeks ago, I ask those friends to examine what President Bush actually said. President Bush mentioned the road map six times, and has made it clear, both then and subsequently, that he stands by the road map and resolutions 242, 338 and 1397, and that that includes no prejudice or prejudging on the final status negotiations.
    Mr. Nick Gibb: Does the Foreign Secretary accept that the proposal for disengagement from Gaza is the first step towards the creation of an independent Palestinian state; is very much in line with the requirements of the road map; and indeed is similar to proposals made at Camp David four years ago, which is why, as he said, it has the broad support of the Quartet?
    Mr. Straw: Yes, I do. Whenever the withdrawal from the occupied territories occurs, it is bound to be on a phased basis. We should not get into a position where, because we cannot have everything all at once, we take nothing. That is why the withdrawal policy was welcomed, and I hope that the Israeli Government can resurrect it, notwithstanding the problems with their referendum.

    Thailand
    David Taylor: What assessment he has made of the impact of violence in southern Thailand on the security of British tourists; and if he will make a statement. [1718311
    (Mr. Mike O'Brien): On 28 April in the south of Thailand, 200 militants took part in well co-ordinated attacks in 10 locations, which resulted in the deaths of 112 people, including five members of the security forces. Our assessment of the impact of the violence on the security of British nationals is reflected in our travel advice—we currently advise against all non-essential travel to four provinces in the south of Thailand.
    David Taylor: The advice to travellers given on the FCO website is generally first rate, but the advice on Thailand needs to be extended and updated. Does the Minister agree that it should now reflect the real risk of insurgency travelling north to the tourist areas, in light of the widening void between the mega-rich lifestyle of the elite surrounding Thaksin Shinawatra in Buddhist Bangkok and the grinding poverty endured by those in the Muslim southern provinces?
    Mr. O'Brien: We updated travel advice on terrorism in southern Thailand on five occasions during the course of this year, including on 8 April and 28 April. We recommend against all non-essential travel to the four far southern provinces of Patani, Yala, Narathiwat and Songkhla. However, I take on board my hon. Friend's suggestion that we should consider issuing broader advice, and I will listen to the views of officials who consider such matters. As he says, it is very important that we give people practical advice on which they can rely.
    Mr. David Cameron: Notwithstanding what the Minister says about giving travel advice, does he agree that the Foreign Office must recognise, first, that there is no such thing as an entirely safe country; and secondly, that Muslim extremists aim to put off any contact between western tourists and Muslim countries? Does he agree that if travel advice becomes over-prescriptive, the terrorists are winning?
    Mr. O'Brien: We cannot provide travel advice that covers all eventualities, but we endeavour to ensure that it is as practical, objective, accurate and up to date as possible in terms of helping British nationals to make decisions about travelling abroad. In respect of southern Thailand, we have no evidence that the violence is directly linked to international terrorism. However, the hon. Gentleman is right that when we give advice we must be careful to ensure that people are aware of the general problems, not only in south-east Asia, but across much of the world. Terrorism is a threat to us all. The terrorists are not winning, but they certainly remain a major threat.
    Mr. David Chaytor (Bury, North) (Lab): Is it not the case that apart from the violence in the south, Thailand is generally a difficult country for Europeans to visit? Two of my constituents have recently had appalling difficulties in Thailand: one faces a sentence of life imprisonment; the other has seen a member of their family murdered. Can my hon. Friend assure the House that his advice to the British embassy in Bangkok is that it should provide the maximum possible assistance to

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    relatives of British citizens facing difficulties in Thailand in order to support them when they have to visit to deal with such problems? The British embassy—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that the Minister will be able to answer.
    Mr. O'Brien: More than 700,000 British nationals travel to Thailand every year. Our consular staff in Thailand and in London will do everything that they properly can to provide them with appropriate consular assistance where it is required. My hon. Friend will appreciate that among those 700,000 people, some have very serious priority problems, while many others require elements of help. Therefore, staff need to try to allocate their assistance as best and as appropriately as they can.

    Zimbabwe
    Mr. Hugo Swire: What recent discussions he has had with President Mbeki of South Africa concerning the future of Zimbabwe. [171832]
    (Mr. Chris Mullin): We are in regular contact with the South African Government on the issue of Zimbabwe. The Prime Minister discussed Zimbabwe with President Mbeki when they recently spoke following the election victory by the African National Congress, and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has regularly discussed it with South Africa's Foreign Minister. I will have further discussions when I visit South Africa later this month.
    Mr. Swire: Every hour of every day, thousands of Zimbabweans continue to flee across the Limpopo from Mugabe's nightmare into President Mbeki's South Africa—this at a time when even a respected local journal such as the Kenya Times is joining the general chorus of condemnation of President Mbeki's inactivity. We know that the Foreign Secretary is still of the belief that President Mbeki is key to unlocking the unhappy situation in Zimbabwe, but does the Minister honestly believe that President Mbeki has either the intention or the willpower to do so, or is he merely clutching at straws?
    Mr. Mullin: Yes, we do believe that President Mbeki and his Government are making a serious effort to resolve the situation in Zimbabwe, and he has not been inactive. He has been extremely active, but the trouble is that he is dealing with extremely difficult customers, as we all are, in Mr. Mugabe and his cronies.
    Helen Jackson: Is my hon. Friend aware of the recent visit to the House of Commons by the then Deputy Speaker of the South African Parliament, the hon. Baleka Mbete—you will be delighted to know, Mr. Speaker, that she is now the Speaker—and of her clear recognition of the key role that South Africa will have to play in any change of Government and leadership in Zimbabwe? She also made the point, however, that such change will have to
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    be brought about within the democracy and structures of Zimbabwe, rather than by any major inward force from other countries.
    Mr. Mullin: Yes I was aware of the visit of the Deputy Speaker—now the Speaker—although I did not meet her. It is true, as my hon. Friend says, that any solution to the problem in Zimbabwe will inevitably involve South Africa, which is the main player. Any differences that we have with South Africa involve tactics rather than principle.
    Mr. John Bercow: Given that the articulate, charismatic and democratically elected mayor of Harare, Elias Mudzuri, was first suspended and then removed from office, and that the Mugabe thugs are now seeking to evict him and his family from their home—which I had the privilege of visiting in February this year—will the Minister accept the urgent need to beseech the President of South Africa to stop appeasing the tyrant Mugabe and to start insisting that the Southern African Development Community norms and standards, according to which the South African elections were conducted, are the norms and standards by which the Government of Zimbabwe should also be conducted?
    Mr. Mullin: I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I am sure that the South African Government would too. I do not think that it is necessary to beseech the South African Government. We have a regular dialogue with them, based on mutual respect, but at the end of the day, the problem is being caused by Mr. Mugabe and ZANU-PF, and by their unwillingness to engage with their opponents.
    Kate Hoey: Is it not now time for the British and South African Governments to make a joint approach to the United Nations to make it clear that there can be no free and fair parliamentary elections in Zimbabwe next year unless there is a change of Government there? This has to be said clearly now. Zimbabwe needs free and fair elections, but it is not going to get them. President Mbeki and our Prime Minister should go to the United Nations to get this whole issue discussed.
    Mr. Mullin: We would be happy to join in any initiative that the South Africans thought worth while. The problem with going to the United Nations—certainly to the Security Council—is that there has to be an international dispute before the Security Council will become involved. The matter is therefore unlikely to discussed by the Security Council unless the surrounding countries signify that they want it to be. In regard to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights at Geneva, we and our EU colleagues have raised the issue of Zimbabwe there for the last three years in succession, but on each occasion our motion has fallen to a non-action motion prompted by the African states.
    Sir Nicholas Winterton: The Minister is well aware that President Thabo Mbeki, whose African National Congress party swept back to power in South Africa recently, is absolutely critical to the solution of the problems in Zimbabwe. The Minister

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    will also be aware that those who can help to restructure Zimbabwe continue to flee the country—many of them going to South Africa or coming here to the United Kingdom—with absolutely nothing, because they can bring nothing out. Have the Government considered discussing with President Mbeki the matter of the supply of power to Zimbabwe, because the Republic of South Africa plays a critical part in that regard? I do not want the people of Zimbabwe to suffer any more than they are already, but could that be a way of bringing additional pressure to bear on President Mugabe?
    Mr. Mullin: That is certainly an issue that has come up from time to time. It would be a very large step to take, partly because it would inflict even more suffering on innocent Zimbabweans, and I know that that is not the hon. Gentleman's intention. I think that is all I can say about it for the time being.

    Zimbabwe (Sporting Links)
    Mr. Peter Pike: What his Department's policy is on sporting links with Zimbabwe, with particular reference to cricket. [171833]
    The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Jack Straw): As the House will be aware, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and I met officials from the England and Wales Cricket Board last week to discuss the proposed tour. Our view is clear: we would prefer the tour to be postponed until the situation in Zimbabwe improves, but the decision to tour is one for the cricketing authorities to take. The Government have no power to instruct people not to leave this country to play sport abroad. We do not have state-run cricket in this country, nor should we. We have great sympathy for the position in which the England and Wales Cricket Board finds itself, having been presented by the International Cricket Council with a choice between touring and facing extremely serious financial penalties.
    Mr. Pike: I recognise the position that my right hon. Friend has set out, but he will acknowledge that the Labour party never pussyfooted around taking sporting sanctions against South Africa. That played a vital part in ending apartheid. Will he say to the cricket people that the tour should not take place, and say it loudly and clearly, because I believe that that is what the overwhelming majority in the House believes we should be saying?
    Mr. Straw: I accept the sentiments expressed by my hon. Friend entirely, but there is a fundamental difference, which is that while we backed sanctions against sporting links with South Africa—I have to say that they were, as I recall, rather resisted by Conservative Members—we did so as part of an international consensus, under the Gleneagles agreement. What, sadly, has become all too clear is that there is no such consensus, even within the ICC—indeed, far from it. It is that which places the England and Wales Cricket Board in this very difficult and untenable position.
    Mr. Michael Ancram: Does the Foreign Secretary agree that the argument over the
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    England cricket tour of Zimbabwe in the autumn is not so much between politics and sport as between morality and money? I accept that the Government do not have the power to ban the tour, but if, as he says, and I use his word, he would "prefer" that the tour did not take place or was postponed, why will he not give a clearer indication to the ECB, which could allow the England team not to tour without incurring financial penalty?
    Will the Foreign Secretary therefore use this opportunity to state clearly and unequivocally—I choose these words carefully—that owing to the horrifying and deteriorating human rights situation in Mugabe's Zimbabwe, the Government not only do not support the tour, but that, if they had the necessary powers, they would instruct the ECB not to proceed with it?
    Mr. Straw: There is no disagreement of principle between both sides, but the right hon. and learned Gentleman is trying to have it both ways. We do not have a power in law to ban people from leaving this country or playing sport. I rather fancy that if we tried that in any other circumstances he would be the first to complain. Indeed, his leader would certainly complain.
    I have reread a recent speech by the Leader of the Opposition called, appropriately, "The British Dream", in which he says:
    "We have a State that does too much, that interferes too much".
    That would be the objection. The problem is this: if there had been a form of words that would have satisfied not just the England and Wales Cricket Board, which does not want to tour, but critically, the rules of the International Cricket Council, we would have offered that form of words. However, it has become increasingly clear that such forms of words do not exist, and I am not going to pretend to the House, the country and the ICC that we have statutory powers to ban people from going abroad when we do not.
    Mr. Lindsay Hoyle: I hear what my right hon. Friend says, but does he not feel that the lives of cricketers would be put at risk if they were to tour Zimbabwe and that, on those grounds alone, we ought to be able to send out a clear message, "You are not to tour because of that risk."? Also, the danger is that cricket will be the loser and Mugabe the winner.
    Mr. Straw: My hon. Friend raises an important point about security, which we also discussed separately with the England and Wales Cricket Board. If there is a security problem which we judge would affect the personal security of English and Welsh cricketers if they go there, we will make that clear. As we told the England and Wales Cricket Board, however, we need to make that assessment much nearer the time.
    Mr. Peter Lilley: Is the Foreign Secretary aware that although there is a consensus in the House that the Mugabe regime is hideous and evil, some of us do not believe that sport should be used as a political weapon? The choice of whom one plays sports with is a moral issue, and the Government should keep out of that. The most pathetic

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    position of all is for the Government to express a desire for the tour not to take place, and to do nothing to implement that desire, financially or otherwise.
    Mr. Straw: Despite the last sentence, I take that as an objection to the position taken by the right hon. Gentleman's own Front Bench.

    Iraq
    Joan Ruddock: If he will make a statement about the current situation in the British-controlled area of southern Iraq. [171834]
    Tony Lloyd: If he will make a statement on the situation in Iraq. [171840]
    The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Jack Straw): The situation in Iraq is overshadowed by the evidence of appalling and disgusting human rights abuses in Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, for which there is and there can be no excuse whatever. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said last Wednesday,
    "it is what we went to Iraq to get rid of, not to perpetuate."—[Official Report, 5 May 2004; Vol. 420, c. 1336.]
    The House will be aware that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence made a statement yesterday that covered the separate allegations concerning British forces. Inquiries are continuing, but I know that, overwhelmingly, British forces are carrying out their difficult and dangerous duties according to the law and to their finest traditions.
    On the political front in Iraq, United Nations Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi continues his work to identify an interim caretaker government. Meanwhile, there are active discussions with partners on a new Security Council resolution to provide for the transition to a sovereign Iraqi state. In the south, there have been a number of engagements with insurgents. Overall, however, conditions for people in that area continue to improve. In Basra alone, 70 to 80 per cent. now have access to running water, and more than 90 schools and 48 health care projects have been completed.
    Joan Ruddock: I have now had the opportunity to read the ICRC report in full. Will my right hon. Friend accept that its criticisms, particularly of brutal arrest techniques and disappearances, apply to all coalition forces, that we are in a coalition, and that those sickening pictures of American abuse shame us all by association? To whom did Sir Jeremy Greenstock speak when he received the copy of the Red Cross report? Was it Britain's failure to influence the Americans as regards the abuse that was a factor in Sir Jeremy's premature departure from Iraq?
    Mr. Straw: My hon. Friend is right that these images, and the evidence that they portray, are a shame on all of us. They are utterly shameful, disgusting and disgraceful, and they would be if they had been perpetrated by any regime, but they are all the worse for the fact that they have been perpetrated by forces of a member of the international community. I do not accept
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    her suggestion, however, that responsibility for dealing with matters that lie within the United States' sectors is also shared by the United Kingdom.
    The ICRC made some criticisms last year, which are set out in the report. I must make it clear to my hon. Friend, however, that when I met Dr. Kellenberger in May last year, he was reassuring, of his own volition, about the conditions that the ICRC were at that stage reporting. She will also know that the incidents that have been alleged to be behind the pictures that have been shown in British newspapers are the subject of a thorough investigation. I also reassure her that Sir Jeremy's retirement, after a previous retirement, from his position in Baghdad, had nothing whatever to do with the ICRC report.
    Tony Lloyd: Does my right hon. Friend accept that this marks a new low point in the credibility of the allied occupation of Iraq? It is now obvious that the unilateral strategy emanating from the White House is not helping the situation. What does my right hon. Friend intend to do to involve neighbouring countries with which we have good relations, such as Turkey, Syria and Iran, or to respond to President Chirac's wish for an international conference like the one that was held in Bonn after Afghanistan? Such action must be in the interests of both Britain and the people of Iraq.
    Mr. Straw: The allegations and clear evidence of abuse in the United States sector are very damaging: there is no question.about that, nor should there be any pretence to the contrary. I should also make it clear that, as President Bush has asserted, in no sense was this supported or connived at by the United States Administration, who are as appalled by the evidence as we are.
    I agree about the importance of involving neighbouring countries. I talked about exactly that during a conversation with Sergei Lavrov, the new Russian Foreign Minister, on Sunday. There is a proposal—included in Lakhdar Brahimi's suggestions—for a conference of Iraqis which might conceivably be held just outside Iraq, which would provide an endorsement and greater legitimacy for the caretaker Government. We are pursuing the idea of a conference of the neighbours separately.
    Sir Menzies Campbell: Does the Foreign Secretary accept that the United Kingdom is paying a considerable moral price for the reports of recent days on the conduct of forces in Iraq? Does he accept that the closeness of the relationship with the United States means that Britain and British forces will be answerable, in the minds of the Iraqi people, for anything done by anyone in the name of the coalition? In the light of his reference to Lakhdar Brahimi, and adapting the words of the Prime Minister, may we now take it that the United Nations is no longer part of the problem but is providing the only solution?
    Mr. Straw: I do not accept the first point. On the basis of my discussions and my knowledge of the way in which British forces are operating in the south, I believe that their professionalism, integrity and subscription to the rule of our law and international law are well known to the vast majority of Iraqis. Of course they do not want

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    any occupation of their land to continue for longer than is necessary, but they recognise the benefits that have accrued from the way in which British forces have operated.
    We have never suggested for a second that the United Nations is a problem. It has been part of the solution to the problem of Iraq for a great many years, but since the end of the major conflict in April we have sought and actively obtained United Nations involvement. Had it not been for the massacre at the UN headquarters in Iraq on 19 August, involving the killing of special representative Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN would have been far more engaged than has been possible; but that, I am afraid, was a decision made by the terrorists and not by us.
    Mr. Andrew Robathan: Will the Foreign Secretary comment on the Amnesty International report that is splashed over the newspapers today? An eight-year-old girl was allegedly shot by British soldiers. I have been told that, in fact, a stone-throwing crowd surrounding two Warrior armoured personnel carriers fired over the heads of the crowd, and the girl was subsequently discovered dead. Blood money is involved. Will the Foreign Secretary comment on those appalling allegations, and ensure that they are investigated swiftly so that our soldiers can be cleared?
    Mr. Straw: I can reassure the hon. Gentleman: the allegations are being investigated very swiftly. I hope to be able to tell the House more during the current Session, but it would be inappropriate for me to say more now, given that an investigation is under way.
    Mr. Jon Owen Jones: The Foreign Secretary may know that in the last couple of weeks I have met two Iraqi constituents who have returned from Iraq after several months in Basra and Baghdad. The two have similar tales to tell. Both found it convenient to bribe their way into the country via Syria and Jordan, which tells its own story; both talk of the difference between the approaches of British and American troops. They support our action, but are extremely concerned about the way in which, even before the latest revelations, American behaviour had alienated and appalled supporters of the coalition—and the position is becoming far, far worse. What will we be able to do if we cannot influence the American Government?
    Mr. Straw: I am grateful for what my hon. Friend says. The American Government are well aware of the damage done, not only by allegations but by evidence of abuse, to their reputation and to the reputation of the coalition more generally. That is clear from the observations made at the highest level by the United States Administration. As for what we are doing about the situation, we are working in our way in the southern sector. Yes, we are leading by example, but we are also engaged in active discussions with President Bush, Secretary Powell and other senior members of the United States Administration.
    Mr. Michael Ancram: On what date, and how, did the Foreign Secretary become aware of the contents and existence of the ICRC report, which was given to Sir Jeremy Greenstock in February?
    Mr. Straw: I became aware of it at the weekend.
    Mr. Ancram: Is the Foreign Secretary seriously suggesting that Foreign Office Ministers were kept in the dark about that important report for some two months? I do not believe that the people of this country find that position credible.
    Does the Foreign Secretary not realise how much damage the growing litany of disclaimers of knowledge and responsibility by Ministers is now doing to public confidence in the Government's handling of the situation in Iraq? Does he appreciate that, with the handover of power back to the Iraqis only 50 days away, the continuing lack of clarity on vital issues such as whether further troop deployments from the UK will become necessary, to whom precisely the handover will he made, and what the subsequent relationship between our forces and the new Iraqi Government will be, only adds to the uncertainty? The restoration of confidence is now crucial and urgent. Has not the time come for the Government to initiate a debate in the House on the overall situation in Iraq so that Ministers can comprehensively and unequivocally deal with those issues and, we hope, create a sense of competence and direction again?
    Mr. Straw: On that last point, I am always happy to debate these matters. That is a question for the usual channels, but I am happy either to make a statement or for there to be a debate on Iraq—or, indeed, both. I enjoy it—it is important that I should come to the House and that the Government's position should be properly explained.
    On the right hon. and learned Gentleman's first point, I assume that he was not suggesting that when I said that I became aware of the report at the weekend and read the full report yesterday, I was telling the House an untruth. If he were suggesting that, he would need to consider his position. He will know, having read the report, that it refers overwhelmingly to allegations of abuse in respect of the area operated by the United States.
    On the right hon. and learned Gentleman's points about the political process, let me say this. We agreed through the Iraq governing council and the coalition provisional authority on 15 November 2003 an accelerated timetable for the handover of sovereignty. That will take place on 30 June, and we are now working extremely hard to ensure that all the building blocks for that transfer of sovereignty are there. We are cooperating well with Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi of the United Nations, and we hope to have a United Nations Security Council resolution in place before the end of this month.
    Jeremy Corbyn: May I ask the Foreign Secretary to confirm some points about the ICRC report? We learned yesterday from the Defence Secretary that the report was given to Paul Bremer, who shared the contents with Sir Jeremy Greenstock in

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    February. The Foreign Secretary tells us that he received a copy of the report only this weekend, which was the second weekend in May. What happened to the report in the meantime, with whom did Sir Jeremy Greenstock discuss it, and where in the British Government was it sent after his receipt of it?
    Mr. Straw: My understanding is that Sir Jeremy Greenstock did not in fact receive the report, notwithstanding the suggestions made in the newspapers today. It was seen by a legal adviser to the British part of the coalition provisional authority in Baghdad, and was passed at the time to the British and to the CPA there. I cannot give my hon. Friend the exact date for that now, but I will be happy to do so by way of a written answer. A copy was subsequently received in the British Foreign Office and we can say with the benefit of hindsight that it should have been made available to Ministers; but as it happens, it was not.

    Adzhara
    Angus Robertson: What his Department's latest assessment is of the situation in the autonomous Georgian region of Adzhara. [171835]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Bill Rammell): I welcome Abashidze's departure from Adzhara and I am pleased that the tense situation there has been resolved without violence. That will help President Saakashvili's attempt to build a democratic and stable Georgia. I also welcome the constructive role played by the Russian Government in bringing this about.
    Angus Robertson: I thank the Minister for his reply. Is he concerned about the fact that the Georgian Government are taking steps to expel Mr. Plamen Nikolov—special representative of the Council of Europe's Secretary-General Walter Schwimmer—following statements by Mr. Schwimmer on Adzhara? Does the Minister think that that helps or damages Georgia's international reputation, at a time when its Government say that they want to enhance the country's democratic and human right standards?
    Mr. Rammell: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of this question. I have seen today's press reports that Plamen Nikolov, special representative of the Council of Europe's Secretary-General Schwimmer in Georgia, is being expelled, and I am concerned at that development. As I have said, much progress has been made in Adzhara, and that has been widely welcomed internationally. In that regard, it is critical that Georgia continue to work with the Council of Europe to fulfil its obligations.
    Valerie Davey: Bristol constituents who are actively involved in the twinning of Bristol and Tbilisi have followed developments in Georgia with some interest, as Members can imagine. What active role are the British Government taking in ensuring greater stability for that country in future?
    Mr. Rammell: We, along with the wider international community, have an interest in achieving a secure and
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    stable Georgia. We are investing £2.5 million through the Department for International Development, we have a special representative in the region and we are advising and assisting the parliamentary reform process and defence sector reform. So it is fair to say that we are critically engaged and doing everything that we can to take Georgia forward in this important task.

    Cyprus
    Bob Spink: If he will make a statement on the prospects for the reunification of Cyprus. [171836]
    The Minister for Europe (Mr. Denis MacShane): I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the Foreign Secretary's written statement to the House on 28 April.
    The reunification of Cyprus remains the Government's objective, but there is no immediate prospect of a resumption of talks. We await the UN Secretary-General's report on his good offices mission to Cyprus, which we expect later this month.
    Bob Spink: Can the Minister confirm that the Government respect the overwhelming democratic decision of the Greek Cypriots on the Annan plan? Will he confirm that this was a clear and unequivocal rejection of a bad plan, and will he commit this Government to working towards a new plan which, unlike the old one, will respect the existing UN resolutions and international law, and be for the benefit and justice of both communities in Cyprus?
    Mr. MacShane: Of course we respect the decision of the Cypriot people. Members of the House and different Governments have dealt with this problem over a number of years. Everyone of good will concluded that the Annan plan, which had the overwhelming backing of all European and other member states of the international democratic community, was the best way forward. There is no other possible basis for a settlement. If we want a reunited Cyprus, we will have to come back to the Annan plan or something very close to it.
    Mr. Andrew Love: I welcome the Minister's statement and his acceptance of the democratic decision of the Cypriot people. Will he also accept that the international community did not fully understand the Cypriot community's fears and concerns in respect of the decisions put to them? Notwithstanding his comments today, will he redouble his efforts with the UN, and with the EU in particular, to ensure that this process is begun at the earliest opportunity?
    Mr. MacShane: My hon. Friend is right. I understand the difficulties associated with the way in which people voted in that referendum, but as I said, we have looked at the plan in some detail and it is very difficult to find an alternative, because we have to get support from all those involved. Leadership was there in Cyprus, but perhaps it was not expressed in the referendum, given that people have to take political positions. A lot of rethinking is taking place on the island.

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    The position of northern Cyprus is now going to be very different and I would urge all hon. Members who have a deep care for the future of the island to work constructively and positively towards what will have to be a compromise. That will require leadership to bring people to support it. A divided Cyprus is no help to the people of that beautiful and wonderful island and no help to all who want to see its future settled before too long.
    Mr. Nick Hawkins: Does the Minister recognise that a plan that was perceived by the Greek Cypriot communities as being far too heavily stacked in favour of the interests of Turkey and the illegally occupied area of northern Cyprus was never likely to command support? Hon. Members on both sides of the House who have worked with the people of Cyprus over many years recognise that we have to start looking again, as my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) rightly said, at the resolutions that have been made over a longer period. Far too many of them were ignored in the Annan plan. Does the Minister accept that the Government have a responsibility to work with President Papadopulos to produce a new plan that will fairly balance the interests of both communities? The current plan was far too stacked in one direction ever to have a hope of commanding the support of the Greek Cypriot community.
    Mr. MacShane: I have been listening to Cyprus debates and questions during my l0 years in the House, and believe that this plan offered more than any previous one. Any plan has to be acceptable to both sides. Large sections of the Cypriot political community were in favour of the plan to begin with, until the politics changed dramatically with a rejectionist front growing ever wider. I like to imagine that a better set of solutions could be rustled up to solve the problem, but the hon. Gentleman, while he is still a Member of the House, will have to tell his friends in Cyprus that the way to win people's support is to be there, leading them. Such leadership was not much in evidence towards the end of the process. Britain cannot provide a solution. We need a UN solution, an international solution or a European solution. Some people in Cyprus said yes; alas, others did not.
    Chris Bryant: Later this year, the European Union will have to decide whether to allow Turkey to enter the formal process of becoming a full candidate for EU membership. Can that happen without the reunification of Cyprus;?
    Mr. MacShane: Of course. We said clearly that Cyprus could enter the EU, uniquely among all member states, without having first resolved its own internal divisions. If we have behaved honourably towards our friends in the Government of Cyprus, we also have to behave honourably towards the Government of Turkey, who have made immense strides on the Cypriot question, making concessions that were literally unthinkable only 12 months ago, let alone 18 months or five years ago. Turkey has to meet the Copenhagen criteria and all the other norms required of her to start EU accession talks. On Cyprus, I believe that the
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    Turkish Government cannot be faulted. Recent meetings in Greece between Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Karamanlis very much emphasise that point.
    Mr. Richard Spring: I agree with the Minister that the Turkish Government played a most constructive role in the lead-up to the referendum, further enhancing their credibility on the path to EU accession. Equally, however, does he agree that, in the light of past tragic memories, the stationing of Turkish troops in Cyprus post settlement presents a particular problem that must be addressed if fresh progress is to be made?
    Mr. MacShane: I cannot object to any proposal that the Turkish or any other Government might make in respect of troop numbers on the island. They were to come down dramatically over time. Turkey, along with Greece and the United Kingdom, is a guarantor power, but it was not on that issue alone that the Greek Cypriots voted no. We have to look forward to a more positive approach in Cyprus. I think that the time may come sooner than we expect when moves are made towards that double yes. I hope that it comes as soon as possible. I urge all hon. Members—and I know how passionately they are involved in Cypriot matters in their constituencies—to find a language that allows a way forward for Cyprus, rather than digging deeper into the trenches.

    Palestinian Authority
    James Purnell: What steps the Government are taking to support a more effective security force for the Palestinian Authority. [171837]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Bill Rammell): The UK is supporting the Palestinian Authority in its efforts to improve its effectiveness in delivering security in the occupied territories, both for their own people and to prevent attacks against Israel. We are offering advice, encouragement and some limited practical support.
    James Purnell: Both sides of the House want a two-stage solution to be achieved, based on a viable Palestinian state. Does my hon. Friend agree that a key part of the Palestinian Authority becoming a state is for it to show its control over security? Does he think that the key obstacle to its doing that is a willingness to use its capability, or the capability itself? What steps can we take to help the authority to achieve that goal?
    Mr. Rammell: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that, for the authority to become a state, the responsibilities of being a state need to be taken on. That is why we are helping and assisting as we are. The Palestinian plans appear to be a good approach to addressing some of the key security challenges. The international community, through the Quartet and other mechanisms, has urged the Palestinians to demonstrate 100 per cent. effort on security. Some effort has been made, but we believe that more can be done.

Points of Order
12.31 pm
Mr. Michael Ancram: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I seek your assistance? Over the past 24 hours, there has been a glaring inconsistency in statements made from the Dispatch Box by two senior Cabinet Ministers on a matter of great importance. Yesterday, the Secretary of State for Defence, referring to the report from the International Committee of the Red Cross, said:
"May I make it clear that there was no concealment? The report to Ambassador Bremer was passed to Sir Jeremy Greenstock, then to the military representative in Iraq and from there to the Permanent Joint Headquarters."—[Official Report, 9 June 2004; Vol. 421, c. 33.]
Earlier, in answer to a question, the Foreign Secretary told us that the report was not passed to Sir Jeremy Greenstock. That inconsistency is highly damaging in the current situation. I ask for your advice, Mr. Speaker, as to what action might be taken for it to be clarified as soon as possible.
Mr. Speaker: Before the Foreign Secretary rises on a point of order, I must point out to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that it is not for the Chair to deal with any apparent inconsistencies between Ministers' statements. Of course, he can always table other parliamentary questions.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Jack Straw): Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am grateful to you, in any event: this is not a glaring inconsistency. I made it clear that the report was received by staff in Sir Jeremy Greenstock's office, and I fully endorse what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence said—that there was no concealment, and that the report was passed on to the military representative in Iraq, and from there to the permanent joint headquarters. However, I will ensure that a clarification is made to the House, later on today or tomorrow morning.
Jeremy Corbyn: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Foreign Secretary
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said that the report had been sent to the Foreign Office but had not been relayed to him, whereas yesterday the Secretary of State for Defence said that it was sent to the permanent joint headquarters, where it has apparently lain for some three months. We need more than just a clarification: we need a statement about the progress of the document. From which hand to which hand has it passed, in Iraq and in this country? What has happened to civil servants, in either the Ministry of Defence or the Foreign Office, who apparently did not consider that the report was important enough to go to Ministers? We really need a full explanation of that.
Mr. Speaker: These are not matters for the Chair.
Mr. Mark Simmonds: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I want to raise a totally separate matter. Yesterday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Education and Skills announced key policy changes to the delivery and working of the modern apprenticeships scheme, an essential and important education policy area. The announcement was made not in this House, but in a department store in Oxford street.
I am aware, Mr. Speaker, of your enthusiasm and keenness to have policy announcements made in this Chamber first. Have you received any approaches from Ministers to make a statement to the House about this change to what is a key area of policy? If not, is there anything that you can do to put pressure on Ministers to make such a statement, so that hon. Members can exercise their democratic right to ask appropriate questions on this key policy change?
Mr. Speaker: I have to be careful on this point. The hon. Gentleman says that it was a policy change, but I will have to look and see whether there was a policy change. All Governments are keen to try to train apprentices, and Ministers have to be able to make public announcements if there has been no policy change and the announcement is consistent with present Government policy. I will look into the matter.

Prime Minister (Direct Election)
12.35 pm
Mr. Graham Allen: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for the direct election of the Prime Minister; to require such elections to be held on the same day as a General Election; to make consequential provision in relation to the office and powers of the Prime Minister; to make consequential amendments to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000; and for connected purposes.
This Bill—the last great extension of the franchise—would symbolise our democratic maturity, convert our Parliament from an electoral college into a legislature and legalise an Executive currently built on smoke and mirrors. Stop me if you have heard this before, Mr. Speaker, but the prime ministership aver many decades has evolved into an accidental presidency. The result is a dysfunctional democracy, in which power is over-concentrated, over-centralized and under-controlled. Our democracy is out of balance and dangerously short on popular consent and participation.
More than two years ago, I introduced a Bill to codify and legalise the massive, unwritten powers of the prime ministership. The Bill I introduce today goes one step further: it seeks to make the Prime Minister directly elected by the British people. I base the Bill on the simple principle that in a democracy anyone who exercises serious political power should be elected by the people.
The Bill represents a reality check for the British constitution—the emperor has no election. That realisation ends the laughable self deception and the comforting myths of parliamentary sovereignty—that, somehow, the Prime Minister exercises power only by consent of Parliament, and that the Executive is under the control of the legislature. While my proposal seems revolutionary in this place, it is commonplace in most other democracies. Indeed, were, for example, the US or French chief executives to seek power without direct elections, it would be not only risible but illegal. Only in Britain—the last country in the empire—are the natives still not trusted to make this, the most important of political choices.
Even from Labour Members, I have been surprised to hear that the electorate cannot be trusted with a direct election. It is argued that they might elect some television celebrity—arguments that once found a voice in this Chamber from those who argued against votes for women and the working classes. They were not to be trusted to make the key decisions in their political lives.
Such a settlement is not directed at the current incumbent. Were we allowed to elect a Prime Minister, I would work to ensure, as I have done before, that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister would be our candidate. He is by a mile the best unelected President we have, and would be by a mile the best directly elected Prime Minister we could have. The Bill is not about personality—it is about power. It recognises that the power of the key office in the British state has grown inexorably, without the design or intention of its occupant, in response to the demands and pressures on the British Government. That power does not need to be weakened, but it needs to be held properly to account. Self-evidently, that cannot be done through a
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Parliament that is controlled by the Executive, as was demonstrated last year when we were unable even to recall ourselves to debate the Iraq war. That power was held by the very office that we sought to discuss and to influence. It must, therefore, be made accountable to the British people by direct election, and that is what the Bill will do.
The Bill recognises that the British prime ministership has turned into a colossus; it is the only game in town. There is no office like it in the western world. No other democracy has one person at the head of Government, and in control of the party and the legislature. All political jobs, patronage, policy and image come from the same source—all are without effective democratic scrutiny or ratification. No other Head of Government in a western democracy has so much control and so many rewards and honours to give out.
Almost everything in British politics and the state now happens by the will of the prime ministership. A small and diminishing band believes fondly that we control that power when we elect a Parliament, yet in reality, barring the occasional electoral fluke, Parliament is rarely able to scrutinise the use of prime ministerial power, let alone temper or modify it. Such is the power of the institution that those parliamentarians who tried to influence policy on Iraq were told that we could do so only by threatening to end the prime ministership itself. As in 1640, Parliament was told, "Raise your standard and kill the king if you dare". The same was true of the rebellions over the poll tax and, more recently, over foundation hospitals and tuition fees.
Power is now so concentrated in No. 10 that Parliament cannot challenge policy without challenging the prime ministership itself. That is playground politics. We all know that there has to be a better way—a way that ends monopoly politics and does not fear, but revels in, other political institutions as partners and equals, adding value to the legitimate concerns and responsibilities of the prime ministership.
We are heading towards record low turnout for the European and local elections, and no doubt afterwards we shall come to this place and sagely talk about "disengagement from politics", "voter apathy" and, perhaps, about a new set of tricks: voting at 16, voting by text message, all-postal ballots, voting at weekends or voting in supermarkets. The cure for voter apathy is not to make voting easier, but to make it more worth while—above all by voting for the most important office in British politics.
The Bill would automatically double the worth and value of voting—it is a two-for-one offer. Instead of voting for an MP simply as a proxy for a Prime Minister—a member of a prime ministerial electoral college whose useful political life is extinguished within 24 hours, once their nominee goes to the palace—voters would choose an MP to represent them or their community and, separately, elect the best person to be our country's Prime Minister. With an independent mandate from their electors, MPs will regain the authority and confidence to do the job they cannot do now, which is, as Gladstone said,
"not to run the country but to hold to account those who do".
Parliament would cease to be the world's most sophisticated political prison and would become an independent legislature, with its own life separate from

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Government. There would be two valid independent viewpoints in politics: a separation of Executive and legislature, maturely cohabiting, debating and reconciling, even if the prime ministership and Parliament happened to be held by different parties. People will participate and people will vote if politics is repatriated to them and to their directly elected representatives and no longer confined to the incestuous relationship between No. 10 and its media courtiers.
We cannot go on asking people to vote for a myth. That is what we do now, when we ask people to pretend that they are voting for a sovereign Parliament, in control of the Executive, the arbiter of our nation's fate. This Bill, or something like it, will appear in some party's manifesto some time, just as inevitably as allowing the people to vote for a constitution has done in recent weeks. It would do many things: it would make an honest man or woman out of every future Prime Minister; it would create a free, independent Parliament; and it would revive political interest and make voting meaningful again—but, above all, it would be the last great extension of the franchise, standing in the long, proud history of my party—a democratic coming of age, enabling the British people directly to elect, for the first time, their own political leader.
12.45 pm
Michael Fabricant: The hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) is to be congratulated on introducing this thought-provoking, but ultimately terrifying Bill—for if it were to become law, the last current Prime Minister will have achieved his final objective: to become President Blair in reality. With that, we should no doubt see Blair Force 1 replacing the Queen's Flight and a presidential coat of arms flying over No. 10 Downing street, or perhaps even Buckingham palace—who knows? Presidential decree would replace Cabinet government—but then what is new?
We already know that the decision to hold a referendum on the European constitution was made without any reference at all to the Cabinet, but the hon. Gentleman knows all that. Back in November 2001, he published "The Last Prime Minister: Being Honest about the UK Presidency", in which he says, as he said today, that a presidency has arrived in our nation in all but name. However, I oppose the principle of an elected Prime Minister. It would give additional legitimacy to the confused state of affairs that we already suffer under today, and it would sit uneasily and uncomfortably with the parliamentary democracy that we enjoy and which, in itself, forms part of a constitutional monarchy.
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Our parliamentary system is not compatible with a nationally elected Head of Government. First, with the principle of primus inter pares, the Prime Minister—any Prime Minister—must enjoy the confidence of his or her party. Without that, no British political leader in government—and, yes, in opposition too—can or should survive. The appointment of a leader who does not enjoy the overwhelming support of his or her parliamentary party is doomed to failure. In that connection, I would dearly love to be a fly on the wall at meetings of the parliamentary Labour party—particularly so after 10 June.
So, do we wish to change the nature of our parliamentary democracy to become some sort of hybrid between a parliamentary and presidential system? I would argue no. Such a change, like the botched half-changes in the Lords, would simply be for change's sake. The Lords, now packed with cronies, is a less effective and less democratic place than ever before.
Would powers be vested in such a new Prime Minister to veto legislation of which he did not approve, as can be done in France and the United States—two examples given by the hon. Gentleman? The Prime Minister, under this scheme, would have an authority all his own. Where would that sit with the primacy of Parliament? What if a charismatic Prime Minister were elected from a party different from the majority party in Parliament?
Could cohabitation, as the French call it, work here? The Assemble Nationale in Paris has no powers except those that the President is pleased to grant it. The President of the United States enjoys powers of veto similar to those enjoyed by British monarchs until the mid-17th century, but there is a clear difference, which the hon. Gentleman ignored in his speech. Both the French and US Presidents are not only Heads of Government, but Heads of State. Our Head of State, however, is Her Majesty the Queen, and long may she continue to reign over us.
The Bill would weaken parliamentary institutions already weakened by this Government as power continues to ebb towards Downing street. It would weaken the role of the monarch as the ultimate protector of our people. Worst of all, until recently it would have meant, if the polls are to be believed, that all that power would be vested in the present Prime Minister. How comfortable would the Labour party, let alone the rest of the nation, be with that? An elected Prime Minister would weaken democracy, not strengthen it. The proposal would weaken the Commons Chamber, not strengthen it. The beneficiaries will be not our people and their legislature, but the Executive in Whitehall and its chief executive and Head of State, the newly elected Prime Minister—our own President Blair. Just think, it might even have been President Alastair Campbell. Either way, I oppose the motion.
Question put and negatived.

Housing Bill (Programme) (No. 2)
12.51 pm
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Keith Hill): I beg to move,
That the programme order of 12th January 2004 in relation to the Housing Bill be varied as follows—

1. Paragraphs 4 and 5 of the order shall be omitted.

2. Proceedings on consideration shall be taken in the order shown in the first column of the following Table. In that column, any reference to new Clauses, Amendments or new Shedules relating to any of Parts 1 to 7 does not include new Clauses, Amendments or new Schedules relating to overcrowding or the definition of 'house in multiple occupation.

3. The proceedings shown in the first column of the Table shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the time specified in the second column.

TABLE

Proceedings

Time for conclusion of proceedings

New Clauses, Amendments and new Schedules relating to Part 1

One and a quarter hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion for this order

New Clauses, Amendments and new Schedules relating to Part 2; new Clauses, Amendments and new Schedules relating to the definition of 'house in multiple occupation'; new Clauses, Amendments and new Schedules relating to Part 3; new Clauses, Amendments and new Schedules relating to Part 4

Two and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion for this order.

New Clauses, Amendments and new Schedules relating to Part 5

Three and three quarter hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion for this order

New Clauses, Amendments and new Schedules relating to Part 6; new Clauses, Amendments and new Schedules relating to overcrowding; new Clauses, Amendments and new Schedules relating to Part 7 and any remaining proceedings on the Bill

Five and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion for this order.

4. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion six and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion for this order.
We have important issues to consider today and I look forward to debating them. I therefore intend to be brief in speaking to the programme motion.
The Housing Bill will help to create a fairer and better housing market and it will protect the most vulnerable. It will fulfil two manifesto commitments, and will introduce many of the legislative measures necessary to help to create sustainable communities, as announced by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister in February last year. The Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), and I are genuinely grateful to all members of Standing Committee E for the full and positive contributions that they made in the substantial amount of time allowed to consider the Bill. We had full debates on all the substantive issues and, in my view, their contributions and amendments have improved the Bill.
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We have a number of amendments to consider today. My hon. Friend the Member for Castleford and Pontefract and I committed ourselves to revisit a range of issues, and I am delighted that we have been able to do so. I am sure that members of Standing Committee E will welcome the Government amendments, the vast majority of which respond to concerns raised in their debates. The Government have tabled a programme motion that allocates time for consideration of each part of the Bill. The proposed order of consideration broadly follows the order of clauses in the Bill, but there are some exceptions. We propose that schedules are considered alongside the clause that first introduces them, as their provisions relate to that particular clause and it seems appropriate to consider them together. It also seems logical to discuss new clauses relating to each part alongside amendments to that part. Part 2 deals with the licensing of houses in multiple occupation, so it seems sensible to consider amendments relating to the definition of HMOs when we consider that part. Government and non-Government amendments on overcrowding will be considered when we discuss part 6.
12.53 pm
Mr. Robert Syms: This is a long and complex Bill. In fact, it could easily have been four or five separate Bills, and throughout our deliberations it has been subject to major Government amendment and change. Even on Report, many Government amendments have been tabled. Given the grouping of amendments and the knives, it is unlikely that the programme motion will allow us to do justice to all the important matters that need to be discussed as part of the public debate, so we shall oppose the motion. I do not intend to detain the House as we want to get on with business. However, the Government are again forcing a diktat on the House and we wish to make it clear that we oppose their manner of conducting business in the Chamber.
12.54 pm
Matthew Green: I accept that the Government have discussed with Opposition parties the order of consideration and where the knives will fall. There has been agreement about that, but there is clearly not agreement about the amount of time allowed for debate. Two days were allowed for the Report stage and Third Reading of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill. Three days have been allocated next week to consideration of the Pensions Bill, although that may be because the Government have not finished writing it. There is clearly a case for allowing more time to consider the Housing Bill. There is a great deal of interest from Labour Back Benchers, who have tabled a number of amendments and new clauses, but we are unlikely to reach all of them. The Government have not only sold the Bill short by failing to allow for proper discussion of amendments and new clauses, but have sold their own Back Benchers short. Labour Members want to discuss tenancy deposit schemes, compulsory leasing and so on, but will struggle to do so given the time allowed for debate.

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We cannot support the motion because it allows insufficient time to discuss the Bill. Whatever good will Ministers have shown about dividing up the available time, regrettably they do not have the clout to win sufficient time from the business managers, so we shall vote against the motion.
12.56 pm
Mr. Eric Forth: I wish to place on the record the fact that, yet again, the Government are giving the House pathetically inadequate time to deal with a Bill which, by any measure, is important. A mere glance at the Speaker's provisional list of amendments and the Government's suggested allocation of time reveals the shocking truth. One and a quarter hours, for example, has been allowed for amendments on housing conditions. A debate in the Chamber should provide Members of Parliament with an opportunity to express a view about an issue or set of issues. The first group of amendments on housing conditions—there can be few issues more important to our constituents—is a large one, yet the Government have insulted the House by offering 659 Members of Parliament one and a quarter hours to debate it. That is the extent of the Government's impertinence.
The situation is even worse when we reach the second group of amendments, on houses in multiple occupation, for which another hour and a quarter has been allowed. The group includes a large number of Government amendments and new clauses, and subsumed within it is a separate group of amendments on interim and final management orders. Limited time has been offered to all Members of Parliament, including Ministers and Opposition spokesmen. Home information packs are a controversial part of the Bill but, again, a mere hour and a quarter has been allowed for discussion of amendments, including many Government amendments.
Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: Is my right hon. Friend not being a little too generous to the Government? If we wish to have a Division, the time taken is subtracted from debating time. That is one way in which the Government put pressure on Labour Members who feel strongly about an issue not to have a vote.
Mr. Forth: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because there is a danger that these things are becoming accepted as the way in which the House of Commons works. We are now operating sunder completely artificial constraints. There is no reason why our debate should take six and a half hours—we could take as long as we wanted. In fact, as you know, Mr. Speaker, there is provision for a business motion to be moved to allow us to continue our deliberations after 7 pm, and there is open-ended business following proceedings on the Bill. Bizarrely, unlimited time has been allowed for the subsequent debate on a House of Commons matter which, Mr. Speaker, is dear to your heart. The Order Paper states, I am happy to say, "Until any hour", yet on such a vital Bill, with dozens of Government amendments and dealing with crucial matters that affect our constituents' everyday lives, the Government have
164
the impudence to say, "You, the House of Commons, will have only six and a half hours to consider all these matters." That is an outrage, but it is in danger of passing into our proceedings as though it were perfectly normal. Members of Parliament are expected to accept it, take it in their stride, shrug and say, "Obviously, I can't participate because there is so little time."
Any examination of the time proposed in the motion would show that it is an insult to the House of Commons and to the parliamentary process. For the Minister, in his insouciant way, to sit there and say, "Take it or leave it. This is it. This is all the Government believe the House of Commons should have", illustrates how far the House of Commons has fallen. It pains me to say so, but that, sadly, is the truth. Here we are, reduced to an hour and a quarter—the total time allocated to all Members of Parliament to debate a subject as important as, for example, home information packs.
Mr. Oliver Heald: Does my right hon. Friend agree that even to call this a programme is an insult? Programmes are supposed to be consensual; this is a guillotine.
Mr. Forth: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. That is true. I may have slipped into conceding that this is a so-called programme. My hon. Friend is right: they are systematic guillotines of all business. Today's motion is a prime example of what we have to put up with. It is increasingly difficult for us to look our voters in the face and claim that we are even beginning to do our job, as their representatives, in scrutinising legislation. In no way can these time limits allow us properly to scrutinise; in no way can proper speeches be made by Members of Parliament—points of criticism or points of elucidation. The Government do not allow us to do that any more.
Mr. David Wilshire: My right hon. Friend is probably far too modest to say that such a motion is an attempt to gag him. The time being taken now—this is a criticism not of him, but of the Government—comes out of the time that the Government generously say we can have to debate other matters. That is another scandal.
Mr. Forth: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Many people try to gag me in many different ways, but my hon. Friend knows me well enough to know that that is usually not very successful. I shall be demonstrating that later today in the business that will come on, courtesy of the Government, well after 7 o'clock and may continue for some time thereafter. So gagging me is usually a fairly futile exercise, although it is tried from time to time, as my hon. Friend points out.
All in all, the motion is an egregious example of so-called programming, which is in fact systematic vicious guillotining of business in the House in order that the Government can get their business with a minimum of debate. I am glad we are opposing it.
1.2 pm
Bob Spink: The programme motion—or guillotine, as it is better called—is yet another example of the Government trying to remove

165
from the House powers to hold them to account. I shall address the paltry one and a quarter hours that has been allocated to home improvement packs, which is a detailed, complex matter on which many Government amendments have been tabled. It is a matter that is crucial to consumers, to the housing market and the operation of that market, and to the industry—estate agents and solicitors. The House must get such a crucial matter right, and in one and a quarter hours there is not enough time properly to debate all the detailed amendments that have been tabled to that part of the Bill.
Within the total time, the Bill is supposed to get its Third Reading. It is outrageous and a removal of the powers of the House properly to hold the Government to account.
Question put:—
The House divided: Ayes 246, Noes 146.

Division No. 164]

[1:03 pm

AYES

Abbot, Ms Diane

Coffey, Ms Ann

Ainger, Nick

Cooper, Yvette

Ainsworth, Bob(Cov'try NE)

Corbyn, Jeremy

Allen, Graham

Cousins, Jim

Armstrong, rh Ms Hilary

Cranston, Ross

Atherton, Ms Candy

Crausdy, David

Atkins, Charlotte

Cruddas, Jon

Austin, John

Cryer, Ann(Keighley)

Bailey, Adrian

Cryer, John(Hornchurch)

Baird, Vera

Cummings, John

Banks, Tony

Cunningham, rh Dr. Jack(Copeland)

Barnes, Harry

Battle, John

Cunningham, Jim(Coventry S)

Beard, Nigel

Cunningham, Tony(Workington)

Bell, Sir Stuart

Davey, Valerie(Bristol W)

Bennett, Andrew

Davies, rh Denzil(Llanelli)

Benton, Joe(Bootle)

Davies, Geraint(Croydon C)

Best, Harold

Dawson, Hilton

Betts, Clive

Dhanda, Parmjit

Blackman, Liz

Doran, Frank

Blizzard, Bob

Drew, David(Stroud)

Borrow, David

Eagle, Angela(Wallasey)

Bradley, rh Keith(Withington)

Efford, Clive

Bradley, Peter(The Wrekin)

Ellman, Mrs Louise

Bradshaw, Ben

Ennis, Jeff(Barnsley E)

Brennan, Kevin

Farrelly, Paul

Brown, Russell(Dumfries)

Field, rh Frank(Birkenhead)

Browne, Desmond

Fisher, Mark

Bryant, Chris

Fitzpatrick, Jim

Buck, Ms Karen

Foster, rh Derek

Burden, Richard

Foster, Michael Jabez(Hastings & Rye)

Burgon, Colin

Burnham, Andy

Foulkes, rh George

Byers, rh Stephen

Gerrard, Neil

Cairns, David

Gibson, Dr. Ian

Campbell, Alan(Tynemouth)

Gilroy, Linda

Campbell, Mrs Anne(C'bridge)

Goggings, Paul

Caplin, Ivor

Griffiths, Jane(Reading E)

Casale, Roger

Griffiths, Nigel(Edinburgh S)

Cawsey, Ian(Brigg)

Griffiths, Win(Bridgend)

Chapman, Ben(Wirral S)

Grogan, John

Chaytor, David

Hall, Mike(Weaver Vale)

Clapham, Michael

Hall, Patrick(Bedford)

Clark, Mrs Helen(Peterborough)

Hanson, David

Clark, Dr. Lynda(Edinburgh Pentlands)

Harris, Tom(Glasgow Cathcart)

Healey, John

Clark, Paul(Gillingham)

Henderson, Doug(Newcastle N)

Clarke, rh Tom(Coatbridge & Chryston)

Henderson, Ivan(Harwich)

Heyes, David

Clelland, David

Hill, Keith(Streatham)

166

Hinchliffe, David

Murphy, Denis(Wansbeck)

Hoey, Kate(Vauxhall)

Murphy, Jim(Eastwood)

Hope, Phil(Corby)

Naysmith, Dr. Doug

Hopkins, Kelvin

O'Brien, Bill(Normanton)

Howells, Dr. Kim

O'Brien, Mike(N Warks)

Hoyle, Lindsay

Olner, Bill

Hughes, Beverley(Stretford & Urmston)

O'Neill, Martin

Organ, Diana

Hughes, Kevin(Doncaster N)

Perham, Linda

Hurst, Alan(Braintree)

Pickthall, Colin

Hutton, rh John

Plaskitt, James

Iddon, Dr. Brian

Pollard, Kerry

Irranca-Davies, Huw

Pond, Chris(Gravesham)

Jackson, Glenda(Hampstead & Highgate)

Pound, Stephen

Prentice, Gordon(Pendle)

Jackson, Helen(Hillsborough)

Primarolo, rh Dawn

Jamieson, David

Purchase, Ken

Jenkins, Brian

Purnell, James

Johnson, Miss Melanie(Welwyn Hatfield)

Quin, rh Joyce

Quinn, Lawrie

Jones, Helen(Warrington N)

Rapson, Syd(Portsmouth N)

Jones, Jon Owen(Cardiff C)

Raynsford, rh Nick

Jones, Kevan(N Durham)

Reed, Andy(Loughborough)

Jones, Lynne(Selly Oak)

Robinson, Geoffrey(Coventry NW)

Jowell, rh Tessa

Joyce, Eric(Falkirk W)

Roche, Mrs Barbara

Kaufman, rh Gerald

Rooney, Terry

Keen, Alan(Feltham)

Ross, Ernie(Dundee W)

Kelly, Ruth(Bolton W)

Roy, Frank(Motherwell)

Kemp, Fraser

Ruane, Chris

Khabra, Piara S.

Russell, Ms Christine(City of Chester)

Kilfoyle, Peter

King, Andy(Rugby)

Ryan, Joan(Enfield N)

King, Ms Oona(Bethnal Green & Bow)

Salter, Martin

Sarwar, Mohammad

Knight, Jim(S Dorset)

Savidge, Malcolm

Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

Sawford, Phil

Lepper, David

Shipley, Ms Debra

Leslie, Christopher

Skinner, Dennis

Levitt, Tom(High Peak)

Smith, rh Andrew(Oxford E)

Lewis, Terry(Worsley)

Smith, Jacqui(Redditch)

Liddell rh,Mrs Helen

Smith, Llew(Blaenau Gwent)

Linton Martin

Soley, Clive

Love, Andrew

Southworth, Helen

Lucas, Ian(Wrexham)

Squire, Rachel

Luke, lain(Dundee E)

Starkey, Dr. Phyllis

McCabe, Stephen

Steinberg, Gerry

McDonagh, Siobhain

Stewart, David(Inverness E & Lochaber)

McDonnell, John

MacDougall, John

Stewart, Ian(Eccles)

McFall, John

Stinchcombe, Paul

Mclsaac, Shona

Stoate, Dr. Howard

McKechin, Ann

Stringer, Graham

McKenna, Rosemary

Taylor, rh Ann(Dewsbury)

Mackinlay, Andrew

Taylor, Dari(Stockton S)

Mactaggart, Fiona

Taylor, David(NW Leics)

McWalter, Tony

Tipping, Paddy

McWilliam, John

Todd, Mark(S Derbyshire)

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Touhig, Don(IsIwyn)

Mallaber, Judy

Truswell, Paul

Mann, John(Bassetlaw)

Turner, Dennis(Wolverh'ton SE)

Marsden, Gordon(Blackpool' S)

Turner, Dr. Desmond(Brighton Kemptown)

Marshall, Jim(Leicester S)

Marshall-Andrews, Robert

Twigg, Derek(Halton)

Meale, Alan(Mansfield)

Vis, Dr. Rudi

Merron, Gillian

Walley, Ms Joan

Michael, rh Alun

Ward, Claire

Milburn, rh Alan

Watson, Tom(W Bromwich E)

Miller, Andrew

Watts, David

Mitchell, Austin(Gt Grimsby)

White, Brian

Moffatt, Laura

Whitehead, Dr. Alan

Mole, Chris

Wicks, Malcolm

Moran, Margaret

Williams, Betty(Conwy)

Mountford, Kali

Wills, Michael

Mullin, Chris

Winnick, David

Munn, Ms Meg

167

Winterton, Ms Rosie(Doncaster C)

Wright, Tony(Cannock)

Wyatt, Derek

Wood, Mike(Batley)

Worthington, Tony

Wright, Anthony D.(Gt Yarmouth)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Mr. John Heppell and

Wright, David(Telford)

Ms Bridget Prentice

NOES

Ainsworth, Peter(E Surrey)

Gray, James(N Wilts)

Amess, David

Grayling, Chris

Ancram, rh Michael

Green, Damian(Ashford)

Arbuthnot, rh James

Green, Matthew(Ludlow)

Atkinson, David(Bour'mth E)

Greenway, John

Atkinson, Peter(Hexham)

Grieve, Dominic

Baker, Norman

Gummer, rh John

Baldry, Tony

Hammond, Philip

Barker, Gregory

Hancock, Mike

Barrett, John

Hawkins, Nick

Beith, rh A. J.

Hayes, John(S Holland)

Bellingham, Henry

Heald, Oliver

Bercow, John

Heath, David

Beresford, Sir Paul

Heathcoat-Amory, rh David

Blunt, Crispin

Hendry, Charles

Boswell, Tim

Hoban, Mark(Fareham)

Brake, Tom(Carshalton)

Holmes, Paul

Brazier, Julian

Horam, John(Orpington)

Breed, Colin

Howarth, Gerald(Aldershot)

Brooke, Mrs Annette L.

Jenkin, Bernard

Burnett, John

Johnson, Boris(Henley)

Burns, Simon

Jones, Nigel(Cheltenham)

Burstow, Paul

Kennedy, rh Charles(Ross Skye & Inverness)

Butterfill, Sir John

Cable, Dr. Vincent

Key, Robert(Salisbury)

Calton, Mrs Patsy

Kirkbride, Miss Julie

Cameron, David

Knight, rh Greg(E Yorkshire)

Campbell, rh Sir Menzies(NE Fife)

Lait, Mrs Jacqui

Lamb, Norman

Carmichael, Alistair

Lansley, Andrew

Cash, William

Liddell-Grainger, Ian

Chapman, Sir Sydney(Chipping Barnet)

Lilley, rh Peter

Llwyd, Elfyn

Chope, Christopher

Loughton, Tim

Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

McIntosh, Miss Anne

Collins, Tim

Maclean, rh David

Conway, Derek

McLoughlin, Patrick

Cotter, Brian

Maples, John

Curry, rh David

Marsden, Paul(Shrewsbury & Atcham)

Davey, Edward(Kingston)

Davis, rh David(Haltemprice & Howden)

Maude, rh Francis

May, Mrs Theresa

Djanogly, Jonathan

Moss, Malcolm

Duncan, Alan(Rutland)

Murrison, Dr. Andrew

Evans, Nigel

Oaten, Mark(Winchester)

Fabricant, Michael

O'Brien, Stephen(Eddisbury)

Field, Mark(Cities of London & Westminster)

Öpik, Lembit

Osborne, George(Tatton)

Flight, Howard

Paice, James

Flook, Adrian

Portillo, rh Michael

Forth, rh Eric

Price, Adam(E Carmarthen & Dinefwr)

Foster, Don(Bath)

Gale, Roger(N Thanet)

Prisk, Mark(Hertford)

George, Andrew(St. Ives)

Pugh, Dr. John

Gibb, Nick(Bognor Regis)

Randall, John

Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

Redwood, rh John

Goodman, Paul

Robathan, Andrew

168

Robertson, Angus(Moray)

Taylor, Matthew(Truro)

Robertson, Hugh(Faversham & M-Kent)

Taylor, Sir Teddy

Thomas, Simon(Ceredigion)

Robertson, Laurence(Tewk'b'ry)

Thurso, John

Rosindell, Andrew

Tonge, Dr. Jenny

Sanders, Adrian

Turner, Andrew(Isle of Wight)

Selous, Andrew

Tyler, Paul(N Cornwall)

Shephard, rh Mrs Gillian

Walter, Robert

Shepherd, Richard

Waterson, Nigel

Simpson, Keith(M-Norfolk)

Watkinson, Angela

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

Webb, Steve(Northavon)

Whittingdale, John

Smyth, Rev. Martin(Belfast S)

Wiggin, Bill

Soames, Nicholas

Williams, Hywel(Caernarfon)

Spicer, Sir Michael

Willis, Phil

Spink, Bob(Castle Point)

Wilshire, David

Steen, Anthony

Winterton, Ann(Congleton)

Streeter, Gary

Wishart, Pete

Stunell, Andrew

Young, rh Sir George

Swire, Hugo(E Devon)

Tellers for the Noes:

Syms, Robert

Mr. David Ruffley and

Tapsell, Sir Peter

Mr. Mark Francois

Question accordingly agreed to.
Ann McKechin: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I have just received information that an explosion has occurred at the ICL Plastics factory in my constituency. I understand that the building has collapsed, and reports mention more than 60 casualties, with many people still lying in the rubble. May I ask, through your good offices, if the appropriate Department will investigate at the earliest opportunity, and if a Minister will come to this House to make a statement as soon as more information is known?
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Lady is a constituency neighbour of mine, and I know the Maryhill district very well indeed. I will ensure that the appropriate Ministers go about the business of gathering whatever information it is possible to obtain. I am sure that the fire service and the police will do their best, and I thank the hon. Lady for bringing the matter to the House.
Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The House has just passed a timetable motion, and after the five and a half hours of debate you or whoever is in the Chair, is likely to say, "Consideration concluded. Third Reading, what day?" May I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that that is to mislead the House, and that it would be more suitable to say that the Government's timetable means that no further discussion can take place? Rather than misleading the House by saying, "Consideration concluded," perhaps a new form of words should be found.
Mr. Speaker: I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Chair would never mislead the House.

Housing Bill
As amended in Standing Committee, considered. [Relevant documents: The Eighth Report (HC 427) and the Tenth Report (HC 503) of Session 2003–04 from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, on the Committee's continuing scrutiny of Bills. The Tenth Report from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Committee, Session 2002–03, HC 751-I, on the Draft Housing Bill, and the Government's response thereto, Cm 6000; and the Fifth Report from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Committee, Session 2003–04, HC 46-I, on Decent Homes.]
Clause 2

  MEANING OF "CATEGORY 1 HAZARD" AND "CATEGORY 2 HAZARD"
  1.19 pm
  Mr. Edward Davey: I beg to move amendment No. 100, in clause 2, page 3, leave out lines 10 to 19 and insert—

  '(1) Meanings of "category 1 hazard" and "category 2 hazard" shall be prescribed for the purposes of this Act.

  (2) Those meanings shall be so prescribed by reference to—

  (a) hazards of prescribed descriptions, and

  (b) a ranking system for the severity of such hazards by which the question of whether a hazard achieves a particular ranking is decided by reference to—

  (i) the results of a qualitative assessment of the hazard in question, and

  (ii) an assessment of whether those results meet prescribed qualitative criteria.'.

  Mr. Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 102, in page 3, line 20, after 'risk,' insert '(a)'.
  No. 103, in page 3, line 21, after 'HMO', insert—
  '(b) that the dwelling or HMO is or is likely to be below a reasonable standard, having regard to its age, character or locality, or
  (c) that the condition of the dwelling or HMO is or is likely to be such as to interfere materially with the personal comfort of the occupying tenant, and'.
  No. 101, in page 3, line 27, leave out from '218(1)' to end of line 29.
  Government amendments Nos. 6 to 13.
  No. 134, in clause 8, page 7, line 11, at end insert—
  '(e) the functions and requirements in respect of new qualifications and training required by environmental health officers.
  (f) the functions and requirements in respect of the nature and time expenditure required so that these tasks can be considered to have been properly fulfilled.
  (g) the functions and requirements in respect of the circumstances in which they may be required to compensate landlords for costs incurred in the carrying out of their duties'.
  (h) their functions and requirements in relation to fire safety legislation and in particular consideration be given to the installation of automatic fire sprinklers in HMOs.'.
  No. 104, in clause 44, page 28, line 34, at end insert—
  '(2A) In the event of such an appeal being made, the notice under section 40 is not suspended.'.
  170
  Government amendment No. 29.
  No. 119, in schedule 13, page 231, line 31, after '189' insert—
  'Sections 190A'.
  Mr. Davey: I begin by expressing our concern for the constituents of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Ann McKechin), and I hope that Ministers follow up your words, Mr. Speaker. Let us hope that what sounds like a tragedy does not result in any fatalities.
  This group of amendments deals with housing conditions. Part 1 of the Bill significantly changes the way in which housing conditions are considered by environmental health officers, particularly, but not exclusively, in the private rented sector. The new system that the Government are introducing—the housing health and safety rating system—is broadly supported across the House. However, we raised several points in Committee that we want to address again in slightly different ways to ensure that we are clear about the Government's intentions and to see whether we can push them a little further in a few respects.
  Amendments Nos. 100, 102, 103 and 101 reflect a concern that I expressed in Committee—namely, that the Bill introduces too mechanistic an approach whereby environmental health officers will have to try to calculate a numerical assessment of the state of the home concerned, using a complicated system to add up the probabilities and risks that particular conditions may harm certain types of people in order to produce ratings that define the problem as a category 1 hazard or a category 2 hazard. That system is based on a quantitative approach, but in our discussions in Committee, the Minister took a more expansive approach that possibly reflected the tone of the guidance that we saw only just before we debated it in Committee. He went so far as to tell the Committee that environmental health officers will be expected to use their professional judgment and that the approach will be qualitative, as well as quantitative.
  Although we do not seek to press our amendments to a Division, I hope that for the sake of clarification the Minister can put on the record again some of the comments that he made in Committee. For example, he said:
  "Let me say a little more about judgment reports and flexibility. I should like to emphasise that the environmental health officer's assessment of the property, which will generate a score, will be based on their professional judgment of the condition."—[Official Report,Standing Committee E, 20 January 2004; c. 48.]
  He made other remarks along those lines to suggest that despite what it says in the Bill, a degree of flexibility and professional judgment will be involved. Can he give such an undertaking to members of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, who will have to try to make the new system work? That would be helpful, because when environmental health officers tested version one of the system, they encountered many problems in trying to use that mechanistic approach.
  It is worth commenting on Government amendment No. 6, which changes the requirement in the Bill for a local authority to consider the housing conditions in its district at least once a year. When we debated that duty in Committee, we thought it rather onerous and proposed amendments. At the time, the Government

  171
  were not convinced, but they have returned with this amendment to allow greater flexibility by removing the frequency requirement to leave a general duty. I welcome that deregulatory measure.
  Amendment No. 104 would ensure that there is a procedure to allow environmental health officers to go into a property very quickly if a hazard exists with the potential to cause an emergency. As the Bill stands, if an environmental health officer serves a notice on a landlord to say that there is an emergency that requires urgent investigation, the landlord can appeal. I understand that an appeals procedure is necessary, but some in the profession are worried that if a genuine emergency arose, the appeals procedure could get in the way of its being tackled. The amendment would ensure that the emergency can be dealt with even while the appeals procedure is going on. That might sound odd, but we are talking about situations that could threaten the lives of occupants, neighbours and even passers-by. Perhaps we misunderstood the various amendments that were discussed in Committee, but we certainly did not debate this point. Will the Minister confirm that if a real threat arises, the appeals procedure will not get in the way of its being dealt with?
  Amendment No. 119 would reverse the Bill's repeal of section 190 of the Housing Act 1985. We are not convinced by that change, which was not debated in Committee. I remind hon. Members that section 190 enables a local housing authority to serve a repair notice on the landlord where the house is
  "in such a state of disrepair that, although not unfit for human habitation, substantial repairs are necessary to bring it up to a reasonable standard",
  or
  "its condition is such as to interfere materially with the personal comfort of the occupying tenant."
  The Government want to repeal that right because they believe that other measures introduced in the Bill make it superfluous. However, the professionals feel that although the Government have provided some new powers to deal with disrepair, they do not measure up to the section 190 powers. They are worried that in trying to raise the standard of conditions of housing, the Government are shooting themselves in the foot by getting rid of a piece of legislation that was helpful and putting in place measures that are not as effective. Environmental health officers and groups such as Shelter have told me that section 190 should be retained, arguing that although the new rating system is good for dealing with current threats to the health and safety of occupants, it is not so good for dealing with future threats.
  There is some fuzziness around the edges, but the basic point is that the Government's proposed system deals with current threats, but not future threats such as rotting window frames or damaged guttering, which do not cause a problem immediately but will do so in the foreseeable future. People are worried that the new system, unlike section 190, will not cover disrepair that causes inconvenience or misery to residents—for example, ill-fitting windows or poor lighting—and fear that we may end up with a worse regime for dealing with housing conditions than the present one.
  172
  It is worth the Government reflecting on that. I doubt whether they will accept the amendment—that would be a turn-up for the books—but they might at least take time to reconsider my arguments when the Bill moves to another place and perhaps decide that section 190 of the 1985 Act is worth retaining.
  Ms Joan Walley: I wish briefly to endorse some of the comments made by the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey). I should say from the outset that I speak as vice-president of the Institute of Environmental Health Officers.
  I have corresponded with the Minister on some of these issues, and he was kind enough to respond to me in a very lengthy letter dated 5 March. I want to take this opportunity to flag up the day-to-day work of environmental health officers on housing repair and the huge responsibility that they take and put into action on a daily basis. They want to ensure that any new legislation that reaches the statute book does not put us in a worse position than that which obtains under existing statutes. I would hate us to make a decision today that would take us back a step rather than taking us further forward
  The Minister has been very courteous already, but I must tell him that the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health still has certain concerns. Bearing in mind the fact that these issues are not to be pressed to a vote, will he agree to continue the dialogue that he has been having with the institute? Perhaps, between now and the time when the Bill goes to the other place, he will be kind enough to have further talks with the institute to ensure that the changes that we are proposing will enable the proper repairs to be carried out to the nation's housing stock.
  1.30 pm
  Mr. Robert Syms: For the purpose of the debate, I should like to declare that, as shown in the Register of Members' Interests, I am a director of a family property company with building interests.
  This part of the Bill is highly complex, and I must admit that, even having had a briefing from the civil servants in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and having sat through the Committee stage of the Bill, I still do not feel wholly confident to lecture or give advice on it. We have given our broad support to the housing health and safety rating system, but with 29 categories of housing hazard and a numeric way of assessing them, it will be complex to administer.
  An issue that arose in Committee, and to which we return in amendment No. 134, is the uniformity of the application of this part of the Bill. The amendment proposes that the appropriate national authority—be it the United Kingdom Government or the Welsh Assembly—should set out clearly what is expected of the respective institutions in regard to the qualifications and training of environmental health officers and the functions and requirements relating to the operation of this part of the Bill.
  Another theme that we have identified is that, if it is clear from the Bill, through guidance, what is required, it will be much easier to ascertain the cost of providing those services. We raised the issue of cost on a number

  173
  of occasions in Committee, and the Minister replied that the Government expected the one-off set-up costs of training environmental health officers and of information technology to be in the order of £4 million to £5 million. Perhaps that might be a recurring cost each year. I come from a local authority background, and I am still a little suspicious, given the complexities of this system and its implementation across the country, as to whether such amount would fully cover the costs involved.
  We are not going to press our amendment to a vote, mainly because, given the programme motion that the House has passed, we might want to discuss other, weightier issues later. I would like the Minister to reassure the House, however, about how even-handedly this part of the Bill will be applied. We believe that it is important to include guidance in the Bill. Perhaps he will also briefly revisit the topic of the cost of the system. Every time the House passes legislation that places a duty on local authorities, or changes the manner in which they carry out their services, it is important that we should fully compensate them for that, particularly in this age when we often throw allegations across the Chamber at Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's Question Time about who has the worst record on council tax, for example. One of the major engines for generating higher costs for local authorities is legislation that puts too much of a burden on those authorities, which is not fully reflected when the revenue support grant is produced.
  We have more important matters to discuss later, so I shall end my remarks now, to give the Minister an opportunity to give the House further reassurances on this important part of the Bill.
  Sir Sydney Chapman: I am grateful to have been called to speak and I shall be very brief. I want to pick up the point made by the hon. Members for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) and for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley). The hon. Gentleman mentioned an occasion on which a person from a local authority might have to enter premises in an emergency. It would be quite wrong in those circumstances to require prior notice, and I believe that that also applies to a landlord. It would be wrong of us to think that there is permanent conflict between tenants and landlords. I hope that, in the main, a very harmonious relationship exists between them.
  My other point is on the application of this part of the Bill. Of course we must get rid of unfit homes, and of course we must bring homes of a poor standard up to the standard that we expect to find at the beginning of the 21st century, but let us remember the context in which we are doing so. In recent years, the amount of public money invested in housing has been dramatically cut, although I am delighted to say that the Chancellor has recently announced that he is increasing the provision from £4 billion to £5 billion. However, the amount going into housing in 1990 was £11 billion, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. It is vital, particularly in a place such as London, that we do not suddenly cut off a vast proportion of the private rented properties. All local authorities must employ an even-handed touch in giving time for conditions that are not necessarily or immediately hazardous to be improved. I support this part of the Bill in general, but it is the application of it that will be the decisive matter in practice.
  The Minister for Housing and Planning (Keith Hill): Before I respond to the debate, may I take this opportunity to express the Government's great sympathy and concern in regard to the explosion in Glasgow, which was brought to the attention of the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Ann McKechin)?
  The House will understand that I want not only to deal with the issues that have been raised in the non-Government amendments, but to explain and commend the Government amendments to the House. Clause 2 of the Bill provides for the components of the new hazard assessment system—the housing health and safety rating system to be prescribed in regulations. These are: the method for calculating the seriousness of hazards; the descriptions of hazards; the bands into which the hazards may fall, according to their seriousness; and the numerical scores that determine the bands into which the hazards fall.
  Subsection (1) defines "hazard" for the purposes of part 1 of the Bill as a
  "risk of harm to the health or safety of an actual or potential occupier of a dwelling HMO"—
  a house in multiple occupation—
  "which arises from a deficiency"
  on the premises or on
  "any building or land in the vicinity".
  It also defines category 1 and category 2 hazards.
  Under the rating system, the assessment of a hazard has two elements: the likelihood of an occurrence resulting in harm, and the potential outcome of that occurrence. By virtue of subsection (3), the regulations prescribing the method will take account both of the likelihood of harm occurring and of the severity of the harm if it occurs. Whether a hazard is in category 1 or 2, and whether, within those categories, the hazard falls into band A, B, C, D or E is a matter for the judgment of the inspector. I use that expression advisedly, and I hope that in doing so I can provide the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) with the reassurance that he seeks. I must underline that point.
  Regulations will describe the method for assessing hazards, set out the principles for scoring the hazards and placing them in bands, and list the 29 hazards to be covered by the system. Guidance to be given under clause 8 will give advice on how local authority officers should operate the system using their judgment, what they should look out for, and what can be done on the premises to remove or reduce a hazard.
  Amendments Nos. 100 to 103 seek to make technical changes to the meaning of "hazards". In our view, they undermine the objectivity of the system, which is its prime objective. I also believe that they stem from a belief that the system is in danger of being excessively mechanistic and leaves no room for judgment—that is, that the rating system deals with numbers at the expense of the inspector's professional judgment and knowledge. The system does use numbers, of course, but the hazard score will not be determined by the system. I say again that it will be determined by the inspector's judgment, and I pay tribute to the professionalism of the officers of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health.

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  Amendment No. 103 would introduce the concept of relative standards to a system of risk assessment by requiring the "age, character or locality" of a property to be taken into account. That creates something of a slippery slope. I do not argue that the rating system seeks perfection in every dwelling. Some sorts of dwelling have characteristic defects. For example, early 20th century terraced houses may have steep staircases that increase the risk of a fall. A local authority inspector will know that and make appropriate allowance for it. On the other hand, it will not be good enough for him to say that, because many dwellings in his area have leaking roofs, he should play down the seriousness of that defect in a particular dwelling.
  The housing health and safety rating system is a tool that provides objective information as a starting point for an inspector to support his judgment of the action needed to deal with a hazard. That judgment should take on board the effect of housing conditions on the health and safety of occupants.
  Amendment No. 103 would also introduce considerations of material comfort into a system that assesses the health and safety risks to occupants. I am sure that that is a reflection of representations that have been made to me about the repeal of section 190 of the Housing Act 1985. Aside from any merits of having a separate power to deal with minor disrepair and discomfort, it is inappropriate to introduce it in the housing health and safety rating system formula.
  The housing health and safety rating system will pick up disrepair when it contributes to any hazard in category 1 or 2. I understand that authorities would like to have wider powers to deal with conditions that are not even hazards. The housing heath and safety rating system provides a tool for authorities to prioritise intervention, and they can choose to tackle disrepair that contributes to modest hazards, should that be their approach.
  When disrepair does not even contribute to a hazard, we should hesitate to provide open-ended powers. Enforcement action needs to be proportionate and evidence based. There is no reason why authorities cannot provide advice to landlords when they judge that defects might lead to discomfort or further deterioration in the future and monitor those conditions. I therefore invite the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton to withdraw the amendment, but I hope that my remarks have reassured him.
  I shall now deal with Government amendments Nos. 6 to 13, which, I am delighted to say, largely respond to representations that were made in Committee. Clause 3 requires local authorities to consider the housing conditions in their district at least once a year, with a view to determining what action to take, for example, under their powers to deal with hazards identified under the housing health and safety rating system, or their powers to declare renewal areas or provide financial assistance for home repair or improvement.
  In Committee, I was pressed on the frequency of such consideration by local authorities, and hon. Members presented arguments for both more and less frequent consideration. I undertook to reconsider the requirement. Clause 3 replicates provisions that were
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  enacted most recently in the Local Government and Housing Act 1989. However, the Government's approach to local housing strategies has developed since then, and authorities are no longer expected to produce them annually. The requirement in clause 3 to keep the housing stock under review remains important, but the obligation to do so annually is out of kilter with the approach to strategies
  Amendment No. 6 therefore retains the obligation to keep the stock under review, but removes the requirement about frequency. The purpose of the clause is to ensure that a local authority maintains a current awareness of the state of the housing stock in its area so that it can reach well-informed judgments about the action that it needs to take. As I said in Committee, the purpose of the provision is not to require an authority to produce reports at specific intervals, although we expect authorities to keep records that can be made available to the appropriate national authority. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton for his welcome for the clause.
  Clause 4 deals with the requirements on local authorities to inspect premises to determine whether they contain hazards. It also deals with the requirements on authorities and their officers to respond to complaints about housing conditions. In Committee, the handling of complaints received what I described at the time as "a good thrashing", and I have concluded that the extended discussion that took place was due, at least in part, to a lack of clarity in the way in which clause 4 deals with the issue. The amendments are intended to set out more clearly the way in which the Government expect complaints to be tackled and to draw a sharper distinction between official and other complaints.
  1.45 pm
  Amendments Nos. 7 and 8 remove subsection (3) and establish a general duty on local authorities to arrange for an inspection of premises to be carried out. That duty arises if the authority considers that an inspection would be appropriate, either as a result of a review under clause 3 or for any other reason, to determine whether a category 1 or 2 hazard exists on those premises. The amendment therefore provides for the kinds of circumstances that, in the normal course of business, are most likely to lead an authority to inspect a property and consider enforcement action under part 1. They include ordinary, day-to-day complaints to the authority.
  There is no duty on authorities to respond to every such complaint but, as I said in Committee, we expect them to respond to complaints that are not vexatious or frivolous. Amendment No. 7 therefore sets out what I might describe as the "default" approach to complaints.
  Let me deal with what clause 4 calls "official" complaints. They have a dual significance in that they carry the weight of a justice of the peace or a parish or community council and are made to the proper officer rather than to the authority. The proper officer, who, in this context, is likely to be a senior environmental health officer, has duties independent of the authority's, including a duty to inspect premises in response to an official complaint. That lends those complaints—in both the giving and the receiving—an additional

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  significance. It enables them to be considered without any suggestion that political or financial considerations may have been brought to bear.
  Much of the debate in Committee focused on the official complaints and on amendments that would have extended the power to make such a complaint to other institutions. However, I stress again that the official complaints are the exception rather than the rule. Indeed, I have to confess to the House that a recent trawl by the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health has not identified a single authority that can recall the use of the official route for complaints.
  That is not to say that the official route has no value.
  Mr. Edward Davey rose—
  Keith Hill: If I may be allowed to make my argument and the hon. Gentleman still wants to intervene, I would welcome his remarks.
  The findings illustrate, as I maintained in Committee, that the ordinary workaday route for tenants and residents to complain directly to their local authority works well in the vast majority of cases and there is no need to widen the official route.
  Mr. Davey: The Minister is making an interesting speech, which would have enlightened our previous "thrashing" debate. However, perhaps the current formal route is not sufficiently wide and the findings that he has secured back the case that we made in Committee.
  Keith Hill: In Committee, we were in a sort of competition to extend the category of those regarded as official complainants. However, the reality appears to be that the current system works well enough and we perceive the official route as a fall-back, default mechanism or recourse when other more obvious routes fail.
  Andrew Bennett: Does my right hon. Friend accept that there has always been a tension between the public health and management sides of a council? Does he also accept that, especially when houses have been bought up because of, for example, road widening, the council tends, in its management of the road-widening scheme, to resist pressure from the public health side to make temporary improvements to those properties? There is now a danger that, if local authorities do not have the resources to put their council properties into a state of good repair, the housing authority could manage a house with, for example, poor electrical wiring and be embarrassed by the pressure from the public health side of the council. It is important that the Minister emphasises that the public health side should have priority.
  Keith Hill: On the whole, I am inclined to agree with my hon. Friend and to emphasise that, of course, public health must have considerable priority. He perhaps takes us wider than the immediate issue, but I have listened to him very carefully and, as ever, I will bear his observations in mind as I pursue these matters.
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  I took the point made by hon. Members in Committee that not all areas are blessed with a parish or community council, and I recognise that those councils do not have the same independence as justices of the peace, but I am not about to deprive those who have access to such a council of that second string to their bow, even though one is enough.
  Subsection (4), as amended by amendment No. 10, ensures that all inspections, whether by the authority in response to an ordinary complaint or by the proper officer in response to an official complaint, are carried out in accordance with regulations, including those under clause 2, which will prescribe the method of hazard assessment. That means that all inspections carried out in response to complaints, whether ordinary or "official", will be carried out with the same rigour.
  Amendment No. 13 further strengthens the procedure for official complaints by ensuring that it is properly rounded off with a report by the proper officer, whether the hazard revealed by the officer's inspection has turned out to be category 1 or 2. Amendments Nos. 9, 11 and 12 are technical and consequential.
  On amendment No. 134, let me begin by assuring the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) of the continuing even-handedness of the Government's approach in these matters. As I said in Committee, we anticipate the start-up costs of these arrangements to be about £4 million to £5 million.
  Members will be aware that in January we had a thorough debate in Committee on an amendment with the same purpose as amendment No. 134. Indeed, the Committee even divided on that amendment, so I acknowledge that certain members of the Committee were not entirely persuaded by my arguments. That said, my arguments against this amendment remain unchanged.
  Clause 8 enables the Secretary of State in relation to England, and the National Assembly for Wales in relation to Wales, to give guidance to local housing authorities on the exercise of their functions under part 1. That guidance will be about how properties are to be inspected and assessed using the housing health and safety rating system and how authorities, once they have assessed a hazard, should apply the enforcement duties and powers provided in part 1. Those relate to the use of improvement notices, prohibition orders, hazard awareness notices, demolition orders, and clearance, and also to the use of the emergency measures under the provisions added to the Bill by Government amendment in Committee.
  Amendment No. 134 would add to the topics on which guidance may be given. I must declare to the House that I remain entirely unconvinced that those additions are necessary. The amendment appears to question the fact that environmental health officers employed by local housing authorities are already qualified to operate the rating system.
  I recognise that the rating system requires a change of approach by local authorities—this is the first time that we have brought risk assessment and housing conditions together under a regime that has been around in some shape or form for the past 80 years—but the housing health and safety rating system is essentially a tool to assist professional judgment, as I have repeatedly said.

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  Environmental health practitioners are already used to risk assessment methods in other areas of their work. I am comforted by the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, which in its response to our recent consultation on the enforcement guidance gave an account of the work that practitioners do. The CIEH response points to environmental health practitioners'
  "experience in risk assessment procedures and ability to take an holistic view of the health, safety and welfare of occupiers alongside traditional building and means of escape defects."
  It seems to me, therefore, that the hon. Member for Poole takes a dimmer view of the experience and abilities of environmental health professionals than does the CIEH.
  The chartered institute is a key housing stakeholder and I do not underestimate the contribution that its members will make to the success of our reforms, but it is clear that we are not talking here about the need for new qualifications. Rather, I have said that we will do what we can to ensure that the rating system is implemented smoothly. There will be training in the system, and we are considering what training will be required, but in the meantime, there cannot be many EHOs or authorities who remain ignorant of the principles underlying the system, as version 1 entered the public domain in 2000 and a draft of version 2 has been available since last December.
  Proposed new subsection (1)(f), which amendment No. 134 would insert in clause 8, appears once again to be an attempt to write a regulatory impact assessment into the guidance. That is not the function of guidance on either a technical assessment or the use of the enforcement options. I have said before that inspections are likely to vary considerably in the time that they take, both in the field and back at base. The computer programme that will be part of version 2 of the housing health and safety rating system should enable inspectors to save time by entering data as they carry out the inspection.
  As to proposed new subsection (1)(g), which would be inserted by the amendment, it is not clear in what circumstances authorities may need to compensate landlords. Landlords will have a right to appeal on the improvement notices and prohibition orders for which the Bill provides before they take effect, or, in the case of the emergency measures, after the measures have been taken.
  Compensation may well be an outcome of an appeal in some such cases. I suggest that compensation is a matter that should be dealt with on appeal. I cannot agree that compensation should be a matter for Government guidance under clause 8, nor, as I said before, can I see that compensation is a likely outcome for a landlord who has kept his tenants in conditions so hazardous that a local authority has felt compelled to take enforcement action.
  I turn now to the question of fire, which of course is one of the 29 hazards dealt with by the rating system. There will indeed be guidance on hazards from fire, which will cover the causes and preventative measures. Fire is one of the most important hazards. Nevertheless, I do not think it necessary to single out fire safety in the
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  Bill. All the hazards will be spelled out in the regulations, which prescribe the housing health and safety rating system method under clause 2.
  Mr. John Hayes: I am trying to be helpful to the Minister, as he knows I generally am. As he is moving on to those matters, will he specifically deal with the report by the National Landlords Association, with which he will be intimately familiar? I see he is looking at it with knowledge and familiarity. The report makes this absolutely clear:
  "Just over 5 per cent. of England's population live in HMOs, which, statistics suggest, suffer just over 5 per cent. of England's fire fatalities."
  I do not necessarily make the argument for the association, but I know that he will want to deal with its argument in the fullest and most persuasive way.
  Keith Hill: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing the House's attention, if not mine, to the report in question. I give him the assurance that we shall deal with those issues of fire hazard in connection with HMOs in our debates this afternoon. Not for the first time, if I might say so in recognition of his skills and abilities, he anticipates weighty matters that will come before us in due course.
  Though we had a good debate on the issue in Committee, allow me to say again, with the leave of the House, something about how local authorities are being asked to deal with hazards. When inspecting a property, the inspector asks, "What is the likelihood of an incident taking place—for example, the risk of an outbreak of fire—and what harm will be caused, taking account of other factors such as the precautions that have been taken in the property and the means of escape?"
  We want local authorities to prioritise action against all serious hazards, and in the case of HMOs covered by part 2 they will be required to do so following an application for a licence. We will emphasise that in the guidance we issue to authorities. The guidance will also include advice on how housing authorities can work with fire authorities to ensure that both housing and fire safety legislation work effectively.
  2 pm
  The Bill now requires local authorities to consult fire authorities before taking enforcement action under part 1 in an HMO. That will ensure that expert advice is available to local authorities. When an authority has assessed a serious category 1 hazard, it will be under a duty, under clause 5, to take appropriate enforcement action. Should an improvement notice be served under clause 9, the action taken by the owner or landlord must, as a minimum, ensure that the hazard ceases to be a category 1 hazard. The authority will therefore need to ensure that any remedial action required in the case of fire is appropriate. It would be inconsistent with a system of risk assessment to prescribe specific means of dealing with hazards. However, the technical guidance to be issued under the clause will recommend that there should be adequate means of escape from fire from all parts of a building. For HMOs, there should be adequate fire protection, including, as appropriate, sprinkler systems. That does not mean that authorities

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  will require such systems in all HMOS, but that it will be appropriate to fit them where the risk justifies it. In conclusion, our technical guidance will be already be comprehensive in its treatment of fire and other hazards, and the elements of the amendment are either misplaced or appropriate.
  In the time remaining for this group of amendments, let me turn to non-Government amendment No. 104, as I want to reassure the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton. This amendment seeks to ensure that when a local housing authority serves a notice of emergency remedial action under chapter 3 of part 1 of the Bill, in order to deal with a hazard that presents an imminent risk of serious harm to the occupiers of residential premises, the taking of the action is not affected by any appeal that may be made against the notice. I am happy to confirm that the amendment is unnecessary because such a notice will enable the authority to take action immediately.
  Clause 44 provides a right of appeal to the residential property tribunal against such a notice, but the appeal will not prevent the local housing authority from taking the action. When an appeal is made under clause 44, the tribunal may confirm, reverse or vary the decision of the authority, although this might be considered unacceptable if works have already been carried out. In such circumstances, schedule 10 allows the appropriate national authority, in regulations, to make provision for additional relief. These regulations might provide that when emergency remedial action has been taken and the tribunal determines that the local housing authority was wrong to decide that such action was necessary, the tribunal may require the authority to compensate the owner for any damage incurred or return the premises to the state that they were in before the works were carried out. I therefore invite the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment. In passing, I commend Government amendment No. 29 to the House.
  Finally, let me turn to amendment No. 119, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley) spoke so eloquently. I assure her that I will continue to listen to the arguments, although she will understand that I can make no commitments. I recognise the reasons for this amendment. I am aware that there is some support among local authorities and housing professionals for retaining powers of some kind to deal with disrepair. Part 1 of the Bill, however, enables authorities to deal effectively with substantial disrepair. Using the housing health and safety rating system, they can apply the evidence of the effect of that disrepair on occupants—not merely on tenants in the private rented sector but on all occupants, should they be at any risk.
  Section 190 of the Housing Act 1985 currently gives discretion to local authorities to serve a repair notice when a dwelling, though not unfit, is in such a state of disrepair that substantial repairs are necessary to bring it up to a reasonable standard. Such a notice can also be served when the condition of the dwelling interferes materially with the personal comfort of an occupying tenant. I am sure that hon. Members will appreciate that, technically, this amendment will not work. By retaining section 190 as it stands, an authority will need to have regard to a standard of fitness, and we are of course repealing the fitness standard. In the spirit of
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  generosity that has characterised our proceedings on the Bill, however, I am happy to address the underlying issue.
  We told the Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, whose distinguished Chairman is in his place, that we would consider its recommendation to retain an amended section 190. However, having considered this matter, I am not minded to support the retention of a power on the lines of section 190. There are sound reasons for that. Part 1 of the Bill will not prevent authorities from taking action against substantial disrepair. The hazards from structural failure, fire, cold, falls, asbestos and electrical faults, for example, set out in version 2 of the guidance, illustrate the kinds of disrepair that can give rise to such hazards, against which authorities will have either a duty or very wide discretionary power to take action.
  To give local authorities revised powers to deal with substantial disrepair would create a parallel regime. That is not good regulation, and if those parallel powers were to deal only with minor disrepair, they would undermine the rationale for the health and safety rating system: that interventions should be prioritised, proportionate and based on evidence.
  It being one and a quarter hours after the commencement of proceedings on the programme motion, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order [this day].
  Amendment negatived.
  MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER then proceeded to put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that hour.

Clause 3

  LOCAL HOUSING AUTHORITIES TO REVIEW HOUSING CONDITIONS IN THEIR DISTRICTS
  Amendment made: No. 6, in page 3, line 39, leave out subsection (1) and insert—
  '(1) A local housing authority must keep the housing conditions in their area under review with a view to identifying any action that may need to be taken by them under any of the provisions mentioned in subsection (2).'.—[Keith Hill.]

Clause 4

  INSPECTIONS BY LOCAL HOUSING AUTHORITIES TO SEE WHETHER CATEGORY 1 OR 2 HAZARDS EXIST
  Amendments made: No. 7, in page 4, line 18, at beginning insert—
  '(1ZA) If a local housing authority consider—

  (a) as a result of any matters of which they have become aware in carrying out their duty under section 3, or

  (b) for any other reason,

  that it would be appropriate for any residential premises in their district to be inspected with a view to determining whether any category 1 or 2 hazard exists on those premises, the authority must arrange for such an inspection to be carried out.'.
  No. 8, in page 4, line 28, leave out subsection (3).
  No. 9, in page 4, line 38, leave out `(1) or (3)' and insert '(1ZA) or (1)'.
  No. 10, in page 4, line 41, at end insert
  'or proper officer (as the case may be)'.

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  No.11, in page 4, line 46, leave out '(1) or (3)' and insert '(1ZA) or (1)'.
  No. 12, in page 5, line 2, leave out 'or (3)'.
  No.13, in page 5, line 4, after '1', insert 'or 2'.—[Keith Hill.]

Schedule 3

  IMPROVEMENT NOTICES: ENFORCEMENT ACTION BY LOCAL HOUSING AUTHORITIES
  Amendment made: No. 29, in page 177, line 35, at end insert
  ', and a copy of the notice must be served on any other person who is an occupier of the premises.
  (3A) The notice and any such copy must be served sufficiently in advance of the time when the authority intend to enter the premises as to give the recipients reasonable notice of the intended entry.'.—[Keith Hill.]

Clause 54

  LICENSING OF HMO TO WHICH THIS PART APPLIES
  Mr. Hayes: I beg to move amendment No. 127, in page 36, line 9, leave out 'the following' and insert 'all'.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment No. 128, in page 36, line 9, leave out from `HMOs' to end of line 19.
  Amendment No. 3, in page 36, line 10, at end insert—
  '()any HMO in the authority's district of 3 storeys or above or in which at least 5 people live, and'.
  Amendment No. 87, in page 36, line 10, at end insert—
  `()any HMO in the authority's district of 3 storeys or above or in which at least 4 people live, and'.
  Amendment No. 105, in page 36, line 37, leave out '5 years' and insert '12 months'.
  Amendment No. 129, in page 36, line 37, leave out '5' and insert '3'.
  Amendment No. 106, in page 36, line 38, at end insert—
  '(c) a local authority may apply to the appropriate national authority for authority to extend the 12 month period in 54(6)(b) to a maximum of 5 years. The authority in making its application must satisfy the appropriate national authority that there are good reasons why it cannot reasonably comply with the requirements of 54(6)(b).'.
  Government amendments Nos. 31 and 32.
  Amendment No. 1, in clause 66, page 44, line 5, at end insert—
  '(c) the energy efficiency of the house concerned.'.
  Amendment No. 107. in clause 66, page 44, line 10, leave out paragraph (b) and insert—
  '(b) conditions requiring the written statement of terms in paragraph 1(5) of Schedule 4 to contain details of—

  (i) the responsibilities of the occupier in respect of his own conduct;

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  (ii) the responsibilities of the occupier in respect of the conduct of other occupiers and visitors;

  (iii) the ways in which the licence holder may address any nuisance or annoyance caused to others by persons occupying or visiting the house.'.

  Government amendment No. 33.
  Amendment No. 2, in clause 66, page 44, line 16, at end insert—
  '(da) conditions as requiring the installation of energy saving measures or efficient heating systems'.
  Amendment No. 108, in clause 72, page 49, line 16, at the end insert
  'and
  (c) section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 (c. 50) shall not apply.'.
  Government amendments Nos. 34 and 14.
  Government new clause 6—HMO declarations.
  Government new clause 7—Revocation of HMO declarations.
  Government amendments Nos. 125 and 50 to 53.
  Amendment No 122, in clause 214, page 157, line 44, at end insert
  'and
  (c) a short-term stay hostel'.
  Amendment No 123, in clause 214, page 158, line 8, at end insert—
  '(5A) In subsection (4), "short-term stay hostel" means a building or part of a building which offers temporary accommodation and is occupied wholly or mainly by visitors from outside the United Kingdom (whether or not employed in the United Kingdom).'.
  Government amendments Nos. 126, 56 to 59, 65 and 66.
  Amendment No. 124, in schedule 11, page 218, line 1, leave out paragraph 5.
  Government amendments Nos. 67 to 69 and 35 to 37.
  Amendment No. 95, in clause 99, page 68, line 37, at end insert—
  '(2A) A local housing authority must have regard to any breach of the duty owed to persons occupying the house under section [HMOs and duty of care].'.
  Government amendment No. 17.
  New clause 17—Housing ombudsman for students—

  `(1) For the purpose of the investigation of complaints made about landlords by students, there shall be an office of Housing Ombudsman for Students.

  (2) The Housing Ombudsman for Students will be appointed by the Secretary of State.

  (2) An appropriate code of conduct for the Housing Ombudsman for Students will be established by regulations by the Secretary of State.

  (4) The Secretary of State will, by regulation, make provision about the investigation by the Housing Ombudsman for Students of complaints made about landlords by students.

  (5) Regulations under subsection (4) will make provision about—

  (a) the matters about which complaints may be made;

  (b) the grounds on which a matter will be excluded from investigation, including that the matter is the subject of court proceedings or was the subject of court proceedings where judgment on the merits was given;

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  (c) the description of individual who may make a complaint;

  (d) a power of the Housing Ombudsman for Students to investigate any complaint made (whether the complaint is subsequently withdrawn or not), and, where he investigates, the making of a determination;

  (e) a power of the Housing Ombudsman for Students to propose alternative methods of resolving a dispute;

  (f) the powers of the Housing Ombudsman for Students for the purposes of his investigations (including powers to consult and co-operate with other persons), and the procedures to be followed in the conduct of investigations;

  (g) the powers of the Housing Ombudsman for Students on making a determination. which may include power—

  (i) to make recommendations as to action to be taken to remedy any injustice to the person aggrieved and to prevent any similar injustice being caused in the future,

  (ii) to make orders with regard to the payment of compensation or to order that a person is not to exercise, or require the performance of, certain rights or obligations, and

  (iii) to publish statements, or to make orders requiring the publication of statements, that a person has failed to comply with an order mentioned in sub-paragraph (ii);

  (h) the manner in which determinations are to be—

  (i) communicated to the complainant and the person against whom tin complaint was made; and

  (ii) published (with or without excisions).

  (6) Regulations under this section may contain such supplementary, incidental, consequential or transitional provisions and savings as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.

  (7) Regulations under this section may make different provision for different cases or descriptions of case.'.

  New clause 21—Warm homes—

  '(1)The appropriate national authority shall issue guidance for the improvement of existing HMOs and the implementation in future housing stock (where possible) of —

  (a) installation of products manufactured for cavity walls, loft or underfloor insulation, external and internal wall cladding and draft proofing

  (b) Greater control of domestic heating systems, low emissivity glazing and efficient fitting of pipes and plumbing.

  '(2) The local housing authority should seek to act in accordance with subsection 1 and with the Sustainable Energy Act 2003.'.

  New clause 25—Landlord associations and codes of practice—

  '(1) The Secretary of State may ask one or more bodies representing landlords to draw up a code of practice for his consideration under section 193;

  (2) Before exercising his power under subsection (1), the Secretary of State must determine that any such body is itself fit and proper, and is capable and competent to represent the landlords who are its members;

  (3) In reaching his determination in subsection (2), the Secretary of State should give particular regard to any training, professional development or accreditation schemes operated by that body for its members.'.

  New clause 28—HMOs and duty of care—

  '(1) A person having control of or managing a HMO owes to all persons occupying the house a duty to take such care as is reasonable in all the circumstances to see that they are reasonably safe from personal injury or from damage to their property.

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  (2) A person having control of or managing a HMO who is in breach of the duty of care in subsection (I) commits an offence.

  (3) A person who commits an offence under subsection (2) is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.

  (4) A local housing authority must have regard to any breach of the duty in subsection (1) when considering the health and safety condition under section 99.

  (5) In this section—

  "HMO" means a house in multiple occupation as defined by sections 213 to 217, save that the provisions of Schedule 11 do not apply to this section, and references to an HMO include (where the context permits) any yard, garden, outhouses and appurtenances belonging to, or usually enjoyed with, it (or any part of it).'.

  Amendment No. 120, in clause 194, page 146, line 38, at end insert—
  '(3A) The regulations may empower local authorities to require, by notice, owners of houses in multiple occupation to carry out such works or actions as may be necessary to put in place, or observe, satisfactory standards of management.'.
  Amendment No. 121, in clause 209, page 155, line 22, leave out from 'section' to end of line and insert—
  'sections 213(3), 142, 143, 144, 150 or Schedule 4'.
  Government amendment No. 21.
  Amendment No. 96., in schedule 11, page 217, line 8, after 'Part 1', insert—
  'or section [HMOs and duty of care]'.
  Amendment No. 97., in schedule 11, page 217, line 9, after 'Part 1', insert—
  'or section [HMOs and duty of care].
  Amendment No. 98, in schedule 11, page 217, line 11, after 'Part 1', insert—
  `or section [HMOs and duty of care]'.
  Mr. Hayes: I hope that I can follow your laudable example, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and be pertinent and pithy, thus allowing the maximum time for exploration of the detailed matters involved in this and later parts of the Bill.
  I want to discuss not just amendments Nos. 127 to 129, tabled by me and my hon. Friends, but to spend a good deal of time—with your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker—on other amendments and new clauses in this group. They concern such important matters as warm homes and the appointment of a housing ombudsman for students, which Conservative Members have championed in Committee and on other occasions.
  The first few amendments are designed to clarify whether the Government will seek to bring more HMOs within the licensing framework. A number of people are concerned about the balance of the Bill. We must be ever mindful of the balance between regulation and the proper protection of vulnerable citizens in particular. We have argued throughout the proceedings so far that that balance must be struck in a way that does not act as a disincentive to those who provide much-needed accommodation for rent. Issues such as cost, burden and the difficulty of staying within the law are considerable disincentives to marginal landlords—people who might stop letting their properties just as easily as they might start letting them.
  Matthew Green: The hon. Gentleman is on to a good point in relation to concerns about regulation. I am therefore bemused by his first two amendments, which would appear to include all HMOs in the regulations, rather than restricting them, which I thought was the thrust of his argument. I am therefore confused, right from the start.
  Mr. Hayes: The hon. Gentleman is often confused, but not always. I concede that I should perhaps have said at the beginning that the first two amendments were probing amendments, but I did say that they were designed to clarify whether the Government would seek to bring more HMOs within the licensing framework, as he will see from the record. Conservative Members are highly sensitive to that question. We are mindful of the balance that I was beginning to describe, and which was acknowledged by the hon. Gentleman, between regulation and protection; and we are anxious, on behalf of landlords and others, about the risk of seriously deterring landlords from investing in this sub-sector of the rented sector.
  Sir Sydney Chapman: We should be particularly sensitive at a time when public housing, or housing in the social sector, has declined, and when the number of new homes has declined. We must be careful not to discourage private landlords from supplying much-needed housing, particularly in places such as Greater London, unless there are very good reasons for closing properties because they constitute a hazard.
  Mr. Hayes: My hon. Friend, who is an expert on these matters, properly draws attention to a particular failing on the Minister's part. I do not want to embarrass the Minister more than is necessary, but we are among friends here, are we not? I think that the Minister would want me to remind him of his failure in respect of social house building. He has let down the country, himself and the Government. He has many qualities and strengths, which will doubtless be on show today, but the 50 per cent. reduction in social house construction under this Labour Administration further emphasises the need to fill the gap with other suitable properties. If that is not done, many vulnerable people will not be able to obtain the houses that they need so desperately for themselves and their children. As my hon. Friend says, it is all the more important for us not to deter private landlords at a time when there is not enough social housing, and the amendments that the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) quickly identified as probing amendments are designed to test the Government in that regard.
  The Council of Mortgage Lenders feels that the licensing of all HMOs would be excessive, but believes that there may be a back-door policy of extending licensing not just to them but to a substantial proportion of the private rented sector. Like the Opposition, it seeks assurances from the Government.
  I pay tribute to the Minister for taking on board the concern expressed in Committee about fit and proper persons. Government amendment No. 32 seeks to extend the definition of evidence relating to whether someone is a fit and proper person to evidence that a person has been convicted of sexual offences. The Government have tabled a number of other useful
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  technical amendments, which shows that the Minister listened carefully in Committee. That does not surprise me, and I do not think that it will have surprised anyone else because much of the debate in Committee was constructive and intended to improve the Bill.
  2.15 pm
  I want to say a little about the Liberal Democrat amendments. I do not like to say more than is necessary about the Liberal Democrats, although we recently combined usefully on the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill, and I do not want to spoil the emerging affair between us and the minor party.[Laughter] I mean, of course, the emerging political affair. I have to say, however, that amendment No. 105, which requires local housing authorities to fulfil their general duties within 12 months rather than five years, is a regulatory step too far. Authorities would, I think, find it extremely difficult to fulfil their obligations. That is an optimistic aspiration at best and in all probability an unrealistic one. Under amendment No. 106, if
  "there are good reasons why it cannot reasonably comply",
  a local authority may apply for an extension of the 12-month period to five years. The answer to that is that all authorities would apply, as few would be able to comply with what I consider an over-zealous time scale.
  Let me now say something about our new clauses 17 and 21. Conservative Members, along with many Labour Members, are champions of those who campaign against fuel poverty. I see that the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) is present. I want to make it clear, on my own behalf and that of my party, that he has a noble record in that respect. We can join forces in raising genuine questions about the Government's ability to meet their own targets for the delivery of warm homes. Fuel poverty blights lives and it not acceptable for any Member or party to allow the problem to continue when it could be rectified with reasonable practical ease. Many Members have tabled amendments, at this stage and earlier, drawing attention to the concerns of those who, like me, are determined to highlight that problem.
  It is estimated that between 30,000 and 60,000 people die unnecessarily in winter because they have not enough money to heat their homes. I need say little more than that, except that we know that fuel poverty is caused by a combination of inadequate income and inadequate home insulation. New clause 21, which is modest and practical, is designed to push the Minister further towards a policy that would unite Members throughout the House in pursuit of the campaign against fuel poverty, in the interests of some of our most vulnerable citizens.
  New clause 17 would establish a housing ombudsman for students, who are specifically excluded from the regulations in the Bill. I note that amendment No. 124, tabled by the Liberal Democrats, requests their inclusion, but I do not think that that counteracts or contradicts our demand for an ombudsman, which has been welcomed by the National Union of Students. It has written to me saving that it welcomes our new clause in principle. A letter from the vice-president for welfare, who is running the NUS housing campaign, raises a number of specific issues about the role of the ombudsman. I also have good news from the housing

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  ombudsman himself, who has written to me and also to my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) saying that he might well be able to add this responsibility to his existing brief, so that he or one of his deputies could perhaps become the students' ombudsman.
  We see a real need to protect vulnerable students. Most universities do a good job in providing accommodation and many halls of residence are of the highest possible standard, but it is important for us to build in some protection to deal with those that are not.
  I have tried to cover what is an enormous subject, given the grouping of the amendments and new clauses. I make no criticism of the Chair, of course. I hope that it is fair to say that all our amendments and new clauses are designed to be practical and positive, and I am sure that the Minister has read and will respond to them in that spirit.
  Mr. Clive Betts: I should like to speak to amendment No. 3, which is also supported by two of my hon. Friends and three Liberal Democrat Members. I had therefore wondered whether I got the amendment right, but on balance I think that I probably have.
  This is a relatively simple amendment, which I am sure the Minister could simply accept. It deals with the issue, which was raised in Committee, of which houses in multiple occupation will be incorporated in the mandatory national licensing arrangements. The Minister said then that he was likely to use as the definition properties that had three or more storeys and five or more people living in them. The amendment seeks to change "and" to "or", so the definition would cover properties with three or more storeys or five or more people. That is an important point. Although the change involves the small words "and" and "or", it would make quite a big difference to some properties that will otherwise be excluded from the scheme.
  I should like to try to tease out a number of issues from the Minister, if he is in a teaseable mood today. I hope that we can get one or two responses from him. I am sure that he will say in response that the amendment would put the definition on the face of the Bill, whereas he prefers the position in which that is done by regulation through secondary legislation, because it is then easier to adapt to changing circumstances as we go along. I have listened to that argument with interest but if he is going to mount it, as I am sure that he will, perhaps he will also inform the House of whether he sees the definition that he gave in Committee, if that is what he is going to stick with—three or more storeys and five or more people—as just a starting point for a national licensing scheme. Does he foresee a situation in which, once local authorities have a certain number of properties in the national licensing framework, he might look to extend the definition as authorities become able to cope with more properties? It would be interesting to learn that from him, because it might give us a different appreciation of what he and the Government intend.
  Will the Minister reflect on why we are looking to introduce a national licensing system for HMOs at all? I suggest that there are two essential problems with HMOs, which come up over and over again. The issue that particularly interested him in Committee, which
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  was why he wanted to stick with a definition that excluded any properties lower than three storeys, was risk. We went into the assessment that has been made of fire risk, and the conclusive evidence that the greatest risk of fire, and deaths from fire, in HMOs occurs in properties of three or more storeys. That is clear. However, I put it to the Minister that there are two main problems. Risk, particularly risk from fire, is one fundamental reason for licensing HMOs, but there is another difficulty, which perhaps occurs more often, although its impact is arguably less serious: nuisance. Nuisance from HMOs, where there is concern from neighbours about dereliction, rubbish scattered around the property and the noise and nuisance that can come from the occupants—often in part because a property is being badly managed—has little to do with a property's height and whether it has two or three storeys. It has much more to do with the number of people who live in a close environment. That is why my definition is better than that which the Minister proposes.
  Chris Ruane: In my hon. Friend's definition of HMOs, would the three storeys include the cellar and the attic?
  Mr. Betts: We went through that in Committee and the Minister will probably be able to reinforce the argument. We were told then that an attic or cellar might well count towards the number of storeys. However, there is a further problem because if a landlord then chose to block off the cellar, basement or attic, the property might not count. There could therefore be a three-storey property with a blocked-up attic that was not included under the definition. That issue should be taken up, and perhaps the Minister will say more on it.
  Lynne Jones: My hon. Friend mentioned the problems other than fire hazards that occur in HMOs of fewer than three storeys. Does he accept that, in many areas, particularly where there are large numbers of students occupying smaller properties, there can be similar problems even when only four people occupy a property? What are his views on the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson)?
  Mr. Betts: That is an interesting point, which takes us back to the arguments about the Housing Act 1996. The position of the Labour Opposition at that time was that the definition should be three or more storeys or four or more people, which is exactly what is in amendment No. 87, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson). I accept that point, but by sticking to the figures used by the Government and inserting "or" instead of "and", I am trying to raise the principle that the problems of HMOs do not just concern risks such as that from fire. They also concern the management of the property in terms of nuisance, especially in student areas. The number of people in a property is more important in that regard than the number of storeys. If the Minister insists on a definition that means that any property lower than three storeys, irrespective of the number of people in it, will not be subject to the national licensing arrangements, that leads to a position in which many properties where there is the potential to create nuisance will be excluded from

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  the scheme. That is a real concern that I hope he will address. It is the additional issue of nuisance that I hope that he will take into account in the final definition.
  The Minister might point out that there can be additional licensing and that it is open to any local authority to designate an additional area in which the definition of HMOs for licensing can be different from that prescribed by the Minister for the national scheme. I have had discussions with him on that point and I hope that he will respond on it.
  Funding arrangements are important for local authorities because in their present budgets, education and social services funding tends to be passported, so that what is left is often constrained and under pressure. My understanding is that the first start-up costs of the national scheme will be borne by an up-front Government grant, but that the ongoing costs will be covered by the charge made for licences. However, when a local authority considers an additional licensing scheme, although any licences under that scheme will cover the day-to-day running costs, the start-up costs, because of the consultation that must be undertaken, are likely to be greater than the start-up costs of implementing the national licensing scheme. Yet as I understand it, there are to be no additional funds whatever from central Government for that.
  The start-up costs—for all the consultation and arrangements laid down in the Bill—of additional licensing arrangements will come out of the small amount of money that local authorities have for street cleaning, environmental improvements, parks and gardens, and other important services on which local people rely. Perhaps the Minister will consider giving us some comfort in that regard. It would not take much for central Government to agree that, where an additional licensing scheme is ultimately accepted and approved—the Minister said in Committee that he would not seek to second-guess local authorities on that—the start-up costs, at least, should be borne by central Government.
  Mr. Hayes: The hon. Gentleman is making a compelling case, as ever on such issues. What broad assessment has he made—or does he know what assessment the Minister has made—of those costs? I am particularly concerned about extra resources and staffing, and the retraining of existing staff. We have not had clear answers on that and I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman could elucidate.
  Mr. Betts: A response with that sort of detail is probably up to the Minister to give. I understand that he has accepted that, where there is a statutory requirement for a mandatory licensing scheme because that is an extra responsibility on local authorities, the Government are committed to providing for that under their principle of funding for such costs. However, they are not committed to funding any discretionary work that local authorities do on additional schemes.
  I know that other hon. Members want to speak, but I have a few more points to raise with the Minister. I understand that he is discussing with local authorities in housing market renewal areas the possibility that they could bring in additional licensing arrangements
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  without having to come to the Secretary of State for approval for them. Perhaps the Minister could give us some information on that.
  Local authorities have mentioned the lack of interaction between the legislation and HMOs in terms of class 1 hazards. Has that problem been resolved? As I understand it, where there is a class 1 hazard, a prohibition order can be put on the property. As a result, the property could be excluded from being an HMO, but because such an order does not come into force for 28 days, and because there is a right to appeal during that period, it might be necessary for the local authority to take a decision on licensing the property as an HMO at the same time as it has identified a class 1 hazard. The problem associated with the class 1 hazard would not be resolved for some months, so what would the authority do in the meantime? That issue needs to be addressed.
  2.30 pm
  Finally, I turn to an important issue raised by Chris Galley, a Sheffield city council officer who is responsible for dealing with these matters. We need to be rigorous in introducing a national licensing scheme and local authorities need to be rigorous in enforcing it. But in addition to ensuring that we catch landlords who act wrongly, we should also be interested in educating them to act in the right way. As well as trying to raise standards through an inspection regime that is designed to catch landlords out, will there be funding for local authorities for the start-up costs of the scheme, so that they can engage with landlords through a proper education programme in an effort to raise standards? I doubt whether the cost of the licence will cover that, although the Minister will correct me if I am wrong. That is another important issue that needs to be addressed.
  Matthew Green: This is a huge group of amendments, including 12 Liberal Democrat amendments and two new clauses that deal with seven major issues. In addition, we have added our names to amendment No. 3. I hope that the House will bear with me as I try to go through some of the amendments. I shall try to allow plenty of time for others to get in.
  I was mightily relieved to hear that the first two Conservative amendments' are probing ones. I was worried that the Conservatives were harking back to their days as the party of over-regulation. I want to add to the comments of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) on amendment No. 3. There is a real case for the Government's having to justify why they are not going for three storeys or five or more occupants, given that they supported that principle fairly extensively in the past. Indeed, the Entec report, which is one of their own commissioned reports, makes it clear that all three-storey houses in multiple occupation are high risk, regardless of occupancy levels. That is the very report on which the Government relied in making the case, and rightly so, for the licensing of HMOs. The same report also identified two-storey bedsits and homes for vulnerable persons as being high risk. A two-storey bedsit could easily contain five or more people, but currently, it would be outside the mandatory system, even though it should be in it.

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  Amendment No. 3 would in fact cover only 120,000 properties, extending the provision to just 19 per cent. of HMOs. That is not over-regulation but regulation of the most vulnerable and dangerous properties. There is a real case for the Government to answer here. Their argument that they propose to rely on regulation might be satisfactory if we could believe that they would introduce it. However, they have made it clear throughout the process that they will regulate only in respect of three or more storeys and five or more occupants.
  Another argument that the Minister has used against the amendment is that local authorities could use the discretionary powers to extend the scheme to areas in which there were particular problems. A Shelter survey of local authority environmental health teams discovered that 13 of the 32 authorities taking part were considering additional licensing to cover a larger number of HMOs in their local area, but worryingly, 10 of the authorities that were not likely to extend licensing provided examples of dangerous and substandard HMOs that fell outside the limits of the mandatory scheme. The discretionary powers still have to be agreed by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, but the Minister has not said that the ODPM would agree to local authority applications for such powers—and it is clear that, even if it does agree, many local authorities are not likely to follow the procedure.
  I should point out that most of the local authorities that responded to the Shelter survey were Labour run. I wish the Minister would listen to those Labour authorities and councillors. I shall quote the excellent Labour authority of Telford and Wrekin, which is a near neighbour of mine. It has just been capped, but we shall leave that issue to one side for the moment; it is still rated as "excellent". It states:
  "Size and storeys are not the most important factors but increase the risk."
  However, that is the principle on which the Government are relying, in respect of a provision that will include very few properties.
  Amendment No. 105, which is one of our amendments, seeks to ensure that licensed houses in multiple occupation do not contain hazards that present a threat to the health or safely of occupants. As currently drafted, the Bill allows licensed properties to contain hazards for up to five years after the application for a licence. The amendment would require local authorities to bring such properties up to standard within 12 months. The Conservatives suggested a period of three years, but under our proposal, a local authority could apply for an additional discretionary period if it had particular problems.
  The Conservatives said that all local authorities would apply under the terms of such a provision, but not all would. For example, because my own South Shropshire district council is in a rural district—the Minister chided me in Committee because it has not undertaken a voluntary scheme—it has only three properties that fall within the HMO category. It should consider starting such a scheme quickly. Indeed, under our amendment, many local authorities could put such a scheme in place quickly, and those with a particular problem or burden could apply for extra time. So we
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  have shown some flexibility. The amendment does not insist on a period of 12 months; a case can be made if a longer period is needed.
  Mr. Hayes: The hon. Gentleman will appreciate our concern about the capacity of local authorities to deal with these matters. He seems to be saying that those local authorities that do not in any case have many HMOs will find it very easy to adopt such a scheme, but the point of such legislation is that it should apply to places where the risk is greatest and the problem is at its height. What worries me is that there are insufficient resources and training for such duties, and we have had no assurance from the Minister that they will be provided.
  Matthew Green: I share some of those concerns, but whereas ours is a practical amendment, the Government's provision simply gives everybody too much time. Five years is too long a period in which to allow such properties to be inspected and brought into the regime; indeed, the Conservative amendment reflects that by calling for a period of three years. We have tried to introduce a double-lock system, whereby inspection should take place within 12 months unless a strong case can be made for doing otherwise. These are different ways of approaching the same problem, but it is clear that the Government's proposed regulation is too lax for us to agree to—a fact that must cause Labour Back Benchers concern.
  I welcome Government amendment No. 32, which adds sex offences to the list of offences that local authorities will consider in deciding whether a licence applicant is a fit and proper person. This issue was raised in Committee, the Government undertook to look at it and they have rightly tabled an amendment on it. It is clearly unacceptable for a sex offender to be the manager of a property containing numerous potentially vulnerable people.
  Amendment No. 107 was designed to force the Government to discuss once again what they meant by the landlord controlling the actions of the tenant, but the Government have tabled their own amendment No. 33, which clarifies the licence holder's obligation, restricting it to "anti-social behaviour" by a tenant or visitor—and only to the extent that the landlord is "reasonably" able to do so. We welcome that, as we highlighted the matter in Committee. I shall spend no more time on amendment No. 107 because it has been largely dealt with by Government amendment No. 33. The Minister will not need to respond, which should save him a little time.
  Amendment No. 108 deals with an issue that I attempted to raise in Committee, but we all got a bit lost—perhaps that is the politest way of putting it—so I shall have another go. It is a probing amendment, designed to deal with the problem that the "no rent payable" sanction against unlicensed landlords in clause 72 could result in the eviction of tenants. The stipulation that section 21 of the Housing Act 1998 shall not apply prevents landlords from using the accelerated possession procedure to evict tenants as a result of those sanctions.
  The current provisions do not reflect the reality faced by tenants on low incomes with no security of tenure, who are unable to enforce their housing rights without

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  risking eviction. HMOs represent a scarce housing resource and clause 72 could result in existing tenants being made homeless. Tenants with a shorthold tenancy will simply face possession action by their landlord if they attempt to enforce the "no rent payable" provision on unlicensed properties. In practice, many tenants will choose not to risk losing their homes and will simply continue to pay the rent. Those tenants on housing benefit will face withdrawal of their benefit, leaving them unable to pay their rent other than by dipping into what limited savings they might have. They risk homelessness if their landlord brings their shorthold tenancy to an end.
  The Select Committee heard from Brent private tenants' rights group, which raised that very point, as the Chairman, the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Bennett), will probably recall. It said:
  "Shorthold tenants will have no more power to refuse to pay the rent than they have power to exercise any other housing right. For housing benefit claimants, the situation is tragic, because their benefit will cease, and they will lose their homes at the earliest opportunity. Many of these tenants will be in priority need and will have no option but present as homeless to the local authority."
  The Local Government Association raised similar concerns.
  Sarah Teather: I endorse my hon. Friend's point. My constituency has the highest number of houses in multiple occupancy anywhere in the country and the work done by the group that my hon. Friend mentioned is second to none in raising awareness of the issue.
  Matthew Green: I thank my hon. Friend. She and the group are quite right to bring that matter to the House's attention.
  When the Select Committee reported, it concluded:
  "We are concerned that the 'no rent payable' provisions could have adverse consequences for tenants, potentially leading to their eviction. If the Government plans to retain these provisions, the final version of the Bill must include adequate safeguards so that tenants cannot be evicted because their landlord is unlicensed."
  That was clearly recognised by the Select Committee, and the Minister has not dealt satisfactorily with it. It is a relatively technical point and not of great political significance, so I hope that the Minister will have a closer look at the effects of the provision and agree to amendments in the other place.
  Our amendments Nos. 122 and 123 deal with issues that were not raised in Committee. They would amend the definition of hostel to include "short-term hostel". We define such a hostel as
  "a building… which offers temporary accommodation and is occupied wholly or mainly by visitors from outside the UK".
  It is primarily designed to deal with back-packers' hostels, in which there have been some hideous examples of fires in other parts of the world. We are concerned that the Bill does not cover those hostels. I hope that the Minister will either accept these amendments or present some alternatives. Such a provision could help to deal with the circumstances when people brought into the country by gangmasters have to live in very cramped conditions. I hope that the
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  Government will accept some such amendment on the grounds that it would strengthen their powers in that respect.
  2.45 pm
  I welcome Government amendment No. 58, which repeats an amendment that I moved in Committee. It would delete the word "woman's" from the term "woman's refuge". I was never certain why the Government were restricting the provision to women's refuges, when there are also battered men. After amendment, the definition of a refuge is a place where people may stay if they have left their homes owing to physical or mental violence or threats of such from their spouse or cohabitee. I am glad to see such a unisex solution. As I said, I was surprised that the Government had been so sexist in their original drafting, which I am sure was just an aberration.
  I hope that we will vote on amendment No. 124, which would remove from the Bill the exemption of student halls of residence. It is supported by the National Union of Students, and the Government have not, frankly, argued a strong case why halls of residence should not be licensed. Indeed, in their 1999 consultation, the Government did not propose to exclude halls of residence, on the grounds that there was
  "some evidence of unacceptable standards in these sectors."
  That is stated in the Government's own consultation document. Subsequently, however, it has been suggested that public sector bodies, including universities, might be exempted from licensing, because they were under "some degree of control" or could be "expected to behave responsibly". In my opinion, that is not sufficient.
  I would like to raise one particular issue that was not debated in Committee. It came to my attention when I visited Manchester students' union. There, the university uses PFI schemes to deliver student halls of residence. They are run by private companies, but appear to be exempt because they are "university halls of residence". Yet they are being run for profit by outside companies. At the very least, I hope that the Minister will ensure that the definition does not exclude those properties from the licensing of HMOs, as would appear to be the case. The universities certainly believe that they are exempt from the legislation.
  Andrew Bennett: Let someone else get in to the debate!
  Matthew Green: I shall move swiftly on. The Chairman of the Select Committee will note that many amendments have been tabled in my name.
  Government amendment No. 67, which deals with student buildings, would have the opposite effect to our amendment No. 124 and would make the position worse.
  Our amendment No. 95 is a drafting amendment that accompanies new clause 28, which introduces a general duty of care on all landlords of houses in multiple occupation as defined by clause 213. It is supported by Shelter and the Select Committee. The matter was not raised in the Committee and I hope that the Minister will explain why the Government do not accept it.

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  Our new clause 25 would introduce the possibility of a code of practice for landlords and I know that some landlord associations support the idea. Having such a code of practice is a means of delivering many of our objectives, including the licensing of HMOs, without overburdening regulation.
  Hon. Members will be pleased to hear that our remaining amendments—Nos. 120, 121, 96, 97 and 98—are drafting amendments that accompany new clause 28 and can be dealt with accordingly. I would have liked to explain some of the amendments further, but I have already incurred the wrath of the Select Committee Chairman, who is the victim of the Government's own programme motion as much as anything else. I will leave it there, but I repeat that I want to press amendment No. 124 to a vote.
  Alan Simpson: I rise to support amendment No. 87, which I intend to press to a vote.
  I begin by thanking the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), for his kind and generous remarks about my work on fuel poverty. That is an issue to which we will return later in the debate. I also want to thank the members of the Standing Committee that considered the Bill—and especially my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts)—for what they said in Committee about the problems encountered in university cities, and the proliferation of properties that are being acquired and turned into HMOs.
  I also want to congratulate the Government on grasping the nettle that is a national licensing scheme. However, I want to press the amendment, as the holes in what we have done mean that people will criticise us rather than thank us.
  Last night, I attended a public meeting in my constituency. The banner headline on yesterday's edition of the Nottingham Evening Post was "Students Drove Me to the Brink of Suicide". A two-page spread inside told how attractive areas of the city were doomed to become the slums of the future. Such was the scale of feeling in the city that the meeting was covered on BBC Radio Nottingham as an outside broadcast.
  I did not come across anyone at the meeting who was close to suicide, but many appeared to be close to murder. People expressed a great deal of anger at the way in which their lives, in settled areas and communities, had been turned over because properties that were traditionally family houses had been sucked up and converted into HMOs.
  Nottingham is the fastest growing university city in the country. In a couple of years, its student population will total about 55,000. In some of the areas that I represent, half the properties are occupied by students in HMOs. The police complain that those areas are becoming unpoliceable. Schools say that families no longer live there, and that as a result there are no children to make up school roll requirements. Many residents say that they do not have a clue where the landlords of these properties can be found.
  Representatives of landlords' associations were on the panel at last night's meeting, but even they said that they had nothing to fear from an inclusive regulatory process that meant that everyone running an HMO
  198
  should be subject to a licence. However, there are gaps in the way that the Bill defines HMOs, and the landlords at last night's meeting said that those gaps will be an invitation to cowboys.
  Good landlords do not present a problem—many of the best have been involved in setting up voluntary agreements, and they stand by those agreements—but cowboys are a problem for everyone. The landlords told the meeting that the proposed definition of HMO will allow the most exploitative of landlords to move from three-storey properties into two-storey properties, and that that is exactly what they will do. They said that those landlords will seek to exploit the definition and make the greatest amount of money for the smallest outlay. Do they care about standards and conditions? Not one jot, we were told, and that is why I urge the House to support a definition that is as inclusive as it needs to be if we are to preclude the Bill becoming a cowboys' charter.
  Many residents at the meeting asked exactly the same questions as the local authority was trying to ask. How do we deal with misbehaviour by tenants when there is no constraint on the people who own the property? The Government—rightly, properly and proudly—have introduced a series of measures to tackle the standards of tenants' behaviour, including antisocial behaviour orders. In addition, local authorities have been invited to take a much tougher and intrusive line when it comes to telling council tenants, "Look, if you can't control your kid's behaviour, your tenancy is in jeopardy and you can expect to be evicted."
  Do any similar powers exist in respect of the private sector, and HMOs? No. Last night, everyone—including representatives of the police, the local authority, landlords and the universities, and even student bodies—was asking for a level playing field. They want standards of decency and community stability to be part of the framework for housing provision, in which safe neighbourhoods and sustainable communities are delivered, and are not just slogans used by the Government.
  We can achieve that if we have the courage to use a definition that covers the majority of properties currently being acquired and converted into HMOs. My definition would accept the three-storey limit but would apply to properties in which four or more people live. Effectively, therefore, it would also cover properties in the two-storey category.
  I hope that the House has the courage to vote for the amendment. If it does, landlords, local authorities, students and communities across the country will sing our praises. If we do not have that courage, we will get only brickbats from communities that are divided against each other.
  Mr. Harold Best: The account just given by my good and hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) mirrors what is going on in my constituency. One difference is that the equivalent of what happened at his public meeting last night happened seven years ago in my area.
  The Bill is to be welcomed. I want to place on the record my appreciation of the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning. Real

  199
  work has been done that will help to ease the real problems that exist. I want to deal with how the peculiarities of tenancy agreements and property management have been exaggerated by the explosive growth in student numbers. That has happened in densely populated areas that once were homes for traditional families.
  Mr. Andy Reed: Does my hon. Friend accept that in a place such as Loughborough, a market town with a population of between 55,000 to 60,000, the impact of student numbers—there are between 12,500 and 14,500, depending on how one counts them—is even greater than in large cities? I support amendment No. 87 because the vast majority of properties in towns such as Loughborough are much smaller, being terraced houses with two or three bedrooms. The problem highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) is enormous in my area, and has also caused house prices in the town centre to rise way beyond the traditional entry level for first-time buyers.
  Mr. Best: I have no difficulty in endorsing that point. The problem is not confined to large cities. Leeds has a population of 750,000 and it has two universities. In addition, people attending Huddersfield university live in what has become the student area. The effect on house prices is equivalent to what my hon. Friend described in his constituency.
  I want the Bill to contain a clear definition of the term "storey". How many storeys does a particular house have? For example, a traditional family house with a ground floor, a first floor and an attic used to be considered to have two storeys. Such houses used to cover acres of land in my constituency. However, for practical purposes—and those are what we must be concerned about—those houses have four storeys. That is important: thousands of houses that used to be family homes have been opened up to exploitation, with a catastrophic effect on what we might normally call community structures. For example, it is difficult to get people to vote. We have polls in which the turnout is only 12 per cent., which is unbelievable given that 10 years ago, in the same area, turnout was between 40 and 50 per cent. in local government elections.
  The other issue is crime. That area had the highest burglary rate in the UK last year and the year before. It will probably have the highest rate this year and next. The peculiarities that we are legislating for must be understood. I appreciate the Minister's efforts, but this legislative programme must be further advanced as rapidly as possible.
  3 pm
  Keith Hill: This has been a lively debate, in the course of which many separate issues have been raised. I shall respond first to the issues raised by the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, because what I have to say may be of interest to all those who have contributed to the debate.
  The hon. Gentleman spoke in support of amendments Nos. 127 and 128, and I have to tell him that the Government have no plans to extend mandatory
  200
  licensing. However, as I have said before, we intend to review the operation of the licensing system within three years and we will come back to the House if any proposal to amend it finds favour. I hope that that gives the hon. Gentleman some comfort. I also hope that other colleagues will have heard that reassurance.
  The hon. Gentleman also discussed other amendments, including new clause 21, with which I shall deal if I have time. However, we will have the opportunity to debate the issues of warm homes and energy efficiency under a later group. I turn, therefore, to those issues on which an intention to divide the House was expressed. Amendment No. 124 was spoken to by the hon. Gentleman. It would remove the exemption from the definition of houses in multiple occupation for those properties managed by universities and occupied by their students, such as halls of residence, in schedule 11.
  I genuinely believe that there has been a misunderstanding in some quarters about whether property owned by universities but leased to other bodies for them to manage is also exempt from the definition. That is not the case, and Government amendment No. 60 clarifies that position. We tabled that amendment to make the situation clearer. Properties owned by universities and managed by another company, but of which the university retains control—and continues to receive the rents from the tenants—will be exempt from the HMO definition and, therefore, licensing. Properties that are owned by universities but managed by another organisation, and of which the university does not retain control—for example, because it has granted a long lease—will not be exempt from the HMO definition and may therefore be subject to licensing. That clarifies the position and goes some way towards what the National Union of Students and others would like. However, it does not go far enough for them, as they would like all properties owned by universities but managed by another organisation to come within the HMO definition.
  The Government are aware of the concerns expressed by the National Union of Students about the conditions in some halls of residence. We are not, however, convinced that licensing or management regulations would be a solution to those problems. For a start, we are not aware that the problems are on the scale alleged. I have seen examples and they appeared mainly to concern the physical condition of the property. As I said in Committee, those issues can be addressed through part 1 of the Bill, which covers the health and safety rating system—and could not in any case be dealt with through licensing. Of course, I appreciate that there will be cases of management failure, but the Government expect universities and other higher education establishments to regard the health, safety and welfare of their students as of paramount importance, equally in the lecture halls and in the residential accommodation they provide.
  Mr. Hayes: If the Minister had accepted our suggestion of an ombudsman, perhaps some of the arguments for bringing all student accommodation into the net would have evaporated. The Minister said that

  201
  there were some problems, although they were not general. Why not have an ombudsman to whom people could appeal in those exceptional cases?
  Keith Hill: I hope to respond to the remarks made by the hon. Gentleman on the issue of a student ombudsman and, if he will permit me, I shall complete my line of thinking in an attempt to persuade the Liberal Democrats not to divide the House.
  If, in individual cases, there are grounds for complaint about poor management, any complaints should be made to the university authorities, and the Government anticipate that they will be dealt with promptly and effectively. However, as there is little hard evidence of widespread poor management of university halls of residence, the Government are not persuaded that there is a sufficiently strong case for bringing university-managed accommodation in England and Wales within the definition of HMOs, other than for the purpose of part 1 of the Bill.
  I come now to amendments Nos. 3 and 87 and the debate on studentification, which was less defensive than concerned. A divergence of opinion was evident between hon. Members about when the requirement for mandatory licensing should apply. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) will know that we debated extensively in Committee the Government's proposed scope for mandatory licensing of HMOs—those of three storeys or more and occupied by five or more persons—and the reasons for that formulation. Amendment No. 3, tabled by my hon. Friend, would require a local authority to licence all HMOs of three storeys or more, or any HMO occupied by five persons or more. By contrast, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) tabled amendment No. 87, which seeks mandatory licensing of HMOs of three storeys or more and occupied by four or more persons.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe raised many highly detailed questions, and I know that he will forgive me if I say that this is not the time or place to respond in similar detail. However, I undertake to write to him in response to the issues that he raised. His starting question was whether the current mandatory regime was a starting point for a mandatory licensing regime. As I have said before, that is not the Government's intention. We have accepted the principle of mandatory licensing, but we have done so on the basis of a clear and pragmatic justification—the issue of vulnerability to fire risk.
  Dr. Desmond Turner: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
  Keith Hill: I shall give way to my hon. Friend in a second when I have completed this thought. The Government have borne in mind two considerations on the issue of mandatory licensing— the burden on local authorities, which any licensing regime would impose, and our wish to protect and encourage the private rented sector, which I also mentioned in Committee. Of course, we shall bear down on abusive landlords, but we recognise that on the whole the sector plays an extremely important role in the housing industry, both by giving people a first step on the housing ladder and in relation to labour mobility. The sector is also rather
  202
  vulnerable—the average landlord owns only three properties. It has been characterised as a cottage industry, so we are reluctant to impose excessive burdens on it. We want to encourage it rather than burden it.
  I apologise for taking so long to make my point. I shall now give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner).
  Dr. Turner: I want to refer to amendments Nos. 1 and 2, which are grouped with amendment No. 127. They would restore a principle that the Government had previously agreed in respect of my private Member's Bill, and would deal with licensing, energy efficiency and energy conservation requirements for HMOs, given that such properties are subject to some of the worst energy conservation conditions and the greatest fuel poverty, and house some of the poorest and most vulnerable tenants. That principle was agreed by the Government two years ago, so can my right hon. Friend explain why it is no longer part of the HMO licensing requirements? Will he consider reinstating it?
  Keith Hill: We have already discussed the new housing health and safety rating system, which, as my hon. Friend knows, would allow cold and damp to be taken into consideration in the orders and requirements that environmental health officers might make. We shall by no means exclude issues such as warmth and thermal energy from our approach to the condition of housing stock and the need for action. My hon. Friend has considerable expertise in such matters, so he, better than most, knows that we are committed, through the warm front programme, to extensive improvement in providing warm housing stock in the private sector. However, we are certainly not in a position at this stage to make as a requirement the sort of measures that he recommended in his earlier proposals.
  I want to return to some of the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe and I shall then respond to the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South. I listened very carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe to ascertain the justification for his proposal to extend the mandatory licensing regime, and it was on the basis of nuisance. As he knows, the Government are clear about their criterion for mandatory licensing: it is based on a clear assessment of fire risk. However, I remain to be convinced that the properties that would be included in my hon. Friend's extended definition of mandatory licensing for HMOs would intrinsically be sources of nuisance or would have the potential to create nuisance.
  In response both to my hon. Friend and to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South, who raised a different concern—the studentification phenomenon—I point out that the Government are providing for an additional licensing regime, as all colleagues are aware, and where there is evidence of proven wrongdoing and proven risk there is the possibility of extending the licensing regime beyond what is caught by the current mandatory proposals. I hope to speak about that shortly.
  Mr. Reed: Does my right hon. Friend understand the frustration in places such as Loughborough, where 98 per cent. of properties would not fall within the Government's current definition? As he knows from his many visits to the wonderful town of Loughborough, the town centre, especially the Storer road area, has changed dramatically, so a much narrower definition is required. There is nuisance, and if he would like me to join him in a walk around the Storer road area to see the consequences of not having a licensing scheme I should be more than willing to do so.
  3.15 pm
  Keith Hill: I have not had the opportunity to discuss these matters with my hon. Friend, but I have certainly had ample opportunities, both in formal and informal contexts, to discuss them with my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds, North-West (Mr. Best) and for Nottingham, South. I have told them repeatedly that the Government cannot, in the Bill, legislate for where people live. We are legislating on the physical condition and management of housing stock. It is not invariably the case that students live in housing of poor physical condition. Indeed, it is frequently asserted that the studentification of abandoned city centre areas can actually lift the quality of the stock. Similarly, it is not the case that properties in student areas are, without exception, badly managed.
  I do not for one moment deny the consequences of the concentration of student populations in terms of local services. There are certainly pressures on local schools and there may even be pressures on services such as post office facilities, but those issues do not relate directly either to the quality of the housing stock or the prevailing management conditions of that stock. I repeat that where a case can be made that there is systemic poor management of properties in localities, the additional licensing regime for which the Bill provides will respond to those situations.
  Lynne Jones: I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way, but he somewhat misleads the House by giving the impression that studentification, as he calls it, can lead to an increase in the amenities or the quality of the housing stock in an area. Certainly, most of my hon. Friends who have experience of the problem in their constituencies would say that the houses converted to student accommodation are, by and large, former owner-occupied properties in good condition and that studentification leads to a great deterioration in the area and in the quality of life there.
  Keith Hill: I do not for a moment challenge my hon. Friend's observation about the quality of life, but I simply say that the argument goes both ways on whether the acquisition of properties for the purpose of accommodating students leads automatically to a decline in the quality of the physical condition of those properties. The argument goes both ways, and there are persuasive arguments on both sides.
  I need rapidly to move on to explain and offer some reassurance, I very much hope, to the House about the possibilities for interventions in the licensing domain under this legislation. As I explained in Committee, the Government have adopted three-storey HMOs as the starting point for mandatory licensing because those
  204
  properties pose the greatest risk of causing injury or death from fire. People living in a two-storey HMO are about four times less likely to die as a result of a fire than those living in a three-storey building.
  As I also said, the number of occupants is a factor to be considered. Clearly, the greater the numbers of storeys in an HMO, the more people are likely to live in the property, so the risk of fire increases. Of course, many HMOs are less than three storeys and house five people or more, but those people are far less vulnerable to injury from fire than those in three-storey houses. I also appreciate that some three-storey HMOs are occupied by four people, but it is far more likely that three-storey buildings will house more people than that number, and I reiterate that the greater the number of persons, the higher the risk of fire.
  We have estimated that mandatory licensing will apply to about 120,000 properties in England, housing five or more people. A line must be drawn somewhere on where HMO mandatory licensing applies. The Government believe that we have got this right at properties with three storeys and above that are occupied by five or more people, forming at least two households. However, local authorities must have, and we are giving them, powers to license problematic categories of HMOs in their areas. If a local authority establishes that there are management problems with all HMOs of, for example, three storeys or more occupied by four people or all HMOs occupied by five people that justify licensing, we are giving the local authority the tools to do so with the additional licensing regime.
  I very much hope that that serves to reassure colleagues who come to the House with quite desperate concerns about the pressures arising from a concentration of student numbers.
  It being two and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the programme motion,MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order [this day].
  Amendment negatived.
  MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER then proceeded to put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that hour.

Clause 60
  REQUIREMENT FOR HMOs TO BE LICENSED
  Amendment made: No. 31, in page 39, line 40, leave out `(1) or (2)'.—[Keith Hill.]
Clause 65

  TESTS FOR FITNESS ETC. AND SATISFACTORY MANAGEMENT ARRANGEMENTS
  Amendment made: No. 32, in page 43, line 10, at end insert
  'or any offence listed in Schedule 3 to the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (offences attracting notification requirements)'.—[Keith Hill.]

Clause 66

  LICENCE CONDITIONS
  Amendment made: No. 33, in page 44, line 10, leave out
  'steps to be taken with a view to controlling the behaviour of
  and insert
  'the taking of such steps as are reasonably practicable to prevent or reduce anti-social behaviour by'.—[Keith Hill.]

Clause 75

  INDEX OF DEFINED EXPRESSIONS: PART 2
  Amendments made: No. 34, in page 50, line 32, at end insert—
  'Anti-social behaviour Section 56(5)'.
  No. 14, in page 51, line 3, at end insert—
  'Modifications Section 209(7)'
  —[Keith Hill.]

New Clause 6

  HMO DECLARATIONS
  '(1) If a local housing authority are satisfied that subsection (2) applies to a building or part of a building in their area, they may serve a notice under this section (an "HMO declaration") declaring the building or part to be a house in multiple occupation.

  (2) This subsection applies to a building or part of a building if the building or part meets any of the following tests (as it applies without the sole use condition)—

  (a) the standard test (see section 213(1A)),

  (b) the self-contained flat test (see section 213(1B)), or

  (c) the converted building test (see section 213(1C)),

  and the occupation, by persons who do not form a single household, of the living accommodation or flat referred to in the test in question constitutes a significant use of that accommodation or flat.

  (3) In subsection (2) "the sole use condition" means the condition contained in—

  (a) section 213(1A)(d) (as it applies for the purposes of the standard test or the self-contained flat test), or

  (b) section 213(1C)(e),

  as the case may be.

  (4) The notice must—

  (a) state the date of the authority's decision to serve the notice,

  (b) be served on each relevant person within the period of seven days beginning with the date of that decision,

  (c) state the day on which it will come into force if no appeal is made under subsection (9) against the authority's decision, and

  (d) set out the right to appeal against the decision under subsection (9) and the period within which an appeal may be made.

  (5) The day stated in the notice under subsection (4)(c) must be not less than 28 days after the date of the authority's decision to serve the notice.

  (6) If no appeal is made under subsection (9) before the end of that period of 28 days, the notice comes into force on the day stated in the notice.

  206

  (7) If such an appeal is made before the end of that period of 28 days, the notice does not come into force unless and until a decision is given on the appeal which confirms the notice and either—

  (a) the period within which an appeal to the Lands Tribunal may be brought expires without such an appeal having been brought, or

  (b) if an appeal to the Lands Tribunal is brought, a decision is given on the appeal which confirms the notice.

  (8) For the purposes of subsection (7), the withdrawal of an appeal has the same effect as a decision which confirms the notice appealed against.

  (9) Any relevant person may appeal to a residential property tribunal against a decision of the local housing authority to serve an HMO declaration.

  The appeal must be made within the period of 28 days beginning with the date of the authority's decision.
  (10) Such an appeal—

  (a) is to be by way of a re-hearing, but

  (b) may be determined having regard to matters of which the authority were unaware.

  (11) The tribunal may—

  (a) confirm or reverse the decision of the authority, and

  (b) if it reverses the decision, revoke the HMO declaration.

  In this section and section (Revocation of HMO declarations) "relevant person", in relation to an HMO declaration, means any person who, to the knowledge of the local housing authority, is—

  (a) a person having an estate or interest in the building or part of the building concerned (but is not a tenant under a lease with an unexpired term of 3 years of less), or

  (b) a person managing or having control of that building or part (and not falling within paragraph (a)).'.—[Keith Hill.]

  Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 7

  REVOCATION OF HMO DECLARATIONS
  '(1) A local housing authority may revoke an HMO declaration served under section (HMO declarations) at any time if they consider that subsection (2) of that section no longer applies to the building or part of the building in respect of which the declaration was served.

  (2) The power to revoke an HMO declaration is exercisable by the authority either—

  (a) on an application made by a relevant person, or

  (b) on the authority's own initiative.

  (3) If, on an application by such a person, the authority decide not to revoke the HMO declaration, they must without delay serve on him a notice informing him of—

  (a) the decision,

  (b) the reasons for it and the date on which it was made,

  (c) the right to appeal against it under subsection (4), and

  (d) the period within which an appeal may be made under that subsection.

  (4) A person who applies to a local housing authority for the revocation of an HMO declaration under subsection (1) may appeal to a residential property tribunal against a decision of the authority to refuse to revoke the notice.

  The appeal must be made within the period of 28 days beginning with the date specified under subsection (3) as the date on which the decision was made.
  Such an appeal—

  (a) is to be by way of a re-hearing, but

  (b) may be determined having regard to matters of which the authority were unaware.

  The tribunal may—

  (a) confirm or reverse the decision of the authority, and

  (b) if it reverses the decision, revoke the HMO declaration.'.—[Kenh Hill.]

  Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

Schedule 11

  BUILDINGS WHICH ARE NOT HMOs (EXCEPT IN PART 1)
  Amendment proposed: No. 124, in page 218, line 1, leave out paragraph 5.—[Matthew Green.]
  The House divided: Ayes 166, Noes 294.

  Division No. 165]

  [3.22 pm

  AYES

  Ainsworth, Peter(E Surrey)

  Doughty, Sue

  Allan, Richard

  Duncan, Alan(Rutland)

  Amess, David

  Evans, Nigel

  Ancram, rh Michael

  Fabricant, Michael

  Arbuthnot, rh James

  Fallon, Michael

  Atkinson, David(Bour'mth E)

  Field, Mark(Cities of london & Westminster)

  Atkinson, Peter(Hexham)

  Baker, Norman

  Flight, Howard

  Baldry, Tony

  Flook, Adrian

  Baron, John(Billericay)

  Forth, rh Eric

  Barrett, John

  Foster, Don(Bath)

  Beith, rh A. J

  Francois, Mark

  Bercow, John

  Gale, Roger(N Thanet)

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Garnier, Edward

  Blunt Crispin

  George, Andrew(St. Ives)

  Boswell, Tim

  Gibb, Nick(Bognor Regis)

  Brady, Graham

  Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

  Brake, Tom(Carshalton)

  Goodman, Paul

  Brazier, Julian

  Gray, James(N Wilts)

  Breed, Colin

  Grayling, Chris

  Brooke, Mrs Annette L.

  Green, Damian(Ashford)

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Green, Matthew(Ludlow)

  Burnett, John

  Greenway, John

  Burns, Simon

  Grieve, Dominic

  Burstow, Paul

  Hague, rh William

  Butterfill, Sir John

  Hammond, Philip

  Calton, Mrs Patsy

  Hancock, Mike

  Cameron, David

  Harvey, Nick

  Campbell, rh Sir Menzies (NE Fife)

  Hawkins, Nick

  Hayes, John(S Holland)

  Carmichael, Alistair

  Heald, Oliver

  Cash, William

  Heath, David

  Chapman, Sir Sydney(Chipping Barnet)

  Heathcoat-Amory, rh David

  Hendry, Charles

  Chope, Christopher

  Hermon, Lday

  Clarke, rh Kenneth(Rushcliffe)

  Hoban, Mark(Fareham)

  Clifon-Brown, Geoffrey

  Holmes, Paul

  Collins, Tim

  Horam, John(Orpington)

  Cotter, Brian

  Howard, rh Michael

  Curry, rh David

  Howarth, Gerald(Aldershot)

  Davey, Edward(Kingston)

  Hughes, Simon(Southwark N)

  Davis, rh David(Haltemprice & Howden)

  Hunter, Andrew

  Jackson, Robert(Wantage)

  Djanogly, Jonathan

  Johnson, Boris(Henley)

  Dodds, Nigel

  Jones, Nigel(Cheltenham)

  208

  Kennedy, rh Charles(Roes Skye & Inverness)

  Simmonds, Mark

  Simpson, Keith(M-Norfolk)

  Key, Robert(Salisbury)

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

  Kirkbride, Miss Julie

  Knight, rh Greg(E Yorkshire)

  Smyth, Rev. Martin(Belfast S)

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Soames, Nicholas

  Lamb, Norman

  Spicer, Sir Michael

  Lansley, Andrew

  Spink, Bob(Castle Point)

  Letwin, rh Oliver

  Spring, Richard

  Liddell-Grainger, Ian

  Steen, Anthony

  Lilley, rh Peter

  Streeter, Gary

  Loughton, Tim

  Swayne, Desmond

  Luff, Peter(M-Worcs)

  Swire, Hugo(E Devon)

  McIntosh, Miss Anne

  Syms, Robert

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Maples, John

  Taylor, Ian(Esher)

  Marsden, Paul(Shrewsbury & Atcham)

  Taylor, John(Solihull)

  Taylor, Matthew(Truro)

  Maude, rh Francis

  Taylor, Dr. Richard(Wyre F)

  Mitchell, Andrew(Sutton, Coldfield)

  Taylor, Sir Teddy

  Teather, Sarah

  Moore, Michael

  Thurso, John

  Moss, Malcolm

  Tonge, Dr. Jenny

  Murrison, Dr. Andrew

  Turner, Andrew(Isle of Wight)

  Oaten, Mark(Winchester)

  Tyler, Paul(N Cornwall)

  O'Brien, Stephen(Eddisbury)

  Tyrie, Andrew

  Öpik, Lembit

  Walter, Robert

  Osborne, George (Tatton)

  Waterson, Nigel

  Page, Richard

  Watkinson, Angela

  Paice, James

  Webb, Steve(Northavon)

  Portillo, rh Michael

  Whittingdale, John

  Prisk, Mark(Hertford)

  Widdecombe, rh Miss Ann

  Pugh, Dr. John

  Wiggin, Bill

  Randall, John

  Willetts, David

  Redwood, rh John

  Willis, Phil

  Robathan, Andrew

  Wilshire, David

  Robertson, Hugh(Faversham & M-Kent)

  Winterton, Ann(Congleton)

  Winterton, Sir Nicholas(Macclesfield)

  Robertson, Laurence(Tewk'b'ry)

  Rosindell, Andrew

  Yeo, Tim(S Suffolk)

  Ruffley, David

  Young, rh Sir George

  Sanders, Adrian

  Selous, Andrew

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Shephard, rh Mrs Gillian

  Mr. Andrew Stunell and

  Shepherd, Richard

  Gregory Barker

  NOES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Brown, rh Nicholas(Newcastle E Wallsend)

  Adams, Irene(Paisley N)

  Ainger, Nick

  Brown, Russell(Dumfries)

  Ainsworth, Bob(Cov'try NE)

  Browne, Desmond

  Allen, Graham

  Bryant, Chris

  Anderson, Janet(Rossendale & Darwen)

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Burden, Richard

  Armstrong, rh Ms Hilary

  Burgon, Colin

  Atherton, Ms Candy

  Burnham, Andy

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Byers, rh Stephen

  Austin, John

  Cairns, David

  Bailey, Adrian

  Campbell, Alan(Tynemouth)

  Baird, Vera

  Campbell, Mrs Anne(C'bridge)

  Barnes, Harry

  Campbell, Ronnie(Blyth V)

  Battle, John

  Caplin, Ivor

  Beard, Nigel

  Casale, Roger

  Bell, Sir Stuart

  Cawsey, Ian(Brigg)

  Benn, rh Hilary

  Chapman, Ben(Wirral S)

  Bennett, Andrew

  Chaytor, David

  Benton, Joe(Bootle)

  Clapham, Michael

  Best, Harold

  Clark, Mrs Helen(Peterborough)

  Betts, Clive

  Clark, Dr. Lynda(Edinburgh Pentlands)

  Blackman, Liz

  Blizzard, Bob

  Clark, Paul(Gillingham)

  Borrow, David

  Clarke, rh Tom(Coatbridge & Chryston)

  Bradley, rh Keith(Withington)

  Bradley, Peter(The Wrekin)

  Clarke, Tony(Northampton S)

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Clelland, David

  Brennan, Kevin

  Coaker, Vernon

  209

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  Hurst, Alan(Braintree)

  Cohen, Harry

  Hutton, rh John

  Coleman, Iain

  Iddon, Dr. Brian

  Cook, Frank(Stockton N)

  Ingram, rh Adam

  Cook, rh Robin(Livingston)

  Irranca-Davies, Huw

  Cooper, Yvette

  Jackson, Glenda(Hampstead & Highgate)

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Corston, Jean

  Jackson, Helen(Hillsborough)

  Cousins, Jim

  Jamieson, David

  Cranston, Ross

  Jenkins, Brian

  Crausby, David

  Johnson, Alan(Hull W)

  Cruddas, Jon

  Johnson, Miss Melanie(Welwyn Hatfield)

  Cryer, Ann(Keighley)

  Cryer, John(Hornchurch)

  Jones, Helen(Warrington N)

  Cummings, John

  Jones, Jon Owen(Cardiff C)

  Cunningham, rh Dr. Jack(Copeland)

  Jones, Kevan(N Durham)

  Jones, Lynne(Selly Oak)

  Cunningham, Jim(Coventry S)

  Joyce, Eric(Falkirk W)

  Cunningham, Tony(Workington)

  Kaufman, rh Gerald

  Davey, Valerie(Bristol W)

  Keen, Alan(Feltham)

  Davies, rh Denzil(Llanelli)

  Kelly, Ruth(Bolton W)

  Davies, Geraint(Croydon C)

  Kemp, Fraser

  Dawson, Hilton

  Kennedy, Jane(Wavertree)

  Dhanda, Parmjit

  Khabra, Piara S.

  Dobson, rh Frank

  Kidney, David

  Donohoe, Brian H.

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Doran, Frank

  King, Andy(Rugby)

  Dowd, Jim(Lewisham W)

  Knight, Jim(S Dorset)

  Drew, David(Stroud)

  Kumar, Dr. Ashok

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Ladyman, Dr. Stephen

  Eagle, Angela(Wallasey)

  Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

  Edwards, Huw

  Lepper, David

  Efford, Clive

  Leslie, Christopher

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Levitt, Tom(High Peak)

  Ennis, Jeff(Barnsley E)

  Lewis, Ivan(Bury S)

  Farrelly, Paul

  Lewis, Tarry(Worsley)

  Field, rh Frank(Birkenhead)

  Liddell, rh Mrs Helen

  Fisher, Mark

  Linton, Martin

  Fitzpatrick, Jim

  Lloyd, Tony(Manchester C)

  Flint, Caroline

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Follett, Barbara

  Love, Andrew

  Foster, rh Derek

  Lucas, Ian(Wrexham)

  Foster, Michael Jabez(Hastings & Rye)

  Luke, Iain(Dundee E)

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Foulkes, rh George

  McCabe, Stephen

  Gibson, Dr. Ian

  McDonagh, Siobhain

  Gilroy, Linda

  McDonnell, John

  Godsiff, Roger

  MacDougall, John

  Goggins, Paul

  McFall, John

  Griffiths, Jane(Reading E)

  Mclsaao, Shona

  Griffiths, Nigel(Edinburgh S)

  McKenna, Rosemary

  Griffiths, Win(Bridgend)

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Grogan, John

  McNulty, Tony

  Hain, rh Peter

  MacShane, Denis

  Hall, Mike(Weaver Vale)

  Mactaggart, Fiona

  Hall, Patrick(Bedford)

  McWalter, Tony

  Hanson, David

  McWilliam, John

  Harris, Tom(Glasgow Cathcart)

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Healey, John

  Mallaber, Judy

  Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

  Mandelson, rh Peter

  Henderson, Ivan(Harwich)

  Mann, John (Bassetlaw)

  Hendrick, Mark

  Marsden, Gordon(Blackpool S)

  Hepburn, Stephen

  Marshall, Jim(Leicester S)

  Hewitt, rh Ms Patricia

  Marshall-Andrews, Robert

  Heyes, David

  Merron, Gillian

  Hill, Keith(Streatham)

  Michael, rh Alun

  Hinchliffe, David

  Milburn, rh Alan

  Hoon, rh Geoffrey

  Miliband, David

  Hope, Phil(Corby)

  Miller, Andrew

  Hopkins, Kelvin

  Moffatt, Laura

  Howarth, rh Alan(Newport E)

  Mole, Chris

  Howarth, George(Knowsley N & Sefton E)

  Moonie, Dr. Lewis

  Moran, Margaret

  Howells, Dr. Kim

  Morgan, Julie

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  Morris, rh Estelle

  Hughes, Kevin(Doncaster N)

  Mountford, Kali

  210

  Munn, Ms Meg

  Squire, Rachel

  Murphy, Denis(Wansbeck)

  Starkey, Dr. Phyllis

  Murphy, Jim(Eastwood)

  Steinberg, Gerry

  O'Brien, Bill(Normanton)

  Stewart, David(Inverness E & Lochaber)

  O'Brien, Mike(N Warks)

  Olner, Bill

  Stewart, Ian(Eccles)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Stinchcombe, Paul

  Organ, Diana

  Stoate, Dr. Howard

  Pearson, Ian

  Strang, rh Dr. Gavin

  Perham, Linda

  Stringer, Graham

  Pickthall, Colin

  Taylor, rh Ann(Dewsbury)

  Plaskitt, James

  Taylor, Dan(Stockton S)

  Pollard Kerry

  Thomas, Gareth(Clwyd W)

  Pound, Stephen

  Thomas, Simon(Ceredigion)

  Prentice, Gordon(Pendle)

  Timms, Stephen

  Price, Adam(E Carmarthen & Dinefwr)

  Tipping, Paddy

  Todd, Mark(S Derbyshire)

  Primarolo, rh Dawn

  Touhig, Don(IsIwyn)

  Purchase, Ken

  Truswell, Paul

  Purnell, James

  Turner, Dennis(Wolverh'ton SE)

  Quin, rh Joyce

  Turner, Dr. Desmond(Brighton Kemptown)

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Rapson, Syd(Portsmouth N)

  Twigg, Derek(Halton)

  Raynsford, rh Nick

  Twigg, Stephen(Enfield)

  Reed, Andy(Loughborough)

  Vis, Dr. Rudi

  Robinson, Geoffrey(Coventry NW)

  Walley, Ms Joan

  Ward, Claire

  Roche, Mrs Barbara

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Rooney, Terry

  Watson, Tom(W Bromwich E)

  Ross, Ernie(Dundee W)

  Watts, David

  Roy, Frank(Motherwell)

  White, Brian

  Ruane, Chris

  Whitehead, Dr. Alan

  Russell, Ms Christine(City of Chester)

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Williams, rh Alan(Swansea W)

  Ryan, Joan(Enfield N)

  Williams, Betty(Conwy)

  Salter, Martin

  Williams, Hywel(Caernarfon)

  Sarwar. Mohammad

  Wills, Michael

  Savidge, Malcolm

  Winnick, David

  Sawford, Phil

  Wintertone, Ms Rosie(Doncaster C)

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Wood, Mike(Batley)

  Shaw, Jonathan

  Woodward, Shaun

  Sheerman, Barry

  Woolas, Phil

  Short, rh Clare

  Worthington, Tony

  Simpson, Alan(Nottingham S)

  Wright, Anthony D.(Gt Yarmouth)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Smith, rh Andrew(Oxford E)

  Wright, David(Telford)

  Smith, rh Chris(Islington S & Finsbury)

  Wright, Tony(Cannock)

  Wyatt, Derek

  Smith, Jacqui(Redditch)

  Smith, Llew(Blaenau Gwent)

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Soley, Clive

  Ms Bridget Prentice and

  Southworth, Helen

  Mr. John Heppell

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Alan Simpson: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You will be aware that a large part of the preceding debate focused on the contentious subject of houses in multiple occupation and properties that are included in that category. Given that hon. Members in all parts of the House saw that as a central issue, can you advise me how Members with strong feelings on the matter might secure a vote on the definition, which will be central to this part of our housing strategy?
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Under the programme motion, there are times when the occupant of the Chair has some very difficult decisions to make, and I realise that in that instance it is unlikely we will please all of the Members all of the time. There are a number of amendments still to be discussed in this place. Of course, the Bill does go to another place.

Clause 1

  NEW SYSTEM FOR ASSESSING HOUSING CONDITIONS AND ENFORCING HOUSING STANDARDS
  Amendment made: No. 125, in page 2, line 41, leave out from 'persons' to the end of line 43 and insert
  'who form a single household.'.—[Keith Hill]

Clause 213

  MEANING OF "HOUSE IN MULTIPLE OCCUPATION"
  Amendments made: No. 50, in page 156, line 19, leave out subsection (1) and insert—
  '(1) For the purposes of this Act a building or a part of a building is a "house in multiple occupation" if—

  (a) it meets the conditions in subsection (1A) ("the standard test");

  (b) it meets the conditions in subsection (1B) ("the self-contained flat test");

  (c) it meets the conditions in subsection (1C) ("the converted building test");

  (d) a declaration notice is in force in respect of it under section (HMO declarations); or

  (e) it is a converted block of flats to which section 215 applies.

  (1A) A building or a part of a building meets the standard test if—

  (a) it consists of one or more units of living accommodation not consisting of a self-contained flat or flats;

  (b) the living accommodation is occupied by persons who do not form a single household (see section 216);

  (c) the living accomodation is occupied by those persons as their only or main residence or they are to be treated as so occupying it (see section 217);

  (d) their occupation of the living accommodation constitutes the only use of that accommodation;

  (e) rents are payable or other consideration is to be provided by at least one of those persons in respect of their occupation of the living accommodation; and

  (f) two or more of the households who occupy the living accommodation share one or more basic amenities or the living accommodation is lacking in one or more basic amenities.

  (1B) A part of a building meets the self-contained flat test if—

  (a) it consists of a self-contained flat; and

  (b) paragraphs (b) to (f) of subsection (1A) apply (reading references to the living accommodation concerned as references to the flat).

  (1C) A building or a part of a building meets the converted building test if—

  (a) it is a converted building;

  (b) it contains one or more units of living accommodation that do not consist of a self-contained flat or flats (whether or not it also contains any such flat or flats);

  (c) the living accommodation is occupied by persons who do not form a single household (see section 216);

  (d) the living accomodation is occupied by those persons as their only or main residence or they are to be treated as so occupying it (see section 217);

  (e) their occupation of the living accommodation constitutes the only use of that accommodation; and

  (f) rents are payable or other consideration is to be provided by at least one of those persons in respect of their occupation of the living accommodation.'.

  No. 51, in page 157, line 13, leave out from 'a' to 'is' in line 15 and insert
  'building or part of a building consisting of living accommodation which, having regard to the layout of that accommodation,'.
  No. 52, in page 157, leave out line 19 and insert—
  "self-contained flat" means a separate set of premises (whether or not on the same floor)—

  (a) which forms part of a building;

  (b) either the whole or a material part of which lies above or below some other part of the building; and

  (c) in which all three basic amenities are available for the exclusive use of its occupants.'.—[Keith Hill.]

Clause 214
  HMOs: HOUSES AND OTHER RELEVANT BUILDINGS
  Amendment made: No. 53, in page 157, line 20, leave out clause 214.—[Kith Hill.]
Clause 215

  HMOs: CERTAIN CONVERTED BLOCKS OF FLATS
  Amendment made: No. 126, in page 159, leave out from 'a' in line 2 to end of line 4 and insert
  'house in multiple occupation under section 213(1)(e)), does not affect the status of any flat in the block as a house in multiple occupation.'.—[Keith Hill.]

Clause 216
  HMOS: PERSONS NOT FORMING A SINGLE HOUSEHOLD
  Amendment made:. No. 56, in page 159, line 8, leave out '(1)'.—[Keith Hill]
Clause 217

  HMOs: PERSONS TREATED AS OCCUPYING PREMISES AS ONLY OR MAIN RESIDENCE
  Amendments made: No. 57, in page 159, line 35, leave out `(1)'.
  No. 58, in page 159, line 41, leave out 'women's'.
  No. 59, in page 159, line 44, at end insert—
  '(3) In subsection (2)(b) "refuge" means a building or part of a building managed by a voluntary organisation and used wholly or mainly for the temporary accommodation of persons who have left their homes as a result of—

  (a) physical violence or mental abuse, or

  (b) threats of such violence or abuse,

  from persons to whom they are or were married or with whom they are or were co-habiting.'—[Keith.Hill]

Schedule 11

  BUILDINGS WHICH ARE NOT HMOS (EXCEPT IN PART 1)
  Amendments made: No. 65, in page 217, leave out line 14.
  No. 66, in page 217, line 16, at end insert—
  '(za) a local housing authority,'.
  No. 67, in page 218, line 3,leave out 'only' and insert `solely or principally'.
  No. 68, in page 218, line 20, leave out
  'a leasehold estate in it'

  213
  and insert
  ',whether in the whole or any part of it, either the freehold estate or a leasehold interest'.
  No. 69, in page 218, line 27, at end insert
  ',except for the purpose of determining the status of any flat in the block'.—[Keith Hill.]

Clause 86

  TESTS FOR FITNESS ETC. AND SATISFACTORY MANAGEMENT ARRANGEMENTS
  Amendment made: No. 35, in page 58, line 17, at end insert
  'or any offence listed in Schedule 3 to the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (offences attracting notification requirements)'.—[Keith Hill.]

Clause 87

  LICENCE CONDITIONS
  Amendment made: No. 36, in page 59, line 15, leave out
  'steps to be taken with a view to controlling the behaviour of'
  and insert
  `the taking of such steps as are reasonably practicable to prevent or reduce anti-social behaviour by'.—[Keith Hill.]

Clause 96
  INTERIM AND FINAL MANAGEMENT ORDERS: INTRODUCTORY
  Amendment made: No. 37, in page 65, line 34, leave out '(1) or (2)'.—[Keith Hill.]
Clause 98
  SPECIAL INTERIM MANAGEMENT ORDERS
  Amendment made: No. 38, in page 68, line 13, after `interim' insert 'or final'.—[Keith Hill.]
Clause 100
  OPERATION OF INTERIM MANAGEMENT ORDERS
  Amendment made: No. 39, in page 70, line 2, leave out from beginning to 'on' in line 4.—[Keith Hill.]
Clause 101

  LOCAL HOUSING AUTHORITY'S DUTIES ONCE INTERIM MANAGEMENT ORDER IN FORCE
  Amendment made: No. 40, in page 70, line 33, leave out
  `the house is not an HMO other than one to which Part 2 of this Act applies,'
  and insert
  'subsection (4) does not apply to the house,'.—[Keith Hill.]

Clause 104

  FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENTS WHILE ORDER IS IN FORCE
  Amendment made: No. 41, in page 73, line 24, at end insert—
  '(4A) The interim management order may provide for—
  214

  (a) the rate of interest which is to apply for the purposes of paragraph (b) of subsection (4); and

  (b) the intervals at which payments are to be made under that subsection.

  Paragraph 24(2A) of Schedule 6 enables an appeal to be brought where the order does not provide for both of those matters.'.—[Keith Hill.]

Clause 107

  MAKING OF FINAL MANAGEMENT ORDERS
  Amendment made: No. 42, in page 75, line 17, leave out
  'be an HMO other than one to which Part 2 applies,'
  and insert
  `not be one that would be required to be licensed as mentioned in subsection (2)(a),'.—[Keith Hill.]

Clause 108
  OPERATION OF FINAL MANAGEMENT ORDERS
  Amendment made: No. 43, in page 76, line 40, leave out from beginning to 'on' in line 42.—[Keith Hill]
Clause 129

  INDEX OF DEFINED EXPRESSIONS: PART 4
  Amendment made: No. 17, in page 91, line 33, at end insert—
  'Modifications Section 209(7)'.—[Keith Hill.]

Schedule 6

  MANAGEMENT ORDERS: PROCEDURE AND APPEALS
  Amendments made: No. 62, in page 191, line 14, leave out 'and'.
  No. 63, in page 191, line 15, at end insert—
  'and
  '(c) the date on which the order is to cease to have effect in accordance with section 100(4) and (5) or 108(3) and (4) (or, if applicable, how the date mentioned in section 100(6) is to be determined),'.
  No. 64, in page 194, line 44, at end insert—
  'An appeal may be made under sub-paragraph (1)(b) on the grounds that the terms of interim management order do not provide for one or both of the matters mentioned in section 104(4A)(a) and (b) (which relate to payments of surplus rent etc.).
  (2B) Where an appeal is made under sub-paragraph (1)(b) only on those grounds—

  (a) the appeal may be brought at any time while the order is in force (with the result that nothing in subparagraph (3) or paragraph 25 applies in relation to the appeal); and

  (b) the powers of the residential property tribunal under paragraph 26 are limited to determining whether the order should be varied by the tribunal so as to include a term providing for the matter or matters in question, and (if so) what provision should be made by the term.'.—[Keith Hill.]

New Clause 13

  SECTION 138: IMPOSITION OF CONDITIONS.
  `(1) A potential buyer who has made a request to which section 138(1) applies may be required to comply with either or both of the following conditions before any copy is provided.

  (2) The potential buyer may be required to pay a charge authorised by section 138(7).

  (3) The potential buyer may be required to accept any terms specified in writing which—

  (a) are proposed by the seller or in pursuance of his instructions: and

  (b) relate to the use or disclosure of the copy (or any information contained in or derived from it).

  (4) Such a condition is only effective if it is notified to the potential buyer before the end of the period of 14 days beginning with the day on which the request is made.

  (5) Where the potential buyer has been so notified of either or both of the conditions authorised by this section, the permitted period for the purposes of section 138 is the period of 14 days beginning with—

  (a) where one condition is involved, the day on which the potential buyer complies with it by—

  (i) making the payment demanded, or

  (ii) accepting the terms proposed (or such other terms as may be agreed between the seller and the potential buyer in substitution for those proposed),

  as the case may be; or

  (b) where both conditions are involved, the day (or the later of the days) on which the potential buyer complies with them by taking the action mentioned in paragraph (a)(i) and (ii).'.—[Keith Hill.]

  Brought up, and read the First time.
  Keith Hill: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: New clause 27—Incomplete home information packs—
  'A property may be marketed with an incomplete Home Information Pack in circumstances where reasonable efforts have been made to obtain the missing information.'.
  New clause 32—Regulation of estate agents—

  '(1) The Secretary of State shall by regulations set up a mandatory licensing scheme for persons engaged in estate agency work in relation to Home Information Packs to ensure that such persons satisfy minimum standards of competence.

  (2) The regulations shall specify a degree of practical experience which is to be taken as evidence of competence and, without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1) above, the regulations shall also—

  (a) prescribe professional or academic qualifications which shall also be taken to be evidence of competence;

  (b) designate any body of persons as a body which may itself specify professional qualifications the holding of which is to be taken as evidence of competence;

  (c) make provision for and in connection with the establishment of a body having power to examine and inquire into the competence of persons engaged or professing to engage in estate agency work; and

  (d) delegate to a body established under paragraph (c) above the powers of the Secretary of State with respect to the matters referred to in paragraph (a) above.'.

  216
  Government amendments Nos. 81 and 82.
  Amendment No. 88, in clause 137, page 94, line 21, leave out from beginning to 'have' and insert—
  `As a matter of voluntary discretion, a person may'.
  [R] Relevant registered interest declared.
  Amendment No. 110, in page 94, line 23, after '143', insert—
  `unless the property is marketed as being sold without a home information pack'.'
  Amendment No. 89, in page 94, line 23, at end insert—
  `(1A) The seller, when marketing the property, is obliged to specify whether or not a home information pack is to be provided'.
  Amendment No. 90, in page 94, line 24, leave out subsection (2).
  Amendment No. 109, in page 94, line 30, at end insert—
  `()the seller markets the property himself'.
  Amendment No. 111, in page 94, line 30, at end insert—
  `(c) the seller hay indicated that the property is to be sold without a home information pack'.
  Amendment No. 91, in clause 138, page 94, line 33, after 'which,' insert', where available,'.
  Government amendments Nos. 83 and 84.
  Amendment No. 112, in page 95, line 10, leave out paragraph (c).
  Government amendment No. 85.
  Amendment No. 113, in clause 144, page 99, line 3, at end insert—
  '(aa) for ensuring that members of the scheme are independent'
  Amendment No. 114, in page 99, line 4, leave out `suitable' and insert adequate and appropriate'.
  Amendment No. 115, in page 99, line 10, at end insert—
  `()for sellers, buyers and lenders to be entitled to bring proceedings in respect of a home condition report upon which they have relied in any transaction'.
  Amendment No. 92, in page 99, line 16, at end insert—
  '(8) A responsible person will be exempt from the requirement to provide a Home Condition Report in the following circumstances—

  (a) the sale of a new home provided that it is registered with a warranty provider designated by the Secretary of State,

  (b) the resale of a new home where the warranty cover remains in force,

  (c) the transfer of ownership by a developer of a new home to another company prior to marketing the property to the public where the company assuming ownership is registered with a warranty provider designated by the Secretary of State.'.

  Amendment No. 93, in page 99, line 18 leave out clauses 145 to 149.
  Government amendments Nos. 86 and 44 to 46.
  Amendment No. 133, in clause 209, page 155, line 25, at end insert
  'or
  (d) any regulations under Part 5.'.

  217
  Amendment No.131, in clause 226, page 163, line 17, leave out '153'.
  Amendment No.132, in page 163, line 38, leave out '(other than section 153)'.
  Keith Hill: I rise with a degree of embarrassment, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I have lost my place, and I feel that the House requires an explanation—[Interruption.] The Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), has rescued me, and I am now in a position to commend Government new clause 13 to the House.
  The Government amendments are designed to ensure that the home information pack proposals are as effective as possible, without interfering more than is necessary with the rights of sellers, although I fear that some hon. Members think that the Bill already interferes excessively. However, I assure the House that part 5 of the Bill is absolutely necessary if we are to improve the home buying and selling process in England and Wales, which is currently shambolic.
  Clause 150 currently provides that the Secretary of State will identify the situations in which the use of information in the pack is restricted. New clause 13 replaces that with a provision allowing sellers themselves to identify conditions on the use and onward disclosure of information supplied in the pack. In practice, however, sellers and agents who have gone to the trouble and expense of compiling a pack are likely to want to use it to maximum effect by making it available to potential buyers without imposing conditions, unless, for example, they are a celebrity who wants to prevent the media from getting hold of it.
  Under new clause 13, sellers and their agents would still need an HIP and to provide a copy to trading standards officers on demand. Sellers and agents can already refuse to supply a copy of the HIP to any person to whom the seller is not prepared to sell or who does not appear to be a genuine buyer. New clause 13 will not add restrictions to access by potential buyers; it just allows conditions to be attached by the seller to the use and onward disclosure of information in the pack. We see no reason to qualify or restrict the conditions that may be imposed, and there seems little point in doing so, bearing in mind that the seller could simply refuse to supply a copy of the HIP on the grounds that they would not sell the property to the person in question.
  Mr. Edward Davey: Will the Minister explain how the new clause will enable the seller or the seller's agent to identify a person who asks for a HIP?
  Keith Hill: Again, the hon. Gentleman must forgive me, because I did not catch the entirety of his question. Will he repeat it?
  Mr. Davey: By all means. How will the new clause enable a seller or a seller's agent to be certain of the identity of the person to whom the HIP is being given? Part of the concern is that people—possibly journalists—who want a scoop on, for example, Posh and Becks, might go round estate agents asking for particulars. How will the new clause deal with that aspect of the problem?
  Keith Hill: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, we hope to come on to that exact point in later exchanges.
  218
  Government amendment No. 86 removes clause 150. Government amendment No. 81 is a drafting amendment that ensures that clause 136 is consistent with the idea that the duties set out in clauses 137 to 139 continually apply while a person is the responsible person, and Government amendment No. 82 permits exceptions to that continual duty. For example, clause 138 only creates a legal duty in relation to a particular request, and the amendment ensures that clause 136 is consistent with that approach. Amendment No. 83 is needed to ensure that clause 138(2) is consistent with clause 149(5). As currently drafted, clause 138(2) requires a responsible person to supply copies of the documents that are in the HIP on the date that the request is made.
  Clause 149 gives a right to bring legal action for costs against the responsible person if the information that is supplied in the pack is not what is in the home information pack on the date the pack is supplied. It is important that the two duties match up and vital that buyers get the most up-to-date version of the pack.
  3.45 pm
  Clause 138 sets out some circumstances in which the responsible person may turn down a request for copies without breaching any duty. Amendment No. 84 makes it clear that the responsible person has 14 days to establish whether, on reasonable grounds, they are entitled to turn down a request.
  Amendment No. 85 is a drafting amendment that is consequential on new clause 13. Clause 138(8) provides that the period allowed to provide a copy of the pack is 14 days from the date on which the request is made. The amendment makes it clear that that is subject to any extension of that period arising where conditions have been imposed under new clause 13. Clause 138(8A) provides that the duty to provide a copy of the pack ceases when the property is taken off the market or sold before the end of the 14 days. Amendment No. 85 makes it clear that a person will not breach any duty if, for example, he fails to provide a copy of the pack when he has already agreed to sell his house to another person.
  Mr. Syms: This important part of the Bill remains controversial among Conservative Members and others, so I suspect that it will lead to a vote. If we catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, we shall want to move amendment No. 88, which would make the provision of a home information pack voluntary, because, having listened to all the arguments in Committee, we are still unconvinced about the scheme's benefits. If it was such a good idea, the industry would adopt it anyway, but imposing it will add substantially to the costs faced by home buyers and may well slow the process down, not speed it up. We were told in Committee that the cost of a home information pack would be about £600, but the bodies to which I have spoken suggest that that would be a minimum amount and that the real cost would quickly move closer to £800 or £900—perhaps even £1,000. That would be a comparatively small cost for the owner of a £1 million property in Chelsea, but a substantial burden on the

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  owner of a home worth £30,000 or £40,000 in the midlands or the north. The scheme will create real problems, especially in areas of low demand.
  Mr. David Kidney: But does the hon. Gentleman agree that most of those costs are already incurred in today's market, the only difference being that the buyer pays them, not the seller?
  Mr. Syms: I agree that many of the costs are already imposed, but they usually fall due only when the house is sold, whereas the costs involved in this pack will be incurred when the house goes on the market. Although there is of course no guarantee that it will eventually sell, somebody with a house worth, say, £40,000 in an area of low demand will have to meet the cost at some point—possibly up front, as suppliers of the packs may demand in areas where they have less confidence that the home will be sold. The danger is that those who can ill afford it will have to pay those who have provided the information without the guarantee that they will eventually sell their home. That may be a very material feature when people decide whether they want to put their house on the market—or, indeed, to test the market by putting their house with an estate agent, as many people do in the current conditions. Now, people will be able to test the market only by incurring costs of £600, £700 or £800.
  Bob Spink: Does my hon. Friend agree that his analysis, which I believe to be correct, leads to the conclusion that fewer people will put their houses on the market, which means that supply will be restricted, thus driving up house price inflation?
  Mr. Syms: There is a risk of that happening. Indeed, the Minister will need to reassure the House on a number of issues in regard to this project, including the shelf life of a home information pack. Most of the professional bodies to whom I have spoken believe that, following the process of producing the pack and the home condition report, its shelf life would probably be six months—certainly for the home condition report. If a house did not sell, there might therefore be further costs involved in updating aspects of the pack.
  We also heard extensively in Committee about the problem of the severe shortage of surveyors, with perhaps 9,000 to 10,000 being needed. Between now and 2006–07, when the scheme will be introduced, substantial efforts will have to be made by all the relevant professional bodies and by the building industry to produce the number of people necessary to undertake the surveys involved. We all get frustrated by the fact that transactions in the housing market sometimes do not proceed as rapidly as they should. I suspect that the answer is more to do with technology than with change, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), who raised these issues in Committee. We had some good debates about how nonpaper-based information could be used to speed up the housing market. My colleagues and I are not convinced that a home information pack is the answer.
  As I understand it, if someone goes into an estate agent, they will initially get the details of the property. If, having looked at them, they considered themselves a
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  potential buyer, they would ask the estate agent if they could view the home information pack. Under new clause 13, which the Minister introduced, it would need to be supplied within 14 days, and would possibly be subject to a charge of to some kind of legal agreement or conditions, so that a degree of confidentiality could be obtained regarding the information.
  I presume that, as the person would still be only a potential buyer at that point, the costs incurred under the new clause would be the costs of printing off and sending the information, and that the full cost of producing a home information pack would be charged only when someone had actually undertaken to buy a property and signed a contract. I presume that the full cost would be met only at that point. So, when new clause 13 states that the
  "potential buyer may be required to pay a charge authorised by section 138(7)",
  I presume that that refers only to an administrative charge for supplying the information to potential buyers.
  Perhaps the Minister can tell the House what has been put down in the Bill as a reasonable charge. At the moment, estate agents provide a nice picture of the property and its details free. No doubt, if a prospective buyer were a little more serious and wanted to view the property, they would ask for the home information pack, and the issue of a charge would arise. Some estate agents might decide to accept that cost as part of their overheads because they wanted to sell the property. Indeed, some owners might decide to carry the cost of printing off and sending out the details because they were desperate to sell. However, under new clause 13, it looks as though an estate agent could levy a charge for the provision of this information.
  My concern is that estate agents could charge rather more substantial sums than is envisaged by the Government. No figure has been discussed in relation to the provision of this information to potential buyers, as opposed to the actual buyer. Will the Minister give the House an indication of what such a charge might be? Estate agents have to run their offices, pay their staff, and hold and print the information, and I can envisage some of them providing the information on a paper-based system and having to charge a potential buyer £30 to £40 for it. How will that impact on the way in which the market works?
  I would therefore like to hear more about new clause 13. In Committee, we did not really talk about the charge. We talked about the main buyer and the main overall costs. The Minister listed specific aspects of the home information pack and stated what he believed that the charge would be. As I said earlier, he also disputed that it would be more than £600. However, if estate agents or those selling homes are allowed to charge a fee purely for printing a document, putting it in a glossy brochure and sending it through the post—perhaps registered delivery if they do not want the information to be publicly available—the charge under new clause 13(2) could be substantial. How would that impact on the way in which the market works?
  I am sorry to say that the Minister's most persuasive and articulate arguments in Committee did not persuade my hon. Friends or me that the new clause was

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  the best way forward. At the appropriate point, we may seek your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, to put amendment No. 88 to the vote so that hon. Members can express how they feel. We believe in voluntary not compulsory procedures. If the market works and the pack is as big an asset as the Government believe, I am sure that the industry will pick it up as a voluntary option, which does not have to be imposed by central Government diktat.
  Mr. Betts: I want to speak about new clause 32, which would introduce a scheme to license estate agents. The home information pack is a major regulation issue and I must admit that when I first heard about it and we considered it in the Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, I was mildly sceptical about whether it would improve the process of selling and buying homes. Such is the power of the Minister's persuasive talents that I came round to the view that it is generally a good scheme and should be supported. I am sure that he will think about my persuasive talents when he decides to support new clause 32.
  The Government are committed to a major item of regulation that will clearly formulate the way in which houses are bought and sold in this country. As part of that process, solicitors will perform their traditional conveyancing role. Of course, they have to be qualified and they are regulated in a specific way. The compulsory home conditions survey that we are introducing is also subject to regulation and the inspectors who carry out the surveys must be qualified for the job. There is an issue about training, which the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) mentioned, and the Government must tackle that to get the scheme right.
  As public representatives, we have some duty to safeguard people from their worse follies. Two thirds of people buy a property without a proper home conditions survey. That is a bit silly and it is right for us to protect them from the mess into which they can get. That is one of the reasons for my support of the proposal for the home information pack.
  However, although a series of professionals engaged in the process will be subject to licensing, regulation and the need for qualifications, the group of individuals who put the pack together, formulate and produce it will be completely unregulated. Any individual can walk in off the street, rent a property on a short-term lease, then stick a notice outside stating, "We are Rip-off and Folly, local estate agents. Come and sell your house through us." They would be entitled, with no controls, to formulate and produce a home information pack, which is subject to legislation and regulation. That is a glaring anomaly. The set of individuals who have to bring together the whole regulated process and will probably be paid more than anyone else for their endeavours—some people may not always perceive them as endeavours—will remain unregulated.
  The BBC's "Brassed Off Britain" and Which?, the Consumers Association publication, have undertaken work to examine the current position. A survey was conducted into buying and selling homes in this country. It showed that 1.8 million homes are bought and sold every year and that fewer than half the people polled were satisfied with the service that they received from estate agents. That is probably not surprising. Over two thirds thought that estate agents frequently gave
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  misleading information about their properties and 82 per cent. thought that all estate agents should be trained. It does not seem unreasonable to insist that those who do that job should be trained.
  People were very concerned that those who would do the home conditions survey should be trained. I think those who would produce the sellers pack should be trained as well, and that they should have a professional qualification. Two thirds thought that the Government should license estate agents. That view, I think, would be fairly well reflected among Members of the House if they were asked to give their opinion based on their own experience.
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  I do not want to imply that every estate agent does a bad job, but we should go and talk to the better estate agents—the ones who have a reputation to think about—as they also would welcome a licensing arrangement, because it would lift the standard of their industry and bring a new respect to it. Such an arrangement would also mean that the rip-off merchants and the cowboys could not do a bad job and give the whole of estate agency a bad name. Many of the good estate agents would welcome my proposals.
  There is, of course, an ombudsman for estate agents. The problem there, however, is that only a third of estate agents belong to the scheme. While someone who is selling a home can decide to go to an estate agent who is a member of that scheme—I certainly recommend it—people who want to buy a particular home that they are interested in cannot choose to go to a member of the scheme because the agent for the property will already have been appointed by the seller. That is another flaw.
  In the meantime, the Minister could easily decide that all estate agents must become a member of the ombudsman scheme. That would be a step in the right direction, but it would not be perfect because, essentially, an ombudsman scheme is about sorting out problems after they have occurred. However, a proper system of regulating and licensing estates agents, and ensuring that they are trained, would try to deliver a better service from the beginning and prevent problems from occurring in the first place.
  Mr. Simon Thomas: I want to make one point that I hope the hon. Gentleman accepts. It is not true that all estate agents are not trained or are not professionals in some way, shape or form. Many estate agents, particularly in rural areas, are chartered surveyors as well. Therefore, they have that other aspect to their work.
  I agree with the hon. Gentleman in this regard: if we are to have compulsory home information packs, the buyer and the seller need some assurance on the contents of those packs. Most people will still trust the estate agent to put the pack together, but if it contains a fault they will have no comeback on those estate agents, unless they belong to the scheme to which he has referred. He is on the right track there.
  Mr. Betts: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point, with which I agree in general. Indeed, I had a phone call from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors the

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  other day, saying that it generally supports the licence scheme as well. It needs to give that professionalism and certainty to the service being delivered.
  I put it to the Minister that there is a difference now that we are to have the home information pack. The public will believe that, because the Government are insisting on the pack, it somehow has Government approval behind it. If the people who are formulating the pack and pulling it together are not necessarily trained—some may be, some may not be—not necessarily qualified; subject to no proper controls and no proper regulation; and not necessarily part of an ombudsman scheme, the Government could be the ones who get blamed in the end for the deficiencies of the service.
  Mr. Alan Hurst: My hon. Friend may realise that estate agencies often contain within their partnership chartered surveyors, who may well be the same people who draw up the home survey report. There is an inherent conflict of interest from which the purchaser—now called the buyer—may well suffer.
  Mr. Betts: That is another fair point that needs to be sorted out. It shows again why we ought to have clear regulations laid down so that the public understand what is expected and required of the individuals who engage in this process on their behalf.
  Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I declare an interest as a fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Becoming a chartered surveyor involves a minimum of four years' training. In proposing a training scheme, will the hon. Gentleman give the House some idea of what training he thinks would be necessary and who would grant the qualification at the end of the process?
  Mr. Betts: No, not off the top of my head. I have deliberately left the new clause open so that Ministers can take it away and consider those issues with the people in the industry. I see a body being set up, perhaps by the industry, but under regulation. That is something for the Minister to come back on. I do not want to say at this stage that two or three years' training would be appropriate, but clearly some training, a qualification and a form of licensing are what I am arguing for.
  Finally, I understand that the Minister may be in a dilemma. I am sure that he is aware that when the public are polled and consulted on these issues, often, the only group of individuals who are seen to come lower down in their estimation than politicians are estate agents. He might be in danger of ensuring, at a stroke, greater public respect and support for the job of estate agency by lifting that group of individuals above his colleagues in the public esteem. In considering that issue, I am sure that the Minister will also have regard to the fact that if he introduced a scheme for licensing and training estate agents throughout the country, he would probably become the most popular individual politician in the country. I leave him with that thought.
  Mr. Edward Davey: The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) is raising his status with his
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  helpful speech and new clause. At this relatively late stage of the Bill, were the Government radically to reform part 5 and make a home information pack voluntary, but adopt the approach of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe, they could get a consensus in this House. It is agreed, not necessarily by every Member of the House but quite widely, that the estate agency profession needs regulation and training. The hon. Gentleman did not mention, but he might have done, that the National Association of Estate Agents is in favour of the profession being regulated, which might strike some people as odd, but the good estate agents are concerned to drive out the cowboys. What is interesting is that those same estate agents, who are looking to improve the quality of their profession, think that the compulsory home information pack would be a disaster, both for their profession and for the housing market.
  Unlike the hon. Gentleman, therefore, I was not convinced by the soothing words of the Minister in Committee. I want to spend some time explaining why the Liberal Democrats oppose the Government's proposal to introduce compulsory regulation of the buying and selling of homes.
  I shall start by replying to the Minister's introduction of new clause 13. It is doubtlessly a step forward in terms of ensuring that the seller can ensure that a potential buyer does not disclose information. As I sought to indicate, however, it has not gone far enough. There are still concerns that people who roll up claiming to be potential buyers could have nefarious motives. Clause 138(4)(c) states that the duty of producing a home information pack does not apply if the "responsible person", the estate agent,
  "believes on reasonable grounds that the person making the request… is not a person to whom the seller is likely to be prepared to sell the property."
  The Minister might say that that provision guards against the concern that an agent might have that the home information pack will be given to someone from the criminal fraternity, for example. I return to the point that I made in an intervention, however: how will the "responsible person" be able to identify these people? We are being given a process through regulation whereby the criminal fraternity, journalists and others—they are not synonymous—will be able to access the property details of individuals, about which I am very concerned.
  Hurst: I declare an interest as a member of the country's most regulated profession, as I am a solicitor in the firm of Law, Hurst and Taylor. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman makes too strong a point. At present, anybody can walk into an estate agent's office and receive sale particulars and sometimes a glossy brochure. Were film stars or other people of note to offer their properties for sale, all the information that the journalist, and probably the criminal, could want is already available without any check whatever from high street agents.
  Mr. Davey: I agree with the Law Society, which is worried that the home information packs may contain much more information than estate agents' particulars—details of burglar alarms, for example. Those certainly do not appear in the information provided by estate agents.

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  The main issue is whether the packs should be compulsory or voluntary. Our amendments Nos. 110 and 111 would have an effect similar to that of amendment No. 88, tabled by the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), which we shall support if it is pressed to a vote. They seek to make the provision of packs voluntary. We think that if the content of the packs is set out in law so that everyone knows what will be in them, they may well prove helpful to those buying and selling property, so we should let the market decide. By all means let sellers offer the packs as an added competitive advantage to attract potential buyers, but let us not impose them on the market. That might load extra costs on to people who might then be dissuaded from putting their properties on the market, either because they are short of a few readies or because they are merely speculatively testing the market, having seen a property that they liked at the weekend. Making the packs compulsory could freeze the market.
  I wonder whether Professor Barker was asked to look at the new clause. She has produced an important piece of work about housing supply and restrictions on its improvement. Many people, not just in the House but outside, think that this new regulation will make the situation much worse. I bet Professor Barker would have been very alarmed if it had been brought to her attention.
  Sir Sydney Chapman: I entirely agree with what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Given that the provision represents a radical departure from the present arrangements governing the buying and selling of homes, would it not be wise for the Government to introduce it as a voluntary measure? If it proves to be as much of a success as its proponents claim, it can always be made compulsory later.
  Mr. Davey: As the hon. Gentleman may know, the Law Society has its own transaction scheme, which the Minister praised in Committee. It was designed to streamline and speed up the collecting of information for the buyer, and to help avoid gazumping and gazundering. Some 75 per cent. of buyers have signed up to it, on a voluntary basis. It excludes the search, because people declined to pay for it upfront. The experiment has proved popular, but the Government are ignoring the experience of the scheme by seeking to force detailed information on people.
  Amendment No. 109 seeks to ensure that a seller who is marketing his own property need not produce a home information pack. We feel that in the age of the internet, people should be encouraged to use the technology to market their own properties if they so choose, and should be exempt from regulation of this kind. I do not see why the Government are against that sort of DIY home selling, which would be a great competitive spur to this particular market.
  4.15 pm
  New clause 27 seeks to enable someone to market their home when they have an incomplete pack in circumstances in which reasonable efforts have been made to obtain the missing information. That is necessary because the seller will be reliant on other bodies and organisations to access information for the
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  home information pack. For example, they might need to obtain service charge information from a landlord or managing agent. What will happen if that landlord or agent delays, imposes unreasonable charges or fails to furnish invoices or receipts for payments made for previous service charges, which people often like to see when they purchase a property? If a seller has made reasonable attempts to put together a home information pack but has been thwarted by people whom they cannot control, it seems unreasonable to prevent them from going ahead and marketing their property. I hope that the Minister can give a full answer to the proposition in new clause 27.
  Amendment No. 113 takes up a point already made. We want to make sure that the home inspectors who produce the report are independent. There is a real concern that estate agents, mortgage lenders, building fabric warranty providers and financial product providers will all come together in a vertical integration of the market in which the conflicts of interest will be many and damaging to the consumer interest. The Government are arguing that the measure favours the consumer, but if those sorts of company come together, with home inspectors being part of estate agent firms or financial institutions, consumers will seriously lose out. There are some real vested interests who support this new measure, and if the Government were really standing up for consumers they would understand that, and stop that new cartel in its tracks before it formed.
  Amendment No. 114 seeks to amend clause 144 to ensure that the people who provide the packs have adequate indemnity insurance. The Government have been crossing their fingers and hoping that the people who provide the packs will be able to get professional indemnity insurance, although they have been told by the market that that will be very expensive and might exclude many people. That could make the shortage in the supply of people able to carry out inspections even worse. I hope that the Minister will give due consideration to amendment No. 114.
  Mr. Clifton-Brown: Amendment No. 114 is the most crucial of the lot, because if the home condition inspectors do not have professional indemnity insurance, no reliance at all will be able to be placed on their inspection reports. When one considers the money involved in buying or selling a house, one realises that the possibility of those inspectors' missing some vital defect in a property could involve many thousands of pounds. If that process is not properly insured, the whole system will fall into disrepute.
  I do not see how an insurance company will be able to provide that cover unless the inspectors are properly trained and qualified, a point made by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts). That aspect needs careful thought before the Government introduce home condition reports.
  Mr. Davey: I am grateful for that point, which the hon. Gentleman made very well. It brings me to amendment No. 115, which is along similar lines. It seeks to allow sellers, buyers and lenders to bring proceedings where they have relied on information contained in the home condition report that then proves incorrect. It is important that that aspect be clarified. If the Government are doing consumers a service—an

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  argument that I do not really accept—they need to make sure that the reports work. That means not just that inspectors should have professional indemnity insurance behind them, but that if the reports prove incorrect, the consumer knows that they can go to law, without any problems, and seek redress. I hope that amendment No. 115 will be accepted.
  Amendment No. 115 and many of the others that I have tabled seek to make a dreadful proposal slightly better, so I hope that even at this late stage, the Government will take a different tack. I hope that they will support amendment No. 88, support the amendments that my party has tabled, support the new clause of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe, but drop the absurd, outrageous, costly and damaging proposal to make home information packs compulsory.
  Mr. Kidney: Fundamentally, the Government seek to make the seller responsible for having all the information needed for the transaction at the beginning, rather than the buyer collecting it in dribs and drabs during the transaction itself, as happens now. We are talking about 1.8 million transactions a year, nearly two thirds of which are in chains, with an average of five transactions per chain. So in a voluntary system, just one non-participant in a chain prevents everybody from benefiting from the Government's scheme. Because of our reliance on such chains under the current system, there is a 33 per cent. transaction failure rate, which is extremely wasteful.
  We have heard many times about Maria Coleman, the Bristol estate agent who has a voluntary scheme called "Open Book", through which everything is prepared by the seller at the beginning of the transaction. Her hugely successful voluntary scheme has reduced the failed transaction rate from 33 per cent. to just 3 per cent. It has been running for some seven years, so perhaps Conservative Members can explain to me why there has not been a landslide take-up of such schemes. In fact, Maria Coleman has so many problems with others not following the scheme that she supports compulsion.
  Andrew Selous: As I recall, it was pointed out in Committee that Maria Coleman's scheme provides her with significant additional fee income. Does the hon. Gentleman not think that vested professional interests are involved, in order to boost their earnings?
  Mr. Kidney: The extra money is of course for the inspectors. However, the Government's scheme makes provision for inspectors, so that is not a consideration. What is a consideration is that under the current system, several buyers incur the same costs for one property, yet only one will buy it—again, that is wasteful—whereas one seller would incur the costs for everyone. I am sure that the market will develop systems to enable the seller to put off repayment of the costs until the transaction has concluded, as happens with the voluntary scheme.
  As the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) rightly said, there are two problems: shelf life and the sale not proceeding. Here, the Government have clearly decided to grit their teeth and see things through. I am glad that
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  the hon. Gentleman mentioned my discussion in Committee of electronic home information packs, which will cut costs and time yet further. I certainly support the registration of estate agents to make sure that they perform their part of the scheme competently.
  At the moment, only one in five buyers purchases a house—at huge expense; indeed, it is the greatest investment of their lives—with a surveyor's report that is equivalent to, or better than, a home buyer's report and valuation. Four out of five do not obtain a report of that standard. Most buyers purchasing with a mortgage rely instead on the lender's survey and report. There are three levels of survey: a basic valuation of a property; a home buyer's report and valuation; and a full structural report. Some 80 to 90 per cent. of buyers with a mortgage rely on a basic valuation. They are paying, so they choose the cheapest.
  Someone else obtains the report, but it is the buyers who rely on it. It is worth pointing out that when things go wrong with the report, buyers sue the valuers. That will help to reassure hon. Members that under the Government's scheme, there will be a remedy. In fact, a few lenders refuse to disclose the report in order to avoid litigation risk to themselves and their valuers. Thus some people pay for the basic valuation report, do not get to see it, but carry on and buy their homes. Basic valuation reports clearly involve shorter time inspections and are for a different purpose; they are not what buyers require when making such a huge investment. Most lenders' valuers carry out physical inspections in making those reports, but in recent years there have been a few examples of fast-tracking, which some call desk-top evaluations or drive-by evaluations. Such practices are much more common in the United States of America.
  There are legitimate concerns about the number of inspectors and their training, the presence of their indemnity insurance, and the cost of the infrastructure and implementation plan, but those are all practicalities. They must be got right, but they do not amount to objections to the principles, which concern transparency, certainty, consumer protection and consumer satisfaction.
  A Consumers Association survey of more than 1,000 adults at the end of last year found that 82 per cent. thought that home information packs would be "very useful" and 13 per cent. "fairly useful"—95 per cent. in total. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister report on "Piloting the Home Condition Report", published in February this year, found that the majority of those taking part—sellers, buyers, estate agents, conveyancers and inspectors—liked the idea of a home condition report and found it easy to understand. The report said:
  "Most sellers and buyers considered the report to be accurate and independent."
  It really is a good scheme, which has had all the right preparations and a long lead-in time, as the Minister has announced. The scheme will be a success.
  Sir Sydney Chapman: I shall be brief, as much of what I wanted to say has already been covered by my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) and, indeed, by the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey).
  The crucial question is whether the proposal for home improvement packs will streamline the buying and selling of a home, or be just an additional bureaucratic

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  cost. As my hon. Friend explained, the cost is likely to be in the order of £600 and perhaps more. I am willing to take an even bet with anyone that if it were £600 in the first year, it would increase by 50 per cent. within five years. That is an aside, but if we are to introduce a radically new proposal, we must think about costs.
  I want to raise two issues. First, some people in the market need to sell their home quickly because an emergency has occurred. Will the new scheme help to deal with that problem? Secondly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Poole mentioned, these are problems with houses of very low value. We tend to think, quite rightly, that the cost of buying is going up and up. I know that in the three most northern regions in England, the average cost of a house has now hit the six-figure barrier—more than £100,000. The average cost of a home in London, though, is more than £250,000. There is no problem there. The problem arises generally in parts of the north where housing is very cheap because, for one reason or another, it is virtually unsellable. Various Government amendments and new clauses will change the Bill, but I hope that the scheme that results will bear in mind that particular problem.
  All in all, it is a radically new proposal and genuine arguments exist on both sides of the issue. It would be a foolish person who denied that some of the arguments for introducing HIPs were compelling, but, equally, there are opposing arguments. I am bound to say, as an honorary member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors—I am not a fellow and I have no financial interest—that we should err on the cautious side and introduce the scheme on a voluntary basis first. If it proved successful, it could then be extended.
  Keith Hill: I regret having to rise to speak when I know that other hon. Members want to enter the debate, but it is wholly appropriate that I respond to points raised in the debate so far.
  I shall start by responding to two specific questions. The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) intervened on my speech to ask how new clause 13 would enable the seller or agent to be certain of the identity of a person to whom a pack was given. The precise answer is that it would not. The position will remain as at present. If the seller is concerned, conditions can be attached, but our conviction is that most sellers will not be concerned. A propos the same new clause, the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) asked what the charge for a copy of the pack covers, and the answer is, the cost of the copy and the documents requested.
  4.30 pm
  My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney)—also known as my guru—spoke eloquently on this subject. I suspect that we shall hear from him again, and those of us who are early-morning listeners to Radio 4 heard him before 7 o'clock this morning.
  I want to deal with those amendments that would introduce a voluntary home information pack system, rather than the compulsory system that is proposed. I must resist them. As I have said repeatedly, a voluntary HIP system would essentially continue the shambolic mess that we have at present. It would allow sellers to avoid the duties by ensuring that the marketing material
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  made it clear that the property was being sold without a pack. Going down that road would lead us to the worst of all worlds.
  HIPs need to be compulsory to ensure that everyone benefits from them. We are in no doubt about that: voluntary arrangements simply would not work. It is inevitable that, given the choice, some sellers—perhaps a measurable proportion—would choose to market their homes without an HIP. They might do that in an attempt to avoid costs, or in the hope that they might avoid having to disclose information, for example about a problem with the condition of the property that an HIP would identify. That would be unfair to buyers who had provided a pack for their own sale.
  More harmfully, the amendments would result in an unsatisfactory two-track process, in which sales without packs would slow down connected sales with packs. In a chain, that would cancel out the very benefits that the Bill seeks to achieve. We would end up with a system that fostered waste, uncertainty and delay—the very opposite of the Government's intentions. There is no scope for relaxing the mandatory nature of the duties if we want to improve the efficiency of the housing market and protect the interests of all home buyers and sellers.
  I turn to new clause 32, moved—also very eloquently—by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts). He got in very early with the joke about politicians versus estate agents that will have been in the front of hon. Members' minds when considering this matter.
  Mr. Clifton-Brown: Will the Minister give way?
  Keith Hill: No. I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman because, in due course and as rapidly as possible, I want to deal with a point that he raised in the debate.
  The licensing of estate agents is, quite rightly, of considerable interest. This debate is very timely, following the recent report from the Office of Fair Trading, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe alluded, and the even more recent publications by Which? and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
  The issues debated today in relation to new clause 32 will be of even greater significance when HIPs are introduced, as many hon. Members observed. Estate agents will have a pivotal role in delivering HIPs to their seller clients and to the home-buying public. HIPs will cover a range of documents and information that are currently outside the marketing role that agents perform. That means that estate agents will need to be more professional and have a better knowledge and understanding of all aspects of the process of buying and selling homes. It is essential to the smooth and successful introduction of HIPs that estate agents rise to this challenge, as the RICS and the National Association of Estate Agents recognise.
  I therefore sympathise with the intentions behind new clause 32, but hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe will appreciate that I am unable to accept it.
  The OFT has published a market study report on estate agents that includes recommendations about the future regulation of the industry. My right hon. Friend

  231
  the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is considering the report's recommendations and aims to publish a response within 90 days. Ministers and officials at the Department of Trade and Industry are meeting estate agents' representative groups, consumer groups and other interested parties to help inform the Government response. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe that my Department is very much involved with this process. I hope that he will be prepared to await the Government's response to the OFT report. In the light of that, I invite him to withdraw his new clause.
  Amendment No. 114 was referred to by the hon. Members for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas) and for Kingston and Surbiton, and by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe. The hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) said that it was the most crucial amendment of the lot.
  It would specify that a home inspector's indemnity insurance is "adequate and appropriate". The certification scheme will determine a suitable level of cover. The criteria against which the Secretary of State will approve the certification scheme, or schemes, will ensure that that issue will be properly addressed, taking into account the prevailing conditions at the time.
  Clause 14(5) provides that the Secretary of State cannot approve a certification scheme unless the members of the scheme have in force suitable indemnity insurance. The amendment in question would substitute "adequate and appropriate" for "suitable". It goes without saying that the Secretary of State would not approve a scheme if the insurance provisions were not "adequate and appropriate". It is not necessary to spell that out in the Bill.
  Amendment No. 115, tabled by the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton, would specify in the Bill that sellers, buyers and lenders can bring proceedings in respect of a home condition report on which they had relied. That is unnecessary, as those rights will be provided for. Clause 143(8) clearly signposts that intention. In relation to prescribed documents, that clause enables the Secretary of State to impose a requirement that three specified categories of person be able to enforce the terms of the contract under which the document is prepared. That is intended to ensure that buyers and lenders, as well as sellers, can rely on the contents of the pack, including the home condition report.
  It being three and three quarter hours after the commencement of proceedings on the programme motion, MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order [this day].
  Question agreed to.
  Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
  MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER then proceeded to put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that hour.

Clause 137

  DUTY TO HAVE A HOME INFORMATION PACK
  Amendment proposed: No. 88, in page 94, line 21, leave out from beginning to "have" and insert—
  232
  "As a matter of voluntary discretion, a person may"—[Mr. Syms.]
  Question put, That: the amendment be made:—
  The House divided: Ayes 177, Noes 290.

  Division No. 166]

  [4:36 pm

  AYES

  Ainsworth, Peter(E Surrey)

  Grayling, Chris

  Allan, Richard

  Green, Damian(Ashford)

  Amess, David

  Green, Matthew(Ludlow)

  Ancram, rh Michael

  Grieve, Dominic

  Arbuthnot, rh James

  Hague, rh William

  Atkinson, David(Bour'mth E)

  Hammond, Philip

  Atkinson, Peter(Hexham)

  Hancock, Mike

  Baker, Norman

  Harvey, Nick

  Baldry, Tony

  Hawkins, Nick

  Barker, Gregory

  Hayes, John(S Holland)

  Baron, John(Billericay)

  Heald, Oliver

  Barrett, John

  Heath, David

  Beith, rh A. J.

  Heathcoat-Amory, rh David

  Bellingham, Henry

  Hendry, Charles

  Bercow, John

  Hermon, Lady

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Hoban, Mark(Fareham)

  Blunt Crispin

  Holmes, Paul

  Boswell, Tim

  Horam, John(Orpington)

  Brady, Graham

  Howarth, Gerald(Aldershot)

  Brake, Tom(Carshalton)

  Hunter, Andrew

  Brazier, Julian

  Jackson, Robert(Wantage)

  Breed, Colin

  Jenkin, Bernard

  Brooke, Mrs Annette L.

  Johnson, Boris(Henley)

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Jones, Nigel(Cheltenham)

  Burnett, John

  Kennedy, rh Charles(Ross Skye & Inverness)

  Burns, Simon

  Burstow, Paul

  Key, Robert(Salisbury)

  Burt, Alistair

  Kirkbride, Miss Julie

  Butterfill, Sir John

  Knight, rh Greg(E Yorkshire)

  Calton, Mrs Patsy

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Cameron, David

  Lamb, Norman

  Campbell, rh Sir Menzies(NE Fife)

  Lansley, Andrew

  Leigh, Edward

  Carmichael, Alistair

  Letwin, rh Oliver

  Cash, William

  Liddell-Grainger, Ian

  Chapman, Sir Sydney(Chipping Barnet)

  Lilley, rh Peter

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Chope, Christopher

  Loughton, Tim

  Clarke, rh Kenneth(Rushcliffe)

  Luff, Peter (M-Worcs)

  Collins, Tim

  Mclntosh, Miss Anne

  Cotter, Brian

  Maclean, rh David

  Curry, rh David

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Davey, Edward(Kingston)

  Maples, John

  Davis, rh David(Haltemprice & Howden)

  Maude, rh Francis

  Mawhinney, rh Sir Brian

  Djanogly, Jonathan

  May, Mrs Theresa

  Dodds, Nigel

  Mitchell, Andrew(Sutton Coldfield)

  Doughty, Sue

  Duncan, Alan(Rutland)

  Moore, Michael

  Evans, Nigel

  Moss, Malcolm

  Fabricant, Michael

  Murrison, Dr. Andrew

  Fallon, Michael

  Oaten, Mark(Winchester)

  Field, Mark(Cities of London & Westminster)

  O'Brien, Stephen(Eddisbury)

  Öpik, Lembit

  Flight, Howard

  Osborne, George(Tatton)

  Flook, Adrian

  Ottaway, Richard

  Forth, rh Eric

  Page, Richard

  Foster, Don(Bath)

  Paice, James

  Fox, Dr. Liam

  Portillo, rh Michael

  Francois, Mark

  Price, Adam(E Carmarthen & Dinefwr)

  Gale, Roger(N Thanet)

  Garnier, Edward

  Prisk, Mark(Hertford)

  George, Andrew(St. Ives)

  Pugh. Dr. John

  Gibb, Nick(Bognor Regis)

  Randall, John

  Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

  Redwood, rh John

  Goodman, Paul

  Rendel, David

  Gray, James (N Wilts)

  Robathan, Andrew

  233

  Robertson, Hugh(Faversham & M-Kent)

  Taylor, Sir Teddy

  Teather, Sarah

  Robertson, Laurence(Tewk'b'ry)

  Thomas, Simon(Ceredigion)

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Thurso, John

  Rosindell, Andrew

  Tonge, Dr. Jenny

  Sanders, Adrian

  Turner, Andrew(Isle of Wight)

  Selous, Andrew

  Tyler, Paul(N Cornwall)

  Shepherd, rh Mrs Gillian

  Tyrie, Andrew

  Shepherd, Richard

  Walter, Robert

  Simmonds, Mark

  Waterson, Nigel

  Simpson, Keith(M-Norfolk)

  Watkinson, Angela

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

  Webb, Steve(Northavon)

  Whittingdale, John

  Soames Nicholas

  Widdercombe, rh Miss Ann

  Spicer, Sir Michael

  Wiggin, Bill

  Spink, Bob(Castle Point)

  Willetts, David

  Spring, Richard

  Williams, Hywel(Caernarfon)

  Steen, Anthony

  Williams, Roger(Brecon)

  Streeter, Gary

  Willis, Phil

  Stunell, Andrew

  Wilshire, David

  Swayne, Desmond

  Winterton, Ann(Congleton)

  Swire, Hugo(E Devon)

  Winterton. Sir Nicholas(Macclesfield)

  Syms, Robert

  Yeo, Tim(S Suffolk)

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Young, rh Sir George

  Taylor, Ian(Esher)

  Taylor, John(Solihull)

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Taylor, Matthew(Truro)

  Mr. David Ruffley and

  Taylor, Dr. Richard(Wyre F)

  Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

  NOES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Casale, Roger

  Adams, Irene(Paisley N)

  Caton, Martin

  Ainger, Nick

  Cawsey, Ian(Brigg)

  Ainsworth, Bob(Cov'try NE)

  Chapman, Ben(Wirral S)

  Allen, Graham

  Chaytor, David

  Anderson, Janet(Rossendale & Darwen)

  Clapham, Michael

  Clark, Mrs Helen(Peterborough)

  Armstrong, rh Ms Hilary

  Clark, Dr. Lynda(Edinburgh Pentlands)

  Atherton, Ms Candy

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Clark, Paul(Gillingham)

  Austin, John

  Clarke, rh Tom(Coatbridge & Chryston)

  Bailey, Adrian

  Baird, Vera

  Clarke, Tony(Northampton S)

  Banks, Tony

  Clelland, David

  Barnes, Harry

  Coaker, Vernon

  Battle, John

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  Beard, Nigel

  Cohen, Harry

  Bell, Sir Stuart

  Coleman, Iain

  Benn, rh Hilary

  Cook, Frank(Stockton N)

  Bennett, Andrew

  Cook, rh Robin(Livingston)

  Benton, Joe(Bootle)

  Cooper, Yvette

  Berry, Roger

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Best, Harold

  Corston, Jean

  Betts, Clive

  Cousins, Jim

  Blackman, Liz

  Cranston, Ross

  Blizzard, Bob

  Crausby, David

  Borrow, David

  Cruddas, Jon

  Bradley, rh Keith(Withington)

  Cryer, Ann(Keighley)

  Bradley, Peter(The Wrekin)

  Cryer, John(Hornchurch)

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Cummings, John

  Brennan, Kevin

  Cunningham, Jim(Coventry S)

  Brown, rh Nicholas(Newcastle E Wallsend)

  Cunningham, Tony(Workington)

  Davey, Valerie(Bristol W)

  Brown, Russell(Dumfries)

  Davidson, Ian

  Browne, Desmond

  Davies, rh Denzil(Llanelli)

  Bryant, Chris

  Davies, Geraint(Croydon C)

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Dhanda, Parmjit

  Burden, Richard

  Dobson, rh Frank

  Burgon, Colin

  Donohoe, Brian H.

  Burnham, Andy

  Doran, Frank

  Byers, rh Stephen

  Dowd, Jim(Lewisham W)

  Cairns, David

  Drew, David(Stroud)

  Campbell, Alan(Tynemouth)

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Campbell, Mrs Anne(C'bridge)

  Eagle, Angela(Wallasey)

  Campbell, Ronnie(Blyth V)

  Edwards, Huw

  234

  Efford, Clive

  Lepper, David

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Levitt, Tom(High Peak)

  Ennis, Jeff(Barnsley E)

  Lewis, Ivan(Bury S)

  Farrelly, Paul

  Lewis, Terry(Worsley)

  Field, rh Frank(Birkenhead)

  Liddell, rh Mrs Helen

  Fisher, Mark

  Linton, Martin

  Fitzpatrick, Jim

  Lloyd, Tony(Manchester C)

  Follett, Barbara

  Love, Andrew

  Foster, rh Derek

  Lucas, Ian(Wrexham)

  Foster, Michael(Worcester)

  Luke, Iain(Dundee E)

  Foster, Michael Jabez(Hastings & Rye)

  McAvoy, Thomas

  McCabe, Stephen

  Foulkes, rh George

  McDonagh, Siobhain

  Francis, Dr. Hywel

  McDonnell, John

  Gibson, Dr. Ian

  McFall, John

  Gilroy, Linda

  Mclsaac, Shona

  Godsiff, Roger

  McKenna, Rosemary

  Goggins, Paul

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Griffiths, Jane(Reading E)

  McNulty, Tony

  Griffiths, Nigel(Edinburgh S)

  MacShane, Denis

  Griffiths, Win(Bridgend)

  Mactaggart, Fiona

  Grogan, John

  McWalter, Tony

  Hain, rh Peter

  McWilliam, John

  Hall, Mike(Weaver Vale)

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Hall, Patrick(Bedford)

  Mallaber, Judy

  Hanson, David

  Mandelson, rh Peter

  Harris, Tom(Glasgow Cathcart)

  Mann, John(Bassetlaw)

  Healey, John

  Marsden, Gordon(Blackpool S)

  Henderson, Doug(Newcastle N)

  Marshall, Jim(Leicester S)

  Henderson, Ivan(Harwich)

  Marshall-Andrews, Robert

  Hendrick, Mark

  Meale, Alan(Mansfield)

  Hepburn, Stephen

  Merron, Gillian

  Heppell, John

  Michael, rh Alun

  Hewitt, rh Ms Patricia

  Milburn, rh Alan

  Heyes, David

  Miliband, David

  Hill, Keith(Streatham)

  Miller, Andrew

  Hinchliffe, David

  Mitchell, Austin(Gt Grimsby)

  Hoon, rh Geoffrey

  Moffatt, Laura

  Hopkins, Kelvin

  Mole, Chris

  Howarth, rh Alan(Newport E)

  Moonie, Dr. Lewis

  Howarth, George(Knowsley N & Sefton E)

  Moran, Margaret

  Morgan, Julie

  Howells, Dr. Kim

  Morris, rh Estelle

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  Mountford, Kali

  Hughes, Beverley(Stretford & Urmston)

  Munn, Ms Meg

  Murphy, Denis(Wansbeck)

  Hughes, Kevin(Doncaster N)

  Murphy, Jim(Eastwood)

  Hurst Alan(Braintree)

  Naysmith, Dr. Doug

  Hutton, rh John

  O'Brien, Bill(Normanton)

  Iddon, Dr. Brian

  O'Brien, Mike(N Warks)

  Ingram, rh Adam

  Olner, Bill

  Irranca-Davies, Huw

  O'Neill, Martin

  Jackson, Glenda(Hampstead & Highgate)

  Organ, Diana

  Owen, Albert

  Jackson, Helen(Hillsborough)

  Perham, Linda

  Jamieson, David

  Pickthall, Colin

  Jenkins, Brian

  Plaskitt, James

  Johnson, Alan(Hull W)

  Pollard, Kerry

  Jones, Helen(Warrington N)

  Pound, Stephen

  Jones, Jon Owen(Cardiff C)

  Prentice, Ms Bridget(Lewisham E)

  Jones, Kevan(N Durham)

  Jones, Lynne(Selly Oak)

  Prentice, Gordon(Pendle)

  Jones, Martyn(Clwyd S)

  Primarolo, rh Dawn

  Joyce, Eric(Falkirk W)

  Purchase, Ken

  Kaufman, rh Gerald

  Purnell, James

  Keen, Alan(Feltham)

  Quin, rh Joyce

  Kelly, Ruth(Bolton W)

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Kennedy, Jane(Wavertree)

  Rapson, Syd(Portsmouth N)

  Khabra, Piara S.

  Raynsford, rh Nick

  Kidney, David

  Reed, Andy(Loughborough)

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Robinson, Geoffrey(Coventry NW)

  King, Andy(Rugby)

  Knight, Jim(S Dorset)

  Roche, Mrs Barbara

  Kumar, Dr. Ashok

  Rooney, Terry

  Ladyman, Dr. Stephen

  Ross, Ernie(Dundee W)

  Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

  Roy, Frank(Motherwell)

  235

  Ruane, Chris

  Todd, Mark(S Derbyshire)

  Russell, Ms Christine(City of Chester)

  Touhig, Don(Islwyn)

  Truswell, Paul

  Ryan, Joan(Enfield N)

  Turner, Dennis(Wolverh'ton SE)

  Salter, Martin

  Turner, Dr. Desmond(Brighton Kemptown)

  Sarwar, Mohammad

  Sawford, Phil

  Twigg, Stephen(Enfield)

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Vis, Dr. Rudi

  Shaw, Jonathan

  Walley, Ms Joan

  Sheerman, Barry

  Ward, Claire

  Short, rh Clare

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Simpson, Alan(Nottingham S)

  Watson, Tom(W Bromwich E)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Watts, David

  Smith, rh Andrew(Oxford E)

  White, Brian

  Smith, Jacqui(Redditch)

  Whitehead, Dr. Alan

  Smith, Llew(Blaenau Gwent)

  Williams, rh Alan(Swansea W)

  Soley, Clive

  Williams, Betty(Conwy)

  Southworth, Helen

  Wills, Michael

  Squire, Rachel

  Winnick, David

  Starkey, Dr. Phyllis

  Winterton, Ms Rosie(Doncaster C)

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Stewart, David(Inverness E & Lochaber)

  Wood, Mike(Batley)

  Woodward, Shaun

  Stewart, Ian(Eccles)

  Woolas, Phil

  Stinchcombe, Paul

  Worthington, Tony

  Stoate, Dr. Howard

  Wright, Anthony D.(Gt Yarmouth)

  Strang, rh Dr. Gavin

  Stringer, Graham

  Wright, David(Telford)

  Taylor, rh Ann (Dewsbury)

  Wright Tony(Cannock)

  Taylor, Dari(Stockton S)

  Thomas, Gareth(Clwyd W)

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Timms, Stephen

  Mr. Fraser Kemp and

  Tipping, Paddy

  Derek Twigg

  Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 136

  APPLICATION OF SECTIONS 137 TO 139
  Amendments made: No. 81, in page 94, line 17, at end insert 'until his responsibility ceases'.
  No. 82, in page 94, line 18, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
  '(2) Each of those duties is subject to any exception relating to that duty which is provided for in those sections.
  (3) The duty under section 138(1) is also subject to any condition imposed under section (Section 138: imposition of conditions).'—[Paul Clark.]

Clause 138

  DUTY TO PROVIDE COPY OF HOME INFORMATION PACK ON REQUEST
  Amendments made: No. 83, in page 94, line 39, leave out 'request is made' and insert 'document is provided'.
  No. 84, in page 95, line 5, leave out 'when the request is made' and insert
  'before the end of the permitted period'.
  No. 85, in page 95, line 28, leave out from 'document' to end of line 33 and insert—
  '(8) The permitted period for the purposes of this section is (subject to section (Section 138: imposition of conditions)(5)) the period of 14 days beginning with the day on which the request is made.
  (8A) If the responsible person ceases to be responsible for marketing the property before the end of the permitted period (whether because the property has been taken off the market or sold or for any other reason), he ceases to be under any duty to comply with the request.'.—[Paul Clark.]

Clause 150
  RESTRICTIONS ON DISCLOSURE OR USE OF HOME INFORMATION PACK
  Amendment made: No. 86, in page 101, line 12, leave out Clause 150.—[Paul Clark.]
Clause 154

  INTERPRETATION OF PART 5
  Amendments made: No. 44, in page 103, line 4, after `regarded' insert
  'for the purposes of this Part'.
  No. 45, in page 103, line 8, after 'is' insert 'only'.
  No. 46, in page 103, line 9, leave out '(and only if)',—[Paul Clark.]
  Mr. Oliver Heald: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Earlier, in points of order, the Foreign Secretary promised further to clarify his remarks about Sir Jeremy Greenstock not receiving the Red Cross report. Yesterday, of course, the Defence Secretary said that he had done so. The Foreign Secretary said that he would come to the House at either 4 o'clock or 7 o'clock to do so. Have you had any firm indication that he will definitely come here at 7 o'clock to make an oral statement clarifying those remarks?
  Madam Deputy Speaker: I am aware of the right hon. Gentleman's comments, but I am not aware, and have had no message, that a Minister will come to the House. I am sure, however, that the hon. Gentleman appreciates that that is not strictly a point of order for the Chair but a matter for Ministers to decide.

New Clause 8

  EXCEPTIONS TO THE RIGHT TO BUY: DETERMINATION WHETHER EXCEPTION FOR DWELLING-HOUSE SUITABLE FOR ELDERLY PERSONS APPLIES
  (1) In Schedule 5 to the Housing Act 1985 (c.68) (exceptions to the right to buy) paragraph 11 (single dwelling-house particularly suitable for elderly persons) is amended as follows.

  (2) In sub-paragraph (4)(questions arising under paragraph 11 to be determined by the Secretary of State), for "the Secretary of State" (in both places) I substitute "the appropriate tribunal or authority".

  (3) After sub-paragraph (5) insert—

  "(5A) In this paragraph "the appropriate tribunal or authority" means—

  (a) in relation to England, a residential property tribunal; and

  (b) in relation to Wales, the Secretary of State.

  (5B) Section 191 of the Housing Act 2004 (appeals to Lands Tribunal) does not apply to any decision of a residential property tribunal under this paragraph."
  (4) Subsections (5) and (6) apply to any application under paragraph 11(4) in respect of a dwelling-house in England which—

  (a) has been made to the Secretary of State before the day on which this section comes into force, and

  (b) has not been determined by him before that day.

  (5) If the application was made more than 28 days before that day, it is to be determined by the Secretary of State as if the amendments made by this section had not come into force.
  Otherwise—

  (a) the application is to be determined by a residential property tribunal, and

  (b) the Secretary of State must make all such arrangements as he considers necessary for the purpose of, or in connection with, enabling it to be so determined.'.—[Yvette Cooper.]

  Brought up, and read the First time.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Yvette Cooper): I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government new clause 9—Right to buy: claim terminated by demolition notice.
  Government new clause 10—Landlord's notice to complete.
  Government new clause 11—Right to buy: suspension by court order.
  Government new clause 12—Right of assured tenant to acquire dwelling not affected by collective enfranchisement.
  New clause 18—Market Plan for right to buy sales—

  (1)To monitor sales resulting from right to buy, local authorities will be required to formulate and publish publicly a yearly marketing plan for right to buy sales.

  (2) The marketing plan will include:

  (a) figures on the number of properties sold through the right to buy scheme in the last 12 months;

  (b) a target figure for the number of properties to be sold through the right to buy scheme in the coming 12 months;

  (c) plans for how to achieve (b).'.

  Government amendments Nos. 70 and 71.
  Amendment No. 116, in page 106, line 18, leave out `18', and insert '36'.
  Amendment No. 117, in page 106, line 21, leave out `18', and insert '36'.
  Amendment No. 94, in page 108, line 12, at end insert—
  `16 The Right to Buy does not apply in a rural area if the area has been exempted by regulations made by the Secretary of State.'.
  Government amendments Nos. 72 to 74 and 26.
  Yvette Cooper: I shall confine my remarks to the Government amendments and new clauses.
  Paragraph 11 of schedule 5 to the Housing Act 1985 provides that a landlord may deny tenants the right to buy if the home is particularly suitable for occupation by elderly people. It also provides that tenants may appeal to the Secretary of State if they are denied the right to buy on those grounds. The number of such appeals has risen in recent years to more than 400 in 2003, with 20 to 25 per cent. being successful, enabling the tenants to buy their homes, usually because all the relevant factors have not been taken into account or because local
  238
  circumstances have changed. To help landlords and tenants, we will shortly consult stakeholders on ways of clarifying and improving the guidance issued in 1993.
  New clause 8 transfers the jurisdiction for determining appeals of this kind by tenants living in England from the Secretary of State to a residential property tribunal. That will make no substantive difference to the determination of appeals. We do not propose to change the statutory rules in paragraph 11 that determine whether a property is particularly suitable for occupation by elderly persons. Determinations by a residential property tribunal will be subject to judicial review, as are those of the Secretary of State at present. That will have the benefit of making the process more transparent and bringing together housing and related appeals and determinations under a single jurisdiction, and will over time afford opportunities for greater efficiency. The National Assembly for Wales will assess the position there independently.
  On Government new clause 9 and Government amendment No. 71, there has been concern in local communities and in the House about people speculating on regeneration and demolition projects and exercising the right to buy purely to make a profit out of compulsory purchase orders, increasing the cost of regeneration and demolition schemes and also threatening their viability. Clause 158 adds to the exceptions that apply to the right to buy under schedule 5 of the Housing Act 1985 the provision that the right to buy "does not arise" where a demolition notice is in force stating that the landlord intends to demolish the property during the next 18 months. That means that no new claim for the right to buy can be made in relation to such properties. The aim is to address an existing loophole.
  It has been suggested that, as worded, the clause could fail in its effect, because an advertisement placed by a landlord to the effect that he intended to demolish a building could persuade a tenant to apply for the right to buy before any demolition notice had been served. The wording in clause 158 does not make it sufficiently clear that existing claims as well as future claims should be covered. We do not want to create a mad race between people trying to get in a right to buy application and the serving of a demolition notice just to address the loophole. New clause 9 therefore makes it clear that a demolition notice properly served in accordance with the requirements of clause 158 will bring to an end any outstanding right to buy application in respect of the property in question.
  We recognise that tenants may have put in right-to-buy applications at a much earlier stage in good faith, believing that they would proceed, and may incur fees and professional costs and expenses. The new clause therefore also provides for compensation to be paid in respect of any such expenditure that has been reasonably incurred in respect of a right-to-buy claim established before a demolition notice comes into force. Amendment No. 71 amends clause 158 so that a demolition notice will have to explain the right to compensation and how it may be exercised.
  Government new clause 10 tackles another form of exploitation of the right to buy rules by companies and tenants. Under the Housing Act 1985, landlords may impose a timetable on tenants who are perceived to be

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  delaying the purchase of their homes under the right-to-buy scheme. A landlord may serve a first notice to complete under section 140 of the Act, and then a second notice to complete and subsequent requirements. If the tenant does not comply with these notices, the right-to-buy application is deemed to have been withdrawn, but only after a minimum of 16 months can any sanction be imposed upon the tenant. If there are other matters outstanding—perhaps a dispute about the value of the property—it can be delayed further.
  That can mean that, in a rising property market, the longer a tenant waits, the less he will pay for the property in real terms. The opposite, however, is true for the landlord, who has to sell the property at a price that is increasingly lower than its market value at the time of completion, and has to incur the expense of chasing a tenant who is delaying matters deliberately. In exceptional cases, that has allowed tenants, by reselling quickly, to make a substantial profit even after repaying some or all of their right-to-buy discount. By contrast, section 153A of the Housing Act 1985 allows a tenant to take action against a slow landlord much more swiftly. Tenants have at least 16 months to complete their purchase, while landlords face a financial penalty if they delay the process for more than one month. The new clause attempts to shift the balance so that, instead of having to wait for at least 12 months, a landlord can serve a first notice to complete after three months, if they wish. It still gives the tenant more time than the landlord, it brings the total time in line with the private sector and it addresses a loophole that people have exploited.
  5 pm
  Government new clause 11 gives the landlord of secure tenants a further weapon by which to tackle antisocial behaviour. In some instances, the right-to-buy scheme gives tenants who behave antisocially a means of escaping the consequences of their behaviour by purchasing their home. In such cases, the landlord cannot use the same measures over the tenant and the property, which is clearly an unintended consequence.
  New clause 11 enables landlords of secure tenants to seek an order suspending the right to buy for a specified period in respect of the tenancy on the ground of antisocial behaviour. The court may grant a suspension order only if it is satisfied that the tenant or a person residing in or visiting the property has engaged in, or threatened to engage in, antisocial behaviour, and that it is reasonable to make the order. A suspension order will end any existing applications and prevent any new applications from being made during the period specified by the court, but it will not impact on the accumulation of discount.
  Government amendments Nos. 72 and 73 further strengthen the measures to combat antisocial behaviour by allowing landlords not to complete a right-to-buy claim if an order to suspend it is pending. Government amendment No. 74 contains a provision similar to that in clause 167 that allows right-to-buy tenants to apply for the right to acquire or the preserved right to buy, which means that their landlords can also access the information that they require to carry out their functions under clause 166.
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  Government new clause 12 seeks to remedy an unintended consequence of leasehold legislation that has only just come to light. Under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, qualifying tenants of flats were given rights to purchase the freehold collectively, with a mandatory leaseback to the housing association of remaining rented flats. The unintended consequence is that RSL assured tenants stand to lose their statutory right to acquire their rented home if others in a block of flats have exercised their right to enfranchisement. So far, no cases in which a tenant has lost their right to acquire their rented property have come to our attention, but the Housing Corporation notified us about the problem, and, because the change is recent and we anticipate future cases, we think it right to act now.
  Mr. Clifton-Brown: New clauses 8 to 10 restrict a person's right to buy. What steps will be taken to notify people who fall within those new clauses that their rights are being restricted? The matter is clearly complicated, and, as with other legislation on the Rent Acts, I hope that any notice sent to tenants will include a bold warning stating that their rights are being restricted and that if they have any doubts about the meaning of the notice they should consult a citizens advice bureau.
  Yvette Cooper: New clause 8 does not restrict the right to buy. The provisions in new clause 9 refer to demolition notices, which must explain the right to compensation. They require that accurate information be given to tenants and I reassure the hon. Gentleman that we expect appropriate information to be given to tenants in all such cases. At a later stage, I will be happy further to discuss with him exactly what kinds of information will be available for tenants under each of those clauses. As he rightly says, the matter is complex because each new clause has a different objective, and some of them for—example, new clause 12—protect the right to acquire or the right to buy.
  Mr. Simon Thomas: The new clauses that relate to antisocial behaviour and the right to buy are obviously crucial to the Government's antisocial behaviour strategies. In light of the Westminster council homes scandal, can the Minister assure us that the safeguards will be sufficient to prevent disreputable local authorities from socially engineering the tenants who buy properties in particular areas? In that regard, what sort of evidence would be needed to suspend the right to buy in a court case—is it a matter of civil proof or of criminal proof?
  Yvette Cooper: The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we need to prevent terrible behaviour of the kind that took place in Westminster. We are trying to safeguard the rights of local communities who are struggling with antisocial behaviour. Under the new clause, landlords will need to seek an order to suspend on the ground of antisocial behaviour, for a specified period, the right to buy in respect of the tenancy. The landlord will not be able to do that arbitrarily, but will need to go to court and the court will grant a suspension order only if it is satisfied that antisocial or threatening behaviour is taking place and that the request is reasonable. The court will need to take a series of factors

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  into account, including whether it is desirable for the property to be managed by the landlord during the suspension period.
  Some of the other amendments are about suspending the right to buy, or allowing landlords not to complete the right to buy, if other antisocial behaviour measures are already being pursued. Through the new clause, we are trying to ensure that the right to buy does not become a get-out clause that allows antisocial tenants to subvert the other measures that have been introduced to tackle antisocial behaviour. By stipulating that the decision is for the courts, not for local authorities, we have taken care to ensure that, in situations where, in effect, a tenant's property rights are at stake, a fair process is gone through in achieving our aim of dealing with antisocial behaviour.
  Jim Knight: May I press my hon. Friend on the question that the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas) asked about the burden of proof in such cases? Although I strongly support the idea that people who are given the right to buy must be responsible tenants and that we should suspend that right if they are being irresponsible through antisocial behaviour, I also believe that the burden of proof should be the same as it is for antisocial behaviour orders—that is, civil, not criminal.
  Yvette Cooper: I can assure my hon. Friend that in such circumstances the right to buy will be suspended only for a specified period. We are not trying arbitrarily to impose an unfair penalty, but to give local authorities more tools to deal with antisocial behaviour. The new clause is very much in line with our approach towards antisocial behaviour throughout the Bill, which is to say that we need to give landlords more opportunities to address the problem while ensuring that people's rights are properly protected, that they get a fair hearing and that they are treated reasonably in the circumstances. That is why the role of the court is an important safeguard.
  I turn to amendment No. 70. Under section 119 of the Housing Act 1985, a secure tenant does not qualify for the right to buy until they have spent two years as a public sector tenant. Clause 157 extends that qualifying period to five years. It has been suggested that that will disadvantage tenants who take up a new social tenancy, whether it be a secure tenancy or an assured tenancy—for example, when they move from one social housing property to another. We do not intend to penalise existing social tenants who take up new social tenancies by making them wait longer for the right to buy. This minor and technical amendment is designed to avoid such a situation arising and to ensure that tenancies that began before the day on which clause 157 comes into effect will still be subject to the present two-year qualifying period.
  I ask the House to support the Government new clauses and amendments.
  Mr. Hayes: We now move to the part of the Bill that deals with the right to buy, a subject that was aired in Committee and which, appropriately, we want to say a few words about today. I particularly want to speak to new clause 18, which is intended to provide a shot in the arm for the important principle of the right to buy. The
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  whole House will be familiar with the famous words of Benjamin Disraeli, when he said that the Conservative party was
  "only in its proper position when it represents popular principles. Then it is truly irresistible… It necessarily depends upon enlarged sympathies and noble aspirations".
  There can be no more noble an aspiration than the desire to own one's home and the right to buy has played an important part in the fulfilment of that aspiration since it was introduced.
  In preparing for this debate, I glanced at the figures for right-to-buy sales since 1980, and I was delighted to learn that around 1.6 million properties have been sold under the scheme. None of that would have taken place without the energy and commitment of the Conservative Government who introduced that important legislation.
  Ms Karen Buck rose—
  Mr. Hayes: I will give way to the hon. Lady in a moment, but before I do, perhaps I should say that, although she might be a noble exception, most of those on the Labour Benches are typically either reluctant converts to the cause of the right to buy, or nakedly hostile to it. Perhaps she will tell me which she is.
  Ms Buck: I was prompted by the hon. Gentleman's statement that there is no nobler aim than that of encouraging home ownership. Will he perhaps revise that opinion and say that we should instead aspire to ensuring a decent home for all? His party's policy comes into conflict with that more noble objective in that it has never addressed the fact that the right to buy can and does conflict with the objective of providing homes for all, in high-demand areas. Will he say something about the unmet housing needs that have been created in part by the pressure from the right to buy?
  Mr. Hayes: Home ownership is a noble aspiration not simply because it is a matter of acquiring a piece of property. The home is evocative of security, warmth, certainty and stability. It is the place to which we all return at the end of the day, so one should not be dismissive of the aspiration to own a home. However, the hon. Lady makes a good point when she says that it is important to have a decent social housing stock. That is why I know that she will join me in condemning this Government for their appalling record on social house building. This Government have built only about half the number of social houses that the last Conservative Government built.
  The hon. Lady is also right to say that the measures in the Bill do little to address either my concerns about the pace of the right to buy or her more fundamental concerns about the principle itself. She is right that we need a balanced housing programme and that every Briton deserves the right to live in a warm, secure, stable home that is fit for its purpose and part of a strong and

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  sustainable community. I agree with her entirely on that, but I do not believe that such aspirations are incompatible with the right-to-buy policy.
  Mr. Andrew Love rose—
  Jim Knight rose—
  Mr. Hayes: I will give way, although I do not want to be diverted down a path that you will not let me follow, Mr. Deputy Speaker. However, I am trying, as ever, to be generous to Labour Members.
  Mr. Love: The hon. Gentleman did not actually answer the question put to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck). Let me ask him a much simpler one: is it still the Opposition's policy to extend the right to buy to the registered social landlord sector, and what implications does he think that that would have for affordable accommodation?
  5.15 pm
  Mr. Hayes: I tell the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) unequivocally that it is our intention to maintain the policy. There has been no party policy change on the right to buy, but it is important to consider other ways in which to provide high quality social housing. It is also important to create a more fluid system, whereby people move more easily from rented to market housing. One of the problems with the right to buy is that many long-standing council tenants become the long-standing owners of the properties that they purchase and do not move to market housing. That has diminished local authorities' housing stock. That was a fair point, which both the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) made.
  It is not beyond the wit of man to create an environment where people can aspire to ownership and in which a more fluid market can exist. The hon. Gentleman will know about the possibility of transferable discounts, which the previous Government introduced and the current Government maintain. They allow people to fulfil their aspiration to become home owners and lead to a more fluid market. We are disappointed that the Bill gives that no shot in the arm.
  From memory, there were approximately 897 cases of people taking up the opportunity through a transferable discount to move from a rented to a market house in 2002. That is a miserable figure when compared with the total number of people who aspire to own their homes. Seventy per cent. currently own their homes and more than 80 per cent. would like to do so. Any responsible Government or party has a duty to ensure that those people have a realistic prospect of achieving that aspiration. Because the hon. Member for Edmonton is
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  a caring and decent man, I know that he would agree with that. On that happy note, I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown).
  Mr. Clifton-Brown: Will my hon. Friend explain to Labour Members who are so hostile to the right to buy why their Government preside over the highest number of homeless people in the history of this country?
  Mr. Hayes: I do not want to labour the point about the Government's failure in social house building. I have mentioned it twice already and this is the third occasion. To refer to it four times would be excessive. The Minister, the Under-Secretary and the whole Front-Bench team bear the burden heavily. It must be engraved on their hearts that, as homelessness increases, their record on social house building worsens. We should move on swiftly to avoid causing any further embarrassment to Government Front-Benchers.
  Jim Knight: I know that the hon. Gentleman has visited my constituency, because he wrote and told me about it when he was a spokesman on agriculture. He may remember from that visit that there is an acute shortage of affordable housing in my area, largely created by the right to buy and the inability to find anywhere in our beautiful natural environment to build any more housing. Is not the effect of the right-to-buy policy on our rural areas, where families are moving out and schools and post offices are closing, written on his heart? Schools and post offices cannot be sustained because of the lack of social and affordable housing that the Conservative party created.
  Mr. Hayes: It is flattering that the hon. Gentleman remembers my visit to his constituency. I, too, remember it and I can tell him that the farmers whom I met were complimentary about him, as I was. I advised them not to vote for him and they said that, although they liked him, they did not like him enough to do that. However, they highlighted some of the challenges that faced the area. I know that he feels deeply about the availability of socia1 housing in rural communities. So do I, given the sort of seat that I represent.
  The hon. Gentleman knows that the right to buy is not available to people in small rural communities. He will also know that any Government need to have a policy that is targeted at the problem that he highlights. I hope that that applies to this Government but it certainly applies to the next Conservative Government. If one builds houses for renting or affordable market houses and simply sucks people in from outside the community rather than providing houses for people who need to work or have families there, one does not solve the problem.
  Squaring that wil1 be a challenge for the Opposition when we are in government. I am acutely aware of that. One method, to which I believe that the hon. Gentleman will be sympathetic, is the exceptions policy. I believe that it is under threat; perhaps the Minister will give us

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  an assurance today that it is not. I do not want that avenue to be removed from the communities that the hon. Gentleman described.
  Matthew Green rose—
  Mr. Hayes: I want to get back on stream, but it would be discourteous not to give way to a representative of the minor party before doing so.
  Matthew Green: The hon. Gentleman says that the right to buy does not apply in rural areas, but he is becoming confused. When the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) was a Minister, he got an exemption for the right to acquire, which is a slightly different right that is not used anything like as often as the right to buy. The right to buy still applies in rural areas. It has decimated the stock in my area just like any other.
  Mr. Hayes: The hon. Gentleman will no doubt be looking carefully at the policies that we intend to introduce, which will assist areas such as his in the provision of high-quality social housing and, indeed, affordable market housing. When we do so, I know that he, in the spirit in which he always greets such things, will support us in his constituency and, I hope, elsewhere.
  Back to the Bill, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You have been, if I may say so, characteristically generous in allowing a slightly broader discussion than I had perhaps originally intended. However, I wanted to be generous to Labour Members and I hope that we have been able to explore some issues of principle. Out of that has come living proof of my suggestion that Labour Members are reluctant converts to the right to buy. People who have exercised, or who hope to exercise, that right will have listened to the tone of their remarks very carefully. I do not want to be more critical than that, and I shall move on to our new clause.
  There is a problem with the right to buy: although it has been a great success, there has been some tailing-off of uptake. That is a problem, as one wants everyone with the aspiration that I described to see it fulfilled. Another is abuse. In Committee, I made it clear that we have no truck with abuse of the right to buy, and it is indeed right and proper that measures be introduced to deal with it. It is not appropriate for a noble aspiration, as I described it, to be turned into a way of abusing the system for people who are behaving unscrupulously.
  The Government have properly recognised that and introduced changes, some of which we welcome. However, consistent with the spirit and intention of the original right to buy legislation, it is important that we simultaneously put proper demands on local authorities that may not be carrying out their proper obligations in respect of the right to buy as enthusiastically as they might.
  It is clear from a study of local authorities across the country that some drive the right to buy with enthusiasm while others are reticent in encouraging people to take it up. That can involve the speed with which they deal with inquiries, how they market their local policy and how they value their properties. The Minister will know that a study commissioned by the
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  Office of the Deputy Prime Minister found that, in more than a third of appeals against the price of a property valued by the council in the case of a right-to-buy application, the price tag was cut by more than 10 per cent. Indeed, more than three quarters of tenants who purchased from their council under the right-to-buy scheme secured a price reduction.
  There is a real problem with pricing not being accurate and that possibly being a disincentive to people who do not appeal. There will be people who see the price and think, "I can't afford that." They will turn back at that stage while those who appeal clearly get a positive result in the vast majority of cases. There is a problem with the right to buy and our new clause seeks to deal with it by proposing that local authorities
  "be required to formulate and publish publicly a yearly marketing plan for right to buy sales."
  The plan would include targets on the number of properties that the authority planned to sell and how many it had sold, as well as how it would achieve that target. That seems to me a sensible, constructive and measured way to encourage local authorities to think creatively about how to deal with the right to buy. Few local authorities would think that it could not be taken on board at small cost. It would not be a massive exercise, because good local authorities are doing much of that job anyway.
  Dr. Alan Whitehead: I am following the hon. Gentleman's argument carefully. Would not such a plan interfere with the market?
  Hon. Members: Yes.
  Mr. Hayes: I did not turn a deaf ear to the question. I did not hear it clearly. The truth of the matter, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is that the market is not perfect. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Let me explain, for the benefit of those Members who are under the illusion that Tories believe that the market is ever right, that that has nothing to do with authentic Tory philosophy. The Tory party, throughout its history, has understood that there needs to be a proper balance between the intervention of government and other agencies and the free market. That is not a revelation. It is the view that has inspired the party of Disraeli, Shaftesbury and Wilberforce—[Laughter.]
  The hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) is laughing. He will know that most of the 19th-century reforms were introduced and completed by Conservative Administrations against fierce opposition from the Liberal party. In the 20th century, too, Conservative Administrations introduced many measures, including the right to buy, which aided social mobility and extended opportunity to people who would otherwise not have been able to enjoy it and recognised that government must sometimes stimulate, encourage and temper the market. There is nothing odd about that.
  Indeed, one might even argue—I know that there is a certain hostility from some on the Labour Benches towards their Front Bench—that it is not the Tory party but the current leadership of the Labour party that has

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  been seduced by the glitz and glamour of power and money. The hon. Gentleman should not therefore be so dismissive of the record—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): Order. The hon. Gentleman has already thanked me for my generosity. May I tell him that it is not limitless?
  Mr. Hayes: I wondered at what point your generosity, Mr. Deputy Speaker, might begin to come to an end. We have now reached that important point.
  The intention of the new clause is to assist local authorities in the pursuit of a proper purpose. The Government have properly introduced a series of measures in Committee and today aim to curb the abuses of right to buy, with which we have no problem. In that spirit, I hope that they will support the new clause and so provide the balance that is absolutely necessary if the great success of the right to buy is to continue into the future.
  Mr. David Drew: I want to speak to amendment No. 94, which I tabled, and to make some points as an antidote to the contribution of the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken.
  I was a member of a Labour authority in the early 1980s that pre-empted the Conservative party in terms of the right to buy. The one difference was that for every council house that was sold, we built another one to replace it. That must be the only way in which a sensible right to buy can ever be afforded.
  We have had a useful debate already in terms of the implications of the right to buy. In Committee, an attempt was made to consider further exemption on the right to buy where there were rural populations of less than 3,000. I make no apology for reintroducing that issue, because the Government must recognise that the problem of housing is not just an urban one but very much a rural one.
  5.30 pm
  Over the last five years alone, we have sold off some 40,000 council properties. That has happened at a cost. Yes, the right to buy is about giving the individual choice and the opportunity to buy the home in which he or she lives, but we also know of the damage done to others whom it prevents from living in rural areas. It is pleasing that amendment No. 94, which has been floating around for some time, is supported by both the Local Government Association and Shelter. They feel strongly that something must be done about the growing problem of not just homelessness but lack of accessibility. Our rural communities are being socially cleansed, in the sense that people on lower incomes can no longer afford to live in those areas.
  Ms Buck: Does my hon. Friend agree that the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) was wrong in his analysis of the problems connected with the right to buy? My hon. Friend is right about what is happening in rural areas, and indeed in urban areas such as mine. When properties have been sold and then sold on, those in a position to buy them
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  are in a different category in terms of purchasing power and housing need. That leaves a much larger pool of people in true housing need. Properties in my constituency that were originally sold under the right to buy are now being sold for £350,000, and are thus completely beyond the reach of people who need affordable homes.
  Mr. Drew: I agree, and the problems affecting London also affect the more expensive parts of the south. On-selling often moves properties completely out of the affordable housing bracket—properties that have already been moved out of the social housing bracket.
  The amendment happens to chime with a recommendation in the report produced by the rural group of Labour Members, which I am proud to chair. The report, which was well received by the Front Bench, made a number of suggestions that I feel should be pursued. We said, for instance,
  "The right to buy from councils or RSLs should not be available to tenants in settlements of below 3,000. They concede that this 'may cause difficulties for those who already have this right', but argue that, 'as people realise the effect of the right to buy on their own families, they will understand why it may be withdrawn'."
  We were quite cheered by the thought that, as the Government recognised, there were places in which—on a purely local, discretionary basis—the right to buy had reached its natural conclusion. Surprisingly, however, few of the 26 areas that were given an opportunity to consider how they might restrict the right were deemed to be rural. We want to extend the recognition that we now live in very different times.
  As I have said, there is one thing worse than the removal of people's ability to buy their existing homes: the fact that they are no longer able to live in many rural areas. This is all about priorities, and about ensuring that we have a mixed rural population. That population is already under great strain in the south, and unless we do something dramatic the situation will worsen.
  There are alternatives, and the Government are considering them. One option is Homebuy; another is the system of community land trusts, which I favour. We will be creative, and we will be innovative. The simple fact, however, is that such schemes take time to bring about, whereas the crisis is real and happening now. I hope that my hon. Friends on the Front Bench will consider carefully what we are suggesting. We are not saying that the right to buy should go; we in rural areas are not unreconstructed Stalinists, we are just people who deal with our constituents.
  The issue is no longer one on which the Labour party stands in isolation. I gather that the Liberal Democrats moved an amendment on this point in Committee, and there are many Conservatives who are now beginning to consider a similar position because of the way in which we have seen our communities change as a result of the right to buy—and in this case, change for the worse. I should make it very clear that this is a matter that should be left, with the support of the ministerial team, to local discretion. If local authorities feel that the right to buy has a rightful place in their housing policy, then let it continue, but if they have seen the problems of right to buy and feel strongly about them, it is only right and proper that they should be included in the group of 26 existing areas where the right to buy is further restricted.

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  I hope that Ministers are listening and that this debate will be continued not only here but in the other place when the Bill is considered there. The issue will not go away, and I make no apology for raising it. It is crucial. Anyone who knows anything about rural Britain at the moment knows that when Labour came to power, the No. 1 issue, without any doubt, was transport. Now that that issue has been addressed—not completely, but there are some improvements in transport—it has been overtaken, unfortunately, by housing. Anyone who does any research, or talks to lower-income constituents, will without doubt identify housing as the highest priority. I hope that Ministers take note, and that we can ensure that something is done on this vital issue.
  Matthew Green: I shall attempt to be brief, because I know that we want to turn to other matters, but I cannot resist making a quick comment on the Conservatives' new clause 18, which is the "pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap" clause. It is an attempt to get councils to force through right-to-buy sales, and it is quite frankly barmy. Right to buy is right in some areas, but it works to the detriment of others. The hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) said that it should be left to local discretion, and that is exactly what should be done. No amendment has been tabled that makes that point, but it should really be up to a local authority to decide whether there should be any discount up to £36,000, in any area. That would solve many of the issues with which we are dealing.
  I wish to speak to amendments Nos. 116 and 117. The Government have rightly acted to prevent people from using right to buy just before a regeneration scheme or demolition goes ahead, which they know is going to happen, so that they can receive compensation money. The Government are right to take that action, but they have specified a period of 18 months. My understanding, from talking to people who work on such schemes, is that the common lead-in time from the point at which a scheme is announced to the point at which it goes ahead is much nearer to three years. There is quite a lot of concern in the industry, for want of a better word—it is not really an industry—and from people who work in the field that an 18-month period is insufficient. We have suggested a period of 36 months, which would be the three years that those people have mentioned. I ask the Minister to look closely at that time period, because the professionals who work in the field say that it is insufficient and that there will be problems as a result. The action is absolutely right, but the Government need to consider the time frame.
  I firmly endorse amendment No. 94, ably moved by the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew). Right to buy has decimated the housing stock in rural areas. In my constituency, it has caused tremendous problems of loss of social housing stock that cannot be easily replaced, and I commend the hon. Gentleman for tabling the amendment. I raised that point in Committee, and I hope that the Lords will look at it in detail and that the Government will act on it.
  Perhaps the best route forward is to leave to local authority discretion whether or not there is a discount. That would be a simple way of dealing with the situation, rather than the current approach of central Government's deciding which are the deserving rural
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  areas. The centre does not always know best; in fact, it rarely knows best. The matter should be left to local discretion. That is new localism, and it is in chime with what the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is talking about.
  I hope that the Government respond positively to the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Stroud, and I also hope that they extend the time period relating to demolition notices to 36 months.
  Several hon. Members rose—
  Dr. Desmond Turner: I, too, will try to be brief, as I know that many other important new clauses follow mine. New clause 2 would give the Government enabling powers to bring in a national tenancy deposit scheme.
  Hon. Members: New clause 2?
  Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder.
  Dr. Turner: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I thought that we had finished the previous group of amendments.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: We are dealing with new clause 8 and the related new clauses and amendments on the selection list. I do not know what the hon. Gentleman has chosen to speak to, but that is what we are dealing with. I call Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown.
  Mr. Clifton-Brown: I think I know which group of amendments we are debating. The hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner) was anticipating a debate that is to come, and he will doubtless want to speak in it.
  I intervened on the Minister earlier in respect of new clause 8 in particular. It is an eminently sensible provision which determines that houses especially suitable for elderly people should be exempt from the right to buy. We can all think of types of housing—terraced housing, bungalows, small houses and so on—that are particularly suitable for elderly people, and which should remain as such. That is fine in theory, but I am not sure that new clause 8 adequately informs those who live in houses that may or may not be so designated about what is happening to their right to buy. The Minister needs to provide more of an explanation than she provided in answer to my intervention.
  When a Government fetter people's rights and take them away, they have a duty to explain to those people in simple terms what is happening to them. As with other notices in housing legislation, the information that such people will receive through the post will be complex. They should be told in no uncertain terms, through a warning on the notice, that if they are in any doubt as to what the notice means, they should consult a citizens advice bureau.
  My neighbour the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) may have tabled his amendment No. 94 under a misapprehension. If he studies the law carefully, he will discover that under right-to-buy designation orders, it is currently within the Secretary of State's power to designate rural settlements of under 3,000 as exempt

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  from the right to acquire. I accept that his amendment deals with the right to buy, and it may well be that right-to-buy legislation should be brought into line with that relating to the right to acquire. On thinking about it as I am speaking, the designation orders to which I referred do apply to the right to buy. Perhaps the Minister will clarify that point. As such, the hon. Gentleman's amendment is unnecessary.
  In any case, it is worth putting on the record some misapprehensions about the right to buy. The average period of tenancy of all public housing in London is now 20 years and growing; in other parts of the country, it is at least 10 years and growing. The number of houses either in the council house or registered social landlord sector that become available is part of the housing problem. It is so important for the Government to build more affordable housing. If they want to solve the current acute homelessness and waiting list problems, the only way is to build more social housing.
  The right to acquire has very little effect indeed, because it amounts to only a small proportion of our total built housing stock. If the Government—or, indeed, a future Conservative Government—were to amend the rules on right to buy so that the proceeds, instead of going to repay borrowing, were put back into building new social housing, much more money would be available to put back into the pool to build more social houses. That is what we should be doing.
  5.45 pm
  I applaud the Government new clauses, particularly the provisions to deal with the scam whereby people immediately want to buy their homes when a demolition order is put in place. That loophole needed to be closed and I applaud the Government for tackling that.
  I do not, however, applaud the Government's provisions for reducing discount, particularly in London. It is now becoming very difficult indeed to acquire a house in London, even with the discount that the Government currently apply. People used to apply for a discount under the right to buy in order to put down a deposit on their mortgage. Because the price of London houses is now so high, it is very difficult for anyone to use the right-to-buy provisions accordingly.
  I hope that Government Members will not adopt a prehistoric socialist opposition to right to buy. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) said in ably opening the debate, it is the noblest ambition of all for someone to want to buy their own house.[Interruption.] One of the few ways in which people living in public sector housing are able to get on to the housing ladder is through right to buy. As my hon. Friend also said, we should be considering not only right to buy, but a whole range of imaginative schemes to help people on to the housing ladder.
  I commend the Government new clauses and hope that the Government will in turn consider new clause 18 as a means of helping to speed up right to buy, which seems such anathema to Government Members. After all, if people own their own homes, it takes away their need for housing in the public sector, thereby making places available for people on the waiting list or the
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  homeless. The current position is precarious because of the number of homeless people. I believe that opposition to right to buy will not help to solve the problem.
  Yvette Cooper: I should like to respond to the various points raised in relation to this group of new clauses and amendments. It may be an appropriate tribute to the 25th anniversary of Baroness Thatcher's arrival in Downing street that the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) has abandoned her reverence for the free market and commitment to it in all circumstances. If only his party leader had been more inclined to agree with him and rather less enthusiastic about revering her legacy, the Conservatives might be doing rather better right now.
  Amendments Nos. 116 and 117 express concern about demolition and regeneration. I recognise concerns in that respect, which is why we have introduced new clauses to ensure that issuing a demolition notice puts an end to existing right-to-buy claims that have al ready been submitted. We chose to make demolition notices last for 18 months in order to strike a reasonable balance and to discourage the sort of exploitation that has been mentioned. We also want to encourage local authorities and others to get on with the job so that tenants are not unfairly denied the right to buy either because the schemes are unviable or the agencies too slow in the process. Three years can be a long time to get round to demolishing a property, and for tenants to be left in uncertainty and unable to exercise the right to buy. However, the Bill already provides for the 18-month life of a demolition notice to be extended by the Secretary of State, on application by the landlord. We recognise that there will be cases in which regeneration is phased, for example, or where particular schemes take some time. In some cases, a decision may be made to demolish a series of properties in a particular order, even though it may take some time to get round to the phase of demolition that is at stake.
  There is therefore flexibility in the existing provision. We will consider the matter further, but we think that the 18-month period is probably right at this stage. In view of that, I hope that the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) will not press amendments Nos. 116 and 117.
  Amendment No. 94, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), would allow the Secretary of State to exempt rural areas entirely from the right to buy. Secure tenants in such an area would not have a right to buy as a result. We recognise that there are pressures on affordable housing in many rural areas, and my hon. Friend set out his concerns about his area very clearly, and made clear the need for affordable housing.
  Mr. Hayes: Will the Minister confirm that there is no intention to change or abandon the exceptions policy?
  Yvette Cooper: We have said that we intend to continue with that policy. I assume that the hon. Gentleman means the restrictions that apply to the seven national parks, and to the 37 areas of outstanding natural beauty.
  Matthew Green: The exceptions policy is used in rural areas to allow affordable houses to be built outside building envelopes. It is currently being considered under one of the new planning policy statements. I should be delighted if the Minister would confirm that she is not about to end the exceptions policy.
  Yvette Cooper: I shall clarify exactly what I mean. The Bill does not change the protection in place for the seven national parks, the 37 areas of outstanding natural beauty and the 30 areas designated as rural, for this purpose, by the Secretary of State. That covers about 40 per cent. of the land area of England. Under section 157 of the Housing Act 1985, landlords may place restrictions on the resale of homes sold under the right-to-buy scheme. Landlords can choose between requiring owners either to resell only to people who have lived or worked locally for three years or, if they prefer, to offer the property back to the former landlord.
  Mr. Hayes: I want to be absolutely clear about this matter. The exceptions policy is the means by which small numbers of properties in rural communities have been built outside the building line. As the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) said, it has proved very effective in developing houses in the sort of communities described by the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew). Will the Government stick with the policy, or are they going to abandon it?
  Yvette Cooper: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will allow me to complete the point about landlords in the seven national parks, as I will then come to the point that he has just raised.
  Clause 162 extends the right of first refusal to all other right-to-buy landlords, wherever they are. However, it explicitly retains the current system in the national parks and in areas of outstanding natural beauty and designated rural areas. Our intention is to continue with the present system.
  The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings asked about the broader issue of the exceptions policy. Our position has been made clear: we are sympathetic to the policy, which we consider to be important. It is subject to continuing consultation, but we hope to include it as part of a more flexible system. We will say more about the matter in due course, as I am not in a position to do so at the moment. We are aiming to achieve a more flexible approach that addresses the conflicting needs and differing pressures that arise in connection with housing issues.
  Mr. Drew: I do not want to get hung up on the difference between the exceptions policy and exemptions, but I hope that my hon. Friend will take it from me that the exceptions policy does not really have anything to do with the right to buy. There is a lot of evidence in rural areas that we have got all the land that we are going to get through the exceptions policy. We need to be much more creative, and much more dramatic, when it comes to dealing with the problems of rural homelessness.
  Yvette Cooper: My hon. Friend is right, and I thank him for that clarification. My earlier lack of clarity stemmed in part from the fact that the exceptions policy
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  has to do with planning, and is not directly related to the right to buy. As I have said, the Bill retains the existing approach to right to buy in the national parks and so on.
  I want to deal with the points in connection with rural areas that arise from amendment No. 94. The Government do not believe that at this stage it would be appropriate to introduce complete bans on the right to buy in certain areas, as the amendment proposes. We need to strike a balance between respecting the aspirations of social tenants in rural areas to become home owners and the need to retain social housing for local people.
  The House will know that we have reduced the maximum discounts available to tenants in certain areas. That has happened already in 41 areas of London and the south-east of England that are under the greatest housing pressure. In Committee, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning was asked whether maximum discounts might be an alternative approach in rural areas. He said that the Government recognised that housing pressures were driving up house prices in some rural areas. There is no intention of introducing across-the-board, blanket bans, and the Government are continuing to monitor the situation. I can therefore confirm that we will keep the question of maximum discounts under review.
  We are also looking at further ways to increase the supply of affordable housing. We are seeking a more flexible approach that will ensure a fair balance for existing tenants and for people who will need affordable housing in the future. I therefore hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud will seek to withdraw amendment No. 94.
  Finally, I want to deal with matters arising in connection with new clause 18, moved by the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings. By its nature, the right-to-buy scheme has always been demand led. A tenant who applies for it, who meets the qualifying criteria and whose home is not exempted, has the right to buy his home, and his landlord must sell it to him.
  New clause 18 seems to want local authorities to promote and market the right to buy in a different way. It seems unlikely that qualifying tenants would be unaware of the right to buy. Section 104 of the Housing Act 1985 requires landlords to provide secure tenants with information about the provisions of the right-to-buy scheme. Also, there are an awful lot of advertisements on the telly at the moment promoting the right to buy. Various companies want to get involved with tenants as regards the right to buy, so it is surprising that the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings seems to suggest that people are not aware of their rights in that regard.
  Mr. Hayes: I hope that the Minister will deal with the question of pricing that I raised. A report carried out by the College of Estate Management in Reading stated:
  "The government is understood to be anxious that the findings of the report should be kept quiet for fear of prompting a rush of appeals."

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  If properties are regularly and routinely overvalued, that must be a considerable disincentive to people exercising the right to buy.
  Yvette Cooper: Obviously, properties need to be appropriately valued. That is not something that the Government can be expected to address in legislation, especially at a time when house prices are changing. However, the hon. Gentleman's proposal that local authorities should market the right to buy in that way seems a little surprising. It would mean that local authorities would have to go to great lengths in terms of time and expense to prepare and update plans to market something that tenants have already made clear they want and are prepared to pay for. We expect there to be more than 60,000 completed right-to-buy sales in 2003–04, so I do not think that the proposal represents a worthwhile use of local authorities' time.
  6 pm
  We are trying to achieve a balance. We want to give people a chance to get on the property ladder and to support their right to buy, but we also need to ensure that we clamp down on abuses and on the scams that have taken place. We also need to ensure that proper support is provided for affordable housing. We have doubled the level of investment that we inherited since 1997 and targeted more of that investment on areas of highest demand, which also tend to be the areas of highest cost. We cannot escape that fact. We do not think, however, that it is right for local authorities to have to set bureaucratic targets or develop marketing strategies. Nor do we think that it would be right to extend the right to buy to housing associations, because that would threaten their viability. If that viability had to be protected or compensation paid, it could cost £1 billion of public subsidy over three years.
  For the reasons I have given, I urge hon. Members not to press their amendments.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 9

  RIGHT TO BUY: CLAIM TERMINATED BY DEMOLITION NOTICE
  (1) In section 138 of Housing Act 1985 (c.68) (duty of landlord to convey freehold or grant lease), after the subsection (2C) inserted by section 166 of this Act, insert—
  "(2D) Subsection (1) also has effect subject to section 138A(2) (disapplication of subsection (1) where demolition notice is served)."
  (2) After section 138 of that Act insert—
  "138A Effect of demolition notice before completion

  (1) This section applies where—

  (a) a secure tenant has claimed to exercise the right to buy, but

  (b) before the landlord has made to the tenant such a grant as is required by section 138(1), a demolition notice is served on the tenant under paragraph 13 of Schedule 5.

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  (2) In such a case—

  (a) the tenant's claim ceases to be effective as from the time when the demolition notice comes into force, and

  (b) section 138(1) shall not apply to the landlord, in connection with the tenant's claim, at any time after the demolition notice comes into force.

  (3) If—

  (a) the tenant's, claim has been established before the demolition notice comes into force, and

  (b) within the period of three months beginning with the date of its coming into force, the tenant serves on the landlord a written notice claiming an amount of compensation under subsection (4),

  the landlord shall pay that amount to the tenant.

  (4) Compensation under this subsection is compensation in respect of expenditure reasonably incurred by the tenant in respect of legal and other fees, and other professional costs and expenses, payable in connection with the exercise of his right to buy.

  (5) A notice under subsection (3) must be accompanied by receipts or other documents showing that the tenant incurred the expenditure in question

  (3) The amendments made by this section do not apply in any case where the tenant's notice under section 122 of that Act (notice claiming to exercise right to buy) was served before the day on which this section comes into force.'.—[Paul Clark.]
  Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 10

  LANDLORD'S NOTICE TO COMPLETE
  '(1) Section 140 of the Housing Act 1985 (c.68) (landlord's first notice to complete) is amended as follows.

  (2) In subsection (3) (notice not to be served earlier than twelve months after landlords notice under section 125 or 146) for "twelve" substitute "three".

  (3) The amendment made by this section does not apply in any case where the tenant's notice under section 122 of that Act (notice claiming right to buy) was served before the day on which this section comes into force.'.—[Paul Clark.]

  Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 11

  RIGHT TO BUY: SUSPENSION BY COURT ORDER
  '(1) In section 12 of the Housing Act 1985 (c. 68) (circumstances in which right to buy cannot be exercised), after subsection (2) insert—
  "(3) The right to buy cannot be exercised at any time during the suspension period under an order made under section 121A in respect of the secure tenancy."
  (2) After section 121 of that Act insert—
  "121A Order suspending right to buy because of anti-social behaviour

  (1) The court may, on the application of the landlord under a secure tenancy, make a suspension order in respect of the tenancy.

  (2) A suspension order is an order providing that the right to buy may not be exercised in relation to the dwelling-house during such period as is specified in the order ("the suspension period").

  (3) The court must not make a suspension order unless it is satisfied—

  (a) that the tenant, or a person residing in or visiting the dwelling-house, has engaged or threatened to engage in conduct to which section 153A or 153B of the Housing Act 1996 applies (anti-social behaviour or use of premises for unlawful purposes), and

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  (b) that it is reasonable to make the order.

  (4) When deciding whether it is reasonable to make the order, the court must consider, in particular—

  (a) whether it is desirable for the dwelling-house to be managed by the landlord during the suspension period; and

  (b) where the conduct mentioned in subsection (3)(a) consists of conduct by a person which is capable of causing nuisance or annoyance, the effect that the conduct (or the threat of it) has had on other persons, or would have if repeated.

  (5) Where a suspension order is made—

  (a) any existing claim to exercise the right to buy in relation to the dwelling-house ceases to be effective as from the beginning of the suspension period, and

  (b) section 138(1) shall not apply to the landlord, in connection with such a claim, at any time after the beginning of that period, but

  (c) the order does not affect the computation of any period in accordance with Schedule 4.

  (6) The court may, on the application of the landlord, make (on one or more occasions) a further order which extends the suspension period under the suspension order by such period as is specified in the further order.

  (7) The court must not make such a further order unless it is satisfied—

  (a) that, since the making of the suspension order (or the last order under subsection (6)), the tenant, or a person residing in or visiting the dwelling-house, has engaged or threatened to engage in conduct to which section 153A or 153B of the Housing Act 1996 applies, and

  (b) that it is reasonable to make the further order.

  (8) When deciding whether it is reasonable to make such a further order, the court must consider, in particular—

  (a) whether it is desirable for the dwelling-house to be managed by the landlord during the further period of suspension; and

  (b) where the conduct mentioned in subsection (7)(a) consists of conduct by a person which is capable of causing nuisance or annoyance, the effect that the conduct (or the threat of it) has had on other persons, or would have if repeated.

  (9) In this section any reference to the tenant under a secure tenancy is, in relation to a joint tenancy, a reference to any of the joint tenants."

  (3) Regulations under—

  (a) section 171C of that Act (modifications of Part 5 in relation to preserved right to buy), or

  (b) section 17 of the Housing Act 1996 (c. 52) (application of that Part in relation to right to acquire dwelling),

  may make provision for continuing the effect of a suspension order where the secure tenancy in respect of which the order was made has been replaced by an assured tenancy.'.—[Paul Clark.]
  Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 12

  RIGHT OF ASSURED TENANT TO ACQUIRE DWELLING NOT AFFECTED BY COLLECTIVE ENFRANCHISEMENT
  (1) Section 16 of the Housing Act 1996 (c.52) (right of assured tenant of registered social landlord to acquire dwelling) is amended as follows.

  (2) After subsection (3)insert—

  "(3A) In subsection (3)(a) the reference to the freehold interest in the dwelling includes a reference to such an interest in the dwelling as is held by the landlord under a lease granted in pursuance of paragraph 3 of Schedule 9 to the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 (mandatory leaseback to former freeholder on collective enfranchisement)."
  (3) The amendment made by subsection (2) applies in relation to the right conferred by section 16 as follows—

  (a) it applies for the purposes of any exercise of that right on or after the day on which this section comes into force, and

  (b) it so applies whether the lease granted in pursuance of paragraph 3 of Schedule 9 to the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 was granted on or after that day or before it.'.—[Paul Clark.]

  Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 2

  TENANCY DEPOSIT SCHEME (REGULATION-MAKING POWER)
  '(1) Where a landlord requires payment of a deposit in relation to any premises occupied as a dwelling under a tenancy, the occupier must pay that deposit into the Deposit Scheme unless subsection (2) applies.

  (2) Landlords, or their appointed agents, who are members of national self-regulated bodies that are bonded by insurance schemes approved by the appropriate national authority may request in writing the payment of any deposit lawfully demanded directly to themselves.

  (3) Where subsection (2) applies, the occupier must pay the deposit directly to their landlord, upon which the landlord must provide a written receipt.

  (4) Any dispute between the landlord and the occupier over the return of the deposit is to be resolved by independent adjudication.

  (5) The appropriate national authority may by regulations specify—

  (a) The terms, conditions and management of the Deposit Scheme;

  (b) Approved bodies and schemes under subsection (2);

  (c) The mechanisms and procedures to be followed under subsection (4).

  (6) The appropriate national authority may by regulations specify that a failure to adhere to such sections of this Part as it sees fit constitutes acts or omissions for the purposes of section 211(2) of the Enterprise Act 2002.'.—[Dr. Desmond Turner.]

  Brought up, and read the First time.
  Dr. Desmond Turner: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
  I apologise for the earlier confusion. I was becoming anxious because time is running out so fast.
  The new clause sets out enabling powers for the Government to introduce a national mandatory tenancy deposit scheme. I shall not detail the arguments in favour of such a scheme or the copious abuses that happen, but many millions of pounds are milked from tenants by unscrupulous landlords and letting agencies every year. Everyone, including respectable and responsible landlords associations, wants that abuse to be stopped.
  Matthew Green: I remind the hon. Gentleman that good landlords also lose out from the absence of a

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  tenancy deposit scheme, because they lose money when tenants withhold their last month's payment. A good scheme would help both tenants and landlords.
  Dr. Turner: The hon. Gentleman is right. As far as the Government are concerned, I am knocking on an open door. However, it is only partly open, the hinges are a bit rusty, it needs oiling and it takes a bit of a push to open. That is what my amendment seeks to do. In principle, the Government are minded to move towards a national tenancy deposit scheme. They have carried out a voluntary pilot scheme and their conclusion appears in evidence given to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning and Local Government Committee, which reads:
  "It has been a very worthwhile pilot for us because it has proved that the principle of tenancy deposit protection through either of the two methods used—guarantee or the third party custodial approach—does work and it has also shown to us that a voluntary scheme is not going to work".
  The principle has therefore been clearly established.
  The scheme need not be expensive. Once established, the administration costs could be covered by the interest paid on the deposits held. Some relatively small costs would be incurred as the scheme was set up, but it would be cost-effective once it was set up. I do not foresee many disputes, because after a few cases that demonstrated that abuse of the system no longer worked, neither tenants nor landlords would see much point in trying. I am convinced that it would work and would not need to be as complicated as my right hon. Friend the Minister seems to think. He pointed out that a few outstanding issues remain, such as the need for written tenancy agreements, funding for a custodial deposit scheme, the nature of industry schemes, adjudication, enforcement and how to define a deposit. However, none of those issues is particularly complex or could not he readily resolved during the further progress of the Bill.
  I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister has referred the matter to the Law Commission, but I ask him not to wait for the outcome of its considerations. The Law Commission is also considering tenure, and we could have to wait a long time for its conclusions. The Bill is a suitable vehicle through which to establish a tenancy deposit scheme. In the days before congestion charging, one never knew when a London bus would come along. Well, here we have an opportunity and I appeal to my right hon. Friend to get on the bus and do the business. I shall not press the issue to a vote because I know that the Government are well disposed towards it. I prefer instead to stroke the Government into submission, and I ask them to accept the new clause.
  Mr. Syms: This suggestion is often brought up by citizens advice bureaux and in surgeries, but the official Opposition are not yet persuaded that it is the right direction to take. Many voluntary schemes work well and the first option should be to consider those. A great deal of money is involved, as it is estimated that there is
  260
  £790 million in tenancy deposits. The Government should certainly consider the issue to see whether practice in the area can be improved, but we would not be happy to see a regulatory scheme introduced. The argument for doing so is not overwhelming. Best practice and voluntary schemes can improve matters in many areas.
  Some of the landlords who deal with the poorest tenants do not take deposits, because those tenants tend not to have deposits. Therefore, a mandatory scheme would not meet some of the objectives of those who favour one. However in order to allow the Minister to put the Government's views on record on this important and topical subject, I shall conclude my remarks.
  Matthew Green: I support a tenancy deposit scheme and I know that the Government need a little push to ensure that it gets into the Bill. However, we need to ensure that any scheme would not be universal. The Government scheme should be a fall-back position for cases in which someone has not joined an industry scheme.
  Dr. Desmond Turner: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the deficiency of voluntary schemes is that only the good landlords join them, and we are not worried about them?
  Matthew Green: I agree that that is why it should be mandatory. If the Government scheme is a fall-back scheme and the industry schemes are retained, landlords will have a range of schemes from which to choose. I hope that the Minister will agree that that is the best way forward and will also confirm that the Government will include this provision in the Bill. It would enhance the Bill and this is the best opportunity that we will have to introduce it for several years.
  Mr. Clifton-Brown: I am grateful to have caught your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I shall speak briefly as time is short.
  Before the Government introduce a scheme, will they assure themselves as to the scale of the problem? Will they make certain that the costs would not be detrimental to tenants, as tenants would receive no interest on their deposit? Can the Government tell us how quickly each tenant would get back their deposit from that bureaucratic body? Can they also explain how disputes would be dealt with? It would be nonsense if every dispute, however small, had to be dealt with by an adjudicator.
  Yvette Cooper: We held a constructive debate in Committee on three amendments that proposed changes to accommodate provisions on tenancy deposits, one of which is now new clause 2. In that debate, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning pointed out that we were extremely sympathetic to the sentiments that had been expressed by Members who supported embedding a tenancy deposit scheme in the measure. As he made clear, the Government support the principle of statutory provisions to safeguard tenancy deposits from wrongful misappropriation.
  As the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) said that the main Opposition party is not convinced of the case for legislation on the issue, we should bear in mind the

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  responses from the voluntary pilot scheme. There was an extremely slow take-up of the pilot and the results suggest that a voluntary approach would have considerable limitations. It would not recognise the need to ensure that irresponsible landlords and those who exploit their tenants are involved in a broader scheme to protect tenancy deposits.
  We held considerable consultation on the issue and we have set out our support for the principle of statutory provisions to safeguard tenancy deposits. We need to recognise the scale of the problem. About 20 per cent. of tenants say that they have faced problems with their landlords over the return of their deposits.
  The Government are considering how we should proceed. The hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) put a series of questions, but at this stage we are not able to say exactly how a deposit scheme might work. We are considering what might be required in drafting such legislation and in the light of those considerations what might be a suitable legislative vehicle.
  The hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) asked about the scope for alternative arrangements and their promotion by trade and professional bodies. We are sympathetic to that idea.
  A series of detailed issues needs to be considered, including the balance between primary and secondary legislation. We cannot simply deal with such matters through secondary legislation. In Committee, we explained why the proposals in the new clause would in many respects fall short of what is required.
  On several occasions, the Government pointed out that we were keen to consider the scheme as part of the proposals for tenure reform published by the Law Commission.
  Dr. Desmond Turner: The drafting of the new clause is probably open to improvement so I should be happy for the Government to draft a new clause, to their satisfaction, which they could table at the other end of the building. That would not be a problem. Can my hon. Friend explain why the Government feel that the issue needs to be conflated with the tenure question? Deposits are likely to be associated with various forms of tenure—shorthold, long and so on—so they could be considered as a freestanding issue.
  Yvette Cooper: That is an important point and I shall try to address it. As I said, we made it clear previously that we were keen to consider the matter as part of the broader proposals for tenure reform that were published by the Law Commission. We have always said that we thought there was a case for addressing the issue of tenancy deposits in the context of those proposals.
  We have asked the Law Commission to draft indicative clauses on tenancy deposits to accompany publication of its draft Bill in the summer. We have also said that, by that time, we would attempt to produce legislative proposals as a response to the consultation that ended last year. That work is in hand and I can assure my hon. Friend that we are considering whether such proposals could be developed separately from the
  262
  Law Commission's other work on tenure. As he rightly says, a series of points have been raised by the Law Commission's work: for example, in relation to written statements of agreement—written contracts. We are keen to look into the question of written contracts, which is important, and we are considering whether it would be possible to address the tenancy deposit issue separately.
  I stress that we are carrying out that work as speedily as possible, but my hon. Friend and other Members will realise that we must ensure that we develop robust proposals and that we do not end up with hasty and inappropriate legislation. We need to ensure that we resolve some of the complex issues that have been raised and find the earliest possible legislative opportunity to address them.
  I can assure hon. Members that we have been looking into some of the detailed proposals made by Shelter and into some of the other complex questions, such as how to ensure the establishment of an appropriate arbitration system and how to make the difficult decisions that would be needed in that regard. We are considering whether there are alternative models and whether there should be a single custodial scheme or whether professional and trade bodies could be allowed to establish schemes. There is a possibility that we might have third-party guarantees, for example through bonding or insurance.
  We have consulted on those options but we are still considering the practicalities of implementing them. There are several existing models, including the letting agents' national approved letting scheme. We are keen to find a way to support professional and trade bodies that are raising standards, rather than simply imposing a single model on everybody that might not enhance the raised standards that already exist.
  The pilot scheme showed that disputes over deposits at the end of a tenancy often involved inventories or cleaning, so we should need to prescribe such things as the requirements for inventories. Some of those points might be appropriate for secondary legislation and that would enable us to make speedier progress, but we need to be confident that we are achieving the right balance between primary and secondary legislation. As was noted in Committee, we need to consider the need for independent adjudication and determination of disputes and the means or bodies through which adjudication should be provided and appealed. We need to examine how decisions could be enforced and what redress there might be for an individual tenant in the event of a favourable decision. Schemes guaranteeing that the deposit money is available might need to be established and approved as well.
  As I have said, we are still interested in the timing of the Law Commission approach. We expect that the Law Commission will report to us as rapidly as possible before the summer. Of course, when we receive its proposals, we will need to consider them as well. We are also considering the issue as speedily as possible in the Department. I am unable to give the House a guarantee about the timing, but I can assure hon. Members that

  263
  my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning and I are keen to report to the House and hon. Members who have expressed an interest in the issue as rapidly as possible because we recognise that there is considerable interest, not only in the House but throughout the country, given that many people face difficulties with landlords.
  Clearly, such proposals would benefit the many good and responsible landlords throughout the country and the private rented sector in general by providing more confidence for that sector. That is why we are keen to pursue the issue, but, equally, why we cannot guarantee—
  It being five and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the programmme motion, MR. DERUTY SPEAKER put the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order [this day].
  Question negatived.
  MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER then proceeded to put forthwith the Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that hour.

New Clause 18

  MARKET PLAN FOR RIGHT TO BUY SALES
  '(1) To monitor sales resulting from right to buy, local authorities will be required to formulate and publish publicly a yearly marketing plan for right to buy sales.

  (2) The marketing plan will include:

  (a) figures on the number of properties sold through the right to buy scheme in the last 12 months;

  (b) a target figure for the number of properties to be sold through the right to buy scheme in the coming 12 months;

  (c) plans for how to achieve (b).'.—[Mr.Hayes.]

  Brought up, and read the First time.
  Motion made, and Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
  The House divided: Ayes 135, Noes 333.

  Division No. 167]

  [6.22 pm

  AYES

  Ainsworth, Peter(E Surrey)

  Campbell, Gregory(E Lond'y)

  Amess, David

  Chapman, Sir Sydney(Chipping Barnet)

  Ancram, rh Michael

  Arbuthnot, rh James

  Chope, Christopher

  Atkinson, David(Bour'mth E)

  Clarke, rh Kenneth(Rushcliffe)

  Atkinson, Peter(Hexham)

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  Baron, John(Billericay)

  Collins, Tim

  Bellingham, Henry

  Cran, James(Beverley)

  Bercow, John

  Curry, rh David

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  Davis, rh David(Haltemprice & Howden)

  Blunt, Crispin

  Boswell, Tim

  Djanogly, Jonathan

  Bottomley, Peter(Worthing W)

  Dodds, Nigel

  Bottomley, rh Virginia(SW Surrey)

  Duncan, Alan(Rutland)

  Evans, Nigel

  Brady, Graham

  Fabricant, Michael

  Brazier, Julian

  Fallon, Michael

  Browning, Mrs Angela

  Field, Mark(Cities of London & Westminster)

  Burns, Simon

  Burt, Alistair

  Flight Howard

  Butterfill, Sir John

  Flook, Adrian

  Cameron, David

  Forth, rh Eric

  264

  Fox, Dr. Liam

  Norman, Archie

  Francois, Mark

  O'Brien, Stephen(Eddisbury)

  Gale, Roger(N Thanet)

  Osborne, George(Tatton)

  Garnier, Edward

  Ottaway, Richard

  Gibb, Nick(Bognor Regis)

  Page, Richard

  Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

  Paice, James

  Goodman, Paul

  Portillo, rh Michael

  Gray, James(N Wilts)

  Prisk, Mark(Hertford)

  Grayling, Chris

  Randall, John

  Green, Damian(Ashford)

  Redwood, rh John

  Grieve, Dominic

  Robathan, Andrew

  Hague, rh William

  Robertson, Hugh(Faversham & M-Kent)

  Hammond, Philip

  Hawkins, Nick

  Robertson, Laurence(Tewk'b'ry)

  Hayes, John(S Holland)

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Heald, Oliver

  Rosindell, Andrew

  Heathcoat-Amory, rh David

  Selous, Andrew

  Hendry, Charles

  Shephard, rh Mrs Gillian

  Hermon, Lady

  Shepherd, Richard

  Hoban, Mark(Fareham)

  Simmonds, Mark

  Hogg, rh Douglas

  Simpson, Keith(M-Norfolk)

  Horam, John(Orpington)

  Soames, Nicholas

  Howard, rh Michael

  Spicer, Sir Michael

  Howarth, Gerald(Aldershot)

  Spink, Bob(Castle Point)

  Hunter, Andrew

  Spring, Richard

  Jack, rh Michael

  Steen, Anthony

  Jackson, Robert(Wantage)

  Swayne, Desmond

  Johnson, Boris(Henley)

  Syms, Robert

  Key, Robert(Salisbury)

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Kirkbride, Miss Julie

  Taylor, Ian(Esher)

  Knight, rh Greg(E Yorkshire)

  Taylor, John(Solihull)

  Laing, Mrs Eleanor

  Taylor, Sir Teddy

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  Turner, Andrew(Isle of Wight)

  Lansley, Andrew

  Tyrie, Andrew

  Leigh, Edward

  Walter, Robert

  Letwin, rh Oliver

  Waterson, Nigel

  Liddell-Grainger, Ian

  Watkinson, Angela

  Lilley, rh Peter

  Whittingdale, John

  Loughton, Tim

  Widdecombe, rh Miss Ann

  Luff, Peter(M-Worcs)

  Wiggin, Bill

  McIntosh, Miss Anne

  Willetts, David

  Maclean, rh David

  Wilshire, David

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Winterton, Ann(Congleton)

  Maples, John

  Winterton, Sir Nicholas(Macclesfield)

  Maude, rh Francis

  Mawhinney, rh Sir Brian

  Yeo, Tim(S Suffolk)

  May, Mrs Theresa

  Young, rh Sir George

  Mitchell, Andrew(Sutton Coldfield)

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Moss, Malcolm

  Mr. David Ruffley and

  Murrison, Dr. Andrew

  Gregory Barker

  NOES

  Adams, Irene(Paisley N)

  Berry, Roger

  Ainger, Nick

  Best, Harold

  Ainsworth, Bob(Cov'try NE)

  Betts, Clive

  Allan, Richard

  Blackman, Liz

  Allen, Graham

  Blizzard, Bob

  Armstrong, rh Ms Hilary

  Borrow, David

  Atherton, Ms Candy

  Bradley, rh Keith(Withington)

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Bradley, Peter(The Wrekin)

  Bailey, Adrian

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Baird, Vera

  Breed, Colin

  Baker, Norman

  Brennan, Kevin

  Banks, Tony

  Brooke, Mrs Annette L.

  Barnes, Harry

  Brown, rh Nicholas(Newcastle E Wallsend)

  Barrett, John

  Barron, rh Kevin

  Brown, Russell(Dumfries)

  Battle, John

  Browne, Desmond

  Beard, Nigel

  Bryant, Chris

  Beith, rh A. J.

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Bell, Sir Stuart

  Burden, Richard

  Benn, rh Hilary

  Burgon, Colin

  Bennett, Andrew

  Burnett, John

  Benton, joe(Bootle)

  Burstow, Pual

  265

  Byers, rh Stephen

  Gibson, Dr. Ian

  Cairns, David

  Gilroy, Linda

  Campbell, Alan(Tynemouth)

  Godsiff, Roger

  Campbell, Mrs Anne(C'bridge)

  Green, Matthew(Ludlow)

  Campbell, rh Sir Menzies(NE Fife)

  Griffiths, Jane(Reading E)

  Griffiths, Nigel(Edinburgh S)

  Campbell, Ronnie(Blyth V)

  Griffiths, Win(Bridgend)

  Caplin, Ivor

  Grogan, John

  Carmichael, Alistair

  Hall, Patrick(Bedford)

  Casale, Roger

  Hancock, Mike

  Caton, Martin

  Hanson, David

  Cawsey, Ian(Brigg)

  Harris, Dr. Evan(Oxford W & Abingdon)

  Chapman, Ben(Wirral S)

  Chaytor, David

  Harris, Tom (Glasgow Cathcart)

  Clapham, Michael

  Harvey, Nick

  Clark, Mrs Helen(Peterborough)

  Healey, John

  Clark, Dr. Lynda(Edinburgh Pentlands)

  Heath, David

  Henderson, Doug(Newcastle N)

  Clark, Paul(Gillingham)

  Henderson, Ivan(Harwich)

  Clarke, rh Tom(Coatbridge & Chryston)

  Hendrick, Mark

  Hepburn, Stephen

  Clarke, Tony(Northampton S)

  Heppell, John

  Clelland, David

  Heyes, David

  Coaker, Vernon

  Hill, Keith(Streatham)

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  Hinchliffe, David

  Cohen, Harry

  Holmes, Pual

  Coleman, Iain

  Hoon, rh Geoffrey

  Cook, rh Robin(Livingston)

  Hope, Phil(Corby)

  Cooper, Yvette

  Hopkins, Kelvin

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Howarth, rh Alan(Newport E)

  Corston, Jean

  Howarth, George(Knowaley N & Sefton E)

  Cotter, Brian

  Cousins, Jim

  Howells, Dr. Kim

  Cranston, Ross

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  Crausby, David

  Hughes, Beverley(Stretford & Urmston)

  Cruddas, Jon

  Cryer, Ann(Keighley)

  Hughes, Kevin(Doncaster N)

  Cryer, John(Hornchurch)

  Hurst, Alan(Braintree)

  Cummings, John

  Hutton, rh John

  Cunningham, Jim(Coventry S)

  Iddon, Dr. Brain

  Cunningham, Tony(Workington)

  Irranca-Davies, Huw

  Darling, rh Alisair

  Jackson, Helen(Hillsborough)

  Davey, Edward(Kingston)

  Jamieson, David

  Davey, Valerie(Bristol W)

  Jenkins, Brain

  Davidson, Ian

  Johnson, Alan(Hull W)

  Davies, rh Denzil(Llanelli)

  Johnson, Miss Melanie(Welwyn Hatfield)

  Davies, Geraint(Croydon C)

  Dawson, Hilton

  Jones, Helen(Warrington N)

  Dhanda, Parmjit

  Jones, Jon Owen(Cardiff C)

  Dobson, rh Frank

  Jones, Kevan(N Durham)

  Donohoe, Brain H.

  Jones, Lynne(Selly Oak)

  Doran, Frank

  Jones, Martyn(Clwyd S)

  Douhty, Sue

  Jones, Nigel(Cheltenham)

  Dowd, Jim(Lewisham W)

  Jowell, rh Tessa

  Drew, David(Stroud)

  Joyce, Eric(Falkirk W)

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Kaufman, rh Gerald

  Eagle, Angela(Wallasey)

  Keen, Alan(Feltham)

  Edwards, Huw

  Keen, Ann(Brentford)

  Efford, Clive

  Kennedy, rh charles(Ross Skye & Inverness)

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Ennis, Jeff(Barnsley E)

  Kennedy, Jane(Wavertree)

  Farrely, Paul

  Khabra, Piara S.

  Field, rh Frank(Birkenhead)

  Kidney, David

  Fisher, Mark

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Flint, Caroline

  King, Andy(Rugby)

  Follett, Barara

  Knight, Jim(S Dorset)

  Foster, rh Derek

  Kumar, Dr. Ashok

  Foster, Don(Bath)

  Ladyman, Dr. Stephen

  Foster, Michael(Worcester)

  Lamb, Norman

  Foster, Michael Jabez(Hestings & Rye)

  Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

  Lepper, David

  Francis, Dr. Hywel

  Leslie, Christopher

  Gapes, Mike(Ilford S)

  Levitt, Tom(High Peak)

  George, Andrew(St. Ives)

  Lewis, Ivan(Bury S)

  George, rh Bruce(Walsall S)

  Liddell, rh Mrs Helen

  Gerrard, Neil

  Linton, Martin

  266

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Ross, Ernie(Dundee W)

  Love, Andrew

  Roy, Frank(Motherwell)

  Lucas, Ian(Wrexham)

  Ruane, Chris

  Luke, Iain(Dundee E)

  Ruddock, Joan

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Russell, Ms Christine(City of Chester)

  McCabe, Stephen

  McCafferty, Chris

  Ryan, Joan(Enfield N)

  McDonagh, Siobhain

  Salter, Martin

  McDonnell, John

  Sanders, Adrian

  MacDougall, John

  Sarwar, Mohammad

  McFall, John

  Savidge, Malcolm

  Mclsaac, Shona

  Sawford, Phil

  McKenna, Rosemary

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Shaw, Jonathan

  McNulty, Tony

  Sheerman, Barry

  MacShane, Denis

  Simpson, Alan(Nottingham S)

  Mactaggart, Fiona

  Skinner, Dennis

  McWalter, Tony

  Smith, rh Andrew(Oxford E)

  McWilliam, John

  Smith, Jacqui(Redditch)

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Smith, Llew(Blaenau Gwent)

  Mallaber, Judy

  Smith, Sir Robert(W Ab'dns & Kincardine)

  Mandelson, rh Peter

  Mann, John(Bassetlaw)

  Soley, Clive

  Marsden, Paul(Shrewsbury & Atcham)

  Southworth, Helen

  Starkey, Dr. Phyllis

  Marshall, Jim(Leicester S)

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Marshall-Andrews, Robert

  Stewart, David(Inverness E & Lochaber)

  Meacher, rh Michael

  Meale, Alan(Mansfield)

  Stewart, Ian(Eccles)

  Merron, Gillian

  Stinchcombe, Paul

  Michael, rh Alun

  Strang, rh Dr. Gavin

  Miller, Andrew

  Straw, rh Jack

  Mitchell, Austin(Gt Grimsby)

  Stringer, Graham

  Moffatt, Laura

  Stunell, Andrew

  Mole, Chris

  Taylor, rh Ann(Dewsbury)

  Moonie, Dr. Lewis

  Taylor, Dari(Stockton S)

  Moore, Michael

  Taylor, Matthew(Truro)

  Moran, Margaret

  Taylor, Dr. Richard(Wyre F)

  Morgan, Julie

  Teather, Sarah

  Mountford, Kali

  Thomas, Gareth(Clwyd W)

  Mullin, Chris

  Thomas, Gareth(Harrow W)

  Munn, Ms Meg

  Thomas, Simon(Ceredigion)

  Murphy, Denis(Wansbeck)

  Thurso, John

  Murphy, Jim(Eastwood)

  Timms, Stephen

  Naysmith, Dr. Doug

  Tipping, Paddy

  Oaten, Mark(Winchester)

  Todd, Mark(S Derbyshire)

  O'Brien, Bill(Normanton)

  Tonge, Dr. Jenny

  O'Brien, Mike(N Warks)

  Truswell, Paul

  Olner, Bill

  Turner, Dennis(Wolverhton SE)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Turner, Dr. Desmond(Brighton Kemptown)

  Öpik, Lembit

  Organ, Diana

  Twigg, Stephen(Enfield)

  Owen, Albert

  Tyler, Paul(N Cornwall)

  Perham, Linda

  Vaz, Keith(Leicester E)

  Pickthall, Colin

  Vis, Dr. Rudi

  Plaskitt, James

  Walley, Ms Joan

  Pollard, Kerry

  Ward, Claire

  Pound, Stephen

  Wareing, Robert.

  Prentice, Ms Bridget(Lewisham E)

  Watson, Tom(W Bromwich E)

  Watts, David

  Prentice, Gordon(Pendle)

  Webb, Steve(Northavon)

  Price, Adam(E Carmarthen & Dinefwr)

  White, Brian

  Primarolo, rh Dawn

  Whitehead, Dr. Alan

  Pugh, Dr. John

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Purchase, Ken

  Williams, rh Alan(Swansea W)

  Purnell, James

  Williams, Betty(Conwy)

  Quin, rh Joyce

  Williams, Hywel(Caernarfon)

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Williams, Roger(Brecon)

  Rapson, Syd(Portsmouth N)

  Willis, Phil

  Raynsford, rh Nick

  Wills, Michael

  Reed, Andy(Loughborough)

  Winnick, David

  Rendel, David

  Wood, Mike(Batley)

  Robinson, Geoffrey(Coventry NW)

  Woodward, Shaun

  Woolas, Phil

  Rooney, Terry

  Worthington, Tony

  267

  Wright, Anthony D.(Gt Yarmouth)

  Wyatt, Derek

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Wright, David(Telford)

  Mr. Fraser Kemp and

  Wright Tony(Cannock)

  Derek Twigg

  Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 157

  EXTENSION OF QUALIFYING PERIOD FOR RIGHT TO BUY
  Amendment made: No. 70, in page 105, line 35, leave out from 'tenancy' to end of line 36 and insert—

  (a) if the tenancy was entered into before, or in pursuance of an agreement made before, the day on which this section comes into force, or

  (b) if paragraph (a) does not apply but the tenant is a public sector tenant on that day and does not cease to be such a tenant at any time before serving a notice in respect of the tenancy under section 122 of that Act.

  (6) In subsection (5) "public sector tenant" has the same meaning as in Schedule 4 to that Act.'.—[Paul Clark.]

Clause 158

  EXCEPTIONS TO THE RIGHT TO BUY: HOUSES DUE TO BE DEMOLISHED
  Amendment made: No. 71, in page 106, line 17, at end insert—
  '2(A) If, at the time when the notice is served, there is an existing claim to exercise the right to buy in respect of the dwelling-house, the notice shall (instead of complying with sub-paragraph (2)(d)) state—

  (a) that that claim ceases to be effective on the notice coming into force, but

  (b) that section 138A confers a right to compensation in respect of certain expenditure,

  and the notice shall also give details of that right to compensation and of how it may be exercised.'.—[Paul Clark.]

Clause 166

  RIGHT TO BUY: SUSPENSION OF LANDLORD'S OBLIGATION TO COMPLETE
  Amendments made: No. 72, in page 116, leave out lines 28 to 36 and insert—
  "'(2A) Subsection (2AA) applies if an application is pending before any court—

  (a) for a demotion order or Ground 2 possession order to be made in respect of the tenant, or

  (b) for a suspension order to be made in respect of the tenancy.

  (2AA) The landlord is not bound to comply with subsection (1) until such time (if any) as the application is determined without—

  (a) a demotion order or an operative Ground 2 possession order being made in respect of the tenant, or

  (b) a suspension order being made in respect of the tenancy,

  or the application is withdrawn.
  (2B) For the purposes of subsections (2A) and (2AA)—
  No. 73, in page 116, line 42, at end insert—
  suspension order" means a suspension order under section 121A.
  (2C) Subsection (1) has effect subject to section 121A(5) (disapplication of subsection (I) where suspension order is made.".'.a—[Paul Clark.]

Clause 167

  DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION AS TO ORDERS ETC.IN RESPECT OF ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR
  Amendment made: No.74 in page 117, line 25, at end insert—
  (4)Regulations under—

  (a) section 171C of the Housing Act 1985 (c.68) (modification of Part 5 in relation to preserved right to buy),or

  (b) section 17 of the Housing Act 1996(c.52)(application of that Part in relation to right to acquire dwelling),

  may make provision corresponding to subsections (1)to(3)of this section so far as those subsections (1)to (3)of this section so far as those subsections relate to section 138(2A)of the Housing Act 1985(c.68).—[Paul Clark]

Clause 179

  IMPLIED TERMS RELATING TO TERMINATION OF AGREEMENTS OR DISPOSAL OF MOBILE HOMES
  Amendments made: No. 75, in page 135, leave out lines 24 to 39 and insert—
  (1A) The occupier may serve on the owner a request for the owner to approve a person for the purpose of sub-paragraph (1) above.
  (1B)If a person ("the recipient") receives such a request and he—

  (a) though not the owner, has an estate or interest in the protected site, and

  (b) believes that another person is the owner (and that the other person has not received such a request),

  the recipient must take such steps as are reasonable to secure that the other person receives the request within the period of 28 days beginning with the date on which the recipient received it.
  (1C)Where the owner receives such a request, he must, within the period of 28 days beginning with the date on which he received the request—

  (a) approve the person, unless it is reasonable for him not to do so, and

  (b) serve on the occupier notice of his decision whether or not to approve the person.

  (1D)A notice under sub-paragraph (1C)above must specify—

  (a) if the approval is given subject to conditions, the conditions, and

  (b) if the approval is withheld, the reasons for withholding it.

  (1E)The giving of approval subject to any condition that is not a reasonable condition does not satisfy the requirement in sub-paragraph (1C) (a)above.
  (1F)If the owner fails to notify the occupier as required by sub-paragraphs (1C)and (1D)above, the occupier may apply to the court for an order declaring that the person is approved for the purposes of sub-paragraph (1)above; and the court may make such an order if it thinks fit.
  (1G)It is for the owner—

  (a) if he served a notice as mentioned in sub-paragraphs (1C)and (1D)and the question arises whether he served the notice within the required period of 28 days, to show that he did;

  (b) if he gave his approval subject to any condition and the question arises whether the condition was a reasonable condition, to show that it was;

  (c) if he did not give approval and the question arises whether it was reasonable for him not to do so, to show that it was reasonable.

  (1H)A request or notice under this paragraph—

  (a) must be in waiting, and

  269

  (b) may be served by post.";'.

  No. 76, in page 135, leave out from the beginning of line 46 to the end of line 2 on page 136 and insert—
  '"(2) Sub-paragraphs (1A) to (1H) of paragraph 8 above shall apply in relation to the approval of a person for the purposes of sub-paragraph (1) above as they apply in relation to the approval of a person for the purposes of sub-paragraph (1) of that paragraph'".—[Paul Clark.]

Clause 181
  SUCCESSION TO SITE AGREEMENTS BY SAME SEX PARTNERS
  Amendment made: No. 77, in page 137, line 13, leave out clause 181.—[Paul Clark.]
Clause 183
  SUCCESSION TO CERTAIN TENANCIES BY SAME SEX PARTNERS
  Amendment made: No. 78, in page 138, line 16, leave out clause 183. —[Paul Clark.]
Clause 186

  ADDITIONAL POWER TO GIVE GRANTS FOR SOCIAL HOUSING
  Amendments made: No. 18, in page 140, line 9, at end insert—
  '(4A) As regards grants made by the Housing Corporation, an order under subsection (3) may also require the imposition of conditions in connection with such grants, and for this purpose may—

  (a) prescribe conditions that are to be so imposed;

  (b) prescribe matters about which conditions are to be so imposed and any particular effects that such conditions are to achieve.'.

  No. 19, in page 140, line 18, at end insert—
  '(5A) If, by virtue of subsection (4A), an order under subsection (3) requires conditions to be imposed by the Housing Corporation in connection with a grant to a company under this section, the Corporation in making the grant—

  (a) must provide that the grant it is conditional on compliance by the company with such conditions as are required by the order; and

  (b) if it exercises its power to impose conditions under subsection (6), must not impose any that are inconsistent with the requirements of the order.'.—[Paul Clark.]

New Clause 5

  OVERCROWDING
  (1) The appropriate national authority may by order make such provision as it considers appropriate for and in connection with—

  (a) determining whether a dwelling is overcrowded for the purposes of Part 10 of the Housing Act 1985 (c. 68) (overcrowding);

  (b) introducing for the purposes of sections 123 to 128 of this Act a concept of overcrowding similar to that applying for the purposes of I art 10 (and accordingly removing the discretion of local housing authorities to decide particular issues arising under those sections);

  (c) securing that overcrowding in premises to which sections 123 to 128 of this Ad would otherwise apply, or any description of such promises, is regulated only by provisions of Part 10.

  270
  (2) An order under this section may, in particular, make provision for regulating the making by local housing authorities of determinations as to whether premises are overcrowded, including provision prescribing—

  (a) factors that must be taken into account by such authorities when making such determinations;

  (b) the procedure that is to be followed by them in connection with making such determinations.

  An order under this section may modify any enactment (including this Act).
  In this section—

  (a) any reference to Part 10 of the Housing Act 1985 (c. 68) includes a reference to Part 10 as modified by an order under this section; and

  (b) "enactment" includes an enactment comprised in subordinate legislation (within the meaning of the Interpretation Act 1978 (c. 30)).'.—[Paul Clark.]

  Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

Clause 125
  REQUIREMENT AS TO OVERCROWDING GENERALLY
  Amendment made: No. 15, in page 89, line 44, leave out '12' and insert '10'.—[Paul Clark.]
Clause 126
  REQUIREMENT AS TO NEW RESIDENTS
  Amendment made: No. 16, in page 90, line 16, leave out '12' and insert '10'—[Paul Clark.]
Clause 209

  ORDERS AND REGULATIONS
  Amendment made: No. 20, in page 155, line 23, leave out 'or' and insert—
  (ba) an order under section (Overcrowding), or'.—[Paul Clark.]

Clause 205

  SERVICE OF DOCUMENTS
  Amendments made: No. 47, in page 152, line 16, after '4' insert 'or this Part'.
  No. 48, in page 152, leave out lines 32 to 40 and insert—
  '(5) A document required or authorised by any of Parts 1 to 4 or this Part to be served on a person as—

  (a) a person having control of premises,

  (b) a person managing premises,

  (c) a person having an estate or interest in premises, or

  (d) a person who (but for an interim or final management order under Part 4) would fall within paragraph (a) or (b),

  may, if it is not practicable after reasonable enquiry to ascertain the name or address of that person, be served in accordance with subsection (5A).
  (5A) A person having such a connection with any premises as is mentioned in subsection (5)(a) to (d) is served in accordance with this subsection if—

  (a) the document is addressed to him by describing his connection with the premises (naming them), and

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  (b) delivering the document to some person on the premises or, if there is no person on the premises to whom it can be delivered, by fixing it, or a copy of it, to some conspicuous part of the premises.'

  No. 49, in page 153, line 11, leave out from "'premises"' to 'means' in line 12.
  No. 21, in page 155, line 27, at end insert—
  '(7) In this Act "modify", in the context of a power to modify an enactment by order or regulations, includes repeal (and "modifications" has a corresponding meaning).'—.[Paul Clark.]

Clause 220

  MEANING OF "PERSON HAVING CONTROL" AND "PERSON MANAGING" ETC.
  Amendments made: No. 60, in page 161, line 43, at end insert 'in occupation as'.
  No. 61, in page 162, line 2, after 'are' insert 'in occupation as'.—[Paul Clark.]

Clause 226

  SHORT TITLE COMMENCEMENT AND EXTENT
  Amendments made: No. 22, in page 163, line 17, leave out
  '8, 153, 164, 180, 209'
  and insert
  '2, 8, 142 to 144, 153, 164, 180, (Overcrowding), 193, 194, 203, 207, 209, 211'.
  No. 23, in page 163, line 21, at end insert—
  'Subsections (3) to (7) have effect subject to paragraph (b).'
  No. 24, in page 163, leave out lines 24 and 25 and insert—
  (a) sections 157, 158 to 163, 168 to 179, 182, 184, 185, 187, 204 to 206, 208, 210 and 212 to 220,'.
  No. 25, in page 163, line 33, leave out 'section' and insert 'sections 2 and'.
  No. 26, in page 163, line 35, after '156,', insert
  '(Exceptions to the right to buy: determination whether exception for dwelling-house suitable for elderly persons applies),'.
  No. 27, in page 163, line 35, after '167,', insert '186,'.
  No. 28, in page 163, line 38], leave out 'section' and insert
  'sections 142 to 144 and'.—[Paul Clark.]

Schedule 10

  RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY TRIBUNALS: PROCEDURE
  Amendments made: No. 79, in page 215, line 41, at end insert—
  '(1A) Procedure regulations may include provision enabling a single qualified member of the panel to decide whether an oral hearing is appropriate in a particular case.'.
  No. 80, in page 216, line 3, leave out 'sub-paragraph (2)' and insert 'this paragraph'.—[Paul Clark.]

Schedule 12

  MINOR AND CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS
  Amendment made: No. 30, in page 230, line 5, leave out
  '34 In section 210(1) of the Housing Act 1996'
  and insert—
  '34 The Housing Act 1996 has effect subject to the following amendments.
  34A In section 52(1) (general provisions as to orders) after "17," insert "27A,".
  34B In section 210.—[Paul Clark.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Consideration completed.
  Mr. Eric Forth: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I know that you are bound by convention, but is it not a bit rich in the circumstances that you are forced to say that consideration of the Bill has been completed? In the last part of the guillotined timetable, eight groups of amendments and new clauses were not even debated, including 24 Government amendments and new clauses. There was no opportunity to debate or divide on those matters, and yet again the House has been compromised and insulted. Would you consider, Mr. Deputy Speaker, asking Mr. Speaker if the words that you are forced to utter could be changed, perhaps to "Consideration only partly completed? Sadly, the House of Commons has not been able to do its duty due to the Government's heavy-handedness.
  Mr. Clive Betts: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. According to the conventions of the House, is it reasonable for the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) to raise the curtailment of consideration when he did not participate in that consideration at all?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: These are not matters on which I can rule at this point in time. They were debated by the House earlier today in the debate on the programme motion. Any time that we spend on them is simply time taken out of Third Reading.
  Order for Third Reading read.
  6.39 pm
  Keith Hill: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
  I thank all Members of the House for their informed, constructive and—I had intended to say universally positive contributions to the contributions to the debate, but perhaps I should rethink that observation, in the light of the most recent intervention.
  Mr. Kidney: Earlier in our proceedings my right hon. Friend generously mentioned my eager anticipation of new clause 15 dealing with empty homes. While we are all in a constructive mood, will he say whether he plans in another place to include arrangements in the Bill to deal with empty homes?
  Keith Hill: I am not in a position to anticipate that development, but just as I alluded to my hon. Friend's

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  appearance earlier today on the "Today" programme, where he spoke on that subject, he will have seen my quotation in the media, in the Financial Times yesterday, in which I was reported as saying that I strongly favoured the introduction of legislation on empty homes. I would say, in the circumstances, "enough said".
  Bob Spink: Will the Minister give way?
  Keith Hill: How can I resist the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink)?
  Bob Spink: I am delighted, but the right hon. Gentleman might wish he had resisted me. He has just thanked me for my contribution, yet his programme motion prevented me from making my contribution. Does he think that is appropriate?
  Keith Hill: The hon. Gentleman—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not think we want to revisit the programme motion of the timing of the debate.
  Keith Hill: I entirely agree and bow to your judgment, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I merely want to say that through correspondence and other interventions, the hon. Member for Castle Point is constantly in my thoughts. Of course, I seek to serve in every possible respect.
  I was saying—
  Mr. Clifton-Brown: On a point of order. Mr. Deputy Speaker. As I understand it, on Third Reading the convention of the House is that one can speak only about what is actually in a Bill, not about what might be in a Bill. Would it therefore be in order to discuss what might have been in the Bill as a result of the amendments that we were not able to debate because of the Government's severe timetabling of the Bill?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman can safely leave such matters to the Chair.
  Keith Hill: As I was saying, for the third time, the Government are committed to creating thriving, inclusive, sustainable communities and we have already done much to deliver that. We have made significant progress in improving housing supply in the south-east and other growth areas and in addressing renewal and regeneration in the north. Last week my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister led celebrations to mark the bringing of 1 million homes in the social sector up to a decent standard. But of course we need to do more. Communities are more than bricks and mortar. The Bill will help create a fairer, more efficient housing market and protect the most vulnerable in housing. The Bill will help—
  Mr. Hilton Dawson: Speaking about what gloriously is in the Bill, has my right hon. Friend read this month's edition of Park Home and Holiday Caravan magazine yet? On page 13 is an article entitled "Bill of Rights". Nothing could express better the feelings of park home residents about
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  the great improvements that the Government have made via the Bill to their situation. I pay particular tribute to the work of the Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper). I hope that we can go on without further ado to have excellent, constructive discussions about implied terms and further reform in the park home sector.
  Keith Hill: My hon. Friend anticipates my allusion in due course to park homes, but as we are on the subject, I concur in his congratulations to the Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) on her work on the matter. When she introduced the park homes amendments to the Bill in Committee, I was able to follow by taking the opportunity to congratulate, and I am happy to do so again, my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) on his sterling work in leading the campaign for that very necessary reform. He may have to be satisfied with what is already in the Bill.
  The Bill will help those most at risk from bad landlords and poor conditions. As my hon. Friend pointed out, it will strengthen the rights of park home owners. In that regard, there was universal rejoicing among all those who had been involved in the proceedings of the Bill. The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) said in Committee:
  "It has been a good Committee in which hon. Members on both sides contributed to improving the Bill. Although we may return to some battles at future stages, we made progress, especially earlier today when the Government accepted the case for better regulation of park homes. That was a notable achievement."—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 24 February 2004; c. 732.]
  We all rejoice at that.
  The Bill will also help tackle antisocial behaviour and it will help to create decent places for people to live.
  Shona Mclsaac: I echo the comments about the changes for people in park homes. I hope my right hon. Friend will assure me, on behalf of the many park home owners in Cleethorpes, especially those living in Barton Broads, who are having problems with a new landlord, that the Bill will help them. Will my right hon. Friend do everything he can to get it on to the statute book as speedily as possible?
  Keith Hill: I am alarmed to learn of the actions being taken against some of my hon. Friend's constituents. To help them and thousands of other park home dwellers throughout the country, I give her my firm undertaking that I will do everything to secure the relevant provision in the Bill at the earliest opportunity. I am grateful for her support in the matter.
  The Bill will improve the supply of affordable housing and it will reduce delays and cut out waste when people are buying and selling homes. Other measures that the Bill will introduce deal with overcrowding. As the members of the Committee—
  Mr. Love: I congratulate the Government on introducing a new clause dealing with overcrowding. On behalf of those involved, I thank the Government for their flexibility in that regard. Will my right hon. Friend look carefully at the consultation exercise and carry it

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  out at the earliest opportunity? Will he ensure that when the Government change the overcrowding standard, they bring it up to 21st century expectations?
  Keith Hill: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his enthusiastic press release on the subject. Through the consultation process we are all determined to bring standards up to those that are merited in the 21st century and to alleviate a great deal of suffering.
  Ms Buck: I congratulate my right hon. Friend and colleagues on the new clause, which will take us a step towards bringing the standards governing overcrowding into the 21st century, and on commissioning the research that has given us some useful information on the health and welfare implications of overcrowded households. May I stress again that there are 1.5 million children living in overcrowded accommodation in London and under the present ludicrous 19th century standards, 20,000 families living in statutorily overcrowded houses? We need to sweep away the existing provisions, and we must move fast to implement new standards that give those families an opportunity to bring their children up in decent conditions.
  Keith Hill: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. We all hope that we can move towards that desired objective through the new provisions of the Bill and the outcome of the consultation process, but we cannot get away from the fact—and I would not want to do so—that it is also an issue of resource and supply. We must work hard in that regard as well.
  On overcrowding, as my hon. Friends have indicated, we have introduced amendments to allow the universal statutory overcrowding standards in part X of the Housing Act 1985 to be amended by secondary legislation. As they indicated, I intend to consult over the next few months about how those powers might be used.
  On the licensing regime for houses in multiple occupation, the Government have tabled an amendment to add sex offences to the list that local authorities consider when they decide whether an applicant for a licence is a fit and proper person.
  In Committee, the concern was raised that a licence condition on landlords to control the behaviour of their tenants and visitors to the property is too wide and unclear, and that landlords could use it to harass tenants. As a consequence, we have tabled an amendment that clarifies that a licence holder's obligation, if one is imposed in a licence, relates only to antisocial behaviour by a tenant or a visitor, and only to the extent that the landlord is reasonably able to fulfil it.
  Concern was also expressed in Committee about the lack of clarity and detail in the Bill on how the proposed grants for non-registered social landlord provision will work in practice, and, in particular, about safeguards and accountability in the absence of a regulatory system similar to that that the relevant authorities exercise over RSLs. We tabled an amendment to provide for a regulation-making power, which allows the Secretary of State to set out conditions that the Housing
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  Corporation must impose, matters that it must address and the effect it must achieve when a grant is given under new section 27A. In Committee, the perfectly understandable concern that a level playing field must exist between RSLs, non-RSLs and, above all, tenants was expressed, and we are determined to achieve such a situation.
  Mr. John Battle: I welcome the Government's movement, particularly on HMOs—they listened, which is welcome. In opening the Third Reading debate, however, the Minister mentioned that the Bill's general aim is thriving, sustainable and inclusive communities, but that is unachievable if conflicts between residents, Travellers and Gypsies persist in our society, neighbourhoods and constituencies. The ODPM promised to review the matter during the course of the Housing Bill, and I urge the Minister promptly to bring forward the review and not to lose sight of the opportunity to address the matter as a housing and accommodation issue before the Bill completes its parliamentary stages.
  Keith Hill: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising his concern about provision for Gypsies and Travellers, which is shared by other Labour Members. His point offers a salutary reminder that that issue is not, as is often perceived, restricted to rural areas, but is an issue in urban areas too. I reassure him that the ODPM is undertaking much work on the issue, and we hope to introduce a series of announcements and proposals, some of which may be incorporated in the Bill.
  In short and in total, the Housing Bill will directly contribute to the delivery of sustainable communities. On Second Reading, the Chairman of the ODPM Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Bennett), observed that this is a good Housing Bill, but that it had the potential to be a great Housing Bill. I hope that it is on its way to becoming a great Housing Bill, and I commend it to the House.
  6.53 pm
  Mr. Hayes: The right hon. Gentleman is a fair Minister, and he has the potential to become a very good Opposition spokesman, a position in which we hope that he will find himself sooner rather than later.
  The consideration of the Bill in Committee and on Second Reading was good, and today's debate was largely positive and constructive. However, we cannot let this opportunity pass without saying that it is unacceptable not to consider 20 Government new clauses and amendments and a dozen other new clauses on Report.
  Extremely cynically, the Government talked long on tenancy deposits so that we could not have a debate on warm homes, which could have been welcome on both sides of the Chamber. It is important that people outside this place know precisely what happened today. The new clause on warm homes was modest. It discussed what can reasonably and practically be done, and extending to 2016 the timetable to meet the Government's targets. Both Government and Opposition Members signed it, but it was not debated at the will of the Government, who cut short the Report stage.

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  As I said, proceedings in Committee were conducted in good spirit, and as I also said, the Minister listened to the arguments advanced from both sides of the Committee. Many people outside this place—industry representatives and people who at concerned about housing—asked me for how long I expected us to debate the matter on the Floor of the House. Believing that the Minister would continue to show the good faith that he showed in Committee, I expected that we might get two days, in which time we could have covered all the aspects of the Bill that have gone unconsidered today.
  It is unacceptable that social housing grants to private developers to build social houses—a terribly important issue for the people who will rent those houses and RSLs—has not been debated. It is not appropriate that accessible housing registers for disabled people, empty houses, mobile homes for Gypsies and Travellers and a range of other issues have not been debated. That is an indictment of the Government, and it is a matter that the Lords will consider with grave concern. I expect those issues to be fully explored there, because they have not been fully explored here.
  I say that more in sorrow than in anger—my concern is shared by hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber. The Minister and the Whip for this business, the hon. Member for Gillingham (Paul Clark), who is a delicate, sensitive and kindly soul, have not lived up to their reputations.
  Mr. Clifton-Brown: This is probably the largest Housing Bill ever—it contains 226 clauses and 13 schedules of highly complex legislation. This democratic Parliament owes the people whom the Housing Bill will affect more than one day's consideration. The Bill should have been considered for two days.
  Mr. Hayes: My hon. Friend adds his passion, which is on behalf of all the people who will be affected by the Bill, to my sorrow. He is right to amplify my point, which other hon. Members including the shadow Leader of the House and my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) also made, about appropriate consideration of such weighty legislation.
  The Bill deals with many important things. It introduces a new housing health and safety rating system, which, although it will be beneficial in many ways, will be expensive to implement. Questions remain about local authorities' ability to introduce the new system in a timely fashion. Do they have the proper resources and the necessary training and reskilling to make the new housing fitness system a practical reality?
  The Bill proposes a licensing system, and we should protect the interests of our most vulnerable citizens, who are obliged to rent houses and live in HMOs. Exploitation is possible in that sector, and it is appropriate that the Government have examined it and brought forward proposals. However, doubts remain whether the licensing system will encompass those in the greatest need and whether the regulatory burden will be so great that it will drive potential landlords out of the business of making homes available to people who need them.
  The Bill includes changes to the right to buy. The Government acknowledge, and the Opposition agree, that the abuse of the right to buy should be curbed, but
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  there are doubts whether measures to curb such abuse will act as a disincentive to people who want to exercise their right to buy, and I am disappointed that the Government have not taken our proposals on board, which would have been a shot in the arm for the right to buy while also curbing abuse.
  The Government have added provisions on park homes, but only on the prompting of Members on both sides of the House, who noticed their omission at an early stage and asked for that to be rectified. Ministers have taken a lot of credit for making that concession, but they should not crow too much without adding the important caveat that on Second Reading those proposals came not from Government Front Benchers but from Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour Back Benchers.
  Then we come to home information packs. What use are they really going to be and what value will they add? We know about the uncertainties, the likely costs and the potential effects on the market, but we have heard no convincing arguments—today, in Committee or previously—for the introduction of these packs. There is grave doubt about their likely efficacy and effectiveness and about whether they can realistically be implemented in the time scale that the Government envisage. I am absolutely sure that Members in the other place will want to consider those matters in great detail and to ask the testing questions of Ministers that we have asked here. I have to say that Liberal Democrat Members have put similar questions, but have also failed to get appropriate answers.
  Mr. Kidney rose—
  Mr. Hayes: I give way to the hon. Gentleman, who made a pithy intervention that was somewhat critical of the Minister a few moments ago.
  Mr. Kidney: This question is for the hon. Gentleman. The will of this House on home information packs is clear. Is he saying that his Conservative friends in the other place would try to sink the Government's plan?
  Mr. Hayes: Our Houses of Parliament always strike a proper balance between the considerations of this place and those of the other place. Of course there is a happy and productive tension between the two Houses because, as the hon. Gentleman knows, that is how legislation is properly scrutinised. Were it not for the good offices of Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers—that is the second tribute that I have paid to the Liberal Democrats in the course of one speech, which is beginning to test me to my very limits—on the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill, it would have been an altogether more imperfect piece of legislation, as we shall no doubt hear tomorrow. I shall not test your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker, by anticipating that debate.
  The truth of the matter is that there are still significant holes in the Bill. It is all very well for the Minister to say on the radio, instead of here, that he is interested in empty homes. We have been telling him for months that he should be interested in empty homes.[Interruption.]
  Throughout the passage of the Bill—on Second Reading, in Committee, and again today—Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members and some

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  Labour Back Benchers have emphasised the fact that it was a golden opportunity to introduce legislation on empty homes, but the Government resisted that. We now hear rumours and suggestions that they might relent, but thus far they have not done so. It is not unreasonable to make that point again in this short Third Reading debate.
  Other hon. Members want to speak, so I shall draw my remarks to a conclusion. This Bill does some good things and this Minister does some good things too—what Bill and what Minister do not?—but I have yet to be convinced that we can reasonably support it, not least because of the inclusion of sellers packs, which remain the most significant part of the Bill in the sense that they will affect everyone who sells or buys a house. Many parts of the Bill are significant in other ways, but not in terms of their potential impact on people's lives, on the costs of buying and selling a home, and on the nature of the market and the professions that are part of it.
  The Government have failed to make a compelling case on that, as they have on a range of other issues that I have highlighted. For that reason, I will vote against the Bill, and I hope that my hon. Friends will join me. I urge the Liberal Democrats to vote with us because, although I do not want to put them off at this eleventh hour, I can see a meeting of minds between us on some of the matters that I have mentioned. Finally, I know that many Labour Members who are dissatisfied with the way in which the Bill deals with warm homes, empty homes and a range of other matters will he pleased that we have opposed it, because that provides the opportunity for those elsewhere to try to knock it into shape and to make something decent out of an unsatisfactory set of proposals.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. There is little time left before the conclusion of the debate, so I hope that Members will take note of that and be concise in their contributions.
  7.6 pm
  Mr. Betts: In general terms, this is a good Bill that attempts to deal with some of the worst housing conditions experienced by some of the poorest members of our community. I thank Ministers for their willingness to involve so many Back Benchers by engaging with us in debate about some of the most important issues.
  My main concern about the Bill is that in some respects it does not go as far as I would like. The hazard rating system is potentially very good, although it is complicated and its implementation will need careful handling. I welcome the fact that we are to have a national licensing system for houses in multiple occupation. Some hon. Members have fought for that for many years, because it will address some of the worst housing conditions for some of the poorest people in our communities. I am concerned, however, that the Minister still does not recognise the degree to which HMOs are not just a risk, but a problem of management in terms of the disruption and nuisance that they can cause to surrounding communities. If that is to be addressed through the additional licensing route, I hope
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  that the Minister will consider the cost to local authorities engaged in the process and do something to assist them.
  The licensing of private landlords in selective areas is good step forward that might be extended in future. Again, it will deal with some of the worst housing problems in some of the poorest communities.
  The home information pack is another good step forward. The more I have heard the arguments, the more I have been persuaded of that. The packs will bring some order to a very disorderly process. The "offers around" system that operates in Sheffield, but hardly anywhere else in the country, is chaotic, and the new scheme will start to deal with that. It will of course be necessary to get right the training of inspectors and the insurance arrangements. I am sure that the Minister will return to the licensing of estate agents, because he believes that it sits happily with the proposals to regulate the whole approach to home buying and selling.
  The Minister gave reassurances in Committee on the tenancy deposit scheme. The Government are now committed to that scheme in principle, and we look forward to its introduction in the near future, because it will help to protect people who are ripped off by their landlords by having deposits taken from them for no good reason.
  For those reasons and many others, I support the Bill and congratulate my right hon. Friend on the way in which he handled it in Committee and today.
  7.9 pm
  Mr. Edward Davey: It is important that Members in the other place and people outside Parliament realise that Members of the elected Chamber—not only Opposition but Labour Members—have been angered by the Government's frustration of genuine democratic debate on key housing issues. That is an absolute disgrace. We look to the other place to help to put that right.
  I regret having to say this, but we and our colleagues on the Labour Benches who have worked with us throughout the proceedings of the Bill on issues such as warm homes, tenancy deposit schemes and empty home—issues that are crucial to our constituents and that we hear about in our surgeries week in and week out—have been prevented from debating them in the proper way in which they should be debated during the Report stage of a big housing Bill. That is an absolute disgrace, and it is one of the reasons why I hope that some Labour Members will have the courage to register in the Lobby their frustration at the Government's handling of the Bill.
  It is a shame that I have to say that, because parts of the Bill are welcome. The selective licensing regime in part 3 is particularly welcome, for example, in regard to tackling antisocial behaviour. As the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) said, part 1 represents a step forward in dealing with poor housing conditions, although there are real concerns about whether it can be implemented and whether the system that has been devised is too complex. Those concerns came out in the debate today, showing that there are worries even about the good parts of the Bill. Some of us have been campaigning for a to long time for the measures in part 2

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  on houses in multiple occupation, but they do not go far enough, as the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe had the courage to say.
  It is disappointing that, despite this opportunity to achieve some real goals and take some real steps forward, the Government have taken only two very nervous steps forward without advancing their cause more courageously or ambitiously. I would have liked the Bill to contain measures on giving landlords a more positive role. Landlords could play a key part in improving the private rented sector, and the Government need to find ways of engaging with them, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) mentioned in the curtailed debate on HMOs, and ways of working with organisations such as the National Landlords Association, to see whether training and accreditation schemes could be used to raise the quality of landlords so that they could deliver on some of these measures.
  The Liberal Democrats have particular concerns about part 5 of the Bill. We believe that the home information packs represent a totally unnecessary regulation. The owner-occupier market manages to carry out more than 1.2 million transactions a year. There seems to be a prima facie case, therefore, for saying that that market is not failing, but succeeding. People manage to move home very effectively, and when a purchase falls through, it tends to be because someone's financial position has changed or because they have to move somewhere else because of their job. Home information packs will not solve those problems, and the solution that the Government have come up with does not address the problems. Indeed, they are unsolvable because they are the problems of normal life.
  This is a market that the Government should leave well alone. The danger is that their so-called solution will make the housing problem even worse, particularly in the owner-occupied sector, where house prices are rocketing and there are not enough affordable homes. The Minister did not reply to my question about whether this proposal had been put to Professor Kate Barker when she was producing her review on the supply of housing. In fact, because of the way that this debate has gone, he has answered hardly any of the questions that hon. Members have asked. That, too, brings the House into disrepute.
  The Liberal Democrats sincerely believe that the introduction of home information packs will work against the Government. I say to the Minister in a genuinely constructive manner that this measure will come back to haunt the Labour Government. In a few years' time, people will be asking who is responsible for all the regulations, extra costs and delays, and we will be able to say, "We told you so," and tell them that it was the Minister for Housing and Planning, the right hon. Member for Streatham (Keith Hill). Voters will be seriously fed up when they have to live with these ridiculous regulations.
  To give at least one more hon. Member the chance to speak, I shall bring my remarks to a conclusion. I hope that I have made it clear that, regrettably, the Liberal Democrats will have to vote against the Bill. It contains some good measures, but there are far too many omissions, and far too many chances to improve housing conditions have been missed. Moreover, some
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  of the proposals in the Bill will do huge damage to the housing market and to the interests of many of our constituents.
  7.14 pm
  Mr. Kidney: In truth, this started out being a good Bill and it has got better. As we are now sending it to the other place, there is still the capacity for further improvement. I would like to give the ministerial team unconditional credit for listening to the Second Reading debate and to the pressure from hon. Members over park homes, and for making wholesale amendments at the right time in Committee. Those amendments will be very welcome to the residents of park homes around the country.
  Mr. Clifton-Brown: I heard the hon. Gentleman's cogent performance on compulsory leasing on the "Today" programme. How can he give unconditional credit to the Minister when his proposals have not even been debated this evening because of the timetable?
  Mr. Kidney: The hon. Gentleman obviously did not hear me saying that I was talking about park homes. I would like to say to all those residents of park homes who will welcome what happened in Committee that, here tonight, things also got better when we accepted amendment No. 75.
  The Government have improved the Bill further. My right hon. Friend the Minister mentioned the concession that they have made, again after listening to the debate in Committee, on including sexual offences as a relevant matter when licensing the owners of houses in multiple occupation. The Minister also acknowledged the pressure that was brought to bear on the Government on overcrowding, which has led to measures being included in the legislation today. All those things are to the Government's credit.
  Some provisions are still missing from the Bill as it goes to the House of Lords. A good tenant deposit scheme and a provision on warm homes would be welcome. However, as time is short, I shall pick out as the most innovative measure in the Bill the new local authority power to make management orders in certain circumstances. Will my right hon. Friend the Minister tell us—I realise that I shall not get an answer now—whether it is anticipated that those orders will be the solution to the problem of bringing empty homes back into use? Let us remember that last year, 719,000 homes were standing empty in England alone, 80 per cent. of which were in private ownership and 300,000 of which were empty for more than six months.
  Mr. Hayes: The hon. Gentleman has made many good points, and he is right to say that the Minister listened to the debates on Second Reading and in Committee. Does he share the regret of the Conservative Opposition and the Liberal Democrats that there has not been more time to explore the issues today?
  Mr. Kidney: Perhaps I should give notice that I shall take no more interventions like that, because time is so short.
  I regard the new power for local authorities to make management orders as a power of last resort, so in the case of empty homes, I would expect the authorities to advise

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  or cajole, and to give help to owners. Some councils already give the owners of empty homes grants to get the properties back into use. However, I would imagine that, under a management order, a local authority would take possession of an empty property, repair it and let it at an affordable rent. That would help to meet the still dreadful housing needs that exist in this country, and to halt the degradation of the surrounding area, in terms of both the environment and crime. Owners would benefit from such a scheme, because they would get the rent from the property and retain ownership of it.
  Lynne Jones: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Kidney: No, I want to finish now, if I may.
  Such a measure would help people with housing needs, and neighbours in areas with empty houses would be delighted to see those properties brought back into productive use. Society would therefore be very satisfied if we could make that response to the problem. I hope that the Government will be delighted that everyone supports that idea and wants to do something about it before the Bill reaches the statute book.
  7.19 pm
  Bob Spink: The right hon. Member for Streatham (Keith Hill) is an excellent Minister, and it is therefore all the more surprising that he is driving the measure through. The Bill is poorly conceived and considered. It has received especially scant consideration today. The main problem is the element of compulsion, which spoils some potentially decent provisions. The worst clause is the provision on home information packs. The Bill offers no reliable improvements to the dysfunctional house buying and selling process.
  More than 1 million residential property transactions take place each year and it is important not to interfere with or disrupt the operation of the housing market. The Bill will do that and it is especially significant at this time, when supply in so many areas is insufficient to meet demand. That drives up property prices, with all the attendant problems that we know so well.
  Philosophically, the country wants less interference from the Government: less bureaucracy, less regulation and fewer inspectorates. In short, people want less regulation and Government interference. However, the Bill and the statutory imposition of the home information packs mean more, not less, Government interference; more Big Brother centralised government; more costs for the seller and therefore the buyer; more cost to the public purse to pay for the new regulations and the new inspectorate, and therefore more house price inflation.
  Mr. Clifton-Brown: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, because I shall not have time to make a contribution. Every year, 1.8 million houses are sold. Does my hon. Friend realise that the Government's estimate of £600 per information pack will add more than £1 billion to the cost of buying and selling houses? If the realistic cost of £1,000 is taken into account, it will mean an extra £1.8 billion. Does my hon. Friend believe that we will achieve anything worth while for that money?
  Bob Spink: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the specific figures. The process will cost more, but we
  284
  shall achieveless. The Bill is a typical socialist measure—[Laughter.] The compulsion to produce the home conditions report will increase the cost of selling houses. Hon. Members laugh now, but they may not do so in two or three years, when their constituents knock on their surgery doors. It will deter some sellers from entering the property market. The statutory requirement means that home information packs must be in place before any marketing can occur That will unduly reduce the number of houses—
  It being six and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the programme motion, MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER put for forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order [this day].
  Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time:—
  The House divided. Ayes 292, Noes 159.

  Division No.168]

  [7:21 pm

  AYES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Clarke, rh Tom (Coatbridge & Chryston)

  Adams, Irene (Paisley N)

  Ainsworth, Bob(Cov'try NE)

  Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)

  Allen, Graham

  Clelland, David

  Amnstrong, rh Ms Hilary

  Coaker, Vernon

  Atherton,Ms candy

  Coffey,Ms Ann

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Cohen,Harry

  Austin, John

  Coleman,Iain

  Bailey,Adrian

  Cook,rh Robin(Livingston)

  Baird, Vera

  Cooper, Yvette

  Baird, Tony

  Corbyn, Jererny

  Barnes, Harry

  Corston, Jean

  Battle, John

  Cousins, Jim

  Beard, Nigel

  Cranston, Ross

  Bell, Sir Stuart

  Crausby, David

  Benn, rh Hilary

  Cruddas, Jon

  Benton, Joe(Bootle)

  Cryer, Ann(Keighley)

  Berry, Roger

  Cryer, John(Hornchurch)

  Best, Harold

  Cummings, John

  Betts, Clive

  Cunningham, Jim(Coventry S)

  Blackman, Liz

  Cunningham, Tony(Workington)

  Blizzard, Bob

  Darling, rh Alistair

  Borrow, David

  Davey, Valerie(Bristol W)

  Bradley, rh Heith(Withington)

  Davidson, Lan

  Bradley, Peter(the Wrekin)

  Davies, rh Denzil(Llanelli)

  Bradshaw, Ben

  Davies, Geraint(Croydon C)

  Brennan, Kevin

  Dawson, Hilton

  Brown, rh Nicholas (Newcastle E Wallsend)

  Dhanda, Pamnjit

  Dobson, rh Frank

  Brown, Russell (Dumfries)

  Donohoe, Brain H.

  Browne, Desmond

  Doran, Frank

  Bryant, chris

  Dowd, Jim(Lewisham W)

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Drew, David(Stroud)

  Burden, richard

  Eagle, Angela(Wallasey)

  Burgon, Colin

  Edwards, Huw

  Byers, rh Stephen

  Efford, Cilve

  Cairns, David

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Campbell, Alan(Tynermouth)

  Ennis, Jeff(Barnsley E)

  Campbell, Ronnie(Blyth V)

  Fisher, Mark

  caplin, Lvor

  Flint, caroline

  Casale, Roger

  Follett, Barbara

  Caton, Martin

  Foster, rh Derek

  cawsey, Lan(Brigg)

  Foster, Michael(Worcester)

  chapman, Ben(Wirral S)

  Foster, Michael Jabez(Hastings & Rye)

  Chaytor, David

  clapham, Michael

  Francis, Dr.Hywel

  Clark, Mrs Helem(Peterbrough)

  Grapes, Mike(llford S)

  clark, Dr.Lynda(Eedinburgh

  George, rh Bruce(Walsall S)

  Pentlands)

  Gerrard, Neil

  clark, Paul(Gillingham)

  Gibson, Dr. Ian

  285

  Gilroy, Linda

  McCafferty, Chris

  Godsiff, Roger

  MacDougall, John

  Goggins, Paul

  McIsaac, Shona

  Griffiths, Jane (Reading E)

  McKenna, Rosemary

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  McNulty, Tony

  Grogan, John

  Mactagyart, Fiona

  Hain, rh Peter

  McWalter, Tony

  Hall, Patrick (Bedford)

  McWilliam, John

  Hanson, David

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Harris, Tom (Glasgow Cathcart)

  Mallatier, Judy

  Healey, John

  Mandelson, rh Peter

  Henderson, Doug (Newcastle N)

  Mann, John (Bassetlaw)

  Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Hendrick, Mark

  Marshall-Andrews, Robert

  Hepburn, Stephen

  Meacher, rh Michael

  Heppell, John

  Meale, Alan (Mansfield)

  Hermon, Lady

  Michael rh Alun

  Hewitt, rh Ms Patricia

  Milburn rh Alan

  Heyes, David

  Miller, Andrew

  Hill, Keith (Streatham)

  Mitchell Austin (Gt Grimsby)

  Hinchliffe, David

  Moffatt, Laura

  Hoon, rh Geoffrey

  Mole, Chris

  Hope, Phil (Corby)

  Moonie Dr. Lewis

  Hopkins, Kelvin

  Moran, Margaret

  Howarth, rh Alan (Newport E)

  Morgan Julie

  Howarth, George(Knowsley N & Sefton E)

  Mountford, Kali

  Mullin, Chris

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  Munn, Ms Meg

  Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)

  Murphy Denis (Wansbeck)

  Hurst, Alan (Braintree)

  Murphy Jim (Eastwood)

  Hutton, rh John

  Naysmith, Dr. Doug

  Iddon, Dr. Brian

  O'Brien, Bill (Normanton)

  Irranca-Davies, Huw

  O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)

  Jackson, Glenda(Hampstead & Highgate)

  Olner, Bill

  O'Neill, Martin

  Jackson, Helen (Hillsborough)

  Organ, Diana

  Jamieson, David

  Owen, Albert

  Jenkins, Brian

  Perham, Linda

  Johnson, Alan (Hull W)

  Pickthall, Colin

  Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn

  Plaskitt, James

  Hatfield)

  Pollard, Kerry

  Jones, Helen (Warrington N)

  Pound, Stephen

  Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)

  Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham

  Jones, Kevan (N Durham)

  E)

  Jones, Lynne (Selly Oak)

  Prentice Gordon (Pendle)

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)

  Primarolo, rh Dawn

  Joyce, Eric (Falkirk W)

  Purchase, Ken

  Kaufman, rh Gerald

  Purnell, James

  Keen, Alan (Feltham)

  Quin, rh Joyce

  Keen, Ann (Brentford)

  Quinn, lawrie

  Kemp, Fraser

  Rapson, Syd (Portsmouth N)

  Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)

  Raynstord, rh Nick

  Khabra, Piara S.

  Reed, Andy (Loughborough)

  Kidney, David

  Robinson, Geoffrey (Coventry

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  NW)

  King, Andy (Rugby)

  Rooney, Terry

  Knight Jim (S Dorset)

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Kumar, Dr. Ashok

  Roy, Frank (Motherwell)

  Ladyman, Dr. Stephen

  Ruane, Chris

  Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

  Ruddock, Joan

  Laxton, Bob (Derby N)

  Russell, Ms Christine (City of

  Lepper, David

  Chester)

  Leslie, Christopher

  Ryan,Joan (Enfield N)

  Levitt, Tom (High Peak)

  Salter, Martin

  Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)

  Sarwar, Mohammad

  Lewis, Terry (Worsley)

  Savidge Malcolm

  Liddell, rh Mrs Helen

  Sawford, Phil

  Linton, Martin

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Lloyd, Tony (Manchester C)

  Shaw, Jonathan

  Llwyd, Elfyn

  Sheerman, Barry

  Love, Andrew

  Skinner, Dennis

  Lucas, Ian (Wrexham)

  Smith, rh Andrew (Oxford E)

  Luke, lain (Dundee E)

  Smith, rh Chris (Islington S & Finsbury)

  McAvoy, Thomas

  McCabe, Stephen

  Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)

  286

  Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)

  Vis, Dr. Rudi

  Soley, Clive

  Walley, Ms Joan

  Southworth, Helen

  Ward, Claire

  Starkey, Dr. Phyllis

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Watson, Tom (W Bromwich E)

  Stewart, David (Inverness E & Lochaber)

  Watts, David

  White, Brian

  Stewart, Ian (Eccles)

  Whitehead, Dr. Alan

  Stinchcombe, Paul

  Wicks, Malcolm

  Strang, rh Dr. Gavin

  Williams, rh Alan (Swansea W)

  Straw, rh Jack

  Williams, Betty (Conwy)

  Stringer Graham

  Williams,Hywel(Caernarfon)

  Taylor, rh Ann (Dewsbury)

  Wills, Michael

  Taylor, Dari (Stockton S)

  Winnick, David

  Thomas Gareth (Clwyd W)

  Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C

  Thomas, Gareth (Harrow W)

  Wood, Mikw (Batley)

  Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)

  Woodward, Shaun

  Timms, Stephen

  Woolas, Phil

  Tipping, Paddy

  Worthington, Tony

  Todd, Mark (S Derbyshire)

  Wright, Anthony D. (Gt

  Touhig, Don (Islwyn)

  Yarmouth)

  Truswell, Paul

  Wright, David (Telford)

  Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)

  Wright, Tony (Cannock)

  Turner, Dr. Desmond (Brighton Kemptown

  Wyatt, Derek

  Twigg, Derek (Halton)

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Twigg, Stephen (Enfield)

  Gillian Merron and

  Vaz, Keith (Leicester E)

  Mr. Nick Ainger

  NOES

  Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)

  Doughty, Sue

  Allan, Richard

  Duncan, Alan (Rutland)

  Amess, David

  Evans, Nigel

  Ancram, rh Michael

  Fabricant, Michael

  Arbuthnot, rh James

  Fallon, Michael

  Atkinson, David (Bourinth E)

  Field, Mark (Cities of London &

  Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)

  Westminster)

  Baker, Norman

  Flight, Howard

  Baldry, Tony

  Flook, Adrian

  Barker, Gregory

  Forth, rh Eric

  Baron, John (Billericay)

  Foster, Don (Bath)

  Barrett, John

  Francois, Mark

  Bellingham, Henry

  Gale, Roger (N Thanet)

  Beresford, Sir Paul

  George, Andrew (St. Ives)

  Boswell, Tim

  Gibb, Nick (Bognor Regis)

  Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)

  Gillan, Mrs Cheryl

  Bottomley, rh Virginia (SW

  Goodman, Paul

  Surrey)

  Gray, James (N Wilts)

  Brady, Graham

  Green, Damian (Ashford)

  Brake, Tom (Carshalton)

  Green, Matthew (Ludlow)

  Brazier, Julian

  Grieve, Dominic

  Breed, Colin

  Hammond, Philip

  Brooke, Mrs Annette L.

  Hancock, Mike

  Burnett, John

  Harvey, Nick

  Burns, Simon

  Hawkins, Nick

  Burt, Alistair

  Hayes, John (S Holland)

  Butterfill, Sir John

  Heald, Oliver

  Cameron, David

  Heath, David

  Campbell, rh Sir Menzies (NE

  Heathcoat-Amory, rh David

  Fife)

  Hendry, Charles

  Carmichael, Alistair

  Hoban, Mark (Fareham)

  Cash, William

  Hogg, rh Douglas

  Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping

  Holmes, Paul

  Barnet)

  Horam, John (Orpington)

  Chope, Christopher

  Howard, rh Michael

  Clarke, rh Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)

  Collins, Tim

  Jack, rh Michael

  Cotter, Brian

  Johnson, Boris (Henley)

  Cran, James (Beverley)

  Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)

  Curry, rh David

  Kennedy, rh Charles (Ross Skye &

  Davey, Edward (Kingston)

  Inverness)

  Davis, rh David (Haltemprice &Howden)

  Key, Robert (Salisbury)

  Kirkbride, Miss Julie

  Djanogly, Jonathan

  Knight, rh Greg (E Yorkshire)

  Dodds, Nigel

  Lait, Mrs Jacqui

  287

  Lamb, Norman

  Sanders, Adrian

  Lansley, Andrew

  Selous, Andrew

  Leigh, Edward

  Shephard, rh Mrs Gillian

  Letwin, rh Oliver

  Shepherd, Richard

  Liddell-Grainger, Ian

  Simmonds, Mark

  Lilley, rh Peter

  Simpson, Keith(M-Norfolk)

  Loughton, Tim

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

  Luff, Peter(M-Worcs)

  McIntosh, Miss Anne

  Soames, Nicholas

  Maclean, rh David

  Spicer, Sir Michael

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Spink, Bob(Castle Point)

  Maples, John

  Spring, Richard

  Marsden, Paul(Shrewsbury &Atcham)

  Steen, Anthony

  Streeter,Gary

  Maude, rh Francis

  Stunell, Andrew

  Mawhinney, rh Sir Brian

  Swayne, Desmond

  Mitchell, Andrew(Sutton Coldfield)

  Syms, Robert

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Moore, Michael

  Taylor, Ian(Esher)

  Moss, Malcolm

  Taylor, John(Solihull)

  Murrison, Dr. Andrew

  Taylor, Dr. Richard(Wyre F)

  Norman Archie

  Taylor, Sir Teddy

  Oaten, Mark(Winchester)

  Teather, Sarah

  O'Brien, Stephen(Eddisbury)

  Tonge, Dr. Jenny

  Öpik Lembit

  Turner, Andrew(Isle of Wight)

  Osborne, George(Tatton)

  Tyler, Paul(N Cornwall)

  Ottaway, Richard

  Walter, Robert

  Page, Richard

  Watkinson, Angela

  Paice, James

  Webb, Steve(Northavon)

  Portillo, rh Michael

  Whittingdale, John

  Prisk, Mark(Hertford)

  widdecombe, rh Miss Ann

  Pugh, Dr. John

  Wiggin, Bill

  Randall, John

  Willis, Phil

  Williams, Roger(Brecon)

  Redwood, rh John

  Wilshire, David

  Rendel, David

  Winterton, Ann(Congleton)

  Robathan, Andrew

  Yeo, Tim(S Suffolk)

  Robertson, Hugh(Faversham &M-Kent)

  Young, rh Sir George

  Robertson, Laurence(Tewkib'ry)

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Mr. David Ruffley and

  Rosindell, Andrew

  Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Bill read the Third time, and passed.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 15 (Exempted business),
  That at this day's sitting the Motion in the name of Mr Peter Hain relating to Visitor Facilities may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Kemp.]
  Question agreed to

  Visitor Facilities
  Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [22 April],
  That this House approves the First Joint Report of the Accommodation and Works Committee and the Administration Committee on Visitor Facilities: Access to Parliament (House of Commons Paper No. 324) and endorses the Committees' proposals for a new reception and security building at the north end of Cromwell Green.—[Mr. Woolas]
  Question again proposed.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: I advise the House that Mr. Speaker has not selected any of the amendments.
  7.36 pm
  Andrew Mackinlay: I remind colleagues that we were interrupted on 22 April during consideration of the joint report of the Administration Committee and the Accommodation and Works Committee. I had just said how lovely Westminster Hall looked that afternoon. I visited it again today and spent some quiet time there, soaking up the wonderful atmosphere, which I want to refer to again in a few moments.
  I am pleased to have the opportunity to acknowledge the enormously difficult task that Mr. Speaker, the Metropolitan police and the Serjeant at Arms have in the field of the security of the House. It is not easy for them to balance all the pressures and constraints, the need for access and openness and the fact that there are 659 different views in this place as to what is the correct level of security, access and so on. We should place that on record. I do so in the knowledge that, very unfairly, the Serjeant at Arms was traduced by a newspaper a few weeks ago. I thought it not only flippant but very unfair to have a go at him, because he and his staff are preoccupied every day with all the difficult and sensitive decisions relating to individual Members of Parliament and the need for oversight, with Black Rod, of the security of the Palace. We should acknowledge that this evening.
  I have read and read again the report before us, and I think there is an error here. We are in danger of conflating two separate things: the immediate problem of security and the wider aspirations to which my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks) referred at length on 22 April.[Interruption.] His speech was qualitatively very useful. I share with him the aspiration of making this place much more inviting and open and providing greater opportunities for people to understand its history and perhaps to enjoy an interpretive centre. That is referred to in the paragraph of the report dealing with longer-term objectives. We are confusing two separate issues, and I think that that is a mistake.
  Mr. Eric Forth: Does the hon. Gentleman share my puzzlement that we are being asked to go ahead with what is allegedly a security measure at the very time when the Leader of the House has been at great pains to tell us that a comprehensive review of all security is being carried

  289
  out? Does he think it premature, to say the least, to spend £5 million of public money on this project when the security review has not yet been completed?
  Andrew Mackinlay: The right hon. Gentleman anticipates the thrust of much that I want to say. Since 22 April, I have thought about the issue on many occasions, and have reconsidered some of the proposed developments and initiatives to explore what alternatives there are. I want to amplify why I think that the proposals are premature. I also beat my breast three times because I confess to the House that, in retrospect, I think that there was a case either for us to have a secret sitting or some other system of deliberation so that some of our ideas and reservations could have been shared in confidence. I say that because there are some issues, even now, on which we would all have views, on which it is probably not wise to canvass in the open.
  I know that there was an endeavour to involve and advise as many people as possible about some of the security constraints, both in relation to the previous debate on the screen and to this one. We were told that some 60 Members were approached, largely Privy Councillors; hon. Members will understand how this obsession with Privy Councillors grates with me. In any event, may I suggest that, in addition—but not instead—we use the executive of the 1922 committee, Labour's parliamentary committee and the representative organisations of the other parties to at least expand the consultation? After all, the 1922 committee executive and the Labour party's—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman could confine his remarks to the debate under consideration.
  Andrew Mackinlay: I will, Madam Deputy Speaker, but my point was that the consultation, which is mentioned in the report, could have been greater. As this issue is not going to go away, I invite the House and the authorities to consider whether in addition to Privy Councillors, the shop stewards—the 1922 committee and the parliamentary committee—might be used.
  Mr. Tony Banks: Neither the 1922 committee nor the parliamentary Labour party are leak-free zones, as my hon. Friend well knows. I am glad that he has had a rethink about considering matters in closed session. I was the only Labour Member who voted for a closed session, and I was phoned up by a newspaper and asked if it was a mistake. I have perhaps made many mistakes in my life, but that was not one of them.
  Andrew Mackinlay: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I was trying to explain that we need some way of being able to share our concerns and a closed session is one such way. I have tried to canvass other ideas, as these issues will not go away. I do not want to labour that point.
  Mrs. Marion Roe: To try to help the hon. Gentleman and others, I am sure that he will appreciate that I cannot discuss in the Chamber detailed security advice. I can, however confirm that the proposals have been examined by security specialists, both inside and outside the House, and the best current
  290
  advice is that they would significantly improve on the current arrangements, which I am sure that he will agree are not necessarily satisfactorily, and no problems whatever have been identified with the proposed location.
  Andrew Mackinlay: I am coming to that. I do not doubt that there has been consultation with the security and intelligence services and other professional advice. Perhaps I would like occasionally to be included in the circle. If we look at column 508, on 22 April, we see that the Deputy Leader of the House postulated that someone who supported the screen would logically support these motions. I voted for the screen, but I am not persuaded by these recommendations. It does not necessarily follow.
  Lembit Öpik: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a bits-and-pieces approach towards security is exactly the problem£ Agreeing with one measure—incidentally, I did not agree with the screen, as it is another limitation on our interaction with the public—does not necessarily means that one agrees with another. Since this is a strategic issue, does he agree that we need a strategic solution, not something that bolts on one piece after another, perhaps without achieving the objective at all?
  Andrew Mackinlay: I agree.
  On the technical point, I asked the Deputy Leader of the House a question previously, and I hope that he will reply later. If somebody, heaven forbid, wished to explode a device in the proposed new building, how would that be an appreciable improvement on the existing arrangements, which, without question, endanger staff? I am not an expert, but I understand that explosions blow outwards. If we want a building that will deal with screening, we want one that will allow the thrust of such an explosion to go outwards. I stress that I have not had a reply on this point and the fact is that the building proposed is in a trench. If the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald), who is a member of the Commission, has an answer, I would be pleased to have it.
  Mr. Oliver Heald: As I said to the hon. Gentleman last time, I cannot go into the detailed security advice and I have not had a great deal of it in respect of this building. I thought that the general point about security screening buildings was that they had thick walls to stop the blast going outwards and make it go upwards.
  Andrew Mackinlay: I am genuinely surprised that the hon. Gentleman takes that view, which is why we need some opportunity to explore these issues in confidence. One of the reasons that the marquees, which we all agree were unsightly, were put outside St. Stephen's entrance, on the advice of specialists, was the heightened security at that time. Those marquees are there precisely because if an atrocity involving an explosion had been attempted, they would have blown outwards. Marquees were used outside St. Stephen's, and are used outside the United Nations building in New York, precisely to

  291
  minimise loss of life. I challenge someone to explain to me how the proposed new building will meet that requirement. I suggest that it does not.
  Mr. Greg Knight: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Andrew Mackinlay: If the right hon. Gentlemen wants to intervene, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am torn.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. It is entirely up to the hon. Gentleman whether he wants to accept an intervention.
  Andrew Mackinlay: I give way to the right hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Knight: Is not there an answer already to the problem of visitors getting wet when it is raining outside? We already have a marquee structure, which is used once a year on the occasion of the state opening and erected outside the House of Lords. It would be far cheaper to put up the small tented area that we have for state opening and leave it up so that visitors queueing to get in at the other end of the building do not get wet when it rains.
  Andrew Mackinlay: That may be a valid consideration and it relates back to the point that we should not approve the motion tonight but have a period of reflection during which some of these points can be explored. As well as explaining the technology of what is proposed, will the Deputy Leader of the House, and even the Chairman of the Administration Committee, who intervened a few moments ago, undertake that the people who advised the House will not, after the building is erected, if it is, in the Cromwell garden, say that because of the heightened security situation, marquees will have to be erected? That is what I think will happen. We will get the building, it will be deemed administratively good and allow the throughput that has been mentioned, which is a valid point, but if and when—regrettably, I fear that it is almost inevitable—there is a renewed heightened security situation, advisers will say to Officers of the House that we must erect marquees. That was precisely what happened some months ago when marquees were put up outside St. Stephen's entrance.
  Mr. Forth: Given the territory that the hon. Gentleman now wishes to explore and the sensitivities voiced a moment ago by the Chairman of the Administration Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe), should we not at least consider allowing the House to sit privately so that we can speak more freely? We tried that when this matter was last discussed. I felt rather let down when the Leader of the House, who had said that he would be open and honest, voted against the motion for the House to meet in private and then barefacedly told us later that he could not tell us everything because it was all very secret and hush-hush. It might be worth
  292
  considering the possibility of allowing ourselves to obtain further and better information in a private sitting this evening, so that we can make some progress.
  Andrew Mackinlay: I have already beaten my breast and do not want to labour the point. I have said that I am sorry that we cannot have some form of secret session—even informally—and that it is probably my fault because I did not pursue the matter at the time.
  Mr. Paul Tyler: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Andrew Mackinlay: In fairness to the House I want to make some progress, but I will give way.
  Mr. Tyler: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but I think that he owes me one. He will recall that I made an uncharacteristically abbreviated speech, lasting just two minutes, so that he could speak.
  I suggest that the statement with which the hon. Gentleman has just been led to agree conflicts with what both he and the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) have said previously. At the moment we are not likely to receive such information, in private or in any other context. because we have not been given the wide-scale, comprehensive security assessment that we have all been promised. Even if we were to sit in private, we would be likely to receive the same sort of information from the Government that we have received previously. This is the point: we do not have the context for either this discussion or—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. At this point we should not be debating the pros and cons of sitting in private. The House has a way of dealing with such an issue, should it arise.
  Andrew Mackinlay: The hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Derek Conway)—
  Mr. Greg Knight: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It concerns the point that you just made. Will you confirm that, if any Member decides to put it to the test, you could accept a motion for us to sit in private, even though, as this is an adjourned debate and not a debate starting afresh, the question has already been put?
  Madam Deputy Speaker: That is correct.
  Andrew Mackinlay: As I was saying, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup, who, I think, chairs the Accommodation and Works Committee, intervened to speak of how he came from Yorkshire to visit this place as a very excited 11-year-old. That struck a chord with me. I think that everyone remembers their first visit. I was 12 and recall queueing for two and a half hours in St. Stephen's Hall t see Harold Wilson, then shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, make a wonderful speech. It had a profound effect on me. Rather sadly, I never wanted to be a train driver after that; I wanted to come here.
  Over the next 30 years—this is relevant, Madam Deputy Speaker, because we are talking about visitor facilities—I did come here, and I queued. I look back

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  with nostalgia to the days when it was possible to go to the Strangers Gallery and obtain a pass from the staff of the Serjeant at Arms to go down to the Strangers Cafeteria for half an hour. If only those days existed now. There used to be double ranks of queues in St. Stephens Hall. I mention that because one of the problems emphasised in the report is that of people queueing outside in the rain. I think that it will always be thus, because even with the new arrangements there will be exceptional occasions on which people will queue in the rain; but, in comparison with the days of my youth and adolescence, and even with more recent times, we do not seem to have packed them into St. Stephens Hall as we used to, although there is still capacity for keeping people out of the rain.
  Bob Spink: The hon. Gentleman suggested that the new provisions would increase throughput by speeding up people's entry. Has he thought about that carefully? Increasing the number of security screening machines from two to only three strikes me as a missed opportunity. If we are to go to all this expense and spend £5 million, why do we not put in four or five machines so that we can get people through even more quickly?
  Andrew Mackinlay: What the hon. Gentleman says demonstrates that some of us have a feeling in our bones that this has not been examined a adequately. I suggest that the small space in Cromwell Green would not allow an increase in numbers but the hon. Gentleman makes the valid point that what is proposed is only a marginal increase on the existing arrangements.
  Lembit Öpik: Does it strike the hon. Gentleman as ironic that one of the problems is not how fast we can get people into the place, but how much space there is? In fact, we have managed to reduce the amount of available space in the Strangers Gallery. Far from making it easier to get people in here, we have increased the backlog by reducing throughput.
  Andrew Mackinlay: I am not going to respond to what was dealt with in our last debate, but I will say that I supported the idea of the screen. I did so because I was privy to information that was not discussed in the Chamber, which persuaded me of the urgent need for it. There might well be information that could persuade me of the need for what is proposed now that cannot be shared with me in this open forum.
  Let me now deal with the proposed development. I invite the House to consider this. In a sense, we are the planning committee: we are going to give ourselves planning permission for a development. We have a duty to approach this in the same way as any other developer. We do not usually do that; we sometimes deal with matters in a shameful way. We are not going to give ourselves outline planning permission tonight; we are going to give ourselves total planning permission. There will be no coming back.
  Members who have served on local planning authorities will know that sometimes people who apply for permission for outline plans are given consent, subject to details—for instance, details of the facing materials. What will the end result look like? I have read the report several times and it is not clear what the facing
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  materials will be or what the roof will look like. As far as I can tell from the black-and-white drawings, if I am standing with Cromwell Green behind me I will see some sort of glass building, but that is not clear. That is an important point. People may think I am being pernickety, but the House should be ashamed of itself in this regard. We have ignored normal planning procedures in the past. I have spoken here before of those dreadful marquees on the Terrace. Pugin and Barry did not design them, nor did the Almighty; they were put there by us.
  A paragraph in the report tells us that there will be consultations. We are going to approve this proposal tonight when consultations with the appropriate bodies—including, I believe, the fine art commission—have not been exhausted. I think that our track record is shameful. First, we are going to give approval tonight without those consultations and the resulting observations; secondly, the fine art commission has said that the marquees on the Terrace should come down every year, but they do not now—we have forgotten about it. We have forgotten about it because it does not suit us. That would never happen if a private developer were involved.
  We should not approve this proposal without consultations with the fine art commission and the various heritage authorities. We should consider their responses to the idea in principle and any conditions relating to the facing material, construction and appearance. We should give a solemn and binding undertaking to adhere to the conditions that they lay down, rather than following the dreadful, shameful practice that we have allowed to take place on the Terrace of the House of Commons.
  Mr. Iain Luke: Will my hon. Friend accept from one who has served on both the Administration Committee and a planning committee on a local authority that those questions were posed during deliberations on the document? Assurances were given that consultation had taken place and that advice had been taken by the appropriate heritage bodies. Although there is no detailed building specification, I am sure that neither of the Committees involved would ever allow us to proceed in the knowledge that there would be abuse of heritage and conservation principles.
  Andrew Mackinlay: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Perhaps he can explain to me why paragraph 32 contains a statement on the costs which says:
  "This figure does not take into account the effects of inflation or the cost of any additional related security works required once consultations with security and heritage bodies have been completed."
  Those have not taken place. I did not write that report, someone else did and I ask them a simple question. The report refers to consultation with the heritage bodies, but that has not yet happened. I am pleased that my hon. Friend raised that matter, because he is a diligent Member and no doubt was a diligent member of his local authority, but I can tell him that when this House asks, it gets conditions laid down and then ignores them. That is why we have those wretched marquees out there, as we speak. They should not be there, and would not be

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  if we had followed the recommendations—the equivalent of the conditions laid down in a planning consent.
  Mr. Tyler: I, too, have planning experience and architectural experience. Has the hon. Gentleman noted that paragraph 27 records "firm objections" from English Heritage to a very modest incursion into Westminster Hall, which is quite insignificant compared with what is proposed in the report? We should anticipate that several bodies will take a close interest in the detailed design of the facilities, and I entirely endorse the hon. Gentleman's view that we must be very careful.
  Andrew Mackinlay: To use the vernacular down in Thurrock, too damn right. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Luke), I was referring to paragraph 32, which rather glibly says that the developments will cost approximately £5 million but that there could be extra costs, for example relating to security. That is not the proper way in which to do business. I would not mind if this debate were like a First Reading, or was the first canvass of the ideas. I would welcome that, and say, "Very good." The Minister and relevant Committees could then take cognisance of some of the things said here tonight. However, we are being asked to approve something now and almost to give a blank cheque to the suggestions.
  Equally, some Members might say, "That's all very well, Mackinlay, but what are the alternatives?" I recognise that we must address security, which I have acknowledged throughout my speech and earlier. There might well be some palliatives that could be explored. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham has explored some matters that are worthy of consideration as temporary measures. I have made much of the marquees on the Terrace, but my complaint is that they are permanent; that sort of structure erected temporarily in the park adjacent to the Palace might be one possibility. My hon. Friend also rightly said that at some stage we must address ourselves to the wider campus around this place, including Parliament square, and consider whether that could be used. Again, that goes back to the need to look at the issues comprehensively, rather than study this report in isolation. If we had more space at the House's disposal, we could act much more sensitively.
  I was going to ask the Deputy Leader of the House this question but, cheekily, I shall ask the whole House: will Members put their hands up if they have ever been in the Jewel Tower? A couple of Members here have, but when I mentioned it to some distinguished hon. Members earlier today, they were aghast and did not know what I was talking about. The Jewel Tower is opposite Parliament. It is run by English Heritage and claims to house a parliamentary exhibition. I revisited it the other day, and was really quite embarrassed. English Heritage charges quite a lot for people to go in there and all there really is to see is Speaker Weatherill's gown—which is very generous of him, to his credit—and the gown worn by the Speaker at the state opening of Parliament. Our present Speaker must have donated that.
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  Those exhibits are interesting, but aspects of that place relate to this report. First, the exhibition was generally disappointing and embarrassing, and although it is run by English Heritage, I think that that reflects badly on us. Secondly, the report refers to the long-term objective of having a heritage centre. The Jewel Tower does not have a lift in it and never will have, because it was built 1,000 years ago, but it occurred to me that it has some relevance to tonight's debate. We have a shortage of space and some people here—Officers or Members—might be prepared to do an accommodation swap. The tower is not an ideal place for the interpretive centre that we have discussed and it is extremely bland. I hope that you and others trot over there to see it later in the week, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you will share my disappointment. However, there is an opportunity to find some more space there through a trade-off.
  If we had control of Parliament square and its roads, that could be used at some stage for many of the facilities referred to in the report, including ticket offices.
  Mr. David Lepper: I noted my hon. Friend's earlier comments about English Heritage. Will he clarify the point that he has now made about the Jewel Tower? He and other Members might have had the experience before entering this place of serving on planning committees of local authorities and finding that one problem with English Heritage, wonderful institution though it is, is that it has little concept of buildings as living entities in which people have to work. Therefore, the notion of the Jewel Tower being available as, if I have understood my hon. Friend correctly, office space for staff of this building, seems to be a non-starter so far as English Heritage is concerned.
  Andrew Mackinlay: That is for another debate. All that I am telling the House is that there is a building over there that we need to look at in the context of this report. It claims to be a parliamentary exhibition, but it fails in that. If we were looking at this matter in totality—in the round—we could explore such ideas.
  Mr. Roger Gale: A few moment ago, the hon. Gentleman said to the House that he was being slightly mischievous, so let me be the same. Somewhere at home, my family has a picture of the Houses of Parliament without the spire over Central Lobby. We have that because my mother's kinsman was Charles Barry. This building was originally designed without what is, in, fact, a chimney over Central Lobby. There are five floors of empty space up there that are totally unused.
  When we came to discuss the televising of this House—in my view, a major mistake—we looked at those five floors, but the heritage bodies said that we could not touch that chimney. It strikes me, as it might also strike my friend, the hon. Gentleman, as extraordinary that we are going down the road tonight of giving in effect carte blanche planning consent, if the motion passes, to a plan that has not been through the heritage bodies, given that they chose not to allow us to use the chimney.
  Andrew Mackinlay: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for telling us that story, which illustrates a

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  fact to which the Minister needs to be sensitive. The House behaves dreadfully on occasion. When it wants to pursue an end selfishly, it will ignore all the ground rules and consultations, but on other occasions it will embrace them. I am not going to sign up to that sort of behaviour. I did not know of that occurrence, but it underscores my point. I am certain that, when I go home tonight, when we have won the debate but lost the vote, I shall reflect on that as something that buttressed my point.
  Mr. Simon Thomas: The paradox that we face is that the obvious places around the parliamentary estate that we could use not only for visitor facilities but for interpretive facilities for democracy, are out of bounds. Some of us have canvassed Parliament square as a suitable place for politicians and people to meet and hold discussions outside Parliament. Those areas are out of bounds precisely because of the rules, regulations and attitudes of the conservation bodies, including English Heritage, which force us back into the Royal Palace, where we have a free hand to do what we want. However, we are failing in two ways tonight. We are failing to take account of the wider heritage issues and we are not considering this matter as part of a wider strategic review of security.
  Andrew Mackinlay: I entirely agree. Members who have visited the United States Congress—that is probably the majority of us—will have seen how the entire area has been dealt with from the point of view both of security and of access. A comparable area here would include Parliament Square and the related roads.
  There is another point that the Deputy Leader of the House and the Committee may have not considered. There is a BBC studio on the green by the Jewel Tower that is hardly ever used. Some trade-off could be arranged with the BBC—I assume that it is the landlord—in order to provide additional space in either the interim or the longer term.[Interruption.] To judge by the body language of the Deputy Leader of the House, he seems not to know where I am talking about, which is a pity, if I may say so. I hope that he will consider that idea.
  Paragraph 36 of the report refers to the long term and to the need for an exhibition space, accommodation for school parties, a bookshop, a ticket office, and a display area for artefacts and so on. I certainly sign up to that idea;indeed, it is my long-term dream to have such facilities here. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham was slightly unfair to the little bookstall in St. Stephen's Hall. Even if all the proposals are passed tonight and adopted, that bookstall should endure. It is not only sympathetic to St. Stephen's Hall; by providing a welcome it fulfils a function that will still be needed. The lady who runs it is very innovative in terms of the small, relatively cheap but quality products that she sells, such as the postcards. I hope that, whatever else happens, that bookstall is sustained.
  Mr. Tyler: The hon. Gentleman is being very patient and I appreciate his courtesy. Has he noted that section 5 of the report, entitled "The Longer Term", is not technically before the House? As the Deputy Leader of the House confirmed to me, we are in no way committed
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  by tonight's motion to a wider, longer term, more elaborate and expensive scheme. It would be very misguided to go any further than what is a very limited scheme. If we are really to invest in making a better connection with those who send us here—I have had this discussion with the hon. Gentleman before—we should invest in giving them much cheaper, more effective and wide-ranging electronic access, rather than spending a lot of money on a visitor centre. Section 5 is actually outwith this discussion.
  Andrew Mackinlay: We are approving the report, so I think I am in order in discussing section 5, but the hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. I am in the rather privileged position of having constituents who are relatively close to the House of Commons, and I have a high visitor ratio. In the 12 years I have been here, I have had some 7,000 guests, all of whom I took to the little "broom cupboard" in the Chapel in St. Mary Undercroft, although not all at once. Constituents from North Cornwall, Glasgow, Rutherglen and many other places ought to have access to a virtual guided tour not instead of, but in addition to, the opportunity to come here, which I hope they do.
  Over the weekend, I visited the website of the United States Congress—I had nothing else to do—and looked at its various chambers. The website was extremely good, and I regret the fact that, at this stage, we do not have a comparable facility. So I take the point made by the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler). I do not want to rehearse my point about the bookstall in St. Stephen's Hall, but I implore the Chairman of the Committee to keep it, because it is extremely useful for a whole variety of reasons.
  Mrs. Roe: I am afraid that the bookstall caused problems with English Heritage, which complained about its being there. We had to take that into account, so I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not think that it was removed on a whim. Unfortunately, pressure was put on us to have it removed.
  Andrew Mackinlay: We seem to be talking at cross purposes. I am talking about the postcard stall in St. Stephen's Hall, which is mercifully still there today. I am simply saying, please do not remove it. The two ladies who have run it have been there virtually since the time of Barry.
  Bob Spink: The hon. Gentleman allows me to pay tribute to Pat, who ran that little stall for 20 or 30 years until she retired only a couple of years ago. It is now run by someone who is equally sympathetic to the place.
  Andrew Mackinlay: Pat and Freada stand there as custodians of the House, along with Grattan, Fox and the various people who have distinguished that Hall. I want them to stay.
  I understand that there is a parliamentary bookshop at 1 Parliament street. I am not sure who has the title deeds, but I think it is the Houses of Parliament. It is extraordinarily bland, and I would like to be let loose on the task of putting some attractive books and other artefacts in it. They would not only earn money—I

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  realise that that is not the primary objective—but promote Parliament. The bookshop is simply not being used at the moment.
  Mr. Lepper: In view of the spotlight that my hon. Friend is casting on the bookstall that he loves and that we have all used, he might have averted the danger of our receiving a letter from English Heritage in the near future telling us that that bookshop is also out of order, as was the Westminster Hall bookshop to which the Chairman of the Select Committee referred—[Interruption.]
  Andrew Mackinlay: I do not know whether Members heard what one of my colleagues uttered from a sedentary position; doubtless it will not be recorded in the Official Report. In answer to the point that my hon. Friend makes, I shall deal with that problem when it comes. Just as Speaker Lenthall saw off Charles I in St. Stephen's Hall, so we will see off any such attempts in future.
  As you will remember, Madam Deputy Speaker, as you were present during the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham—he cannot be here tonight—painted a canvas describing the work that complements and helps interpret Parliament and its activities. He referred to the part of the report that calls for an interpretative centre, and I want to take this opportunity to compliment my hon. Friend on his initiative as Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Works of Art. He has done an extremely good job. I disagree with him on one or two details—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I do hope that the hon. Gentleman is not going to discuss those disagreements now, and that he will contain his remarks to the report before us.
  Andrew Mackinlay: Absolutely, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall contain my remarks to precisely those matters that you allowed my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham to refer to when you were in the Chair—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I have just given a ruling on what is happening before the House tonight.
  Andrew Mackinlay: I did not mean to be discourteous, Madam Deputy Speaker. If I had my time again, I would frame my comment in a different way. I wanted to make only passing reference to matters that were discussed in that debate by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham.
  Mr. Forth: The hon. Gentleman will know that the summary of the report states that
  "we recognise the demands for a large-scale interpretative visitor centre."
  He will also know that on 22 April, during the opening part of this debate, the Deputy Leader of the House said that
  "the Committees' report—for which I hope the House is grateful—is part of a wider strategy of improving information about, and access to, the Palace of Westminster."—[Official Report, 22 April 2004; Vol. 420, c. 509.]
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  So all of what we are discussing is surely inextricably bound up with the ghastly further ambition to spend £15 million more.
  Andrew Mackinlay: That is entirely my point. I was reading the relevant part of the Official Report over the weekend. During that debate, my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham said:
  "We do not often get the opportunity to discuss the Advisory Committee on Works of Art."—[Official Report, 22 April 2004; Vol. 420, c. 520.]
  He is absolutely right, although now is not the night to have that discussion. But I do hope that the Leader of the House will take note of the fact that some of us are interested in this building. The great work that is done by the various Committees should be discussed on a suitable occasion.
  Mr. Greg Knight: Does the hon. Gentleman share my disappointment that some members of the Committee appear not to be interested in the future of this building, given that only about half are in their places listening to our debate— If we accept the recommendations listed on page 13, does the hon. Gentleman agree that it will not be without cost to our own space? The recommendations may look fairly anodyne, but hidden away in the report, it appears that we are to lose the use of Room W5, which is to be turned into a public lavatory. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has ever had the difficulty that I have experienced in trying to book a room, but is it not a matter of deep regret that, if we accept the report, we will lose parliamentary space?
  Andrew Mackinlay: The right hon. Gentleman raises the question of Westminster Hall as did my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham. I want to say that I am very catholic about that question. I have an open mind, but now is not the time to resolve how it should be. In fact, the W Rooms are not part of Westminster Hall. I believe that they date from 1888. Even after Pugin and Barry had created the wonderful building joining the mediaeval Westminster Hall, there stood, next to the place where Oliver Cromwell now stands, some quite attractive courtrooms, which were demolished with the opening of the courts elsewhere in London. Then within the buttresses of Westminster Hall were placed the W Rooms, the IPU Room and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Room. They are not part of the mediaeval building, but recent add-ons in the great sweep of things. They are nevertheless attractive and fulfil a utility.
  We are faced with a problem tonight because we are the custodians of important heritage buildings of which we are immensely proud at the same time as being a functioning democratic Parliament and legislature. That poses a great dilemma. I am pleased that the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) mentioned the problem of space and reminded us that we will lose out from the proposals. We are rushing into things inappropriately without having a total development plan that combines and reflects all the constraints of heritage against utility.
  Mr. Gale: The hon. Gentleman has done his research very well: the W Rooms were indeed an add-on. We are

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  talking about visitor facilities. I want to mention three parliamentary bodies—the parliamentary armed forces scheme, the parliamentary police scheme and the industry and Parliament trust—that are all looking for accommodation within the parliamentary estate. If we are going down this road, surely priority should be given to those parliamentary bodies before we start sacrificing space in Westminster Hall.
  Andrew Mackinlay: If it were within my gift—if the Almighty suddenly deigned that I was in charge of these affairs—that is the sort of thing that I would take into cognisance, but alas the Almighty is not going to do that. The hon. Gentleman provides another illustration of factors that need to be taken into account. They are not going to be so taken into account because on the pink forms tomorrow we are going to sign up to the motion; that is what will bounce us through. Many people will be there who have not trespassed into the Chamber this evening. That is why, as I have already said, we will win the debate tonight and lose the vote. It is wrong. Even now, I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House might give at least some undertaking about a further period of consultation for MPs before any final decision is taken. We must have the opportunity to have some further input.
  My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham and other hon. Members have referred to the document's proposals for Westminster Hall. I take us on a virtual tour. At St. Stephen's Entrance there is going to be a new creation, which I believe is a mistake. It will be a pillbox—no doubt a nice pillbox done in Gothic style—which I do not believe should be situated there. I invite hon. Members to look at the black and white drawing in the document. Someone is at the pillbox to give information and advice, and some paragraphs refer to the additional costs, but I believe that the pillbox is unnecessary. Furthermore, it is not aesthetically appealing and would not gain planning permission if it came before Westminster city council. We should look at that proposal again.
  If we go down the ramp, we go through security and into Westminster Hall. I ask the House to reflect on a particular point. One of the great attractions of Westminster Hall is the great door. Under the proposals, it will be permanently open—so not seen—and there will be a new glass construction put in its place. It is necessary, so we are told in the report, if large volumes of people are coming through. I view the effective removal of the door as an outrage. It is a profound mistake. The beauty of looking back down the Hall from the place where Charles I was tried lies in the wonderful door. It makes cross: the door should stay there.
  I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham in his enthusiasm about how Westminster Hall should be used and what people should see if the proposal goes through tonight. I get an enormous thrill going through Westminster Hall—I know that other hon. Members do—because of its emptiness. It is the most wonderful, beautiful covered open space that exists in London. If we leave late at night when just the emergency lighting is on, it takes on a new beauty in its darkness. I want to preserve that, but the report talks
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  about having new additional lighting. What a profound and foolish mistake that is—and what an outrage that it is in the report before us tonight.
  Mr. Lepper: I have was impressed by the historical detail and research in the earlier part of my hon. Friend's speech this evening. However, does he agree—perhaps I am wrong—that the emptiness of Westminster Hall is, in view of the long history of that part of the parliamentary estate, a fairly recent phenomenon? For most of its existence, it has been thriving with a throng of people visiting this place. Among other things, it was once a market. I understand my hon. Friend's wish to preserve, but he may be trying to preserve a relatively recent part of the history of the Houses of Parliament.
  Andrew Mackinlay: I do not sign up to that. The same point was uttered in the earlier part of our debate that took place on 22 April. Of course Samuel Pepys records the stalls and marketing activities that went on. That is a matter of fact. However, if we take the sweep of 1000 years of history, Westminster Hall has functioned mainly as a public hall. I cannot prove it, but I believe that for most of its life, it has been a place of utility for the state of the day. It has mainly fulfilled public functions. Occasionally, it has been used for other functions, but they have not been its main purpose. St. Mary Undercroft was used for stables during the Cromwellian period and as a rather nice Speaker's banqueting hall right up to 1834. However, its primary function was as a place of worship. To their credit, Pugin and Barry returned it to that purpose, and we are the beneficiaries. Westminster Hall has fulfilled various official, political and constitutional functions. That means it is often empty and uncluttered, as it is this afternoon. I do not want there to be more clutter in there.
  My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham spoke about exhibitions in the Hall, a matter that is also covered in the report. It is a question of degree. If the motion is approved, I could live—albeit reluctantly—with occasional exhibitions using stands that are sensitive to the surroundings. However, I think that many hon. Members will have been concerned about two recent exhibitions.
  About a year ago, the content of an exhibition about political cartoons was superb and compelling, but the structure used was inappropriate. The more recent exhibition of photographs was in place for a long time. I am all for photographic exhibitions, but that one was a dreadful blot on the landscape. It looked like a trade exhibition, and was wholly inappropriate for the guests who come here from all around the world. I urge the relevant Committees to be sensitive to this matter, in the immediate period and in the long term. Exhibitions in Westminster Hall should be held sparingly, and the stands used should be appropriate.
  I have detained the House for some time, but I have been accepting interventions. I urge the Chairman of the Administration Committee, the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe), and the Minister to reflect on what I have said. The mood of those hon. Members who have intervened indicates that there is a powerful case for some reflection on the proposals. I am sure that hon. Members could find a way to revisit some of these

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  matters. We need greater consultation in respect of security aspects and the long-term ambitions for this wonderful building, in which we are privileged to live and work.
  Mr. Gale: The hon. Gentleman has done the House a great service in illustrating the tensions between the title of the debate—"Visitor Facilities"—and the underlying security concerns that are of such great interest to us all. With that in mind, I beg to move, That the House sit in private.
  Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 163 (motion to sit in private):
  The House divided: Ayes 9, Noes 184.

  Division No. 169]

  [8:32 pm

  AYES

  Campbell, Gregory(E Lond'y)

  Taylor, Sir Teddy

  Dodds, Nigel

  Thomas, Simon(Ceredigion)

  Howarth, Gerald(Aldershot)

  Leigh, Edward

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Mackinlay, Andrew

  Mr. Roger Gale and

  Rosindell, Andrew

  Mr. Eric Forth

  Spink, Bob(Castle Point)

  NOES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Doughty, Sue

  Adams, Irene(Paisley N)

  Dowd, Jim(Lewisham W)

  Ainsworth, Bob(Cov'try NE)

  Drew, David(Stroud)

  Anderson, Janet(Rossendale & Darwen)

  Efford, Clive

  Ellman, Mrs Louise

  Atherton, Ms Candy

  Field, Mark(Cities of London & Westminster)

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Austin, John

  Fisher, Mark

  Bailey, Adrian

  Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

  Baker, Norman

  Flook, Adrian

  Banks, Tony

  Flynn, Paul(Newport W)

  Barnes, Harry

  Foster, Michael(Worcester)

  Begg, Miss Anne

  Foster, Michael Jabez(Hastings & Rye)

  Betts, Clive

  Blackman, Liz

  Francis, Dr. Hywel

  Borrow, David

  Gapes, Mike(Ilford S)

  Bradley, Peter(The Wrekin)

  George, Andrew(St. Ives)

  Brennan, Kevin

  George, rh Bruce(Walsall S)

  Brown, Russell(Dumfries)

  Gerrard, Neil

  Browne, Desmond

  Gibson, Dr. Ian

  Bryant, Chris

  Gilroy, Linda

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Gray, James(N Wilts)

  Burgon, Colin

  Green, Matthew(Ludlow)

  Burnett, John

  Griffiths, Jane(Reading E)

  Burnham, Andy

  Griffiths, Win(Bridgend)

  Cairns, David

  Hamilton, David(Midlothian)

  Casale, Roger

  Hanson, David

  Clark, Paul(Gillingham)

  Harris, Dr. Evan(Oxford W &Abingdon)

  Clarke, Tony(Northampton S)

  Coaker, Vernon

  Harris, Tom(Glasgow Cathcart)

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  Harvey, Nick

  Cohen, Harry

  Hayes, John(S Holland)

  Coleman, laid

  Heald, Oliver

  Corston, Jean

  Healey, John

  Cranston, Ross

  Henderson, Ivan(Harwich)

  Crausby, David

  Hendrick, Mark

  Cryer, John(Hornchurch)

  Heppell, John

  Cummings, John

  Hermon, Lady

  Cunningham, Jim(Coventry S)

  Hill, Keith(Streatham)

  Cunningham, Tony(Workington)

  Hinchliffe, David

  Davidson, Ian

  Hogg, rh Douglas

  Dawson, Hilton

  Howarth, George(Knowsley N &Sefton E)

  Dobson, rh Frank

  304

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  Murrison, Dr. Andrew

  Hughes, Kevin(Doncaster N)

  Naysmith, Dr. Doug

  Hutton, rh John

  Owen, Albert

  Irranca-Davies, Huw

  Perham, Linda

  Jones, Jon Owen(Cardiff C)

  Pickthall, Colin

  Jones, Kevan(N Durham)

  Plaskitt, James

  Jones, Lynne(Selly Oak)

  Pound, Stephen

  Jones, Martyn(Clwyd S)

  Prentice, Ms Bridget(Lewisham E)

  Keen, Ann(Brentford)

  Kemp, Fraser

  Purnell, James

  Kennedy, Jane(Wavertree)

  Rapson, Syd(Portsmouth N)

  Kidney, David

  Redwood, rh John

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Rendel, David

  King, Andy(Rugby)

  Robertson, Laurence(Tewk'b'ry)

  Knight, rh Greg(E Yorkshire)

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Knight, Jim(S Dorset)

  Rooney, Terry

  Kumar, Dr. Ashok

  Roy, Frank(Motherwell)

  Ladyman, Dr. Stephen

  Ruane, Chris

  Lansley, Andrew

  Salmond, Alex

  Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

  Salter, Martin

  Laxton, Bob(Derby N)

  Sanders, Adrian

  Lepper David

  Selous, Andrew

  Levitt, Tom(High Peak)

  Shaw, Jonathan

  Lewis, Ivan(Bury S)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Liddell, rh Mrs Helen

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

  Liddell-Grainger, Ian

  Linton Martin

  Starkey, Dr. Phyllis

  Love, Andrew

  Steen, Anthony

  Lucas, Ian(Wrexham)

  Stringer, Graham

  Luff, Peter(M-Worcs)

  Stunell, Andrew

  Luke, lain(Dundee E)

  Taylor, rh Ann(Dewsbury)

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Taylor, John(Solihull)

  McCabe, Stephen

  Taylor, Dr. Richard(Wyre F)

  McCafferty, Chris

  Teather, Sarah

  McDonagh, Siobhain

  Thomas, Gareth(Harrow W)

  McGuire, Mrs Anne

  Tipping, Paddy

  McIntosh, Miss Anne

  Turner, Dennis(Wolverh'ton SE)

  Mclsaac, Shona

  Twigg, Derek(Halton)

  McKenna, Rosemary

  Twigg, Stephen(Enfield)

  McNulty, Tony

  Tyler. Paul(N Cornwall)

  McWalter, Tony

  Vis, Dr. Rudi

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Ward, Claire

  Mallaber, Judy

  Watson, Tom(W Bromwich E)

  Mann, John(Bassetlaw)

  Webb, Steve(Northavon)

  Marsden, Paul(Shrewsbury &Atcham)

  Whitehead, Dr. Alan

  Whittingdale, John

  Meale, Alan(Mansfield)

  Williams, Betty(Conwy)

  Michael, rh Alun

  Willis, Phil

  Miller, Andrew

  Woolas, Phil

  Mole, Chris

  Wright, Anthony D.(Gt Yarmouth)

  Moran, Margaret

  Morgan, Julie

  Wright, David(Telford)

  Mountford, Kali

  Munn, Ms Meg

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Murphy, Jim(Eastwood)

  Mr. Nick Ainger and

  Gillian Merron

  Question accordingly negatived.
  8.43 pm
  Mrs. Marion Roe: I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the motion approving the joint report of the Administration Committee and the Accommodation and Works Committee. As hon. Members will be aware, I was unfortunately away on parliamentary business when the motion was first debated on 22 April, and I am very grateful to the Chairman of the Accommodation and Works Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Derek Conway), who made such a valuable contribution on behalf of both Committees on that occasion.
  Mr. Heald: My hon. Friend will know that I spoke on that occasion, before the debate was adjourned, and paid tribute to her and her Committee for their hard work on the report.
  Mrs. Roe: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind comments.
  I am also grateful to my colleagues on both Committees for the assiduous way in which they have tackled the whole subject. There was a helpful spirit of co-operation, not only between members of my Committee, which I have come to expect since I became its Chairman, but also between members of both Committees. The proposals in our report will be a joint resource with the House of Lords. We are grateful to members of the House of Lords Information Committee and of the Administration and Works Committee for their constructive comments and support.
  I have listened carefully to the remarks made by the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay). He certainly covered a great deal of ground during his speech, and I wish to pick up one or two points that he made, as some clarification may be helpful. He mentioned paragraph 32 of the report, which says:
  "This figure does not take into account the effects of inflation or the cost of any additional related security works required once consultations with security and heritage bodies have been completed."
  Consultations have started—it is not a question of their having yet to start—and they will certainly continue until we have confirmed all the details of the final design. I hope that I can put his mind at rest about the fact that the consultations are ongoing and thorough.
  May I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to paragraph 21, where we refer to exactly how the proposed new building will look, and say that it will be
  "single storey, with a flat roof at the Cromwell Green level"
  and so on? The last sentence of that paragraph states:
  "We are aware of the sensitivity of the site and recognise that the eventual design will need to be appropriate for its surroundings."
  I want to confirm to him that both my Committee and the Accommodation and Works Committee are very anxious to ensure that whatever is put into or attached to this building certainly does not intrude and certainly enhances not just the facilities, but the scene.
  Andrew Mackinlay: I do not say this facetiously, but what the hon. Lady says—of course, I take it in good faith, as I do with the Committees' motives—is what everyone who makes a planning application tells any local planning authority, and they mean it, but sometimes we have to act quasi-judicially and look at things in the round. Her intentions are fine—I fully accept them—but we ought at least to look at the final proposal when the consultations have been completed, so that we can see the sympathetic cladding materials.
  Mrs. Roe: I have heard what the hon. Gentleman has said. Such things will take time, there will be consultations, and I can assure him that no one, certainly on my Committee, would wish to stop colleagues, on whichever side of the House they sit, having an input into ensuring that the facilities are appropriate and fulfil their role.
  Mr. Greg Knight: I associate myself with my hon. Friend's remarks about the hard work done by the
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  members of the two Committees, but it is a pity that they could not all be bothered to turn up for tonight's debate. For the avoidance of all doubt, will she confirm to the House that although the recommendations on page 13 are strangely silent about this, the report, if accepted, would involve the loss of Room W5 to Members?
  Mrs. Roe: Yes, I confirm that, but if my right hon. Friend will allow me to continue my remarks a little further, I shall explain why we feel that that is necessary, and I hope that he will understand the points that I make.
  Our Committees' proposal would improve the access facilities for visitors and increase security. Our report is centred on one major recommendation: a new reception and security building should be built at the north end of Cromwell Green and the west side of the Jubilee café. The proposed new building would replace St. Stephen's entrance, as the main entry point for visitors to both Houses.
  The Houses of Parliament receive at least 400,000 visitors a year. As our report makes clear, they visit for many different reasons. For example, some visit the Galleries of each House or attend Select Committee sittings. Some come to lobby their Members of Parliament or to take part in mass lobbies. Others come for official dinners or to meet staff of the two Houses. People wish to come to the House of Commons for a variety of reasons.
  Currently, most non-pass holders enter through St. Stephen's entrance, where they and their belongings are searched. Many hon. Members will share my Committee's long-standing concern that that arrangement is unsatisfactory. We have all seen the long queues that sometimes build up on the pavement outside, a particularly unwelcome sight when it is cold and wet. The limited space at St. Stephen's entrance means that there is insufficient space to offer visitors much information about what is happening in the Chambers or the Committees. The present arrangements are also inadequate from a security perspective, as was highlighted at the end of last year, when security equipment had to be moved outside into a temporary marquee.
  Mr. Forth: I am rather intrigued by that argument. Is there any evidence that people are put off visiting the Palace of Westminster because of the present arrangements? We hear pitiful stories about people waiting in queues and standing cold and shivering in the rain, but I have never had the impression that that has deterred people from coming here. In fact, it may make them appreciate it more when they get in.
  Mrs. Roe: Even if it does not deter them, we should offer a slightly more welcoming atmosphere for people coming here. We are not offering them a warm welcome if they have to queue in the rain and cold. My Committee feels strongly about that, and has supported for some time the view that we should do more to welcome visitors. As we state in our report:
  "Our visitors are the electors of the present and the future, or those who come from abroad to visit one of the most important and historic sites in the United Kingdom."

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  We could and should do more to welcome visitors and provide them with information to help make their visit more memorable. If that aim can be achieved while, at the same time, enhancing security and easing the burden on our security staff, we should seize the opportunity to do so.
  I shall explain briefly why my Committee believes that the proposed new building would help to achieve those two important objectives. I shall also try to address the concerns of hon. Members who have reservations about the effect of our proposals on the Palace and the work of Parliament, and who are afraid that they represent the thin end of the wedge. Conversely, other hon. Members believe that we have not gone far enough, so I shall explain why I think we have struck the right balance.
  Under our proposal, visitors would enter the new building by means of a ramp leading down from St. Stephen's entrance along the inside of the wall separating Cromwell Green from the pavement. It would be wide enough to make arrangements to fast-track Members' guests or people attending meetings with Members. Visitors would then enter the new building, where they would pass through the security machines. There would be space for three search machines, as opposed to the existing two at St. Stephen's entrance, which would reduce the time that visitors have to wait before entering the building. From the new building they would walk alongside the Jubilee café and enter the Palace through the north door of Westminster Hall. A visitor's first view of the inside of the Palace would therefore be the magnificent sight of Westminster Hall, which would be enhanced as it would be free of the unsightly security equipment that currently stands at the south end of the Hall.
  There are other advantages to the proposal, as we outline in part 4 of our report. The new arrangements would greatly reduce the need for visitors to queue outside and, importantly, there would be a great improvement in the access arrangements for disabled visitors. Currently, disabled visitors have to enter the Palace separately from other visitors because of the steps in St. Stephen's Hall. Under the proposed arrangements, however, they would be able to enter down the ramp with everybody else, then continue to their destination, as now, via one of the lifts off Westminster Hall. That would definitely be an improvement for certain guests coming to the Palace of Westminster.
  I should point out that the proposed new arrangements are strongly supported by the police and senior security staff of both Houses and are based on the best current security advice. The new building would provide a dedicated building outside the main Palace for security checks. That would be a significant improvement from a security perspective. It is important that visitors can be searched outside the main building, and the location below street level has also been approved by security experts.
  Andrew Mackinlay: Just a small point—at present anyone who is disabled or in a wheelchair must come in
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  through New Palace Yard and the north door of Westminster Hall. There is no appreciable difference in the proposals being outlined.
  Mrs. Roe: At present, disabled visitors must leave the party that they are with, whereas under the new arrangements they would all be able to come in through the same entrance. In Westminster Hall they would be guided to a lift. I believe that these arrangements would be more acceptable, and from the soundings that have been taken, disabled groups believe they would be an improvement for their supporters.
  I shall try to reassure hon. Members about what the proposals do not include. They do not affect the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and Inter-Parliamentary Union rooms, nor are there plans for them to be used in the future. The smallest W meeting room will be converted to extend the ladies lavatories, but the four main meeting rooms will not be affected and will continue to be available as valuable meeting rooms for Members. The proposals are modest and should not affect the work of Parliament.
  In reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight), I should say that there have been complaints from visitors to the House about the lack of facilities, and it was therefore thought appropriate that the opportunity should be taken to improve the facilities for ladies lavatories.
  When we were first asked to look into the matter by the House of Commons Commission, the consultants who had been engaged by the House proposed a full-scale interpretative visitor centre in Westminster Hall. I am sure that we all recall the reaction to those proposals. They would have involved significant disruption and changes to the use of the rooms off Westminster Hall. The proposals, as I said, met significant opposition and we did not support them. In our report we clearly say that we did not support the proposals. We state in the summary that
  "we recognise the demands for a large-scale interpretative visitors centre. We support this concept but believe that this is not feasible within the Palace of Westminster, and therefore recommend that suitable accommodation outside the building be sought."
  I hope that allays any fears on that score. I believe that we are supporting the main view of Members.
  Mr. Tyler: I very much respect the work that the hon. Lady and her Committee do. Can she take the opportunity to make it clear to the House this evening, as the Deputy Leader of the House did in response to me earlier, that if the House approves the motion, we are not approving the long-term section on page 12, which appears to commit the House to a very expensive and elaborate interpretation centre, when many of us feel it would be a much better use of the House's limited resources to make sure that more members of our electorate can access the House electronically? It is rather confusing that the motion before the House is in two parts. We are asked to approve the joint report, but we are asked to endorse only the immediate proposals for the new reception and security building. Will the hon. Lady please clarify for the House that as far as her Committee is concerned, we are endorsing only the latter proposal, not the wider long-term proposal?
  Mrs. Roe: I fully support the hon. Gentleman's comments on the matter. As he will see, the title of the

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  report is "Access to Parliament". That is what we are approving today. I hope that everybody appreciates that we will have a different debate about what will follow and where any interpretative centre will be located in the future. There will be serious consultations among colleagues and elsewhere on any proposal that might come forward on that.
  Mr. Greg Knight: May I make two points to my hon. Friend? First, in any further view that she and her Committee take on providing a full-blown visitor centre, will she rule out placing it in the parliamentary estate as the parliamentary estate currently exists, because room is simply not available? Secondly, if she is looking for a candidate building to use as a visitor centre, will she examine the Middlesex court building on the other side of Parliament square? A court has no need whatsoever to be situated on Parliament square, and we should take it over and use it as a visitor centre.
  Mrs. Roe: I have listened carefully to my right hon. Friend's suggestion. We will, of course, examine all facilities, but my Committee discussed the issue and concluded that it is not feasible to locate a visitor centre within the Palace of Westminster because space is not available, and I am sure that all hon. Members in the Chamber agree with that decision.
  Sufficient space is also not available to hold exhibitions on the work and role of Parliament, which many hon. Members in the Chamber feel is an important part of welcoming visitors. The first page of the report, which I read out, makes it clear that the Committee supports the concept of a full-scale interpretive visitor centre, which I feel should be sited outside the main building. Such a proposal clearly requires much more work, and the officials who supported the Committee on the current proposals and for whose work we are very grateful will now examine the options outside the Palace. When the Committee has considered those options and feels that it has done enough work for the House to take a view, it will, of course, report again.
  The more difficult issues associated with a visitor centre should not delay progress on the new reception and security building, on which there is every reason for a consensus across the House. A new reception and security building would be an important step in improving access facilities for visitors and would represent a significant improvement in how we treat visitors and provide information to them.
  The final section of the report sets out that my Committee is committed to examining options for other facilities. However, I stress again that the development of a full-scale visitor centre within the Palace of Westminster is not proposed. I put that point on the record and hope that everybody accepts my confirmation of it.
  Mr. Stephen Pound: The hon. Lady is being typically generous in giving way. This point may seem minor, but it means a lot to many of us: if the new visitor centre is built, will we have seen the last of the baleful presence of the malefic Oliver in the form
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  of that statue? The green could be renamed Prince Rupert of the Rhine green or—this is my personal preference—Charles Stuart green.
  Mrs. Roe: I note the hon. Gentleman's point. My Committee has not considered the matter, and it would not be appropriate to make pledges to him about such a suggestion. However, my colleagues and I can read his comment in Hansard and reach a view in due course.
  The proposal will improve access facilities for visitors. The plans in the report will hopefully form phase 1, and phase 2 will not be within the Palace of Westminster. I trust that the House will enable progress to be made on our modest proposals, which should meet the important twin objectives of making visitors feel more welcome and improving security. As other hon. Members said, this is not our House—and it belongs to the people who give us the right to sit in it. We should do all that we can to welcome visitors while minimising disruption to Parliament's work and taking into account security issues. Our joint report sets out our proposals that meet those aims, and I urge the House to support them.
  9.4 pm
  Mr. David Lepper: I shall be brief. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), who generously gave way several times earlier in the debate. I congratulate the hon. Members for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe) and for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Conway) and members of their Committees on their work in producing the report. I have the honour of chairing the Select Committee on Broadcasting, which considered these proposals at the beginning of last year when they were in a much earlier form and based on the notion of a fully-fledged visitor centre. Committee members of all parties endorsed the principle of a visitor centre and the improved access to this House that would form part of it. The proposals that are before us today, although limited in terms of those earlier considerations, are about access and security. They are in line with the first part of the priority that the House of Commons Commission agreed in June 2002—to improve access to and understanding of Parliament—and they are worthy of support for all the reasons that the hon. Member for Broxbourne presented.
  None of us has any way of knowing whether having to stand outside St. Stephen's entrance in whatever weather is a deterrent or an inducement to people who want to come in to see the work of Parliament or to visit these buildings. Clearly, people are prepared to stand outside whatever the weather, but they should not have to. There should be better facilities for those who want to come in to see us at work in this Chamber or in Committees Upstairs, or just to see the architecture of the building. It is plain common sense to improve access to this place as the report suggests, and a simple courtesy to our electors to ensure that they get a better welcome.
  Although I accept and endorse the comments of the hon. Member for Broxbourne, I hope that the wider and fuller concept of a visitor centre will not be forgotten and that her Committee and other Committees will go on to explore how that can be provided, thereby fulfilling the other part of the Commission's priority—to improve understanding of Parliament.

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  The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) talked about improving understanding and access electronically. That is important. We now have, although it is limited at the moment, the webcasting of Parliament. Almost day by day—certainly, year by year—we have improvements in the technology that gives people access to what is going on here, even though they may be many miles away. I would say two things about that. First, it will never be a replacement for wanting to visit the House of Commons and the House of Lords to see them in reality. Virtual reality will never satisfy everyone, nor should it.
  Secondly, I hope that when the hon. Members for Broxbourne and for Old Bexley and Sidcup and their Committees consider the wider issue of the visitor centre, they will bear in mind a point that has already been made to the hon. Lady's Committee by members of my Committee—that the broadcasting of Parliament, including the relaying of what is happening at the time and the archive material that is available, should play an essential role in the visitor centre. I ask the hon. Lady to give cognisance to my Committee's wish to have some involvement in the future planning of a visitor centre.
  Mr. Tyler: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I appreciate the very thoughtful contribution that he is making. I hope that his Committee will accept that, in terms of value for money, a comparatively small investment made now could result in major improvements, comparable with those made in legislative assemblies in other parts of the world. While his constituents can come here and see us at work relatively easily, the constituents of those of us who come from further afield have much greater difficulty in doing so. It is important for young people, particularly during their school years, to have the opportunity to see Parliament at work electronically when they cannot possibly visit these buildings.
  Mr. Lepper: I would certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman about the important educational function of being able to watch the proceedings of this place on television, via the internet or by some other means that might become available in the near future. However, the fact remains that people come from far afield to visit these buildings and to see what goes on inside them. That will always be the case, and I want us to guard against the notion that technological advance might make it preferable to watch what is going on here over the internet or by some other similar means, rather than by coming here to see Parliament at work. I accept much of what the hon. Gentleman has said, however.
  I support the proposals before us, but I hope that the hon. Member for Broxbourne will be able to give the House assurances about the involvement of members of my Committee in any future planning of proposals for a visitor centre.
  9.11 pm
  Mr. Eric Forth: This is the wrong proposal at the wrong time. It is what the Americans call a boondoggle, and it really is time that it was exposed. I follow very much the arguments of the
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  hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), but I want first to pick up on why I think that the proposal is being made at the wrong time.
  We find ourselves in an odd position because, on the one hand, the Leader of the House, no less, has said that there will be a
  "wide-ranging security review that the Speaker has ordered, with my support and that of the House of Commons Commission".
  Well, I suppose that makes it all right, then. The Leader of the House has announced a wide-ranging review of security, which I think that we all agree is timely and necessary. But before that review has reported, we are now being asked to give our approval to a proposal based on a security argument. So we are in the absurd position of being told that this proposal is about security, when we have not yet reached the completion of the wide-ranging, security review announced by the Leader of the House. That strikes me as somewhat eccentric—I shall put it no more strongly than that. The timing of the proposal is therefore completely wrong. It is premature, and it will make a nonsense of the security review.
  The other anomalous position is illustrated by the statement of the Deputy Leader of the House that the report
  "is part of a wider strategy of improving information about, and access to, the Palace of Westminster."
  He went on to say that
  "the Government regard the reception building very much as the first stage. We hope that we will be able to build consensus on proposals for a proper visitor and education centre, with space for exhibitions interpreting our work, for the reception of school parties, and perhaps for a book and souvenir shop."—[Official Report, 22 April 2004: Vol. 420, c. 466, 509–512.]
  What we are being asked to approve here is simply phase one of an overall project, and we are being asked to do it in a detached way So in two respects, first in terms of security and second in terms of the overall vision of those who see this place as a theme park—I shall come back to that in a moment—we are again being asked to look at only part or the argument. We are therefore embarking on a debate based on a partial and premature approach.
  Paragraph 2 includes the contention that
  "across the UK there are many people who are keen to be more closely involved in Parliament's work but who are not currently engaged."
  Members of Parliament are very taken with such contentions, which we like to hear because they make us all feel better about ourselves, but I do not know what evidence exists for that contention. I suspect that it is simply regarded as elf-evident but I am not sure that it is true that many people are keen to be more closely involved in Parliament's work. The philosophical basis and thrust of the report is in doubt from the start, because simply stating a contention does not make it true although we are often fond of that approach. Doubt arises immediately about our motivation.
  Paragraph 3 cont sins a phrase that I find somewhat more attractive and refers to
  "recognising that the Palace of Westminster is primarily a place of work and public access should not impinge on that work."
  That is a welcome statement. For some time I have worried about the danger that, as we do less and less useful work in the House of Commons because the

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  Government have throttled it and give Members fewer and fewer opportunities to do their job, we will turn the place into a theme park. We are telling people, "Come and sit behind a glass Screen." Even more absurdly, we are saying, "Come and parade silently along while we do our business here in the Chamber" because visiting the building and seeing what happens here is subtly and gradually becoming more important than what we do in it. Again, that is an underlying but unstated part of what we are asked to approve this evening.
  The report is all about making the place more welcoming to visitors rather than thinking more seriously about what we do in the Palace of Westminster. That bothers me because it shows a mindset that is becoming all to common among Members of Parliament and our esteemed establishment figures. They believe that much more emphasis should be placed on lavatories and ramps without displaying much concern about the fact that increasingly fewer Members attend or are able to carry out their duties.
  Earlier today, we had a drastically truncated debate in which we were sadly unable to complete our scrutiny of an important Bill. That passed almost without comment. We usher more and more visitors through the building to watch us doing less and less effective work. That is an odd view of the parliamentary process but it appears to motivate an increasing amount of what we do. I find that sad and wish that we would resist it.
  Mr. Gale: Would my right hon. Fiend like to reflect on the number of people who pack the Public Gallery on some occasions and the relatively few people who pack—if that is the right word—any Galleries in Select Committee hearings and especially Standing Committee sittings? In the context of a debate on public access, will he further reflect on the fact that our Standing Committees are not even televised?
  Mr. Forth: My hon. Friend typically makes an incisive point. Again, I am not aware of any reflection upon it. Hon. Members often cite important Committee work Upstairs as an alibi for not being in the Chamber. Those of us who are part of the secret society know that that is sometimes true but that it is often not exactly true. The proof of that pudding would be to ask why we are not spending much more time and attention on greater and better access for the public to what some would regard as our real work in both Standing and Select Committees instead of ushering them through ridiculous pieces of glass and funny corridors to see an ever emptier Chamber. Such questions are not asked because we are probably rather ail aid of the answer to the question of why we are here on fewer and fewer occasions. So, the whole thrust—the whole philosophy—behind the report is flawed. The assumptions made and the underpinnings should be seriously questioned.
  It gets worse, because when we consider the financial aspects we are entitled to become slightly ashamed of ourselves. Here we are, posturing; and posing as the custodians of the taxpayers' purse, and scrutinising in the House of Commons the amount of money that the wicked Government are spending. Indeed the Government are wicked and indeed they spend far too much—let there be no doubt about that—but when do we gaze at our own financial navels? The answer is all too rarely.
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  The real truth is that there are effectively no constraints on expenditure by the House of Commons on itself. In that, we are disgracefully self-indulgent. We have before us a very good example of it, because here we are, quietly and unobtrusively voting ourselves what paragraph 32 of the report coyly refers to as
  "in the region of £5 million."
  That is not much money if we say it fairly quickly, and I am sure that the taxpayers will not mind it being lavished on what the Chairman of the Administration Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe), referred to in her charming way as "their Parliament". Whether that is how people see it I leave to others to judge.
  So, £5 million is involved. Well, no it is not, because the report then says, semi-honestly:
  "This figure does not take into account the effects of inflation or the cost of any additional related security works required once consultations with security and heritage bodies have been completed."
  That is the point that was made so effectively by the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay). This is a pig in a poke—another blank cheque that we are being asked to sign. The figure is not £5 million at all. It might not even be
  "in the region of £5 million."
  It says here in the report that the
  "figure does not take into account … consultations"
  yet to come. Then it says, with almost charming transparency:
  "The final figure is therefore likely to be higher."
  How much higher we do not know. Could it be just £1 million higher, or twice that? Could it be, following the pattern of the Scottish parliamentary building, 10 times the current estimate? We do not know, but we are being asked this evening to give our approval.
  As you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, we are in fact not being asked to give our approval this evening, because in the final disgrace to the Parliament—I am ashamed to admit it—we will not be asked to vote on the measure this evening. We will be asked to come back tomorrow. No doubt several hundred colleagues will vote, in that disgrace called the deferred Division, on something of which they have little knowledge due to the fact that they have not bothered to be here to take part in the debate.
  Who knows, but maybe even the Prime Minister will vote tomorrow, because the deferred Division will be staged at a time convenient to him, when he happens to pay his once-a-week visit to this place to answer questions. Rather conveniently, he will be able to nip through the Lobby immediately afterwards to cast his vote on a ballot paper for the deferred Division, not having been here for the debate. I do not particularly blame him for that, because, sadly, nearly every other Member of the House shares in it, as it happens.
  So, colleagues—those guardians of the taxpayer—will waltz through the Division Lobby and put their name on a bit of paper tomorrow to sign away at least £5 million of their constituents' money, probably with very little knowledge of where it is going. That is for them, not us here at present, to answer for.

  315
  We do not know how much this measure will cost. That is the conclusion we draw from the report.
  Mr. Gale: My right hon. Friend is generous in giving way. There are some 17 Members in the Chamber, which at 9.23 on such a night is not bad, because normally nobody would be here at all as the House would not be sitting. Will he invite the Minister to place on record his view of the cost, so that before Members vote on paper tomorrow there will at least be for the record a clear Government statement of the expected cost? I suspect that, in years to come when the bill is finally delivered, the Minister might not wish to take responsibility for that reply.
  Mr. Forth: All I can say to my hon. Friend is, "In your dreams." That will not happen, although I admire his gall in asking for it. By the by, I wonder, as he probably does, where are the 180 or so Members who just a short time ago went through the Division Lobby to deny us sitting in private? They have all disappeared somewhere, very strangely. They were all in the building not long ago, but they have not seen fit to remain here in the Chamber. That, however, is a matter for another day.
  I will not prolong my contribution—I could expand considerably on the matter, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as you know me well enough to realize—as I want to leave time for my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) in particular to make his contribution, and there is at least one Labour Member who also wants to speak. I am sure that time will properly be allowed for everyone to make their contributions, since the Order Paper usefully tells us, as will have caught your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that this debate can continue until any hour. That is appropriate. This is a House of Commons matter. There is no urgency about it, and no need to curtail the debate. It is subject to a deferred Division, so, sadly, Members need not wait to vote.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. With great respect to the right hon. Gentleman, he should prejudge nothing and regard the Standing Orders in their totality.
  Mr. Forth: That is what I feared, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I shall be watching to see Government Whips hovering near you and whispering in your shell-like any time from about now onwards. Sadly, I suspect—whispers have reached me—that the Government may try to close this debate down. Perhaps they are so ashamed of the amount of money being spent that even they would not approve of it. Let us see how events unwind. Certainly, I do not want to be a party on this occasion, although I am always happy to be on others, to going into the matter in great detail.
  Unusually swiftly, I shall move on to paragraph 34 on the revenue implications. We have found out, have we not, that we have no idea what the capital cost will be, so let us see if we know any more about the revenue costs, as the taxpayer will pick up that bill too. The paragraph states that "the consultants"—oh dear, I always worry when I see that word—
  "estimate that the staffing of the new information point near St. Stephen's Entrance and the extra searching capacity of the new building would require additional staff—three full-time posts for
  316
  the kiosk, and six full-time posts of security officers for the search points. This gives a total increase in revenue costs of £200,000 per annum."
  One would have thought that that was all right, and that now we will know something of what it will cost. It goes on to say, however:
  "Some extra costs would also be incurred for lighting and heating, staffing an information desk in Westminster Hall, and for the production of information material."
  I would have thought that it was not beyond the wits of men, and even beyond the wits of consultants, to give us some idea of what that might cost. I am rather disappointed that my colleagues in the Committee have not sought further information to offer to the House in asking us to approve this expenditure.
  Mr. Tyler: There are two other aspects of revenue costs to which the right hon. Gentleman might like to turn his attention. I had hoped that there might be savings involved in the proposals, because we could get rid of the dreadful building that is put up temporarily on the green to accommodate those visiting the House to take the line of route during the recess—I do not know whether he has noticed it. I was told in the previous debate, however, that that was not likely to be the case. Secondly, I wonder whether he would like to look at paragraph 26, which states:
  "Contingency arrangements would need to be made for those periods when Westminster Hall is closed, for example, in preparation for, and during, formal occasions involving both Houses of Parliament, such as the presentation of Addresses. This is likely to involve putting temporary security facilities back into St. Stephen's Entrance."
  Of course, that will also incur cost.
  Mr. Forth: In one sense, the hon. Gentleman has been here longer than I have, and he must know as well as I do that expecting anybody to find savings in this place is a dream. I am amazed that he has even thought that consideration would be given to savings. I would have thought that saving taxpayers' money in today's House of Commons was a most unlikely outcome, certainly from this debate. I share his aspiration but, sadly, that is not the mood of the moment. We are in spending mode right now, and we are spraying money around pretty generously.
  Some extra costs would therefore also be incurred for all the matters that the poor old consultants were unable to pin down for us. I am grateful that the hon. Gentleman has drawn the attention of the House to paragraph 26, because it almost belies a lot of the arguments that have been put to us this evening about the virtues of what we are being asked to agree. In spite of the fact that we will have all these wonderful new facilities, it would appear, for those periods in which Westminster Hall is closed, as he has just quoted, that we will incur further cost to put back temporary security facilities at St. Stephen's entrance.
  We can do a bit of reminiscing. We can be a bit nostalgic, remembering what it used to be like in the good old days. Having spent at least £5 million, with revenue costs of at least £200,000—an unspecified sum—we shall be asked to spend even more, because the old facilities will have to be put back.
  This is a sad little episode. It reveals all too much about us, our attitude to these matters and our casual expenditure of taxpayers' money. I regret all that. I

  317
  think the whole thing is unnecessary, ill-conceived and premature. I think that in the light of the so-called security review, this is a partial answer to a comprehensive problem. I wish it were not happening, but I suspect that the troops will march through the Lobby tomorrow. Only partly aware of what they are voting for, they will fill in their little pink or yellow slips—or whatever they are these days—and the matter will be concluded. But we will fight the battle again, as we shall have to, when another amount—the last figure I saw was £15 million—is proposed for the ludicrous theme-park-style interpretative centre that has been mentioned a number of times. When that day comes, we will fight the battle all over again.
  9.31 pm
  Mr. Iain Luke: As a member of the Administration Committee, I think it right to stand up and put the arguments. There has been a good deal of criticism of people who allegedly do not speak up for the decisions they make in Committees. I think it only right for us to discuss these matters tonight, for this is an important decision which, in my view, will bring advantages.
  I am happy to support the Chairman of the Administration Committee, the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe). It has been suggested that we have not considered specific planning or finance issues, but in fact we have considered many of them in detail. I pay tribute to the hon. Lady, who has handled this in a detailed and comprehensive fashion.
  Obviously, some of our conclusions will not be agreed to. Whatever they were, they would not be agreed to, especially when we have suggested progress. But we have proceeded in a very positive manner and we have tried to make the House more attractive to the public. Some of the report's terminology may be high-flown, as the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) suggested, but the ideal is there. We want to make the House more accessible. and I think that our proposals will achieve that.
  Mr. Gale: In his opening remarks, the hon. Gentleman suggested that the Committee had considered all matters. In a very informative speech, the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) suggested first that this constituted, effectively, carte blanche planning consent for whatever course was chosen, and secondly that the heritage interests had not been fully consulted, or given their approval. Is the hon. Gentleman saying categorically that the heritage interests have approved the plans?
  Mr. Luke: As I told my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), I was given the impression—the outline section of the report refers to this—that there had been continuing discussions with the planning authorities involved, and that they had indicated their happiness with the way in which things were progressing. The heritage issue was raised in the Committee, at both joint and separate sessions, and I am led to believe that there has been ongoing consultation. It is not complete because the final article has not been arrived at, but it will continue.
  I served on a planning committee for some time, and on a development control committee. One of the issues that emerged was that of planning gain. The new
  318
  entrance from Cromwell Green to Westminster Hall through the big doors will free the entrance to St. Stephen's Hall. As I remember it, the comment made on that was that in planning terms, it would be a gain because it would remove the clutter of the security arrangements there.
  Mr. Pound: Section 106?
  Mr. Luke: I am not sure whether the section is the same in English as in Scottish planning law.
  There are advantages, and it is my impression that there have been discussions on these issues.
  Mr. Gale: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is generous in giving way more than once, but he has just said that that is his impression, and he is a member of the Committee. What we are going to endorse—not tonight, but on pink paper tomorrow—is a detailed planning consent, but the hon. Gentleman says that discussions are ongoing. If the House votes for this project tomorrow, that will be it and discussions will not be relevant.
  Mr. Luke: In technical terms, we are at the very early stages. There is an outline planning application, and once we have approved it, the final details will have to be approved by the appropriate authorities. If the heritage bodies say that they will not go with the plans, I believe that they can effectively pull the plug at that stage.
  Andrew Mackinlay: If only what my hon. Friend hopes were true. The fact is that the fine art commission said that the tents on the Terrace could stay there provided that they were removed every year. They were removed every year until someone deliberately forgot. We flouted and totally disregarded the very body that my hon. Friend is referring to.
  Mr. Luke: I appreciate the point that my hon. Friend makes, and I know that he is very knowledgeable on these issues. I have heard of the background to the erection of the marquees, and if the rules or stipulations made by the heritage bodies have been flouted, the House authorities should look at that seriously.
  As I have said, we are talking about a positive change, and I hope that people will see it in a positive light. In supporting the proposals, there are issues that we must look at fully, and points will be made in opposition that also have relevance. At the end of the day, the decision must be balanced. I think that the plans are a logical extension of the process of modernisation of the House. Perhaps that upsets people, but this House has to modernise. We have to move on. I spoke in the debate on the modernisation proposals that came before the House. Many people see the House as a quaint museum or even a theme park, as has been mentioned, but it is in fact a body of unique relevance to the life of the United Kingdom, and we should bring it into a modern mode of working.
  There is a whole issue over the way in which people connect and engage with this Parliament. Although fewer hon. Members were present when I looked around earlier, I think that I can still say that I represent the most northern constituency of any Member in his place

  319
  tonight. I have constituents who come a long way to visit here, and I want to ensure that they have the best possible experience. It is a long way from Dundee to Westminster, and often the railways do not work properly, the motorways are crowded or aeroplanes are grounded. When my constituents finally arrive, I want to see them dealt with in a smooth, modern fashion. That is what they expect once they have gained access to this building.
  A point has been made about the detriment to the Westminster Hall entrance if people come in from that side of the building, but I think that people will have a panoramic view if they come in through those big doors and look up that majestic Hall, which has served a multitude of purposes. Indeed, the top of the stairs at the other end is where William Wallace was tried before the King's court, before we became the United Kingdom. That huge, panoramic view will enhance visitors' experience of the building.
  Mr. Forth: In the light of the excellent earlier analysis of the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), does the hon. Gentleman not agree that visitors will see this magnificent view through the ghastly glass structure that will apparently be constructed, which will desecrate Westminster Hall simply to allow the magnificent doors to be permanently open? Will that not rather spoil the splendour of the occasion?
  Mr. Luke: That supposes that people will be standing outside looking in. In fact, they will gain access to Parliament through the glass doors. As well as going through the glass doors, they will be looking up the Hall as they arrive, so their view will not be cluttered as they enter the building. That will be of benefit, because at the moment the line of route starts off in Westminster Hall and works its way through the building. The proposed means of entry is the natural entrance to the building.
  There has been much discussion of this issue, but change is necessary. We have talked about many aspects of bringing the Houses of Parliament into the 21st century, and reference has been made to the costs associated with the Scottish Parliament. The visitor experience provided by its interpretive centre, even in its temporary home on the Mound, puts this House to shame, even before it moves to its new home. The cost has been mentioned, but the centre will be excellent and people will be able to interact with it and understand more fully how the Scottish Parliament works.
  There will be ongoing discussion of the planning issues as the new building takes shape, and mention has been made of returning St. Stephen's Gate to its former condition of a pristine and uncluttered entrance for those who wish to use it.
  Some very worthwhile contributions have been made, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock on providing a truly historical perspective. I appreciate his concerns, which are real, but any change will give rise to concerns. I hope that the advantages that we derive from the changes will outweigh his concerns and that, in five years' time, he will be happy to say that although he opposed the changes, they were of benefit.
  Mr. Forth: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Can you confirm that when a Government Whip
  320
  approaches you surreptitiously—no doubt to ask if you will allow a closure motion—you will allow lobbying by other hon. Members as well, so that they can put to you a different point of view? Or are your ears open only to Government Whips who seek to curtail the debate?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Any question on procedure is a matter for the Chair and is to be judged according to the circumstances at the time. The Chair cannot deny access from time to time to hon. Members, who ask many things. As the right hon. Gentleman well knows, any decision on procedure is taken by the Chair.
  Mr. Gale: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In that case, I am sure that the Chair will take cognisance of the fact that this is an open-ended debate, and that some Members who have been here since the start of the debate still wish to speak.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: The Chair will take cognisance of many things.
  Mr. Luke: Much has been made of the report, but conclusion 7 best sums up the feelings of the Administration Committee and the Accommodation and Works Committee. It states:
  "Our visitors"—
  our constituents—
  "are the electors of the present and the future, or those who come from abroad to visit one of the most important and historic sites in the United Kingdom. They deserve a positive approach to their access and welcome."
  The proposals that form part of the report demonstrate that we are adopting such a policy. I hope—as the Committee and its Chairman doubtless do—that the House will accept these proposals tonight.
  9.44 pm
  Bob Spink: We need to make the Palace more accessible and welcoming to visitors and our constituents. Although I respect the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Luke)—I will go further: I actually like him—I tend to disagree with his theme, which is that change is necessarily progress. It certainly is not, and this report raises more questions than it answers. The proposal is very underdeveloped, and the House should not vote in favour of it in its current state.
  Some of the key questions are about the detailed design and materials, and the provision of utilities. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) said, another question is whether a new de-mountable glazed Lobby is right for Westminster Hall, which was built by William Rufus in 1097. I doubt that very much. Why not have four or five security screening machines, rather than the three proposed, so that our constituents and the queues could be dealt with much more efficiently? Will not the fast tracking of Members' guests so that they can overtake all those who have queued up in the rain for hours on end cause irritation? Will it endear constituents to their Members of Parliament when, as guests, they are raced past all those other people, who are effectively made second-class citizens by that policy? I am not convinced that that is a good policy.

  321
  Why not have a private sitting, so that we can all hear what the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) now knows about the screen? We should all be able to share knowledge about security risks and have a proper debate about what is really going on and about the report's underlying security implications. We should be able to understand the full context of the most important security issues.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst dealt with the £5 million estimate more effectively than anyone else in the House. He rightly explained that it was not a confident or rigorously costed prediction. Indeed, it is just an estimate, and the report implies that it is likely to amount to more. I know of no other body, organisation or company that would go ahead with a multi-million pound proposal without a rigorous costing—
  Mr. Forth: The Government.
  Bob Spink: I do not see why the House should accept this nonsense. We need to link the changes to security recommended in the report with a comprehensive and cohesive security review. We should not tackle the problems in a piecemeal fashion, as we appear to be doing tonight.
  We need better visitor facilities, especially toilets. I personally welcome the giving up of Room W5 to provide more ladies' toilets. Guests arriving here after travelling a long way on coaches—perhaps from Thurrock, from Castle Point or even from Dundee, East—really need toilet facilities, particularly the ladies. I see no reason why we should not seek to provide them.
  Mr. Forth: Is my hon. Friend saying that it is a case of moving from W5 to WC?
  Bob Spink: I could not have put it better myself. We should not allow utility considerations to compromise the heritage of this place.
  The report mentions increasing the lighting levels in Westminster Hall. Mr. Deputy Speaker, during the time of your predecessor, Thomas Hungerford, who is generally recognised as the first Speaker to be so called around 1390, William Rufus' original roof caved in. It was replaced by the beautiful and unique hammerbeam roof, which we still admire today. As I walk through Westminster Hall after this debate, I shall look up at that roof and enjoy the experience very much. It was built of great oaks taken from the then King's hunting ground in Thundersley wood in my constituency. Indeed, it created a clearing in those very woods in which my house was built.
  Seriously, however, the current gentle and sympathetic lighting is subtle and evocative: some even find it ghostly. It is certainly mood enhancing, especially late at night. I do not want that atmosphere to be destroyed by modernisation philistines. The bottom line is that we must do nothing to compromise the heritage of this beautiful, wonderful and historic building.
  Mr. James Gray: Thomas Hungerford lived just outside my constituency. How long has electric light been available in Westminster Hall?
  Mr. Forth: Too long.
  Bob Spink: I imagine that the lighting many hundreds of years ago was even more subtle, emotional and
  322
  atmospheric than it is today. I do not want the present effect to be destroyed by increased levels of lighting of which we have no knowledge at present. The bottom line is that we must do nothing to compromise the wonderful heritage and history of this building.
  The Benfleet historical society is due to visit this place next week, and the following week I shall be welcoming a group from Hadleigh. They want to see the true, beautiful Palace of Westminster in all its historic glory. They do not want to visit Disneyland.
  9.50 pm
  The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Phil Woolas): We have had a very comprehensive debate. I remind the House that it has been the second half of the discussion: we had nearly an hour on 22 April and we have spent nearly three and a half hours on the matter this evening. All the points that have been made have been pertinent to the report.
  On behalf of the House, I thank the Committees that produced this report and their Chairmen, the hon. Members for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe) and for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Derek Conway). I also thank the Chairman of the Broadcasting Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Lepper), who contributed to the debate. We all owe them thanks.
  The Government strongly support the report, which has been compiled by the Domestic Committees of the House. In essence, there are three arguments against the proposals. The first has to do with security. I repeat what I said on 22 April, which was underlined again tonight: the primary purpose of the proposal is to improve access for visitors. I believe that the change would be put in hand irrespective of security considerations. However, if those security considerations can be made more convenient for visitors, I urge the House to accept the move.
  Secondly, it has been said that we are being asked to buy a pig in a poke and that the House will be committed to further expenditure and development. On 22 April, I said that the Government believe, as do I, that those further developments are to be welcomed. However, as the Chairmen of the Committees said, this proposal is not a commitment to stage 2. When the House asks the Domestic Committees to undertake detailed work, it should give them a bit of trust. It is for the Committees to go into detail, probe and ask questions and I believe that they have done that.
  Finally, I think that the main thrust of the arguments against the proposal is based on a fear of change. The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) has said that he fears that the House is turning into a theme park. I put it to him that his proposals would turn it into a museum. In the modern age, it is right and proper for us improve the facilities and the welcome that we extend to the 400,000 people who wish to visit. I suspect that more people would want to come

  323
  here as a result. The welcome that we give people at the moment is frankly risible. People are asked to stand outside in the rain and cold, treated like strangers.
  Mr. Gale: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Woolas: I shall give way very briefly, as I want to finish my remarks.
  Mr. Gale: The debate is open-ended, so there is no haste. However, I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Given his concern about visitors to the House, will he contemplate the fact that most of the visitors for whom the proposed facilities will be designed are likely to he from overseas? The visitors whom hon. Members would like to invite are our constituents, but they are denied access on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings. That is because the House now sits at times that render it impossible for them to be present.
  Mr. Woolas: I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman makes, but we are not debating sitting hours. The debate on 22 April made reference to the improvements that are proposed by other hon. Members on how best to allow constituents to visit the Palace of Westminster.
  Bob Spink: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Woolas: No, I wish to finish on this point. The hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) made a point about overseas visitors. I would have thought that Members of Parliament would see this building not only as a prime heritage site for the United Kingdom but as a prime world heritage site. The overseas visitors to this place, which is a symbol of democracy around the world, should be welcomed warmly and we should provide access for them. On that basis alone, I recommend the reports to the House.
  Mr. Bob Ainsworth(Coventry, North-East) (Lab)rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
  Question put, That the Question be now put:—
  The House divided: Ayes 161, Noes 35.

  Division No. 170]

  [9:55 pm

  AYES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Brown, Russell(Dumfries)

  Adams, Irene(Paisley N)

  Browne, Desmond

  Ainsworth, Bob(Cov'try NE)

  Bryant, Chris

  Anderson, Janet(Rossendale & Darwen)

  Buck, Ms Karen

  Burden, Richard

  Atherton, Ms Candy

  Burnham, Andy

  Atkins, Charlotte

  Cairns, David

  Austin, John

  Casale, Roger

  Bailey, Adrian

  Clapham, Michael

  Banks, Tony

  Clark, Paul(Gillingham)

  Barnes, Harry

  Clarke, Tony(Northampton S)

  Begg, Miss Anne

  Coaker, Vernon

  Betts, Clive

  Coffey, Ms Ann

  Blackman, Liz

  Cohen, Harry

  Borrow, David

  Coleman, lain

  Bradley, Peter(The Wrekin)

  Cranston, Ross

  Brennan, Kevin

  Crausby, David

  324

  Cryer, John(Hornchurch)

  McCabe, Stephen

  Cummings, John

  McDonagh, Siobhain

  Cunningham, Jim(Coventry S)

  McGuire, Mrs Anne

  Cunningham, Tony(Workington)

  Mclsaac, Shona

  Davey, Valerie(Bristol W)

  McKenna, Rosemary

  Dawson, Hilton

  McNulty, Tony

  Dobson, rh Frank

  McWalter, Tony

  Dowd, Jim(Lewisham W)

  McWilliam, John

  Drew, David(Stroud)

  Mallaber, Judy

  Efford, Clive

  Mann, John(Bassetlaw)

  Fitzsimons, Mrs Lorna

  Meale, Alan(Mansfield)

  Flynn, Paul(Newport W)

  Michael, rh Alun

  Foster, Michael(Worcester)

  Miller, Andrew

  Foster, Michael Jabez(Hastings & Rye)

  Mole, Chris

  Moonie, Dr. Lewis

  Foulkes, rh George

  Moran, Margaret

  Francis, Dr. Hywel

  Morgan, Julie

  Gapes, Mike(Ilford S)

  Mountford, Kali

  George, rh Bruce(Walsall S)

  Munn, Ms Meg

  Gerrard, Neil

  Murphy, Jim(Eastwood)

  Gilroy, Linda

  Murrison, Dr. Andrew

  Griffiths, Jane(Reading E)

  Naysmith, Dr. Doug

  Griffiths, Win(Bridgend)

  Owen, Albert

  Hamilton, David(Midlothian)

  Perham, Linda

  Hanson, David

  Pickthall, Colin

  Harris, Tom(Glasgow Cathcart)

  Pike, Peter(Burnley)

  Harvey, Nick

  Plaskitt, James

  Healey, John

  Pound, Stephen

  Henderson, Ivan(Harwich)

  Prentice, Ms Bridget(Lewisham E)

  Hendrick, Mark

  Heppell, John

  Purchase, Ken

  Hermon, Lady

  Purnell, James

  Hill, Keith(Streatham)

  Quinn, Lawrie

  Hinchliffe, David

  Rapson, Syd(Portsmouth N)

  Howarth, George(Knowsley N & Sefton E)

  Raynsford, rh Nick

  Ross, Ernie(Dundee W)

  Hoyle, Lindsay

  Roy, Frank(Motherwell)

  Hughes, Kevin(Doncastel N)

  Ruane, Chris

  Hutton, rh John

  Ryan, Joan(Enfield N)

  Iddon, Dr. Brian

  Salter, Martin

  Irranca-Davies, Huw

  Shaw, Jonathan

  Jenkins Brian

  Skinner, Dennis

  Jones, Jon Owen(Cardiff C)

  Starkey, Dr. Phyllis

  Jones, Kevan(N Durham)

  Stewart, David(Inverness E & Lochaber)

  Jones, Lynne(Selly Oak)

  Jones, Martyn(Clwyd S)

  Stewart, Ian(Eccles)

  Keen, Alan(Feltham)

  Stringer, Graham

  Keen, Ann(Brentford)

  Sutcliffe, Gerry

  Kemp, Fraser

  Taylor, Dr. Richard(Wyre F)

  Kennedy, Jane(Wavertree)

  Thomas, Gareth(Harrow W)

  Kidney, David

  Timms, Stephen

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Tipping, Paddy

  King, Andy(Rugby)

  Turner, Dennis(Wolverh'ton SE)

  Knight, Jim(S Dorset)

  Twigg, Derek(Halton)

  Kumar, Dr. Ashok

  Twigg, Stephen(Enfield)

  Ladyman, Dr. Stephen

  Vis, Dr. Rudi

  Lawrence, Mrs Jackie

  Watson, Tom(W Bromwich E)

  Laxton, Bob(Derby N)

  Watts, David

  Lepper, David

  White, Brian

  Levitt, Tom(High Peak)

  Whitehead, Dr. Alan

  Lewis, Ivan(Bury S)

  Williams, Betty(Conwy)

  Liddell, rh Mrs Helen

  Woolas, Phil

  Linton, Martin

  Wright, Anthony D.(Gt Yarmouth)

  Lloyd, Tony(Manchester C)

  Love, Andrew

  Wright, David(Telford)

  Lucas, Ian(Wrexham)

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Luke, Iain(Dundee E)

  Gillian Merron and Mr. Nick Ainger

  McAvoy, Thomas

  NOES

  Boswell, Tim

  Field, Mark(Cities of London & Westminster)

  Burnett, John

  Flook, Adrian

  Campbell, Gregory(E Londy)

  George, Andrew(St. Ives)

  Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

  Gray, James(N Wilts)

  Dodds, Nigel

  Green, Matthew(Ludlow)

  325

  Howarth, Gerald(Aldershot)

  Spink, Bob(Castle Point)

  Key, Robert(Salisbury)

  Stunell, Andrew

  Knight, rh Greg(E Yorkshire)

  Swayne, Desmond

  Leigh, Edward

  Taylor, John(Solihull)

  Liddell-Grainger, Ian

  Teather, sarah

  Luff, Peter(M-Worcs)

  Tyler, Paul(N Cornwall)

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Watkinson, Angela

  Marsden, Paul(Shrewsbury & Atcham)

  Whittingdale, John

  Williams Roger(Brecon)

  Rendel, David

  Winterton, Ann(Congleton)

  Rosindell, Andrew

  Winterton, Sir Nicholas (Macdesfield)

  Salmond, Alex

  Sanders, Adrian

  Selous, Andrew

  Tellers for the Noes:

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

  Mr. Eric Forth and Mr. Roger Gale

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Mr. Oliver Heald: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Question just decided was, That the Question be now put. But, ironically, as I understand it, that will not happen. Is it possible, with the Government's agreement, for us to proceed now to vote on the main Question? To do otherwise makes nonsense of the House—are all here and all ready to vote, yet we cannot because of some silly rules.
  Mr. Desmond Swayne: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it not profoundly shocking that those of us who either took the trouble to vote for free speech or, presumably, voted to settle the main Question now, discover that we are to be denied that opportunity and that we may as well have not troubled ourselves to be here at all?
  Mr. Greg Knight: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Will you confirm that a Minister has moved a closure motion on open-ended business that is subject to the deferred Division procedure? The Government's only possible reason for doing that is so that the Minister could have an early night in bed. Is that not an insult to the House?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have the gist of the point of order raised by the hon. Members. As they must all know, I am bound by the Standing Orders of the House; they are as they are, so I must nom put the Question on motion 4.
  Main Question put—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I think the Ayes have it.
  Hon. Members: No.
  Division deferred till Wednesday 12 May, pursuant to Order [28 June 2001 and 6 November 2003].

  EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 119(9) (European Standing Committees),

  NUTRITION AND HEALTH CLAIMS MADE ON FOODS
  That this House takes note of European Union Document No. 11646/03, a draft Regulation on nutrition and health claims made on foods; and supports the Government's view that the measure will promote informed consumer choice and facilitate intraCommunity trade.—[Mr. Heppell.]
  Question agreed to.

  PETITION

    Postern Gate Surgery
    10.9 pm
    Mr. Michael Jabez Foster: The Bexhill and Rother primary care trust has decided to relocate the Postern Gate doctors' surgery in Rye to a centre 1 mile out of town and up a steep hill. I have the honour to present the petition of Geoff Lyus and about 1,000 other residents of the Rye area.
    The petition declares:
    That the decision of the Bexhill and Rother Primary Care Trust to relocate the Postern Gate Surgery in Rye to the Rye Memorial Care Centre which is 1 mile out of town and up a steep hill will cause hardship and inconvenience to thousands of local residents, many of whom are old and disabled and without their own transport.
    The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge Her Majesty's Government to take such steps as are necessary to prevent the proposed relocation and do all that is possible to ensure that the Surgery is relocated on the Thomas Peacock Lower School site within the town which is owned by East Sussex County Council.
    And the petitioners remain, etc.
    To lie upon the Table.

    Myalgic Encephalomyelitis
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Heppell.]
    10.10 pm
    Mr. Anthony D. Wright: I am pleased to have secured this debate tonight, especially as this is the eve of ME awareness day, and many right hon. and hon. Members will be lobbied on the issue tomorrow. Two of my constituents, Tanya and Christine Harrison, will be here to lobby me—it was just six years ago that they persuaded me to start the all-party group on ME. I should like to praise all the groups who have supported the all-party group and me in the interim, including BRAME—Blue Ribbon Awareness for ME—Action for ME, the Association of Young People with ME, the ME Association, the 25 per cent. ME Group and many smaller but equally significant groups.
    ME continues to be a controversial chronic illness, as I have discovered first-hand in the various correspondence that I have received. It is estimated that 25,000 children and 100,000 to 300,000 adults suffer from ME in Britain. The condition has cost the taxpayer about £4 billion to date, with only small inroads being made into treatment and understanding. The report to the chief medical officer by the working group on chronic fatigue syndrome and ME was a landmark in changing Government perceptions of ME. However, at an operational level, the report's findings must have a greater impact on current practices, as access to benefits continues to present problems for sufferers. Lack of knowledge and understanding of the condition among professionals, widespread disbelief and institutional prejudice, lack of effective evaluation and plain stigmatisation mean that there is little or no consideration of the desperate problems experienced by sufferers. The disability living allowance and the new permitted work rules need to be revisited if we are fundamentally to change institutional prejudice towards this very real illness. I find it appalling that I still have to make this case.
    Carli Barry was an ME sufferer who tragically took her own life on 8 February 2001, aged 27. Her mother recently spoke about the system that took away her daughter's independence and dignity:
    "Applying for benefits for an invisible illness with no diagnostic test is hell. The result largely depends on the beliefs of the doctor sent to examine you—a game of Russian roulette."
    Carli's first application for DLA was turned down. Her second application resulted in payment of mobility allowance at high rate and carer allowance at lower rate. Her third application was completely rejected. It took 18 months for her case to reach the tribunal, when she was awarded a care element of DLA for three years. During that time her condition deteriorated as a result of stress.
    Another sufferer from ME, Gary Frankum, was a professional speedway rider before he had the condition. Talking about DLA assessment, he told me:
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    "The first Examining Medical Practitioner that came out to me was no sooner through the door than he confessed to me that he knew very little about ME; at least he acknowledged the condition. The second EMP that came out refused to even do this, saying that there was no such thing as ME, only CFS. When I demanded a copy of the assessments, after my DLA was turned down, I was amazed by the lies written about me."
    The Centre for Longitudinal Studies found that people with ME received a significantly smaller proportion of DLA awards for their main disabling condition compared with other groups. By contrast, a significantly higher proportion of ME claimants win their case on appeal. Action for ME conducted a survey entitled "Severely Neglected ME in the UK", in which 44 per cent. of the respondents who had applied for DLA said they had had to go to appeal. Of those who applied, only 25 per cent. were rejected. That illustrates how DLA is being denied to thousands of ME sufferers.
    The first hurdle most apparent to ME sufferers is the fluctuating and difficult initial diagnosis of the illness. Having a good GP who is supportive of a patient's ME experience can make all the difference to a successful DLA claim. There are many such GPs. However, it is far too often the case that a disbelieving or untrained local GP destroys an ME patient's chance of receiving correct treatment and advice on undertaking to receive DLA. To resolve the problem, it is essential that local GPs are equipped to deal with ME.
    The chief medical officer's working group report on CFS/ME highlighted the need for more doctors, nurses and health care professionals who know and understand CFS/ME. On 12 May 2003 the Health Minister announced a central revenue budget of £8.5 million to develop services specially designed for people with ME. The investment is intended to pump-prime the development of clinical services where none currently exists, but that should be seen only as a beginning, not as an end.
    The second hurdle that exists for ME sufferers claiming DLA is an inflexible, poorly explained and burdensome DLA form. The form consists predominantly of questions requiring a yes or no answer, which do not effectively represent the problems associated with ME as a fluctuating chronic illness. Consequently, ME sufferers often inadvertently misrepresent their condition. Furthermore, the DLA application forms are burdensome and often leave ME sufferers exhausted—owing, ironically, to the very forms that are designed to ensure their future support. That acts as a negative incentive to complete the forms, with the risk that ME sufferers will not claim when they should do so.
    The third hurdle is the poor training and education of DLA decision makers, causing bias against ME sufferers. The Association of Young People with ME states:
    "If decision makers and DWP assessing doctors were given more balanced training and less biased information about ME, patients would be treated more sympathetically by the benefits system."
    However, the Department for Work and Pensions initial training for new entrant decision makers states of ME sufferers that they an able to move
    "from bed rest one day to being able to venture far afield the next."
    That shows an outrageous misunderstanding of ME that must be addressed.

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    The fourth hurdle is DLA physical assessment examinations. The current physical assessment examination is inappropriate for evaluating the abilities of an ME sufferer. First, it does not give an adequate picture of the illness, whose symptoms worsen with a delayed impact following activity Secondly, there is often conflict between the claim form and an examining medical practitioner's report, as the claimant may have made an effort to be at his or her best on the day of assessment. Thirdly, the EMP's report may include misleading information, such as the appearance and state of the home, without questions such as, "Who did the cleaning?" and, "How long did it take?" having been asked.
    Fourthly, claimants may be pressurised into signing the assessment form while feeling unwell or too intimidated to challenge a doctor on that day. Fifthly, visits are often made at only 24 hours' notice and are hard for ME sufferers to turn down, owing to the variability of their condition. In short, how is it possible for an EMP, in an assessment that lasts less than an hour in most cases, accurately to record the state of a patient with such variable symptoms as ME, and without having strong prior knowledge of that patient?
    The problem is compounded by the fifth hurdle, which is the bad practice of some EMPs during physical assessment. Like many GPs, there are still many EMPs who do not believe that ME exists or lack understanding of it, and who openly suggest to patients that they have psychological problems. That often undermines initial claims, as the report will take precedence over other medical reports, despite some being in conflict with the claimant's local GP's report. One example of misunderstanding shown by EMPs in assessments relates to muscle wastage. Also, there is no provision for measuring the delayed impact that activity has on a person with ME.
    Finally, the sixth hurdle that can be identified is a cumbersome and overburdening review and renewals process. If a claimant is successful in negotiating all the other hurdles and eventually receives DLA and obtains care or mobility assistance, their condition may finally stabilise. However, stabilisation will inevitably mean that ME claimants will fall short of the necessary criteria and DLA will be taken away, causing a relapse and costing the state more money when a new DLA application is made. Sufferers also run the risk of losing all benefits should they wish to contest an award, which is unfair given the nature of ME and the poor ability of the DWP to assess it.
    I should like the Minister to consider these recommendations in addressing those hurdles. EMPs and GPs should be given information and training on ME so that they ask revealing and pertinent questions, taking account of the delayed impact of activity and symptom fluctuation. DLA forms, which currently give little scope for explaining the effect of ME symptoms over a period of time, must change to address the problems already outlined for ME sufferers.
    Accurate and clear guidance should be provided to DLA advice and assessment staff in the DWP. It should include guidance on how to manage conflicting medical opinions between EMP and GP reports. The process of medical assessment should be geared to the needs of
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    sufferers, and the refusal of a medical assessment should not mean that a claim for DLA is automatically turned down. EMPs should be given better guidance and monitoring for physical assessment exams to ensure correct evaluation—one approach might involve keeping medicals to a set time frame, with breaks.
    The review process must be better clarified for claimants, preventing unnecessary appeals and saving costs. In my experience, few sufferers realise that a review can be triggered by just a telephone call. The tribunal process must be made more flexible, as many claimants with ME do not pursue an appeal because they feel too unwell at the time. DLA claimants should be made aware that information that they give about a future claim might affect their current claim. As an alternative, the benefit could be held in perpetuity to give people the opportunity to ask for a review without losing benefits. Importantly, a middle rate mobility component should be introduced to aid gradual recovery. Currently, lower rate mobility is available only if the claimant has a mental illness. Those falling short of the higher rate can be left without anything, pushing them into severe relapse, which further costs the taxpayer.
    Finally, I would like to turn more briefly to changes from the old to the new permitted work rules, which make it harder than ever for ME sufferers to remain included in work, with a dignified way of life. The chief medical officer's working group report on CFS/ME states:
    "Return to work, even after prolonged absence, can be hard to negotiate at levels realistic for these patients, and the potential for a 'benefits trap' is only partially ameliorated by current rules on therapeutic work and therapeutic earnings."
    However, rather than providing a stepping stone into work as intended, the rules have pushed ME suffers into working fewer hours or giving work up all together in order to retain their benefits, creating the trap that the Minister has tried to avoid.
    The £20 limit for weekly earnings at the lower permitted work rules level is unrealistic for ME sufferers. Non-manual work is usually paid at more than £6 per hour, and professionals can earn up to £10 to £25 per hour, which means that ME sufferers get pushed into the higher level six-month rule, even though they may work for only three hours a week. The old therapeutic work scheme allowed those who worked for up to 16 hours or more a week a salary of up to £67.50. Under the new higher level permitted work rules, that income can only continue for a 26-week fixed period before assessment, and the jobs broker can then only extend it for a maximum further period of 26 weeks before it is replaced by the £20 a week maximum sum or incapacity benefit is stopped.
    I am not sure of the rationale behind that change, given that many other disabled people, who are unable to return fully to the workplace but require supervision within it, are still paid up to £67.50 for an indefinite period. What is the difference between someone who needs supervision and someone who does not when both are equally unable to return to work fully? If people decide to stop benefits and continue working, but work for less than 16 hours per week, they could be in a grey area with regard to tax credits, as single people must

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    work for 30 hours a week and people with children or disabled people must work for 16 hours a week. Recovery from ME is gradual, and it often takes years. For those who, owing to their condition, are unable fully to return to work, the new permitted work scheme seems unfair and inflexible, which is something that I hope the Minister will address.
    I ask the Minister to respond to two recommendations on this matter. First, the £20 per week limit on the lower threshold of permitted work should be set at a more realistic level or special provision should be given to groups such as those suffering from ME, who are unable to follow a course back to full employment.
    Secondly, extension of work should be made more accessible beyond the initial six months. For example, the 16-hour requirement should be brought down to a lower level, say 10 or 12 hours. Also, more than six months should be allowed for the gradual build-up of work hours in the case of chronic conditions such as ME.
    The recommendations that I have made are feasible. Many of them are more to do with cultural shifts than with the expense of vast resources. It is certain, however, that something must be done to end this discrimination that this group have faced regarding benefits. This Government have done more for ME sufferers overall than any before, and they are making sure progress in tackling the condition, but the Minister must ensure that the DWP continues that work by instituting some of the changes that I have proposed, which are supported by many in the ME community.
    10.25 pm
    The Minister for Work (Jane Kennedy): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Wright) on securing this important debate. I am grateful to him for presenting me with the opportunity to explain the basis of entitlement to disability living allowance, or DLA, and the role of the new permitted work rules that are replacing the therapeutic earnings rules. I pay tribute to him for the vigour with which he has pursued his case. As he said, he was a founder of the all-party group on myalgic encephalomyelitis and currently chairs it. The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle), has told me about the vigour with which he fights for the cause of ME sufferers, not only in his role as all-party group chair, but from the experience that he has drawn from constituents whom he has got to know during the time that he has represented them. They will be grateful to him for his efforts, as will all sufferers from ME.
    When I discussed this debate with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston, I was impressed by the depth of her understanding of the illness and of the detail of her brief. In her unavoidable absence, I am afraid that I will be but a poor substitute.
    The Government acknowledge some of the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth, and I hope that I will be able to deal with them in the short time that we inevitably have in an Adjournment debate. If I miss any points, I undertake to write to him. We do not share some of his other
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    concerns, but when my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston visits his group shortly, she will take that opportunity to explore them further.
    Myalgic encephalomyelitis, or ME, which is otherwise known as chronic fatigue syndrome, describes a spectrum of conditions where the prominent symptoms are fatigue, both physical and psychological, which may affect both physical and psychological functioning. My hon. Friend said that the illness still carries with it a degree of dispute as to its nature. Several names, including post-viral fatigue syndrome, have been used to describe the condition. More recently, the term chronic fatigue syndrome has been more universally adopted. That gives rise to some relief among those of us who are not medical experts.
    How does ME relate to entitlement to disability living allowance? I should like to dispel straight away the idea that ME is not recognised by the Department for Work and Pensions as a potentially serious condition that may bring entitlement to DLA. Approximately 14,200 people get DLA because their primary disabling condition is ME, and about 2,200 successful applications are made every year.
    Disability living allowance is a tax-free, non-contributory and non-means-tested benefit that is paid as a contribution towards the extra costs that are faced by severely disabled people as a result of their disabilities. However, entitlement to the allowance is not linked to specific disabling conditions or to particular diagnoses. That means that people who have ME qualify for benefit on exactly the same basis as other disabled people—that is, they must meet the entitlement conditions. The Government believe that criteria based on the effect that disability has on personal care needs and the ability to walk are the right approach for determining entitlement to DLA. I am afraid that we have no plans to passport people to entitlement to the benefit on the basis of specific disabling conditions.
    Mr. Russell Brown: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
    Jane Kennedy: I hesitate to give way as this is the debate of my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth, but I shall make an exception for my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Brown: I thank the Minister for giving way. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Wright) on securing this debate. The Minister is talking specifically about the assessment of an individual's condition, and my hon. Friend has mentioned visits for medicals, which sometimes take an hour. From my experience of listening to my constituents, I have learned that those medicals can sometimes take only 15 or 20 minutes. That is not an adequate amount of time in which to go through a proper medical and arrive at a true determination.
    Jane Kennedy: My hon. Friend makes a serious point, and I shall come in a moment to the training and advice that is given to those who make the medical assessments. I hope that if I get the opportunity to explain the details, I shall be able to allay some of his fears.
    It is important when assessing a person's ability to ascertain the effect of the condition on each individual's need for attention, the extent of those needs, for how

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    long they have been present, and for how long they are likely to remain. It is therefore important that time is taken to make that assessment properly and for it to be made for each individual applicant in exactly the same fair and thorough way. With regard to the mobility components, it is important to asses the person's ability to walk and whether they need someone with them on unfamiliar routes.
    ME is, by its very nature, a variable condition, and it is not possible to guarantee that someone will qualify for DLA, because the effects of ME affect people in different ways, to different degrees and with considerable variations over time. This approach is no different in regard to other variable conditions, such as mental illness, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis is, multiple sclerosis and others—that is not an exhaustive list. I know that my hon. Friends would make a similar case for other illnesses in which similar conditions were experienced.
    Andy King: My right hon. Friend draws our attention to other conditions, but those other conditions are universally accepted. The problem that we are discussing tonight is highlighted by the fact that many of the GPs—a minority, I hope—who are responsible for carrying out these assessments do not accept that the condition exists. That is a major stumbling block for many of our constituents.
    Jane Kennedy: My hon. Friend's, point is well made.
    It will probably help if I turn now to the training and advice that is given to those whom we charge with the job of making the medical assessment of those applying for disability living allowance. All examining medical practitioners—EMPs—already get specific training about ME or chronic fatigue syndrome. It was first issued in 2001, and updated in 2003. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth asked us to look again at the detail of that training.
    The training stresses the need to consider the variability of symptoms and not to take a snapshot view, which was the concern expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Brown). The training that EMPs receive instructs them not to include irrelevant information in their reports. Information should be included only if it has a material bearing on the assessment. Similarly, visits at short notice are not in keeping with the expected professional standards unless they have been agreed to by the customer. The doctors employed by medical services to carry out examinations for DLA purposes also have to meet specific recruitment criteria and are required to attend a prescribed training course prior to commencing work. We should not experience any scepticism on the part of those whom we are charging with the task of carrying out these assessments—the examining medical practitioners.
    In addition to that training, the EMPs are issued with relevant guidance, and the Department's chief medical adviser must approve all doctors, who carry out the examinations. The standard of their work is monitored and approval can be withdrawn if a doctor fails to meet the necessary standards. They are also required to undertake an annual programme of training to refine their skills and update their knowledge of disability medicine and other relevant topics.
    People should complain if the expected standards are not met, and Department for Work and Pensions medical services will always respond to complaints
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    about individual doctors. Department for Work and Pensions medical services do not get a greater incidence of complaints about chronic fatigue syndrome or ME than other conditions, and they should be viewed in the context of the overall number of complaints, which is 0.4 per cent. of all medical assessments made. I believe that that is a good record. However, that is not to say that we do not take complaints seriously.
    Claim forms were mentioned. We are listening to the feedback from customers who use the forms. The claim forms for disability living allowance and attendance allowance are designed to enable disabled people to give a full account of the effects of their disability, rather than to cover any specific illness or disability. We do not have specific forms for different illnesses. However, we acknowledge the length of the claim forms and the fact that some of the questions may not always be relevant to each individual's needs or straightforward to answer. We accept that they have been a cause of concern for some disabled people. Consequently, we developed a new style of attendance allowance claim form in 2002, which, after successful evaluation, has been in
    use nationally since November 2003.
    The new version reduced by half the size of the claim pack, and has a simpler style and fewer questions, making it much easier to complete. The form has been designed to enable people to tick the relevant statements from a prompt list provided on it and to tell us briefly, in their own words, the sort of help that they need during the day or night. Following the success of the new AA claim form, we are developing a new, shorter DLA claim form, which we hope to test shortly in the area served by the Glasgow disability benefit centre—unfortunately, not the area of my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth.
    In the few minutes that I have left, I want to consider the permitted work rules that my hon. Friend mentioned at the end of his contribution. We are replacing "therapeutic work" with new permitted work rules. Benefits such as incapacity benefit, severe disablement allowance and income support, which are awarded on the basis of incapacity, are intended for people who are incapacitated by the effects of their condition. Benefit cannot therefore normally be paid to people who work because the basic entitlement condition is not satisfied. However, we recognise that allowing a limited amount of work can help to improve a person's condition, increase their chances of returning to the labour market and help them to achieve lasting paid employment.
    Previous rules allowed benefit to continue if work was undertaken on the advice of the claimant's GP and it was confirmed that the work would help to improve, prevent or delay deterioration in the condition that entitled the person to benefit. That was often described as "therapeutic work." As my hon. Friend said, earnings could not exceed a prescribed limit and the work had to be done for less than 16 hours a week on average. However, the therapeutic work rules were of limited use when a person could not demonstrate that a specific job would be beneficial to their medical condition, for example, blindness, paraplegia—or, indeed, ME. They allowed a person to do some paid work on a limited basis only if it satisfied the therapeutic requirement and they applied to a relatively limited number of people on incapacity benefits.

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    Therefore, as part of our commitment to remove the barriers to work for those with a health condition or a disability, we introduced new, more flexible work rules from April 2002. They replaced the therapeutic rules, which my hon. Friend is almost wishing back because he is not satisfied with the replacement. These are what we call the permitted work rules.
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    The permitted work rules are still at a relatively early stage and are undergoing evaluation by independent researchers. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will be happy to go into this in greater detail when she meets with my hon. Friend's all-party group very shortly.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Adjourned accordingly at twenty-one minutes to Eleven o'clock.

Preamble
[SIR NICHOLAS WINTERTON in the Chair]

Dental Provision (Devon)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—[Ms Bridget Prentice.]
9.30 am
Richard Younger-Ross: Mr. Deputy Speaker, today's debate revolves around the words of my constituent, Mrs. Thresher from Teignmouth, who said:
"Why should I have to give up my heating to get my teeth fixed?"
She was interviewed in the Sunday Express on 8 February, following a survey by my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow), who is with us today. She also said:
"There are no NHS dentists where I live that are taking new patients. I've been told to go to one in Torquay, which is 14 miles away, but I don't see why I should be expected to travel miles. I've paid my tax and my national insurance all my life and I'm entitled to free dental care but I can't get it."
She went on to say that the Government had generously given her £200 to pay her heating bill. If she has to go to a dentist in Torquay or to a private dentist with Denplan, however, that £200 will go towards dental care not heating.
Mr. Anthony Steen: Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?
Richard Younger-Ross: It is very early to be giving way, but I shall do so.
Mr. Steen: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate, but I must tell him something that I am sure he will find interesting. National health service dentists in Torquay are not taking patients either. If his constituent had gone there, she would have wandered around and seen that wonderful resort, but she would not have found a dentist.
Richard Younger-Ross: The hon Gentleman is ahead of me. If he is patient, I will come to the fact that there are no dentists in Torquay or Paignton. Over the past year, people have been directed to those towns, and they are now being directed to places such as Barnstaple, Plymouth and further afield. I shall come to that later.
The essential question is why my constituent, who has been given extra money for heating to ensure that she does not suffer hypothermia, should be expected to put her health at risk by cutting her heating bills to pay for her dental treatment. The Government talk of giving people choices, but that is not the sort of choice that they should be encouraging.
This is not a new problem; we had a similar one in the early 1990s, when no NHS dentists were taking on new patients in Teignbridge. As hon. Members may remember, we had a Conservative Government in those
2WH
days. The crisis continued for some time, and the health authority told my predecessor that it would deal with the matter. It made provision for an emergency dentist in Newton Abbot hospital, and the arrangement was heralded as a success at the time. However, as most people will know, emergency dentists do not provide ordinary dental care but deal only with emergencies and patients in pain. Furthermore, although the hospital still has an emergency dentist as a consequence of the authority's decision, people in wheelchairs cannot gain access to the hospital and must still go all the way to Torquay for emergency dental treatment.
Relief did come when new dentists decided to set up practices in Teignbridge. For a short while, it was fairly easy to register with a new dentist. There is a certain bitter irony for local people in that many of those new dentists who set up have now de-registered as NHS dentists. That is part of the reason for the current crisis in the south-west, Teignmouth, and especially Teignbridge. The Minister will no doubt tell us about the action plan for the south-west peninsula—we have an action area because we have a crisis area. I hope that the Minister's response will take into account my comment, which I am sure will be echoed by other hon. Members from Devon, that we have a crisis that needs urgent and rapid action.
I shall concentrate for a moment on my area, which is primarily covered by the Teignbridge primary care trust. In June last year, 46 per cent. of the population of 109,000 were registered with national health service dentists. The Minister and hon. Members will know that that is below the national average of 48.6 per cent; we were already doing badly last June. The crisis began in February last year and has continued, with the figure for April this year falling to only 42.12 per cent. That is a disgrace and a sad reflection on the state of the Government's policy on dental care in the south-west. For those who are statistically minded, that is a decrease of 8 per cent. The figure for under-18s is better—56 per cent.—but the figure for the over-18s, which is a true reflection of the situation of the elderly in my constituency, is 39.49 per cent.
The national figures often quoted in newspapers are for the number of dentists per thousand of the population, and I am horrified at how few dentists there are in some areas. However, that figure does not tell the whole story. In Teignbridge we have 44 dentists; there are 56 NHS contracts in 20 practices. However, we must consider how many patients they take on. Of those 44 dentists, only three have more than 2,000 NHS patients, which is the UK average. Fifteen of the 44 dentists have fewer than 500 NHS patients, and five have fewer than 50. The number of dentists per thousand of the population is a meaningless statistic. We must consider the number of people who can register with an NHS dentist.
We started writing to the Minister at the beginning of last year, saying that we again had a growing crisis. The Minister helpfully wrote a letter to one of my constituents on 21 December last year. In it she said:
"On 18 September I announced additional funding of £65.2 million to support change and help improve access, quality and choice for patients. The funding will be targeted at those PCTs where access is a real problem. There is also a further £1 million now to help PCTs, local dental committees and dentists to prepare for the change in the way dental services are commissioned. In 2004–5 an additional £15 million revenue funding will be made available to PCTs."

3WH
Those are fine words, and I would hate to accuse the Minister of spin because I suspect that it is not, but since the Minister said that that money was being made available, 7,000 more patients in Teignbridge have been de-registered as five dentists have retired or gone private and have not been replaced.
Dentists are entitled to retire—we all reach that stage at some point, or at least most of us hope to do so—but they are fed up with the current contract. Peter Zeltmann, of Salisbury Villa dental surgery, is one of the dentists who moved into the area in the mid-1990s and was a saviour. In a letter to his patients, he says:
"For several years now we have postponed making any changes in the hope that the situation would improve but unfortunately there is little sign that it will. Consequently I have concluded that it is no longer feasible to continue seeing adult fee paying patients under the NHS."
Mr. Zeltmann concluded that he could no longer continue, and recommended that his patients go to Denplan. As the Minister knows, many people cannot afford to do so. Mrs. Thresher, whom I mentioned, is on income support and cannot afford it. She cannot afford many luxuries, and dental treatment has become a luxury to her.
Mr. Hugo Swire: In Brent, East the Liberal Democrats produced £100 vouchers to give back to everyone in council tax. Having heard their leader on the "Today" programme this morning, I believe that that is no longer their policy. If the Liberal Democrats had stuck to that pledge, however, the hon. Gentleman's constituents would be £100 better off. Would not that have put Mrs. Thresher in a better position to afford dental treatment?
Richard Younger-Ross: I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is actually following the debate. I thought that we were talking about dental provision in Devon. He wants me to go down a route that I am sure you would not wish me to follow, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: You are quite right.
Richard Younger-Ross: I am grateful for your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
When the PCT considered the community consultation, which was conducted by the district council in 2002, it found that dentistry was the first health priority for local people. Currently there are no NHS dentists in Teignbridge. I do not think that there are any in Exeter. I note that the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw) is not here. Nor are there any in Torquay, South Hams or south-west Devon. People are still being told to go to Plymouth. The hon. Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) is indicating from a sedentary position that there is no NHS dentist in Plymouth.
Mr. Gary Streeter: I shall enlighten the hon. Gentleman later.
Richard Younger-Ross: The hon. Gentleman will enlighten us later should he catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
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People are being advised to go to Barnstaple. It is easy enough for people to say, "Why not Barnstaple? It's in the same county. It's not far, is it?" Those who suggest such things know very little of Devon's geography. Barnstaple is 50 miles away from Teignmouth. It takes two train journeys to get there, and one would have to take a taxi at the other end to find the dentist's, having taken a taxi to the railway station in Teignmouth in the first place. The cost of such a journey is high and unacceptable. It is not a journey that an elderly or frail person should be expected to take. Surely, the elderly, the infirm and those on income support or on low incomes—in fact, everyone—deserve to have a dentist within fairly easy reach.
Another constituent wrote to me to say that he had two children. His dentist had gone over to Denplan. He was told that he could go on to Denplan and that if he did, the dentist would continue to treat his two children, who were aged 10 and 12, on the national health service. Clearly, that is a form of blackmail. It was made clear to my constituent that if he did not sign up to Denplan, his children would no longer be accepted for NHS treatment at that practice.
That put my constituent in a difficult spot—an unacceptable spot, some may say. He was given a hard choice: should he take up Denplan at £17 a month or leave that dentist and take his children out of school to travel to Torquay, where a dental practice was then available? The hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) should note the time span. Today, my constituent would have to take his children to Barnstaple, and how long would that journey take? A visit to the dentist which would take most of us out of work or school for an hour or two would have taken a whole day by the time he had got to Torquay and back again.
I hope that the Minister will not say that everything is rosy in the garden—I am sorry; that was an unintended pun. I hope that she will not say that everything is well and that the world will be all right because the Government understand the problem. There is a crisis, and action is required now. One dentist in my constituency has made a planning application to expand a practice and bring in some foreign NHS dentists. What can the Minister do to help dentists to do that?
I hope that the Minister will tell us not just that money is available, but that it is available now to aid the bringing in of dentists from abroad. The national papers yesterday were saying that Britain was well down on the dental league table and that we needed about 5,000 new dentists. Will she tell us what she can do to provide dental hygienists and nurses, because there is also a shortage of those? Will she address the concerns of those in the industry who are worried about the new contract? I have been told that there is inadequate information about it. Can she shed some light on that? In particular, will she address the rumour that the start date of April next year will be put back?
Teignbridge district council, which is not statutorily required to assist, carried out a survey that showed that, given the opportunity, 10,000 constituents in its area would go back to a national health service dentist. That would mean that we were close to the average figure of

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those registered with NHS dentists rather than being dramatically below it. I commend the district council for its work in highlighting a concern outside its responsibility and for its work in partnership with the primary care trust. I also commend the fact that it has made available funds to help to establish some dental practices in Teignbridge. I hope that its generosity and quick action and reaction is matched by that of the Minister.
I could go on at length quoting my constituents, who feel bitter about the situation. However, I shall finish with a quote from a doctor. When doctors start writing to MPs regarding lack of provision, we know that something is seriously wrong. He wrote:
"I write to express my worry that several of my vulnerable, low-income patients, including one with cystic fibrosis, have had problems with securing national health service dental services".
When doctors worry, we should all worry, as we should when constituents such as Mr. Brookes have to make 340-mile round trips to Bridgend, because that is where they used to go to the dentist, and they have continued to do so. Similarly, last Saturday, when canvassing, I met a constituent who had moved to Teignbridge three years ago and was still going back to Berkshire for dental treatment. There is a crisis in dental provision in Devon. I hope that the Minister will tell us how she intends to address that crisis now—not in six months or a year or two years' time. What can she do in the next month to help to provide dental services in Devon?
Several hon. Members rose
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I want to help the Chamber. I intend to start the winding-up speeches by calling the Liberal Democrat spokesman at 10.30 am. I hope that the four Back-Bench Members seeking to catch my eye will bear that in mind.
9.51 am
Mr. Anthony Steen: I congratulate the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross) on being such a model of a modern Liberal Democrat MP. Jumping on bandwagons is one of their specialities, and sitting on them so comfortably is another. More seriously, this is a problem for the whole of Devon, and I pay tribute to him for taking the trouble to raise the matter, as do south Devon colleagues who are concerned about it.
Richard Younger-Ross: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words. I carried out my first dental survey in Teignbridge in 1992. I do not think that that constitutes a bandwagon—there was not one rolling at the time.
Mr. Steen: If the hon. Gentleman is not aware, I was in touch with both the Torbay and the South Hams and West Devon primary care trusts about the matter last August, and my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) raised the matter in this Chamber some months ago. I am not trying to gain brownie points, but the Liberal Democrats do not, thank goodness, have a monopoly on dentists.
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On 11 November last year, I received a letter from the chief executive of Torbay primary care trust, who said:
"From April 2005 the PCT will be responsible for commissioning and contracting with dentists. In developing our approach, we will be consulting with the profession and public as to the best approach to ensure improved access. This may result in us recruiting dentists to work in a salaried post, or directly contracting with dentists for NHS sessions. This should enable us to secure a more consistent level of provision than at present—"
you can say that again—
"where with three months notice large numbers of patients can be disenfranchised."
The situation has been well rehearsed by the hon. Member for Teignbridge. In a letter dated 17 February, the chief executive of South Hams and West Devon primary care trust—not Torbay; I have two or three PCTs in my area—wrote:
"South Hams & West Devon Primary Care Trust (PCT) has been struggling with dental access for a number of years. During the past months the situation has worsened with practices in the area de-registering large numbers of NHS patients. The fact that South Hams & West Devon PCT is very rural means that every time an NHS practice decides to de-register a patient, if they are able to find a practice accepting NHS patients they must travel a considerable distance to access the service."
It is rather like the middle ages, when people travelled by horse and cart throughout the county to find a dentist. The only practice that currently accepts NHS patients in South Hams and West Devon is in South Brent on the edge of Dartmoor, which has a bus service once a day and which no one can reach conveniently. Incidentally, South Brent has the highest levels of radon gas in Devon. I am not sure whether that is a relevant factor—it is just an aside.
The chief executive goes on to say that dentists are independent contractors—we know all about that. He then wrote:
"The PCT has very limited influence",
which worried me a bit,
"on NHS dental practices operating under the NHS contract".
He goes on to say:
"There is a national shortage of UK qualified dentists who wish to work within the NHS. Increasingly established dentists are moving into private practice. Although in past years Dentists have been attracted to the UK from Scandinavia and Denmark, this supply now seems to have halted. I am told that qualified dentists from outside Europe are put-off by the amount of bureaucracy they have to go through to enter the UK to work."
Well, who is responsible for that? Is it the EU, the Government or the dental practice? The Minister needs to deal with the matter. I have a letter from the chief executive saying that
"dentists from outside Europe are put-off by the amount of bureaucracy."
Having dealt with the numbers, let me help the Minister and the Chamber. In the past three years, 4,000 full-time students have been on undergraduate courses in dentistry in Great Britain. That is a large number. However, in 2000–01 only 618 graduated. In 2001–02, 591 graduated and in 2002–03, 549; those figures are for England only. The figures that I was given show that in Great Britain there are 4,000 full-time students but roughly only 600 or fewer graduate in England alone. I do not know quite why that is, and I do not know why they are not interested in staying in the national health service. However, dentists are clearly not taking any notice of the Government. I am amazed by the numbers.

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Do the Government wish us to believe that the answer is outside the EU? I remember a market in Marrakech in Morocco, where there is a stall that boasts a man with assorted pliers, who will pull out teeth for a modest fee. Is that what we want here? Is that what the Minister is going for: not a farmers market every Saturday, but a local artisans market where our teeth are wrenched out with pliers?
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Ms Rosie Winterton)indicated dissent.
Mr. Steen: The Minister shakes her head, but I would like to know what my constituents are supposed to do if they do not and cannot find an NHS dentist.
We know that dentists are leaving the NHS in droves. There is now a stampede. They are abandoning the NHS ship, which has been scuppered by the Government and is going nowhere but the seabed. The Government have an interesting answer to that, and I want to read it out. The Minister herself gave me the following answer, which is full of wonderful words:
"On 18 September 2003 we announced new investment totalling £65.2 million for dentistry."
Well done! It continued:
"This consisted of £35 million capital for dental access and quality, £30 million for dental information technology"—
I am not sure that we want information; we merely want dentists—
"and £200,000 for developing dental leadership."
I wonder what dental leadership is? Is it the molars? There has been £200,000 given to that. She goes on to say:
"This was on top of revenue funding we announced in August of £9 million for targeted support on dental access and £1 million for organisation development."
That is wonderful bureaucracy, but the proof of the pudding is that we have no dentists in south Devon. None of that money is going to south Devon.
The Minister adds:
"The £30 million investment in IT will facilitate integration of dental practices with wider NHS information technology systems and will support local contracting."
However, we do not have any local contracting. She continues:
"The IT investment and solutions for dentistry consistent with other NHS information technology initiatives are being taken forward within the national programme for IT."—[Official Report, 23 February 2004; Vol. 418, c. 274W.]
She then goes on to talk about the balance of £59 million, and this and that—but it is a lot of garbage. It is hogwash. These are enormous sums but, as far as we can see, none of it is coming to our area. That money is available for a wonderful list of things, but not for dentists in south Devon.
You rightly pointed out, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that many of my colleagues wish to speak about such problems in their constituencies. I shall therefore touch on only two cases. The first is a single mother who lives in East Prawle, a wonderful but God-forsaken place that is difficult to get to. It is in the middle of nowhere;
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it is one of those remote villages that people aspire to go to until they find that there is no means of transport other than the car.
The single mother has two children, aged five and seven. They are patients of a dental surgery in Kingsbridge. In February, the mother arranged the six-monthly appointment for the family, but she was telephoned on the day of the appointment to be told that it would have to be rescheduled. She then received a letter from the owner of the surgery advising patients that a new dentist would be taking it over.
No one telephoned the mother to rearrange the appointment, and although she had contacted the surgery a couple of times to get a new date, it was in vain. However, she received a letter from the primary care trust on 7 April advising her that a new dentist, Mrs. Stembridge, wished to give notice that she was ending the arrangement for providing dental care on the NHS from 28 June. What that single mother was told is simple: unless she registered with the dentist privately, her two children would not receive treatment. That is a form of dental black mail. As a result, she can get dental treatment for her children only if she, a single parent of restricted means with no means of transport, can get to Kingsbridge and have private treatment for herself. That is not acceptable.
The next case is equally unacceptable. Another constituent of mine has a 90-year-old father and a 92year-old mother living in Brixham. However, there are no dentists in Brixham, Paignton or Torquay—nor, as the hon. Member for Teignbridge said, in that town. My question to the Minister is, what are those people supposed to do if they do not have the money? We do not choose to have teeth. Some of us think that it is rather bad planning that we should have teeth, but we all have them and we all need to have them seen to.
Are the Government suggesting that we should go to the dentist rather as we take the motor car to the garage, and that just as we pay for our MOT certificates and car repairs, so we should pay for repairs to our teeth? I would have nothing against that if it were the Government's policy, but the Government say that it is not their policy. They say that their policy is to provide free dental services, but the policy is failing.
What the Chamber wants to hear is not how much money the Government are putting into the dental service nor how many people are being trained, but why dentists in the entire swathe of south Devon—probably in the whole of Devon—are not prepared to work for the NHS. We want to know why hundreds of thousands or even millions of people are going around with substandard teeth and suffering pain and discomfort. It affects their work, their jobs and their relationships, and it is inexcusable. I hope that the Minister will not give a trite response but will say how to deal with that serious problem.
10.4 am
Linda Gilroy: The hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) entered into the debate with characteristic gusto, but I think that he had a degree of selective amnesia. The roots of the problem go way back to the early 1990s when there was a contract that resulted in a very unsatisfactory position that has undermined dentists' confidence in providing care under the NHS. I will return to that in a moment.

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The hon. Gentleman also accused the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross), whom I congratulate on securing this debate, of jumping on a bandwagon. None of us is jumping on a bandwagon. We are all seeking to represent the interests of our constituents and to raise a serious issue with the Minister. I hope that her response will show that we are at long last pointed in the right direction in terms of how we provide for NHS dental care in the 21st century.
Like other hon. Members, I have found that the problems are reflected in my casework at both ends of the age scale. Just yesterday a mother with four children aged two to 14 came to me. She was desperate for care for the two-year-old. She has had to turn to Derriford hospital for help. She moved to Plymouth two years ago. The person I most recently saw at the other end of the age scale, whom I met when I was out and about in Efford, also moved to Plymouth recently. Like many people, she has experienced problems with her dentures, which are probably past their sell-by date and need attention. She cannot find an NHS dentist who is willing to take her on that side of town. Like many older people, as the hon. Member for Teignbridge pointed out, she would have difficulty in travelling any great distance even within Plymouth, let alone facing the challenges that some people in rural constituencies face.
Richard Younger-Ross: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Linda Gilroy: I am sorry, but I will not give way. I have a lot to say and I want to stick within the time limit.
Those are two of the many problems that have been brought to me. It may have come a little later to Plymouth than to some of the rural areas, but there are other ways in which I have a sense of the problem escalating in Plymouth. I see it in the number of people who seek my help as their Member of Parliament; GPs report increased numbers of patients turning to them for help with pain and gum disease; the primary care trust reports increased numbers of calls on dental matters and, whereas the evening paper would cover the occasional story, there is now regular coverage of problems with dental services. Most recently, in a particularly alarming case a dentist dumped 7,000 NHS patients. That was one of the more recently qualified dentists. There is still a strong commitment among longer qualified dentists to try to engage with the NHS. We need to find a way forward with the Minister's help today.
The first sign that there might be light at the end of the tunnel is the work, to which the hon. Member for Teignbridge did not refer, which is going on across the local authorities in the area. As I understand it, each local authority scrutiny committee is bringing together and taking evidence from the players in dental care about the way forward. There was a joint conference at St. Mellion in February bringing dentists and others together with people from the primary care trust to explore the problems and the options for dealing with them. It is always a good sign when people recognise that the way forward is not one to which anyone has the
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sole or monopoly answer. The Government cannot have that: it will take everyone getting together to resolve the problem.
The problem goes a long way back. One of the big hurdles that we have to overcome is that dentists distrust the present set-up. They distrust the NHS and the new proposals as well as the new money that is on the table. A lot of confidence-building is needed. Dental schools have been closed. There is a lack of understanding about how the new contract will work. There may be a lack of information from the Department of Health on that or it may not be getting through. I understand that there has been a delay in the time taken for funding streams to reach the PCTs from the NHS. The incentive scheme money that was promised last year has yet to reach Plymouth, and I ask my hon. Friend to look into the matter.
There are proposals for the new contract and there is new money, which was announced in the debate secured by the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) in Westminster Hall on 11 February. In Plymouth, there is an oral health programme. The board was set up under the first wave of health action zones, and it has been running for five of the seven years for which money is committed to it. It is a catalyst that has led to several schemes being set up, including free tooth brushes in some of the poorest communities, and, importantly, the programme for vocational dental training in Plymouth. There is a dental access centre in Plymouth and in Cornwall, but other PCTs have not set them up and as hon. Members have said, there is considerable pressure from elsewhere on the dental access centre in Plymouth.
Plymouth is an "Options for change" field site; it is a testing ground for the new way forward on contracting locally with dentists. I understand from the primary care trust dental lead that two practices are moving to the new service agreement this month and several more will follow shortly, which will have advantages for dentists. It will bring them a steady and predictable income throughout the year, and because it is based more on patients than treatments it will reduce the bureaucracy that was built into the disastrous contract developed in the early 1990s. It has the potential to enable the PCTs, which will take responsibility throughout the country from March next year, to focus support on preventive health care, which will be a considerable help to certain communities. At present, any dentist, anywhere, who is willing to do NHS work is very welcome.
In Plymouth, there are 41 dental practices, with 86 general practitioners working as NHS dentists, carrying between 50 and 1,500 patients each; that is the scale of the challenge. In Devon, the average list size has decreased by 31 per cent. since the disastrous 1992 contract. Some people who have lost their dentist have gone private, a few happily but most reluctantly. The chair of the Plymouth health scrutiny panel, Councillor Mary Aspinall, told me that a recent survey in Plymouth suggested that between 6 and 10 per cent. of adults were not registered with a dentist. Some of them are just allergic to dentists, but some are the sort of people I described earlier. About 20,000 people in Plymouth are not registered, which is a matter of considerable concern. If 2,000 patients per dentist is the right figure, it means that about 10 dentists are needed in Plymouth alone.

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What is being done to get the dentists we need? As my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Ms Atherton) argued in the previous debate, we urgently need to consider setting up training in the far south-west of the peninsula, as an outpost of the nearest dental school at Bristol, or as part of the new peninsula medical school. When people are trained in an area, at least 25 per cent. stay there. That would help to increase the number of dentists, just as it helped to increase the number of doctors. We knew that we were under-doctored when we argued for the peninsula medical school, because, per thousand young people, there were not enough to come forward as doctors. I suspect that the same is probably true in respect of dentists.
In the mean time we need to try to attract dentists from abroad. I understand that there are people in Poland in particular who are keen to come and work here under the accession agreement. Is that true? What is the Minister doing to encourage that? Does she agree that that would have a particular relevance for Plymouth, which has a strong historical link with Poland, through the population that came over in the second world war?
What can we do to secure the position of those who are fortunate enough to have an NHS dentist? What is the way forward for the vocational dental service? It is funded until 2005 through the workforce development confederation and is an essential tool to encourage people to train and work in the area. Its continuance beyond 2005 is essential. We need to ensure that primary care trusts have the resources and back-up to give current NHS dental practitioners the confidence to continue.
The good will of dentists is strained to the limit and they lack confidence. I believe that most want to ensure that those who need NHS dentistry can have it, and that they are willing to play their part. Localising the commissioning of NHS dentistry and engaging dentists through membership of the executive committee of the primary care trust will enable local stakeholders to play their part. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about what the Government will do to assist them in returning confidence to a vital part of the health care system.
10.16 am
Mr. Hugo Swire: I congratulate the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross) on being lucky enough to secure this debate. It follows on from a debate that I instigated on 11 February, so I am not quite sure why the debate is taking place. Perhaps in the intervening period the Minister will have come up with some answers. I am sure that she will do better than her colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Miss Johnson), did in February.
The issue is the stuff of headlines. It is a problem not only for Devon or East Devon. The headline in the Daily Express of 18 February was "Government must act as dentist crisis begins to bite." This crisis is a byliner's dream. Under the headline, "A kick in the teeth", the
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Daily Mail of 10 May reported:
"The critical shortage of NHS dentists has been dramatically exposed by an international study.
Research ranks Britain last in terms of dentists per head of population. Greece has nearly three times as many, while in France and Germany it is almost double."
The Express and Echo, a local newspaper reporting on another local problem, used the headline, "Chloe told to wait as dentist crisis rages". In Torquay, the Herald Express announced:
"Experts get teeth into dentist crisis"
when it reported in February that an estimated 700,000 people in Devon and Cornwall do not have access to any dental services and that local councils have decided to join forces to tackle the problem.
We know what the problems are. These reports come on the back of pledges made time and again; for example by the Prime Minister at the Labour party conference in September 1999.The Times reported on 29 September that he pleased activists with a pledge that everyone would have access to an NHS dentist within two years.The Independent on Sunday reported on 13 August 2000:
"In stating that Blair's pledge on dentists was impossible to meet the Chairman of the British Dental Association Dr. John Renshaw stated: 'The Prime Minister went and shot his mouth off without speaking to us. He didn't ask us whether we could deliver on the promise he was making. The target is very, very difficult but with the timescale it makes it impossible'".
The article continues:
"'The BDA believes that all the dentists who have left the NHS, or have only tiny numbers of non-paying patients, need to be attracted back to the public sector"'
and adds:
"Dr. Renshaw on outlining this requirement commented: 'I don't believe that the Government has any intention of even trying.'
He went on to conclude: 'We have had enough of talk. We are sick of it. We are fed up with listening to the talk. We need some action'."
What did we get? More talk and no action. On 17 May 2000 at Prime Minister's questions, the Prime Minister said:
"We have set the date for the end of next year to make sure that everyone who wants access to NHS dentistry can have it"— [Official Report, 17 May 2000; Vol. 350, c. 331.]
On 19 June 2002 he said:
"The changes that we have made mean that anyone who wishes to do so can contact NHS Direct or other NHS services and get the name of an NHS dentist whom they can visit."—[Official Report, 19 June 2002; Vol. 387, c. 276.]
On 26 February 2003 at Prime Minister's questions, the right hon. Gentleman said:
"The reason we are putting so many additional resources into the national health service is precisely in order to ensure that people get proper access to it."—[Official Report, 26 February 2003; Vol. 400, c. 257.]
On 15 October 2003 he said:
"We have made huge attempts to make sure that people can get access to NHS dentistry."—[Official Report, 15 October 2003; Vol. 411, c. 106.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker, you may think that I attempted a trivial diversion earlier when I intervened on the hon. Member for Teignbridge to talk about pledges, but I believe that the collapse in people's support for the political parties and interest in politics has something to

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do with broken pledges. Despite all the pledges made, by people from the Prime Minister down, my constituents and others in our part of the world are fed up. It is another case of being let down by Labour.
I alluded to the Liberal Democrats doing a complete volte-face on their promise to give everyone £100 back on their council tax; they are now changing their policy on that. It is about time that we were more honest. Perhaps the Minister will admit this morning that the Government are unable to deliver on the Prime Minister's pledges, and we can consider together a way of dealing with the problem. Little has changed since my debate in Westminster Hall on 11 February. If anything, the situation in East Devon has got worse since Bernard Jones retired last week: an additional 2,500 patients are now looking for an NHS dentist. There is a continuing problem since Mr. Alistair Danby's attempt to secure premises on Rolle road was rejected by East Devon district council because of a highways problem.
The situation is bad and was highlighted excellently by my local newspaper the Exmouth Journal: I congratulate it on its "plug the cavity" campaign, which seeks to attract more dentists to east Devon and which has attracted 1,044 signatures. I have, nothing further to add, although I am surprised that we are having this debate. There is an element of the Liberal Democrats jumping on the bandwagon, but I want to leave the maximum time for the Minister to answer some of the questions that have been raised, both in this debate and that in February.
10.22 am
Mr. Gary Streeter: I can be blisteringly brief, because much of what I wanted to say has been covered. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross) for securing the debate, which is important and timely and builds on the debate inspired by my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) earlier this year.
Whether it is the right policy that every person who wants access to an NHS dentist should have it is a matter that we can debate. However, as has already been said, it is this Government's policy. It was spelled out by the Prime Minister in his party conference speech in 1999 and put into the NHS plan in 2000; it is a clear Government pledge and commitment that anyone who wishes to have access to NHS dentistry can have it. As hon. Members have heard, in our part of the world, as in other parts of the country, that is not the case. I am the first to admit that the problem pre-dates 1997 and has been an issue for a number of years. However, the Prime Minister made his commitment in 1999—five years ago—and the Labour party has been in government for seven years. As I shall demonstrate with some correspondence, the situation is not getting better in my part of the world: it is getting worse, week by week and month by month. The Government have made a firm policy commitment and promise, and are failing to deliver. Many people are suffering and are becoming distressed as a result, and I look for and to the Minister dealing with that important point.
It has not been said yet, but I pay tribute to the many NHS dentists in Devon who are continuing with NHS dentistry, often at personal expense to themselves, working under extreme pressure and not enjoying the
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same rewards as those taking the independent route. From time to time we should say, "Thank you and well done" to them. My concern about the matter has been rumbling on for a number of months. It has been exacerbated, as the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) mentioned, and as the local newspaper reported, by a practice crashing recently and 7,000 people being told that that they could no longer have NHS dentistry. That was in my constituency in Plympton, and the situation has caused major concerns.
I shall quote from a letter from the South-West Peninsula strategic health authority. I often write my initial inquiries not to Ministers—they have plenty on their plates—but to the chief executives of the SHAs who are administering the primary care trusts. I received a letter quite recently, on 28 April, from the chair of the local SHA, who said:
"With the exception of one surgery in Tavistock which was registering NHS charge exempt patients all the others shown on the list"—
she had previously sent me a list—
"were only registering children as NHS patients. Unfortunately there were, and are,"—
here is the killer phrase—
"no dental practices in the Plymouth area registering charge paying adults for NHS treatment."
I do not want an NHS dentist myself. For many years I have, rightly or wrongly, been on a Denplan arrangement, which has cost an arm and a leg. My wife and I pay about £50 or £60 a month for cover, which is a lot. My wife has very bad teeth—I should not have said that, but now it is on the record. If anyone sends her a copy of the Hansard report, they will be in big trouble with me. Paying between £50 and £60 a month, or even £20 and £30, is simply not within the reach of some of the people on low incomes whom we have heard about today. That is why the issue is so important to such people. There are people who, on a point of principle, insist on NHS dentistry. That is what they have always had, what they have paid into over the years—they think—and what they still want. We should meet that demand, and the Government have promised to do so. Many others simply cannot afford any alternative treatment.
It is not only in the Plymouth area and in the city where there is a massive and growing problem and where constituents are distressed. A constituent came to my surgery about three weeks ago. She was a single parent. She brought along her three lively and lovely children to explain that she, too, had received a letter about a practice in Kingsbridge, which my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) mentioned, and a Mrs. Stembridge, who is no longer taking on NHS patients. The letter reads:
"However, after that date you will no longer be entitled to emergency cover, or treatment provided by your current dentist under the NHS.
Unfortunately at the time of writing this letter there are no NHS Dentists accepting new patients in the South and West Devon area."
That is a pretty big area, but there are no dentists accepting new NHS patients there. My constituent asked me, "What can I do when the time comes for my children to receive their regular check-up? I can't afford to go private and they won't be accepted under the

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NHS." I suspect that there have been many children over the past two or three years who have not received their regular dental check-ups, and that many will miss them in years to come. We are storing up a health hazard for the future.
The problem is hugely important. The Government have had long enough to put in place changes that should by now have worked through on the ground. I recognise and accept that we are talking about the individual choices of dentists about how they wish to organise their practices. However, the Government must also accept that they have made promises. They have had long enough to introduce arrangements that can work on the ground. If the Minister cannot satisfy us that patients in our part of the world will soon have access to NHS dentistry, we shall have yet another example of failure to deliver by a Government who have promised so much.
10.28 am
Mr. Paul Burstow rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. May I make a plea to the Liberal Democrat spokesman and to the spokesman from Her Majesty's Opposition to allow adequate time for the Minister to reply?
Mr. Burstow: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I thank the hon. Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) for keeping his remarks brief and to the point. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross) on securing a debate lasting an hour and a half on the important issue of the supply and availability of dentistry in Devon, because it enables us to explore the issues that have led to the crisis there, but which apply also to many other parts of the country.
It is to my hon. Friend's credit to have secured the presence of a Minister of State, because in the half-hour debate in February we had only an Under-Secretary. On that occasion, the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) raised a number of important issues concerning East Devon's dental services and the difficulties that his constituents were experiencing. However, I fear that it is a little churlish to suggest that a Member who has persistently pursued dentistry issues and consistently surveyed the availability of dentistry in his constituency since at least 1992 is on a bandwagon. If he is on a bandwagon, it is one that he built and which he has been on for a long time.
The debate has demonstrated that there is a serious problem with the supply and provision of dentistry in Devon. There is a parlous state of supply in Teignbridge and in the constituencies of other hon. Members who have spoken today. I was interested to hear the remarks of the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen), particularly those about the availability of radon gas, although I am not certain that they play directly into today's debate.
Yesterday, we saw some interesting reports, which graphically demonstrate the shortage of dentists throughout the UK and tell us that Britain has fewer dentists than Poland. It is important to understand what has happened with dentistry in the past few years, and
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how we reached the current situation. It is worth bearing it in mind that, according to a parliamentary written answer that I received earlier this year, over half of the population in England are without an NHS dentist. I believe that the hon. Member for East Devon referred to an article in the Daily Express that published that parliamentary written, answer to the world. It is essential that we reverse the trend of people being deregistered and losing access to dental services. South-west peninsula residents are undoubtedly among the least well served when it comes to dentistry services, but that problem is not confined to that part of the world.
Two key decisions had a serious impact on dentistry, and brought us to where we are today. The first was the decision to introduce the 1990 contract and, more importantly, the unilateral decision of the Department in 1992, to cut—first by 23 per cent., and then by 7 per cent.—the fees that it was paying to dentists. That unilateral decision, more than anything else, undermined the dental profession's confidence in what the Department was about and whether it was really committed to sustaining a universal service of free dental care. It accelerated dentists' disengagement into an exodus from NHS provision. Rather than delivering the hoped for focus on prevention, it sped up the treadmill that so many dentists talk about: the drill-and-fill state of affairs—no time to talk, no time to prevent dental decay. The second important decision was the closure of three dental schools, which undoubtedly had disastrous implications for the long-term viability of the work force.
My hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge ably documented the impact of that mismanagement in the 1990s on the oral health of his constituents, as have other hon. Members. Is there any comfort on the horizon for our constituents? Will dental services improve? Since 1997, a host of initiatives has been introduced—I am sure that the Minister will rehearse them for us today—but in 2001, the Select Committee on Health recorded its view that the Government had a quick-fix approach, which did not go to the root of the problem.
What is next? We now have legislation that provides for primary care trusts to pick up responsibility for commissioning. That is the biggest shake-up for a quarter of a century. A new base contract is being developed and piloted, which will move dentistry away from drilling and filling and toward promoting prevention.
Access to NHS dentistry is a serious problem because dentists are doing less NHS work and we have poor work force planning. What assessment has the Minister made of the British Dental Association's estimate that the number of new dental students needs to increase by 25 per cent. to meet demand? Does she agree with John Renshaw, the chair of the BDA executive board, that we do not have enough dentists?
That brings me to what is, from my review of parliamentary answers and other literature of late on this issue, the key question: what do the Government mean by "shortly" as in, "We will publish a report shortly"? In 2001, the Department announced the first review of the dental work force since 1997, which was completed last autumn—another of those vague terms. In a written answer on 2 February, I was told that the report would be published "shortly". Will the Minister

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tell us in which month the report was completed and, more importantly, when it will be published? That report must be the basis on which we will move forward the development of the work force.
With changes to the contract due in April 2005, clarity on work force issues and the direction of travel has to be essential to bolstering the confidence of which the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) spoke. We have 13 dental schools—this relates to a point that the hon. Member for Totnes made—and, UK-wide, 800 extra dentists coming in every year. We imported 456 dentists from overseas last year.
It will be difficult for the Government, if they intend to grow our own dental work force, to do so without knowing the current position of the work force. The report has not yet been published, and it is therefore difficult to ascertain whether there is the right mix of training places, and whether the training "pipeline" is adequate to produce not only dentists, but therapists, nurses and others complementary to dentistry. Those questions need to be answered now, because if those extra dentists and others do not come through the training system, we will not be able to deliver the quality service that we should all expect for our constituents, in Devon or anywhere else in the UK. Can the Minister therefore tell us what "shortly" means in this context, and when we will see that report and the necessary action to turn its recommendations into reality?
At the BDA's conference on 6 May the Minister made an important speech, and was asked a number of questions by members of the association, not least about the timing of the implementation of the new contracts. The Minister said that she would examine that matter in the weeks subsequent to the conference. Can she tell us whether the Government are minded to amend the timing and, if so, in what way? W ill she also tell us whether there will be further announcements about additional funding to underpin the PCTs' capability to implement their new roles as commissioners? When will that money be announced, and when will it reach the front line, so that it can have an impact?
The dentistry sector has been neglected for so long that it has, in many areas, lacked the necessary investment in infrastructure. How will the infrastructure—premises and equipment—be improved for those who have slogged along and stayed with the NHS? What are the Government's plans in that area?
My hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge has done the House a service by initiating this debate so that the Minister can respond to the concerns of hon. Members. NHS dentistry is in poor shape. There is a growing underclass of people who do not have access to NHS dentistry; for them it is a pipe dream. The scale of the task is clear, but the Government's response is still too vague. Can the Minister give us confidence that we will begin to see a dentistry service fit for the 21st century, fit for the people, and free on the basis of need?
10.37 am
Dr. Andrew Murrison: I congratulate the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross) on introducing the debate, and also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) on initiating a similar debate in February. The debate today is an opportunity for the
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Minister to give us a progress report on the response made by the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Miss Johnson) in that earlier debate.
However, I believe that the glass is half full rather than half empty, and that many dentists would take exception to some of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow). It is true that there are problems in accessing NHS dentistry—that is the subject of the debate, and rightly so. However, we should recognise the huge strides that have been made in dentistry over the past couple of decades. It is important to bear it in mind that part of the current problem of access to NHS dentistry is related to the standards that we expect today, which did not apply 20 or 30 years ago.
Nevertheless, we have seen what might be described as the decline and fall of NHS dentistry which, ironically, has occurred since the Prime Minister made a categorical statement at his party's conference in September 1999 on access to NHS dentistry for everyone. It was a brave thing to say but, in the fullness of time, that policy has been seen to be undeliverable. I hope that the Minister will respond to that point in her concluding remarks.
Some 1.5 million fewer people are now registered with NHS dentists than in 1998, which is a huge decline. There has also been a reduction—from 4.4 per cent. to 3.1 per cent.—in the proportion of the health budget devoted to dentistry. I fully accept that the NHS budget has expanded, but that proportional decline gives some indication of the priority given to dentistry within the NHS. Will the Minister comment on that matter? The BDA seems to think that the proportion of total NHS spending on dentistry is declining even further.
The analogy that my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon drew between the Liberal Democrats' pledge of £100 during the Brent, East by-election and the Prime Minister's remarks in 1998 was spot on. We need to restore trust in politics. The Prime Minister making promises in 1998 and failing to keep them, and other parties making wild pledges during by-elections and then rescinding them, does none of us any good.
The BDA is clearly concerned about "Options for change". We have great hopes for "Options for change", as I am sure the Minister does. The measure will apparently revolutionise dentistry. I think that the BDA started by being quite positive about "Options for change", but it appears that it changed its mind, as so often happens, when it read the small print. We have seen time and again that when organisations read the small print of things that Ministers say, they often have second thoughts. A recent MORI poll suggests that 57 per cent. of dentists now oppose "Options for change", 15 per cent. support the measure and the rest simply do not know. Perhaps they have not been sufficiently apprised of the implications of that revolutionary measure that will apparently change their lives. I find that deeply worrying.
I received a letter recently from a general dental practitioner who is deeply concerned about "Options for change". We heard that the Liberal Democrats view

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the contract that was introduced in the early 1990s as a disaster. Well, we all need a little humility in politics, and we have to accept that in retrospect that may have been the case, but I hope that Ministers will reflect on what is going on at the moment, so that they do not make the same mistakes. Clearly, the gentleman who wrote to me feels that they are about to make similar mistakes. His comments are well put. He says:
"Put bluntly, dentists can expect to do 50 per cent. less work and still expect to receive their previous gross. They will work fewer hours, take more holidays, attend more courses, spend more time with each patient and carry out minimum invasive treatment. They will not touch a patient whose treatment plan involves high laboratory costs. The losers will be social classes D & E whose dental needs are the highest. They will be confined in ever increasing numbers to access centres, community and hospital services … The reform is guaranteed to exacerbate existing dental inequalities."
I find that particularly difficult, given that the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield, in her response to the remarks by my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon in February, made great play of addressing dental inequalities. I should be interested to hear from this Minister whether, in the months that have passed since, she has given further thought to how we might best do that. Indeed, I should be interested in her reflections on how dental inequalities may have been exacerbated since 1997.
This debate is about dentistry in Devon, but the problems that have been experienced there, which hon. Members have eloquently described, reflect problems in the country as a whole and particularly in areas where the population is relatively sparse. Devon has an elderly population. It is a rural area, with all that that implies for transport and access. The number of dentists in Devon seems to have declined significantly since 2000, and the dental work force is apparently quite elderly.
In that context, it is important to ask again, as several hon. Members have, when we will see the dental work force review that we have been promised for so long. It is important to know where we are going. I have said before in the House that many of the problems stem from the 1970s, and I believe that to be the case. We failed to predict adequately then what our dental needs would be now, and we are suffering the consequences. The review is welcome and we need to have it urgently, without any more delay. I hope that the Minister can shed some light on that. Given that we want her to have sufficient time to respond to the important questions that have been posed, I shall call it a day at this point.
10.44 am
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Ms Rosie Winterton): I congratulate the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross) on securing this debate. I realise how important the subject is for his constituents. I certainly will not give the impression that everything in the garden is rosy, but I hope to show how we are tackling the long and short-term problems. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) eloquently put her finger on the button in saying that we have inherited the problem from the previous Administration, who introduced a deeply unpopular contract, closed not three but two dental schools and cut
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dentists' fees. That was when dentists started walking away from the NHS and we are dealing with the consequences of that.
The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) spoke about some of the difficulties, not just in Devon but across the country, and drew attention to the report published yesterday. I do not deny that there is a problem, but that report was misleading because it did not take into account the number of hospital or community dentists. The fact is that there are more dentists than ever before. The problem is that fewer of them do work for the NHS. To address that, we are negotiating with the British Dental Association over the introduction of a new contract. It has told us that dentists have difficulties with the treadmill effect of the current contract. They find it bureaucratic and say that it does not allow them clinical freedom to work with patients, so we are changing it. I take on board the comments of the hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) about a particular dentist who feels that that is not the right way forward. However, a lot of effort has gone into negotiations with the BDA to try to find a different style of contract to suit dentists better.
Secondly, we ire devolving the money that is currently held centrally. By next year, that will be about £1.5 billion. The hon. Member for Westbury asked about the proportion of NHS funding spent on dentistry. The difficulty is that if an NHS dentist withdraws from providing NHS treatment in an area, the money that they would be paid returns to the centre. Therefore, that money cannot be made available locally and offered to other dentists. We will devolve the money held centrally so that local commissioners can properly plan with local dentists for the provision of dentistry in the area. That is the way forward.
Many hon. Members asked about the start date for the new contract. The BDA has said that it needs more time to conclude negotiations. We have listened to the points made by the BDA and I will make decisions on that after further discussions.
My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton raised the issue of work force training and she is absolutely right. My hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Ms Atherton) made the point in the previous debate about how we can get trainees into an area and keep them there. It is a point well made and something that I am examining. It can be difficult to force people to go to a particular area, as they take lots of things into account when they move somewhere. However, I want to see whether there are ways to persuade people, because many people tend to stay around the dental schools instead of moving elsewhere. It is an issue that we need to consider.
The hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) spoke about international recruitment and his experience in Marrakech. To a certain extent, he cannot have it all ways. We want to consider increased international recruitment, but it is also important to ensure that practising dentists are of a high standard. That is dealt with by the General Dental Council, which requires some candidates to take exams. I suspect that that is the bureaucracy that he mentioned, but those checks are important in ensuring that dentists are practising to the highest standard.
Dr. Murrison: The Minister needs to recognise that it is the European Commission that is holding up the registration of many professionals from the European Union accession states. Will she admit that, and not just blame the regulators of dentistry and other professions?
Ms Winterton: I will come on to some of our discussions about that point. While ensuring that we can recruit from other European countries, we must ensure that we are not denuding another country's health service. We are undertaking discussions on that.
I will turn to Devon, as I know than that is what hon. Members have come to debate, but before that, I want to touch on the dental work force review, as it was raised by several hon. Members. We will be publishing the review in the not-too-distant future, but I want to ensure that we not only analyse the problem but come up with the solutions. That is why I have been keen to have all the questions answered before we publish. It is true to say that several conclusions have emerged, but I want to ensure that we can also define the solutions.
The long-term work involves what we are doing with the new contract, commissioning locally, the dental work force review and increasing; training. Some immediate access problems remain at a local level, to which many hon. Members have referred today. The PCTs throughout Devon have been working hard to develop a range of local solutions and I shall run through some of them before I talk about what more can be done.
The north-east Devon dental access centre opened in 2001 and now has three centres fully operational in Exeter, Crediton and Barnstaple. That scheme has recently been extended to Exmouth, where a drop-in arrangement is now in place. There is a salaried community and emergency dental service based in Newton Abbot in Teignbridge. There is also one in Torquay, which is due to expand will additional central funding. For the past three years, a mini personal dental scheme has been running in Tavistock to treat unregistered patients who are in pain and need emergency treatment. In Plymouth a walk-in dental access centre opened in December 2002 to offer a wide range of services and specialist support, including same-day treatment for patients in pain and emergency cover during weekends and bank holidays. Those are some of the schemes that are up and running to tackle the dental access issues that hon. Members mentioned.
The whole of Devon is part of the "Options for change" peninsula field site. Hon. Members have mentioned the fact that the BDA says that there is not enough information about how the new system will work. We have been setting up field sites and pilot sites for five years to ensure that the new system builds on the best practice that has been developed at such sites when it is introduced. It is important that Devon is part of that process, which will enable practices to move to the new
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system before next year, remove the uncertainty that some dentists face and provide an opportunity to influence the changes and achieve a secure income.
We have ensured that there is a project co-ordinator in Devon working for the Modernisation Agency. The co-ordinator, Andrew Harris, is based in a PCT in Devon and provides dedicated support to local dental practices and local PCTs to facilitate the move to the new system. Eighteen practices in Devon and Cornwall have adopted the new contracts under "Options for change", and we are looking to 20 more to move to do so in the next couple of months. That means that up to 45 dental practices and 100 dentists in the south-west peninsula will be part of the new system by July.
I have tried to make sure that the Department works closely with local NHS organisations to ensure that there is appropriate support.
Mr. Burstow: Will the Minister give way?
Ms Winterton: No, I cannot. Last week, officials from the new special health authority for dentistry met representatives of all the PCTs in Devon and Cornwall to discuss the progress that has been made in expanding the field site and to consider the PCTs' dental action plans. A specific meeting also took place with Teignbridge PCT, and the moves that are being made were discussed.
Additional funding has meant that PCTs are now in a position to develop plans for the future. Some £1 million of national access funding, which I announced last year, will be used in Devon to support capital developments to increase capacity. PCTs are developing dental action plans setting out how they will use that additional funding. I take on board the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton about whether the funding is getting through. The funding is there, and it has been confirmed that PCTs will have it. That is why the dental action plans are being developed.
On international recruitment, we have had discussions not only with Poland but with Spain, Denmark and Germany, where we are building on established links to recruit additional dentists to the NHS. We will be working with strategic health authorities to target international recruits at areas with the most acute access problems. I can confirm that Devon will be one of the first areas to receive new recruits when they start to arrive later this year.
So, there are some immediate problems, but I hope that hon. Members will accept that we are looking for a viable longer-term solution to the difficulties that we have inherited. We are also taking action to address the immediate, short-term problems that hon. Members have raised. The package that we have put together, which we have worked out with the profession, will lead to better working lives for dentists and improved services for patients.

International Air Transport Association
11 am
Andrew Selous: It is a pleasure to raise this important matter on behalf of one of the major employers in my constituency. The debate is to do with competition policy and the International Air Transport Association, which is giving the company, the Official Airline Guide, great cause for concern. OAG Worldwide Group Limited is a private publishing and data business and the premier supplier of consolidated scheduled airline information to the airline and travel industry. It has been the international leader in its field for more than 70 years, and has 470 staff, some 300 of whom are based at its headquarters in Dunstable.
It is a high tech business, at the heart of airline schedules distribution in both the business-to-business and the business-to-consumer sectors. It is a core source of operational critical data for many airline reservation systems—the global distribution systems that feed the world's travel agents—and its direct consumer reach of more than 1 million people is growing rapidly as internet and mobile distribution grows.
OAG works independently, not beholden to any airline, travel company or other organisation. Its strength lies in the quality, depth and breadth of its regularly updated and meticulously checked global flight schedule database. It uses datasets, key raw data for industry capacity and route development analysis, with past and future data available. The data are distributed via data feeds, online, on CD-ROM, mobiles and personal data systems and in books of several sizes. It is an outstanding British company, investing heavily for the future. I recently had the pleasure of going round its offices. It has an outstanding staff with many years' experience, and it is investing significantly in the latest information technology. It is just the sort of company for which the country needs to guarantee a bright and prosperous future.
IATA is causing OAG serious concern, in that its officers claim that they have been given a brief by the airlines to destabilise OAG. OAG does not believe that that is the case so far as the airlines are concerned. It has evidence that IATA has sought to destabilise it by telling competitors that it is going bankrupt. I have, as evidence, a letter concerning disparaging remarks made by an employee of IATA to a representative of Golden Ware Travel Technologies. The letter, from Mr. Michael Feldman, IATA's director of passenger services, was faxed to Mr. Rory Veevers-Carter, vice-president of sales and marketing of Golden Ware. It begins:
"It has been brought to my attention that Mr Juan Catala recently made comments to representatives of Golden Ware Technologies ('GoldenWare') which have been misunderstood by Golden Ware as questioning OAG's financial standing. OAG has an excellent and long established reputation within the airline industry and IATA is not aware of any basis for questioning the company's financial or trading status. As such, on behalf of IATA, I wish to unequivocally and unconditionally correct any inference to the contrary which may have been derived from Mr Catala 's comments."
It continues:
"IATA sincerely regrets any adverse imputation concerning OAG which may have been drawn from Mr Catala's comments and apologises unreservedly to OAG for any such imputation."
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IATA has tried to obtain OAG's pricing via IATA meetings, and has questioned OAG's customers about the value of its products. IATA has also asked airlines to commit to its service, which it calls the schedule reference service.
Individual airlines currently provide their flight schedules through various distribution channels to consolidators and intermediaries, such as OAG, who create their own data products and services and distribute them to airlines, businesses, passengers and the travel industry. As I said, however, IATA is establishing the schedule reference service—the SRS—which is an industry-wide consolidation service designed to provide, in IATA's words,
"a single, neutral industry schedule database for the collection, verification and onward distribution of schedule information for the whole air transport industry".
That simply proves that IATA wants to replace OAG as the industry's core schedules database. It wants not to provide an alternative data source, but to take sole control in an entirely unacceptable, monopolistic way. It is actively seeking to further its ambition by partnering, endorsing and entering into an exclusive marketing agreement with a small, historically loss-making US company, Innovata, to provide a competitive service and leverage IATA's industry status to help this player to take business from OAG. Innovata is the appointed operator of the SRS, while IATA claims that it is responsible only for marketing and promoting that service to the airlines. As the leading trade association for the airline industry, however, IATA's strong position unquestionably enables it to advance the interests of the Innovata-SRS service and to put direct and indirect pressure on its member airlines and, indeed, on other airlines in the industry.
OAG pointed out to me that this monopolistic channel of supply will have serious anti-competitive consequences, as IATA, through its member airlines, will be able to control the way in which the data is distributed. Inevitably, the loss of competition would increase prices, stifle technological innovation and reduce choice for users of airline information. Fundamentally, IATA is an association of competing airlines, and, as such, frequently can operate only on the basis of specific exemptions. To our knowledge, no such regulatory approval or exemptions have been granted to IATA for the SRS. Expecting IATA not to leverage its dominant status would not correspond with its ambition or track record. For example, IATA recently told OAG that it would take it out of the cargo business. Its tactics were successful in the cargo rates area, in which it dramatically increased OAG's data supply cost. It is currently trying similar tactics to suppress OAG's desire to distribute cargo rules.
There are clear analogies to be drawn between IATA's conduct in relation to cargo rates and its anticipated monopolistic behaviour in relation to flight schedule data through the SRS. As with cargo rates, IATA could simply impose unreasonable prices or terms for the supply of consolidated flight schedules.

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There is no future for OAG if IATA achieves a monopoly in the flight schedule sector. Some 300 of my constituents' jobs could be lost. OAG's existence is therefore under direct threat from IATA. The knock-on effect would be the loss of jobs in Dunstable, about which I have already spoken. What is worse, however, is that this would seriously damage the UK's leading position in this sector.
IATA's aforementioned actions are questionable for the following reasons. In view of IATA's position as the airline industry's leading trade association, it is wholly inappropriate for IATA to align itself with particular suppliers to the airline industry. A trade association, which is a grouping of competitors in the industry, must remain neutral with respect to the products and services that its individual members buy in the marketplace. IATA holds huge sway in the airline industry and manages a breadth of committees that influence the way in which the industry operates and the standards that it adopts. Should IATA be allowed to masquerade as a trade association while furthering its own commercial interests?
As a result of IATA's actions, OAG made a formal complaint to the European Commission on 12 September 2003, a copy of which was registered with the United States Department of Justice. As I explained, the complaint details IATA's desire to establish a monopoly SRS. However, the complaint has so far not been progressed. OAG has corresponded with several MPs, but the British Government seem to have washed their hands of this complaint, stating that the complaint is an issue for the EC's competition directorate.
On 29 April 2004, I received a letter from Mr. Mario Monti, the European Commissioner which states:
"This complaint is currently being examined by my services. Given the complexity of this case, it will take some more time before my services are able to come to a preliminary conclusion about the possible existence of an infringement of competition rules by IATA. I hope you will therefore understand that I am not able at this stage to take a position on the merits of this case."
Considering the prolonged delay in receiving a response from the European Commission, which lasted seven months from the date that the complaint was officially submitted, what can the Minister do to help the interests of a fine market-leading British company? If the complaint does not progress as soon as possible, OAG's ability to continue to provide an independent service to the industry will be irreparably damaged.
May I summarise the problem for the Minister? Essentially, the ramifications of IATA's actions are potentially immeasurable. The negative aspects of a monopolistic service will be felt by all players within the travel market including application service providers, global distribution systems and publishers, as well as the airlines that generate the data in question and the ultimate consumers of that information, namely the purchasers of airline and other integrated transport-related services and publications. No part of the schedules supply chain will be immune from the negative pressures that the SRS is expected to exert on it.
I hope that the Minister will declare that the arrangements are in breach of article 81 of the EC treaty and are not capable of individual exemption under that
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article. He should investigate the complaint, which covers the agreements, arrangements and practices within IATA and includes the marketing agreement with Innovata for the implementation of the SRS, and he should have that agreement with Innovata terminated. I hope that he will ensure that if the schedule reference service proceeds, it will not become an exclusive channel of supply. First, he should ensure that the airlines continue to provide raw flight schedules data to OAG on terms that do not discriminate in favour of the SRS; secondly, that the airlines and other users have an unrestricted right to source consolidated flight schedules data and other data products from competing consolidators such as OAG; thirdly, that IATA does not misuse its position as a trade association to favour the SRS.
In summary, I ask the Minister to champion the interests of a leading British company. All the issues that OAG has raised with me are highly worthy of debate as they seriously question both the role of IATA as a trade association and its future role as a competing commercial organisation. The Government, up until now, seem to have handed the buck to the European Union, but the complaint has been held up in the European Commission for nearly eight months. Surely the commercial interests of one of the UK's major employers should take priority? Can the Minister seriously let a trade association behave so anti-competitively? Should a trade association be allowed to undermine a company in such a blatant fashion?
OAG's criticism of IATA's anti-competitive behaviour is serious enough to merit an investigation, and I hope the Minister will investigate the matter further. I hope that he will in particular put pressure on the European Commission to take the action that I have outlined, in the interests of British business and British jobs as far as they affect my constituents.
11.14 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Nigel Griffiths): It is a pleasure to be here with you again, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to congratulate the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) on securing this debate on an important issue.
OAG has a proven track record of providing a first-class service to business and the Government take this issue seriously. I shall outline the steps that have been taken so far. I would like to reassure the hon. Gentleman that the Government have acted properly on the matter, and I will take him through the procedures.
Commissioner Monti, who is responsible for competition matters, has agreed to open a formal investigation of OAG's complaint concerning IATA, which will be carried out under article 81 of the treaty. The Commission must carry out a thorough investigation in accordance with competition-related criteria. The Enterprise Act 2002 took Ministers and politics out of competition decisions in the UK in the interests of producing a more transparent and predictable system for the consideration of competition cases. The decision to do so was based on three principles: that competition-related decisions are best

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determined by the competition authorities according to competition-related criteria; that Ministers should avoid undermining the regulators or appearing to influence them in carrying out their independent functions; and that Ministers should seek to support competition regulators in their work. Although the policy was primarily developed for a domestic regime, it applies equally to competition investigations carried out by the European Commission.
Commission investigations are legal processes under article 81 of the treaty. The hon. Gentleman voiced his concern about the time that the investigation might take, and yesterday, at my instigation, officials at the Department of Trade and Industry checked with the Commission and made our view clear about the need to expedite proceedings. As it is a legal process, the Commission will give interested parties the opportunity to submit evidence, and the party under investigation—in this case IATA—will take every opportunity to defend itself as it sees fit.
I want the Commission to resolve the investigation as soon as it can. The Commission has recognised that there may be a case to answer and is formally investigating the complaint. I shall ensure that the hon. Gentleman's contribution to the debate, and my response, is forwarded to Commissioner Monti.
Andrew Selous: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way and for his Department's action on the matter yesterday.
On the time scale of proceedings, can the Government exercise any influence to ensure that this serious matter, which has been with the Commission for eight months, is expedited as quickly as possible?
Nigel Griffiths: We have left the Commission in no doubt that delays in handling competition matters can damage all the parties involved, and I am sure that the Commission has taken that message to heart.
Our position on competition policy is clear: we believe that strong competition benefits businesses and consumers. For business, it sets out a level playing field on which it can compete fairly; for consumers, strong, fair competition can set downward pressure on prices and upward pressure on quality. The overall aim of competition policy is to encourage and enhance the competitive process to bring wider benefits to the economy in increased productivity. In recent years, the Government have taken active steps to modernise and strengthen the UK's competition laws as part of our wider agenda of promoting competitiveness and growth. The stated cornerstones of that modernisation are choice and value for consumers and dynamic and innovative markets, such as the one that the company in question has created from its base in the hon. Gentleman's constituency.
The mainstay of our competition regime is the Competition Act 1998, which I had the honour of taking through the House of Commons as the competition Minister. That Act is closely modelled on the EC treaty, particularly articles 81 and 82, which it mirrors, and replaces earlier legislation, including that relating to restrictive trade practices. We have moved away from
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public interest tests by means of consolidation in the Enterprise Act 2002, in order to take the politics out of competition decisions in all but a narrow set of circumstances. It is important to stress that such decisions are now taken by the independent expert competition authorities, using competition-based tests.
The rigorous enforcement of rules by the relevant independent competition authorities is important—whether by the Office of Fair Trading, the Competition Commission or the sectoral regulators in the UK or, as in this case, the European Commission, where intra-Community and global trade are involved. The Commission is widely respected for its independence and its balanced and rigorous approach to enforcing EU competition rules in a number of landmark cases. I hope that that will reassure the hon. Gentleman and his constituents.
In the UK, the Competition Act, which mirrors articles 81 and 82 of the treaty, constitutes the basic EU competition rules. Under the treaty, the Commission—specifically, the director general for competition—has sole responsibility for enforcing the EU's competition rules and considering individual cases under the rules. Article 81 prohibits agreements between undertakings that prevent, restrict or distort competition in intra-Community trade. Article 82 prohibits the abuse of a dominant position with no exemption possible. Those areas were elaborated on by the hon. Gentleman.
Turning to the technicalities, exemption from the prohibition of article 81(1) is possible under article 81(3), which lists four conditions that must all be satisfied if an agree rent is to be exempt from the general prohibition. The agreement must contribute
"to improving the production or distribution of goods or to promoting technical or economic progress, while allowing consumers a fair share of the resulting benefit, and … not:
(a) impose on the undertakings concerned restrictions which are not indispensable to the attainment of these objectives;
(b) afford such undertakings the possibility of eliminating competition in respect of a substantial part of the products in question."
In straightforward terms, those conditions are answered by one question: are the restrictive aspects of the arrangements in question indispensable to improving the product or benefiting consumers? If a case fails that test. any anti-competitive behaviour is prohibited and any anti-competitive agreements are declared void. In extreme cases, parties infringing the rules can be fined a maximum of 10 per cent. of their turnover, so the stakes in such an investigation are obviously very high. That is one of the reasons why the competition, following due legal process, must give any parties to an investigation every opportunity to submit their side of the story. Obviously, the Commission sets down a reasonable time scale for that, but I want the Commission to ensure that no parties take advantage of its procedures to delay and drag out the proceedings unnecessarily. As I said, I recognise the damage that that does to other parties and, quite often, to the party under investigation as well.

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I know that the hon. Gentleman will continue to monitor the situation carefully, as will my hon. Friend the Minister for Employment Relations, Competition and Consumers, who is unable to be here. I shall ensure that he, too, is fully aware of the contribution that the hon. Gentleman has made and of the follow-up actions that I have given a commitment to undertake.
11.25 am
Sitting suspended until Two o'clock.

Mersey (Second Crossing)
2 pm
Mr. Mike Hall: I hope that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, pass on my thanks to the Speaker for granting this Adjournment debate on a subject that is of great importance to the economy of the north-west. I want to start by briefly examining the history of crossings over the River Mersey. There is some debate as to whether the Romans built a bridge over the Mersey between what is now Widnes and Runcorn, but there is no doubt that there was a fording place in the Warrington, South area in Roman times. In 1905, the transporter bridge was built. The current Silver Jubilee bridge—there is an argument over whether it should be called the Runcorn-Widnes bridge or the Widnes-Runcorn bridge; its nomenclature depends on which side of the river people live—was built in 1961, widened in 1977 and renamed the Silver Jubilee bridge.
For some time in our area we have struggled with extreme congestion on the Silver Jubilee bridge. In the early 1990s, the then hon. Member for Halton and I pursued the Transport Minister to see whether a new river crossing could be built, and a case study was commissioned in 1991 to determine whether that was possible. The resulting report confirmed that the bridge was congested, but argued that since it was of no strategic importance to the north-west, a second crossing should not be paid for out of public expenditure.
The Silver Jubilee bridge has a capacity of 65,000 cars a day. About 75,000 cars a day were using it in 1993 and the average is now more than 80,000 cars a day. Moreover, on some days last year, 92,000 vehicles used the bridge, so it is clear that it is severely congested. The Oscar Faber report, published in 1997, concluded that by 2016 between 115,000 and 150,000 vehicles might cross the bridge, which would be massively in excess of its current capacity. The report also concluded that that was a constraint, not only on the economy of Halton and north Cheshire, but of Merseyside and the greater north-west region.
When the then Secretary of State for Transport turned down our appeal on the basis that there was no strategic need for the bridge, he said that we might seek a local solution to the problem. We therefore set up a consortium of local authorities. Some 80 per cent. of the traffic that uses the bridge is not local; 40 per cent. goes straight through the borough and 40 per cent. ends or begins its journey in Halton. It is therefore clear that the congestion is not just related to the borough of Halton.
In 1995 Halton borough council became the lead member of a group of Merseyside authorities—Liverpool metropolitan borough council, as it then was, the councils of Wirral, St. Helens, Knowsley and Sefton, Warrington borough council, and Cheshire county council—which formed a consortium with Merseytravel, the local chambers of commerce, English Partnerships and Peel Holdings. The aim of the consortium was to devise a local solution to the problem. More recently, the North West regional assembly and the Northwest Development Agency have joined the consortium to give real impetus to the demand for a new crossing over the River Mersey.
Mrs. Louise Ellman: I agree with the important points that my hon. Friend makes about this being a regional matter, reinforced by the involvement of the Northwest Development Agency. Does he agree that it is of specific interest to the development of Liverpool and particularly the port of Liverpool? The movement of traffic and the prevention of congestion are critical to developing the port's trade, and the building of a second crossing would be an essential factor in achieving that.
Mr. Hall: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. I was not going to cover it, but she draws attention to the fact that the port of Liverpool is very important to the economy of the north-west. If we are to have a new crossing over the River Mersey, it will enhance the port, the economy of Liverpool and the wider region.
There are two tunnels under the River Mersey directly in the Liverpool area. The first crossing over the river is the Silver Jubilee bridge. There is a very local crossing in Warrington, South—in the town centre in Warrington. Anyone who has needed to travel through Warrington or Runcorn when the Thelwall viaduct is closed will know just how unsatisfactory that is for any strategic access into the north-west. Then we have the Thelwall viaduct itself. A huge amount of money has been spent on dualling the viaduct, only for us to find out that the structures of one carriageway have been seriously corroded. Traffic is now restricted on the viaduct and will be for quite some time. For a 24-mile stretch of river, we have only three significant crossings. That is why another is essential.
In 1997, my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) and I continued to press the Government to consider the issue, so that we could take forward the ideas coming out of the new Mersey crossing consortium. We were able to persuade the Secretary of State for Transport to provide a £600,000 grant for a feasibility study of where the bridge might cross the River Mersey and what its impact would be in the local area and more widely in the north-west region. As a direct result of that money, we have a clear idea of where we want the bridge. Perhaps I can give a plug to Halton borough council. It has produced on a CD a powerful case for the new Mersey crossing. The CD is available free at the point of need. It explains in graphic detail the benefits of the crossing and shows in interesting diagrammatic form what the bridge will look like and where it will go.
The debate is about whether we should dual the Silver Jubilee bridge or go elsewhere. Clearly, the cheapest option would be to dual the existing structure, but that would have a severe environmental impact in the Dukesfield area of the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Halton, which covers Widnes. That option would not be acceptable. We want a better strategic route across the river. The local authority consortium has settled on a link from the Speke Road dual carriageway in south Widnes to the central expressway in Runcorn. That is a fascinating piece of the jigsaw puzzle, because it will provide a strategic link from the M56 to the M62, so creating another piece of improved infrastructure for our area as well as providing a significant crossing of the River Mersey.
The consortium did not stop at considering where the crossing should be. It decided that we needed a road
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bridge, but there was also the question of whether we could use the structure for something else. The structure is designed—I must read out this technical term—as a multiple cable-stayed bridge with a box structure providing the necessary stiffness. The structure will also provide the ability to use the lower deck for other modes of transport, such as a light railway. Merseytravel and Halton borough council are seriously considering that. They have declared that they are committed to extending Merseytram line 3 to Halton, and the bridge may be the way to enable that to go forward.
There are key benefits to providing a second crossing over the River Mersey. It will provide regional regeneration and better public transport. It will help business with better transport, and the links between Manchester and Liverpool and to Liverpool John Lennon airport will be greatly improved. It will also improve communications in the north-west. Traditionally, communications go east to west, but we want them to go north to south. It is very important for us to establish another strategic north-south communications route in the north-west.
Mr. David Watts: My hon. Friend spoke about the benefits—for example, the links with Manchester—that can be derived from a second major river crossing for Liverpool. Does he agree that that is crucial for areas such as St. Helens because 90 per cent. of people who wish to cross the river from St. Helens use the Runcorn bridge?
Mr. Hall: Indeed, they do use the Silver Jubilee bridge. If the second bridge across the River Mersey is agreed, there will be implications beyond the road network for areas such as St. Helens. Both my hon. Friends the Members for St. Helens, North (Mr. Watts) and for St. Helens, South (Mr. Woodward) have rightly tabled questions on the issue. We must be alert to the possibilities for development north of the borough of Halton if the proposed crossing gets the go ahead.
The project will bring 3,350 permanent jobs and 1,600 temporary jobs to the area; it has a £15 million development value, and it will have a return of £666 million, which is a sound economic investment in the region. Last summer, we were given a good nod from the Department for Transport in relation to the benefits that the scheme will bring. The consultants submitted their views to the Secretary of State and just before Christmas he gave the project "super work-in-progress" status, which was extremely well received in the area. It indicated that at long last we had been able to persuade the Government that the second crossing was essential.
However, several matters are still outstanding. The Government asked for an assessment of the impact that the traffic will have on the major highway networks, including the M6, the M56 and the M62, which is now under way, as is work on the hydrodynamic impact of the bridge on the River Mersey. The best and most effective ways of procuring the bridge and the procedural routes that need to be followed are being considered, and also whether tolling should fund the project.
I understand that the Government want us to consider whether the new bridge could be a toll bridge because every avenue of finance must be explored, but

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my view is that the bridge should be free to users. The Government are prepared to invest in crossings of the River Thames, of which there are 36–27 between Vauxhall and the M25 and nine between Tower bridge and Dartford—and they have just agreed to partly fund the new crossing over the Thames gateway. It is therefore not too much to ask them to fund the new crossing of the River Mersey. It has few strategic crossings, but the stretch of water is just as significant as the Thames.
My attention was brought to the significance of the river crossings when John Bell, a business development partner at Glenny, said:
"The question isn't so much 'should Thames Gateway Bridge be built?' but rather 'when?'. It will help to remove the physical barrier that the Thames creates for business investment and stimulate property development either side of the river, as well as easing congestion on the existing crossings which are at breaking point".
If the River Thames needs Government investment because bridges are congested in the London area and along the river, there is a strong case for Government funding towards a new crossing of the River Mersey.
The borough of Halton is listed at No. 14 in the 2004 deprivation index. It would boost the economy if we avoided imposing tolls for using the new bridge and ensured that there was no barrier to investment and economic development in the area.
Halton, as lead borough, and the consortium for the new crossing, will submit their plans to the Secretary of State for Transport in the autumn. I hope there will be a decision before the end of the year, giving the green light to go ahead with the project. Then the procurement procedures and the necessary legal processes to agree the line of the bridge, which includes holding a public inquiry, can be sorted out, and construction can begin in 2007. The sooner construction begins, the better. There are city of culture events in Liverpool in 2008 and it would be helpful if the infrastructure were in place by then. The area is of strategic importance in that respect. I know that that is a tall order, but we are looking forward to making real progress.
My hon. Friend the Member for Halton and I have worked extremely hard on the project. It is a tribute to the partnership of the new crossing consortium that we are now close to realising the dream of a new crossing over the River Mersey. Part of our contribution has been to invite successive Transport Ministers to Halton to see the problems. There have been a number of visits, including recently by the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty). That was a seminal visit in the campaign to establish the case for going ahead with the second crossing of the River Mersey. I congratulate the consortium on the work that it has done under the leadership of Halton borough council.
I finish by summarising the case that I have tried to set out. The Silver Jubilee bridge is seriously congested, a situation that will only continue to worsen. The lack of a new crossing over the River Mersey is a continuing constraint on the economic health of our region. There is a strong strategic case for the construction of a new crossing of the River Mersey, for the reasons highlighted this afternoon. The preference is for a bridge that is free to users. It would be a sound economic investment with a guaranteed good return. It would also be a positive
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demonstration of the Government's commitment to strengthening the economy of the north-west. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us that the project remains high on the Government's list of priorities and that we can be confident that the scheme will go ahead.
2.16 pm
Helen Southworth: I congratulate my constituency neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mr. Hall). He will be familiar with the issues that I will raise because he used to represent the southern part of my constituency before boundary changes, so he realises the local impact as well as the strategic significance across the region.
I know that you are well aware of the area, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I wish to draw attention to some of the relevant geography. The Mersey is a big and strategically important river. It is very important to the north-west, which, as we both know, is the most important region in the United Kingdom. The first fordable point of the River Mersey was at Latchford in Warrington. It was identified by the Romans, as my hon. Friend pointed out, and is the reason for the name Latchford. That is also why Warrington, like London, has developed on either side of the river, with the river passing through the centre of the town. As my hon. Friend pointed out, the next two bridges along the river to the east are in my constituency, and one of them is directly in the town centre. There has been a bridge at that point since medieval times and the medieval market went along the same street as it does today to supply the sub-region, as Warrington still provides services for the local area.
For 2,000 years, Warrington has been a centre of north-west communications because it has been the point at which one can cross the Mersey most effectively. That has given us tremendous benefits over the years. During the industrial revolution, we had the first navigable waterway, the Sankey canal, which was constructed in Warrington. The Manchester ship canal passes through my constituency, as does the Bridgewater canal, the west coast main line and the Liverpool-Manchester railway. We have developed the M6 and M56, which go through the constituency, and the M62, which borders the constituency. They have brought tremendous benefits to Warrington and the sub-region over the years, but there have also been challenges.
Those challenges, particularly those relating to river crossings, have serious and significant local consequences. Local residents and businesses must cross the Mersey over the small bridge in the centre of town to get from one side of the town to the other. That bridge is considerably and detrimentally affected if there is any problem on the Thelwall viaduct or the Silver Jubilee bridge. Sadly, because it lies between those two points, the town centre is affected by both. As we all know, and as I have said in the Chamber, the impact of the Thelwall viaduct repairs has been significant. The fact that it is advertised throughout the north-west and, unfortunately, on traffic programmes on national radio, demonstrates the significance of the river crossing and very adequately supports the consortium's claim that we need another strategic bridge across the river.

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Significant numbers of local people and organisations in Warrington support my hon. Friend in the debate. The leader of Warrington borough council sends the support of the council, which has been a supportive and enthusiastic part of the consortium and recognises the urgent need for the new river crossing and its strategic impact on Warrington, the north-west and its economy. The northern growth corridor in the north-west between Liverpool and Manchester will bring substantial opportunities for economic growth and development for the constituents of my hon. Friend and his neighbours who are in the Chamber, as well as those of hon. Members who could not get here today. My borough council wishes to express its support for those opportunities.
Warrington chamber of commerce totally supports the proposal. It is very concerned that the current bridge is supposed to carry 60,000 cars a day, but in fact carries 90,000 cars a day between Runcorn and Widnes. We recognise the local impact on congestion in the town centre, as well as on business costs incurred by people experiencing delays on the three bridges. The chamber of commerce recognises that a new bridge is essential for the economic development of Warrington and its sub-region. It pointed out the need to support the Omega site, to which I shall refer in a moment.
The small business service in Warrington also supports my hon. Friend's efforts. It believes that investment in the second bridge will greatly improve the efficiency of the sub-region and asks that the request for another bridge is supported. The regional development agency, which is based in my constituency on the edge of the river, also recognises the strategic impact on the sub-region and the region as a whole as well as for people moving in and out of Warrington.
In short, my constituency is at the centre of a thriving and growing economic sub-region. We are a hotbed of enterprise, technology, science and competitiveness, and the only town north of Birmingham with a top 25 location rating. Our unemployment rate is impressively low and our forecasts predict that the Warrington economy will outstrip national growth by more than 300 per cent. by 2015. We are not, however, complacent about such economic strength. We recognise that the sub-region is a significant centre of employment for parts of Halton, St. Helens and Wigan.
Many thousands of people come to Warrington for employment and service support, but we also want the sub-region to thrive so that unemployment in colleagues' constituencies, which has plummeted as a result of the Government's support, will continue to decrease. We want to continue to have considerable extra employment in the area. The business and academic networks in Manchester, Liverpool, Warrington and the areas in between are very significant. There is a tremendous development of skills in the area, and we want the infrastructure to support it.
We still face the challenge of tackling remaining areas of deprivation in our borough and the surrounding sub-regions. According to the index of multiple deprivation, two wards in my borough are still among the most deprived 10 per cent. nationally, and other wards in Warrington are among the worst 20 per cent. The council and its partners are keen that support for
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continued economic development should focus on providing opportunities for people in the borough who are suffering deprivation and not getting the full benefit of the employment possibilities that are opening up. We would also like to see significant developments in that respect in neighbouring constituencies and boroughs.
A significant part of Warrington's importance to the sub-region lies in the opportunities for further development and growth. We already have development plans, which are incredibly important for the sub-region. However, they depend on an effective transport infrastructure, and one is not currently fully in place. We must see movement on the issue.
Warrington is already the site for the global headquarters of United Utilities and the regional headquarters of companies such as Hewlett-Packard, AirMiles and O2. However, we want more companies to be based there for the benefit of not only my constituents but the whole region. I am sure that that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will support that concept, as you so often do.
I referred to the northern growth corridor, but I want specifically to mention the Omega site, which is very important for the strategic sub-region. It is located in the west of Warrington, towards the area that is being considered for the river crossing. It is adjacent to and bisected by the M62 motorway, to which it has direct access via the new junction 8. We are thankful to the Government for making the necessary investment, and we are looking forward to further investment to ensure that we get the new river crossing. The Omega site is widely recognised as one of the largest and most important strategic development projects in Europe. It gives us an opportunity to bring many more jobs and considerable investment into the area.
I want to raise what is perhaps a side issue, but it is important. We are all looking with considerable interest to the Lyons review, in which we see opportunities for our region. There is the Omega site in my constituency and my neighbour's constituency. There are also further proposals for high-quality business developments at Centre Park, where the Northwest Development Agency has its headquarters, at Lingley Mere, where United Utilities has its global headquarters, and at several other sites. The neighbouring constituencies are also identifying excellent opportunities for civil servants to move into our region and pursue effective career development.
For those reasons, we deserve a better river crossing. The partnership has been very effective, and we have worked together well to ensure that we get the opportunities that we need. We deserve them because our region is effective and has the resources, and because our constituents are working to ensure that there is thriving economic growth in our region.
In the recent past, we have not had the opportunities that we should have had, but we are now being given them under this Government. We want more such opportunities, and I support my hon. Friend in asking the Government to invest in our region so that we can grow, thrive and contribute to the economy as we have always done and as we have every intention of continuing to do.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Nicholas Winterton): I want to help hon. Members. It would be appropriate for the winding-up speeches to start at about 3 o'clock. I spot at least three hon. Members trying to catch my eye, and there may be more. Hon. Members should bear that in mind in respect of the length of their speeches.
2.29 pm
Mr. Peter Kilfoyle: I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mr. Hall) on securing the debate and on giving us the opportunity to record our support for the project. That support is very widespread. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg), who has been an enthusiastic advocate of the project. In some quarters, he has earned the appellation Turnpike Twigg, because he is so keen to push forward the idea of a second crossing, which we need.
My hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale mentioned the bridges in London and the preferential treatment that they are afforded. We should bear it in mind that the Mersey is a mighty river from Halton to its mouth. It is not a piddling little stream like the river here in London. Its geography, submarine morphology and hydrology mean that the only practical place to build a crossing is from Halton. going upstream. The need for an extra crossing is without question.
I am probably one of the few people here who recalls travelling across what we called the old transporter bridge when I was a boy. It was a cable-drawn bridge. I watched with increasing awe and wonder as the new bridge was built, but it was not always heavily used. I recall reading an article. in the dark days after the 1981 riots, by a famous Liverpool journalist called Stanley Reynolds, in which he referred to the museum of the horrifying example. The article was so good that it ended up in international copies of The Guardian, so it was read all over the world. To give a sense of the downward spiral of Liverpool and Merseyside, Reynolds discussed the lack of a rush hour. He said that nobody rushes and that there was nothing that one would recognise, in metropolitan terms, as people going to and from work in rush hour, and he was right. The bridge was like that, but that is no longer the case. That is a sign of the changing times, which can be seen by anyone who uses the bridge, as I do, between what used to be the independent boroughs of Widnes and Runcorn, which have now combined to become the successful unitary authority of Halton. The bridge is now used quite frequently.
My hon. Friend gave the percentages of who goes where and who uses the bridge. The only issue that I take with those figures is that I would have used a starting point of 200 per cent. because I reckon that half the people who would use the bridge actually turn around and go back because they see the snarl-ups as they approach it. Such delays are a tremendous inconvenience to businesses and private traffic, such as commuters.
I must make a point, which I have made to my hon. Friend in fun, about the new phenomenon after the rush hour when the bridge is jam-packed and the milk floats come out. Someone might be trying to get to a station, or a business might be trying to get its products across the bridge, when the electric milk floats appear, as they
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do with regular and depressing monotony, and there is a second back-up because the traffic is all stuck behind them. There is no other option: people have to go across the bridge because there is no other viable way of going about their business.
You and I both know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that on many occasions in the past, it has been extremely difficult to get Merseyside MPs to agree on anything—even the time of day.
Mr. Watts: To be fair to the milkmen driving those milk floats, does my hon. Friend agree that it is not just milk floats that cause delays on the Runcorn bridge? It can take up to 20 minutes to cross the bridge. Does he think that that would be an acceptable length of time to spend crossing a bridge in London?
Mr. Kilfoyle: No, it would not be acceptable.
Other problems are caused by the bridge being used to overcapacity and by the constant maintenance work. It is an incredibly difficult issue. It is important to recognise how important Runcorn railway station is, not just to right hon. and hon. Members who catch trains from there to London, but to the many business men who use it for the same purpose. It must be no fun for someone who has an important business meeting in London to be stuck in a traffic jam that they cannot avoid because there is no way around it.
The point that I was making about MPs not previously agreeing on things is that we certainly agree on the need for a second crossing. I notice that hon. Members representing Merseyside, Cheshire and Lancashire constituencies are in the Chamber. There is even one, my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Ian Stewart), who is trying, I think, to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, who represents the far-flung reaches of Greater Manchester. That shows what a regional asset the new bridge would be and how important it is to us all, not just to Halton or Warrington. Even in your celebrated part of Cheshire, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am sure that people would cry out with joy if the Minister were to confirm that the bridge is to get the go-ahead and the priority that it deserves.
2.35 pm
Mr. George Howarth: I add my congratulations to those that have been offered to my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mr. Hall) on securing the debate and on his thorough introduction of the topic.
Some context may help to explain why the bridge is important to me and my constituents. We need to recognise that although there are still some serious black spots on Merseyside, the economy is gaining strength. Many kinds of evidence for that can be found in all sorts of places. The Liverpool Daily Post pointed out that some major investment decisions could be contingent on the second crossing going ahead. I refer, of course, to Jaguar, which is considering what investments it will make in future and how those would fit into the regional transport system.
The decision is certainly important to the industrial centres of Kirby in my constituency, Huyton and parts of Sefton. As my hon. Friend the Member for St.

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Helens, North (Mr. Watts) pointed out, it is also important to those in St. Helens who conduct business further afield.
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) was exactly right when he said that serious traffic problems did not arise in the 1980s but now happen during the day all over the region—I prefer to call it that rather than a sub-region, but we shall not pursue that argument today. In parts of my constituency and in Liverpool and elsewhere there are serious congestion problems. However, it is on the bridge that some of the biggest problems arise, several times a day. As my hon. Friend pointed out, the congestion sometimes has very unexpected sources.
Transport links are important and several new developments are taking place. We have a tram scheme that will link Kirby in my constituency with Liverpool city centre. There are still some arguments about that, which it would not be appropriate to go into today, but nevertheless the development is strategically important to my constituency and to north Liverpool, which is so often neglected, particularly by Liverpool city council. It is also hugely important to many people who want to find or keep employment and who move about the region.
After a long campaign, and a great deal of support from Ministers in the Department for Transport, we now have direct flights to and from London. That is important in two ways: first, it means that there is a cheap, quick and efficient link between London and Liverpool John Lennon airport, and, secondly, it provides some competition for the west coast main line and Virgin. Any regular traveller on the route will have felt the consequence of that.
Before I finish, I want to stress a point that my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Walton and for Weaver Vale both made in a slightly different way. The local authorities on Merseyside, in which I include Halton, have strongly supported Halton in the work that has been done on the second crossing. They have done so because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton explained, some solidarity has emerged between the areas in recent years. I should want to encourage that to develop further.
A second reason for the local authorities' attitude is their recognition that, because of the development's strategic economic importance to the region, it is logical for them to support the important and excellent work that Halton has done with the other partners.
Ms Christine Russell: I just want to put it on the record that Cheshire county council is a key supporter of a new Mersey crossing, as is the local authority of the city of Chester. I am sure that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, are aware of that. The support for the crossing goes wider than simply Liverpool and Merseyside; it stretches throughout Cheshire.
Mr. Howarth: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's intervention, which is timely because my next point is that the crossing is strategically important to Cheshire. I know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that everything that has to do with Cheshire is dear to your heart, too. If the
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development goes ahead, it will be a win-win situation and, as my hon. Friend said, there will be cries of joy in Cheshire. People will be dancing in the street in Knowsley if the scheme obtains approval. It will not be a pretty sight, but I shall be dancing alongside them.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am sure that the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller) will be dancing too.
2.41 pm
Mr. Andrew Miller: Not a pretty sight, my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) and me dancing. I want to start with an apology to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle). When he described watching the bridge being built, as a small boy, I had always assumed that it was the transporter bridge that he saw being built in 1905. That was an extraordinary piece of engineering, and a great credit to the engineers of the time, but it was built at a time when nobody envisaged the growth of personal transport. At its height, just before its closure, it was carrying a volume of only about 1,000 cars, which was an extraordinary feat for that technology. When the new bridge was opened in 1961, it carried about a quarter of its supposed total capacity—just over 11,500 vehicles. It was never assumed that it would carry the current volumes. By 1999, the figures had risen to in excess of 80,000 vehicles. which is way beyond the bridge's design capacity, and the volume is still growing. The report to which my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mr. Hall) referred—I know that he is an excellent MP because he is my MP—spells that out: the average number of vehicles is now more than 80,000. One day last year, it cracked 92,000, and by 2016, the predicted figure is somewhere between 115,000 and 150,000 vehicles. That is a crazy number of vehicles, which will bring the whole network to a halt.
One thing is certain. Despite the minor differences between Merseyside and Cheshire Members about tunnel fees, one thing on which we agree is the need to maintain the circular network around Greater Merseyside. If we do not keep traffic flowing in the area, business and commerce will grind to a halt. The current situation, as was described earlier, is that at certain key times of the day, the traffic backs up both ways. Not only does that cause disruption to business and commerce but it is starting to create a danger because traffic wanting to go on to the southern side of the dual carriageway and slip off to Runcorn station finds itself banking up with traffic queueing for the bridge. That is inherently a dangerous situation, which is likely to cause road traffic incidents. In turn, that disrupts passenger access to Runcorn station. When we consider the traffic heading south to London and the traffic trying to get across the bridge, it is becoming a serious crisis.
When I first moved into the area in 1977, one could cross the bridge without impediment at any time of the day or night. That is no longer the case and it is putting the long-term economic future of the area at risk.
Those of us living on the south side, such as you and me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, may want to use John Lennon airport from time to time. However, the route is not reliable simply because of the blockage that occurs when

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crossing that bridge. Let us take as an example the superb new flight that goes from John Lennon to London City airport, which should he immensely convenient for businesses in and around my constituency. However, they cannot use that flight because of the uncertainties of crossing the bridge at key times of the day. Work needs to be done to maintain the strong circular infrastructure around Greater Merseyside's road network.
As my hon. Friend the Minister is aware from arguments that have come through his Department and the Strategic Rail Authority, we need to get the railway network around Halton curve resolved once and for all, so that we have a bi-modal arrangement that enables us to have a proper integrated transport structure serving Greater Merseyside, Cheshire and Lancashire. The whole of the sub-region will benefit if that investment takes place.
The Minister is faced with a dilemma. The projects are enormous and the cost will be in the multimillions. I think that the current projected figure is £300 million, a serious sum by any standard. An assessment needs to be made of the kind of payback that the region will receive. My hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East has already referred to one of the key business decisions that may be in jeopardy if we do not take a positive view of that.
The opposite side of the issue is whether we can look at the cheap solution. As my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale described, the cheap solution was dualling the existing arrangements. The problem with that is that, notwithstanding the huge disadvantage to the immediate residents of the area, it would be massively disruptive during the construction period. The kind of imminent decisions to which my hon. Friend referred would still be put in jeopardy if we had a protracted period of several years of construction during which the bridge was almost unusable.
On those grounds, I am delighted to give support to my hon. Friend the Member for Waver Vale and his silent partner, the hon. Member for Halton (Derek Twigg). It is extremely pleasing to k now that feeling in the area extends across all the political parties and that there is unity on the issue. There is also unity with the business community. The key environmental issues are solvable, and I urge the Minister to do all that he can in his office to ensure that the project goes ahead.
2.50 pm
Ian Stewart: Some people may be surprised by the hon. Member for Eccles. which is in the city of Salford in Greater Manchester, rising to pass comment on what is apparently a Merseyside concern. I would argue that although it is first and foremost an issue for the people of Halton and the wider Merseyside area, transport issues are inextricably linked across the breadth of the north-west. Whatever happens in Merseyside has an effect on Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Cumbria and Cheshire.
The Minister should be aware that taking part in this debate are my hon. Friends the Members for Preston (Mr. Hendrick) and for Workington (Tony Cunningham), who represent constituencies in Lancashire and Cumbria respectively, and myself, whose constituency is in Greater Manchester. That
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indicates the breadth of interest in what initially appears to be a local issue. Furthermore, my constituency mailbag tells me that transport, in particular public transport, and the highways are among the greatest interests of my constituents; they are up there with crime and health.
We must recognise the historical problems that we have created for ourselves. In the past 20 to 30 years, local authorities' budgets granted by the Government have reduced year on year. Understandably, many local authorities vired money from leisure and highways to protect education and social services. I would have supported that political decision in those years, but the consequence for our north-west region is that its roads, which are some of the most used and oldest industrial roads in the world, have been in great decline. My constituency includes the Worsley interchange. People speak about the spaghetti junction in Birmingham, but it is not the most congested interchange; indeed, the Worsley interchange is the most congested and used interchange in the whole of Europe.
Our road infrastructure and rail network are a wonderful facility and something that we should be proud of, but we should recognise that they are so well used and have been under-funded for so long that their problems need to be addressed strategically. The Chinese have the aphorism that says when a butterfly flaps its wings on this side of the world, a hurricane is created on the other. My view is that whatever happens in Halton is of interest to people in Eccles and Greater Manchester.
Mr. Mike Hall: I tried to make the point that the issue does not concern Halton or Merseyside exclusively, but is a regional issue for the north-west as a whole. The link between Manchester and Liverpool airports will be substantially enhanced by a new crossing of the River Mersey, as would the concept of the M62 corridor that the Deputy Prime Minister is keen to develop. I am sure that my hon. Friend, as an MP for a Greater Manchester constituency, would agree with that.
Ian Stewart: I do and I shall expand on that a little more. My hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) made the same point. Transport infrastructure has a knock-on effect for employment mobility. Indeed, if there were a better transport infrastructure in the Manchester-Liverpool ship canal corridor—I believe that a new bridge would create a better transport infrastructure—people from Greater Manchester would be attracted to travelling to work in the Merseyside area and vice versa.
Mr. Kilfoyle: I hope that my hon. Friend is not suggesting that our jobs be exported to Manchester. We need as many jobs as we can get on Merseyside for Merseyside's unemployed people.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman should not be diverted by that provocative intervention.
Ian Stewart: My hon. Friend is, of course, baiting me. He will not be successful. However, the importance of what he said is that all of us in the region—whether in Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire, Lancashire or

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Cumbria—should be interested in how to generate more wealth and more jobs, and how to improve transport across the region. In that sense, I agree with him.
Important as employment is, the debate is also about leisure. The development of Liverpool John Lennon airport has been important for the region. It is the only airport that gives people from the east of the region access to low-cost airlines, which is a significant development. I hope that Manchester airport will offer that service at some point, but for now John Lennon airport is the only such facility. Although that might not be a permanent arrangement—it depends on the development of civil air transport—it is important to note that the initiative was taken on Merseyside, rightly attracting people from Greater Manchester to Merseyside to use the facility.
Mr. Kilfoyle: Does my hon. Friend see the good sense of the project in allowing for the potential for a light rail link that would, presumably, link the two airports so that they could act in concert?
Ian Stewart: My hon. Friend again anticipates comments that I want to make. I am well known at the Greater Manchester end of the region for my commitment to the development of transport. My constituency benefits from the excellent facility of the Metrolink in Greater Manchester. I have been in discussion with colleagues from Warrington and other areas in Greater Manchester and Cheshire about the potential for a Metrolink between Manchester and Liverpool. The Minister might say that that is not the most appropriate mode of transport. Fine; that might be the case. However, I hope that he will acknowledge that we should discuss what is, strategically, the most appropriate type of link to enhance transport in the region.
Going by what I currently know, I have a negative view about tolls. The tolling of such a bridge would decant the congestion problem elsewhere, so I remain to be convinced that tolling would be an appropriate method of funding the project. Although I am not a local MP directly involved with the matter, my impression of the debate is that it is an awareness-raising exercise. Colleagues are not expecting an answer from the Minister, but are raising the issue on the basis that an answer might come at an appropriate time, after consideration.
Finally, if we are to consider the interests of people in my constituency and the surrounding area of Salford and Greater Manchester, when such a significant development is proposed and we think that it is right, we should say so. I think that it is the right thing to do.
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Dr. John Pugh: I congratulate the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mr. Hall) on raising this important issue and other Members on speaking with such eloquence and passion. This is an important cause for the whole of the north-west. I preface my remarks by saying that although I am not a Liberal Democrat transport spokesman on a normal day, I seem, after my Mersey tunnel experience, to have become the unofficial spokesman on Mersey crossings.
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I live in the north-west, which adds to my credentials. My son goes to Runcorn every day across the bridge. Like the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle), I am old enough to recall the transporter bridge. I found it a rather scary experience, as I was always afraid that it would drop me in the middle of the sea.
Mr. Howarth: Particularly if my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton was on it.
Dr. Pugh: Yes. The north-west is booming, as a consequence of two things. First, we have pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Secondly, we have made effective use of regeneration funds. Surely, we can all agree that the biggest brake on further development in the north-west is transport links. The two biggest bottlenecks for most people travelling in and out of the north-west is the route around Birmingham and the crossing over the Mersey. The route around Birmingham has been enormously improved by the new toll road. It has certainly been the best £2 that I have spent recently.
The crossing over the Mersey is still an outstanding issue. Every time one approaches the Thelwall viaduct one hopes that it will get better. It never does. The M6 remains one of the worst motorways in Europe as both a driving experience and a transport route. Increasingly, to avoid that route and hold-ups through Liverpool and across the Thelwall viaduct itself, people use the Runcorn bridge. Inevitably, there is a problem, as has been well identified and outlined. The present bridge was built to take 42,000, but takes more than 80,000. It is a scandal. As a number of hon. Members have highlighted, London has so many bridges and the Lancashire-Cheshire area has so very few. I shudder to think what would happen if London were treated as badly as we have been.
The proposal is a good one and I endorse it. There are still some uncertainties. Perhaps the Minister can assist me and perhaps other hon. Members can intervene and help me, too. On two different websites from two different engineers, I came across two different prices; £300 million on the Clifford website and £200 million on the Herbert Smith website. There is an uncertainty about costings and about the mechanics of the finance. Will it be publicly financed? Will it be PFI? Will there be tolls? There is a further uncertainty with regard to time. Will it all be agreed in 2004, or turned down in 2004? Will it be ready in time for the capital of culture?
The fundamental uncertainty that I guess we are all here to resolve is the extent of Government support. The debate endeavours to test that. The Government, unlike hon. Members present, have to choose priorities. Funds are not unlimited. As the Minister would recognise, huge amounts are needed for the north-west. I am sure that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, agree that huge amounts are needed for the north-west. We could talk about the west coast main line, but we must not. We could talk about Liverpool trams. We could talk about a host of less glamorous schemes. I was hoping that the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall) would remain long enough for me to put in a plug for the A570 improvements between Southport and Ormskirk. So be

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it. The Heysham bypass, the Piccadilly intersections; there are so many examples that I could give.
In the north-west, by and large, we adopt a supportive attitude to one another's schemes. It is not a question of "either or"; inevitably it is a question of "both and". However, the reality that we all know as experienced politicians is that Governments have to choose because resources are finite. Hopefully when they choose, they choose in terms of long-term, non-partisan public interest, rather than party preferences and so on. On that basis, the bridge would meet most criteria that one wants to set. It would score highly.
I conclude on a personal note by giving a word of advice. It so happens that a bridge is being opened this week in my constituency by Her Royal Highness the Countess of Wessex. It is a much smaller but attractive, modern bridge, linking the Southport seafront to the retail shopping area. It replaces a wrought iron bridge, of which people were very fond, but which corroded over the years and became unusable. The new bridge is now massively popular. I campaigned for it, with the help of the Merseyside passenger transport association, and we succeeded in getting funding. From the experience of making a bridge happen, I learned two things.
First, I learned of the poetry excitement of bridges; there is a kind of symbolism about it. I believe that design matters for bridges. We have probably not said enough about design. because bridges have also an economic dimension, but for those driving across them, they have an aesthetic character. I should have liked to hear more, not about what the bridge will do in economic terms but how it will look and how it will affect the Mersey landscape, which is more important.
Secondly—this may have more relevance to our debate—I learned that the best is often the enemy of the good. Some people in Southport, including myself, would have preferred not to have a modern bridge but a wrought iron replica. Equally, most wanted the new bridge to be all that was specified and to be toll-free. It certainly should be and I hope that it can be.
Mr. Christopher Chope: The hon. Gentleman thinks that the bridge should be toll-free. Why, then, was he in favour of extra tolls on the Mersey tunnels?
Dr. Pugh: I was not in favour of that. If the hon. Gentleman had followed the debate more closely, he would know that we were working out a new mechanism for tolls. For as long as I have lived in Merseyside—I have the advantage in that respectߞthere have always been tolls on the tunnels.
I shall press on. If resources do not match ambition, I accept that there may a need to review the design potential of the bridge. One can wait for perfection, but at the end of the day, Halton, Runcorn and everyone wants results; politics is the art of the possible. I hope that we can get everything. I hope that we can get the bridge as designed; toll-free and attractive, a real visual amenity and an economic benefit to Merseyside. We shall hear from the Minister how near we might get to that.
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Mr. Christopher Chope: I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mr. Hall) on introducing the debate so eloquently. I congratulate Halton borough council and the other local authorities on pursuing the suggestion, first made by a Conservative Secretary of State, that they should find a local solution. They have made an enormous amount of progress towards that end. The Government have helped by giving £600,000 for a feasibility study. However, I am still concerned about the delays that seem to be built into the Government's consideration of this and other projects, because it took five months before they made their response to the study. As so often in the past, that response was a whole lot more questions and the need for yet more work to be done, a pattern of procrastination that is associated with the Government's attitude to the transport infrastructure.
Mr. Mike Hall: Will the hon. Gentleman put the record straight and say that the then Conservative Secretary of State for Transport turned down the original request for a strategic crossing over the Mersey?
Mr. Chope: That is right; but as we heard this afternoon, the traffic in those days—was it 12 years ago or even longer?—is very different from what it is now. The Secretary of State turned it down; he said that there was a need but that, as a local need, it should be satisfied by local people getting together. That is what the local authority has done.
Mr. Hall: The then Secretary of State for Transport turned it down in 1995, when the traffic flow on the bridge was 75,000 plus vehicles. That was already 10,000 above the capacity figures. The bridge was clearly congested, which was recognised by the Secretary of State. However, he said that he saw no regional significance in the fact.
Mr. Chope: In that case, I stand corrected by the hon. Gentleman. I thought that it was 1991, but if the figures show that it was 1995, it probably explains why he said there was a need but that it should be satisfied locally because it was not of national strategic importance.
Let us try and be more positive, because it has been a joy to behold today the spectacle of seven Labour Members and two Liberal Democrats arguing eloquently and persuasively in favour of substantial additional spending on roads. Whatever happened to the Deputy Prime Minister's pledge to reduce road traffic in absolute terms, which was the Government's transport policy for years? At last, they recognise that an inherent part of economic prosperity is having a transport and road infrastructure to support it. The debate is part of the wider debate, which has been won by those who argue consistently for further investment in transport infrastructure; they are well represented on the Conservative Benches.
The issue of tolls has been mentioned in the debate. I hope that the Minister will say exactly where the Government stand on support for the project. Only when they declare openly how much they are prepared to invest in the project will local people be able to decide whether they wish to proceed with it and raise extra

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funds through private finance and toll income, or whether it should be funded wholly out of taxpayers' money. Who would be surprised if local people and their representatives said that they would prefer the whole thing to be funded out of money from national taxpayers?
I hope the Minister will say how much money the Government will put in and then the local people can decide.
Mr. George Howarth: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us the official Opposition's view? Does he believe it should be a toll-free crossing?
Mr. Chope: That is an interesting question. We believe that if infrastructure has to be developed and the only way to afford it is through tolls, better to have a toll crossing than no crossing at all. UnfortunatelyߞI regret it every day of the week—we are not in government and we do not have the Minister's great challenge: and to consider all the competing road projects up and down the country, and decide what priority to give them and how to spend the resources. However, when the time comes and we are in government, I shall be happy to give the hon. Gentleman a clear and unequivocal response to his question. I hope he will not have to wait very long for that response from a Conservative Minister.
It is important to give the Minister the maximum time to respond on the issue, which many hon. Members from a particular part of the country have supported in the debate. Part of the Government's agenda is to try and divert responsibility for this type of debate away from Parliament, the centre of our democracy, to regional assemblies. Many who are in this Chamber today are against the idea of an elected regional assembly in the north-west and they are right to hold that view, because it would devalue the importance of debates such as this, in which we can hold the Minister to account instead of being told that we must sort these matters out with the assembly.
The House remains the place where the decisions have to be taken and where the Government are held to account by representatives of the people, elected under a one-person, one-vote system of individual constituencies. I hope the Minister will take the points made to heart, and in that spirit, and come up with the answers that local people want.
3.14 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Tony McNulty): I start by telling the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) that if he is so enamoured of parliamentary and governmental decisions taken in Whitehall, he might remember the 1995 position when the Tories turned down the scheme in the first place, and not try to elide that basic fact of history. I shall return to that point later.
This has been a useful and interesting debate, apart from, as ever, the contribution by the hon. Member for Christchurch. Every Back Bencher who opened his mouth revealed a good knowledge of the history of the north-west and of governmental processes and decision making, but there was precious little on the Opposition
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Front Bench. That is a matter for regret, because—save for the last, rather poisonous contribution—my right hon. and hon. Friends are right that there is cross-party support for the project. That is certainly true in the north-west. I do not think that any Conservatives in the region have raised their voice against it, although it would have been nice if any opponents of the project had turned up to the debate.
I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Christchurch but I do not think that he said whether he supported the project as it had developed thus far. We are therefore none the wiser—or otherwise—about his position; it was just the usual hysteria.
Mr. Chope: I must say unequivocally that we support the project. I thought that that was quite clear from my remarks.
Mr. McNulty: It was not clear at all. I am sure that my hon. Friends will be grateful for the hon. Gentleman's clarity now, after the hysteria.
Before I move on, I want to make one more partisan point, because I must. Indeed, it is terribly important. The cross-party support for the scheme—I shall come in a moment to the details and to where we are as regards a decision—extends to the Liberal Democrats, and I am grateful for that. The hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) started by saying that "the north-west is booming," and I exhort all my hon. Friends, who have elections coming up in their areas in the next four or five weeks, to hold him to that. They should see whether Liberal Democrat leaflets seek, as ever, to talk down the area and to traduce the Government's economic record.
I am not, by any token, a son of the north-west, although I was at Liverpool university from 1979 to 1981. However, I saw the devastation caused by the empty vessel that is the Conservative party, as the lifeblood was drained out of an area that I have since grown to like and which I have enjoyed on numerous occasions.
As many hon. Members have said, the great joy of this debate lies in the fact that we have congestion and extra economic activity only because affluence, economic development and prosperity have increased, although I am the first to say that they do not cover every part of the region. It is important to make that clear.
In passing, it is worth dwelling on the fact that 15 MPs from the area have been in full agreement today, and that is a real testament to them. As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) said, the region stretches from Merseyside to Cheshire, Lancashire and Cumbria. As ever, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you have been dispassionate and objective, although you have harrumphed at the right points to move things forward. That is very important.
As my hon. Friends the Members for Eccles (Ian Stewart) and for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller) suggested, I will not give a definitive decision either way at this stage because we are only some way through the process. However, everyone involved should be congratulated on that process, which has been open and transparent, and my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mr. Hall) alluded to some of the details. Incidentally, I am sorry that I did not

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congratulate him when I started, but I was attacking the hon. Member for Christchurch. That aside, the process has been carried out in a mature and sophisticated way.
If the hon. Member for Southport knew anything about such processes, and if he had listened carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale, he would know that certain outstanding issues need exploring before we can move on. However, I forgive him. The answer to his immediate question is roughly £335 million. I would love to know where he saw the figure of £200 million, because if the costings stood up, they would make the case all the better. However, the figure is £335 million.
Thus far, the Mersey Crossing Group has done important work in garnering support and forming an alliance across the region.
I shall not make any jokes about the unity of the north-west Labour group. Its members are here, and that unity is palpable today. I welcome the group, and long may it continue.
As the Department has said, we recognise that the crossing is a significant issue for the region. We accept that there are significant congestion problems on the Silver Jubilee bridge. I shall not make a joke about the fact that, on the three or four times that I have been up there recently, the bridge was empty. It was halfway through the day, but I take the point that there are real problems at peak hours. Coupled with that, as hon. Members have said, is the fact that any incident that causes it to be closed can cause massive traffic chaos in the entire area. Because of over-use, maintenance is a significant factor; doing it on an ongoing route is clearly problematic.
Mr. Kilfoyle: I beg the Minister's indulgence, but I have nothing against milk floats, or milkmen, but they have no way of going about their legitimate business other than by crossing the bridge. It may seem odd to be obsessed about that, but it is no joke when there are huge queues behind the milk floats on the bridge.
Mr. McNulty: I heard that point, but I shall move on. I have never seen a milk float jam when I have been in the region, but I bow to my hon. Friend's greater experience. Major disruption cannot be avoided when maintenance is required or there has been some incident. I understand that this June, a 14-week programme will begin to renew the 40-year-old expansion joints. I do not need to repeat or rehearse what my hon. Friends have said about having tunnels in one. direction and the Thelwall viaduct in the other, or about the crossing in Warrington.
I understand what the Mersey crossing group and Halton have said about the bridge being strategic, with the Silver Jubilee bridge being the local bridge, and that approach is appropriate. If, as the group is planning, the new crossing were to prevail, the carriageway of the Silver Jubilee bridge could be reduced to two lanes, and all the difficulties caused by maintenance would be markedly reduced. There would be sufficient space on the deck for good cycling or pedestrian benefits.
I do not need to repeat the key benefits that Halton claims for the project: better public transport, help for business, better links between Manchester and Merseyside, more than 3,000 new permanent jobs, £15
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million of development value and a scheme that has a return in excess of £600 million. Those points have been well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale. They will also know that just before Christmas, we announced, in response to Halton borough council on the 2002–03 local transport settlement—
3.23 pm
Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.
3.38 pm
On resuming ߞ
Mr. McNulty: As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by the Division, just before Christmas, we announced—in our response to Halton borough council on the 2003 local transport settlement—that we recognised the scheme's importance and high profile, but considered that further appraisal work was needed.
The Secretary of State will make a decision once Halton borough council has completed the additional work that has been requested. That will, of course, be subject to funding availability. We also stressed to Halton the importance of getting the further appraisal work right and explained that we could if necessary be flexible in considering the scheme outside the normal local transport plan timetable. None of that is about procrastination on an important decision. It is a matter of getting the decision right, not just for Halton borough but for the entire region, as my hon. Friends have all suggested.
I congratulate Halton on the way it has taken to the task and brought matters to this point. As my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale said, the Department has been very supportive of Halton in its efforts to assess the feasibility of the new crossing. We have already provided £600,000 to fund preparatory studies and are liaising closely with Halton on a range of issues further to the initial submission to the Department, which we have asked it to follow up.
My hon. Friend alluded to those issues and our requests are not a way of kicking the matter into the long grass. They are intended to enable a serious decision to be taken on a serious proposal that merits serious assessment, something that it did not receive in 1995 when the Government of the day dispatched it rudely without fear of the consequences for Merseyside. As my hon. Friend said, we do need to consider the matter further and assess the impact of the bridge on the strategic highway network.
My hon. Friends have talked at length about how the project plugs into, and interacts with, the surrounding transport infrastructure and network. We do have to examine in more detail the hydrodynamic impact of the bridge on the River Mersey, a major waterway and river of some significance. There are also serious environmental as well as engineering construction dimensions that need to be considered in some detail. Equally, we must decide on the most effective procurement of procedural routes, and consider whether tolling could help to fund the project. I shall return to that issue shortly.
Government officials have already met officials from Halton, the Government office for the north-west and the Highways Agency to discuss these matters, and we

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will meet them subsequently to give them all the help that we can to complete the assessment. The new bridge will have a widespread impact on travel patterns, so we need to understand any knock-on effects such as additional traffic on other roads, including the trunk road network, if I may be the butterfly in the Chinese aphorism cited by my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles.
The Mersey estuary is environmentally sensitive and we need to ensure that the impact on the river and wildlife are fully understood and can be properly mitigated where necessary. Equally, the proposals are expensive, and Halton will want an investment of some £350 million in the new crossing, although the figure could well turn out to be at the upper end of the scale. The budget is limited, and there are competing priorities. As my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale kindly said, I have visited Merseyside a couple of times and have seen from the top of the chemical museum the glory of where the bridge may go. I have seen the much loved car breakers yard that, sadly, will have to go to facilitate the road network around the bridge. I am also all over the Widnes Weekly News this week in an article about guide dogs and free private hire passage—an equally important project introduced by this Government—but that is entirely incidental and has nothing to do with this debate.
It is important to dwell on funding, although Opposition Members have raised the issue spuriously and speciously in this debate. In the end, the funding may be a mixture of PFI and tolling, or it may be delivered entirely through public procurement. I simply do not know until we explore the matter fully.
In passing, I should say that a mixture of PFI and tolling is exactly the way forward for the Thames gateway bridge. The suggestion that the bridge would be funded entirely through public procurement is wrong. I should also say that a tiny, tiny weakness in the case put so eloquently by my hon. Friends was the beggar my
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neighbour approach taken by competing deprived areas. Halton may well be fourteenth on the list, but Newham, which is eleventh on the list, will gain much from the gateway bridge. That is minor point, but the argument that the nation gave cosseted, fat and bloated Londoners another bridge, so Merseyside should have one, is not the best way to make progress in the debate.
A good deal of real work needs to be done. We should not procrastinate.
Mr. Hall: The Thames gateway is part-funded by taxpayers' money. If part-funding is good enough for Newham, part-funding for the new Mersey crossing would be good enough for Halton.
Mr. McNulty: We will leave the circularity there and move on, although we may return to the subject later.
Halton is cheerfully carrying on with the task. The council leader, my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) and others in Halton and beyond will have their own views on what the mix of procurement should be and will make those views well known, but it is important to discuss the matter. Halton must assess the cost, time scale and impact of this major project and the appropriate procurement route, and I know that it is up to the task. It is pushing ahead with the work with a view to returning to the Department for Transport in the autumn, which it may well do. We will consider the scheme carefully once we have received that extra material. In the meantime, my Department will continue to liaise closely with Halton as it prepares its case, and we hope to help it to take the right decision on an issue that is significant not only for Halton and Merseyside, but for the whole area.
In the remaining 30 seconds, I apologise for taking no interventions and again congratulate all Back Benchers who have contributed to the debate. In terms of parliamentary procedure, these one and a half hour debates in Westminster Hall are ill-served by fatuous shadow Front-Bench contributions.

Maternity Services
3.45 pm
Mr. Mohammad Sarwar: I am grateful for this opportunity to debate maternity provision. The Government have made a firm commitment to improve quality and safety in maternity care. That is at the heart of the reform agenda in our health service. Every year, the NHS spends £1 billion on maternity services, which affect all our lives, accounting for one in seven hospital admissions and 600,000 births across the country. The subject provokes emotive debate in our communities as we face major changes.
Last summer, the Health Committee raised concerns about women receiving variable care in different areas. That is unacceptable and I welcome the Minister's work to tackle inequalities in service access and health outcomes for mothers and babies. More women are now encouraged to have the birth that they want but the main barrier to equality and choice has been the shortage of midwives and obstetricians.
There have been different responses to the problem across the country. In Scotland, Ministers promised to train 375 more junior doctors. South Tees Hospitals NHS trust closed a unit due to a shortfall of 14 full-time midwives. Neath Port Talbot had to close several times due to a consultant shortage and is now developing a midwife-led centre. The Oswestry unit had to close for six months when 22 midwives became pregnant. A lack of Leicester midwives resulted in a drive to attract new recruits and entice former midwives back. Flexible working was seen as the key. Will the Minister assure me that extra resources will continue co be prioritised for recruitment?
Investment in NHS maternity services has increased. The £100 million upgrade of 200 units in England has made a real difference. Last year, the Commission for Health Improvement found that maternity units were often the best run in NHS hospitals. Many showed best practice in patient involvement and risk management. It is important that units share ideas to deliver improved services and tackle inequality.
We clearly saw the disparity between hospitals in different regions two years ago. A Dr. Foster survey identified the busiest units and also found low staff levels, often in the south-east, an area of special interest to the Minister. Twenty-one hospitals had more than one baby born for each delivery bed per day. The national average was 0.76. Large hospitals in our cities faced the greatest pressure. Smaller units and community hospitals with a midwife-led service tended to have fewer births. Since the survey, Ministers have reaffirmed their commitment to consistent standards for all mothers.
We are now seeing more involvement for mothers, and midwives, doctors and hospital managers listening more to mothers' views. It is vital that women feel that they can make an informed decision about their care. As Professor Hewison concluded in her August report, antenatal care is strongly influenced by the type of care that each GP wishes to provide. We need women to be better informed at all stages of pregnancy. To that end, I welcome the "You're Pregnant" magazine launched by the Minister in December. It provides free local information about maternity services to women in a
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clear and presentable format. It is important to have choice in planning individual care and involvement in planning local services. That is vital with regard to formal consultation and can address inequality effectively.
The Select Committee identified problems with access to interpreting services for women who do not speak English as a first language. That may contribute to the high perinatal mortality among Pakistani-born mothers; it is nearly double the UK average. We see good practice to rectify that in Leeds. Local women work with midwives to translate antenatal classes into three common languages and to base them in community centres, reaching out to diverse groups and reducing inequality in the service. In areas with the highest numbers of asylum seekers—not only London and the south-east, but places such as Glasgow—more women are being offered appropriate care through awareness of the wide range of languages spoken, which can change each month.
I recognise the importance of maternity services being covered by the children's national service framework. I am sure that the Minister can assure me of further progress in that area of modernisation. The role of midwives is crucial, as they often lead reform. In Manchester, they improved the service for drug-dependent mothers, while Derbyshire midwives increased breastfeeding by using mothers who had breastfed to encourage others.
In breastfeeding awareness week, I must congratulate the national health service and the breastfeeding initiative in my home city. Glasgow's rates are increasing faster than those of anywhere else in the UK; 36 per cent. of women are breastfeeding at six weeks compared with 25 per cent. seven years ago. New mums appreciate backing from other mums who have breastfed successfully.
We have significantly more midwives and midwifery students than we did in 1997. The "Celebrating Midwifery Leadership" event and the Royal College of Nursing conference have taken place this past week. I hope that the Minister shares my optimism about the future of those important professions and support for their enhanced role.
The biggest area of contention in maternity services is the balance between consultant-led services and midwife-led units. There have been different responses throughout the UK. Merging North and South Durham NHS trusts meant that Bishop Auckland maternity unit was run by midwives, with mothers transferred to Darlington if a doctor was needed. The new board felt that the link between them would mean shared skills and ensure greater choice for mothers, with faster access and better clinical care. In Liverpool, plans were made to transfer neonatal and obstetric services from Aintree to Toxteth. The falling birth rate could no longer justify the provision of specially trained staff on each site, but antenatal services were kept at both and jobs were not adversely affected.
More recently, the transfer of the Mary Rose unit in Portsmouth was announced. The local branch of the National Childbirth Trust criticised the lack of consultation, as managers were not quick to consider midwives' and patients' views. It called for a midwife-led

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unit on Portsea island, as losing the Mary Rose unit would mean
"no local option other than a home birth".
Consultation on such changes remains the most important arena for genuine patient involvement, as communities must have confidence in major decisions made locally by the NHS. That affects both rural and urban communities.
The low number of births at Caithness made it difficult to retain consultants, and a report stated that the service was unsustainable. Last month, the need for change was compounded when the remaining consultant went on sick leave. NHS Highland is consulting on a new midwife-led unit, but critics say that there is no understanding of rural geography, arguing that Norway and Canada design their services around the patients in remote communities.
There is also concern at the impact on other local services. There are good examples of patient involvement in Wiltshire. In July, West Wiltshire trust asked mothers, staff, unions and key groups to take part in a wide-ranging assessment of its services. Gloucester and Somerset mothers accessing care in Wiltshire were included in the consultation. Neighbouring Kennet and North Wiltshire trust asked all women who gave birth in 2002 and 2003 what they thought of local services and where they would prefer to deliver. It also reviewed two units where only one bed in three is used and the birth rate is dropping. Locally, the hospitals are considered to be vital community resources. Last month, the board gave the consultation a welcome extension.
Last year, Scarborough and North East Yorkshire trust proposed ending maternity services at three sites. The board appointed a non-executive director to measure public opinion and gave an assurance that any change would not place lives at risk. In Northern Ireland, every woman will live within an hour of a consultant-led unit but there is more choice through new midwife-led units and other approaches. In Downpatrick, for example, a new hospital offers antenatal and post-natal care but the falling birth rate does not justify a maternity suite.
After nine years of vigorous debate over potential sites, a decision has been made on Belfast's new maternity unit, which will also act as a regional speciality centre. The Royal was finally selected after detailed consultation by the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Angela Smith). Every neonatologist and paediatrician taking part said that it would provide the best possible service. Millions of pounds have been spent on the new children's hospital, offering strong links to full neonatal services for premature and sick babies.
In Scotland, the report by the expert group on acute maternity services said that our current set-up was "no longer sustainable". The birth rate is the lowest since records began; women are having fewer children, later in life. The working time directive is another major factor. There are also pressures on training and a need to ensure clinically safe, cost-effective practice. The group said that care should be provided as close to women's homes as possible. Those with low-risk pregnancies should be
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able to give birth in midwife-led maternity units that are supported by specialist care for those at risk of complications. Scottish midwives accepted that such changes would not be easy but the response to similar moves in England had been positive; women enjoyed having the choice, backed up by specialist care if needed.
In the west of Scotland, consultant-led care is centred on Paisley's Royal Alexandra hospital. Mothers still have a choice of care, but Inverclyde and Vale of Leven are becoming midwife-led. NHS Argyll and Clyde considered its consultation to be "transparent and robust", using market research and discussing the plans with professionals, Voluntary groups and the public in open forum. Although most mothers should be able to give birth in community units, low-risk births can quickly become high risk, and 10 to 20 per cent. of women will be transferred to consultant-led care during labour, mostly for epidurals.
Scotland's Health Minister approved the plans but was unconvinced by the numbers assumed to opt for Paisley rather than Glasgow. It is important to look at patient choice between the two. Taken alongside plans for Glasgow, this concentrates consultant services for one in four Scottish women at two hospitals only seven miles apart. In 1999, the Greater Glasgow board decided that it had one hospital too many, due to falling birth rates. A pre-consultation proposed the closure of the Queen Mother's hospital, concentrating maternity care at the excellent Southern General hospital, and the new Princess Royal hospital in the east end. There followed a three-month consultation period, during which a strong campaign was mounted by the Evening Times, which amassed 156,000 signatures in support of the Queen Mother's hospital.
The biggest fear was a reduced standard of care. Glasgow would no longer have a leading position in the UK, with an integrated service; the Queen Mother shares its Yorkhill base with the Royal Hospital for Sick Children. The hospital is seen as a national centre of excellence, with eight national services for women and children, including the specialised ECMO life-support system, one of only four in the United Kingdom. The hospital treats babies from every health board in Scotland and from further afield.
However, almost all city clinicians accepted the reduction to two hospitals, and NHS Greater Glasgow felt that the decision could not be delayed. The board said that its plan involved the least risk to mothers and babies, as the Queen Mother's hospital offered intensive care only for children whereas the Southern General could provide intensive care for both. The Scottish Parliament Public Petition Committee was not impressed by the consultation; nor were a number of experts in the field. None the less, Greater Glasgow insisted that its pre-consultation and consultation process exceeded current guidelines. Last month, the closure was endorsed, but on the basis that Scottish Ministers must be satisfied with the substance of the proposals and the adequacy of the public consultation.
In responding to the need for change, NHS Greater Glasgow recommenced measures to provide sustainable and safe services for mothers and babies, including a new public health midwife service and midwife delivery beds in the hospitals That is commendable, but it also seems right to have a real centre of excellence that is integrated and co-located. However, the actual site is

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less important than delivery of integrated care. The board will now consult on whether the Royal Hospital for Sick Children should be moved to a site alongside adult and maternity hospitals.
It is crucial that there is more patient involvement in planning maternity services throughout the UK. It is also vital to maintain a high level of reform and investment in the NHS. If those are coupled with the Government's commitment to increasing the number of midwives and consultants, we will see lasting improvements to an excellent service.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I call the Minister for his first stint in Westminster Hall this afternoon.
4.3 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr. Stephen Ladyman): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sarwar) for introducing the debate. I am tempted not to reply to it, since he has done such a thorough job of setting out the issues that affect maternity services in the UK and of explaining both the strides forward that the Government have taken and the challenges that face us in the future. However, I am pleased to have the opportunity to add a few comments.
My hon. Friend will appreciate, however, that I cannot comment on some of the local issues that he raised in respect of Scotland, since those are matters for the devolved Administration, and my brief is for England. I hope, however, that my response will be of general interest to him and his constituents, and I am sure that he can arrange for his comments in the Official Report to be made available to Members of the Scottish Parliament and to Scottish Ministers.
The Government recognise that women and their families throughout the UK currently benefit from a high standard of maternity services provided by dedicated and hard-working NHS staff. I would say that those services are possibly the most successful of the NHS services. Huge advances have been made in the last few years in changing the experience of women during pregnancy and childbirth. Over the past 50 years, the NHS has made childbirth a much safer process for both mothers and babies, and women are now more actively involved in making decisions about the maternity care that they receive.
The NHS, throughout the UK, offers birth facilities of various types and sizes in maternity units in different locations, as well as at home. We do not support one model over others, but want diversity of provision, so that each woman can choose what best suits her needs and wishes. Real progress has been made in recent years towards providing a more personal, woman-centred service, tailored to meet the health needs of the local population. Maternity services have led the way in partnership working and midwives have played a key role, working with women and with other health professionals to ensure that NHS maternity services are safe and comfortable.
Of course, the rate of improvement and availability of choice may be governed by the recruitment of midwives. My hon. Friend highlighted that issue. The number of midwives working in the NHS is increasing, I am glad to say. There are now 1,560 more midwives working in the
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NHS in England than there were in 1997. Also, since 1999 more than 1,200 midwives have returned to the NHS, and another 270 are in the process of returning.
Despite what I have outlined, we need to do more and we want to build on those successes and boost the rate of growth. That is the reason for the midwifery recruitment and retention six-point action plan in England. It incorporates actions to help midwives return to practice, giving them better working terms and conditions, raising the profile of midwifery and improving training and leadership. It also involves our studying the geographical variations in vacancy levels. Thus I can give my hon. Friend the assurance that he wanted that we shall continue to put resources into the recruitment of midwives. For the record, I take no responsibility for the 22 midwives in Oswestry who all became pregnant. It was none of my doing.
My hon. Friend is aware that we are also developing a national service framework for children, which will cover maternity services. The aim of the maternity module of the national service framework is to ensure that modern maternity services place all women and their babies at the heart of acceptable services designed around their needs. Those services must also provide flexible and equal access to high quality clinical care and support for all women.
The two key issues to be dealt with in the NSF will be the reduction of inequalities and the increase of choice. I make no apologies for placing the issue of inequalities first. My hon. Friend referred to many of them. Fifty years ago, the Department of Health took the unprecedented step of setting up a confidential inquiry into all maternal deaths, a system that is still in place today. The results have led to many important changes in obstetric and midwifery practice, and it is a source of pride to me and my colleagues that that methodology is now being implemented in many other developed and developing countries to help to improve clinical maternal care.
It is also a source of pride that our NHS has helped us to achieve one of the lowest overall maternal mortality rates in the world. However, our confidential inquiry still has important work to do, and has recently been examining the wider determinants of maternal health. The findings of the last report show that women from the most disadvantaged groups in society are about 20 times more likely to die from factors related to childbirth than women in the highest two social classes. Their babies are more than twice as likely to die before their first birthday.
The infants of women born in Pakistan have particularly high rates of stillbirth and infant mortality. They are nearly twice as likely to be stillborn and more than twice as likely to die in infancy, compared with the average. Those are horrifying figures and we must get to grips with them.
Overcoming those inequalities in outcome, some of which can be helped by improving access to antenatal care services, is perhaps the biggest and most important challenge for us. We know that women from the most vulnerable groups in society often find it difficult to gain or maintain access to maternity services and have poorer maternal and neonatal outcomes.
Although we may not be alone in facing such problems, as surveys in other developed countries have shown, what makes us unique is the opportunity that we

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now have to tackle them through the forthcoming national service framework. We will grasp the opportunity with both hands. It is vital that a modern maternity service should ensure that women from all groups of society have easy and equal access to the full range of high quality services to ensure that the needs of the most vulnerable are given equal importance.
That means enabling every woman to seek early in pregnancy care that she feels happy with and to continue to maintain regular contact throughout her pregnancy and in the post-birth period. That is what we intend to achieve through the provision of individualised and flexible care plans designed by the woman and a health care professional to meet her specific needs and wishes.
Pregnancy, particularly for first-time parents, is the beginning of a process of transition to lifelong parenthood. It can be a period of great joy, excitement and anticipation, but may be combined with concerns about the health of the mother and baby, the process of birth and the prospect of becoming a parent. Pregnancy, birth and the post-birth period are also significant events for the wider family, taking place within their own social and cultural context and beliefs. The care and support given during this period is crucial to help expectant and new parents enjoy as straightforward a pregnancy and birth as possible and start to adapt to their new roles and responsibility before the baby is born.
High quality maternity care does not just provide a supportive clinical environment to ensure a healthy pregnancy, delivery and post-birth period; it also provides a gateway to other services and helps to achieve the best possible start to life. Those services include birth and parenting classes and the provision of multidisciplinary support for women with particular medical, social or psychiatric needs and for those from the more vulnerable groups in our society. It is vital that a modern maternity service ensures that women from all groups have easy and equivalent access to the full range of high quality, antenatal services and that the needs of the most vulnerable are treated with equal importance. That means enabling every woman to seek the care that she feels happy with early in pregnancy and to maintain regular contact throughout her pregnancy.
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The NSF is not the only work being done to shape maternity services. For example, our work with the National Institute for Clinical Excellence has led to the publication of several clinical guidelines to be implemented throughout England and Wales. We already have guidelines on induction of labour, the use of electronic foetal monitoring and antenatal care. Guidelines were recently launched on the use of Caesarean section, and guidelines on the management of uncomplicated labour and birth and the post-partum period will follow later. Those guidelines will complement the national standards set out in the NSF.
Another area of our activity is based around choice, and my hon. Friend highlighted several of the steps that we have taken. Maternity services were included in the national consultation exercise "Choice, responsiveness and equity", designed to improve patient and user experience in the national health service. The results of the consultation were published on 9 December 2003 in "Building on the best: choice, responsiveness and equality in the NHS", which encourages local health services to publicise contact details for midwives and promote the use of birth plans.
That is why one of the first outcomes of our drive to improve choice was our work with Dr. Foster to produce the "You're Pregnant" local maternity guides, to which my hon. Friend referred. They enable women and their families to make real choices about the type of maternity care that they wish to receive. Without information, choice can be just a theoretical exercise, but "You're Pregnant" gives women the information that they need to make it a practical reality.
I hope that I have demonstrated the Government's commitment to maintaining and improving the quality of maternity services. I want all women to have the birth experience of their choice in the environment of their choice, to have access to midwife-led and doctor-led units and, subject to their safety, to make the choices that meet their own needs. However, the rate of improvement can be governed by factors such as resources, the speed of building projects and the pace of recruiting more midwives.
Our highest priority is to tackle inequalities in access to services and health outcomes for women. We are also committed to improving and promoting choice for all women and their families in use of maternity services. I am delighted that my hon. Friend approves of so many of the initiatives that the Government have taken, and I look forward to having further discussions with him in the coming months.

NHS Clinical Networks
4.14 pm
Dr. Richard Taylor: I start with a profound sense of relief, because I had thought that I was the only Member to have such Adjournment debates with just a Minister present. I have just seen another hon. Member having a one-to-one debate, so I am delighted.
I thank the Minister for attending a second debate. I know that he knows a lot about the west midlands and about my patch in particular. I can reassure him that I will talk about my patch only in passing and will mainly talk about ways in which I think that the NHS can be helped overall.
Despite the vast amount of money that the Government are quite correctly putting into the NHS, there are tremendous challenges to be met in the new ways of working. One of the crucial debates that must take place is that of safety versus access. To my constituents and to others throughout the country, access means proximity to services. It is easy, from the medical point of view, to say that safety has to be the number one priority, as it is in the interests of the patients, and there are inevitably fears of litigation. However, it is arguably not quite a definite winner for the patient. There are pros and cons both ways. Safety is important, but there have to be slight compromises on occasion because proximity to certain services is crucial for some groups of people. I am not arguing that access to everything for everybody is possible, and I never have. Obviously that is not possible.
There were a lot of misconceptions about why I stood for Parliament and the campaign that I headed. People often thought that we were fighting to keep everything, which was never the case. We accepted from the beginning that high-powered things were done better where they were done more often particularly things such as vascular surgery. Patients are perfectly prepared to travel for the high-powered services, complicated elective work, complex cardiac work and complex specialist cancer services. They are used to seeing helicopters taking families to major trauma centres for major accidents and major burns. However for absolutely straightforward bread-and-butter emergencies, access—meaning proximity—is essential.
This debate is about managed clinical networks. I believe that if they are properly instituted and agreed to by all partners, such networks could answer the problem in terms of safety and proximity. The networks came to prominence in 1998, with the acute services review in Scotland undertaken by the Scotland Office for the Department of Health. In Scotland there are obviously large areas with sparse population, so problems of access and proximity are particularly bad. However, the lessons learnt from that review could also be drawn to this country. I have a couple of quotes from the report:
"As an alternative to the 'hub and spoke' model, some of the networking systems described to the Review feature the sharing of patients, expertise and resources, rather than unidirectional centripetal flow."
"Sharing" and "partnership" are the crucial words. The report also states that
"the critical mass needed to achieve the benefits which might flow from increased volume of activity can come through managed clinical networks rather than the centralisation or concentration of services."
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That addresses the issue of safety. Although those points were made so powerfully in Scotland in 1998, there are fears that centralisation is occurring and that even in Scotland managed clinical networks are becoming a bit of a euphemism.
Turning to England, networks are obviously well established for complicated matters, such as cardiac surgery, cancer services and diabetes. I wonder whether it is a coincidence that those three all have national service frameworks. Networks for such matters are absolutely essential and valuable. As I have said, a full range of services cannot be provided everywhere and citizens accept the need to travel. They welcome going to the best place and patients with a rare cancer will travel for miles to go to the right place.
We need a network in accident and emergency departments more than anywhere. People need that service close to home; I am talking about the common, bread-and-butter emergencies, such as those that happen without warning, and for which nobody can make plans. The kids might be at school, or one could be elderly. One might be taken away suddenly or from one's partner and unable to let anybody know. Not everybody has a car or a mobile phone to let people know what is happening. Just closing an accident and emergency department and substituting it with a minor injuries unit is not acceptable to local people. That is what propelled me to this place.
I am looking not back, but forward; to the Minister's relief. I am considering how to avoid the same situation elsewhere and how to improve the situation for my friends at home, because it is eminently possible to do so. I realise, before the Minister tells me, that he has no power to make things happen locally, although I am glad about that. In 1998, the Government had no power to dictate what happened locally and, if the Government's overview and scrutiny committees had been in place, the Health Service Journal wrote recently that the same events would not have occurred in Kidderminster.
Returning to accident and emergency networks, how will they help local situations and above all, how will they help the Government politically? What should they be like? As I have said, a network is a partnership and a sharing. In accident and emergency, it is a sharing of the district general hospital's all-singing all-dancing accident and emergency department with its outlying minor injuries units, particularly those in downgraded DGHs such as that in Kidderminster. That network shares patients, expertise and resources between the A and E department and the minor injuries unit. It will widen the range of patients that the minor injuries unit can see, and lessen unnecessary trips to the A and E department, so lightening its work. I raised the matter last week in health questions and the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton) agreed that networks in A and E could be helpful. She mentioned emergency service collaboratives and emergency care networks, and I welcome the Minister's comments today about those because I have a feeling that such collaborative and networks do not involve local minor injuries units, as they should.

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I have quoted Andy Black's work before, but I am going to do so again because it is so important. He is a well respected health service management consultant, who recently wrote in aBritish Medical Journal leader:
"If the price of moving the complex emergency to an appropriate centre of expertise is that this patient is accompanied by another nine or ten patients who are not complex acute cases, then another set of problems is launched."
We have seen all too clearly the social problems of suddenly uprooting somebody and taking them 18 miles away, and the financial problems that they have finding their own way home at bank holidays or at weekends. In the same leader, Andy Black also asks
"how 'managed clinical networks' could be introduced so that local emergency units can flourish while complex emergency cases can be swiftly funnelled towards the appropriate specialist centres."
There are more details of his ideas in the Nuffield Trust paper, "Local Medical Emergency Units", published in 2000.
The key is to share and rotate medical and nursing staff between such units. In the old days, when a minor unit referred a case to a major unit, the major unit thought nothing of the minor unit and would repeat everything that had been done. What a waste of time! In Worcestershire, there is no doctor in the minor injuries unit at Kidderminster, so everything that could conceivably require a medical opinion has to go 18 miles away. Time after time, the patients who go there are discharged as soon as they are seen and they have the problem of getting home.
Consultants in Worcestershire currently do outpatient clinics at the Kidderminster minor injuries unit, but they do not see any emergency patients. The sharing of a doctor on a network for back-up to the nurse practitioners would make a huge difference and would widen the scope of patients that the ambulances could take. Even the medical director at the treatment centre now agrees that we need a doctor in the minor injuries unit.
A true partnership, which is a network and two units sharing services and patients, could increase the range. It would fit with the Government's paper "Keeping the NHS Local—A New Direction of Travel" which states that
"the objective is to provide as a minimum a 'first port of call' (a service able to receive and provide assessment, initial treatment and transfer where necessary)".
I appeal to the Minister to see the logic of this case nationwide and to support the need for a trial of such an A and E unit working in partnership with the minor injury unit to pilot staff reaction. Would they accept it? What about stress levels and waiting times? Would a widened ambulance protocol be possible? Would it reduce trips to the major centre?
It would be subtly different from the trials already ongoing in "Keeping the NHS Local" at Penzance, Bishop Auckland and Downpatrick because it would fill a gap lower on the scale to any of those. If it were suggested as a pilot at Kidderminster, it would be welcomed with open arms. This could provide an opportunity for the Government to show that if a local hospital that is under threat is downgraded, there is an
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outcome a bit less severe than what happened at Kidderminster in 2000. This could help the Government to take the politics out of it.
I quote again from "Keeping the NHS Local":
"Making greater use of networking between community minor injuries units and acute centres and other redesign approaches will be needed to ensure that people have locally accessible emergency care."
I have 72,000 constituents who, together with about 70,000 neighbouring constituents, do not have locally accessible emergency care. I will battle until they do. This pilot trial would give an opportunity for the whole NHS to see that something like this could work to allay the anxieties of people in Hartlepool and Banbury and several other places that I could list at length. I will not do so.
4.28 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr. Stephen Ladyman): As you said, Mr. Deputy Speaker, this is my second run-out of the day, the second of four this week. I am not complaining—I do not want the Prime Minister to think that I need any relief from my duties—but it means that I get a fairly eclectic choice of subjects to which to respond. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Dr. Taylor) for calling the debate and for putting his ideas on the record. He is right: most of these debates tend to be one to one, but I thought that that was something I was doing rather than the fact that he was involved. All my debates seem to be carried out on a one-to-one basis. If we do not get big audiences, at least we get top quality contributions.
The hon. Gentleman talked about proximity and safety. I agree that both have to be taken into consideration. I just wish—I do not criticise him for this because he has just taken an objective view—that there was more objectivity in discussing this. In my experience—my constituency in east Kent has gone through a painful reconfiguration—clinicians are devotedly attached to the notion of centralisation until decisions about reconfiguration are taken and they feel that their hospital is likely to come out of it worse than they thought, whereupon they immediately become converts to the idea of managed networks and distributed systems that allow far more centres to remain open.
I wish we could generate a more objective and considered debate on the matter, and understand the nuances and difficulties of balancing proximity and safety. The Government published "Keeping the NHS Local—a New Direction of Travel" to try to provide that additional guidance.
Dr. Taylor: This is exactly where the Government fit in. The professions are clamouring for patients to be made to understand the need for changes that are perhaps for the benefit of the professions. The Government must somehow engage with the professions to convince them that there are other ways of doing things.
Dr. Ladyman: I take the hon. Gentleman's point. By publishing "Keeping the NHS Local", we were trying to start that debate. In these days of "Shifting the Balance

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of Power", it is not for me to devise pilot studies that might meet local needs and balance proximity and clinical safety, but for clinicians, the primary care trusts and the acute trusts that serve the hon. Gentleman's constituency to come up with ideas. The Government—certainly this Minister—would not be interfering if they came up with something that they felt gave a better balance of access to services, while maintaining the necessary levels of safety. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to ensure that clinicians, managers and planners in his local area are aware of his ideas and engage with him in the objective debate that he is trying to stimulate now.
The hon. Gentleman has given me the opportunity to talk about how we are transforming accident and emergency services throughout the country and I shall not miss that opportunity. A little over a year ago, only about three quarters of A and E patients were admitted, transferred or discharged within the national health service target time of four hours. In March, that had risen to 94 per cent., and most patients are dealt with well within four hours. In human terms, that means thousands more patients getting faster treatment every day; at this rate, by next year we will be able to claim a standard of accident and emergency performance that no other country in the world will offer to its entire population. That is a major transformation, which requires the sort of difficult decisions to which the hon. Gentleman referred. It also requires us to have incentives in the system and to stimulate people to take the necessary decisions. Within the last few weeks, 87 acute trusts—more than half the total—received £100,000 each to recognise their outstanding progress in accident and emergency; trusts that did not qualify for the first payment are getting tailored support and trusts that continue to improve can earn £500,000 by this time next year.
If anyone objects to my focusing on total time performance, I can tell them that the clear message from patients is that that is what matters most to them. It is not the only thing that matters, which is why we appointed the first national accident and emergency patients' champion and offered every modern matron in A and E £10,000 to improve their patients' overall experience. All of that is making a difference and time and again front-line staff tell me that the atmosphere of accident and emergency has changed for the better. That would not have happened without the Government's determination to drive up the performance of accident and emergency, without our taking tough decisions and without the investment that we pumped into the health service, nor would it have happened without the dedication and hard work of front-line health service staff.
The transformation could not have been achieved without the sort of co-operation and networking that the hon. Gentleman recognises is essential. The Government recognised the importance of networks at the beginning of the process; alter we published our strategy "Reforming Emergency Care" in 2001, we made extra resources available specifically to fund emergency-care led staff in every trust and to establish local emergency care networks. All emergency care networks should have four fundamental objectives. First, to create a partnership between all the health and social care organisations within a geographical area;
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secondly, to break down artificial boundaries between services to help patients to gain access to better care; thirdly, to establish agreed shared objectives and shared responsibility for meeting those objectives; and, fourthly, to ensure that initiatives and developments spread throughout the system and produce system-wide improvements. As the hon. Gentleman knows, there is a Worcestershire emergency care network, which is chaired by the acute hospitals trust chief executive and meets regularly.
One reason why networks are important is that patients now have more options for unscheduled care than ever before, especially for relatively minor illnesses or injuries. As well as using A and E or the ambulance service, people can use their GP, NHS Direct, pharmacists, minor injuries units and NHS walk-in centres. Those are all popular with patients and are vital components of networks. The minor injuries unit at Kidderminster hospital is considered to be one of the most successful of its type and is used by 20,000 patients a year, three quarters of the number of people who used to go to the A and E department there. I was immensely impressed by the department when I visited recently. The nurses at Kidderminster hospital have telemedicine links to consultants at Worcester and Redditch.
Dr. Taylor: I would argue with the Minister about those figures. The last figure for people attending Kidderminster A and E department, when it was in existence, was about 43,000, whereas the numbers of people attending in Redditch and Worcester, in the same county, was 44,000 and 45,000 respectively—almost equal. The figure of 20,000 for the MIU does not give quite the proportion that the Minister suggested.
Dr. Ladyman: The figures that I have are from the local trust, but I shall certainly check them, and I undertake to write to the hon. Gentleman. If I have misled him, I apologise, but I believe that the figures that I have been given are accurate.
I was making a point about telemedicine links to consultants at Worcester and Redditch. The evidence shows that, as the MIU has developed and the nurses' confidence has grown, reliance on the link has greatly diminished. Meanwhile, I understand that the MIU has been treating all its patients within four hours and 70 per cent. of them within one hour.[Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Is the Minister going to be a lot longer? I see that a Division has been called in the House. If he is going to be more than a couple of minutes, I shall have to suspend the sitting. Is that the case?
Dr. Ladyman: I fear so.
4.36 pm
Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.
4.47 pm
On resuming—
Dr. Ladyman: Before the Division, I was saying that the MIU in Kidderminster treats all its patients within

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four hours, and 70 per cent. of them within one hour. The trust has launched a number of initiatives to improve the performance of its accident and emergency department, including an integrated health and social care discharge team. It is important that patients understand that positive options such MIUs are available to them, which is why the Department of Health has organised several communication exercises better to inform patients about their choices for treatment. There are also numerous local campaigns.
Networks are not just about where patients receive treatment. The behind-the-scenes co-operation is just as important, as that determines the quality of service that patients get. That means that there should be good teamwork within acute trusts, and that acute trusts should work closely with ambulance trusts, primary care trusts and social services.
The hon. Gentleman spoke about the importance of managed networks. It is certainly true that they have been a success in other fields, but what matters most is that emergency care networks are effective, not how they are managed. All networks are led or managed in one way or another, but our approach has been to encourage and facilitate, not to dictate from the centre. We want to allow local networks to meet local needs. If trusts are to meet the NHS plan target by the end of the year, and we are determined that they will, they will need effective networks. We encourage and facilitate, and we have made available resources to set up networks. We have published guidance, which is now being updated and amplified, and will be reissued shortly.
I also mentioned the incentive scheme for accident and emergency departments' performance, which recognises the pivotal role of networks. Acute trusts can qualify for up to £500,000, but ambulance trusts that improve their performance can also qualify for significant monthly payments. Mental health trusts that improve their 24-hour crisis services can get £200,000, and primary care trusts that plan and deliver high quality out-of-hours services will get £100,000.
We do not accept that there are any obstacles to effective networks that cannot be overcome by committed, motivated and local clinicians and managers who are supported by sound advice. Taken together, the imperative to reach the accident and emergency target, the financial incentives and the new guidance are a powerful encouragement to progress. There is also good practice for others to follow. For example, in Manchester, the ambulance trust and NHS Direct work together to provide a gateway for unscheduled care and to guide patients to the most appropriate treatment. In Essex, the ambulance trust no
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longer automatically takes its patients to accident and emergency, and it takes the lead in providing out-of-hours unscheduled care. In London, the ambulance trust has started to divert calls that clearly do not need an ambulance response to NHS Direct.
The hon. Gentleman has mentioned many times what he believes to be the potential effects of the European working time directive. We see the directive as an integral part of the modernisation of services that the NHS must plan for as it plans for all contingencies. Therefore, every trust has been asked to prepare an action plan for compliance. We believe not that services will close either solely or primarily as a result of the directive, but that networks will be vital to improving the level of services and to meeting the contingencies of the directive.
We are committed to maintaining local access to services, and we recently published guidance to that effect called "Keeping the NHS Local—A New Direction of Travel". We are not complacent, and we recognise that a small number of specialties, and certain types of organisation, face significant challenges. As well as providing direct support to individual trusts that are experiencing problems, we are funding 20 pilot projects and four "hospital at night" projects, which test approaches to achieving compliance with the directive, and develop ways of helping people to work better in partnership.
On top of that, the NHS Modernisation Agency has been running trials and pilot projects considering ways to free doctors' time, rearrange traditional rotas to support accident and emergency departments for 24 hours a day, and develop other new ways of working.
It is fair to say that the hon. Gentleman and I share some common ground, although we do not agree on everything. He will always press for more services to be delivered through the Kidderminster site, and no doubt the local NHS will want to accommodate him, subject to clinical safety and quality, and the local priorities that it sets. I reiterate my opening remarks, in which I encouraged the hon. Gentleman to talk to the local NHS about his ideas, which he is already doing. As I have shown, many of the ideas that he has highlighted are being tested and piloted in various parts of the country. If what he proposes is a good option for Kidderminster and is safe for his constituents, I have no doubt that the local NHS will want to explore it with him.
I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Government will continue to place a high priority on emergency care, and take a close interest in the development of effective networks and the way in which they can improve access to care and quality for all our citizens.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at seven minutes to Five o'clock.

LEADER OF THE HOUSE

  Department Annual Report
  Norman Lamb
  To ask the Leader of the House how much the production of his Office's latest annual report cost; how many copies were printed; how many copies of it were sold at its cover price; to whom copies of the report have been provided free of charge; and how many copies were provided free of charge. [171151]

  Mr. Hain
  My office does not produce an annual report. Its functions are included in the Privy Council Office's Departmental Report, details of which can be found on the Department's website (www.privy-council.co.uk/output/page40.asp).

  Departmental Procurement
  Michael Fabricant
  To ask the Leader of the House what percentage of the(a) crockery, (b) cutlery and (c) glassware procured by his Office over the last five years is of British manufacture. [170804]

  Mr. Woolas
  The Office of the Leader of the House of Commons was established in June 2003. Since then only a small amount of crockery and glassware has been purchased, and no cutlery. All the crockery was of British manufacture.

  In line with current Government policy the decision to purchase goods for the Office is taken on value for money grounds: restricting purchases to British-only goods would not necessarily achieve this.

  As a trading nation the UK has commitments under both EC and WTO procurement rules to ensure our access to export markets, and a 'Buy-British' policy would make UK companies less competitive by closing down likely export markets. One of the five principles underlying the EC Treaty is one of non-discrimination on the grounds of nationality and this would also exclude a 'Buy-British' policy. In these days of global markets it is increasingly difficult to determine whether goods are British.

  House Facilities
  Bob Spink
  To ask the Leader of the House what assessment he has made of the implications of the Independent Monitoring Commission Report for the use of House facilities by Sinn Fein. [170658]

  Mr. Hain
  The Government has already taken steps in respect of the financial assistance payable to Sinn Fein and the PUP, in line with the recommendation of the Independent Monitoring Commission. The IMC's recommendations made no mention of parliamentary facilities. We hope the next report on paramilitary 196W
  activity, due in the autumn, will reflect significant progress. But we will need to consider the implications of that report at that time.

  Sinn Fein Members
  Mr. Gregory Campbell
  To ask the Leader of the House how much has been paid to Sinn Fein since the decision by the House to pay allowances to Sinn Fein hon. Members who have not taken the oath. [171739]

  Mr. Hain
  Since 8 January 2002, Sinn Fein Members have been able to claim against the incidental expenses provision, staffing allowance and additional costs allowance. They can also claim certain free travel for themselves, their families and their staff; they can use centrally-provided computer equipment on loan without charge, and they can draw on centrally purchased stationery.

  Figures showing what each Member has spent against the allowances will be publicly available from the autumn of this year. Figures for the years in question are currently being compiled and checked by the House authorities.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Tyrannical Regimes
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans he has to take further steps to improve international law and the structures of the UN to end tyrannical regimes. [171838]

  Mr. Rammell
  We are working with the UN Secretary-General's High Level Panel to improve the UN response to all threats to global and human security. The UN's International Tribunals and the International Criminal Court have shown that there is no impunity for the perpetrators of crimes against humanity. We also need to do more to develop an international consensus in favour of humanitarian intervention where it is justified.

  Middle East
  Mr. Blunt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on Mr. Sharon's disengagement plan and the realities on the ground to be taken into consideration in future negotiations. [171842]

  Mr. Rammell
  The UK welcomes Prime Minister Sharon's proposed withdrawal of all settlements from Gaza and four from the West Bank. We hope it will go ahead. As the Prime Minister said on 19 April, it is a statement of fact that final status negotiations cannot ignore the reality on the ground. But all final status issues, including borders and refugees, can be decided only by negotiations between the parties.

  Richard Burden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs which Israeli settlements in the west bank, Gaza, east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights are regarded as legal by the UK Government. [171846]
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  Mr. Rammell
  We consider all settlements in the Occupied Territories to be illegal.

  Iran
  Hugh Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on bilateral relations with Iran. [171843]

  Mr. Straw
  Our policy towards Iran is one of constructive but critical engagement. We aim to support Iran's efforts to reform while continuing a robust dialogue on matters of concern such as Iran's nuclear programme, human rights record, and attitude to the fight on terrorism and the Middle East Peace Process. Ministers are in close contact with Iranian leaders on all these issues of concern; I last met my Iranian counterpart in London on 22 April.

  Julie Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what support he has offered to President Khatami to reduce use of torture and repression in Iran. [171845]

  Mr. Rammell
  We remain seriously concerned at human rights violations in Iran, including the alleged use of torture. We welcome the statement by the head of the Iranian judiciary on 28 April that torture is forbidden and that confessions extracted through torture are not legal. We hope this will be reflected in practice throughout Iran. Ministers have raised human rights concerns with their Iranian counterparts bilaterally on many occasions and we have done so through the EU/Iran Human Rights dialogue. The EU has made clear that its relations with Iran can move forward only if Iran takes action to address our concerns in areas such as human rights.

  Cyprus
  Mr. Love
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affair what assessment he has made of the results of the referendums in Cyprus. [171844]

  Mr. MacShane
  We respect the outcome of both referendums and the right of the Greek Cypriots to say "no". However, we hope they will take time to reflect on the decision they made and consider whether it was the right one.

  The reunification of Cyprus remains the Government's objective. But there is no immediate prospect of a resumption of talks. We await the UN Secretary General's report on his Good Offices mission to Cyprus, which we expect later this month.

  Mr. Lyons
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the prospects for re-unification of Cyprus. [171776]

  Mr. MacShane
  I draw my hon. Friend's attention to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary's written statement on 28 April 2004,Official Report, columns 44–46WS.

  Iraq
  Tom Brake
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions 198W
  he has held with Mr. Paul Bremer on the handover of sovereignty to the Iraqi governing council from the coalition provisional authority. [171847]

  Mr. Rammell
  The Foreign Secretary has discussed the political transition process with Ambassador Bremer during his visits to Baghdad, but the handing over of sovereignty to the Iraqi Governing Council has never been coalition policy. The coalition is committed to handing over sovereignty on 30 June to an Iraqi Interim Government, whose structure and composition will be decided by the UN Secretary-General's Special Adviser, Lakhdar Brahimi after consultation with a wide range of Iraqis.

  Mr. Wareing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the most recent findings of the Iraq survey group. [171848]

  Mr. MacShane
  The most recent published findings of the Iraq Survey Group were contained in the report of the leader of the Group Charles Duelfer, on 30 March, a copy of the unclassified version of which was placed in the Library of the House. There is nothing that I can add to the Written Statement made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on 31 March 2004,Official Report, column 94WS.

  Mr. Best
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what progress has been made with investigations into Iraq's mass graves following the recommendations of the UK forensic team which visited Iraq last summer. [167870]

  Mr. Rammell
  Since the recommendations were made the UK has seconded four UK forensic experts to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) who have been leading CPA efforts on mass graves. A Mass Grave Action Plan has been produced, which details how to deal with the hundreds of reported mass grave sites. A centralised system for reporting potential sites has been set up in co-ordination with the Human Rights Ministry. Around a quarter of reported sites have been assessed. Training seminars have been held in anthropology, archaeology, surveying, crime scene management and scene searching to build Iraqi capacity to undertake mass grave exhumations. A full equipment list for exhumations has been completed and equipment is on order. In addition, the Government has funded a forensic NGO, Inforce, to produce standard protocols and operating procedures to enable Iraqis and international teams to undertake this work to the same standards.

  Unfortunately, the mobility of the forensic team was severely restricted by the upsurge in violence and kidnappings in Iraq in early April. Security problems have been a major hindrance to them in doing their jobs, which include an unusually high level of travel outside of Baghdad. We have therefore withdrawn them temporarily from Iraq. The forensic team will be able to continue some of this work from outside Iraq. We hope they and other teams will be able to resume work on mass grave sites in Iraq shortly.

  Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs pursuant to his Answer of 27 April 2004,Official Report, column 965W, on Iraq, if he will place a copy of the Transitional

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  Administrative Law (TAL) agreed by the Iraqi Governing Council on 8 March, and the annexe to the TAL, in the Library. [171123]

  Mr. Rammell
  A copy of the Transitional Administrative Law has been placed in the Library of the House. The annexe will be added once it is completed.

  Lynne Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs pursuant to the Answer of 27 April 2004,Official Report, columns 964–65W, on Iraq, who will be consulted; what the consultation process will be prior to 30 June; and who will be eligible to vote to elect the Advisory Council. [171158]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  UN Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is leading consultations with a wide variety of Iraqis on the formation of an Interim Government. He is returning to Iraq this week to continue his consultations. He aims to make his recommendations on the structure and personnel of the Interim Government by 31 May. He will also continue consultations on his proposal for a National Conference to be held after 30 June, including the best method of selecting delegates to the Conference. The Conference will elect the Advisory Council, which will advise and monitor Ministers until elections to a Transitional National Assembly in January 2005.

  North Korea
  Mr. Hammond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will condemn north Korea's decision to ban south Korean aid supplies crossing the land border during the recent emergency. [171850]

  Mr. Rammell
  We regret any unnecessary delay to the urgent provision of emergency humanitarian aid to victims of the Ryongchon explosion. We understand that the DPRK authorities have since decided to allow shipments of relief materials over land from south Korea and that these began on 7 May.

  Zimbabwe
  Mr. Wiggin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the arrest of the former Zimbabwean Finance Minister, Mr. Chris Kuruneri. [171851]

  Mr. Mullin
  We understand that Mr. Kuruneri is alleged to have externalised foreign currency. His arrest and the investigations into the allegations against him are a matter for the Government of Zimbabwe.

  Burma
  Mr. David Stewart
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the human rights situation in Burma and the representations he has made about the treatment of Aung San Suu Kyi. [171852]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  We remain deeply concerned about the human rights situation in Burma. The UK cosponsored a widely supported resolution at the UN Commission on Human Rights on 21 April which condemned human rights violations in Burma. We fully 200W
  support the efforts of Sergio Pinheiro the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Burma and regularly call on Burma's military regime to co-operate fully with him.

  I have repeatedly called on the Burmese regime to release Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest.

  Belarus
  Mr. Spring
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the Council of Europe's reports on the human rights situation in Belarus. [171129]

  Mr. Rammell
  The issues raised in the two Council of Europe reports on Belarus remain of serious concern. We welcome the reports and support their recommendations. Together with EU partners we will respond to the findings of the reports and consider what measures to take in light of the recommendations.

  China
  Mr. Laxton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made to the Chinese Government concerning the arrest of the North Korean refugee Kang Byong-sop. [171525]

  Mr. Rammell
  The EU carried out a demarche on North Korean border crossers in February 2004 specifically to request safe passage to a third country for the Kang family. The case was also raised at the EU/China Human Rights Dialogue in February. However, the Kang family was repatriated to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in March.

  I raised the issue of China's treatment of DPRK border crossers with Zhang Zhijun, Deputy Director of the International Department of the Chinese Communist Party, when we met in March. I also expressed concern about the treatment of the Kang family to Choe Tae Bok, a senior DPRK official, when he visited London during that month. Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials have made official representations to the Chinese and DPRK Ambassadors in London and also the Chinese authorities in Beijing about the repatriation. We expect the EU to take follow-up action shortly.

  Departmental Procurement
  Michael Fabricant
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what percentage of the(a) crockery, (b) cutlery and (c) glassware procured by his Department over the last five years is of British manufacture. [170799]

  Mr. Rammell
  97 per cent. of all crockery, cutlery and glassware is British manufactured.

  Embassies
  Bob Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the annual overall running cost was for the UK embassy in(a) Washington and (b) Paris in 2003–04; and how many staff were employed in each of these embassies. [170819]
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  Mr. Rammell
  Final running cost figures for financial year 2003–04 will not be available until November 2004 at the earliest. I will send them to the hon. Member when they are. The number of staff at each post are as follows:

  FCO UK

  OGD1 UK

  FCO LE2

  OGD LE

  Washington

  63.00

  20.00

  158.50

  16.15

  Paris Embassy

  46.00

  15.00

  151.80

  4.40

  1Other Government Department

  2Locally employed.

  The figures reflect the total number of full-time equivalents and include part time positions.

  Internet Child Pornography
  Brian White
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) what steps his Department has taken to export the UK model of co-operation between Government, police and industry to tackle child pornography on the internet; [166800]

  (2) what measures his Department is taking to increase international co-operation among law enforcement agencies to combat child pornography on the internet. [166802]

  Paul Goggins
  I have been asked to reply.

  While the Government have actively encouraged, and worked towards, the development of a partnership approach between the various agencies and organisations which deal with tackling child abuse on the internet in the UK, how this issue is dealt with by other jurisdictions is a matter for each individual country to consider. The Government have promoted the success of multi agency co-operation to tackle child abuse on the internet, using examples such as the Task Force on child protection on the internet, in speeches, at conferences, in the international fora it operates within, through ministerial and officials' visits overseas, and to the many visitors it receives with a relevant interest in this issue.

  There are a variety of mechanisms to assist in furthering international co-operation between law enforcement agencies on this issue. This may be through the provision of equipment and training to overseas law enforcement by UK agencies, or by the development and hosting of specialist training courses or conferences. For example, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and National Crime Squad recently co-funded a conference for international law enforcement experts, NGOs and officials concerning child abuse and the internet. The National Crime Squad is also engaged in a global initiative with partner countries currently comprising Canada, USA, Australia and Interpol which seeks to establish new and imaginative ways of combating and reducing child abuse on line, seeking to produce a virtual police presence which will ultimately make the internet a safer place.

  A problem for all law enforcement agencies is the identification of children featured in child abuse images. As part of a G8 strategy on Protecting Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet, the UK is leading the development of an international (not restricted to G8 countries) Child Image Database, housed at Interpol. It aims to act as a global repository of images
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  of child abuse with the capacity to carry out automated analysis. It will be a significant tool for international law enforcement contributing to the identification of victims and offenders and analysis of images. The strategy also seeks to promote mechanisms for sharing information and best practice internationally to further protect from exploitation online.

  Kashmir
  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has made to the Indian Government regarding elections for the Indian Parliament in Jammu and Kashmir this year. [171380]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The elections have been discussed with Indian Government Ministers in general terms but we have not made any formal representations to them regarding the current elections for the Indian Parliament in Jammu and Kashmir.

  Dr. Tonge
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what discussions he has had with his counterparts in Pakistan and India regarding peace negotiations in Kashmir. [171381]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  Both my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and I have discussed the recent moves towards dialogue between India and Pakistan with our counterparts in both countries during visits to the region between December 2003 and March 2004. The Foreign Secretary also issued a statement welcoming the breakthrough in relations between the two countries following the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation Summit on 6 January. A copy of the statement is available on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website: www.fco.gov.uk/policy/news/press-releases. We continue to take every opportunity to encourage the Indian and Pakistani Governments to build confidence through peaceful engagement that will, in time, lead to the resolution of all their outstanding differences, including over Kashmir.

  Ministerial Visits
  Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list visits made by each Minister in the Department between December 2003 and April 2004, broken down by(a) date, (b) constituency visited and (c) cost. [171571]

  Mr. Straw
  For details on overseas visits by Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) Ministers please refer to my answer to the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) on 4 May 2004.Official Report, columns 1440–43W.

  No central record of costs for UK travel by FCO Ministers is kept. During the period December 2003 to April 2004, FCO Ministers made the following visits within the UK:

  The right hon. Jack Straw MP, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs

  Destination

  Purpose of trip

  16 January 2004

  Cheltenham

  Visit to GCHQ

  29 April 2004

  Leeds

  To speak at the Leeds University Centenary Dinner.

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  Denis MacShane, Minister of State

  Destination

  Purpose of trip

  4 December 2003

  London and Tunbridge Wells

  To promote awareness of EU enlargement

  7 January 2004

  Edinburgh

  Appear before the Scottish Parliament European Affairs Committee

  8 January 2004

  Perth, Glasgow and Dundee

  To promote awareness of EU enlargement

  2 March 2004

  Oxford

  To promote awareness of EU enlargement

  Mike O'Brien, Minister of State

  Destination

  Purpose of trip

  15 January 2004

  Stratford-on-Avon

  Address the British Chambers of Commerce Annual International Trade Conference

  5 February 2004

  Bosworth

  Meetings with members of Muslim communities

  9 March 2004

  Glasgow

  Foreign and Commonwealth Office Partnerships and Network Development Unit Seminar

  11 March 2004

  Cambridge

  Address the International High Technology Transfer Event

  24 April 2004

  Blaby

  British-American Business Council Spring Conference Dinner

  Chris Mullin MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State

  Destination

  Purpose of trip

  11 February 2004

  Reading

  Visa Road Show

  10 March 2004

  Bradford

  Visa Road Show

  25 March 2004

  Cheltenham

  Attendance with HM Queen at the opening of the new GCHQ Building

  Bill Rammell MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State

  Destination

  Purpose of trip

  21 March 2004

  Warwick

  Policy Forum

  3 April 2004

  Reading

  UNA Conference at Reading University

  Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean, Minister of State:

  No UK visits were made between December 2003 and April 2004.

  Myanmar
  Mr. Laxton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the EU Common Position on Myanmar/Burma. [171115]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The EU is willing to support national reconciliation in Burma, leading to the restoration of democracy and respect for human rights in Burma.

  The EU shares the view of a number of international partners that the best interests of the people of Burma continue to be served, in current circumstances, by a balanced approach of carefully targeted measures against those responsible for the obstruction of reform and progress, together with humanitarian support to ensure that the ordinary people a Burma do not suffer as a result of the damaging policies of their Government.
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  In these circumstances, the EU has decided to maintain the existing measures, as set out in the Common Position for 12 months. The EU stands ready to react proportionately to future developments in Burma, positive or negative, and will keep the situation under review.

  Mr. Laxton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will press the UN for a full implementation of the resolutions that the General Assembly has passed on Myanmar/Burma. [171116]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  We welcome the recent adoption of a resolution by the UN Commission on Human Rights criticising Burma's human rights record. The British Government encourages all the appropriate bodies of the UN to help bring about national reconciliation, respect for human rights and democracy in Burma. We fully support the efforts of the UN Secretary General's Special Representative to Burma, Tan Sri Razali Ismail, and the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights, Sergio Pinheiro, and call on Burma's military regime to co-operate fully with them.

  Paper Recycling
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what percentage of copying paper used by the Department in 2002–03 was from recycled sources; and how much post consumer waste this paper contained. [171812]

  Mr. Rammell
  93 per cent. of copying paper supplied throughout the Department in 2002–03 contained at least 80 per cent. post consumer waste. This was reported in the Sustainable Development in Government 2nd Annual report 2003.

  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what percentage of paper for printed publications used by the Department in 2002–03 was from recycled sources; and how much post consumer waste this paper contained. [171813]

  Mr. Rammell
  Our Publications and Print Services departments used a number of different papers in this period and the information requested could be provided only at disproportionate cost as detailed records were not kept. Current guidelines in our Publications and Print Services departments stipulate 75 per cent. post consumer waste content for publications paper.

  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when his Department expects to implement in full the quick win targets set by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to ensure that(a) all copying paper bought by the Department is 100 per cent. recycled with a minimum of 75 per cent. post consumer waste content and (b) all paper for printed publications bought by the Department is 60 per cent. recycled, of which a minimum is 75 per cent. post consumer waste. [171815]

  Mr. Rammell
  We aim to meet the copying paper target by the autumn of this year.

  From the beginning of May this year we have been meeting the publications paper target.
  205W
  Mr. Breed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the Department's main suppliers of(a) copier paper, (b) stationery, (c) envelopes and (d) paper for reports; and what the (i) name of each paper used and the (ii) recycled and post consumer recycled content is in each case. [171816]

  Mr. Rammell
  Copier paper is supplied by the Sappi Heritage Paper Company. We do not have details of the names of each kind of paper used but it contains 80 per cent. recycled content of which 100 per cent. is post consumer waste.

  Stationery is supplied by Banner. We purchase numerous stationery items and our records do not allow for analysis of recycled content across the board. Banner has a strong environmental record, having been awarded the British Office Supplies and Services Federation Environmental Certificate every year since 1996. Many of the stationery items available to Foreign and Commonwealth Office customers have a high recycled content.

  Envelopes are supplied by Banner. All the envelopes are 80 to 100 per cent. recycled content with 60 to 85 per cent. post consumer waste.

  Premier Paper is our main supplier of paper for reports. We buy a variety of papers from them. Our Publications and Print Services teams' guidelines stipulate a minimum recycled content of 75 per cent. post consumer waste for publications paper.

  Sudan
  Mr. Laxton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the human rights situation in Sudan and what steps his Department is taking to encourage progress towards peace. [171117]

  Mr. Mullin
  We are seriously concerned about the human rights situation in Darfur, western Sudan. Civilian protection there remains a major concern, with reports of systematic attacks on civilians, including rape, pillage and destruction of livelihoods. The promotion of human rights throughout Sudan, through advocacy with the Government and support for NGOs, remains one of our priorities. We welcome the recent signing of a humanitarian ceasefire agreement. We are working with the parties and other members of the international community to try to get the ceasefire monitoring mechanism on the ground as soon as possible.

  Good progress has been made at the Sudanese peace talks in Kenya. Both sides have said that the peace process is irreversible and they are hopeful on reaching a final agreement very soon.

  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what peace proposals are being taken forward to bring an early end to conflict in Darfur, Sudan. [171388]

  Mr. Mullin
  The 8 April Ceasefire Agreement provides for a Commission to monitor the ceasefire, and for a role for the international community. We are in close contact with the parties and other members of the international community to try to help set up such a monitoring mechanism as quickly as possible. Officials attended an 206W
  African Union (AU) meeting about this in Addis Ababa on 19–20 April, and since then we have discussed the matter with the US and in the EU. An AU reconnaissance mission to Chad and Darfur began on 7 May. The mission includes representatives from the EU, the US and the UN, as well as the AU.

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

  British Wildlife
  Mr. Rosindell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what financial support her Department provides to charities working with Britain's wildlife. [169881]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  The Department's principal direct support to charities working with Britain's wildlife is the Environmental Action Fund. In the period 2002–05, £4,115,782 has been provided to voluntary bodies to undertake 23 biodiversity projects. Other voluntary bodies working with Britain's wildlife have received funding for understanding and awareness projects, including education for sustainable development. Full details of the Environmental Action Fund grants can be found at: www.defraweb/environment/eaf/index.htm

  Voluntary bodies working with biodiversity in England also receive support from the funding provided to the Department's conservation agencies, English Nature, Environment Agency and Forestry Commission.

  In addition, the Department provides funding—usually through contractual arrangements—or voluntary wildlife bodies for particular purposes such as research and monitoring. Examples of funding of this sort in 2003–04 included £248,145 for the National Biodiversity Network, £72,981 for a mammal monitoring project and £25,000 to the Bat Conservation Trust to run a helpline and set up a database.

  Civil Servants
  Bob Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will list for each civil service grade within her(a) Department and (b) Department's executive agencies, the total number of staff employed, broken down by (i) gender, (ii) ethnic group and (iii) age group; and how many are registered disabled. [166391]

  Alun Michael
  Data on staffing levels in the Civil Service are collected by the Cabinet Office and published in Civil Service Statistics. A copy of Civil Service Statistics 2002 is available in the Library, and at www.civil-service.gov.uk/statistics. The 2003 edition will be published in summer 2004.

  Data on staff in Defra and its Agencies for 2004 have been placed in the Library of the House.

  Co-operative Party
  Mr. Gray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether the Minister for Rural Affairs is a member of the Co-operative Party. [170756]
  207W
  Alun Michael
  Yes. I am proud to have represented the Co-operative Party as well as the Labour Party since I was first elected as a Cardiff City Councillor in 1973 and as a Member of Parliament since 1987, in accordance with the long-standing formal agreements between the two parties at national level. I am one of 30 Labour and Co-operative MPs currently serving in the House of Commons and I represent Wales on the Party's National Executive Committee.

  Electric Shock Dog Collars
  Mr. Whittingdale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the welfare implications of the use of electric shock collars for dogs. [170190]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  The scientific evidence concerning the welfare implications of the use of electric shock collars for dogs is not conclusive. In the absence of conclusive evidence it would not be appropriate to make an assessment but we will carefully consider any further evidence that is produced.

  Mr. Whittingdale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what representations she has received on electric shock collars for dogs; and if she will make a statement. [170191]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  The Department has received a number of representations both in support of and in opposition to the use of electric shock collars for dogs.

  Fly-tipping
  Mrs. May
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the effect on fly-tipping of(a) the Landfill Directive and (b) the most recent rise in landfill tax. [167515]

  Margaret Beckett
  No formal assessment has been made of the effect on fly-tipping of implementing the Landfill Directive in England and Wales, or the £1 increase in the landfill tax rate for a tonne of active waste that occurred on 1 April this year. However, Defra is commissioning a comprehensive research project looking at the causes and incentives of illegal waste disposal that will result in a good practice guide focusing on pro-active, preventative policies. We expect the results of the research to be available in late 2005.

  Defra launched a consultation on its proposed Fly-Tipping Strategy on 23 February 2004.

  National Assembly for Wales
  Mr. Simon Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what discussions(a) she and (b) her ministerial colleagues held with National Assembly colleagues on each day in the week up to and including 24 February; and on which topics. [158359]

  Margaret Beckett
  [holding answer 3 March 2004]: My Ministerial colleagues and I have regular discussions with National Assembly colleagues, those of the Scottish Parliament and Northern Irish Ministers across a wide range of topics.

  Radioactive Contamination (Chernobyl Accident)
  Llew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many farms in England, comprising what land areas and in what locations, still have restrictions applied to them in respect of land use as a result of the residual radioactivity from the Chernobyl nuclear accident. [169877]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  I have been asked to reply.

  There have been no restrictions on land use as a result of the Chernobyl accident. However, restrictions have been placed on the sale, movement and slaughter of sheep in areas affected by the Chernobyl accident, to prevent contaminated sheep meat from entering the food supply.

  The number of farms and area of land affected, as of 30 April 2004, are as follows:

  Number of farms—nine

  Land area (ha)—12,100

  Location—West Cumbria.

  Rolls-Royce Marine Power Operations
  Judy Mallaber
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1) how many representations have been received on the Environment Agency's proposed decision document relating to the operation of Rolls Royce Marine Power Operations, Derby in the consultation closing in January; and when she will reach a decision on their proposals; [171376]

  (2) whether objections have been received to the Environment Agency's proposed new authorisations for Rolls Royce Marine Power Operations, Derby and the related decision to end authorisation of disposal of radioactive waste at Hills Quarry, Crich in the consultation ending in January 2004. [171377]

  Mr. Morley
  Ministers have received 17 representations in response to Rolls Royce Marine Power Operation's applications for disposal of radioactive waste from the company's nuclear fuel production plant and the Neptune Reactor, Raynesway, Nuclear Licensed sites. These were all in relation to the disposal of solid low-level radioactive waste at Hilts Quarry landfill site.

  Ministers are currently considering the Agency's proposed decision document. An announcement will be made shortly.

  Sites of Scientific Interest
  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what guidelines she issued to English Nature prior to English Nature's recent assessment of sites of special scientific interest. [171071]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  English Nature assesses the condition of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) according to common standards agreed for the UK through the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), and not on the basis of Government guidelines. Detailed standards for individual habitats and species are also prepared through the JNCC.
  209W
  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what English Nature's policy is regarding informing relevant landowners of its intention to conduct assessments of sites of special scientific interest. [171072]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  English Nature will seek permission from an owner before entering onto land within a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) to make a condition assessment. In the rare cases where permission is refused, or where ownership cannot be ascertained (four out of 4,699 assessments of SSSI units in 2003–04), English Nature has power of entry onto land to carry out condition assessments.

  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what English Nature's policy is on allowing relevant landowners(a) to see the information it holds on sites of special scientific interest and (b) to comment on it before it is published. [171073]

  Mr. Bradshaw
  The English Nature website gives information on the conservation interest of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), and their condition. The ecological and geological information on SSSIs is generally available from English Nature, on request, under the Environmental Information Regulations. Owners and occupiers are welcome to offer comments on the information on SSSIs on the website. There is a comments section on the website, under the heading 'Contact Us'.

  Tobacco
  Bob Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to the answer of 28 April 2004 to question no.167068, to what uses the tobacco grown in EU countries is put; and what proportion was exported from the EU in the last period for which figures are available. [171184]

  Alun Michael
  Tobacco grown in the EU is used in the manufacture of tobacco products for consumption within the EU and for export.

  In 2002, production of tobacco in the EU was 334,000 tonnes. EU exports of raw tobacco to third countries were 189,131 tonnes (about 57 per cent. of EU production).

  Sources:

  1. Production data—FAO statistical database.

  2. Trade data—Eurostat.

  Woodcraft Folk
  Mr. Gray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what Government funding is provided to the Woodcraft Folk; what the purpose of that funding is; and what its constitution and governance arrangements are. [170752]

  Alun Michael
  The records for Defra's main funding streams to voluntary organisations show no payments to the Woodcraft Folk. We do not keep records of payments from other parts of Government.

  Mr. Gray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what the relationship is between the Woodcraft Folk and the Co-operative Party. [170757]
  210W
  Alun Michael
  As I was not aware of any relationship I have consulted the General Secretary of the Co-operative Party who has confirmed that there is no connection between the Party and the Woodcraft Folk.

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

  Sea Bass
  Mr. Sanders
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will make it his Department's policy to source all sea bass used in catering outlets for which his Department is responsible from hand-line fishermen rather than pair trawlers. [167540]

  Yvette Cooper
  The purchasing policy of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister reflects the Government's policy. I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 30 April 2004,Official Report, column 1344W.

  Deprivation Indicators (Newcastle)
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the deprivation indicators for the electoral wards in the City of Newcastle as designated in 2003. [171157]

  Yvette Cooper
  There are 37 indicators underpinning the Index of Multiple Deprivation. These fall into seven separate dimensions of deprivation (income, employment, health, education, barriers to housing and services, crime and living environment). Further details on these indicators can be found in the full report on the Indices of Deprivation 2004, which is available at www.odpm.gov.uk/indices.

  While the Indices of Deprivation 2000 was produced at ward level, the new Indices—The Indices of Deprivation 2004—have been produced at Super Output Area, lower layer.

  A decision was taken to explore another base geography for the Indices to overcome the problems associated with frequent ward boundary changes and the inconsistency in the size of wards. This new base geography is intended to be more stable over time and more consistent in size. The decision to use Super Output Areas was taken after an extensive period of consultation.

  Super Output Areas cover between 1000 and 3000 people and are, in most cases, smaller than wards. They allow us to better identify small pockets of deprivation and provide a richer picture of local variations in deprivation. They will also help to ensure that the Government continues to focus its efforts on tackling disadvantage at those areas most in need.

  Electoral Commission Report
  Sue Doughty
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister when he received the report by the Electoral Commission on Guildford Borough Council Elections of 1 May 2003, The Integrity and Security Report; and when and in what form he will publish the report. [171747]
  211W
  Phil Hope
  I refer the hon. Member to the answers given on 29 April 2004,Official Report, column 1226W. The statutory evaluation report referred to is the only report that the Electoral Commission has published on the all-postal pilot election held in Guildford in May 2003.

  Fire Service (Gloucestershire)
  Mr. Laurence Robertson
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister (1) if he will make a statement on plans to remove the fire control from the Gloucestershire Tri-Service Centre at Quedgley; [172365]

  (2) what assessment he has made of the likely impact on the performance of the Fire Service of a move away from the Gloucestershire Tri-Service Centre at Quedgley; and if he will make a statement. [172366]

  Mr. Raynsford
  The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister announced on 4 March the Government's response to the consultation exercise on regional fire and rescue control rooms. The regional control centres will be able to communicate effectively with police and ambulance controls as well as with each other. They will provide a unified, resilient national network and enable enhanced service delivery by all Fire and Rescue Authorities. No decisions have yet been made on the location of the new regional control centres, and there are no specific plans in respect of any existing control rooms.

  Homelessness (Easington)
  Mr. Cummings
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many homeless persons applications were made to the District of Easington Council in(a) 2001, (b) 2002 and (c) 2003; and how many were accepted and housed in each year. [170118]

  Yvette Cooper
  Information reported to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister by Easington District Council in relation to its activities under homelessness provisions of Housing Acts is in respect of households rather than persons. A summary of the latest data supplied by Easington DC is tabled as follows.

  Decisions taken by Easington DC in respect of applications by homeless households

  Applications

  Acceptances1

  Housed2

  2001

  166

  81

  49

  2002

  343

  178

  117

  2003

  756

  337

  81

  1Acceptances refer to eligible households found to be unintentionally homeless and in a priority need category.

  2The number of accepted households initially placed in temporary accommodation arranged by the local authority, or which accepted a placement in settled accommodation (such as a "Part 6" offer or a Qualifying offer of an assured shorthold tenancy). Excludes "homeless at home" cases.

  Source:

  ODPM quarterly PIE homelessness returns.

  Green Belt
  Mrs. Spelman
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister pursuant to the answer of 30 April 2004,Official Report,
  212W
  column 1331W, on Green Belt, how many applications for development on Green Belt land have been refused planning permission since 1 May 1997. [172481]

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

  Housing Stock Transfer
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what conditions must be fulfilled before a council may apply to transfer management of its housing stock to an arm's length management organisation; and whether the council is required to demonstrate that it is performing to the Government's satisfaction. [172283]

  Keith Hill
  A local authority requires the approval of the Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister under section 27 of the Housing Act 1985 to enter into an agreement for its housing stock to be managed by an Arm's Length Management Organisation (ALMO). The criteria for approval are set out in "Guidance on Arms Length Management of local authority housing" issued by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in March 2003. The performance of the local authority is not a relevant criterion, though the performance of the ALMO must be rated at least 2* (good) by the Housing Inspectorate to qualify for additional funding.

  Milton Keynes
  Dr. Starkey
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister when the last meeting of the Inter-regional Board on the Milton Keynes growth area was; what issues were discussed; and what the outputs were. [170142]

  Yvette Cooper
  The Milton Keynes and South Midlands growth area Inter-regional Board convened for the first time on 11 February 2004. The board contains senior representatives from the key organisations involved in delivering the MKSM growth proposals, and is designed to provide top-level oversight. The board is chaired by my noble Friend Lord Rooker and is scheduled to meet around three times a year. All meetings are open to the public. At the initial meeting the board discussed a number of issues, including infrastructure delivery and the MKSM public examination. The minutes of the meeting and news release are available on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's website.

  Roadside Advertising
  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister what assessment he has made of the cost to local authorities of administering schemes of roadside and roundabout advertising. [172106]

  Keith Hill
  The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has not made such an assessment.

  Telecommunications Masts
  Mr. David Amess
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister how many planning applications for mobile phone masts have been refused in Essex in the last 12 months; and if he will list the(a) applicants and (b) sites. [171097]
  213W
  Yvette Cooper
  The information requested is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  However, during September and October every year the mobile network operators write to every local authority with details of their network rollout for the year ahead. When they write to the local authority they also provide details of their existing sites within the local authority area. The hon. Member may want to contact the network operators for copies of their plans.

  Timber
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether his Department plans to contribute financially to the establishment of the second phase of the Central Point of Expertise on Timber. [167616]

  Phil Hope
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given by my hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment on 10 May 2004,Official Report, column 31W.

DEFENCE

  Iraq
  Mr. Edwards
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on reports that the US Army has been firing on ambulances in Falluja. [171251]

  Mr. Ingram
  We are not aware of any incidents of Coalition Forces firing on ambulances.

  Service

  Rank

  Number

  Specialism

  AAC Aldergrove

  Army

  Lieutenant Colonel

  1

  Medical Officer

  Captain

  1

  Occupational Health Nurse

  Sergeant

  1

  Combat Medical Technician

  RAF

  Wing Commander

  1

  Medical Officer

  Flight Lieutenant

  1

  Medical Officer

  Flight Sergeant

  1

  Medical Admin

  Sergeant

  1

  Medical Admin

  Sergeant

  1

  Pharmacy Technician

  Sergeant

  1

  Practice Nurse

  Corporal

  2

  Medical Admin

  Corporal

  1

  Practice Nurse

  Junior Technician

  1

  Environmental Health Technician

  Medical Assistants

  6

  Medical Assistants

  Civilian

  1

  Civilian Medical Practitioner

  1

  Practice Nurse

  2

  Physiotherapists

  2

  Admin Officers

  3

  Admin Assistants

  AAC Wattisham

  Army

  Lieutenant Colonel

  1

  Consultant Aviation Medicine

  Major

  1

  Specialist Aviation Medicine

  Sergeant

  1

  Combat Medical Technician

  Corporal

  4

  Combat Medical Technician

  Lance Corporal

  5

  Combat Medical Technician

  Civilian

  1

  Civilian Medical Practitioner

  1

  Practice Nurse

  2

  Locum Physiotherapists

  214W
  Paul Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what steps have been taken since the end of the Iraq war to monitor levels of uranium in(a) milk and (b) drinking water. [166869]

  Mr. Ingram
  The Ministry of Defence will provide advice on carrying out risk assessments on depleted uranium (DU) within urban areas and on long-term monitoring of DU in the environment, to the United Nations Environment Programme.

  Al Yamamah Contracts
  Mr. Gerald Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what discussions his Department has had with BAE Systems regarding the proposed disposal of its shipbuilding business; and if he will make a statement. [170750]

  Mr. Ingram
  The Ministry of Defence has had one approach from BAE Systems to discuss procedure. However, no proposals have been received from the company regarding change of ownership or control of its ship building business.

  Army Air Corps (Medical Care)
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many medical personnel are based at(a) AAC Aldergrove, (b) AAC Hereford, (c) AAC Wattisham, (d) AAC Middle Wallop and (e) AAC Netheravon, broken down by (i) service, (ii) rank and (iii) specialisation. [169987]

  Mr. Caplin
  The following tables detail the medical personnel based at AAC Aldergrove, AAC Wattisham, AAC Middle Wallop and AAC Netheravon broken down by service, rank and specialisation. I am withholding information for AAC Hereford under exemption 1 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.
  215W

  Service

  Rank

  Number

  Specialism

  AAC Middle Wallop

  Army

  Lieutenant Colonel

  1

  Consultant Aviation Medicine

  Major

  1

  Specialist Aviation Medicine

  Sergeant

  1

  Combat Medical Technician

  Corporal

  1

  Combat Medical Technician

  Lance Corporal

  2

  Combat Medical Technician

  Civilian

  2

  Civilian Medical Practitioner (part-time)

  1

  F Grade Nurse

  1

  E Grade Nurse

  1

  Locum Physiotherapist

  7

  Civilian Medical Technicians

  AAC Netheravon

  Army

  Lieutenant Colonel (TA)

  1

  Consultant Aviation Medicine

  Colonel (Retired)

  1

  Regimental Medical Officer

  Sergeant

  1

  Practice Manager

  Corporal

  1

  Combat Medical Technician

  Lance Corporal

  1

  Combat Medical Technician

  Atomic Weapons Establishment
  Adam Price
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on current and future research and development projects to be undertaken by the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, Berkshire. [170210]

  Mr. Ingram
  The research and development activities undertaken at AWE are designed to ensure the safe stewardship of the UK's stockpile of Trident warheads and our ability to maintain the capability necessary to meet the policy described in the 1998 Strategic Defence Review. As indicated in Paragraph 3.11 of the Defence White Paper of December 2003 (Cm 6041–1), this includes the need to take appropriate steps to ensure that the range of options for maintaining a nuclear deterrent capability is kept open until decisions are required on whether to replace Trident. This policy is consistent with our international treaty obligations. Research and development activities fall under four principal headings: computer simulation; hydrodynamics; high energy density plasma physics; and materials ageing. The precise nature and scope in the future of such programmes will depend on the outcome of the processes referred to in the December 2003 Defence White Paper.

  Civilian Staff
  Angus Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many full-time equivalent, permanent(a) industrial and (b) non-industrial civilian staff are employed by his Department in the UK, excluding Trading Funds, Royal Fleet Auxiliaries and those on career breaks, long-term sick leave and secondments; what the equivalent figures were in each of the last three years; and if he will make a statement. [170449]

  Mr. Caplin
  The number of full-time equivalent, permanent and casual, industrial and non-industrial civilian staff employed by the Ministry of Defence, excluding Trading Funds, Royal Fleet Auxiliaries and those on career breaks, long-term sick leave, secondments etc. as at the latest available date and for the last three years is as follows.
  216W

  Number

  1 March 20041

  1 April 2003

  1 April 2002

  1 April 2001

  Permanent non-industrial

  62,560

  59,910

  58,270

  58,700

  Permanent industrial

  13,800

  14,370

  16,490

  18,890

  Permanent total

  76,370

  74,280

  74,760

  77,580

  Casual total

  260

  1,140

  1,500

  1,200

  All staff

  76,630

  75,420

  76,260

  78,780

  1The increase in the numbers between 1 April 2003 and 1 March 2004 reflects an increase in the number of civil servants falling under the categories detailed in the question, rather than an increase in the total number of civilians working for the Ministry of Defence.

  Note:

  The figures have been rounded to the nearest 10.

  Contract Cancellations
  Mr. Gerald Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what expenditure was incurred by his Department at the cancellation of(a) Counter Anti-Radiation Missile Suite, (b) Mine Detection and Neutralisation and (c) Microwave Landing System in 2003–04 cash terms. [170559]

  Mr. Ingram
  I will write to the hon. Member and place a copy of my reply in the Library of the House.

  Defence Personnel (Vale of York)
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many departmental(a) civilian and (b) service personnel are based at (i) RAF Leeming, (ii) RAF Linton on Ouse, (iii) AAC Dishforth and (iv) Alanbrooke Barracks. [170002]

  Mr. Caplin
  Reliable data are not available centrally (except at Government Office Region level) and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Defence Projects
  Mr. Gerald Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will name(a) customer one and (b) customer two for the (i) Advanced Air-Launched Anti-Armour Weapon, (ii) Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile, (iii) Airborne Stand-Off Radar Astute Class Submarine, (iv) Attack Helicopter WAH-64 Apache,

  217W
  (v) conventionally Armed Stand-Off Missile, (vi) Typhoon Extended Range Ordnance/Modular Charge System and (vii) Hercules C-130J projects. [170745]

  Mr. Ingram
  I will write to the hon. Member and place a copy of my letter in the Library of the House.

  Mr. Gerald Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will name(a) customer one and (b) customer two for the (i) Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft, (ii) Ground Based Air Defence, (iii) Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System, (iv) Indirect Fire Precision Attack, (v) Light Forces Anti-Tank Guided Weapon Systems, (vi) Next Generation Anti-Armour Weapon and (vii) Terrier projects. [170746]

  Mr. Ingram
  I will write to the hon. Member and place a copy of my letter in the Library of the House.

  Mr. Gerald Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will name(a) customer one and (b) customer two for the (i) High Velocity Missile System, (ii) Landing Platform Dock (Replacement), (iii)Merlin HC Mk 3 Helicopter, (iv) Merlin HM Mk1 Helicopter, (v) Multi-Role Armoured Vehicle, (vi) Nimrod Maritime Reconnaissance and Attack Mk 4, (vii) Seawolf Mid-Life Update, (viii) Spearfish Heavyweight Torpedo and (ix) Sting Ray Lightweight Torpedo projects. [170747]

  Mr. Ingram
  I will write to the hon. Member and place a copy of my letter in the Library of the House.

  Mr. Gerald Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will name(a) customer one and (b) customer two for the (i) Swiftsure and Trafalgar Class Submarine Update, (ii) Tornado GR1 Mid-Life Update, (iii) Challenger II, (iv) A400M, (v) Landing Ship Dock (Auxiliary) (formerly Alternative Landing Ship Logistic), (vi) Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile, (vii) Typhoon Aircrew Synthetic Training Aids, (viii) Future Joint Combat Aircraft and (ix) Short Term Strategic Airlift projects. [170748]

  Mr. Ingram
  I will write to the hon. Member and place a copy of my letter in the Library of the House.

  Mr. Gerald Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will name(a) customer one and (b) customer two for the (i) Sonar 2087, (ii) Successor Identification Friend or Foe, (iii) Trojan and Titan, (iv) Type 45 Destroyer, (v) Skynet 5 Support Vehicle, (vi) Battlefield Light Utility Helicopter, (vii) Future Aircraft Carrier and (viii) Future Integrated Soldier Technology projects. [170751]

  Mr. Ingram
  I will write to the hon. Member and place a copy of my letter in the Library of the House.

  Sea Bass
  Mr. Sanders
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make it his Department's policy to source sea bass used in catering outlets(a) in the armed services and (b) for which his Department is responsible from hand-line fishermen rather than pair trawlers. [167543]

  Mr. Ingram
  All food for use by the armed forces is sourced through a central food supply contract with a bespoke price list. Sea bass is not currently listed and is not supplied under the contract.
  218W
  Defra supports the sourcing of sea bass from sustainable fisheries and handlining, as an relatively low impact method of fishing, can play a part in ensuring fisheries remain sustainable. However, the last report in 2003 by the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas on sea bass advised that the level of exploitation of the stock at that time was sustainable and did not recommend closure of the offshore pair trawl fishery. There are currently no restrictions at a United Kingdom or Community level on the method of fishing that can be used to target bass. In addition, to address the dolphin bycatch problem associated with the pair trawl fisher, Defra-funded trials of a separate grid device to reduce dolphin bycatch are currently taking place, with the cooperation of the fishing industry.

  In these circumstances, I do not believe that recommending a specific source of supply for bass could be justified at this stage.

  Equipment Contracts
  Mr. Gerald Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what the date of contract signature for the(a) Typhoon Aircrew Synthetic Training Aids, (b) Future Joint Combat Aircraft, (c) Short Term Strategic Airlift, (d) Sonar 2087, (e) Successor Identification Friend or Foe, (f) Trojan and Titan, (g) Type 45 Destroyer and (h) Skynet 5 projects are; [170555]

  (2) what the date of contract signature for the (a) Spearfish Heavyweight Torpedo, (b) Sting Ray Lightweight Torpedo, (c) Swiftsure and Trafalgar Class Submarine Update, (d) Tornado GR1 Mid-Life Update, (e) Challenger II, (f) A400M (g) Landing Ship Dock (Auxiliary) and (h) Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile projects are; [170556]

  (3) what the date of contract signature for the (a) Hercules C-130J, (b) High Velocity Missile System, (c) Landing Platform Dock (Replacement), (d) Merlin HC Mk 3 Helicopter, (e) Merlin HM Mk 1 Helicopter, (f) Multi-Role Armoured Vehicle, (g) Nimrod Maritime Reconnaissance and Attack Mk 4 and (h) Seawolf Mid-Life Update projects are; [170557]

  (4) what the date of contract signature for the (a) Advanced Air-Launched Anti-Armour Weapon, (b) Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile, (c) Airborne Stand-Off Radar, (d) Astute Class Submarine, (e) Attack Helicopter WAH-64 Apache, (f) Conventionally Armed Stand-Off Missile, (g) Typhoon and (h) Extended Range Ordnance/Modular Charge System projects are. [170558]

  Mr. Ingram
  I will write to the hon. Member and place a copy of my reply in the Library of the House.

  Equipment Costs
  Mr. Gerald Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the forecast cost was on 31 March 2003 for the Landing Ship Dock (Auxiliary) and Support Vehicle. [170359]

  Mr. Ingram
  Forecast costs for the Landing Ship Dock (Auxiliary) and Support Vehicle programmes were excluded from the published Major Projects Report 2003, due to commercial sensitivity. The situation remains unchanged. Negotiations with the Landing Ship Dock
  219W
  (Auxiliary) contractor are continuing, and the Support Vehicle Preferred Bidder is yet to be announced. I am, therefore, withholding this information under Exemption 7 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.

  Mr. Gerald Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what the forecast costs on 31 March 2002 were for(a) Spearfish Heavyweight Torpedo, (b) Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile, (c) Extended Range Ordnance/Modular Charge System, (d) Swiftsure and Trafalgar Class Submarine Update, (e) Landing Platform Dock (Replacement), (f) Hercules C-130J and (g) Seawolf Mid-Life Update; [170360]

  (2) what the forecast costs on 31 March 2001 were for (a) Short Term Strategic Airlift, (b) A400M (c) Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile, (d) Type 45 Destroyer Successor Identification Friend or Foe, (e) Landing Ship Dock (Auxiliary), (f) Typhoon Aircrew Synthetic Training Aids, (h) Trojan and Titan Future Joint Combat Aircraft and (i) Sonar 2087. [170361]

  Mr. Ingram
  I will write to the hon. Member and place a copy of my reply in the Library of the House.

  Equipment Service Dates
  Mr. Gerald Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the forecast in-service dates on 31 March 2001 were for(a) A400M Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile, (b) Successor Identification Friend or Foe, (c) Typhoon Aircrew Synthetic Training Aids, (d) Trojan and Titan and (e) Future Joint Combat Aircraft. [170362]

  Mr. Ingram
  I will write to the hon Member and place a copy of my letter in the Library of the House.

  Mr. Gerald Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the forecast in-service dates were on 31 March 2003 for(a) Sting Ray Lightweight Torpedo, (b) Multi-Role Armoured Vehicle and (c) Future Joint Combat Aircraft. [170364]

  Mr. Ingram
  I will write to the hon. Member and place a copy of my letter in the Library of the House.

  Mr. Gerald Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the forecast in-service dates were on 31 March 2002 for(a) Spearfish Heavyweight Torpedo, (b) Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile and (c) Future Joint Combat Aircraft. [170365]

  Mr. Ingram
  I will write to the hon. Member and place a copy of my letter in the Library of the House.

  Future Joint Combat Aircraft
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to his answer of 22 March to the hon. Member for Chorley,Official Report, columns 548–49W on the Future Joint Combat Aircraft programme, what the original (a) estimated cost and (b) delivery date of the Joint Strike Fighter was; and what the current projected final cost is. [170470]

  Mr. Ingram
  The original estimated cost at the time of the US Defense Acquisition Board approval of the Systems Demonstration and Development phase of the Joint Strike Fighter was $33 billion. The current projected final cost of the phase is $41 billion.
  220W
  The original estimated delivery date, based on the Short Take Off/Vertical Landing variant of the aircraft, was 2010.

  IT Outsourcing
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when, during the process to outsource IT support and provision across his Department, he will provide to trade unions,(a) a risk strategy, (b) a scoping study, (c) an up to date procurement strategy, (d) a personnel impact study, (e) an intelligent customer strategy and (f) information on a public service comparator; and if he will make a statement. [168288]

  Mr. Ingram
  As previously agreed with the Council of Civil Service Unions (CCSU), a meeting is being arranged at a mutually convenient date to review the key risks identified within the Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) programme and their management. This meeting should have taken place by mid May. The DII Business Prospectus provides a comprehensive description of the intended scope of the programme. This was made available to the TUs on 3 April 2003.

  A copy of the Procurement Strategy Review Note was made available to the TUs on 3 April 2003. At the request of the CCSU, on 13 February 2004 a copy of comments provided by HM Treasury on the Review Note was also provided.

  A copy of the report produced at the end of the Personnel Impact Study was made available to TUs on 24 June 2003.

  The work on the Intelligent Customer Strategy is in its early stages with the plan for its production currently being formulated. It was agreed with the CCSU at a meeting on 16 February 2004 that they would be directly involved in its development. The plan should be sufficiently developed by 7 May to allow the TUs to see and comment on it.

  As the CCSU is aware, the work on the Public Sector Comparator is reaching a state of maturity that will enable it to be communicated to the TUs. Again, this is expected to be done by 7 May.

  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether he will make it his policy to ensure that there is an in-house bidder for the support and provision of IT across his Department. [168292]

  Mr. Ingram
  No. A significant proportion of the Department's IT provision has been outsourced in recent years as part of wider initiatives to make greater use of the private sector in the provision of public services. The Department's policy is that when services already delivered under outsourcing arrangements are re-competed or rationalised, in-house bids should not normally be invited because the associated requirement for substantial reinvestment in management, training and support systems makes it unlikely that an in-house option would represent value for money. Where no in-house bid is invited, an estimate of the costs of a public sector option or a "status quo" option would normally be made, in order to provide a value for money benchmark.

  Joint Strike Fighter
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the current weight of the standard take-off vertical
  221W
  landing version of the Joint Strike Fighter is; what the required weight at in-service date is; and if he will make a statement. [170353]

  Mr. Ingram
  Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) requirements are defined in terms of aircraft performance, which is the product of many factors, including weight, drag, and engine thrust. At current engine thrust and drag values, the Short Take Off/Vertical Landing variant of the JSF is some 3300 lbs overweight to meet its stipulated overall performance levels. Work is in hand in the United States to examine options to ensure that the overall performance requirements are met, addressing all possible options including a significant reduction in aircraft weight. This work will not mature in detail until early 2005, although an interim assessment of likely outcome in summer 2004 will enable performance against the United Kingdom's Key User Requirements to be preliminarily evaluated at that time.

  Media
  Dr. Julian Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what contacts(a) Defence Ministers and (b) departmental staff had with the Deputy Political Editor of The Sun in the seven days prior to 6 May; [172580]

  (2) whether his Department authorised (a) Ministers and (b) spokesmen to disclose to (i) The Times, (ii) The Sun and (iii) other media that an announcement is shortly to be made concerning deployment to Iraq of Royal Marines; [172582]

  (3) if he will investigate the (a) ministerial and (b) departmental origins of stories in (i) The Times and (ii) The Sun on 6 May claiming to confirm a forthcoming announcement that Royal Marines are to be deployed to Iraq. [172583]

  Mr. Hoon
  All contacts with the media are conducted in accordance with the Ministerial Code, the Civil Service Code, the Code of Conduct for Special Advisers and Guidance on the Work of the Government Information Service. No decisions have been taken on the deployment of additional troops to Iraq. Should a decision be taken to commit additional forces to Iraq, I shall inform the House in the usual way.

  Dr. Julian Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the effect on service morale of imminent deployment plans to conflict zones being published in the Press. [172581]

  Mr. Hoon
  When decisions are taken on operational deployments units are informed in the proper manner, through the chain of command. Recent press comment has focused on speculation concerning the Royal Marines. Morale in the Royal Marines remains very good. The Royal Marines continue, as is usual, to focus on their professional preparations for a full range of training and operations. Media speculation does however, have a considerable impact on the morale of young Service families, particularly, as happened on this occasion, when wives and children are accosted by journalists outside schools.

  Procurement Contracts (Scotland)
  Angus Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to the answer of 11 March,Official Report, column 1654W, on Procurement Contracts (Scotland), what the average duration of the contract terms directly placed by his Department with companies based in Scotland was in each of the last four financial years; and what the (a) 10 longest and (b) 10 shortest running contracts were; and what the total value was of (a) and (b). [170433]

  Mr. Ingram
  Data necessary to respond fully to this question prior to financial year 2003–04 are not held centrally. However, in respect of these earlier years I am able to offer the following information based on the numbers of the new contracts previously reported:of the 724 new contracts let with companies based in Scotland during 2000–01, 205 of these contracts lasted less than one year and these 205 contracts had an average value of £9,000. 104 of the new contracts let with companies based in Scotland in 2000–01 were still running in 2003–04, and these 104 contracts had an average value of £15 million;
  of the 604 new contracts let with companies based in Scotland during 2001–02, 180 of these contracts lasted less than one year and these 180 contracts had an average value of £18,000. 110 of the new contracts let with companies based in Scotland in 2001–02 were still running in 2003–04, and these 110 contracts had an average value of £102 million;
  of the 600 new contracts let with companies based in Scotland during 2002–03, 292 of these contracts lasted less than one year and these 292 contracts had an average value of £410,000. 308 of the new contracts let with companies based in Scotland in 2002–03 were still running in 2003–04, and these 308 contracts had an average value of £20 million.

  Details of new contracts let with companies based in Scotland during 2003–04

  Contracts

  Number of new contracts

  458

  Total value of these new contracts

  £204 million

  Most valuable new contract let

  £40 million

  Total value of the 10 longest contracts

  £53 million

  Total value of the 10 shortest contracts

  £0.058 million

  Average duration of all new contracts let

  1282 days

  1 Refers to the average (mean) number of calendar days

  Angus Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence pursuant to the answer of 11 March 2004,Official Report, column 1654W, on Procurement Contracts (Scotland), what the total projected annual cost of the procurement contracts his Department placed with companies based in Scotland in (a) 2002–03, (b) 2001–02 and (c) 2000–01 was for each of the 10 years following the placing of the contracts; what the actual total cost was of the contracts placed in (i) 2002–03, (ii) 2001–02 and (iii) 2000–01 for the years for which information is available; and if he will make a statement. [170434]

  Mr. Ingram
  The information requested in respect of the total projected annual cost of procurement contracts placed by the Ministry of Defence with companies based in Scotland is not held centrally. These data could be provided only at disproportionate cost (Exemption 9 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information).

  Details of total payments made against contracts placed with companies based in Scotland up until 2003–04 are as follows.
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  £ million

  Value of payments made in:

  2000–01

  2001–02

  2002–03

  2003–04

  Contracts let before 2000–01

  480

  410

  290

  170

  Contracts let during 2000–01

  50

  110

  70

  50

  Contracts let during 2001–02

  —

  50

  150

  100

  Contracts let during 2002–03

  —

  —

  100

  300

  Contracts let during 2003–04

  —

  —

  —

  50

  Total

  520

  570

  610

  670

  Note:

  The figures are exclusive of VAT and have been rounded to the nearest £10 million.

  Refuelling Tanker Aircraft
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether CV(F) will carry air-to-air refuelling tanker aircraft; and if he will make a statement. [170351]

  Mr. Ingram
  The primary aircraft operating from CVF will be the future Joint Combat Aircraft (JCA), a role which will be undertaken by the Short Take Off Vertical Landing variant of the Joint Strike Fighter. Should analysis prove it necessary, a refuelling capability could be provided by embarked JCA aircraft adapted for the task. There would be no requirement for the carrier to operate a different aircraft type for refuelling operations.

  Royal Tournament
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has(a) to reintroduce the Royal Tournament, (b) stage similar events and (c) support a private venture of a similar nature; and if he will make a statement. [169176]

  Mr. Ingram
  There are no plans to reintroduce the Royal Tournament, the ending of which was announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence on 25 October 1999,Official Report, columns 696–97W. Nor have we any plans to support a private venture of a similar nature.

  The Department has, however, continued to mount major set-piece events to demonstrate the capability of the armed forces. Under the umbrella of 'Defence 2000', the armed forces have helped stage the Royal Military Tattoo in 2000, the International Festival of the Sea in 2001, and the Queen's Golden Jubilee Celebrations in Portsmouth in 2002. The department has also continued to participate in a wide variety of smaller events such as open days, ships visits, county shows and showcase events such as the Edinburgh Military Tattoo and the Fairford Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT). We have also increased our presence in local communities and schools with the Service and Ministry of Defence Presentation Teams.

  The recent high level of operational commitments and the associated demands they have placed on Service personnel and their families, have caused us to review our continued involvement in events that could be regarded as discretionary. The large set-piece events of 'Defence 2000' have proved to be particularly demanding. Following our decision not to proceed with the planned events for 2003 and 2004, we have taken the opportunity to review our future strategy. As a result, we have now concluded that we will gain the greatest benefit by focusing our resources on supporting the well
  224W
  established single-service events such as RIAT, specific commemorations such as the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, and by making better use of our contribution to the many smaller events that take place across the length and breadth of the UK. These events, which tend not to be as manpower intensive, have proved to be excellent vehicles for cementing the relationship between the armed forces and local communities, and have done much to raise the overall profile of the Services.

  By building on these events, I am fully confident that the current high profile of the armed forces will be maintained. We have therefore decided not to continue with the Defence 2000 Series.

  Submarines
  Mr. Keetch
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the(a) expected and (b) latest possible in-service dates for the V class SSBN are; and if he will make a statement. [170328]

  Mr. Ingram
  No decisions have been taken on the decommissioning dates of the Royal Navy's Vanguard class nuclear submarines.

  Mr. Gerald Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what his policy is regarding ownership of the United Kingdom's submarine building capability. [170749]

  Mr. Ingram
  The only United Kingdom facilities currently engaged in submarine building are those owned by BAE Systems Marine Ltd. at Barrow-in-Furness. The Government's special share in BAE Systems Marine Ltd. ensures that decisions affecting the ownership of these facilities cannot be taken without Government consent.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Seaport/Airport Security
  Patrick Mercer
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what percentage of UK(a) seaports and (b) airports will have radiation detection equipment installed by 1 July. [169962]

  Ms Blears
  We have implemented a Programme of work to introduce screening equipment at UK ports for detecting the illicit importation of radioactive materials that could be used by terrorists. By 1 July 2004 screening equipment will be in place at a number of major UK ports of entry. This is an on-going programme based on prudent contingency planning which is planned to be completed by March 2007. It would not be in the interests of national security to give details of the implementation programme.

  Air Weapons
  Mr. Paice
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many gas-cartridge air weapons have been(a) surrendered to the police and (b) granted section 1 Firearms Certificates since the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 became law; and how many gas-cartridge weapons he estimates remain in circulation. [170721]
  225W
  Caroline Flint
  No running total has been kept centrally of the number of self-contained gas cartridge weapons surrendered or entered on a firearms certificate. This information is currently being collated by the police. In the absence of any previous requirement to record details of ownership it is not possible to say how many remain in circulation.

  Ambulance Service
  Mr. Greg Knight
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make it his policy to ensure that ambulance drivers who are engaged in work of an urgent or emergency nature are neither penalised nor prosecuted for speeding; and if he will make a statement. [171035]

  Caroline Flint
  [holding answer 5 May 2004]: Provision already exists in law to protect drivers of vehicles being used for an ambulance purpose from prosecution for excess speed offences. This exemption is contained under section 87 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984.

  Car Stereos
  Adam Price
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the use of Regulation 97 of the 1986 Road Vehicle Regulations to combat noise pollution emanating from car stereos. [170208]

  Caroline Flint
  Regulation 97 of the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 provides that no motor vehicle shall be used on a road in such a manner as to cause any excessive noise which could have been avoided by the exercise of reasonable care by the driver. I understand from the Association of Chief Police Officers that the police find the provision effective to deal with noisy car stereos. When enforcing the offence, police officers will give an oral warning to the driver, issue a fixed penalty notice or report for prosecution as appropiate.

  Adam Price
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the powers available to the police to combat noise pollution emanating from car stereos. [170209]

  Caroline Flint
  Regulation 97 of the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 prohibits the use of a vehicle emitting avoidable excessive noise.

  If in a particular case playing a stereo at excessive volume amounted to driving without reasonable consideration for others contrary to Section 3 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 and was causing or was likely to cause alarm, distress or annoyance, the driver may be liable to having his vehicle seized by the police under the provisions of Section 59 of the Police Reform Act 2002.

  Care Custody System
  Mr. Paice
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what level of integration of data he expects among the(a) Care Custody systems, (b) Police National Computer, (c) fingerprint database, (d) DNA database and (e) firearms database. [170725]
  226W
  Caroline Flint
  The NSPIS Custody and Case Preparation system will be interfaced with the Police National Computer. This interface will allow for the core data held on the NSPIS Custody and Case Preparation system to be transferred to the Police National Computer and for it to be automatically updated.

  The fingerprint, DNA and firearms databases will be integrated via the Police National Computer. Integration with the Police National Computer will allow for cross-checking in each of those databases.

  Citizenship
  Bob Russell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether those seeking British citizenship are required(a) to know the words of the National Anthem and (b) have knowledge of the flags and patron saints of the nations of the United Kingdom; and if he will make a statement. [165330]

  Mr. Browne
  This knowledge is not currently required for registration or naturalisation as a British citizen. However, registrars and local authorities are encouraged to play the National Anthem at Citizenship Ceremonies.

  When brought into force, the provisions of section 1 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 will require applicants to demonstrate "sufficient knowledge" of life in the United Kingdom. Details of precisely what this will entail have yet to be finalised, but the focus will be on the practical knowledge new citizens will need to participate fully in UK society.

  Crime (Liverpool)
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the work of the Street Crime Unit in Liverpool. [170565]

  Ms Blears
  Robbery in Merseyside fell by 5 per cent. in 2002–03, compared to 2001–02. This has been achieved by effective partnership working across all agencies. Overall strategic, management of street crime is carried out by the Multi Agency Group. At an operational level, this is supported by Joint Agency Groups and the Robbery Reduction Team. In the Robbery Reduction Team, police and Crown Prosecution Service are co-located and the Premium Service is provided.

  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what changes are necessary to ensure the Liverpool Unit achieves the full benefits of co-location. [170566]

  Ms Blears
  The benefits can be seen in reductions in robbery in Merseyside. There were 5 per cent. fewer robberies in Merseyside in 2002–03 than in 2001–02. Merseyside aims to provide a good quality of prosecution, using the Premium Service approach. This involves the Crown Prosecution Service working closely with the police, with whom they are co-located, from an early stage of investigation to facilitate incisive progression of cases through the courts, with their co-operation.

  Drug Misuse
  Mr. Wyatt
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what public funds were spent on tackling drugs misuse in Sittingbourne and Sheppey in(a) 1997–98 and (b) 2003–04. [I70290]

  Caroline Flint
  Breakdown of financial allocation to local constituencies is not available to the Home Office. Funding is allocated to Drug Action Team (DAT) areas, in this case Kent DAT.

  The period 1997–98 pre-dates National Drug Strategy, accounting procedures mean that the 1997 figures are no longer available and that 1998 figures are not accessible by the DAT.

  In 2003–04 the total drugs allocation was £7,591,564. In order to ensure consistency figures supplied are based on funding streams associated with the National Drug Strategy and are readily verifiable. These funding streams are specifically targeted at tackling the harm caused to individuals, families and communities by the misuse of drugs. Other mainstream funding is made available at a local level, this varies and both in amount and origin as a result it is not possible to provide robust financial information.

  £

  2003–04

  Partnership Capacity

  124,425

  Treatment Pooled Budget

  4,780,000

  Through Care After Care Pump

  35,000

  Priming

  Building Safer Communities1

  1,858,242

  Young people

  793,897

  Total

  7,591,564

  1Contains non drug elements

  Emergency Services
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his policy is with regard to drivers of emergency service vehicles who are captured on speed cameras contravening speed limits. [170736]

  Caroline Flint
  Vehicles being used for fire brigade, ambulance or police purposes are exempt from speed limits when observation of the limit on any specific occasion would hinder them fulfilling their purpose.

  The exemption is contained in section 87 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. The exemption is not automatic. Speeding is dangerous and a driver in an emergency vehicle who exceeds the speed limit unnecessarily will be liable to a fixed penalty or prosecution.

  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make it his policy to recompense(a) police authorities (b) fire and rescue authorities and (c) health trusts, for the annual costs of dealing with the paperwork which is triggered by their emergency vehicles captured on speed cameras contravening speed limits. [170737]

  Caroline Flint
  There are no plans to make it policy to recompense theemergency services for the costs of processing fixed penalty notices for speeding. Emergency service vehicles are already exempt from speed limits when to observe the limit on a particular 228W
  occasion would hinder their purpose. The exemption is however not automatic. The police enforce speed limits for everyone's safety on the road and where such a vehicle exceeds the limit unnecessarily a fixed penalty may be appropriate.

  We are however working closely with the Association of Chief Police Officers to ensure that emergency service vehicles caught speeding by automatic camera are not followed up unnecessarily when they can rely on this exemption.

  Fingerprints
  Mr. Gibb
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his policy is regarding the recording of fingerprints for police use regardless of criminal conviction; and if he will make a statement. [170332]

  Ms Blears
  Under section 64 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, as amended, fingerprints taken from a person in connection with the investigation of an offence may be retained after they have fulfilled the purposes for which they were taken, but shall not be used by any person except for purposes related to the prevention or detection of crime, the investigation of an offence or the conduct of a prosecution.

  Identity Cards
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many and what percentage of UK residents have been a victim of identity fraud in each of the last five years. [170327]

  Mr. Browne
  It is not a criminal offence for a person simply to use another identity. However, false identities are often used to facilitate other offences such as deception and money laundering.

  The police do not generally record incidents of identity fraud because prosecutions are recorded for the offences facilitated by false identities.

  However, members of CIFAS, the UK's Fraud Prevention Service for the private sector, identified 74,000 cases of identity and impersonation fraud in 2002 and 101,000 in 2003.

  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the communication strategy to ensure engagement with the public regarding identity cards will be completed. [170528]

  Mr. Browne
  The identity cards communication strategy is an ongoing activity to ensure that the main audiences with an interest in the Identity Cards programme are kept up to date on progress and are informed how the programme may affect them. The communication strategy to engage the public will be regularly reviewed and developed alongside the programme's design, development and implementation to prepare for the roll-out of the first identity cards from 2007–08.

  Jean-Marie Le Pen
  Mrs. Ellman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received concerning the recent visit of Jean-Marie Le Pen to the UK; and if he will make a statement. [169402]
  229W
  Caroline Flint
  None. It is a long-standing tradition in this country that people are free to gather together and to demonstrate their views provided that they do so within the law. Racism in all its forms damages communities and deserves the severest condemnation.

  London Crime
  Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on crime trends within the Metropolitan Police Authority area. [170492]

  Ms Blears
  The most recent figures published by the Home Office, for the year 2002–03, show that the total number of recorded crimes for the Metropolitan Police Service increased by 2 per cent. compared to the previous year, but that the introduction of the National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS) inflated the figures in 2002–03 by 12 per cent.

  I understand that the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis recently published recorded crime statistics for the Metropolitan Police Service which showed a decrease in total recorded crime of 2 per cent. for the year ended March 2004, as compared with the previous year.

  The national crime statistics for all police forces for 2003–04 are due to be published in July.

  Mr. Hade Solemanpour
  Alistair Burt
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department on what basis he refused a request to extradite to Argentina Mr. Hade Solemanpour, the former Iranian Ambassador to Argentina; and if he will make a statement. [167613]

  Caroline Flint
  The Argentinean request for Mr. Solemanpour's extradition was not supported by prima facie evidence sufficient to meet the requirements of UK law or of the treaty between our two countries. Accordingly, it was decided on 11 November not to issue an Order to Proceed against Solemanpour and to cancel the warrant for his provisional arrest.

  National Identity Register
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department in what circumstances the police could use the National Identity Register to establish an individual's identity without their consent. [170259]

  Mr. Browne
  The draft Identity Cards Bill published on 26 April provides that disclosure from the National Identity Register may be made to the police where it is in the interests of national security or for purposes connected with the prevention or detection of crime or for other purposes specified by order made by the Secretary of State.

  Disclosure of an audit trail of when an individual's entry in the National Identity Register has been checked could be authorised for purposes only connected with the prevention or detection of serious crime. Disclosure of information to Scottish police forces is not permitted in connection with crimes which are within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament.

  Parliament Square Demonstrations
  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to offer alternative locations to demonstrators in Parliament Square. [169254]

  Caroline Flint
  None. It is open to demonstrators in Parliament Square to move to another location to continue their demonstration, provided they do so within the law.

  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what discussions he has had with Westminster City Council regarding noise created by demonstrators in Parliament Square. [169255]

  Caroline Flint
  None. However, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis tells me that there have been a number of discussions between the Metropolitan Police and Westminster Council on the use of byelaws to control noisy demonstrations in Parliament Square.

  Mr. Ben Chapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what discussions he has had with the Metropolitan Police regarding the policing of the demonstrators in Parliament Square. [170214]

  Mr. Blunkett
  I have regular bilateral meetings with the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis where current issues about the policing of London are discussed.

  Parliamentary Questions
  Mr. Brady
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many days on average his Department took in Session 2002–03 to give a substantive answer to a parliamentary question for ordinary written answer; and what the greatest number of days taken to answer such a question was [155924]

  Fiona Mactaggart
  The Home Office does not maintain records in such a way that provides the information in the format requested without incurring disproportionate cost. The last published performance figures for the Home Office from 2001–02 showed that 39 per cent. of all PQs were answered within parliamentary deadlines.

  Every effort is made to reply to parliamentary questions within the parliamentary deadlines wherever possible. Consequently the Home Office is currently in the process of introducing a new PQ system, the electronic parliamentary questions system (ePQS) to better monitor and manage the Department's performance.

  The ePQS monitoring system has identified the bottlenecks in the PQ process and remedial action is being taken. As is usual with the introduction of any new IT system, performance has shown an initial decline. The benefits of ePQS are now being realised across the Department and performance is improving.

  John Thurso
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many(a) Ordinary Written and (b) Named Day Questions his Department received in (i) the 2002–03 and (ii) this parliamentary session up to the most recent date for which figures are available, broken down by month; [170772]
  231W
  (2) what proportion of (a) Ordinary Written questions to his Department were answered within five sitting days of tabling and (b) Questions for a Named Day received a substantive answer on that day in (i) 2002–03 and (ii) this parliamentary session up to the most recent date for which figures are available, broken down by month. [170773]

  Fiona Mactaggart
  The Home Office does not maintain records in such a way that provides the information in the format requested without incurring disproportionate costs. During the period 2002–03 the Home Office received 7115 Parliamentary Questions. The Department has received 4040 Parliamentary Questions so far this session. The published performance figures for 2002–2003 showed that 37 per cent. of all Parliamentary Questions were answered within Parliamentary deadlines.

  Every effort is made to reply to Parliamentary Questions within the Parliamentary deadlines wherever possible. Consequently, the Home Office is currently in the process of introducing a new PQ system, the electronic Parliamentary Questions System (ePQS) to better monitor and manage the Department's performance.

  The ePQS monitoring system has identified the bottlenecks in the PQ process and remedial action is being taken. The benefits of ePQS are now being realised across the Department

  Prisons (Racial Incidents)
  Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many racial incidents were reported by prisoners during(a) 2002 and (b) 2003; and what assessment he has made of the thoroughness and effectiveness of the subsequent investigations. [155252]

  Paul Goggins
  For the period 2002–03, 5,089 racist complaints were recorded across all establishments (excluding the results of 14 women's prisons and Wormwood Scrubs where information was not available within the time scale of this question), of which 1,360 (26 per cent.) were substantiated.

  The substantiated complaints are broken down as follows:

  Staff on Prisoner complaints (277 substantiated)

  Prisoner on Prisoner complaints (666 substantiated)

  Prisoner on Staff complaints (384 substantiated)

  Staff on Staff complaints (33 substantiated).

  These figures are based on the recorded incidents logged by all establishments but further individual breakdown is not available.

  The responsibility of ensuring that investigations are carried out effectively rests with the Governing Governor of each establishment, or the Head of Group for Headquarters units. As part of their responsibilities the Race Relations Management Teams in each establishment, are involved in monitoring the investigations of racist complaints and their outcomes. The training for those carrying out incident investigations has been adapted to include specific details on how to deal with a race related complaint.
  232W
  The outcomes of these investigations range from extra training, disciplinary action, adjudication punishments for prisoners and, for five members of staff within this period, dismissal.

  It has been recognised in the joint Prison Service/CRE Race Equality Action Plan that further improvements need to be made with regard to the quality and thoroughness of the investigations of racial incidents and complaints.

  Consideration is currently been given to how independent/external agencies might provide some assessment of thoroughness in the handling of racial incidents. The formalisation of all racial incidents is also being looked at to ensure all issues are dealt with in establishments. There is also work being carried out to overhaul the current Racial Incident Reporting process.

  Racial Harassment
  Mr. Wyatt
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what powers preventing racial harassment have been introduced since 1997; and how many times these powers have been used in Sittingbourne and Sheppey. [170457]

  Fiona Mactaggart
  Prior to 1997 the Race Relations Act (RRA) 1976 already prohibited discrimination on racial grounds. The RRA did not specifically refer to harassment, but it was clear from case law that racial harassment was a type of detriment capable of amounting to the kind of less favourable treatment prohibited by the Act.

  As part of its fulfilment of its obligations under the EC Race Directive the UK amended the Race Relations Act 1976 (by virtue of the Race Relations Act 1976 (Amendment) Regulations 2003) so as to make it unlawful to harass a person, on grounds of race or ethnic or national origins, in the areas of activity covered by the 1976 Act.

  The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 created new and separate offences where the offences of causing fear and violence or of causing harassment, alarm or distress under the Public Order Act 1986, or the offences of harassment or putting in fear of violence under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 were racially aggravated.

  Figures for the number of prosecutions in Sittingbourne and Sheppey for this type of offence are not centrally available. Kent police figures for harassment offences (published by the Home Office under the requirements of S95 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991) show a total of 339 recorded offences of this type in the Kent police area over the period 1999–2000 to 2001–02.

  Road Safety
  Tim Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people have been prosecuted in Sussex for use of mobile telephones while driving since the recent changes to the law were introduced; and what revenues have been collected in penalties from such prosecutions. [169861]
  233W
  Caroline Flint
  The specific offence of driving while using a hand held mobile phone came into effect on 1 December 2003. Use of a hands free mobile phone is not an offence.

  Data on police action (written warnings, fixed penalty notices and court proceedings) for the new offence of driving while using a hand held mobile telephone will not be available until the autumn of 2004.

  Mr. Amess
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his strategy is for enforcing legislation on the use of mobile phones while driving. [171096]

  Caroline Flint
  When use of a mobile phone while driving amounts to some other offence, such as failing to exercise proper control, it has always been enforced as that. Such enforcement will continue when appropriate. The specific new offence of using a hand-held mobile phone while driving is designed to provide a simple, objective method of enforcement and prosecution, which does not depend in the same way on judgments of a driver's degree of control of a vehicle or carelessness. The Association of Chief Police Officers have welcomed it as such. How offences are enforced is an operational matter for individual chief officers of police.

  Sexual Offences
  Sandra Gidley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has to appoint a working group on drug rape; and if he will make a statement. [171025]

  Caroline Flint
  The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) keeps under review all drugs and their associated harms and risks. Currently, the ACMD has no plans to establish a specific Working Group on drug rape. However, if the issue requires the ACMD's consideration it can be raised as an agenda item at either the full Council meeting of the ACMD or at the meeting of the ACMD's Technical Committee. Previously, the ACMD have acted on this issue as highlighted through its recommendation that Gammahydroxybutrate (GHB), which is viewed as a 'date rape' drug be made a controlled drug under Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

  Although the ACMD is not specifically dealing with this issue at the moment there is an Interdepartmental Ministerial Group on Sexual Offending. The purpose of the Group (broadly) is to promote and co-ordinate cross-government action on tackling sexual offending, and provide appropriate support for the victims of sexual crime. Furthermore, under s.61 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 it is an offence to administer a substance with the aim of stupefying/overpowering a person to engage in sexual activity. This is punishable by a prison sentence of up to 10 years.

  Terrorism
  Mr. Greg Knight
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much is being spent on the advertising campaign on promoting anti-terrorism launched by the Metropolitan police on 22 March. [165885]

  Ms Blears
  [holding answer 11 May 2004]: The costs for the "Life Savers" campaign is estimated at £266,000.
  234W
  Mr. Dismore
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will extend his powers to detain people he reasonably believes to be linked to terrorist groups to(a) groups other than al-Qaeda which pose a threat to United Kingdom security, (b) United Kingdom nationals who acquired nationality through (i) marriage and (ii) other routes, other than by birth, and (c) all United Kingdom nationals. [169797]

  Ms Blears
  Part 4 of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 was introduced to enable the detention of foreign nationals believed to be associated with terrorism but who cannot be removed from the country. My right hon. Friend, the Home Secretary has no plans at present to extend these immigration powers.

  The Part 4 powers, however, lapse in November 2006. The question therefore arises as to what could or should replace them. The Discussion Paper "Counter-Terrorism Powers: Reconciling Security and Liberty in an Open Society", published on 25 February invites those with an interest in these issues to contribute their ideas to this debate by 31 August.

  Travellers
  Mr. Michael Foster
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent discussions he has had with the Association of Chief Police Officers regarding travellers. [170129]

  Ms Blears
  My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has regular meetings with the Association of Chief Police Officers and other police organisations.

  Issues concerning travellers are covered in these meetings.

  Websites
  Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the cost in(a) financial and (b) other terms was in (i) each financial year since 1997 and (ii) 2003–04 until the latest date for which figures are available of (A) developing and (B) maintaining (1) his Department's website and (2) each website for which his Department is responsible; and how many (C) unique hosts and (D) hits there were in each month for each website in (iii) each financial year since 1997 and (iv) 2003–04 until the latest date for which numbers are available. [155855]

  Fiona Mactaggart
  The information is as follows.

  Costs (Home Office) and page impressions

  The available information is shown in the table. For 1998 to 2001, it reflects expenditure on the corporate Home Office website only. Figures for 2001 onwards include all known Home Office funded web properties excluding Criminal Justice System (CJS) Online.

  Cost(£)

  Number of page impressions

  1997–98

  Not separately identified

  Not available

  1998–99

  Not separately identified

  Not available

  1999–2000

  40,614

  9,066,894

  2000–01

  58,170

  16,495,939

  2001–02

  1,576,214

  3,830,772

  2002–03

  11,643,356

  16,099,197

  2003–04

  2849,381.82

  332,690,512

  235W
  1These figures include the cost of the site volcomgrants.gov.uk but no statistics of use are available.

  Caveats

  As they have evolved, the Home Office websites have used the most suitable statistical analysis software available. The figures shown above therefore represent the most accurate information available to us at the time of each reported statistic.

  Because members of the website team have not been employed exclusively on this work throughout the period, their costs have been excluded from this table.

  Information is not held centrally on websites that are managed independently of the main site.

  Unique Hosts

  42 including IND (main IND site, working in Britain and UK nationality sites) and Crime Reduction (38 excluding these) at March 2004. Figures not kept for previous years.

  2 To 5 March 2004, (excludes IND and Crime Red).

  3 To January 2004.

  The available information shown in the table for 1998 to 2001 reflects expenditure on the corporate Home Office website only. Figures for 2001 onwards include all known Home Office funded web properties excluding CJS Online.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

  Advisers/Consult ants
  Bob Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how much his Department and its agencies and non-departmental public bodies spent on external consultants and advisers in each of the last three years. [171872]

  Mr. Gareth Thomas
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 27 April 2004,Official Report, column 941W.

  Children
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment he has made of the work of Plan UK in setting up day care centres in the Philippines to serve children of working parents. [171695]

  Mr. Gareth Thomas
  Through our Civil Society Challenge Fund DFID channels £246,669 of funding to an Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) project in the Philippines with Plan UK. This four year project has been running for two years. The project appears to be progressing well albeit a little more slowly than anticipated due to increased demands on partner organisations as a result of new legislation. A mid-term evaluation is scheduled to take place this year.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what representations he has received about the activity of girls in Nepal highlighting the problems of school attendance, alcohol consumption and smoking. [171696]

  Mr. Gareth Thomas
  Girls' education and school attendance in Nepal is a serious challenge. Around 25 per cent. of girls of primary school age are out of school, and only 3.25 per cent. of fully trained teachers are female. With other donors, DFID is planning to help the Government implement their Education for All basic and primary education programme. The main aim of the programme will be get an additional 477,000 236W
  children into school by 2009. Particular attention will be paid to recruiting more female teachers, and using block grants and other incentive measures to encourage schools to increase enrolment of girls.

  With regards to alcohol consumption and smoking, data on girls in Nepal is very thin and DFID is not actively involved in this area.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what study he has made of the role of children in Haiti in highlighting domestic violence. [171700]

  Mr. Gareth Thomas
  While DFID has itself made no study of the role of children and domestic violence in Haiti, the UK Government welcome the concern expressed for the countries 2.7 million children. Haitian children have seen their standards of health, education and protection, already among the lowest in the world, drop even further following the violent events earlier this year. The prevailing insecurity in Haiti continues to make children especially vulnerable to abuse and violence within the community and family structure.

  In recognition of this, the UK has provided £500,000 in support of the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), as part of a £1.9 million emergency assistance package approved in April. This is in addition to funds channelled through the EC for emergency assistance to the Haitian population.

  UNICEF's primary goal in Haiti, as elsewhere, is to protect and strengthen the rights of children. This is done through a series of activities tailored to local requirements, such as: awareness raising campaigns to discourage and prevent violence against children (particularly street children and domestic servants), the resumption of schooling and support to community groups for women and children.

  Given the evolving humanitarian situation, the UK has adopted a flexible approach with respect to its funding, enabling UNICEF to allocate UK resources to immediate priorities for children. In addition, the UK has ensured that its emergency strategy has informed and complemented that of the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO), for the benefit of Haitian communities.

  DFID's Civil Society Challenge Fund has also funded a project (£190,000, over five years) on Victims of Violence in Haiti which aims to support women through the constitution of a medical/psychological unit for victims of domestic violence.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what representations he has received about the activity of ex-child combatants in campaigning against the use of child soldiers in Sierra Leone. [171701]

  Hilary Benn
  I have not received any representations on this specific issue. In the past, DFID has provided core funding to the Office of the (UN) Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (OSRSG/CAAC), whose programme has included advocacy work using ex-child combatants. This was not, however, specific to Sierra Leone.

  Ethiopia
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if he will make a statement on the development role that his Department is taking in Ethiopia. [172266]

  Hilary Benn
  The problems facing Ethiopia are immense. Almost one-half of its 70 million people live below the national poverty line. Hunger, HIV/AIDS and the need to provide basic services pose enormous challenges. On current plans, DFID is increasing expenditure from £19 million during 2003–04 to £85 million in 2005–06. This will include substantial direct budget support—while also targeting assistance to critical areas such as the struggle against food insecurity and HIV/AIDS and the need to improve basic education and health services. While our focus is on the long-term, we also continue to respond to immediate humanitarian needs as they arise.

  In addition to providing direct assistance to reduce poverty in Ethiopia, DFID officials are promoting more coordinated and poverty-focused donor activity. We are also involved in wider issues that could threaten development—such as the need for peace and security in the region.

  EU Peace Facility for Africa
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what the involvement of his Department is in the EU's Peace Facility for Africa. [171678]

  Hilary Benn
  The Department for International Development has supported the European Union's establishment of a Peace Facility for Africa. DFID is engaged in discussions in the Council leading up to the approval of the Facility. DFID's support is in line with the G8-Africa Joint Action Plan and the Prime Minister's commitment to African peacekeeping.

  Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative
  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what technical support his Department plans to provide to(a) the Angolan Ministry of Finance, (b) Sonangol and (c) Endiama to help implement the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. [172081]

  Hilary Benn
  The UK Government are active in promoting greater transparency in revenue management in oil, gas and mining through the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).

  DFID has provided an expert to participate in the World Bank's Public Expenditure Management and Financial Accountability Review (PEMFAR), which is to make recommendations on how Angola can adopt transparent, internationally accepted practices in oil revenue management. If Angola is committed to increasing the transparency of their oil revenue management, DFID stands ready to provide further help in implementing EITI in collaboration with the World Bank. DFID would expect implementation to include engagement with Civil Society and with all the oil and mining companies operating in Angola—including Sonangol.
  238W
  Given its size and growing importance we would expect the Government of Angola to initially focus on the oil sector, hopefully followed by the diamonds sector.

  Health Targets (Africa)
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development for what reasons his Department is off course to meet its health targets in Africa, as noted on page 180 of the 2004 Departmental Report. [171685]

  Hilary Benn
  DFID's Public Service Agreement indicators for health in Africa are linked to internationally agreed targets. DFID is one of a range of organisations which have made a commitment to these targets—others include national governments, other bilaterals and multilaterals.

  Targets to reduce child mortality and improve maternal health are particularly ambitious and challenging for sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Many countries are seriously off- track and on current trends neither of the goals will be met by 2015.

  Child mortality has multiple and complex causes. Four diseases are responsible for nearly half of all child deaths, and malnutrition is an underlying cause for many of the rest. But other factors, such as economic decline, inequality, inadequate education for girls, lack of access to safe water and sanitation, and in some countries the HIV/AIDS epidemic plays a role too. Several African countries have also experienced conflict and civil unrest, which restrict progress in reducing child mortality rates.

  There has been little movement in rates of maternal mortality since 1990 and very recent progress is not easy to assess, due to lack of accurate data. Improving access to skilled care during delivery, and emergency obstetric care, where necessary, are key to reducing maternal mortality. The main constraints are weak and under-resourced health systems, in particular, the lack of appropriately skilled staff. Inadequate financing for health is a key constraint; current levels of spending in low-income African countries are way below what is needed to achieve the health targets. Addressing the broader determinants of poor health, and increasing health spend and the coverage and utilisation of interventions proven to reduce child and maternal mortality are both needed in order to make faster progress.

  DFID is stepping up efforts to tackle the child and maternal health targets and is working with partners to make progress on increasing access to effective health services, including comprehensive reproductive health services, particularly for poor people. DFID is working to tackle the shortage of skilled health workers and also contributes to interventions in other sectors: education, transport, and sanitation, which are also needed to bring improvements.

  Effective action requires, above all, political will to act. Great gains are likely when commitment to targets is translated into national poverty reduction strategies and budgets.

  India
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment he has made of the value of the work of young filmmakers in India in drawing attention to(a) industrial pollution, b) early marriage, (c) child labour and (d) prostitution. [171702]

  Mr. Gareth Thomas
  Effective communication is an essential development tool. In India, we have not specifically assessed the role of young filmmakers in drawing attention to environmental and social issues. DFID supports awareness-raising, and advocacy on social issues through a variety of media, in line with the objectives in our recently published Country Assistance Plan.

  Infant Mortality
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if he will list the under five mortality rates for each of the 16 African countries covered by the Millennium Development Goal. [171679]

  Hilary Benn
  DFID's Public Service Agreement (PSA) sets objectives and interim targets to 2006 to help monitor progress in meeting the MDGs. The PSA focuses on key countries and the 16 key Sub-Saharan Africa countries are listed as follows with their associated under five child mortality rates (per 1000 live births) for 2001.

  Under 5 Mortality rate (per 1,000 live births)

  PSA Key Countries (Sub-Saharan Africa)

  year 2001

  Congo, Democratic Republic

  205

  Ethiopia

  172

  Ghana

  100

  Kenya

  122

  Lesotho

  132

  Malawi

  183

  Mozambique

  197

  Nigeria

  183

  Rwanda

  183

  Sierra Leone

  316

  South Africa

  71

  Sudan

  107

  Tanzania

  165

  Uganda

  124

  Zambia

  202

  Zimbabwe

  123

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what the change in the under five mortality rate has been since 1997 in countries receiving his Department's health care assistance in(a) Asia and (b) sub-Saharan Africa. [171686]

  Hilary Benn
  The following table gives the change in under-five mortality rates between 1995 and 2001 in our main partner countries in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. These are the countries listed in our Public Service Agreement. Data for 1997 is not available from standard international sources so the nearest available date, 1995, is provided instead.

  Although progress has been mixed, many countries have seen improvements in under-five mortality rates. In Bangladesh, Indonesia and Nepal these improvements
  240W
  have been dramatic with reductions of a quarter or more over the six-year period. On average there has been more progress in Asia than Africa.

  DFID provides assistance to the health sector through various different mechanisms. These include direct funding to the health sector and health projects, funding to the general government budget, and indirect funding to health related sectors and multi-lateral and Non-Government organisations. This makes it difficult to accurately identify all countries receiving our health care assistance, and our main partner countries are considered the most useful set for this purpose.

  Under-5 mortality rate Per 1,000 live births

  Country

  1995

  2001

  Percentage difference

  Asia

  Bangladesh

  1116

  77

  -34

  Indonesia

  66

  45

  -32

  Nepal

  120

  91

  -24

  China

  46

  39

  -15

  Pakistan

  125

  109

  -13

  Vietnam

  43

  38

  -12

  India

  104

  93

  -11

  Afghanistan

  257

  257

  0

  Cambodia

  120

  138

  15

  Average

  111

  99

  -11

  Sub-Saharan Africa

  Malawi

  216

  183

  -15

  Uganda

  145

  124

  -14

  Rwanda

  210

  183

  -13

  Ghana

  112

  100

  -11

  Mozambique

  215

  197

  -8

  Sudan

  115

  107

  -7

  Ethiopia

  183

  172

  -6

  Lesotho

  140

  132

  -6

  Nigeria

  187

  183

  -2

  Sierra Leone

  317

  316

  0

  Congo, Democratic. Republic.

  205

  205

  0

  Zambia

  202

  202

  0

  Tanzania

  164

  165

  1

  South Africa

  65

  71

  9

  Kenya

  111

  122

  10

  Zimbabwe

  90

  123

  37

  Average

  167

  162

  -3

  11993

  Source:

  World Development Indicators 2003

  International Finance Corporation
  Mr. Jenkins
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what the Department's stake is as a shareholder in the International Finance Corporation. [172507]

  Mr. Gareth Thomas
  The United Kingdom's capital stock in the International Finance Corporation is valued at US$121,015,000 that is equal to 5.3 per cent. of the total capital stock; this confers a voting power of 121,265 votes equal to 5.04 per cent. of total voting power.

  Iraq
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development (1) what the total value of(a) exports from and (b) imports to Iraq was in the 12 months immediately before the start of the recent conflict; [171205]
  241W
  (2) what his estimate is of the total value of (a) imports to Iraq and (b) exports from Iraq in 2003–04. [171209]

  Hilary Benn
  Iraq oil exports through the Oil For Food programme (OFF) before the 2003 conflict were in the region of $10 billion per year. Imports, again through OFF, were approximately equal to exports less the administration costs of OFF and 5 per cent. of oil revenues which were set aside as reparations resulting from the 1991 Gulf War. Any trade outside OFF would have been illegal and unrecorded.

  Iraq's current oil exports are around 1.7 million barrels per day, which at present oil prices are expected to earn around $16 billion over a year. Reliable data on other exports and imports since the opening of Iraq's borders to trade after the 2003 conflict are not available.

  Microbicides
  Mr. Gerrard
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what plans he has for further funding to ensure the Microbicide Development Programme Phase III effectiveness trials of candidate microbicides are completed and facilitate future product development. [171260]

  Mr. Gareth Thomas
  DFID is strongly committed to research and development and is proud to be the first government donor on microbicides. Women friendly technologies including microbicides will be an essential component of an effective HIV response enabling women to take control of their lives.

  Even an only partially effective microbicide to prevent sexual transmission of HIV could prevent 2.5 million deaths from AIDS every three years. DFID welcomes the fact that five clinical field trials of different microbicide candidates will be launched in 2004. It will be important to complete these trials in order to identify the most effective product.

  DFID is providing a grant of £16 million over five years (2001–2006) for the Microbicide Development Programme (MDP), co-ordinated by the Clinical Trials Unit of the Medical Research Council (MRC), and Imperial College. The programme is investigating the effectiveness of promising microbicide products, involving research centres in five African countries. DFID support accounts for over half of the projected costs.

  DFID has been in discussion with other donors concerning support to the current generation of phase III trials, including the MDP. At a meeting on microbicides in Washington last month, strategies were discussed for ensuring the completion of trials, how best to utilise the data collected and how to ensure new candidates were being brought into early clinical studies. DFID's forthcoming strategy on HIV/AIDS will set out how the department will work, including with other donors, to further the development of technologies to combat HIV/AIDS, including microbicides.

  Poverty Environment Partnership
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if he will list the members of the Poverty Environment Partnership. [171688]
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  Mr. Gareth Thomas
  The Poverty Environment Partnership is an organised donor network, with an open membership which includes bilateral and multilateral agencies, research institutes, and development banks with an interest in the issues. At the most recent meeting, which was held in February 2004, the membership was as follows:

  Bilateral donor countries/agencies:

  Belgium, Canada (CIDA), Denmark (DANIDA), Finland, Germany (GTZ), Ireland, Netherlands (DGIS), Norway, Sweden (SIDA), Switzerland (SDC), USAID, UK (DFID)

  Multilateral agencies:

  World Bank, Asian Development Bank, African Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, International Monetary Fund, European Comission (DG ENV and DG DEV), United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme, Food and Agriculture Organisation, World Health Organisation.

  Non-governmental Organisations/research organisations:

  Netherlands Institute for International Relations, Stockholm Environment Institute, World Resources Institute, World Wide Fund for Nature, IUCN—the World Conservation Union.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development when the analytical methods referred to on page 179 of the 2004 Departmental Report for the integration of poverty-environment issues into Poverty Reduction Strategy processes will be(a) finalised and (b) published. [171689]

  Mr. Gareth Thomas
  Relevant analytical methods for the integration of poverty-environment issues into Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRS) and other development planning processes are being produced by DFID unilaterally and in conjunction with other members of the multi-donor Poverty Environment Partnership. Much of this work is formally published, although some comprises "working documents" which will be refined and tested in the field prior to more formal dissemination.

  Examples of formal publications, which comprise analytical methodology and innovative developments within the issue, include "Linking Poverty Reduction and Environmental Management" (published July 2002), DFID Environment Guide (published June 2003), Environmental Fiscal Reform (to be published June 2004), OECD-DAC Guidance on Strategic Environmental Assessment (to be published late 2004).

  Examples of work that is on-going but which will not be formally published in the near future include DFID's work on the contribution of environmental resources to economic growth, and the extent to which environmental issues are a good entry point for tackling wider issues of pro-poor governance and democratic change.

  However, all work that is not formally published is still publicly available on DFID's website.

  Primary School Education
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what percentage of children is enrolled in primary school in(a) Bangladesh, (b) China and (c) India. [171703]
  243W
  Mr. Gareth Thomas
  The latest available information on primary school net enrolment rates for the countries in question are as follows:

  Percentage

  Bangladesh1

  87

  China

  93

  India

  83

  1In addition, in Bangladesh, it is estimated that approximately 8 per cent. of primary age children are catered for in NGO schools.

  Source:

  World Development Indicators database

  The net enrolment ratio is the ratio of the number of children of official school age (as defined by the national education system, eg in China children can enter primary education at six or seven, so the data refer to children aged 7 to 11-years-old) who are enrolled in school to the population of the corresponding official school age.

  Sexual and Reproductive Health
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what steps he is taking to increase the number of skilled birth attendants in sub-Saharan Africa. [171675]

  Hilary Benn
  A woman in Africa is over 100 times more likely to die in pregnancy and childbirth than is a woman in a developed country. Many millions more suffer ill health and long-term disability as a result of complications in pregnancy or childbirth. We now know that almost all deaths as a result of pregnancy and childbirth are avoidable when proven health interventions are available and women are able to use them. Improved coverage of skilled care at delivery and access to emergency obstetric care when necessary are key to reducing maternal mortality. In addition, over a third of maternal deaths could be avoided if effective family planning services and affordable, safe, legal abortion services were available and accessible. At present the health systems in most Africa countries are too weak and under-resourced to deliver these interventions.

  The Department for International Development is working with partners to identify and address constraints to progress with skilled attendance, and to support work to strengthen health systems that increase coverage and utilization of health services, including addressing issues such as human resource constraints and access to medicines.

  In addition, in an increasing number of countries, DFID's health assistance is provided through sector budget support or indirectly through general budget support. In these cases, DFID is increasingly explicit that sustainable child and maternal health outcomes need greater priority in many national planning and budgeting processes.

  Internationally, DFID also provides substantial support for research to improve the evidence base on safe motherhood and newborn health. DFID will continue to challenge and support the international system, in particular the UN, to play an effective role in improving peoples' health in Africa and will continue to
  244W
  promote effective international partnerships that have a role to play, particularly the evolving partnership for Safe Motherhood and Newborn Health.

  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment he has made of the work of the New Generation Club on sexual health in Ecuador. [171697]

  Mr. Gareth Thomas
  DFID has had no contact with this organisation in Latin America.

  Tanzania (Anti-drugs Programme)
  Mr. Bercow
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of anti-drugs programmes in Tanzania. [171694]

  Hilary Benn
  We are not currently funding anti-drugs programmes since these are not a priority for the Government of Tanzania. Therefore we have made no assessment of the effectiveness of anti-drugs programmes in Tanzania. The focus of our assistance to is on supporting the Government to implement their Poverty Reduction Strategy, now in its third year of operation. 75 per cent. of our development funding (£60 million in 2003) is now allocated directly to Government budgets for this purpose.

  Timber
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for International Development whether his Department plans to contribute financially to the establishment of the second phase of the Central Point of Expertise on Timber. [167614]

  Mr. Gareth Thomas
  Timber procurement policy on timber is the responsibility of the Department of Food, Rural Affairs and the Environment. Defra has replied to the question about the funding of the Central Point of Expertise on Timber (CPET) indicating that it is in discussion with a number of Departments, including DFID. No decision has yet been taken about the funding of the second phase of CPET.

CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS

  Judiciary (Ethnic Minorities)
  Keith Vaz
  To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs what assessment he has made of the common barriers deterring applications from ethnic minority groups to the judiciary. [171309]

  Mr. Leslie
  The decision whether or not to seek judicial appointment is a personal one which may be influenced by a number of factors. It is possible that some applicants, irrespective of ethnicity or gender, may be deterred from seeking judicial appointment for a variety of reasons, such as:

  (a) a sense that the judicial appointments process is not sufficiently open or accountable;

  (b) limited access to sufficient information, at key stages in their profession, to enable them to make an informed decision about a potential career in the judiciary;

  245W

  (c) concerns that certain aspects of judicial office are incompatible with other commitments, for example that working patterns may not be "family friendly".

  The first issue will be addressed through the establishment of the new, independent Judicial Appointments Commission which will inspire a more diverse range of applicants through a more open, transparent and accessible system.

  In relation to the provision of information, the Department has for some time run a comprehensive outreach programme of events where officials and judicial office holders explain the appointments process and answer any questions. We also provide information de-mystifying the judicial appointments process either as a booklet; video or on our website. We are, however, looking at what else is needed, and when, to assist individual lawyers in deciding whether or not to pursue a judicial career.

  Finally, in terms of judicial working patterns, salaried part-time working has already been introduced for some judicial posts and we are investigating whether this can be extended to more. We are also undertaking a review of our policies to consider what more can be done to encourage a more diverse range of legal professionals to seek judicial appointment.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Television Service
  Michael Fabricant
  To ask the Chairman of the Information Committee if he will make Fox News available on the television annunciator service to hon. Members. [170583]

  Mr. Key
  Fox News cannot be made available at present as there are no spare annunciator channels. The annunciator is used by both Houses and any decision on changing the use of a channel is agreed by the Information Committees in both Houses. The Information Committee in this House has recently agreed that Channel 24 may be used for EuroNews. I understand that the Information Committee in the House of Lords will be considering the matter shortly.

CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT

  Correspondence
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport when she will reply in full to the letter from the hon. Member for Totnes, dated 25 February 2004, concerning tax rules for the British film industry, which was acknowledged on 1 March 2004. [172042]

  Estelle Morris
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State replied in full to the letter from the hon. Member for Totnes on 6 May 2004.

  S4C
  Mrs. Helen Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport when she expects the review of the funding of S4C to report. [171929]

  Estelle Morris
  We expect to receive the final report on the review of S4C later this month.

SCOTLAND

  Sea Bass
  Mr. Sanders
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make it his policy to source all sea bass used in catering outlets for which his Department is responsible from hand-line fishermen rather than pair trawlers. [167536]

  Mrs. McGuire
  The Scotland Office has no responsibility for any catering outlets.

  Steel
  Mr. Foulkes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the supply of steel within Scotland for Scottish manufacturing industries. [167187]

  Mrs. McGuire
  There has been a rise in global steel prices in recent months and I am aware of the reports of difficulties in the steel supply market.

  However, the industry view is that although prices have increased, all types of steel remain available and I am advised that there is no shortage of supply from UK steel producers.

  Wind Farms
  Miss McIntosh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what recent representations he has received on the locating of wind farms in Scotland. [169972]

  Mrs. McGuire
  No such representations have been received. Decisions on proposed locations for particular wind power developments in Scotland are for local authorities and Scottish Ministers.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Regional Development Agencies
  Mr. Clifton-Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the budget of each of the regional development agencies for 2004–05 is; how much each has spent in each year since 1999; and how much of this was spent on(a) staffing and (b) administration in each case. [171509]

  Jacqui Smith
  For eight of the Regional Development Agencies, their first full year of operation was 1999–2000. The London Development Agency was incorporated in 2000–01. The following table illustrates the Agencies' overall expenditure, and within these totals, expenditure on staffing and general administration between the years 1999 and 2004 provided from the Agencies' annual accounts.
  247W

  £ million

  1999–2000

  2001–01

  2001–02

  Regional Development Agency

  Total

  Admin

  Staffing

  Total

  Admin

  Staffing

  Total

  Admin

  Staffing

  Advantage West Midlands

  103

  5

  4

  113

  6

  6

  141

  6

  7

  East of England Development Agency

  30

  2

  2

  36

  2

  3

  55

  3

  4

  East Midlands Development Agency

  41

  5

  4

  67

  4

  4

  86

  4

  5

  London Development Agency

  N/a

  N/a

  N/a

  235

  6

  3

  266

  11

  5

  Northwest Development Agency

  141

  8

  6

  156

  8

  8

  270

  9

  9

  One NorthEast

  92

  10

  7

  98

  8

  8

  156

  9

  8

  South East England Development Agency

  63

  3

  3

  73

  4

  5

  97

  5

  6

  South West of England Regional Development Agency

  43

  5

  6

  62

  5

  6

  85

  6

  7

  Yorkshire Forward

  121

  7

  5

  125

  9

  6

  207

  7

  8

  £ million

  2002–03

  2003–04

  2004–05

  Regional Development Agency

  Total

  Admin

  Staffing

  Forecast Outturn

  Admin

  Staffing

  Indicative Budget

  Advantage West Midlands

  204

  7

  9

  247

  7

  11

  239

  East of England Development Agency

  88

  4

  5

  79

  4

  6

  96

  East Midlands Developments Agency

  101

  5

  5

  122

  7

  6

  120

  London Development Agency

  295

  17

  9

  317

  17

  13

  367

  Northwest Development Agency

  274

  11

  11

  332

  11

  15

  341

  One NorthEast

  193

  10

  9

  223

  9

  12

  235

  South East England Development Agency

  112

  7

  8

  141

  6

  10

  125

  South West of England Regional Development Agency

  103

  8

  8

  99

  8

  10

  120

  Yorkshire Forward

  211

  7

  10

  248

  7

  12

  263

  Notes:

  1. RDA Single Programme budgets are allocated on a full resource basis and final outturn figures are subject to external audit by the National Audit Office or, in the case of the LDA by Baker Tilly, after the end of the financial year, before annual accounts are approved. Final expenditure figures for 2003–04 are yet to be confirmed and forecasts have been provided by the Agencies. General administration and staffing costs for earlier years are derived from annual accounts.

  2. Overall expenditure for 1999 to 2003 and budget allocation figures for 2004–05—yet to be confirmed—are taken from Departmental records.

  Renewable Energy
  Mr. Benton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on the effect of recent trends in investment in renewable energy upon residents of Bootle. [171449]

  Mr. Timms
  As I far as I am aware recent trends in investment have not led directly to new renewables capacity in Bootle itself. The nearest development is the wind farm at Seaforth Dock, composed of six 600 kW wind turbines, which is a little over two miles away. However, this was constructed in 1999 under the then, 'Non Fossil Fuel Obligation'.

  For details of developments in the surrounding Liverpool area I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas) on 25 March 2004, Official Report, column 1109W and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) on 28 April 2004, Official Report, column 1162SW.

  Mr. Djanogly
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on the effect of recent trends in investment in renewable energy upon the residents of Cambridgeshire. [170853]

  Mr. Timms
  As far as I am aware the following are renewable energy facilities that have been constructed within Cambridgeshire:

  A 1MW Landfill gas plant at March Landfill Site, built in 2002.

  A 1MW Landfill gas plant at Warboys, built in 2001.

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  A 37MW Biomass plant at Elean Business Park, Sutton built in 2000.

  A 2.3MW Landfill gas plant at Cow Lane, Godmanchester, built in 2000

  A 2MW Landfill gas plant at Huntingdon, built in 1999.

  A 2MW Landfill gas plant at Dogsthorpe Landfill Site, Peterborough, which was built in 1995.

  A 2.1MW Landfill gas plant at Milton, built in 1993.

  A 225kW wind turbine at Kings Bush Farm, Huntingdon built in 1990.

  There are currently no proposals for new developments that fall under Section 36 of the 1989 electricity act. This requires developers to notify my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State of proposals for new generating capacity of greater than 50MW. However, proposals for developments that total less than 50MW in size are the responsibility of the Local Planning Authority.

  Businesses (Sittingbourne and Sheppey)
  Mr. Wyatt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many new businesses have started up in Sittingbourne and Sheppey since 1997. [170291]

  Nigel Griffiths
  Barclays Bank's latest survey of business creation includes non-VAT registered firms and shows that there were 115,000 business start-ups in England and Wales, including 2,700 in Kent County (which contains the constituency of Sittingbourne and Sheppey), in the fourth quarter of 2003. The latest yearly figures show 465,000 business start-ups in England and
  249W
  Wales in 2003. This represents a 19 per cent. increase on the year before. There were 10,800 business start-ups in Kent County in 2003. Data for counties are not available for before 2003.

  DTI figures based solely on VAT registrations for Swale local authority (which contains the constituency of Sittingbourne and Sheppey) are shown below for the period 1997 to 2002. Data for 2003 will be available in Autumn 2004.

  VAT Registrations: 1997–2002

  Swale

  1997

  340

  1998

  315

  1999

  335

  2000

  355

  2001

  385

  2002

  330

  Source:

  Business Start-ups and Closures: VAT Registrations and De-registrations 1994–2002, Small Business Service, available from: www.sbs.gov.uk/statistics/vatstats.php

  VAT registrations do not capture all start-up activity. Businesses are unlikely to be registered if they fall below the compulsory VAT threshold, which has risen in each year since 1997. Similarly, businesses that de-register will not necessarily have closed. Only 1.8 million out of 3.8 million enterprises were registered for VAT at the start of 2002.

  Departmental Procurement
  Michael Fabricant
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what percentage of the(a) crockery, (b) cutlery and (c) glassware procured by her Department over the last five years is of British manufacture. [170811]

  Ms Hewitt
  All crockery is of UK manufacture. Any cutlery and glassware purchased has been through UK suppliers and manufactured outside the UK.

  As a Government department we ensure that EU procurement rules are followed and these rules do not allow the specification of a particular country of origin except in very specific circumstances (such as for reasons of national security). Responsibility for procuring and maintaining stocks of crockery, cutlery and glassware for the DTI HQ restaurants and hospitality services lies with the catering contractor.

  Energy Bills
  Jon Trickett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) how many consumers she estimates have not received an energy bill from their current(a) electricity and (b) gas supplier over the last four years; [171485]

  (2) what regulations are in force to ensure that consumers receive energy bills that are (a) on time, (b) in an understandable format and (c) accurate; and if she will make a statement. [171486]

  Mr. Timms
  There is no licence condition to require suppliers to bill customers at a particular time, although suppliers are required to inform customers of energy used, on the basis of a meter reading or an estimate.250W
  However, certain standard licence conditions are relevant. Condition 17 requires that meters be read at least once every two years; condition 21 requires that customers be advised of their meter reference number at least annually, if not through a bill; condition 27 requires that they be told, at least annually, if not through a bill, about customer service codes; and condition 40 requires that they be told about Energywatch at least annually, if not through a bill. The regulation of gas and electricity supply, including the performance of suppliers against licence conditions, is the responsibility of the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (OFGEM). I understand that the Chairman of OFGEM will write to the hon. Member about the matters he has raised.

  Energy Supplies
  Mr. Best
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what action she is taking to promote private sector investment in renewable energy. [170281]

  Mr. Timms
  The importance of private investment going forward cannot be underestimated in achieving our renewables targets. The Renewables Advisory Board established the Finance and Investment Workgroup last year. I commissioned independent research into investor perspectives of renewables and concluded that investors believed that:The 2010–11 target, of 10.4 per cent. of electricity generated from renewables, would only be met if there is greater assurance on Government policy post 2010.
  Sustaining investor confidence is possible and within Government's control and principally requires promote action to firm up post-2010 targets.

  In response to this I announced on 1 December 2003 an extension of the Renewables Obligation target from 10 per cent. in 2010 to 15 per cent. in 2015.

  In addition, as part of the DTI's "It's Only Natural" renewables communication campaign, we held a high level seminar, on 26 April for senior representatives from banks, industry and the investment community to discuss the Government's commitment to renewables and to debate the issues facing investors. The event was well attended with over 120 delegates.

  European Directives
  Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will list the European directives implemented by her Department through national regulations in each year since 1990. [169166]

  Jacqui Smith
  [holding answer 28 April 2004]: This information could be compiled only at disproportionate cost.

  Globalisation
  Mr. Jim Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment she has made of the impact of globalisation on UK(a) manufacturing and (b) services. [163567]

  Mr. Mike O'Brien
  The Department is drawing up a White Paper on trade and investment that will cover the causes of globalisation, its potential benefits for the UK and how best to address any adjustment challenges which may arise. This will be available in the summer.

  Manufacturing Industry
  Mr. Best
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what further action she is planning to take to help small and medium UK manufacturing companies. [170285]

  Nigel Griffiths
  We will continue to make good progress in taking forward the Government's Manufacturing—the first such strategy for 30 years—which we developed in partnership with industry, trade unions and other stakeholders.

  The Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS), a key part of the Strategy, has been a great success since it was launched in 2002, providing easily accessible and practical advice to small and medium sized manufacturers in England and Wales. MAS helped manufacturing companies to see a seven-fold increase in added value from £5 million to £39 million during 2003.

  We will continue to help small and medium sized manufacturing companies utilise innovation, investment, best practice, and higher-level skills to succeed in the increasingly competitive global market through.

  Mark of Marks Scheme
  Brian Cotter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) how the Mark of Marks scheme will improve the quality of service in the domestic sector; [172466]

  (2) what the required criteria are for the Mark of Marks trade mark; and what role trade associations play in the scheme; [172467]

  (3) when the Mark of Marks scheme for the construction industry was established; what trades are involved in it; and what the level of take-up has been. [172469]

  Nigel Griffiths
  The Mark of Marks concept was developed under the Quality Mark umbrella in early 2003 to promote alignment of the membership requirements of the more reputable trade bodies and other organisations with Quality Mark. The scheme reflects the growing shift within the construction industry to embrace the quality ethos and promote better service to clients. The aim is to secure larger volumes of trades people by allowing members of industry bodies within Mark of Marks to be badged to consumers.

  Mark of Marks envisages flexibility in how standards are delivered and consumers protected. Industry bodies have a key role to play in ensuring delivery of quality to consumers. We have been discussing this concept with industry bodies and organisations in a range of sectors have expressed interest, including the gas, heating and ventilating, plumbing, roofing, general building, damp-proofing, glazing, paving and electrical sectors.

  Mayflower Buses
  Mr. Bellingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what action her Department will take arising from the collapse of the bus maker Mayflower; and if she will make a statement. [171355]
  252W
  Jacqui Smith
  Officials are in contact with the administrators and with the Regional Development Agencies and Devolved Administrations in the parts of the country in which Mayflower businesses are based. As soon as the new owners of the businesses are known we will contact them to discuss their plans and to ensure that they are aware of the support which could be available to take the businesses forward.

  The Department is aware of the widespread concern arising from the failure of Mayflower Corporation. It does have powers to investigate companies under the Companies Act and we are also consulting with other regulators.

  New Businesses (Oldham, West and Royton)
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many new businesses have started up in Oldham West and Royton since 1997. [170934]

  Nigel Griffiths
  Barclays Bank's latest survey of business creation includes non-VAT registered firms and shows that there were 115,000 business start-ups in England and Wales, including 400 in Oldham Local Authority (which contains the constituency of Oldham West and Royton), in the fourth quarter of 2003. The latest yearly figures show 465,000 business start-ups in England and Wales in 2003. This represents a 19 increase on the year before. There were 1,900 business start-ups in Oldham Local Authority in 2003. Data for local authorities are not available for before 2003.

  DTI figures based solely on VAT registrations for Oldham Local Authority (which contains the constituency of Oldham West and Royton) are shown in the table for the period 1997 to 2002. Data for 2003 will be available in Autumn 2004.

  VAT Registrations: 1997–2002

  Oldham

  1997

  480

  1998

  470

  1999

  465

  2000

  480

  2001

  440

  2002

  510

  Source:

  Business Start-ups and Closures: VAT Registrations and De-registrations 1994–2002, Small Business Service, available from: www.sbs.gov.uk/statistics/vatstats.php

  VAT registrations do not capture all start-up activity. Businesses are unlikely to be registered if they fall below the compulsory VAT threshold, which has risen in each year since 1997. Similarly, businesses that de-register will not necessarily have closed. Only 1.8 million out of 3.8 million enterprises were registered for VAT at the start of 2002.

  North Sea Oil
  Bob Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what her latest estimate is of North Sea oil reserves; and if she will make a statement. [169794]

  Mr. Timms
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 19 April 2004,Official Report, column 317W.

  NPL, Teddington
  Dr. Cable
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the original estimated(a) cost and (b) completion date for the PFI project for the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington was; and what the current estimated (i) cost and (ii) completion date is. [169815]

  Ms Hewitt
  [holding answer 30 April 2004]: The original estimated cost for the construction of new facilities at the National Physical Laboratory, Teddington under the 1998 contract with the PFI contractor and its Design and Building Contractor was £82,012,200. The Availability Fee paid by my Department is based on this sum. We do not know the current estimated cost of construction. Since this is a PFI contract, the risk on cost overruns rests with the PFI and Design and Building contractors.

  The original completion date for the PFI project was 24 September 2001, and the PFI contractor currently estimates that the final completion date will be June 2006. Fifteen of the 16 modules in the new facilities have been handed over, but additional work is still needed by the PFI Contractor to bring modules into line with the Output Specifications; and, as a result of the delay, changes are needed to some of the new facilities to enable them to meet the current needs of NPL's scientific programmes. The contractor's estimated final completion date of June 2006 provides for the demolition of existing buildings at NPL, the construction of car parking space, and landscaping.

  Nuclear Materials
  Mr. Simon Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry pursuant to her answer of 14 January 2004,Official Report, column 788W, on nuclear energy, what the Department's acceptable weight limits are concerning nuclear material unaccounted for; when these limits were adopted; and when they are due to be reviewed. [172094]

  Nigel Griffiths
  Nuclear material unaccounted for (MUF) is a recognised feature of accounting for nuclear material and is caused primarily by the uncertainties inherent in the techniques used to measure nuclear material. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) describes standards for the measurement uncertainty expected for closing a nuclear material balance in its Safeguards Glossary, and it publishes International Target Values (ITV) for uncertainties on measurements performed on nuclear material. These are used to determine whether a facility's measurement system meets international standards and are periodically updated by international experts to reflect currently achievable measurement capabilities and to incorporate newly developed measurement techniques and instruments. The values currently used were set in 2000 and were published by the IAEA in April 2001 as a Safeguards Technical Report (STR-327). This report is available from the IAEA in hardcopy only. However,254W
  most sections of the report can also be found at www.inmm.org/topics/contents/JNMMPaperITV.pdf. The values will be reviewed when international experts conclude a change is needed.

  All civil nuclear material in the UK is subject to Euratom safeguards and to the terms of the UK/Euratom/IAEA safeguards agreement. The European Commission's report on the operation of Euratom Safeguards in 2002, the most recent published, concluded that no evidence for the diversion of nuclear materials was found by the systematic evaluation of MUF reported by nuclear installations.

  Mr. Simon Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will list nuclear materials unaccounted for at sites operated by(a) BNFL, (b) the UK Atomic Energy Authority and (c) URENCO since 1997; and if she will make a statement on Government oversight of private civilian nuclear facilities. [172093]

  Nigel Griffiths
  Material unaccounted for (MUF) figures are published annually by the nuclear industry. Copies of the figures published since 1997 were placed in the Libraries of the House on 21 January 2004,Official Report, columns 1233–34W in response to a written question.

  All civil nuclear material in the UK, irrespective of ownership, is subject to Euratom safeguards and to the terms of the UK/Euratom/IAEA safeguards agreement. The Safeguards Office of DTI is responsible for overseeing these international obligations.

  Post Office
  Mr. Hancock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) what research she has(a) commissioned and (b) evaluated on the change in numbers of jobs, and the areas involved, which are likely to result from the proposal by Royal Mail to change its pricing structure from weight based charging to size based charging in (i) the photo finishing industry and (ii) other industries; [172516]

  (2) what recent discussions she has had with (a) Royal Mail, (b) the Post Regulator, (c) representatives of the photo finishing industry and (d) other business representatives on Royal Mail's proposals to change its pricing structure from weight based charging to size based charging. [172517]

  Mr. Timms
  The proposal by Royal Mail to introduce size-based pricing is a matter for the postal services regulator, Postcomm. Royal Mail's proposal is currently the subject of a full public consultation which runs until 27 July 2004. The consultation can be accessed on the Postcomm website www.postcomm.gov.uk

  As well as seeking views of other interested parties, a significant part of the consultation is to gather information from customers likely to be affected by size-based pricing. Following this consultation, Postcomm will produce a Regulatory Impact Assessment taking account of the comments received from customers, including the photo finishing industry.

  Regional Development Agency Funding (Lancashire)
  Geraldine Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for
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  Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on Regional Development Agency funding for Carnforth under the Market Towns Initiative. [170232]

  Jacqui Smith
  [holding answer 10 May 2004]: I have been advised by the Northwest Development Agency that it has issued guidance to Market Town Partnerships in the North West, including Carnforth, indicating that it is prepared to directly invest up to £1 million in each town.

  Geraldine Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how much funding the Regional Development Agency has spent or allocated to projects in Lancashire since the agency was created; and if she will list the(a) funding and (b) projects by constituency in order of amount of funding. [170233]

  Jacqui Smith
  [holding answer 10 May 2004]: I have been advised by the Northwest Development Agency that since its creation, NWDA has not collated data by sub-region or parliamentary constituency. Spend has been monitored by programme and/or activity, and many of the Agency's projects and schemes span several constituencies and local authority areas.

  As of April 2004, the Agency now has a three year investment strategy which will monitor budgeted expenditure by sub region.

  The NWDA has provided funding of over £500,000 to support the following projects in Lancashire:

  Preston Post Office

  Lancashire West Business Productivity

  Lancashire Tourism Partnership (SRB Round 3)

  Bacup and Stacksteads (SRB Round 6)

  Blackpool Challenge Partnership (SRB Round 6)

  Lancashire Small Sites Programme 2002

  Michelin Site, Burnley

  Pendle Economic Regeneration Programme (PERP)

  Fleetwood Marsh Nature Park

  Burnley Technology Centre

  Pavillions, Blackburn

  Cardwell Mill

  Rossendale Brownfield Land Project

  White Moss Business Park Phase 2

  Blackpool Regeneration: Talbot Road South

  Acquisition

  Green Business Parks (Lancs)

  Futures Park Managed Offices Bacup

  White Moss Business Park Investment Centre

  Skelmersdale Acquisitions

  Landgate and Moss Quarries

  Former Co Op Burnley

  ASP—N and W Lancs Core and Lancs ASP Activities

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  Lancashire Rural Recovery Plan

  Lancashire LSC—Festival of Skills

  East Lancs Partnership (SRB Round 5)

  Clitheroe Market Town Initiative

  F D Sims Ltd

  Blackpool: Central Gateway Phase 1

  Erlson Engineering Ltd

  West Lancashire Investing in Business Programme

  Geraldine Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the current position is regarding Regional Development Agency funding for the Midland Hotel and Central Regeneration Project in Morecambe; and when she expects the project will begin. [170234]

  Jacqui Smith
  [holding answer 10 May 2004]: I have been advised by the Northwest Development Agency that the Midland Hotel re-development project has been identified in the Agency's three year investment plan for 2004–07. Discussions are about to begin with the owner and developer, Urban Splash, about Agency funding support during that period. The Agency understand that Urban Splash intend to start work in the summer of this year.

  Renewable Energy (South Ribble)
  Mr. Borrow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on the effect of recent trends in investment in renewable energy upon residents of South Ribble. [171285]

  Mr. Timms
  [holding answer 6 May 2004]: As far as I am aware recent trends in investment have not led to new renewable energy developments in South Ribble.

  Small Businesses
  Mr. Bellingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what research her Department has conducted into the effects of late payments on small businesses; and if she will make a statement. [168984]

  Nigel Griffiths
  Specific research into the effects of late payment has not been carried out because this government has always recognised that late payment of debts can have serious effects on the cash flow of smaller companies, which is why we had a manifesto commitment to introduce a Late Payment Act to allow small businesses to:claim interest on late payment from other business or public sector bodies, allow creditors to claim a fixed sum of compensation to cover debt recovery costs should late payment happen. Compensation entitlements are: £40 for a debt of up to £999.99, £70 for a debt of between £1,000 and £9,999.99 and £100 for amounts over £10,000.

  This package of measures has had a positive effect on payment times. The Grant Thornton European Business Survey showed that the average time taken in the UK to settle accounts in 1997 was 49 days. By 2002 this had fallen to 41 days. By comparison, the average settlement time in our European neighbours was 50 days.
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  A recent survey by the REL Consultancy Group looked at average days payable outstanding (DPO) and concluded that UK companies' payment performance stands at a commendable 33.6 days against 42.4 days for Europe as a whole, whilrcountries such as Italy (67.9) and France (63.4) perform considerably less well.

TRANSPORT

  Airports
  John Thurso
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether he requires representatives of environmental organisations to be included on airport consultative committees. [172129]

  Mr. McNulty
  The Government does not specify the composition of airport consultative committees. However, an airport designated under s.35 of the Civil Aviation Act 1982 must provide adequate facilities for consultation to those in the categories there specified, which include organisations "representing the interests of persons concerned with the locality in which the aerodrome is situated".

  John Thurso
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what guidance his Department has issued on the composition of airport consultative committees. [172130]

  Mr. McNulty
  The Department issued revised guidance on airport consultative committees, including matters relating to their composition, in December 2003. The guidance may be viewed on, and downloaded from, the Department's website.

  John Thurso
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport which airports in England have airport consultative committees; and if he will list the members of each. [172131]

  Mr. McNulty
  The Department does not maintain a central register of consultative committees and the membership of each is a matter for the committee itself. 51 aerodromes are designated under s.35 of the Civil Aviation Act 1982, of which 43 are in England. I understand that all these have consultative committees, as may some aerodromes which are not so designated.

  Coastguard
  Mr. Carmichael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether his Department has(a) produced and (b) received a list of coastguard rescue centres that may be closed. [172385]

  Mr. Jamieson
  There is no list of coastguard rescue centres that may be closed.

  Driving Standards Agency
  Mr. Damian Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how much the Driving Standards Agency has spent on consultancy fees in each financial year since 1997. [171963]
  258W
  Mr. Jamieson
  In each financial year since 1997, the Driving Standards Agency has spent the following on consultancy fees:

  £

  1997–98

  586,000

  1998–99

  749,000

  1999–2000

  1,105,000

  2000–01

  751,000

  2001–02

  1,201,000

  2002–03

  1,128,000

  2003–04

  11,338,000

  1Currently subject to audit.

  Mr. Damian Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many staff were employed by the Driving Standards Agency to handle test booking enquiries, broken down by the number of staff dealing with(a) telephone inquiries and (b) internet inquiries in the last year. [171964]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The Driving Standards Agency employs 166 permanent staff in two call centres to deal with practical test bookings and telephone inquiries. Some 100 employment agency staff are also currently employed to ensure that sufficient resource is available to meet the demand. One member of staff has dealt with internet inquiries since the introduction of the practical test internet booking facility in October 2003.

  Mr. Damian Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how much money the Driving Standards Agency received from Transport for London under its contract to test Hackney Carriage black cabs within London. [171969]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The Driving Standards Agency does not receive money from Transport for London under the contract for testing applicants for a hackney carriage licence. Instead, applicants pay the Agency directly for tests that they take. In 2003–04, the Agency conducted 847 tests at a cost of £55.30 a test, resulting in total revenue of £46,839.

  International Security Ship Plan
  Mr. Carmichael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will bring forward regulations in relation to enforcement of the International Security Ship Plan. [172386]

  Mr. Jamieson
  Enforcement of the new ship and port facility security regime agreed by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in December 2002, including Ship Security Plans and International Ship Security Certificates, will be under the Ship and Port Facility (Security) Regulations 2004. These Regulations are currently being drafted and are expected to be laid before Parliament in early June, to come into force on 1 July at the same time as the IMO regime.

  Light Rail
  Mr. Damian Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many pedestrians have been involved in collisions with light rail vehicles in each year since 1997; and how many(a) deaths and (b) injuries resulted from such collisions. [171954]
  259W
  Mr. Jamieson
  The numbers of pedestrians killed or injured in collisions with Tram/light rail vehicles for each year since 1999, the first year for which figures are available, are shown in the following table.

  killed

  Injured

  1999

  0

  14

  2000

  0

  4

  2001

  0

  8

  2002

  2

  15

  Total

  2

  41

  Oldham West and Royton
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what the percentage change in(a) deaths and (b) serious injuries on the roads of Oldham West and Royton has been since 1997. [170959]

  Dr. Howells
  The available information relates to local authority areas. In the Oldham local authority area there were 13 deaths in road accidents in 1997 and four deaths in 2002, the latest year for which information is available. The number of serious injuries fell by 33 per cent. from 85 in 1997 to 57 in 2002. Estimates on the basis of parliamentary constituencies will become available in the summer when I shall write to my right hon. Friend with figures for Oldham West and Royton and place a copy of my letter in the Libraries of the House.

  Road Traffic Accidents
  David Davis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many people(a) were seriously injured and (b) died in road traffic accidents in the East Riding of Yorkshire in each year since 1997. [171773]

  Dr. Howells
  The numbers of people killed or seriously injured in road traffic accidents in the East Riding of Yorkshire for each year since 1997, are shown in the following table.

  Killed

  Seriously injured

  1997

  23

  241

  1998

  33

  270

  1999

  42

  258

  2000

  21

  260

  2001

  24

  266

  2002

  36

  286

  Total

  179

  1,581

  Shell Haven
  Bob Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects to report the result of the public inquiry into the Shell Haven Port inquiry. [172559]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The report of the public inquiry into the proposed London Gateway port at Shell Haven is under careful consideration. The report will be made public as soon as Ministers are able to announce their decision.

  Shipping (Straits of Malacca)
  Patrick Mercer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether ships are searched as a matter of course if they have passed through the Straits of Malacca en route to the UK. [170062]

  Mr. Jamieson
  The decision to invoke control measures, including ship searching is largely intelligence led.

  Statutory Off-road Notifications
  Mr. Simon Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what procedures are followed by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency for issuing a reminder notice in the case of Statutory off-road Notifications. [172102]

  Mr. Jamieson
  Statutory Off Road Notification (SORN) declarations are valid for 12 months. Approximately two weeks before expiry DVLA issues a notice to remind the motorist either to renew SORN or to tax the vehicle.

  Transport Direct
  John Thurso
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list the consultants used to conduct work for the Department related to Transport Direct, broken down by(a) value of work and (b) nature of the work. [170868]

  Dr. Howells
  The following table provides this information.

  £000

  Nature of Work

  Value of Work

  Transport Direct Programme Management

  210

  Transport Direct Portal Project Management

  342

  Transport Direct Portal Technical Advice

  716

  Transport Direct Portal Contract Management

  179

  Research and Usability

  196

  Data Management

  215

  Management of Technical Standards

  8

  Development of an Evaluation Framework

  15

  Mr. Damian Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects the Transport Direct information service to go online. [171945]

  Dr. Howells
  The Transport Direct service will become available to the public in July 2004. The service itself came online—under password protection—in December 2003, since when extensive data testing has been undertaken.

  Trunk Roads
  Mr. Flook
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport which trunk road schemes have been placed by the Department of Transport before regional assemblies for consultation. [171991]

  Mr. Jamieson
  Regional Assemblies, or their predecessor organisations, have been consulted for their views on all trunk Road schemes considered as candidates for entry to the Targeted Programme of
  261W
  Improvements, either as part of a wider public consultation process, through direct consultation between the Highways Agency and the relevant assembly or through their involvement in the multi-modal and road based studies which were set up following the 1998 Roads Review to examine proposals for major improvements to the motorway and trunk road network.

  Walking
  Mr. Damian Green
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects his Department's partnership website on walking to go live. [172051]

  Dr. Howells
  A website for walking professionals, developed and run by a partnership of national walking organisations, went live on 31 March this year. It can be found at www.walk2l.com. My Department provided some financial support for the project.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Air Quality
  Mr. Gregory Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the air quality was in each of the last five years in towns and cities in Northern Ireland for which records are kept. [172064]

  Angela Smith
  The Environment and Heritage Service (EHS) of the Department of the Environment publishes an annual air quality monitoring report for Northern Ireland in partnership with the Chief Environmental Health Officers Group. The most recent report—for 2002—provides details of all air quality monitoring and results taken from district council and departmental monitoring sites. This report also draws together all the historical air quality monitoring data for Northern Ireland and includes trend analysis and discussion in relation to EU limit values and National Air Quality Objectives, where data permit.

  The report can also be accessed on the >EHS website. http://www.ehsni.gov.uk/environment/air/air.shtml

  Copies of the report have been placed in the Library.

  Body Piercing
  Lady Hermon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the regulation of body piercing and tattooing establishments in Northern Ireland. [172029]

  Angela Smith
  Powers for the regulation by district councils of tattooing and ear-piercing establishments in Northern Ireland are provided by Part V of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 1985.

  Under this legislation, district councils may resolve to control tattooing and ear-piercing practices in their districts by requiring practitioners to register themselves and their premises with the district council. They may also make bye-laws concerning the cleanliness of registered premises and practitioners, and for the cleansing and sterilisation of instruments, materials and equipment with their district council.
  262W
  The Government intend to publish draft legislation for consultation later this year which would bring forward legislative proposals to extend these arrangements to body-piercing practices.

  Castlereagh College
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what steps were taken to ensure Castlereagh College's involvement in assisting employees of TK-ECC following closure of the factory at Dundonald; and if he will make a statement. [171029]

  Mr. Gardiner
  Following two meetings with TK-ECC Senior Management, officials from the Department for Employment and Learning co-ordinated an inter-Departmental Outreach Service at the company's premises, from 8 to 12 March. During the meetings it was indicated to the company that Castlereagh College was keen to provide additional support to the workforce; subsequently, formal contact was established between the company and the college.

  The company quickly established the Outplacement Centre, involving the Department for Employment and Learning, Invest Northern Ireland, Social Security Agency and the Inland Revenue in providing advice and guidance on their services, including referrals to jobs and training opportunities, benefit claims and entitlement, advice on business start-up and entitlement to tax credits. While it was the company's intention to engage with other interested organisations, including Castlereagh College, unfortunately, this did not transpire as the premises were vacated on 12 March, prohibiting intervention by these organisations.

  The Department for Employment and Learning's District Manager for South and East Belfast met, subsequently, with the Principal and Chief Executive of Castlereagh College to clarify the situation pertaining to the closure of TK-ECC and to establish agreed practices in the event of future redundancies occurring within South and East Belfast.

  Child Obesity
  Lady Hermon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what assessment he has made of the levels of obesity among children of school age; what steps he is taking to encourage exercise and healthy eating among school children; and if he will make a statement. [171985]

  Angela Smith
  Independent research carried out in 1996 reported that 16 per cent. of 13 and 14-year-olds were overweight. This figure included 3.5 per cent. of boys and 2 per cent. of girls, classified as obese. Additional research on levels of overweight and obesity in children in Northern Ireland is likely to become available in the near future.

  A task force is being established under the auspices of the Ministerial Group on Public Health to consider and

  263W
  evaluate options for tackling obesity in children and young people in Northern Ireland. The task force is expected to make recommendations on how levels of obesity in children should be assessed in future.

  Some £500,000 has been made available in 2004–05 for the promotion of physical activity and a new physical activity strategy and action plan will be issued for public consultation before the summer. The Department is also encouraging a healthy diet among school children through programmes such as the pilot, Fresh Fruit in Schools initiative. In addition, the Department of Education has recently launched a 12-month pilot scheme to improve the nutritional standard of school meals.

  Community Pharmacies
  Rev. Martin Smyth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the progress of the Community Pharmacy Medicines Management Initiative. [171794]

  Angela Smith
  Training has been provided to enable 40 per cent. of pharmacies to deliver the service and this will be progressively extended. My Department will continue to work with key stakeholders to extend and consolidate the existing scheme to build further collaboration across the primary care team and the secondary care sector. In addition, the Department is working to develop a referral scheme to formalise patient referral from care providers to the community pharmacist for medicines management advice and guidance services.

  The roll-out of the service has been managed at Board level through provision of training and on-going encouragement. Linked to this, Boards are planning to put in place a number of facilitators to support practitioners to take on this new role. A regional facilitator will be appointed to establish a cohesive network with Board personnel to support further uptake of the scheme.

  Emergency Admissions (Ulster Hospital)
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what conclusions have been drawn from the Improving the Flow of Emergency Admissions project conducted at the Ulster Hospital; and if he will make a statement. [171755]

  Angela Smith
  The Eastern Health and Social Services Board initiated the Improving the Flow of Emergency Admissions project at the Ulster Hospital in January 2003. The project involves a systematic analysis of patient flows into and through the hospital, in order to identify critical bottlenecks in the system. It is a long-term project and work at the hospital is still on-going. Analysis of systems and processes has identified new ways of working and highlighted shortfalls in resources, which the Trust and the Eastern Board are working to address.

  The results of this project to date, along with the outcomes of similar projects elsewhere in Northern Ireland and in Great Britain, are being considered by the Department and will be the subject of discussions to be held at a regional workshop later this month. This workshop will aim to identify key principles learned
  264W
  from the project at the Ulster Hospital and elsewhere that can be applied more widely. These will be incorporated into a regional initiative to improve the flow of emergency admissions.

  Football
  Lady Hermon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what Government assistance has been provided for the Irish Football Association's(a) Give Bigotry the Red Card and (b) Football for All campaigns. [170243]

  Angela Smith
  Funding totalling £165,500 has been provided by the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council for the Football for All project which includes Give Bigotry the Red Card. This consists mainly of an award of £159,500 made under the EU Peace II Programme, which covers the period from 1 July 2002 to 30 June 2005.

  Lupus
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what steps he is taking to assist sufferers of lupus; and if he will make a statement. [171753]

  Angela Smith
  Rheumatologists throughout Northern Ireland manage patients with lupus, with input from other specialists as required. The management of any individual patient with lupus depends on the type of lupus, the nature of their disease and its severity. Specific services for lupus patients include a lupus clinic run by rheumatologists in Belfast, and management in a day ward for patients who require it. Lupus is also an area where there is significant research activity and clinicians working in this area have recently received funding from the Wellcome Foundation.

  Motor Cycling
  Lady Hermon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether motorcycle road racing clubs in Northern Ireland can avail themselves of the Safe Sports Grounds fund for essential work at road racing circuits. [170250]

  Angela Smith
  Motorcycle road racing clubs cannot avail themselves of funding from the Sports Council Safe Sports Grounds fund for essential work at road racing circuits as the Safe Sports Grounds Interim Scheme ended in March 2003. However, approximately £175,000 has been provided, via the Sports Council for Northern Ireland, over the past three years for essential safety work at road racing circuits. Moreover, motor sports clubs may be able to avail of funding for essential works from monies provided by the Sports Council to the two and four Wheel Motor Sport Steering Group Ltd., the umbrella group of motor sports governing bodies, for the development of motor sport as a whole in Northern Ireland.

  Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission
  Mr. Dodds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland who has(a) been appointed, (b) been dismissed, (c) resigned and (d) withdrawn from the

  (a) Appointed (and remuneration) to April 2004

  £

  Name of Commissioner

  Date appointed

  Current remuneration per annum

  Renumeration on starting per annum

  Total remuneration

  Professor Brice Dickson

  1 March 1999

  66,854

  55,000

  302,937

  Professor Christine Bell

  1 March 1999

  1—

  8,000

  28,832

  Margaret-Ann Dinsmore QC

  1 March 1999

  10,000

  8,000

  44,666

  Tom Donnelly

  1 March 1999

  10,000

  8,000

  44,666

  Reverend Harold Good QBE

  1 March 1999

  2—

  8,000

  42,999

  Professor Tom Hadden

  1 March 1999

  10,000

  8,000

  44,666

  Angela Hegarty

  1 March 1999

  1—

  8,000

  14,666

  Patricia Kelly

  1 March 1999

  10,000

  8,000

  44,666

  Doctor Inez McCormack

  1 March 1999

  1—

  8,000

  28,832

  Frank McGuinness

  1 March 1999

  2—

  8,000

  42,999

  Lady Christine Eames

  1 December 2001

  10,000

  8,000

  22,000

  Doctor Christopher McGimpsey

  1 December 2001

  1—

  8,000

  18,666

  Kevin McLaughlin

  1 December 2001

  10,000

  8,000

  22,000

  Patrick Yu

  1 December 2001

  1—

  8,000

  15,333

  1Resigned.

  2Term ended 29 February 2004.

  (b) Dismissed—not applicable.

  (c) Resigned

  Name of Commissioner

  Date resigned

  Angela Hegarty

  1 December 2000

  Professor Christine Bell

  9 September 2002

  Doctor Inez McCormack

  9 September 2002

  Patrick Yu

  7 July 2003

  Doctor Christopher McGimpsey

  3 November 2003

  (d) Withdrawn

  Name of Commissioner

  Remuneration per annum (£)

  Paddy Kelly

  10,000

  Frank McGuinness

  1—

  1Term ended 28 April 2004.

  Note:

  The Commissioner's salaries were raised from £8,000 to £10,000 from I April 2002.

  Brice Dickson's increments are as follows:

  Amount (£)

  19991

  55,000

  20002

  57,475

  20012

  60,004

  20022

  63,604

  20032

  66,854

  1Starting salary.

  2From April.

  Police Service
  Mr. Swayne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what support his Department is providing to members of the full time police reserve of the Police Service of Northern Ireland to assist them in seeking other employment. [170563]

  Mr. Pearson
  Members of the full time reserve who leave the Police Service of Northern Ireland under the voluntary severance scheme have access to a range of career and outplacement services. The facilities provided by the Police Retraining and Rehabilitation Trust are also available to all full time reserve officers.266W
  Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission since its formation; and how much remuneration has been received in each case. [168169]

  Mr. Spellar
  The information is as follows:

  Public Health
  Mrs. Iris Robinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what estimate he has made of the cost to the health service in Northern Ireland of(a) tobacco smoking, (b) alcohol misuse and (c) other drug use in the last year for which figures are available. [171784]

  Angela Smith
  The information requested is as follows:

  (a) In her 2000 Annual Report, the Chief Medical Officer estimated that the annual in-patient care costs to the HPSS of smoking related diseases were in excess of £22 million. Additional treatment costs associated with out-patient and primary care cannot readily be identified.

  (b) In the Report, "Reducing Alcohol Related Harm in Northern Ireland', it was estimated that, in 1997–98, the last year for which costs are available, the social costs to the HPSS amounted to £26.8 million pounds per year. This included the costs of occupied psychiatric and acute beds, general practice costs and responses to alcohol related harm.

  (c) In relation to other drug use, the information is not available in this format.

  Road Accidents (Compensation)
  Mr. Gregory Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much public money has been spent on meeting compensation claims in relation to pedestrians who have had accidents on footpaths and roads in the ownership of the Department for Regional Development in each of the last five years. [172063]

  Mr. Spellar
  The IT records of the Department for Regional Development do not distinguish pedestrians from other claimants e.g. car passengers. It is believed, however, that the vast majority of claimants claiming against the Department for personal injury are pedestrians and relate to accidents on footpaths or roadways. The following table sets out the total
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  compensation expenditure paid by the Department for Regional Development in relation to personal injury claims in each of the last five years.

  £

  2003–04

  4,882,718

  2002–03

  4,744,835

  2001–02

  3,069,728

  2000–01

  2,244,137

  1999–2000

  3,104,204

  Small Businesses
  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will take steps to assist small businesses meet insurance costs. [171714]

  Mr. Gardiner
  The hon. Gentleman is aware that insurance is a "reserved" matter. HM Government are conscious that many businesses have been hit hard by significant price increases in the liability insurance market. They are committed to playing their part in helping business in this area.

  The Government's agenda for action at national and local levels is being directed towards improving the functioning of the insurance market, including promoting better risk management and health and safety practices in order to reduce premium costs.

  The Department of Enterprise Trade and Investment is working closely with the Federation of Small Businesses and the Insurance sector on the production of guidance for local businesses.

  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will take steps to reduce regulation on small businesses in Northern Ireland. [171715]

  Mr. Gardiner
  Government are aware of the potential problems faced by small businesses in complying with regulations.

  In December 2001, the Northern Ireland Executive approved the introduction of the Northern Ireland Better Regulation Strategy which actively seeks to reduce the regulatory burden on businesses, including revised arrangements for Regulatory Impact Assessments and the introduction of a Micro Business Test to assess the impact of any proposed legislation on businesses with less than five employees. It also requires Northern Ireland Departments to give businesses at least 12 weeks advance notice of any legislation and to provide appropriate guidance on implementation.

  I acknowledge fully the vital role of small businesses in the local economy and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment is striving to ensure that they benefit from the application of the Better Regulation Strategy.

  Toxic Materials (Illegal Dumping)
  Mr. McGrady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what action he intends to take in relation to the illegal dumping of toxic material at the green area, Annadale Embankment, Belfast. [171236]
  268W
  Angela Smith
  Powers to deal with illegal dumping are enforced by a number of regulatory bodies including district councils, roads service and the Environment and Heritage Service (EHS) of the Department of the Environment. The owners of land where waste has been unlawfully deposited also have responsibilities in the matter. I understand that quantities of waste material have been deposited at Annadale Embankment for the purposes of the 11 July bonfire celebration. Statutory bodies have encountered particular difficulties when endeavouring to deal with waste deposited for bonfire events. To address this, an Interagency Working Group on Bonfires was established by EHS in November 2003. The Report of the Working Group, with guidelines for communities in preparing and organising bonfire events, will be published and sent to all elected representatives in Northern Ireland, and to regulatory bodies involved in the control of bonfires, in the week commencing 17 May 2004.

  Legal action will continue to be taken by EHS, when evidence is available, relating to the disposal of commercial waste to bonfire sites by either waste producers or transporters.

  Translink
  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the status of Translink is; and what the membership is. [171719]

  Mr. Spellar
  Translink is a brand name, introduced in 1996, of the integrated services of Citybus, Ulsterbus and Northern Ireland Railways. It is a subsidiary of the Northern Ireland Transport Holding Company, which is a public corporation established under the Transport Act (NI) 1967 to oversee the provision of public transport in Northern Ireland.

  Transport Review Team
  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland who the members of the Transport Review Team are; and when its report is due to be published. [171720]

  Mr. Spellar
  I assume that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the Railway Review Group which was set up to gather information on the future needs and requirements of railways in Northern Ireland and is comprised of Officials from the Department for Regional Development, the Department of Finance and Personnel and Senior Translink Officials. The group has reported preliminary findings to me and it is my intention to issue a consultation document relating to the future investment needs in the coming weeks in order to inform the forthcoming spending review process.

  Victim Support
  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much funding has been allocated to victim support groups in Northern Ireland since 2001–02; which groups are involved; how much each group received; on what basis the funding was given; and how funding is monitored. [159693]

  Angela Smith
  I have placed a table in the Library which lists the funding allocated and paid up to 31 March 2004 to groups and organisations involved in providing support for victims of the Northern Ireland
  269W
  conflict. The table lists the groups and organisations that benefited, the amounts allocated and paid, the basis on which the funding was given and indicates how the funding is monitored.

TREASURY

  European Union
  Sir Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the reasons why the European Union accounts for 2002 have not been signed or approved by the Court of Auditors; and if he will make a statement. [172486]

  Ruth Kelly
  The Paymaster General made a full statement on these issues on 23 February 2004 during the debate in European Standing Committee B on the European Court of Auditors' annual report.

  Sir Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the reasons for the increase in the number of recorded fraud cases within the EU in 2002; and how much money was lost in fraud within the EU in 2002. [172487]

  Ruth Kelly
  Member states are required to report irregularities detected in their own resources, agriculture and structural funds budget sectors to the European Commission and to the European Anti-Fraud Office. These figures are reported every year in the Commission's annual "Fight against Fraud" report. Reported irregularities may include suspected fraud cases, but the Commission does not publish an estimate of fraud. Irregularities rose during 2002 mainly because the heavy audit activity required at the closure of the 1994–1999 Structural Funds programming period led to the detection of a higher number of errors than is usually the case. Any money found to have been paid in error is normally recovered by the paying agency concerned.

  Sir Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the scope for reducing levels of fraud connected with the European Union budget. [172489]

  Distribution of Original Income, by quintile, 19931 to 2002–03—United Kingdom

  £ per year

  1993

  1994–95

  1995–96

  Quintile

  Income boundary2

  Original Income

  Income boundary2

  Original Income

  Income boundary2

  Original Income

  Bottom

  1,920

  2,040

  2,430

  6,880

  7,407

  7,786

  2nd

  5,020

  5,600

  6,080

  9,541

  10,136

  10,635

  3rd

  12,850

  13,390

  13,790

  13,351

  14,042

  14,505

  4th

  20,850

  22,240

  22,450

  19,095

  19,879

  20,393

  Top

  39,370

  40,330

  41,250

  Average for all households

  16,000

  16,720

  17,200

  270W
  Ruth Kelly
  The Government strongly supports measures to reduce fraud against the Community budget. The European Anti-Fraud Office, which was an initiative of the Chancellor, is now up to complement and is doing a good job in tackling fraud, especially in cross-border cases which require investigations in several member states. The Government played an active part in negotiating the new Financial Regulation, a major reform which introduced new levels of accountability. Better financial control regulations in the Structural Funds, and simplification of agricultural payments will also reduce the opportunities for fraud.

  Income Distribution
  Mr. Willetts
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will set out the distribution of original income, by quintile, in each of the past 10 years. [171582]

  Ruth Kelly
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.

  Letter from Len cook to Mr. David Willetts, dated 11 May 2004:

  As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking for the distribution of original income, by quintile, in each of the past ten years. (171582)

  Estimates in the following table are produced from the Office for National Statistics' analysis "The effects of taxes and benefits on household income" published on the National Statistics website on 6 May 2004 at: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/taxesbenefits.

  The analysis includes measures of income inequality for the United Kingdom as a whole based on data from the Expenditure and Food Survey. There have been some changes in the underlying surveys and improvements in the methodology so caution is required when making direct comparisons between years.

  The table shows, for the UK, for 1993 to 2002/03, average original income received by all households and for each income quintile group where households are ranked by equivalised disposable income. For example, the 1st quintile boundary is the income level below which one fifth of households are estimated to lie. Equivalisation is a standard methodology that takes into account the size and composition of households and adjusts their incomes to recognise differing demands on resources.

  Original income is defined as income before government intervention i.e. from sources such as earnings, occupational pensions and investments. It does not include cash benefits such as the State Retirement Pension, Incapacity benefit, Working Families Tax Credit, child benefit or housing benefit.
  271W

  1996–97

  1997–98

  Quintile

  Income boundary2

  Original Income

  Income boundary2

  Original Income

  Bottom

  2,310

  2,520

  8,032

  8,507

  2nd

  6,450

  6,760

  11,344

  11,922

  3rd

  14,710

  15,530

  15,521

  16,342

  4th

  24,220

  25,980

  21,972

  23,457

  Top

  44,780

  47,610

  Average for all households

  18,490

  19,680

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  Quintile

  Income boundary2

  Original Income

  Income boundary2

  Original Income

  Income boundary2

  Original Income

  Bottom

  2,940

  2,840

  3,090

  8,785

  9,171

  9,790

  2nd

  7,260

  7,680

  8,820

  12,504

  13,173

  13,808

  3rd

  16,570

  17,170

  18,570

  17,193

  18,212

  19,029

  4th

  26,700

  27,920

  29,950

  24,259

  26,118

  27,109

  Top

  51,220

  54,400

  55,740

  Average for all households

  20,940

  22,000

  23,230

  2001–02

  2002–03

  Quintile

  Income boundary2

  Original Income

  Income boundary

  Original Income

  Bottom

  3,410

  4,030

  10,356

  11,196

  2nd

  9,140

  9,610

  14,670

  15,516

  3rd

  19,240

  19,320

  19,910

  20,860

  4th

  32,000

  33,080

  28,469

  29,575

  Top

  62,080

  60,310

  Average for all households

  25,180

  25,270

  11993 calendar year, 1994–95 to 2002–03 are financial years.

  2 Boundary point between equivalised disposable income quintiles.

  Source:

  Office for National Statistics, based on the analysis 'The effects of taxes and benefits on household income', published on the ONS website and in Economic Trends.

  Aviation Tax
  Mr. Best
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the impact on demand forecasts for air travel of(a) taxing aviation fuel at the same level as motor fuel, (b) the aviation industry paying the social and environmental costs of air travel and (c) applying VAT to airfares. [168721]

  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what estimate he has made of the additional revenue that would be raised, assuming no change in demand, if aviation fuel were taxed at the same rate as will apply to ordinary unleaded petrol for motor vehicles as from 1 September; [171362]

  (2) what estimate he has made of the additional revenue that would be raised, assuming no change in demand, if VAT at 17.5 per cent. or a sales tax at 17.5 per cent. were imposed on all domestic and international airline tickets for flights departing from UK airports. [171363]

  John Healey
  A discussion paper published jointly by HM Treasury and the Department for Transport in March 2003, entitled "Aviation and the Environment:
  272W
  using economic instruments", considered the role of economic instruments and the environmental costs of road transport. This was also considered in Air Transport White Paper, "The Future of Air Transport",

  published on 16 December 2003 and in chapter 5 of "Aviation and Global Warming", published by the Department for Transport on 10 February 2004.

  The Air Transport White Paper set out the conclusions of the Government's analysis, including our view that aviation should be brought within the EU Emissions Trading Scheme by 2008, as the most effective way of tackling the climate change impact. Along with other measures to tackle local environmental impacts, this will help to ensure that the air transport sector meets its environmental costs.

  The Government have not undertaken an analysis of the demand impacts of specific measures which are not legally possible, such as tax on fuel for international flights or VAT on air transport, but we are continuing to explore options for using economic instruments.
  273W
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the forecast revenue from air passenger duty is for 2004–05. [171365]

  John Healey
  Projected receipts from all taxes and duties are published in table C8 of the Financial Statement and Budget Report (HC 301). The forecast for Air Passenger Duty in 2004–05 is £0.9 billion.

  Child Tax Credit
  Mr. Willetts
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many parents have(a) been eligible for and (b) received the higher child tax credit in respect of a child under one in each year since it was introduced. [171600]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The child tax credit, which includes a baby addition to the family element, and a disregard for families receiving income support or income-based jobseeker's allowance and who have a child aged under one, have been available from April 2003.

  Estimates of the numbers benefiting appear in Table 3.2 of "Child and Working Tax Credits. Quarterly Statistics. April 2004", and the footnote to that table. This document is available on the Inland Revenue website at: www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/stats/personal-tax-credits/menu.htm No estimate of the number of families eligible for such help will be available until the Family Resources Survey for 2003–04 has been analysed.

  Mr. Borrow
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many families in South Ribble have received child tax credits. [171996]

  Dawn Primarolo
  I refer my hon. Friend to my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mrs. Dean) on 15 March 2004,Official Report, column 98W.

  Demography
  Mr. David Willetts
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many mothers in each cohort since 1945 have had three or more children. [171601]

  Ruth Kelly
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.

  Letter from Len Cook to Mr. David Willetts, dated 11 May 2004:

  As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking for the number of mothers in each cohort since 1945 who have had three or more children. (171601)

  Statistics on women by the number of children they have given birth to are not readily available. However, estimates can be produced using information from birth registrations and the General Household Survey, together with estimates of the population by age and sex. This exercise is only carried out for England and Wales.

  Summaries of these estimates are regularly published in the annual reference volume "Birth statistics (FM1)", but are normally presented in terms of proportions of women rather than numbers of women. However, I have supplied both the estimated numbers and proportions in the attached table.

  Cohorts of women born from 1958 onwards have yet to complete their childbearing. As each more recent annual cohort of women have successively more of their childbearing life remaining there are, therefore, successively fewer women who have had three or more children.
  274W

  Estimated number and percentage of women by year of birth who have had three or more children, based on births to 2002, England and Wales

  Thousand, per cent.

  Women born in year shown

  Year1,2,4

  Number with three or more children2,4

  Precentage with three or more children3,5

  Estimated number and percentage of women by year of birth who have had three or more children, based on births to 2002, England and Wales

  Thousand, per cent.

  Women born in year shown

  Year1,2,4

  Number with three or more children2,4

  Percentage with three or more children3,5

  Women who have completed their, fertility

  1945

  107

  33

  1946

  107

  33

  1947

  126

  30

  1948

  118

  31

  1949

  108

  30

  1950

  104

  30

  1951

  99

  30

  1952

  98

  30

  1953

  100

  30

  1954

  100

  30

  1955

  100

  30

  1956

  102

  30

  1957

  107

  30

  Women who have not yet completed their, fertility

  1958

  109

  30

  1959

  109

  30

  1960

  112

  30

  1961

  114

  29

  1962

  114

  28

  1963

  112

  27

  1964

  109

  26

  1965

  104

  25

  1966

  99

  23

  1967

  92

  22

  1968

  83

  20

  1969

  74

  18

  1970

  63

  16

  1971

  56

  14

  1972

  46

  12

  1973

  37

  10

  1974

  29

  8

  1975

  22

  7

  1976

  16

  5

  1977

  11

  4

  1978

  8

  3

  1979

  6

  2

  1980

  3

  1

  1981

  2

  1

  1982

  1

  0

  1983

  0

  0

  1984

  0

  0

  1985

  0

  0

  1986

  0

  0

  1987

  0

  0

  1988

  0

  0

  1The years of birth shown are by necessity approximate, since births pre 1963 are available only by calendar year of occurrence and age of mother at childbirth. For instance, women aged 32 giving birth to children in 2002 could have been born in either 1969 or 1970; for convenience, however, such women are here regarded as belonging to the 1970, cohort.

  2Women who have completed their fertility to age 45, population shown at age 45.

  3Percentage of women of all parities in given cohort at age 45.

  4Women who have not yet completed their fertility (have not reached age 45) The populations shown are at age they have completed by 2002, for example the 1970 cohort is at age 32.

  5 percentage of women of all parities in given cohort at age reached in 2002.

  Source:

  Office for National Statistics

  Economic Indicators
  John Mann
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what his estimates are for gross domestic product growth rates for fiscal years 2004–05 and 2005–06 in(a) France, (b) Germany, (c) Japan and (d) the United States. [171357]

  Ruth Kelly
  HM Treasury does not publish GDP growth forecasts for individual countries other than for the UK. Forecasts for GDP growth in the G7 and Euro area can be found in table B1 of the 2004 Financial Statement and Budget Report.

  A number of international agencies, banks and market analysts publish country-specific forecasts. For example, forecasts of GDP growth for France, Germany, Japan and the US can be found in the OECD's Economic Outlook No 74, December 2003, table 1 of the statistical annex.

  John Mann
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what he expects the size in percentage terms will be of budget deficits in fiscal years(a) 2004–05 and (b) 2005–06 in (i) France, (ii) Germany, (iii) Japan and (iv) the United States. [171358]

  Ruth Kelly
  HM Treasury does not publish projections of budget deficits for individual countries other than the UK. Projections on a calendar year basis, to 2005, for France, Germany, Japan and the US are available from a number of sources. The latest OECD figures are published in its "Economic Outlook" No. 74, December 2003, table 28 of the statistical annex.

  John Mann
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the percentage of the workforce employed in the public sector over the last 20 years in(a) France, (b) Germany, (c) Japan and (d) the United States. [171359]

  Ruth Kelly
  Definitions of public sector employment vary between countries, but Government employment as a percentage of total employment is a comparable and publicly available indicator. The OECD releases data on Government employment as a percentage of total employment through its Economic Outlook database. Data from 1980 for France, Germany, Japan and the US are presented in the following table.

  Government employment, percentage of total employed

  Percentage

  France

  Germany

  Japan

  US

  1980

  19.6

  14.4

  8.8

  16.4

  1981

  20.1

  14.6

  8.8

  16.0

  1982

  20.5

  14.8

  8.7

  15.9

  1983

  20.8

  15.0

  8.6

  15.7

  1984

  21.7

  15.0

  8.7

  15.3

  1985

  22.0

  15.0

  8.7

  15.3

  1986

  22.4

  14.9

  8.5

  15.2

  1987

  22.7

  14.9

  8.5

  15.1

  1988

  22.5

  14.7

  8.3

  15.1

  1989

  22.5

  14.6

  8.1

  15.2

  1990

  22.5

  14.2

  8.1

  15.5

  1991

  22.8

  13.4

  8.1

  15.8

  1992

  23.3

  13.5

  8.1

  15.9

  1993

  24.0

  13.4

  8.2

  15.8

  1994

  24.1

  13.2

  8.4

  15.7

  1995

  24.1

  12.8

  8.3

  15.6

  1996

  24.3

  12.7

  8.2

  15.4

  1997

  24.1

  12.4

  8.3

  15.2

  276W

  Government employment, percentage of total employed

  Percentage

  France

  Germany

  Japan

  US

  1998

  23.7

  12.1

  8.3

  15.1

  1999

  23.4

  11.1

  8.3

  15.2

  2000

  23.0

  11.4

  8.5

  15.2

  2001

  22.7

  11.1

  8.4

  15.4

  2002

  22.8

  11.1

  8.6

  15.7

  2003

  22.9

  11.1

  8.6

  15.6

  John Mann
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how income tax receipts as a percentage of the total tax take have varied over the last 20 years in(a) France, (b) Germany, (c) Japan and (d) the United States. [171360]

  Ruth Kelly
  The OECD publishes figures for "Taxes on personal income as a percentage of total taxation" for each of its member countries, in its annual Revenue Statistics publication (OECD Revenue Statistics 1965–2002, October 2003 edition, p.78, Table 11). A copy of this publication is available in the Library of the House.

  Employment
  Mr. Borrow
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what the(a) change and (b) percentage change was in the number of full-time permanent jobs in South Ribble from 1997 to 31 December 2003; [172151]

  (2) how many new jobs have been created in South Ribble since 1997. [172152]

  Ruth Kelly
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.

  Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Borrow, dated 11 May 2004:

  As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Questions about full-time jobs and jobs created in South Ribble. (172151,172152)

  While statistics of jobs created are not available explicitly, statistics from surveys enable comparisons to be made of net changes in numbers of jobs from year to year.

  The attached table shows the information requested, relating to all jobs and full-time jobs in South Ribble Parliamentary Constituency for 1997 and 2002, the latest year for which information is available.

  Information is not available about whether the jobs were permanent.

  Number of full-time employees and total number of employees1 in South Ribble parliamentary constituency, 1997 and 2002

  Full-time

  Total

  Number of employees

  1997

  19,700

  26,600

  2002

  22,100

  30,800

  Change from 1997 to 2002

  Absolute

  2,400

  4,200

  Percentage

  12.5

  15.9

  1Employee jobs only, not self-employed jobs.

  Source:

  1997; Annual Employment Survey, resealed 2002; Annual Business Inquiry (ABI).

  EU Insurance Mediation Directive
  Mr. Drew
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what the timetable is for the introduction of the EU Insurance Mediation Directive; and what consultation he has had with the insurance industry on its potential impact; [171417]

  (2) what the definition is of the term insurance business as used on page five of the Financial Services Authority booklet entitled High street firms: application pack for mortgage and general insurance businesses, with regard to the introduction of the EU Insurance Mediation Directive; [171418]

  (3) what measures he is putting in place to protect (a) smaller companies and (b) individual brokers in the lead up to the introduction of the EU Insurance Mediation Directive, with specific reference to costs; [171428]

  (4) what the rationale is for the introduction of the EU Insurance Mediation Directive; and how consumer choice will be guaranteed under its provisions; [171429]

  (5) what alternatives for a suitable regulatory body for the monitoring of the EU Insurance Mediation Directive were considered before the Financial Services Authority was appointed to this role. [171430]

  Ruth Kelly
  The IMD is being implemented across the EU and will come into force in the UK on 14 January 2005. The Government has consulted widely on the regulatory regime, publishing a public consultation document including draft regulations and a draft regulatory impact assessment in October 2002. Officials attended a wide range of meetings, working groups and conferences to consult on implementation. The FSA has carried out extensive public consultation on its rules.

  In implementing the Directive the Government and the FSA have worked closely with the industry to design a regulatory regime that takes account of market practice, and does not load the industry and ultimately the consumer with unnecessary costs. Both the Government and the FSA have been concerned to minimise the impact on smaller firms and sole traders. The Government also largely implemented the exclusions permitted in the Directive for travel insurance sold as part of a package, and for extended warranties.

  Application fees have been set by the FSA according to the volume of business that a firm undertakes, so are cheapest for the smaller firms. The FSA have developed an approach to authorisation that is as streamlined and straightforward as possible. In terms of the wider costs to firms, the FSA have published detailed cost benefit analyses, based on surveys of firms' costs and asked for comment. Where these have revealed that the costs are thought to be disproportionate and/or under-estimated, the FSA have responded in their final decisions. The UK has the largest insurance industry in Europe. Implementing the IMD is a key step in completing the single market in financial services, and will enhance consumer protection in an important sector of financial business. The UK market for selling insurance is competitive with many players giving customers wide choice, and this will continue in the new regime. Already thousands of firms have applied to the FSA for authorisation for the new regime.
  278W
  The Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 set up the FSA as the single regulatory body for a range of financial services, including the regulation of insurance. The Government therefore decided the FSA, as the single financial services regulator, was the most appropriate body to regulate insurance mediation. For many firms this will simplify and streamline regulation compared to the alternative of a separate regulator for insurance mediation. Intermediaries selling a range of other financial services products, such as pensions, mortgages, or investments, as well as general insurance, will come under the FSA as a single regulator, minimising compliance costs.

  The Directive requires the regulation of a range of insurance mediation activities. The activities to be regulated are introducing, proposing or carrying out other work preparatory to the conclusion of contracts of insurance; concluding contracts of insurance; and assisting in both the; administration and performance of such contracts, in particular in the event of a claim. The Directive applies to such activities in relation to contracts of insurance, The FSA application pack notes that shortened terms have been used in the pack in four instances. One of them is "insurance business" and refers to "insurance mediation activity in respect of non-investment insurance contracts." Further details of the FSA's regulatory regime can be found on their website at www.fsa.gov.uk

  Euro Preparations
  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer on which dates the(a) Standing Committee on Euro Preparations, (b) Scottish Euro Preparations Committee, (c) Wales Euro Preparations Committee and (d) Northern Ireland Euro Preparations Committee met; if he will publish the minutes of the meetings; and what the cost to public funds has been of euro preparations. [171578]

  Ruth Kelly
  The Chancellor's Standing Committee on Euro Preparations last met on 23 October 2003. Minutes of all Standing Committee meetings are available on the Treasury's euro website, www.euro.gov.uk. An update on the work of the Scottish, Wales and Northern Ireland Euro Preparations Committees, including the timing of recent and forthcoming meetings, was published in Chapters of the spring report on euro preparations, on 29 April 2004. Minutes of the meetings are available at www.dfpni.gov.uk (Northern Ireland), www.wales.gov.uk (Wales) and www.scottishsecretary.gov.uk (Scotland). Details of expenditure on changeover planning were included in the third outline National Changeover Plan, published on 9 June 2003. Copies of the document are in the Library of the House.

  Gender Pay Gap
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the pay gap between men and women employed by his Department and its agencies in(a) Southampton, (b) Eastleigh, (c) Winchester and (d) Romsey. [171631]

  Ruth Kelly
  HM Treasury and its agencies do not have any staff employed in the locations mentioned.
  279W
  Mr. Denham
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the average earnings of(a) men and (b) women in Hampshire. [171634]

  Ruth Kelly
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.

  Letter from Len Cook to Mr John Denham, dated 11 May 2004:

  As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking what assessment has been made of the average earnings of (a) men and (b) women in Hampshire. (171634)

  Average earnings are estimated from the 2003 New Earnings Survey (NES) and are provided for full-time employees on adult rates of pay whose pay was unaffected by absence during the pay period, by their place of work. This is the standard definition used for NES tables. The NES does not collect data on the self employed and people who do unpaid work.

  The 2003 NES estimates that the total average weekly earnings of full-time adult employees in Hampshire were £549,10 for males and £399.50 for females. Please note that these estimates relate to the administrative county of Hampshire, which excludes the unitary authorities of Portsmouth and Southampton.

  More detailed information on earnings in each of these areas is available in the published tables from the 2003 NES. The relevant estimates can be found in table A22.5 for males and A23.4 for females, and are available on the National Statistics website at: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_labour/NES2003_Analyses_By_Region/NES2003_Analyses_By_Region.pdf

  The NES, carried out in April of each year, is the most comprehensive source of earnings information in Great Britain. It is a 1 per cent. sample of all employees who are members of pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) schemes, but because of its sampling frame, it has difficulty capturing data on people with very low pay. It is therefore likely to under-represent relatively low paid staff earning below the tax threshold.

  The New Earnings Survey publication criteria ensures that all estimates are undisclosive and of reliable quality. A number of estimates have been removed from the published tables for these reasons.

  Income Tax
  Mr. Borrow
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many senior citizens in South Ribble have qualified for the 10 pence rate of income tax in each year since its introduction. [171997]

  Dawn Primarolo
  All income taxpayers benefit from the 10 pence starting rate. The Survey of Personal Incomes estimates there are about 8,000 and 6,000 state retirement pension age taxpayers in the South Ribble constituency in 2000–01 and 2001–02 respectively. However, year on year comparisons should be treated with caution because of sampling variation. Figures for 1999–2000 are currently not available.

  Mr. Benton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many senior citizens in Bootle qualified for the 10 pence of income tax in each year since its introduction. [172340]

  Dawn Primarolo
  All income taxpayers benefit from the 10 pence starting rate. The Survey of Personal Incomes estimates that there are about 4,000 state retirement pension age taxpayers in the Bootle constituency in 2000–01 and 2001–02. Estimates should be treated with caution because of sampling variation. Figures for 1999–2000 are currently not available.

  Insurance Policies
  John Robertson
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps his Department is taking to prevent banks and insurance companies from selling unsuitable insurance policies to pensioners; and what redress can be offered to customers in such circumstances. [171772]

  Ruth Kelly
  The selling of qualifying contracts of long-term insurance (broadly speaking long-term insurance policies that are not pure protection products) is already regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). Any firm which makes a recommendation to a customer must ensure that the contract is suitable to the customer's demands and needs, and this applies to pensioners as to other consumers.

  The FSA will regulate the selling of general insurance contracts from 14 January 2005. This regime will also introduce suitability standards such that any firm which makes a recommendation to a customer must ensure that the contract is suitable to the customer's demands and needs. This also applies to pensioners as to other consumers.

  International Accounting Standards Board
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the effect of the proposed changes by the International Accounting Standards Board to IAS39 on dormant accounts held by retail banks. [171995]

  Ruth Kelly
  When new International Accounting Standards come into force for listed groups in the EU at 1 January 2005, retail banks will need to ensure that they comply with those standards rather than existing UK accounting standards across all aspects of their business.

  Pensioner Taxation
  John Mann
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how tax income from pensioners has changed over the last 20 years. [171311]

  Dawn Primarolo
  It is not possible to separate out income tax from capital gains tax.

  Stamp Duty
  Harry Cohen
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has(a) to raise the level for which stamp duty is not payable on domestic property transactions in deprived wards and (b) increase the number of wards which can have stamp duty exemption under his scheme; and if he will make a statement. [171446]

  John Healey
  There are currently no plans to raise the threshold. The Government keeps all aspects of the tax system under regular review, including the rates and thresholds of Stamp Duty Land Tax.

  There are currently no plans to revise the qualifying wards.

  Statistics
  Mr. Roger Williams
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he has made of the amount of
  281W
  (a) aspartame, (b) monosodium glutamate and (c) saccharine imported into the UK in processed foods in each year since 1989. [172348]

  John Healey
  HM Customs and Excise are responsible for the collection of data on imports. It is not possible to identify the amount of these products imported into the UK in processed foods from the data held.

  Ms Dari Taylor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many job vacancies there were in Stockton South in(a) 1997 and (b) 2003. [171464]

  Ruth Kelly
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.

  Letter from Len Cook to Ms Dari Taylor, dated 11 May 2004:

  As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question about job vacancies in Stockton South. (171464)

  According to Jobcentre Plus administrative records, the number of unfilled vacancies in the Middlesbrough and Stockton travel-to-work area was 1,830 on average during 1997. This represents only a proportion of all the vacancies available, as not all vacancies are notified to Jobcentres.

  Figures are not available for Stockton South alone because the vacancies are allocated to local Jobcentres, not according to constituency boundaries, and because of the practice of notifying some vacancies centrally with one Jobcentre taking vacancies for others in the same district.

  Jobcentre vacancy statistics were withdrawn from National Statistics in September 2001 as a result of distortions to the data, which occurred following the introduction of new administrative procedures by Jobcentre Plus. Comparable figures for vacancies in 2003 are therefore unavailable.

  Results from the ONS Vacancy Survey were released as National Statistics from July 2003, but are not available for local areas.

  Ms Dari Taylor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the level of unemployment was in Stockton South in each year since 1997. [171468]

  Ruth Kelly
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.

  Letter from John Pullinger to Ms Dari Taylor, dated 11 May 2004:

  The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about unemployment. I am replying in his absence. (171468)

  The Office for National Statistics (ONS) compiles statistics of unemployment from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) following International Labour Organisation definitions. However, the LFS sample size is too small to give a reliable picture of changes over time of unemployment in the Stockton South Constituency.

  ONS also compiles statistics of those claiming Jobseeker's Allowance (ISA) for local areas including parliamentary constituencies.

  The table as follows gives the annual average number of JSA claimants for the Stockton South constituency for each year since 1997.

  Annual average number of JSA claimants

  Stockton South constituency, 1997–2003

  Number of claimants

  1997

  3,201

  1998

  2,756

  282W

  Annual average number of JSA claimants

  Stockton South constituency, 1997–2003

  Number of claimants

  1999

  2,780

  2000

  2,575

  2001

  2,183

  2002

  2,032

  2003

  1,884

  Statistics (West Lancashire)
  Mr. Pickthall
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many job vacancies there were in(a) 1997 and (b) 2003 in West Lancashire. [171493]

  Ruth Kelly
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.

  Letter from Len Cook to Colin Pickthall, dated 11 May 2004:

  As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question about job vacancies in West Lancashire. (171493)

  According to Jobcentre Plus administrative records the number of unfilled vacancies notified to Jobcentres in Lancashire West Jobcentre Plus District was 4,730 on average during 1997. This represents only a proportion of all the vacancies available, as not all vacancies are notified to Jobcentres.

  Figures are not available for West Lancashire alone because the vacancies are allocated to local Jobcentres, not according to constituency boundaries, and because of the practice of notifying some vacancies centrally with one Jobcentre taking vacancies for others in the same district.

  Jobcentre vacancy statistics were withdrawn from National Statistics in September 2001 as a result of distortions to the data, which occurred following the introduction of new administrative procedures by Jobcentre plus. Comparable figures for vacancies in 2003 are therefore unavailable.

  Results from the ONS Vacancy Survey were released as National Statistics from July 2003, but are not available for local areas.

  Mr. Pickthall
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many new jobs have been created in West Lancashire since 1997. [171495]

  Ruth Kelly
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.

  Letter from Len Cook to Colin Pickthall, dated 11 May 2004:

  As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question about jobs created in West Lancashire. (171495)

  While statistics of new jobs created are not available explicitly, statistics from surveys enable comparisons to be made of net changes in numbers of jobs from year to year.

  The most recent year for which data are available is 2002. There were 35,900 employees in the West Lancashire constituency in 2002 compared to 33,800 in 1997, a net increase of 2,200 jobs during this period. All figures are rounded to the nearest 100, which can introduce rounding error.

  The figures provided relate to employee jobs only. with self-employed jobs excluded, and are taken from the rescaled Annual Employment Survey (1997) and the Annual Business Inquiry (2002)

  Tax Coding
  Mr. Flook
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many notices of coding sent out in January to March for the 2004–05 tax year included car and fuel benefits attributable to the company car scheme which ceased in 2002–03. [167587]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The rules of the company car scheme changed in 2002–03. All the notices of coding issued between January and March for the 2004–05 tax year that included car and fuel benefits correctly included them under the new scheme. However, around 468,000 of the coding notices containing car and fuel benefits were incorrect because the rates for 2003–04 were mistakenly used instead of those for 2004–05. Amended notices of coding with revised figures to correct the error were issued in February before the 2004–05 codes were brought into operation.

  Tax Repayments
  Mr. Caton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the reasons were for the decision to limit the option of receiving Inland Revenue tax repayments by cheque to people without bank accounts. [172128]

  Dawn Primarolo
  The principal reasons for restricting the options for the method of repayment were to improve the level of service given to customers, to improve efficiency around the repayment process, and to improve the security of the payment.

  By making a repayment electronically direct to a bank or building society account, the customer is able to have earlier use of the money than if a cheque had been sent through the post. An electronic repayment also has lower processing cost both for the Inland Revenue and the banking sector; and reduces the risk of the payment being intercepted.

  But if the customer is unable to accept the repayment electronically, a cheque can be issued.

  Timber
  Ms Walley
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his Department plans to contribute financially to the establishment of the second phase of the Central Point of Expertise on Timber. [167620]

  John Healey
  I refer my hon. Friend to an answer provided by my hon. Friend the Minister for Environment and Agri-Environment yesterday,Official Report, column 31W.

  Unemployment
  Mr. Borrow
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the level of unemployment was in South Ribble in each year since 1997. [172011]

  Ruth Kelly
  The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.

  Letter from John Pullinger to Mr. Borrow, dated 11 May 2004:

  The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about unemployment. I am replying in his absence. (172011)
  284W
  The Office for National Statistics (ONS) compiles statistics of unemployment from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) following International Labour Organisation definitions. However, the LFS sample size is too small to give reliable estimates of unemployment in the South Ribble Constituency.

  ONS also compiles statistics of those claiming Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) for local areas including parliamentary constituencies.

  The table gives the annual average number of JSA claimants for the South Ribble constituency for each year since 1997.

  Annual average number of JSA claimants, South Ribble constituency, 1997–2003

  Number

  1997

  1,281

  1998

  1,038

  1999

  1,034

  2000

  921

  2001

  763

  2002

  759

  2003

  740

  Working Tax Credit
  Mrs. Brooke
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what representations he has received on the stoppage or reduction of payment of the child care element of the working tax credit in response to earlier overpayments of child tax credit. [171646]

  Dawn Primarolo
  None. In a case where both working and child tax credit have been awarded and the child care element is payable, the family would be entitled to the maximum amount of child tax credit so we would not expect the situation to arise.

  Tax credit awards are adjusted during the year so as to pay out the right amount for the year and prevent overpayments arising. The Inland Revenue's approach to dealing with tax credit overpayments is set out in a Code of Practice, "What happens if we have paid you too much tax credit?", available on the Inland Revenue's website or as a leaflet.

WORK AND PENSIONS

  British Sign Language Interpreters
  Helen Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what steps he is taking to increase the number of qualified British Sign Language/English interpreters. [171012]

  Maria Eagle
  The lack of tutors at the higher levels is recognised as being a significant blockage in the system to recruit and train BSL/English interpreters. On 4 May, I announced we were putting in place a programme of work to support the Government's position statement on British Sign Language (BSL) and had raised the original funding allocation by a further half million to £1.5 million. One of the two priorities this work will address is helping establish a framework to support BSL tutors, for example by providing on-line training material and developing tutor support packs. These measures will, over time, assist an increase in interpreting provision.

  Correspondence
  Mr. Kaufman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions when he intends to reply to the letter from the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton dated 5 April with regard to Mrs. Robina Abaid. [172265]

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  The letter has been transferred to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am sorry that due to an oversight it was not transferred earlier.

  Pension Credits (Devon and Cornwall)
  Mr. Sanders
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many eligible pensioners he estimates are not claiming(a) pension credits and (b) council tax credit in Devon and Cornwall, broken down by constituency. [171579]

  Malcolm Wicks
  The information is not available in the form requested. Estimates of numbers of people eligible are not available at any level lower than that of Government office region. However, the information in the tables gives the numbers of pension credit and council tax benefit recipients aged 60 and over in Devon and Cornwall for the latest dates for which figures are available. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced on 21 April 2004,Official Report, columns 21–22, we have published the latest monthly pension credit progress report with information up to the end of March. The report, which is available in the Library, is accompanied by tables showing the number of pension credit households and corresponding individuals in each constituency in Great Britain.

  Table 1: Pension credit recipients in Devon and Cornwall, 31 March 2004

  County

  Pension credit recipients (households)

  Devon

  30,615

  Cornwall

  26,090

  Note:

  Figures are rounded to the nearest five.

  Table 2: Council tax benefit recipients aged 60 and over in Devon and Cornwall, 31 August 2003

  Thousand

  County

  Council tax benefit recipients (households)

  Devon

  26.1

  Cornwall

  22.0

  Notes:

  1. The figures refer to benefit units, which may be a single person or a couple.

  2. The figures have been rounded to the nearest hundred and expressed in thousands.

  3. Figures for any non-responding authorities have been estimated.

  4. Council tax benefit totals exclude any second adult rebate cases.

  5. "Aged 60 and over" refers to cases where the claimant and/or partner are aged 60 or over.

  Pensions
  Mr. Webb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pursuant to his answer of 23 April 2004,Official Report, column 709W, on pension forecasts, which (a) employers and (b) pension providers delivered combined pension forecasts in each year since their introduction. [171101]
  286W
  Malcolm Wicks
  The names of the employers and pension providers providing combined pension forecasts in each year since their introduction are set out in the table.

  Pilot years

  AXA (Provider)

  DWP PCSPS

  EMAP

  J Sainsbury plc

  Merseyside Pension Fund

  NPI

  Prudential (Provider)

  2002–03

  Bacon and Woodrow

  Durham County Council

  EMAP

  J Sainsbury plc

  Misys

  Moore Stephens

  Nationwide Pension Fund

  2003–04

  Aberdeen City Council

  Adidas

  Aircraft Research Association Limited

  Albany International Limited

  Alusuisse Holdings

  Amcor Flexibles UK Limited

  Aspen plc

  Automated Packaging

  Babcock Engineering Services

  BAe Royal Ordnance

  Barnet CC

  Black Mountain International Limited

  BOC Group

  Brachers

  Cable & Wireless

  Capita Hartshead

  Caterpillar UK Limited

  Countrywide ASSD Caspil (Provider)

  Countrywide ASSD Vax (Provider)

  DS Smith Group Pension Scheme

  Durham County Council

  DWP Cheshire

  DWP PCSPS

  EMAP

  Field Group plc

  FMC Chemicals Pen/Plan

  FMC Corp (UK) Pen/Plan

  Gallaher Limited

  Goldsmith Group plc

  IBM Pensions Systems

  Imeche

  Imerys

  J Sainsbury plc

  Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society

  London—Scottish Fund

  London Borough of Haringey

  London Borough of Wandsworth

  Menzies Distribution Limited

  Meridan

  Ministers Pension + Insurance Fund

  287W

  Misys

  Molins

  Moore Stephens

  Nationwide Pension Fund

  NEC Staff Pension Scheme

  Nortel Networks UKPEN Trust Limited

  Northern Lighthouse Board

  Oxford Instruments

  Peacock Group 1988 Pen S

  Prudential (Provider)

  Reliance Mutual

  Rexam plc

  RMC

  Royal Society of Medicine

  Sabmiller plc

  Scottish and Newcastle plc

  Serco plc

  Shilling Communications

  South Yorkshire Pens Auth

  Steel Plate and Sections Limited

  Stock Exchange Centralised P/F

  Terrapin International Limited

  Thames Water

  Vencel Resil Limited

  Woodgate Fulfilment Limited

  WS Atkins Plc

  Mr. Webb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions pursuant to his answer of 23 April 2004,Official Report, column 709W, on pension forecasts, how many individuals have received a combined pension forecast; and how many of that number have received a forecast on (a) one, (b) two, (c) three and (d) more than three occasions. [171102]

  Malcolm Wicks
  The informal ion requested is not available in the format requested. Such information as is available is as follows.

  DWP has supplied 1,120,048 state pension forecasts to employers or pension providers for inclusion in combined pension forecasts. However the number of individuals who have received combined forecasts will be less than the total number of forecasts issued. This is because:

  all of the employers and providers currently delivering combined pension forecasts issue them annually to their scheme members and therefore some individuals will have received more than one forecast over the period since the service has been available;

  some individuals may receive a combined forecast from more than one pension provider.

  Retirement Pensions
  Mr. Webb
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will estimate the cost of abolishing the requirement on recipients of retirement pensions to have made national insurance contributions for at least 25 per cent, of their working life. [172432]

  Malcolm Wicks
  The information is not available in the format requested.
  288W
  However, we estimate that it would cost around £95 million in 2004–05 if recipients of graduated retirement pension and/or additional pension were to be paid basic state pension where they have less than 25 per cent, of the required qualifying years.

  Notes:

  1. The estimated cost has been provided by the Government Actuary's Department.

  2. As data are not available on the individual contribution records of those people who have contributed for less than 25 per cent, of their working life, the estimate is based on the assumption that nine years national insurance contributions have been paid, or credited, thus the estimate is the maximum potential cost.

  3. The figures are for Great Britain and overseas.

  Sure Start
  Jim Dobbin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many mothers in Heywood and Middleton have taken up the Sure Start maternity grant. [168543]

  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many mothers in Oldham, West and Royton have taken up the Sure Start maternity grant. [170952]

  Mr. Pond
  The information is not available in the format requested, the available information is in the table.

  Applications

  Awards

  Sure Start maternity grants for West Pennine social fund district

  2000–01

  1,807

  1,591

  2001–02

  2,363

  1,794

  2002 to December

  2,213

  1,689

  Sure Start maternity grants for the area covered by Oldham and Rochdale Jobcentre Plus district

  2003 January

  Not available

  325

  2003 February and March

  682

  435

  2003–04

  4,251

  3,059

  Notes:

  1. Heywood and Middleton parliamentary constituency and, Oldham, West and Royton parliamentary constituency used to be part of West Pennine social fund district and are now part of Oldham and Rochdale Jobcentre Plus district. The latter was formed in January 2003 from part of Oldham social fund district and part of West Pennine social fund district. The two areas for which data is given above are thus different, and the data is not comparable.

  2. Sure Start maternity grants were introduced on 27 March 2000. The very small number of cases for 1999–2000 have been excluded for data protection reasons.

  3. Data is given for all applications and awards, irrespective of whether the application was made by the mother or her partner.

  Source:

  DWP Social Fund Policy, Budget and Management Information System.

EDUCATION AND SKILLS

  Quality Protects
  Paul Holmes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how much has been spent on the Quality Protects programme in each of the last three years, broken down by region; and if he will make a statement. [170179]
  289W
  Margaret Hodge
  Allocations to support Quality Protects were made to Local Authorities via the Children's Services Grant. Children's Services Grant allocations are set out by region in a table which has been placed in the Library.

  Quality Protects was a five year programme launched in 1998 with the aim of improving the management of delivery of children's social services. It focused on working with some of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children in society; children in need, children looked after by local authorities, young people leaving care, children in the child protection system and disabled children. From April 2004, the funding for quality protects was incorporated into local authorities' funding for children's social services.

  Bootle Schools
  Mr. Benton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many and what percentage of pupils in Bootle reached the(a) mathematics and (b) English standard in each of the last seven years. [172023]

  Mr. Miliband
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I have given to the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) on 10 May 2004,Official Report column 34W.

  Capital Modernisation Fund (South Ribble)
  Mr. Borrow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how much money has been allocated to South Ribble from the Capital Modernisation Fund. [171999]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The Department for Education and Skills does not hold this information centrally. Capital Modernisation Fund has been allocated by project and not by area.

  Child Care
  Mr. Kaufman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how many(a) Sure Start centres and (b) early excellence centres have been created in Manchester, Gorton; [167451]

  (2) how many new nurseries have been established in Manchester, Gorton since 1997. [167452]

  Margaret Hodge
  Sure Start Hyde Road Local Programme covers the majority of the Gorton constituency and is currently under development. It was approved by the Sure Start Unit with indicative capital funding of £1,250,000 in May 2003 and the programme is expected to submit their capital plan for this money in the summer. No Early Excellence Centres have been created in Gorton since 1997.

  Manchester City Council is responsible for determining local need for nursery provision in Gorton and holding information on current provision. Under the Neighbourhood Nurseries scheme 534 new nursery places have been opened in Manchester, although none of these fall within Gorton constituency.
  290W
  Mr. Simmonds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what steps his Department is taking to improve the provision of childcare for(a) children from minority ethnic groups, (b) children with special needs and (c) children with disabilities. [171366]

  Margaret Hodge
  The Government are committed to inclusive practice and this principle underpins our strategic guidance to local authorities. Local authorities are required to have policies for equality in developing Early Years and childcare services.

  My Department funded four pilot programmes in local authorities during 2003–04 to develop practical ways of ensuring equal access to Early Years and childcare settings for ethnic minority families and recently held a conference to disseminate the findings.

  All settings in receipt of nursery education funding are required to appoint one of their staff as a Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO) and local authorities have received specific funding for this purpose over 2004–05 and 2005–06. Every authority is expected to appoint a network of Area Special Needs Coordinators (SENCOs) with a ratio of one Area SENCO to every 20 non-maintained settings delivering funded early education. These coordinators are responsible for training and supporting setting-based SENCOs and other childcare staff to meet the needs of disabled children.

  Removing Barriers to Achievement, the Government's strategy for SEN, outlines further actions that Government and our partners will take to improve childcare provision for children with special needs or disabilities. We are taking a range of actions on improving information for the parents of disabled children, improving the co-ordination and responsiveness of childcare services and training the childcare workforce so that children's needs are met.

  Mr. Willetts
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will list the funding streams and grants which are available to providers of childcare in respect of children over eight years; and for each one, what the expenditure was in each year for which the scheme has been in existence. [171602]

  Margaret Hodge
  There is no grant funding available or statistics collated exclusively for providers of childcare in respect of children over eight years. What providers can access is resources available to provide childcare for children from three to 14, and up to 16 for children with special needs. The key funder of out of school childcare has been the Lottery through the New Opportunities Fund (NOF) Out of School Programme since its inception in 1999.

  While figures cannot be broken down year on year, from April 1999 to March 2003, NOF grant awards totalled over £270,857,247 million in England. This is because the process of NOF grant funding was based on a rolling allocation of set periods of time rather than an annual award.

  From August 2003, local authorities bid direct to the Department as part of the new Sure Start Out of School Programme launched in 2003. In 2003/04, grants allocated from Sure Start provided £19 million for out of school care. For 2004/06, £1.2 billion has been

  291W
  allocated to local authorities to support the growth of childcare and Early Years services. This includes funding to create 250,000 new childcare places, some of which will be out of school places.

  In 2003/04, £2.73 million has been made available to support the childcare element of the main extended schools programme. For 2004/05, this figure has grown to £7.6 million.

  Mr. Benton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many child care places have been created in Bootle since 1997. [171298]

  Margaret Hodge
  The Department is unable to provide details of child care places, for Bootle. However, from April 1999 to March 2004 Sefton Local Authority created 3,590 new child care places helping some 6,440 children. This shows an increase in the stock of child care places, taking into account turnover, of 2,009 helping some 3,700 children.

  Mr. Borrow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on the number of children in South Ribble who have gained from the National Childcare Strategy. [171666]

  Margaret Hodge
  The Department is unable to provide details of childcare places for South Ribble. However, from April 1999 to March 2004, Lancashire local authority created 22,581 new childcare places helping some 39,808 children. This shows an increase in the stock of childcare places. taking into account turnover, of 9,826, helping some 17,631 children.

  Mr. Borrow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many new nurseries have been established in South Ribble since 1997. [171667]

  Margaret Hodge
  Lancashire county council is responsible for determining local need for nursery places in South Ribble and hold information on current provision. Under the Neighbourhood Nurseries scheme, 799 new nursery places have been created in 22 nurseries in Lancashire, and a further two nurseries providing 106 places are planned. None of these nurseries are within South Ribble constituency.

  Mr. Simmonds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on the effectiveness of ChildcareLink. [171306]

  Margaret Hodge
  The ChildcareLink programme consists of two separate parts—The ChildcareLink Phoneline and the ChildcareLink website:

  ChildcareLink Telephone Help Line

  Set up in 1999, the ChildcareLink phoneline provides a signposting service for callers looking for information on child care and early years. The majority of callers are directed to their local Children's Information Service (CIS).

  The phoneline covers England and Scotland and is available from 8 am—8 pm Monday to Friday and from 9 am—12 pm on Saturday. These hours offer a service that is accessible to people who do not have the time to look for child care in the 9 am—5 pm working day. Being national, the service also provides a useful service for those looking for child care outside their local area.
  292W
  The phoneline has a high level of usage and received approx 33,170 calls in 2003.

  ChildcareLink website

  Set up in 1999, the ChildcareLink website provides details of registered childcare provision across England and Scotland. The service enables users to look for details of registered child care in their local area as well as giving them access to supporting information that would assist them in their search, such as advice on how to pay for child care, and a description of the different types of child care on offer.

  The website is available 24 hours a day and, being national, the user is not limited to look only for child care in their local area but can search across the whole of England and Scotland.

  The website has a high level of usage and received approx 1.1 million visits during 2003 encompassing over 70 million hits.

  Education Funding
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how many(a) Sure Start centres and (b) early excellence centres have been created in Oldham, West and Royton; [170913]

  (2) how many new nurseries have been established in Oldham, West and Royton since 1997. [170914]

  Margaret Hodge
  There are five Sure Start local programmes in Oldham: Sure Start Hollinwood; Sure Start Westwood; Sure Start Werneth; Sure Start Coldhurst and Sure Start Glodwick, St. Mary's and Higginshaw. Of these five programmes, three are based within Oldham, West and Royton: Sure Start Westwood, approved in January 2002; Sure Start Coldhurst approved in December 2002 and Sure Start Werneth which was approved by the Sure Start Unit in March 2003. No Early Excellence Centres have been created in Oldham since 1997.

  Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council has responsibility for determining local need for nursery places in Oldham and holding information on current provision. Under the neighbourhood nurseries scheme 477 new nursery places have been created in Oldham, with 216 of these places being based within Oldham, West and Royton.

  Oldham MBC is currently developing plans to implement children's centres in the 20 per cent. most disadvantaged wards; Oldham will be included in these plans.

  Mr. Djanogly
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many(a) free nursery and (b) pre-school places were available for (i) three and (ii) four year olds in the Huntingdon constituency in each of the last seven years. [170846]

  Margaret Hodge
  The information is not available in the form requested.

  Figures on the number of free nursery education places taken up by three and four-year-olds in Cambridgeshire local education authority area are shown in the table.

  The latest figures on provision for 3 and 4-year-olds in England were published in a Statistical Bulletin 'Provision for children under five years of age in England—January 2003' which is available on the Department's website www.dfes.gov.uk/rsgateway/.
  293W
  From April 2004, six months ahead of our original target, all three-year-olds in England whose parents want one, are eligible for a free, part-time early education place.

  Children's Fund
  Ms Dari Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how many(a) Sure Start centres and (b) Early Excellence centres have been created in Stockton, South; [171452]

  (2) how many new nurseries have been established in Stockton, South since 1997. [171454]

  Margaret Hodge
  There are five Sure Start local programmes in Stockton-on-Tees: Sure Start Hardwick, Mile House and Roseworth; Sure Start Newtown, Portrack and Tilery; Sure Start Parkfield and Victoria; Sure Start Mandale Village and Stainsby and Sure Start Billingham. Of these five programmes, two are based within the Stockton, South constituency: Sure Start Mandate Village and Stainsby and Sure Start Parkfield and Victoria, both approved by the Sure Start Unit in December 2002. There are no Early Excellence Centres in Stockton-on-Tees.

  Stockton-on-Tees borough council has responsibility for determining local need for nursery provision in Stockton and holding information on current provision. Under the neighbourhood nurseries scheme, 340 new nursery places have been created in Stockton, with 100 of these places being based within Stockton, South.

  Stockton-on-Tees borough council is currently developing plans to implement children's centres in the 20 per cent. most disadvantaged wards; Stockton, South will be included in these plans.

  Ms Dari Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many(a) free nursery and (b) pre-school places were available for (i) 3 and (ii) 4-year-olds in Stockton, South in each of the last seven years. [171453]

  Margaret Hodge
  The information is not available in the form requested.

  Figures on the number of free nursery education places taken up by 3 and 4-year-olds in Stockton-on-Tees local education authority area are shown in the table.

  The latest figures on provision for 3 and 4-year-olds in England were published in a Statistical Bulletin Provision for children under five years of age in England-January 2003' which is available on the Department's website www.dfes.gov.uk/rsaateway/.

  From April 2004, six months ahead of our original target, all 3-year-olds in England whose parents want one, are eligible for a free, part-time early education place.

  Ms Dari Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how many childcare places have been created in Stockton, South since 1997; [171455]

  (2) how many children in Stockton, South have gained from the National Childcare Strategy. [171477]
  294W
  Margaret Hodge
  The Department is unable to provide details of childcare places for Stockton, South. However, from April 1999 to March 2004, Stockton-on-Tees local authority created 3,401 new childcare places helping some 5,838 children. This shows an increase in the stock of childcare places, taking into account turnover, of 1,776, helping some 3,081 children.

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and what the arrangements are for allocating money from the Children's Fund in Newcastle-upon-Tyne; what criteria are applied; and what the audit arrangements are. [166537]

  Margaret Hodge
  Children's Fund resource is allocated according to a formula that takes into account the number of children and young people in an area, and also the levels of deprivation in that area.

  Children's Fund partnerships in 2003–04 had an over-allocation built in to their budgets. This was to ensure that underspends built up in the programme overall would be used up. However, this has now resulted in a projected overspend in the programme. To keep the programme overall within its financial limits this year the Department for Education and Skills held a mid year review of expenditure. This identified underspends in the programme and as a result revised budgets were agreed to some partnerships for the remainder of 2003–04. Decisions at the mid year review were revisited where they compromised partnerships' ability to meet contractual obligations, or were likely to cause unplanned staff redundancy or premature closure of services.

  My Department has identified new resources from outside the Children's Fund which means that the total budget for partnerships this year will be £160 million. This is only slightly below the originally notified total allocation of £164.6 million. As such, the allocation for the Newcastle-upon-Tyne partnership has been reduced from £1.25 million to £1.215 million. I have also agreed that they can carry forward any underspend from previous years, where this can be shown to maintain services that continue to deliver value for money and bring benefit to local communities.

  All partnerships must have an accountable body, which is ultimately responsible for the spending of the Children's Fund grant. The accountable body must undertake audit requirements as set out in the terms and conditions of grant, with which all of the Children's Fund partnerships must comply.

  Children's Information Services
  Mr. Simmonds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on the effectiveness of children's information services. [171304]

  Margaret Hodge
  Figures provided by CISs for 2003 showed that they are dealing with almost 24,000 inquiries per week—over a million per year.

  Although parents' surveys have suggested low usage, it appears that many parents may not necessarily be aware that they are being helped by CISs, which are often seen as being part of the host organisation e.g. the local authority or voluntary organisation involved.
  295W
  CISs services are aimed at anyone seeking childcare or other Sure Start services, but there is a strong emphasis on reaching people without existing networks of contacts through outreach work with groups who find it hard to access childcare services.

  The CIS Strategy, published in November 2003, sets out clear delivery standards and requires CISs to work toward achieving "model CIS" status by 2006. All CISs have been set targets for further improving numbers of weekly inquiries by 2006.

  Computer Learning Centres
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many Capital Modernisation Fund computer-learning centres have been established in Oldham, West and Royton. [170926]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Four Capital Modernisation Funded UK online centres have been established in Oldham, West and Royton.

  Mr. Benton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many(a) teachers and (b) families in Bootle have benefited from the Computers in Reach programme. [171127]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The Computers Within Reach (CWR) scheme closed on 31 October 2001 having delivered over 24,000 recycled computers to people in 22 pilot areas, at a cost of £7.1 million over two years. Those eligible were in receipt of certain working age benefits or a State Pension with minimum income guarantee.

  At the same time as funding was made available for the Computers within Reach scheme, funding was also provided for the Computers for Teachers programme. For teachers who met certain criteria, this programme subsidised the cost of a computer, It was subsequently replaced by the current Laptops for Teachers scheme which dispensed with subsidies, and through which sufficient funding will be provided to enable two thirds of teachers to receive a laptop by March 2006.

  Of the 24,000 computers delivered through the Computers within Reach scheme, approximately 3,000 were for people in the Liverpool area, including those in and around Bootle.

  Mr. Borrow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many families in South Ribble have benefited from the Computers Within Reach scheme; and how many teachers have benefited from the Computers for Teachers programme. [171978]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The Computers Within Reach (CWR) scheme closed on 31 October 2001, having delivered over 24,000 recycled computers to people in 22 pilot areas, at a cost of £7.1 million over two years. Those eligible were in receipt of certain working age benefits or a state pension with minimum income guarantee.

  At the same time as funding was made available for the Computers Within Reach scheme, funding was also provided for the Computers for Teachers programme. For teachers who met certain criteria, this programme subsidised the cost of a computer. It was subsequently replaced by the current Laptops for Teachers scheme,
  296W
  which dispensed with subsidies, and through which sufficient funding will be provided to enable two-thirds of teachers to receive a laptop by March 2006.

  South Ribble was not one of the pilot areas for the CWR scheme.

  Mr. Borrow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many Capital Modernisation Fund computer learning centres have been established in South Ribble. [171979]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  15 Capital Modernisation Fund UK online centres have been established in South Ribble.

  Mr. Borrow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how much public funding has been spent on computers for schools in South Ribble in each of the last seven years. [171980]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  My Department does not collect information on school spend on computers at constituency level. However, South Ribble is in Lancashire LEA and in the last seven years schools in Lancashire have benefited from the following funding through the Standards Fund grant for ICT (including match funding from the LEA):

  Allocation to Lancashire LEA (£)

  1998–99

  2,500,000

  1999–2000

  1,627,867

  2000–01

  5,576,036

  2001–02

  6,483,142

  2002–03

  8,983,493

  2003–04

  9,169,124

  2004–05

  11,892,478

  Computers (Bootle)
  Mr. Benton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many people in Bootle have received a computer to assist in seeking employment or retraining. [171305]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  At present no centrally funded schemes exist which provide people with a free or low cost computer to assist in seeking employment or retraining.

  Computers within Reach
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many(a) teachers and (b) families in Oldham, West and Royton have benefited from the Computers within Reach programme. [170927]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The Computers within Reach (CWR) scheme closed on 31 October 2001 having delivered over 24,000 recycled computers to people in 22 pilot areas, at a cost of £7.1 million over two years. Those eligible were in receipt of certain working age benefits or a state pension with minimum income guarantee.

  At the same time as funding was made available for the Computers within Reach scheme, funding was also provided for the Computers for Teachers programme. For teachers who met certain criteria, this programme

  297W
  subsidised the cost of a computer. It was subsequently replaced by the current Laptops for Teachers scheme which dispensed with subsidies, and through which sufficient funding will be provided to enable two thirds of teachers to receive a laptop by March 2006.

  Oldham, West and Royton was not one of the pilot areas for the CWR scheme.

  Early Years Education
  Mr. Simmonds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what Government expenditure on early years education was in each year since 1997, broken down by main budget heading. [171302]

  Margaret Hodge
  From April 2003, all funding to support the delivery of early years education was consolidated within the under-fives sub-block of each LA's Education Formula Spending Share (EFSS)—the main source of education funding. Prior to that time, provision in the private, voluntary and independent sectors together with new places in the maintained sector was funded through separate ring-fenced grant and existing places in the maintained sector were funded through the Standard Spending Assessments (SSAs). Expenditure on early education and funding for the under-fives block was as follows:

  £

  Early education (expenditure)

  Under-fives block (funding)

  1997–98

  637

  562

  1998–99

  134

  1,170

  1999–2000

  150

  1,280

  2000–01

  247

  1,340

  2001–02

  224

  1,490

  2002–03

  326

  1,620

  2003–041

  42

  2,600

  1Provisional.

  Notes:

  Outturn figures for early education in 2003–04 are provisional. Final figures will be available later in 2004.

  Funding for the under-fives block in 2003–04 includes an apportionment of the pensions transfer into EFSS.

  Mr. Simmonds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many nursery managers are qualified to NVQ level 3 or above. [171368]

  Margaret Hodge
  According to the 2001 Childcare Workforce Survey, 78 per cent. of nursery managers were qualified to NVQ level 3 or above. Results from the 2003 survey are due to be published shortly.

  Mathematics

  English

  Manchester, Gorton

  England

  Manchester, Gorton

  England

  Number of pupils achieving Level 4 +

  Percentage of pupils achieving Level 4 +

  Percentage of pupils achieving Level 4 +

  Number of pupils achieving Level 4 +

  Percentage of pupils achieving Level 4 +

  Percentage of pupils achieving Level 4 +

  2003

  659

  61

  73

  690

  64

  75

  2002

  711

  64

  73

  688

  62

  75

  2001

  628

  61

  71

  638

  62

  75

  2000

  612

  60

  72

  621

  61

  75

  1999

  584

  55

  69

  593

  56

  71

  1998

  456

  43

  59

  548

  52

  65

  1997

  526

  49

  62

  568

  53

  63

  298W
  Mr. Simmonds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skill; if he will make a statement on recruitment and retention of staff in the nursery and childcare sectors. [171371]

  Margaret Hodge
  The Government are committed to increasing both Early Years provision and the quality of that provision. We have already created new childcare places for 1.6 million children and are now committed to creating at least 250,000 new places for 450,000 children by 2006. Recruiting and retaining sufficient numbers of good quality staff to support this expansion is essential and we are helping early years' employers to do so.

  Over the next two years, we are providing local authorities with £129.9 million for workforce development, including £14 million to support recruitment in their local areas. Our childcare recruitment campaign has been running since 2000 and has been successful in raising the profile of job opportunities in the sector. To date, we have received over 200,000 responses to the campaign.

  Mr. Simmonds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many childminder inspections were carried out by Ofsted's Early Years Directorate in each year since 2000. [171372]

  Margaret Hodge
  The number of childminder inspections carried out by Ofsted is a matter for the Office of Standards in Education (Ofsted) and the HM Chief Inspector for Schools, David Bell will write to the hon. Member and place a copy of his letter in the Library.

  Education (Heywood and Middleton)
  Jim Dobbin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many new nurseries have been established in Heywood and Middleton since 1997. [168495]

  Margaret Hodge
  Rochdale City Council is responsible for determining the local need for nursery places in Heywood and Middleton and currently holds this information. 235 new nursery places have been opened in Rochdale under the Neighbourhood Nurseries scheme, of which 25 places are in Heywood and Middleton.

  Educational Attainment
  Mr. Kaufman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many and what percentage of 11-year-old pupils in Manchester, Gorton reached level four in(a) mathematics and (b) English in each of the last seven years. [167438]

  Mr. Miliband
  The information requested is as follows:
  299W
  Mr. Collins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what percentage of pupils in England have achieved five GCSEs A*-C including (a) mathematics, (b) English and (c) mathematics and English in each year since 1997, broken down by parliamentary constituency. [167567]

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

  Free Nursery Places (Croydon)
  Richard Ottaway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills whether Croydon council is in breach of its obligations in the provision of free nursery places for three-year-olds. [171448]

  Margaret Hodge
  Section 118 of the School Standards Framework Act 1998 places a duty on all LEAs to ensure sufficient nursery education for children of the prescribed age. They must also have regard to a Code of Practice which makes clear that, with effect from 1 April 2004, and six months ahead of target, all three-year-olds are entitled to receive a free part-time place for at least six terms prior to compulsory school age. Croydon council has yet to confirm that all three-year-olds will receive that entitlement in full. I have asked my officials to investigate the matter and to work closely with the local authority officials to ensure that parents and children in Croydon are able to benefit fully from the free entitlement.

  Information Technology Training
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many women in Oldham, West and Royton have visited an information and communications technology training centre in order to learn skills to return to work. [170929]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  In the period October 20031—March 2004, 1,717 people visited a UK online centre in Oldham, West and Royston, 962 (56 per cent.) of these people were women. Since learndirect was launched in 1999, 2,931 people from Oldham, West and Royton have enrolled on a learndirect course. 1,634 (56 per cent.) of these people were women. Of the total number of women who enrolled on a course 8 per cent. did so in order to learn skills to return to work.
  1 Please note the complete statistics are not available for UK online prior to September 2003 as the DfES did not collect this data on a centre-by-centre basis.

  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many people in Oldham West and Royton have received a computer to assist in seeking employment or retraining. [170930]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  At present no centrally funded schemes exist which provide people with a free or low cost computer to assist in seeking employment or retraining.

  Mr. Benton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many women in Bootle have visited an information and communications technology training centre in order to learn skills to return to work. [171124]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Seven Capital Modernisation Funded UK online centres have been established in Bootle.
  300W
  Mr. Benton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many Capital Modernisation Fund computer-learning centres have been established in Bootle. [171126]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  Seven Capital Modernisation Funded UK online centres have been established in Bootle.

  Learning Disabilities
  Paul Holmes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many children with learning disabilities are educated in mainstream schools; and if he will make a statement. [170608]

  Margaret Hodge
  The provisional figures from the pupil level annual schools census for January 2004, published on 29 April, show that 148,200 pupils with statements of Special Educational Needs are being educated in maintained mainstream nurseries, primary schools or secondary schools.

  The provisional figures also show that 1,137,600 pupils with SEN but without statements are being educated in maintained mainstream nurseries, primary schools and secondary schools.

  Section 312 of the Education Act 1996 states that children have special educational needs if they have a learning difficulty which calls for special educational provision to be made for them.

  Local Authority Care (Children)
  Tim Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many(a) boys and (b) girls are looked after by local authorities (i) in total, (ii) in foster care and (iii) in children's homes. [169040]

  Margaret Hodge
  The information requested is provided in the table as follows.

  Number of children looked after in total, in foster placements and in children's homes at 31 March 2003, by gender

  Number of Children Looked After at 31 March 20031

  Boys

  Girls

  Total

  England

  33,600

  27,200

  60,800

  Foster Placements

  22,000

  19,100

  41,100

  Children's Homes2

  4,300

  2,400

  6,600

  Other Placements3

  7,300

  5,800

  13,100

  1 Figures exclude children looked after under an agreed series of short term placements

  2 Children's homes include secure units, homes and hostels but excludes residential schools.

  3 Includes children who are placed for adoption, with parents and in residential schools. Also includes those living independently or in residential employment and other accommodation.

  Source:

  Children Looked After by Local Authorities, Year Ending 31 March 2003

  Medical Students
  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many students who are aged under 21 years and have less than the equivalent of three grade Cs at A level he expects to be recruited for courses leading to registration with the General Medical Council and subsequent practice as a doctor in(a) the academic year 2004–05 and (b) subsequent years. [168186]
  301W
  Alan Johnson
  The information is not held centrally. Admission of students to medical, and other, courses is a matter for individual institutions. However, latest figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency show that, of those students aged under 21 with A levels entering undergraduate courses in Pre-clinical medicine in 2002/03, only 95 (or 3 per cent.) had A level tariff scores equivalent to less than 3 grade Cs.

  National Childcare Strategy
  Paul Holmes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many childcare staff have been employed through the National Childcare Strategy to support disabled children; and if he will make a statement. [1170609]

  Margaret Hodge
  We do not collect information in the form requested. All childcare settings in receipt of funding for nursery education are required to appoint a Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) whose role is to support children with disabilities or special needs and to advise other staff in the setting.

  Parliamentary Questions
  Mr. Clappison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when he will reply to the questions tabled by the hon. Member for Hertsmere(a) on 20 April, references (i) 168185, (ii) 168186, (iii) 168202, (iv) 168203 and (v) 168204 and (b) on 23 April, reference 168913. [172362]

  Alan Johnson
  I have issued a response to the hon. Member's question 168186 today. Responses were provided to 168185 on 6 May 2004,Official Report, column 1767w and 168202, 168203 and 168204 on 10 May 2004, Official Report, columns 37–38w.

  Pupils (Continence Problems)
  Dr. Murrison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what psychological support is available in schools to help children with continence conditions. [171135]

  Margaret Hodge
  The joint DfES/Department of Health guidance, "Supporting Pupils with Medical Needs: A Good Practice Guide", is designed to help schools draw up policies on managing medication in schools and to put effective systems in place to support individual pupils with medical needs.

  Individual schools are best placed to decide on arrangements to meet the needs of their pupils and may decide that a counselling service, for example, would best serve the interests of a child experiencing anxiety or depression as a result of continence difficulties. Children may also receive help from specialist mental health professionals, many of whom will be located within the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service.

  Reading
  Mr. Amess
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what action his Department is taking to promote reading in schools; and if he will make a statement. [169930]
  302W
  Mr. Stephen Twigg
  The Government is committed to raising standards of reading in our schools and to promoting an enjoyment of reading among young people.

  The National Literacy Strategy has transformed standards of reading in our primary schools. This was confirmed by the publication last year of the 'Progress in International Reading Literacy Study', which reported that England's 10 year olds achieved the third highest standards of reading in the world. It also reported that the literacy strategy had introduced primary school pupils to a wider range of reading texts and that pupils in England had the highest use of real books and reading schemes in the classroom.

  Building on this improvement is a key aim of our strategies for primary and secondary schools and we are also working closely with the National Literacy Trust on a range of activities to encourage children to read for pleasure.

  School Computers
  David Davis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what the computer to pupil ratio is in(a) primary schools and (b) secondary schools in the East Riding of Yorkshire. [171785]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The information requested is not available centrally. Figures for England, which were derived from a sample of schools, are shown in the table. Average number of pupils1 per computer (used solely or mainly for teaching and learning purposes) by type of school in England (year ending March 2003).

  Maintained schools

  Primary

  Secondary

  2003

  7.9

  5.4

  1Full-time equivalent numbers of pupils

  The latest information on ICT in schools was published in Statistical Bulletin 'Survey of Information and Communications Technology in Schools 2003', which is available on my Department's website www.dfes.gov.uk/rsgateway/.

  School Standards
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how many and what percentage of pupils in Oldham West and Royton reached the(a) mathematics and (b) English standard in each of the last seven years; [170921]

  (2) how many and what percentage of 11 year old pupils in Oldham West and Royton reached level four in (a) mathematics and (b) English in each of the last seven years. [170922]

  Mr. Miliband
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I have given to the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) on 10 May 2004,Official Report, column 34W.

  Mr. Neil Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) how many and what percentage of pupils in Wigan have reached the(a) mathematics and (b) English standard in each of the last seven years; [169285]
  303W
  (2) how many and what percentage of eleven year olds in Wigan reached level four in (a) mathematics and (b) English in each of the last seven years. [169286]

  Mr. Miliband
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I have given to the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins)on 10 May 2004,Official Report, column 34W.

  School Transport (London)
  Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many children have used home to school transport in Greater London, in each of the last five years, broken down by local education authority. [170500]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  The information requested is not collected by my Department. However, a joint survey conducted in 2003 by the Confederation of Education Service Managers (ConfEd) and DfES into the number of pupils receiving free home to school transport in 2001/02 is reported in the following table:

  LEA number

  LEA name

  Pupils1 receiving free home-school transport (2001/02)

  201

  City of London

  38

  202

  Camden

  680

  203

  Greenwich2

  0

  204

  Hackney2

  0

  205

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  253

  206

  Islington

  111

  207

  Kensington and Chelsea

  610

  208

  Lambeth

  1,585

  209

  Lewisham

  1,636

  210

  Southwark2

  0

  211

  Tower Hamlets

  688

  212

  Wandsworth

  440

  213

  Westminster2

  0

  301

  Barking and Dagenham2

  0

  302

  Barnet

  1,741

  303

  Bexley

  1,005

  304

  Brent

  697

  305

  Bromley2

  0

  306

  Croydon2

  0

  307

  Ealing

  2,151

  308

  Enfield

  1,758

  309

  Haringey2

  0

  310

  Harrow2

  0

  311

  Havering

  1,250

  312

  Hillingdon

  2,342

  313

  Hounslow

  480

  314

  Kingston upon Thames

  843

  315

  Merton2

  0

  316

  Newham

  446

  317

  Redbridge

  2,916

  318

  Richmond upon Thames

  644

  319

  Sutton

  1,459

  320

  Waltham Forest

  476

  Total

  24,249

  1 Primary, secondary, special school and other pupils.

  2 Did not respond.

  Solvent Abuse
  Tim Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills which projects dealing with solvent abuse among children have been awarded funding from the Children's Fund; and how much was awarded to each. [169060]
  304W
  Margaret Hodge
  The Department does not directly monitor the number of projects in receipt of Children's Fund which deal with solvent abuse. Of the 4,665 projects in receipt of Children's Fund in the period July to September 2003 (the most recent period for which complete data is available) 398 were for services that worked in areas involving substance misuse. Other projects will work to educate and support children, young people and their families about the misuse of a range of substances, which in many cases will include solvents.

  With regard to the funding that each of these projects receives, this information could be obtained only at disproportionate cost and so is not included in this reply.

  Ms Dari Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how much money has been allocated to schools in Stockton South for information and communication technologies since 2001. [171457]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  My department does not hold information on school level allocations for information and communication technologies. However, Stockton South is in Stockton-on-Tees and since 2001 schools in Stockton-on-Tees have benefited from the following funding through the Standards Fund grant for ICT (including match funding from the LEA):

  Allocation to Stockton-on-Tees LEA (£)

  2001–02

  921,142

  2002–03

  1,308,008

  2003–04

  1,333,573

  2004–05

  1,745.924

  Ms Dari Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many women in Stockton South have visited an information and communications technology training centre in order to learn skills to return to work. [171458]

  Mr. Charles Clarke
  In the period October 20031—March 2004, 4,848 people visited a UK online centre in the Stockton South constituency. 2,714 (56 per cent.) of these people were women.

  Since learndirect was launched in 1999, 3,819 people from the Stockton, South constituency have enrolled on a learndirect course. 1,441 (38 per cent.) of these people were women. Of the total number of women who enrolled on a course, 8 per cent. did so in order to learn skills to return to work.
  1 Please note the complete statistics are not available for UK online prior to September 2003 as the DfES did not collect this data on a centre-by-centre basis.

  Ms Dari Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many Capital Modernisation Fund computer-learning centres have been established in Stockton, South. [171459]
  305W
  Mr. Charles Clarke
  12 Capital Modernisation Funded UK online centres have been established in Stockton South.

  Ms Dari Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many and what percentage of 11 year old pupils in Stockton South reached level four in(a) mathematics and (b) English in each of the last seven years. [171472]

  Mr. Miliband
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I have given to the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) on 10 May 2004,Official Report, column 34W.

  Sure Start
  Tony Cunningham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what plans he has further to develop Sure Start programmes in the Workington constituency, with particular reference to rural areas. [171618]

  Margaret Hodge
  [holding answer 10 May 2004]: Local authorities are currently developing children's centres as the next phase in the Government's strategy to deliver better outcomes for children and families. Funding has been allocated to Cumbria county council to develop children's centres in their 20 per cent. most disadvantaged wards by March 2006, building on existing Sure Start local programmes and other provision. The local authority has determined the location of its children's centres. In the Workington constituency, one major new children's centre will be established in Workington. Children's centres are also being developed from the existing Sure Start West Allerdale rural local programme based around Maryport town and from the existing North Allerdale mini rural Sure Start covering Aspatria and Silloth. Both of these children's centres will continue to serve rural areas within the Workington constituency.

  Hospital, Public Health Medicine and Community Health Services (HCHS): Staff with a specialty in Anaesthetics

  numbers(headcount)

  1998

  1999

  2000

  2001

  2002

  2003

  December 20031

  All Staff

  6,731

  6,939

  7,178

  7,517

  8,056

  8,511

  n/a

  of which:

  Consultants

  2,955

  3,136

  3,293

  3,549

  3,822

  4,053

  4,127

  1 All data as at 30 September each year, except for 2003 December where data is at 31 December.

  n/a-not applicable.

  Source:

  Department of Health medical and dental workforce census.

  The number of consultant anaesthetists increased by 1,172, or 40 per cent, between September 1998 and December 2003.

  Barnet and Chase Farm NHS Trust
  Mr. Dismore
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the financial position of Barnet and Chase Farm NHS Trust. [169782]

  Mr. Hutton
  Unaudited information on in-year financial forecasts is subject to exemption two of the code of practice on access to Government information.

  Child Care (West Lancashire)
  Mr. Pickthall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many childcare places have been created in West Lancashire since 1997. [171491]

  Margaret Hodge
  The Department is unable to provide details of childcare places for West Lancashire. However, from April 1999 to March 2004, Lancashire local authority created 22,581 new childcare places helping some 39,808 children. This shows an increase in the stock of childcare places, taking into account turnover, of 9,826, helping some 17,631 children.

HEALTH

  Drug Treatment
  Mr. Neil Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people in Wigan are receiving drug treatment. [169339]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  In 2000–01, there were 882 people receiving drug treatment in Wigan. This is the latest data available. Data broken down by drug action team for 2001–02 and 2002–03 has not yet been published.

  Abortions
  Mr. Amess
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much was spent on medical instruments which are used in abortions in each year since 1994; and if he will make a statement. [169935]

  Ms Rosie Winterton
  This information is not held centrally.

  Anaesthetists
  Mr. Alan Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many anaesthetists have been employed in the NHS in each of the last five years. [170429]

  Mr. Hutton
  The information requested is shown in the table.

  The audited information in respect of the 2003–04 financial position of all national health service trusts will be published in their individual annual accounts and will be available centrally in autumn 2004.

  Cancer
  Mr. Burstow
  To Ask the Secretary of State for Health when his Department plans to repeat the NHS cancer patients survey; and if he will make a statement. [169716]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The responsibility for carrying out future patient surveys now rests with the Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection. The
  307W
  Commission is looking at a number of factors before deciding when the next cancer patient survey will take place.

  The recently published secondary analysis of the cancer patient survey to identify variations within and between trusts on various cancer types will be used to inform plans for any future surveys. Copies of the report are available in the Library, and on the Department's website.

  In addition to this work, the National Audit Office (NAO) will be publishing a report later in 2004 on improving the patient experience of cancer services in England. As part of this study the NAO have carried out a cancer patient survey. This report forms part of a suite of three NAO studies on the delivery of cancer services. The first of these studies 'Tackling Cancer in England—Saving More Lives' was published on 19 March 2004.

  Cancer Services
  Bob Spink
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to resolve the patient pathway delays for cancer patients identified by the National Audit Office in its recent report on cancer services. [163987]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  I refer the. hon. Member to the response I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson), today.

  Cancer Treatment
  Dr. Gibson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what measures he is taking to encourage patients to seek medical attention when they have suspicious symptoms which may be cancer; and if he will make a statement; [164232]

  (2) what plans he has to extend the national cancer clinical audits to all major cancers; [164238]

  (3) what plans he has to ensure that each general practitioner receives a copy of the updated referral guidelines for patients with suspected cancer when they are published; [164233]

  (4) what plans he has to ensure that waiting times for radiotherapy are monitored at the local level using standardised national measures; [164234]

  (5) what plans he has to develop a mechanism to audit the time taken for assessment and treatment of patients who are referred routinely by general practitioners and subsequently diagnosed with cancer; [164236]

  (6) if the Department of Health will issue guidance to primary care trusts on the provision and role of administrative support for multi-disciplinary teams providing cancer services; [164237]

  (7) if extra resources will be made available to hospitals providing radiotherapy and radiology services in order to assess local need for extra staff and facilities. [164240]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The primary purpose of the national health service cancer plan is to save more lives. Reducing waiting times is key to achieving this. The ultimate goal in the NHS Cancer Plan is to offer patients a maximum one-month wait from an urgent referral for suspected cancer to the beginning of treatment. Where patients wait longer, this should be because of the needs 308W
  of the diagnostic process or their personal choice, not because of in-built delays in the system of care. We hope to achieve this goal by 2008. There is a series of milestones towards this goal: By 2005, there will be a maximum one-month wait from diagnosis to treatment for all cancers. By 2005, there will be a maximum two-month wait from urgent general practitioner referral to treatment for all cancers.

  Progress towards these targets is being achieved through increased investment, additional staff working in new ways, installing new radiotherapy and diagnostic facilities and streamlining of cancer care pathways for all cancer patients through the cancer services collaborative 'Improvement Partnership'.

  The Department will take the National Audit Office report's recommendations into account as we further develop and improve cancer services. The report will be discussed in detail at a Committee of Public Accounts hearing scheduled for 16 June 2004. Sir Nigel Crisp, chief executive of the NHS and Professor Mike Richards, national cancer director, have been called to give evidence at the hearing. The government will respond to the Committee's subsequent report in the form of a Treasury Minute.

  Chest Pain Clinics
  Mr. Benton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many rapid access chest pain clinics there are in Bootle. [170074]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  There is no rapid access chest pain clinic in Bootle. There is a rapid access chest pain clinic located at Aintree Hospitals National Health Service Trust.

  Children (Chronic Illness)
  Tim Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many children developed type II diabetes in each year since 1998. [169476]

  Ms Rosie Winterton
  This information is not collected centrally.

  Tim Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health in what ways the National Service Framework for chronic conditions will specifically address children with chronic illness. [169480]

  Dr. Ladyman
  The national service framework (NSF) for long term conditions will aim to improve the standard of services for people with neurological conditions and also address some of the common issues that can promote independence for people living with a disability or long term condition. The NSF will focus on people of working age but will also look at ensuring people can move smoothly between different services regardless of their age or if they move to another geographical area.

  The NSF for children, young people and maternity services will address the needs of all children, young people, pregnant women and families. It will set standards covering a broad range of services, including the management of chronic conditions.
  309W
  Tim Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what percentage of children are needle phobic; and what estimate he has made of the percentage of children who would take-up a needle-free insulin delivery system. [169484]

  Ms Rosie Winterton
  The research suggests that in children and young people with diabetes the prevalence of self-reported needle phobia is around 10 per cent.. The take up of needle-free insulin delivery systems would depend on their suitability for use by the individual involved.

  Chronic Dehydration (Children)
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will estimate the prevalence of chronic dehydration amongst children; and if he will make a statement. [169705]

  Dr. Ladyman
  Information on the prevalence of this condition is not collected centrally. The importance of children having access to a wholesome supply of drinking water is recognised in guidance relating to schools, and within advice issued by the Department on nutrition and maintaining a healthy life style.

  Conference Attendance
  Mr. Burnett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many(a) days and (b) half-days were spent by NHS staff attending conferences in each year since 1996–97, broken down by (i) clinicians and (ii) non-clinicians. [169459]

  Mr. Hutton
  [holding answer 29 April 2004]: The Department does not hold this information centrally.

  Continuing Care Eligibility Criteria
  Mr. Burstow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the answer of 19April,Official Report, column 180W, on eligibility criteria, how many individual cases were granted recompense. [169721]

  Dr. Ladyman
  The Department expects to make information on the number of cases granted recompense available in due course.

  Coronary Angioplasty
  Mr. Moss
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the cost of a coronary angioplasty was in each NHS hospital trust in England in the latest period for which figures are available. [168595]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The information requested has been placed in the Library.

  Demographics
  Mr. Dismore
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what assessment he has made of the likely impact on health services in Hendon(a) generally and (b) with reference to Edgware hospital of the expected population growth in (i) Barnet, (ii) Harrow and (iii) Brent; and if he will make a statement; [169783]

  (2) what changes he expects in the number of patients requiring health services in Hendon over the next 10 years; and if he will make a statement. [169798]
  310W
  Mr. Hutton
  The responsibility for determining local need for health services in Hendon lies with Barnet Primary Care Trust (PCT).

  Barnet PCT is carrying out a health impact assessment on the projected increases in population, which will inform decisions about local services including those provided at Edgware hospital.

  Dentistry
  Tim Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many children under the age of 18 were given mercury fillings in England(a) in 2004 up to the latest date for which figures are available and (b) in each of the last five years. [169589]

  Ms Rosie Winterton
  The table shows the number of children under the age of 18 who were given mercury fillings in the general dental service (GDS) in England.

  Number of individual children given mercury fillings in the GDS

  Year ending March

  Number of individual children treated

  2000

  528,193

  2001

  520,845

  2002

  510,202

  2003

  503,129

  2004

  494,257

  Source:

  Dental Practice Board

  The figures do not includes mercury fillings given in other dental services such as the personal dental service, community dental services and hospital dental services.

  Tim Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many children aged under 18 years had the removal of wisdom teeth funded by the NHS in 2003–04. [169637]

  Ms Rosie Winterton
  The most recent information on the number of children aged under 18 years who had the removal of wisdom teeth funded by the national health service in 2003–04 in England and Wales is shown in the table. The figures cover patients treated in the general dental service, personal dental service and hospital dental service.

  Number of patients aged under 18 who had a wisdom tooth extracted during the year ending March 2004

  Number of patients

  General dental service or personal dental service patients

  12,047

  Hospital dental service patients

  2724

  1 In England and Wales 2003–04.

  2 In England 2002–03.

  Source:

  Dental Practice Board and Hospital Episode Statistics.

  The figures do not cover those patients treated in the community dental service.

  Elective Admissions
  Jim Dobbin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the levels of elective admissions to the NHS in Heywood and Middleton in the past five years. [168493]
  311W
  Miss Melanie Johnson
  Information on the numbers of elective admissions to the relevant national health service trust is shown in the table.

  Count of in-year elective admissions, 1998–99 to 2002–03 (admission method = 11,12,13) by provider North Manchester Healthcare NHS Trust, Oldham NHS Trust and Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust

  Provider

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  2001–02

  2002–03

  North Manchester Healthcare NHS Trust

  21,450

  24,409

  24,519

  24,782

  —

  Oldham NHS Trust

  30,093

  31,393

  30,369

  27,237

  —

  Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust

  —

  —

  —

  —

  83,193

  Rochdale Healthcare NHS Trust

  19,082

  18,977

  20,373

  17,439

  —

  Bury Health Care NHS Trust

  19,003

  19,577

  18,831

  13,274

  —

  Note:

  1. An in-year admission is the first period of in-patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider, excluding admissions beginning before 1 April at the start of the datayear. Periods of care on-going at the end of the datayear (unfinished admission episodes) are included. Please note that admissions do not represent the number of in-patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the year.

  2. Figures have not been adjusted for shortfalls in data (i.e. the data are ungrossed).

  Source:

  Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Department of Health

  Mr. Benton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the levels of elective admissions to the NHS in Bootle in the past five years. [170075]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The information requested is not collected on a constituency basis but at national health service trust level. The information is shown in the table.

  In year elective admission episodes 1998–99 to 2002–03

  Aintree Hospitals NHS Trust

  1998–99

  30,363

  1999–00

  31,063

  2000–01

  32,959

  2001–02

  32,437

  2002–03

  33,401

  Notes:

  Ungrossed Data:

  Figures have not been adjusted for shortfalls in data (i.e. the data are ungrossed).

  In-year admissions:

  An in-year admission is the first period of in-patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider, excluding admissions beginning before 1 April at the start of the datayear. Periods of care ongoing at the end of the datayear (unfinished admission episodes) are included. Please note that admissions do not represent the number of in- patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the year.

  Source:

  Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Department of Health.

  Health Services
  Mr. Benton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on NHS waiting times for heart surgery in Bootle. [169262]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  In March 1997, there were 138 people waiting nine months, and 40 people waiting over 12 months, for heart surgery at the cardiothoracic centre—Liverpool National Health Service Trust. The latest available figures show that, in February 2004, there were no people waiting nine months and over for surgery.

  Mr. Benton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether there is a diagnostic and treatment centre located in Bootle. [169266]
  312W
  Miss Melanie Johnson
  There is no treatment centre in Bootle. A treatment centre is located at the Aintree Hospital National Health Service Trust.

  Mr. Benton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many NHS(a) therapists and (b) scientists were located in Bootle in each of the last seven years. [170538]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The information requested is shown in the table.

  NHS hospital and community health services: Qualified scientific, therapeutic and technical staff in each specified organisation as at 30 September each specified year

  South Sefton PCT

  Aintree Hospitals NHS Trust

  Headcount Total

  1997

  n/a

  393

  393

  1998

  n/a

  415

  415

  1999

  n/a

  470

  470

  2000

  n/a

  500

  500

  2001

  n/a

  507

  507

  2002

  19

  482

  501

  2003

  19

  555

  574

  n/a = Not applicable.

  Source:

  Department of Health Non Medical Workforce Census.

  Mr. Benton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how many senior citizens in Bootle aged over 60 years have benefited from the abolition of charges for eye tests; [170539]

  (2) how many senior citizens in Bootle have access to free eye tests. [170540]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  Data for the number of sight tests by constituency or by the number of senior citizens is not collected centrally.

  The total number of sight tests paid for by Cheshire and Merseyside Strategic Health Authority in the year 2002–03 for the aged 60 and over category was 201, 180. The total number eligible for a free sight test for those aged 60 and over was 507,080. Sight tests cannot be equated to the number of patients.
  313W
  Mr. Djanogly
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many NHS(a) doctors and (b) nurses there were in the Huntington constituency in each of the last seven years; and if he will make a statement. [170852]

  Dr. Ladyman
  Information on the number of doctors and nurses in the Huntington constituency in each of the last seven years has been placed in the Library.

  Nationally, more staff are returning to the NHS:

  With over 3,000 nurses and midwives in training since 1999.

  With over 15,800 former nurses, midwives and health visitors returned since 1999.

  With over 3,600 expressions of interest in the flexible careers scheme.

  Golden hello scheme—3,500 beneficiaries since April 2001.

  Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the average general practitioner list size was in Greater London, broken down by national health service trust, in each of the last 10 years. [170506]

  Mr. Hutton
  Information on the average list sizes in London has been placed in the Library. Information by primary care trust is only available from 2001.

  Mr. Alan Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the level of funding for sexual health services in North Tyneside was in each year since 1997. [170422]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  This information is not collected centrally.

  Funding is allocated to primary care trusts on the basis of the relative needs of their populations. It is for primary care trusts in partnership with strategic health authorities and other local stakeholders to determine how best to use their funds to meet national and local priorities for improving health, tackling health in equalities and modernising services.

  Mr. Alan Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many(a) private dentists and (b) NHS dentists there are in North Tyneside; and if he will make a statement. [170423]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  Information on the number of dentists in North Tyneside who are working wholly privately is not available.

  The table shows the number of primary care national health service dentists in North Tyneside.

  National health service: Number of dentists in North Tyneside as at 30 September 2003

  Number of Dentists

  Primary Care Trust

  General Dental Service

  Personal Dental Service

  Community Dental Service

  North Tyneside

  PCT

  62

  5

  2

  Notes:

  1. GDS dentists are dentists whose main work is in North Tyneside. PDS dentists exclude dentists already counted as GDS dentists.

  2. Dentists in the General Dental Service include Principals, Assistants and Vocational Dental Practitioners. These figures are on a headcount basis rather than whole time equivalent (wte) basis and therefore take no account of part-time working.
  314W
  3. These figures exclude 127 dentists working in the Hospital Dental Service in Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals Trust, which covers a wider area than North Tyneside.

  Source:

  Dental Practice Board and Department of Health medical and dental workforce census.

  Mr. Alan Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many pensioners living within the North Tyneside Primary Care Trust area benefited from free eye tests in(a) 2002 and (b) 2003. [170424]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  Data for the number of sight tests by constituency or by the number of senior citizens is not collected centrally.The total number of sight tests paid for by Northumberland, Tyne and Wear strategic health authority in the year 2002–03 for those aged 60 and over was 50,860. Source:
  Department of Health Statistics.

  Mr. Neil Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much public funding has been spent on health in Wigan in each of the last seven years. [169353]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The information is not available in the format requested. Expenditure per weighted head in the Greater Manchester Strategic Health Authority (SHA) area, which includes the constituency of Wigan, has increased from £582.33 in 1997–98 to £992.61 in 2002–03, the latest year available. This does not represent the total expenditure per head as an element of health expenditure cannot be identified by SHA area.

  Healthy Living Centres
  Mr. Alan Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many healthy living centres(a) have been built, (b) are being built and (c) are planned. [170416]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  Healthy living centres (HLCs) all vary in the approaches that they use and the settings in which they work. In some cases, the HLC will be a building, but in others it will be a network with a range of projects taking place in a number of different locations within a neighbourhood.

  Of the 257 HLCs in England, 54 schemes have received capital grants for building. Of these, 26 have been built, 17 are in the process of being built and 11 are planned.

  Mr. Alan Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what has been the total cost to date of healthy living centres. [170418]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  In total, £300 million was made available by the New Opportunities Fund for healthy living centres across the United Kingdom, of which £233 million was for England.

  To date, 257 awards, worth £204 million, have been made in England.

  Mr. Alan Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many healthy living centres are run directly by local authorities. [170419]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  Healthy living centres have been established as a partnership between a range of different organisations.
  315W
  Sixty six healthy living centres in England are led by local authorities (LAs). LAs are listed as partner organisations in 210 of the 257 healthy living centres in England.

  Hospital Land Sales
  Mr. Dismore
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what his policy is toward land sales of sites at(a) Edgware hospital and (b) Colindale hospital; and what assessment he has made of the implications for such sales of (i) anticipated population growth, (ii) changes in demand for car parking at Edgware hospital and (iii) the availability of affordable housing in the area (A) generally and (B) for key workers. [169764]

  Mr. Hutton
  The responsibility for disposal of land at Edgware hospital and Colindale hospital lies with Barnet Primary Care Trust (PCT), and with Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Services National Health Service Trust respectively. In accordance with long-term local plans the PCT and the Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Services NHS Trust are disposing of surplus land at Colindale and Edgware hospitals. The land sales are being managed locally to ensure the need of the local NHS are met. The PCT and the Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Services NHS Trust will take into account the identified factors in disposing of land and any requirements of the local authority in terms of affordable housing.

  Human Embryos
  Jim Dobbin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether an application for a licence to create human embryos by cell nuclear replacement has been submitted to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. [169473]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  From 7 May 2004, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) will publish the titles and lay summaries of research licence applications on its website.

  The HFEA has received one application for a licence to create human embryos by cell nuclear replacement. The title and lay summary are as follows:
  Title—Derivation of human embryonic stem cell lines using nuclear transfer and parthenogenically activated oocytes.
  Centre—Newcastle Fertility Centre at Life.
  Lay summary—It is recognised that human embryonic stem cells offer a great potential for therapies for many diseases such as diabetes. These stem cells are derived from embryos which are created for in-vitro fertilisation treatment, but which are not suitable for treatment. If stem cell treatments are to reach their full potential we need to derive stem cell lines which are genetically similar to the recipient so they will not be rejected. This may require the application of techniques such as nuclear transfer and parthenogenic activation. Nuclear transfer involves the transfer of genetic material from adult skin cells to eggs which have had the cell's nucleus removed. Parthenogenic activation involves an egg being artificially stimulated by chemical or electronic means in order to make the egg start embryo development. The present application is to undertake some of the initial studies that are needed to understand methods that will develop this technology.

  Mental Health Provision
  Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many(a) consultant psychiatrists, (b) mental health nurses and (c) primary care mental health workers are employed in each Greater London NHS trust; and how many of these work (i) part time and (ii) full time. [168939]

  Mr. Hutton
  The information requested has been placed in the Library.

  Mobile Phones
  Mr. Watson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to his Answer of 21 April 2004,Official Report, column 646W, on mobile phones, if he will evaluate the research on the dielectric property of cells by Bo Sernelius of Linkoping University, Sweden. [170176]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The paper by Bo Sernelius is a recent contribution to the scientific literature and is a theoretical study. It is one of many papers appearing in scientific journals that may have relevance either directly, or as in this case indirectly, to understanding the interaction of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields with people.

  The author of the paper considers the findings indicate the need for further work on the measurement of dielectric properties of materials and specifically cautions against interpreting the findings of the study as evidence that mobile phones are harmful.

  The publication of work such as this emphasises the need for continuing research and evaluation into the possible health effects of mobile phone technology. This paper and others will continue to be considered by expert review groups such as the National Radiological Protection Board's independent advisory group on non-ionising radiation, which authored the most recent review of the subject in January 2004.

  National Service Frameworks
  Mr. Waterson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on progress towards the National Service Framework milestone for strategic and operational plans to include the development of an integrated falls service. [170628]

  Dr. Ladyman
  I refer the hon. Member to the response I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Diana Organ) today.

  Neonatal Intensive Care
  Tim Loughton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many intensive care beds for newborn babies are operational in each hospital trust in England. [169054]

  Dr. Ladyman
  This information requested has been placed in the Library.

  NHS Staff (Assaults)
  Helen Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many NHS trusts have(a) met the targets for reducing assaults on staff, (b) failed to meet those targets and (c) reported an increase in such assaults in the latest period for which figures are available. [169462]
  317W
  Mr. Hutton
  [holding answer 4 May 2004]: A Health Circular issued in 1999, entitled Working Together, required health bodies to have systems in place to record incidents of violence and aggression against national health service staff and set targets for reducing violence and aggression by 20 per cent. by 2001 and by 30 per cent. by 2002. These targets were incorporated in the Improving Working Lives standard in October 2000.

  As part of the Working Together initiative, the Department undertook a national survey to identify the reported incidents of violence and aggression. The first survey, conducted in 2000–01, identified 84,214 incidents. The following survey, conducted in 2001–02, showed an increase on the previous year to 112,000 incidents.

  Figures from the Department for 2002–03 show a three per cent. increase in reported incidents to 116,000 on the previous year.

  The National Health Service Security Management Service (SMS) assumed policy and operational responsibility for the management of security in the NHS in April 2003. This remit includes work previously carried out under the NHS Zero Tolerance campaign. In November 2003, the SMS introduced a new framework for tackling violence against NHS staff, including consistent definitions of physical and non-physical assault and a national reporting system for physical assaults. The SMS is currently developing robust methodologies to identify the true nature and scale of the problem of violence—to measure both the perception as well as the reality.

  Helen Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps he is taking to reduce the number of assaults on NHS staff who work in clients' homes; and if he will make a statement. [169463]

  Mr. Hutton
  [holding answer 4 May 2004]: The national health service Security Management Service (SMS) assumed policy and operational responsibility for the management of security in the NHS in April 2003. This remit includes work previously carried out under the NHS "Zero Tolerance" campaign.

  In November 2003, the SMS introduced a new framework for tackling violence against NHS staff. A number of key practical reactive and proactive measures were introduced, among which was the development and implementation of a national syllabus for conflict resolution training to be delivered to all NHS frontline staff, with the aim of giving them the necessary skills and expertise to defuse aggressive situations before they become violent incidents.

  The new national reporting system for physical assaults will allow hard accurate information about the nature of the problem to be gathered and analysed for the first time so that further practical solutions can be developed and implemented.

  The SMS is exploring how best technology and other interventions can be used to better protect staff, particularly those who work alone in the community. A device based on mobile phone technology is being trialled that is designed to allow the member of staff to
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  covertly summons assistance when faced with a threatening situation and automatically transmit their location so that appropriate help can be given.

  Helen Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the number of assaults on NHS staff which take place(a) in clients' homes, (b) in isolated units and (c) at night. [169464]

  Mr. Hutton
  [holding answer 4 May 2004]: Statistics on the number of assaults on national health service staff taking place in clients' homes, isolated units and at night have not been collated centrally.

  The NHS Security Management Service (SMS) assumed policy and operational responsibility for the management of security in the NHS in April 2003. This remit includes work previously carried out under the NHS "Zero Tolerance" campaign.

  In November 2003, the SMS launched a new national system for the reporting and recording of physical assaults. Part of its purpose is to gather hard accurate information about the nature of assaults on NHS staff so that appropriate solutions can be developed to minimise the risk of them reoccurring.

  NHS Staff (Manchester)
  Mr. Kaufman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many NHS(a) doctors and (b) nurses there were in Manchester, Gorton in each of the last seven years. [167383]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The information requested has been placed in the Library.

  Northumbria NHS Trust
  Mr. Alan Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps have been taken to improve accident and emergency services at hospitals within the Northumbria NHS Trust since 1997. [170420]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  The following steps have been taken to improve accident and emergency services at Northumbria Healthcare:Opening a rapid assessment and treatment unit.
  Expansion of the A&E consultant team to 10 consultants at the North Tyneside General Hospital and Wansbeck General Hospital.
  A major refurbishment and extension of the two A&E departments.
  Opening of a dedicated minor injuries area.
  Development of a dedicated emergency nurse practitioner services at both hospital sites.
  Development of an emergency nurse practitioner services in community hospitals.
  Introduction of care facilitators across the trust to reduce delays during hospital care and to help co-ordinate the patient's journey.

  The emergency services collaborative has also helped to redesign systems and unnecessary steps out of the patient pathway. This is being continued under the Improving Partnership in Hospitals programme.

  Osteoporosis
  Diana Organ
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether he expects the first National Service Framework osteoporosis milestone to be achieved by April. [169872]

  Dr. Ladyman
  The national service framework for older people requires integrated falls services to be in place locally by April 2005. This should include appropriate links to osteoporosis. The Department will be monitoring formally the 2005 milestone at strategic health authority (SHA) level as this is included as one of the key targets in Improvement, Expansion and Reform, the priorities and planning framework for 2003–06. All SHAs except one currently report that the April 2005 target will be achieved in their area. The Department has offered support to this SHA.

  Pharmacy Services
  John Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will place in the Library copies of responses to the consultation on proposals to reform and modernise the NHS (Pharmaceutical Services) Regulations 1992 in relation to the proposed exemption of large shopping developments from the control of entry requirements for retail pharmacy services. [157513]

  Ms Rosie Winterton
  [pursuant to her answer, 8 March 2004, Official Report, c. 1334W]I regret my previous response was incorrect. The number of responses to the Department's consultation on proposals to reform and modernise the NHS (Pharmaceutical Services) Regulations 1993 should have been 267.

  Radiographers
  Mr. Alan Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many radiographers have been employed in the NHS in each of the last five years. [170430]

  Mr. Hutton
  The information requested is shown in the table.

  NHS hospital and community health services: qualified radiographers in England as at 30 September each specified year

  Total qualified radiography staff

  Diagnostic radiography1

  Headcount Therapeutic radiography

  1999

  12,330

  10,839

  1,491

  2000

  12,489

  11,036

  1,453

  2001

  12,706

  11,163

  1,543

  2002

  13,031

  11,489

  1,542

  2003

  13,344

  11,687

  1,657

  1 New occupation codes for healthcare scientists were introduced in 2003. As a result, a small number of staff previously included under diagnostic radiography are now classified within medical physics.

  Source:

  Department of Health Non-Medical Workforce Census.

  Serotonin
  Paul Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many prescriptions have been issued for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors for(a) children and (b) adults in each of the last 10 years. [169897]
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  Ms Rosie Winterton
  Information on the total number of prescription items of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) dispensed in the community in England and the estimated number of prescription items of SSRIs dispensed in the community in England to children and adults are shown in the table. Figures for the total number of SSRI items are provided for the last 10 years (1994 to 2003). However, the Department does not have information on the estimated numbers of prescription items dispensed to children or adults available before 1999.

  Total number of prescription items of SSRIs, and estimated number of prescription items of SSRIs dispensed to children and adults which were dispensed in the community in England, 1994 to 2003

  Total number of prescription items of SSRIs and estimated number of prescription items of SSRIs dispensed to children and adults which were dispensed in the community in England, 1994 to 2003

  Thousand

  Estimated number of prescription items dispensed to:

  Total number of prescription items

  Children

  Adults

  1994

  2,681.2

  1—

  1—

  1995

  3,807.8

  1—

  1—

  1996

  5,136.0

  1—

  1—

  1997

  6,555.8

  1—

  1—

  1998

  7,581.6

  1—

  1—

  1999

  8,929.4

  100

  8,800

  2000

  10,442.5

  110

  10,000

  2001

  12,085.1

  150

  12,000

  2002

  13,304.0

  170

  13,000

  2003

  13,816.9

  110

  14,000

  1 Information for groups of patients not required to pay a charge (e.g. children) prior to 1999 is not available.

  Notes:

  1. PCA data covers all prescription items that were dispensed in the community in England. It does not include items dispensed in hospitals or private prescriptions.

  2. Information for groups of patients not required to pay a charge (e.g. children) is based on a 1 in 20 sample of all exempt prescriptions dispensed in the community. The information for children and hence adults is therefore an estimate and subject to sampling errors. To reflect this the figures have been rounded appropriately. (Figures over 100,000 are rounded to the nearest 10,000. Figures over a million are rounded to the nearest 100,000, and figures over 10 million are rounded to the nearest million.) Rounding applies to exemption data only. The total number of SSRI prescriptions is an actual figure (not an estimate) and has not been rounded. The number of items dispensed to adults was estimated by subtracting the estimates for children from the total SSRI items. Hence, rounding also applies to the adults.

  3. Due to rounding, the sum of the components may not equal the total items.

  4. Data on exemption categories for SSRIs is only available from 1999. The exemption data for children and adults for 1999 and 2000 is not strictly comparable with data for 2001 onwards. Exemption data for children and adults from 2001 is based on a 1 in 20 sample of all exempt prescriptions dispensed by community pharmacists, appliance contractors and dispensing doctors. Exemption data for 1999 and 2000 is based on those dispensed by chemists and appliance contractors only and excludes those dispensed by dispensing doctors. No exemption figures for dispensing doctor for 1999 and 2000 are available but the figures presented are the best estimates of the total figure for children and adult prescriptions. This does not apply to the total number of SSRI prescription items—data for all years includes all items dispensed in the community (including dispensing doctors).

  5. Children are defined here as children aged under 16 and young people in full-time education aged 16,17 or 18.
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  6. The exemption data is identified from the box ticked on the back of the prescription form and relies on the form being completed correctly which may not always be the case.

  7. SSRIs are defined in the British National Formulary (BNF) paragraph 4.3.3.

  8. Data in the table is in thousands.

  9. Definition of prescription item: Doctors write prescriptions on a prescription form. Each single item written on the form is counted as a prescription item.

  Source:

  Prescription Cost Analysis (PCA) data from the Prescription Pricing Authority (PPA).

  In-patient waiting lists by Commissioner for Bottle residents

  Waiting list in months

  Quarter

  Name

  TWL

  0–21

  3–51

  6–41

  9–111

  12–141

  15–171

  1996–07

  4

  Sefton HA

  9,239

  4,046

  2,247

  1,531

  1,166

  246

  3

  1997–08

  4

  Sefton HA

  8,975

  4,204

  1,952

  1,328

  984

  367

  80

  1998–09

  4

  Sefton HA

  7,967

  4,031

  1,634

  1,142

  745

  325

  90

  1999–2000

  4

  Sefton HA

  7531

  3,603

  1,773

  1,158

  644

  237

  116

  2000–01

  4

  Sefton HA

  7,436

  3,987

  1,638

  971

  455

  278

  107

  2001–02

  4

  Sefton HA

  7,155

  3,837

  1753

  1,002

  464

  99

  0

  Month

  Name

  TWL

  0–21

  3–51

  6–41

  9–111

  12–141

  15–171

  2002–03

  March 2003

  South Sefton PCT

  3,917

  2,581

  841

  369

  726

  0

  0

  2003–04

  December 2003

  South Sefton PCT

  3,689

  2,744

  689

  230

  26

  0

  0

  1 Not seen

  Source:

  Department of Health QF01

  Out-patient Commissioner waiting list data

  GP referral to Consultant waiting list in weeks

  Name

  13 to 251

  26 +1

  1997–08

  Sefton HA

  1,936

  243

  1998–09

  Sefton HA

  2,153

  911

  1999–2000

  Sefton HA

  2,241

  883

  2000–01

  Sefton HA

  1,358

  779

  2001–02

  Sefton HA

  1,141

  0

  Name

  13–171

  17–211

  21–261

  26 +

  March 2003

  South Sefton PCT

  218

  85

  0

  0

  September 2003

  South Sefton PCT

  441

  102

  0

  0

  1 Not seen

  Source:

  Department of Health QM08R

  Waiting Lists
  Mr. Benton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what changes there have been to NHS waiting list times in the last seven years for the residents of Bootle. [170080]

  Miss Melanie Johnson
  Information most closely associated with place of residency is not collected on a constituency level, but at a health services commissioner level. The data in the tables is given for Sefton health authority for the period 1997–2002, and for South Sefton Primary Care Trust for 2003.

WORK AND PENSIONS

  Barking and Dagenham Council(Benefit Fraud Inspectorate)
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Chris Pond)
  On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate (BFI) inspection report on London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Council was published today and copies of the report have been placed in the Library.

  Following the housing Green Paper "Quality and Choice: A Decent Home for All", published in April 2000, the Department for Work and Pensions developed a performance framework for housing benefits. The performance standards for housing benefits allow local authorities to make a comprehensive self-assessment of whether they deliver benefit effectively and securely. They are the standards that the Department for Work and Pensions expect local authorities to aspire to and achieve in time.

  In 2002–03, London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Council administered some £65.4 million in housing benefits, about 16 per cent of its gross revenue expenditure.

  BFI inspected London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Council against the performance standards for housing benefits, and concludes that the council's benefits service had not reached standard in any of the seven functional areas—strategic management, customer services, processing of claims, working with landlords, internal security, counter-fraud and overpayments.

  The report finds that the council's benefits service, part of the revenues services, was embarking on a major programme of change that included improving its performance management, planning the replacement of its benefits IT system, planning the procurement of an electronic document management system, and reviewing its staffing structure.

  There was no structured approach to staff training and development of staff, and there were no documented procedures to support staff and ensure consistency of approach. Managers had limited access to performance reports and did not make routine use of those that were available. The IT systems were inadequate and required high levels of manual intervention, hindering rather than supporting the benefits service.

  The report finds that the average time taken to process new benefit claims was 43 days, compared to the performance standard of 36 days and 90 per cent. of new claims were processed within 14 days of receiving all
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  information. However, there were delays in dealing with changes of circumstances and appeals and there was no management checking of work.

  The council's telephone service was poor with 54 per cent. of calls not being answered. Customers were often required to attend the offices on more than one occasion because they had not been asked to provide all the necessary information at the first point of contact. There were weaknesses in the management of documents with staff being unable to locate paperwork, resulting in further unnecessary contact with customers. The council's benefit claim forms and decision letters needed to improve to give clearer guidance and information to customers.

  The report also finds that all areas of the council's counter-fraud activity were weak. The council had no management information concerning fraud referrals, and very limited investigation activity had been carried out. New investigation staff had been appointed in 2003 but there were inadequate systems in place to allow them to progress investigations promptly.

  The council was unable to provide verifiable performance information relating to overpayments of benefit, and no single officer had overall control of overpayment recovery. Also the council did not use the full range of recovery methods available.

  The report makes recommendations to help the council address weaknesses and to further improve the administration of housing benefit and council tax benefit, as well as counter-fraud activities.

  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is now considering the report and will be asking the council for its proposals in response to the BFI's findings and recommendations.

  Vulnerable Customers (Payments by Cheque)
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Chris Pond)
  Direct Payment is a modern, reliable, secure and efficient method of payment which is proving popular with those pensioners and benefit recipients who are using it. More customers now have their pensions and benefits paid into an account than by order book. We will be writing to the remainder before the end of the year inviting them to convert to direct payment.

  Eighty seven per cent. of DWP customers already have access to an account suitable for direct payment (the figure rises to 91 per cent. for pensioners). The wide availability of new, easy to operate accounts (including basic bank accounts and the Post Office card account) means that there should only be a very small number of people that cannot genuinely open an account— including, for example, some homeless people and some people with an illness or disability. There will also be some people who cannot manage an account—some will never be able to manage one (again due to illness or disability), while others may be in this position for only a short period (perhaps due to the absence of a regular carer or a short period of mental illness).
  7WS
  Several meetings have been held with customer representative groups (including CAB, Help the Aged, Age Concern, MIND etc) to ensure there was a shared understanding of the needs of the customers who cannot be paid directly into an account. These meetings helped us develop a detailed list of requirements and played a key role in shaping the detailed design of the exceptions arrangements.

  In assessing options for the ongoing method of payment for customers who are unable to open or manage an account a number of criteria were taken into account including; the ability to meet the needs of customers, timescales for delivery, reliability and cost. To meet customer needs and maintain a robust delivery service we have decided to continue with the existing system of cheques, with improvements to the security of the service.

  Customers who will require a cheque payment are likely to include those who are least able to cope with change, but will already have had experience of, and be familiar with, cashing paper instruments of payment at the Post Office. The cheque solution replicates this process and will best suit these customers.

  Cheques can be issued on a weekly basis to the customer's home address (less frequently for some people) and are cashable at Post Office branches (as well as payable into bank accounts). Very importantly, they offer the flexibility needed for those customers who have a series of different people collecting their money for them and will be a solution for those people who are unable to operate PIN-based or cheque based accounts.

  Safeguards will be in place to ensure people get their money in the event that the cheque does not arrive on time.

  Paying by cheque is a well-established method of payment. We will closely monitor the operation of cheque payments to ensure that they meet the needs of some of our most vulnerable customers. If this identifies significant problems with these arrangements then we will make the necessary improvements.

  As we have made clear cheque payments are designed for those vulnerable people whose benefits or pensions we cannot pay into any type of account. In order that we can provide the necessary level of support to this group we will, in parallel, introduce measures to ensure the maximum number of people who can use an account understand the comparative benefits of direct payment.

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS

  Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme
  The Minister for the Environment (Mr. Elliot Morley)
  My Department today published the outcome of the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme Consultation, which contains final details on the operation of the scheme. This is available on the DEFRA website www.Defra.gov.uk.

  The aim of the scheme is to enable England to meet the targets set by the landfill directive for reducing the amount of biodegradable municipal waste sent to landfill in the most cost effective way. It will be launched on 1 April 2005.
  8WS
  The Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme is thought to be the first trading scheme in the world involving waste. The Government will allocate a decreasing number of allowances for each waste disposal authority in England for each year between 2005 and 2020. Authorities can then choose to trade these with other authorities, to borrow up to 5 per cent. of allowances from their next year's allocation or to bank unused allowances for use in future years. The scheme is designed to give waste disposal authorities as much flexibility as possible, whilst ensuring that the landfill directive targets are met. This is an innovative scheme that forms part of a comprehensive commitment to reduce waste in England.

DEFENCE

  AFPRB 2004 Pay Award
  The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Geoffrey Hoon)
  The supplement to the 2004 report of the Armed Forces' Pay Review Body making recommendations on the pay of service medical and dental officers has been published today. Copies of the supplement are available in the Vote Office and the Library of the House.

  The Review Body recommends an increase of 3.225 per cent. for all regular and reserve defence medical services medical and dental officers. The Review Body also recommends a pay increase of 3.225 per cent. for medical and dental cadets and an out-of-hours supplementary payment of £4,500 to junior doctors. In addition, the Review Body recommends that there should be an increase of 3.225 per cent. in the values of trainer pay and distinction awards.

  The cost of these recommendations to the defence budget will be some £6.3 million. This will be met within existing Departmental expenditure limits.

  The Review Body's final recommendations are to be accepted in full, with implementation effective from 1 April 2004.

TREASURY

  Aggregates Levy Relief Scheme
  The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Healey)
  The Government are extending the aggregates levy relief scheme in Northern Ireland. The relief, which will continue to cover aggregate in processed products, will be extended to cover virgin aggregate exploited in Northern Ireland. Instead of the relief reducing annually until it ended in April 2007, the level of relief will now be fixed at 80 per cent. of the full rate from 1 April 2004 and it will apply until 31 March 2011. The introduction of the new scheme follows notification from the European Commission on 7 May that the Government's proposals for extended relief have received state aid clearance.

  Quarry operators in Northern Ireland will be able to claim the extended relief straight away, providing they enter into agreements, that will commit them to making significant environmental improvements to the way their operations are run. Initially operators will need to satisfy the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland (DoENI) that they hold or have applied for

  9WS
  relevant regulatory authorisations, and enter into an agreement with DoENI, which will commit businesses to arrange a site audit, agree site-specific targets and comply with the code of practice for the aggregates
  10WS
  industry in Northern Ireland. Continued eligibility for relief will depend on businesses meeting their agreed environmental targets, which will be regularly monitored and reviewed.

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

Television Programmes: Subtitling
Lord Ashley of Stoke Lord Ashley of Stoke asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they have studied Ofcom's proposals for the future of subtitling television programmes.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord McIntosh of Haringey): My Lords, the Government are committed to extending access to broadcasting services for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. That is why we have the new statutory requirements in the Communications Act 2003. The Act requires Ofcom to draw up a code on subtitling provision. The Government are fully aware of Ofcom's proposals but, provided it adheres to the provisions of the Act, the detail of the code is a matter for Ofcom.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer. Is he aware that profoundly deaf people are entirely reliant on subtitles for following television? But, although the recent Communications Act provided for what he and my noble friend Lady Blackstone called, "a dramatic increase", in subtitling, that aim is being frustrated by Ofcom's proposals. Ofcom has now withdrawn the preposterous proposal to end the subtitling of parliamentary programmes and the equally preposterous proposal to end the subtitling of live television programmes. It has withdrawn its silly ideas. However, Ofcom is still insisting that it should end the annual increase in subtitling, which we have now and which is very valuable; it is also insisting that it will license only 50 out of the 200 television channels that we have. That means that 150 channels have no responsibility for subtitling. That is bizarre and the intentions of Parliament are being absolutely disregarded. What can the Minister do to help?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I share the pleasure of the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, that Ofcom has withdrawn its proposal to exempt live programming and parliamentary programming from the subtitling obligation. It is in no small degree due to his efforts and those of the advisory committee that that has happened.
Where he and I still have to disagree is about whether there will be a dramatic increase in subtitling. The Mom code says that there has to be an increase to 10 per cent at the end of the first year—that is the end of December this year—and to 60 per cent four
138
years later. I call that a dramatic increase. The issue then is whether there should be annual targets. My view is that broadcasters in the normal course of business will wish to advance towards the 60 per cent target at a reasonable pace, but if they do not I would expect Ofcom to pursue them and to ensure that they do.
As regards the channels that are to be exempt, that is done on grounds of cost and is justified by the Act, but Ofcom is undertaking a study of cheaper methods of subtitling, which should increase the number of channels covered by the subtitling obligation.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, should not Mom be requiring the satellite and cable companies to be making the step-by-step increase in the proportion of programmes that are subtitled? Was that not in the spirit of what we agreed when discussions took place on this issue during the course of the Communications Bill's progress through this House? Does the Minister also agree that the hourly cost of subtitling is very low—between £250 and £400 an hour? Taking that into account, surely Ofcom should be issuing a requirement that subtitling should increase every year.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, has rightly drawn attention to the fact that digital, cable and satellite channels are now included for the first time in the subtitling obligation. I have already replied to the question of whether there should be annual targets. Ofcom argues that, as light regulators, it should not be setting annual targets for all channels, but I have already indicated that I expect broadcasters to move towards their 60 per cent five-year target at a steady rate—and if they do not, I would expect Ofcom to do something about it.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, is it not the case that it is perfectly technically feasible to add subtitles on an optional basis—that they need not be seen by people who do not need to see them? Why is it then so difficult for the television companies to continue as Mom would prefer?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am not aware of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, about optional subtitles. I have no reason to doubt his comments, but I do not think that that affects the thrust of the Question put by the noble Lord, Lord Ashley.
Lord Rix: My Lords, does the Minister not agree that, sooner rather than later, television programmes should be interpreted in all accessible formats?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I assume that what the noble Lord, Lord Rix, is saying is that in addition to subtitling there should be audio description. If so—yes, I do think that the targets for

139
audio description are inadequate. There may well be technical ways forward to improve on those targets and I am negotiating with broadcasters to that effect.
Lord Addington: My Lords, does the Minister accept that, when he said that these,
"changes should lead to a dramatic increase in the provision of services to help people with sensory impairments to enjoy television", [Official Report, 1/7/03; col. 8844.]
that we did not assume that it would mean a freeze for five years at 10 per cent; we expected it to go on increasing?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: No, my Lords, I do not think that Ofcom expects a freeze for five years at 10 per cent. It says that there will be a target of 10 per cent at the end of year one and a target of 60 per cent at the end of year five. As I have made clear, I expect that target to be approached steadily. If it is not approached steadily and there is no improvement in the mean time, I expect Ofcom to do something about it.
Baroness Buscombe: My Lords, with regard to music channels, for example, is not the challenge to find the right balance between the need to subtitle and the need to protect copyright in a way that does not make the provision of music totally unworkable in practice for the industry?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am sure that that is one of the considerations that Ofcom will have to take into account, but I am not sure that it has been addressed in the Ofcom code at present. I shall have to look into the matter and write to the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, about it.
Lord Carter: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the Ofcom Advisory Committee on Old and Disabled Persons met for the first time last Thursday? I declare an interest as a member of that committee. The final decision on the Ofcom code is for the main board, but the chairman of Ofcom, the noble Lord, Lord Currie of Marylebone, gave us an undertaking at our first meeting that the views of the advisory committee would be taken into account by the main board.
I hope that my noble friend agrees that it is very important that the Ofcom code that finally appears is fully in line with the very firm assurances given by Ministers in both Houses during the passage of the Communications Bill. We have already heard a quote from the Minister. The noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, the then Minister of State, said:
"Ofcom will have the ability to set interim targets on the way to meeting 10-year targets, as the ITC currently does, so provision of subtitling, signing and audio-description will grow year by year".—[Official Report, 3/6/03; col. 1259.]
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I have already been quoted three times in the past few minutes. As the Bellman said in The Hunting of the Snark,
"What I tell you three times is true".
I cannot go back on what I said on 1 July last year. What I meant by a dramatic increase is I believe, achieved by the Ofcom code. Continuing progress towards 60 per cent subtitling in five years' time, which is what the Act requires—all credit to those who insisted that it should—is dramatic progress. I congratulate the advisory committee on its work and look forward to the full board of Ofcom accepting the representations that the advisory committee has made to it.

School Term Dates
2.45 p.m.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Lord Hunt of Kings Heath asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether local education authorities will be required to consult parents before the introduction of a six-term year.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Skills (Baroness Ashton of Upholland): My Lords, decisions on school term dates are made by local education authorities or school governing bodies, depending on the type of school. Procedures for consultation are not set out in legislation but we would expect there to be wide consultation with parents and the school workforce, and between the local education authority and schools.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that Answer. Does she agree that the change to a six-term year is fundamental for many parents? Will she ensure that, in encouraging LEAs to consult parents, they will consider having a ballot of all parents in their LEA area?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, it is an important change, but I am not sure whether I would go so far as to agree with my noble friend that it is fundamental. We would not want to be prescriptive. It is for local authorities to determine how they wish to consult. They might wish to do that, but we would not prescribe it.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, does this mean that one local education authority could introduce a six-term year in an area while in others a four-term year remained? Could that not create great confusion for parents, businesses or people planning to have jobs in one place and children at school in another?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, it could mean that there would be differences between local authorities. Twelve LEAs have moved to a modified version, if I might describe it as such, of the six-term year for 2004–05. The biggest change comes around the Easter break. In all cases the six-week summer holiday is retained, which is an issue that parents have raised.
Lord Taylor of Blackburn: My Lords, does my noble friend realise how important consultation is, especially in places such as Lancashire, where the wakes weeks happen throughout the county at different times? It is important that organisations such as trade unions are consulted also, because it makes a great difference to work in industry.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, again, that rests with local authorities. It is important that local authorities consult as appropriate. I am sure that local authorities in Lancashire would be mindful of the wakes weeks.
Lord Harrison: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that any such consultation should extend to the truancy problem of some parents taking children out of school for family holidays during term time? Will those consultations also extend to the tourism industry, which, I believe, would welcome a six-term year?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. The Local Government Association's independent commission on the school year included representation from the tourism industry.
Lord Northbourne: My Lords, do the Government have any mechanism for consulting parents? If so, what is it?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, we do not have a formal mechanism for consulting each parent. We keep in touch with parents through local authorities, through our work with schools, the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, the National Association of Governors and Managers and the National Governors' Council.
Baroness Sharples: My Lords, the Minister said that there had been a modified change in one or two areas. Can she elaborate on that?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: Indeed, my Lords. In 1999 the Local Government Association established an independent commission, which looked at a standardised six-term year, roughly comprising two seven-week terms in autumn and four terms of six weeks in spring and summer. The original proposals suggested that the school holidays would begin in early July and the autumn term in mid-August. The modification was to keep the summer holidays more or less as they are.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, why is there some variation in the pattern between local authorities? What advantages would there be of changing over to the new six-term year?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, there is no variation between the 12 LEAs that have gone forward with their proposals; they are all going for the modified version that I described, rather than the LGA's original proposal. The benefits are reckoned to come in the autumn term. Instead of having a long autumn term, schools would be able to split it up. There could also be a fixed spring holiday.
Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: My Lords, I realise that the Government are going further and further away from Europe, but why should Britain accept a scheme that no other country in Europe has? The long summer term is a characteristic of all European education. Global warming means that August would not be the ideal time. Have the Government given thought to what their neighbours do?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, the Government always look to their neighbours, but, in this context, responsibility for determining school terms lies with local authorities, who take into account a range of issues, particularly those that affect parents, schools and the school workforce.
The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, I welcome the helpful consultation with parents that the Minister's department undertook through the National Family and Parenting Institute, in preparation for the Children Bill. Will the Minister consider whether such consultation on this issue, commissioned by her department through the NFPI, would be useful to local authorities? Will she consider using that method, which worked so well with regard to the Children Bill, more widely, so that we can better understand the needs and wishes of parents?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords. as the noble Earl knows, it is important to the department to have all the opportunities that we can to consult parents, through the Green Paper and the consultations on the Children Bill. On the specific question, it is for local authorities to determine how best to consult parents. Many have an opportunity to do so through the schools, and I would leave it in their hands.
Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: My Lords, does the consultation process take account of the needs of special schools? For children with special educational needs, continuity is all important.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, the noble Baroness makes an important point. The process is for all schools in an area. As the noble Baroness indicated, there are issues for children with special needs, not least in determining what additional support can be provided for those children beyond the school term.

Common Fisheries Policy
2.52 p.m.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy Lady Saltoun of Abernethy asked Her Majesty's Government:
What consideration they are giving to taking the United Kingdom out of the common fisheries policy.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Whitty): My Lords, a change to the Treaty of Rome, which would require unanimity, would be needed for the UK to withdraw from the common fisheries policy without withdrawing from the EU. The challenges that the fishing industry faces will be resolved not by further discussion of leaving the common fisheries policy but by practical reform. Most of the stocks that we fish migrate in substantial numbers in and out of our waters. They can be effectively conserved only through co-operation with our partners in Europe.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that not altogether satisfactory reply. Do the Government realise that, if they want to secure the Scottish vote in any referendum on the European constitution, they must either take our fisheries out of the common fisheries policy or, at the least, renegotiate the terms of membership? Are the Government aware that, as the Norwegians are not in the common fisheries policy, their waters have not been overfished by the Spaniards and others and still have plenty of fish in them?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, there has been a depletion of stocks in the North Sea of some species and not of others. The comparison with Norway is not entirely valid. As for any referendum on the European constitution, the issue will not determine the vote of Scottish electors: they are far too sensible for that.
Lord Barnett: My Lords, I am strongly in favour of Ministers being polite, courteous and as brief as possible in replying to Members. On this occasion, the Minister missed a marvellous opportunity. Should not the Minister have replied, "Non" and sat down?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, it occurred to me to do that. I am sure that, had my noble friend Lord Barnett been standing here. we would have heard that kind of answer, given in the politest possible way. In reality, the answer is "No". We are not considering withdrawing from the common fisheries policy, and nor will we.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, the Minister says that fish in European Union waters migrate and that therefore this dreadful policy is required. Will he admit that, when we joined the common fisheries policy, the United Kingdom owned more than 70 per cent of the fish that spent all their life in British waters?
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Will he also give your Lordships the vaguest estimate—to the nearest £1 billion a year, let us say—of the damage that the policy has done to the British economy?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, it is erroneous to say that we "owned" the fish in 1972. In any case, not many of them are around any more. Had we continued to fish at that rate, whether or not we were in the common fisheries policy, there would have been a conservation problem. There is a conservation problem now that the common fisheries policy—belatedly and not always in the most sensible way—is attempting to address. It is important that we address the problem and do so with the other nations that have access to those waters.
Lord Livsey of Talgarth: My Lords, will the Minister get his department to assess the impact of the decision of the Council of Ministers last winter to allow EU fishing boats, including Spanish vessels, into the Irish Sea, where hitherto they had not been? If the facts of what is going on are established, will he make every endeavour to reverse that policy?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, the decision in December was negotiated in detail for different waters. On balance, it reduces the number of days that Spanish and other European vessels, including British vessels, can fish in the Irish Sea, the North Sea and other European waters. It is a means towards conserving the stocks of species that are under threat.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, the Minister said that we could get change only through co-operation. I trust that the Minister will, at least, acknowledge that our fishing stocks are in a very poor state. Co-operation has not been the panacea that it should have been. The Select Committee chaired by the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, has issued four reports and knows exactly what the problem is, but there is no action. All of that is happening alongside the closure of our Scottish fishing fleets, while other European countries are allowed to reinvest in their vessels. Is it not time that the Government did something about it?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, we are doing something about it. Last winter, we got the kind of deal that was appropriate. I said earlier that it was belated and that those in the common fisheries policy had not always faced up to the real difficulties of conservation and ensured the fair sharing out of the burden. However, we believe that we are on better lines now. For species such as cod, in particular, that face serious conservation problems, we have a basis for restricting fishing and allowing for some restoration of the stocks.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords—
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords —
The Lord President of the Council (Baroness Amos): My Lords, there is plenty of time. Shall we hear from the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy?
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, is there not a conflict of policies, in that the United Kingdom has a conservation policy in our coastal waters, whereas the EEC appears to condone a free-for-all, with fishing allowed, in some cases, up to the beaches?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, EU policy in EU waters is now focused on conservation, as is the British policy on inshore fishing. As I indicated, it has taken some time to get the common fisheries policy to that point, and all countries have overfished those waters. We now face quite a serious situation, but the December agreement will, I think, begin to tackle the problem.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, the Minister said that the fish had disappeared from British waters. Is that not because we allowed the predatory Spanish fleet to come in and take them all? Will that problem not be exacerbated, now that the European Union has decided that the catch should be shared between the new entrant nations? There are 10 such nations, and many of them are absolutely landlocked. As long as we keep on sharing our stocks, it is inevitable that they will be further depleted, and our fishing fleets with them.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, as far as enlargement is concerned, there are only two countries which have just acceded to the European Union that have access to the North Sea, western waters and the Baltic. They are Estonia and Poland. Between them they have a 2,000 tonnes quota compared to a total of more than 500,000 tonnes. They are unlikely to make a significant difference, particularly in our waters.
Clearly, if we do not have a common approach to this there will be a free-for-all and the conservation will not be achieved. Neither futile attempts to persuade us to leave the common fisheries policy nor wrongful assertions that the European constitution alters this situation will help in the discussion of what is a very real and serious problem for our fishing industry and for the marine environment.
Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, instead of describing the Spaniards as predators, as the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, did, does the Minister agree that, in fact, the British industry has to a substantial degree damaged itself by the sale of fishing boats, and with them the consequential quota, many of them boats that were otherwise fishing in Scottish waters?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, yes. I have brought that to the attention of the House before. The sale of some otherwise British entitlements to the Spanish and others has done some serious damage to the interests of the British fishing industry.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords—
Baroness Amos: My Lords, I am afraid that we are over time. We need to move on to the next Question.

Rural Bus Services
3.2 p.m.
Baroness Scott of Needham Market Baroness Scott of Needham Market asked Her Majesty's Government:
What action they propose to take to assist rural bus services.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the Government have an excellent record of support for rural bus services. Over the past three years, £240 million has been invested in rural public transport. That programme continues this year with £51 million allocated to local authorities in the rural bus subsidy grant and an estimated expenditure of £20 million under the Rural Bus Challenge. We are encouraging the expansion of demand-responsive and community transport services, which have a significant role to play in rural communities.
Baroness Scott of Needham Market: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply, but is he aware that large and small bus operators alike are now withdrawing rural bus services at the rate of 30 or 40 per week? Local authorities are simply unable to plug the gap. For example, this year, Kent is spending £6.5 million to subsidise rural buses. Is the noble Lord aware of the comments made by the National Federation of Bus Users which has said that unless rural bus services are taken seriously now, they will simply disappear?
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, of course, we take seriously all representations from such a source. But I think that the noble Baroness will recognise that we have made a significant commitment to rural bus services. We intend to sustain that commitment. The Rural Bus Challenge has thrown up a number of very interesting initiatives, not least in the noble Baroness's county of Suffolk, on which we can build. Of course, local authorities are taking greater responsibility through local transport partnerships for planning local services in a more intelligent and helpful way.
It is on that basis that we should look forward to an improvement in the situation and not follow the doomsayers whom the noble Baroness has rather enthusiastically endorsed today.
Lord Berkeley: My Lords, is it not time that the Government looked again at franchising rural bus services in the way that they do in London? As the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said in her supplementary question, it is very easy for bus operators to withdraw services that they are providing and then expect the local authority to pay them to continue the set-Nice that they were providing for nothing. A franchise system would surely do away with that.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, a franchise system would certainly change that position. Against a background of very significant improvements in recent years, perhaps I may just mention to the House that 48

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per cent of rural households now have easy access—within a 10-minute walk—to an hourly or better bus service, compared to only 37 per cent in 2000. In rural parishes. 488 per cent of households have access to community transport services, compared to only 21 per cent in 1997. Those are real improvements for our rural communities. I think that we should build on such improvements.
Lord Cobbold: My Lords, does the Minister agree that our rural lanes are not designed for large single-decker buses, which, in my experience, often appear to have one, two or three passengers? Is there anything that the Minister can do to encourage rural bus operators to use smaller vehicles?
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, certain aspects of the Rural Bus Challenge have thrown up exactly that kind of issue. Smaller and more economic buses that can use the rural roads more effectively, which also have a more economic payload with lower fuel costs because they are smaller, are improving the service. That is happening in a number of areas. We expect to see such initiatives built on.
Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, is the Minister aware that since 1997 the cost of running a car has fallen by 4.2 per cent while the cost of using a bus—that is, all buses—has risen by 8.2 per cent. That is a 12 per cent difference. Bearing in mind that, in Cornwall, First Group. and, in Norfolk, the local bus company, are withdrawing bus services on a large scale, is it not time that the Government really woke up to the crisis that is afflicting our rural bus services? These are not minor bus services but the major bus services on which people depend for work and major leisure pursuits.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, we have to look at that question of the shift in comparative costs. In his usual fair manner. the noble Lord would recognise why the costs of certain kinds of transport as opposed to buses look more favourable. That is simply because we seek to pay our bus drivers and, where there are conductors, bus conductors reasonable wages. Of course, the car driver completely discounts the strain and costs of driving a car. So there are certain aspects with regard to those costs that are irremediable as far as the contrast between private and public provision is concerned.
We recognise that for a very large number of people who are dependent on rural bus services, improvement is absolutely critical. That is why it will be necessary to ensure that the improvements that we have seen in recent years are sustained.
Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, the noble Lord has indicated progress in that bus services are within closer reach of a greater number of people. Can he give any indication of whether greater use has been made of buses?
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the issue with regard to improved usage of buses is patchy across the
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country. One place of which we are all aware where the usage has increased very significantly is, of course, London. That has not been matched in any rural area. But there are a number of counties where initiatives have been taken that others can emulate, which show that greater usage of buses can develop.
I think that the House will recognise that rising prosperity and more ready access to cars—simply reflected in the number of cars on our roads with. I might add, their increasing congestion—mean that people who buy cars do not become dependent on buses. That is a historical trend that we have begun. to a certain extent, to level out and to moderate. But none of us would pretend that that is an easy trend to reverse.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland: My Lords, one group of users who, because of their vulnerability, find buses difficult are disabled people. When I am travelling around London, there is good access to buses and the Tube. In my rural home in Breckland, I have never seen a bus with a lowering platform. Are the Government looking at the transport needs of disabled people in rural areas? In addition to community transport, they have a right to use ordinary transport.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the noble Baroness is right that the issue of disabled access and improvement to buses has been more conspicuous in our large cities and with our large vehicles. Norfolk, for instance, has experimented in one area with quite a small bus that has effective disabled access. So the issue is not an impossible one to overcome but it requires some resolution.

International Cricket
3.10 p.m.
Lord McNally Lord McNally asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will seek direct talks with the International Cricket Council to discuss adding moral criteria to its rules on the legitimate grounds for tour cancellation.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Government have no plans to talk to the International Cricket Council about adding moral criteria to its regulation on the cancellation of cricket tours. That is a matter between the ICC and its members, including the England and Wales Cricket Board.
Lord McNally: My Lords, does the Minister agree that there is a certain whiff of hypocrisy about seeking to take all the kudos of condemning a tour while leaving the cricket authorities with the difficult decisions and the financial consequences?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, there are three answers to that question. First, no one has asked us to speak to the International Cricket Council. Last

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week. Jack Straw and Tessa Jowell met the England and Wales Cricket Board and it did not ask us to intervene. Secondly, even if we did intervene, there is no indication that the International Cricket Council would pay any attention to us. Thirdly, we do not want to intervene because we do not want to have state-run cricket in this country.
Lord Hoyle: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the English and Wales Cricket Board is damned if it does and damned if it does not? The players do not want to tour; the ECB does not want to tour; but if it does not, it faces massive fines and the possibility of being removed from international cricket by the ICC. Why are the Government so reluctant to talk to the ICC? Is it not time that this tour was called off? We do not want to give succour to such a repugnant dictator as Mugabe.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Government have always made it clear that they do not approve of the Mugabe regime. I have heard my noble friend Lady Symons say that in detail from this Dispatch Box on many occasions in recent months. However, it does not follow that we have been asked to or that we should intervene in the regulation of cricket in this country. There is no implication of approval of the Mugabe regime in our actions.
Lord McNally: My Lords, the Minister is employing a little casuistry. The point made by the noble Lord is absolutely right. The Government have gone on record as deploring a tour but leaving the cricket authorities with the difficult decisions, and they will get themselves into a political morass by adopting that ambivalent posture. Why will the Government not take responsibility for giving a specific instruction that would release the cricket authorities from having to tour? If they will not give such a specific instruction, they should stop interfering in cricket by implying that there should not be a tour on the moral grounds that they hold. The Government are being hypocritical in this matter and the price will be paid by English cricket.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lord, the more flowery the noble Lord's language becomes, the less I am convinced that he thinks he is sure of his ground. The position is entirely clear. It is that we would wish for a postponement of the cricket tour, that we deplore the Mugabe regime, that we would wish for the replacement of that regime to be brought forward, but that we have no status in deciding which cricket team should tour Zimbabwe. That is a perfectly logical and consistent position and we have adhered to it throughout.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, has the Minister any idea whose morals the noble Lord, Lord McNally, has in mind? Arc they the noble Lord's own morals, the Minister's morals or perhaps my morals, all of which are no doubt slightly different?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I strongly resent the suggestion that anyone in this House has anything other than impeccable morals.
Lord Imbert: My Lords, is it not a question of moral courage? As a vice-president of one of our county cricket teams, I speak with some interest in this matter. I have had an opportunity to talk to England players who are apprehensive that if they refuse on moral grounds to go on tour, as they would wish, they will not be selected for future international matches. Are the Government aware that if they do not give the moral lead for which the country and the whole cricketing world are waiting, they might not be selected for the next tour'?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Imbert, should think that. In refusing to involve themselves in the affairs of cricket and refusing in effect to have our cricket run by the state, as I believe it is in Zimbabwe, the position of Her Majesty's Government is logical and consistent. If that results in threats from any side of the House as to re-election, so he it, but our position is not based on that consideration.
Lord Morgan: My Lord, does my noble friend perhaps recall that in 1970 a Labour Home Secretary, Lord Callaghan, told the MCC that the South Africans should not tour, and that he took that view not on moral grounds but on grounds of disorder and danger to life and property, including the life and property of the cricketers concerned? Is that a possible way forward?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, we are a long way from 1970. The possibility of disorder is clearly a matter that the Home Secretary would take into account. I am not aware that it has at any stage been raised by the England and Wales Cricket Board or by anyone else.

Smoking in Public Places (Wales) Bill [H.L.]
3.17 p.m.
Read a third time, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill
Lord Grocott: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Scotland of Asthal, I beg to move the Motion standing in her name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order:

Clauses 1 to 13,

Clauses 15 to 19,

Schedule 3,

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Clauses 20 to 32,

Clauses 34 to 36,

Clause 14,

Schedules 1 and 2,

Clause 33,

Schedule 4.—(Lord Grocott.)

On Question. Motion agreed to.

Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill
3.18 p.m.
Baroness Amosrose to move, That it is desirable to vary the normal practice of the House when considering Commons reasons and amendments, whereby no further consideration of a Bill can take place in the event that—

(i) the Lords insists on an amendment;

(ii) the Commons insists on its disagreement to that amendment; and

(iii) neither House has offered alternative proposals;

to allow the House to consider the Commons reason and amendment to the Bill.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this Motion is unusual, and the House will expect a word of explanation. When the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill came back to the Lords on 29 April, it appeared that unintentionally a double insistence had been reached on Lords Amendment No. 3. The situation appeared to correspond with the description of double insistence in our own Companion to the Standing Orders and Erskine May Parliamentary Practice. At paragraph 6.160, the Companion states:
"if one House insists on an amendment to which the other has disagreed, and the other insists on its disagreement, and neither has offered alternatives, the bill is lost".
Erskine May says much the same thing, but goes on to state:
"It must be remembered, however, that there is no binding rule of order which governs these proceedings in either House, and, if there is a desire to save a bill, some variation in the proceedings may be devised in order to effect this object".
What I am now about to say is somewhat technical, but I hope not too complicated. In the Commons, Amendments Nos. 1 and 3 were treated as forming a package and Amendment No. 1C was regarded as a new proposal that would keep the exchanges on both amendments going. Ministers took advice in the Commons and acted on it. However, when the Bill again reached this House, the authorities in this House were unable to accept the Commons' interpretation, which presumes a knowledge in the Lords of what happens in the Commons. The Lords can go only by Commons amendments and reasons as set out in their messages. The Commons gave a freestanding reason for insisting on their agreement to Lords Amendment No. 3 and did not indicate that the amendment in lieu of Amendment No. 1 represented an alternative proposal to Amendment No. 3.
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Turning from the Commons to this House, Amendments Nos. 1 and 3 were not grouped in the last Lords debate on 26 April. Furthermore, Amendment No. 1 was moved by a Liberal Democrat Peer, while the unrelated Amendment No. 3 was moved by a Conservative. In the circumstances, the Clerk of the Parliaments took the view that a double insistence had been reached as described by the Companion and Erskine May. I accept that advice.
However, in the passage I read out just now, Erskine May makes it clear that no binding rule of order governs these proceedings, stating:
"If there is a desire to save a Bill, some variation in the proceedings may be devised in order to effect this object".
It is certain that on 29 April the Commons had no intention of creating a situation in which the Bill could proceed no further. Likewise, in this House the usual channels have accepted that this was not the intention and have agreed that this Motion and the new amendment should be put to the House: hence this Motion. It invites the House to confirm that the Bill should not be completely blocked unintentionally and that we are prepared to consider the Commons amendments and reasons.
It is obviously undesirable that this situation should have arisen at all. I am sure that we all wish to ensure that it does not do so again. We accept that the consideration of amendments and reasons—which we know as "ping pong"—can result in the loss of a Bill. This may be deliberate, but it may also be inadvertent. If it resulted from carelessness on the part of Ministers or a refusal to take advice, then Ministers might simply have to live with the consequences. But that is not the case here. Ministers acted with due diligence and on the advice of the House authorities.
I have invited the Clerks of both Houses and parliamentary counsel to consider jointly the lessons learnt from this episode and how best to avoid such a situation in the future. In particular, they will look at the practice of considering amendments in the other House in groups or packages and the procedural consequences which can follow. I am glad to say that they have readily agreed to this course of action. I will ensure that the House knows the outcome as soon as possible. In the mean time, I commend the Motion to the House.
Moved, That it is desirable to vary the normal practice of the House when considering Commons reasons and amendments, whereby no further consideration of a Bill can take place in the event that —

(i) the Lords insists on an amendment;

(ii) the Commons insists on its disagreement to that amendment; and

(iii) neither House has offered alternative proposals;

to allow the House to consider the Commons reason and amendment to the Bill.—(Baroness Amos.)
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness the Leader of the House. She has reported very fairly and properly to the House on an extraordinary and very serious situation that arose last week. This was no mere technicality. Without full cooperation from the usual channels, it could have ended in a humiliating fiasco for the Government and, very possibly, a Planning Bill on which Parliament has been working for 18 months would have been lost. Indeed, it will still be lost if the House does not agree to the Motion proposed by the noble Baroness.
As the House knows, Members on this side are not in favour of the Planning Bill: we believe that it is a thoroughly bad Bill. I would have been glad to see it lost, but in such unusual circumstances I felt that we owed a duty to the House to preserve the spirit as well as the letter of parliamentary procedure.
The House will. I hope, accept what the noble Baroness has said—that it was clearly not the intention of the Government or the House of Commons to lose their own Bill. I do not think, in those circumstances, it is for this House to exploit the kind of procedural mistake that would destroy the whole of a programme Bill.
I should also say that progress was helped by the notable efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, to whom I pay tribute, who along with my noble friend Lord Hanningfield persuaded the Government to accept that an amendment made by your Lordships which had been swept aside in another place should, in effect, be restored. However, I must make it clear that this is an exceptional agreement in the case of this one amendment to this one Bill. Although the noble Baroness has rightly reminded us that Erskine May states that either House can vary proceedings in this way. I know of no direct precedent for it. And, for the record, I must say firmly that it must form absolutely no precedent for the future.
I share the view of the noble Baroness, who speaks for the whole House, in saying that this situation should never arise again. If it were to do so, then I give no undertaking that we on this side would be so forbearing.
Perhaps it is worth reiterating what has happened. An amendment made by this House was linked in the other place to another unrelated amendment. It was then thought, mistakenly, that it was enough to propose an amendment in lieu to just one of the two amendments to justify outright and repeated rejection of the other one. Had that doctrine prevailed, then in future any number of unrelated amendments could be linked in another place and an amendment in lieu proposed to just one of them. All the other unrelated amendments made by this House to that same Bill could be rejected indefinitely by another place, which would never then be required to offer any compromise to your Lordships' House. That, I am sure, would be quite unacceptable to Peers on all sides of the House. After all, only in 1999, the then Leader of the House, the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington, promised that amendments made by the reformed House would carry more authority.
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I should like to pay the warmest tribute to the Clerk of the Parliaments who upheld the authority and rights of this House. I also welcome the announcement by the noble Baroness of a new study by the authorities of both Houses and by parliamentary counsel into what has happened and how to avoid it in the future. They must realise that this House deprecates what has happened and fully accepts and upholds the advice given by the Clerk of the Parliaments throughout, as the noble Baroness has herself made clear. We look forward to the noble Baroness reporting hack to the House, as she has undertaken to do.
I hope also that she will urge her colleagues in another place to give much more appropriate and serious consideration to all Lords amendments. If that too were to happen, then out of this even more good might come. I thank the noble Baroness for her part in arriving at a constructive solution that protects this House. I support the Motion and I hope that it will now be approved by the House.
Lord Roper: My Lords, Members on these Benches agree with the noble Baroness the Lord President that this is an extraordinary situation. But we also admire the ingenuity and flexibility that has been shown in this House to ensure that a procedural solution can be devised, as is suggested in Erskine May, to ensure that the will of Parliament can he determined and that procedure should not restrain what we wish to achieve.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, I am glad that in her statement, the noble Baroness referred to the fact that the authorities of the two Houses are to work together to ensure that this sort of incident does not recur and that comity between the Houses may be maintained in appropriate ways.
This is one of the relatively rare parliamentary occasions when one can almost certainly note in advance that our proceedings today are likely to end up as a footnote at least in the next edition of Erskine May. We should be aware of that as we vote in support of the Motion put forward by the Lord President.
Baroness Amos: My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Strathclyde and Lord Roper, for their comments. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. was characteristically robust. I say again to the noble Lord that, as I made clear in my statement, Ministers acted with due diligence and on the advice of the House authorities. The noble Lord knows that all governments take advice from the House authorities. However, I should like to end by saying that I am grateful for the work of the usual channels and the House authorities which has enabled us to reach this point.
Lord Elton: My Lords, the noble Baroness made it clear in her original speech that this should never happen again. My noble friend on the Front Bench explained that it is quite important that it should not do so. If this were to set a precedent, the other place would have a means of avoiding treatment of almost

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all our amendments. I hope, therefore, that she will concur with him that this will not be, in her view, any kind of precedent.
Baroness Amos: My Lords, that is precisely why I have asked the House authorities to look at the matter. I shall report back to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
The Minister of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Lord Rooker): My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons amendment and reason be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons amendment and reason be now considered.—(Lord Rooker.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS REASON FOR INSISTING ON DISAGREEING WITH A CERTAIN LORDS AMENDMENT AND A COMMONS AMENDMENT IN LIEU OF A CERTAIN OTHER LORDS AMENDMENT
[The page and line refer to HL Bill 10 as first printed for the Lords.]

LORDS AMENDMENT
1. Before Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
"Application of Part 1
Part 1 shall apply only if an elected assembly for the region has been established."
The Commons disagree to this amendment for the following reason—
1A Because it is not appropriate to restrict the application of a regional spatial strategy only to regions which have elected assemblies.
The Lords insist on their Amendment No. 1 to which the Commons have disagreed. for the following reason—
1B Because responsibility for drawing up regional spatial strategies should lie with the elected representatives of the communities affected.
The Commons insist on their disagreement to Lords Amendment No. 1 but propose the following amendment to the Bill in lieu thereof—
1C Page 2, line 7, at end insert—
'(2A) The Secretary of State must not give a direction under subsection (1) in relation to a body unless not less than 60% of the persons who are members of the body fall within subsection (2B).
(2B) A person falls within this subsection if he is a member of any of the following councils or authorities and any part of the area of the council or authority (as the case may be) falls within the region to which the direction (if given) will relate—

(a) a district council;

(b) a county council;

(c) a metropolitan district council;

(d) a National Park authority;

(e) the Broads authority.'

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do not insist on its Amendment No. 1, in respect of which the Commons have insisted on their disagreement, but do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 1C in lieu thereof.
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As the House knows, or is about to find out, Amendment No. 1 would end any system of regional planning where there was not an elected regional assembly. I have set out the Government's stall on the importance of regional planning several times, but let me do so again briefly.
We need a system for strategic planning that is based around areas that are interdependent on the ground, not one constrained by administrative boundaries. Many strategic planning issues cut across county boundaries and are best dealt with at regional or sub-regional level. I know that here and in the other place concerns have been expressed about accountability, which I understand and appreciate. We have reflected on a practical way to respond to these concerns. I hope that the democratic guarantee offered by Amendment No. 1C that has arrived from the other place—the elected House—will commend itself to this House.
The regional planning process needs to be driven forward by bodies able to represent the region and take a strategic view. Regional chambers are best placed to fulfil that role. Chambers are, of course, not directly elected, but they are representative of local authorities and the wider stakeholders in the region. Local authority members represent their local authority on the regional planning board.
Members from other stakeholder groups, such as business or the voluntary sector, will equally speak up for the interests that they represent. Where elected regional assemblies are established, it is right that they should take over responsibility for regional planning, but we do not think we should conflate this with reforming the planning system: that reform needs to happen now.
Of course, we need the safeguard of democratic accountability. That safeguard needs to be the best one possible, consistent with our current governance arrangements.
Local authorities speak for their communities—that is what they are elected to do. This Bill, along with the regulations and guidance, guarantees that theirs will be the loudest voice in regional planning.
Local authorities are in the majority on regional chambers which will be the regional planning bodies. Where there is a consensus there, the local authority view will prevail in the regional planning body's work.
However, I recognise the concerns expressed. Therefore, Amendment No. 1C highlights the leading role of local authorities and provides a statutory guarantee for the future. The Secretary of State will not be able to recognise a body as a regional planning body unless at least 60 per cent of its members are drawn from county councils, unitary authorities, district councils, national parks authorities or the Broads authority. I hope that the House will be content with Amendment No. 1C. I beg to move.

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Moved, That the House do not insist on its Amendment No. 1, in respect of which the Commons have insisted on their disagreement, but do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 1C in lieu thereof.—(Lord Rooker.)
Baroness Hamwee Baroness Hamwee rose to move Amendment No. 1D, as an amendment to the Motion that this House do not insist on its Amendment No. 1, in respect of which the Commons have insisted on their disagreement, but do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 1C in lieu thereof, leave out from "House" to end and insert "do insist on its Amendment No. 1, and do disagree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 1C in lieu thereof".
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the substantive issue does not seem to have held the attention of the House as well as the procedural one that preceded it, and I am grateful to noble Lords who have remained.
When your Lordships asked the Commons to think again on this issue, the reason was because responsibility for drawing up the regional spatial strategy should lie with elected representatives of the communities affected.
The amendment which the Government are asking your Lordships to consider today in lieu of what we came to call the sunrise clause does not begin to be in lieu of the clause which inserted the proper democratic element into this part of the Bill. Technically, it may be in lieu, but in no other way.
The Minister in another place recognised the issues of democracy which are at stake, as has the Minister today. However, this amendment does not deal with the issue. I cannot believe that the Government really believe that indirect, partial election to what will be an appointed body is a proper substitute. What is proposed is a minimum of 60 per cent membership drawn from local authorities—including the districts, which are not currently responsible for structure plans—as against draft regulations, which have been in place throughout this House's consideration of the Bill and provide a 30 per cent minimum from the business sector. In other words, at most there will be a 10 per cent shift in membership, but it will not address the point about a direct, democratic connection.
The Minister in another place said:
"Local authority members represent their local authority on the regional planning body".—[Official Report, Commons, 29/4/04; col. 1040]
That refers to the individual representatives' own authority not, as we would see it, having elected representatives elected with the duty of representing their whole region. It is not possible to have local authorities representing all local authority areas. It goes against the grain; if you stood for election to represent your local patch, that would be your priority, and rightly so. I do not want to repeat at too great length arguments I have made before, but indirect election is not adequate for this purpose.
The Minister also talked of other stakeholder group members speaking for the interests they represent. But we are all wedded to democracy. Instead of appointed
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business representatives having votes, democratically elected government means representing everyone. I am sure that, more than anybody in this House, when the Minister was elected he felt that he represented all his constituents, whether or not they voted for him. I fear that what the Government propose is divisive.
We talked before about accountability meaning and engendering faith in the process—the whole issue of trust. I am talking about faith in politics, not just the planning process. The Government say that the amendment would destroy regional planning, but if they came forward with a better democratic input, we would not again have found ourselves considering whether convenience should be placed ahead of democracy.
The Liberal Democrat and Conservative Benches approached the matter from bases which were, in part, different. I enjoyed the Hansard reference in another place to the fact that the Conservative Party is the parent of "regional panning". That may not have been what the Minister intended to say, but he came rather close to the truth.
The Conservatives have spoken very powerfully of the connection between citizens, elected government and the role of the counties in structure plans and strategic planning. I hope that they will support the amendment and translate what they have said into legislative terms. I beg to move.
Moved, as an amendment to the Motion that this House do not insist on its Amendment No. 1, in respect of which the Commons have insisted on their disagreement, but do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 1C in lieu thereof, leave out from "House" to end and insert "do insist on its Amendment No. 1, and do disagree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 1C in lieu thereof". —(Baroness Hamwee.)
Lord Hanningfield: My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Strathclyde said a little while ago, this is an extraordinary situation. Some of us have been debating this for a long while and have had many opportunities to talk over the issues. The Bill has suddenly hit the headlines because of the events of the past few days.
I shall speak at greater length to another amendment later on, but on this amendment, we have supported regional spatial strategies or regional spatial strategy boards in the past only if they are directly elected regional assemblies. I did not know about the reference to "panning assemblies" rather than "planning assemblies". That is an interesting new phrase. One feels that one has been "panning across" the whole of this legislation for some time.
We have always made it clear that we are opposed to directly elected regional assemblies. We are hoping for "no" votes in the three referenda later in the year. However, we have felt—I echo the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—that a democratic element should very much be part of the planning process. I hope that the amendment to which I shall later speak at greater length will cover that issue rather more.

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On this amendment, we have been discussing this legislation for a long while—some 18 months. Although we do not agree with many of the Government's views in the Bill—I have said several times that it needs a lot of work to make it really deliver the Government's objectives—we shall not be supporting the amendment of the noble Broness, Lady Hamwee, this afternoon.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I do not accept the amendment.
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, we have not quite hit the headlines, but we shall test the opinion of the House.
3.42 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. ID) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 44; Not-Contents, 141.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Addington, L.

MarandKellie, E.[Teller]

Bradshaw, L.

Nicholson of Winterbourne, B.

Clement-Jones, L.

Northover, B.

Dahrendorf, L.

Palmer, L.

Dholakia, L.

Phillips of Sudbury, L.

Ezra, L.

Razzall, L.

Fearn, L.

Redesdale, L.

Fookes, B.

Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.

Goodhart, L.

Roper, L. [Teller]

Greaves, L.

Russell-Johnston, L.

Hamwee, B.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Holme of Cheltenham, L.

Sandberg, L.

Hooson, L.

Sharman, L.

Hussey of North Bradley, L.

Sharp of Guildford, B.

Jacobs, L.

Shutt of Greetland, L.

Lester of Herne Hill, L.

Smith of Clifton, L.

Linklater of Butterstone, B.

Thomas of Walliswood, B.

Livsey of Talgarth, L.

Thomson of Monifieth, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Tope, L.

Maclennan of Rogart, L.

Tordoff, L.

McNally, L.

Wallace of Saltaire, L.

Maddock. B.

Walmsley, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Ahmed, L.

Brooke of Alverthorpe, L.

Allenby of Megiddo, V.

Brookeborough, V.

Alli, L.

Brookman, L.

Alton of Liverpool, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Amos, B. (Lord President of the

Campbell-Savours, L.

Council)

Carter, L.

Andrews, B.

Clark of Windermere, L.

Bach, L.

Clarke of Hampstead, L.

Barnett, L.

Clinton-Davis, L.

Bassam of Brighton, L.

Cobbold, L.

Berkeley, L.

Corbett of Castle Vale, L.

Bernstein of Craigweil, L.

Craig of Radley, L.

Bhatia, L.

Crawley, B.

Billingham, B.

David, B.

Blackstone, B.

Davies of Coity, L.

Blood, B.

Davies of Oldham, L. [Teller]

Borrie, L.

Desai, L.

160

Dixon, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Donoughue, L.

McIntosh of Hudnall, B.

Dubs, L.

MacKenzie of Culkein, L.

Elder, L.

Mackenzie of Framwellgate, L.

Emerton, B.

Marsh, L.

Evans of Parkside, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Evans of Temple Guiting, L.

Mason of Barnsley, L.

Falconer of Thoroton, L. (Lord

Massey of Darwen, B.

Chancellor)

Merlyn-Rees, L.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Mishcon, L.

Faulkner of Worcester, L.

Mitchell, L.

Filkin, L.

Morgan, L.

Finlay of Llandaff, B.

Morris of Manchester, L.

Fitt, L.

Murray of Epping Forest, L.

Fyfe of Fairfield, L.

Nicol, B.

Gale, B.

Ouseley, L.

Gibson of Market Rasen, B.

Parekh, L.

Golding, B.

Patel of Blackburn, L.

Goldsmith, L.

Pendry, L.

Gordon of Strathblane, L.

Peston, L.

Goudie, B.

Pitkeathley, B.

Gould of Potternewton, B.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Greenway, L.

Radice, L.

Gregson, L.

Randall of St. Budeaux, L.

Grenfell, L.

Rendell of Babergh, B.

Grocott, L.[Teller]

Richard, L.

Hannay of Chiswick, L.

Rogan, L.

Harrison, L.

Rooker, L.

Haskel, L.

Sawyer, L.

Hogg of Cumbernauld, L.

Sheldon, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Simon, V.

Howells of St. Davids, B.

Slim, V

Howie of Troon, L.

Slynn of Hadley, L

Hoyle, L.

Hughes of Woodside, L.

Stallard, L.

Hunt of Kings Heath, L.

Stone of Blackheath, L.

Irvine of Lairg, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Janner of Braunstone, L.

Symons of Vernham Dean, B.

Jay of Paddington, B.

Temple-Morris, L.

Jeger, B.

Tenby, V.

Jones, L.

Thornton, B.

Jordan, L.

Tomlinson, L.

Judd, L.

Triesman, L.

King of West Bromwich, L.

Turnberg, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Walton of Detchant, L.

Laming, L.

Warner, L.

Lamont of Lerwick, L.

Warnock, B.

Lea of Crondall, L.

Warwick of Undercliffe, B.

Lipsey, L.

Weatherill, L.

Listowel, E.

Whitaker, B.

Lockwood, B.

Wilkins, B.

Lofthouse of Pontefract, L.

Williamson of Horton, L.

Macdonald of Tradeston, L.

Woolmer of Leeds, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
3 Clause 1, page 1, line 11, at end insert—
"(3A) The RSS must include sub-regional plans for all parts of the region in accordance with geographical boundaries defined by the RPB.
(3B) The sub-regional plans referred to in subsection (3A) shall be prepared by the authorities falling within section 4(1) if their area or any part of their area is in the defined sub-region."
The Commons disagree to this amendment for the following reason—
3A Because it is not appropriate to create more than one tier of regional spatial strategy.
The Lords insist on their Amendment No. 3 to which the Commons have disagreed, for the following reason—
3B Because regional spatial strategies should be based on the views of local communities.
The Commons insist on their disagreement to Lords Amendment No. 3, for the following reason—
3C Because it is not appropriate to create more than one tier of regional spatial strategy.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do not insist on its Amendment No. 3, in respect of which the Commons have insisted on their disagreement for their reason numbered 3C, but do propose Amendments Nos. 3E to 3J to the Bill in lieu thereof—
3E Page 2, line 40, at end insert—
"() The advice mentioned in subsection (1) includes advice relating to the inclusion in the RSS of specific policies relating to any part of the region."
3F Page 3, line 33, at end insert—
"() the desirability of making different provision in relation to different parts of the region."
3G Page 3. line 388, at end insert—
"(4A) If the RPB decides to make different provision for different parts of the region the detailed proposals for such different provision must first be made by an authority which falls within section 4(2).
(4B) But if the RPB and the authority agree, the detailed proposals may first be made—
(a) by a district council which is not such an authority,
or
(b) by the RPB."
3H Page 6, line 11, leave out from "followed" to "section" in line 12 and insert "for the purposes of"
3I Page 6, line 42, after second "revision" insert—
"(a)"
3J Page 6, line 42, at end insert—
"(b) of the RSS as it relates to any part of a region."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I do not propose to dwell on Amendment No. 3 itself, other than to repeat, as I have said several times before, that it is not acceptable, because it imposes the burden, red tape and bureaucracy of blanket sub-regional planning, irrespective of whether it is needed or adds value to the planning system. A further problem is that it would require these plans to be drawn up exclusively by county councils and other authorities with strategic planning expertise, and so exclude others who may have an essential and valuable role to play, such as the district councils or regional development agencies.
I believe that our approach to sub-regional planning is the right one for our communities and our planning system. It is flexible and practical and does not impose an across-the-board, universal requirement for sub-regional frameworks, while it fully supports the involvement of sub-regional partners when there is a clear call for sub-regional planning. However, my right honourable friend Keith Hill said at the last stage in the other place that, given the concerns expressed on the matter, he was prepared to review the package.
We have therefore looked again at whether there is scope for further compromise consistent with our policy in order to make the arrangements work best on
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the ground. We have already discussed the statutory guarantee—which we have just agreed again—that at least 60 per cent of the members of each regional planning body will be members of local authorities. It must not be forgotten that we have given county councils and other authorities with strategic planning expertise a mandatory role in advising the regional planning body.
The amendments in lieu make it a duty that the regional planning body should consider whether it would be desirable to make different provisions in relation to different parts of the region as part of the regional spatial strategy. Therefore, the regional planning body would have to consider whether one or more sub-regional frameworks should be included as part of the regional spatial strategy. The amendments require the regional planning body to seek the advice of the counties and other authorities with strategic planning expertise on the desirability of making such provision. They require one or more of those authorities to take the lead in preparing the draft detailed policies for such a framework. Finally, the amendments provide that one or more district councils or the regional planning body may take the lead when the regional planning body and these other authorities agree.
The regulations to Part I will need to set out any necessary procedural detail. That might include, for example, clarifying that the sub-regional work would be to a brief set by the regional planning body. In further recognition of the expertise and service responsibilities of county councils, unitary authorities and national park authorities, we will also strengthen their role in the following three ways. First, we will amend planning policy statement 11 to provide that, on major issues of contention between the regional planning body and those authorities relevant to a matter being considered at the examination in public, the panel will ensure that that difference is examined. Secondly, we will amend planning policy statement 12 to make it clear that the county councils' advice should be sought and considered by the district councils in preparing local development documents, and development plan documents in particular, given the county councils' service responsibilities and expertise relevant to plan implementation. Thirdly, we will make it clear in PPS12 that district councils, in planning the preparation of local development documents, should have regard to the capacity of the county council and/or national park authority to provide prompt advice.
We have long recognised the sub-regional dimension to the regional spatial strategy and the role of authorities with strategic planning expertise in developing that dimension. This dimension will be strengthened in the following three ways. First, we will amend PPS11 to emphasise that although in some parts of a region local development documents should be capable of being prepared within the context of the generic policies of a regional spatial strategy, in other areas it will be necessary to have sub-regional frameworks as part of the strategy. That could be, for example, when important development or

163
infrastructure proposals cross local authority boundaries. Secondly, we will also draw attention to the role of the regional planning body in identifying the need for joint local development documents when this will be helpful in implementing the regional spatial strategy.
The third way in which the dimension will be strengthened has escaped me, because I have turned over the page and come to the end of my speaking note. Something has gone wrong with my notes—I have only got two bullet points, but I said the following three ways. Because of the negotiations that have been going on, I have read this brief umpteen times, along with lots of other bits of paper. Whether I will be give another bullet point remains to be seen—and in fact I am being told that there are only two. In that case, we have improved the dimension in two rather than three ways.
What I have just said may sound to non-experts such as myself like a load of technical jargonese, although I have spelled out all the acronyms in full. It is part of a package, which goes along with the procedural agreement that the House approved earlier. With that agreement, I was offered the opportunity of recommending to the Deputy Prime Minister that he introduce a planning (no. 2) Bill, but I pointed out that we would have a bit of a job spelling out the Second Reading reasons for that. Therefore, we have had a look at this.
I shall be emollient and democratic; I am not at all annoyed; I am very happy. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield. has yet to speak, but I put on record that he has acted in good faith throughout the Bill. I have no problem with that whatever. He is a practical man whom I trust. I know he speaks for Essex, but he speaks for the county councils as well, so he will be held to account.
We have a successful conclusion to the Bill. Sensible people in local government will see the benefit of this legislation. The Bill will change—it is intended to change—the culture of planning in the country for the benefit of our fellow citizens. I do not want anyone to complain that there is no money because, although it is not part of the Bill, we have repeatedly reminded the House that the Government's planning delivery grant will shunt to local planning authorities £350 million over the current spending review.
As this is probably the last time when I shall be on my feet in relation to the Bill—I hope it is—on a personal note I thank my private office staff and the planning officials for their assistance over the past 18 months. The Bill was part of my day job when ODPM was formed in 2002. The only note of discord that I have—I have put this on record before—is that I hope—that the County Council Network will not thank me for my efforts, as I would not be able to take such a letter seriously. I beg to move.
Moved, That the House do not insist on its Amendment No. 3, in respect of which the Commons have insisted on their disagreement for their reason numbered 3C, but do propose Amendments Nos. 3E to 3J to the Bill in lieu thereof.—(Lord Rooker.)
4 p.m.
Lord Hanningfield: My Lords, as I have said, this legislation brings us to an extraordinary situation. For some months—I believe Second Reading took place before Christmas—my noble friend Lady Hanham and I have made various arguments. We do not like much of the Bill, but we took the view that if the Government wanted to pursue this legislation we should make it work. Most of the amendments put forward by us have been designed to make the Bill more bottom-up, and more democratic, than top-down.
As we said at the beginning, if we are not careful we shall have only one planner in this country, the Deputy Prime Minister. We feel that local people should be involved in planning processes. I am very grateful indeed for what the Minister has just said as it changes fundamentally the processes involved at the bottom level and results in many more local people being involved in the processes of developing planning in this country.
We accept that sub-regional planning strategies do not need to be universal. That was a recent sticking point as an original amendment of ours proposed that the strategies should be universal. We have accepted that some parts of the country do not need a detailed sub-regional planning strategy, and that planning can take place in different ways. Much of the country does need planning strategies.
I do not want to continue to quote the situation in my own county of Essex, where we have a new runway at Stansted, the M11 corridor, the Thames Gateway and the Haven Gateway—you name it. we have it—but as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, has admitted previously, counties such as Essex need to be totally covered by sub-regional planning strategies. Yesterday, the noble Lord visited Essex to discuss issues with some of my colleagues.
I am pleased to have been able to achieve something with this Bill, even if through a procedural process. As I have said several times, the south-east of the country is the same size as Austria, which would not have just one planning policy; the planning policy that applied to Vienna would not apply to Salzburg,. We need to recognise that our very large regions—we do not support such large regions in the way that the Government do—need to be broken up and then developed. I believe that we have established that through the amendments. I am pleased that we have reached this stage and that some of the arguments that I have put forward throughout the passage of this legislation have now come to fruition. Due to the amendments, I believe that the planning system will work better.
In the Second Reading debate, noble Lords said that we should be proud of our planning system in this country and that we should be very wary of changing it. With this set of amendments which have been negotiated—they are still not perfect but they are much better than we have had before—the new planning policy can work and it can serve the people of this country. The system will be more bottom-up than top-down and we shall ensure that that happens.

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The Minister said that he did not want to get to his feet again, but I have one question for him. He mentioned the amount of money in the planning delivery grants. One assumes that that will follow the workload. The amendments may mean that the workload will fall to different authorities—the RDAs, the counties or the districts. Presumably the £350 million will follow the workload. I do not say that it should be designated. but it should follow the work.
Lord Rooker: Yes, my Lords, in some ways. The first two years' money has already been disbursed and we are now in the second year of the current spending round. I do riot know how much was allocated; there was something close to £200 million or certainly £150 million left for the third year. but it is a planning delivery grant; it is there to deliver a better planning system. As far as I am aware, the matrix for the third year has certainly not been agreed. Quite clearly, if matters have changed, one would expect a change in the way the matrix works. We were conscious of that in the first year's disbursement of the money. We shall have to take that on board. As I say, the money is paid after delivery of performance. The councils can do what they want with the money and to that extent it is not ring-fenced. Once the money is achieved, the council can use it in the way that it wants, but it has to deliver a better planning performance in terms of development control. The noble Lord's point is well made and I am sure it will be taken on board.
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, I cannot resist intervening on the resources point. As the Minister says, the grant is for dealing with planning applications, and not strategic work. Throughout the passage of the Bill comments have been made about the strain on the different spheres of authorities with their different responsibilities. There is concern about coupling the pressure on resources and the loss of involvement in taking the lead in structure planning at county level—despite this set of amendments. We all need to be very alert to what that mix will mean in terms of staffing—staff being the most important resource of all.
Lord Hanningfield: My Lords, I thank the Minister for what he has said. He indicated that he would support the money going where the work is. Although the situation has been set out for the first two years, as regards future allocation, I hope that the money will follow the workload, as I believe the Minister indicated.
He also spoke of the redrafting of the guidance. In the discussions that have taken place over the past few days I have received assurances which I accept, and which he has restated today, that the guidance needs to be rewritten. The Minister is nodding his head. That has been part of the discussions, which are not necessarily germane to the debate today, but he indicated that in his introduction. We can now make the legislation work better than we could have done before, so we accept the amendments.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Public Audit (Wales) Bill [H.L.]
4.9 p.m.
Read a third time.
Clause 54 [Restriction on disclosure of information]:
Baroness Noakes Baroness Noakes moved Amendment No. 1:
Leave out Clause 54.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, throughout our proceedings Clause 54 has been the most controversial clause in the Bill. Its deletion has been recommended by the committee of the Assembly which considered the Bill and was supported by the Welsh Affairs Committee in another place. At previous stages of the Bill these Benches and the Liberal Democrat Benches have also argued that it should be removed. The Auditor-General for Wales has never concealed his dislike of the clause.
I acknowledge that the Minister and his colleagues in the Wales Office have tried hard to resolve the issue. On Report, the Government introduced amendments to allow Clause 54 to be changed by statutory instrument to bring it into line with any amendment to Section 49 of the Audit Commission Act 1998. But that did not take us to whether the Government proposed to change Section 49. Agreeing to change a clause if a section in another Act is changed is a useful undertaking if it is clear beyond peradventure that the Government are resolved to change that section. We had not reached that point when we last considered the Bill on Report.
Let me briefly restate our objections to Clause 54. We believe that applying criminal sanctions to the wide-ranging prohibitions on disclosure of information in Clause 54 is wrong in principle. It means that potential whistleblowers, who we should value in a free society, would be treated more harshly, and would be more likely to be deterred. in relation to local government audit than in any other public sector audit environment.
Let me place on record my thanks for the further work that the Minister has done since Report. He wrote to me last week setting out the Government's latest position and I hope that he will be able to repeat that from the Dispatch Box today. The Government's approach is to align Section 49, and then Clause 54, with the Freedom of Information Act. In doing so, I understand that there will still be circumstances where the Government believe that criminal sanctions will he appropriate for the disclosure of information. Will the Minister say something about those circumstances? At present, Clause 54 is a blanket provision. Can the Minister paint a little more detail about what the refined prohibitions will look like?
When we debated this on Report, the Minister said that he understood that the Auditor General for Wales would take account of the planned changes to Section 49, and therefore to Clause 54, if he sought to use the Clause 54 powers before they were modified. Given the Auditor General's sensible position on this clause, I believe that we can have confidence in that. But will the Minister confirm that the Auditor General will be

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involved in the evolution of detailed changes. The Minister's letter to me referred to the Wales Office being in touch with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Department for Constitutional Affairs. I am sure that the ODPM will involve the Audit Commission in relation to changes to Section 49, given the commission's particular attachment to that section. I would not like the Auditor General to be marginalised in those discussions. After all, we have had rather a lot of the English tail wagging the Public Audit Wales dog throughout the Bill.
I hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively to these points. I beg to move.
Lord Livsey of Talgarth: My Lords, I apologise for the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, who has been very involved in the Bill. He is unable to attend this afternoon. I wish to make only a few points on these amendments.
The issue of Clause 54, which concerns whether there should be disclosure and possible sanctions, is a very serious matter. I have seen the correspondence of the Minister on this issue. The noble Baroness has made a number of important points in her speech and I know that the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Conwy, has made some very pungent remarks in relation to these matters from experience in the former Welsh Office. I believe that, as far as public audit is concerned, the disclosure of information is extremely important. There have been discussions about that aspect during the course of proceedings on the Bill and Amendment No. 162 removed the restrictions on the disclosure of information.
The Local Government Association put forward the argument that it is for the electorate, not an auditor, to decide whether it was satisfied with the services provided. I would submit that electors need facts and it is the auditor who establishes the facts upon which the electorate can judge issues, in particular in relation to expenditure. This is a very important matter. But there are signs of concessions in the attitude that the Government have taken to this matter and it is certainly not the wish of the Liberal Democrat Benches to push this matter further at the present time. I find Clause 54 particularly interesting and fundamental in terms of principle and accountability. I hope that the Minister can satisfy us on these matters.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: My Lords, it will be recalled that on Report the Government moved an amendment that would enable them, by order, to repeal or relax the restriction on the disclosure of information in Clause 54. The proposed amendment would reflect the findings of a review of statutory bars to the disclosure of information being undertaken by the Department for Constitutional Affairs under Section 75 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
On Report, I confirmed that the order-making power could be used only for the purpose of repeal or relaxation. It could not be used to impose any further
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restriction. During debate on the amendment the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, expressed her concern, which she repeated this afternoon, that:
"We are being invited to leave an unacceptable clause in the Bill against a promise of unspecified amendments in the future".—[Official Report, 1/4/04; col. 1479.]
Both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, who were joined this afternoon by the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, sought more information on the nature of the changes to Clause 54 that the order implementing the DCA's Section 75 review recommendations would facilitate. These are concerns that the noble Baroness re-emphasised today and she feels that Clause 54 should be deleted from the Bill.
I was happy to confirm on Report that the Government fully understood the concerns expressed about Clause 54 and I gave a commitment that we would take into account all those concerns in a consistent and responsible way. We believe that the government amendment to facilitate a subsequent change in the light of the DCA review bears testimony to that commitment.
At this comparatively early stage in proceedings—the overall DCA review is not scheduled to conclude until this autumn with the first order implementing its findings being brought forward before the end of the year—I said that I could give no guarantee that I would be able to give any further details of proposed changes at Third Reading. I can, however, report to noble Lords that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, as the department with responsibility for the Audit Commission Act, has now formally instructed the DCA to incorporate an amendment to Section 49, the precursor to an amendment to Clause 54, in the first Section 75 order, which will be introduced as soon as possible and certainly before the end of this year. The process of amendment has been formally put into play.
The instruction is wholly consistent with the Government's preferred treatment for Section 49 that I indicated to noble Lords on Report. The provisions underlying presumption against disclosure will be changed to an overall presumption in favour of disclosure. Freedom of information legislation is very complex and it would be inappropriate for me to preempt the detailed drafting of the Section 75 order. I want to stress again that we are still at a very early stage in the process.
That said, the practical effect of what is proposed is that information obtained by the Audit Commission or an auditor during the course of an audit or study and held by any public authority could be disclosed by that public authority within the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act. Where the same information is held by any organisation not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, they would also be entitled to disclose it, subject to a limited number of exceptions. At present, such information is subject to an absolute exemption from disclosure under the Act.
A person or body would be able to make a formal request for information to any public authority under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. The

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presumption in favour of permitting disclosure by a public authority or its staff would not be limited to formal requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act. Section 75 orders allow for ancillary provisions, and it is proposed that the amendment to Section 49 would also cover the voluntary release of such information—proactive disclosure—not related to formal requests, provided it was not of an inappropriate nature.
The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, specifically asked what exemptions to disclosure would remain following the Government's proposed amendment. For the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act, information that could prejudice the exercise by any public authority of its auditing functions is classified as exempt information. If the Commission, or another public authority, thought that the release of requested information could be prejudicial in this way, the Act requires it to apply a public interest test in order to decide whether it can be lawfully withheld.
Details of inappropriate proactive disclosure, for the purpose of inclusion in the Section 75 order, are still being considered. However, in the Government's view, examples of such disclosure that the Government would deem unlawful could be the release of personal information, or the premature release of unverified information for inclusion in an audit report or study. I said during our discussions on Report that these are both examples of disclosure that the Auditor General for Wales's office has indicated he may envisage as exceptions to the presumption in favour of disclosure. A further example of unlawful disclosure could be the release of information for what could be described as malicious or self-serving reasons, such as for motives of personal gain, or with the intention of inflicting harm.
The Government are of the view that a criminal sanction is still required as a deterrent against instances of unlawful disclosure. The nature of this criminal sanction is still under consideration. I can confirm. however, that the categories of unlawful disclosure provided for in the order will be reasonable, and not undermine the new overall presumption in favour of disclosure. We will, of course, keep the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, closely in touch with progress.
Both the Section 75 order amending Section 49 of the Audit Commission Act, and the order-making powers enabling the amendment of Clause 54, will be subject to the approval of both Houses of Parliament.
The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, asks about the role of the Auditor General for Wales in the amendment process, and I can confirm that he or she will be consulted as this work develops.
I do hope that in this rather lengthy speech I have gone a long way towards allaying the noble Baroness's concern and demonstrating the Government's commitment to progressing this issue in a consistent and reasonable way. With that in mind, I would ask her to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Noakes: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that comprehensive statement and the constructive
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way he has worked with these Benches and the Liberal Democrat Benches on this difficult issue throughout the course of this Bill. The information he has provided has taken us a lot further than we had reached on Report, and that is extremely useful. I also thank the Minister for offering to keep me in touch with developments. The only thing left for me to say is that I serve notice that we will be looking at the Section 75 order with very great interest, and look forward to a debate on this, if necessary, later this year. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Evans of Temple Guiting Lord Evans of Temple Guiting moved Amendment No. 2:
After Clause 56, insert the following new clause—
"PROVISION OF INFORMATION TO AUDIT COMMISSION
(1) The Auditor General for Wales must, on request, provide the Audit Commission with any information it may reasonably require for the purpose of making comparisons, in the discharge of its functions under sections 33 and 34 of the Audit Commission Act 1998 (c. 18), between local government bodies in Wales and other local government bodies.
(2) In this section "local government body" has the meaning given in section 53(1) of the Audit Commission Act 1998 (c. 18)."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving government Amendment No. 2, I shall also speak to government Amendments Nos. 3, 6, 5 and government Amendment No. 8, which should have been grouped with this group and appears right at the bottom of the Marshalled List by mistake. I apologise for that.
During our discussions on Amendment No. 5, when originally tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, for consideration on Report, the Government expressed the view that a potentially wide-ranging mandatory duty on one body to co-operate with another in undertaking a study, irrespective of the circumstances, could unacceptably limit its operational flexibility in respect of the exercise of its own functions.
I did give an undertaking, however, that the Government would consider incorporating in the Bill a mutual duty to provide information for comparative purposes on the Auditor General for Wales, the Audit Commission and the Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection. The Government amendments tabled for consideration today, we believe, fulfil that commitment.
Government Amendments Nos. 2 and 8 would require the Auditor General for Wales to provide the Audit Commission and the Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection respectively with any information they may reasonably require to undertake relevant reviews and studies in the exercise of their functions.
Government Amendments Nos. 4 and 6 place a reciprocal duty on the Audit Commission and the Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection to provide information that the Auditor General for Wales may reasonably require for the purpose of

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making comparisons between Welsh and English local government and health bodies, while undertaking studies in accordance with his functions. I beg to move.
Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, I thank the Minster for introducing his government amendments about information duties as between the Auditor General, the Audit Commission and the Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection. Our own amendment in this group is Amendment No. 5, but I see that it is amply covered by government Amendment No. 6.
The Government's amendments derive, as the Minster has acknowledged, from the debates in Grand Committee and on Report as to the information that the Auditor General needs. Indeed, these amendments go further than that, and include the Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection. These amendments concern information provision, and therefore fall short of the broader duty of co-operation for which my noble friend Lady Noakes had previously argued. But we concede that these amendments meet our concerns at least halfway and, on the basis that half a loaf is better than none, we are very happy to accept them.
I should like to apologise to the House for my absence from all proceedings on this Bill after Second Reading, following a close family bereavement. I thank all your Lordships, in all parts of the House, who extended their very generous condolence to my family. I must also give a very special thank you to my noble friend Lady Noakes—who herself suffered the loss of her father during the same period—for not only bravely carrying on, but subjecting the Bill to her inimitable professional scrutiny. The willingness of the Government to listen has paid off, and I am sure that the noble Lords on the Front Bench opposite will agree that the Bill leaving your Lordships' House is much better than the one presented to it. A great deal of the credit for that goes to my noble friend Lady Noakes.
4.30 p.m.
Lord Livsey of Talgarth: My Lords, I should like to add to those words of the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Conwy, and indeed to sympathise with the situations that he and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, faced in the past few months.
The provision of information for comparative purposes is undoubtedly vital in auditing. It is very important that such information is objective. As the Minister indicated, wording that deals with any additional information which the auditors may reasonably require would satisfy us that the Bill is in better shape than it was before. The provision of information is vitally important.
I thank my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford—who I know would very much have liked to have been here today—for the hard work that he put into the Bill and for his forensic, investigative and positive approach to the Bill. He has done an excellent job on it and I should like that to be recognised in the House.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Evans of Temple Guiting Lord Evans of Temple Guiting moved Amendment No. 3:
After Clause 62, insert the following new clause—
"PROVISION OF INFORMATION BY CHAI
(1) The Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection must, on request, provide the Auditor General for Wales with any information he may reasonably require for the purpose of making comparisons, in the discharge of his functions under sections 145 and 145A of the Government of Wales Act 1998 (c. 38) in relation to a Welsh NHS body, between the Welsh NHS body and English NHS bodies and cross-border SHAs.
(2) Subsection (1) does not require information to be provided in circumstances where (but for that subsection) the disclosure of the information would contravene section 136 of the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003 (c. 43) (restriction on disclosure of personal information by CHAI).
(3) In this section "English NHS body" and "cross-border SHA" have the meaning given by section 148 of that Act."
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 71 [Commencement]:
Lord Evans of Temple Guiting Lord Evans of Temple Guiting moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 41, line 29, after "Schedules)" insert ", except section 69,"
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 4, I shall speak also to the second government amendment in this group, Amendment No. 7.
Amendments Nos. 4 and 7 are both technical amendments. Amendment No. 4 excludes reference to Clause 69 from Clause 71, which sets out the National Assembly's commencement powers under the Bill. The exclusion is needed because Clause 69 includes an interpretation of references to the Assembly in the Bill and as a consequence will need to be commenced upon Royal Assent, subject of course to the Bill's successful passage through Parliament.
Amendment No. 7 corrects a drafting error in respect of a reference to Section 51 of the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003 made in Schedule 2 of the Bill. The Bill as drafted refers to "reviews or investigations" undertaken by the Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection under Section 51 of the Act. In fact, Section 51 makes provision only for the undertaking of reviews, and for this reason the amendment deletes the words "or investigation". I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Minor and consequential amendments]:
[Amendment No. 5 not moved.]
Lord Evans of Temple Guiting Lord Evans of Temple Guiting moved Amendments Nos. 6 to 8:
Page 56, line 8, at end insert—
"51B PROVISION OF INFORMATION TO AUDITOR GENERAL FOR WALES
The Commission must, on request, provide the Auditor General for Wales with any information he may reasonably require for the purpose of making comparisons, in the discharge of his functions under sections 41 and 42 of the Public Audit (Wales) Act 2004, between local government bodies in Wales and other local government bodies.""
Page 58, line 42, leave out "or investigation"
Page 58, line 43. at end insert—
"58A After section 69 insert—
"69A PROVISION OF INFORMATION BY AUDITOR GENERAL FOR WALES
The Auditor General for Wales must, on request, provide the CHAI with any information it may reasonably require for the purpose of making comparisons, in the exercise of its functions under sections 51, 52 and 57, between English NHS bodies and Welsh NHS bodies.""
On Question, amendments agreed to.
An amendment (privilege) made.
Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.
I should like to express our gratitude to noble Lords, in particular to the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, for the extraordinarily detailed scrutiny that she and other noble Lords have given to the Bill during its passage through your Lordships' House. I said at Second Reading that we wanted the Bill to be as good as possible and that we would take account of what was said. Some 23 amendments have been made to the Bill as a direct or indirect result of proposals and comments made by noble Lords. We are very grateful for the extraordinary work that has been done on the Bill by all sides of the House.
I also acknowledge the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, to the Bill. He has, as we have expressed, all our sympathy. I was away with flu on the first day of Committee; as we know, he, too, was away. I should therefore also like to thank my noble friend Lord Davies, who, at two hours' notice, took on the first day of Committee. It has been a very successful operation. I again thank everyone who has worked so hard on the Bill.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Evans of Temple Gutting.)
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

European Union Constitutional Treaty
4.36 p.m.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean)The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean) rose to move, That this House takes note of developments concerning the draft European Union Constitutional Treaty.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, before I update your Lordships on the latest progress in the negotiations on this treaty, I believe that it is important that we try to have some common understanding about the nature of the treaty we are discussing. This House contains some of the finest expertise on Europe and international affairs generally that can be found in any one institution; it is as well that it should be focused on the right target. Sometimes, in the many—and I must say very enjoyable—discussions that we have had in this House over the past months, it has been very clear that opinions on what this treaty seeks to do have been enormously diverse.
This treaty is not a federalist blueprint to alter the fundamental nature of the relationship between member states and the European Union. It does not and it will not. To take just one example, the wording of its Article 5.1 states:
"The Union shall respect the national identities of the Member States, inherent in their fundamental structures, political and constitutional … It shall respect their essential State functions".
This provision expands Article 6.3 of the existing treaty on the European Union.
There is only one draft under discussion. There are not a number of alternative and quite different treaties from which we can select. We cannot pull our own "Plan B" treaty from out of our back pocket, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, has rather oddly suggested. To do so would undermine our own negotiating position. I believe that he knows the nature of negotiations rather better than that.
On the other hand, this draft is not written in stone: it is the subject of negotiation. We have achieved improvements to it already, and we believe that we can secure more. Specifically, we will seek to ensure that it will not remove the national veto on areas of vital national interest: taxation, foreign policy, defence, social security, how the essentials of our common law and criminal justice system work, or treaty change. The Government position on all those issues has been clear throughout.
The treaty is the product of the convention where British parliamentarians played a full part, with the help of the noble Lords, Lord Tomlinson and Lord Maclennan of Rogart, and of course the honourable Members of another place, David Heathcoat-Amory and my honourable friend Gisela Stuart. As we know, our parliamentarians' opinions on the draft have varied and the Opposition have made much of the doubts that Gisela Stuart expressed on the convention. But let us not forget that she has made clear that the IGC offers us the opportunity to tackle specific concerns about the draft treaty. As she said in another place on 10 December last year,
"it is Heads of Government who have democratic legitimacy to make those decisions".
She said later on the same occasion that the treaty,
"simplifies the procedures, whether those involve the new legal instruments or the decision making of the Council. All that is absolutely essential and it will be beneficial for enlargement … there would be a great danger if it were lost".—[Official Report, Commons, 10/12/03; cols. 1125–26.]
The resulting draft does, indeed, reflect a great deal of our thinking about how the European Union can be improved: replacing the six-month rotating Presidency with a full-time chairman of the European Council, an important step away from federalism, helping the European Union deliver results; giving national Parliaments the power to object to Commission proposals for legislation—an unprecedented advance in subsidiarity—helping member states to co-operate in crucial areas such as terrorism and cross-border crime; and answering the challenge of enlargement of a Europe of 25 or 27 or 28 nation states.
We have ended the Cold War division of Europe, and expanded the single market to an unprecedented 450 million people—and now we must make the expanded European Union really effective as well as visionary. The veto must be confined to the areas where it is truly necessary, or else decision-making will become gridlocked.
The Government believe that the treaty, successfully negotiated, is, indeed, good news for Britain. It gives us a choice about whether to be strong players in Europe, or limping along on its sidelines. Let me explain how.
The party opposite has admitted that its opposition to the Constitutional Treaty is root-and-branch opposition. Its official position is not to change aspects of the treaty; not to try to improve it; it is against it absolutely. In taking that position, the party opposite has no partners in Europe. No government take that stance, and only in Poland is there an opposition party that espouses such a line. The opposition policy is a policy guaranteed to leave us isolated and on Europe's sidelines. It would also be a fundamental mistake. We want a Constitutional Treaty. We want a rulebook for the EU—a single, simplified one rather than a series of disparate treaties that make up the current rulebook. We want more effective European Union institutions that deliver what citizens want: more co-operation against international crime and a co-ordinated fight against terrorism. We also want member states to work together in the European Union to create a more effective asylum system.
The Government plan to achieve their objectives in the current negotiations on the Constitutional Treaty. If we do, we shall then discuss the treaty in another place and your Lordships will have the opportunity to give it the detailed and scrupulous attention that it deserves, as you have with previous treaties. When that process is complete, the Government will campaign for its acceptance by the British people in a referendum.
As your Lordships will know, I have argued against a referendum. Of course, I did; that is a matter of public record. I have thought about this issue a great deal. I do not believe that a referendum is necessary legally or constitutionally. I certainly do not believe that it is necessary because of the fundamentally different nature of this treaty as compared, for example, to the Single European Act or Maastricht. However, I do believe that a referendum is right for the people of this country—for them to decide for themselves whether they want to be at the heart of Europe, where this Government want to be, or relegated to the sidelines where the party opposite wants them to be. I believe that with a referendum our arguments will be where they should be—not on process but on the real substance of this treaty.
The European Union is not just a set of laws. This is not just a drama played out in the corridors of Westminster and Brussels. It is about a market of 450 million people, the biggest in the world. We export three times as much to that market as we do to the United States. Three million jobs in United Kingdom
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companies are estimated to depend on the EU. To do that we need to keep its rules. That is what a single market is all about. So we must also be making the rules and influencing the future direction of the Union. We would be doing the people of this country a great disservice if we abandoned our ability really to influence what those rules are.
We need to help the European Union work efficiently and well, helping to deliver jobs, security and prosperity. Those who argue that we can assure that from the sidelines of Europe by rejecting this treaty are simply fooling themselves.
Let me turn to the latest developments. Copies of the latest working document issued by the Presidency, CIG 73/04, are in the Library of both Houses. I am sorry that copies of this reached the Library a little later than I had hoped last week. I stress to your Lordships that this is a working document designed for discussion by officials at their "focal points" meeting which took place on 4 May. It covers only part of the issues that are important to us. Far from being a setback for Britain, as reported in some sections of the press, this document confirms gains we have already made under the Italian Presidency, for example, on energy and the passerelle clause. That is welcome.
The negotiations are continuing. On 17 and 18 May, Foreign Ministers will meet again at the GAERC to discuss the IGC. In advance of that meeting we expect another working document from the Presidency. I shall, of course, ensure that copies are placed in the Library of the House.
Today provides another opportunity for your Lordships to influence the Government's approach to those negotiations. It is not in our gift in this Chamber to decide the approach of the 24 other member states debating this treaty. Negotiation is not done by diktat. We cannot, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, seemed to propose, put forward an alternative treaty that has no support from any other member state. We and our European partners continue to regard the convention's draft, into which so much effort has already gone, as a good basis for our negotiations. But we do want to be guided by Parliament, as we have been all along, in setting the UK approach and UK priorities.
We have discussed the IGC more than 20 times in the past year on the Floor of both Houses. Ministers have attended 10 Select Committee sessions and three sessions of the IGC Standing Committee. I recall that the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart, said on a previous occasion that it would be very difficult for the Government to do more. I hope that our debate this evening will be realistic, well informed and based on the facts of the negotiation. I look forward, as always, to hearing a lively and robust debate on this subject. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House takes note of developments concerning the draft European Union Constitutional Treaty.—(Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean.)
4.48 p.m.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that exposition. My thanks are sincere. Except where she portrayed the position of those of us on this side of the House in a rather negative and, I believe, inaccurate way, the rest was, as usual, extremely clear. As we all recognise in this House, the Minister is immensely skilled at presenting what are basically rather unclear situations in a very clear way. We are all grateful to her for that.
As the Minister reminds us, these negotiations on this constitution, or Constitutional Treaty—I think that it has to be called one of those two things—are now nearing their end. In a few days there will be another document and some progress will be made. The whole thing has to be tied up by 17 June, which is only weeks away. It is right, particularly in this House which sees itself properly as a safeguard and a guarantor of our constitution, that we should at this stage seek some very detailed information about the Government's overall approach—which has differed somewhat from the approach that they put forward in their White Paper last September—and the policies and some of the tactical details, although obviously not all of them.
However, my first question is even more fundamental. We have read in recent days about a whole string of new red lines and extra demands to which the Government now say that they will stick. That lacks clarity, because we were told last December that all the red lines had been agreed in essence, so that it was merely a question of tying up the ends. It now appears that there are a whole lot of new red lines, about which the Minister did not have much to say. We need to know which are the red lines that the Government intend to defend. Are the Government really going to stand firm on those red lines? Do they mean what they say?
For instance, are they really going to get the legal status of the unnecessary charter removed? Are they really going to keep the Union and the European Court of Justice right out of our defence and foreign policy, because that will mean substantial changes to the current draft? Are they really going to halt further integration of social policy? Are they really going to roll back qualified majority voting on asylum issues? Will they halt further extension of EU powers in a whole range of areas and new competences? Will they give Parliament real power to block EU-originated legislation—that means the red card procedure as proposed by Gisela Stuart and many others, which would allow a number of parliaments to block Commission-initiated legislation? Are they going to stop the EU foreign minister from intruding on UK foreign policy and presiding over and initiating policy proposals?
That is what we really want to know: will they really do those things or is this just talk? Are they going to let us down again? The reason that we are entitled to be a little cynical about all those promises is that if even half those undertakings are to be achieved, that will require quite a different treaty from the one in draft and the
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one being presently prepared by the Irish presidency—which, according to the latest information that I have, is heading in quite the opposite direction: towards more centralisation and away from the sort of undertakings about which the Government are talking.
That raises another question. If the Government are really going to be robust, despite what the Minister has told us, what is required is a very different treaty draft from the present text, pointing in quite different directions. One must ask what thought the Government have given to those different directions. What is the fall-back position? What is plan B? I know that the Minister chided me the other day, as she did again today, about raising the idea of airing alternatives, as though in some way any thinking about alternatives is impermissible. But when we look at the situation in Europe, we see that none of that has stopped other European leaders from announcing clear alternatives; namely—they are repeated almost every day now—that if we, the British, block their constitution and vote no, we shall be marginalised and other countries will go ahead to form a core Europe, presumably on a different treaty basis, we will he isolated, and all the rest.
The Minister asserts that that is what would happen. Indeed, the other day, she and Ministers in the other place were agreeing with that threat about our being, to cite the noble Baroness,
"pushed to the sidelines".—[Official Report, 29/4/04: col. 890.]
when Giscard d'Estaing gave voice to that threat. We are entitled to ask why we allow ourselves to be cowed by the former President, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, by President Chirac, by Mr Pascal Lamy, by Romano Prodi and by other European leaders. Are we not capable of putting forward our own ideas and vision of how we should go ahead in Europe?
The Minister may say that that is quite unrealistic, but I noticed that only last week the Economist magazine reminded us that Britain is now the richest country in Europe. We have the highest income per head, so we are no longer a poor relation tagging on behind. The Economist reminded us that that the UK continues to grow faster than the euro area and that the gap will widen. We are told that the UK is set to become the biggest economy in Europe—bigger even than the more populous German economy. The Economist states:
"These economic realities should be remembered when considering the latest fashionable notion in Brussels: the idea that the UK might be chucked out of the EU if it refuses to ratify the new Constitution".
What outdated and unmitigated rubbish is the notion about being pushed to the sidelines, let alone chucked out. In no other country, in no other EU member state, are people being fed by their Government with that threatening nonsense about being sidelined if they turn down this constitutional document—as, of course, the voters in several states may well do when they come to hold their referendums, as they will.

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As for the proposition that the constitutional draft that we have now somehow clearly defines or limits the powers of the EU institutions, which we would all like to see, unfortunately, that is anything but clear in the text. On the contrary, a new fog of uncertainty about who has powers to do what is created—a fog behind which it is obvious that big new powers or competences are being sought for the central Union institutions.
I urge the Minister when she winds up to clarify what has been said by various authorities that we should respect about whether new powers are being taken to the centre or left with member states. The noble Baroness is fond, as have been the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, of citing the Lords EU Committee report last October, which asserts that under the proposed constitution,
"the balance of power would shift from the Commission to the Member States"—
I think that I have it right that that is what the Minister was citing the other day.
The excellent chairman of the EU Committee, whom I see in his place, the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, made it absolutely clear on 3 December and again on 10 December that the report was referring to the strengthening of the role of the Council and that it meant:
"The balance of power is shifting to the Council".—[Official Report, 3/12/03; col. 336.]
Are we to believe the Government's view that the Council is the same thing as the member states? The Council is an EU institution. The Council can override member states by majority vote. No one in common parlance would equate the two. Why do Ministers continue to do so? The only people they are deceiving are themselves. It is a separate institution.
If Ministers do not believe the evidence of their own eyes about the question of powers—the long list of new competences in which the EU is to become involved, all of them coming under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice—let them read another Lords EU report, an excellent one that we have not yet debated on the future role of the European Court of Justice, which we shall debate in a few days' time. In that report, they will find both evidence and conclusions that under the constitution as proposed,
"the powers of the Union would be increased";
that there will he a new legal order; that the doctrine of the primacy of Community law will be extended; and that the ECJ will have the final say in defining the extent of member states' powers. That is in paragraph 78 of the European Union sub-committee report on the ECJ.
We are left wondering what Ministers really believe and whether they really stick to their view that there is no fundamental change in the powers or relationships between member states and the Union. The reason that we are now doubtful about ministerial statements is because they have now chosen to hold a referendum. Why are they holding a referendum if no fundamental changes are involved? The Minister told us the other
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day that it was a rotten idea—and she was candid and frank about it. The Minister for Europe was saying that a referendum was,
"only supported by Trotskyists, the National Front and the Rothermere press".
Now we can add, "the Labour Government", I suppose. It is true that the Labour Government may have shot our fox, although, as has been pointed out to me, the shooting of foxes is now politically correct, so it is not now quite the sin it was.
All I can say is, thank God—and, by the way, the Deity is sadly omitted from this constitution—that the British people can now vote down a plan to which the only sensible response, as Sir Samuel Brittan, a learned and wise man, said in the Financial Times the other day, is that centralisation has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished.
Finally, let me say how sickened some of us are at being accused of being anti-European. The noble Baroness did not make that charge today, but many of her friends have done so. Making that kind of statement is to set in motion what has rightly been called a fraudulent debate. Unlike the Government and, I think, the Liberal Democrats, we on these Benches are perfectly happy to set out the European Union we want to see and the reforms that we believe would really help our country—and an enlarged Europe—to go forward more successfully.
The Union we want to see is a "live and let live" kind of Union; which anchors national parliaments at the heart of EU decision-making; which really does return powers to the nation states, as this treaty definitely does not; which abhors European empire building; which respects the smaller states and rejects a dominating directorate of the big three; which leaves deeper political integration to those countries that truly want it—even though they will find that this is the slow track, not the fast one, to prosperity, as is proving to be the case; and which is simpler, more democratic and more accountable than anything which this rambling 335 page document even begins to offer.
Over the next few weeks the Government will claim that their red lines have been protected, even where they have not been. We are ready for that gambit. But, red lines or no red lines, the Government have allowed themselves to be trapped in a process, the outcome of which the British people do not want, which is not in our national interests and which will embitter and divide Europe, not unite it. Worse still—although the noble Baroness seems to believe that it is a virtue—the Government appear to have no exit strategy or alternative way forward. The saving grace is that when and if a referendum comes the British people will firmly and rightly reject the whole idea and most Europeans will breathe a huge sigh of relief. That will be the real time for an "Ode to joy".
Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, can I ask him whether, as he takes

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exception to the Minister's phrase "on the sidelines", he would prefer the characterisation that Britain would he "the only one in step"?
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord did not hear what I said. Throughout Europe there are people insisting that they want a Europe that is not top down and not imposed by some top down process—some agenda from the political elite—but want an entirely different, looser and more flexible kind of Europe. Even the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been telling us that he wants a more flexible and competitive kind of Europe and has indicated that there will he no deal on the treaty unless that happens. So we are not alone. The vast majority of modern Europeans understand that they do not wish to be stuck with a hierarchic, out of date, bureaucratic structure that belongs to yesterday.
5.4 p.m.
Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, it was my pleasure, together with the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, to be able to represent your Lordships' House during the convention. I should begin by setting on record how grateful I was both to the Select Committee, under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, and the Joint Committee that we had with the House of Commons for their work in scrutinising during the process of the convention. I sometimes wish that it had been done with a little more enthusiasm, particularly in the Joint Committee, due to the number of times that we had to wait to get a quorum and the number of times that we had to adjourn while the quorum disappeared. The hordes were not queuing up to enter the room in order to debate the draft constitution.
This House should be particularly proud of itself, because it had a commentary and proposals on every suggested draft clause of the new treaty in time for it to be taken into account by the convention. We were the only Chamber of any parliament of the 15, or, indeed, of the 25, to manage to do that. It was of great credit to your Lordships' House that so many members of the convention took your Lordships' opinions somewhat more seriously than it would seem that some of your Lordships currently do.
In particular, I turn to some of the words of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, in his introduction, because, unlike him, I do not merely "take note" of the draft Constitutional Treaty, but I actually welcome it. I do so because it does not, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, suggests, introduce new competences. If he has a list of those new competences, perhaps he will ask his colleague to introduce them in the debate, although I am willing to give way to him now if he wants to tell me what they are. Where are the new competences in the draft constitution? I do not believe that they exist. One only has to look at Article 11 and onwards to see the precise definition of competences in the new draft treaty, where it makes it abundantly clear that the
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European Union is a union of conferred competences, and competences that are not explicitly transferred to the EU explicitly stay with the member states.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, as the noble Lord has challenged me, I can certainly give him, or later on provide, the detailed areas where there are six new areas of competence which are acquired by, and ascribed to, the central institutions. But, can the noble Lord share with us, if he believes that the Halter is all so clear, his view of what is meant by the concept of shared competences? Who lays down the sharing and who takes the larger share—the upper or the lower level?
Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, again I have given the noble Lord the reference to that and it is most unsatisfactory to answer one question with another. I notice that we still have no demonstration of a new competence and I look forward to hearing them later in the day.
The idea that is presented to this House is that we are a nation that is being cowed by Mr Chirac, by Giscard, by Mr Prodi, and by Mr Lamy. The noble Lord can be frightened of them if he wants to be, hut I do not think that they actually have the effect on the population as a whole that the noble Lord attributes to them. If the noble Lord is suggesting that there are reforms that we want that were not considered, perhaps he should have a word with Mr Heathcoat-Amory, who represented the Euro-sceptic point of view from another place so well in the convention and see how far he reached with the proposals that the noble Lord seems to he espousing. He complains about entering into the negotiations without an exit strategy. Perhaps one matter that has been provided, should the noble Lord opposite ever form part of, or he in the supporting cast for, a future government, is that the draft treaty does give the noble Lord an exit strategy—the only one that is available—which is, if at the end of the day one does not like it, get out.
The reason for having a convention has been forgotten in this debate. We had a convention because there was a process of enlargement; it was enlarging a European Community that started at six, grew to nine, then 10, then 12 and then 15. It was about to increase to 25 and we needed a proper constitutional treaty, a proper methodology of work, so that we would not have a European Union that was hamstrung in its procedures. That historic enlargement required change. One of the changes that have had to take place is that in qualified majority voting.
However, let us not have phoney lectures about how that is a fundamental change. In 1986 the Single European Act extended qualified majority voting to 12 new or existing areas of Community activity. In 1992 the Maastricht Treaty not only established a common foreign and security policy and justice and home affairs co-operation but also paved the way for the single currency and for many of the new areas of shared competence. The noble Lord might look at his own government's proposals in that area, because that is from where most of the shared competences came. I

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am delighted to see the noble Lord, Lord Brittan, agree with me. In that case it extended qualified majority voting to 30 new areas. Then there were the extensions at Amsterdam and Nice, which added a further 16 and 31 areas respectively.
Qualified majority voting cannot of itself be claimed as being such a fundamental change. The extension of qualified majority voting is not the major problem. The major problem is insisting on those so-called red line areas. I merely assert, as clearly as I can, the need to be as clear in pursuing that in the future and not changing our mind as we were about the need not to have a referendum in the early stages of the argument.
There are some areas on which political circumstances may force a government to change their mind; there are some where the change of mind is not acceptable. I regret the change of mind in relation to the referendum; it was unnecessary. I understand the reasons for which it was made; I will never understand the way in which the decision was made. It was shambolic at best —that is from somebody who is trying to be kind to his honourable and right honourable friends in government.
Enlargement needs new mechanisms of decision-making. The treaty does not change the fundamental relationships between the European Union and member states. It does not change the basic principles of the Union. It continues to be a Union based on the conferral of competences. I see no reason why we should have presented to us this spectre of a European Union with all the trappings of a superstate. It is hysteria of the worst kind to pretend that that is anywhere inside this document. As a member of the convention who listened extremely seriously to the advice of your Lordships' House during the passage of the convention, I would have had no part of any draft convention that introduced those trappings of the so-called super state into the deliberations.
The treaty has done many modest things. It has replaced the complex and overlapping set of European Union treaties with a single, more readable document that sets out rights and responsibilities. It establishes clearly the right of member states. In so far as we are criticising the role of the Council of Ministers as a European institution, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, did, we should put on sackcloth and ashes and criticise ourselves for our incapacity to hold representatives of our Government to account in that process. Those in the Council of Ministers are representatives of member states. In that role they have democratic legitimacy in exactly the same way as we have a duty as representatives of national people to control them.
I say to my noble friend that I welcome the draft treaty. I regret that we are having a referendum. I look forward to participating in the arguments on the referendum, and I am sure that we will find a basis on which there will be strong support from the United
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Kingdom public for this sensible, pragmatic series of steps to ensure that we have a European Union that works.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I have had time to look up the answer to his challenge to my noble friend Lord Howell. I hope that he will agree that Article 1–12 adds a huge new area of exclusive competence in the treaties. It expands the EU's exclusive external competence to the conclusion of an international agreement which,
"is necessary to enable it to exercise an internal competence, or affects an internal Union act".
If that is not enough, the area of freedom, security and justice now becomes a shared competence, which means that we can deal with it only when the EU cannot be bothered. Other such areas include energy, common safety concerns in public health matters, and economic, social and territorial cohesion. I could go on, but this is a timed debate. I trust that that will be enough for the moment.
Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, I merely point out to the noble Lord that I had sat down.
5.16 p.m.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, but I take a very different view of the significance of the draft treaty.
In her opening speech, the Minister said that she would talk about the nature of the treaty, but she did not go very far down that road. For a start, she did not explain why, like other Ministers, she always talks of a constitutional treaty. It is rather odd, because the booklet that I have is entitled Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. Is it that the Government do not want to highlight that that will happen? There can be no doubt whatever that the whole object of the exercise is to establish a constitution; that is why it is on the front cover of the document. There is no use making an airy-fairy speech about what may be here and what may be the effect of that. Let us look at the plain language of the draft treaty.
The constitution having been established as a result of ratification by the member states will then, according to Article 1–1, establish the European Union. As one cannot establish something that already exists, legally the European Union established by the constitution will be a completely new body, a legal entity in its own right, with legal personality. Articles 1 and 6 say so; there is no doubt about that. From then, the authority of the institutions of the European Union will flow not from the member states but from the constitution established as a result of the ratification by the member states of a treaty, which says that it is a treaty establishing a constitution for Europe.
Remarkably, the Government say that nothing has changed. They say that years ago, when we joined the economic community, we accepted the primacy of EU

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law over the laws of member states. But what has changed is blindingly obvious to anyone who reads the document. Article 10 reads:
"The constitution … shall have primacy over the law of the Member States".
It is the constitution not such laws as may be agreed by the Council of Ministers—a constitution to which the European Union, established by the constitution, will owe its being.
The European Court of Justice will interpret the often vague and ambiguous words of the constitution. References to an ever-closer Union have gone from the draft but I invite noble Lords—
Lord Hannay of Chiswick: My Lords, would the noble Lord be prepared to tell me whether he considers that the Treaty of Rome and the Treaty of Paris, which we ratified in 1972, had primacy over our national law?
Lord Waddington: My Lords, I have no doubt that those treaties established obligations that enabled the Council of Ministers to make laws that were then binding on member states and had primacy over the laws of member states. However, those treaties did not establish a constitution; of that there can be no doubt.
The often vague and ambiguous words of the constitution will, as I say, be interpreted by the Court. References to an ever-closer union have gone from the draft, but the preamble says much the same thing. It says that the people of Europe are determined to be united ever more closely. Can anyone who has followed the findings of the European Court seriously doubt that the Court will do its level best to give meaning to those words?
We were told that Articles II.51 and II.52 greatly limited the power of the Court to enforce the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. It is interesting to consider what the president of the Court has said about that. He has said that he intends to interpret the convoluted language of that article freely and,
"not in terms of the lowest common denominator",
whatever that means. When Ireland's judge was asked whether the Court would hold back from ruling on the charter as a result of the provisions, the reply was:
"That would be a foolish assumption".
We are told that Mr Blair is thinking of negotiating changes to the text that would limit the role of the European Court of Justice, but we would be foolish to rely on changes, if any are made. The interpretation will be not in our hands but in those of the Court. Instead, we should recognise the obvious: accepting a constitution at all brings enormous dangers, against which no wording is likely to give us full protection. That is why I and many others are against a constitution.
It is with the same caution and scepticism that we should approach the Prime Minister's repeated assurances that he will not give an inch on his red lines. Mr Blair says that he will fight to keep the rebate. What is he going to do about Article 53, which ends the veto over the modalities relating to the Union's
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resources? May not the rebate be said to come within those modalities? Nobody has answered that question clearly.
The Prime Minister says that he will retain the British veto on tax matters. What about Article 14.1. which says:
"The Union shall adopt measures to ensure coordination of the economic policies of Member States"?
What about Article 11.3, which says:
"The Union shall have competence to promote and co-ordinate the economic and employment policies of Member States"?
Does not Article III.62, which abolishes the national veto over issues of tax fraud and tax evasion clearly open the door to qualified majority voting on other forms of tax? If the Court gets its teeth into those provisions and into Article 5.2, which, I remind your Lordships, imposes an overall obligation on member states to facilitate the achievement of the Union's tasks, the Prime Minister's red line is likely to be as valueless as John Major's opt-out from the Social Chapter turned out to be, in so far as it was intended to avoid the Working Time Directive.
What about foreign policy? Article III.282 says that the Court of Justice shall not have jurisdiction with respect to the provisions of Chapter 2, but Article 15.2, which is not in Chapter 2 says:
"Member States shall actively and unreservedly support the Union's common foreign and security policy in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity".
It also says:
"They shall refrain from action contrary to the Union's interests or likely to impair its effectiveness".
It is clear, therefore, that those sweeping dictates are not excluded from the Court's jurisdiction. The Government say that it is not an integrationist constitution but a constitution that strengthens the role and authority of national parliaments. How on earth does the extension of majority voting to 36 new areas strengthen our Parliament? We are told that it is all necessary to make an enlarged Community work, but why, in a Union that the constitution says is founded on democracy, is it necessary to give more and more power to unelected bureaucrats? Why is it necessary, just because the Community has new members, to have an EU Foreign Minister and an unelected one at that? I cannot for the life of me see how anybody can argue that that has the remotest connection with the need to make a larger Community work.
We are told that, if we do not go along with the majority, we will be sidelined. The British people are unlikely to be frightened by Mr Pascal Lamy's threat that we might finish up as well off as Switzerland. Instead of heeding such talk, we should listen to the voices of some of the new members of the Union. I wonder whether other noble Lords read a few days ago—I think that it was the weekend before last—the words of the redoubtable new commissioner for Latvia. I think that she is called Miss Sandra Kalniete. She was horn in the Siberian slave-labour camp into which her mother was flung in 1941. She said what she

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thought of Franco-German domineering and their threats to form a hard core of inner states, if they did not get their way in the EU:
"I think it is bluff. If you look at these countries, they are the worst at implementing EU law. Now they're worried because they realise they could be outvoted".
That is what that young lady said. She could see clearly enough that, in a far more diverse Community, the further centralisation of power in Brussels was wholly inappropriate.
Surely, few doubt that, whatever its successes, the EU today suffers from real defects that the constitution does not begin to address. For the ninth year running, the Court of Auditors has been unable to give the organisations' accounts a clean bill of health. The recent report by the National Audit Office shows that the EU remains riddled with fraud. When we joined the EU and, later, signed the Single European Act, we signed up to reducing barriers to competition, not the regulation of every aspect of economic life. We wanted fresh opportunities, not more red tape; more trade, not more meddling in every nook and cranny of national life. Yet, Regulation 2257/94 really does seek to control the curvature of bananas. The accumulation of EU rules and regulations now runs to 97,000 pages.
The draft treaty returns not a single task to national level. My noble friend referred to what Sam Brittan wrote in the Financial Times. I agree entirely. He said:
"A No vote will not destroy the EU but be a signal that over-centralisation has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished".
For years, the British people have been the victims of what some have called "Euro-creep". The EU has wrapped itself in more and more of the attributes of a state, without the British people getting any chance to express their views on the matter. Now they have an opportunity to say, "Enough is enough". A "no" vote in a referendum will not end our membership of the Union, but it may well open the door to the radical reform that the Prime Minister himself said was needed only a very few years ago. It may mark the emergence of a simpler and more democratic Europe.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart: My Lords, I shall begin by extending to the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, the expression of my complete agreement with every word that he said. He has made it unnecessary for me to say some of the things that I would have said in attempted rebuttal of the increasingly strident opposition to the treaty on the constitution, which is emanating from the Conservative Benches.
In taking a somewhat more detached view, I hope that it will not so much be seen as aloofness from the debate, but as a recognition that many of the arguments have been heard already and have been deployed. I should therefore prefer to focus on the developments since this House last discussed these issues.
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There have been three principal developments of great importance: namely, first, the change of government in Spain; secondly, the entry into the Union of the 10 new members; and, thirdly, the Prime Minister's apparent intention to hold a public referendum on the result if the treaty is agreed.
The incoming Spanish Government appear to have incurred no domestic odium as a result of having broadly embraced the outcome of the convention. Indeed, the previous Spanish administration obtained a very good deal for Spain in respect of its budgetary contribution and financial entitlements. The removal, by Mr Zapatero's government, of the Spanish block on the agreed formula for weighting of votes in the Council was an act of justice to the larger states, particularly to the Federal Republic. It is a most welcome development.
The enlargement of the Union should remind our fellow countrymen of the eagerness of the new members to join. It should also put paid to the argument that we have already heard twice today, deployed from the Conservative Benches, that the draft treaty intends to create or would have the effect of creating a European state.
All the new member countries participated in the preparation of the draft treaty. In particular, those that had emerged from the thralldom of the Soviet Union made it clear throughout that they would not be willing to subject their citizens to another hegemonic power, nor to have cast away their new-found liberties.
The draft treaty, far from diminishing our citizens' freedoms, would enhance their protection by empowering the Union to act together effectively in the face of the real external threats to which we are all subject and vulnerable if we stand alone. In the world in which we live today, those threats are economic and environmental, and from terrorism. In each of those spheres, the defences of the member countries of the Union would be strengthened by agreed policies and actions taken in common.
The decision to hold a referendum appears to have caught even the Prime Minister's closest supporters off balance. It appears to have been motivated more by the short-term desire to wrong foot his political adversaries than by any sense that the adoption of the proposed draft treaty marks a momentous departure for the British people.
There has been general agreement among the British participants in the process of European integration—I am glad to see a number of them are present today for the debate—that the present draft treaty is of far less significance than were the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty. It does not propose a significant transfer of authority to the Union from the member states. The noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, effectively made that point in his attempt, which I think succeeded, to demonstrate the difficulties that the Opposition Front Bench have in enumerating any such transfer of authority.
However, it is certainly true that by deciding to hold a referendum, the Prime Minister is elevating the importance of the British debate on the future of the

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Union and Britain's relationship with it. The grand illusion of which we must all be rid is that the rest of the Union will come to a halt if Britain says "no". The experience of the past decade, to go no further back in the history of the Union, is that if Britain excludes itself from the operation of the Union, it is Britain that stands still, not the policy from which we have opted out.
We may have boycotted the Schengen agreement on internal frontiers, but the process went ahead. Latterly, we have had to run hard to catch up. We have stood apart from the single currency, but it goes ahead from strength to strength without us. The British experience is, surely, that we do better from within the councils of the Union than from without. Hanging back, as in the case of our original entry into the Community, results in decisions being taken, such as the common fisheries policy, which leave our interests out of account.
The basic fallacy that has tainted the British debate about Europe has been to regard our relationship with the Union as essentially adversarial. In proclaiming with such emphasis and headline treatment the so-called red lines of the Government, the Government are running some risk of suggesting to the British public that that is a continuing relationship; that the hordes have to be kept at bay; and that Britain, alone of the 25 member states, would succeed where everyone else would fail. That is a travesty of the true "community way".
The true community way, in aspiration and most often in actuality, is to find accommodations with which all the members can comfortably live. It is and will remain a diverse Union whose purpose in unity is to protect that essential cultural diversity. It is a Union wherein common interests can be defended in common and where unthreatening differences can be enjoyed and even celebrated.
5.38 p.m.
Lord Grenfell: My Lords, I am, of course, very pleased that the Government have tabled this Motion so that we have an opportunity to debate the draft Constitutional Treaty as the IGC enters a very crucial phase. As usual, I speak—sometimes with frustration—as chairman of the European Union Committee. Therefore, I shall confine most of my remarks to recalling some of the key issues and conclusions that are set out in the wide-ranging report, which was published last October, on the draft articles that the committee urged the Government to look at very carefully in the course of their negotiations in the IGC. I believe that they have done that.
During the Italian presidency, we were anticipating that there might be a rush to judgment and agreement last December. Fortunately—indeed, as we recommended in our report—there was no such rush. Instead, the IGC decided to work towards what is bound to be a better outcome, giving itself a longer period for reflection and negotiation. That is why I welcome the debate today.
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I should add that your Lordships will have a further opportunity next Friday, 21 May, as, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Howell, observed, to debate the recent report from our committee on the role of the European Court of Justice. I commend that report to noble Lords. While it may be that some of your Lordships will touch on that matter—one has already done so during the course of today's debate—I strongly urge the House not to overlook that forthcoming opportunity for a specific and therefore more detailed debate on that particular question in a couple of weeks' time.
Turning to substantive matters, I remind the House of the first overall conclusion contained in my committee's report on the draft treaty, which is that, with enlargement, it is now necessary to agree a new treaty, as it is generally agreed that the present institutional structure would not function satisfactorily in a union of 25 and eventually more members. I am sure—in fact, there is already evidence of it—that during this debate there will be some hard hitting arguments both for and against the draft Constitutional Treaty. However, I urge the House to recognise that the existing arrangements need to change and that that need lies at the heart of the whole treaty exercise. In my committee's opinion, the draft treaty currently under negotiation sets out many sensible proposals for the institutional changes that are most likely to meet the requirements of enlargement. It is simply not good enough to say that the European Union can stumble on indefinitely on the basis of the arrangements agreed under the Nice Treaty.
My second substantive point concerns the need for the Government to explain more clearly what the draft Constitutional Treaty is and what it is not. In that regard, we have made some progress today. I was pleased to note the Written Answer from my right honourable friend the Prime Minister in another place on 4 May, which indicates that the Government,
"will publish a range of material to accompany the Constitutional Treaty, including a laypersons' guide and a comprehensive analysis and comparison of the existing Treaties and the new Constitutional Treaty".—[Official Report, Commons; 4/5/04; col. 1456W.]
Parliament and indeed the country need to know which provisions in this treaty are new and which are not. Only with that information clearly and factually set out can we tackle the politically more interesting questions that currently form the focus of the debate.
In the light of the Prime Minister's commitment that I have just outlined, which I welcome, can the Minister clarify whether it is the Government's intention to publish this material before the June European Council, or as soon as possible after it, if that is when political agreement is reached, or towards the end of the year, when it is expected that the legal experts group will have completed its work on the detailed wording of the draft treaty?
Of course, we cannot expect too much detail to be made public while the final phase of negotiation is continuing. I am, however, grateful for the fact that last week the Minister arranged for the IGC document to be placed in the Library; and we much look forward

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to the next one. The current document has been drawn to the attention of all our sub-committees, and the Minister can look forward—or perhaps not—to correspondence within the next few weeks on any points that arise. There are a few changes that seem to be quite substantial and a few that would not necessarily be totally welcomed.
Once political agreement is reached, the Government should move swiftly to make a full range of explanatory material available to Parliament. If, in addition, further perhaps more detailed and more technical material is required once the legal experts have done their work, so be it. But the public, and I am sure this House and another place, will not understand if, having learnt that political agreement has been reached, they are not clear on what text such agreement was in fact arrived at. The agreed text must be deposited in Parliament for scrutiny by all concerned. On that, I am quite encouraged by what the Minister has just told us.
On a different subject, I ask the Minister what the Government's European Union Strategy Committee has been doing. It seems to have disappeared from our radar screens. My committee recommended that that committee should take a wider remit in informing the public about the EU in general—a recommendation to which the Government gave a positive response. Can the Minister tell us how that and other Cabinet committees are being structured and resourced to take forward the public debate?
I turn to the draft protocol on subsidiarity, which has already been mentioned by a number of noble Lords. During the course of its deliberations on the convention's work, my committee changed its mind about the yellow card and the red card. Having originally supported a red card, by which the Commission would be obliged to withdraw a proposal to which a substantial number of national parliaments objected, my committee in the end came down in favour of a yellow card alone, on the grounds that having a red card would weaken the impact of the yellow card but, being such a nuclear option, would not itself be a useable tool. Therefore, the committee's final position was that it supported the yellow card and believed that, subject to certain safeguards, it could be made effective.
Do the Government share our view that, as a matter of practical politics, it would be very difficult for the Council of Ministers to press ahead in adopting a Commission proposal to which a third or more of national parliaments had registered an objection on the grounds of subsidiarity? Does the Minister not agree that that is perhaps the answer to those who feel that, as it stands, the yellow card mechanism somehow lacks teeth? Can the Minister also confirm that the Government will press to have the yellow card mechanism extended to matters of proportionality, that it will apply to all Commission legislative proposals and that the Commission has a clear duty to respond promptly and in thorough detail to objections made by national parliaments?
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Many detailed points in the draft Constitutional Treaty were covered by the committee during the course of its work. I have time to deal with no more than a few of them. I am sure that others will pick them up as we go along. First, my committee concluded that the effect of the draft Constitutional Treaty will be that the balance of power will shift measurably from the Commission to the member states. That recommendation has been much discussed in your Lordships' House and in another place. It has also been raised again in today's debate, notably by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, my frequent and always amiable sparring partner on this particular issue.
I feel that it is necessary to repeat to the House, as the Minister has very effectively done recently, that the mechanism by which the member states will operate in the European Union will, of course, remain the European Council and the Council of Ministers—hence my committee's conclusion, as is clear from a detailed reading of its report, firmly stands; namely, that the draft Constitutional Treaty has the effect of transferring power from the Commission to the member states meeting in the persons of their representative Ministers in Council. I hope that that clarification will once and for all lay to rest some of the attempts to interpret small chunks of our report when quoted out of context.
Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Owen, recently drew my attention to a possible interpretation of Article 21(3), by which the President of the European Council, being precluded from holding a national mandate, might nevertheless not be precluded from also being President of the Commission, as that would be a European, rather than a national, mandate. The Minister for Europe has told my committee that any such provision allowing the President of the Commission also to be the President of the Council would be "completely unacceptable" and that the language in the draft treaty rules it out. The Netherlands appears to disagree. If she can give it, we would welcome further assurance from the Minister in that regard today.
An outstanding area of general concern is the proposal for a European public prosecutor. While the committee was reassured by the fact that the treaty allows for such development to come in only by way of unanimity, we remain fundamentally opposed to the idea in principle and look to the Government to maintain their continuing opposition.
In our report, we queried whether CFSP was effectively excluded from the flexibility clause under Article 1–17. We queried whether CFSP was indeed outside the provision of Article 1–10 concerning the primacy of European law. We expressed concern that QM V might come into CFSP. We nevertheless supported a passerelle in Article 1–39(8). I am sure that the Minister will want to take the opportunity, if not today, to spell out precisely how the Government interpret the conjunctive effect of those various provisions as amended by the IGC's latest proposals.
In conclusion, in a relatively short speech one cannot do justice to all the recommendations in my committee's 41st report on the treaty. I humbly urge

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the House to read that document again and to examine the Government's response, published in the seventh report of this Session, which contains outstanding government responses from the previous Session. It is in the detail of the treaty articles and, if I may dare say so, in the detail of my own committee's recommendations on them, and in the Government's responses to those recommendations, that Members of the House will find much by way of explanation and elucidation on what is in the treaty and, just as importantly, what is not.
5.50 p.m.
Lord Harrison: My Lords, the benefits of the proposed EU constitution and treaty, especially now that Britain's red lines have been secured, have been well aired this afternoon. My contribution will concentrate on the forthcoming referendum, ostensibly to ratify the treaty but which in reality replays the 1975 referendum determining whether Britain should he in or out of the European Union and whether it should be as a full-blooded member.
I am helped in this exercise by the useful pamphlet produced by the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, entitled What if we say no? to the EU Constitution. I look forward to his exposition of the pamphlet later in the debate, and I hope that he will forgive me for some of the things that I am about to say.
While disagreeing profoundly with the conclusions, I share with the noble Lord an enthusiasm for the single European market and its pivotal position in the shaping of the European Union. I do so not least because I believe that it is the prime source of Britain's and Europe's future prosperity, representing as it does the competitive forcing-house from which Britain and Europe's goods and services are to be sold in local European and global markets. But markets require rules and regulations. If Britain chooses to be part of the European market, which we have, then Britain has to acknowledge a wider jurisdiction. That is life.
I return to the pamphlet. The noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, suggests that if Britain says no in the constitutional referendum, we should renegotiate Britain's obligations in the single market. That will solidify the impression abroad that Britain is a semidetached member of Europe and of its single market, a fact made evident by our absence from Schengen and the single currency, each of whose major purpose is to strengthen the single market. Incidentally, our absence from the euro and Schengen are cited by Jacques Chirac. this week in Le Figaro as the motive for rejecting Chris Patten as a possible successor to Romano Prodi. That is another straw in the wind of British diffidence weakening our influence and sway in Brussels.
Refreshingly, the pamphlet lays bare some of the risks to Britain were we to renegotiate our membership of the world's biggest market, comprising some 470 million European citizens. It is conceded that there is a danger that Britain would have to conform to EU market standards without having had a hand in shaping, monitoring or enforcing the rules. There is
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the danger that rules of origin tariffs might he imposed on manufactured goods assembled in Britain, thereby hurting British firms. The pamphlet freely confesses that there is too the danger that the free movement of workers, one of the market's four fundamental freedoms, might be compromised by any such renegotiation.
It is further suggested that Britain might join Switzerland and Norway outside the market, but remain enslaved to its rules and regulations. Flow sad that would be for a mighty European power like Britain, how impractical and how full of red tape for a nation of 60 million traders thus to become the tail wagged by the single market dog.
One final suggestion made in the pamphlet is the invitation to join NAFTA. Whether such an invitation to join has been issued, I do not know, but doubtless we would celebrate with a Mexican wave our transatlantic and Pacific neighbours.
Other EU initiatives which reinforce the flexibility and attractiveness of the single market are also called into question by the pamphlet. Those include the EU environment policy, regional and cohesion grants, the competitiveness agenda and even Europol and the development of police and Customs and Excise cooperation across the borders of the burgeoning market. Apparently it would be acceptable to frustrate British business while leaving unmolested organised crime to range across the single market. This pick-and-mix, à-la-carte Europe will simply not happen for Britain. In the wake of a "no" result in a referendum, our colleagues will tire of our further opt-outs and prevarications.
Finally, the pamphlet suggests radical changes to the European Union institutions which make, govern and develop the single market. Top of the list is the overthrow of the European Parliament where democratically elected British MEPs of all political persuasions work assiduously to defend and promote British trading and commercial interests. The European Commission is to be split into an inner ring dealing with the full-time marketeers and a second commission for those beyond the fringe: that would be Britain. Lastly, the European Court of Justice, whose central task is applying single market rules, is likewise to be double-yoked with an inner court, still the ECJ, for those inside the market and a newly created European treaties court for those semi-detached—another astute move in reducing Brussels bureaucracy.
The pamphlet has done us a great service. It sets out plan B—stay in the market—and plan C—get out and renegotiate—along with several other hopes, aspirations and plans of those who will canvass for a "no" vote in the forthcoming referendum.
For all its imperfections, the existing single market in the European Union is all we have got. To shun the new treaty now is to introduce chaos in the face of this most welcome expansion to 25 members and to imperil Britain's business, commercial, trading and financial interests which supply the wealth, the jobs and the opportunities that do indeed keep Britain in Europe and the wider world "Great".
5.57 p.m.
Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: My Lords, I should like to start with two domestic political points before saying something about the substance of the constitution. This debate is timely. The constitution, or the Constitutional Treaty according to preference, is not yet fully agreed, but there is among all the member states a strong determination to secure agreement next month. I have to say to my noble friend Lord Howell that major change is really completely unrealistic. It is not at all conceivable that substantial changes to the character of the treaty can be put forward, even if they have merit at this stage. On the other hand, the particular points raised by your Lordships' committee and referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, are ones which can be raised by Her Majesty's Government and stand a real chance of being incorporated in the final draft. So, whether we like it or not, we have to consider the merits or otherwise of this treaty and this constitution broadly as they now stand.
The tactics of the Government are clear and frankly not much more credible than those, I regret to say, of my own party. The Government seek to proclaim as loudly as possible their absolute determination to achieve the red lines and then to proclaim huge success in so doing, telling everyone that it is now safe to vote for the constitution. The truth is that in the earlier negotiations, in particular under the Italian presidency, no substantial objections were made to the red lines. What we are talking about now is simply a question of spelling them out with even greater clarity than has been the case up to now. Good luck to the Government if they achieve that because it is a worthy objective, but achieving it would not be a negotiating triumph. Failing to do so would be the result of negotiating cack-handedness.
We have all been familiar with the art of managing expectations. Nobody in this House who has experience of these matters should be shocked at the tactical approach being adopted. so long as nobody is actually taken in by it.
Secondly, a word about the proposed referendum. I have never been a friend of referendums. I regard them as an alien, bonapartist device, inconsistent with representative parliamentary democracy. I find it strange that those who hold themselves out as great defenders of the British tradition should be so enthusiastic about resorting to such a device. Resort to it has certainly grown in frequency in recent years but not in desirability. It remains a populist device, usually chosen by a government for purely opportunistic reasons, to get themselves out of a political hole. This is no exception. Whether it will get the Government out of the hole is very much more doubtful.
Turning to the substance of the constitution, I am glad to say that I am able to speak in less critical and curmudgeonly terms. I have observed at close quarters the creation of previous constitutional treaties, and it is clear to me that what we have here is not a development that is fundamentally novel in character, nor a great step forward towards the creation of an
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integrated European state. That is why the treaty, frankly, is regarded as a deep disappointment by the genuine federalists. It would be helpful if people in this country heard what those who want what they fear think about the treaty.
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing said:
"I think it is absolutely impossible to have a federal state for 25 to 27 countries because it won't work. We have too many specificities, too many languages, and too big a difference in size between Germany, the largest state, and Malta, the smallest".
That is a statement from somebody who might be regarded as wanting movement in that direction but regrets that enlargement actually makes it impossible.
It is easy and understandable to be amused by the fact, about which my noble friend Lord Waddington made great play, that what is being proposed has the word "constitution" on the front page and is called a constitution. None the less, in spite of that, I do not believe that it is in character different from previous treaties. Indeed, many of the characteristics of a constitution, as defined by constitutional lawyers and people who write about these matters, existed in the previous treaties. The decision to call this one a constitution and not the others is a political decision and not a profound juristic one.
What the constitution does is make changes to the institutions. It does not create a new political entity. It is expressly said that the member states create powers in the European Union, not vice versa. That is the fundamental difference between the new political order, founded, for example, in the United States 200 years ago, and what is proposed for Europe today.
It is interesting that when the general statements in the constitution are elaborated on in more detail, the draft treaty actually says:
"Under the principle of conferral, the Union shall act within the limits of the competences conferred upon it by the member states in the Constitution to attain the objectives set out in the Constitution. Competences not conferred upon the Union in the Constitution remain with the member states".
So the constitution is not an overarching new legal order, enabling the newly created body to grab and seize more and more powers.
A good test in looking at the general direction in which the constitution moves is to ask, as has been said by the committee considering the matter, which institution loses out. Naturally, having been a member of the European Commission for nearly 11 years, I was quite interested to see that. There is no doubt that the institution that loses out in these proposals is the one which is the hallmark of the integrationist approach— the Commission. I do not object to that, but I think I am in a position to notice it.
Much focus has been put in the discussions on the new President of the Council—whether we should have him for two and a half years and whether we should not have him—and on the title of Foreign Minister. However, the reality is that the powers and instruments of the Commission in the area of foreign affairs will be largely handed over to somebody who will basically be an agent of the member states, and the

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member states are represented by their governments which, in a democratic society, is the only way in which they can be represented.
The genuine merits and deficiencies of the constitution can he stated quite simply. It makes changes in the institutions that are necessary to prevent enlargement leading to decision-making paralysis. That is a limited but hugely important objective, which is warmly to be welcomed.
Achieving enlargement was a formidable and noble task—all the parties in this country were right at the forefront of the fight to bring it about. I can assure your Lordships that it was not an easy fight to win—many people on the Continent did not want us to go in that direction precisely because they thought that enlargement would make a highly integrated union more difficult to achieve. We fought for it and we won it. and it would he an irony but a tragedy if we in this country were now to prevent the changes in the institutions that are necessary to enable the newly enlarged European Union to take the decisions that are needed to gain the full benefit of that historic act of enlargement.
Of course the constitution is imperfect. It did not start from scratch—it did not try to create ideal institutions. It is, in large part, a work of consolidation. You cannot have it both ways: it does not involve the creation of a new legal order for that reason, and, for that reason, it is also not the simple, elegant, short document that the United States constitution is. It did not seek to reform the policies of the European Union, as opposed to the method of working with the European Union. For example, it does not deal with the reform of the common agricultural policy. But it did make the changes in the running of the European Union that are necessary for enlargement to work effectively and not to prove a Pyrrhic victory.
What if we fail to ratify the constitution and others ratify it? I do not believe it will force us to leave the European Union. I think that is an exaggerated statement, and the difficulties of forcing us to leave the European Union are very considerable. But I have no doubt that it would certainly marginalise us in it.
Frankly, although we rightly and inevitably look at these things from a somewhat insular viewpoint, what is much more important than whether it marginalises us is what impact it would have on the European Union as a whole if we were to vote against the ratification of the treaty. Exactly what the impact would be would depend on how many other member states, if any, rejected it and on what grounds. There would certainly be a major crisis in the European Union, not something that could be sorted out by a little tinkering here or there. The effort made to achieve this constitution shows very clearly that its rejection would be a major and damaging act. The European Union would be bogged down, totally preoccupied with handling the situation, and it would be impossible to make significant advances elsewhere.
We would suffer from the further and ultimate irony: many of those who want to reject the European Union believe strongly that what the European Union
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really needs most of all is further reform along the lines of the Lisbon programme to make it competitive. They are right—that is the kind of thing that I tried to light for when I was in the European Commission. But the political paralysis that will follow the rejection of this treaty would be wonderful news for those who fear and oppose reform. It would impede, delay and slow down the very reforms that those who oppose the constitution profess to prefer in its place.
For all these reasons, I fervently hope that the constitution will be agreed with our partners and approved by our people.
6.10 p.m.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick: My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Britian of Spennithorne. The lucidity which he brought to hear on the conduct of business in the European Union has not deserted him now that he has joined your Lordships' House.
Today's debate on the Constitutional Treaty is taking place in a completely different context from that of our earlier debates on the convention and on last year's intergovernmental conference, and that is because the member states have decided to make a serious effort to reach agreement when they next meet in June—and they are quite likely this time to succeed, the adverse consequences of further deadlock having now sunk in. Even more, the context is different because the Government have recently decided that any text agreed will be submitted in this country to a referendum.
That latter decision, I deplore and regret. I have always believed that the heart of our unwritten constitution is that we are a representative parliamentary democracy and that the crucial decisions in this country should be taken by Parliament. I do not accept that the referendum is in some way more democratic than a vote by Parliament, particularly when it is almost certain that a smaller proportion of the electorate will vote in this matter than will vote in a general election, and when it is as sure as day follows night that, the day after a referendum, many of those who do vote will complain that they were inadequately informed about the complexities of the issues at stake. Add to that the bias against the treaty of the largest part of the press, which is beginning to live up to the label attached to it in a different context many years ago by a former leader of the main party opposite when he described it as "exercising power without responsibility-, and one has a number of well founded and principled reasons for leaving the decision to Parliament.
It is a sad but inescapable fact that on each occasion when a referendum on European matters has been embraced by one or other or both of the main parties in this country, it has been so for reasons of short-term domestic political expediency. It was so in 1975 and in 1997, and it is so today. It was not because of any principled view on how those things should he done. Indeed, the party opposite resisted vigorously any recourse to a referendum when ratifying much more

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far-reaching European treaties—the Single European Act of 1986 and the Maastricht Treaty of 1992—than the one currently under consideration. It was right to do so.
However, the die is now cast and this House clearly needs to address the issues raised by the Constitutional Treaty in the new context. That means getting away from all the hyperbole and myth-making that has characterised the debate so far. It means getting down to the kind of cool-headed analysis of the provisions of the treaty that—dare I say it?—your Lordships' Select Committee has begun to provide, so that the people of this country, who are being asked to vote on the matter, can begin to acquire the means to form a considered and balanced judgment on it. It means that unsubstantiated assertions such as "this means a massive concentration of power in Brussels" or "it will be the end of Britain as a nation state" will no longer suffice as a serious contribution to the debate. Above all, it means addressing the key alternatives—there are only two in fact—which we will face if the treaty is agreed in June. Do we accept that the new treaty provides, on balance, a viable basis for our continued membership of the European Union? Or do we prefer that basis to be the accumulation of previous treaty texts that we have ratified, with the Treaty of Nice providing the final word on how the new, enlarged union should be run? As a number of other Members have said, failure by this country, or by any other member state for that matter, to ratify is likely in the longer term to have even wider implications than that. However, that is the basic choice that we face and I will concentrate my further remarks on it.
First, a substantial proportion of the new treaty is simply the repetition or re-ordering of treaty texts which are already in existence and which are binding on this country. I assume—I hope correctly—that that material will raise no problems with anyone who does not wish to tear up our obligations and head for the exit. It would, however, be extremely useful if the Government could rapidly provide a compendium of the material that falls into that category, with clear cross-references to earlier texts.
Secondly, there is the matter of "tidying-up". That phrase has fallen into disrepute because of the ill advised attempt by the Leader of another place to argue that that was all the new treaty was doing. It clearly goes well beyond just tidying-up, but that does not mean that tidying-up is not a worthwhile and valuable exercise. The impenetrability and complexity of the existing, overlapping texts have been rightly criticised. The new treaty is a substantial improvement on that situation. Again, it would be helpful if the Government would indicate each part of the treaty that falls into that "tidying-up" category.
Thirdly, we come to the substantive changes. The jury is obviously still out on the changes from unanimity to qualified majority voting. The changes are not all that numerous when one compares the treaty with the original treaty to which we agreed when we joined, which had plenty of provisions for qualified majority voting, and with the changes agreed by
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previous governments, most notably in the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty. In that field, I support the Government's red lines and I assume that they will be achieved.
The other changes are positively beneficial to this country. Agreement on effective EU policies on asylum and immigration, which is urgently needed and for which we now understand better than we did previously that national action is no adequate substitute, is stymied by the requirement for unanimity. We really must get away from the belief that any change from unanimity to qualified majority voting is a surrender of sovereignty, automatically damaging to this country. Those who assert that could perhaps begin by explaining how we would be better off without the single market, which would certainly not have been achieved without the switch from unanimity to qualified majority voting.
I turn to the innovations in the new treaty. I shall mention just three. First, one can argue endlessly whether the text in the new treaty on subsidiarity and the role of national parliaments is sufficiently strong and whether it will prove an effective safeguard against excessive centralising tendencies. But one thing is surely pretty clear: it is better than having nothing at all. That is the situation in which we shall be if we reject the treaty and have to rest on the Treaty of Nice.
Secondly, do we seriously believe that the task of building up a common foreign and security policy will be easier to achieve under the existing provisions than if we move away from the ever more discredited and inadequate system of rotating presidencies? Do we want to stick with a system that will bring the presidency to this country once every 13 or 14 years, rather than one that will provide scope for the main players in the Union to work together effectively?
Thirdly, do we want to leave the balance between the Commission and the European Council as it is or do we want, through the appointment of a full-time chairman of the European Council, to ensure that the heads of state and government gain more direct, hands-on control over the strategic direction of the Union? Those are far from being all the alternatives that we face, but they are some of the more significant and we now need to focus on them.
I turn to the issue on which last December's Council was shipwrecked—the attribution of votes for qualified majority voting and the system for reaching majority decisions. I have found no practitioner who believes that the difference between the two systems on offer—the Nice provisions or those in the new treaty for a double majority—would make a real difference in more than an infinitesimal number of cases. It is pretty clear that the double majority system is a great deal more transparent and comprehensible to ordinary people—surely a real advantage—and that it gives somewhat greater weight to the larger member states, of which this country is one. The Nice provisions are not only incredibly complex and hard to understand, but also inequitable. Therefore, while I have a lot of

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sympathy with Poland and Spain, which feel, with some justice, that they have been misled, I suggest that they need now to swallow their objections and to address any complaints to the President of France, who was ultimately responsible for the unsatisfactory compromise reached at Nice and, by the way, for its subsequent abandonment.
I conclude with a plea that the debate on which we are now embarking—in this House, more widely in Parliament and in the country—should be conducted on a rational and civil basis. That there are wide differences of opinion is not in doubt, nor is it in doubt that strong views are honestly held on either side. However, as one who spent most of his professional career watching British domestic politics play havoc with the furtherance of our real interests in what was first the European Community and then the European Union, I have concerns that the current debate, if it gets out of hand and is dominated by caricatures, stereotypes and rhetorical cavalry charges, will do precisely that once again.
6.20 p.m.
Lord Biffen: My Lords, it has been an experience of this debate to hear the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Tomlinson and Lord Maclennan. I use this opportunity to give my own recognition for the work that they did on the convention, although I was not much in line with their views. They must have some regret that their work has resulted in the production of a draft constitution that is giving rise to a good deal of anxiety, held in good faith by people in all corners of the political spectrum. It has given rise to a great deal of disappointment for those who hoped that the opportunity of enlargement would mean a redrafting of the broad rules, taking account of the greater diversity that the Union would have hitherto, along with the necessity for rules that were effective, if limited.
Those who hoped that that would emerge, dreamed of it in terms of a great production of a horse, while what we have is decidedly camel-like. To those who object and say, "But look, it's not a horse! It's a camel!", what is the riposte? The riposte is, "There is no alternative". That is what we hear, in strident terms, from the noble Baroness, Lady Symons. I must say that it is only a matter of time before she arrives at the Front Bench with a mink-lined handbag.
I agree with those who are anxious that this debate will proceed to the referendum in a fairly unhealthy intellectual state. I would not put it in quite the patronising terms used by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, but I think that that is a danger for us all. That is why I am not overwhelmed by the prospect of a constitution. We are rushing into a constitution far too soon after the actual working experience of the enlarged community. Therefore, I have an alternative programme—and yes, I am sorry, it is an alternative. It is not to have the constitution awhile.
Instead, let us look at a policy of reform that might help to relieve the situation and lead to further developments, which may be broadly more acceptable
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I refer to a reform of the single market. The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, is a great supporter of and enthusiast about the single market, and I acknowledge that. However, it is not the most star-studded element of the European Union. Originally, it was fairly liberal in its free trade aspect relating to external trade. As we move to the internal market, however, we are being increasingly caught up in the intrusive element of community affairs, and not one with a corresponding advantageous economic consequence.
Indeed, when I consider the present state of the single market, I believe that it needs reform so that it concentrates on the commanding heights— if I may use an old Labour slogan—and deals in headlines not in footnotes. That is important because unavoidably related to it is that its enforcement is connected with national bureaucracy. That is not a good partnership for the actual existing working of the European Union and the public support and sentiment that the Union should generate.
But how much more is it a challenge for the applicant countries, whose economies are growing and showing great versatility? The acquis that they have to inherit is, in my view, an incubus. Their whole desire to move towards a more free-market solution for their domestic economies, which is broadly perceptible, is more likely to be damaged than encouraged by the present scope of the single market. I do not comment on their ability through the national bureaucracies to be as effective in enforcing the rules as, say, countries such as Denmark or the United Kingdom.
I turn finally to the consideration of not only the present problems of the Union and those that will emerge with enlargement but the wider ambitions. They are crucial to be assessed, not as we meet them headlong but as we meet them in anticipation. I say that in the light of the recent speech by Romano Prodi at Dublin, when he said:
"The goal is to create a ring of friends … In a sense this is another concept of enlargement—an enlargement without institutions".
That sounds like childbirth without pain, and I do not believe that the matter can rest there. In the Times, Anthony Browne wrote about the Commission comments in the context of the Prodi speech. He said:
"Under the wider Europe policy countries such as Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Ukraine and Russia would become full members of the single market"—
that single market which we now see, with its bureaucracy, inclusiveness and its unsatisfactory division between policy and enforcement. He went on to say:
"with open borders for trade and investment and their citizens given the full right to live and work in the European Union".
Finally, he said:
"The policy has been agreed in principle by the national governments of the European Union".
I would be much happier to hear about that from the Treasury Bench than to read about it in the Murdoch press. That is a warning to us, as we stumble forward towards another great ambition, that until we can resolve some of the real working difficulties of the

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existing European Union we are falling victim to the principle of over-ambition in government. The phrase from Browning says:
"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp".
That might be a good one-liner for a Victorian poet, but it is no basis for a European policy.
6.27 p.m.
Lord Williamson of Horton: My Lords, I welcome this debate on the draft European Union Constitutional Treaty. As a member of your Lordships' Select Committee on the European Union, I thought that I should make a cool contribution to the debate. The committee has produced important reports, and it is important that it should not be left aside in a debate that will continue for some time.
It was inevitable that the debate would show considerable disagreement. That was certain before we started. I make just one comment—that, having worked at close quarters with the noble Lord, Lord Brittan of Spennithorne, and seen what he achieved for the European Union in vital areas for Britain, especially in international trade and competition, we should give a great deal of attention to what he said today. I make that point particularly because I happen to agree with him, too, but also because of what he has achieved for Europe in his career.
From recent reactions in the UK, we seem to be in the presence of three scenarios. First, there are obviously those who, if asked to vote for or against the draft treaty, would vote for, "none of the above", because they have a quite different agenda. There are many people who take that position, who would like some matters to be removed from European Union action, would like changes in the Commission's power of proposal, and want no common policy on asylum and immigration, despite recent sustained criticism of national policies, and so on.
All those and similar issues could have been dealt with in the convention of the people's representatives from national parliaments and governments that began a long time ago—in February 2002. But those representatives did not put forward that sort of scenario. They put forward relatively modest changes in the role of the European Union in the context of its much valued enlargement. That is what we have before us. The treaty is broadly what is now on the table and it is likely to be broadly similar if and when it is agreed unanimously by the 25 heads of state and government.
In my view the second scenario is the real one, namely, that we have to decide whether the draft Constitutional Treaty, which will probably emerge on 17 June, is better for Britain within the European Union or worse than the current situation. Those who would reject the treaty believe that the changes would represent some kind of threat to our sovereignty or to our role in the European Union. Rejection of the draft treaty would certainly mean—because negotiating fatigue would set in—that for some time at least we would continue on the basis laid down in the Treaty of Rome, as amended by the Single European Act and the
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Treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice, even though some of us believe that some of the provisions of the Nice Treaty are not good, and certainly not good enough for an enlarged Union.
Thirdly, of course, there are those who believe that the treaty changes put forward by the representatives of the national parliaments and governments, if accepted—perhaps with some amendments—by the heads of state and government, would have some advantage and could be approved by the British Parliament and people. The question is: what are the changes? That is the vital element; that is what the argument is about; that is on what the judgment should be based and not on general assertions in favour of or against the European Union. The first change, evidently, is that the existing Treaties of Rome, Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice and the Single European Act, which many found difficult to follow, are to go on the bonfire. Their provisions are being consolidated more clearly within a single new treaty. Part 3 of the new draft treaty is very largely—not wholly—that consolidated text.
I believe that we should concentrate on Part 1 which is the core of the constitutional element of the draft treaty. Although much of the substance exists already in the European Union, in some respects it is quite a new text. We also need to look at the status of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and at the consequences of the decision to change in some ways the treatment of foreign and security policy and justice and judicial co-operation which are currently within the so-called pillars 2 and 3.
Part 1 of the treaty, which is in about 40 small pages of very widely spaced text, covers all the key elements of the European Union: the definition and the objectives of the Union; the rights of citizens of the Union; the Union's competences and responsibilities and the exercise of those competences; its institutions; its finances; its members; and the specific provisions for the common foreign and security policy.
When I spoke in the House in September last year I emphasised how very clear and readable that text is. On Saturday I read the text through again. I started at 4.5 p.m. and I finished in good time before "Final Score" at 4.30 p.m. I believe that we have a much better text from the point of view of the citizen. The text is much clearer and to the point.
Part 1 opens with the values and objectives of the Union, including the promotion of peace and offering its citizens an area of freedom, security and justice without internal frontiers and a single market where competition is free and undistorted. Those are very wide phrases, but Articles 1 to 5 capture the appeal of the Union which has seen so many millions of people seeking and now achieving the membership of 25 countries and by 2007 about 480 million people. Those articles, as the Minister has pointed out, reiterate the requirement that the Union shall respect the national identities of the member states and the essential state functions of those states.
The competences and responsibilities and the exercise of the competences were formerly scattered about in the treaties. They are now brought together in

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Articles 9 to 17 and in Articles 32 to 38. That text makes it explicit that the competences not conferred on the Union in the Constitutional Treaty remain with the member states. That point has been mentioned in the debate. It is an important point which needs to be stressed. The competences of the Union are, for the first time, simply listed. They existed, but they are now simply listed: the existing exclusive competences such as monetary policy for those member states that have adopted the euro, areas of shared competence such as environment and transport and areas where the Union may take supporting, co-ordinating or complementary action, for example on industry.
The treaty also classifies legislation in a slightly different way. It classifies it into European laws or European framework laws, which are broadly what were directives—they leave member states free to choose the means—and European regulations which are broadly similar to our own subsidiary legislation. I am glad to see that it is now proposed in the treaty that the substantive law could require that the delegated legislation may enter into force only if there is no objection from the European Parliament or the Council of Ministers within a fixed period. I hope that that power, if adopted, will be widely used.
Part 1 also contains the articles about the European institutions. That is a response to enlargement. Looking at the articles it is difficult to be against them; they appear to be relatively straightforward. Instead of the presidency of the European Council changing every six months, the president will be in office for two and a half years, renewable once. From 1 November 2009, which is a long time ahead, the Commission will consist of a president, a vice-president and 13 members with some non-voting members and the Union minister of foreign affairs—however he is finally described—will combine the current role of the special representative and the Commission vice-president. The Council of Ministers will meet in public when legislating. That appears to be a fairly evident package to meet changes in the nature and size of the Union. I know that academics and politicians are extremely interested in institutions. They are important, although at times I doubt whether these useful and necessary changes will cause a great deal of interest or concern to the public.
All decisions affecting the military or defence will be taken unanimously; decisions relating to foreign policy will become common policy only when adopted unanimously, although some implementing decisions can he taken by qualified majority voting. I hope—this is a new point—that the Minister will be good enough to look at the very latest text that has come round from the Irish presidency, which deals with this point. Speaking from memory, I believe it is Article 201. In any event, in this area the policy of the European Union is tightly constrained.
Finally, I emphasise that finance is covered by this part also, where the EU resources remain capped and can be changed only by unanimity—in our case by the British Parliament. In practice, the total European
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expenditure has been well below the limit and represents just over 2 per cent of public expenditure in the Union.
It is true that some of us did not expect to see the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the treaty, but I have noted very carefully the wording which says that the area of application of Union law is not extended beyond the powers of the Union or any new power or task of the Union established. We have to think carefully about how much we rely on that. I have tried to deal with many important points in rather a short time, but my conclusion is that this matter justifies a request to Parliament and to the British people to approve the draft treaty if it is agreed by the heads of state and government.
6.38 p.m.
Baroness Noakes: My Lords, I rise with some trepidation to speak on European matters and on the draft constitution. I am deeply conscious that I am surrounded by many noble Lords who know much more about them than I do. I apologise in advance if I reveal some ignorance of the way in which Europe or the draft constitution work.
I intend to cover my more natural territory, which is taxation and economic policy. One could see those as a narrow set of areas in relation to the draft constitution which would be true because of the vastly complex issues that arise in relation to it. But taxation and economic policy are not narrow areas for our country, our citizens and our businesses. So I make no apology for trying to deal with those issues today. The Government have often asserted that taxation is a red line area. For example, the Prime Minister said:
"Issues to do with taxation … will remain the prerogative of our national Government and Parliament".—[Official Report, Commons, 25/6/03; col. 707.]
But such statements, like so many that relate to the draft constitution are at best harmless spin and at worst positively misleading.
Article 93 of the Treaty on European Union deals explicitly with harmonisation of indirect taxation and that requires unanimity. To date, we have managed to keep several of our very important derogations, despite a number of attempts by the Commission to take them away from us. We have our veto and it is clearly important that it is retained. But there is no specific reference to direct taxation in Article 93 or elsewhere in the treaty, so there is no explicit veto at present. When the Prime Minister said a few weeks ago that:
"The national veto must remain in areas such as taxation".— [Official Report, Commons, 20/4/04; col. 155.]
he could not have been referring to direct taxation since no veto exists. He was perhaps using "veto" in a colloquial sense but that is, in my view, misleading.
It is generally argued in relation to direct taxation that the fact that there is no reference in the EU treaty means that there is no competence for the EU and there being no competence there is no need for a veto. That is very nice theory but it is not the position in practice, which is why accepting the draft constitution

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does not achieve the strong defence of the UK's position in relation to direct taxation that the Government would have us believe. The commission has long had ambitions to get its hands on direct taxation. It has tried several times since the 1970s to introduce directives to harmonise various aspects of income tax and corporation tax. Fortunately, it has failed to date but it has not given up. One example is its formal opinion on the draft constitution last year, which made clear its ambitions for a more precise demarcation of the Union's authority in relation to taxation. For "more precise demarcation" we have to read "more power to the commission".
It is against this backdrop that the UK Government's apparent defence of their taxation powers needs to be examined. The most important current threat to our taxation autonomy is the European Court of Justice. The lack of reference to direct taxation in the EU treaty would reasonably lead to the conclusion that the ECJ has no role. But the ECJ has embarked on a stealthy extension of its jurisdiction, under the cover of enforcing fundamental freedoms in EU law. In particular, Article 43, which deals with the freedom of establishment, has been used as a Trojan horse to attack national tax laws. The ECJ has only really got going on this in the past 10 years and there have been several cases where UK tax law has been found to be in breach of EU law, forcing a change in our law. It started with a case brought by ICI and, for the sake of form, I declare an interest as a director of that company. It was a case on consortium relief that cost British taxpayers quite a lot of money. Recently, the Chancellor had to devote a great chunk of this year's Finance Bill to introducing a raft of bureaucratic and costly intra-UK transfer pricing rules following the German case of Lankhorst Hohorst. Most professional advisers think that a lot more UK tax law will need to change in the wake of that decision and there are many other cases in the pipeline.
Against that background, the lack of formal competence of the EU in direct taxation matters looks like a side show. If the Government are serious about taxation remaining a prerogative of the government and Parliament it is not a question of defending existing EU treaty provisions. It actually requires a change to the treaty to ensure that the ECJ cannot interfere through the back door in matters for which they have no entry rights through the front door.
The draft constitution does not appear to tackle tax directly and that is what the Government appear to be pledging to uphold. But there is one area of the draft constitution that holds massive dangers both to our fiscal freedoms and to our economic freedoms. Article 14 deals with the co-ordination of the economic policies of member states—my noble friend Lord Waddington has already referred to this. This is another Trojan horse. Economic policy cannot be separated from taxation policy. It would, I assume, cover the overall level of taxation and quite possibly
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some detailed provisions. The very lack of definition of what is meant by "co-ordination of economic policy" should be a cause for major concern.
Article 14 is not merely for those who want to join the euro-zone. That club already has economic rules, as we know. With the growth and stability pact they are observed in the breach as much as in the observance. Euro-zone countries should already be on notice that they are on the slippery path to tax harmonisation. Former commissioner Solbez is reported to have said that member states within the euro-zone cannot be allowed to pursue whatever tax and spending policies they want after joining the euro. The danger in Article 14 is that the rest of Europe, and in particular the UK, will be sucked into that abyss.
I apologise for taking so much of your Lordships' time on the apparently abstruse subject of taxation. The Government's talk of red lines in taxation is misleading. Our country is already in danger of losing taxation powers through existing treaty rules and will be further at risk if Article 14 is allowed to remain in the final constitution. What we actually need is a robust and unequivocal statement of the commission's lack of competence in relation to national taxation matters, coupled with the ECJ being firmly removed from this territory. Anything less than that will show that the Government's red line on taxation is no more than a figment of their imagination.
6.47 p.m.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, we should be more than ever concerned about the three provisions in the draft treaty which threaten our right of national independent decision in the field of defence and foreign affairs. Article III-195.3 says that,
"The Union shall conduct the common foreign and security policy by … adopting European decisions on … [the] implementation of actions and positions".
The passerelle clause, Article 39.8, which our committee has urged the Government to resist, and I am sure that they will do so, gives the Council of Ministers power to decide unanimously to act by QMV. Finally Article III-201.2 says that:
"The Council of Ministers shall act by qualified majority … when adopting any European decision implementing a Union action or position.
This last article presents a real problem and a real threat to our power to dispose of our Armed Forces and to pursue our own national defence policy. Under Mr Solana, the EU Council of Ministers has adopted several common strategies, on Russia, for instance, and very recently on terrorism. These express general principles that are, not unnaturally, unanimously approved. It is not much good, however, to have a veto on defence and foreign affairs if that veto can be nullified by the simple formula that implementation of any common strategy will be by QMV.
I raise this issue in particular because of the implications for our defence resources and capabilities and for the management of relations with other states in the field of secret intelligence. Of the common strategy on terrorism, which was promulgated late last year, we were originally told that the Solana security

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doctrine would not be part of the treaty. It provides for robust intervention in countries where it is deemed necessary to stabilise a situation. Now this doctrine is recognised and presented as a common strategy, and therefore decisions on it will be by QMV. It provides generally, if we are to take Africa as an example, for an open-ended commitment of troops. And whose troops will form the largest contingent? Ours. Incidentally, the solidarity clause in the draft treaty Article 42 could oblige us to act anyway.
Mr Solana has secured approval for the apparent appointment of a counter-terrorism co-ordinator, working within the secretariat. New committee structures are to be put in place. There will be,
"an intelligence capacity on all aspects of the terrorist threat with a view to informing EU policy".
The further development of the relationship between Europe and the intelligence services is to be taken forward. Europol can usefully co-ordinate and use criminal intelligence, but any effort to require the product of the secret intelligence services—in our case SIS and MI5—to be made available to Europol, whose security procedures have been deeply flawed in the past, would be unacceptable. Bilateral exchanges work well. A requirement to produce sensitive intelligence on a dangerous target to a new EU entity could only produce a lowest common denominator result. The Council secretariat, which was reported earlier this year, I do not know with what truth, to have been bugged—the Russians and the Israelis were named as possible suspects by the press—would present equal difficulties as regards the protection of information. I may say that what is necessary for carrying out the Petersberg tasks is already provided by access to NATO information.
I am concerned that any facet of the terrorism strategy that leaves the power with the Council to make decisions by QMV because they are implementing a strategy, and which affect the disposal of our troops or intelligence, needs to be identified and resisted. Terror is an important issue, but it is likely to distort the workings of the enlarged Union. The strategy calls for new committee structures, for peer evaluation of national arrangements and, in discussing co-operation with third countries, advocates
"addressing counter-terrorism concerns into all relevant external assistance programmes".
The recent allocation of some generous EDF funding to the African Union to enable it to set up an African force capable of entering and stabilising destabilised countries—and the commitment made by the EU to provide, as well as per diem pay, logistical and communications help and transport, presumably air lift—is consonant with the new all-embracing terrorism doctrine.
It leads me, however, to a further concern. Mr Solana and a proposed foreign minister are to have yet more enormous power, and a portfolio which can only lead to the building of a very large empire. They will be responsible, not only for implementing decisions taken by unanimity in the field of foreign affairs and defence, but, wearing their terrorism hats, they will be free to act wider QMV on terrorism. That will necessarily
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immensely extend their reach to include the use of national assets such as troops for robust intervention, and development aid money to enable the African Union to carry out peacekeeping operations. and also to respond to and work with the UN globally. I do not challenge any of those individual aims. I simply say that it is an awful lot for two men.
That, in turn, will affect our national external relations with the countries concerned and our political dialogue at all levels. Third countries will find all this fairly confusing, especially since not only the EU External Action Service but also individual member states speaking through their embassies—that is if we have any left—and no doubt also the UN, will be beating the same drum.
Most important, however, is the great juggernaut of committees and the largely uncontrolled power which we shall be ceding to Mr Solana and his foreign/ defence/development aid/intelligence co-ordinator Minister, and now his terrorism co-ordinator. What will all this cost, and where are we all to find the skilled people necessary to fill those committees?
Meanwhile, a programme to help Russia dispose of her vast quantities of WMD—notably 40 tonnes of chemical weapons—has been generously funded for at least eight years with almost no result, except for some nice new roads in Russia.
I recognise that terrorism is an important issue that must concern us all. There must be value in, for instance, co-ordinated police work through Europol. But the common strategy on terror is likely to prove a very expensive juggernaut. I urge the Government to establish clearly that action on terrorism involving the use of scarce national resources, particularly military and intelligence resources, at the level of the high representative and/or the foreign defence Minister, can be taken by unanimity only. I am, in any case, uneasy about the immense power these two men will have in areas of vital national concern. Foreign affairs and defence are quite enough: to add action on terrorism and the important area of development aid is simply impossible.
I have another concern for the future which affects the treaty. There are now 25 member states, and we are told the treaty is essential if it is all to work. But that is not the end. We are looking at the preparation for accession, through European partnerships, of six countries in the western Balkans. All are being prepared to apply the infinitely complex acquis, with the eventual object of becoming members of the EU. There are also Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania to come, and it seems that the Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia and other former members of the Soviet Union will also eventually be considered as candidates for entry. Should we not pause for at least ten years, meanwhile giving these countries the same close and useful economic relationship as members of the Barcelona process enjoy? It is unrealistic to suppose that Albania, for instance, has the people and the skills to create a sophisticated, uniform justice system comparable with any member of the Union.

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I would hope to see a period of quiet consolidation within the EU of Poland, Hungary and the other new entrants, so that they can begin to make their own valuable contribution to Europe, to which they have returned thanks to the steadfast presence of NATO and to the eventual collapse of the Soviet system. These countries have been for many years the victims of an over-centralised, inefficient but pervasive bureaucracy, as well as a ruthless dictatorship. They ought now to be given time to make their own particular mark in the EU, before the system gets indigestion from having to take in any more countries. Moreover, they are entitled to a view on that, and a veto, as we are, and may need it more. We should not necessarily regard QMV as the best way to govern. It is simply the most convenient for the bureaucrats.
6.57 p.m.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, over the past few years there has been quite a lot of national debate as to whether or not we should join the European single currency and now the proposed new constitution is swimming into public consciousness. But there has been very little discussion about our present relationship with the European Union, which most people in this country do not really understand at all, although they rightly do not like what they do understand.
Yet the Government's main line of argument in support of the constitution—and we heard it this afternoon from the Minister—goes roughly as follows: "This is nothing new. The Conservatives gave away much more of our sovereignty when they signed up in 1972 to what has become the EU, and when they later passed the Single European Act and the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties. So the proposed constitution is really only a tidying-up exercise, and we cannot see what the fuss is about".
One cannot really judge the truth of this statement unless one understands what has already been given away, and set that against the proposed constitution. So I thought I would put the briefest of summaries on the record in your Lordships' House this evening. It is some years since that has been done.
Before I do so, I really must expose the fallacy of the Government and Europhile claim that because some aspects—indeed, many aspects—of the proposed constitution are not new, since they are already in the existing treaties, that means we do not have to worry about them: they must be acceptable to the British people. This argument does not wash, because hardly any aspect of our present relationship has been explained to the people. As the debate on the constitution proceeds, they are therefore free to say "We do not care if some theft of our sovereignty is already in the treaties. We still do not like it, and we want it back".
I very much hope that this growing awareness on the part of the people will extend to a knowledge of just how far their sovereignty has indeed already been betrayed by their political masters over the past 32
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years. I say this because there are at least two fundamental principles which underpin our constitution, our sovereignty, our democracy. The first is the hard-won right of the British people to elect and dismiss those who make their laws. The second is that the people have given Parliament the power to make all their laws for them, but they have not given Parliament the permission to give that power away.
I submit that both those principles, for which over the centuries millions have willingly given up their lives, already stand deeply betrayed by our present membership of the European Union. It is essential to remember that the people's pact is with Parliament: it is not with the executive or government of the day. The people elect and dismiss Members of Parliament once every four or five years, and our government are, of course, formed out of a majority of elected MPs. But only some 60 per cent of the electorate now bother to vote in general elections, and modern governments are supported by only some 40 per cent of those who vote, or 24 per cent of the electorate. I submit, therefore, that these temporary governments, always empowered by a minority of the people, do not have the right to break the great pacts upon which our sovereignty rests. Yet that is just what they have been doing for the past 32 years.
So just how bad is the present situation? To what extent could the proposed constitution be fairly described as a "tidying-up exercise"? The detailed process of how huge areas of our national life have already been gradually handed over to control from Brussels in the various treaty amendments, and for which this Parliament has already become a rubber stamp, is to be found in Written Answers in your Lordships' Hansard for 10 July 2003, at cols. 50–51. and for 26 April 2004, at cols. 72–73. Put very broadly. these areas include all of our commerce and industry; all our social and labour policy; our environment, including our agriculture and fish; and our foreign aid.
By "control from Brussels" I mean of course the system whereby our Government, with 11.5 per cent of the votes, can be outvoted in the Council of Ministers. If they agree or are outvoted on a new law in all those areas, then we in this Parliament must put it into British law on pain of unlimited fines in the Luxembourg so-called Court. That is what is described in Euro-speak as the "democratic deficit", and that is why I say we have become a rubber stamp.
Our foreign trade relations are in an even worse category because the Commission itself negotiates those on our behalf. So in this area the EU could already be said to have its own legal personality, to which I shall return. In addition, laws affecting our justice and home affairs and our foreign and security policy, if they are agreed by the executive in Brussels, must also be rubber-stamped by Parliament here. If we do not enact new laws in these areas, such as the recent and infamous EU arrest warrant, we would not be subject to unlimited fines, but we would be in breach of our treaty obligations. This, of course, is a far more horrifying prospect than a fine to our political classes in their diplomatic cocktail parties and so on; a fine, after all, is paid by the people. It is not surprising that

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no law agreed or passed in Brussels has ever been successfully overturned by Parliament. Indeed, the 1972 Act made it clear that that was to be the case.
So that is a very brief summary of where we are without the proposed constitution. I suppose that you can call it a "tidying-up exercise" if you admit that it sweeps the rest of our sovereignty under the Brussels carpet, which of course it does.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, did I follow the noble Lord in his suggestion that the 1972 Act clearly established the primacy of Community law?
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: Absolutely, my Lords, yes. If the noble Lord cares to read our debate on 27 June 2003 he will see that I read out the treaty clauses so that they should be on the record in your Lordships' House. They said precisely that. However, I would remind the noble Lord that the Prime Minister of the day, Mr Edward Heath, said that no essential sovereignty was being given away, and the subsequent Prime Minister, Mr Harold Wilson, held a referendum in which he assured us that we were merely talking about staying in a Common Market.
Other noble Lords have dealt with various features of this constitution. I would single out two which seem to me the most important. First, as other noble Lords have said, it grants the EU its own legal personality superior to that of the member states. There is no longer even the bogus pretence that the EU is an arrangement between sovereign states. Once the constitution is agreed, the EU and qualified majority voting in the Council of Ministers become sovereign. The EU flag, which at the moment is flown as pure advertising, becomes the flag of a new megastate. The EU anthem becomes its official anthem. Alas, poor Beethoven.
The other feature that has limitless scope for judicial activism by the Luxembourg Court is the inclusion of the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the treaty. I remind your Lordships that Mr Vaz, the then Europe Minister, said that that would have no more status than the Beano. That remains to be seen.
Those two features alone will ensure that the Prime Minister's famous red lines will soon be dissipated. Indeed, his red line on tax is already breached, as my noble friend Lady Noakes has so expertly revealed, as any noble Lord who cares to read our Unstarred Question on 25 February 2004 will readily appreciate. Briefly, that is because although the tax provisions, being Clauses 90 to 93 of the TEC, still give us the veto over indirect taxation, the treaties appear to be silent on direct taxation, as my noble friend Lady Noakes has said. That is, until you examine the single market provisions.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. He and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, seem to be propagating a new
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doctrine—perhaps he will elucidate it—that areas that are not covered in the treaty are axiomatically covered in the treaty.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, I do not think I was saying that. I was merely saying that direct taxation is not explicitly mentioned in the treaty and that the Court is free to decide that the European Union is free to legislate in the area to which I was about to come. If the noble Lord will hear with me a second, I will explain. I think that my noble friend has already explained how this is happening for corporation tax. My contention is that, potentially, that is open to all direct tax.
If you examine the single market provisions, you will see that they forbid discrimination among member states and giving "aids"—that is the word in the treaties—to one's own nationals and corporations. Articles 43 and 44 of the TEC repay study to get the full flavour of how our direct tax policy has already been surreptitiously put within the reach of the corrupt octopus in Brussels. I do not say that it has happened yet, but it is there in the treaty. When the Commission wishes to propose and the court wishes to decide, our existing direct tax policy is at stake.
I conclude by thanking the Government for conceding a referendum on this great matter. That decision has saved some of us quite a lot of work. We Euro-realists now look forward to winning that referendum and rejecting whatever constitution eventually emerges from the secret conclaves of the Eurocrats. I trust that, in the process, the British people will finally come to appreciate the mortal danger in which their democracy already stands and decide to save it for those who come after. I dare to hope, too, that the Conservative Party will then come to its senses and, as a sinner that repenteth, lead our nation back to freedom. Yes, indeed, my Lords, I am always the optimist.
7.7 p.m.
Lord Monson: My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord. If I may, I shall preface my comments on the draft constitution by saying how interesting it has been to observe the shift in informed opinion, as distinct from mass opinion, concerning the EU in recent years—the gradual disillusionment of formerly uncritical and wholehearted Enthusiasts. Gisela Stuart is a case in point. The Enthusiasts must be foaming at the mouth that they cannot realistically accuse her of being a little Englander; eine kleine Bayerin does not have quite the same resonance.
Publications such as the Financial Times and the Economist also have considerably changed their tunes, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, indicated. Indeed, only the other day the Economist described the EU's policy of subsidising sugar producers as both economically stupid and morally indefensible. That is just one example. One suspects that it is not only many of the EU's actual policies but the disgraceful chronic tolerance of widespread fraud and fiddling, coupled

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with shameful attempts to intimidate and suppress whistle-blowers, that have generated this disillusionment.
I turn now to the draft constitution. There is not time to enumerate every field in which it has gone wrong, nor the one or two fields where the proposals are not unreasonable and, indeed, possibly advantageous. I can see that there are one or two. Suffice it to say that quite the worst aspect of the constitution is the extension of QMV to 40 new areas. I never supported either the Single European Act or the Maastricht Treaty so I cannot be accused of inconsistency here. This extension threatens among other things our right to set our own rates of indirect taxation and company taxation—I am neutral on direct taxation; other noble Lords may well be right on that one—and our VAT exemptions, as the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, pointed out, and, even more important, our existing criminal and civil justice system, in consequence of the obligation to "approximate", which I interpret as meaning "broadly harmonise", laws and procedures.
It may not be realised that under the Irish presidency the draft on harmonisation, or broad harmonisation, of criminal and civil justice has been considerably tightened up. I wonder whether all noble Lords have taken that on board. The new bland-sounding competences over energy could be a Trojan horse threatening our North Sea oil, although the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, in her opening speech revealed that some safeguards have recently been secured in that area. Of course, we are very pleased indeed to hear that.
However, I should like to concentrate my brief speech upon what the noble Lord, Lord Hurd of Westwell, termed interference in the nooks and crannies of our everyday lives. That must have been quoted at least 200 times in speeches in your Lordships' House and elsewhere, but no matter. It is as valid now as it ever was, and probably more valid. Most of this unjustified interference, which has nothing whatever to do with the free movement of goods, services and people, which is what the EC was originally all about, is already embodied in the allegedly sacrosanct acquis communautaire. It is a disgrace that no effort was made in earlier negotiations by this or any other government to repatriate some of the powers to the nation states, but one has to concede that it would be unrealistic to hope for any action at this late stage, if the treaty is to go through.
However, some relief from interference of that sort might be expected in respect of future legislation in the form of genuine subsidiarity. Of course, the whole concept of subsidiarity is insulting to any proud, ancient nation state in that it implies that the centre—in this case, Brussels—is the fount of all legitimate power, a small part of which it may graciously deign to devolve. All the same, it is better than nothing at all. But the so-called subsidiarity concessions in the draft treaty are derisory, indeed, laughable. Parliaments of
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one-third of the member states can object to a proposal, yes, but the Commission can then toss those objections into the dustbin.
Reverting to his normal Euro enthusiast mode, Quentin Peel, writing in the Financial Times of 6 May, asserted that,
"the draft constitution leaves the ultimate power in the hands of the member states, not any centralised institution".
How very wrong he is where subsidiarity is concerned.
I have two questions for the noble Baroness when she replies to the debate. In the short term can she give an assurance that the Government will insist upon teeth being put into the subsidiarity clauses to provide that where one-third or, better still if it is possible to achieve a quarter or a fifth, of national parliaments object to a proposal, the Commission will be obliged to bow to those objections and cannot toss them aside as the present draft treaty provides? In other words, I am calling for an additional red line. I was delighted to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, also feels that the subsidiarity proposals ought to be toughened up somewhat.
In the longer term, will the noble Baroness urge her right honourable friends to press and press again for competences to be returned to the nation states where purely internal matters are concerned—a partial repeal of the acquis communautaire in other words, so that the proud nation states of Europe can have as much control of their internal affairs as do Delaware or North Dakota?
7.15 p.m.
Lord Blackwell: My Lords, I am delighted that I am able to make my contribution to this debate without having to spend most of it making the argument for a referendum. Instead, like other noble Lords, I can move on to the substance regarding the consequences of the UK saying yes or no to what is proposed.
I predict that when the Prime Minister comes out of the IGC in June he will make two arguments regarding why he believes that the UK should say yes. First, he will say that it is safe to do so because he has succeeded in getting our red lines protected. Secondly, he will say that if we say no, it will be a disaster because, as the noble Baroness already said this afternoon, we shall be thrown to the sidelines of Europe. I believe that both of those arguments are wrong and are misstatements of the circumstances that we face. I shall discuss each of them in turn.
First, the argument about red lines is almost irrelevant to this debate because, not surprisingly as a tactical politician, the Prime Minister has drawn his red lines around the edge of what is largely agreed. To me and, I suspect, to others in this House it is not what is beyond those red lines that concerns me but what is already inside them in the current draft, which I believe constitute the final brick in moving the European Union from being a single European market to becoming a single European state. When you read through this constitution it is transparent that the structures are there to create the single European state: a single EU legal identity; a Commission as executive

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which is answerable under this constitution to the European Parliament not to the Council, and where the European Parliament is clearly identified as the direct democratic representation of the citizens of Europe; and where the nations are reduced to a position of voting by majority in what is effectively a senate, but where the Parliament and not the Council has the responsibility and authority to dismiss the Commission and appoint a new one.
So the structures of a single European state are there, and so, too, as many noble Lords have made clear, are the powers. There is a significant extension of shared competences under this proposed constitution, and competences which can be exercised through qualified majority voting under an EU legal structure which makes those laws pass directly into UK law. It is not only a question of the structures and the powers—as others have said, many of the symbols of an EU state are already there in this constitution to hack up the state as it emerges.
It is only in the UK that the Government attempt to deny that what this constitution is about is creating the final stage of political union in Europe. It is only in this country that that is even an issue of argument. In every other country that is the starting point for these debates. I am very happy in this Chamber and elsewhere to debate the pros and cons of whether we want to be part of that political union, but I think we should start by accepting the reality that this is what this constitution is about whatever some noble Lords may wish to believe.
The second argument that the Prime Minister makes is that, whatever opponents of the constitution say, it would be a disaster if we were not part of what Europe as a whole is to sign up to. That is also a nonsense. We are not currently part of what is proposed by the constitution. The big decision would be to sign up to it. The big decision is not whether to veto it and maintain the status quo; the argument has been made for this country, as for every other country, as to why we should want to sign up to it. I do not accept the argument that we need to transfer more sovereignty to Europe because of enlargement. That is a chicken-and-egg argument. We only need to make it easier for Europe to take more decisions in more areas if we want to give it the kind of powers proposed in the constitution. If we wanted to maintain Europe's status as an economic and trading area with plenty of intergovernmental co-operation, there is no need to transfer more powers to Europe so that it can make more decisions more quickly, because we do not want it to take those decisions in the first place. It is a chicken-and-egg argument that does not make the case.
In reality, if we say "no" to this treaty, either in negotiations or in the subsequent referendum, we will first keep the status quo and then create the opportunity to negotiate a new relationship with Europe—not from a point of weakness, but from maximum strength, because it is clear that several other states in Europe do want to proceed with political union. Good luck to them, but they need our permission to do so. Therefore, we would have
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maximum negotiating strength to agree the kind of European Union that suits us, rather than to have to take the suit of clothes that others have designed for their own purposes. We should seize that as a great opportunity for this country finally to achieve the kind of relationship within Europe that we want.
The disaster would he if we went into this constitution, not if we stayed out. It would be a disaster because, among other reasons, it is a blueprint to move the European Union from a free trade area to a centrally managed, high cost, social market economy. That is at the heart of the treaty. The objective is set out in Article 3, which the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, quoted with approbation. I am more focused on the fact that it makes clear that the union is working for "a social market economy". I am not sure that I or the population signed up to be a social market economy, which will be,
"aiming at … social progress … combat social exclusion and discrimination … promote social justice and protection",
and,
"solidarity between generations",
and so on. This is a European Union constitution embedded in Article 3, which contains a set of objectives which, if interpreted by a European Court, would allow all kinds of decisions to be forced on this country that come from a particular political perspective and not one that this country has ever signed up to or that this Government have the power to say that this country should always he signed up to.
Against that objective one must recognise the significance of the clauses quoted in Article 14 that expand the scope for economic co-ordination and indeed the requirement for countries, whether or not in the euro, to be part of economic co-ordination. We should add to that the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which, as opposed to being a charter that sets out individual rights, is largely a charter about setting out collectivist rights of EU-approved institutions that are part of the social market. Therefore, there is a set of clauses under the title of "Solidarity", which refer to,
"workers' rights … collective bargaining and action … the right to limitation of maximum working hours … entitlement to social security benefits and social services",
and even state that,
"the Union recognises and respects the right to social and housing assistance so as to ensure a decent existence for all those who lack sufficient resources".
We are opening up a panacea for all those who believe in creating a social state—to use the words of the constitution, to strike down any action that any government might take that comes from an ideology based on free markets and individual responsibility and to challenge that as being incompatible with a constitution which we have signed up to. That is not only not wanted by the people of this country, but it would be a disaster for this country, because it would lock us into, against our will, a high cost, protectionist model of how to run the economy—a model that has already been disastrous on much of the Continent. It is the failure of many European countries to move from the old industries into new services at the speed that the UK did, which has led to their static

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productivity and low growth. That has led them to try to protect their uncompetitive economic position, to create inflexible labour markets, to try to protect the position of those currently employed and to hold back the tides of global competition. It is that mind set which will ultimately threaten the bankruptcy of the euro system under the strains that will be imposed on it, if courts interpret these articles as unlimited rights to give benefits to all kinds of people without ever asking where the wealth will come from to pay for those costs.
The last thing that the UK wants is to be locked into a constitution that forces us into that grim future where our economic policy and our social policy is dictated by a political model to which we do not, I hope, subscribe. Even membership of the single market should be open to question, as the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, mentioned. Yes, there are risks to being outside the single market, but we must recognise that it is an issue that should now be genuinely debated, because tariffs across the world have now come down considerably—we no longer have to be in the single market to enjoy such low tariffs. Tariffs across the GATT area are now less than 4 per cent; but, the single market has become the engine, not of free trade, but of regulation. It is that regulation, empowered by the desire to protect European industry, which is putting up our costs and destroying our competitiveness. We need a serious debate about the pros and cons of being in the single market, although there are benefits to being inside a trading area, which does need to be the same as the single market.
So there are alternatives. We have to consider them, because the prospects of signing up to the constitution are so disastrous. I shall not spend time going through all of those as the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, did an excellent job of summarising some of the institutional arrangements that we might adopt and they sounded extremely attractive as he listed them.
In summary, this is an opportunity for us to achieve the kind of relationship that we want—no longer to be forced into a Europe of two speeds, where we are dragged along behind, but, instead, to create a Europe of two destinations, where those who want to proceed into a single European state and those who, like us, want to remain independent states within a Europe of nation states, do so. I have no doubt that we should stay in the latter group and the sooner that we make that clear to our EU neighbours and negotiate an EU that suits us, on our terms, the better.
7.28 p.m.
Lord Vinson: My Lords, it is always a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell. I would like to return briefly to the subject raised by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson—the question of the democratic deficit. Whatever the wider intent of the new EU constitution, few would argue that it will not remove, over many areas, our competence, as a nation, to govern ourselves.
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I, like many, believe that that process has already gone too far and what we should be talking about is making subsidiarity a reality, not just a promise. I am indeed heartened to see that the Conservative Party has made that broad concept part of its manifesto. I am equally not surprised to see that the Liberal Democrat Party continues to wish to give away the governance of this country. Manifestly, the Liberal Democrats would be so hopeless in government that they are only too delighted to see other politicians take our decisions for us.
Leaving aside political banter, I should like to reflect for a moment on what makes democracy work. Why democracy works is hard to define. It is complex and, in reality, as our own electoral system shows, it is not just government by those who have achieved most votes but government by the consent of all. However bad our least-worst system of democracy is, it acts as a safety valve and, above all, allows the electorate to remove from power those who have either taxed or regulated them, they believe, unreasonably.
Ever-closer union with Europe works in the opposite direction. Increasingly, we have taxation without representation and its twin, regulation without rectification. That is the window through which the general public see the European Union. To them it is bureaucratic, pedantic and unnecessary law making. The majestic concept of a new European order, sacrificing national ambition for a wider European good, cuts increasingly little ice with our disillusioned electorate, as every poll shows. They do not like what they see.
What is more, one glance at football crowds shows that nationalism is far from dead. "Circuses" may be the popular outlets in times of prosperity, but in adversity the electorate would look for the ability to control those who govern, tax and regulate them. The football crowds will want their interests put first; they do not want to be governed by strangers. They could turn ugly when bread comes before circuses.
Our existing form of democracy may be imperfect, but it has given us social and political stability, the essential foundations of economic prosperity. To predicate future political stability on the past would be foolish. Our existing democratic framework will be stretched representationally from one MP to 65,000 voters to one Euro MP to approximately three-quarters of a million voters.
The democratic elastic will snap, because the new arrangements carry no sensible framework for the rectification of bad taxes, bad laws and bad regulations. For that reason, if we want even the existing EU framework to hold, we should be talking about real subsidiarity and the substantial repatriation of powers at national level—genuine reform, as expressed and advocated so well by the noble Lord, Lord Biffen.
It is deeply important to recognise that the democratic deficit is even more inherent in this new EU constitution with its wider powers. As framed it is not responsive to the wishes of our electorate and the democratic processes that we are used to. The

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conventional political safety valves are being sealed up by a rotten, and often corrupt and self-seeking, European elite. This so-called constitutional reform will make matters worse.
In conclusion, I shall quote from the profound work on the subject by Professor Larry Sidenthorpe, of Oxford University. He argues that the rule of law is reliable and durable only when it is rooted in popular habits and attitudes. That is the problem facing federal Europe. He argues that law making is very different from the problem facing economists, bankers and Industrialists:
"The creation of new wants may be the key to economic growth but by contrast creating a culture of consent is a far more precarious undertaking for such things depend on the degree of self-control a society is able to generate and sustain".
He further states:
"The danger of premature federalism in Europe, the rush for political integration which turns federalism into little more than a mask for a unitary superstate, is that it could put at risk the complex texture of European societies. It is far from clear that they could long tolerate subordination under a central rule making agency which pitched its actions at the level of a common denominator".
Wise words, my Lords.
In our country we have an unwritten constitution, which, when it is changed slowly, has enabled us as a nation state to adapt and to grow without serious civil unrest. If the new EU constitution is ratified in anywhere near its present form, it will finally destroy our historic framework of self-government and the inherent democratic deficit in its structure will sadly sow the seeds of its own inevitable decline, bringing an end to the dream of a Europe at peace with itself. That is why this new constitution must be resisted and substituted by the only thing that will save Europe: genuine subsidiarity and the repatriation, not further surrender, of national powers. I hope that this debate will further that process.
7.35 p.m.
Lord Willoughby de Broke: My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to debate this issue tonight, particularly as the Irish presidency has been giving the kiss of life to what at least some of us hoped was the moribund corpse of the constitution.
The unwelcome news of the kiss of life was given to us last Wednesday by the Minister, in response to a Starred Question by the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell. She stated then that,
"we are placing in the Library of the House copies of the presidency's proposals that were issued last week".—[Official Report, 5/5/04; col. 1105.]
As ever in the EU, what you see is not necessarily what you get. It now turns out that what the noble Baroness thought were presidency proposals and what she told us were presidency proposals were not presidency proposals at all. They were, apparently, as the Government's spinmeisters have now been telling us, purely "working documents" and,
"not in any way a fresh overall presidency proposal".
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I can agree that it was not a fresh overall, but I am afraid that it looks like a presidency proposal, and a very unpalatable one at that. The non-presidency proposal contains 50 proposals on 130 pages. I was amazed and astonished, as I am sure other noble Lords were, to find that all those proposals moved powers from national parliaments to the Commission, and that every single proposal would increase the power of the Eurosalariat at the expense of national parliaments. How very surprising.
In foreign affairs, for example, under the non-proposals it is suggested that when deciding on a proposal from the Union Minister for Foreign Affairs, whoever that grandee may be, the Council shall act by QMV. That is provided in Article III-201 of annex 25, on page 68 of the non-proposals. It says that qualified majority voting must he used,
"when adopting, on a proposal from the Union Minister for Foreign Affairs, a European decision defining a Union action or position".
I have bad news on taxation for my noble friend Lady Noakes. Again the non-proposals propose that, although the Council appears to be required to act unanimously, as soon as it finds—that is the word in the document—that the measures it wishes to legislate against,
"do not affect the fiscal regimes of the Member States",
it can act by QMV. Bang goes another red line.
I think that noble Lords will have got the message. In whatever area—justice, home affairs, foreign policy, economic policy or employment—the traffic is all one-way: to the unelected Eurocracy and away from the member states and their elected parliaments.
The repeated assertions by our Europhile friends that the constitution will give more power to national parliaments is what Touchstone in "As You Like It" called the "Lie Circumstantial" or even the "Lie Direct". I was surprised to hear the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, last Wednesday engaging in a double act, agreeing that,
"there will be more power coming to national parliaments".—[Official Report, 5/5/04; col. 1107.]
The noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, made a valiant attempt to explain his committee's support for the yellow card system. However, the reality is clear: the current constitution says that if one-third of member parliaments object to a Commission proposal, the Commission must "review" its proposal; when it has reviewed the proposal, it is at perfect liberty to say, "Thank you very much for those interesting comments. Unfortunately, they seem to have found their way into the Commission wastepaper basket. By the way, don't slam the door on the way out".
I shall borrow the Prime Minister's brand of would-be cool rhetoric. It is kind of dumb to pretend that the draft constitution returns any power to member states. I am happy to give way to any noble Lord or noble Baroness who can give me an example of such a return of powers or competences to national parliaments. There are none, so I have not been interrupted. It is kind of dumb to pretend that we need the constitution to make the EU more efficient. How many Members

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of your Lordships' House believe that the weakness of the EU lies in its inability to enact regulations? The acquis runs to 97,000 pages. Over 100,000 regulations have been imported into UK law, yet we are asked to swallow the idea that we should allow the EU to pass even more laws in even more areas. The EU already contains the most highly taxed and highly regulated economies; now, the Eurocrats want the power to make things worse. Give me a break.
It is kind of dumb to pretend that the draft constitution does not give away more powers to the centre. The constitution will abolish the national veto in over 30 areas of policy. What is that, if it is not a surrender of power? The proposal for shared competences, of which the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, made such play, is a sham. The EU will have the absolute right, under the shared competences article, to legislate where and when it chooses. Member states can only pick up the crumbs. Under Article 17, the EU may, in order to attain its objectives, add to its powers over member states' elected governments by agreement with the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. I underline the fact that, in doing that and extending its powers, the EU will not have to consult or refer to national parliaments; it can all be done under Article 17 in Brussels, between drinks and dinner—how very convenient. So much for returning powers to national parliaments.
Above all, it is kind of dumb, even for someone who thinks that he saw Jackie Milburn play football for Newcastle, to pretend that, if we say "No" to the constitution, we will be cast into economic and social darkness. Britain has the fourth largest economy in the world; it has the best trained and largest army in the European Union: and it gives £11 billion a year to the European Union budget. We run a huge annual trade deficit with the European Union. In whose interests would it be to start a tariff war?
No. my Lords, I believe that the British people will see the scare stories for what they are—kind of dumb—and will vote against the constitution when they get the chance.
7.42 p.m.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, it is always a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke. Like him, I am grateful to the noble Baroness and the Government for allowing us a further debate on the constitution. I would be even more grateful to her, the Government and anybody else, if I believed that they would listen to anything that we said. Certainly, they did not listen to what we said in the Standing Committee—I attended every sitting, asked questions and spoke—and, when finished, the constitution was exactly the same as it was when we started. We had no effect, regardless of the effort that we put in in the Standing Committee.
There have been changes in the Government's attitude, not only in the past few weeks but over the years since the constitution was first mooted at Nice.
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First, there was total opposition—Vaz and his "Beano" comment, for example. Then, we had total acceptance. We were told that the constitution was only a tidying-up operation, and we were derided by the noble Baroness—she admits it—for wanting a referendum on the constitution. Then, in a complete volte-face, a referendum was conceded. Those are the changes of policy that we have seen during the whole saga. I am coming to understand that we cannot believe anything that the Government say. Certainly, we can have no confidence in the Government's competence when they behave in that fashion.
No sooner had the Government conceded a referendum on the existing constitution than the Irish Government came along with another big draft. The noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, has just referred to it and gave us some details. Having conceded that we will have a referendum, the Government must now examine a new draft from the Irish Government that, without any doubt, will increase the competences of the European Union at our expense. Yesterday's Guardian said:
"Brown to demand 25 EU treaty changes".
Could we know what they are, if that story is true? Will the noble Baroness tell us what changes Mr Brown would like to see made to the constitution before we agree to it? Will she give a guarantee that the so-called red lines will be maintained? They have not been in the past, and I hope that they will be on this occasion. In no circumstances should they be relaxed. Will the Government go even further to get powers returned and, as other noble Lords have asked, to get rid of the acquis communautaire and the 97,000 pages of legislation?
Like the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, and others, I was startled by the claim that Britain would be marginalised and sidelined if we did not sign up to the constitution. What sort of talk is that, from people who are supposed to lead the country? Why have they so little confidence in the ability of this country to succeed in the world without belonging to some regional bloc? We have done it for hundreds of years in the past. Why have our present leaders no confidence in the British people to stand their ground, not in a regional backwater but in the wide, wide world. After all, we are, geographically speaking, just about the centre of the world. As the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, said, we are the fourth largest economy in the world. We have the Commonwealth. If we had only developed that, instead of stopping in the morass of Europe's back yard, this country would thrive.
Then, of course, there is the other claim—the frightener—that, if we left the EU, 3 million jobs would he at stake. What nonsense that is. In the first place, we trade with the EU on a deficit of £5,000 million a year. EU countries would lose more jobs than we would, if they decided to put embargoes or restrictions on trade. They are not stupid; they will not do that, will they? In any event, they could not do so under international trade law. All that is a frightener.

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The Europhiles are always using it. They used in 1975, and they still think that they will frighten the people of this country.
In any event, if it is all about trade, why do we need a European government, two presidents, a parliament, a bureaucracy, a currency, an army, a legal personality, a foreign minister, a supreme court, a public prosecutor, a flag, an anthem and a Europe day? Why do we need all of that to trade with them? We manage to trade with 172 other countries without all that paraphernalia. Indeed, all those other countries trade with Europe without all that paraphernalia. So it is nonsense, is it not? It is complete and utter nonsense that 3 million jobs are at stake. We have lost a lot of jobs in various industries. Our manufacturing industry has been hurt by our being members of the European Union. So I wish that the Government, and everyone else, would stop that.
I do not know whether the BBC gets any grants from the European Commission, but its attitude to the European Union suggests that it does. Perhaps the noble Baroness can tell us whether it receives grants. At the weekend, the BBC wheeled out its resident Europhile—the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, who I do not see in his place today to debate this matter. As usual, the BBC gave him twice as much coverage as it did to Mr Davidson who was putting the other point of view.
Of course, last Friday, the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, was also on "Question Time". As usual, there were three Europhiles and only one person from UKIP. That is the attitude of the BBC all along. It simply does not understand that there is a large body of opinion in this country that is not only opposed to this constitution, but would also like to withdraw from the European Union altogether. It really is about time that the BBC woke up to what the public want and to do its duty as a public corporation. It should give fair weather and fair coverage to all aspects of the argument.
I hope that the BBC will do that as the referendum approaches, so that everyone will have a fair hearing. There should be no more breakfasts with the Europhiles, as in the 1975 referendum, so that it could sort out what lies it would tell during a particular day. Everyone knows my view of the European Union. We should never have got in. It is about time that we got out. I agree especially with the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, when he said that to sign up to this constitution would be a disaster for this country. That is what we all want to avoid.
7.52 p.m.
The Earl of Dundee: My Lords, most of us may welcome the increased publicity and interest on this subject and the questions that these put. What is the purpose of a European Union of any size at any time? How should its larger affiliation be structured? I shall refer to three separate yet related forms of security and argue that their consistent interaction is what planning theory and practice should seek to achieve.
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First, there is defence security and the maintenance of peace in Europe, and thus also assistance to world peace. Secondly, there is political and economic delivery towards and within the European Union's nation states. Thirdly—not least—there is the competence and well-being of families and communities throughout European Union member states.
No doubt the common factor among those three securities is economic stability. Certainly, for more than 50 years, it has proved to be the key to a successful European defence policy. The 1949 NATO Alliance could not have been formed had it not been preceded by the economic disbursement of Marshall aid in 1948. The Cold War would not have ended as it did in the 1980s had the arms race not come to exert an unacceptable level of pressure on the economies of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact states. What guidance therefore can be offered by the performance of NATO in Europe from 1949 until now?
The two different periods to be looked at should be the Cold War until 1989 and the conflict within the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1999. NATO's strategy during the Cold War may have been both unusual and successful in three respects. First, unlike the League of Nations between the world wars, it demonstrated how human rights could be backed up by force, and thus how within an effective defence policy idealism and pragmatism can be conjoined. Secondly, unlike most other powers throughout history, it involved the building up of arms for peace and containment rather than for war and aggression. And, thirdly, as indicated, it involved the agenda or philosophy shared by NATO member states that democracy and human rights are best preserved and advanced through economic stability.
NATO's mistakes during the conflict within the former Yugoslavia—in particular at the outset when it could have been controlled—are sometimes agreed, ironically enough, to have been a product of successful management during the Cold War. For 40 years, the focus had been on the containment of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact states that formed its satellites. The control of regional instability had therefore not been a priority or even a necessity. As a result, NATO states distributed over the European Union, including the United States, were unused to confronting regional instability in the 1990s and were divided over and unsure of the best way to do so with regard to the former Yugoslavia.
Does the Minister agree that the prescription for NATO and Europe may be fairly clear now? Any new systems for EU defence and foreign policy should not undermine or duplicate the role of NATO where NATO states are also members of the EU. Yet, if an EU foreign policy is to be any worth, and at the same time NATO is not to be undermined, how is that balance to be adequately guaranteed within a single treaty?
My second theme is the desired aim of consistent political and economic delivery within the larger EU. No doubt a useful background to that is offered by the

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notion of subsidiarity. If that concept emphasises what national parliaments and executives together should deal with on their own, so that the EU in other respects can provide added value, it also implies a corollary. That is that through EU membership national parliaments should also aim to increase their influence over their own executives. Thus, in terms of subsidiarity, the wider EU ought to facilitate two beneficial and complementary impacts: the provision of added value without reducing national sovereignty and within nation states themselves the increase of parliamentary influence over executives.
No doubt such aspirations are already matched by some of the draft proposals. These include a new role for national parliaments within the wider EU and encouragement to them to scrutinise proposed European Union legislation. However, as the noble Lords, Lord Grenfell and Lord Monson, have implied, those expedients may only produce much frustration if procedures between national parliaments, the Commission and the Council are not now further clarified in the first place. Does the Minister agree with this caveat? If so, what clear-cut practices for voting will the Government advocate to protect the role of national parliaments and to handle disagreements between them and the Commission?
The third theme is confidence and well-being affecting families and communities throughout European member states. There is always a risk that within the new wider European Union, political and economic delivery will improve while the confidence of families and communities may not do so commensurately. Yet, this inconsistency, if it should obtain, might not so much reveal an obsession with material resources. Rather more, perhaps, it would reflect an ineptitude in handling them.
Certainly, the stronger a central bureaucracy, the more likely it is that funds will be prescribed and allocated for spending in an inflexible way. Nevertheless, improved practice and benefit will often more assuredly derive from flexible initiatives and partnerships at local and national levels. Not least does the challenge to all Europe's communities come from the problem of young people and from those of them who, as a result of drugs, difficulties at home and with school learning, require to be deterred, guided and inspired into constructive purpose and away from crime.
There is also the connection between well-being, cultural heritage and religion and the relevance of that connection to the wider Europe and its direction. Does the Minister agree that within current drafts this focus should be much more emphasised than it may have been hitherto? Does she also support the view, urged in a previous debate, that the preamble to the Convention should contain a general reference to God, as does the Polish constitution? It states,
"both to those who believe in God as a source of truth, justice, goodness and beauty, as well as to those not sharing such faith but respecting those universal values".
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As today's debate has made plain, many of us have reservations about the current draft proposals. That apart, we should rejoice in what is now the reality of a wider Union and its triumph for peace, history and humanity.
8 p.m.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, we have had two parallel debates in the past three hours, one on the proposed revisions to the treaty and one on the myths of Europe as a threat to England, in which the monsters of the German, now the Franco-German, threat are conjured up and in which honest Englishmen are consistently in danger of being outwitted by wily continentals.
The first debate is much more constructive and rational. It deals with practice and detail, and we need to take that further today and on later occasions. Sadly, however, it is necessary, as always, to wade through the second debate before we get there. Here there are horrors on our path and, as the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, put it, mortal threats to our democracy, from which the noble Lord would like, like a white knight, to "lead our nation back to freedom". We have to recognise that the nationalist tone of that narrative is a depiction of a lost world, an unchanging England, free Anglo-Saxons "girt by a silver sea". I recall that the Leader of the Official Opposition, Michael Howard, described the draft Constitutional Treaty as, "the greatest threat to the British constitution since the 17th century"—a wonderful overstatement, given that there was no British constitution until the end of the 17th century.
All constitutions are imperfect. Much comparison has been made with the United States' constitution in this exercise and how wonderful it is, with its Bill of Rights, but no one quite mentions that, when written, the US constitution also entrenched slavery within the United States—not an entirely perfect document.
We are asked to believe that the British constitution is desperately under threat. I would not go to the stake to defend the current British constitution. I certainly would not go to the stake over that aspect of the current British constitution that is the second Chamber, the form of which, after all, was initiated by a Liberal government in 1911 and, with luck, may possibly be completed by 2011. I would not want to go to the stake to defend the current House of Commons, either in its behaviour or its unrepresentative quality. We have to recognise the growth of popular disillusionment with the British constitution in this country.
We have the most over-centralised system of government in the developed world. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, attacked the centralisers of Brussels. However, he was, of course, a member of the government who did much to impose that degree of centralisation on Britain. The Constitutional Treaty is an imperfect product of an imperfect, even if disappointing, convention. It is not unacceptable. It is a necessary compromise among member governments. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Biffen, that it is not

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a horse, it is a camel. If I were walking a long distance and were offered a lift but discovered that it was to be a lift on a camel rather than a horse, I think I would get off.
The character of international politics is, after all, one in which we have to work through multinational negotiation in a system of international organisations and international law. The depiction that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, gave us of a Britain being cowed by other governments—of us versus them and of foreigners conspiring against England—is not reflected in the way in which any British government have operated since the end of the Second World War. I recall with pleasure reading a number of articles over the years that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, has written about interdependence and globalisation. The Laeken declaration, which started off this convention, referred to,
"the need effectively to deal with the challenges that globalisation and interdependence create"—
more open borders, global economic integration, the communications revolution, the world population explosion with its consequence in international migration and cross-border crime, all of which require a higher degree of co-operation, shared rules, even integration, among governments who are affected.
In Europe we live in a highly concentrated region. The whole of the European Union would fit into an area less than the United States east of the Mississippi, and that has consequences for the way in which we need to order our affairs. We no longer have a closed national economy and we no longer have an empire, even though I note that to the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, that is a matter of great regret. We have achieved enlargement from—
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I really do not know what grounds the noble Lord has for saying that. I referred to the fact that we had the Commonwealth, which is quite a different body from an empire.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, I stand corrected. I am sure that the noble Lord gets on very well with Mr Mugabe.
We have achieved the unification of the Continent, which is a massive achievement—25 member states, with some more to come, which gives us open borders and a free and united Europe, but that has certain consequences to which this treaty addresses itself. We have already transformed the European Union of 15. As I listened to some of today's speeches, I recalled having breakfast with a French official I have known for many years, who said, rather bitterly, that he felt that the old European community had now disappeared, that the Anglo-Saxons had taken over and were insisting on making sure that everything that was agreed was implemented throughout the European Union, and that he was not convinced that it was a good idea, and so forth. That is a very long way from the picture that is being presented to us.
As I listened to some members of the Conservative Party, I was thinking about an article that I read last week in the Herald Tribune about what is happening to
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liberal republicans within the American Republican Party. Some are fading away while others find themselves sliding towards the populist and nationalist right. After all, American nationalism, which the new right in the Republican Party so clearly represents, is resistant to international law as such, to international courts in principle, and to all external and multilateral constraints. It insists that America is right and that everyone else is wrong, and holds particular anger against the French.
English nationalism is directed at the European Union instead of the United Nations. I note from several speeches, including to my surprise that of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, that the European Court of Justice takes the place of the International Criminal Court and others as a particular threat to Englishness. I was even more puzzled to hear the noble Lord, Lord Howell, suggest in populist tones that political élites have led us to this. As a man of the people, a Texan Congressman may get away with attacking political élites in Washington more easily than Eton and Oxbridge scholars.
The proposals in the treaty require some detailed discussion. Qualified majority voting is one of the great symbolic issues of this entire exercise. But we all know that very few votes are taken in Councils of Ministers. Most decisions are taken by consensus. I do not know how often the British Government have been outvoted over the past five years, but I understand that it has happened on very few occasions, and never on a major issue. Nevertheless, this is seen to be a great symbolic issue.
I agree strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, on the lack of difference between the two different proposals for qualified majority voting on the table, but for the Spanish and for the Poles these are great symbolic issues of their standing within the European Union. Mrs Thatcher was persuaded by, among others, the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, to vote for the single European Act and thus a substantial extension of qualified majority voting because she recognised that as the European Community grew in numbers, so one did not want one awkward member state holding up the business that everyone else wanted to get on with. We have had that for a long time with France on the common agricultural policy. It was the behaviour of Greece during its first few years in the Community which was said to have most affected Mrs Thatcher. We have Malta, and we have Cyprus coining in. There are occasions when we want to move on by consensus rather than by absolute unanimity.
The question of the yellow card and national parliaments is important. I am half persuaded by the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, that it may be that the yellow card is sufficient and that we do not need the red card. That is one of the most important areas as we move towards a final treaty. However, let us recognise that this has implications for the way in which the British Parliament organises itself. I think that this Chamber has handled European scrutiny better than the other place, and that one matter that this Parliament as a whole needs to discuss is how we

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can improve our joint scrutiny to ensure that, whether it is a yellow card or a red card, it is operated effectively.
The issue of subsidiarity also needs to be explored further. We need to think about the powers that are returned from the centre to national governments. Within the European convention there was an element, particularly some Members of the European Parliament, who still believe that the more that power is transferred from national governments to Brussels, the better things are. None of us here believes that and it is therefore very important to establish that powers can be returned from the centre to national governments.
Lord Willoughby de Broke: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord. Can he give an example or make a suggestion, within any of the discussions on the draft treaty, or the meetings on the draft constitution, or even the Irish proposals, of a single power being returned to national parliaments?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, I myself suggested during the Second Reading debate on the education Bill that we should ask in the treaty for a reversal of the decision of the European Court of Justice on the charging of university fees within the European Union. That seems to be a remarkable anomaly, not least because in the United States it is dealt with at state level.
We need further to discuss the issue of the foreign Minister, which is a compromise, while recognising that how the new post of foreign Minister develops will depend a great deal on the personality of the individual chosen and on how he or she works with national governments. The same applies to the new proposal for a president of the Council, although I agree strongly with those who say that a rotating six-monthly presidency in a European Union of 25 nations—and in particular a representative of the presidency who sees it as his or her task to go around from capital to capital consulting with each national government on how best to build a consensus at the next European Council—has now gone beyond the capability of any active member of any national government.
I am not entirely happy with what is being proposed about the future of the Commission. I am persuaded that we need an effective Commission, which means 15 or fewer commissioners. It is simply not manageable at present because each of the new member states thinks that it wants its own national commissioner. The myth of an all-powerful, malevolent Commission is one that we have to reject. In reality the Commission is weak and desperately in need of reform.
The noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, was extremely clear about Article 3.3 because it is one of the underlying issues. Do we want a Europe with a market economy which has a social dimension, or do we prefer the American free market model? Many of those who have spoken in this debate against the treaty strongly prefer the American free market model. I simply
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remind them that 25 per cent of the American population do not have health insurance; child mortality is higher in the United States than in any country in Europe; life expectancy is lower than in Britain; and they have unsustainable economic development. I am not sure that the British people would actually prefer that model.
Lord Blackwell: My Lords, does the noble Lord accept that the question is not simply whether we prefer it but whether the British people should have the right to choose which economy they prefer at this time and at a point in the future rather than having it bound into a constitution?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, that will very likely become one of the issues around which the referendum campaign will revolve.
We will continue to debate this in the future; I must not detain your Lordships any longer. I simply say that this is not a perfect constitution, but it is an acceptable constitution. There is still room for negotiation. I hope that the Government will push for further clarification of where we are on subsidiarity but, in principle, I think that this is an acceptable approach.
8.15 p.m.
Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Symons of Vernham Dean, for introducing this very important debate today so clearly. It is always a privilege to contribute to these impressive debates and to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire. I feel very humble replying from our side after such a long list of well informed, distinguished speakers, with understandably strong feelings and strongly held opinions.
Today the European Union is undergoing still more important changes, as we have heard in the debate today. The central change, of course, is enlargement, which is very welcome and something for which we have always striven—indeed, it is very close to my own heart. It is an aim, as we heard from my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford, in his eloquent opening speech, to which we attached great importance.
Enlargement, however, carries with it a need to reform, as was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Williamson of Horton, and a need to change the way the European Union works if it is to function effectively in the 21st century and to compete energetically with other successful economies such as in the United States of America, Asia and, now, China.
The exciting challenge of enlargement aside, the EU faces many ongoing problems to which several noble Lords referred: high social costs on business; overregulation; limited economic growth; and strains on the budget. Reforms in these areas, everyone recognises, are needed if the European Union is to succeed, prosper and reconnect with its peoples.
A main objective, too, of the exercise was to shorten and simplify the treaties to make the EU more comprehensible and to bring it closer to the people. This fact was recognised at Laeken, from which all

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these proposals flowed. My noble friend Lord Brittan reminded us that with each enlargement, there has been more centralisation. It was interesting to hear from him how worried people were at the time of this enlargement that this would occur again.
The debate in which we are engaged is of fundamental importance to the future of this country and to the direction of the European Union. I hope that the momentous nature of the changes going on in Europe will serve to focus voters' minds on the issue and that they will turn out and use their vote in the European parliamentary elections on 10 June. I am sure that the Minister, too, would encourage this.
Let me turn briefly to the challenge from the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, to my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford concerning new competences in the treaty. Page 18 of the report of the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, refers to many more than six competences. I shall not read them out at this late hour—they are all there for anyone to read. The report refers to new and extended competences.
Several noble Lords pointed out that the response to the challenge posed at Laeken has been to produce a document, something which many noble Lords have made clear they believe to be unsuited to the real needs of an enlarged Europe, the needs of Europe as it stands or its citizens. My noble friend Lord Monson said that it fails to address the key issues.
The noble Lords, Lord Tomlinson and Lord Maclennan, argued that the Constitutional Treaty is meant to be an agreement between nation states on how the European Union will be run. It confirms that the European Union is a union of nation states, each with their own elected government. And it confirms that the European Union is not a single state but an organisation of states that have decided to pool their sovereignty for shared benefits. We on these Benches welcome the Prime Minister's belated recognition that the Constitutional Treaty, when it is no longer in draft form, will be of such significance that the British people should decide on it. That is something for which the Conservative Party has long argued. Unfortunately, we fear that it was a U-turn not down to principle, but rather to an ad hoc political lurch.
Many noble Lords have recognised that further change is needed to make the EU more flexible and more responsive with a simpler structure. However, as my noble friend Lord Blackwell reiterated, what the European Union does not need is a binding constitution which does far too little to simplify the treaties and which effectively creates a single legal personality for the European Union, representing a huge step change in our relationship and moving towards a more centralised Europe and a less competitive one as a result, and one we should not sign up to.
My noble friend Lady Noakes raised the issue of taxation, which she is right to highlight so that it remains an area for member states to control. I am not sure that I can agree with my noble friend Lord Biffen who said in his stirring speech that the Single
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European Act should be reformed. It was always considered a Conservative success and one of Mrs Thatcher's, no less.
Many noble Lords are worried about the increasing judicial control over domestic affairs via the charter of fundamental rights and a European foreign Minister, all of which the constitution seems to feel are desirable. While we believe in working together in areas such as defence and immigration, where there is voluntary acceptance of the need to do so and of the benefits of doing so, to make this compulsory and straitjacketed by bureaucracy would be counterproductive.
We are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, chairman of the European Union Committee, for the knowledge and expertise that he brings to this House. It was interesting to hear him stress how the Constitutional Treaty shifts considerable powers from the Commission to the Council of Ministers. That was reinforced by my noble friend Lord Brittan and the noble Lord, Lord Williamson of Horton. I remember the debate on the balance of power between these two bodies. It has been on the table for years. Several noble Lords were worried that, in essence, while we accept that Europe needs to change—
Lord Grenfell: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. I did not use the word "considerable". I said "measurable". There is a slight difference.
Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord. Several noble Lords were worried that, in essence, while we accept that Europe needs to change, the constitution as it stands is not the answer, offering, as it does, outdated, bloc mentality-driven solutions to problems.
In his forceful speech, my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford pointed out that 25 diverse European nations can function effectively as a grouping only within a looser framework than is envisaged here. My noble friends Lord Willoughby de Broke and Lord Vinson and the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, felt that freedom, stability and prosperity are what the people of Europe want from the European Union, not ever-greater centralisation.
In the context of a referendum, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Pearson of Rannoch, does the Minister not agree that it is vital that an informed debate takes place? Better to inform that debate, do the Government have any plans to provide detailed information on the articles of the final treaty and on their legal implications in an easily accessible format? In essence, will they produce a simple, fair guide with all substantive changes to the treaties that the constitution will bring about, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay?
We look forward to the Minister's replies and are sure that all noble Lords would agree that it is virally important to have the clearest information and the most open—
Lord Hannay of Chiswick: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. Can she

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confirm that the thrust of her remarks is that those on the Benches opposite will wait until they have seen it to make up their mind on the constitution, or will she associate herself with those many speakers who have already incited us to vote "no" before they have even seen the treaty?
Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that. I believe that we need to wait to see what the treaty says. I am sure that some people will feel that whatever it says will not be correct, but some people need to see a document and then they will decide.
Noble Lords will agree that it is vitally important to have the clearest information and the most open debate on this most important of all subjects, which will affect all our futures.
Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, the noble Baroness was kind enough to refer me not to anything in the draft convention but to page 18 of the report of the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell. I have had the opportunity to look at it. Will she accept from me that, far from being an answer to the question, it is another example of evasion? Perhaps she might choose to read through some of the articles that are listed, such as that on combating tax fraud and evasion or that on capital movements and combating organised crime, which are the first two on the list. Those are matters that the United Kingdom totally supports. They do not represent increases in competence but are now categorised as shared competences.
Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, I was simply quoting from what is in front of me—some are shared and some are new competences, and some of the new competences are shared.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I am most obliged to the noble Baroness. She was interrupted by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who was I believe complaining that we were discussing something that we had not seen and that, in fact, we should wait until we saw the constitution. However, I point out to the noble Baroness that she is absolutely correct. We are not debating a future constitution; we have been debating a draft European constitution, which is all that we can talk about. Noble Lords and the noble Baroness have been perfectly in order in our discussions this afternoon.
Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, for that.
8.25 p.m.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate this evening. Debates in your Lordships' House on the European Union and, more particularly, on the British place in the European Union, are always robust and always interesting. Today's has been no exception. Views as widely differing as those of the noble Lords, Lord Pearson of Rannoch and Lord Stoddart of
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Swindon, on the one hand, and the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart, and my noble friend Lord Tomlinson on the other, illustrate that point very clearly.
Unsurprisingly, I find myself certain that this country's place is at the heart of Europe and at the heart of the debate about the future of Europe. At the same time, I feel ever watchful about how that relationship develops, ever concerned about what powers belong here in this Parliament and what powers may properly be placed in the European Union.
The noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, was quite right: our starting point has been enlargement, and I know how firmly she has supported that enterprise. She is right, too, that the European Union's way of working should be clarified if a Union of 25 is to work well. Again unsurprisingly, I found myself more attuned to the well-honed arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Brittan of Spennithorne, who was right to remind us of the clarity of the constitution as it is spelt out in the draft treaty. He was right to remind us of the nature of the treaty, which he did with admirable clarity. He was right, too, to emphasise to us that although the failure to ratify the treaty would not mean leaving the European Union, it would be a very grave decision. I hope that we shall hear from the noble Lord more frequently in our forthcoming debates and that his party has the wisdom to listen to him.
As the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, said, much of the argument against the treaty rests on the claim that Europe is becoming a superstate—an argument espoused by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch. I emphatically disagree with that point of view. I would argue, as did the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart, that the treaty provides more protection against a superstate than we have at present. It spells out that the EU is a union of nation states, and that it has only those powers that the member state governments have chosen to confer upon it, as the noble Lord, Lord Brittan, made clear. It proposes a new position for a full-time president of the European Council, which will mean greater accountability to national governments. I would argue that it strengthens the role of national parliaments in the Union by reinforcing the mechanism of subsidiarity. National parliaments will be able to examine legislative proposals from the very start of the legislative process.
Some noble Lords have claimed that simply because the treaty is a constitutional treaty it must be rejected. There was a flavour of that argument in the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Waddington. The treaty is neither a tidying up exercise, as some have described it, nor an end to our nationhood, as others would have us believe. It is neither negligible in its importance, nor is it the most important European treaty negotiated.
The honour for the most significant shift in power from this country to Europe belongs to the party opposite. As the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, has said, the Single European Act was far and away more

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significant in the surrender of British sovereignty than anything involved in the proposed constitution. As he pointed out, it never occurred to Mrs Thatcher, the then Prime Minister, to have a referendum. The noble Baroness. Lady Rawlings, has described it as a Conservative triumph, but it was not a triumph that the Conservative Party wanted to take to the country. That is an example of "Don't do what we did in government; do as we tell you now".
I turn to the issue of a referendum. My noble friend Lord Tomlinson, and the noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, disagreed with the Government's decision to go to a referendum on this issue, and I understand their concerns. I remind your Lordships that we shall have an opportunity for the cool-headed analysis for which the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, asked. Parliament's views will be debated fully and scrupulously. Perhaps I may quote the Leader of the Opposition on this point in an argument that he made on 21 May 1997. He said that the electorate,
"should be asked for their opinion when all our questions have been answered, when all the details are known, when the legislation has been finally tempered and scrutinised in the House and when Parliament has debated and decided".—[Official Report, Commons, 21 May 1997; col. 735.]
Hear. Hear—I agree. I want to make one matter clear to the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings. It is not the legal or the constitutional argument that has persuaded me and others that a referendum is the right course, nor is it an argument that this treaty is more important constitutionally than the Single European Act or indeed the Maastricht Treaty. It is because the people of this country will have the opportunity to decide where they want Britain to stand in relation to Europe: at the heart of Europe where we have seen it for the past seven years, or with a considerable loss of influence as described by her noble friend Lord Brittan.
Now our argument, at last, will be about the treaty itself; not about the process of taking that decision. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, for recognising that important point. I agree with my noble friend Lord Tomlinson that some of the favourite arguments about the draft treaty have surfaced again today. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, said that we have had two parallel debates, although the horse/ camel analogy of the noble Lord, Lord Biffen, set me wondering which animal goes further when circumstances are difficult.
Many of the objections raised are not about the proposals in the draft treaty at all, but about today's status quo, a point made clearly by my noble friend Lord Tomlinson and by the noble Lord, Lord Williamson of Horton. They include the common foreign and security policy in the 1992 Treaty of Maastricht; the primacy of the European Court in the 1957 Treaty of Rome; and the European citizenship also in the Treaty of Maastricht.
The same point was agreed in essence by the noble Lord. Lord Pearson, who was, as always, crystal clear. He dislikes this treaty. But more than that the noble Lord dislikes the current position, which he described as the betrayal of sovereignty over the past 32 years.
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Although less explicit on the point, the position of the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, was similar, as was that of the noble Lord, Lord Vinson, and the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke. Theirs was a different argument from the main charge that came from the Conservative Benches, which was that the draft treaty is unprecedented in the powers that it cedes to Brussels. My argument is rather more on the side of my noble friend Lord Tomlinson.
Let us think about the Single European Act. Among the articles it made subject to QMV was the free movement of workers, freedom of third-country nationals established in the community to provide services, guidelines and conditions for establishing the internal market, mutual recognition of national measures in areas affecting the internal market that had not been harmonised, and health and safety of workers.
Let us turn to Maastricht, on which the then government refused to have a referendum. It created the European Union and declared that we were all citizens of that Union. It was Maastricht that created the common foreign and security policy, Maastricht that transferred 30 policy areas from unanimity to majority voting, including education, public health, consumer protection, development co-operation, transport, safety and many other areas. That treaty gave the EU new powers in justice and home affairs issues for the first time and it was that treaty that established a single European currency. So the description given by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, of what happened before 1997 is not so wide of the mark in terms of the competencies of the EU. But, as always, our approach to the extension of QMV and—
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I want to help the Minister on this. She has talked about the Single European Act. She will, of course, recall that the Labour Party, then in opposition, opposed it. Indeed, I stood at the Dispatch Box on the other side of the House, together with my noble friend Lord Bruce of Donington, opposing it as well. The difference is that the Labour Party and the noble Baroness have changed their minds; my position remain exactly as it was then.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the noble Lord will recall that it was the Labour Party that had the referendum in 1975. My point was that it is the party opposite that has made these extraordinary changes in the relationship between this country and the European Union, and that was where I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch.
As always, our approach to the extension of QMV and co-decision will be to agree where it is in Britain's interest but not to do so in areas where our vital national interest dictates otherwise. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, was quite right. We are rarely outvoted on QMV: twice in 2001 and once in 2002. Without it, we could not have constructed the single market or made progress on reform of the

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common agricultural policy. We therefore welcome the use of QMV as the general rule for legislative proposals.
Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, differed from his noble friend Lord Waddington, who thought that there were some unprecedented parts in this draft treaty. He cited the primacy of EU law, but that primacy is well-established, at least since 1964 when the European Court of Justice ruled in the case of Costa v Enel.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, the Minister has misunderstood me. I made the point that the primacy of the law was indeed established way back in 1972. My point was that this is a unique beast, a constitution. That is the point I was making.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I would contend that the point that the noble Lord made was indeed about the primacy of law, but he seemed to distinguish in his mind between the primacy of law and the constitutional impact of the primacy of law. I do not believe that that is a tenable distinction. Let me quote to the noble Lord from that judgment:
"The transfer by the States from their domestic legal systems to the Community legal system of the rights and obligations arising under the Treaty carries with it a permanent limitation of their sovereign rights, against which a subsequent unilateral act incompatible with the concept of the Community cannot prevail".
That is a constitutional point. I understood the point that the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, put but what I am saying to him is that I do not understand how he can distinguish between the primacy of the law and that not impacting on the constitutional position. Maybe that is a point that we can debate later.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I am sorry to intervene but we must get these matters accurate and on the record. I am afraid that both my noble friend and the Minister are wrong. The German Federal Constitutional Court ruled in 1993 that competence resided with it and not with the European Court of Justice. That was the position and remains the position until we have this new constitution which will remove the power to question the matter and set a constitutional seal on all the law-making powers of the ECJ. That is the change. The Minister must understand that.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, we are no doubt going to discuss this further. The noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guilford, is now arguing both with the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, on his side and myself on this side. There is already a constitutional limitation in the way that the ECJ operates. That is upheld by the European Court of Justice ruling to which I have already referred your Lordships, and by the way Lord Denning declared on this matter in his judgment in the case of Bulmer v Bollinger, which goes back to 1974. I suggest this is a subject for further discussion between your Lordships, because time is limited and we do not want to spend all our time on that point.
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If member states could pick and choose which EU regulations they enforced, they would ignore those that threatened protectionist measures and give specialist privileges to their industries, which would impact on the single market. We would not have a level playing field for thousands of British businesses, on which hundreds of thousands of British jobs depend—that was illustrated very well by my noble friend Lord Harrison. The estimate of 3 million which I quoted earlier was from the South Bank University.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords—
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I am not going to give way because we have already got late into the evening. The noble Lord, Lord Pearson, has had his chance. I am now trying to reply to the debate. If the noble Lord would be good enough to allow me to finish my points, I am sure he will have the opportunity of raising his points with me on many future occasions. Otherwise our debate will just degenerate into a exchange across the Floor of the House.
I turn to the views on legal personality held passionately by the noble Lord, Lord Waddington. We have debated this point before in your Lordships' House. The European Community and EURATOM already have legal personality, and transferring this to the EU is a consequence of simplifying the Union's structures. We think it will make the EU easier to deal with and understand, both from the point of view of third countries and that of EU citizens. Noble Lords will recall our debates on these points when we have dealt with them at Question Time.
I turn to the points of the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guilford, and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, on taxation and security issues. The Government believe that the right of member states to determine their own tax policies is fundamental. Tax matters are a key component of national sovereignty, and vital to the social and economic well-being of the country. It is for this reason that the Government made a manifesto commitment to maintain the UK's tax veto, and this is why the Government will insist that tax matters continue to be decided upon by unanimity in the IGC. Tax is fundamental to the relationship between a government and their citizens. It cannot be subject to QMV.
The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, thought that we would have an uphill struggle on this point. So I hope that if we are successful, she will not he joining the noble Lord, Lord Brittan, in suggesting that all this was already agreed and something of a pushover in the first place. The ECJ has always been the guardian of the treaties. It makes sure that they are implemented properly, and without this we would have legal chaos. When the treaties have provisions on fiscal matters, the European Court of Justice makes sure that they are complied with. Currently, it ensures that the Commission does not bring forward decisions on tax

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for decisions by QMV. Decisions on tax must be made on unanimity, and the ECJ watches to see that that is implemented.
Baroness Noakes: My Lords, I thank the Minister for giving way. Will she not accept that the European Court of Justice has taken unto itself jurisdiction to judge the effect of national tax laws, forcing states such as the UK to change their own? It is a question not of whether there is qualified majority voting but of whether the European Court of Justice can decide whether a nation's tax laws are acceptable.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, that is rather a different point from that which the Government have made about unanimity in any change to tax. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, may well be right about her point, but she said that the Government were being disingenuous in relation to it. This is not so, because the European Court of Justice would rule out the taking of a vote on such a matter. That is the point at issue and where our red lines lie.
I turn to the charter, a point raised by the noble Lords, Lord Howell, Lord Blackwell and Lord Williamson of Horton. Our citizens need to be clear that the EU will respect fundamental liberties wherever it acts. The rights are too important to be left in the air. During the Convention on the Future of Europe and the following IGC, the United Kingdom made it clear that we would not agree to the incorporation of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights until it was fit for purpose. The charter has been drawn up as a political declaration and not as treaty law. The changes we were helping to push through put the whole package into much better legal shape, and the United Kingdom will make a final decision on the incorporation of the charter in the light of the overall final proposals for a constitution for the European Union.
I turn to the questions on CFSP raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Park, the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, and the noble Lord, Lord Howell. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, specifically asked for clarity on this issue. We have long made it clear that we believe that unanimity must remain the general rule for common foreign and security policy. The only additional use of QMV proposed by the draft Constitutional Treaty relates to the adoption of a decision on a Union action or position on a proposal from the European Foreign Minister. We believe that this use of QMV should apply only where the European Council, voting by unanimity, has made a specific request to the European Foreign Minister to make such a proposal. That is an important safeguard. So in practice we would retain the veto. We believe that unanimity must remain the general rule. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Park, whose contribution was as always very well argued, that unanimity exceptions do not apply to a decision that has a military or defence implication.
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The noble Lord, Lord Waddington, came hack to this point. I say to him that our foreign policy will remain in the hands of member states just as it has done since the common foreign policy was set up 10 years ago by the Maastricht Treaty. He quoted from the solidarity clause. I refer him to another quote:
"The Member States shall support the Union's external and security policy actively and unreservedly in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity".
That is from not the draft Constitutional Treaty but the Treaty of Maastricht—Article 11.2—a treaty supported by his government when they were I office.
Lord Waddington: My Lords—
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: No, my Lords; I am not going to give way any more. I have given way quite sufficiently for noble Lords opposite to have made the points that they can have.
The noble Lord, Lord Williamson, gave us a masterly analysis of the treaty in its current form. He posed some specific questions about defence. In particular, he raised questions about Article 201. I should be grateful if he would be happy to accept a letter from me on that point.
At the December European Council a package of measures was on the table to take forward ESDP and those included proposals on the structure of cooperation, focusing on creating rapid reaction battle groups, a defence capability development agency, a solidarity clause and an updating of' the Petersberg tasks. We hope that the defence aspects of the draft constitution will not be reopened when the IGC resumes as we believe they commanded consensus as they were tabled at the December meeting.
I want to be absolutely clear with the noble Baroness, Lady Park, because I thought that her contribution, as always, was clear and to the point. We oppose the introduction of common defence either at 25 or through enhanced co-operation. We think it is divisive and a duplication of NATO. To answer the point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, we oppose anything such as the creation of standing inner groups or an inner core on ESDP as we believe that that would undermine the inclusive, flexible model of ESDP that the EU and NATO have been at such pains to agree. So let me be clear. Collective or territorial defence is for NATO. The European Council agreed that at Nice. It is not politically or militarily credible for the EU to have the role of territorial defence.
The issue of subsidiarity was raised by the noble Lords, Lord Grenfell and Lord Hannay. Perhaps I can remind the noble Lord, Lord Monson, that the treaty will for the first time give this Parliament a power at EU level to monitor and enforce subsidiarity. Along with other national Parliaments, it will be able to force the Commission to reconsider any measure that it considers does not meet the fundamental principle that decisions should be taken as close as possible to Europe's citizens. It is a great step forward in enhancing the role of this House in the European Union's affairs.

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I say to the noble Lord, to the noble Lords, Lord Vinson and Lord Blackwell, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, that Title III, Article 9, of the draft constitution states:
"Under the principle of conferral, the Union shall act within the limits of the competences conferred upon it by the Member States in the Constitution to attain the objectives set out in the Constitution. Competences not conferred upon the Union in the Constitution remain with the Member States".
I turn to the point about the European public prosecutor. Under the treaty a European public prosecutor could be created by unanimity, meaning with our consent. We see no reason to create that post. The noble Lord. Lord Biffen, asked about the Times article claiming that the Ukraine and Russia were about to join the European Union. I assure him that the Ukraine and Russia are not candidates for EU membership.
Many of your Lordships asked what material would be published before the June European Council. We will make available to Parliament such papers as are given to member states by the presidency as a basis for discussion at Councils and what are called "focal point" discussions. The presidency may also publish a full revised text. These documents are generally made available also on the presidency website, which I recommend to your Lordships. A formal redraft of the treaty will be prepared after the end of the negotiations and then examined by legal translation experts. When a text is available for signature, we will publish it as a command paper. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, that we will also provide a plain man's guide to the treaty and a comparison of its text with previous treaties, as she asked.
This Government's commitment to parliamentary scrutiny of this treaty is clear from what we have already done. Our debate this evening has exemplified the Government's commitment on that point again. The innovation of a Standing Committee on the convention and to debate the convention's draft text and inform the IGC negotiation speaks for itself. Very few of your Lordships turned up to discuss the detail of that treaty: if I may say so, there were very few Conservative Front Bench Members of either House with, I am happy to say, the honourable exception of the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, who was certainly there.
I come back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan of Rogart, who asked whether it was not almost unprecedented to have repeated sittings of Joint Committees of both Houses during IGCs. Yes, it is. He went on to say that the Government introduced that novel procedure, which is welcome. Alas, it is not being adequately supported by Members of either House. The noble Lord said that it would be very difficult for a government to do more in those circumstances.
The noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, thought that it would be a disaster to accept the treaty. The noble Lord, Lord Vinson, thought that the treaty would make things worse. The noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, thought that it would be something he
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called, "kind of dumb". The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, was customarily robust and customarily hostile not just about this treaty but about the whole concept of our position in Europe, and he was honest enough to admit it—he wants us out. The plain fact is, I disagree with him.
We have fully encouraged every level of parliamentary attention because we believe that Parliament should influence the negotiations taking place, just as we published the White Paper on Europe on Tuesday in order to allow Parliament to influence decision-making by national governments at the European level at an early stage before EU policies are set in stone. We believe in Parliament. We believe in the parliamentary process. I look forward to our continuing exchanges on this great and important matter.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Electoral Commission
8.53 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs (Lord Filkin)rose to move, That this House takes note of the Electoral Commission's reports on Gender and political participation and on Age of electoral majority.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, these two reports are the latest in an excellent series by the Electoral Commission on the issue of democratic engagement. Tonight I should like to do three things. First, I should like to set out some of the issues that the first of these reports reveals. Secondly, I should like to suggest some of the things that we all, not just in government, must do now in addressing gender gaps where they exist. Thirdly, I should like to examine the broader questions raised by the second of these two important reports. My noble and learned friend the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, in his speech last month on this topic, made the point that there is not a crisis of political engagement in Britain as such, and that. although recent electoral turnout has fallen, other forms of participation are thriving.
Turning to the report on gender and political participation, let me first outline the positive messages. In terms of electoral turnout, any traditional gender gap that existed in the 1970s and earlier has closed over the past few years, with women in general now being on a par with men in voting. In cause-oriented activities, women are participating as much or more fully than men, with women more likely to sign petitions or boycott the purchase of products, and no gender differences are evident in attendance at demonstrations.
However, the report points to some worrying trends, with ethnic minority women being less likely to vote than their male counterparts. A small but significant activism gap exists in campaign politics, and when we dig deeper, the gender gap is widest in low-income socio-economic bands and among those with lower levels of education. Political interest among that group as a whole is worryingly low.

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For me, the key issues that the report throws up are, first, that there is no gender gap at the aggregate level in terms of turnout. There is a significant gender gap in activism and campaign politics, but the most important issue arising from the report is the key role that institutional factors seem to play in increasing participation. In constituencies electing a female MP, turnout increases not just for women—by 9 per cent compared to that in a constituency electing a male MP— but for men too, by 5 per cent. In other words, for reasons that we do not fully understand, the presence of a female candidate appears to raise voter turnout, as the commission reported.
Currently, the proportion of women elected to the House of Commons is just under 18 per cent. This House fares slightly worse at just under 17 per cent. In that. the United Kingdom falls well behind many other countries, at No. 47 on the world ranking of women in the lower House. It is below Germany, with 32 per cent; Sweden, with 45 per cent; and Rwanda, with 49 per cent, to name but three.
What are the Government doing in those areas? In tackling the problems of democratic engagement more widely, we have launched an extensive programme of constitutional change including devolution—new democratic governance in London and elsewhere—and reforms to the judicial system. We have already taken steps to make voting more accessible. We have introduced rolling registration and postal voting on demand. Building on that, we have already piloted innovative voting methods aimed at making voting easier and more convenient, including all-postal voting, which led to increases in turnout among women in particular, which is especially relevant to our discussion. Those are some of the wider package of electoral reform issues that we are currently considering.
However, this is not just an issue for the Government; it is a shared responsibility with political parties, which themselves have a real and important role to play. We therefore need strategies to increase the number of women standing for election and being selected, including equal opportunity strategies and positive action by parties.
This Government introduced the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act 2002, which allows parties, if they so wish, to adopt measures that regulate the selection of candidates for certain elections to reduce inequality in the number of men and women elected as candidates of the party. I browsed the debate in this House on that Act and was delighted to see the strong depth of cross-party support for those measures, albeit with some thoughtful contributions about what representativeness meant. Nevertheless, there was strong support for the Act.
The question I therefore put to the House is why so little has been done subsequently. I shall illustrate where the Labour Party stands in that respect, but I do not want to do so with any sense of sanctimoniousness or piousness, because I do not think that, while we have made progress, we are perfect.
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First, I turn to some of the institutional changes. The Welsh Assembly was the first elected body in the world to be composed of more than 50 per cent women, as a consequence of the way in which we legislated. In Scotland, women make up the majority of the Labour group. At Westminster, we currently have 95 women MPs—23 per cent of our total.
I shall be uncharacteristically direct to other political parties on this issue, not in a spirit of party animosity, because this is a genuine issue that all parties should address. Eight per cent of Conservative MPs are women—that is one-third of the Labour proportion, not one-third of the Labour total. I say with sorrow, rather than anger, that about 11 per cent of Liberal Democrat MPs in another place are women. That is about half the Labour total.
This House, largely unanimously, decided that it would take measures to allow political parties to try to ensure that the institutional factors that seem to be discriminating against women could be redressed to try to ensure that a House of Commons that is more representative of the balance in our society. That matters for a variety of reasons which time will not allow me to go into, but the question that I would put, not in terms of inviting a quick debating point, but as one to be reflected on, is, should not all parties, including the Labour Party, be thinking what more they can do to redress this lamentable situation? That Act is available for use by all parties.
We are looking at that issue ourselves in the run-up to the next election and, at present, 41 per cent of NEC-approved candidates in the Labour Party for the next general election are women, with nine of the 17 all-women shortlist seats yet to be completed and approved. Enough of that.
I now turn to the second report, which is about the age of electoral majority. At present, people must he at least 18 years old to vote and 21 to stand as a candidate. In the UK there is no standard legal age of majority. Different minimum ages apply in relationship to different activities. The Electoral Commission's research into that question led it to conclude that the minimum voting age should not, at present, be reduced to 16. As the Secretary of State has said, there needs to be a proper debate on this issue and I welcome this report as an important contribution to that debate.
We should also be giving serious and careful consideration to the results and recommendations of the Electoral Commission's review of candidacy. The majority of closely comparable countries already have a minimum candidacy age of 18 and many respondents to the commission's consultation felt that a compelling case would need to be made for retaining the current minimum age at 21.
This evening I have sought to be relatively crisp, given the lateness of the hour. I know that that will cause sorrow to all Benches, but I have sought to put across the main points that I wished to make in an abbreviated form. These issues are hugely important and worthy of serious consideration. The reports bring

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a valuable body of evidence to that debate and I look forward to lively discussion on these issues tonight and subsequently. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House takes note of the Electoral Commission's reports on Gender and political participation and on Age of electoral majority.—(Lord Filkin.)
9.2 p.m.
Baroness Thomas of Wallisford: My Lords, I am happy to take part in this debate and we are all grateful to the noble Lord for bringing these two reports to the attention of the House. I will confine my remarks to the report on gender and political participation.
The report is carefully researched and, as a result, its comments on the facts of a gap in the rate of participation in political and quasi-political activities by men and women carry a good deal of weight. Speaking very broadly, women have, from the general election of 1979 until the present day, voted in proportionately greater numbers than men. As the Minister has pointed out, women are, if anything, slightly more likely to sign petitions, to boycott or buy certain products and to be involved in church groups. Men and women have a more or less equal propensity to demonstrate or to take part in public protests. But, crucially, women are significantly less likely than men to be active within a political party, to belong to voluntary associations, consumer or professional groups and to sports or social clubs. This is the "activism" gap, as defined by the report.
Of course, the report deliberately avoids detailed discussion of the reasons for women's relative lack of involvement and success in active politics at a national level in the way that that was done by, for example, the Equal Opportunities Commission report of 2001, Man enough for the job? Nevertheless, the conclusions of the two reports and of many others are broadly consistent and mutually supportive in their analysis of the reasons for women's lower participation and success in active political life.
First, there is the influence of well paid work. The Electoral Commission points out that political activism rises with paid employment, increasing financial security and the level of academic achievement. Until fairly recently—this is me speaking, not the report—those three things were more usual for men than for women. However, given that women are now more successful not just in school but also at university, I wonder whether the changes in that balance will be reflected in a greater involvement of women in active political life in the future.
Secondly, the Electoral Commission points out that married men are more likely to participate in political parties than are married women, although the gap is smaller in households without children living at home. I wonder why neither of those findings surprises me. I recall the comment of a women friend and political colleague in around 1983 that women did not on the whole play much part in national politics because it was the third thing they had to do after, first, caring for home and children, and, second, work.
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However, the new determining factor distancing women from politics, which this report defines, is what its authors call "political efficacy"—that is to say, the feeling that women have that they are less capable than men of influencing the political process. Later in the report comes the interesting analysis that, where there is a woman candidate or MP, women are more confident that what they feel counts and that what the MP does is relevant to their concerns.
The report concludes that it would be very valuable to increase the number of women Members of Parliament as a way of involving more women in the political process. It does not, I regret to say, recommend instituting proportional representation along the lines of the Welsh or Scottish models, the success of which in attracting more women into those institutions was highlighted by the noble Lord.
The report puts the burden of achieving a change in women's political activism on the political parties themselves. It makes some rather caustic comments about the relative lack of success of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties in achieving that desirable objective, with which I must regretfully concur. The noble Lord, Lord Filkin, laid down a challenge, in particular to the Liberal Democrats, on the matter. I shall not go into it in detail. A motion was put before the party conference suggesting that we take positive action to achieve a greater number of MPs permitted—the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, made this very point in the debate—by the legislation that the Government had recently introduced. I am afraid that that proposal was turned down by the membership. Ever since then we have been struggling with all sorts of measures to try to encourage, help and train women. I am afraid that positive action is required, as every country has shown, to achieve that first breakthrough in the number of women Members of Parliament.
I want more women to represent my party. A major reason is that the sight of any body wielding power that consists largely of men in grey suits is deeply depressing for women. As the report confirms, they are more likely to assume that such a body will not have their interests at heart. The history of nursery education in this country, to name but one item, seems to support the realism of that view.
However, the authors of the report do not make the connection that came instantly to my mind—namely, that the first election in which women voted in greater numbers than men was 1979, Mrs Thatcher's first election. I never thought that the noble Baroness took much interest in the promotion of women's rights; yet it is possible that, just by being there as a party leader, she made a difference.
According to the report, another factor discouraging women from active participation in political life is that they are less involved in trade unions than men and therefore do not benefit from the confidence-building, training and experience that active union membership can bring. We have a distinguished body of men and women in this House who got that political education within the trade unions

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movement. Is it possible that the current concentration of so many men and women in low paid. part-time and probably un-unionised employment is relevant? Are those workers missing out on chances for self-improvement and public service that were available in the past? It would certainly be a great pity if that were true.
An interesting bit of evidence to which the noble Lord referred is that, in areas in which all-postal ballots were piloted in May 2003, turnout among women was 13 per cent above that of men, compared with 8 per cent overall. By contrast, women's turnout was 5 per cent less than that of men, where e-voting was trialled on its own. Where both methods were trialled, the gap between the turnout of women and men soared to 24 per cent in favour of women. I am aware that my noble friend Lord Greaves has rational doubts about the safety of all-postal ballots, and, doubtless, careful monitoring to avoid fraud will be a necessary accompaniment to new methods of voting that encourage higher turnout. I hope that that can be achieved. Higher turnout is a prize worth fighting for.
The reports collects a lot of new material. It is broadly in line with other reports from, for example, the EOC and Fawcett that approach the matter of women's involvement in politics at a national level from a more evangelistic perspective. Increased involvement would be to the benefit not just of women but of the political process as a whole. In the UK, as elsewhere, we can ill afford to ignore the skills and abilities of women in the conduct of public life, any more than we can in business or employment, which are the subjects of the EOC's most recent report.
I could give many other reasons for seeking a larger role for women in Parliament, and so could many other Members of the House, but the report has illuminated some of the more obscure factors surrounding the gap between the participation of men and women in active politics. It has presented new research-based evidence in support of its conclusions. It has suggested a new reason for promoting more women into political candidacy; namely, that their presence on the Benches will make Westminster more relevant to women and encourage greater participation in the political process. For those reasons, I welcome it as a useful addition to the evidence on what helps and what hinders women in taking up their true place in national politics.
9.12 p.m.
Lord Norton of Louth: My Lords, the noble Baroness addressed her comments to the report on gender and political participation. I shall try to provide some balance by addressing mine to the report on the age of electoral majority.
I shall address my remarks to the age of voting and to the age of candidacy. Before I do so, I shall address the relationship between the two, or rather the lack of relationship between the two. I have made the point before in your Lordships' House that the voting age and the age of candidacy need not necessarily be the same. The point that I have made, more than once, is
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that if we lower the voting age to 16, we empower 16 year-olds; if we lower the age of candidacy to 18, we empower the electorate.
The right to vote is a right that can be exercised directly. The right to stand for election is very different. That right is, in effect, to offer oneself to a party for selection and to the electors for election. There is therefore a sifting process. All that someone is exercising is the right to put themselves forward for consideration. Ensuring that the voting age and the age of candidacy are the same may be convenient, but it is not essential. For the reasons that I have just given, it makes more sense, if there is to he a difference, for the age of candidacy to be lower than the voting age, rather than the other way round. In our history, there is, of course, a precedent for that.
I shall deal briefly with the voting age. 'There is general agreement that there should be a threshold, but at what level? The argument for lowering the voting age from 18 to 16 is essentially that young people mature earlier nowadays and that, at 16, one can do things that one can do at 18 years of age: principally, get married, join the Army and pay taxes. The problem with that argument is that it does not hold water. Other than in Scotland, people can marry at 16 only with parental consent, and they can join the Army at 16 only with parental consent. If they join, they will not be sent to the front line. Very few 16 year-olds actually pay tax. The law thus recognises that 16 year-olds are not the same as 18 year-olds. They are deemed not to be as mature as 18 year-olds.
If one is to argue that they are as mature, the law must be amended to allow 16 year-olds not only to vote but to marry and to join the Army without parental consent. The Armed Forces will need to be told that 16 year-old recruits can be sent to the front line, which would put the UK in breach of the optional protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. If one adopted the point about taxation, one would have to give the vote to anyone who pays tax, which would create a rather distorted electoral register.
The argument for lowering the voting age to 16 is, then, not sustainable on the arguments presently advanced for it. One cannot simply lower the voting age to 16 without taking on board the other consequences. I see no particular willingness to do that.
As for the argument that lowering the voting age is a means of increasing voter turnout, that can be described as bizarre. The problem of a low turnout is the consequence of those already eligible to vote not voting. The voting age serves no value in seeking to explain a decline in turnout among existing voters. As for the argument that a habit of voting may be acquired when young, so too, as the Electoral Commission notes, may be a habit of non-voting.
On turning to the age of candidacy, perhaps I may give some historical background. There are precedents for MPs being elected under the age of 21. As far as can be determined, the qualifying age for election to the House of Commons has, in law, always been 21. Prior to 1695, that was held to be by the law of Parliament. However, several Members were elected while still

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minors. Some Members of Charles II's Pensioner Parliament are said to have been 14 and 15 years of age.
An Act was passed in 1695 that tightened up the penalties against minors serving, but that did not prevent the practice continuing. Between 1734 and 1832, 81 MPs were elected while under age, with all bar one being allowed to take their seats. Charles James Fox and Lord John Russell were both elected under age: Fox, in fact, had already made his name as a parliamentary debater before the age of 21. It was only after 1832 that the Act of 1695 was enforced.
I turn now to the pressure for change. Following the lowering of the voting age in 1969, pressure built up to lower the qualifying age for candidature. A call to lower the age of candidacy was made by the Young Conservative movement in 1970. Your Lordships will understand my longstanding interest in this issue if I say that I was responsible for that.
During the passage of the Local Government Bill in 1972, an amendment was moved to lower the age of candidacy for local government elections. The Government responded by setting up a Speaker's Conference on electoral law. The conference reported in July 1973 and recommended that the qualifying age for candidature be lowered to 18. The issue is thus not one that has recently arisen. The case for it has been made for some time and has the authority of a Speaker's Conference behind it.
What are the arguments against lowering the age of candidacy to 18 years old? I addressed those arguments in an article that was published in Public Law in 1980. Two of the arguments were practical; namely, that the lowering of the voting age needed time to bed in and that lowering the age of candidacy would, in any event, have little practical effect. The first of those is no longer relevant. The second is open to challenge.
Lowering the age of candidacy may help the parties recruit new candidates. Parties increasingly have difficulty in encouraging supporters to be candidates in local elections. Allowing 19 or 20 year-olds to stand as "flag-waving" candidates in hopeless wards provides an opportunity for a party to make a stand as well as allowing the candidates to gain valuable experience.
A third argument against lowering the age of candidacy was that it was not necessary for the age of candidacy to be the same as the voting age. As I have already argued, that is true. But, by itself, it is not an argument for leaving the age of candidacy at 21. It is simply a recognition that the two ages need not be the same.
The real argument about why the age of candidacy should remain at 21 was that 18 year-olds did not have the maturity to be MPs. However, the argument about maturity applies more to the voting age than it does to the age of candidacy. If most of those in a particular age range are immature, there is an argument against giving them the right to vote. That does not carry over to the age of candidacy. If the age cohort includes some
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mature individuals, why deny the parties and, more importantly, the electors, the right to make use of their services? As I said, lowering the age of candidacy widens the choice of electors. If a party wishes to select a mature 19 year-old, or even an immature 19 year-old, it is able to do so. It is up to electors whether they elect that person or not.
That brings me back to my opening point. By keeping the age of candidacy at 21, we are limiting the freedom of choice of electors. We should not be dictating to electors who they can or cannot choose to speak for them. I am all for widening the freedom of choice of the electors. The case for electors to make the choice is recognised by the Electoral Commission. Indeed, it touches on the fact that it has been suggested that there should be no minimum age at all, a suggestion with which I have some sympathy. The commission acknowledges that there are practical difficulties with that. It therefore recommends that the age of candidacy be the same as that for reaching full citizenship; that is, 18.
My reasoning is somewhat different from that of the Electoral Commission, but I reach exactly the same conclusions. The voting age should remain at 18 for the time being and the age of candidacy should be lowered from 21 to 18 and, as far as I am concerned, the sooner the better.
9.19 p.m.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, I have greatly learnt from and enjoyed the historical analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. As I listened to him, two points struck me. The first was that in addition to a much earlier Lord Russell and Charles James Fox, who I understand entered the House of Commons below the age at which we would now regard as attaining a majority, I seem to recollect that Pitt the Younger became Prime Minister at 23. The implication of such stories is that we should perhaps consider washing away all age bars of any kind and expect some tiny, political Mozart to stagger into the House of Lords and make a brilliant contribution. I do not for one moment rule it out. It would indeed widen the choice that electors are offered.
I should also like to congratulate the very eloquent noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, on the way in which he followed his own brilliant, intellectual maze and ended at exactly the same point as the Electoral Commission.
That leads me to say that I believe the work and reports of the Electoral Commission are excellent, clear, decisive and very strongly based. In its report on women, the Electoral Commission very effectively destroys two of the oldest myths that exist. The first is that women do not participate in voting to the same extent as men. That myth has been destroyed not only by the Electoral Commission but also by the welcome given to it by the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, and my noble friend Lady Thomas, and, perhaps even more surprisingly, by the evidence that where a woman stands for Parliament, she is not disadvantaged in the eyes of the electorate, which, as noble Lords will know,

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was assumed for a long time. Indeed, many selection committees rejected women candidates on the grounds that they would be likely to lose marginal seats if a woman stood for election.
The second is that, in some ways even more interestingly, although the level of interest and participation on the part of male voters does not change, the level of interest and involvement on the part of female voters changes quite markedly, far beyond any statistical aberration. That also tells us something that we did not know previously. Other research has indicated that, fairly or unfairly, many women are considered to be more honest and approachable than men. That is not a record that I would like to put at too much risk, but it is a matter that the Electoral Commission may like to consider a little further.
When she spoke about the issue of women candidates, my noble friend Lady Thomas mentioned that many women lack self-confidence. Those of us who happen to belong to the female gender are very well aware of the truth of that. We in this House may be among the exceptions, but any of us who has tried to persuade able women friends to stand for Parliament, or even a local council, will know how difficult it often is for them to overcome their own sense of inadequacy and lack of confidence.
There is another factor, however, and it is one that I strongly recommend the Electoral Commission to look at in more detail. Figure 8 in the report strikingly explains why, if women are given a level playing field rather than special measures on their behalf, they do not achieve as many positions as candidates or Members of Parliament as men. It indicates that between the ages of around 18 and 40, particularly in the case of women with children living at home, there is a very marked difference in the level of participation. I refer not just to participation in political parties, but participation in the whole of public life.
That is hardly surprising. We recognise that women still bear a substantially greater part of the burden of raising children and looking after elderly relatives than do men, although I am glad to say that that is beginning to change. But the striking fact is that the years during which women and men bring up children—between the ages of 20 and 45—are the absolutely prime years for politics. They are the years when, if you enter an elected House, you are expected to devote a great deal of time to politics. This means that as long as women bear a disproportionate burden of the responsibility for the family, and they do, it will continue to be very difficult for women, without the specific positive action of the kind described by the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, to be treated on an equal footing with men. I hope that the Electoral Commission will consider undertaking more detailed research into the particular issue of women with children and how far they are inclined to give up their participation in politics, and more generally in public life, at least for that period of time. Moreover, as we all know, starting again and re-establishing yourself is very hard in a competitive world, however able you may or may not be.
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I shall make one further brief point about women before discussing young people. While I fully accept, as did my noble friend Lady Thomas, the strictures made by the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, up to now—ith one major exception—t is fair to say that women have only broken through and thereby established, through role models, the sense that they can do so when there has been special action on their behalf. I give due credit to the Labour Party for having had the courage to introduce women-only selection. It would not be my most favoured method, but it created a huge breakthrough. It is largely because of the Labour Party that we now have, although it is not altogether impressive, far better representation, at 18 per cent, of women Members of the House of Commons. I also accept with some shame his admonition that both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats have a very long way to go in this respect. Until now, both parties have tinkered with the issue rather than taking the radical steps of the Labour Party in 1997. Indeed, it is slightly depressing to note that the level of women's participation declined between 1997 and 2001, and continues to fall.
However, one cannot avoid the big issue. All 10 of the legislatures with the highest proportion of women use as their method of election proportional representation. The reason for that is simple and human: where a constituency has multiple candidates—s even a country like Ireland, not one very advanced in terms of feminism until recently, has shown—he fact that voters choose from a mixed group means that out of a sheer sense of fairness, far more women are elected. Moreover, with the list system, as we discovered in the "zipping" procedure for the last but one European elections— deeply regret that we abandoned the system—e were able to achieve equal numbers of men and women.
The Welsh have been even more radical by creating constituencies for men and women together, thereby establishing a 50 per cent share of the electorate for each in the legislature. That exemplifies the way we need to go.
I have reached the limit of my time, so I shall conclude with one further point, which will bring in what I wanted to say about young people. In reading these commission reports, good as they are, we cannot totally avoid looking at the much broader situation of the loss of trust in politics per se. The figures recording trust in the Government have fallen from 56 per cent in 2001 to 22 per cent today. I am not making a party point because that is true for all of us: elected, formerly elected, and appointed politicians. We have to face the fact that Members of the Houses of Parliament are increasingly being seen as remote and part of a political class to which many of our fellow citizens do not feel they belong. Members of Parliament are regarded as people who are increasingly retreating into themselves.
One of the great questions we have to ask the Electoral Commission to look at in the next few years is what can be done to improve and increase not simply the participation of women and young people in politics but, above all, trust in the business of

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democratic politics. That will be a very big challenge, even for such an excellent commission as this has proved itself to be.
9.30 p.m.
Lord Monson: My Lords, at this time of night, and having taken part in the previous debate, which lasted four and a half hours, I do not intend to say much about the commission's report on gender and political participation. Indeed, I say with some diffidence that I cannot help wondering whether it was worth spending time and money on the survey, given that the analysis and the conclusions were fairly predictable.
I do not intend to say anything about the gender profile of election candidates; but the main reason that people—women in particular—are reluctant to vote nowadays is surely that, rightly or wrongly, they imagine all parties, or at least all mainstream parties, to be much of a muchness, in stark contrast to the state of affairs 20 or so years ago, when the battle lines were very clearly drawn. None of the current parties seems to reflect their particular beliefs or concerns.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, the point made in the Electoral Commission's report was that, if anything, women are more enthusiastic voters than men. They just do not participate in political parties as much as men do. That is the difference.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that intervention. I had not totally taken that interesting point on board.
There is a second, more sophisticated reason why people are reluctant to vote, which is to do with the "first past the post" system we employ in this country. Reasonably intelligent people who live in marginal constituencies know that their vote can actually make a difference. Where the sitting MP has a majority of 10,000, 12,000, 15,000 or 20,000, the electorate tend to wonder what on earth is the point.
When confronted with this view, I always argue that the total popular vote cast for each political party really is important. If a party gains more than 55 per cent of the seats with less than 35 per cent of the vote, which could easily happen under the "first past the post" system, the government formed by that party should, in theory, be less inclined to push through draconian and unpopular measures than if they gained around 50 per cent of the popular vote. Unfortunately, not everybody buys that argument; perhaps one cannot blame them because, so often, reality conflicts with theory.
I turn to the age of electoral majority. Here I believe that the Electoral Commission has it spot on. It is absolutely right, and I am delighted and flattered to find myself in the same camp as both the commission and the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, who has enormous experience in these matters. Provided that the deplorable closed list system is not in operation—and that is an important proviso—it is by no means unreasonable to allow people to stand for election at
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18. They will stand no chance of being voted in unless they happen to be exceptionally talented or exceptionally aspiring or, ideally, both. Should they happen to possess both those rare qualities, why on earth should they not be elected if a majority of voters judge them worthy of election?
To allow 16 year-olds to vote, on the other hand, is a bad idea for a number of reasons. First, we would be the only country in the civilised world to take such a step. That is not a conclusive argument in itself, but it needs taking into consideration. The second reason is the question of precedent, which is connected with the first. Countries which 50 years ago had unusually low minimum voting ages include—indeed, were confined to—the Soviet Union and white South Africa. Countries which at that time had higher than average voting ages—up to the age of 25, in some cases—included and I think were confined to, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, all highly civilised, well ordered, prosperous and liberal countries. As the report sets out, countries with minimum voting ages below 18 today include Cuba, Iran, North Korea and the Sudan, while those with higher minimum voting ages include Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan—Asian tigers, every one of them.
Thirdly, unless the age of retirement is raised to 70-plus, there is a danger that lowering the voting age to 16 might result in net recipients of state benefits being able to outvote the working taxpayers who effectively provide those benefits. The alarming consequences of that need no emphasis.
Is there any valid counter-argument? It is true that lowering the voting age to 16 in an era when life expectancy is rising inexorably would lower the average age of the electorate. In theory, that is a good thing. However, it would lower it by a year at most, which hardly counterbalances the disadvantages.
Finally, although there is no strict legal or moral reason why a government should not choose to ignore the carefully considered recommendations of an impartial, objective body that the Government have themselves set up, it is hardly a good idea to make a habit of it. The overriding of the commission's well argued conclusions about which regions were and which regions were not suitable for all-postal voting on 10 June, flying in the face of majority opinion in your Lordships' House, is quite enough to be going on with.
9.36 p.m.
Lord Greaves: My Lords, I am firmly in favour of voting at the age of 16 and I shall explain why shortly. The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, referred to standing as a candidate for election as a sifting process. I should declare an interest as somebody who is going through that sifting process. It feels far more like going through a grinder than a sifting process and I recommend it to all Members of your Lordships' House. It brings one down to earth in an amazing way.
I am not entirely certain that we need a thick, 82-page report in order to make up our minds whether people at 16 are old enough, mature enough and

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sensible enough to have the franchise. That is a matter of opinion and judgment. There is clearly no overriding principle as to what the age should be. I suggest that the principle is that we should set the lower age of the franchise at the lowest level that we think is reasonable and sensible. That is the only principle. It is just a matter of personal judgment.
A very long time ago, in the early 1960s, I was involved in a campaign that was launched by the Young Liberals for votes at 18. That was thought to be a quite dramatic and appalling thing to do by many people at that time. Only a few years afterwards, the government of Harold Wilson adopted and introduced it and we did not have a revolution. In many ways, it reinvigorated student and youth politics in this country, which was highly beneficial.
One of the arguments for voting at 16 is citizenship education. The time at which citizenship education could and should be really valuable is at sixth-form level, in FE and tertiary colleges and so on. Having the ability to vote would provide that added dimension. It would make citizenship education real rather than something for the future. That is an important point.
I would be totally against the suggestion from Camden that voting at 16 should be piloted in one place. If people have the right to vote at a certain age, they have the right to vote at a certain age. We should not have a situation whereby if you live in Camden, you can vote, but if you live in Tower Hamlets, you cannot. That is wrong in principle.
There is probably much greater consensus for lowering the qualification age for standing in an election to 18. too, really enjoyed the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. The matter is quite topical in my own region of the North West. One of the candidates elected by members of my own party— the Liberal Democrats—to stand on our list for the European Parliament, a young lady called Miss Lyn-Su Floodgate, found out only in the past few days that she would not be allowed to do so, because she will he 21 on 27 May—that is to say, between nomination day and polling day. All the information available previously, including the information on the Electoral Commission website, suggested that she needed to be 21 on polling day, on 10 June. However, it has now been ruled by the Electoral Commission and the Department for Constitutional Affairs—or, at least, it has been advised to the returning officer in the North West—that Miss Floodgate ought not to stand.
It is all to do with when the qualification comes in. For some qualifications, such as the rule that one may stand for the council only if one has lived in a place continuously for 12 months, it is obvious that there should be a definite date that applies to when the nomination takes place. However, everyone knows when someone is going to be 21—it is not something that can be changed in the few days before polling day. It is only a technical detail. Clearly, whatever age one had as a qualification that sort of thing would occur, but it is ironic that we are discussing the possibility of lowering the qualification age to 18 when Lyn-Su Floodgate has been refused permission to stand,
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despite the fact that she will be 21 on polling day. That is a technical detail of which I hope the Minister might make a note and which might be considered, if and when new legislation is introduced.
As regards the other report, the Minister made some perfectly reasonable challenges to this party—the Liberal Democrats—and to the Conservatives. Those are challenges that we have to answer and face up to. I find the phrase "positive action" to be weasel words, because I do not really know what it means. When people say "positive action" nowadays, they appear to mean what we used to call "positive discrimination". In the old days, especially when discussing racial discrimination and promoting a racial balance, about 20 or 30 years ago, we differentiated between affirmative action and positive discrimination—the latter being discrimination at the point at which an appointment was made, or whatever.
Our party finds the question of discrimination at the point of choice difficult to accept. A great debate has been taking place in the party—and no doubt will continue— in which my noble friends on the Bench in front of me are on a different side of the fence from myself. I do not know how long I am going to live, but if I a0m alive in, say, 20 years—perhaps by then most bodies in public life will comprise 50 per cent men and 50 per cent women on average. It seems to me that there is no reason at all why that should not happen within a reasonable period of time.
In the Liberal Democrat group of my own local council in Pendle there are 24 members, 12 of whom are men and 12 of whom are women. That has been the case for as long as I have been involved in it: it is something that we thought was automatic and natural. I am making my own personal attempt to worsen that ratio slightly this year but, no doubt, women will gain seats on it as well.
We are talking about means and ends. Can we achieve liberal and democratic ends by what may be thought to be illiberal and undemocratic means? That is the age-old argument. It is not an unimportant argument; it is fundamental. Those of us who believe that we have to achieve the ends that we want through means that fit in with our philosophy and beliefs have to prove that we can do that. That is the challenge for us. In some ways, we have succeeded: our group in the Welsh Assembly is 50:50, while our group in the European Parliament will almost certainly be approximately 50:50 after the forthcoming elections, if we make the gains that we hope. The selection this time was made without any significant discrimination at the point of selection. Some of us believe that a single transferable vote and forms of proportional representation will help to loosen up the political system and provide a better gender balance. I am certain that that is so in Scottish local government, for example, where in many councils the old male-dominated culture still continues.
I do not believe, as my noble friend said, that we are tinkering with the situation in our party. I believe that we are taking radical steps. There is quite a buzz within the party, and a transformation of the culture of the

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party is taking place. We have to prove that that can deliver the goods. It will not deliver the goods immediately because by the very nature of a relatively small third party, where often one depends on the personal votes of your representatives to hold your seats, change will take time. I believe that that change is taking place, as the report sets out.
For quite a few years the approval, the selection and the election processes of candidates for our party have included 22 to 23 per cent women. The number of women on our shortlists and the number who are selected is now more than 30 per cent. That will result in a fundamental change over a period of time, but I entirely accept the Minister's challenge that we, as a party, have to deliver on this.
9.46 p.m.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I welcome the debate, despite its late start. It is a particular pleasure to me to be taking part because I was a member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life in 1998 when the committee recommended the setting up of the Electoral Commission. The following year, the Government acted on that speedily. Since then the Electoral Commission, under the chairmanship of Sam Younger, has been extremely active and has produced a whole shelf-full of reports. The two valuable reports that we are debating tonight are the latest of them.
The report on gender and political participation is a research report rather than a report from the committee itself. It contains a great deal of useful information. That information mostly reinforces what we already know, in particular the existence of the gender gap. As the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, pointed out, some of the findings are encouraging, particularly the fact that there is no gender gap in voting. Indeed, where there is a woman candidate there is a gender gap the other way. It is also apparent from the report that the United Kingdom ranks relatively high compared with most other European countries, although it is true to say that it has a long way to go to catch up with the Scandinavian countries where there is a reverse gender gap.
The report shows that equality in politics follows equality in other sectors and in particular that the gender gap lessens sharply among better educated and higher paid women. But there is, as would be expected, and as my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby pointed out, a large gender gap where children live at home because of women's greater involvement in child care. The report makes it clear that having women as candidates and as holders of elective office strengthens other women's participation in and satisfaction with the political process.
At local government level matters are not too bad although there is still a considerable way to go. Thirty-four per cent of Liberal Democrat councillors are women; 26 per cent of Conservative councillors are women and 25 per cent of Labour councillors are women. In the House of Commons the Labour Party
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is well in the lead with 23 per cent, against our 11 per cent and the Conservative's 8 per cent. The Labour lead is due to the adoption of all-women short lists before the 1997 election, although it is perhaps significant that the number of women Labour MPs actually fell by six at the 2001 election. All-women short lists are of course a controversial issue in my party as well as in others, as is apparent from the speeches from the Benches behind me. Even all-women short lists do not obviate the need to take other steps to make political careers more attractive to women. I might mention in passing that there is still no creche in the Palace of Westminster.
A more constitutional issue, that has already been pointed out by my noble friends Lady Williams and Lord Greaves, is that any system of proportional representation, be it STV, a list system or a top-up system, produces a higher proportion of elected women. That is a good part of the reason why there is a much higher proportion of women in the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly.
Your Lordships' House needs to set a better example than we now do in terms of women membership. After taking into account the recent appointments, only 17.5 per cent of us are women, still slightly less than in the House of Commons. That is far too low. Of the new appointments that were announced a couple of weeks ago, only 14 out of 46 are women. The Appointments Commission scored best among that collection with four out of seven of those nominated being women. We in the Liberal Democrats were not quite so good with three out of eight, the Conservatives had only one out of five and Labour were, frankly, not much better with six out of 23. I believe that all parties could and should ensure that so long as Members of your Lordships' House are appointed, 50 per cent of new working Peers should be women. I see no reason why that should not be the case.
I might add that I am particularly delighted that my noble friend Lady Williams and I are both speaking in this debate because many years ago her mother used to go to Watford to heckle my wife's grandfather, the local MP, who was bitterly opposed to the presence of women in Parliament.
I turn to the question of the voting age, which was largely passed over by the Minister, although it was the subject of an entertaining and, indeed, fascinating speech by the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. On this, the Electoral Commission has given the thumbs down. I think that that was a mistake. Anyone who has been a parliamentary candidate will have spoken to A-level students at schools and will know that they are probably the sharpest audience that they will come across in the whole of the campaign. I must say that I remember an all-party meeting with the students at Holland Park Comprehensive during one general election when one of my opponents was figuratively torn apart because he made the mistake of speaking to them as if they were a bunch of 11 year-olds attending their first class on citizenship.

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There arc plenty. of 16 and 17 year-olds who are mature enough to vote and. of course, we all know that William Hague was one of the political Mozarts and was, no doubt, mature enough at the age of six. Those who are not mature enough at the age of 16 or 17 probably will not vote and, if they do, they will probably balance each other out and will not distort the result. There is, as my noble friend Lord Greaves said, a great advantage in getting students involved at the time that they are studying citizenship. People aged 16 or 17 may well be more likely to vote than 18 to 24 year-olds. The only research mentioned in the report confirms this. It is a study of municipal elections in two German cities where the turnout among 16 and 17 year-olds was 6 or 7 per cent higher than among the 18 to 24 year-olds.
I also agree with my noble friend Lord Greaves that once young people have voted they are more likely to continue to vote in the future. The arguments in the report against giving the vote to 16 and 17 year-olds are extremely weak. The report pointed out that few 16 and 17 year-olds exercise their limited rights to marry or to join the Armed Forces and that few of them are liable to pay income tax. I regard as wholly irrelevant the fact that they can marry with their parents' permission and the fact that very few of them do; that is a far more fundamental step than voting in an election.
The report says that the research shows the primary reason for not voting among 18 to 24 year-olds was that they did not feel sufficiently informed, and felt it was better not to vote at all than to do so in an ill-informed way. The commission says of that, in paragraph 23 of the report:
"This seems to us a highly responsible attitude that recognises that voting rights are not to be taken lightly".
Forgive me for being cynical, but the response is, in fact, a euphemism for "can't be bothered", and I think the commission is entirely wrong to take it at face value.
There are some points on which I agree with the commission. I do not think it is appropriate to have pilot schemes for the voting of 16 and 17 year-olds. I also think we should not have a lower age limit for local elections only, as has been suggested by some respondents. Young people will not be encouraged to vote if they are excluded from the most important and exciting elections: those for Westminster. I believe, with the Electoral Commission, and the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, that we should reduce the age for candidates to 18, but not below that age, even if the voting age is reduced. It is important for all young people to make the most of school education, and the time demands involved in candidacy—and even more in the membership of a successful candidate—are inconsistent with that.
I would not, of course, reduce the voting age to below 16. But at 16 and 17 many young people have sufficient maturity to be able to cast a meaningful vote. Allowing them to do so will strengthen their long-term commitment to the democratic process. The fact that some of that age group do not have that maturity is not an argument for refusing to lower the voting age.
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I regret, therefore, that I am unable to agree with the commission. But I certainly welcome both these reports as an important contribution to the continuing debate.
9.57 p.m.
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to comment on these two important reports brought forward by the Electoral Commission on gender, political participation and the age of electoral majority. We come to these reports on the hack of some very heated debates a few months ago on the advice given by the Electoral Commission on the national pilot of all-postal votes in combined elections. It is hardly surprising that the actions of the Government on that occasion, in failing to follow the recommendations of the Electoral Commission, should flavour my comments in today's debate. I very clearly thought the Electoral Commission was correct.
The Government have, of their own volition, and as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, formed the Electoral Commission, on the recommendation of the standards committee, as an independent body with the purpose of looking into issues such as those we are discussing today: research into participation in politics at a local and national level; on a gender basis; statistics on voter turnouts; arguments for reconsidering the age for voting and candidacy. Their scrutiny and study of these complex questions are an invaluable aid to both the Government and the opposition parties when considering the widespread disaffection which exists today in terms of political participation.
On the matter of all-postal pilot schemes for the combined European parliamentary and local elections to be held on 10 June, the Government did not follow the advice of the Electoral Commission, the one independent body with the necessary expertise to make informed and reliable comments on what would be appropriate. I hope that greater attention will be paid to these two reports.
I am glad to hear the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, today, and I very much agree with most of what he said. I am also glad that, I think I heard him say, the Government were not proposing to proceed any further with the lowering of the voting age to 16. Did I hear him correctly?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, I said that we were going to consider and reflect on the report. We have not made a decision on the issue. We are reflecting on it.
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I misheard the noble Lord. However, it would be appropriate for the Government to do that. It would perhaps give us a further opportunity to consider those matters.
There are a great many more questions to be raised about lowering the voting age than there are perhaps about some of the other matters dealt with in the reports. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, turned the argument around by saying that some will want to vote and will be mature enough to vote

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whereas others are not, and the mature ones may vote whereas the ones who are not so mature may not. In a way, a heavy onus of responsibility is created by enabling young people to vote. They may not wish to assume that responsibility at the age of 16.
The trouble is that children mature ever more quickly these days. Although the age of 16 may not indicate sufficient maturity to vote today, I dare say that in a few years they will all be earning a fortune through computer dot-coms and they will have to vote because they will be contributing so much in taxation that it would be quite wrong that they should not do so. However, that is a flippant aside and I do not think that this is a flippant subject. This whole question of who should be entitled to vote and what will attract people to voting is absolutely fundamental to our discussions and debates in the past years. Certainly for the time being, my view is that it is correct to keep the voting age at 18.
However, I think that the commission's recommendation that people should be able to put themselves forward at 18 as candidates for parliamentary or local elections is correct. There is a quite fundamental difference between 16 and 18. If one is entitled to vote at 18, as people are now—and this argument may come to bite me when we have eventually to consider 16 as the voting age—I think that they surely must be entitled to offer themselves for consideration as candidates. Indeed, many 18 year-olds are more than able to do that and more than persuasive in presenting themselves and in their political knowledge.
So I think that there is a fundamentally good reason why we should lower the age to 18. After all, as has been said, although one may put oneself forward, one will not necessarily be accepted. Some will be. Young people between 18 and 21 who take part in student politics already have to put themselves forward and sell themselves, not only at university but at the end of their school careers. I think that that is a very good example of how committed people can become at that age to pursuing an objective. If politics is an objective, then there seems no reason at all why they should not be able to do that as well.
There is a lot to be said for allowing that. Young people tend to admire their peers. As there will be only a few younger candidates, there will inevitably be a pilot study of whether younger people are prepared to vote for their own age group and whether that makes them want to take part in politics. Surely one of the things that is wrong at the moment is that people do not want to take part in politics. They see no relevance in it. If they did, they would want to do it. So there are very good reasons for lowering the candidacy age to 18.
Much has already been said about the gender gap not only as regards interest in politics but also participation at national and local level. That is hard to understand for noble Lords who hold a proud and privileged position as Members of this House. I speak as a minority voter. As someone who has been grounded in politics all my life I have never understood
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why people did not want to become involved in politics and committed to it. However, that clearly is an unusual and not a generalised view.
Slightly more than 50 per cent of the population is now comprised of women. In many areas of life in which women are encouraged to participate there is good evidence that, once the glass ceiling is broken, they take off. I spend part of my working life in the National Health Service. There is no better example than the health service of the progress that women have made as medical students and young doctors. There are now more women than men students in the health service. However, when women have children and gain other responsibilities, they account for fewer such jobs in the health service than men. There is an important issue here regarding the family responsibilities that women bear, and by and large it is women who bear those responsibilities. They try to balance many competing objectives. None the less such women are needed in Parliament.
Involvement in politics constitutes a huge commitment even in local government. However, it is probably slightly easier to manage the commitments of local government than those involved in national government. However, if we make too many allowances and try to make it easier for women to enter politics, it does not necessarily work. Many family friendly policies do not achieve their objectives. They do not necessarily result in more women entering certain areas.
The commission's report is extremely useful and helpful. Gender imbalance will not be easily resolved. But certainly all political parties—I say "all political parties" advisedly—must take an interest in it and be more proactive about it to try to get the balance right particularly as regards electoral processes.
The Electoral Commission is a body that was well worth forming. It is extraordinarily useful to have such a body that has time to devote to the relevant research and thinking on this very vexed question of how we reengage with the electorate, and how we make it interested in the politics that, after all, govern people's lives. I am convinced that the lack of interest in politics stems partly from the fact that we do not explain matters adequately. A great amount of the explanation of politics is left to the press, some of which it does very well and some of which will always be open to contention. However, I am not sure that that is where the explanation of politics should come from. It is up to us as politicians to try to make a persuasive case for what we do in the two Houses and to show that it is relevant and matters to men and women. We need to persuade people to get involved.
The final point that I wish to make is that it is more important when we consider ethnic minorities—people who have not necessarily been brought up with a tradition of the democratic process. Sometimes it is less relevant to them and the more that we can ensure that we engage the whole of those communities in what we are trying to achieve, the better.

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So, I welcome both reports. Not just for myself, but I hope for everyone else, tonight has done them a great justice and I know that we will take account of what the reports say as we think further about this extremely important matter.
10.10 p.m.
Lord Filkin: My Lords, as we know, short debates are often, if not always, the best. I will try to follow that principle myself in my few concluding remarks.
I was impressed by the response of the noble Baronesses, Lady Williams and Lady Thomas, to my rather sharp challenge and their acceptance that positive action is needed—and for explaining why that is needed. I respected that. I did not know that the Liberal Democrat conference had turned it down. All I can say, again with humility, is that we have sometimes had experience of obtaining the most unlikely votes at our conferences, and sometimes one has to try again— to put it once more with feeling back to the membership.
The noble Baroness was right that PR systems can increase the proportion of women candidates. Closed list systems have improved the proportion of both female and ethnic minority representatives and parties are also probably stimulated to offer a slate of candidates which demonstrates that they are offering a balanced ticket. The Government have given a commitment to review the experience of the new systems and the Jenkins report to assess whether changes might be made to the electoral systems for the House of Commons and we will fulfil that commitment later this year.
All I would say, while not resiling from that manifesto commitment, is that it should not be used as an excuse for not addressing such issues within parties. We would miss an opportunity if we put it off and said, "Well. maybe PR will solve it for us. We do not need to do difficult things". I would urge that that should not be the response.
The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, as he does so often, gave a beautifully closely argued speech, which I enjoyed greatly. I was fascinated by being reminded of minority MPs and, again, of Charles James Fox.
The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, was correct to signal that the issue of confidence and trust not only in governments, but in parties involved in national politics, is incredibly complex. But, that cannot be disassociated from the fact that the legislature looks so different from the population at large. I acknowledge that we are not looking for a crude representativeness
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in all dimensions. Nevertheless, there is no good reason why one should not have representativeness in gender terms.
The noble Lord, Lord Monson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, did their very best to upset me by reminding me yet again of the electoral pilots Bill and I will try to treat that with courtesy and pass over it.
The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, remarked on the almost unhappy experience of Miss Floodgate in that she was disqualified because she was not 21 at the date of nomination and that invalidated her from election. In government, we should keep that issue before us to see whether that is correct and whether there will be an opportunity to look at such matters. I was not sure that I was convinced by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, that the issue is just a matter of time, because there was an implication that we should wait while society's changes take the matter up. I apologise if I misjudged him, but I had a sense that he was saying that institutions will reflect society over a period of time. My experience is that that has not been the case. I give way gratefully and apologise if I have misrepresented him.
Lord Greaves: My Lords, I apologise to the Minister for intervening at this time of night. I was saying not really that but that it requires immense commitment from those of us who believe in a cause to bring that cause about. That does require some time, but time on its own will not do the job.
Lord Filkin: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that and I totally agree with him. The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, was right to signal that we have to look at what is in the nature of political careers that may deter some women from what they want to do. That does not mean that women are wrong, it may mean that the way in which we behave is wrong. The noble Lord turned the challenge hack to me and to other parties rather adroitly by saying, "What about nominations to this House?", which is strongly in the control of party leaders. "Touché", I say to that and I will reflect on it. It was noticeable that most noble Lords said they were persuaded of the Electoral Commission's argumentation for reducing the age of candidacy to 18. Again, that is food for thought by the Government, and we shall give it thought.
I thank all those who spoke in the debate, even at this late hour.
On Question. Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at sixteen minutes past ten o'clock.

Official Report of the Grand Committee on the

  Fire and Rescue Services Bill
  (Second Day)
  The Committee met at seventeen minutes past four of the clock.
  [The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Tordoff) in the Chair.]
  The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Tordoff): I do not think that I need to repeat all the rules of this place in terms of Divisions and so on. We may as well go straight into the business.
  Clause 9 [Emergencies]:
  Baroness Hamwee Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 40A:
  Page 6, line 19, after "order" insert "in case of urgent need"
  The noble Baroness said: As I understand it, the purpose of the clause, which is headed "Emergencies", is to empower the Secretary of State to confer on the authorities additional functions relating to emergencies, as that term is defined. The Secretary of State may do so by order, subject to negative resolution. I said "confer" as that is the term in the clause. However, I think that "impose" would be better.
  My amendment is a rather clumsy way of asking why the circumstances are not detailed in the body of the Bill. Why does the clause not set out the functions which fire and rescue authorities are equipped and/or able to perform relating to emergencies?
  The memorandum which the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister provided to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee spelt out many anticipated circumstances at quite some length. It referred to major floods, air accidents, accidents at sea, decontamination in the event of a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attack, and search and rescue in the event of the collapse of buildings. Unhappily, Members of the Committee will readily be able to imagine that fire and rescue authorities will be well equipped to assist when responding to those emergencies. That is what the public would expect them to do and the public will be very grateful.
  I do not want to suggest that the authorities should not undertake those responsibilities. It is common ground that modernisation demands a more extensive, more realistic set of duties to be enshrined in legislation. We heard last week how useful other clauses—in particular Clause 11—will be in allowing a much broader, more up-to-date approach than that in the 1947 Act. But, surely, if dealing with other emergencies is contemplated, we should have
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  something more in the Bill about what those functions might be. We have the draft order, after all, and that must be a starting point. There may be differences of view about the wording, but surely the terms of the functions are not in issue.
  If the Government are now in a position to say what those functions should be, it is right and proper that they should be dealt with on the face of the Bill. Unless, of course—and this is where my amendment has a tangential relevance—it is a case of urgent need, when a second order procedure could be used. I beg to move.
  The Minister of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Lord Rooker): I can understand why the noble Baroness has moved the amendment but we think that it is possible that she may have misunderstood the whole purpose of Clause 9, which is to enable the fire and rescue authorities to plan for and respond effectively to emergencies such as floodings or terrorist events.
  Much of the time of the fire and rescue service is already spent on non-fire emergencies and it has acquired a wide range of equipment and experience for dealing with these matters. The public expectation is that the fire and rescue service will respond to a range of incidents, including chemical, biological, radiological and, indeed, nuclear exposure, search and rescue work and flooding. However, the fire and rescue service is at the moment required only to make provision for fire fighting. This raises potential issues of consistency and effectiveness of response, as well as issues of vires, about which the fire and rescue service has become increasingly concerned.
  The effect of Amendment No. 40A would be that an order could be made only in the event of an emergency. This would not enable the fire and rescue authorities properly to plan for and respond to such emergencies. It therefore would not provide the proper legislative support that the fire and rescue service seeks.
  I appreciate the noble Baroness's point about putting our ideas in regard to emergency duties on the face of the Bill—I questioned this myself on Bills in the other place when I was in opposition—but if we were to list definitively all the emergencies to which the fire and rescue authorities had a duty to respond, then, with the best will in the world and the best brains in Whitehall, we would run the risk of missing something out and of not covering all possible risks. Simply by taking the power to create new duties by order, we retain the ability to respond to changing needs. That is why the clause is drafted in the way in which it is.
  We have supplied an early copy of the order to those noble Lords who spoke during the Second Reading of the Bill. The draft provides an indication of what the fire and rescue service authorities would be required to do in the event of emergencies such as flooding and chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear incidents. I should remind Members of the Committee that the draft order in their possession is not yet available to the public. We expect to launch a full public consultation on it later this year.

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  As I said, I understand why the noble Baroness has tabled her amendment and the points she has made, but I respectfully ask her to withdraw it.
  Baroness Hamwee: The Minister is right—I did misunderstand. But after I had read it last night, I understood it properly. That is why my speech was a little contorted.
  I would not propose that we should have something definitive on the face of the Bill. That is why I mentioned putting into the Bill what has been identified but allowing for a further order. Since so much progress has been made in identifying what might be needed in circumstances as we now know them, I think that the right and proper way to move forward would be to deal with this in primary legislation without cutting off the opportunity to extend the functions as they may be required in future. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  [Amendment No. 40B not moved.]
  Lord Hanningfield Lord Hanningfield moved Amendment No. 41:
  Page 6, line 36, at end insert—
  "(3A) An order under this section conferring a function additional to its functions under sections 7 and 8 for which a fire and rescue authority must make provision, shall also provide for the payment to that authority by the Secretary of State of sums calculated to meet the capital and recurring costs of such a function."
  The noble Lord said: The Government have implicitly accepted that the intention is to develop specialist resources within fire and rescue authorities. That is a sensible idea. They will deploy wherever they are needed but will be financed in the ordinary course of events, primarily by council tax payers in their home area.
  It seems appropriate to provide in the Bill that if the Secretary of State confers specialist responsibilities that are to be prepared and exercised for the benefit of a much wider group of council tax payers, the council tax payers of the specialist authority should not end up bearing the cost. Therefore, Amendment No. 41 seeks to impose on the Secretary of State an obligation to match the functions that he confers with funding of the capital and revenue costs of those functions.
  Perhaps the Minister can reassure the Committee that the Bill contains such provision elsewhere to cover any incurred cost. I concede that Clause 16 deals with reimbursement but not for functions conferred by Clause 9. I look to the Minister to explain how the burden would be equitably distributed or, if it is not to be equitably distributed among council tax payers let it be borne entirely on his own broad shoulders. I beg to move.
  Lord Rooker: As the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, said, the amendment would require the fire and rescue authorities to be compensated for carrying out any duties which may be specified in the order under this clause, which has already been
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  referred to. As set out in an early draft order which we circulated, we envisage those duties encompassing such emergencies as flooding and chemical spills.
  As I have said, much of the time of the fire and rescue services is already spent in dealing with those non-fire emergencies and it has acquired a wide range of equipment and experience in those matters. In the Bill we are simply creating a clearer legislative framework to enable fire and rescue authorities to plan for and respond to such emergencies. The only new challenge is responding to the increased terrorist threat. We recognise that and have funded it accordingly.
  It is not part of the Bill but we are providing £188 million over three years, which includes training. We are also currently discussing with the Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers Association and the Local Government Association the revenue implications of responding to new dimension incidents. It does not matter where the work is carried out—whether in its own area or that of another fire or rescue authority—the equipment, training and additional funding to cover resource costs will still have been provided by the Secretary of State. Therefore, we do not see any need to make provision for additional payment.
  It is normal, of course, for governments never to be thanked for the money they put into services, but I repeat that we have made £188 million available over a three-year period for the functions I mentioned; that is, over and above those which are taking place at present.
  Baroness Hamwee: If the Government do not wish to spell out in this clause the extra functions, the extra circumstances, how can they argue that in conferring functions—we know not what they are because they are not spelt out—we should have faith in the funding? I do not take issue with the Minister about the amount which has been paid to the fire authorities for new dimensions work. However, I am not sure that the two positions are wholly consistent. In the Commons, Mr Raynsford said on a group of amendments, which included, if not precisely this one, one making the same point:
  "It does not matter where the work is carried out … the equipment, the training and additional funding to cover resource costs will still have been provided by the Secretary of State".—[Official Report, Commons; Standing Committee G, 12/2/04; col. 127.]
  The amendment is unnecessary as of 11 May 2004, but how do we know about 2006 or 2016? I should like to think that it would be, but the amounts involved for capital equipment are great. It is very expensive. Things such as gas-tight suits are much more expensive than one might think. So we are talking about large sums of money.
  4.30 p.m.
  Lord Rooker: I will just respond to the noble Baroness. I do not have all the details. The £188 million is over three years. It includes £56 million for phase 1 of the new dimension project covering mass

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  decontamination. Obviously, that leaves £132 for phase 2, which will cover search and rescue. It covers training as well as equipment. As regards extra burdens, we have the new-burden rules across government, which we meticulously follow. We have to in ODPM because we are always reminded if we do not. But we actually police those rules because we have responsibility for local government and the fire service. So this is an issue.
  In addition. I would point out that ODPM has spent almost £8 million on new dimension training for the fire and rescue service. So money is flowing in for these new—if I can call them—"burdens". That is not quite the right word, but the noble Baroness understands the sense of what I am saying.
  Baroness Hamwee: Yet again we are in the position where either the Government think that they are going to remain in administration for ever or at any rate for some decades, or they do not think that the Bill is robust enough to stand up for use by a future administration. That remains my point. I shall try not to make it too often this afternoon.
  Baroness Hanham: I understand capital. That is easy because there is a very clear result from capital expenditure. One knows exactly what one is doing and exactly where one is providing. I can understand about training being provided by the Government because that will probably be done centrally and at one of the training colleges. That can also be identified. What I do not understand are the revenue aspect implications. If one has quickly to move people from one area to another, one may very well have to rely on their doing overtime. One indeed may have to bring in extra off-duty firefighters from elsewhere. So the revenue implications would be either overtime expenditure or payment for extra people. How will that be allocated to a specific incident?
  As I understand the burdens issue, it is easy so far as concerns the capital, but not so easy with the revenue because one would have to make special one-off payments to a fire authority. Perhaps the Minister can explain.
  Lord Rooker: I will give a little more of the background, some of which exists at the present time. There are arrangements for mutual assistance in the event of emergencies. One could argue that in practice there is no satisfactory arrangement in place to ensure the wider level of emergency fire and rescue service support necessary to guarantee the national resilience needed to deal with the new levels of threat, which is what we are talking about. So, it is essential that coordinated arrangements are in place in which every fire and rescue authority can participate according to its means.
  The Government will be supplying most of the equipment and the vehicles under the new dimension programme, but we need to be assured that it will be available where and when it is needed. That is why we need a legislative framework in place to ensure that authorities know what their responsibilities are in the event of emergency and can carry them out where and
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  when necessary without worrying about the issues of liability and level of access to the appropriate training and equipment.
  We already have arrangements in place for the funding of new dimension incidents, and existing funding mechanisms to meet the costs, which are the subject of continuing discussion between the authorities, the Local Government Association and ourselves, so we do not think there is any need to set out such an arrangement in the Bill. That is the point. We are replacing fire legislation from 1947, so one hopes that the Bill will stand the test of time. However, it will not do so if we write a load of incredible extra detail into it.
  Lord Hanningfield: There is now financing for equipment and so on, and there is a three-year programme but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, says, the equipment is very expensive. Labour is very expensive; the firemen cost a lot of money. The Minister said that the money was mainly for emergencies, but the Bill does not specify that; it could he for all sorts of other things that the Government might say that they need a fire authority to do, on a wider remit. Therefore, it seems sensible that there be a provision that those authorities should be paid.
  As we all know, fire authorities have had an extremely difficult time with budgets this year, mainly because of their first precept. Most had to raise balances that they had not had before. They are very cash-strapped at the moment. We may return to the issue several times later in the Bill, because we need to get clear who is financing what. Fire authorities are small, not big, and a few thousand pounds can sometimes make a lot of difference to them.
  Lord Rooker: I have something to say to avoid repetition. As the noble Lord said, the issues will flow through quite a bit of our debate today. I do not want to keep saying the same thing. When the points are made, we will take them away and have a look at them. I say that without any commitment, but the point is that the whole packaging of funding, charging and so on is in the Bill and subject to amendment. We are trying to look at the matter in the spirit of co-operation.
  Without commitment to come back with amendments on Report, where the points are made we will try to make sure that we have satisfactory responses. If the response is not that satisfactory, we will look at how we can clarify it, in regulations or whatever the case may be. I do not want to say that on every group of amendments on finance. The same theme will run throughout, because of the nature of the fire and rescue service and the way in which it is operated not by central government, but with input from them in terms of the funding, particularly the extra funding for the new dimension.
  Lord Hanningfield: I thank the Minister for those comments. He has agreed with what I said, really: we shall come back to the funding issues. I hope that, by

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  the time that we get to the end of the Bill, there will be some clarity on who is doing what. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 9 agreed to.
  Clause 10 [Directions relating to particular fires and emergencies]:
  Lord Hanningfield Lord Hanningfield moved Amendment No. 42:
  Page 7, line 3, after "State" insert "for the purpose of ensuring preparedness for an emergency as defined in section I of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (meaning of "emergency")"
  The noble Lord said: Clause 10 gives the Secretary of State powers to direct an individual fire or incident. I cannot stress how concerned I am in respect of that possibility. It is reminiscent of, I think, Churchill in 1912, and is a step that should worry us all. If we remember, the Deputy Prime Minister did not seem able to get out of his bed during a key stage of the fire negotiations, so it does not bode very well for him getting out of bed to direct an emergency or a big incident. To the relief of us all, the Secretary of State will not personally take charge. Therefore, the amendments attempt to shed some light on who will actually do so. We need to understand more precisely what the Government have in mind.
  I suspect that the Secretary of State will delegate the powers to a senior regional fire officer in each region, who will exercise them on his behalf in respect of an individual fire or emergency scene. I am sure that the Government will say that the power is needed to deal with only the most extreme emergencies. Again, I must ask why arrangements being put in place in the Civil Contingencies Bill are not adequate enough to deal with such super-emergencies.
  It is my understanding that the purpose of that Bill is to deal with major incidents and put in place an overarching command structure with the resources to meet their scale, as we have just discussed. Furthermore, the powers of direction of individual fire and emergency incidents given by the Deputy Prime Minister in the Bill may conflict with, or cut across, the powers of a senior officer who is responsible under other legislation. Amendment No. 42 effectively ties in this Bill with the intent within the Civil Contingencies Bill, ensuring that there is no confusion or duplication in respect of his powers.
  Amendment No. 43 ensures that the Secretary of State can take such an action only after recourse to Parliament. Of course, we do not seek to hinder the response of an emergency service to a major incident. However, I am concerned that the real intent within this clause has more to do with other circumstances—for example, those due to a possible breakdown in industrial relations.
  Amendment No. 44 is consequential to Amendment No. 42, if that amendment is accepted. Amendment No. 45 is designed to draw from the Minister further clarification on what scale and size a fire would have to be before the Secretary of State became involved. At present, I believe that this clause is simply too opaque
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  and vague in relation to the possible power that it intends to confer upon the Secretary of State. I beg to move.
  Lord Rooker:I apologise that my speech on this group of amendments is rather long but I need to put it on the record. However, the point is that it underlines the importance of the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield. In some ways, Amendments Nos. 42 to 45 suggest a misunderstanding relating to Clause 10. That clause provides, in some respects, a safety net to enable a fire and rescue authority to take action quickly during an unusual or catastrophic event. It is important to place these issues on the record simply because of the read-over with the Civil Contingencies Bill and so that there is no misunderstanding at future stages of the Bill.
  Amendment No. 42 would limit the circumstances under which the Secretary of State could direct a fire and rescue authority to ensure preparedness for an emergency under Part 1 of the Civil Contingencies Bill. As the wording suggests, Part 1 of' that Bill is primarily about contingency planning rather than response. On the other hand, Clause 10 of this Bill is intended to be used only to make urgent provision once an unusual or catastrophic event has occurred which no one has foreseen and for which authorities have been unable to plan. In such cases, there will have been no time to carry out contingency planning. It may also be the case that a level of central coordination is required. It will therefore be necessary for the Secretary of State to act quickly in directing authorities to ensure that the appropriate action is taken to preserve public safety.
  Clause 10 is also intended to enable a particular authority to be directed to deal with a particular emergency. For example, a fire and rescue authority with the appropriate training and equipment may be required to carry out search and rescue in an area in which the local fire and rescue authority does not have the resources to cope on its own. Part 1 of the Civil Contingencies Bill, on the other hand, is designed primarily to make generic provision applying to a range of responders.
  Furthermore, we do not see any need to use the definition of "emergency" in the Civil Contingencies Bill as the trigger for action under Clause 10. The definition of an emergency in the Civil Contingencies Bill is, by necessity, different from the definition in this Bill as it applies to a broad range of very different responders and so needs to be fairly detailed and transparent. We prefer to use the definition of the word as it appears in this Bill, which is tailored to the activities of fire and rescue authorities.
  Perhaps I may give an example. While fire and rescue authorities are involved in responding to terrorist attacks, they have no direct role in corn bating terrorism. Therefore, it is not necessary specifically to mention terrorism in this Bill. But in the Civil Contingencies Bill, which applies to the police, there is merit in specifically mentioning terrorism.

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  4.45 p.m.
  The effect of Amendment No. 42, which seeks to limit the circumstances under which the powers of a Secretary of State could be used to issue a direction for the purpose of ensuring preparedness for an emergency as defined in Clause 1 of the Civil Contingencies Bill, would be to restrict the ability of a fire and rescue authority to act swiftly.
  Amendment No. 43 would require a direction by the Secretary of State to be made by order. Again, Amendment No. 43 seems to reflect a misunderstanding of what Clause 10 is intended to cover. The power of the Secretary of State to issue a direction would be used when an unusual or catastrophic event has happened and its effects are already upon us—for example, a fire on a massive scale or an emergency such as a terrorist event on the scale of 11 September 2001.
  Such unusual or catastrophic events are, by their nature, ones for which fire and rescue authorities will not have planned under an order made under Clause 9 of the Bill. In such circumstances, and where events dictate that an authority needs to act swiftly, there would be very little time, or no time at all, to issue an order before the Secretary of State could direct a fire and rescue authority to take swift action. The effect of Amendment No. 43 would be to hamper a co-ordinated response by fire and rescue authorities to an unusual or catastrophic event.
  We do, however, acknowledge the concern about the powers of the Secretary of State under Clause 10. I wish to reassure the Committee that, although speed of action would rule out the making of an order, Ministers would make a Statement to the House as soon as practicable on making such a direction. Indeed, the issue of reporting to Parliament is the subject of an amendment to which we shall come shortly.
  Amendment No. 44 would require a direction by the Secretary of State to specify the circumstances under which a particular action must be taken in the event of a fire or other emergency. Yet again, this reflects a misunderstanding of what the clause is intended to cover. For example, Amendment No. 44 would not assist a fire and rescue authority's response during a catastrophic fire on a massive scale or an emergency such as a terrorist event on the scale of 11 September 2001. In the event of such emergencies, the fire and rescue authority, like the rest of us, will be only too well aware of the circumstances, and the Secretary of State would issue a direction, if necessary, to ensure an appropriate response to those circumstances.
  Finally, Amendment No. 45 would require a direction by the Secretary of State to describe the class or type of fire to which it applies. I need again to clarify this point. The purpose of Clause 10 is to allow the Secretary of State to issue a direction swiftly to a fire and rescue authority where circumstances require it during an unusual or catastrophic event, including a fire. An example of this could be where one or more
  GC 70
  incendiary devices were set off at co-ordinated times in a city and intended to cause maximum disturbance, chaos and casualties.
  Having to classify the type or class of fire within a direction would limit the Secretary of State's power so that it could not be exercised in relation to a particular incident. This would mean that a fire and rescue authority could not be instructed to respond to a particularly unusual or catastrophic incident quickly and would therefore hamper a fire and rescue authority's response.
  In summary, the amendments seem to misunderstand the purpose of Clause 10. I hope that the extra time I have spent explaining it has been helpful.
  The point that the direction cuts across the responsibilities of other offices and services is not correct. Under Clause 10, the direction can apply only to a fire and rescue authority. As to the delegation of power to a single regional fire officer—a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield—power cannot be delegated but will be exercised after taking appropriate advice from, for example, the Chief Fire Officers Association or Her Majesty's Fire Services Inspectorate.
  I am not criticising the amendments but, given that overview of the purpose of Clause 10, I hope noble Lords will concede that they are not necessary. As I said, they would hamper the actions of the fire and rescue authority at relevant times.
  Lord Hanningfield: The one thing the Minister did not comment on was my suggestion that these powers for the Secretary of State were extensive. They could be designed not for an emergency, which one understands, but an industrial action. The Minister did not comment on that aspect.
  Lord Rooker: I am desperately trying to avoid industrial relations issues during the passage of this Bill, but I may fail. The provisions relate to fires and emergencies. I am not a lawyer but I do not believe that industrial issues are the central purpose of Clause 10. I will come back if I am wrong on that.
  Lord Hanningfield: I thank the Minister. We will read his comments in detail. Although there should he powers to deal with emergency situations, one must ensure that those conferred on the Secretary of State are not so much that one loses the democratic element. It was suggested that Statements would be made in the House and so forth, but we need to read the Minister's replies. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  [Amendments Nos. 43 to 45 not moved.]
  Baroness Hamwee Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 45A:
  Page 7, line 10, at end insert—
  "( ) A direction made under this section shall be reported by the Secretary of State to Parliament within 14 days."
  The noble Baroness said: This, too, is an amendment to Clause 10 and the Minister has anticipated the point about reporting to Parliament.

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  I understand that the clause is drawn as a safety net, but it must he proper for the Secretary of State, having taken emergency action being unable to wait half a day or whatever, to report to Parliament afterwards. Even more importantly, it must be possible for him to explain himself to the fire and rescue authority which is the subject of the direction. The period of 14 days may not be right, but I wanted to raise the general point. I beg to move.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: The amendment would oblige the Secretary of State to report to Parliament within 14 days of making a direction under Clause 10. We take the view it is right that Members of the Committee should wish to ensure that Parliament is informed quickly of any order made under Clause 10. Indeed, my honourable friend the Minister for Local Government and the Regions has written to members of the Standing Committee in another place stating that the Secretary of State would make a Statement to Parliament either before exercising the powers under Clause 10 or as soon as possible thereafter.
  Having said that, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
  Baroness Hamwee: I was not aware of the letter. Indeed, the point came entirely out of my head and was not prompted by what was happening at the other end of the Palace. I am pleased that we have it on the record because letters to a handful of MPs are not the same as getting the information in Hansard. With that, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 10 agreed to.
  Clause 11 [Power to respond to other eventualities]:
  Baroness Hamwee Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 45B:
  Page 7, line 15, after second "to" insert "or in anticipation of"
  The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 45B, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 45C. Last week, we heard of the importance of Clause 11 and only after I had tabled the amendment did I realise that although subsection (1)(a) does not seem to anticipate events, subsection (1)(b) probably does. However, it is necessary to read them two or three times together in order to interpret them in that way. I now construe them as indicating that a fire and rescue authority would anticipate in taking preparatory steps.
  Amendment No. 45C proposes the inclusion in Clause 11(1) of a power to secure training as well as the provision of equipment. Why is equipment singled out? Is it because we are talking about particular equipment? I understand, for instance, that if this country needed really heavy lifting equipment, it might well have to obtain it from a country in mainland Europe because it is not available in this country. Is that the sort of thing that is to be covered?
  I wondered whether issues of personnel could be read into this by what is set out in Clause 5; that is, the reference to providing for power to,
  "do anything which is calculated to facilitate, or is conducive or incidental to, the discharge of any of its functions",
  but Clause 11 is not about a function. Clause 11 refers to a power, so I do not think that Clause 5 applies. I wonder whether the Minister can help on that. I beg to move.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: In short, we think that the matters covered in the amendments are already provided for within Clause 11, and I shall try to explain why. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, anticipated part of the answer in re-reading Clause 11(1)(b). As drafted, it allows the fire and rescue authority to take any action it considers appropriate,
  "for the purpose of enabling action to be taken in response to such an event or situation".
  it believes is one that causes or is likely to cause a risk to individuals or the environment. I hope that the noble Baroness managed to follow that. I think it is clear.
  The key phrase to understand here is,
  "for the purpose of enabling action".
  Its intention is to give fire and rescue authorities clear statutory authority to make arrangements; for example, to plan and equip for a response to a specific type of incident before that incident takes place.
  Without that ability, the fire and rescue authorities would not have the capacity to anticipate and Clause 11 would not meet its purpose of ensuring that fire and rescue authorities have discretion and, probably more importantly, flexibility to mitigate and respond to local risks and priorities; for example, those emerging from their integrated risk management plan.
  We think that Clause 11 is an important part of the new arrangement of duties and powers we are giving to authorities for the first time over and above their longstanding duty, which is now in Clause 7, to make provision for fighting fires. Clauses 6, 8 and 9 add the duty to promote fire safety and to respond to road traffic accidents and other emergencies. Clause 11 gives them the power to prepare and equip for responding to other incidents so that they can develop their integrated risk management plans and embed response to such incidents in their work. For example, Clause 11 will allow a fire and rescue authority to make provision to participate in a co-responder scheme. I am sure that noble Lords will remember that we discussed these schemes previously when we confirmed that the Government supported their introduction where a fire and rescue authority and local ambulance trust felt it was appropriate.
  While the Bill stops short on making it a duty on all fire and rescue authorities to participate in such schemes, Clause 11 does provide statutory authority for those who choose to do so. The national framework stresses the benefits and gives support to their establishment.
  While the Bill does not impose specific duties on authorities to respond to other incidents, there is a clear expectation that the integrated risk management

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  planning process will lead to authorities deciding to do so in whatever manner best suits their local circumstances. The clause will remove any doubt about the power of authorities to implement such decisions and their power to instruct their staff to do so.
  Other examples where Clause 11 could be used to meet local needs and priorities are where a fire and rescue authority judges it needs the capacity to deal with incidents requiring specialist training or equipment; for example, to effect rope rescue or animal rescue.
  Amendment No. 45C raises the issue of authority for training. The enabling power within Clause 11(1)(b) provides for all matters a lire and rescue authority requires in preparing to respond to an incident. In our view, it is implicit that this broad power includes appropriate and adequate training of firelighters. Such matters are necessary for a fire and rescue authority to be satisfied that it can undertake the emergency response envisaged under Clause 11(2). Indeed, not to do so could pose questions about the competence of a fire and rescue authority, and perhaps raise issues about liability and the health and safety of staff. I hope that that point has satisfied the noble Baroness.
  Finally, the clause extends the existing power to provide discretionary or special services under the Fire Services Act 1947. However, historically there has been a lack of clarity about the ability to equip for those services. Clause 11(4) deals with that problem, and it provides statutory authority to train firefighters to provide discretionary services. We had not thought that that would be a problem in drafting the clause in the way in which it is drafted. I take slight issue with the noble Baroness when she says that Clause 11 is not a function. We think that it is; perhaps we are looking at the title above Clause 10 on page 7. That confirms the point, as it describes it as being under "Other functions".
  5 p.m.
  Baroness Hamwee: But the heading of Clause 11 is,
  "Power to respond to other eventualities".
  The noble Lord may take issue, but I take issue with his taking issue. The Minister bracketed specialist training and equipment together when he responded, and then he said that the power to provide training is implicit. As I understand it—because I did not until he said this—the need to refer specifically to equipment is because of some doubt over the 1947 Act. I wonder whether we could be referred—to save us hunting after today—to which section in the 1947 Act that might be.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: Section 3(1)(e).
  Baroness Hamwee: I am grateful for that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  [Amendment No. 45C not moved.]
  Baroness Hanham Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 46:
  Page 7, line 24, at end insert—
  "(5) The power conferred by subsection (1)(b) may be exercised outside as well as within the authority's area in respect of events or situations relating to functions conferred on the authority by the Secretary of State under section 9 with a requirement that such functions be discharged outside the authority's area.
  (6) Nothing in this section shall be taken to grant immunity from criminal or civil action in respect of action taken by an authority under subsection (1)."
  The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 46 would insert two new subsections into Clause 11—it would, if I persisted with my intention to include new subsection (6) in the amendment, but I do not. It was originally tabled to ascertain from the Government that nothing in the Bill implied immunity for the fire services, but I understand that since I tabled it the assurance has been given by the Under-Secretary of State in the other place that that would be the situation.
  However, that does not mean that I am not persisting with the rest of my amendment. I want to pursue the point of the subject under new subsection (5). This subsection would restrict the power under Clause 11 to those functions that have been conferred on the authority under Clause 9, and in respect of which the Secretary of State has given the authority an obligation to operate outside its area. Without such a provision, subsection (1), which allows a fire and rescue authority to take any action that it considers appropriate in terms of the subsection for the purpose of enabling action to be taken in response to an event or situation, and subsection (4), which provides for the extra-territorial application of this power, introduce the possibility that a fire and rescue authority could establish and maintain facilities and services in the area of another authority. That would not be just to discharge a function for which the Secretary of State has given the responsibility in that area under Clause 9, but to discharge a function that it has chosen to take on under the discretionary powers of Clause 11.
  Clause 11 has extremely wide-ranging powers, which are linked with the ability to operate outside the area. This clause would create that odd situation. Amendment No. 46—at least the first part of it—would close that loophole. In the other place, the Under-Secretary of State said that it would restrict the ability of a fire and rescue authority to equip itself under Clause 11 (1)(b) to emergencies defined in Clause 9. Therefore, an authority would not be in a position to equip itself to deal with events and situations that its local risk assessment had identified were not covered by its core functions. I do not see why the Minister interpreted the amendment as doing that. We are talking about limiting the power of an authority to act outside its own area on discretionary matters.
  Two neighbouring authorities might have very different views of their priorities. They might have different agendas and, in relation to discretionary activities, one might choose to focus on one thing and the other on another. Is it reasonable then that an authority should have the right to pursue its agenda, other than in an incident situation in the area of another authority, which authorities appear to be able

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  to do under the clause? One would expect that to be done under other arrangements in the Bill and at the request of other authorities.
  If we want to defend the principle that the primary responsibility for the discharge of functions in an area lies with that area's fire and rescue authority, this particular part of the Bill is unsatisfactory. I beg to move.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: As I understand Amendment No. 46, it has two purposes: first, it seeks to extend the powers under subsection (1)(b) to events and situations relating to an order under Clause 9, which places additional duties on fire and rescue authorities; and, secondly, it seeks to clarify that anything done under Clause 11 is still open to civil or criminal actions.
  Baroness Hanham: I indicated that I did not want to persist with my intention to include the second part of the amendment—new subsection (6)—in my Amendment No. 46.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: I heard that first time around, but it is still on the Marshalled List. I just want to make clear that the amendment is not necessary on either point.
  So far as we are concerned, an order made under Clause 9 provides a fire and rescue authority with the powers necessary to make provision to discharge the functions placed upon it. That includes the power for a fire and rescue authority to act outside its area. We cannot see any obvious benefit to extending the powers under Clause 11(1)(b), as proposed in the amendment.
  As we made clear in dealing with Amendments Nos. 45B and 45C, Clause 11 is critical to enable and empower fire and rescue authorities to plan, equip and respond to situations where they believe that there is a risk, perhaps as a result of their integrated risk management plan, to individuals or the environment.
  In making those decisions a fire and rescue authority will obviously have to take account of local risks and priorities, as identified in its integrated risk management plan. Subsection (1)(a) gives fire and rescue authorities the power to respond in those circumstances. Our concern really is that if the amendment were successful, although in some ways it does something else, it would mean that the local flexibility would be lost and the power to equip under Clause 11(1)(b) would be limited. It would be part of closing down that flexibility.
  We take the view that a fire and rescue authority should not be prevented from being equipped to deal with all events and situations it determines pose a risk to the community. An example would be helping to save more lives through a co-responder scheme established in partnership with a local ambulance trust.
  I can see that there is concern that one particular fire and rescue authority might get drawn into something that it does not see as a risk in another area, but we need that flexibility across boundaries. I am sure the
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  noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, understands that that is very important. It is important that we have both arrangements in place so that mutual assistance schemes, which deal with the core functions of fire and rescue authorities, can operate effectively. The amendment would be undesirable because it would cut across that.
  Baroness Hanham: I thank the Minister for that reply. I am not sure whether my amendment or his reply is not quite right. To some extent we are at cross-purposes in our intention. We are trying to say that where there is a wide power to enable people to do something, there should be a power which stops an authority from taking action on a discretionary basis. We are concerned about interference between one authority and another. There is a mismatch between my amendment and the Minister's response, but that may be my fault or a misinterpretation.
  None the less, it remains an issue and I want to reread the Minister's reply. We may need to reconstruct the amendment and return to the matter in order to limit the powers of one authority to go into another authority's area on a discretionary basis rather than with an associated power. I am happy to withdraw the amendment today but I shall probably return to it.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 11 agreed to.
  Clause 12 [Other services]:
  Baroness Hanham Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 12:
  Page 7, line 28, at end insert "so long as such provision does not impair the authority's discharge of the functions conferred on it by sections 6, 7, 8 and 9"
  The noble Baroness said: Clause 12 provides fire and rescue authorities with the power to provide the services of their employees and equipment for any purpose they consider appropriate inside or outside their area. It refers also to commercial services which might be provided by the authority. It is useful to have those resources available for the benefit of the community. We have no difficulty with any of that or with the proposals. The services are being provided to individuals in the authority and it is therefore acting no differently from any other service provider.
  The purpose of the amendment is to emphasise that those services should never be provided at the expense of the core functions that are being imposed on the fire authorities. I am sure that the Minister agrees with the sentiment of the amendment, but I would welcome his assurance that the performance of the service under Clause 12 must always be secondary to the statutory functions of a fire and rescue authority. I see lots of nodding heads behind him and all I need is clarification of that situation. I beg to move.
  Lord Rooker: As the noble Baroness surmises, I am happy to give the guarantee for which she asked. The amendment is unnecessary. It is implicit that a fire and rescue authority must make provision for the efficient discharge of its core duties under the Bill as set out in Clauses 6, 7, 8 and 9. Not to do so, for whatever reason, would leave the authority in possible breach of its legal obligation. I do not need to say more than that.

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  The power in the clause complements the discretionary powers under Clause 11 that allows fire and rescue authorities to equip and respond to events and situations they judge pose a risk to people or the environment. But in no way am I qualifying what I have just said about the core duties of the fire authority.
  Baroness Hanham: I thank the Minister for his response and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 12 agreed to.
  Baroness Hanham Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 48:
  After Clause 12, insert the following new clause—
  "SETTING FIRE, DEATH AND ARSON REDUCTION TARGETS ETC.
  (1) The Secretary of State shall set a target for—

  (a) the reduction in the number of accidental fire deaths in the home; and

  (b) the reduction in the number of deliberate fires.

  (2) The targets referred to in subsection (1) shall be published annually by the Secretary of State for a period of five years forward.
  (3) The Secretary of State shall place before Parliament at least once in every session a report specifying—

  (a) the targets set under subsection (1)(a) and (b);

  (b) any changes to those targets since the previous report and the reasons for those changes;

  (c) measures taken or being taken to achieve the targets set out in subsection (1)(a) and (b); and

  (d) the assessment by the Secretary of State of progress towards achieving those targets."

  The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 48 requires that as part of the framework arrangements, the Secretary of State sets out annually on a five-year forward basis targets for a reduction in the number of accidental fire deaths in the home and of incidents of arson. It requires him to report to Parliament annually on progress in achieving those targets, which is not a terribly onerous burden. After all, the Government have said that reducing accidental fire deaths is the raison d'être of modernisation, so surely they will not object to putting that objective at the centre of the framework structure, with clear targets that are updated regularly, thus enabling them to measure the progress of the reforms.
  5.15 p.m.
  The problem is that the Government have reduced their own targets. Until last summer, the target for the reduction of accidental fire deaths in the home was a cut in the average for 1994 to 1999 of 20 per cent by March 2004. The reduction should have been achieved already, but last summer, the Government put the date for the achievement of that important target back by six years to March 2010. We covered that extensively at Second Reading. While they have been telling us that modernisation will save lives, and while fire authorities, required to reconfigure their deployments under integrated risk management plans, have already closed fire stations, changed manning and crewing arrangements or, as in the case of my own
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  constituency, removed fire appliances from fire stations, and have been busy with their integrated risk management plans, the Government have demonstrated a lack of confidence in the saving lives agenda by reducing the targets for accidental fire deaths in the home.
  I quote from the report of the Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister published in January. With regard to downgrading, it states:
  "We are disappointed that the Government has relaxed its target to cut down the number of deliberate fires and extended the time available to meet the targets on accidental fire-related deaths. We are concerned that Government did not consult sufficiently with relevant parties before relaxing targets".
  It is hardly surprising that the public are increasingly sceptical about the integrated risk management plan cuts that are beginning to filter through locally, when the Government are simultaneously downgrading the very target whose fulfilment is the justification for much of the modernisation programme. Indeed, the Government have moved the goalposts over the past 12 months by downgrading the target for reducing accidental fire deaths in the home. I beg to move.
  Lord Rooker: I realise that the subject of the clause is serious in terms of human life, but I was waiting for a smile on the face of the noble Baroness as she made her speech—she kept a straight face throughout. We are accused of "targetitis"; of having targets for this, that and the other. We try to cut the targets, because we do not want to overdo it, but the noble Baroness is bringing up another load of targets. She kept a straight face throughout, and I compliment her on that.
  The new clause would require the Secretary of State to set these national targets. We have been criticised elsewhere for the proliferation of targets, particularly in the other place. We are committed to the new national targets for the reduction of accidental fire deaths in the home and for the reduction of deliberate fires, which were announced in the fire White Paper. Any implication to the contrary is unfounded. As before, progress will be reported in the annual report of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, which is deposited in the Library of the House. If memory serves, the most recent report was published just a few days ago.
  I cannot accept any suggestion that the present targets are insufficiently challenging. If we take no action, we could expect an additional 200 accidental fire deaths over the period to 2010, but instead the target on accidental fire deaths commits us to save over 1,000 lives in that period. I am delighted to say that we are making good progress. Accidental fire deaths in the home now stand at 292 for England and Wales in 2002–03. That is the lowest figure for over 40 years. I will repeat that: they stand at 292 for England and Wales for 2002–03.
  The new floor element—that is, that no fire authority should have fire deaths more than a quarter above the national average— is also challenging. The highest fatality rate per 100,000 population is currently 200 per cent of the average. In about one-fifth of fire authorities, fire deaths currently stand

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  close to, or above, the target level. We are providing additional support to those authorities through the Community Fire Safety Innovation Fund.
  For arson, the target is equally challenging. On recent trends, annual incidence of arson could have been close to 190,000 by 2010. We are committed to cutting it to a little over 100,000. I am pleased to say that arson was down 3 per cent in 2002–03. Nor can I support the proposal for the fixed five-year horizon for both targets. As I said, we are happily in the position that accidental fire deaths are the lowest for more than a generation. Of course, we seek to prevent every preventable death. The number is already low enough to fluctuate randomly year to year.
  A fair measure of progress—and of the impact of all the efforts of the fire and rescue service, the police and other partners—requires an average over a reasonable length of time. That is why we have chosen to set the national target for accidental fire deaths as the average over the period 1999–2010. The target date also matches the 2010 target date for Healthier Nation targets, in order to signal the strong link that we see between fire prevention and the whole health promotion agenda.
  For deliberate fires, a fixed five-year target would not take account of the external factors which affect the annual figure. Two-thirds of the total is made up of car fires, often where a car has been abandoned. In recent years, abandonment has been an increasing problem as the cost of safe disposal has fallen on the last owner, due to a drop in scrap metal prices. I fully understand that the proposed approach is deliberately inflexible, but in the future there may be compelling reasons for different targets, for instance on false alarms.
  More immediately, some fire authorities are already setting local public service agreement targets, which include the reduction of serious injuries, in order to recognise this important category of the harm caused by fire, and to motivate continued effort in areas where fire deaths are already very low. We would want to introduce a national target on the reduction of serious injuries as soon as reliable data can be established.
  This is nothing to do with the Government's lack of confidence in the fire and rescue service. I refer to the introduction of the integrated risk management plans and the repeal of the requirement for the Secretary of State to approve decisions on establishment of appliances. The Government have devolved decision making to the local level, where best judgment is made about where the risks are and how to respond to them. It is an important point, which is obviously the subject of public debate at present. I hope that I have made my point. In no way did I wish to diminish the seriousness of the issues by my churlish remarks at the beginning.
  Baroness Hamwee: Before the noble Baroness responds, I thought that the Minister was going to tease her about whether this amendment was consistent with criticisms of centralisation. I am sure that she does not mean to suggest that fire and rescue
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  authorities should not be setting their own targets. Clearly, as the Minister has just said, they do and they will.
  There must be an argument that the Secretary of State is required to justify decisions that he takes both about how funding is allocated—because that must go to an objective, and one would assume that the objective is linked to targets dealing particularly with considerations that the noble Baroness has identified—and also tying it in with the national framework, which has broad targets in annexe A. The draft of annexe B as we have it—and I appreciate that this has just reached the end of its consultation period, so it is not in its final form—deals with best value performance indicators. If those targets are set from the top, the Secretary of State ought to be able to justify why he is setting them and explain the bigger objective of reducing deaths and fire.
  Baroness Hanham: I thought that the irony of the situation—that I should be talking about targets—would not escape the Minister. However, one is bound to talk about them. These were not targets that my party, the Opposition, had any brio in putting forward. These government targets were laid down as centralised targets to be implemented. There is no rationale—as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said—for "downgrading" these targets to the local level on the basis of best value. They have, apparently, just been allowed to slip. Promotion and prevention are required here.
  The arson targets are rightly in the area of antisocial behaviour; we are often talking about burnt-out cars. Most people who start fires are either ill or have a malign intent. There must be a clear indication that steps must be taken to prevent that. We do not understand why the Government appear to have downgraded the importance of prevention, education and promotion in working with other authorities. Now these targets, which the Government must have seen at some stage as being realistic, will not be met. The Government have decided to set targets. If targets are to be set, that should be done within the sort of parameters that we have laid down in this amendment. If you believe in targets—and I am not saying that I do—you make them, you stick to them, you report on them, and you meet them within a time frame.
  The Minister may have explained this, but I do not understand why the prevention of fire and arson have anything to do with health promotion. I find it hard to establish or see the link. Is the rationale for reducing the targets to meet some other targets related to health in 2010? There must be some rationale going on here that we simply cannot see.
  Who was consulted on the reduction of these targets? Was it just a whim when it was suddenly decided that these targets were far too difficult to meet? I understand why they are difficult to meet. It is difficult to know how many people are going to go around and set fire to cars and other people's houses, and how you begin to understand whether you have reduced those incidents. If that was the target, and that was the area that the Government thought was

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  important, the rationale that the Minister has given for their reduction does not stack up. I do not know whether the Minister wants to come back, but I am happy to withdraw this amendment for today, although I think that we will return to it—
  Lord Rooker: Yes, I have no doubt that we will return to it, hut I am happy to come back briefly. I understand the connection with the health targets. I am aware of a lot of other issues around about 2010. Decent Homes is a 2010 target. You have to look at the health situation in disadvantaged areas. You have to look at where the fires are; the car fires, the arson, and the fires in people's homes. They are not evenly spread geographically around the country. The connection between the two sets of targets is probably geographical as much as anything else.
  We are currently out to consultation with the main stakeholders on the new public service agreement targets on fire. We will report on the final target, and the Government will expect to be judged on the performance, as on all of the targets. As I said during the course of my speech, we have a lot of good efforts to report.
  I remember that there was a similar situation a couple of months ago, when we had a brief exchange at Question Time in the House over fire, fire prevention, arson and reduction in fires. I am not saying that everything is fine, but the trend is in the right direction.
  5.30 p.m.
  Baroness Hanham: I thank the Minister for that response. As I said, for today's purposes, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, although we shall probably want to return to the matter.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 13 [Reinforcement schemes]:
  Baroness Hanham Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 49:
  Page 7, line 34, leave out "other fire and rescue authorities" and insert "lire and rescue authorities for all areas which are contiguous with the area of the authority and may enter into a reinforcement scheme with any other fire and rescue authority"
  The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 49 is designed to introduce rigour and relevance into reinforcement schemes. As Clause 13 currently stands, the duty placed upon fire and rescue authorities to enter into reinforcement schemes is rather ill-defined. It is both prescriptive and yet leaves one hostage to interpreting the phrase "so far as practicable". Within subsection (1), the "other" fire and rescue authorities are unspecified.
  The aim of Amendment No. 49 is to insert more definition into Clause 13(1). That means defining the authorities with which a fire authority is obliged to enter into reinforcement schemes. Common sense suggests that geographical contiguity would be the most appropriate criterion. However, beyond that, there should be an ability—a permissive power—to enter into reinforcement schemes with other authorities, where appropriate.
  At present, the Bill places an obligation on an authority to enter into such a scheme with potentially any, or even all, other fire authorities. Equally, an authority that neglects reinforcement may blame that on the impracticability of doing so, and it would be able to do that because of the lack of objective criteria for the establishment of reinforcement schemes.
  We believe that that is unsatisfactory and that the principles of accountability mean that fire authorities will need to be sure that they have satisfied at least the minimum required of them by subsection (1). I hope that the Minister can agree to the amendment as it would certainly tidy up this provision and avoid any doubt about reinforcement schemes. I beg to move.
  Lord Rooker: We have not yet reached the point in the groupings list where I have a note that says "Accept", but there may be good things to come in the future. As the noble Baroness said, the amendment would mean that the fire and rescue authorities would be required to enter into a reinforcement scheme only with neighbouring authorities.
  Perhaps I may point out to the noble Baroness that Clause 13 re-enacts the existing provisions of the Fire Services Act 1947, requiring fire and rescue authorities to enter into reinforcement schemes with other authorities, and it simply extends them to apply to the new core duties under the Bill. As such, I am not clear why the noble Baroness wants to place a geographical limit or restriction on the co-operation between fire and rescue authorities in the way that the amendment would do. As I am sure she must realise, mutual assistance schemes are already in place between adjacent fire and rescue authorities and are integral to the day-to-day operational effectiveness of the fire and rescue service.
  One reason for including the new core duties in such schemes was to make it easier for fire and rescue authorities to participate in a national mutual aid agreement for non-fire emergencies, as well as providing simple cross-boundary assistance between authorities in the event of a fire. We think it is important that fire and rescue authorities work together in this way in order to meet the requirements of national resilience. I am not saying that the status quo is simply carried over, but no case is made for the geographical restriction implied in the noble Baroness's amendment.
  Baroness Hanham: The Fire Services Act 1947 did not relate to fire and rescue authorities. Has that not come about as a result of this Bill? Therefore, fire and rescue authorities were not in existence and will not be in existence until the Bill is passed. In fact, I think that, to some extent, therein lies the difference between these measures.
  The authorities, as outlined in the 1947 Act, will obviously bear no relation to the fire and rescue authorities that will come about as a result of this Bill, particularly if the various fire authorities draw themselves together to form bigger authorities. It is partly for that reason that we do not know at the moment the boundaries of fire and rescue authorities.

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  There needs to be more rigour within the clause in regard to who will operate with whom and which will operate with what. As matters stand at the moment, we might end up with nine regional fire and rescue authorities in this country. That seems very much the way in which the Government are going. The words "as far as practicable" are the Government's let out from what they must do and who they must do it with.
  We feel that this part of the clause is unacceptably woolly and needs more effort spent on it to make it clear for whom the fire and rescue authorities will become responsible, who they will work with and who not. Perhaps the Minister will tell me whether it is right that a London fire authority could well be called to Norfolk as part and parcel of what it must do, but only under very specific circumstances.
  I hope that I have made my reasons for tabling the amendment quite clear. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  [Amendments Nos. 50 and 51 not moved.]
  Clause 13 agreed to.
  Clause 14 [Directions as to reinforcement schemes]:
  Baroness Hanham Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 52:
  Page 8, line 20, after "may" insert "by order"
  The noble Baroness said: Clause 14 gives the Secretary of State the power to give directions on reinforcement schemes. Amendments Nos. 52 and 53 concern the process by which the Secretary of State would intervene to give such directions, and Amendments Nos. 56, 57, 58 and 61 relate to Clause 17 but would have more or less the same effect.
  As I said, Clause 14 deals with the Secretary of State's power to intervene where, by implication, authorities cannot agree to work together. This is an unsatisfactory basis on which to build co-operation and collaboration. Co-operation must come from the bottom up and cannot be imposed from the top down. However, we accept that the Secretary of State may need a reserve power to require an authority to enter into a reinforcement scheme to guard against authorities undermining a broadly agreed strategy, which it is to be hoped is unlikely.
  The circumstances in which such a direction might be given will invariably involve the Secretary of State taking the side of one authority against another in circumstances where one authority refuses to cooperate with a scheme that another authority is seeking to introduce. The amendments are designed to review and scrutinise what the Secretary of State proposes—which seems reasonable—and the decision by the Secretary of State could then be subject to parliamentary scrutiny if necessary.
  The adjudication process presupposes disagreement, perhaps even controversy. In addition, in the other place, the Under-Secretary of State said that the intervention of the Secretary of State in this area would not be routine. We would therefore argue that these are precisely the kind of circumstances where such a direction should be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. If the order were
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  uncontroversial, it would not necessarily have to be debated, but if what the Government were proposing was sufficiently controversial for one of the fire authorities involved to enlist the support of Members of Parliament to scrutinise the Secretary of State's decision, the mechanism suggested in the amendment would be a sensible and light-touch way of allowing it to do so. I remind the Minister that the Secretary of State's decision would probably override the wishes of a locally accountable authority to reject arrangements or to enter into arrangements that it finds appropriate for its circumstances.
  As I said earlier, Amendments Nos. 56, 57. 58 and 61 deal with the same matters in Clause 17 and would make the directions that the secretary of State can give subject to statutory instrument and therefore debatable in Parliament. I hope that the Minister agrees that that would provide the degree of scrutiny that these matters would need; something less than a full inquiry but more than simply an instruction issued from Whitehall without any further scrutiny. Scrutinising the executive is a core function of Parliament; I am sure that I do not need to say that. The aim of the amendments is to try to resist what many of us see as a growing tendency to make what is effectively secondary legislation, by directions issued by Ministers from their departments, that do not need parliamentary scrutiny.
  The Secretary of State would never have to make such a direction if all the authorities involved were in agreement, so there would be at least one aggrieved party as a result of such a direction being made. Such a matter is, by definition, contentious, and it is entirely appropriate that that direction should be made by statutory instrument and that Members of Parliament should be able to debate it if they felt it necessary.
  We were not totally satisfied with the response given by the Under-Secretary of State in the other place when the amendments were put to him. I hope that the noble Lord will elaborate more fully today on why, if he does not agree with the amendments, the directions should not be made by order and in what circumstances he expects such directions to be given. I beg to move.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: Can I clarify that the noble Baroness has grouped together Amendments Nos. 52, 53, 56 to 58 and 61?
  Baroness Hanham: That is correct.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: I am grateful for that clarification, as the group did not appear that way on the groupings list that I saw earlier. However, having looked at the amendments, I must say that they sit reasonably conveniently together.
  Baroness Hanham: If it is any help to the Minister, I can say that Amendments Nos. 54 and 55 are not my amendments. They will be dealt with by the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, and are separate.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: As I am sure the noble Baroness appreciates that Amendments Nos. 52 and 53 deal with Clause 14 which largely re-enacts the provisions of the Fire Services Act 1947. It allows the Secretary of State to direct fire and rescue authorities to enter into, vary or revoke a reinforcement scheme. The Secretary of State may invoke that power only in cases where fire and rescue authorities are unable to come to an agreement about forming such a scheme and. more importantly for the purposes of the amendment, only at the request of one of the authorities concerned.
  As such, the role of the Secretary of State is simply that of an adjudicator in a dispute between authorities over a practical arrangement. As is the case under existing legislation, all the parties involved will have the opportunity to make representation to the Secretary of State. If he feels that it would be helpful, he may even cause an inquiry to be held. We cannot see any good cause to introduce a further degree of parliamentary scrutiny.
  I shall now deal with Amendments Nos. 56 to 58 and 61. As the noble Baroness said, there is a similarity in purpose behind them. The amendments seek to make the exercise of the Secretary of State's powers under Clause 17 subject to parliamentary scrutiny. That clause re-enacts Section 12 of the 1947 Act. It gives the Secretary of State the power to require two fire and rescue authorities—I accept that the nomenclature will be changed in the Bill—to enter into an arrangement under Clause 16 or vary or revoke such an arrangement. The Secretary of State can exercise his powers at the request of either of the fire and rescue authorities involved or on his own initiative.
  Under Clause 17, the Secretary of State keeps his existing role as provided for in the earlier legislation; namely, to act as an umpire when asked to determine a disagreement between two fire and rescue authorities. It also enables him to retain the ability and the power to initiate action where he believes it necessary. Any direction under Clause 17 must be with a view to securing greater economy, efficiency and effectiveness, and can be issued only after consultation with the authorities affected. As on earlier amendments, the Secretary of State has the option to hold an inquiry if that would be appropriate, so that he can get to the bottom of the problem. Again, we can see no reason why the direction should be subject to an order-making power. Our view is very plain: that could lead to delay and cause uncertainty. It could affect the outcome or delivery of a public service should the order be subsequently revoked.
  I appreciate that I may not have given as much detail as the noble Baroness would like, but we see the issue as rather simple. We do not think that the Secretary of State should have to make such an intervention very often. I cannot cite to her interventions of a similar sort under the 1947 Act, but my suspicion is that they have not happened as a great matter of regularity. To introduce a parliamentary process would probably be entirely unnecessary and would interfere with the effectiveness of fire and rescue authorities.
  5.45 p.m.
  Baroness Hanham: As so often in legislation, the mischief lies in the fact that it leaves the most senior person in a service or in government able to make decisions without those decisions being scrutinised. If there were an arbitration system between fire and rescue authorities in some way at a lower level, one would understand that that could be done, but there is not. We are talking about actual government intervention in a dispute. That is what the provision is all about. It is for cases in which someone has not agreed or the Secretary of State does not like it—cases in which there is some pretty major controversy.
  As the Minister said, that does not happen very often. I would be interested to know whether it has ever happened. The fire Act was about a very large number of fire authorities.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: Would the noble Baroness like to give an example of where she thinks the intervention might happen, or has happened in the past?
  Baroness Hanham: No, I would not. The provision is in the Government's Bill. They say that it could happen. As things stand, there could be a different setup. We could be moving into having quite large fire and rescue authorities. As so often with such legislation, one has to imagine a situation. I imagine one in which there is quite a deal of contention between two fairly major authorities, and the Secretary of State has to arbitrate, by definition, because he is the only person who seems to be able to do so. I do not know what the effect might be of that arbitration. If he is the person responsible, he is responsible to Parliament, so he ought to have to report to Parliament on what action is being taken and perhaps why.
  The fire and rescue service will become one of the most important services in the country. The whole Bill is designed, along with the Civil Contingencies Bill, to ensure that this country is in a state of preparedness. That is what it is all about; let us not be mealy mouthed about it. If two fire and rescue authorities cannot agree and, for some reason, need to and the Secretary of State has to intervene, that seems to be a matter for Parliament.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: We do not see the issue that way. When it was drawn to the attention of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, the committee agreed with the approach that we had adopted. The provision has been in legislation since 1947; we are simply re-enacting it. We are not aware that the umpiring or arbitrating role has ever had to be used, but its presence will probably be helpful if there is a dispute in future. I am not keen to see us make the Bill more complicated by adding an extra layer of consideration and having orders brought before Parliament. We see the matter as simply administrative and we do not think that the noble Baroness's approach is helpful.
  The noble Baroness is obviously very exercised by the issue. It may be useful if we give a little consideration to the way in which the Secretary of

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  State's power to act on his own initiative is subject to other clauses. We shall have another look at it in that light, but the problem that the noble Baroness sees may not be as big as she imagines. We think that the powers have worked pretty well to date using the old legislation. The clause simply updates that.
  Baroness Hanham: I will return to the matter. I am no more exercised about it than I am about trying to ensure that the legislation is implemented with proper scrutiny. It is a danger to say that this one measure is being lifted from the 1947 fire Act and being put into the Bill because this Bill is not the 1947 Act. It is quite different and has quite different implications, responsibilities and co-operative powers.
  I hear what the Minister says and will be very glad if, at a later stage, he is able to produce examples of where the power has been necessary—a matter on which he challenged me. If the power is only a reserve power and is exercised only at the last minute and at a serious level, we need to direct our minds to whether it is appropriate for it to be used in conjunction with Parliament. I cannot take the matter any further today and therefore I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  [Amendment No. 53 not moved]
  Clause 14 agreed to.
  Clause 15 [Arrangements with other employers of fire-fighters]
  Lord Hanningfield Lord Hanningfield moved Amendment No. 54:
  Page 8, line 33, leave out subsection (2).
  The noble Lord said: Clause 15 deals with fire authorities which want to make arrangements with private-sector or third-party providers of support whom they may wish to use in certain circumstances. It is a perfectly sensible arrangement and one to which we are happy to lend our support. The obvious case that springs to mind is that of employers of private fire brigades. Such examples, of course, include airports that have their own firefighting services, together with other companies that operate in ports, large-scale industrial complexes and power stations.
  However, a number of issues arise from the clause and I would welcome the Minister's thoughts on them. That is why we tabled the amendments. Amendment No. 55 would introduce a new subsection giving fire and rescue authorities broader powers to enter into arrangements relating to the functions under Clause 6. That is the fire-safety promotion clause, which is not mentioned in Clause 15. Clause 8 refers to road traffic accidents. Clause 9 refers to emergencies as defined by the Secretary of State, and Clause 11 deals with discretionary services and the power to respond to other eventualities. In relation to those functions, fire authorities could enter into arrangements on a commercial basis with any third parties that they found appropriate.
  Amendment No. 54 would delete subsection (2), which explicitly prevents the entering into of such an arrangement with another fire and rescue authority. I
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  can see where such an idea would come from in the climate of 1947, as mentioned previously by my noble friend Lady Hanham: mutual reinforcement was seen as good, and arm's-length commercial transactions as bad. We have moved on a lot since then, and it must be possible for the Minister to envisage mutual reinforcement schemes as appropriate in some cases while, in others, there could be an arrangement—more on a one-way, arm's-length basis—with an authority that specialised in, say, road traffic accident rescue.
  I see no reason to exclude an arm's-length arrangement with another fire authority. It must be for each individual authority to decide what is best for its circumstances. We should not constrain them. I beg to move.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: Amendment No. 54 would remove the restriction that arrangements under Clause 15 cannot be made with another fire and rescue authority. Amendment No. 55 would widen the scope of Clause 15, allowing a fire and rescue authority to secure the assistance of any organisation in discharging its functions under Clauses 6, 8, 9 or 11.
  Clause 15 should be read in conjunction with Clause 13, which provides for reinforcement schemes. The effect of Clause 15 is to give fire and rescue authorities the flexibility to complement reinforcement schemes by making arrangements with other employers of firefighters. The noble Lord referred to airport fire services, which are a very good example. They might agree to respond to road traffic accidents near the airport when requested to do so by the local fire and rescue authority.
  Our view is very simple: we believe that the amendments are unnecessary and confusing. The first would remove Clause 15(2). That provision ensures that there is no overlap between Clause 13, which relates to mutual assistance between two fire and rescue authorities, and Clause 15, which relates to arrangements between fire and rescue authorities and other employers of firefighters. The second amendment would break the symmetry with the reinforcement schemes under Clause 13 and confuse the relationship with Clause 16. The amendments would undermine the sensible purposes of those clauses and remove a level of useful and beneficial flexibility. I hope that the noble Lord does not feel inclined to press the amendments at some later stage.
  Lord Hanningfield: I thank the Minister for that response. We seem to desire the same result, but we wanted to add a little clarity with our amendments. He acknowledged that airports and other people have their own firefighting schemes and businesses, which could help at various times in some circumstances. We shall look at what he said and, I am sure, come back to the matter. There does not seem to be much difference in what we are talking about, except in terms of the various words that we use to describe it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  [Amendment No. 55 not moved.]
  Clause 15 agreed to.
  Clause 16 agreed to.
  Clause 17 [Directions as to arrangements under section 16]:
  [Amendments Nos. 56 to 58 not moved.]
  Lord Hanningfield Lord Hanningfield moved Amendment No. 59:
  Page 9, line 15, leave out from "(1)" to "one" in line 16 and insert "only if requested to do so by"
  The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No.59, I should like to speak to Amendment No. 60, too. It is not grouped with Amendment No. 59 but I shall be very brief. Clause 17 deals with the Secretary of State's power to direct the discharge of functions by one authority on behalf of another, or by one body on behalf of another. We are concerned not about the underlying ability to enter into those arrangements but about the Secretary of State's power to direct such arrangements. That takes us back to an earlier amendment. We believe that responsibility and accountability for the discharge of functions must lie with the individual authority.
  We strongly support the making of arrangements between authorities—and between authorities and third parties, as we have just talked about—for the efficient, effective and economical discharge of their duties. The arrangements must be on a voluntary basis. The power of the Secretary of State to order that a fire authority's functions he discharged by others is inconsistent with the maintenance of a locally managed and accountable service.
  Amendment No. 59 would limit the Secretary of' State's power to make an arrangement for the discharge of functions to a situation in which he had been requested to do so by one of the parties involved. In other words, it would eliminate the power of the Secretary of State to act on his own initiative. Amendment No. 60 would change the meaning of subsection (3)(b) to require an inquiry to be held before a direction was made, whereas the Bill is purely permissive and allows the Secretary of State to hold an inquiry if he wishes. It would substitute "shall" for "may". I beg to move.
  6 p.m.
  Lord Rooker: The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, said that he was moving Amendment No. 59 and wanted to speak to Amendment No. 62; but he also mentioned Amendment No. 60.
  Lord Hanningfield: I meant Amendment No. 60.
  Baroness Hamwee: He meant "Amendment No. 60, too".
  Lord Rooker: Got it! It is amazing. I remember the film "The Conversation": it is the way in which the words are said; the meaning can be totally different.
  In responding on Amendment No. 59, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 60. The amendment would remove the Secretary of State's power to direct two fire and rescue authorities to enter into an arrangement for the discharge of any of their functions without a request from one of the authorities. I want to make it
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  absolutely clear that the provisions in Clause 17 reenact Section 12 of the Fire Services Act 1947. That gives the Secretary of State a dual role with regard to the delegation of the discharge of functions. First, he can act as umpire between two fire and rescue authorities when they disagree about delegation arrangements. However, he can also act on his own initiative should he become aware of an arrangement already in place which he considers, on advice, endangers the economy, efficiency or effectiveness of the service provided to the public, or where he considers, on advice, that such an arrangement would be appropriate and beneficial.
  That power to initiate action, which exists under the 1947 Act, is an important safeguard. It would be quite ridiculous if, as would be the case under the amendment, the Secretary of State could not intervene in such circumstances unless invited to do so by one of the parties.
  I fully accept the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, about having a locally delivered service. But the fact is that we are re-enacting a provision in existing legislation. I accept that it is for a new regime—the fire and rescue service rather than just for the fire brigades. However, I would also add that, before he makes any direction, the Secretary of State must give the affected fire and rescue authorities the opportunity to make representations to him. Of course, he may set up an inquiry, if appropriate. Amendment No. 60 would oblige the Secretary of State to cause an inquiry to be held before he gave any direction.
  As I have already said, Clause 17 re-enacts provisions in Section 12 of the Fire Services Act 1947. It enables the Secretary of State to discharge those functions, sometimes acting as an umpire, and any direction under Clause 17 must he made with a view to securing greater economy, efficiency and effectiveness. As I said, he must give the fire and rescue authorities concerned opportunities to make representations.
  The amendment would oblige the Secretary of State to hold an inquiry. It is possible that an inquiry would not be necessary, and that could lead to unacceptable delays. But the fact is that he could hold an inquiry, if required; and the obligation to hold an inquiry could lead to significant delays. As Clause 17 is drafted, it allows the Secretary of State to hold an inquiry where appropriate and he would have to take the delay into account. By definition, an inquiry is bound to lead to a delay. Whether the delay is acceptable depends on the circumstances and what its consequences might be.
  The central point that I am making to the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, is that this is not new material. It comes from the 1947 Act—traditional legislation for modern methods, one might say.
  Baroness Hamwee: Before the noble Lord responds, I have a question relating to Amendment No. 60. I can understand that he may wish the Committee to consider that the Secretary of State should be required to call an inquiry if he is giving a direction on his own initiative, but would it be equally appropriate if the direction was at the request of one of the authorities or,

  GC 91
  indeed, at the request of more than one authority? Is his concern that there may be a dispute? Is that what it is about?
  Lord Hanningfield: In reply to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, if there is a disagreement between authorities, there should be an inquiry. Therefore, I would say that if there are differences between authorities, there should be an inquiry. I heard what the Minister said about the Secretary of State's powers in the 1947 Act, but that does not mean that those powers need to be exactly the same in this Act. On Report, we shall have to consider the Secretary of State's powers throughout the whole Bill. I am sure that we shall debate what should be locally determined and what should be a power of the Secretary of State.
  I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  [Amendments Nos. 60 and 61 not moved.]
  Clause 17 agreed to.
  Clause 18 [Training centres]:
  Baroness Hamwee Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 61A:
  Page 9, line 32, after "functions" insert "whether to its employees, the employees of other fire and rescue authorities or to any other person"
  The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 61A seeks clarification or, in our terminology, it seeks to probe whether the training centre can provide education and training for those who are outside the authority, outside its employment or, indeed, outside the employment of any fire and rescue authority. Can the authority use a training centre to provide training for employees of other authorities or for anyone? One can imagine that there may be private sector customers for such provision. I did not realise that it would be a neat way into the charging provisions, but perhaps it is some sort of introduction. I beg to move.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: I think that the noble Baroness is simply seeking to find out whether fire and rescue authorities have specific authority to provide training to their own employees and to employees of other fire and rescue authorities. If that is the case, we think that the amendment is unnecessary because Clause 18 is a re-enactment of Section 23(3) of the Fire Services Act 1947, which enables fire and rescue authorities to establish and maintain training centres.
  As I am sure the noble Baroness knows, a number of fire and rescue authorities already provide training for other fire and rescue employees in addition to their own, or they have established joint training centres in partnership with neighbouring authorities. Clause 18 does not specify to whom a fire and rescue authority may provide training and, in our view, it is implicit that it already provides authorities with appropriate powers. That may well apply not only to fire and rescue authorities but to private sector fire service providers of one form or another.
  The amendment adds nothing other than the phrase "an avoidance of doubt". We take the general view that that expression is not particularly helpful because
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  in itself it creates a doubt. We believe that the provision is perfectly sound, that it works and that it effectively re-enacts what was there previously. I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
  Baroness Hamwee: I am a little puzzled by "the avoidance of doubt"; that was not part of my amendment Perhaps the noble Lord is saying that that is implicit.
  Having said that this is a re-enactment of Section 23(3) of the 1947 Act, the noble Lord dealt with the private sector. However, that section states:
  "A fire authority may establish and maintain training centres for providing courses of instruction for members of their own or other fire brigades and for training persons for service in fire brigades".
  So, if it is a re-enactment and is intended to be confined to Section 23(3), unless the print-out which I have lacks an amendment which was added later, Section 23(3) of the old Act does not seem to extend to the private sector. In this day and age, I think we would expect it to.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: I think that the noble Baroness may be right. I am always prepared to own up to these things. The new clause is a re-enactment of the old section, but it does widen it. Therefore, for those reasons, it enables private sector fire service providers—private firefighting authorities, as it were—to have training provided. However, I believe in practice arrangements have been made that enable the private sector to access fire service training of a similar sort.
  As regards "the avoidance of doubt", what I said was not quite right. It is not in the amendment but that is its effect and it does not really help us in terms of drafting the legislation.
  Baroness Hamwee: Indeed, it does not. The Minister is right in reading that into my mind; it must be implicit. I am grateful for the clarification. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 18 agreed to.
  Clause 19 [Charging]:
  The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lyell): I have to remind the Committee that if Amendment No. 62 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments Nos. 62A and 62B because of pre-emption.
  Lord Hanningfield Lord Hanningfield moved Amendment No. 62:
  Page 9, line 34, leave out subsection (1) and insert—
  "( 1 ) Subject to the following provisions, a fire and rescue authority may charge a person for providing a service to him if—

  (a) the authority is authorised, but not required, by an enactment to provide the service to him, and

  (b) he has agreed to the provision."

  The noble Lord said: Clause 19 deals with what we on these Benches consider to be one of the most contentious parts of the Bill; that is, the issue of charging. In moving the amendment, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 62.
  The Bill gives the Secretary of State order-making powers to set out services for which an authority may charge and who will be charged, in addition to authorities' existing discretionary powers. There will be a statutory prohibition on charging for extinguishing fires or for protecting life and property in the event of fires, except fires under the sea—I am not sure about that—and for emergency medical assistance.
  However, the Bill makes clear that if charges are made, they must not exceed the fire and rescue authorities' costs. That is in sharp distinction to the present power to charge, which enables authorities to make such charge as it may determine.
  Whilst on the one hand we support fully the idea that authorities should not charge for performing their statutory duty as set down in the Bill, we believe that the Bill runs contrary to the position of' other local authorities when it comes to charging. We all debated in this room the Local Government Act 2003, which enables an order to be made authorising charges above cost provided the authority provides the service via a company. On consulting on its proposed use of the new powers under Clause 19, the Government stated that they do not propose to allow fire authorities to be included in such an order until a bespoke comprehensive performance assessment is introduced for them in 2005 as it is felt that it is appropriate for trading freedoms for fire authorities to flow only from their own CPA assessments.
  Amendment No. 62 therefore seeks to place fire authorities on a similar footing to other local authorities by placing the discretion for charging in the hands of the relevant fire authority. We believe that the order-making powers for the Secretary of State contained within Clause 19(1) are unduly burdensome, given the freedoms and discretion that already exist for local authorities. I beg to move.
  6.15 p. m.
  Lord Rooker: The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, said that he had arrived at what he described as the most contentious part of the Bill, which concerns money. During the course of this group of amendments, we may learn a thing or two about the entrepreneurs in the Essex fire brigade, and so he brings his experience to our deliberations. The noble Lord may find that we are not so far apart as he might think.
  Amendment No. 62 is phrased in the same terms as Section 93 of the Local Government Act 2003. That section deals with the provision of discretionary services by best value authorities. Those are services which the authority is allowed to provide but which are not obligatory. We do not consider that Section 93 or a provision in similar terms would he a suitable substitute for the charging provisions that exist in Section 3 of the Fire Services Act 1947. That is why we have brought forward Clause 19.
  The first effect of Amendment No. 62, as a mirror to Section 93 of the 2003 Act, would be to restrict the services for which authorities can charge to those
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  which they are not obliged to provide. At present, authorities are only obliged to provide a response to fire calls, although in practice they tend to respond to a fairly large range of requests. We have made provision in the Bill for that situation to change and have imposed additional response requirements on the service in respect of traffic accidents and other non-fire incidents.
  We gave a commitment in the White Paper that the power to charge for dealing with non-fire incidents would continue. Our proposals fulfil that commitment and continue the prohibition on charging for extinguishing fires or for protecting life and property in the event of a fire.
  Amendment No. 62 is also likely to have the possibly unintended effect of frustrating the provisions of Clause 19(4). The latter is designed to enable authorities to recover the cost of dealing with an incident from a responsible third party in circumstances where it may not be appropriate to seek to charge the person to whom the supply was made.
  A situation in which authorities might seek to charge third parties is effecting the release of people in stalled lifts, for example. Many of' those incidents arise from a failure adequately to maintain the lift system, which is usually the responsibility of the building management or owner and certainly not of the passengers. Amendment No. 62 would require an authority to obtain the consent of the person liable to pay the charge before effecting a lift release if there were any possibility of recovering the costs incurred. I suggest that that may not be desirable so far as the passengers are concerned. That certainly was not the case when I was stuck in a MAFF lift which we had spent a fortune doing up in Nobel House.
  The recent Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Select Committee report on the fire service noted the potential for authorities to recover the cost of dealing with traffic accidents from insurers in a manner similar to that which exists in the NHS. The requirement in Amendment No. 62 for express prior consent from the person to be charged would prevent any such approach, as would excluding duties other than firefighting from the scope of the charging regimes.
  With all those caveats, I certainly hope that the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment because I do not think that it meets the points that he wanted to make. A number of amendments relate to charging. I shall not go into other details now as they will come out in the debates on those amendments.
  Lord Hanningfield: As the Minister said, some of these issues will be covered in later amendments. I have not been involved with the fire service in my county as much as I have with planning systems and therefore I do not know as much about the fire service. The only occasions on which I have been involved with the fire service have been when strikes have occurred and I have had to try to sort them out. We have had one or two of those in Essex. Therefore, I am not as familiar with the fire service as I am with the planning system. It is now a joint fire authority with Southend and Thurrock.

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  It is worth giving one or two examples of what the Minister described as the entrepreneurial nature of this. The fire authorities receive a lot of income from training or helping businesses to have their own fire prevention systems. The fire services in Essex and other counties go into companies and help them to train their staff on fire prevention and are able to make reasonable charges for that. What we are suggesting here would allow them to continue to do that. The Bill would prevent that. I think that that brings an income of several hundred thousand pounds to Essex fire authority. That obviously helps when they have such financial difficulties.
  Another example is that all large fire authorities have to have maintenance depots. Such depots have peaks and troughs of repairing and maintaining fire engines. At times, the joint Essex fire authority renovates fire engines and sells them to New Zealand, which is a lucrative business. The Bill prevents that. So, various income streams that the fire authorities have are prevented by this legislation, which is unfortunate. It is a harmless type of income generation and it is very sad that the Bill prevents that.
  Lord Rooker: I do not want to jump the gun, and I certainly do not want to start a debate. However, I have just said to my expert advisers, "Aren't these the very examples that we shall allow to continue to happen?" and the answer is, "Yes". In some fire authorities, not all, there is at present some entrepreneurial work. There will be transitional provisions to allow that to continue. That will come out as we go through this series of amendments.
  Lord Hanningfield: It is unfortunate, however, that there is legislation to stop it and then the legislation has to be recreated. It is happening now. Why does the legislation have to stop it and then have to be recreated?
  Lord Rooker: There is a reason for that, which will come out in some of the other amendments. It concerns whether the current legislation allows it in the first place.
  Lord Hanningfield: As has been said, there are several amendments on these issues. I am sure that there will be a debate today, which will be ongoing. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Baroness Hamwee Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 62A:
  Page 9, line 34, leave out "may by order authorise a" and insert "shall within 12 months of the commencement of this Part make an order authorising every"
  The noble Baroness said: I do not know whether we shall hear more about the transitional arrangements in connection with this amendment. That would give the Minister an opportunity to explain what the Government have in mind by way of a timetable. Amendment No. 62A proposes essentially that the
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  Government should get on with it, or at any rate that the orders should be made within a year of commencement.
  The Minister mentioned the transitional arrangements to enable those who are working at the extreme margins of entrepreneurship to continue. I hope that that will not mean that those who are being entrepreneurial will be allowed to continue—that is fair enough—but that those who have not managed to find loopholes or perhaps go a little beyond the boundaries will be restricted. That does not seem to be right or fair. My amendment was tabled in order to ask what timetable the Government have in mind because this is clearly of huge interest. I beg to move.
  Lord Rooker: The final point raised by the noble Baroness, which I shall come to in one of the other amendments, is a typical case of the Liberal Democrats wanting it both ways. I shall come to that. It is not covered by this amendment but by one of the others. I hope I can satisfy the noble Baroness entirely on Amendment No. 60A.
  We do not intend there to be a gap between the repeal of the charging provisions within the Fire Services Act 1947 and the commencement of the new charging regime under Clause 19. Therefore, the amendment is unnecessary.
  Through a consultation exercise, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has sought to identify activities for which fire and rescue authorities currently levy a charge. That would ensure that those services for which the fire and rescue authorities currently make a legitimate charge are included in the first Section 19 order, which will apply to all authorities. Any extension beyond that will require careful consideration and consultation in due course. In other words, there will not be a gap, which is the central issue of the amendment.
  Baroness Hamwee: I think that one can probe both ways without it being too much of a disgrace. I am grateful for the answer. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Baroness Hamwee Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 62B:
  Page 9, line 35, leave out "a person of a specified description"
  The noble Baroness said: As drafted, Clause 19(1) allows the Secretary of State to authorise charging of,
  "a person of a specified description".
  Those are the words I seek to take out in order to understand what is intended by this provision. Is it to enable, for instance, the charging of businesses—the private sector as distinct from individuals—when they are flooded, or is it to exclude other authorities, in which case you would exclude them rather than specify who they are?
  The consultation document mentioned by the Minister refers to differential charging and, in some cases, to not charging. However, that is dealt with later in the clause. Can the Minister help as to what this is driving at? I beg to move.
  Lord Rooker: I certainly hope I can, although in some ways I am limited, simply because the consultation has only just closed so the analysis has not yet taken place. The wording in this clause was specifically chosen to ensure that the charging would be levied on classes of persons who would be considered appropriate.
  Clause 19(4) would allow fire and rescue authorities to charge third parties, for example, the owners of a building following a lift rescue. The amendment would raise the possibility of those trapped in the lift being charged by the authority. As I have said before, that is completely and utterly undesirable. We have consulted widely with the fire and rescue authorities and other relevant organisations on the classes of service that may attract a charge and the classes of person on whom the charges might be levied. As I have said, the consultation closed only on 7 May, so it is too early at present for the analysis to have taken place.
  An indication—we are looking at them as they come in—is that the categories of person suggested were considered appropriate and sufficient but I have no further information at present. In other words, the wording was chosen carefully so that we do not catch the wrong person.
  Baroness Hamwee: I agree that one should not catch the wrong person—there may be differences in definition—or the wrong people. However, I ask again—I am prepared to leave it hanging—whether it is right to try to deal with this by specifying the description or by excluding those one does not want to charge, which I think would he a more obvious way of setting about this. Certainly, if we are left with doubts over the wording of the legislation, they need to be dealt with whatever the results of the consultation. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  6.30 p.m.
  Lord Hanningfield Lord Hanningfield moved Amendment No. 63:
  Page 9, line 37, leave out subsection (2).
  The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 63, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 115. Amendment No. 63 seeks to gain from the Minister an understanding of why it is, perhaps as Clause 19(2) appears to suggest, acceptable for a charge to be incurred for activities relating to firefighting and rescue at or under the sea. I find it difficult to understand the logic behind that and would therefore welcome the Minister's thoughts.
  I turn to Amendment No. 115. In reality we would like to see this new clause in place of Clause 19 as it stands. The new clause seeks a prohibition on charging for the emergency statutory functions of the fire and
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  rescue authorities under Clauses 7, 8 and 9. It does not suggest that the ban on charging should extend to the statutory functions of fire prevention and fire education work under Clause 6 or other non-statutory duties, as I have already said.
  At present the Bill extends a clear additional statutory function. On the other hand it seeks to keep open the ability to charge for the discharge of that function in an emergency. The Minister has talked about lifts and so on. I think the Committee would agree that no one wants to charge someone who is stuck in a lift. That is not an acceptable proposition. We need clarity on it. The Bill also provides for the charging of third parties, which is a thinly disguised reference to insurers. Charging motor insurers would represent another stealth tax on the Government's favourite victims—the motorist.
  As I have said, I am against charging for emergency services that are part of a statutory function, although I am not necessarily against charging for non-emergency work.
  Subsection (2) of the new clause addresses a different issue—charging for emergency medical assistance. The background to the provision is the Road Traffic (NHS Charges) Act 1999, which authorises charging via insurers for the cost of National Health Service treatment provided after a road traffic accident. We resist unfair discrimination against the motorist, who should not be seen as a soft target simply because, if he is a law-abiding individual, he will generally have insurance.
  A programme is currently underway to promote co-response and, indeed, first response by fire and rescue authorities, whereby if a fire and rescue authority is the first on the scene of an incident, it will increasingly be able to deliver emergency medical assistance. Furthermore, especially in rural areas, fire services could in future be the first responder to other types of medical emergency—for example, cardiac arrests—if the fire station is significantly nearer than the nearest ambulance station to the patient. We simply cannot have a situation in which people pay according to whether the fire engine or the ambulance gets there first. That would be outrageous and our proposal attempts to deal with it. I beg to move.
  Lord Rooker: I apologise for responding for longer than the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, took to make his points. It is important because of the nature of this part of the Bill and as we shall have other stages it is best to get some of this material on the record.
  The noble Lord said that the amendments would extend the restriction on the services for which a charge might be made by excluding all the emergency statutory functions on an authority. Subsection (1)(a) of Amendment No. 115 replicates the restriction, which the Government included in the Bill at the time of introduction. However, subsections (1)(b) and (c) would also apply to road traffic accidents, where there was no incidence of fire and to a variety of other emergency situations.

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  With the passage of time, the fire and rescue service has acquired a great deal of experience and skill in dealing with the effects of road traffic accidents. Yet there has been no obligation on the service to render rescue assistance. That is the legal reality. We have brought forward a new duty for the service to respond to these incidents in Clause 8. At the same time we have recognised that fire authorities already have a power to charge for dealing with the non-fire assistance rendered at such an accident, though they appear not to have used it. The order-making provision in Clause 19 will allow us to ensure that there is no move towards charging for road traffic accidents without further consultation, while preserving the principle of being able to charge for these incidents if it is appropriate.
  At present, the cost of dealing with these incidents is borne by the taxpayer. So, a pedestrian on a low income can find himself subsidising a wealthy or careless driver, particularly during foggy days when we have great pile-ups. The reality is that drivers always expect the fire brigade to get them out, sort it out and clear the road. It has grown like Topsy, in a way. It is important to note that.
  The funding of our health and education services from general taxation is a legitimate and proper course because they benefit all members of society. Driving is an activity to which costs attach. I know this off the top of my head because the figures came out years ago. I remember when Brian Mawhinney was transport secretary. He produced a very interesting document, which gave some figures about the numbers of motorists that never used the motorway. It is amazing the number of people who drive cars and never use a motorway. Yet motorways are there at vast expense for a minority of motorists. It is very interesting. I do not think that he was making a case for toll roads. He may have been; I am not certain. It makes the point that one must not assume that everything is equal and that all the services are used equally. Certainly health and education are used by everyone in the course of their lives, whether by them or on their behalf.
  Driving is an activity to which costs attach. You cannot drive without incurring certain costs. Insurance is one. There is no doubt about it. Noble Lords may claim that the 27 million motorists in the UK might face a hefty hike in premiums but that claim was laid to rest I understand during debates in the other place.
  The recent ODPM Select Committee report on the fire service noted the potential for authorities to recover the costs of dealing with traffic accidents from compensators in a manner similar to that existing in the NHS. That scheme recovers a flat-rate charge for treatment received in an NHS hospital. Later this year it will, I understand, also levy a charge for the ambulance conveyance to hospital for such treatment.
  We believe that further work needs to be done on how any such scheme might operate for the fire and rescue service and the impact that it would have on authorities, the insurance industry and the public. In the light of that, we do not think that it would be
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  appropriate to close off the possibility of charging for road traffic accidents in the way that is countenanced by this new clause.
  The range of incidents that may fall within Clause 9 is not confined to the new terrorist threat. It can include major incidents of flooding or damage caused by the accidental or negligent discharge of a large volume of harmful chemicals by a company. The effect of subsection (1)(c) would be such that incidents of this type would be excluded from the scope of charging. You have to ask yourself: is it right that a major commercial undertaking could cause huge disruption and damage and escape the costs of putting it right? There is a good case for damage caused to the environment by companies. Many years ago I proposed a Bill to make sure that companies indicated in their annual reports the number of times the particular company had been prosecuted for environmental damage requiring clean-up and cost to public services. Of course it was voted down by the then government in the other place.
  The consultation document published in February included as one of the proposed categories of charge the provision or removal of water. The fire and rescue service already deals with incidents of significant flooding and already has the power to charge for action taken. It is a matter now for each authority to determine whether it is appropriate, in the light of all the relevant circumstances, to impose a charge in such a situation. We think that authorities should continue to enjoy that right; but, this proposed clause would strip them of that power.
  I can understand in giving that example that the noble Lord might fear that every person unfortunate enough to suffer a tidal surge may find himself or herself confronted with a bill for pumping out. But in many cases they will have buildings and contents insurance. If it is felt appropriate to charge for this activity, Clause 19(4) might be used to allow authorities to recover from insurers their costs of responding to flooding incidents. And let us not forget that authorities have the discretion to waive charges where they feel that particular circumstances warrant it. They may feel that the charge should be mitigated or waived in areas where residents are unable to obtain insurance at reasonable rates for this risk. We can all think of areas in the country where that would be the case.
  Subsection (2) of Amendment No. 115 seeks to ensure that fire and rescue authorities are not empowered to charge for providing emergency medical assistance where there is no corresponding power for an NHS ambulance trust to impose such a charge. The Government agree with the sentiment behind that, and that is why we brought forward the amendment that now stands as subsection (3) on the face of the Bill. In fact, that provision is more generous than the one proposed by the noble Lord in this new clause in that it precludes charging for emergency medical assistance in any circumstances.
  I also have to point out that the drafting of the proposed new clause is defective in that it does not also remove subsections (3) and (9) of Clause 19. That

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  would leave us with two conflicting provisions on emergency medical assistance. It is a minor point, but I mention it in case noble Lords want to come back to it on Report.
  Amendment No. 115 would also prevent charging for fires that occur at sea or under the sea outside the jurisdiction of any fire authority. The ability to charge for dealing with such incidents was inserted into the 1947 Act by Section 2 of the Marine Safety Act 2003 at the specific request of marine salvage operators. They were concerned that there was no incentive for authorities to deal with incidents that occurred outside their jurisdiction and so they were prepared to meet the costs of such intervention in the hope of reducing the loss incurred. We think that removing that provision would be a retrograde step.
  I apologise for the length of my reply. This is an important part of the Bill and the noble Lord said that it is contentious. Therefore, I wanted to place as much on the record as possible not only in order to answer many of the issues raised but because, if noble Lords bring back the matter on Report, they will do so with the knowledge of the little extra information that I am able to give.
  Baroness Hanham: Perhaps I may deal with the question of people who are not insured. The Minister got frightfully cross with me at Second Reading when I asked whether people would have to produce their Barclaycards before they were released from traffic accidents. It was perhaps not best put. However, as a magistrate, I know that a number of people in this country are driving around without insurance. Therefore, by definition, someone else will have to pay if there is no insurance. It is always the people who should least be on the motorway who drive without due care and attention and end up causing someone else a whole lot of grief. If there is to be further consultation on the matter, perhaps the Minister will take the issue on board.
  If more burdens are placed on the insurance industry, this issue will also be germane to people who live on flood plains. This will become more prevalent and relevant as more building takes place on areas which, frankly, should not be built on and which are now causing trouble. Once again, the insurance market is backing away from that. Recently there have been many cases of people being flooded out once or twice and now being unable to insure their properties. So what is the situation? Will the fire service come to help them out because the insurance company will not pay as those people are not insured? Within the amendments is a very genuine concern about what happens with regard to motor insurance, to those who do not have insurance and get away with it, and to people who live on flood plains.
  Lord Rooker: Off the top of my head, I cannot conceive of Parliament allowing the circumstances to arise in which, before assistance is rendered, which is clearly required out of both common sense and humanity, the fire and rescue service has to seek someone's Barclaycard or insurance certificate. That is
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  absolutely preposterous. I am not suggesting that that is the case. As a Minister, I for one would not stand here and propose such an arrangement. The fact is there is a way of recovering money from the insurance companies. If people are not insured, that is another issue; it is not a matter for the charging mechanism.
  Nevertheless, as the noble Baroness, as a magistrate, said, too many people are driving around without insurance. That matter should be addressed in other ways rather than through the Bill.
  As far as concerns the flood plains, building on them is fairly prevalent. Members of the House of Commons have a fine building, built on a flood plain at £1 million per room; Portcullis House is built on a flood plain. The point is that it is secure and safe because of the vast costs of putting the building there. So it is possible to build on a flood plain without necessarily allowing a place to be flooded each time. That does not happen with the generality of people's homes. The noble Baroness is quite right that the matter of insurance companies red-lining areas because of continual flooding has to be addressed.
  I shall come back with a satisfactory reply on Report. It may be a holding reply, but it will be more satisfactory than the one I am able to give at the moment. The noble Baroness has raised an important issue, which naturally follows when one is looking at charging for these services and indeed encouraging some cross-recovery. That is the implication of the consultation paper. Therefore, we have to cover the eventualities to make sure that people are not discriminated against because insurance companies have red-line districts. It is not the first time that they have red-lined issues and these are seriously important matters.
  I hope that reply is satisfactory. I have no doubt that we shall return to the issue.
  6.45 p.m.
  Lord Hanningfield: There is a whole raft of services—for example, when an elderly, frail person gets locked out of his or her home the first person he or she rings is the fire brigade to get back in—for which we are not going to charge. People are not charged for them now. Obviously, if someone lives in a six-bedroom house with six bathrooms and gets locked out, one might want to charge him or her, but not the frail elderly person who rings the fire brigade to get him or her back into his or her house, or perhaps a child whose kitten gets stuck up a tree.
  The discretion that fire authorities have at the moment is why the fire service is generally well regarded by the public. They often perform things for the community that people like. I know there have been some ups and downs in recent years because of industrial action, but generally the fire service is regarded as being very good. It has done much of benefit to the community and has helped people at various times when they have been in trouble. I hope we will not lose that, although, as I said earlier, there should he opportunities for charging when doing something in a commercial way.

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  There is a big issue here. If we get it wrong in the Bill we could do a lot of harm to the service itself. On the other hand, we do not want to stop the potential for charging when there is some income to be earned to help with hard-pressed finances. Obviously, we shall have further discussions about the issue. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Lord Hanningfield Lord Hanningfield moved Amendment No. 64:
  Page 10, line 8, leave out from "authority" to end of line 9 and insert "must publish a list which specifies the amounts the authority will charge in specific circumstances and in which circumstances they will charge nothing"
  The noble Lord said: The amendments are not grouped together but, in moving Amendment No. 64, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 65, 66 and 67. That will speed up matters a little.
  Amendment No. 64 is designed to bring greater openness, clarity and transparency to the actual process of charging. If the Minister is concerned that fire authorities are in some way abusing their positions when it comes to charging— something I can assure him they are not—then this amendment would helpfully allow individuals to see how much an authority actually charges for a particular service.
  Amendment No. 65 seeks to remove what is a rather draconian attempt to restrict authorities charging for non-statutory and non-emergency functions and activities. As I said, fire authorities do not make excessive profits. Indeed, they do not make any profits whatever if you consider that moneys gained from charging are ploughed straight back into existing budgets.
  I should have thought that the Minister would welcome such entrepreneurial activities in reducing both the level of government grants and of course, ultimately, the level of council tax that is spent on fire authorities. There is a whole list of activities that authorities currently undertake—such as fire training, new dimensions, terrorist attack training, fire risk assessment solutions and so on— which would be seriously curtailed if this subsection were to stand part of the Bill. I therefore urge the Minister to reconsider.
  I shall not move Amendment No. 66.
  Amendment No. 67 is simply designed to increase the breadth of consultation that the Secretary of State must undertake before granting any powers of charging, especially to those groups that would be most affected. We have just discussed that. Again we believe that this would bring greater clarity and openness to proceedings. I beg to move.
  Baroness Hamwee: Perhaps I may comment first on Amendment No. 65. I do not know whether the Minister would like me to speak at this point to my Amendment No. 66A. I will do so, or leave it—
  Lord Rooker: In for a penny—
  Baroness Hamwee: Okay. I imagine that I am not the only noble Lord to have been briefed by the Chief and
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  Assistant Chief Fire Officers Association, which tells me that, having taken advice from leading counsel, it is not correct to say that there is no charge from the current situation, and that Section 3(1)(e) of the 1947 Act does have power to charge in excess of cost recovery. It would be helpful to hear the Government's view on this. The Minister is grinning—I hope that his brief extends to that. It would be useful to get the explanation on to the record.
  I apologise to the Committee, because I am better at writing than I am at typing. The fourth word in the second line should be "or" not "of". Noble Lords will probably have understood that, reading Amendment No. 66A, which allows authorities to include in their calculation of the cost what I have described as reasonably attributable overheads—those overheads reasonably attributable to taking the action, or putting themselves in a position to allow themselves to take the action. The Government's consultation document, in paragraph 18, says that the authorities may find it helpful to draw on existing and familiar principles set out in the CIPFA Best Value Accounting Code of Practice, and refers to the code's definition of "Total Cost". As an alternative, authorities may wish to consider adding to "Total Cost" an appropriate contribution for "Corporate and Democratic Core" and "Non-Distributed Costs", as those terms are defined in the code.
  I am remiss, and I apologise to the Committee that I have not made the time to chase up those definitions so that I understand them, but they sound as if they extend to something more than the direct and immediate costs that seem to be referred to in the Bill.
  Lord Rooker: I shall speak to the group that is being joined together as we speak: Amendments Nos. 64, 65, 66, and I think 66A and 67. I will start with Amendment No. 65. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, is a lawyer, or one of the lawyers that does not count—I think that she is a solicitor. I say to her that this issue about the legality of charging—I am advised as a pure layman—is nowhere near as clear cut as some people make out according to advice within Government. I shall come to that.
  I teased the noble Lord, but I pay tribute to the Essex fire authority. I really am sucking up to Essex today. Given what the noble Lord has said that it is doing, it all seemed admirable. I could not see—as a lay person—anything wrong with what it is doing. It is using its capacity to do good things.
  Lord Hanningfield: It might be illegal.
  Lord Rooker: It might! We are going to make it, it is all right.
  Amendment No. 65 would remove from the Bill the requirement that the charges set by an authority do no more than recover the annual cost of providing the service in question. I understand that there is considerable concern among some authorities that under the clause as currently drafted they would not be able to recover an element of profit, as is their current practice. They have made representations to my

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  officials, both through the consultation process and in private meetings, that the power to charge under Section 3 of the 1947 Act is more widely drawn than we suggested in the consultation document. Also, it allows the authorities to factor in an element for profit when calculating their charges.
  Having taken further advice, I have to admit that there is no easy or clear-cut answer and that the situation is finely balanced. I hate using words like that; it sounds as though we do not know what we are doing. We do not wish to continue with the phrasing in the 1947 Act, which has led to differences of opinion between authorities as to the extent of their powers. For that reason, I do not propose to restore the wording of Section 3 of the 1947 Act as some authorities have asked. Greater clarity is needed and that is achieved by the clause as we have drafted it.
  We have no wish, however, to create financial difficulties for authorities that have become accustomed, in good faith, to recovering a profit component on some of their activities. Therefore, we are prepared to offer the assurance that authorities that already incorporate a profit element, which we term as trading, will be allowed to do so for a period of up to two years after the first charging order is made.
  That will be achieved by means of an order under Section 95 of the Local Government Act 2003 and will require authorities to conduct their trading activities through a company. Authorities will not be allowed to expand into new areas of trading under that concession, but may be allowed to do so if they achieve favourable assessments under the initial performance assessment or comprehensive performance assessment processes. Where an authority fails to achieve a favourable assessment in the first two such cycles, any trading order under the concession will be withdrawn. I shall write to noble Lords with further details of the concession and, in due course, request that the amendment be withdrawn.
  Those comments were specifically on Amendment No. 65, but they set the scene for the others, which I shall run through. Amendment No. 64 would require the authority to compile an exhaustive list of the circumstances in which it might seek to levy a charge that had been specified by order. It would also require an authority to specify the circumstances in which it would charge nothing for one of those services. That seems to us to be an overly restrictive approach and one which is likely to constrain an authority's ability to exercise its discretion appropriately.
  Let us consider the practical effect of the amendment. Having decided that, in general, an authority will charge for one of the specified services, it then seeks to compile an exhaustive list of the circumstances in which it considers it appropriate to make a nil charge. Some time later an entirely novel situation is encountered. By definition, it would not have been covered in the nil-charge list, yet the authority considers that it would be unjust to seek to levy or recover the charge. The amendment would prevent it doing so—it would be bound by its previous decision even though it had not been taken with the
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  relevant circumstances in mind. The only remedy available to the authority would be to change its policy with retrospective effect. We do not think that a desirable way to proceed, as it would open the door to introducing charges retrospectively as well.
  I can accept that Opposition Members of the Committee wish to see some clear public statement by an authority, perhaps on an annual basis, about how it will determine a charge, and possibly even what the charge might be in terms of an hourly rate. Some authorities already do that, and the Government would be happy to see it become the norm. Indeed, we suggested in the consultation document some bases on which the charge may be calculated, and we see no reason why an authority should not be open about the methodology that it has adopted. However, to require a detailed exegesis of how and when the authority will exercise its inherent discretion seems to us to be a recipe which undermines that discretion and may have unfortunate and unintended consequences at a later date. We have to be careful about that.
  Amendment No. 66 would restrict the level of the charge to be set by an authority so that it was able to recover only the marginal cost of the action taken. That seems unnecessarily restrictive. It is more onerous than current arrangements and is at variance with the approach adopted by local authorities when setting the charge for delivery of discretionary services outside the fire arena.
  7 p.m.
  The accepted approach is to seek to recover the full costs of the service provided, although authorities retain their discretion to recover less than full costs if they consider it to be appropriate in the circumstances.
  We have made it clear in paragraph 18 of the consultation paper that we consider authorities should draw on familiar and accepted accounting practices in determining the level of charge to be levied under a Clause 19 order. We have also made some suggestions that they may wish to adopt, which are tenable and highlighted in the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy definition of "total cost". We believe it would be a retrograde step to limit the ability to charge to marginal costs.
  Amendment No. 66A is not required as the clause already allows authorities to charge on the basis of full recovery of costs. I do not need to say any more about that.
  The provisions of Amendment No. 67 are unreasonably onerous as it is very difficult to know how to draw the line at those people "likely" to be affected. As phrased, it could arguably require the Secretary of State to seek out and consult everyone in England—that is the reality—and I am sure that that is not the intention of those who phrased the amendment. We could not consult everyone. We are consultation mad—we are a very consultative and listening government—but we cannot consult everyone in England. We could arguably do that at a general election but a great deal of the minutiae would get lost in the generality.

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  The requirement to consult on the face of the Bill is in tried and trusted terms. We published the consultation document on our proposals for the first order in February and delivered it to a wide range of consultees. I will make sure that Members of the Committee are provided with a list. There was some degree of press interest in the document so many members of the public were aware of its existence. The consultation period closed only last week and so it is too early to provide a detailed response.
  I hope that my response basically covers the issues raised by the amendments. The next part of my brief refers to Amendment No. 67A and I do not believe that that amendment was spoken to. I hope that what I have said has been useful in answering many of the points raised. I hope it gives a steer as to the way in which these issues might be brought back, if considered necessary, on Report.
  Baroness Hamwee: I have two questions. First, in regard to Amendment No. 66A, I can understand that the words in the amendment are not necessary, but the Minister seemed to suggest that we are talking not only about the direct costs of taking an action but the fact that there is scope for including overheads. Can he expand on that issue, or shall I table an amendment on Report to elicit how overheads can be included?
  Lord Rooker: I did not use all my notes on every single amendment because of what I said on Amendment No. 65. Where authorities are able to recover up to the full cost of provision, that must include an overhead element. That would be my definition of full-cost provision and so, to that extent, it would contain an overheads element.
  Baroness Hamwee: That is helpful. As to allowing certain authorities, after the comprehensive performance assessment process has been undertaken, to continue acting entrepreneurially for a period of up to two years, I wish to raise two points of disagreement rather than questions. I believe that the system will be harsh on those authorities that have been cautious and will be restricted from it. I do not agree with discrimination.
  Paragraph 25 of the consultation paper refers to a "bespoke CPA" for fire authorities being introduced in 2005. Is it anticipated that all authorities will have gone through the process by 2006, which seems to be suggested by the Minister's reference to two years?
  Lord Rooker: I apologise if I was not clear. Once the Bill becomes law, everyone can charge. It might look as though there is an inherent unfairness at the moment, but there is not. I shall explain why. Although there may be a small amount of dispute about the law, under the existing framework some authorities are charging for an element of profit but they are not doing so through a trading company. There is a difference between making a charge and trading—that is the distinction. We do not want to disturb the finances of those who have been doing what they are doing now—which is, in effect, trading,
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  but not through a company and taking an element of profit on top of the charge—and therefore the concession will be allowed for two years. But everyone will be able to charge. In other words, those who have not been entrepreneurially gifted—or perhaps followed the Essex way—will be able to learn from such authorities. I do not know how many there are.
  This has nothing to do with the noble Lord—there is nothing personal about this—but it was drawn to my attention that there is this difference. In future, it will have to be done through a trading company—authorities will not be able to do it as an arm of local government—and so there will be no unfairness. That may not have come across when I explained the issue because I did not go into the distinction between the charge and trading. Everyone will be able to charge once the Bill is enacted, but they will not be able to do so at a profit without going through the trading route. In a way, they are not there to provide services at a profit anyway.
  Lord McCarthy: Why should it necessarily be done through a company and not in the way it is done now? What is the advantage of making authorities do that?
  Lord Rooker: Because the system has to be fair. It has to be done as a trading enterprise—even local government has to set up companies to perform certain tasks—because otherwise they would be totally outside the competition rules of the private sector. No one would know how they had lost leaders, if you like, in local government; there would be no set of accounts; there would be no trading company. Transparency would be lost in the generality of the accounts of local government.
  The reason authorities are required to set up trading accounts, as it were, is in order that people may see the true costs of delivering the service and see that they are not being ripped off.
  Lord McCarthy: People are being ripped off. The Minister is saying that the private sector must never be ripped off and that the public sector must never be given an advantage.
  Lord Rooker: My noble friend thinks sometimes that I am living in a time warp. Competition leads to benefits—but it has to be open, fair and transparent. It would be quite wrong for the public sector to put my former constituents working in small private companies out of work through misuse of its muscle. It would be totally unfair if, in the mass generality of its funding arrangements, the public sector did not charge the proper costs for buildings and so on. That would be totally unfair. You cannot defend people being put out of work because of unfair trading practices, whether from the public or private sector. I do not defend it here and now, when I have no constituents, and I certainly would not have defended my constituents being put out of work through

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  malpractice or the abuse of monopoly power in the public sector by not disclosing a full set of accounts. My noble friend surely cannot defend that.
  Lord McCarthy: It never happens in the private sector.
  Lord Hanningfield: I agree with the Minister's last comments. This is a big issue and we need to digest the discussion that we have had on it. Certainly the suggestion that authorities that are following this practice now can at least continue to do so for the moment and not lose an income stream—which would obviously affect them dramatically—is welcome. We need to digest what has been said in the debate. We shall come back to the issue at Report stage.
  Baroness Hamwee: It may have been the distraction of the discussion about competition, but did the Minister answer my question about the speed of the comprehensive performance assessment?
  Lord Rooker: No, I did not, but I do have the note. All authorities will have undergone the comprehensive performance assessment by 2006.
  Baroness Hamwee: How will they know?
  Lord Hanningfield: Having been involved in comprehensive performance assessments of authorities, I know that it will be a tall order for all of them to go through by 2006. The Audit Commission will have to beef up how it starts. I am sure we will come back to the issue.
  We have had a good discussion today. I am sure that we all need to analyse what has been said and come back to the issue on Report. If there is anything the Minister can do to clarify the situation for us over the next week or two in the form of information about exactly where the Government stand, it would be very helpful. We would then know what kind of amendments to bring forward on Report and what kind of matters we need to probe. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  [Amendments Nos. 65 to 67 not moved.]
  Clause 19 agreed to.
  Clause 20 [Exercise of powers at or under sea]
  Baroness Hamwee Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 67A:
  Page 10, line 23, at end insert "(including permanent and semi-permanent offshore installations)"
  The noble Baroness said: This is another probing amendment. Clause 20 allows fire and rescue authorities to exercise their powers or perform duties at sea or under the sea. It is perhaps my age showing, but I understand "at sea" to mean things floating on the sea and I wonder whether it includes offshore installations. Does "at sea" extend, for instance, to oil rigs? I beg to move.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for tabling the amendment. I hope that I can help to satisfy her probing point.
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  We believe the amendment is unnecessary because, as the clause makes clear, fire and rescue authorities can act at sea or under the sea in the same way in which other provisions in the Bill allow them to act outside their own areas—for example, in providing mutual assistance.
  The Maritime and Coastguard Agency has a general duty to manage the response of UK authorities to maritime incidents in territorial waters and beyond. It does not maintain its own corps of firefighters but will enter into agreements with other service providers, including fire and rescue authorities, to provide a response to fires and other emergencies at sea, whether on vessels or installations such as offshore oil rigs, and whether permanent or otherwise. I hope that answers the point.
  Baroness Hamwee: Indeed it does. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 20 agreed to.
  Clause 21 [Fire and Rescue National Framework]:
  Baroness Hanham Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 68:
  Page 10, line 32, leave out paragraph (a).
  The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 68 brings us to the framework and to Clause 21, which gives statutory force to the framework. The Secretary of State has published a draft and I gather that the consultation has recently ended. However, I see from the introduction that it will be reinvigorated in the near future after consultation ends.
  7.15 p.m.
  The framework is the key document that will effectively define how fire and rescue authorities discharge their functions and which, by virtue of provisions later in the Bill that require compliance, allows the Secretary of State to dictate the blueprint for the operation of fire and rescue services. This further erodes the principle of local service accountability.
  Amendment No. 68 would remove the obligation for the framework to set out priorities and objectives for authorities and the discharge of their functions. The proper role of Parliament is to set out the functions of fire and rescue authorities in primary legislation, and the Bill does that. The Secretary of State already has substantial powers, particularly under Clauses 9, 14 and 17, to direct how those functions will be discharged. The further provisions in the framework allow an unscrutinised document to have the force of primary legislation. Under subsection (2)(b) the Secretary of State will be able to issue guidance to authorities,
  "in connection with the discharge of any of their functions".
  That should be a sufficient level of intervention. The discharge of their proper functions must be a matter for local fire and rescue authorities rather than something to be defined in detail by the Secretary of State.
  In the other place, the Minister, the right honourable Nick Raynsford, said that to delete Clause 21(2)(a) would undermine the Government's commitment to implement Bain's recommendations. We beg to differ. The national framework should provide the strategic leadership for the fire and rescue service, but it should also take into account that local authorities and local fire and rescue authorities need discretion. For example, the needs of the Devon fire authority are very different from the needs of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. The national framework should not be a huge, prescriptive document that attempts to micro-manage everything that fire authorities do.
  Indeed, I am slightly reinforced in the view that that is what it seeks to do at the end of the introduction to the framework, where paragraph 6 states:
  "The legislation we have announced will place the Framework on a statutory footing and it will, in due course, incorporate mandatory requirements on key national performance issues. The expectations set out in the Framework will become a key tool in shaping the Audit Commission's fire and rescue Comprehensive Performance Assessment".
  So the framework will ultimately set out some very prescriptive requirements for fire and rescue authorities. We are trying to lessen that prescriptiveness. I beg to move.
  Lord Bassam of Brighton: This is an important amendment in the debate about the balance between local and national. Having heard what the noble Baroness said, I am not so sure that we are terribly far apart. However, I think it is important to retain the clause as it stands. Nick Raynsford was right to say that, if the amendment succeeded at some point during the course of the legislation, it would seriously undermine the importance of the national framework—which is a strategic document—and undermine our strategic approach. We would end up with something which was regarded merely as guidance for local fire and rescue authorities, and we need something more than that.
  Sir George Bain's report—which was generally accepted as providing a way forward for the modernisation of the fire service—provides the backdrop against which we wish to set out a clear direction for fire and rescue services, and the national framework is designed to do exactly that. If the amendment were accepted it would leave us in a situation where we would not have strong leadership from central government. That being the case, we would be left with a fluid situation and perhaps too much local autonomy.
  As a localist and former local government person, I believe that there has to be a balance. We think that we have struck the right balance in framing this piece of legislation and in phrasing this clause.
  The noble Baroness was arguing about the wording of the clause. Clause 21(7) states:
  "Fire and rescue authorities must have regard to the Framework in carrying out their functions".
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  That, to me, seems to strike the right tone. This is not an authoritarian national framework and it is not the nationalisation of the fire service; it recognises that there will be important priorities which are relevant nationally but there will also be locally determined priorities. In responding to the national framework, the local fire and rescue authority will carefully have to work in its own priorities. Presumably, those priorities will necessarily relate to its own local risk assessment in terms of the pressures on the fire authority arising from the services to be provided in that locality.
  We repealed Section 19 of the 1947 Act and replaced national standards with local flexibility. Ultimately, the framework will be about that important word "partnership" between local authorities and the way in which we see things working as a national Government. I believe that we have the balance about right, but we can always argue the semantics of the word.
  The noble Baroness herself said that there was a need for a strategic purpose. She also said that there would be a need for local discretion. We do not disagree with that, but we think that the national framework is important and we see it setting out a strategy for the fire and rescue authorities. I hope that, having heard that, the noble Baroness will feel reasonably reassured. I hope that she will feel able to withdraw her amendment today and that she will not press it at a later stage.
  Baroness Hanham: I find myself in a schizophrenic situation here. The national framework is a document which must set out priorities and objectives for fire and rescue authorities. It may contain guidance—or it may not, but that is another thing—and it may contain any other matter. As I understand it, the document that we have at present is not the final one, and yet much in it is not guidance. It states absolutely categorically, "You must do this" or "You must not do that".
  Therefore, the framework is not a guidance document—we must be really clear on that—but it contains mandatory requirements. That seems to me to be awfully confusing. A framework is either what is says—that is, a guideline to what one should do—but one cannot say that a document that states, "You must do something", is simply guidance; it is not. It is setting out mandatory requirements. I could give endless examples, such as the section relating to regional control rooms. Paragraph 2.15 on page 17 states:
  "Against the background above, Fire and Rescue Authorities, through the Regional Management Boards, must … ensure the phased transition … work closely with the Government… agree with the Government … comply with national protocols".
  Throughout the document, there is a difference between the "musts" and the "mays". If the Government are not careful, I believe that this framework document will cause confusion rather than be of help. It would be far better if it were set out exactly as the Minister suggested—that is, by stating things to which the authorities "may" pay regard.

  GC 113
  However, as I see it, that is not the situation with regard to the framework document as it stands at present. More statutory requirements may be included in it as this is clearly only the start of it and not the end. There is a clear expectation that it will be updated as time goes on and it will have to be updated by the Bill that we are discussing at present. Therefore, I hear what the Minister says but I am afraid that I do not agree with him. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Lord Rooker: This may be a convenient moment for the Committee to adjourn until Wednesday 19 May at 3.30 p.m.
  The Chairman of Committees (Lord Brabazon of Tara): The Committee stands adjourned until Wednesday 19 May at 3.30 p.m.
  The Committee adjourned at twenty-five minutes past seven o'clock.

  World Bank: Extractive Industries Review
  World Bank: Extractive Industries Review
  North Korea: UK's Humanitarian Aid
  North Korea: UK's Humanitarian Aid
  Questions for Written Answer. Response Times
  Questions for Written Answer. Response Times
  Race and Sex Discrimination: Views of Home Secretary's Special Adviser
  Race and Sex Discrimination: Views of Home Secretary's Special Adviser
  Critical National Infrastructure and National Infrastructure Security Co-ordination Centre
  Critical National Infrastructure and National Infrastructure Security Co-ordination Centre
  Passports
  Passports
  Somalia and Sri Lanka: Evaluations of Advisory Panel on Country Information
  Somalia and Sri Lanka: Evaluations of Advisory Panel on Country Information
  Asylum and Human Rights Decisions: Country Information
  Asylum and Human Rights Decisions: Country Information
  Liberia: Asylum Claims
  Liberia: Asylum Claims
  Sports Colleges
  Sports Colleges
  Iraq: Depleted Uranium Contamination
  Iraq: Depleted Uranium Contamination
  Nuclear Attack Submarines
  Nuclear Attack Submarines
  Ministry of Defence: Heritage Estate
  Ministry of Defence: Heritage Estate
  Draft Civil Service Bill
  Draft Civil Service Bill
  Petrol and Diesel fuel
  Petrol and Diesel fuel
  Bus Emissions: 3-nitrobenzanthrone
  Bus Emissions: 3-nitrobenzanthrone
  Angling
  Angling
  Local Election Rules
  Local Election Rules
  Foetal Alcohol Syndrome
  Foetal Alcohol Syndrome
  NHS Dentistry
  NHS Dentistry
  Medical Liaison Practitioners
  Medical Liaison Practitioners
  Department of Health: "Arm's Length Bodies"
  Department of Health: "Arm's Length Bodies"
  DrugScope
  DrugScope

  Northern Ireland: Aggregates Levy Relief Scheme
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord McIntosh of Haringey)
  My honourable friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Healey) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

  The Government are extending the aggregates levy relief scheme in Northern Ireland. The relief, which will continue to cover aggregate in processed products, will be extended to cover virgin aggregate exploited in Northern Ireland. Instead of the relief reducing annually until it ended in April 2007, the level of relief will now be fixed at 80 per cent of the full rate from 1 April 2004 and it will apply until 31 March 2011. The introduction of the new scheme follows notification from the European Commission on 7 May that the Government's proposals for extended relief have received state aid clearance.

  Quarry operators in Northern Ireland will be able to claim the extended relief straight away, provided that they enter into agreements that will commit them to making significant environmental improvements to the way their operations are run. Initially operators will need to satisfy the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland (DoENI) that they hold or have applied for relevant regulatory authorisations, and enter into an agreement with DoENI, which will commit businesses to arrange a site audit, agree site-specific targets and comply with the code of practice for the aggregates industry in Northern Ireland. Continued eligibility for relief will depend on businesses meeting their agreed environmental targets, which will be regularly monitored and reviewed.

  Public Audit (Wales) Bill
  Lord Evans of Temple Guiting
  The regulatory impact assessment (RIA) that accompanied the WS 6
  Public Audit (Wales) Bill upon its introduction to the House of Lords on 27 November 2003 included an estimate of £500,000 for the set-up costs of the Wales Audit Office (WAO). The WAO is the new body that would comprise the Auditor General and his staff under the arrangements provided for in the Bill.

  The estimate dated back to April 2003 when the Bill was first published in draft form for public consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny. It was acknowledged in the RIA and during pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill in the summer of 2003 that it was very hard to provide a more definitive estimate at such an early stage. The figure of £500,000 remained the best estimate available at the time of the Bill's introduction.

  On 6 May the National Assembly Audit Committee gave consideration to and accepted a paper prepared by the Auditor General that identified set-up costs of £987,000. The costing, which is the product of a detailed costing analysis undertaken jointly by the National Audit Office and the Audit Commission in Wales over recent months, is also subject to consideration by the National Assembly for Wales Minister for Finance, Local Government and Public Services.

  The £987,000 figure includes £147,000 for value-added tax and £120,000 for the cost of a specialist project manager to oversee the set-up arrangements. These items were not included in the early estimate of £500,000 and account for over half the difference in cost. The figure also includes information and communications technology costs of £350,000.

  The other categories of cost comprised in the overall figure relate to:

  the acquisition and implementation of finance and human resource systems at £ 180,000;

  the establishment of Internet and intranet facilities and related communication costs such as stationery and signage at £80,000;

  the development costs of audit support software and a unified audit manual at £55,000;

  minor accommodation alterations; related specialist support services such as facilities management and legal costs at £55,000.

  The Bill RIA will be amended to take account of the change in costing.