Westminster Hall Sitting of 4 December 2001

Preamble
[SIR MICHAEL LORD in the Chair]

Teaching Profession
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned. —[Mr. Heppell.]
9.30 am
Chris Grayling: I called the debate for one simple reason. During the past few months I have spoken to teachers at all levels—from secondary heads to supply teachers—and without exception they have given me the same message: there is a mounting crisis in our schools. The Government seem not to realise that many teachers are at the end of their tether, and they need someone to speak up for them. I cannot make the Government change what they are doing—nor, it seems, can the teachers—but I can explain in straightforward terms what, according to teachers, is going wrong.
Before telling the Minister about the problems that the Government need to get to grips with, I pay tribute to those heads and teachers who are battling to keep their schools going, and who are delivering better results despite the problems that they face. They deserve the thanks of everyone in the House and in the country. It is to be regretted that, at times, my party has not enjoyed the best of relations with the teaching profession. Today, without qualification, I offer teachers thanks for keeping things going when so many of them are frustrated by the conditions in which they work.
At the heart of the problem is a Government who came to office promising to modernise Britain, but who, as far as I can see, have found a way to modernise only socialism. Today's Labour Ministers have lost none of their predecessors' instinct to run every aspect of our lives. If something is not working, their solution is to regulate and micromanage. Extra money has to be spent on special initiatives decided in, and controlled from, Whitehall. To ensure progress, every organisation is required to produce long and complex reports and plans that no one ever reads. In Labour Britain, no one is free to deploy resources according to local needs and realities; instead, they must follow the diktat of the departmental textbook. Nowhere is that more true than in our schools, and it has to stop.
Having served on the governing body of a small first school, I have seen at first hand the endless flow of paperwork from Whitehall. On giving up my governorship 18 months ago, I never imagined that matters would get worse, but only last week the chairman of the governors and the head of a primary school in my constituency told me that this autumn they have had to deal with six new Government initiatives, and that four or five more have to be responded to by January. Yesterday, I was told that 20 new documents requiring action by primary schools have been sent out since 1 April.
Because the governing body consists of volunteers, most of that work lands on the desk of the head teacher. She told me with some frustration that she now has little
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or no opportunity to do what she really wants to do: spend time in the school helping her staff to educate the children. Under this Government, our head teachers—by definition, our best teachers—are being turned into a generation of pen pushers.
It is not only head teachers who are frustrated by the weight of paperwork on their desks. Last year, one local head told me that he recently lost two good young members of staff because they
"wanted to get a life".
In a letter to the minister written earlier this year, a local
Union official said that
"the majority of young colleagues who leave teaching cite the difficulty of having a life outside of the job— and the workload associated with it."
One of the most consistent messages from the teaching profession is that teachers do not feel free to do the job that they are qualified to do. Teachers say that Whitehall seems to want to tell them what to do step by step. There is no need to take my word for it. Last week, one head—not from my constituency—told me that the Government are over-interventionist, our children are over-measured, there is initiative overload, and the Government do not wait long enough to see what works. She described the Government's education policy in a manner that I believe constitutes unparliamentary language, and went on to say that
"the government has taken the joy and inspiration out of teaching."
The mood of intervention that seems to permeate the Department for Education and Skills has been most visible in the Government's approach to the pre-school sector. In the past few weeks, I have visited several pre-school groups in my constituency and been shown the increasingly complex bureaucratic framework within which they are being asked to work. It features complex curriculums, onerous qualification requirements for half the staff of a small playgroup, and huge amounts of paperwork that must be completed by people who are either volunteers or low-paid part-time workers. As a result, many groups will close and those that remain will struggle to attract people.
There is real concern in schools about the consequences of the Government's plans to bring in more classroom assistants and to develop their role. If the purpose of the exercise is indeed to strengthen the adult support offered to young children, that is desirable, but some people doubt that. In the letter to the Minister that I quoted a moment ago, my local union leader wrote:
"We welcome the greater consideration given to the training, development and career development of support colleagues; they do an impressive job, often for salary returns little better than the basic minimum wage. We are concerned, however, that their role is to go beyond their traditional and appropriate one, and they are to be encouraged to 'look after' pupils whilst teachers are freed to prepare work.
He continued:
"It is very sad that the government department responsible for education singularly fails to understand the basic process of teaching and learning—not only does the approach suggested misunderstand the nature of the educative process, it also runs counter to other directives on appropriate and adequate supervision."
Local teachers have expressed similar fears to me.
Patrick Mercer: I raised a similar issue with a head in my constituency who felt that the role of teaching assistants as set out by the Secretary of State reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of teachers in classrooms. He said that the right hon. Lady's vision of the role of teaching assistants meant that teachers could give out work at the beginning of the class, then put their feet up or leave the room; yet the interactive nature of teaching these days means that classroom assistants must work together with teachers.
Chris Grayling: I agree. The anxieties expressed by members of the teaching profession about a potentially good initiative that might prove to be totally inappropriate leave the Government with considerable food for thought and the challenge of ensuring that they get it right.
The fears that my hon. Friend and I have described were echoed in the conclusion of the letter. It says:
"There is disenchantment among young teachers that must be addressed. We ignore that disenchantment at our peril."
A recent piece of research undertaken at Liverpool university throws further light on the problem. It states:
"The resignation rate from schools is rising sharply".
It says that on an annualised basis, the resignation rate from schools over the past summer was just under 16 per cent., up by 4 per cent. since 1999, and that the biggest factor behind those resignations was work load. Around half the teachers leaving the profession were doing so without any particular immediate plans. More worrying still, the research reveals that the age profile of the teaching profession is rising; it is not renewing itself. There are far more teachers in their 40s than in the early stages of their career. That risks storing up enormous problems for the future.
In my county, Surrey, and in many other parts of the country, disillusionment with teaching shows in what has become a recruitment crisis. There are simply not enough teachers coming on to the job market to meet the needs of our schools, and many who are currently in teaching jobs are leaving the profession. During last week's Education questions, the Secretary of State emphatically denied that there was an exodus from the profession, especially by young teachers. However, when I talk to head teachers I hear a very different story. In the past few days my colleagues and I have spoken to most of the head teachers in our county. They say that not only do local schools face severe recruitment difficulties, but that during the past year around half have lost staff from the profession, many of whom were younger, newly qualified teachers.
The Government continue to claim that talk of a recruitment and retention crisis in schools is scaremongering, and that most posts were filled during the summer. That may be numerically true, but the reality is rather different. Most heads say that the quality of new, British-trained teachers is good, but that there are too few of them. One head told me that the closest response to one advertisement that he had placed came from Romania and the next closest was from Papua New Guinea. Another said that he had filled places with teachers from Africa and that a huge amount of management time was needed to bring them up to the standard necessary to do the job properly for his pupils. Another said that although he had filled
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18 vacancies, only nine of the teachers were up to the job, adding that he had had no choice. Other heads said that many applicants have little or no experience of the national curriculum and the learning frameworks that the Government have established in this country. More than half of Surrey schools say that they have staff teaching subjects for which they are not qualified, and I suspect that that pattern is repeated in many other parts of the country.
Where vacancies persist, cover is provided by supply teachers or by shuffling staff internally, but more than half the heads to whom we spoke said that they were concerned about the worsening quality of the supply teachers to whom they have access, because there are not enough good supply teachers to go around. Those who manage to cover vacancies internally say that that places huge pressures on other staff, taking precious time for lesson preparation which must then be done outside school hours.
The cost of recruitment is also enormous. One head told me during the summer that he had spent more than £35,000 on agency fees in his attempts to recruit staff. Others have had to pay for visits overseas to find teachers.
Angela Watkinson: A school in my constituency of which I am a governor had to advertise several times and incur the associated expense. The head teacher, accompanied by several other head teachers, went to Australia to carry out block recruiting and interviewing. Does my hon. Friend agree that appointments made in that way are unlikely to be long term and that people coming halfway across the world are likely to do so because they want only to visit Europe, so the problem is likely to recur in six months or two years? It is unlikely that heads will achieve adequate staffing with such recruitment methods.
Chris Grayling: My hon. Friend makes an apposite point, which is reflected in the fact that many head teachers are happy to conduct telephone interviews with teachers from overseas and some do not even meet such staff before they arrive to work. Perhaps the greatest burden is on the time of head teachers. Many say that they have done little except tackle recruitment problems for the past few months and that the strain has been enormous.
Before the Minister adopts the classic Government defence position and says that it was all the fault of the Tories, I shall quote a letter that I received in the summer from the head of a community college in Sussex who was complaining about the lack of applicants for jobs. He said:
"The situation is a clear contrast to the situation five years ago, when we were disappointed if we received less than twenty applications for any post, and averaged over fifty."
Today, most schools feel lucky if they receive more than one application for a post.
I expect that the Minister will laud the importance of the Government's recruitment and retention fund. While welcome, the extra cash has, however, been erratically divided and is too little to have a long-term impact. Surrey, for example, received £650,000, which is considerably less than many other problematic areas whose problems are often less severe. However, it

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allowed many heads to pay for advertising and other recruitment costs, which is welcome. More worrying is the fact that many have had to use the cash to pay extra to secure new recruits. They face being left with financial problems when the cash runs out, but they say that they have no choice.
Funding for Government initiatives is another area of concern for heads and one that is causing mounting frustration. Instead of simply providing more cash for schools, the Government have ensured that a significant part of the additional funding provided is ring-fenced and time limited. The Department decides how much is provided and what it is spent on. That is classic micromanagement of the sort that Ministers seem so determined to pursue. Heads in my constituency tell me that they spend an inordinate amount of time trying to match specific pots of money allocated to them under the standards fund to potential needs so that the money can all be used, but they say that the specific allocations rarely meet the needs of the school. Why is it not possible simply to give schools the extra cash and the freedom to spend it on the things that they know they need, rather than the things that the Department says they need? Schools have little discretionary money after teaching and other fixed costs are paid for, so it is madness for the Government to spend so much time trying to manage the small remaining amount of school expenditure.
Another problem is that funding is now provided on a time-limited basis. The best example is that of threshold pay. The Government initially allocated £400 million in their first grant to schools to meet the cost of threshold pay; now they say that next year's grant will be £250 million, and they have made no specific commitment for subsequent years. They say that funding will be increased to meet the scheme's requirements, but I am not altogether convinced, nor are many of the heads to whom I have spoken. They want reassurance that 100 per cent. of the cost of threshold pay will be put into school budgets in future. Otherwise, many will be faced with having to ration threshold pay by limiting it to fewer staff than are entitled to it. Many feel that they face that choice today, as few have the budgetary freedom to absorb the extra costs if the Government do not pay.
It is not just frustration with bureaucracy and overwork that is driving teachers to despair and, too often, out of the profession; there is real anger in many schools that teachers have no sanction against unruly and antisocial behaviour in the classroom. Every week, dozens of teachers are assaulted in the classroom. A couple of weeks ago, The Guardian reported the case of a music teacher in north London who was headbutted twice, kicked in the testicles, and smashed on the head with an iron bin by a pupil in his classroom. He had to be operated on and could not eat solid food for a fortnight. A recent survey by Warwick university reported that 80 per cent. of teachers believe that pupil behaviour has worsened during their time as teachers. The research undertaken by Liverpool university to which I have already referred found that pupil behaviour is the second most common reason given by teachers for leaving the profession. The attacker of that north London teacher had already been involved in several violent incidents but had not been excluded. Hundreds of other troublesome and disruptive pupils
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have also escaped action in recent years, while others have escaped on appeal after an exclusion decision: in answer to a written question in the summer, the Department told me that approximately one third of exclusion orders are overturned. I know of cases in which pupils excluded from school for dealing in drugs have been reinstated on appeal. What message of support does that send to teachers and heads in such schools?
To some extent, the Government have seen the error of their ways, but instead of totally reversing their recent policy, they have apparently only declared a moratorium on the exclusion process. Can the Minister clarify whether the Government will allow exclusions to return to the levels of five years ago? The current position, in which teachers are under the spotlight for their conduct, is absurd. They frequently end up in court charged with assault after losing their temper with pupils, whereas pupils can get away with almost anything. Is it any wonder that teachers feel betrayed and abandoned, and that so many leave in frustration because they feel powerless to prevent antisocial behaviour in their classrooms? One head said to me:
"Too many parents seem to want to pursue minor incidents until they are in front of the courts."
Another, expressing his staff's frustration, said:
"None of our parents ever seem to be willing to admit that their children could have done anything wrong."
The teacher assaulted in that school in north London said:
"Middle-class theories about being nice and letting children work through their anger in these kinds of situations don't work. They need to have boundaries. This inclusion idea is potentially good, but is only half worked out. I want the issue of staff in inner-city schools addressed. We have to realise that we are breeding a whole generation of children that are growing up with no values."
Mr. David Rendel: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because discipline in schools and dealing with unruly pupils is an important subject. However, to rely solely on exclusion and getting those pupils out of schools is not sufficient, although I suspect that that is what happened under the last Conservative Government. It simply means that those kids are on the street, growing up without the values that he mentioned, and that they might end up causing far greater problems to society. If he wants to rely on exclusion, he must also ensure that his party puts the relevant money into other forms of education and providing somewhere else for those young people to go, so that they might be made into better citizens than his solution, putting them out on the streets, would make them.
Chris Grayling: There is no question of simply relying on exclusion, but not having exclusion as a weapon creates a vacuum in schools that exacerbates the problems for teachers. As the hon. Gentleman knows, in the last couple of years my party has advocated the creation of stronger units to deal with problem pupils. We need a very wide-ranging approach to policy on tackling the problem, but see no signs of that coming from the Government.
The Minister for School Standards (Mr. Stephen Timms): The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. From September, for the first time we will be able

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to offer full-time education to anybody who is excluded from school. I am sure that he and the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) will welcome that helpful move. Under the Conservative Government, children who had been excluded were often given only a couple of hours teaching a week, which led to all sorts of problems elsewhere in the community.
Chris Grayling: I welcome any steps in that direction, but it is fair to say that in far too many cases troublesome pupils are kept within the schools, thus exacerbating the problems and undermining the authority of the heads and the teachers. Heads and teachers feel that they have absolutely no sanction against pupils in their classrooms who are disrupting the life of the school. That problem must be solved.
Mr. Ian Liddell-Grainger: That is an interesting point, because in my part of Somerset, which is extremely rural, we cannot exclude disruptive pupils because there is nowhere for them to go. Our problem is that there is currently no funding to enable them to be taught within the class system. I shall be interested to hear whether the Minister agrees with me funding is essential if the system is to be made to work. My question is, where will the funding come from?
Chris Grayling: It is partly a matter of delivering funding to the right places. It is clearly wrong that in a county such as Somerset there is no alternative to inclusion. However, funding is not the whole of the issue. It is about the Government sending signals, providing a legislative framework, and giving teachers protection against false allegations by pupils. All those things will help to rebuild the confidence of the teaching profession.
Even in high-cost counties such as Surrey, the twin issues of classroom behaviour and overbearing bureaucracy dominate concern about the profession, despite the real problems caused by high housing costs and disparities between pay in London and areas just outside. Those issues must be tackled as part of the Government's solutions to the problems, but doing so will not on its own deal with the teaching crisis in our schools.
I end with some messages for Ministers. Start by taking a year out. Do not introduce any new initiatives for the next 12 months, and give what has already been done time to bed down. Look at what can be done to scrap the burden of regulation on schools. Let me offer some ideas. Why not rationalise all the reports that teachers have to produce for schools, the Government and local education authorities into a single annual report from the head and the governing bodies? Is not one fat document a year enough for any school? Limit the number of consultation documents sent to governors—they do not meet that often and they cannot cope. If anyone thinks that they can cope, they should attend a few governors meetings to find out.
Stop trying to micromanage school budgets; instead, give them new money and tell them that they are expected to do certain things with it, but leave it to the schools to deal with how and when those things are done. If a school has done those things successfully, let
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it use the money for the things it really needs. Give heads and governors back the full right to exclude pupils in the interests of their staff and other pupils, and give teachers more protection against false allegations. Above all, apply common sense. Mothers do not need to do courses lasting a year or more to be qualified to work a couple mornings a week in a local playgroup. If many young teachers are leaving the profession saying that they want to get a life, not everything can be right in the teaching profession. Do not believe only the statistics; when so many heads say that something is wrong, it just might be true.
My local unions concluded their letter to the Minister with these words:
"We look to the Government to do something to restore teacher morale and make a start to address the underlying causes of our current staffing crisis"
I could not have put it better myself.
9.54 am
Mr. Gareth R. Thomas: I congratulate the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) on securing this debate and I join him in paying tribute to the hard work of teachers. Briefly, I want to focus on a number of specific issues facing teachers in my constituency. In particular, I would like to warn my hon. Friend on the Government Front Bench of an impending bid, from my constituency, for additional funding.
I pay tribute to two particularly hard-working and experienced teachers, Jane Bester and Wyn Churchill, who mentored me throughout my brief teaching career before I entered the House.
I am lucky in Harrow, West to have successful schools, which are products of a strong comprehensive school system and ethos. There is a strong partnership between those comprehensive schools and the local education authority. Harrow LEA has just had a positive Ofsted report, but it is not complacent; the report was not perfect, but extremely positive. Schools in Harrow, West have strong leadership, generally supportive parents and, above all, good teachers. All the high schools, in partnership with the LEA, have decided to apply for specialist school status. I flag up the bids by Nower Hill high school and by my old school, Hatch End, which has bid for arts specialist school status and is awaiting with interest the Department's decision on whether it will be given. It is keen to hammer home the message of successful delivery of arts provision and did so to the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, at the beginning of the May general election campaign.
I share the concern of the teaching profession on issues such as the retention of teachers. I do not dismiss the issue of the recruitment of teachers—much progress has been made on that and the effort must continue. However, retention requires proper financial stability in schools, and not an on-going fear of redundancy. When I was first elected to the House, the then Liberal-controlled Harrow council cut school budgets by 2 per cent. It took two to three years for the effect of those cuts to be felt in all schools; many teaching posts were axed and additional pressures were consequently put on teachers.

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Additional money that the Government have advanced to schools has been welcome. All schools in my constituency have been able to appoint additional classroom assistants, and that has also been welcome. Additional resources have been put into either recruitment of additional teachers where necessary, or into the delivery of classroom material. One school has received its first lick of paint inside the building for more than 15 years. That is proof of the benefit of additional money from the Government and of the financial pressures that existed under the Conservative Administration.
I accept the concern about work load, which the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell also acknowledged. From my time teaching, I remember that work load understandably concerned teachers. I remember the frustration of the numerous reports that one had to produce and the considerable paperwork that had to be tackled to deal with children with special educational needs. Those factors still exist, but I welcome the fact that the Government have set up a working party with teaching representatives to consider those issues. I look forward to the Minister rolling out information about what that working party has produced.
The retention of teachers after they have been working for two or three years is important, and especially in London. Many head teachers tell me that house prices in London are a problem. After working for several years and establishing themselves in the community, teachers may want to move on to the house-price ladder. They will experience difficulties in securing a mortgage, and I would encourage my hon. Friend the Minister to remember that. As a London Member, he is aware of the pressures of house prices. I hope that his Department will review that closely.
I shall focus on teachers' working environments. In my constituency, the Rooks Heath high school and the Roxeth Manor first and middle schools are based in buildings that are more than 50 years old, which is inappropriate for any modern school and the community. The head teacher, teachers and governors have worked with the local authority to assess what a 21st-century school needs. Schools need an injection of capital investment way beyond that available via traditional capital routes, or the council's resources. The council—in partnership with Rooks Heath and Canons high school in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty)—is preparing a PFI bid for submission to the Minister's Department shortly before Christmas. The bid includes 14 schools in the Canons and Rooks Heath clusters. Those schools are targeted for support because they have the highest levels of deprivation in Harrow.
Politicians, teachers and head teachers in Harrow are frustrated that the borough is perceived as an affluent leafy metropolitan suburb with low levels of deprivation. In truth, Harrow has pockets of high deprivation, which are served by Canons high and Rooks Heath. Those schools have the highest number of pupils entitled to free school meals, pupils with special educational needs and pupils with English as an additional language, and rank highly on other indices of social deprivation.
The PFI funding for the Rooks Heath and Canons clusters will tie in with the Government's agenda as published in the schools White Paper. The funding will
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be focused on how schools can continue to raise attainment in the transition years from primary to high school. It will also develop the 14–19 curriculum by providing additional vocational and traditional academic study routes, which will be delivered in schools with the further education sector's and other partners' support. It will ensure that outdated music, arts and leisure facilities on both of the sites to which I have referred will be modernised, and that investment in classroom information technology and in teaching and learning facilities will be provided.
I urge the Minister to consider the Harrow bid sympathetically so that the borough may tackle the problems of teaching in old buildings that have lacked investment during the past 50 years. The bid would bring important community benefits. I look forward to hearing about further moves to assist the retention of teaching staff, particularly in London, to reduce the work load on teachers. As I stressed, I look forward above all to hearing, in future no doubt, that the Minister and his Department will support the PFI bid from Harrow to tackle some of the problems in my constituency.
10.5 am
Patrick Mercer: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak this morning, and I thank hon. Members for the contributions that I have heard so far.
I come to the debate with no experience of teaching other than that of being a student many years ago. However, my experience as a newly arrived Member has taken me to the core of the teaching difficulties and strengths in my constituency, from Newark in the south to Retford in the north. The challenges that face teachers in my constituency are broadly the same, but I shall concentrate this morning on the difficulties in the Bassetlaw area, to the north of my constituency, where I live. I am sure that the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) is familiar with many of the problems and will reflect on them when he speaks in due course.
I remember that when I was at school there was always a leavening or sprinkling of mini-skirted female teachers, and young men out on the field who taught us rugby, cricket or whatever. They were perhaps much more able than the older generation of teachers to sympathise and empathise with the students. Clearly, the older teachers were there to provide maturity, gravitas and judgment, but the younger teachers were terribly important—particularly the female ones, I might add. Going round the various schools recently, I was struck more than anything by the fact that those young teachers are no longer to be found. From the top to the bottom of my constituency, I do not see them.
If we consider the Retford area, the reason becomes fairly clear. There are three secondary schools in Retford—King Edward VI school, the Elizabethan school and Ordsall Hall school—all of which provide excellent services to the best of their capabilities to the students. However, there is overcapacity: there are more places available than students to be taught, with the result that teachers face a difficulty with regard to where skills are concentrated.

Slightly further south is the excellent Tuxford comprehensive school, which offers a much better performance at sixth-form level than any of the three

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schools in Retford because of its concentration of teachers. I am not criticising the schools in Retford, but things are difficult for them. As a result, if a student from Retford wishes to study, say, a combination of geography, German and economics, they cannot be taught only in Retford; they have to move between one or two sites in Retford and down as far as Tuxford, which is about seven miles away. Bus services do not exist, and youngsters frequently have to use taxis to get to and from the sites.
The frustrations felt by teachers are considerable. Many of their school sites are in a poor state of repair and under-resourced in terms of facilities. In addition, there are difficulties in trying to find a student coming from or going to Retford who is persistently late and whose lessons are persistently curtailed, because of the travelling and the conditions involved. All that builds up to a great level of frustration for the teachers, who are trying to teach these young people.
This morning, I spoke to the head of the sixth form at Tuxford comprehensive school, who gave me a good understanding of the situation facing the teachers there. Among the staff, there is only one young teacher, a 23-year-old. That excellent young man has a very good background with his postgraduate certification of education and is making a first-class start at the school. However, he complains, exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) said, about the business of getting a life—we seem to come across that phrase all the time. As far as that young man is concerned, 5 o'clock is knocking-off time, when he should be able to get on and do other things, but he is faced with a work load of marking or bureaucracy that takes him away from what he believes are his core skills: teaching, inspiring and leading young people of north-east Nottinghamshire. He told me that last night he spent time filling in the same form for the Department for Education and Skills, the local education authority and the Teacher Training Agency, which all sought the same answers. If they had been on the same form, he would have lost two thirds of his work load last night.
That 23-year-old is being paid about £22,000 a year, which is similar in Newark to a junior manager's wage at the British Sugar plant or to a skilled ball-bearing maker's at NSK-RHP. Comparisons are invidious, but that young man has trained hard, is highly motivated and believes that his pay does not match his contemporaries' pay. There is no doubt that the pay is better after five or seven years, but as the teacher from Tuxford told me, about one third of young teachers in north-east Nottinghamshire leave at the end of their first year. Approximately half the remaining two thirds leave within five or seven years.
That teacher made a point that I have observed on the ground and that was raised this morning: there seems to be a gap between a smattering of people in their early 20s and mature teachers in their late 30s and early 40s. The recruiting difficulty faced by schools in Nottinghamshire can be contained at the moment, but in 10 years or less, difficulties will begin to bite. Tuxford school recently advertised for a humanities teacher, for which there were nine applications; five years ago, the same advertisement attracted 72 applications.
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Conditions at Tuxford school have improved, and we are delivering a better service. Results are better, but young people still do not want to teach in the scattered rural community that I have the privilege to represent. Teachers have been damned left, right and centre, but standards continue to improve. At Tuxford school, GCSE results have improved by 9 per cent. since last year despite the fact that it is overcrowded, classes are much larger, facilities are poor, there is no gymnasium, and water pours in through the roofs. All that is being assessed, and I do not suggest for a moment that the state of education in my constituency is parlous. None the less, it is not an attractive proposition for a young teacher to endeavour to teach in such conditions.
Our teachers provide the future lifeblood of our nation. Our children are our most important investment. We must set teachers free so that they can teach, inspire and follow the vocation that most of them have sought.
10.13 am
Mr. David Rendel: I congratulate the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) on obtaining the debate on an important subject which I am delighted that we have the opportunity to discuss today. Much is still going wrong in schools. I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), but many of his criticisms about the current situation could have been made about the last Conservative Government: during their tenure, bureaucracy in schools increased and there was a lack of funding for buildings, which he mentioned. Water came through the roofs, and there was a gradual deterioration in teacher morale, which I accept has not become any better under this Government. However, it is difficult to see how those criticisms would be overcome by the £20 billion cut in Government services that we were promised by the leader of the Conservative party during his leadership election. Although I accept the criticisms, the Conservative party is not offering any sincere answers.
If, as they say, the Government are serious about education being a top priority—it should be for economic reasons, but also for social and democratic reasons—the state of the teaching profession will inevitably be a key measure of the success or failure of their policy. Flowery rhetoric and warm words will count for little if there are no qualified and well-motivated teachers in classrooms who want to, and actually do, teach children. The Government's failure on that basic score tarnishes their education record. The much-delayed Education Bill, which will be discussed in the Chamber this afternoon, is 200 pages long and has 211 clauses but it contains nothing to solve the problem of teacher shortages.
The problem is severe; there is an alarming crisis in recruitment and retention. The chief inspector of schools in England said that the shortages are at their worst level for decades, and the figures for teacher vacancies make grim reading. It is a game of two halves: there is a problem in recruitment and in retention. According to a survey conducted by the National Union of Teachers, of every 100 final-year trainee teachers, 40 will not enter the classroom and a further 18 will leave the profession within three years. According to departmental statistics—the Government's own

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Figures—primary vacancies have doubled and secondary vacancies have trebled under the Government. In each of the past three years, about 30 per cent. of newly qualified teachers were not in post by March of the next year.
I welcome the fact that the numbers of posts have increased, but that is the Government's constant reply to our complaints about the number of vacancies. What is the point of going for an increasing number of posts, claiming that they will reduce class sizes, if the Government do not manage to get teachers into the classrooms to fill those posts? Not enough teachers are being recruited, which means that there is a 51 per cent. increase in the number of supply teachers or instructors, with more children being taught by unqualified teachers.
As this is science year, we should remind ourselves of the acute crisis in the core subjects of science and maths. Official statistics for January 2001 show that vacancies for maths teachers have increased sevenfold over five years. Three years ago, according to the Open university centre for mathematics education, about one in 10 secondary maths teachers had no subject qualification beyond A-level. Now, 45 per cent. of staff teaching the subject to 11 to 14-year-olds have limited knowledge of maths and little or no training in teaching that subject.
The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee report "Science in Schools" found that the proportion of those beginning the postgraduate certificate in education with third-class degrees or lower was markedly higher in maths and science than in arts subjects: it is 37.7 per cent. in physics, 36.5 per cent. in maths, 33.8 per cent. in chemistry and 15.2 per cent. in biology. That compares with 7.4 per cent. in geography, 6.9 per cent. in English and 5.3 per cent. in history. Many of those who are going into teaching the vital subjects of maths and science have worse degrees than those going into arts subjects.
The second half of the game is retention: why are so many of our teachers leaving the profession? In April, the NUT produced a research study on the reasons why teachers are leaving the profession. As many as 82 per cent. of respondents said that the pressures of the work load were an important factor in their decision to leave teaching, and 49 per cent. mentioned the lack of time available for fulfilling their duties and professional development, and not being able to balance competing demands of work and home. About 56 per cent. felt undervalued and undermined by negative publicity and constant criticism. Stoked by Government and press criticism, teaching is nowadays perceived as a low-status profession.
About 22 per cent. of teachers mentioned the perceived unfairness of recent recruitment initiatives, which benefited new recruits but not the profession as a whole. What does that do for retention? Performance-related pay is also seen by many as divisive. Some 27 per cent. expressed frustration at the lack of resources, and particularly at the state of the school buildings and classrooms in which they had to work. Give people unpleasant places in which to work and they will not want to stay there. About 20 per cent. mentioned their feeling that the classroom has now become a place for targets, not children. We face a crisis in recruitment and retention in teaching, which is being underpinned by a perceived lack of status of the profession and a justified sense that we are failing to value our public servants.
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What has been the Government's response? We have seen expensive and headline-catching initiatives, but a failure to tackle key issues. On fast track, £9.2 million was poured into private sector companies to recruit only 111 teachers. Targets for advanced skills teachers were hopelessly missed and, most staggeringly, the Government have reduced the number of training places for postgraduates from 19,169 in 1997–98 to 16,611 in 2000–01. It now appears that the undergraduate route is being allowed to wither on the vine, with a 25 per cent. drop in recruits since 1997. A recent report by the Institute for Public Policy Research said that
"the current three year expenditure plan could generate up to an extra 70,000 jobs by 2004—in stark comparison with Labour's manifesto pledge of an extra 10,000 teachers."
What can we do to overcome the problems? We should never forget that the recruitment and retention of teachers is not in the main about financial incentives and reward. People do not go into teaching to make money—if we tried to tell a teacher that, they would laugh in our face—or to be very important people. They go into teaching because they want to teach. They want to pass on to the next generation their knowledge and understanding. The Government must take note of the widespread feeling in the profession that teachers are being undervalued and talked down by politicians. I must also say that Chris Woodhead has much to answer for.
As a young man, I was lucky enough to do a year's teaching. It taught me a lot. For one thing, I realised that I would never make a teacher. It is much too difficult a profession. It taught me also that teachers get far the most out of their pupils by being lavish with praise when they get things right, and stinting with criticism when they get things wrong. Pupils in our country are no different from the pupils whom I taught in Cameroon and Uganda years ago. They are most effective when they are encouraged to repeat the things that they do well and least effective when they face carping criticism for the things that they try to improve on.
In education as in social services and the national health service, the Government have tended to pursue a naming-and-shaming policy instead of what should be a value-and-encourage approach. We must restore the ideals and status of public service if we are to improve services significantly. The currency must be more than just funding, important as it is. It must include trust in our teachers to do a good job without the burden of restriction on everything that they do, and trust that they will strive for improved standards even without the burden of highly misleading league tables. If the Government constantly send a message to teachers that they do not trust them to do a good job, they will not, and the Government will get the teachers that they deserve.
10.25 am
Mr. Mark Hoban: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) on securing the debate. Since my election to Parliament, I have enjoyed visiting schools in my constituency. Let me place on record the dedication and commitment of teachers and the leadership of head teachers who are doing a good job in difficult circumstances. The message that I am always left with

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after a meeting with teachers or a visit to a school is the problem that they face with recruitment and retention of teachers.
Last week, a head teacher told me that a newly qualified teacher is usually at school for 10 hours a day, works at home until 9 or 10 o'clock in the evening and gives up a day at the weekend. If teachers are under such pressure, it is not surprising that they cite work load as a reason for leaving the profession. That head teacher spends two days a week trying to resolve recruitment issues and has been doing so for nearly a year; that time could be better spent elsewhere. He is seeking three teachers in key subjects. When I asked him what would happen if he did not find them, he said that he would have to rejig the timetable and existing teachers would have to pick up more classes. They would lose some of their non-contact time and would have to spend longer preparing for lessons and marking work. I cannot imagine that having a favourable effect on their morale, so the recruitment and retention crisis will deepen.
When the head teacher advertised for a physical education teacher, there were six applicants: four from Australia, one from New Zealand and one from Zimbabwe. Previously, he would have expected several applicants from the UK. Other head teachers in my constituency have commented that, whereas a few years ago they would have expected five or six teachers to apply for a job, they are now lucky if they get one or two. The head teacher whom I mentioned received £20,000 from the Government to help with recruitment and retention. He refers to it as "the Chancellor's gift." It was not much of a gift, though: with 50 teachers at the school, it amounted to £400 per teacher. In summary, teachers face the following problems: a heavy work load, fewer teachers, more work given to fewer staff, fewer applicants for jobs and paltry support from the Government.
The problem is reflected across Hampshire, where there were 57 vacancies in 1998, 93 in 1999, 142 in 2000, and 175 this year. The Minister could respond by saying that there are now more teaching positions, so let us consider the rate of vacancies: 0.7 per cent. in 1998, 1.2 per cent. in 1999, 1.8 per cent. in 2000, and 2.2 per cent. this year. The number of vacancies is increasing faster than the number of teaching posts, demonstrating that there is a problem of recruitment and retention in the teaching profession and that the Government are trying to ignore it.
In their White Paper "Schools: Achieving Success", the Government set out their objective for a fivefold increase in special schools. However, as the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) indicated, the number of teaching vacancies in those schools is also increasing, as are teaching vacancies in subjects that the Government want to encourage, such as maths, information and communications technology, physical education and modern languages. I do not believe that they will achieve their objective of a fivefold increase in the number of special schools by 2005.
The other dimension is that the problem of teacher recruitment is affecting pupils. This morning, Mike Tomlinson said that one reason why improvements in numeracy and literacy had stalled this year was the disruption caused by teacher shortages. When we
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discuss the problems of the teaching profession, we must not forget the needs of pupils whose education is being impaired because of the Government's failure to tackle the recruitment and retention crisis facing teachers.
10.30 am
Mr. Ian Liddell-Grainger: I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) on securing this debate. I intend to talk about my constituency in rural Somerset. One of the big problems in recruiting and retaining teachers is the sheer scale and the size of the place. Some people who attend schools in Minehead have to leave home before 7 o'clock in the morning. They cannot get in if there is snow or ice, or flooding, as there was last year. Therefore, much of the work load of teachers involves trying to keep children up to date and up to speed with what they should be doing.
The worst and the best schools in Somerset are both in my constituency. When one looks at the reasons for that difference, and talks to the two head teachers, one discovers that the best school has no great problems recruiting teachers, but the worst school simply cannot get staff. The ethos is that a school that is achieving will get the staff it needs, but schools that are not achieving will never be able to catch up. At the moment, the worst school is short of seven teachers.
The other problem that we face in rural Somerset relates to class sizes. A school with two teachers that is on the borderline of being eligible for a third teacher will not get one, so it will have to double its classes. In other words, class sizes in rural Somerset are growing because many schools are getting bigger. For example, the middle school in Minehead was built for 500 pupils and because of the vagaries of the area it now has 750 pupils. Nothing can be done about that. The size of the classes means that the school cannot recruit the extra teachers that it needs.
There are also problems involving special needs. Many children in Somerset have special needs and although that is the case in most parts of this country, schools in rural Somerset cannot get special needs teachers to be at the school when they are required because they have to cover such a vast area. The best we can get is a couple of hours a week from the special needs teacher, and on some days one person may have to look after a class of 20 special needs children. That is obviously wrong. We cannot retain special needs teachers because when they have worked in Somerset for a short period they tend to go to Bristol or Exeter or one of the other larger towns where they do not face quite the same problems of movement and of scale.
Another problem was that the local college could not get sufficient resources from Government so we had to raise the £50,000 required for TEC status. An area with the smallest district council in the United Kingdom, with a total budget of just over £4 million, had to raise £50,000. We raised £65,000 from local businesses—and the biggest business is tiny—because people felt that education was not working for their children and other children in their community. That demonstrates the problem that we face.
We also have the problems of transport and travelling. As I said, some children have to travel two and a half hours to get to school and the problem is

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getting worse. It is all very well for the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) to go on about this, but his party is in charge of Somerset and much of what has been going on is due to the inability of his party to grasp what education really means to the children and the people of Somerset.
10.33 am
Mrs. Eleanor Laing: I join other hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) on securing this morning's debate. Today, Parliament is rather dominated by education and that is a good thing. We cannot get enough of the subject. The more we discuss it and thrash out the problems and ideas that are before us, the better chance there is—I hope—that the Government will begin to get their policies somewhere near correct. Every child has only one chance of getting a good education and if that chance is lost, it is lost forever. That is why the subject is most important, and it is good that we are discussing it all day.
My hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell made an excellent introductory speech, having researched many of the problems in his constituency and his county. Many of those problems also occur in other parts of the country, and it has been interesting to hear about the contrast between different areas.
Surprisingly, I agree with the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas) who highlighted the difficulties caused by house prices and living costs for young teachers in Harrow and London. That problem is reflected in my constituency, which is just outside London. Teachers there do not get a London allowance, but house prices are just as high as in his constituency. The Government's plans to overcome that problem will not work, and it will be interesting to hear the Minister's reply.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) highlighted a variety of problems including that of overseas recruitment. It is good that people from other countries want to come to the UK to teach. It adds to the wealth of knowledge and experience that is being brought into our schools, but the cost of recruiting overseas teachers is enormous. Indeed, the cost of recruitment is often ignored—it can cost more than £10,000 to recruit a senior teacher to a school in south-east England. That money is lost if the teacher leaves the school after a year or two, and the recruitment cost must be borne again. It is a bad investment that does not work, as money that should be used elsewhere in teaching goes down the drain. In some areas, the problem of recruitment and retention is worse than what we have heard today.
The hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) waxed lyrical about the NUT survey, and I am glad that he did because it means that I do not have to do so. He did not mention that 9 per cent. of those surveyed said that teaching is better in Scotland. I shall say no more, but as one who was educated in Scotland I am prejudiced. I admit that that experience was some time ago, but I am glad to know that some people still think that education is better in Scotland.
Mr. Rendel: Who is in charge there?
Mrs. Laing: I do not think that it is better because of who is in charge. That is another matter and one that is not for this morning's debate.
The other matters that are addressed in the NUT survey are quite enlightening, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Newbury for going through them in such detail. One important point on which I agree with him is that people do not go into the teaching profession in order to make money, but because they have more altruistic goals in mind. Most people become teachers because they want to teach. Simplifying the problem in terms of finance does not help to solve it. As he said, it is the morale of teachers that matters. However, I would not suggest that in order to improve morale no teacher should ever be criticised. As with any other profession, there are excellent teachers, good teachers and some not good teachers. In order to give children the education that they deserve, we must find the teachers who are not performing well and help them to improve.
I did not think that I would ever find myself saying four times in two minutes that I agreed with the hon. Member for Newbury, but I agree with him that it does not help the situation when the media use isolated incidents to vilify the teaching profession. The profession does not deserve that. Nor do the many thousands of excellent teachers who are out there working hard and doing a good job. We must make sure that, while we criticise those who are not doing well, we also praise those who are doing well.
In some schools in my constituency I have seen enormous differences made because of the personality, approach, energy and enthusiasm of the head or particular teachers. One person can make a huge difference to the lives of many young people. We have to give teachers the chance to make that difference.
My hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) emphasised the increasing rate of teacher vacancies. It bothers me enormously to hear the Secretary of State and other Ministers give us endless statistics about the numbers being recruitment and the rate of recruitment in an attempt to pulling the wool over the eyes of those who study the statistics —[Interruption.]—I sense some dissension among Labour Members, but it is no good simply looking at the numbers and saying that more people are going into teacher training and more teachers are being employed in schools. If teachers are not being retained, if they are unable to develop their own professional ability, if they are not teaching the subjects for which they are qualified, at the level for which they are qualified, the numbers become meaningless. Merely putting a teacher in front of a class does not mean that the class is being taught properly. If the teacher is not sufficiently senior to be teaching at that particular level or is qualified in chemistry but teaching physics, that might solve the Government's problem with statistics, because it looks good in statistical terms, but the parents and children involved know that it is not nearly good enough.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Liddell-Grainger) highlighted the disproportionate effect of teacher shortages on the worse performing schools. That is one of the biggest problems which has not been properly discussed. Perhaps the Minister intends to address it in the next few minutes.

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In my constituency, where I have made a study of the subject for some time, the better schools have minor problems in recruiting and retaining teachers. The worse schools have an enormous problem. The result is a downward spiral of educational achievement in some schools in some areas. The better schools are managing to keep their heads above water and provide a decent education, but the worst schools are being affected disproportionately. I sincerely hope that the Minister has taken the problem on board and he will find some way of addressing it.
I have a few straightforward questions for the Minister. First, does he recognise that there is a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention? I asked that question of the former Secretary of State for Education a few months ago in respect of my county, Essex, and he said that there was no problem and no crisis. I can tell the Minister that parents and teachers in my constituency were furious at that. They know that that there is an enormous problem that is becoming a crisis. If the Government do not even recognise that there is a crisis, there is no hope of solving it. If the Government do recognise it, we have some hope and perhaps we can work together to try and solve the problem.
Secondly, does the Minister appreciate the burden placed on teachers by bureaucracy and interference? It has been mentioned frequently this morning and it also emerges from the NUT survey. That is the direct responsibility of the Government and local education authority as they produce the bureaucracy and send out circulars telling teachers what to do. The Government could take direct action to improve matters.
Thirdly, does the Minister recognise that teachers are demoralised? The discipline problem is not just that pupils are not properly disciplined, but that teachers are being disciplined unreasonably for exerting a little discipline on pupils. If a teacher puts a hand on a pupil's shoulder, the parents can accuse that teacher of assault.
I shall not discuss the distressing details of a particular case, but I could tell the Minister in private. A very good, young teacher was lost to the profession for ever because of the unreasonable behaviour of a parent on behalf of a badly behaved child. The child gets away with it, but the teacher is disciplined and lost to the profession. I shall not extrapolate on the basis of a single incident, but others have mentioned similar concerns this morning.
Fourthly, does the Minister recognise that recruitment drives will never work unless we solve the problem of retention? I say "we", but only the Minister can solve it.
Fifthly, does the Minister acknowledge that many of these issues are within Government control and that he has the power to take action to overcome these problems? Will he undertake to do so?
10.46 am
The Minister for School Standards (Mr. Stephen Timms): I congratulate the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) on initiating our debate on this important subject and I thank other hon. Members for their contributions. I agree with the hon. Member
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for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) that we need a debate on the teaching profession. It is also important to debate education in the wider community.
I also agree with the hon. Lady about the importance of celebrating the achievements of our teachers, particularly today, the day on which the results of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development programme for international student assessments have been announced. They show good levels of achievement by UK students in international comparisons with 32 countries. The UK performance was significantly above the OECD average in reading, maths and scientific literacy. The UK did well in comparison with other G8 countries. To develop a point mentioned by the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel), the UK came fourth out of 32 on the scientific literacy scale, and was significantly outperformed only by Korea. Even our lower-achieving pupils do relatively well by international comparative standards. The UK achieves high levels of performance without excessive disparities, and gender differences are also less than the OECD average. The OECD published that welcome information this morning. It reflects the achievements of the UK teaching profession, so I greatly welcome it.
The terms of the wider debate about the teaching profession were clearly laid out in the speech of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to the Social Market Foundation on 12 November. The key question was how to encourage the best people to train as teachers. How can we ensure that as many as possible enter the classroom; and once they are there, how can we keep them fulfilled in their work and highly motivated to develop long-term careers in a fully modernised teaching profession? As we speak, children are being taught in 24,000 schools across the country. Hon. Members will recall that 20 years ago hundreds of children would have been sitting at home, and early in the summer it was predicted that that might be the case this term, but the children are sitting in their classes today. In view of some of the overstatements that have been made today, it is important to remind hon. Members that forecasts of disruption to schools this term have proved ill-founded.
My second observation, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas) was right to draw attention, is that, thanks to extra investment in the fabric of our schools, classes offer better learning environments than they did a few years ago. In 1996–97, less than £700 million a year was being invested in school buildings; by next year, £3.5 billion—a fivefold increase—will be invested. I draw the attention of the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell to the fact that in Surrey capital investment has risen from £8 million in 1996–97 to nearly £22 million this year. Indeed, there has been a huge boost across the country, with far-reaching and welcome implications.
My third observation is that the overwhelming majority of staff are very skilled professionals with a strong commitment to delivering the best possible outcomes for the children. The continuing improvement in GCSE and A-level results across the country is proof of that, as is this morning's data from the OECD. The hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) was right to make the important point that schools' achievements have been good in that respect. Evidence of that

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improvement is provided by the annual report of the chief inspector of schools, Mike Tomlinson, on the progress of literacy and numeracy strategies, to which the hon. Gentleman also referred. This morning, Mike Tomlinson said that
"the overall quality of teaching continues to improve".
In our debate on the state of the teaching profession, it is important to pay tribute to that improvement. In last year's report, Mike Tomlinson pointed out that his inspectors deemed 95 per cent. of lessons in that year satisfactory or better, whereas in 1995 only 80 per cent. were deemed satisfactory. He said that
"the quality of teaching has improved. It is now good in more than six in ten lessons and unsatisfactory in only one in 20."
So there has been good progress on quality as well.
My fourth observation is that even during a time of economic prosperity, with an extremely well managed economy, many employment opportunities and unemployment at its lowest level for 30 years, teaching has become an increasingly attractive career option. In the past couple of years, the Teacher Training Agency has received an unprecedented number of inquiries about careers in teaching. After eight successive years of decline, we have witnessed two successive years of rising teacher training recruitment levels. The number of people following alternative routes to qualified teacher status—those who enter teaching later in their careers—has also increased sharply in the past couple of years.
The fifth observation is one that I make absolutely no bones about. Despite the above points, and to pick up on a comment from the hon. Member for Epping Forest, many teachers and head teachers feel overworked, undervalued and under pressure. As has been noted, many head teachers in various parts of the country had to work through the summer to recruit the staff necessary to ensure normal operation of schools this term. It is a great tribute to them that they succeeded in that task, but a vast amount of work was required. Far from denying that such problems exist, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West pointed out, we commissioned PricewaterhouseCoopers to conduct an independent investigation into teachers' work load. That study is nearing completion and the steering group, which includes the teaching unions, will meet tomorrow to sign it off.
We know that the review will confirm the extent to which teacher work loads have risen. The interim report said that
"teachers and headteachers work more intensive weeks than other comparable managers and professionals".
It also confirms that we all expect our teachers to do too much clerical and administrative work for too much of their time. I quote:
"Teachers in many schools perceive a lack of control and ownership over their work, undertaking tasks—particularly documentation—which they do not believe are necessary to support learning, or which could be done by support staff rather than by teachers or more efficiently using Information and Communications Technology."
We acknowledge those concerns and we are determined to tackle them head-on. The consultants paint a picture of teachers who are pulled in too many directions and do
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not feel that they have the support that they need. By contrast, our vision for the future of the teaching profession is the one that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State described to the Social Market Foundation. The pamphlet that she published to coincide with that clearly sets out the demand pressures and supply constraints that have led to the current perception of the extent of teacher shortages: for example, we now need to recruit to initial teacher training some 10 per cent. of all new graduates—40 per cent. in the case of maths graduates, as the hon. Member for Newbury said. Those are very challenging proportions.
The difficulties do not lie only in teacher supply. Historically, the teaching profession has not been helped sufficiently to modernise the availability and use of support staff, nor the technology to support them.
Mr. Gareth R. Thomas: Given that the bid from my borough to which I referred will provide much-needed investment in ICT equipment, and given that hon. Friends have told me that the Minister has a growing reputation as a shrewd and considered judge of funding applications, would he consider offering or agreeing to meet a delegation from my authority when the bid has been submitted?
Mr. Timms: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's generous remarks, and note the sincerity with which they are offered. It would of course be for my noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State to receive any such delegation, but I am sure that she would give careful consideration to doing so.
The school work force must be remodelled as part of the modernisation of the teaching profession. Measures to assist that will be my right hon. Friend's top priority in the current spending review, which concludes next July. The Education Bill, which we will debate in the House this afternoon, will make an important contribution. It will give teachers greater scope to exercise their informed professional judgment than has been the case in the past. It is no part of our project to supplant teachers with unqualified staff. On the contrary, teachers will have higher status, more responsibility to do what they are uniquely qualified to do, and the space to realise the ideals that brought them into teaching in the first place.
We will support teachers with better technology. We are already investing £1.8 billion in improving schools' IT between 1998 and 2004. Learning will be supported by a wider range of staff, including more teaching assistants to help teachers with classroom responsibilities—but certainly not to supplant them. Teaching assistants play an important part in our plans and they too will need support and development opportunities to allow them to maximise their contribution. We will support more bursars and recruit more administrative staff to free teachers and head teachers from more of the paperwork that is not central to the jobs that we want them to do. The first step on that path will be to refer the final report on teacher work load, by PricewaterhouseCoopers to the School Teachers' Pay Review Body for recommendations next spring.

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A few weeks ago, I attended the national teaching awards at the Theatre Royal in Drury lane. It was a great evening, full of accounts of inspiring teachers. One of the pupils nominating her English teacher, who went on to be the winner of this year's outstanding new teacher award, said that the teacher
"doesn't only treat you like a student she is paid to teach, but as an individual. She realises each student's potential and pushes him or her towards it with enthusiasm. She has always made me feel supported and not scared to ask for help—"
for fear being humiliated —
"because she always listens to you. She has a way of communicating with students and parents like no other teacher I know."
I meet many teachers around the country and recognise in remarkably many the qualities praised in that testimonial. Joy and inspiration are there in abundance.

Foot and Mouth
11 am
John Mann: Unlike a majority of Members in the Chamber today, I was a mere candidate at the height of the foot and mouth crisis, and I lived on one of the largest beef farms in the country when the crisis broke out. I lived within 20 m of some of the finest livestock in the country on an estate that had a large number of both sheep and cattle. It is in a county that, to date and thankfully, has not been affected by a direct outbreak of the disease. The pressures on the farming community were near at hand and apparent, and I pay tribute to the prompt action taken by those in that community, not least in my immediate locality, who acted promptly and wisely to minimise the effects, on Government instructions and at the appropriate time.
In my constituency, it would be inaccurate to describe farming as the only sector affected by foot and mouth. Mine is a farming community that has declined steadily over the years under successive Governments. It would be honest and accurate to say that the community has been critical of all Governments during the past 10 to 20 years, and that applies particularly to tenant farmers, who form a very small section of the economy.
Half the land mass of my constituency is forested, which is unusual in England. Tourism is fundamental to the future growth of our economy and I want to speak about the impact on tourism, which is why I asked for this Adjournment debate. Next week, I shall give evidence to an inquiry at Finningley into an international airport and I shall try to persuade the inspector of the tourist potential of an area that has Sherwood forest in its midst. The area that suffered greatly because of foot and mouth.
In many rural communities, tourism forms the basis of the local economy and generates almost twice the revenue of livestock farming. In 1999, the total value of rural tourism was £12 billion. It supports an estimated 380,000 jobs and 25,000 small businesses. In spite of that, tourism is relatively weak because seasonal fluctuations in demand make the sector vulnerable to the impact of major issues such as foot and mouth.
When the first case of foot and mouth was confirmed, various measures were taken with the aim of ensuring that tourists did not contribute to the spread of the disease. Those measures included closure of footpaths, rights of way and heritage sites. Many land-owning organisations such as the Forestry Commission and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds announced that they would shut their land as a precautionary measure. In my constituency, Hodsock priory had to shut down at the height of the tourist season while Clumber park, which is a major tourist attraction in the north midlands, also had to close.
Several hon. Members in the Chamber take an interest in angling. The angling tradition in mining communities is deep, longstanding and current. Perhaps the greatest impact on daily life for the ordinary person was the fact that anglers had to go elsewhere for their sport because the canal was closed.
Many local education authorities advised schools not to organise visits to areas where outside spaces were closed either as a preventative measure, as in

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Nottinghamshire, or because of infection. At Edwinstowe, which is two miles from my constituency, a major educational facility for children at local schools was closed for a long time.
There was bound to be an impact on tourism once public authorities communicated through the media their decision that the public interest was best served by considering the countryside to be closed for business. I want to concentrate on the impact on one section of the tourist industry, the Youth Hostels Association, which has a particular resonance in certain parts of the country and is especially important for my constituents.
In the three or four years when I worked towards becoming a Member of Parliament, I hoped that one of the first things that I could propose would be a new youth hostel in Clumber park to link with the youth hostel in Edwinstowe. That would create a proper tourist route, increase the number of beds available and put my area on the tourist map for overseas visitors. That has proved to be impossible, although such ideas are fundamental to regenerating the local economy. The potential for tourism in my area is as great as anywhere in the United Kingdom.
The decision to close the countryside resulted in a dramatic reduction in the number of guests at youth hostels. The YHA was formed in 1930 as a charity, and it is now a worldwide organisation. Its aim when it was formed, to which it remains true today, was:
"To help all, especially young people of limited means, to a greater knowledge, love and care of the countryside, particularly by providing hostels or other simple accommodation for them in their travels, and thus to promote their health, rest and education."
It operates 230 youth hostels in England and Wales, which are mainly situated in rural locations, and it has 300,000 members.
I shall declare an interest: I have been a member of the YHA for 25 years. I was introduced to it by my father, who was in turn introduced to it by a teacher when he lived in one of the most deprived parts of Edinburgh. He was encouraged to leave the tenement blocks and go cycling in the Scottish borders at the weekend using youth hostels. Opening the eyes of those who live in inner cities remains the key social import of the organisation beyond the business of being in tourism, although that is also important.
The organisation has been transformed. I recall, from first using youth hostels as a young boy, one at Thirlmere in the Lake district with a reputation for its austere warden, 1945-esque blankets and the duties that each person staying there had to carry out in the wooden hut and the freezing cold. It was known for Spartan conditions, creaking bunk beds and large dormitories. It was also known for its regime—in by 10.30 and lights out by 11 o'clock. I can tell people of that generation or older that the organisation has been transformed to meet today's expectations, standards and qualities. The youth of today regard it as on a par with their expectations, not as something left over from yesteryear. That point must be made, because many have a vague memory but would not recognise the organisation today.
During the eight months to the end of October, the Youth Hostels Association lost 19 per cent. of its business across the network, and 24 per cent. in its rural
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parts. In the worst affected areas—the Lake district, Yorkshire dales and north-east—business losses have totalled 40–50 per cent. Although there was significant business recovery in the south towards the end of the summer, there is currently no prospect of replacing those losses.
Mr. John Burnett: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because I do not wish his point about recovery in the south to remain unchallenged. Does he accept from me as a south-west Member of Parliament that although there was some recovery in coastal areas, inland tourism in the south-west—especially in my county, Devon, and in next-door Cornwall—was very adversely affected and has a very low cash flow?
John Mann: I would not dispute that for one second. The YHA's southern recovery is explained by its significant number of London youth hostels. They remain the cash cow of the organisation. In spite of that, and in spite of the fact that the London tourist industry was strong towards the end of the summer, there has been a loss this year of £5 million from an annual income of £30 million.
The organisation has no significant reserves with which to meet such setbacks, apart from its properties. In the short term, it has had to borrow from the banks to meet cash flow requirements. Crucially, in the medium term, it expects to have to close and sell a significant number of hostels to survive and undertake essential investment for the future.
Investment is essential for any enterprise, and as the YHA is well run, that means continuing to maintain and upgrade the quality of hostels—bedrooms, showers, windows, roofs and information technology—and broadening its appeal to a wider section of society. Of the YHA's current guests, 35 per cent. are school and youth groups, 30 per cent. are from overseas—often young backpackers—25 per cent. are individuals, couples or friends, and 10 per cent. are families.
I want to single out one group that uses youth hostels or, rather, would have used them this summer but could not; it has used them in the past, and wishes to do so in the future. It is the Acorn youth trust, based in Bassetlaw. It has financial backing through the single regeneration budget scheme for coalfields, and deals with at-risk young people in the ex-mining villages of Carlton in Lindrick and Langold. I say "at-risk" because those villages, especially the Wimpy estate in Carlton in Lindrick, are notorious across the north of England for involvement in heroin and for the amount of drug dealing going on in the streets.
The youth workers are working with those at-risk young people, aged 11 to 15—particularly younger teenagers—who could make decisions to get into the drug culture and become drug addicts. Many times in villages, I have sat with parents whose children have become heroin addicts and part of the consequent crime and disorder problems.
The primary focus of the trust is to take young people to youth hostels, such as those at Edwinstowe, Matlock and Llangollen. My great fear is that its ability to do that will be impaired by the financial crisis of the YHA. Last weekend, the trust took a group of people to the

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Edwinstowe youth hostel. Young people must raise the finances, however minimal, to attend such weekends; they are not charity, or a handout, but an award for the enterprise of young people.
Young people must take on responsibilities in the youth hostel, and the structure and nature of the hostel enforces that notion. The ideas of governance and how one lives are, for many, sadly lacking in their domestic lives. Cooking is another skill. Such young people, when given a pound, would normally eat burgers and chips. However, in the controlled and guided environment of the youth hostel, they have no choice but to learn cooking skills and learn about healthy living and eating. Such concepts are not directly available to them anywhere else, but have the most powerful impact. That opens young people's eyes to a world beyond the deprived village, street or house in which they live. Such educational work—through youth groups or schools—is crucial.
The YHA has a recovery plan and has not sat on its hands waiting to be bailed out. It has had to increase its borrowing and has already borrowed —3.3 million. It has also enhanced its short-term marketing initiatives, particularly those aimed at spring 2002 in conjunction with the Government's campaign for the countryside. It has started the hostel review, identifying asset sales, to raise the £5 million that it has lost. It has highlighted that issue in national and local media. I am pleased to say that it has also intensified applications for public funds to assist hostel investment and outreach work.
To date, funds made available by the Government have had some, though limited, benefit. Business Links initially declared the organisation ineligible for the £15,000 available to small businesses for the loss that it has suffered because of foot and mouth. Some 93 hostels have lost more than 60 per cent. of their business for two consecutive months, and many are being closed as a result of the crisis. I am pleased that the Government have changed that policy so that the organisation is now eligible, but I trust that the funds have not dried up. Can the Minister confirm whether the £500,000 that could be available to the YHA is, in fact, still available?
The hypothetical rates liability is £1.02 million, but as a charitable organisation, the organisation receives 80 per cent. mandatory rate relief and, in some cases, a further 20 per cent. discretionary relief. Its annual rates bill is £117,000 so it can expect only £75,000 through the hardship relief scheme. Significant money went to farming-based charities but the YHA was, unfortunately, declared ineligible. The rural taskforce has recommended that the scheme should be extended to environmental and recreational charities, such as the YHA.
The Minister for Rural Affairs(Alun Michael): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I want to make it clear that the match funding scheme for charities, to which he referred, was intended to help individuals, under particular stress in communities, who were involved in farming-related and non-farming-related activities. Initially, there was concern that it was only farmers and their families who were helped, but the scheme was widened by organisations such as the Addington Fund, which made a tremendous
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contribution to helping people who were under immense pressure during the main period of the foot and mouth outbreak.
John Mann: I thank my right hon. Friend.
Let me stress the assistance that the Youth Hostel Association needs. It will continue to make applications to the community fund and the heritage lottery fund. However, it is crucial that the re-launching of the visiting the countryside campaign, including encouraging people to stay at youth hostels, is a major factor in Government action over the next year.
Matched funds, through the foot and mouth appeal, which has raised £239,000, could make a significant contribution to relieving the plight of the YHA. I ask the Minister to respond specifically to the question of match funding, based on the appeal to its members. The Government could ask regional development agencies to give priority to reinvestment in organisations, such as the Youth Hostel Association, that are involved with environmental and social tourism.
There should be some form of economic regeneration for constituencies like mine—which on any indicator is one of the more deprived, and which, according to my fact-finding, is one of the areas less well funded from the available pots of money. Assistance from the European regional development fund would also be of great help. I know that in Nottinghamshire there is significant money in that fund, which lies intact without a penny having been spent from it over the past two years.
I would like to see special attention given to those youth hostels in rural areas that contribute to over 50 per cent. of the bed stock, or in places where there is one village shop. One of the critical social factors—well beyond young people from my constituency visiting—is the fact that, for village pubs and shops, an influx of perhaps 60 or 70 people a night is a major contribution to their sustainability. That is particularly so where the youth hostel is the key provider of local beds, which is often the case, or where there is one village shop struggling to survive, so the custom from the YHA's clientele is vital for its survival.
I would also like some ingenuity from the Government in the ways in which public funds can be used for to help young people at risk, such as those in my constituency. The Government should invest in the future by providing more funding so that such young people can utilise the youth hostels, both in the next year and on a planned basis in the future.
Mr. Tom Levitt: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way while he is making such a powerful case about youth hostels, which I hope to add to later, if I catch your eye, Mr. Gale.
My hon. Friend will be aware that early-day motion 256 has already received over 80 sponsors, and I hope that he will urge every hon. Member to sign that EDM to show support for the youth hostel movement.
John Mann: I will, and I believe that more signatures are going in today to support that early-day motion.
My right hon. Friend the Minister and I have discussed this matter before on a number of occasions, and I think that we can picture the Black Sail youth hostel in the Lake

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district. I can tell those who have not been there that it is one of the best sites in this country. From the doorway, one can see on the right Red Pike and Pillar, which is part of the Wasdale horseshoe—unquestionably the greatest walking range in England, and one of the greatest walking ranges in Britain, and a ferocious sight from that aspect. To the left is Green gable and further to the left is Great gable—in Wainwright's words, the greatest of British mountains.
The Youth Hostel Association was formed to allow young people such as those in my constituency who have never seen such sights, who have been stuck in the cash-boot, burger-and-chips economy of deprivation, drugs and social risk, to experience the countryside and have their eyes opened to that greater world. For that reason, the YHA is a special case and urgently needs support and assistance from this Government, of all Governments, and from all parties, at its most crucial moment of need. I implore the Minister to help, because the organisation needs that assistance now. People at risk in communities throughout the country will be the losers if we do not tackle the problem in the very near future.
11.25 am
Mr. David Curry: Although the first outbreaks of foot and mouth disease in my constituency did not occur until April—the election had been called before the first outbreak occurred—a large part of North Yorkshire was already frozen because of outbreaks elsewhere, in Wensleydale, and in Cumbria. Businesses have lost in every season this year. North Yorkshire is still not a free county, but I hope that in a week or so, certainly before Christmas, it will have that status, access will be largely, but not entirely, opened up and businesses can begin to look forward to next year without the catastrophe that overwhelmed them this year.
The business crisis has been widespread. Foot and mouth disease is thought of first as an agricultural and livestock problem, but the ripples go extensively through businesses. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) spoke eloquently about the youth hostel movement, which takes about £2 million a year. Just before the outbreak, I opened a refurbished youth hostel in my constituency, which promptly became non-functioning because of the lack of visitors. Tourism is often thought of as bed and breakfast, but many retired people who may have a spare room take visitors and do bed and breakfast; their life does not revolve around it. However, the people who run pubs and hotels are often wholly dependent upon free movement and on people being able to visit. There is no purpose in going to areas such as Grassington, for example, other than to gain access to the countryside of Wharfedale and Malhamdale. If people cannot gain access to the countryside, they do not go; businesses have had only 10, 12 or 15 per cent. of their visitors the previous year. It will be interesting to know whether the Christmas bookings are better, because people expect the countryside to be freer.
There are outdoor education and trekking centres in my constituency. Some people had just set up a business, and bought ponies and hired staff, and their business simply failed. I mentioned pubs and the hotels; the country shows at Pateley Bridge, Kilnsey and Malham
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were a complete wipeout, and the Masham sheep fair, perhaps most poignantly of all, this year had a competition for fake sheep. There were pens on Masham marketplace and people competed to make sheep out of wire, wool and so on—they were very imaginative—as they could not show the real thing. My neighbour had a high-quality entry, which she kept in her garage. I communed with it for some weeks when the wool was being stuck to the exhibit.
Many businesses have turned to making plaques for a living, which are awarded to for fell racing, or at country show events. Business is down catastrophically, even miles away from the infected areas; the National Trust and some public and semi-public bodies have suffered too. In towns such as Settle, where the epidemic started, there have been ramifications for almost every business that one can mention. Hotels and pubs in Horton in Ribblesdale—the epicentre of the epidemic—and in Malham and Grassington have all been affected. Businesses usually hope to make some fat over the summer and have a good autumn half-term holiday, which is the last real attempt to make money before the winter weather sets in. However, they have not been able to put by any stores, so the crisis will come this winter.
The crisis in businesses in my constituency, especially in tourism, is associated not only with the outbreak of foot and mouth disease. During the fuel crisis, travellers searched desperately to find a pump open in the Yorkshire dales. The serious problems caused by flooding also had an impact on tourism, and the persistently high level of the pound has made it much cheaper for many people to go abroad for their holidays than to spend them in the United Kingdom.
Those factors were present before the outbreak of foot and mouth disease. The Government's business rate relief and various funds provided some help. Regional development agencies have channelled funds, although there have been common complaints throughout the UK about the sheer bureaucracy of the processes that must be gone through before the money can be accessed. For many businesses whose desperate need was survival, the requirement to propose a business plan for future development was three or four steps beyond the crisis.
Mr. Burnett: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who accurately and compellingly describes the parlous conditions faced by many country businesses as winter approaches. Does he agree that it would be extremely unwise and unfair for the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise to demand payment of deferred corporation tax, income tax and value added tax?
Mr. Curry: The hon. Gentleman has uncannily anticipated the point that I was about to make. However, repetition is no sin in politics, so I will not hesitate to make that point in a moment.
Charitable giving has been important. Craven had a target to raise £1 million to help affected businesses. The Minister also referred to various other charitable funds. There is a hardy resilience among my constituents, but it is astonishing that Government agencies are calling in the debts just as the crisis begins to bite in winter.
Alun Michael: The hon. Gentleman's intervention gives me an opportunity to nail a lie. There is no change

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in the approach of Inland Revenue departments to those who are affected by foot and mouth disease. We have given an undertaking to continue to be sympathetic when we consider each request for help and support. The joint helpline is still open seven days a week to provide that assistance. There have been a couple of reports that debts would suddenly be called in. I am satisfied from my own inquiries that those are rural myths. Treasury colleagues assure me that they intend to be as helpful as possible to businesses that are going through the difficulties to which the right hon. Gentleman rightly referred.
Mr. Curry: We have dispatched urban myths that were invented by a previous Secretary of State, we have had the rural myths, and we can now concentrate on the difficult business realities. The Minister's remarks are useful, and I will invite businesses in my constituency to let me know immediately if they receive a demand from the Inland Revenue or other agencies. I am sure that the Minister would want me to contact him instantly with that evidence, so that he can tell whoever has issued a demand to stop. Lord Montgomery says in his autobiography that his mother would sometimes say to the nanny, "Go and find what Bernard is doing and tell him to stop it." That may not be a bad motto for the agencies.
Alun Michael: It would be unrealistic to suggest that the Inland Revenue should not talk to people about how, as business gets back to normal, they may deal with payments over time. I do not want to suggest that the Revenue should not talk to anyone, and Ministers have made it clear that, while the current situation remains, they will be sympathetic and pursue the line that I described.
Mr. Curry: The Minister will know that businesses do not expect gifts from Government. Businesses know that the money must be repaid, so the importance is in the tone and nature of approach and making it clear at the beginning that this is not a demand for payment, but an exploration of how the two sides can co-operate on a problem that everyone recognises. That is the key. There is a case for extending the business rate relief, simply because winter is such a difficult period, and the Minister will no doubt examine that as he collects his thoughts. We also need a full response to the Haskins report, which was generally sensible and solid. He is a bit the Lord High Everything Else of the Government, but on this occasion he has done a reasonable task. The Government made an immediate response, but more detail is required.
Above all, businesses need not money but some certainty. Hon. Members should imagine that they are a business. They have just suffered a catastrophic year and are being told by everyone that they should modernise, advertise their services and improve their facilities to attract new visitors. They must invest to do that; they cannot just sit and wait for it to happen. They also know that if there is one more outbreak of foot and mouth disease£we should not forget that the Government expect a tail to the epidemic—a whole chunk of countryside could be frozen again and such investment would be useless.
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Businesses cannot choose not to make the investment, because they cannot just sit there and do nothing. Equally, if we do have an outbreak, there must be a response. It would be enormously helpful if the Government outlined the approach that they would take to isolate any outbreak and ensure that the repercussions would not plunge scores, or perhaps hundreds, of businesses into the same situation as earlier this year. That is particularly important, as the Government will shortly pass the Animal Health Bill, which will give them the legal means to compensate for animals slaughtered following vaccination as part of the programme for controlling foot and mouth. I do not prescribe a solution, but the Government must understand the great apprehension across the countryside that we are not yet done with foot and mouth and that it could come back and kill any recovery.
I will make one point to the Minister with which he will be painfully familiar. I mentioned country shows and the importance of attracting tourists. If the 21-day rule restricting movement persists, it will have an immediate and deleterious impact on the ability of traditional country shows to go ahead. Animals must be brought to and taken away from such shows and play an important part in them. If that 21-day rule is applied rigidly, it will be the death knell of many traditional country shows. They attract all sorts of people: those who make umbrellas, products from rocks and wheat, shoes and riding kit. Animals, although key, are not the only element, and an enormous number of businesses gain much of their lifeblood from attendance.
Mr. Burnett: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I do not want to tax his patience, but I must say that I agree wholeheartedly. I was speaking at the Okehampton livestock show dinner last Saturday evening, and that point was made to me. Does he agree that it would be wise for the Government to exempt livestock shows from the proposed cooling-off period?
Mr. Curry: It is inevitable that in the period in which we are relaxing from foot and mouth disease, a licensing arrangement for movement will continue to be in place. I do not expect the Government to lift all restrictions, but it would be sensible to examine the particular conditions of animals to decide whether they could be moved relatively short distances to local shows and back again without falling foul of the measure.
The hon. Gentleman will also know that we are hoping to get an announcement that auction marts will start again quite shortly. They also have an important role to play in the countryside, not least because they are the most important rural instrument for combating social exclusion among members of the agricultural community stuck on the top of a hill—one of the few occasions that they actually get down and meet fellow human beings is at the auction mart.
The epidemic has shown how interdependent agriculture and tourism are, but how exposed the countryside is to those two industries, and how inadequate the wider economic base in the countryside often is. We agree that we need better quality and more diverse facilities and Haskins has spelt that out pretty starkly. I applaud the efforts to bring regeneration into

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some of the market towns, which we all agree are important. I will assume that the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Burnett) agrees with Haskins before he intervenes again to tell me that he agrees. So many market towns have centres characterised by charity shops and financial services organisations because much of the traditional fabric of retailing has gone.
The regional development agencies are now talking about how to develop business. In the rural areas, it is important that food clusters—businesses dependent on agriculture, but spreading out to processing, going up market, trying to get higher quality food and dealing with the local supermarket, which is often regarded psychologically as a difficult thing to do—be given broad encouragement.
Let me make yet another plea about telecommunications equipment in the countryside. If somebody has a small business at the top of the dale it is prohibitively expensive to get in there the sort of wires and communications that would enable them to deal competitively with people who have access to higher technological products such as ISDN. Hundreds of thousands of pounds is needed to install such equipment. If we really want to wire up the countryside, to ensure that people can promote high value added businesses from the countryside, that question must addressed urgently.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw for the opportunity to participate in this debate. I know that the Minister understands the problems because a short while ago I led a delegation from North Yorkshire spelling them out to him, but as I said before, repetition is always a virtue in politics provided it is not taken to extremes, and that is why I intend to stop now.
11.42 am
Mr. Martin Salter: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on securing this debate. He described himself as a mere candidate for Parliament when foot and mouth first broke out. If he makes one or two more powerful speeches like that on behalf of the Youth Hostels Association and other affected country businesses, he will never be called a mere MP. So, more power to his vocal cords, if nothing else. This debate is timely, particularly as the Government have called for a full debate on the future of the rural economy. I shall be interested in the Minister's response.
It is worth us bearing in mind the devastating impact of foot and mouth on the country as a whole—and I speak as an urban MP who very much enjoys country sports, fishing, walking, rambling and the rest. I note the words on 18 April of the former Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown):
"Foot and mouth disease has been an enormous blow to the farming community. Nationwide it has had a profound, disturbing and painful impact which is fully recognised at the heart of Government. It represents the biggest peacetime challenge of recent times requiring a major logistical and scientific response. There are no easy options, only stark choices."
Those were wise words in the light of what has occurred since.
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The impact on the countryside, and particularly the agricultural community, was quite devastating. The first signs of the outbreak occurred in Essex in February. The origins were traced to a farm at Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland, which is considered to be the most likely source. From there it spread to seven farms in Tyne and Wear. One sent a sheep to Hexham market, from where the disease spread to other parts of the country. The initial rapid spread was almost impossible to detect and for something like three weeks no one was really aware of the virulent disease. However, foot and mouth disease affected only a small proportion—less than 2.5 per cent—of the UK total of 55 million cattle, sheep and pigs that make up the national herd. More than 1,600 vets—with other professionals and 2,000 military personnel—were working at public expense to deal with the outbreak.
The Government strategy was clearly based on the best scientific advice. Many veterinary and other experts worked to contain the outbreak. The Government sought stringent disinfection and precautionary measures to contain the disease within affected areas. They sought to restrict movement countrywide by identifying areas with a heightened risk. They embarked on a policy to cull all animals on infected farms, within 24 hours of the disease being notified, to prevent the further release of the virus into the air. Unfortunately, they were not always successful in meeting that target. To remove the risk of developing and spreading the disease, they attempted to cull all animals in neighbouring farms within 48 hours of the first report.
For all the criticism of the Government's actions, the strategy worked. Britain is now free of foot and mouth disease, though there may be a sting in the tail. The farming community has been keen to berate Ministers and Parliament in general, but eradicating the disease should be a cause for celebration and, in respect of compensation paid to farmers, a cause for gratitude. I hope that we shall hear the farming community express some gratitude later.
The impacts of foot and mouth on agriculture have been overemphasised. Not only the farming community has been affected by this devastating disease. The Minister will be only too aware of correspondence with me about Mr. Harrison, a man in my constituency who ran Trail Breaks—a small organisation that staged cycle cross events in the countryside, but was unable to operate because of restrictions on access.
I recently met the Berkshire branch of the Country Landowners Association. The right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) spoke about other industries that we might not readily associate with foot and mouth disease—industries that make plaques for the walls of tourist attractions, for example. The Country Landowners Association told me that some of its members—people who produce rambling books or guides—experienced a huge downturn in their orders. Bed and breakfasts in the countryside and country clothing stores are other examples.
My own sport of angling is also relevant. Fishing tackle shops are often located in urban centres. Because they were not in designated areas, they were ineligible to claim relief and support. Gun shops, country sport suppliers and youth hostels could also be mentioned. I was proud to add my signature to early-day motion 256 and I certainly associate myself with all the

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comments made by my hon. Friends about the work of the YHA and the need for the Government to consider it a special case. We must ensure that that worthwhile organisation continues.
Having given the Government a fair wind on how they sought to tackle the outbreak, I have to say that the tight drawing of boundaries within which businesses could apply for support was a mistake. The vast majority of people who go fishing in the countryside will visit tackle shops in places like Reading, Swindon and elsewhere. It is a shame that such shops were ineligible for support. However, I dissociate myself from today's announcements by the UK rural business campaign, which is seeking to take class action for compensation against the Government.
The Government cannot be seen as a financial comfort blanket for every business affected by foot and mouth or any other external force. The queue for Government compensation is long. It starts with Railtrack shareholders, for whom I have little sympathy. It includes passengers whose lives were ruined by Railtrack's incompetence, for whom I have immense sympathy. It also includes Equitable Life policyholders, and airline industry employees, who have suffered terribly from the downturn following the appalling events of 11 September. Many people have their hands out for Government support, but the UK rural business campaign will get precious little support in this House. One has to question— [Interruption.]
Mr. RogerGale (in the Chair): Order. This is a Chamber, not a Committee Room. Hon. Members must not deal with post in here.
Mr. Salter: I thought that I had done something wrong.
One has to question the intelligence of employing a firm of lobbyists—Lehmann Communications—to organise a briefing for Members at 11 am on a Monday. I would not pay good money for that. The campaign's press release about the class action includes one comment from the Conservative shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who is seeking to make political points. The UK rural business campaign represents a class action all right—an upper class action. It should not unduly trouble the Minister.
It is worth considering expenditure on support systems. The DEFRA figures show that compensation—the Government are ambivalent about the word "compensation", but use it in their announcements—for farmers totals £1.2 billion. However, about £54 million is available via the business recovery fund. That represents an imbalance between support offered to farmers and to other businesses, whether in rural or urban environments, that have been equally badly hit.
Having successfully achieved foot-and-mouth-free status in the UK, the Government must urgently attend to businesses that are falling through the cracks in the system. No system devised in a hurry will be perfect, but rural businesses, the tourist trade, and the YHA should not go out of business because of our failure to address their concerns, which are as legitimate and important as those of farmers.
11.53 am
Annabelle Ewing: I congratulate the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on securing the debate. Fortunately, the foot and mouth outbreak did not reach as far as my constituency in Scotland. None the less, the outbreak had a devastating impact on access. Tourism is vital to my constituency and its economy because one of its attractions is the beautiful mountainous countryside. Hotels experienced a dramatic drop in business, which impacted on all sectors of the economy. There was no meaningful support for business in Scotland because a large proportion of the budget was allocated to survival workshops, which did not find favour with business men and women throughout my constituency. Farmers in Perthshire suffered because of the restrictions on exports and movements of livestock. Progress has finally been made on export movements, despite the fact that Scotland has been foot and mouth free for some time. However, farmers in areas such as the borders cannot get export licences because of administrative delays and bungling.
One may ask why a Scottish Member is speaking in a debate on agriculture, which has been devolved to the Scottish Parliament. For some reason, representation of Scottish agriculture has been ceded to Westminster. The president of the Scottish National Farmers Union, Jim Walker, gave evidence to the Rural Development Committee of the Scottish Parliament on 18 September. To summarise, he expressed extreme concern about the inability of the UK Government and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to lobby effectively on Scotland's behalf with respect to foot and mouth and agriculture in general. A concordat between the Scottish Executive and the UK Government gives jurisdiction over Scottish agriculture to the UK Secretary of State. Has the Minister's Department received any representations from Scottish Executive Ministers about amending the concordat to ensure effective representation for Scottish agriculture in Brussels?
11.55 am
Mr. Tom Levitt: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on securing this important debate. As I mentioned in an intervention, I am the author of early-day motion 256 in support of the YHA in its present straits. Like my hon. Friend, I am a lifelong member of the YHA and, as the Member of Parliament for High Peak, I have seven youth hostels in my constituency, which may be a record. I wish to describe my own experiences with the YHA, in order to stress the importance of the movement.
As a young boy, I went with my youth club to Malham and Linton—which I believe is in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry)—in the Yorkshire dales. Those were the first youth hostels that I visited. Later, I went to the Isle of Man, Wales and the Lake district. As a teenager, I found independence by taking my first solo holidays in the Cotswolds and on the Isle of Arran, courtesy of the YHA. I discovered a love of inter-tidal ecology at the YHA field centre at Borth. Years later, I went back to the facility as a teacher. For four years, as a student, I spent all my summers and Easter vacations working for the YHA on the Isle of Wight and in London as a

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warden. During that time, perhaps more than at any other stage of my life, I met people from different walks of life, countries and backgrounds who became friends for life. It was a wonderful kaleidoscope, not just of young people, as indicated by the YHA's name, but of people of every age group.
The YHA is a truly phenomenal organisation, which spreads around the world and has a great tradition. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw said, the YHA was formed 70 years ago at about the same time as the Ramblers Association, the Workers Educational Association and the co-operative movement. Many of the same people were involved in those campaigns and issues. The YHA is a major player in providing not only holidays but important learning experiences, covering social skills and development right through to biology and geography at degree level through its field courses. The organisation has moved with the times, contrary to the image that it might have. Some hostels now offer family rooms and wine with meals and do not insist on lights out by 11 o'clock. They are broadening their base and attractions and doing wonderful things for vulnerable people.
The past year has been a complete catastrophe for the youth hostels movement. The way in which the hostels were hit was disastrous in many cases. In my constituency, field centres were closed, staff were laid off, casual staff who would normally work for the summer were not employed, as the 22 million visitors a year to the Peak district reduced considerably, especially in the most rural areas and among those who might otherwise have used youth hostels.
The movement has a modernisation programme to bring its buildings up to scratch for the 21st century. That includes new facilities and making the hostels accessible to a wider range of people. All those investment programmes are in jeopardy. The only way that the YHA can obtain capital is by selling its capital assets—the youth hostels. In order to raise funds, the association would have to eat away at its own foundations.
As the YHA is a major player and the major not-for-profit player in the rural economy, and because it does not have the cash assets that, for example, a hotel chain may have stored away and deals with introducing young people to unique experiences that they would not otherwise have, I hope that the Minister will take away from this debate the message of early-day motion 256. I hope that he will do whatever can be done to help the Youth Hostels Association at its moment of need.
12.1 pm
Brian Cotter: I thank the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) for securing this debate. He does so as the foot and mouth crisis has dropped from the media's attention following 11 September and other events. Nevertheless, long after the worse cases have disappeared, the disease will continue to affect tourism and related industries. Last Thursday, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs gave an interview to the Financial Times in which she warned against farmers believing that the devastating crisis was totally over. The rural communities face not only continuing economic fallout in the immediate aftermath of the disease but the possibility that a further outbreak may occur.
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The debate has been primarily about economic aspects other than farming, so I shall leave farming to one side because time is short. The British Tourist Authority estimates that the combined effects of foot and mouth and the events of 11 September could result in the loss of £2.5 billion-worth of inbound tourism this year. Thousands of rural tea shops, pubs, museums and guest houses have seen their profits slashed as visitors have chosen to stay away from the countryside. I am glad to say that in my constituency, which is a seaside resort, we have benefited. Now that people have seen the joys of Weston-super-Mare, they will be returning in their droves in future.
Farming and tourism are not the only sectors that have been affected—so have many other businesses such as marquee hirers and camping equipment suppliers.The important point made by the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) that the effects are going to be felt through the winter, spring and even into the summer. Indeed, one of the main recommendations of the rural taskforce report, which was published on 18 October, was to
"help ensure the survival of rural businesses through the coming winter months, when incomes and reserves are likely to be at their lowest ebb".
Yet any farmer or rural business owner hoping for the Chancellor to throw them a much-needed lifeline during last Tuesday's pre-Budget report would have been gravely disappointed. Was the announcement that foot and mouth disease had resulted in a £2.5 billion bill supposed to make struggling farms and businesses feel a bit better? Were they supposed to feel grateful for and satisfied with the little that they had been given?
The truth is that many support schemes introduced by the Government have not fully met businesses' needs. Many businesses have been unable to claim support under the hardship rate relief scheme, for example, as they do not fall within designated rural areas. That important issue has affected parts of my constituency and others, and includes businesses located in small rural market towns, which have seen their trade drop as a result of outbreaks nearby.
Alun Michael: It is worth making the point that businesses outside the designated areas where the Government have given additional support to the local authorities can apply for business rate relief. We have sought to mitigate the impact, particularly on rural local authorities, which bore an especially heavy burden as a result of trying to help businesses in their areas.
Brian Cotter: I thank the Minister for that intervention. Hopefully, it will help to highlight the fact that there is some support for businesses outside the 37 designated areas, although we might say not enough.
Alun Michael: The hon. Gentleman misses the point. The help is for the local authorities, which can provide help for businesses. We have sought to mitigate what would otherwise have been a very unfair burden on rural local authorities, because the heaviest demands fall on them.
Brian Cotter: My comment related to other factors. For example, Lord Haskins's report called for a £40 million support scheme, yet the Government came

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up with £24 million. When we go into the scheme in depth—I am taking time away from what I was going to say—we find points that need to be raised.
The small loans guarantee scheme was held up as a major part of the recovery package and has been extended, but the scheme needs to be properly used. As at 18 October, a little while back, only 18 new loans had been taken up, which is of great concern. The business recovery fund, which was administered by regional development agencies and local business links to provide grants to suffering businesses, allowed an element of flexibility. Delivery at local level meant that local needs and circumstances could be taken into consideration, and small businesses had the opportunity to talk them through with advisers. However, that has caused its own problems, with discrepancies across the regions in the way in which the process has been delivered through the RDAs.
The criticism most frequently aimed at that form of relief is that the application process is far too cumbersome and takes far too long to process. As of 3 October, the south-west RDA had approved 775 applications, but 3,001 were still being processed. A further criticism is that the scheme does not cater for the short-term cashflow needs of small firms. EU state aid rules come into play.
The rural taskforce report reflects that view:
"Whilst some have argued that assistance should be targeted primarily on helping businesses to change and adapt, many small businesses have made the straightforward plea that their priority is cash to survive through the winter. Tourism businesses are likely to recover provided visitors return in spring: the risk is that many may not survive until then."
Will the Minister, as a priority, respond formally to that report, to which there has not been such a response? Will he make changes to the business recovery fund to speed things up? Will he assure us that any funds given to RDAs can be retained? The hon. Member for Bassetlaw and others referred to the Youth Hostels Association. I am sure that, as a former chair of the YHA, the Minister will have great sympathy.
12.9 pm
Mr. Keith Simpson: I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on obtaining the debate. How shrewd he was in applying for a debate on the financial impact of the foot and mouth crisis in the countryside and then sneaking in a speech largely about youth hostels. I do not mean that in any way as a criticism. He enhanced the prospects of his debate being secured, and I congratulate him on that. I first used a youth hostel many years ago, during the premiership of Harold Wilson, whom some Government supporters might not remember was a Labour Prime Minister—unless he has been airbrushed out of history.
Like a number of hon. Members, I want to broaden the discussion. In the past 10 months, some of us in this Chamber have attended numerous debates and statements on foot and mouth. I initiated such a debate in this Chamber on 27 March, and on 21 November my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) secured a debate on farming in the north-west. Several
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Members have talked about the need to strike a balance in today's debate between farming, rural businesses and the wider countryside, and it is true that this is not an either/or situation. In all the debates that I have attended, most hon. Members have recognised that the countryside must be viewed as a coherent whole. Certainly in my constituency, the countryside is entirely interdependent. Farming—we should refer to it as the food industry—small businesses, shops, garages, pubs, restaurants, country sports, and the holiday homes to which many hon. Members have referred all form part of the wider aspect of tourism. Moreover, there is the future of the environment—a subject on which we have not had time to touch.
Some hon. Members seem to believe that even farming is largely marginal. They turn to statistics that show that, according to every conceivable criterion, farming has declined in the past 20 or 30 years. However, on looking at the facts a little more closely, one comes up with some interesting propositions. For every person employed directly in farming in Norfolk in 1967, four were employed indirectly. Today, for every person directly employed, 14 are indirectly employed. The distinction between farming as it was narrowly defined and its broader aspects is therefore very strong. Any downturn in farming has a major impact on the countryside. Although this is perhaps not the time for such a debate, we should recall a point that was dramatically made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry): if we remove the farming community and the animals from the countryside, it will change dramatically in many areas.
It is worth flagging up the fact, as several hon. Members have, that farming is experiencing one of the worst recessions of the past 70 years. There are many reasons for that, in addition to the impact of foot and mouth. In 2000, farming income fell by 27 per cent. Such a fall had a knock-on effect for many of the small businesses in the wider farming community to which hon. Members have referred.
Last week, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the total cost of the foot and mouth epidemic has risen to £2.7 billion. The overwhelming majority of such costs relate to compensation paid directly to affected farmers, to cleaning up and to eradicating foot and mouth. A much smaller sum has been given over to rural businesses. By any means, £2.7 billion is a large amount of money, but I should point out one problem to the Minister. Although some have been compensated directly, many others in the farming community and in rural businesses who were indirectly affected, but who none the less suffered a major loss of income, have been unable to get any recompense. Indeed, many farmers and small rural businesses have said that it would have been better if their areas had been directly affected by foot and mouth, and if they had been closed down, because that way they would have received compensation. The indirect impact is enormous.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon made the wise point that, ironically, the crisis will occur during the winter. Many rural businesses that build up a cash reserve in the spring, summer and autumn are now in serious trouble, as the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Brian Cotter), who represents a seaside resort, knows. When the Minister considers

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ways in which he can help the countryside, I urge him to tell the Treasury that the crisis has not gone because foot and mouth appears to be under control.
I welcome the Minister's statement on the Inland Revenue's action on VAT, which should make certain that small businesses in the countryside are given as big a breather as possible in which to recover. We are not discussing a free holiday that will go on for ever, but given the crisis, an early attempt by the Treasury to collect money owed would result in many businesses going bankrupt before they had had a chance to recover in the spring.

A report by Dun and Bradstreet in June 2001 showed that the number of UK businesses being liquidated or going bankrupt between April and June rose by 15 per cent. on the previous quarter. According to the Countryside Agency, the tourist industry could lose between £1 billion and £2.3 billion in 2001. That sum of money almost equals the total amount that the Treasury has paid out on foot and mouth. We are discussing a massive hidden cost to both the countryside and the tourist industry.
Mr. Salter: I agree with the thrust of the hon. Gentleman's argument, but will he clarify whether, as Opposition spokesman on these matters, he supports the class action being waged by the UK rural business campaign and its demand for £5.1 billion in compensation from the Government?
Mr. Simpson: That organisation has every right to seek legal compensation. Along with many in the countryside community and consumers, I do not follow the supposedly clear-cut audit trail of how the Government dealt with the crisis. Many Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard) and myself, who were in the crisis areas and saw MAFF's reaction to swine fever know that there was no stately process in which a crisis was dealt with by following established procedures. There was crisis management on the scale of the retreat from Dunkirk rather than a well-organised drill parade. Several organisations will seek compensation, and the law will decide the matter.
Does the Minister agree that to revitalise the countryside—we must look to the future—the Government must do three major things? First, they must restore the public's confidence that the food that they eat is healthy. Secondly, they must restore the public's confidence in both the viability of the farming community and in the assertion that our food industry will not be exported. Thirdly, the public's confidence in the Government must be restored. Even when one takes account of the problems of MAFF and DEFRA—I know that many officials and vets worked hard—there was chaos and confusion. We do not yet have any form of analysis on the outbreak of foot and mouth or what went wrong in dealing with it. As many hon. Members have said, internal, non-public inquiries are frankly insufficient.
Foot and mouth disease must be eradicated and policies and procedures must be put in place to deal with any further outbreaks. If we do not learn that lesson, we will back here having the same debate in two years' time.
Finally, we must ensure that bureaucratic barriers to rural businesses are removed. Many small businesses have to go through a paper chase—an obstacle course—
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to get help of one kind or another. If the Government can simplify that, they will go a long way to meeting the needs of the countryside as it recovers from foot and mouth.
12.20 pm
The Minister for Rural Affairs (Alun Michael): If, as he suggests, the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) desires to increase confidence in the Government, he and his colleagues could help by supporting the steps that we are taking to deal with the enormous problems arising from foot and mouth disease, as well as the disease itself, and by being as positive as many of the organisations that represent farmers and the tourism industry, with which we are working closely.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) on securing the debate. He is one of the increasing number of Labour Members of Parliament who represent rural constituencies. His speech was well informed and passionate, and it was matched by many excellent contributions. The debate may have been too short, given people's obvious interest in the topic.
In the brief time available to me, I want to concentrate on the issues that my hon. Friend raised, especially those relating to tourism and the YHA. In focusing on the financial impact of foot and mouth disease, we must emphasise that that discussion takes place against the background of its impact on individuals, families and communities. The pre-Budget report given by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor shows that the national economic impact was much less than we had feared. Although that does not diminish the severe local impact in many areas—notably parts of Cumbria, Devon and North Yorkshire—the debate should be placed in that context.
To some extent, people are helping themselves. On Saturday, I was privileged to take part in a conference called by the Bishop of Hereford, in which many people, especially farmers, talked about—
Mr. Burnett: Will the Minister give way?
Alun Michael: I will not, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me. He has intervened several times, and many hon. Members made considered comments to which I want to respond.
The bishop's conference was positive, because it was about people saying what they were doing to rebuild their businesses and to succeed in the long-term future. I have also been handed a copy of a report from a conference called "Winning Ways" organised by the National Farmers Union and the Country Landowners Association in the west midlands, which makes a positive contribution to facing up to the challenges that lie ahead.
The crisis is one partly of farming and partly of tourism, and I do not want to play down either. Hon. Members have rightly stressed the balance between the two. However, in financial terms, net of compensation, tourism suffered even worse than farming. One of the few benefits of the crisis is that it has driven home the interdependence of rural economies and communities. Visitors come to see the landscape, much of which is

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maintained by farmers. If they stay away, the village shop and the village pub risk closure. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw said, youth hostellers contribute to the viability of both those institutions.
In recent months, the interdependence between tourism and agriculture has been reflected more than previously in the remarks of farmers, who say that they understand it much more now than they did before. The activities of the rural taskforce, which I have chaired since June, has been conducted in an atmosphere of working together in the long-term interests of rural communities. We will respond to the points made by the rural taskforce and in the Haskins report, including the issue of rate relief, which was raised during the debate.
Let us be clear about what the Government have done to help. We sought to control the disease as quickly and effectively as we could. It is too soon to claim complete success, but there have been no cases since 30 September, which is encouraging. Crucially, we have sought to get visitors back to the countryside. I think that the YHA itself has said that getting people back, and getting business back to normal, is needed more than anything else. Ever since I took up my role in June, that has been my top priority. I have been to places such as the Lake district with representatives of rural tourism, including from the YHA, to try to get that message across.
The clear views of Lord Haskins and the rural taskforce are that, although businesses need help through the winter, trade is likely to pick up, and businesses to recover, come the spring. If there is time, I will return to general issues of business support but I first want to spend a few minutes on the points about the YHA that formed such an important part of my hon. Friend's introduction.
I was pleased to hear him place such importance on the contribution that a youth hostel can make to the local economy, and to hear him balance that with the contribution made to those who stay there, especially those who are deprived in various ways or come from inner-urban communities. I do not have a pecuniary or personal interest to declare, but I have used hostels with my family and as a youth leader, and I endorse my hon. Friend's comments. I sought to bring a youth hostel to my Cardiff constituency as part of the exercise in joining up town and country. As a result, I was for some years an honorary vice-president of the YHA. I resigned in order to avoid a conflict of interest when I took up my present post.
Since September, I have received about 200 letters from hon. Members explaining their concern about the future of the Youth Hostels Association. I have no doubt that the problems are serious. It was the national organisation worst affected by footpath closures
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because so many of its hostels are in places where people mainly go to walk. Some hostels such as Black Sail, which a group of Members visited a few years ago, can only be reached on foot.
The YHA's estimated loss of £5 million on an annual turnover of £30 million is a measure of the impact on it. That is a serious blow, especially in view of its continuing need to invest in upgrading hostels to meet modern expectations. Like me, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has had close contact with the YHA since early in the outbreak. We have been able to offer it limited help and advised it on how to access existing funds.?
We have visited hostels to publicise footpath opening. We have also changed the rules of the business recovery fund, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw said, so that individual hostels can apply to regional development authorities for help, a point that I drew to the attention of RDAs when we made the announcement. There have been discussions between RDAs and the YHA and a number of applications are in process. Some have already succeeded.
We are involving the YHA closely in our plans to encourage visitors back to the countryside as part of our effort to work with the tourism industry as a whole. This is not simply the Ministry making announcements, but an exercise in working together. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will reopen one of the YHA's flagship hostels after renovation: Hartington Hall, a beautiful 17th-century building in the White Peak. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and I plan to visit more hostels and will at least contribute through our bed night fees, if nothing else.
Set against a loss of £5 million, that is, of course, modest. The YHA is still at real risk of having to sell hostels to make ends meet. We are carefully examining the rural taskforce's recommendations that we should find further ways of helping. The matter is not straightforward, as earlier discussions about compensation made clear. Many industries would like compensation for loss of income. Compensation has been paid only for the loss of animals that were culled in the attempt to eradicate FMD. I cannot make promises, but I hope that the YHA will not take precipitate action. None of us wants the association to sell hostels and we shall keep talking to it about how to work together to avoid the need for such a consequence.
Several points were made during the debate about help for businesses. For example, the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) referred, during a thoughtful contribution, to the imagination with which many businesses and communities responded to—
Mr. Win Griffiths (in the Chair): Order. We now come to the debate on rhizomania in East Anglia.

Rhizomania (East Anglia)
12.30 pm
Mrs. Gillian Shephard: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this matter. Rhizomania and its associated problems do not occupy the forefront of every Member's mind. The Minister must be wondering what he has done wrong to have to be in the Chamber for so long today to listen to debates on disease problems facing the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
The Minister for Rural Affairs(Alun Michael): Westminster Hall debates often provide an excellent opportunity to educate Ministers as well as other Members and it is a pleasure to respond to the right hon. Lady. I have had to become engaged with an issue that had not previously come to my attention, as she rightly suggested. However, the result is that I understand precisely why she raised the matter today.
Mrs. Shephard: I thank the Minister and I hope that he feels the same at the end of my contribution.
The position produced by DEFRA's consultation proposals is causing extreme concern among farmers and growers in East Anglia. The Minister, who will be an assiduous reader of Farmers Weekly, will know that that is causing concern across the board in the agricultural community. I hope that we shall have a positive response from the Minister today.
I shall give an explanation of rhizomania. It is a highly damaging disease of sugar beet, which reduces crop yields and persists in the soil for many years. Since the first discovered outbreak in the country in Suffolk in 1987, the United Kingdom has enforced a statutory containment policy authorised by a protected zone status for the whole country, supported by the European Commission and the plant health division of the former Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, now DEFRA. The policy of a combination of protected zone status and containment has worked well, thanks to a highly responsible attitude on the part of the industry. In sharp contrast with other parts of Europe where the disease is more or less endemic, less than 0.1 per cent. of UK arable beet land has become infected by rhizomania. In France, more than 50 per cent. is affected and in Holland the infection rate is well over 90 per cent.
Since 1987, there have been 211 outbreaks of the disease: 200 in Norfolk and Suffolk, and many of them in my constituency. After the first outbreak, we had a rash of outbreaks in South-West Norfolk, which made us feel like the rhizomania capital of the UK. Of those outbreaks, 68 have occurred this year. That may have caused anxiety among Ministers, but most of us realise that the high incidence of outbreaks this year is due to the exceptionally late crop planting because of bad weather in the spring. This year, by any standards, is atypical.
The low level of infection in the United Kingdom has not happened by accident. The first outbreaks in Norfolk and Suffolk, as I remember only too well, were accompanied by draconian containment measures. They caused hardship not only for all those involved in the sugar beet industry—farmers, growers, hauliers, processsors and so on—but because of the requirements
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for care over soil movements by potato and carrot growers, nurserymen and strawberry growers. At that time, MAFF Ministers kept in close touch with farmers and growers in the industries affected industries and, over time, adjusted and adapted containment policies to ease, where possible, conditions that made economic survival difficult for sugar beet people and others. Because of the hardship and the realisation of everyone concerned that the consequences of rhizomania were grave for the whole industry, since 1987, as the Minister knows much effort has been put into the development of disease-resistant beet varieties that are commercially attractive. It is universally recognised that that is the only proper and viable way forward.
For years, MAFF's plant health division—now under DEFRA—has worked with British Sugar and the National Farmers Union on plant development. So far, one variety, called "concept", has been produced that is economical viable and climate tolerant. Comparable varieties should be available to farmers in two to three years' time. As far as the industry was aware, Ministers supported that on-going work and its timetable, and they were amazed to hear, through the consultation document that DEFRA recently issued on the future of protected zones, that Ministers intended to ditch the policy of containment, apparently in response to demands from the European Commission. On 30 November, Farmers Weekly asked:
"Why is DEFRA surrendering in the war against the sugar beet disease rhizomania? Instead of fighting on to defend the UK's rhizomania-free status it has decided to concede the title. The decision will prove a disaster, not just for sugar beet growers throughout the UK, but for many other producers. It is difficult to over-estimate the key contribution sugar beet has made to the profitability of many arable units."
Farmers and growers would heartily agree. The Minister and his Government are presiding over the worst crisis in agriculture since the first world war. In Norfolk, where 30 per cent. of the UK sugar beet crop is grown, 10,000 jobs depend on beet production and processing alone. In August, Larking Gowen, a Norwich-based firm of accountants, produced a report of Norfolk farm incomes in the year 2000. It makes gloomy reading and points out that farm incomes fell by 50 per cent. against the previous year. The average profits of the surveyed farms were substantially less than a farm employee's wages. Tenant farmers were found to be working to pay the rent, while living off capital. Farm incomes are at their lowest for 60 years; the strong pound, world commodity prices and the effects of swine fever, foot and mouth, BSE and bad weather conditions have taken their toll.
In that sea of problems, sugar beet has, in many cases, been the lifebelt keeping farmers afloat. The industry is still reeling from the implications of the Government's "everything but arms" initiative. Now, they have signalled their intention to deal the industry another body blow by abandoning the containment policy, which has been a success and is affording the necessary time to the industry to develop a proper long-term solution. The industry wants to know why that is happening, and I hope that we will get answers today.
According to the DEFRA consultation document, the UK's protected zone status for rhizomania comes to an end in March 2002. Decisions are therefore needed to
"continue, modify or end this status."

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If those are the choices, the Minister must explain why he does not propose to continue the status in the consultation document, but only to modify or end it. Why has he prejudged the issue? Why does he not put to the industry all the choices that his document lays out?
The document claims that there are doubts in Europe over whether the UK is meeting the legal requirements for protected zone status. That is not borne out by my most recent information from the Commission, which I will come to in a moment. His other claim, that there is
"a reluctance in the industry to use the new varieties until they perform as well … as susceptible varieties"
can be totally countered by the self-evident fact that he is not willing to allow the industry the two or three years needed to complete its work and perfect those varieties. The real reason, as is becoming usual with this Government, is that they are not willing to devote resources to agriculture. I hope that the Minister will come clean on that matter.
For information, I will briefly lay out the consultation proposals as they stand. They are: first, to maintain a protective zone in the UK outside Norfolk and Suffolk; secondly, to drop protective zone status for the whole country; and thirdly, to retain protective zone status for selective non-beet-growing areas, such as Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and certain parts of England, to provide
"a benefit for growers and exporters of seed potatoes."
I hope that the Minister is aware that his decision to exclude the proposition that protective status should continue, has caused extreme disquiet in the industry. Meetings held by the NFU in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire over the past few days have produced very little support for the strategy. As the regional NFU director, Sandra Nichols is reported in the Eastern Daily Press as saying,
"We feel the industry has been short-changed, because this option does not form part of the consultation process."
The premise for the Minister's stance—that there are doubts in Europe that the UK is meeting the legal requirements for protective zone status—was comprehensively countered at a meeting between Robert Sturdy MEP and the EU Agriculture Commissioner's chef de cabinet last week. Mr. Sturdy was told firmly that Europe
"has no interest in pressing for a change to the country's disease status."
Alun Michael: Will the right hon. Lady tell us where and when that meeting took place?
Mrs. Shephard: I certainly will. Speaking to the Eastern Daily Press on 1 December, 2001—and I can give the Minister the full report—Mr. Sturdy said,
"I understood that the industry is pushing at an open door. If Britain wants to continue with the existing arrangements, Europe is not very concerned. That is what I have been told."
I would be very happy to give the Minister the full cutting so that he can take up the matter.
Alun Michael: We have seen the cutting and made inquiries about it. We are reliably informed that the meeting did not take place as described in the cutting.
Mrs. Shephard: It is up to the Minister to convince us of that. Mr. Sturdy is a perfectly honourable man, he took the trouble to have the meeting and he has asked farmers and growers to write directly to the Commission. It will be interesting to see the nature of the replies that they receive, given the information that he has given to them.
Mr. Keith Simpson: There is of course a reverse side to that and it would interesting if the Minister could categorically say that the Commission had asked the UK Government to come forward with these proposals.
Mrs. Shephard: No doubt the Minister will come to that in his remarks, but perhaps at the same time he should dispel any doubts that might have been caused by a letter from DEFRA to those invited to the rhizomania technical review meeting on 28 November. The letter quite clearly stated:
"the decision not to continue with the whole protective zone is based on the legal position."
In other words, the decision has been taken, so why are we having the consultation anyway? I expect that the Minister will want to clarify that.
I turn now to the proposal that a protective zone should be maintained in the UK, outside Norfolk and Suffolk. I point out in passing that proposition No. 3—that there should be protected zone status for Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and parts of England that are important for growing and exporting seed potatoes—rings a bit hollow in East Anglia, which is also important for growing and exporting seed potatoes.
I wonder whether the Minister knows how the potato industry works in East Anglia. I wonder whether he knows about the importance of field vegetables, or of the investment made in recent years by farmers in irrigation schemes to grow potatoes and field vegetables. Does he realise that his proposal would result in enormous extra costs for those farmers and possibly in the failure of their businesses?
What advice does he have for such farmers about the arrangements that they should make if they grow potatoes and other vegetables in Norfolk and Suffolk that then have to be taken to Cambridgeshire for processing? That movement is far from uncommon. Three quarters of Norfolk's total potato production is moved across the county border for packing and processing. If we accept the proposition to exclude Norfolk and Suffolk from the protection zone, how will that arrangement be policed? Will teams, or swarms, of DEFRA inspectors examine the loads of vegetables that travel across the border? What will be the costs to producers? That has not been thought through.
What would happen to the valuable seed potato export business of, for example, Mr. Tony Bambridge, who farms in Marsham in the constituency of my

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hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson)? Mr. Bambridge ships seed potatoes worth £150,000 to the Canaries and Europe. He said:
"If we lost our protected one status in these two counties we'll lose the export business to the Canaries."
He added that the Canaries, which take about 120 tonnes of locally grown seed would refuse further orders, because they will not accept seed from non-protected zones. What advice does the Minister have for Mr. Bambridge? Has he taken into account the proposals' effect on the rural economy, which has been devastated over the past five years?
We heard in the previous debate about the close relationship between farming and the rural economy. We heard an interesting illustration of the interrelationship in Norfolk, in which we were told that for every one job directly concerned with agriculture, there were 14 others in the broader rural community. Nowhere can that be more true than in sugar beet, and the production of potatoes and field vegetables. The processing, packing, haulage, labelling and marketing of those products account for a huge sector of the rural economy in East Anglia. There is fear that if we simply ditch the current protected zone status without carefully considering the implications, it will threaten that rural economy further.
I am sure that the Minister is aware of my next point, but I will rehearse it because it will be good to have it on the record. Many farmers have diversified into vegetable production, which is the kind of change that the Government claim to support. At least one of the propositions would pull the rug from under that diversification yet again. The Minister will say, correctly, that he is consulting on the proposals and that the consultation will last until 14 January. I hope that he will say also that DEFRA will be required to define its stance at a meeting well before 14 January—in other words, next week.
What stance will DEFRA take in advance of the consultation's completion? I do not know, but the Minister today has the chance to explain it and allay the industry's fears. As a member of a listening Government, will he undertake not only to listen but to hear what farmers and growers are saying? Will he place what he hears into the wider context of the despair and frustration felt by all in agriculture and in the broader rural community at the lack of understanding? Will he listen, hear and change his stance? We await his response.
12.49 pm
The Minister for Rural Affairs(Alun Michael): I congratulate the right hon. Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard) on initiating our debate on a difficult and intractable problem that seriously affects farmers in her constituency. She has left me little time to reply, but I shall do my best.
I acknowledge the experience, both from her ministerial and her constituency work, that the right hon. Lady brings to the debate. She has considerable knowledge of the sugar industry, but she is wrong to suggest that the industry should have been surprised by the terms of our consultation. This is a good example of the value of Westminster Hall debates. Rhizomania
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means little to most people, but it has the potential to do harm to an important section of the farming industry. It requires sensible and constructive debate.
The right hon. Lady will appreciate that the topic falls outside my portfolio, but I have discussed it in detail with my colleague, Lord Whitty, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who has personally engaged with the issue and wants to make progress. We appreciate that farmers in particular areas, such as the right hon. Lady's part of the country, are adversely affected, but we must face up to realities.
One view, expressed last week in Farmers Weekly, is that we should vigorously defend the country's rhizo-free status. That is everyone's sincere desire, but how can we realistically argue for such status when we are clearly not rhizo-free? The right hon. Lady referred to an article in the Eastern Daily Press, which suggested that Europe was not worried about this country's disease status. We were concerned about those remarks. Firstly, plant health falls under DG Sanco and is therefore the responsibility of Commissioner David Byrne. Officials here spoke to Commission staff, who confirmed that no such meeting occurred and that no such statement about the protection zone has been made.
I must make it clear that we are not ditching anything. The protection zone can be proposed only by the Commission, which is not prepared to do so because of the lack of support by other member states. I can provide the details. Our consultation was a response to that clear position.
The right hon. Lady made passing reference to the "everything but arms" initiative, but it was not our initiative. Only last week Lord Whitty was congratulated by farmers on the good result in Europe to protect the sugar beet sector.
Mrs. Shephard: Will the Minister give way?
Alun Michael: The right hon. Lady has left me little time to respond to a long debate.
Mrs. Shephard: I gave way twice.
Alun Michael: Very well, but it will diminish the reply even further.
Mrs. Shephard: Several points could be made. First, I doubt whether the Government would have done anything about "everything but arms", were it not for the intervention of the official Opposition. Secondly, does the Minister agree that the right way forward for the sugar beet industry is to develop disease-free varieties? Will his proposals afford the industry enough time to complete that necessary work?
Alun Michael: The right hon. Lady's signature on the early-day motion proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Peter Bradley) demonstrates some support on the Opposition side for our approach. However, she diminishes her case by seeking to make it partisan, just as she diminishes the time available for my reply.
The problem is at its greatest in Norfolk and Suffolk, but we need to take into account the needs of growers in the rest of the country. That is evident in the options on

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which DEFRA is currently consulting the industry. DEFRA set out the position as realistically as possible in a consultation document published last month. We need to engage the industry on how best to move forward. I hope that that debate will help the industry to respond. Lord Whitty and our officials will work with the industry to develop the best possible strategy.
We would be more than happy to listen to alternatives to the three suggested options, but the right hon. Lady well knows that the debate on how to deal with rhizomania has gone on for years. No one has yet come forward with a magic wand. The Government's role, as it was when the right hon. Lady was a Minister, is to help an industry that rightly prides itself on its efficiency and competitiveness to deal with a serious problem that has dogged it for years.
The solution is neither simple nor a matter for the Government alone, and the industry must continue to be proactive in coping with the problem. There is no quick fix. The suggestion that the UK has a chance of defending its rhizo-free status does not move the debate forward, because it cannot seriously be suggested that that is a realistic option. All protected zones are subject to annual reports that suggest their continuation, and those reports are reviewed to see whether the status is justified. Our status is due to expire at the end of March 2002, so we are reviewing future options.
Areas in which the disease is established—where it is known to occur and where official eradication measures have proved ineffective for at least two successive years—cannot be recognised as protected zones. Rhizomania must be considered to be established in the UK, especially in Norfolk and Suffolk. We fought hard for the last two extensions of the whole zone, and several member states have made it clear that they will not accept any further extension. It is a non-starter to try to negotiate that, which will not come as news to the industry.
The European Commission and most member states have long challenged the validity of the UK's claim to meet the criteria for protected zone status. Nevertheless, officials successfully argued for several extensions between 1993 and now. The last extension was in 1999, and the industry was warned that no further extension would be considered acceptable. That uncomfortable position was made clear in meetings with the industry, which representatives of the National Farmers Union and British Sugar attended, and it was reinforced in subsequent correspondence.
If an outcome is desirable but not achievable, it does no one any favours to ignore reality. That is why Lord Whitty made it clear that standing still is not an option. The ideal way forward would be to develop an eradication programme to combat this degenerative disease. The argument is that if the disease can be
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isolated, which it can, it should be possible to eradicate it. However, neither the Government nor the industry have yet identified a way to do so without restrictions that would totally disrupt the industry. For some years, the industry and the Government have worked together to manage the disease, and they were doing so when the right hon. Lady was a Minister. She acknowledged that in a 1994 MAFF news release when she said that MAFF's policy was to contain the spread of rhizomania in Britain as far as was practical and reasonable.
That was an accurate and reasonable statement. Even then, the right hon. Lady was not talking confidently about eradication. There is no easy solution. The problem is that the disease is difficult to eradicate, and the immediate challenge is to limit its spread while making progress on other fronts, such as the development and introduction of disease-resistant strains. Given the long period—10 to 15 years—over which the disease develops before symptoms appear, any extension of the disease over the next two or three years will be the result of existing infections rather than any newly introduced infection.
That is why we have proposed three options, of which the right hon. Lady is aware, to maintain a protected zone for the UK outside Norfolk and Suffolk. The first option would end the regulated pest status for rhizomania in Norfolk and Suffolk, which would release some 3,000 growers from regulatory control. The second option would drop the protected zone status for the whole country, which would end official involvement in the disease. Statutory notices would be lifted from the 209 growers who have rhizomania outbreaks on their land. The third option would be to retain protected zone status for selected non-beet—growing areas. Certain areas would retain protected zone status to provide safeguards for exports. Some surveillance would continue to be required in those areas to ensure that rhizomania remained absent and that any growers with outbreaks of the disease on their land would remain subject to statutory notice.
There is no doubt that the industry and Government will have to co-operate and work hard, but neither officials nor the industry have yet found some magic that will change the whole situation. The industry's challenge is to respond as positively and constructively as possible to the consultation document. My ministerial colleagues and I have indicated our willingness to listen to any suggestions. Lord Whitty will certainly fight the UK case in Brussels, but he must show that the industry and the Government have a sensible, united approach that reflects the facts. Everyone must accept that the status quo is not an option. I urge the right hon. Lady to seek to persuade people in her constituency—I have no doubts about the importance of the topic and the effect that it will have on them —
Mr. Win Griffiths (in the Chair): Order. We now come to a debate on house improvement grants.

House Improvement Grants
1 pm
Mr. Austin Mitchell: It is with pleasure that I initiate the Adjournment debate on house improvement grants in North East Lincolnshire. It is a major issue that has repercussions in other areas but is a particular problem for us. I, my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac), with whom I work closely, and councillors have all had representations from people living in unhealthy conditions in damp, substandard accommodation. They live on benefits and are therefore entitled to home improvement grants. People over 60 and vulnerable people—those who belong to excluded groups and whom the Government have a policy to help—who have applied for improvement grants have been told that nothing is available. Indeed, a constituent in despair about his treatment and place on the list told me that he would be dead by the time he got a house improvement grant, if he got one at all. That is not fair or reasonable.
There is a lot of older housing stock in North East Lincolnshire.
Shona McIsaac: Much of the older stock in my hon. Friend's constituency and in mine is leasehold property that the freeholders have done little to improve. Many leases are expiring, and the result is that the condition of properties in our towns is particularly poor.
Mr. Mitchell: I thank my hon. Friend for that apposite and true comment. That is another subject on which we have stuck together and argued as one. The original leaseholders, many of them members of aristocratic families, often sold leaseholds to companies that use them to extract profit. Those companies do not put anything back. They demand high prices for the sale of the leasehold but have done nothing about the state of the property. That adds to the problem.
The basic problem is that we have so much older housing. We have lots of terraced housing, which was built in the late 19th or early 20th century when Grimsby was a boom town and fishing was expanding rapidly. Some of it was renovated 30 years ago with the help of improvement grants. At that time, under Labour—and the Conservatives, to a lesser degree—the hills were alive with the sound of hammers, as housing was improved everywhere, particularly in Grimsby. However, that only gave it another 30 years of life—that was the intention—and that time is up. That housing stock now needs further improvement to maintain its condition, and many houses were not improved at that time. Deteriorating older housing is a huge problem.
We have a further local problem. North East Lincolnshire council is doing its best in spite of horrendous financial difficulties, which have been caused by the fact that the Government have not been as generous to and supportive of local government as they should be—particularly towards Labour local authorities, of course. I believe that local authorities, which are on the front line in dealings with the electorate and in the battle against exclusion, have been badly treated. Funding has been increased, but new duties have been piled on, including expensive obligations such
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as best value. As a result, North East Lincolnshire council has been plunged into a financial crisis of a scale that it never faced under the Tories. We have had to envisage and carry through cuts that were never imposed on us by a Conservative Government.
Leisure services have practically gone. The national fishing heritage centre, of which we are inordinately proud in Grimsby, has had to close for the winter. It is ludicrous for a prize-winning national museum to be closed because there is not enough money to keep it going.
We have had a mass shedding of both officers and employees. The council house renovation programme has been too slow and had too little money in the face of declining stock. It is a horrendous problem and it has affected what the council can do in respect of grants. It is not their fault. It is the Government's fault for not allocating sufficient money to local authorities. Councils carry the can while the Government, with a hypocrisy that has to be seen to be believed—I know that there will be no such hypocrisy from my hon. Friend the Minister today since she knows local government well—tell them, as Lord Falconer did, that they have to provide the service but there is no need for the Government to provide the money for it. Now that is hypocrisy and it is impossible. It is the kind of double-talk that damages relations between central and local government, and particularly damages relations with the electorate.
Another problem is the economic difficulties that the area faces. My area is one of economic disadvantage and has high unemployment. We have less public spending per head—£1,000 a year less than Scotland—yet our unemployment problem is worse.
Shona McIsaac: I do not know whether my hon. Friend noticed in the pre-Budget statement last week that the most disadvantaged wards in this country would be exempted from stamp duty and property transfer. Five of those wards are in our constituencies: two in mine and three in my hon. Friend's. Croft Baker park, north-east marsh and the south wards are the very places where housing stock exists, and the Government have therefore recognised the poverty and the disadvantage of our area in the pre-Budget statement. Yet we cannot seem to translate that into helping our residents with home improvement grants.
Mr. Mitchell: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that valid interjection. The Government are doing their best but the concession on stamp duty is not much use to wards like those in our constituencies where house values are so low. We have higher unemployment, dependency and deprivation, and we need help.
Renovating the housing stock is a key part of local renovation. It stimulates the local economy, provides jobs and work, stimulates materials supply and improves people's conditions, particularly single parent families and the old. It must also produce savings in health because a drier and efficiently heated house is a healthier house, so it must cut spending on health and social services. It needs to be a priority, and it is barmy not to give it a higher priority than we have done. I am ashamed that the Government have been less generous than the Conservatives were in that respect.
There is a real problem when it comes to house improvement grants. We have a priority list. To be on that list, people must be living in a house that is unfit and

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needs substantial renovation. They must also be on means-tested benefits, because grants are not handed out promiscuously as they were in the 1970s and 1980s. They are targeted to those on means-tested benefits.
There are 1,150 people on the waiting list; the total cost of renovating their premises at £8,000 a house would be £9.5 million and no funds have been allocated. There are 40 new inquiries a year; last year there were 106 new allocations on the waiting list. I understand from North East Lincolnshire that four people have been on that list since September 1992. No wonder they are beginning to feel that they will be dead before anything is done. It takes 3.6 years, not to get the improvements, but just to get on to the waiting list. What can I say to people who have been waiting since 1992? What prospect can I hold out to them that something will be done?
Demand is rising as stock deteriorates. Word is getting around that no money is available and people are not applying, but as the waiting list increases, less money is allocated. Capital spending guidance on house improvements is £1.6 million when the need is £9.5 million. The allocation for home improvements to those on the list was £160,000, but the demand is for £9.5 million. We need £4.15 million for those in unfit housing and on benefit. We need £2.8 million for those aged over 60 and in an unfit house—a fate that should not be inflicted on old people in North East Lincolnshire or anywhere else. For those aged over 60, on means-tested benefits and in an unfit house, £1.7million is needed to renovate the houses. Those figures do not include disabled facility grants or inquiries from the over-60s, which would cost another £4.6 million. Money is rightly allocated for disabled facility grants—it is ring-fenced—but the demand for those grants is £850,000 above the allocation.
North East Lincolnshire cannot afford to supplement the cases that it accepts because, like most authorities, it does not have the money. Some disabled people are living in conditions that need to be improved but that is not being done, and demand is growing rapidly as the population ages. Even the Member of Parliament is ageing, but the population is ageing even more. About 12 per cent. of our privately owned stock of houses are simply unfit and the total sum needed is £56 million. Too little is being done about that huge problem. The question is what the Government are going to do about it. More money is needed. It is hypocritical to say that North East Lincolnshire can squeeze more spending from its budget—it cannot. It is no use considering equity withdrawal plans, as they are not relevant in an area with low, static house prices and deteriorating stock. Discussion about new initiatives in low-cost loans are not relevant either, as people in the area are too poor to take up such loans, and house values are too low.
It is good to have energy-efficiency measures, but they should be part of home improvement. Energy-efficiency measures cannot be carried out without a home improvement grant and they add £1,100 per property, so another cost is incurred. The only hope of dealing with
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all those costs is a greater Government allocation to the area. Money should be allocated, tied to improvement grants and dedicated to regenerating the local economy.
The Government are doing very well on our two priorities of education and health; a lot more has been spent and there have been improvements, as most people perceive. However, there is no united policy on housing, which is also a problem sector. There are lots of bitty initiatives but no pulling together, and housing, especially the crucial matter of improving the existing housing stock, is not given priority. It affects not only health but education and the ability to study. The appalling conditions and damp in which some people live make it impossible to study or perhaps even to go to school, which may result in exclusions.
The next comprehensive spending review must give greater priority to housing. There should be four priority areas, not just two, and the last one should be transport. We need a big allocation, but most importantly we need action now. The Government have a major responsibility for the depressing situation in North East Lincolnshire and they must help us. They must stop the double-talk about how it is a local council responsibility and they have allocated enough money—they have not. The Government must help us to cut through all the complexities and give our constituents, who are central to us and to North East Lincolnshire, the good housing conditions in which they deserve to live.
1.15 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions(Ms Sally Keeble): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) on securing the debate and on the way in which he has represented the interests of North East Lincolnshire. I know that many hon. Members are deeply concerned about the plight of everyone in poor-quality housing, especially the elderly and vulnerable. I certainly share that concern.
All hon. Members present have seen the appalling housing conditions that some people have to tolerate. We find it staggering that such conditions still exist at the beginning of the 21st century and that old people who have served their country live in conditions that they find unacceptable, with leaking roofs and damp. A number of them own their homes, whereas others are leaseholders. My hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac) has raised that issue separately, and we are all aware of particular problems in that part of the country.
I agree that quality of housing has a fundamental impact on quality of life and that it affects a range of other things that happen to a person. That is why the Government have made improving housing standards a priority. I shall briefly explain what we are doing, particularly about the private sector, because that is really what my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby talked about. I shall start with a few words about our policy in general and then deal with my hon. Friend's area.
Our overall objective is that everyone should have the opportunity to have a decent home. That covers all tenures. I am particularly concerned to ensure that we help the poorest private home owners, especially those

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who are elderly. Helping people to stay in their own homes is not only economically sensible but, usually, what they want.
It is not true that we have a worse funding record than the Conservatives. When we came to power, we inherited spending plans that would have given us only £1.5 billion for capital investment in housing across all tenures in 1997. We recognised that that was not acceptable, and since then a number of different measures have increased financing. For 2003–04, capital investment will be more than £4 billion. This year, local authorities will receive about £2.3 billion.
I fully recognise, however, that even those sums of money mean that we shall have to make choices. The Government decided in the first instance to focus our attention on the social stock. It is unacceptable that public sector landlords should offer poor-quality accommodation, so we set a target of bringing all social housing up to a decent standard by 2010.
We made two important changes to the financial framework for local authorities. First, we earmarked the sum that each authority needed to keep its housing stock in good repair. This year's sum amounts to about £1.6 billion, which leaves £700 million for other capital spending. Secondly, we gave local authorities discretion over how to use the remaining £700 million. For some, the priority will be investment in new social housing; for others, the top priority will be private sector housing.
Let me now deal with the problems of North East Lincolnshire council. As I looked through all the information about my hon. Friend's area, I thought that there were three particular problems. The first is the scale of unfit private sector stock, which is 12 per cent.—the second highest figure in the region. Secondly, economic restructuring, especially in the port hinterland area, has adversely affected the income of owner-occupiers who are unable to deal with those problems, which is what one would expect to happen. I accept that in many instances the people concerned are elderly. My hon. Friend has previously discussed the housing problems of Grimsby's grannies, and he has discussed them again today. Thirdly, low demand and alternative housing opportunities are undermining the stability and level of investment in some older housing. The council does not believe that the situation is likely to improve, because existing permissions for new build will attract homebuyers away from urban centres, including the port hinterland.
As I mentioned earlier, North East Lincolnshire council has benefited from the national increase in funding, and I shall discuss the problems associated with that later in my speech. When we came to power, the previous Government's expenditure plans provided the council with a housing allocation of £2.37 million for 1997–98, which included £228,000 for the disabled facilities grant. Since then, the allocation has increased to £6.43 million for this year, which includes £333,000 for the disabled facilities grant. The disabled facilities grant has increased, and money provided for housing has risen by 171 per cent. since 1997–98. The council's 2001–02 allocation was up 48 per cent. on that of the previous year, which is more than the national average increase.
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We shall shortly announce the allocation for 2002–03. Without giving too much away, I expect there to be good news for North East Lincolnshire for next year. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby suggests that there still will not be enough money to meet the needs of North East Lincolnshire. I am sure that if other hon. Members were here, they would make the same point about their constituencies, especially if they were in the north of Britain.
Local authorities must ensure that they use their resources to best effect. We would all like to allocate more resources, but we have tough choices to make in allocating resources nationally. Local authorities make similar choices at local level, and next year they will have greater discretion in those choices when the single capital pot comes into effect. They will be able to decide how to spend their money, which should enable them to make choices that more accurately reflect local need. I cannot make commitments today in advance of the spending review, but I assure my hon. Friends the Members for Great Grimsby and for Cleethorpes that the need for investment in poor-condition housing is being closely examined as part of the spending review.
That does not mean that we are doing nothing to help now. We are taking several initiatives to deal with the problems identified by my hon. Friend. We are reforming the rules governing how local authorities give grants to home owners. We shall place before the House a proposal for a regulatory reform order to sweep away most of the detailed rules surrounding grants. That will give local authorities, as part of their housing strategies, greater flexibility to help home owners with repairs. For instance, it will allow greater opportunities to offer preferential or interest-free loans. We shall issue guidance on the reforms, which will include detailed help with offering financial advice, loans regulations and, more generally, how the new powers can be used by local authorities. We are also addressing the problems of leaseholders, and my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes is aware of that.
We are taking action to tackle fuel poverty through the home energy efficiency scheme. With a budget of more than £600 million, we expect to reach about 800,000 vulnerable households in England by 2004. Warm home grants of up to £2,000 for heating and insulation are available to the elderly arid families with children on benefits.
In some areas, where houses are beyond the point at which they can be repeatedly repaired or renovated, clearance may be the only practical option. We recognise the need to improve the operation of the compulsory purchase and compensation system. Last week we published a new compulsory purchase procedure manual to enable authorities to use their powers more effectively. In the longer term, we have also committed ourselves to streamlining and improving legislation governing compulsory purchase.
Finally, we have increased funding for home improvement agencies. Such agencies are small teams attached to local authorities. They visit the elderly and vulnerable and help them to apply for grants, so that they can continue to live in their own homes. I am pleased to note that there is a home improvement agency in North East Lincolnshire that receives, I believe, £30,000 from the Government.

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However, there is also the question of the responsibilities of local authorities. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby said that he considered it inappropriate for central Government simply to pass the buck, as it were, but I do not see things that way. Central and local government are working together to meet the housing needs of his constituents. Given the needs and the increased resources that we have allocated, it is surprising that the current private sector programme in North East Lincolnshire is only about a quarter of that proposed by the council in its housing investment programme submission for the financial year 2001–02. It is also significantly less than what was achieved in the previous three financial years.
The plans that we have seen for North East Lincolnshire do not appear to account for all the housing resources that one might expect to be available. I have been unable to find out from the local authority why that is, but I shall certainly do so in the coming days. I shall write to my hon. Friend on the matter, so that he has all the information at the Department's disposal.
Mr. Mitchell: I accept that point, but there is a further problem. Housing associations, particularly those involved in the self-build scheme operated by Doorstep, are finding that house prices in North East Lincolnshire are too low to justify new social housing build. We are trapped in a vicious circle, but the fact remains that people often want to start out in, and go on living in, terraced housing. That is the point at issue in today's debate.
Ms Keeble: There is a clear need for a long-term private sector housing strategy, which, given the nature of the population as identified by my hon. Friend, must also include housing for older people. The strategy must
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also be linked to wider regeneration plans. The Government sent that message in its feedback to the council, which took up the issue in its best value performance plan. The plan mentioned the need to look at an alternative to renovation, given the scale of the problem.
I urge my hon. Friend to talk to the council about how the process can be taken forward. The housing department in his area was recently reorganised and is now on a footing to make such progress. In the longer term, that is the most sustainable and viable way to tackle some of the deep-seated problems that he has identified. Several other local authorities have taken that route, which is the only real alternative to repeatedly patching up houses that are often deteriorating faster than they can be repaired.
Shona McIsaac: Given all the initiatives that my hon. Friend the Minister has mentioned, and given that 12 per cent. of the housing stock in our area is unfit for habitation, when will the stock be improved, so that we can tell the residents who visit us week after week when they will see a solution to their very serious problems?
Ms Keeble: I shall deal briefly with two issues, one of which is the disabled facilities grant to which my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby referred. As he knows, there remains the opportunity to apply for additional funds. Of course, top-up is needed, but the rule applies across the country and it should deal with some of the associated problems.
The best way to offer constituents concrete solutions is for central and local government to work together on a strategy to resolve the problems. That will have to take on board constituents' views to ensure that there is an agreed way forward for their homes. I urge my hon. Friends to do that, and thank them for raising the issues today.

Road Links and Hospital Reorganisation
1.30 pm
Dr. John Pugh: I am pleased to initiate the debate and to see that the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Salford (Ms Blears), is the Minister who will reply. I have much respect for her, which increased recently when I discovered that she is a member of the parliamentary tap dancing team. I feel that democracy is in safe hands when Ministers are prepared to make fools of themselves by tap dancing. I applaud that.
I want to analyse a problem with local and national dimensions: the taking forward of hospital reorganisation proposals without much thought being given to the road and transport infrastructure surrounding them. That problem, with its national and local aspect, goes to the heart of joined-up government.
I understand, as does the Minister, the motives for hospital reorganisation. It seems transparent that part of the motivation is financial, which is nothing to be ashamed of. We want to make the best use of resources, and because of economies of scale, hospitals must be reorganised at times. I also understand the strong imperatives concerning clinical demands. Much research has shown that if units and services are concentrated, their success rates are substantially improved. I do not disagree with that, and I see why hospital organisation sometimes has to happen. If it did not, we would be a country of cottage hospitals and only a few main city hospitals.
The Minister, and anyone who studies the issue, will accept, however, that there is a downside. The moment that hospital reorganisation is mentioned, local loyalties come into play. People do not want their services moved from the place where they are used to finding them to another area. There can be suspicion about the motives that might lie behind the reorganisation enterprise. We should be aware that the sole independent Member of Parliament got elected because of misgivings about hospital reorganisation. I express no view on whether those are justified, but simply point out that it is a contentious matter.
Hospital reorganisation, if it involves centralising facilities, often makes individuals more remote from the services that they require and seek. Their travelling times are appreciably lengthened, and their anxiety about what might befall them if they have to make such a journey, especially in an emergency, increases. There are strong arguments to reassure those people. I am told by ambulance services, and I believe them, that when a person is in an emergency situation, the most important thing is the, immediate help that they receive, which is often delivered by paramedics. Once they have got hold of a person, he or she is, in a sense, in safe hands, and travelling distance is not as critical to survival as that first service.
The record of cottage hospitals is not unblemished. They are quaint, pleasant and supported by the local community, but they have not had the clinical outcomes and success rates that some bigger, more anonymous institutions have had. I also accept that, as medicine develops, there is a need for expensive resources not to be distributed everywhere but to be concentrated in the hands of those who genuinely know how to use them. Expertise and equipment must be concentrated.
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I recognise that there is a counter-argument to mine. However, any case of this order is substantially weakened if routes, especially those for emergency services, are poor. The maternity service is not actually classified as an emergency service, but I imagine that if I were imminently expecting I would want to get to hospital as quickly as possible and by the shortest and most satisfactory route. Extending routes for such services gives rise to serious concerns.
Another set of anxieties relates to the fact that we have an increasingly ageing population. Evidently, many people in hospital will be of the older generation, but many of the visitors who come to give them the support that is necessary for their recovery also have to make the journey to the hospital. Those facilities, whether by public transport or other routes, are often poor. That is a problem not only in terms of difficulty and inconvenience but in a clinical sense. Without regular visits the patient can often lack the psychological support that is necessary for a complete and satisfactory recovery.
The Minister will probably readily assent to what I have said, because it is a sensible way of looking at things and I know that the Department of Health is mindful of all the factors surrounding any kind of hospital reorganisation, highlights them where necessary and does not shy away from them. However, it probably plays an insufficient role in relation to transport considerations.
I want to draw attention to an example in my constituency, which has undergone a process of hospital reorganisation. At one stage, there was a Southport and Formby district general hospital—one building serving one community. The Southport and Formby NHS trust was merged with the Ormskirk trust because they were thought, as individual trusts, to be too small and incapable of providing the full range of services. Southport is the larger town; Ormskirk is substantial, but more rurally placed in central Lancashire. Of course, Southport and Formby are on the coast.
A contentious review of facilities was carried out by Professor Shields, who suggested that paediatric and maternity services should go to Ormskirk and cardiac services to Southport. That is fine unless one has a baby that needs delivering in Southport or a heart attack in Ormskirk—and not only Ormskirk, as Professor Shields pointed out. Beyond Ormskirk, around Skelmersdale, there is an area served by the Ormskirk trust consisting of a highly deprived group of people who do not have their own transport and lack any easy means of getting to Southport should they wish to visit a cardiac patient there.
Understandably, there was a lot of local opposition to the proposals. The previous MPs for Southport, Matthew Banks and Ronnie Fearn, were from different political parties but unanimous in their opposition. The reorganisation was also opposed in part or in total by the hon. Members for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas)—Formby is in her constituency—and for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall), who is similarly affected, and by Sefton and West Lancashire councils.
There was a whole tranche of opposition across the board, but a key theme was transport. I accept that it was not the only issue. For example, a section of opinion took the view that it was fundamentally wrong for

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anybody born in Southport not to have the right for their children to be born in Southport, and others were worried about whether services would be enhanced or simply rearranged for purely financial reasons. The hospital trusts were firmly behind the proposals but they, every political representative in the area and Professor Shields, who wrote the report, recognised that transport was a core element in the problem. He stated almost at the beginning of the report:
"Although the hospitals are over 7 miles apart, public transport by bus is sparse, rail services between the hospitals is non-existent, and the connecting roads poor and frequently congested.
Transport is an issue. There is a road link and it would be silly if I did not own that there is, but it is a poor road designed for agriculture. Tractors often bar the way and in the summer it is flooded with holiday traffic of one sort or another. An ambulance going against the tide would have problems.
At the time of Shields, palliatives were suggested. Suggestions were made about a helicopter being used to take people over the congested road on bank holidays and so on. People talked blithely of a better bus system, but we have seen little evidence of that. The helicopter concept is a poor solution for overcoming transport difficulties because it is expensive and is not used in the winter or at night. Nor is it practicable for people with spinal injuries and injuries of that ilk.
The problem remains. One would like to think that an easy solution is on the horizon and I am soliciting the Minister's support for a move towards a solution. In the past, the routine might have been to go to the Department responsible for transport, point to the general need and stress what was required for it to be sorted out in Westminster. For sound democratic reasons, transport is not dealt with in that way today. Many roads have been de-trunked and that has led to road schemes having to be developed within local transport plans. In the case that we are considering, a local transport plan would be decided by Lancashire county council. I am not suggesting that the council does not want to build a road, but it is not its main priority at the moment. It is considering—I solicit the Minister's support for this—the possibility of an Ormskirk bypass, which would improve the problem for people travelling from Skelmersdale to Southport, but I emphasise that the problem is not such a priority for Lancashire as it is for the hospital system.
I shall not detain the Minister excessively, but I want to solicit support for her Department to make representations to various people, including the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, and the Government office for the north-west region. I implore her to use whatever persuasive skills she has with Lancashire county council. However, the Department of Health cannot justifiably walk away from the problem.
The Shields report said at paragraph 8.9.3 that accessibility of the appropriate hospital service would always remain a problem given the paucity of public transport and the congested and poor roads. I do not blame the Department of Health for congested and poor roads, but there is some mileage in the Department's putting its weight behind any proposal to improve the road structure.
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I shall add a few strings to that bow. There is a sound regeneration case for a better road and there is a sound operational need case for the hospital to have a better road because junior doctors could use it in times of crisis.
This is a fundamental request to the Minister on a matter that is important to my constituents. Local people have spotted a loophole in current Government arrangements. No doubt, had I been an important member of a Government party in the past and the Department of Health had reconfigured the hospitals in my area, I would sidle up to people or talk confidingly to transport Ministers and something would happen. However, that method is susceptible to serious abuse or miscalculation of priorities. If, after consultation, the Department decrees a national arrangement, the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions should have input into what is done about transport. If the Minister responds positively to that request, she will go up further in my estimation.
1.45 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ms Hazel Blears): I genuinely congratulate the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) on securing the debate. He has highlighted the need for a coherent approach to transport and health. The link is not made often enough, yet transport in its widest sense has a huge impact on people's health and well-being. Apart from transport between hospitals, it is also relevant because of pollution and congestion, which we all face every day.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind remarks about my extra-curricular activities. I understand that he has a degree in logic. That may not be as foolish as tap dancing, but I am sure that it is equally enjoyable.
The local and transport planners interact with the national health service in the design of new hospitals and the reconfiguration of existing facilities. The Government set the overall framework in which service enhancements and developments take place, and provide the crucial resources that the NHS needs to facilitate those changes. As the hon. Gentleman accepts, the NHS can never stand still. As technology develops and public expectations increase, services are in a constant state of flux.
People who work in the NHS feel that they are experiencing constant change. That is not necessarily a bad thing because we want to improve the quality of local services. The need to combine quality with access is a challenge, and it is difficult to strike the right balance. In an increasingly complex health system, having every service on everybody's doorstep is no longer a practical proposition. Equally, we must guard against the creation of a huge monolithic organisation, which would be in danger of losing its connection with the local community. It is a difficult balance to strike, but we try to do so all the time.
Local health planners—whether at regional office, trust, or in future, primary care trust level—must strike the right balance between the convenience of local services and the requirement to concentrate services for reasons of excellence, safety and quality. Many needs can and should be met locally. The NHS tends to concentrate on the hospital, the secondary centre or the

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tertiary specialist centre. However, 90 per cent. of people's interaction with the NHS takes place at primary care level, and increasingly at intermediate care level, so that people can be cared for closer to home. The NHS should work in different ways and is doing so throughout the country as clinical networks provide services closer to people's homes. That may be a future direction for change.
We must take advantage of new technological developments and one of the most exciting is telemedicine. If hospitals are located in different sites and clinicians are treating people from different communities, it is more economical, gives higher quality and fulfils safety requirements for consultants to communicate directly with each other via telemedicine. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that telemedicine is being considered in his two local hospitals. A broadband microwave link has been established between the hospitals so that consultants on one site can assist with treatment at the other. I am told that there is a direct line of sight between the two units, which apparently makes this an ideal location for a pilot scheme to begin to get more people involved in that kind of telemedicine. This may well help. It will not reduce the need for people to travel, but perhaps not as many people will have to travel quite so often if they are able to use the new technology in this way. Clearly there are also worries about changes in configuring services where travelling does present difficulties.
Dr. Pugh: Clearly, in the case of surgical practice, telemedicine can be of some avail. However, in the maternity service, for example, even if a patient wants a medically assisted—not just midwife—delivery for their baby, telemedicine can play no part. They will essentially have to make the journey, and on a narrow and fairly unattractive road.
Ms Blears: I did not say for one moment that there are not certain specialties in which travelling is essential.
However, the requirements for people to travel all the time can be reduced as clinicians change the way in which they practice their specialties. I accept entirely that there are services where travel is a necessity and that people will worry about that. The right strategy is for the health service to work not just with local authorities that are responsible for developing unitary development plans, but with regional authorities that are responsible for transport links across the region. At national level, they can try to work with the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions to make sure that our national strategy takes health issues on board.
The Department of Health has a responsibility to work at all those levels to try to make sure that connections are made in a very practical way. We need to try to keep people out of hospital as much as we possibly can because that certainly obviates the need for them to travel. Much more emphasis on preventive work and on supporting people in their own homes is a top priority.
Equally, we need to get people out of hospital as quickly as we can. If people are subject to delayed discharge and remain in hospital in acute wards when they no longer need to, there are all the attendant problems that the hon. Gentleman has raised about
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visitors having to travel in order to support them and to help with their recovery. If we can get people discharged from acute hospitals into intermediate care settings closer to home and then back into their own homes with support, the need for travel will be reduced quite dramatically.
As the hon. Gentleman will know we have allocated £300 million nationally to tackle the problem of delayed discharge and we hope that many more people will be cared for at home rather than lingering in an inappropriate acute hospital setting.
The hon. Gentleman also acknowledged the need for staff to travel as well as patients. The NHS employs over 1 million people. Its infrastructure of buildings is probably the most diverse in western Europe. It operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and nurses doctors therapists and other health care professionals need to get to work and to leave work, often in the middle of the night when public transport may not be available. Road facilities are equally as important to staff.
Whenever we carry out major hospital reconfigurations or build new hospitals, we have to take into account travelling times by public transport and private transport and try to make sure that there is proper car parking, cycle parks and essential access to bus routes in local communities. Planning policy guidance 13 takes into account the need for good transport links in hospital development.
The difficulty is that we never start from a clean sheet and have to look at the situation we are faced with. The hon. Gentleman's constituency has two good local hospitals but pretty poor road links. I understand that the proposal to upgrade the A570 is in fact the number two priority on Lancashire county council's transport plan, and I hope that even if it is not the top priority, being second will mean some action fairly soon.
I am more than happy to say that transport is a key issue in hospital configuration. The Department of Health should be saying to all the parties involved that transport needs to be a priority if we are to make sure that the hospital services are safe and accessible for local people. I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that my Department has no intention of walking away from the situation. We will try to do everything that we can to get the road improved. It is a matter for Lancashire county council, and it is committed to putting it high up its agenda.
The two hospitals have struggled for safety reasons with the new requirements from the royal colleges for accreditation of junior doctors. Professor Shields's report has done us a great service in trying to ensure that the two hospitals are configured in a way that provides a wide range of services but maximises the safety and training requirements for the doctors involved. He recommended protocols on accident and emergency services at both Ormskirk and Southport to ensure that paediatric emergencies could be coped with safely and properly.
Ambulance services in the area have had some recent investment. Mersey ambulances received more than £1 million and Lancashire ambulances £330,000 to try to improve their response rate times. They both meet the national standards for responding to emergencies within eight minutes in 75 per cent. of cases, and are doing an

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excellent job. I am told that bus services have improved as well. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will know more than I do, but I am told that the service between Southport and Formby has been reinstated and that scheduled services between Skelmersdale, Ormskirk and Southport have improved. It was suggested that a shuttle bus should be provided, but that would cost about £100,000. The trusts decided that it was not economical but that they would try to improve the bus services between the two hospitals. I know the road myself, as I go to Southport regularly, and there can be a bottleneck in the centre of town. The road should be improved dramatically.
I understand that the ambulance trusts are taking advice on how to improve services by placing their ambulances at appropriate points across the community, rather than being always in ambulance bases. That, too, might limit travelling time. As the hon. Gentleman said, care in the ambulance can sometimes be the key to a good outcome for patients. We have invested in 12 lead ECG machines on ambulances, together with telemedicine links to the hospital, so that we can have immediate diagnoses of people, particularly with heart attacks, and improve survival rates.
The situation outlined by the hon. Gentleman is full of challenges. Professor Shields did his best in his report to reconcile a series of competing interests. What impressed me most about the report was that he went out to experience the transport problems and drove the road himself. Not every consultant or expert that we call in is prepared to test out the system personally. Professor Shields's recommendations were robust and based on real evidence of the situation in the community, and they appear to have the support of all the parties in the area, which is a difficult balance to achieve when people are worried about local hospital services.
Dr. Pugh: I should be wrong if I did not state my exact position. I was opposed to the reconfiguration in the form that it took for reasons other than those of transport, but I recognise that transport was the
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problem that everybody, including Professor Shields, singled out as a fundamental flaw in the scheme. Professor Shields appears to say that the road should be built, but it is not within his remit to recommend that roads be built. The fact that he drove it and recorded that in his report shows that he expects not the Department of Health but someone to address the problem.
Ms Blears: I dispute the argument that Professor Shields decided that the road was a fundamental flaw. He decided that it was a substantial issue and problem. Nevertheless, his recommendations for reconfiguration took into account wider clinical and service quality issues, not only those of access. The hon. Gentleman, and most Members of Parliament, frequently face the difficulty of trying to reconcile such competing issues within their communities.
We can take several practical measures, as I have outlined. We can try to prevent people from having to go to hospital and get them out as quickly as possible after they have received appropriate care. We can try to care for people and ensure that diagnostic facilities, including test, X-ray and pathology services, are provided as close to home as possible so that the patient does not constantly have to travel to the service. That is fundamental.
If we are serious about designing a system around the needs of patients, we must examine those considerations rather than simply the bricks and mortar. We should consider the services and what suits patients and, if we use a little more imagination and creativity, we can design our services so that people are not faced with the difficult transport problems outlined by the hon. Gentleman. I am glad that he has brought them to our attention and I will do what I can in the Department of Health to try to ensure that the transport issues are addressed.
Once again, I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on raising those important matters on behalf of his constituents.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Two o'clock.