Westminster Hall Sitting of 7 February 2001

Preamble
[MR. MICHAEL LORD in the Chair]

Steel Industry
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—[Mr. Touhig.]
9.30 am
Mr. Huw Edwards: I am pleased to have been granted a debate on the future of the steel industry and thank my hon. Friends for their support.
The date 1 February 2001 will go down in history as the day of the devastating announcement that more than 6,000 jobs in the steel industry were to be lost: about 3,000 in Wales and 3,000 in England. In Llanwern, near my constituency, 1,340 jobs will be lost and heavy steel production is planned to finish by the end of the year. In Shotton, 319 jobs will be lost. In Ebbw Vale, the entire production will be closed down with the loss of 780 jobs. Another 127 jobs will be lost in Bryngwyn, near Gorseinon in Swansea. In Port Talbot—whose port receives the iron ore for Port Talbot and Llanwern—jobs will be lost in central services. In Teesside, 234 jobs will be lost.
The south Wales steel industry has played an important part in my political consciousness. I was brought up in the London Welsh community, but we travelled regularly to our family home town of Neath. I well remember my sense of pride as the train passed from Port Talbot to Neath, alongside the mustard-coloured works, and I read the sign, "The Steel Company of Wales", above the red dragon. I also remember the sense of desolation when one of my uncles, John Williams, was killed in a blast furnace explosion at the Port Talbot steelworks in 1968.
I remember the development of the Llanwern steelworks, near Newport, built by the then nationalised British Steel Corporation in the 1960s. That massive steelworks, which I have visited twice, lies just outside my constituency, in that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newport, East (Mr. Howarth), and some of the Llanwern work force live in my constituency. When it opened, Llanwern attracted many workers to Chepstow; the Bulwark estate was developed to house the influx of steelworkers from the valleys, other parts of Wales and beyond. The industry gave its employees good wages and security, and it brought great economic benefits for the south Wales economy.
Many of those who came to work in Llanwern are now retired, but they give the border town of Chepstow a distinct Welsh identity. Many workers took early retirement and others faced redundancy, but they all contributed to the reputation of Llanwern as a premier steel plant. They contributed to the productivity gains that Llanwern achieved. Now, as pensioners, they have seen their British Steel pension fund raided by the present company.
On the day of the announcement, the statement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry argued that the move demonstrated the short-
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term approach that Corus had taken. Corus had failed to discuss its plans with the Government, relevant information had not been disclosed and it had resisted any meaningful dialogue. Offers of assistance from the Department of Trade and Industry and the National Assembly for Wales were met with a total lack of co-operation.
Mr. Win Griffiths: Like my hon. Friend, I was involved in the meeting with Sir Brian Moffat before the terrible announcement was made, and felt that there was no real dialogue between the company and the Government. I would like to contrast that with the approach of the multinational Ford motor company. It has announced a £245 million investment in my constituency that will create more than 600 jobs. Effective consultation between the Government and the unions, and particularly between the management and the work force in Bridgend, brought that about. Should not Corus take note of that example and recognise that productive relationships with its work force and the Government can achieve a successful outcome.
Mr. Edwards: My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. He represents a constituency where tremendous investment from both America and Japan has been achieved through dialogue and co-operation. That is in marked contrast to what the Corus announcement represents. In recent weeks, Toyota and Nissan have taken positive decisions on future production and we have had further welcome news about manufacturing growth in Wales, with additional orders for Airbus at BAE Systems in Broughton, in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones).
The Welsh economy has been growing recently. It is in better condition now than it has been since the 1950s and 1960s, and British production is at its best level since 1994. That is the economic context in which Corus has taken its short-term view. Only last August, Corus claimed that it would invest £35 million in relining the No. 3 blast furnace at Llanwern. Nick Cragg, the managing director of Corus Strip Products, said:
"The decision to proceed with the relining is a positive step forward and provides a real opportunity for Llanwern … despite difficult trading conditions."
The headlines at the time read "Llanwern rescued". I wrote to Mr. Cragg to congratulate Corus on its investment. I suggested that we might make representations to the Government, the National Assembly for Wales and the European Commission about the challenges that the company faced, given that there were difficult trading conditions and that some unemployment would be inevitable. I received no reply. The decision to reline that blast furnace has been rescinded, and the investment has been cancelled. John Bryant, a chief executive at that time, was considered by the unions to be someone who was committed to the UK steel industry and who saw a future at Llanwern. He was sacked in December. Another chief executive, Mr. Fokko van Duyne, was also sacked.
Predictably, people were aghast at the Corus announcement. The Archbishop of Wales, formerly the Bishop of Monmouth, reacted by saying:
"Many people feel that Corus' failure to implement any kind of consultation suggests that they do not trust their own workforce and that they do not take the lives of those people seriously."

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I discussed the situation with the Archbishop only last Friday. I agree with his view that the announcement pinpoints problems about the methods and standards of management and the lack of consultation in this country.
It is widely acknowledged that steel production in Britain has faced difficult trading conditions. The general strength of the economy has resulted in a high sterling value in relation to the euro, although in recent weeks the pound has weakened by about 10 per cent., thus reducing Corus's losses by about £150 million. The failure by Corus to take a long-term view stimulated the union, the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, to propose a buy-out that would allow the Llanwern steelworks to retain heavy steel production, given the strengthening euro and better prospects for the economy as a whole.
Tower colliery at Hirwaun in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) provides a famous model. The miners were determined to prove the viability of the colliery when the previous Government were closing all the coal mines in Wales. That determination led to success at Tower, which is now the only deep mine left in Wales. Another example is Rover, following the appalling decision by BMW.
The union's offer for Llanwern was refused. Sir Brian Moffat, the chairman of Corus, stated that it would "lead to competition". Better to make 1,200 people redundant than to risk competition, as far as Sir Brian Moffat is concerned. Better to close the Ebbw Vale steelworks, putting 760 people out of work, than risk competition. That is an example of the ruthlessness of a chairman who once stated that his company was in business to make money, not steel. He is known as the silent assassin. He is cold, calculating and detached from the human impact of his business decisions—a manager who has built his reputation on managing decline. Yet he was knighted under the previous Government. Was that for services to the steel industry? His ruthlessness reminds me of Victorian mill owners. In the 19th century, captains of industry could get away with a great deal, before we had state intervention, decent standards of employment and trade union protection. Such behaviour is not acceptable in the 21st century, and would not be acceptable in other European countries. In fact, Lord Wedderburn said, in his statement on the announcement in the other place, that it may be illegal. I ask the Minister to consider that.
Sir Brian Moffat was invited to a meeting called by Welsh Labour Members last week—the Monday before the announcement. I am currently chairman of the Welsh Labour Members and I distinctly remember that Sir Brian said that no decisions had been made on any plants. If he was telling the truth, it implies that all decisions on the plant were taken in just two days, and confirms the short-termism of the announcement. If he was not telling the truth, it confirms that he has treated the Government, the work force and hon. Members with deceit and contempt.
Mr. Barry Jones: My hon. Friend fights hard for his people. We admire that in him, as do the people of Newport and Ebbw Vale. Can he recall
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such cynical and brutal treatment of a magnificent work force anywhere in the western world? Does he realise that the company is unilaterally downscaling British steel production by 4 million tonnes a year? There is no evidence of any blood, job losses or downscaling of production on the Dutch side. It is a terrible way to treat a magnificent work force.
Mr. Edwards: My right hon. Friend makes a powerful point, which he has made on many occasions. It is widely felt that the British steel industry is being sacrificed for the Dutch steel industry. However, I am sure that he will acknowledge that trade unions in Holland have refused the work that has been transferred from England and Wales. We should put on record our gratitude to the Dutch trade unions for their stance.
Given what we heard from Sir Brian Moffat, we can understand why Peter Law, the Welsh Assembly Member for Blaenau Gwent said:
"They lied about the blast furnace at Llanwern. They lied to the workers at Ebbw Vale."
That was why other colleagues and I suggested that Sir Brian Moffat and other members of Corus should be required to give formal evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee—of which I am a member—so that the views on and background to the saga can be heard. I understand that arrangements for that are being made.
To their credit, the Government have repeatedly attempted to work with Corus to discuss an alternative to the proposed massive job losses. Ministers have been rebuffed at every turn. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales, my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan), First Minister of the National Assembly for Wales, Deputy First Minister Mike German and others in the Assembly on their efforts to find a resolution to the crisis. The Llanwern taskforce consists of representatives from Newport borough council and the National Assembly and it is working hard to find an alternative.
The trade unions, too, have been rebuffed at every turn. Every promise that they have made to Corus has been kept, yet every promise made by the company to the work force has been broken. It is widely acknowledged that Corus's fundamental problem is mismanagement, not trading conditions, the pound or other minor issues raised by the official Opposition. The mismanagement starts at the top with the chairman, Sir Brian Moffat. My message to him is that he cannot treat his work force and our communities like this. My message to the Government is that nobody should be allowed to treat any work force or community like this.
Corus's announcement has been ruthless, and it has treated its work force with contempt. The UK steel industry must be retained; it is not in the interests of the work force, shareholders or the country to allow 6,000 jobs to be lost. We ask the company to reconsider, to minimise the impact of the job losses, to consult the trade unions and to co-operate with the Government to find an alternative that will maintain the capacity of the UK steel industry. That would preserve steel production as a strategic industry for economic and security reasons. Every effort must be made to save as many of the 6,000 jobs in Llanwern and other UK plants as possible.
9.44 am
Ms Dari Taylor: It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Edwards). He has shown passion and sheer determination in identifying the serious problems created by Corus's announcement, for not only our work forces but our communities. Many people see this blow as an attempt to close their communities, never mind the steelworks.
I believe that the announcement made by Corus last week, which amounts to more than 3,000 job cuts with a further 3,000 anticipated, is not only thoroughly unprincipled, but an act of short-term accountancy that will achieve little in restructuring the industry and will not secure an active future for steel production. My area, Teesside, faces the closure of a coil mill and of Steel house, the company's head office. Steel house was an important signal to the whole of Teesside that British Steel, which is now Corus, meant to stay there and was good for the community; now it will be closed and we are told that the administration will be taken to Scunthorpe.
This is not just about the job losses and the closure of two important parts of steel production. It is unpalatable that a company should behave in such an unprincipled way and not tell us what more we are to suffer. A further 1,000 job losses are anticipated, and we are told that there are more cuts to come. That has made many people in my community anxious about their future and that of their families.
If we consider how Corus has marketed itself recently, we can reach only one conclusion. The short-term nature of the announcement is clear, given the profits previously made from steel. In the year to March 1998, British Steel made a profit of about £315 million; in the year to March 1999, it made a loss of £142 million. I am skilled at scrutinising company finances but I am amazed that, by December 2000, it claimed an estimated operating loss of more than £1 billion. We see a four-year track of profit, small loss and then significant loss. Corus pointed to the high value of the pound as a problem, but the value of the pound was relatively static throughout that period, so that cannot be the answer.
The company also stated that the figure is an estimated operating loss. If the costs associated with the recent restructuring are stripped out, one sees that the estimated operating loss was only £23 million. I suggest that Corus is playing with money and finance, and ruining our communities to boot. It is not prepared honestly and faithfully to put its problems on the table and allow the Government to respond.
By stating those figures, I want to make the point that Corus is managing a marginal decline in demand for steel by closure and redundancy. It is not looking, as Ford did, for new markets and products, or to improve efficiency. It simply wants to close things down. My hon. Friend suggested that it is moving the company to Holland. That is strikingly obvious to many of us, and we will fight it.
Corus has stated that demand has not been great and that it is concerned about that. Naturally and inevitably, we are all concerned, but the statistics for Britain and Europe together show that there has been an increase in demand, not a decline. When some parts of the steel industry are examined minutely, declines can be seen, but that does not apply across the board. Consumption
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of finished steel products in the UK has fallen by 1.2 million tonnes, and the figure for the rest of Europe is marginally lower. I say again to Corus that if there is a marginal fall in consumption, a marginal impact on the company could have been anticipated; but the savage way in which Corus has brutalised our steel industry is unacceptable. The company should present us with an honest factual picture so that we can see its problems and how best to help.
It is interesting to note that it is estimated that, between 2001 and 2005, demand for steel in Europe will increase from 144.8 million to 150 million tonnes. The world picture is even more revealing: global demand is set to rise by some 60 million tonnes.
The British steel industry is equipped with the best technology and an incredibly good work force who are competent, capable and flexible and prepared to negotiate. They have accepted being pared down to make the company efficient, and are acknowledged to be 10 per cent. more efficient than any other steelworkers. Given the projected increase in European and global demand, are we seriously saying that we are going to slaughter the industry in this way? That is unacceptable.
Hon. Members have not been given a true picture of what is happening. We are witnessing the destruction of our communities and our companies, and we are not prepared to accept it. Corus had better come to terms with that fact quickly.
The productivity of British steelworkers is astounding. It is claimed that German and French workers have the highest productivity, but the figures reveal that our workers are the best: a UK steelworker can produce more than 571 million tonnes a year, whereas German steelworkers produce 543 million, and the French only 534 million.
European companies also face cuts, but France and Germany face cuts nothing like as savage as ours, and the Spanish steel industry is even growing. That makes us extremely uncomfortable. We believe that there could be chains of supply from eastern Europe. No hon. Member would speak more determinedly than I would in favour of the growth of the eastern European economy, but I am not prepared to accept that it should thrive while my economy on the Tees declines and dies.
We have entered a consultation period, and we need to be spoken to as adults so that we can negotiate fairly and squarely. I want to believe that Corus is treating it as a real consultation period. I want to believe that our steel group will have a proper meeting tomorrow with Sir Brian Moffat in which we take each other seriously and speak about the reality of the situation.
Mr. Win Griffiths: I want to contrast again the ways in which Ford and Corus manage their affairs. The Corus workers have been given only 14 days' notice, virtually as an afterthought to the announcements made by the company. In the United States, although it is under no legal obligation to do so, Ford gives the work force 90 days' notice before final decisions are made about major changes in employment at its plants, or about major investments, such as the one at Bridgend. My intelligence from America is that it managed to reach a deal with the workers in Cleveland simply because of the way in which such investment decisions are handled.
Ms Taylor: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, which demonstrates that there are

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models of good industrial relations that define the best practice not only for our work force but for companies. We live in an era in which partnership is writ large. If companies do not work in partnership with a loyal work force and, in this case, with a Government, we shall see the end of what has been, and should be, a vibrant industry.
The consultation period is set. We have been told that Corus is going through a strategic restructuring. One fact has been made very clear: the company is concerned primarily with the accounts—how the books are balanced and how the shareholders are paid. It is trying to achieve that by savage and seemingly random cuts. That is not an effective model of management; it is management in the most scrambled, opportunist and unprincipled manner.
Corus has told us that it will make no further investment in the UK. That is a serious statement. There are still 22,000 people employed directly in our steel industry. That is no way to treat 22,000 people and, I would submit, a further 90,000 and their communities who rely on this source of employment and who have given their lives to it. Many of my people have worked for 20 or 30 years in the industry, a lot of them alongside their fathers and their children. That is the extent of their commitment and their loyalty. We have a Government offering help. My plea to Corus is to adopt a different approach. There is time for it to do so, to think this problem through and to achieve a resolution that we can all live with. By opening a meaningful dialogue with the Government and the trade unions, Corus can save jobs and communities.
On behalf of a very large community of steel-workers—in particular the 6,000 who know that there is a heavy hatchet over their heads—their families and their communities, I urge Corus to think again and to work with the Government to achieve a resolution, ensuring that, as demand for steel increases, the UK can respond efficiently and effectively as one of the best steel producers in the world.
9.59 am
Mr. Martin Caton: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Edwards) on having secured this debate, and on the power of his opening argument. In the circumstances, it is not a pleasure to participate, but I am grateful for the opportunity to do so. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor) on the powerful case that she has made.
The loss of 130 jobs at the Bryngwyn plant in my constituency is, on the face of it, not in the same league as the proposed job losses of 1,300 at Llanwern and 780 at Ebbw Vale, but it is part of the same blow, which has hit Wales hard. For the village of Gorseinon, it is a second shock in less than 10 days. A week before the Corus announcement, we learned that the French company Valeo intends to close its factory at Gorseinon, which makes car heating and air conditioning systems, with a loss of 330 jobs. A fairly small community faces a possible total of 460 job losses, which would have many consequences for the local economy and even for the social fabric of the area.
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Although Valeo and Bryngwyn have very different processes and products, their recent histories show a remarkable similarity. Both sites were named, just a few months ago, as centres of excellence in their industries, and their work forces were lauded, yet after no consultation or information sharing, those workers have now been told that they will all be out of a job by the end of July.
The double whammy leaves the Gorseinon community reeling. The Corus workers at Bryngwyn, victims of restructuring proposals, are bewildered and angry. At the weekend, the Welsh Assembly Member for Gower, Edwina Hart, and I met shop stewards of the Transport and General Workers Union and the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union at Bryngwyn. They told us of more than seven years of full order books for Bryngwyn's colour-coded product. Last April, Corus managers had shown them production and profitability charts and told them that Bryngwyn was leading the way and should keep up the good work. Nine months later, they have been told that that good work is to be stopped, that no productivity or new orders in the period up to July can change that, and that their members will receive only the basic redundancy package.
The situation is summed up by the telephone call that a Corus representative made to tell me, as the local Member of Parliament, of the devastating decision about Bryngwyn. After hearing the plans, I asked whether there would be a meaningful consultation period, and was told, "Yes, all the people who are being made redundant will receive counselling." Clearly, it is not only Sir Brian Moffat who fails to understand the meaning of the word "consultation". It has been deleted from the whole company's vocabulary. That is shameful.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South hopes that there will be meaningful negotiations. I share those hopes, but so far we have precious little evidence on which to base them. I am going to the Bryngwyn works tomorrow to discuss the local campaign to save the jobs. I hope that the possibility of a local buy-out will be mentioned, which would allow the team there to carry on its successful work. My hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth mentioned the attitude that Corus had to that option when the ISTC mooted it for Llanwern, but the people of Gorseinon will be looking to the Government to make every effort to shift Corus's thinking on the matter.
We must tell Corus that it cannot have it both ways. If the south Wales plants are long-term loss makers, then why should it fear a management-work force takeover? What competition does a lame duckling offer to the restructured, reinvigorated swan that Corus is supposed to be becoming—unless the duckling is not quite so lame, and the swan not really rejuvenated? Unless Corus is prepared to change direction, steel needs to be partly outside its monopolistic control if it is to have a future in our country.
10.4 am
Mr. Barry Jones: I am pleased to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. Caton), who is a defender of his community. When my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr.

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Edwards) referred to Shotton steelworks, he reminded me of those far-off days when I was working at No. 2 blast furnace at Shotton. It was one of the best jobs that I have ever had. I was given a crowbar, a pick and a shovel, a wheelbarrow and some moulding sand and told to get on with it, so I did. It was a tough job, but it was easy. I did not have to think. I did as I was told. My father had worked at that steelworks, as had my two grandfathers. At the time, it was a mighty, thriving 14,000-strong integrated steelworks. I am making these remarks to put into context the raw, powerful feelings that we all have about our communities now being put at risk by a cynical, brutal, thoughtless, profit-mad company—no more, no less.
I am also reminded of the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Peter Walker, who in 1972 brought forth a White Paper. His aim was to restructure the then nationalised industry. Because his proposals meant the loss of jobs in my steelworks, I took a deputation to the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath), who was very courteous, accessible and accommodating. I took steelworkers from my constituency to the Cabinet Room and sat opposite the then Prime Minister, now the Father of the House. Above him was a painting of Walpole, the first Prime Minister. The workers and councillors spoke up well. It seemed that the Prime Minister wanted to be of help, but that was not possible.
As a result of that, more than 3,000 people arrived in London on three special trains and marched to this honourable House. Our bass drum was arrested on Vauxhall bridge and taken to Cannon Row police station. There were so many people in the area that the whole of Millbank was closed. Thereafter, security in the House of Commons and its surrounding environment was changed. We made a valiant effort to stop the loss of thousands of jobs, but after looking at the papers in 1980, the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Sir Keith Joseph, said that steelmaking had to end. We lost 8,000 direct steel jobs overnight and at least 10,000 others were lost as a consequence. Hundreds of people from the estates in my constituency were out of work. Between 1980 and 1982, I think that male unemployment increased officially to 25 per cent.
Mr. Edwards: The Tory years.
Mr. Jones: Yes, they were the years of a Conservative Administration.
I emphasise the importance of this debate. When those redundancies rained down on my constituency, its social fabric could not take the strain. Unhappiness and unemployment were terrible wounds on the Deeside community. I do not want that for the constituencies in Wales or the rest of the United Kingdom. What is being proposed is unjust. If it comes about, it will not be good for our country, for our constituencies or for the steel-worker constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth and their families.
At present, my steelworks has fewer than 1,000 employees, yet we have been told that we are to lose 319 jobs. What reward is that? The work force are magnificent and, over the years, have collaborated with the board of Corus and its predecessor in de-manning.
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Each time, the works leadership was told that if it de-manned, stepped up productivity and became more competitive, more successful and more profitable, it would be able to survive into the new century and retain what was left of the works; but that has not proved true. What Corus told my constituents at Shotton steelworks was not correct. Our people gave everything to the board and have received nothing in return but a kick in the teeth. They believe that they are being sacrificed on an altar that represents profit, and that their interests and those of the great industry come behind those of the shareholders.
Mr. Win Griffiths: My right hon. Friend's reference to workers in his constituency and throughout the steel industry in the United Kingdom being sacrificed on the altar of profit reminds me of the fact that when Corus was created, British Steel was cash rich. It had money in the bank, and it used nearly £700 million of that money as a sweetener in special dividends to shareholders to approve the merger. If British Steel had planned properly, it could have had that money available for the rainy day of the past year or so, and our workers would not have been sacrificed for the sake of a sweetener.
Mr. Jones: A week ago, my hon. Friend made that point to the chairman of Corus. Yards from this Chamber, the chairman and chief executive of Corus met Welsh Members of Parliament. It was an unique and historic meeting, and he made that point powerfully. However, my point was that if our country is divested of its steel capability on the colossal scale now proposed by the company, that will be a cut for ever. We will not be able to bring back that productivity. I seriously warn the company about that.
We maintain a large standing Army. We have a seaborne nuclear deterrent. We have ambitions as a middle-rank, modern nation state in Europe. We are a world leader, and we want to retain our influence. It will not be possible to do that if the nation is divested of a steel industry—and that is what is happening. We can now see the future, in which Sir Brian Moffat's board is planning by stealth to end steelmaking in Britain and concentrate it in another country across the channel. That cannot be right for Britain, for Wales or for Deeside and Shotton in my constituency.
We are discussing nationhood and the future of Britain. It is not possible to have a future or a nation without a steel industry. A steel industry is a foundation industry. There is nothing without it. It is incredible that a board of anonymous men and women hidden away can make a decision unilaterally, without consulting anyone or telling the British Government, the British Prime Minister or the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. They are not telling us what they are about—but we know what they are about, and they will bring on our communities unhappiness, unemployment and hopelessness. I have seen it before. That is a terrible, searing thing to do to communities, and I hope that, even at this late stage, Corus will think again. I do not believe that it is equal to the task.
My right hon. and hon. Friends have behaved magnificently in trying to defend steelworkers in their constituencies, and I pay tribute to union convenors, such as Robert Butt of the transport workers, Jim Mullins of the steelworkers, Mike Parkinson of the

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engineers and Arthur Watson of the GMB, who are magnificent in doing what they are trying to do, and do not deserve the injustice that is being visited on them. All my Welsh colleagues know that what Corus is doing in Wales is wrong and unjust. The board must think again and come to the Prime Minister and offer to revisit the subject; it should stand back; it should think again; it should not do this to my steelworks.
10.14 am
Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: May I say how privileged I am to be able to speak in this debate, in which several hon. Members representing steel areas in Wales have spoken so eloquently about the devastating blow that was struck at the heart of their communities when Corus announced that 3,000 jobs in Wales were to be lost in south Wales, at Llanwern, Ebbw Vale and Bryngwyn, and in the north in Shotton? Those are jobs in areas where, over the years, unemployment has had a devastating effect—that is especially true of Ebbw Vale. We have heard from the right hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones) about the destruction of the steel industry in his area decades ago.
Over the past week or so, I have heard many eloquent speeches both here and in the National Assembly about the effect that the job losses are having. What underlies those speeches is a recognition that those working in the steel industry in Wales have made such a massive contribution to the economy of Wales, the United Kingdom and the rest of the world. What is also true is that those were good-quality jobs of the kind that attract incomes that we cannot afford to lose in Wales.
The loss of those jobs has a massive effect on the communities that I have mentioned, and it comes on top of other job losses. We have heard from the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Caton) about the job losses at Valeo in Gorseinon, but we have also heard about job losses at Sony, Panasonic, Dewhurst and Gossard. Those are jobs in manufacturing—clearly not on the scale of the steel industry, but jobs that we can ill afford to lose in Wales.
I shall come to the decision by Corus in a moment, but alongside that, we must consider the Government's economic policy. How can it be right that Wales, with its heavier reliance on manufacturing, should suffer that haemorrhage of jobs without the Government's being prepared to countenance any change in economic policy to protect the future of our manufacturing industry? I appeal to the Minister to address that issue.
Mr. Win Griffiths: We all deplore what Corus are doing—there is a huge case against it, and it should be in the dock today—but when we look at manufacturing in Wales overall, there is also evidence of good news. The Bridgend plant will get more than 600 new jobs and the unions there confidently expect there to be more. That will also pave the way for the development of a new business park, in which, over a five-year period, there could easily be 1,000 new jobs. We need to look at all those issues in the round, and the Government worked well with Ford to enable that investment to be announced.
Mr. Jones: I applaud the fact that Ford have made that announcement to bring further jobs to Bridgend—of course that is excellent news—but we also have to remember the underlying trend in manufacturing in Wales. Our heavy reliance on manufacturing, which provides 27 per cent. of our jobs, compared with 20 per cent. in other parts of the United Kingdom, means that when there are job losses in manufacturing, we must take economic policy, and particularly the high value of the pound, into account. Many of those who have announced those job losses have cited that as one of the reasons why they are now uncompetitive against other plants in the rest of the European Union. I am not saying that Corus is blameless.
Mr. Griffiths: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Jones: No, I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman.
The economic policy must also be examined. As hon. Members from all parts of the political spectrum in Wales have said, Corus's behaviour has been totally inexcusable. Its failure to consult the Government, the trade unions, the relevant agencies—such as the Welsh Development Agency—and the local authorities has, rightly, been condemned. Of course Corus should have consulted them. Corus should have told the Government what its plans were, so that stringent efforts could have been made to save jobs. Of course that is true.
We must also remember that in other European member states Corus could not have acted as it did, because employment laws in place in Germany and the Netherlands prevent such companies from throwing their workers out of work. That is the truth. I call on the Government to tell us that such a company will never again be allowed to throw workers on to the scrapheap. We should have employment laws equal to those in Germany and the Netherlands. We want statutory rights of consultation that would not have allowed Corus to say to the Government, "I'm sorry, but we're not prepared to talk." It should have had to talk to the Government. The Government must examine that issue.
Mr. Barry Jones: Is not the hon. Gentleman pushing his luck? He wants a separate independent Wales. We would not have a steel industry at all if he was in office.
Mr. Jones: What is remarkable about that intervention is that the right hon. Gentleman clearly did not disagree with the fundamental point that I was making. None of those who have spoken would disagree with that point. If employment laws were in place, Corus would have been prevented from acting as it did. He himself said that jobs were not being lost in the Netherlands. I can tell him why: if Corus had been planning to lose jobs in the Netherlands, it would have had to go through a consultation procedure that would have lasted up to two years. It was not prepared to do that. It is essential that employment laws are put in place in the United Kingdom. No one can deny the force of that argument.
I also want an assurance that, when the Government are talking to Corus, all options for saving jobs will be discussed. We must re-examine the trade union

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proposal, not only in relation to Llanwern, but to see whether similar proposals may be applied in other plants.
The first tack is to try to persuade Corus not to go ahead with the redundancies. We all support that plea and want to see it succeed. We want to see the Prime Minister, the First Minister and all the relevant Welsh and UK Ministers coming together to ensure that jobs can be protected. If that fails, we must look at ways in which we can assist the workers through proposals such as those of the trade unions. Clearly, we must also have contingency plans. What contingency plans will be put in place if all the pleading fails and the jobs are lost? No firm figure has been established yet, but it is estimated that between £50 million and £100 million will be necessary for the communities to rebuild the economies of the areas devastated by job losses.
Where will that money come from? I would like the Minister to tell us, categorically, that if it is necessary to provide those resources, the Treasury will provide them above the Welsh block. We do not want the National Assembly to have to raid its own budget to provide the necessary resources to rebuild the economy of those areas. Will she assure us that, if the worst comes to the worst and those resources are needed, the Treasury will be prepared to give that money to the Assembly so that we can begin that work of rebuilding?
The communities are facing desperate times and immense problems. A community such as Ebbw Vale has high social deprivation. It will be a huge task to rebuild those economies, so I hope that the Government will show today that they stand shoulder to shoulder with those communities.
10.25 am
Mr. Richard Livsey: I join my friends from every political party in condemning the loss of jobs at Corus and the way in which the company has gone about it. Last Saturday at Cardiff Arms Park, I saw a graphic illustration of how it has been done. I have sat next to the same person for the past 10 years—a young lad in his early 30s. The Welsh team was losing to the best English side I have seen in the past 50 years. At half-time he looked a bit depressed, and I said to him, "We're going to lose this match, aren't we?" He said, "It's worse than that: I work in the steel plant in Llanwern and I've been given my redundancy this week." There he is, a 34-year-old with a couple of kids—what future does he have? He is a skilled person, but as things stand, he does not really have a future.
We should bring the subject down to the human scale. We can talk about macro-economies and so on, but what matters are the individuals and families who are seriously hurt by Corus's disgraceful decision. Mr. Moffat is a butcher; most butchers retire eventually, and I understand that he is to retire within the next 12 months. When butchers retire, they sell their assets at the best possible price—in this case, the price on the stock markets. Corus in Holland is recruiting workers, but Corus in the United Kingdom is sacking them. The euro valuation in relation to the pound means that there is a loss on every tonne of steel produced, and exported steel in particular. No protection law exists to prevent the employees from being sacked.
It will be death by a thousand cuts. Unless this huge basic industry—the foundation of manufacturing industry in the United Kingdom—is allowed to compete
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properly in the marketplace, the remaining plants will also be in danger. I hope that that will not happen, but it seems possible. Corus has ruled out capital investment in its United Kingdom plants, which represents a death sentence for steel production here. We must act now—not in one or two or three years' time—to save the UK steel industry. It is a basic industry in Wales, and a vital part of the economy.
The announcement last week of the loss of 6,000 jobs in England and Wales is primarily the result of a decision by Corus to chop 3 million tonnes of production in the UK, which represents most of the export market. Most of it is going to Europe, and the industry is being downsized. Corus wants to keep spending to a minimum and will not invest for five years—we have that on good authority. Further cuts could be inevitable unless we take action. Mr. Moffat blames world overcapacity, low prices, falling UK demand and a strong pound. He may be right, but the way in which he has responded to that situation is absolutely atrocious.
That is the problem, but what do we have as a solution? Wales may receive £50 million from Whitehall, but one must set that against the cyclical nature of the steel industry. In 1996, British Steel made taxed profits of £ 1 billion. That was only four years ago, and profits could reach that level again if we remain competitive and there is investment. Turning the steel industry around is like trying to turn a massive tanker just outside Port Talbot roads: it takes a long time. It requires stability in the industry, not cuts like these. Mr. Moffat wants a good share price when he retires, which is the worst possible type of short-termism.
We cannot avoid certain facts. Corus has no legal obligation to consult, which is why it did not do so. It had no intention of doing so. As someone who worked for a multinational company for some time, I know that some boardrooms cut and run, while others co-operate and negotiate. That is the difference between Corus and Ford, for example. If we do not get the change that we want from the Corus board, we must try and try again. Indeed, consultation might have happened if we had signed up to the European Union employment protection directives. I cannot for the life of me understand a Labour Government who do not get involved in workers' rights. There is no sentiment in big business. The Government have been blocking the employment protection directives. In Nice, for example, they could have signed up to them but they did not. Why? It is a serious matter.
In his opening remarks, the hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. Edwards) gave a marvellous prescription. Many other hon. Members—if I may use Dylan Thomas's phrase—have demonstrated a tendency to
"Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
In this case, the dying of the light is in the steel plants. My family, in the early part of the 20th century, worked for the infamous Crawshay in Merthyr Tydfil. We all know what happened to Cyfartha ironworks: it closed down and everybody was out of a job. Indeed, the words "God forgive me" are inscribed on the grave of one of the Crawshays. I do not know whether that will be on Moffat's grave, but it would be deserved.

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We are in danger of living in a cloud cuckoo land. We must recognise certain facts. There is a global glut of steel. Steel prices are at a 20-year low. Corus exports 3 million tonnes to Europe and also owns Dutch and German production, which is far more profitable. The pound has been 40 per cent. overvalued over the past two years. How can one compete with that milestone around one's neck? That is why such a loss has been made. UK steel demand is in stagnation. Corus is £1.6 billion in debt and has made a loss of £226 million during the past six months.
Something radical must be done. British Steel was uniquely vulnerable to a takeover because of inadequate takeover laws in the United Kingdom. That is why the company is in this state. Of course, the management are far too ruthless and do not care a damn about the work force. The United Kingdom is going nowhere in terms of steel production. In the long term, the cycle will change and things will get better. The nature of the stock market favours short-termism, which puts people on the labour scrapheap. The competition is massively fierce—from China, Russia, Europe and Brazil—and the overvalued pound ensures that imports easily penetrate our markets. In fact, the penetration is massive. Unless the situation changes or there is intervention, Corus will undoubtedly relocate steel production, perhaps to eastern Europe.
The stock market does not value manufacturing production. It is interested only in short-term profitability, hence the job cuts and the increase of 10 per cent. in the share price last week. There is a high pound, and we need to do much to cure that problem. We have to review the takeover rules and company ownership structures. The European Parliament has tried to make hostile takeovers more difficult, but it has been opposed in that. Indeed, Ministers allowed British Steel to amalgamate with Hoogovens.
As a result of all that, we have the demise of Ebbw Vale, a town that depends totally on steel. Everybody there will be out of a job, and there is no alternative. That is a huge tragedy. There must be a management-worker buy-out of the Ebbw Vale steelworks if it is to survive. That is extremely important, because steel is fundamental to our manufacturing industry. We are in serious trouble unless there is Government intervention, as there was in the 1920s and 1930s and in the 1960s. There must be a rapid response for areas hit by closures. Help should be given to construct small and medium-sized enterprises to use more locally manufactured steel. We must have new consultation procedures and boost local demand. Public investment is necessary to save the industry. I am a great believer in Keynesian economics, and when there is a crisis it has to be met head on.
Unless we join the euro as soon as possible, we will continue to lose money on every tonne of steel produced. There should be more buy-outs of plants to save our industry and assistance from the Treasury to increase the Welsh block. We must meet head on this huge crisis—in human as well as industrial terms—if the steel and manufacturing industries are to continue in Britain at all.
10.37 am
Mr. Richard Page: I understand the feelings of hon. Members who have already spoken. I was born in Tredegar and my mother's family have lived there all their lives. I know the importance of steel and coal to the psyche of that community. It is understandable that hon. Members want to try to protect their constituents and, if necessary, to lash out on their behalf, and they are to be commended for it. I do not criticise them, but I shall explain why I believe that their energies have been misdirected.
It is easy to run a business that is going well. The tills ring, the salesmen are out and the money comes in. Any fool can do that, but when business gets difficult, one has to start thinking about it. Business is a bit like a cake: one tackles the slices one by one. When one has finished, one hopes to have a cake that is a bit smaller. One keeps repeating the process, and the day one stops tackling the slices is the day when one goes out of business.
In 1997, British Steel made a profit of £387 million from carbon steel. The line on the graph goes straight down from that point, and now Corus is losing a similar sum. It is losing more than £1 million a day. What can be done about that? Usually, increased efficiency is the answer and the work force can be made more productive. It is unusual for me to quote the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, but in his recent announcement on this sad affair, he said that the productivity of UK steelworkers is now at 571 tonnes a year per man—a staggering figure that makes ours one of the most efficient and productive steel operations in Europe, if not the world. We can be proud of our work force.
If lack of efficiency is not to blame, let us examine the marketplace, which the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor) discussed earlier. Total UK steel consumption has actually increased slightly since 1997, but if we examine that 1 million tonnes increase, it proves to consist of growth in imported steel goods and steel mill products. The pressure on our steel mills is to reduce volumes of production.
If the marketplace is not to blame, could transport be the problem? One must consider that our transport costs are among the highest in Europe.
What about regulation? If one takes the British Chambers of Commerce figures as broadly accurate—I shall not argue about £1 billion either way—we find that the cost of regulation on British business has increased by £10 billion.
Finally, we come to the largest slice of the cake, the ratio of the pound to the euro, which I think is the hammer blow. Of course, we have a further straw on the camel's back to come in the climate change levy. The Secretary of State dismissed it as a concern to Corus, but I can tell him that it is a concern to every company that tries to operate in Britain.
What can we do? The pluses are that we have an efficient work force and a market that has grown, but the minuses are transport costs, the forthcoming climate change levy, the huge burden of regulation and the impossibly high pound-euro rate.
Can Corus ask for a dramatic increase in the efficiency of its work force? No, because the work force has done magnificently. When I was the Member of Parliament

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for Workington, the blast furnace there was appallingly inefficient. The present operation is brilliant, and everyone connected with it can take a great deal of credit.
Can Corus do anything about the price of fuel? No. Can it do anything about the climate change levy? No. What can it do about regulations? Nothing. The damaging pound-euro ratio is the thing that really hurts not only Corus but British manufacturing in general. The hon. Members for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Livsey) and for Ynys Môn (Mr. Jones) put their finger on it when they began to discuss the imbalance in the pound-euro rate.
Ms Dari Taylor: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Page: No—unless the Minister is happy for me to take up her time.
The Minister for Small Business and E-Commerce (Ms Patricia Hewitt): It is entirely up to you.
Mr. Page: No, then.
Why do we have such a strong pound against the euro? It is because we have a high interest rate. Why do we have a high interest rate? Rightly, it has been set by the Monetary Policy Committee to limit inflation. I shall not argue that squeezing out interest should not be the criterion that it should operate on. It must do that because the fiscal policies followed by the Chancellor have resulted in masses of stealth taxes.
I must say to those hon. Members who gratuitously argued that Corus is slicing back assets simply because it likes to, that that seems a peculiar way to run a business. A management team that made cuts for fun would have minimal business experience.
In the last steel debate before Corus reached its decision, the Minister for Competitiveness concluded:
"We are taking action on the three key issues of the European exchange rate, the climate change levy and energy prices."—[Official Report, 10 January 2001; Vol. 360, c. 238WH]
It is hard to say about energy prices, but what action is the DTI taking on the exchange rate and the climate change levy?
The hon. Member for Stockton, South asked what specific offers the Government have made to Corus. I, too, would like to know the answer to that question. The announcement was no surprise: it had been coming for a long time. What was Corus offered to keep its plants going, given that—through the Government's own actions—it is losing £1 million every day? In the time since this debate started, Corus has lost £55,555—I have not calculated the pence.
Ms Taylor: Please will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Page: In a minute, perhaps.
For the Government to give a few million pounds to a company in such a situation would be like turning to a drowning man with a hundredweight of lead strapped
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to his legs and saying, "We'll take a few pounds off you, but you'll still drown unless more dramatic help arrives."
Ms Taylor: Will the hon. Gentleman give way now?
Mr. Page: I will, but only because I have been given the nod by the Minister.
Ms Taylor: Is it now official Conservative party policy to support joining the euro, and will the hon. Gentleman be pressing for entry at the earliest point?
Mr. Page: Even I, in my ignorance, see a trap, which I shall not fall into. I see no difficulty in having a correct fiscal policy that is not only beneficial to the nation but puts us more in line with the currencies in Europe without all the penalties of joining the euro. We can have the penny and the bun: all we need to do is change the Chancellor.
I am worried that what is being suggested may not draw a line in the sand under this matter. If the high pound-euro ratio continues, it may be difficult to restore the profitability that carbon steel manufacturing enjoyed back in 1997.
I am desperately sorry for the employees who are caught up in this. They are efficient and hard-working, and it is not their fault. I understand why right hon. and hon. Members are so vehement in their defence; my attitude would be exactly the same if I had a steelworks in my constituency.
Ms Taylor: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Page: No.
Those in government who so loosely accuse Corus should be examining the real facts. The fault of the Government lies not in their stars, but in themselves.
10.48 am
The Minister for Small Business and E-Commerce (Ms Patricia Hewitt): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Edwards) on securing this important and timely debate. He and my right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones), my hon. Friends the Members for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor) and for Gower (Mr. Caton), and the hon. Members for Ynys Môn (Mr. Jones) and for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Livsey) forcefully and movingly expressed the fury that is felt by workers and their families and communities about the announcement that was made last week by Sir Brian Moffat on behalf of Corus. They also spoke about the appalling effects of the decision not only on individuals and families but on entire communities and economies. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in his statement in the House last week, the Government share absolutely that fury and sense of betrayal.
I congratulate all my hon. Friends on their efforts to support their constituents and the workers in this industry, and on working with the trade unions to persuade Corus to take a different, more constructive and long-term approach. As my right hon. Friend said last week, and as some hon. Members have said this morning, there are real problems with structural

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overcapacity in the steel industry worldwide. Corus has had to deal with real losses in its UK operation, from which it continues to suffer. However, last week's announcement is undoubtedly a short-term response that fails to take account of the long-term and fundamental strength of the UK economy and of manufacturing in particular. We now have a sound and credible platform for growth. We have low and stable inflation, low interest rates and sound public finances.
To be frank, the comments of the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page) were economic gobbledegook. We all remember inflation rising to 11 per cent. and interest rates of above 11 per cent. for years on end. We all remember that 1 million manufacturing jobs were lost in the first Conservative recession of the early 1980s, and almost a further 1 million in the second one of the early 1990s. We will take no lessons from the Conservatives on economic policy and how to ensure the platform of stable economic growth that is the essential precondition for success in the manufacturing sector.
Several hon. Members have rightly referred to the general state of manufacturing, as well as the specific conditions in the steel industry, and I should stress that manufacturing output is rising. Indeed, as the Financial Times, among others, reports this morning, we have the highest growth in manufacturing output in general since 1994—an annual rate of 1.6 per cent. That should be compared with a fall in manufacturing output of 20 per cent. in the 1980s, and of more than 7 per cent. in the early 1990s. There is particularly strong growth in sectors such as the aerospace industry.
Several speakers mentioned the motor car industry. Despite the difficulties experienced by certain companies, there is real growth in that sector, with increased investment, output and exports. Moreover, the United Kingdom is retaining its position as the number one destination for direct foreign investment in Europe. Major global companies are giving a real vote of confidence to the UK. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) rightly referred to recent long-term decisions by Ford that were taken on the basis of constructive dialogue with the Government and with workers. Decisions in recent weeks by Toyota and Nissan also illustrate confidence in the economic stability and good business environment that we have created.
In striking contrast is the announcement by Corus. As I said, the carbon steel manufacturing arm of Corus's UK operation is experiencing problems, with real losses of about £1 million a day. Corus must of course address those difficulties, but given the broad background of economic stability, growth and a sound manufacturing sector, it is simply unacceptable for the company to take this decision in this manner, and for its new leadership to refuse to talk to the Government. Indeed, until last week it refused to talk to the workers and their trade unions. I am glad that, following the decision on 1 February, Corus finally accepted that it should talk to the trade unions about its announcement. I understand that it effectively agreed to stop the clock for 14 days to allow those talks to continue. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said last week, we were in discussions with the company and the joint chief
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executives, but the new chief executive made it very clear, very early on, that no package of measures would be of any interest to the company in terms of remedying the underlying problems as he saw them.
We have been working in Government, across Government and with the National Assembly for Wales to try to put together a more constructive long-term strategy for Corus. The problem has been its unwillingness to talk to us, to the National Assembly for Wales or, until last week, to the trade unions. Several of my hon. Friends referred to the proposal from the workers at Llanwern who want to mount a worker buy-out. We heard in the debate last week—I am not sure whether it has been referred to this morning—about the successful experience of the Tower colliery, which, following massive closures in the industry, was successfully bought out by the workers. I repeat what my right hon. Friend said last week: we urge the Corus leadership and management to sit down with the ISTC and the workers at Llanwern and seriously consider the constructive proposal that has been made for a worker-led buyout.
Several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire, referred to the broader economic situation and other factors that might lie behind the Corus decision. He referred to transport and, as my right hon. Friend said last week, that can hardly be an issue when the company is now proposing to move goods from Stockton to Llanwern. The company has not raised the matter with us. Similarly, the climate change levy has not been raised with us by the chief executive. Corus, in common with many other manufacturing companies and in response to our proposal, has negotiated a discount of 80 per cent. in the climate change levy in return for further improvements in energy efficiency.
On regulation, as the hon. Gentleman knows and as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development recently confirmed at an international benchmarking study, we now have a lighter framework of regulation than other members of the European Union do.
The exchange rate is a serious matter, but let us be clear that much of the worsening of the exchange rate took place before 1997. In recent months, the value of the euro has strengthened. As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has said on many occasions, it was clearly undervalued. Again, a company is failing to take account of long-term changes in the economy and making a decision on short-term considerations.
Several hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth, referred to consultation. Let me stress that United Kingdom law fully implements the European directive on collective redundancies. Corus is already under an obligation that was put into United Kingdom law by a previous Labour Government to consult workers and trade unions for at least 90 days before any dismissals take effect. That 90-day period will begin to run if the company, following its current discussions with the trade unions, confirms that the enormous redundancies are to continue.

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The requirement in law for that minimum 90-day consultation period is that there should be good faith consultation, including consideration of ways of avoiding redundancies or reducing the number of dismissals or mitigating their effect in other ways. That obligation has been there for years under employment law enacted by a previous Labour Government. Also, the European works council directive applies, as it does to other multinational companies that operate in the United Kingdom.
I repeat my call to Corus to sit down with the unions, the National Assembly for Wales and us to seek a better long-term solution for the communities, economies and families affected by its devastating decision.

Ambulance Service (London)
11 am
Dr. Jenny Tonge: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is that how I am supposed to address you?
Mrs. Ray Michie (in the Chair): Hon. Members are supposed to address me by name. I know that you can pronounce my name, Dr. Tonge, so perhaps you should do so.
Dr. Tonge: Thank you, Mrs. Michie. May I ask you to sort the confusion out with the Speaker's Office? Depending on who is in the Chair, we are sometimes expected to use names and sometimes titles. All Members share my confusion.
I should like to welcome two ambulance men to the Strangers Gallery. They are on their day off.
Mrs. Ray Michie (in the Chair): The hon. Lady is not supposed to refer to people who are not in the Chamber.
Dr. Tonge: I am terribly sorry, Mrs. Michie.
All Members should have an interest in our debate, because the London ambulance service will come to pick us up when we have our heart attacks and strokes, which is not unusual in the House of Commons—although I hope that it does not happen too often. Perhaps the men more so than the women ought to declare an interest, because women are much fitter. Nevertheless, we all have an interest in the service, which is crucial to the life of Londoners. In Paris, the ambulance service headquarters has a special phone for the Assemblée Nationale. I am glad to say that our ambulance service does not have any such phone, and that we take our chance with the rest of our constituents.
What a chance it is. If someone has a heart attack in a London street, there is a 1.8 per cent. chance that he will be alive a year later. In Paris, that person would have an 18 per cent. chance and, in America, he would have about a 30 per cent. chance. That is a poor figure for the United Kingdom. I know that that is due to a lack of cardio-pulmonary resuscitation techniques among the public, but it is also due to the great difficulty that the ambulance service has in meeting its response times. Its target is that 55 per cent. of all calls should be responded to within eight minutes, but it achieves only 34 per cent.
That is no fault of the people working in the service. As we all know, traffic congestion in London is currently impossible. I am told that the average speed of traffic is 10 mph.
Mr. Philip Hammond: Whose target is that 55 per cent? Is it in the patients charter? Is it an internal target or the purchaser's target?
Dr. Tonge: I think that it is the target in the patients charter, but I shall have to look into that.
It is a good day if the average speed of traffic in London is 10 mph. It regularly takes me much more than an hour to travel a little over five miles back to my constituency. Speed bumps and other traffic-calming

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measures have slowed traffic down, so they also slow ambulances down. Delays caused by congestion mean that the ambulance service needs more ambulances if it is to achieve a response time of eight minutes. An ambulance and crew has a range of only three miles, so more ambulances and more crews are needed to achieve those times.
The London ambulance service answers 700,000 calls a year with 350 ambulances. That is some service. Our lives may be in their hands, but those ambulance crews are still last in the league table of the nation's 32 ambulance trusts. The ambulance service was promised 25 more ambulances last year, but by December 2000 only 11 were staffed and operational. More ambulances are urgently needed. More paramedics on motor bikes are needed, because they can get through traffic to acutely ill people: they probably save lives while waiting for the ambulance crew to arrive. The London ambulance service improvement programme estimates that more than £11 million capital investment is needed, rather than the £5.5 million that it receives now.
Before I leave the subject of capital investment, I want to speak briefly about what most ambulance crews would call the icing on the cake—the helicopter. London, with a population of 6.5 million people, has one helicopter to use for really serious accidents. Paris has a population of 1.5 million people and has two helicopters. That is a shortfall for London. If I am ever taken acutely ill, I hope that it happens in France.
Other problems affect response times, and I touched on some of them in a debate on the health service in London a few weeks ago. The ambulance service is short of 400 ambulance crew. One reason for that is the maximum pay that staff can expect to receive. A qualified staff paramedic with many years' service can expect to earn about £20,000 a year including overtime. Those men and women put up drips, restart hearts that have stopped beating, make accurate assessments of the clinical condition of patients, stabilise broken backs and necks and crawl into the wreckage of road traffic accidents; and we reward them with a maximum payment of just under £20,000 a year.
In my pre-registration work as a junior hospital doctor, I relied on ambulance crews in emergencies, and I know many newly qualified doctors who feel the same as I do. We often rely on ambulance men and women in emergencies, yet we pay them only £20,000 a year. They cannot buy houses in London on that sort of money; nor can they give their families a decent life. It is no wonder that more than 10 per cent. of ambulance staff in London were lost during the past year to ambulance trusts in other parts of the country, where the living is easier, the housing is cheaper and they can just about manage on their pay. That movement of staff means that the training and dedication of those people are lost to the London ambulance service.
Of the £21 million given to the ambulance service nationwide last year to improve services, £2 million went to the London ambulance service and £19 million to services in the rest of the country, yet a third of all category A calls to the ambulance service are dealt with by the LAS. London does a third of the work, and receives a tenth of the funding. I rest my case.
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Another problem is the safety of staff. Ambulance staff in London suffer an average of one assault a day. It has got so bad that they are now being issued with safety vests. News Direct has sponsored a poster campaign in London to point out to the general public that those whose job it is to save lives in emergencies now have to risk their own lives to help others.
The constant misuse of the ambulance service by the public is another factor. A woman in my area splashed vinegar in her eye while making a salad dressing for a dinner party and called an ambulance. She dialled 999. Someone with a badly broken nail—extremely painful and extremely urgent!—dialled 999. All those calls cost the health service hundreds of pounds to deal with, but the patients charter states that the ambulance service must respond to all calls.
Some progress has been made in recent months. The London ambulance service has used some of its precious paramedics, who are supposed to be in ambulances answering emergency calls, to filter calls more effectively and to suggest to patients that they take the advice of a nurse or pharmacist, or ring NHS Direct. However, if the caller insists on having an ambulance—as people often do—the ambulance has to go and the money is wasted. We need some serious re-thinking about where ambulance stations are located and what their relationship is with NHS Direct and other NHS bases and emergency services. The ambulance service needs to be co-ordinated with the rest of the health service.
Savings, as well as improvements, can be made, especially if the LAS gets the computerised service that it desperately needs. Computers and the London ambulance service have a long history, and the service desperately needs a new system.
How much time is spent delivering the patient to hospital? It should take crews about 15 minutes to get from the door of the casualty department back to base. However, in winter, it can take more than 30 minutes. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) wants to comment on that in more depth. The problem is caused when accident and emergency departments are full and all the beds have been taken up. Sometimes the casualty department has no trolleys left, and the ambulance trolley has to suffice until one can be found and the patient can be transferred on to it. That is not a modern service.
We have expected far too much for far too long from the men and women of our ambulance service in London. It must be given special consideration. It needs support and a unified commissioning structure. It is ridiculous that it is commissioned by 16 different health authorities. Each of those health authorities has its own priorities. Acute hospital trusts are in deficit and other Government priority areas, which also deserve attention, have to be addressed by the trusts. The ambulance service always comes down the bottom of the list of priorities. If any of us in the Chamber has a coronary or a stroke, we will need the ambulance service pretty damn quick. It will not be good enough if it is at the bottom of the health authority's list of priorities.
Everyone accepts that there have been mistakes and mismanagement in the past in the London ambulance service. However, it now has an excellent chairman, who was appointed by the Government. The chief executive, who was appointed last year, is hugely popular with the

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staff. Having worked in the health service for over 30 years, I find it unusual that every ambulance man or woman I speak to thinks that their chief executive is a great guy, is working for the service and communicates with them. He makes a point of donning a reflector jacket and going out with an ambulance crew at least once every couple of weeks to ensure that he knows what is happening on the ground. Peter Bradley is a good chief executive and he should be encouraged. We probably have the best union-management relationship of all time in the London ambulance service.
In short, we have the chance of a lifetime radically to modernise and improve the service. I know that the Government care about the NHS. They should not forget the core of the NHS in London—the ambulances.
11.14 am
Mr. John Horam: Mrs. Michie—I hope that that is correct.
Mrs. Ray Michie (in the Chair): That will do very well.
Mr. Horam: I want to speak briefly, Mrs. Michie, because as a Minister in the previous Government I was privileged to have responsibility for all the ambulance services in the country, including London, from 1994 to 1997. As all hon. Members present probably know, owing to the historic problems of the London ambulance service, I shared responsibility for it with the Secretary of State.
As the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) pointed out, there have for a long time been problems in the London ambulance service that need special attention. As Minister responsible, I found that the difficulty was not that the service did not receive the special attention that it deserved by virtue of such factors as the size of London and congestion, but that it did not receive even ordinary attention. It was often the Cinderella of the services, which is astonishing given the fact that however good a hospital service may be, it is pointless to provide it if people fail to arrive there. I felt that my effort should be directed at obtaining for the service the attention that it needed.
Although I should not refer to some of my former special advisers, I am glad to note that they are taking an interest in the debate and pleased that they are still involved. They are from other services, but give their time to the London ambulance service. They were invaluable to me as a source of advice and I think that we made progress.
The problem in the past three years has been, first, a failure of management. For example, a tier of middle management was removed, leaving ordinary ambulance men with little in the way of hierarchy to which to report. The result has been, to an extent, what one might call canteen culture at its worst, which can create difficulties in the efficient running of an ambulance service. Ordinary ambulance men are superb people trying to do a job that is very difficult compared with, for example, that of the fire service. They have to do more with fewer resources and have a more relentless daily task and, in many respects, less public support. Certainly they have less Government support, and that remains the case.
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I was alarmed to note that the ambulance service is not mentioned in the NHS plan, which was produced in summer. That is astonishing. The centrality of the task of getting a sick person to hospital is not mentioned in the plan that is supposed to solve all problems. I was disappointed about that, because the mindset that I struggled against—that of the ambulance service as a kind of tail-end Charlie that would receive some small funds when they were available—is still in the Department. I worry about that.
The failure in the first instance has been one of management, which is why I am pleased about the appointment of a new chairman. The hon. Member for Richmond Park was right to mention the new chief executive, whom I, too, have found to be extremely popular with ambulance men in Bromley. That bodes well. Recruitment, and the use of ordinary ambulance men and women, have also proved difficult. For example, although we live in a 24-hour society in which problems evidently arise on Friday and Saturday nights, there is no overtime pay for weekends. Not to provide incentives to people to be available at those times of high demand is ludicrous, but that is the consequence of negotiations conducted without the common sense that one would expect. The trail of difficulties involving management and past negotiations has led to the current problems. One would hope that an ambulance would be waiting to deal with any emergency that might arise, but the reverse is nearer the truth and, if an accident happens, it is to be hoped that an ambulance will arrive.
As the hon. Member for Richmond Park said, the figure for meeting the eight-minute deadline has fallen to 32 per cent. I had thought that it was 36 per cent., but whatever it is, it is far below the necessary level. It is also far below that level in provincial cities. London has special problems, which mean that one should have lower expectations for the timing of ambulance arrivals. Although the expectations that one would have in provincial cities simply could not be met, the figures should be much better. Otherwise, we would not be providing a proper service. Indeed, to some extent, no ambulance service operates at weekends.
Mr. Hammond: I want to probe my hon. Friend's statement that it would not be reasonable to expect the London ambulance service to meet the response times that are met in provincial cities. I understand that the London ambulance service's percentage response time achievement in central London is not bad, but that in outer London the response time gets worse, dragging down the overall average. Is not that his understanding?
Mr. Horam: I am not familiar with the distinction between inner and outer London on response times. I was referring to the fact that Newcastle and Liverpool have much better ambulance response times than London. London has always been way behind the response times in cities throughout the rest of the country, and I think that the Minister would agree with that. That is certainly my experience.
London has particular problems such as the size of the city and the historic problems of the service. For example, the lack of computerisation is still a problem. Everything works by paper after all these years, although several efforts have been made to install a fully computerised system, which is standard in cities such as

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Liverpool and Newcastle, which are way ahead. Such problems must be solved. I am appalled to find that, four years after I handed over responsibility, the London system is, amazingly, still paper based. Progress has been extremely slow, and the results are unsatisfactory to Londoners and to ordinary ambulance men. They want proper support and a proper system of which they can be proud, but they have neither.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ms Gisela Stuart): The hon. Gentleman speaks with considerable experience, but does he agree that the disastrous attempt to introduce an information technology system to the London ambulance service in the 1990s knocked the service back considerably? The events surrounding that prevented it from making progress in that area as quickly as others did. Will he comment on that?
Mr. Horam: Yes, there were all sorts of reasons for that, many of which were related to the traditional set-up and relations between the trade unions and the management. No one would defend that now. It is poor that we have made so little progress, even in 2001, compared with that made in provincial cities, which were computerised in my time. London still is not and that is the problem. I hope that the Minister will say something positive about that, because progress must be made on that front.
I am pleased that the service has a new chairman—who, incidentally, is a resident of my own borough, Bromley. I have spoken to him, and he is very effective. The service also has a new chief executive. The management, at the instigation of a new chairman and chief executive, are much more understanding and friendly towards their staff and they are making a genuine effort to understand the problems that staff face in delivering a decent service. The impression that I have gained from the people to whom I have spoken at the ambulance headquarters in Bromley is that management are very staff oriented. They are grasping the nettle, realising that they have to work with staff, try to recruit staff and understand their problems.
The management must carefully consider pay and recruitment, which are fundamental problems. As the hon. Member for Richmond Park said, given the competition in the job market and housing problems in the London area, the organisation will not work if those with considerable experience are paid a salary of £19,000 or £20,000. One cannot have a decent service and have the right quality and quantity of people if that situation is not addressed fundamentally. The management well understand that, and are doing their best to do something about it.
Management are now much more flexible and coherent and I understand that they have a clear idea about capital and resource requirements and about the fact that the service needs some 12 million next year to contribute to providing more and better ambulances, better equipment and facilities. The management have set out a clear programme for the next four or five years, which the Government have been given. I hope that the new team can build on the undoubted good will that is being generated among staff and address the problems.
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I hope, too, that the Government will chip in with the right sort of funding and no longer treat the service as a Cinderella and that London will once again be proud of its ambulance service.
11.25 am
Mr. Simon Hughes: It is a privilege to serve under you, Mrs. Michie, as I do not think that I have done so before. If I may say so without embarrassing you, although I am not your constituent, I am one of your biggest fans and only regret that you will not be here in the next Parliament, as some of us hope to be.
I am glad that we are having the debate because it is important for London. That shows how magnanimous I am, because I have been applying for weeks for the same debate and my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) beat me to it. Last year, six Liberal Democrat Members decided that we must raise the issue and we have all done so in different ways. There was nothing conspiratorial about that—we all agreed that the matter was important and my three colleagues who cannot be present are very much associated with the issue. We benefited collectively from having been briefed and brought up to date before Christmas by the new chief executive, to whom tribute has been paid.
Some two weeks before Christmas, at about 9 o'clock one evening, I went to the headquarters of the London ambulance service in Waterloo road, which lies outside my constituency by about two yards. I went out with a crew of two ambulance drivers, Bart Wood and Peter Gallen, on their evening shift in a conventional London ambulance. Within a minute or two, they received a call to attend to a young boy, living in Walworth, who was choking and at severe risk of heart failure. They drove through the traffic—not easy, even at that time of night—through narrow streets on which the parking made access almost impossible. They made it to the house and were joined by their colleague, Ian Price, who was on a motor cycle. Paramedics with ambulance crews often use such vehicles nowadays. As far as I could see, when the crew took that youngster and his parents to St. Thomas's, they saved his life. In lay terms, it prevented that child from dying that evening. That was a dramatic introduction to an evening shift.
Last month, Jim and Christine Bradford, my constituents, had a tragic experience. Michael Bradford, their 14-year-old son, was knocked down in St. James road in Bermondsey when he ran out between two cars. He died after a week in the London hospital. He was the only child of those parents—one had two daughters by a previous marriage. I went to see Jim and Christine the day before the funeral and spent time with them at their home before going to the memorial service at the school and the funeral service. In their grief and desolation, they paid tribute to the air ambulance service that had taken Michael from the road accident over the river to the London hospital.
Although Michael did not survive, his parents could not have paid higher tribute to that service. They could not understand why, in the whole of London, there is only one air ambulance—that point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park. Unless things have changed since I made my visit as health spokesman for our party, that air ambulance, I

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understand, is largely funded by private money, not the NHS. Those are two recent examples, which took place within a month of each other, of the work of the ambulance services, the air rescue service and the support services in trying to save lives in London.
I join in the tributes paid by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park and the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam) to a service that has had terrible difficulties, but also has the resolution and will to overcome them. It is asking political representatives, in particular the Government, for help to change from a service that is overstretched and unable to meet its target times, and sometimes unable to do the job that it wants to do and save the lives that it can, to the Rolls-Royce service that we would expect in a capital city such as ours.
I want to concentrate on pay, but, by way of solidarity with colleagues, shall flag up the other points that have been mentioned. First, it is clearly sensible that we change as quickly as possible from a paper-based system, which is not sufficiently reliable or logical, to a computer-based, automatic, electronic system. I know the history and remember all that difficulty with the old computer that crashed—the whole system went to pieces and the IT did not work. The Minister referred to that. That is history; we need to introduce a system that allows information received at the call centre to be passed on for the crew to be summoned, and the sooner we can have that, the better.
Secondly, we need the kit to do the job. We need the ambulances on the ground to be able to respond. My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park referred to the fact that there is a bid in for and a promise of 25 more fast response ambulances, but only 11 have been on the road. Again, I talked to the crew who were with me that day, and who have been kind enough to come to Westminster this morning, and they said that even on one of their most recent days on duty they were scrabbling around for an oxygen cylinder, because there was not one in the ambulance. Some ambulances have all the kit on board; some do not because it is not there to be had. That does not allow crews to do their job properly.
The third issue concerns staff. This may sound sycophantic, and I do not mean it to, but I knew that I would be impressed by the professionalism of the crew. I expected that, just as I did when I visited the fire service and the police. I expect a professional job to be done and that is invariably the case, probably for 99.9 per cent. of the time. I was more impressed than I ever imagined by not just their professionalism, but their knowledge, expertise, competence and calmness—all the qualities that are vital to doing the job well. A better job could not have been done, and I say that in tribute to the individuals concerned.
I agree that it is unacceptable that no matter how many years' service people have done and no matter how much experience they have gained, their top-whack pay is about £20,000. It is unacceptable that there is no increment as a reward for service. People give five or 10 years' service, but have nothing to show for it. Why stay? Why stay in London? Why not move elsewhere, where there is less pressure? Why not move to a place where house prices, travel costs and the cost of living are lower? Why not move to an area where the incidence of
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severe accidents and injury is lower? Why not transfer to another profession? Why not go into the private sector? There is no incentive to stay.
We all think that an election is coming down the track. The Minister may not know formally any more than I do as to when it will be, but we are all on alert for the spring. We understand that there will be a Budget in March, and it may be meant as a backdrop to an election. The London ambulance service has bid for and needs about £30 million more than its budget. There must be a way for the Government, if they wanted to, so to adjust their comprehensive spending review plans that they could find that money. The kitty is full; public coffers are overflowing with resources; we have never had it so good in terms of what the Chancellor has to give out.
I make a plea now because we must hold on to public servants whom we value, and they need proper remuneration that is incremental through their career. As the hon. Member for Orpington rightly said, we should recognise that we need them most on Friday and Saturday nights, during anti-social hours when those people who have the choice would not work. We also need them on weekends, bank holidays, new year's eve and all those other occasions when people prefer not to work. We need about 500 extra people so that the job can be done without having to scramble to catch up.
I do not know how the Minister can deliver that extra money, but I know that Mr. Bradley, the respected chief executive, and Mr. Renton, who seems to be a good trust chairman, fully support the request. I am satisfied that the money will be well spent if it comes to the London ambulance service, because the regimes are in place to achieve that. Those who work for the service want to continue doing the job, but they also want their plea for proper remuneration to be heard so that they can continue to provide the excellent service that they are trained and willing to offer to residents and workers and those who visit our capital city.
I hope that the Government will make positive responses to my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park, the hon. Member for Orpington and other hon. Members. The service needs money on the table and a new pay regime this year—I mean this year—which will provide decent pay, and decent increments for service given, for some of the most professional people in the country.
11.36 am
Mr. Paul Burstow: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) on securing this debate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) said, various hon. Members have tried to secure this debate in Westminster Hall for some time. The London ambulance service warrants our attention and support for the work that it does. I congratulate the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam) on taking part in this debate. I want to respond to some of the points that he and my hon. Friends have made.
The public measure the London ambulance service by how quickly an ambulance turns up at their door after they have dialled 999, administers the necessary immediate treatment and takes them to an accident and emergency department or an intensive care unit to

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ensure that they continue to stay alive. The work of the ambulance service is a matter of life and death. It is about rapid response—the public are concerned about response times. It is also about a lot more than that, as I have become increasingly aware as a result of my discussions with the London ambulance service. However, we must consider the issue of response times.
The Government have rightly set new standards for category A life-threatening calls. They have set a national target of 90 per cent. of calls to be responded to within eight minutes. Achieving such a target or improving response times will result in more lives being saved. Given the sheer volume of 999 calls that are made—700,000 to 1 million calls a year, or 3,000 a day—600 more people would be saved a year in London alone if performance standards on response times were achieved. As my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park rightly said, only 34 per cent. of 999 calls in London are attended within eight minutes. From March of this year, the target set for the London ambulance service is 55 per cent. of category A calls to be attended within eight minutes. I am not certain whether that target can be met, but I know that the London ambulance service has made great strides and that attendance times have improved since the last time the relevant national statistics were published. We wait with interest to see what the performance indicators suggest has happened in the past year.
Several obstacles are in the way of achieving better response times. Staff recruitment and retention is a problem. Turnaround times in accident and emergency departments need to be explored in detail, and we must consider the vexed question of traffic in London and the fact that there is gridlock at certain times of the day in both inner and outer London, which makes it impossible for ambulance crews to get through. Earlier today, I discussed with an ambulance crew some of their worries, and they said that junctions are all too often the pinch points. A junction can provide ambulances with the way through the traffic, but because thought is not always given to the use of yellow box markings, everyone stays in the junction. What I experienced this morning when I drove to the House demonstrated that problem graphically. The traffic drew to a halt, and all the junctions locked up. I dread to think what it must be like to sit behind the wheel of an ambulance at such times, knowing that the clock is ticking past the five minutes in which to achieve the eight-minute response time, and to know that someone is relying on the ambulance to arrive.
Staff recruitment and retention are undoubtedly an important part of the problem. It is alarming that the turnover of staff in the London ambulance service is double that of any other urban ambulance service in the country. The turnover rate is about 10 per cent. Each month, 20 staff leave the London ambulance service. Some people may argue that a turnover rate of 10 per cent. is nothing to worry about, but given that this relatively small specialist work force work to full capacity, the service can ill afford such a staff turnover.
Something must be done about the turnover of staff as it imposes extra costs on the London ambulance service. In the financial year that is coming to an end, the costs of recruitment to fill the gaps caused by staff
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leaving the London ambulance service will be about £1.5 million. Included in that figure is the cost of placing advertisements that barely generate a response. Late last year, an advertising campaign throughout London drew in only 15 responses. At the same time, 20 more people went out the door to go elsewhere in the country. The £1.5 million that has been lost to the LAS could have been invested in the service, were it not for the serious staff retention problems in London.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park said, we must take into account the high cost of living in London, which is not fully reflected in the salaries of ambulance crews. Indeed, they receive the lowest pay of all key public sector workers. The police receive about £19,730 per annum plus London allowances and qualified nurses receive £18,300 plus London allowances. Such levels of pay are not generous, but they are more than ambulance crews receive, so it is hardly surprising that people are leaving the service.
Ambulance crews have lower annual leave entitlements than nurses, firefighters or police officers, and they do not receive a shift or unsocial hours allowance. The Government put additional resources into ambulance services throughout the country. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park rightly identified, of the £21 million extra that was allocated, only £2 million went to London despite the fact that a third of all category A 999 calls are made in London. That was a misallocation of resources. It failed to meet the identifiable need to improve the service.
I am not criticising the fact that extra money was provided, but as a result ambulance services in the west country, Hertfordshire and elsewhere have been able to offer attractive packages—golden hellos—to attract ambulance crews to move out of London. They are attracting highly skilled paramedics to a better quality of life and a better pay package. It is no wonder that London is losing 20 staff a month from the ambulance service. As the hon. Member for Orpington rightly said, even the best A&E departments in the world could not do their job properly and could not make a difference to people's lives if patients could not be taken to them quickly enough.
Over 1,000 hours a month are lost because of delays at A&E departments. In January, the average wait for an ambulance crew at an A&E department was 24 minutes. That figure has progressively increased from January to January—24 minutes while an ambulance is waiting to be released to go back on duty to attend 999 calls. That reduces the resources available to respond to 999 calls. It is part of the systemic problem. We have had debates in this Chamber and on the Floor of the House about delayed discharge, which ultimately results in an ambulance being delayed in an A&E department. If a bed is blocked, or there is a delayed discharge in the hospital, the problem feeds back down to the A&E department—no beds are available, so people cannot be admitted to hospital, patients have to wait on trolleys because there are no beds, and those trolleys often come from the back of ambulances. As a result, people wait to move on.
One of the problems raised during a conversation with an ambulance crew was that of the time wasted at an A&E department, especially over booking-in arrangements, which took more than 10 minutes on average. Anything that can be done to shorten the time

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that ambulance crews are involved in that procedure would be welcomed. The national health service should look into that when considering the role of A&E departments in freeing up time.
Ms Stuart: How would the hon. Gentleman square that suggestion with what I have heard from ambulance crews who felt that it was important to have a good relationship with A&E departments? The real trick is to know when the service is so stretched that the ambulance crew should book in and go, but they felt that the time spent booking in was important in building a relationship. The time is not at issue; it is what happens in that time. The procedure should be streamlined, but the problem is not as simple as the hon. Gentleman implies.
Mr. Burstow: I agree that none of the measures are simple. What is required is the development of a relationship, as the Minister said, but also some clarity about the protocols used in the operation of the London ambulance service and A&E departments around London. It is not beyond the wit of the staff and the management to develop such relationships. The issue could and should be examined in any attempt to deal with the time taken by crews waiting outside A&E departments.
Mr. Hammond: In examining initiatives elsewhere in the country, is not part of the solution to the problem the use of in-vehicle computerisation, so that communication with the A&E department starts from the moment that the vehicle begins its return journey?
Mr. Burstow: The hon. Gentleman has helpfully brought me on to my next point, which is about capital investment in information technology and communications.
Mr. Simon Hughes: Will my hon. Friend give way before he goes on to talk about the capital investment programme?
Mr. Burstow: Yes, as we have the time.
Mr. Hughes: Having heard my hon. Friend's dialogue with the Minister, it would be most helpful if, in dealing with this practical issue, an urgent countrywide consultation could take place between ambulance crews and their representatives and NHS trust staff. We should also listen to the views of others who are not ambulance personnel, doctors or nurses. Lay civilian clerical staff could assist in A&E departments and deal with paperwork when there is no need for personal contact. It would be a helpful move forward if the Minister would give such an undertaking.
Mr. Burstow: All options should be explored. The Minister was listening carefully to what my hon. Friend had to say, and I hope that he and his officials will pick up on that point.
I want to return to the important point about capital and investment mentioned by the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), but first I want to talk about traffic in London. Through our personal experience and other evidence, we all know
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that traffic in London is going slower and slower. As my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park mentioned, that has consequences for the operation of the London ambulance service. It is confined to ever smaller areas because of the distance it can travel in the eight-minute response time—the operating radius is now about three miles and is getting shorter. Thus, more and more ambulance crews and ambulances are needed to cover the whole of London within the response time that the public considers satisfactory. Given the change in traffic speeds between morning and evening peaks, just to maintain response time would require a 25 to 26 per cent. increase in the number of ambulances.
That brings me to the issue of capital investment in the ambulance service. The London ambulance service has a £5.7 million shortfall in its capital programme, which has already resulted in a change to the policy on the working life of ambulances from five to six years, and the capital programme of £5.5 million available under the external financing limit is eaten up just replacing ambulances. We have a serious problem in London, and the LAS needs to spend an extra £1.5 million in the coming year to purchase a further 10 ambulances and 23 rapid response units to enable it to achieve better response times. Whether the extra vehicles have the IT that the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge wants or not, they are essential to improve response times.
The funding arrangements for the London ambulance service are unsatisfactory organisationally, let alone in the amount of money available. In London, 16 health authorities are responsible collectively for commissioning the London ambulance service, and I certainly hope that by 16 February they will have good news about their commissioning intentions and resources, but all of those health authorities have other pressures on them. They have responsibility for acute hospitals, who have advocates on their behalf; for primary care needs; and for the Government's national priorities on cancer and coronary heart conditions. The Government must seriously consider allowing the London ambulance service to be commissioned on a Londonwide basis—perhaps through the NHS region—so that someone has clear responsibility for thinking strategically about its commissioning. By fragmenting it across 16 health authorities, that vision is lost and there is no clear ownership of responsibility for commissioning services. That would do a great deal for the confidence of the London ambulance service.
The London ambulance service now has a clear improvement programme, and it is delivering results. It needs support and resources to carry that programme through. In particular, it needs flexibility to reward and retain staff, and we need action to deal with gridlock and the turnaround problems of accident and emergency departments.
London ambulance crews have been underpaid, overworked and overlooked for far too long. The London ambulance service needs a period of sustained investment. Its new management team is able to deliver, and it certainly has staff of a quality to deliver the service. I hope that, in partnership, the Government will be able to deliver as well.
11.53 am
Mr. Harry Cohen: I shall be brief.
Mrs. Ray Michie (in the Chair): Yes. I hope to start the winding-up speeches at 12 o'clock.
Mr. Cohen: I shall not speak beyond that, Mrs. Michie. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) for introducing this important debate and apologise to her and, indeed, to you for being unable to be present for the start. I was at a Defence Committee meeting attended by the Secretary of State.
I visited the London ambulance service in January 2000. The previous chief executive left shortly afterwards, but that had nothing to do with my visit. I looked around and met the staff who operate the 999 service and run the ambulances. I was impressed by their work, so I am happy to echo the comment about pay being an important factor both for them and for ambulance staff. However, I noticed that there was no system for tracking ambulances. That surprised me, because only a couple of months earlier I visited a taxi firm called Computer Cab with a couple of other Members of Parliament. It had a tracking system, so staff knew where every taxi was. I have been arguing the case both to the London ambulance service and to Ministers that we should take advantage of the technology. That is my main reason for speaking in the debate.
The new chief executive of the London ambulance service, Peter Bradley, wrote to me in November. His letter stated:
"You are right to say there is a good case for a 'computerised tracking' system for ambulances and I am pleased to say that such a system will be installed early next year."
It is now "early next year", so I ask the Minister whether any progress has been made in putting that tracking system in place. It is important because it would add to the efficiency of the service and may save lives. I shall be interested in her comments on that matter.
I shall make a couple more brief points. The first concerns cardiac care, which is important and needs investment. There is a programme, which is part of the London ambulance service's plans to improve cardiac care, to replace the old-fashioned type of defibrillation units with AEDs—automatic external defibrillators.
The survival rate a year after people have been taken to hospital with a coronary by the London ambulance service is less than 2 per cent. Although that figure is comparable to that for most other major urban conurbations, it is still poor. I see from the London ambulance service plans that it would prefer that figure to be much closer to 15 per cent. Obviously, that would require investment, but the London ambulance service thinks that it is achievable, so an effort should be made. The modernisation of defibrillators is part of that process. There is also a need to upgrade clot busters so that ambulance paramedics can deliver the injection and answers to my parliamentary questions suggest that progress is being made on that important way in which paramedics could increase the cardiac care survival rate.
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My final point concerns the London ambulance service management plan. In his letter to me, Mr. Bradley said that:
"we are determined to turn the LAS into a world class service and have recently completed an extensive internal consultation exercise in developing a four to five year Improvement Programme which will enable us to build the service that London deserves… We welcomed the extra £6 million granted to us this year, but much greater investment will be required to bring the aims of the LAS Improvement Programme into reality."
Mr. Bradley says that he has discussed the investment programme with the Government. I hope that the Minister will tell us that the £6 million investment is the first step in delivering the management programme that Londoners need if many lives are to be saved.
11.59 am
Mr. Philip Hammond: I congratulate the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) on achieving this debate and on the commendable brevity of her opening speech. Too many of these debates in Westminster Hall run out of time because the opening speaker takes 45 or 50 minutes to make his or her contribution.
Having listened to the debate so far, it seems that virtually every Member of Parliament has visited the London ambulance service in Waterloo. I have certainly added to their burden, and I wonder how much better the service might be if staff did not have to spend time showing MPs around the control room. The fact is that despite the dedicated efforts of the thousands of men and women in the London ambulance service, it is failing to deliver an acceptable service to Londoners. It is bottom of all the league tables.
The hon. Member for Richmond Park quoted a target figure of 55 per cent. for an eight-minute response time to category A calls. I should like to probe the Minister about who set that target. My understanding is that the patients charter target was that, by April 2001, 75 per cent. of category A calls would be answered within eight minutes. The 55 per cent. figure represents the purchasers' target—the service for which they have been willing to pay in a negotiated settlement with London ambulance service. If I am not mistaken, there is a 75 per cent. national target, but health authorities in London have decided that they will only pay for a service that delivers a 55 per cent. target. If that is correct, will the Minister tell us why people in London should be prepared to pay—sometimes with their lives, as shown by the figures quoted by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow)—for the lower level of planned service that the London purchasers are willing to finance?
Mr. Burstow: The hon. Gentleman may be interested to know that the London ambulance service's own targets are 65 per cent. by spring 2002 and 75 per cent. by March 2003. As the hon. Gentleman said, there is a caveat: money must be available.
Mr. Hammond: I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about that. Will she also tell us whether, under the Londonwide purchasing arrangements, the same service targets are in operation thoughout London, because the achievement rates have been different? In central London, the London

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ambulance service has been achieving about 60 per cent. category A eight-minute responses, which is good by any standards across the country. In other areas—I am afraid that it is the usual suspects, such as Newham, where service provision is repeatedly less good—the response times are higher.
Given the overall London percentage achievements, 60 per cent. in central London shows how poor the response times must be in outer London. Although, as the hon. Member for Richmond Park said, we do not have a hotline to the London ambulance service from this place, we are privileged to be in an area that is better served than some of our neighbours across London. Will the Minister tell us whether it is acceptable in her view that London ambulance service purchasers should be allowed, by design, to purchase a lower standard of service response than that set by the Government's own targets?
Will the Minister also explain the distinction between categories A and B? Of course the focus is on category A response times for immediately life-threatening incidents. The last time I called the London ambulance service, I was with an elderly person who had fallen over and broken a leg and was not able to move. That is not a life-threatening condition, but it is not a pleasant position to be in at 11.30 on a Friday night in a street in the constituency of the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes). We all know that Friday nights are a busy time for the ambulance service, but I think that the Minister would agree that to have to wait for 45 or 50 minutes is unacceptable.
The Government must make a clear statement about the targets that they expect the London ambulance service and its purchasers to achieve for the people of London, so that we can measure what purchasers and providers are agreeing against the targets that the Government, as the responsible body, are setting.
Will the Minister give us her assessment of the extent to which capital deficiency and inadequacy of capital spending programmes is at the heart of the problem and the extent to which it is a problem of staff retention and recruitment? In the latter context, what are the Government doing to deal with the problems of providing public services in the south-east?
Can the Minister tell us whether she is satisfied that commissioning arrangements, which the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam described as fragmented, are not a contributory factor to the relatively poor level of service delivery? Specifically, how do the Government allocate additional cash resources that are made available for ambulance services? We have already heard that of the £21 million that was made available last year, only 10 per cent. was allocated to London, although London faces a third of all category A calls in the country.
What lessons have the Minister and her Department drawn from comparisons between organisational systems and service achievement in the London ambulance service and the ambulance services of other cities? I am sure that she will mention computerisation and the use of technology. When I went to the London ambulance control centre, I was quite shocked to find little pieces of card being physically moved about the room. Although there were plenty of computer screens, the system appeared to be essentially paper-dependent,
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not computer-dependent. Perhaps the Minister can tell us that matters have moved on in the past 12 months. Will she say how far the Government are willing to support the extension of technology?
The hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr. Cohen) talked about the situation in which heart attack victims find themselves. In Paris about 10 years ago, I saw a demonstration of how paramedics are able to transmit an ECG reading from the scene of an incident back to consultants in a hospital, who make a diagnosis and instruct the paramedics at the scene on the administration of drugs. That is the kind of initiative that we should be considering. It is rather sad that it took place 10 years ago in Paris, yet we still have nothing comparable in this country. Will the Minister tell us whether the Government are willing to consider such an initiative? I imagine that it would require changes in legislation dealing with who can administer what treatment.
Will the Minister consider the publication of more information about response times to category A calls? We know the percentage that are within eight minutes, but it is important to know whether the remainder of the calls are responded to in nine or 90 minutes. If 39 per cent. are responded to in eight minutes and 75 per cent. in 10 minutes, that would be a different order of problem to the remainder being very much delayed.
Will the Minister tell us about international comparative figures? How does London stand in the league table of ambulance response times in comparable cities? What is the Government's assessment of the impact that misuse of the ambulance service has on the service delivery equation in London? The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam talked about the waste of ambulance time when ambulances are stacked up at A&E departments as the problems of those departments multiply. That does not happen only because they are waiting to unload. I have also heard graphic descriptions of ambulance crews caring for patients because no one else is available to do so. Until they are able to hand over care of the patient, they cannot leave the A&E department. However, it would be an equal waste of time for ambulances to respond to calls that should not have been made, or which did not warrant an ambulance response. I should be grateful if the Minister would clarify the Government's view on that issue and what they intend to do about it.
We all recognise the phenomenal escalation of demand that the London ambulance service faces, and the special problems associated with London's traffic. We know about the difficulties in recruiting and retaining public service personnel in London and the south-east. The London ambulance service is an essential service that provides support for people who live and work in London, and for the many millions who visit the city. However, in overall terms it is not delivering an adequate service to Londoners. Worse than that, poor overall performance figures conceal pockets of far worse performance in certain areas.
We recognise the scale of the problems, but we must respond not by cutting targets to an unacceptable level, but by addressing the problems head on. If the percentage improvement in London ambulance response times that was achieved between 1994 and 1997 had been achieved between 1997 and now, 100 per cent. of category A calls would have been responded to within

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eight minutes. It is the Government's duty to ensure that the London ambulance service delivers an acceptable service to Londoners, and I look forward to the Minister's response to the many specific points that were put to her this morning.
12.11 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ms Gisela Stuart): I congratulate the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) on securing this debate, and I shall try to deal with many of the questions that were asked during the debate. I am sure that the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) will forgive me for beginning by discussing the points raised by the hon. Lady who initiated the debate. I shall work my way through the points in a sequence that will sometimes appear logical, and sometimes not.
The hon. Member for Richmond Park said that we should not forget the ambulance services, and I should make it clear that in the past few years we have far from forgotten them. The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam) expressed his disappointment at the apparent lack of specific reference to ambulance services in the NHS plan. Ambulances have for too long been viewed in isolation. Their function is much wider than that of a simple people carrier from point A to point B. Ambulance staff are highly trained professionals who have a very important function to fulfil. The NHS plan refers to telemedicine, cardiac work and the provision of thrombolysis by paramedics. Ambulance services must be a far more integrated part of the jigsaw of emergency medicine, and they are very much in our minds. Indeed, the Secretary of State has commissioned a review of emergency care and out-of-hours services, which are intrinsically linked.
Given the number of people who visit the London ambulance service—I, too, have visited it on a number of occasions—I am tempted to suggest that it should charge for visits. I have also visited my own West Midlands ambulance service, which kindly allowed me to spend a day with its staff. It was an extraordinary learning experience, because the various problems to which hon. Members have referred came to the forefront.
Reference was made to helicopter air ambulances, and I shall refer to them specifically, but I want first to make a general point. In London, the helicopter emergency medical service is an important component of the ambulance service, but I want to correct two misconceptions. First, helicopters are not the universal panacea that they are sometimes thought to be. They cannot fly at night, so they cannot operate for between eight and 12 hours of the day. Secondly, in many areas public funds contribute to the service, but we must not underestimate the amount of NHS money that is provided. In London, a large proportion of the cost of running the service—some £1.4 million a year—is funded by the NHS. NHS funding pays for maintenance of the helicopters, fuel, insurance and all costs associated with the pilots, operations staff and paramedics. On top of that, only 84 hospitals in the country and about 12 in London have helipads. I do not underestimate the role of helicopters, but they are not the panacea that is sometimes suggested.
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The hon. Member for Orpington suggested that the whole system should be reviewed, but I hope that he acknowledges the considerable progress that has been made. There was a danger during our debate of giving the impression that all was doom and gloom. The London ambulance service has always faced a difficult task and it has made huge improvements.
Mr. Hammond: Does the Minister acknowldge that concern is being expressed because the rate of improvement seems to have slowed down dramatically? Between 1993–94 and 1996–97, the percentage of eight-minute responses to category A calls tripled from 12 per cent. to 35 per cent., but between 1996–97 and 1998–99, it improved from 35 per cent. to only 39 per cent. It seems that the rate of progress is slowing down.
Ms Stuart: I shall examine those figures, because it is easy to extrapolate figures and draw conclusions. I want to speak about the improvements that have been made.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr. Cohen) referred to a tracking system. I saw such a system in operation when I visited Merseyside ambulance service. The development of such a system is being looked into, and I shall come back to my hon. Friend with more precise information about the time scale.
The hon. Members for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) and for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) made some valuable points, but they always think that everything will be resolved with money. The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) referred to the 55 per cent. target in London and whether we can meet it. Of the money allocated, £21 million was to help towards the improvement of targets.
It is important to pay tribute to the London ambulance service on the improvements that have been made following various initiatives. Its legitimate and correct aspiration is to provide the city with the ambulance service that it deserves. It handles around 20 per cent. of the total ambulance work load in England. The population of 7 million in London increases each day because of the 3 million visitors to the city. The London ambulance service has more than 3,000 staff and 600 vehicles and last year handled around 12 million calls. Dealing with that volume of calls is not easy, and I want to thank members of the London ambulance service for their tremendous work day in, day out. The value of that work is abundantly clear from the way in which they dealt with crises such as the Paddington train crash and the Brixton and Soho bombings. Given that the service receives about 3,000 calls a day, it is vital that the LAS is considered an integral part of the NHS.
Before dealing with the situation in London, I shall refer to ambulance services across the country. The Government's priority is to save more lives by providing faster and more responsive emergency ambulance services. Clinical evidence shows that early defibrillation and resuscitation saves more lives. The Government set challenging response targets for all ambulance services as soon as we came into office in 1997. Since then, ambulance services have improved their response times through a range of measures, including more staff and vehicles, faster activation, better matching of resources

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to demand, dynamic as opposed to station-based cover, effective relief levels and rotas, and flexible responses to 999 calls.
I shall compare two ambulance services that appear to have had real difficulties in meeting the 75 per cent. target. One is in an urban area; the other is in a rural area. The method of meeting those targets varies from one area to another.
Dr. Tonge: That is all very interesting, but the Minister is being far too general in her response. I asked a number of questions about the London ambulance service, not least about the level of pay. Only nine minutes of this debate are left; shall we be given any answers?
Ms Stuart: I hope to proceed. I need to put those matters into the overall context.
Mr. Simon Hughes: Can we have the answers?
Ms Stuart: Would the hon. Gentleman do me the courtesy of listening to my response?
We are also introducing a range of community and volunteer responder schemes; it is no answer simply to say that we need more ambulances. Those new schemes will include the use of motor cycles and rapid response vehicles that can make their way through traffic congestion more easily. Mention was made of traffic problems, but even such things as the signposting of streets and the numbering of houses can make a difference. We spoke also of traffic entering marked spaces on roads that can cause junctions to become blocked. We are not dealing with aspects of the problem in isolation. I urge hon. Members to consider the matter in the round.
Liberal Democrat Members in particular wanted the Government to make another commitment to giving extra money to the London ambulance service. We were told that that was the only solution. Perhaps they have a little list; but those extra demands add up. Every time we have a debate with Liberal Democrat Members, they demand more money.
Mr. Hammond: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Ms Stuart: No, I must make progress.
The problem is not simply one of extra ambulances. I have already said that ambulance service response times have improved significantly since we came to office. We expect ambulance trusts to achieve that target by 31 March—
Mr. Hammond: What target?
Ms Stuart: if hon. Members would listen, I might be able to finish a sentence.
We expect more ambulance trusts to achieve their targets. The London ambulance service is expected to achieve its target as quickly as possible, because that could save as many as 1,800 lives every year among people under 75 who suffer acute heart attacks. During
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the last three years, the number of calls to the London ambulance service has increased by 130,000—that is more than 12 per cent.
Mr. Hammond: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mr. John William (in the chair): Order. The hon. Lady has made it clear that she is not giving way.
Ms Stuart: That increase should be seen against the background of some of the worst traffic congestion in the country, so things are improving. Despite the difficulties of working in the busiest city and dealing with the highest number of calls, the London ambulance service has been making progress. In 1993, an ambulance responded in less than eight minutes to only 12 per cent. of the most urgent calls; by March this year, that figure is expected to rise to 55 per cent. Thus 190,000 more patients will be treated within eight minutes than were treated in 1993–94. However, that is not good enough. I have asked Neil McKay, the chief operating officer of the NHS, and John Bacon, the acting regional director of the NHS executive, to meet the chairman and chief executive of the London ambulance service to discuss how the 75 per cent. target can be achieved as quickly as possible and how good practice can be shared. That meeting is due to take place before the end of February.
I know that hon. Members are keen on the idea of increased resources for ambulance services. The Government are committed to providing a first-class public service. In answer to a question about extra payment, I stated:
"Ambulance staff, on national terms, including those employed by the London Ambulance service have been offered an above inflation increase of 3.7 per cent. from 1 April 2001. We are currently awaiting a response from trade unions on this offer. National Health Service trusts have the flexibility to pay still more where there are proven recruitment and retention difficulties." —[Official Report, 24 January 2001; Vol. 316, c. 598W.]
I can imagine that in a week's time hon. Members who have demanded more money for paramedics and the ambulance service will report staff shortages in London hospitals because of a movement from accident and emergency departments into ambulance work, leading to a need to target hospitals for more pay. The whole structure needs to be considered: it is no good dealing with the matter in isolation.
Hon. Members: What is the answer?
Mr. John McWilliam (in the Chair): Order. Hon. Members have been heckling and they must not do so.
Ms Stuart: In 2000–01, we invested an extra £21 million in the NHS ambulance service in England to help it to make continued progress. That money was for investment in extra vehicles and front-line staff. The funding was made available on a recurrent basis. This year an extra £6 million was given to the ambulance service in London to help it to improve its service. The total investment in the London ambulance service for this year is £120 million.
Mention was made of health authorities working together. They are working much more closely together and developing a three-year funding programme that will provide increased funding for the ambulance service.

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I welcome the London ambulance service's performance improvement programme, and I am pleased that staff have welcomed it. I was also delighted by the support for the chief executive. The extra investment will go alongside changes in the way in which the service is provided. It is not a question of simply buying and operating more ambulances.
Mr. Hammond: Will the Minister give way?
Ms Stuart: No. I want to make progress. The first service to reach the 75 per cent. target did so because it took a radical look at how it was providing its service. We expect that everywhere. Just paying more to do more of the same is not the way forward. Hon. Members know that, but it is easy to ask for more money. Improving the ambulance service is not just about ambulances. Planning to ensure that the right ambulances are in the right location is very important.
We need to work with information technology, as hon. Members have mentioned, but to do that we need the infrastructure. It is no good just providing one set of ambulances with telemedicine if they cannot link into the infrastructure of accident and emergency departments. That is why we are investing something like £1 billion over 10 years in infrastructure and information technology. That means huge progress.
Mr. Horam: Will the Minister give way?
Ms Stuart: No. I want to finish, because I am being accused of not answering questions and I want to make my point.
Hon. Members have graphically described the dreadful situation with regard to NHS and category C calls, and have raised the issue of how the ambulance
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service should respond to, for example, a babysitter who dials 999 because she has run out of nappies. They offered no solutions other than to provide more money. The question of inappropriate calls is being addressed by NHS Direct pilots dealing with category C calls, and by having paramedics on premises. Those projects are trying to categorise calls properly so that, as the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge said, faster response times are possible.
We are investing in accident and emergency departments in London. More than £20 million has been invested in the past 18 months to improve through-flow and design. The London ambulance service has installed defibrillators in every vehicle, and plans to buy more than 400 more of the latest model, which has meant a great enhancement of monitoring and use in public places. The service is investing in more information technology—and I hope that it will do so more effectively than it did at the last attempt, under the previous Administration, because that did not work.
I want to comment briefly on the shock of seeing the paperwork that is still done in the London ambulance service. A move to information technology is being made, but the paperwork system is being run in parallel. When things went wrong in the 1990s, one of the big disasters was the attempt at a big bang—switching straight from one system to the other. The transition is now being successfully completed. Greater use is also being made of extra motor bikes.
There is still a long way to go, but the service has a huge contribution to make. The staff are responding to that challenge. We are providing the money to expand the service in a sustainable way. That is the way forward, not another call for more money for one group, which is what the Liberal Democrats repeat over and again. They want more money, but they do not know where it should come from.

Hysterectomies
12.30 pm
Mrs. Diana Organ: I am pleased to have the opportunity to raise the issue of hysterectomy services, since it has been brought to my notice by women in my constituency that they are a cause for concern. Concerns range from the lack of information, advice, counselling and guidance about the procedure and its after-effects, to the treatment offered, surgery involved and after-care, and to the attitudes of some members of the medical profession towards women receiving the treatment. The issue is not restricted to women in the Forest of Dean and Gloucestershire, but involves many thousands of women throughout Britain. I am not a clinician and do not endeavour to make judgments about medical requirements, but it is right to raise certain questions about hysterectomy services.
Roughly 50,000 hysterectomies are carried out in Britain every year. One in five women will have had a hysterectomy by the age of 65. We carry out more per head than France and the United States of America. Some 10 per cent. are carried out because of cancer and others for serious health conditions, but most are carried out because of non life-threatening conditions and to improve the quality of life of the patients. Hysterectomies should improve those patients' lives and not deteriorate them.
Hysterectomies divide into three main types. A total hysterectomy is the removal of womb and cervix; that is the most usual practice. A sub-total hysterectomy is the removal of the womb only with the cervix left in place. A radical hysterectomy means the removal of the womb, the fallopian tubes, the upper part of the vagina and the surrounding fat and lymph glands, and is carried out in the treatment of cancer.
My interest in the issue arose after a constituent came to see me. She had been a healthy, active young woman who was diagnosed with a benign cyst on her left ovary. After her hysterectomy, however, she suffered cross-infection. She had to have a bowel section, and damage to the nerve at the back of her spine caused withering of the muscle in her leg. She is now doubly incontinent and her health is ruined. All of that has had consequences for her sexual life.
I wrote to the hospital asking about cross-infection rates. At the time, the hospital did not keep that information. I then wrote to Ministers. On 30 July 1998, I was told that the information was not kept at that time, but that the Government would publish clinical indicators later that year, one of which would relate to unplanned re-admissions to hospital within 28 days of treatment. It was understood that although the information was not kept at the time, better information would be compiled in the future.
I felt that other women might have had similar health problems as a result of a hysterectomy. I placed an advert in the local Gloucester edition of The Citizen newspaper. The advert read as follows:
"Hysterectomy. Researcher wishes to talk to women who have suffered health problems as a result of undergoing hysterectomy in Gloucester."
Thirty-four women responded from all over Gloucestershire although, because of the paper's distribution area, they came predominantly from the
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Forest of Dean and Gloucester. They were obviously a self-selected group, which I had actively sought. I met with the group, whose problems related to a whole range of issues. They had health conditions and other problems and had had hysterectomies over a period of time, ranging from 12 months to many years previously.
I had put the original constituent in touch with the medical negligence solicitor, Helen Barry, who subsequently met with some of the women in the group. After interviewing them, she took four complaints to the General Medical Council. The press was greatly interested by now and at the second meeting of the support group, there were up to 54 women. Helen Barry took on another two cases for complaint to the GMC.
I do not want to discuss the cases, as it would be inappropriate. I shall not pursue those matters for they properly belong elsewhere. However, medical negligence cases are difficult to pursue. Sheila McLean, professor of law and ethics in medicine at the university of Glasgow, states in "Old Law, New Medicine: Medical Ethics and Human Rights" that the United Kingdom courts depend heavily on the Bolam test, which is designed to judge the competence of medical procedure but does not tell us whether a practice is right or lawful.
The debate is not designed to cause a witch hunt against any specific surgeon or hospital. Different clinicians at different hospitals treated the women in the support group at different times. I have raised the matter because I want better guidance and practice for all other women receiving hysterectomy services.
I asked the 57 women in the support group to fill in a questionnaire, so that I could see whether there was any commonality. There was a disturbing pattern of anger at the manner of their treatment. They were not ready for and did not expect what happened to them, and all complained about a lack of information and advice. They were often told that the procedure was the only option. The exact nature of the surgery was not clearly explained to them, so there was a general feeling of a lack of informed consent. Only one was given a leaflet, and that was in relation to a hysterectomy many years ago.
A loss of libido was common, and a side effect was a change in their sex lives and lack of satisfaction with sexual intercourse. There were acute menopausal problems, incontinence after the operation and lower back pain. Unfortunately, most of the women did not complain at the time through the normal complaints procedure, because they felt beaten down and decided that it would be useless to try to take on and fight the whole medical fraternity.
The women in the group complained that some of their questions at consultation before treatment were brushed aside. Many were told that they would not need wombs or ovaries at their age. Some asked whether it was possible to retain the cervix and were told that it was not, but it is. When they asked about the effects on their future sex life, they were told that everything would be fine, if not better. When one woman mentioned the loss of libido post-operatively, it was suggested that she have a couple of gins.
The women in the group did not have hysterectomies because of cancer. For 37 of them, the reason was heavy periods, and some had ovaries removed as well for that reason. It is worth noting that some women are not

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aware that they had healthy organs removed. The Minister assured me, in a letter dated 8 March 2000, that the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists does not have a policy of removing healthy organs without consent while performing hysterectomies.
In some cases, we must ask why hysterectomy was carried out at all. Consultants say that most hysterectomies are elective, and could be termed social gynaecology. Rates vary depending on region and consultant, but disparities should surely be monitored and investigated. Why are alternative therapies and treatments not exhausted? Why do surgeons carry out unnecessary surgery? The matter was recently highlighted in a BBC television programme that focused on one consultant's use of alternative therapies.
There is growing evidence of the loss of libido or a change to sexual experience as a side effect of the removal of ovaries or a hysterectomy. That can radically affect the quality of a woman's life, but it is rarely mentioned in any of the advice leaflets, even that produced by WellBeing. It is often dismissed by medical staff in consultation as being insignificant.
I have a document dated 28 March 2000 about a voice tempo trial into female sexual dysfunction, sponsored by a pharmaceutical company, which is currently under way. The study is trying to find out why many women have a less active and satisfying sexual life after ovary removal. The research shows that at least one in three women, and possibly one in two, say that their libido has decreased since surgery. Other research clearly proves that sexual changes after hysterectomy are real, not imagined, as it shows that the uterus and cervix must be present if women are to fulfil themselves and climax. Why are women not informed that they could suffer such side effects of hysterectomy? It would have an impact on their lives. Why do some surgeons unnecessarily remove the cervix when retention would help?
Other serious side effects are not mentioned, including the possibility of further surgery being necessary as a result of adhesion. Women are not informed of that risk, either.
The response to my advertisement was not unexpected. Many other support groups have been set up over the years, notably those run by Louise Greenhill, Brenda Johnson—who set up the Ledward support group—and Sandra Simkin. Those groups all experienced the same problem. They felt that they were ignored and not given good consultation, and they were not expected to have an interesting and full sex life after hysterectomy.
Some professionals, such as Professor McPherson and Professor Roger Gosden, have spoken out about this issue, saying that the effects can be devastating, and that some women are actually driven to suicide, or experience suicidal depression as a result of the after-effects of the surgery. There should be much more work done in this field, more investigation into alternative therapies and more monitoring of the necessity of hysterectomy and of the use of sub-total or total hysterectomy. Much more research should be done into the clinical evidence of the after-effects of hysterectomy and the effects on women's lives.
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After the interest taken by the local press, one of the Gloucestershire hospitals, the Gloucestershire Royal, asked me to come in and talk about the issue. The head of the clinical team, quite rightly, wanted me to understand the work that they do, the expertise that they deploy and the excellence that they hope to provide. They wanted to show how they are continually working to provide a better service for women and how they are always looking to improve their procedures.
The hospital's women's health directorate subsequently sent me details of procedures and advice, and the leaflets that are available. That procedure is a model of best practice. It is thorough, and the hospital is to be congratulated on it. If the procedures carried out at Gloucester Royal hospital had been used in the past, followed elsewhere and implemented across the NHS, that would have dealt with the concerns and the problems of many in my support group. If that best practice model were to be used elsewhere, it would provide a much-improved situation for women receiving this kind of treatment.
The Gloucestershire Royal hospital administrators took seriously the fact that women in the support group had not used their complaints system. They told me that they would be examining their own system to find out how it could be improved and made more user-friendly and available. They would like to learn from the support group. They would like its members to talk, if they were happy to, about their experiences, and offer constructive advice about how the hospital might respond and put in place a better system.
I want to impress on the Minister that not only is more research necessary, as I mentioned at the beginning, but that there is a need to find out about different treatments and their effect on different women. There should be a much freer exchange of best practice within hysterectomy services across the NHS. Women must have better experiences both with and after hysterectomy. There should be clear guidance from Government in this field. There should be inquiry into procedure and the guidance on it from the National Institute for Clinical Excellence.
There should also be clear, explicit statements on good practice from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. We should inquire into the number of elective hysterectomies, and what consultants are saying about social gynaecology. We should also inquire into the possibility of using alternative therapies instead of performing the unnecessary surgery that seems so often to take place.
It is also necessary to examine the advice and counselling that women get, so that they can always get the necessary support, advice, counselling and information, and that their consent is genuine and informed. If people fill in a consent form, that does not necessarily mean that they know what will happen to them. People must be able to make an informed decision, and informed consent requires information about what will be done to their bodies and what that will mean for their quality of life afterwards.
I wrote to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health on 29 November 2000 and asked whether he would meet the delegation from the Forest of Dean support group so that members of the delegation could make their experiences clear to him and ask the

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Government to improve the service for women in future. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to make a commitment to receive the group at the earliest possible opportunity to allow us to improve services for many women so that we do not have to form support groups in future to give support to women whose lives have been devastated by hysterectomy services.
12.45 pm
The Minister for Public Health (Yvette Cooper): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mrs. Organ) on having secured this debate on hysterectomy. It is a subject to which she has devoted considerable time and energy in her constituency, and I congratulate her on the work that she has done locally with the support group. The matter deeply concerns many thousands of women throughout the country.
Hysterectomy is one of the most commonly performed gynaecological operations, and it has brought symptomatic relief to many thousands of women. It has profoundly changed the lives of some women by enabling them again to go out in public without fear of embarrassment and dealing with the symptoms from which they have suffered. However, I also recognise that other women have experienced long-term physical and psychological side effects and have not received the standard of care that we would accept.
In the past, before the advent of other methods of less-radical treatment, hysterectomy was sometimes offered as the universal panacea for heavy periods or severe period pains. Fortunately, times are changing, as is reflected in the falling rates of hysterectomies being performed. In 1993, more than 72,000 hysterectomies were performed in England. By 1998, the latest year for which figures are available, that figure had been reduced to more than 56,000. My hon. Friend may be interested to learn that, in the same period, the comparable figures for Gloucester were lower than the national figures and show a fall from 2.3 hysterectomies for every 1,000 women in 1993 to two hysterectomies for every 1,000 women in 1998.
My hon. Friend described the experiences of some of her constituents and those involved in the support group who had experienced problems as a result of hysterectomies. I know that she brought those matters to the attention of senior management and clinicians at a meeting at the Gloucestershire Royal NHS trust, and I welcome her remarks about the practice and the changes taking place there. The trust has examined its clinical practice in gynaecology and has done what it can to improve practice and to work with the active participation of patients. It has introduced new information leaflets, clear and explicit consent forms and a nurse consultant in gynaecology to offer counselling and support to women faced with this traumatic operation. I was interested to hear my hon. Friend say that it was effectively a model of best practice, and I should be interested to hear more about its work and how that best practice might be spread across the country.
Mrs. Organ: Would it be appropriate for me to send my hon. Friend a copy of the exact formula that the
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health directorate of the Gloucestershire Royal NHS trust uses for its procedures so that she could use the formula elsewhere?
Yvette Cooper: I thank my hon. Friend for that suggestion. That would be extremely helpful. I shall discuss later how we could further spread best practice in the field. I congratulate her support group on its work with the trust. The most powerful changes will take place in the health service when we embody patients' experience in designing services and ensure that patients' voices are heard in terms of providing health services and how professionals operate.
The most common reason for a hysterectomy is a condition known as menorrhagia, which is severe bleeding, often with abdominal pain. In some cases, it is due to the growth of fibroids or benign tumours in the wall of the womb, but in many other cases the cause is not known. Although the symptoms are not often discussed in public as they may be deemed to be embarrassing, they can often cause considerable distress to women who experience them.
Other reasons include the painful condition known as endemetriosis for which, when child bearing is over, a hysterectomy may offer the only permanent solution. Older women may suffer a prolapse of the womb when it drops into the vagina. Furthermore, emergency hysterectomies may need to be performed to save a woman's life after a catastrophic bleed during childbirth or when a malignant tumour needs urgent treatment.
My hon. Friend was right to say that most hysterectomies are undertaken to relieve menstrual problems, particularly excessive bleeding. In many cases, no specific cause for the underlying problem can be found and more simple forms of therapy have failed to provide a woman with sufficient relief. The important fact is that a hysterectomy is rarely the only available solution to a menstrual problem and usually other treatments can be considered first. When different alternative treatments are available, it is vital that a woman should have the opportunity to discuss all the possible options and consequences of the different treatment. She should be fully informed before giving consent to a particular treatment and to a hysterectomy.
I am aware that many women consider that they have not undergone a hysterectomy of their own free will, that the full options were not explained to them and that they were not aware of the consequences. In those circumstances, the psychological effect can be considerable. However, it is not always fully explored and appreciated. A hysterectomy is different from many other surgical interventions because it can involve the removal of a healthy, non-diseased organ. That can make it difficult to come to terms with what can be a huge life event for some women, depending on the circumstances involved. It must be the right choice for the individual and she must fully understand the reasons behind it. She must have the opportunity to have a full discussion about it with the professionals.
My hon. Friend asked whether women are receiving the right treatment for their particular condition. Also, we must consider whether they are receiving all the necessary information, so that they can make a full, informed decision about which option to choose. I welcome the fact that the Royal College of

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Obstetricians and Gynaecologists is taking such issues seriously. It has issued guidance to its fellows and members on the need to reduce the number of unnecessary hysterectomies. It has also issued evidence-based guidelines on the management of menorrhagia that clearly outline alternatives to hysterectomies for the treatment of women with excessive menstrual bleeding. It is important that those guidelines are now being used increasingly in clinical audit and governance programmes to ensure effectiveness locally. The RCOG has asked its guidance committee to examine further hysterectomies, a matter to which I shall return in a moment.
Increasingly, patients rightly expect to receive more information and want a full, proper discussion about the options that are available to them and the problems from which they are suffering. In that context, self-help groups can play an important part. We should never underestimate the importance of patient support groups and the patients themselves working together on a voluntary basis to raise the awareness of hysterectomies or problems of other patients and providing support for others in the same situation.
The NHS has a responsibility for such matters, too. The Department of Health funds through the section 64 scheme several organisations such as Women's Health, which runs telephone helplines and produces information leaflets. I was interested in my hon. Friend's point about providing national guidance on information that should be given to women. I am interested in that proposal and in how to take it forward. Options may include working through the NHS on-line or through the on-line electronic health library. More work can be done in that area.
However, even that cannot get away from the important need for individual advice from health professionals to patients, depending on their personal circumstances. The Department's role is to liaise with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. The question is how to ensure that best practice is spread throughout the country. There are excellent examples of the right kind of support being provided for women, but we must ensure that that happens for all women everywhere in the country.
We asked the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to update and reissue guidelines to members on the need for consent. Last April, the RCOG reminded fellows and members of the need to obtain informed consent from patients. Patients should be
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given an adequate explanation and time to come to their decisions and consider other options; their specific wishes should be observed and recorded in the notes at the time of discussion and decision making. The possibility that a woman's ovaries might need to be removed in the operation should be fully discussed with her beforehand, and not carried out without her express written consent.
The RCOG's guidance committee has been asked to consider hysterectomies and informed consent as subjects for further guidance, and we will work with it on that. I take on board the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean, and will be happy to meet her and any delegation that she brings to discuss the issue. I suggest that we should use such a meeting to discuss what we could feed into the debate, as well as the work that the royal colleges will do.
My hon. Friend spoke, too, of the question of referring guidelines to the National Institute for Clinical Excellence. She will be aware that our approach is to establish national standards across the board, but that we already refer a large number of guidelines to NICE. Our first step will be to work with the royal colleges on the guidance that can be set out.
I hope that what I have said emphasises the Government's continuing commitment to the principles of keeping the patient at the centre of care and improving quality care across the board. We should recognise that although there are good examples of best practice, things are not perfect everywhere throughout the NHS. There is a long way to go before we can establish good communications between every doctor and every patient as standard.
We are making significant progress and beginning to make a real difference to informing and working with women, so that hysterectomies are undertaken for the right reason and the women concerned understand the decision and play an active part in reaching it, as part of the management of their condition and treatment. That will ultimately mean that we spare many women the misery that they currently experience, when they take such a huge step in their lives without being fully involved in a key decision affecting them and their families.
That is an area in which we can work with the voluntary sector and self-help groups. Patients' experiences should inform all the improvements that we take. I look forward to discussing the matter further with my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean and thank her for raising the issue today.

McMaster Family (BNFL)
1 pm
Mr. Nigel Evans: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the issue of the McMaster family and BNFL. It is, without doubt, one of the saddest cases that I have dealt with as a Member of Parliament. I have known Stella and Joe McMaster for many years. We have tried all avenues to get the issue affecting them properly recognised by BNFL. Joe and Stella live in Fulwood, Preston, in my constituency. I have had several meetings with BNFL at Springfields, and although we are offered tea and sympathy in relation to the case, the matter is always left in the air. The company denies even the slightest responsibility for the plight of the McMaster family. Today, the case of the McMaster family will receive its proper airing, and I look to the Minister to see that they receive justice.
Joe McMaster joined the Atomic Energy Authority in 1951, aged 29. He had a thorough medical and was passed fit to join the company. Joe was a chemist and handled many chemical substances, which he examined to ensure that they were properly enriched. These were turned into fuel before being transported to Windscale. Joe was one of the team leaders responsible for sampling.
The rules that employees follow today would not be the same rules that were followed then. Joe tells me that surveillance of work practices was almost non-existent at the time. In May 1953, Joe was working at the plant when he received an ingestion of uranium. He believed that one of the valves was incorrectly fitted, or that there was just a faulty valve. He had a daily urine test, which showed him to have 18 times the level of radiation that he was normally showing. That excessive amount of radiation showed up for several months. He logged the accident—that he had received a blow-back of UF6—in the incident log book. During Stella's discussions with BNFL, it was not until yesterday conceded that an incident occurred in 1953. When Joe went to see a geneticist, Mr. Gareth Evans, a few years ago, the geneticist asked for Joe's medical notes from BNFL. Notes relating to 1953 were missing. However, Stella has managed to procure the 1953 notes, and would be prepared to make those notes available to an inquiry.
I shall tell this Chamber about the McMaster family and the tragedies following the incident, and perhaps another incident at Windscale. Stella and Joe had their first daughter, Lynne, in October 1950. Stella had a miscarriage in 1954. In February 1955, another daughter, Jill, was born. She suffers from an immune deficiency. Hon. Members will remember that Joe had perfect health when he joined the company and had a full medical in 1951. In August 1955, all his teeth were removed. His teeth were so loose that the dentist said that he could have removed them without pliers. He could have twisted them from Joe's gums using his fingers. There was obviously something seriously wrong; Joe was only 34 and all his teeth had to be removed.
We now come to what I would call the twist in the tail. Joe, Stella and the family were on holiday in Cumbria at the time of the fire at the Windscale plant, when 376,000 curies were discharged from 40 isotopes during a three-day period. In a letter on 13 January 2001 to Mr.
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Shuttleworth, the company secretary and group legal director, Stella reminded him that milk and vegetables were contaminated. The local newspaper, the Lancashire Evening Post, on 14 October 1957, carried the headline
"Atom dust makes farmers worried"
and the sub-line
"but expert says: 'no need'".
The article states:
"Very worried farmers in the district around the Windscale plutonium factory were today besieging their NFU officials with inquiries about new aspects of the atomic threat which caused a ban yesterday on sales of milk from 100 farms following the overheated reactor alarm last week. The restriction was imposed because the level of radio iodine in milk was 6x the permissible amount, following the escape of radio-active dust. But apart from the milk ban farmers are worried about their livestock."
There was no ban on livestock, and no ban on the sale of vegetables. The McMasters ate the local produce while on holiday and drank the milk before it was banned. Both girls, Lynne and Jill, played daily on the beach.
In 1958, Stella gave birth to twins. They were six weeks premature, and one died at three days. The other daughter is still alive. Stella tells me that her daughter is worried about her health but refuses to get a medical check-up because she is so worried about what might be discovered. She has three children of her own. I will not mention her name at the request of the family, because their privacy should be properly protected.
In 1964, the eldest of the children, Lynne, started to have trouble with her kidneys, and developed kidney stones. She was only a teenager. She was anaemic and had to take iron tablets. In 1960, Joe had kidney stones, too, which were removed. Jill, who was born five years after Lynne, left school at 17. On 9 May 1973, when she was 18, she suddenly got a nosebleed. She was admitted to Royal Preston hospital for a week, before being transferred to Manchester. She was diagnosed with acute leukaemia, type unknown. On 23 May 1973, 14 days after her first nosebleed, Jill died.
In 1972, the eldest daughter, Lynne, married. Her first child was stillborn, in 1978. Lynne first complained about feeling constantly tired in 1986. Her doctor upped her iron tablets, but that did not work. In 1987, Lynne had tests that showed that she had acquired idiopathic sideroblastic anaemia, which is a disease associated with elderly people. She was admitted to hospital for months in an isolated ward. She needed a bone marrow transplant, and Joe was found to be a suitable donor. However, tests proved that Joe had a chromosome defect due to radiation. A donor was finally found in the United States, but unfortunately it was too late. Lynne died, aged 38, on 27 August 1988, with—as Stella describes—a lovely face but the body organs of a very old person. She was blind, deaf and paralysed before her death. The doctors could not work out how she had contracted the illness. They even asked her whether she had worked with any radiation materials. When they found out what her father did for a living, they simply nodded.

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Stella started to get thyroid trouble and is on thyrodoxine and both she and Joe now have cataracts. Joe retired from BNFL in 1982. He had a whole body count that showed that he had 300 bequerels, when it should have been only five.
In 1987–8, Professor Sir Richard Doll stated that leukaemia clusters were caused by radiation. Sir Richard then became a consultant for BNFL at the Hope and Reay cases at the High Court in 1993. By that time, Sir Richard had changed his story. The judge, Mr. Justice French, found in favour of BNFL on the balance of probabilities; there was insufficient evidence to prove the case. That judgment came on 8 October 1993. The case cost almost £10 million. Had the case been successful, 40 other families were expected to bring similar cases. The centre of their claim was a report in 1990 by distinguished epidemiologist Professor Martin Gardner of Southampton university, who has since died. He examined a cluster of leukaemias in the village of Seascale, 2 miles from the plant. He found that a higher than average incidence of fathers who had received high doses of radiation had cases of leukaemia.
The judge ruled that scientific study into only five cases was unsupported by other studies. The first of the two test cases was brought by Elizabeth Reay, whose 10-month-old baby died of leukaemia in 1962. The father, George Reay, had died of cancer in the mid-1980s. He had suffered one of the largest radiation doses of any Sellafield worker. The other case was brought by Vivian Hope, aged 28, who had received chemotherapy for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, another blood cancer, diagnosed in 1988. That had left her disabled and sterile. Her father, David, was a fitter at the plant for more than 20 years.
At the time of the court case, Greenpeace said:
"The number of childhood leukaemia cases around Sellafield remains ten times higher than the national average. BNFL has yet to prove that these facts are not connected."
Research into the atomic bombs in Japan showed that there was no link between radiation and childhood leukaemias, but some excellent research by the respected Professor Alice Stewart demonstrates that radiation in small amounts over a longer time has a different impact on individuals. The Japanese research is not relevant in this case.
BNFL has always been willing to meet me whenever I have asked, but it is obvious that it was keen to end correspondence with the McMasters as soon as it could. The McMasters have asked questions but received few answers. The facts of their tragedy are there for everyone to see. The company states that the McMasters have been unlucky and that it was just a tragic coincidence that they had lost all but one of their children; and, of course, that other tragedies had befallen them. They certainly have been unlucky, but they deserve answers. I am well aware that the case has important repercussions for many other families. That does not mean that we should not get answers to those questions; we must try to do so.
In a letter to me on 1 March last year, the then Minister for Energy and Competitiveness in Europe,
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now the Secretary of State for Scotland, wrote to me to say that she was saddened to read the tragic details of Mr. McMaster's family. I understand that BNFL has rigorously examined his long-standing claim that BNFL operations and Mr. MacMaster's employment at BNFL's Springfields site have in some way caused the sad loss of his daughters. BNFL's firm view is that there is no medical or scientific evidence to support this claim. What the Minister said was confirmed by BNFL. There are no surprises there; I would not expect BNFL to say anything else.
The Minister then referred to a Department of Health study into cancer or genetic defects resulting from low-level radiation exposure. The Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment is carrying out this study, and it was due to publish a report last year, but that has now been delayed until next year. Those findings may well give some support to the McMaster theory that his exposure—either through the digestion or through playing near Windscale at the time of the fire—had something to do with the deaths and other tragedies surrounding his children and his own illness.
BNFL wrote to me on 30 June 1999 about a meeting that I had had with them and the McMasters. Mr. Shuttleworth said:
"As I said at the end of the meeting, I do not think that further meetings would be profitable as agreement is extremely unlikely and it is obviously upsetting and distressing for Mr. and Mrs. McMaster to go through their extremely sad family history."
In a letter of 25 February 2000, Mr. Shuttleworth stated that the McMasters always had the opportunity to bring legal action against the company; but how much would that cost, and who would pay? This is a normal family, they simply could not carry the costs of a case such as that against a company such as BNFL. It is a David and Goliath scenario that they could not contemplate.
I ask the Minister for a full and independent inquiry into the McMaster case. The inquiry must look at all the evidence; it must be independent. It is pointless having BNFL look over the case and it is pointless having reassurances from BNFL. The inquiry must be independent and undertaken by someone who has access to all the facts; there must be no cover-up or delay.
The McMasters are getting on; Stella always jokes with me that BNFL are waiting until she dies, but she refuses to die until she gets the case sorted out. She is a sturdy lady, and she is determined to get answers to the questions that she has posed. The family have suffered long enough, and for BNFL to say that they should not have to endure the stress of going through their story time and time again is really pointless. They have lived this tragedy; when Stella tells the story today, she will still cry, because she feels it as though it happened yesterday. The family have suffered long enough; they still feel guilty, I suspect, that they have played some role in the death of their children. They should not be allowed to carry that burden one day longer.
I know that the courts did not find that the case was proven, but an independent inquiry would get to the bottom of the problem and answer the questions that have dogged and plagued the McMaster family for many years. They will be listening as carefully as I am to what the Minister has to say. Will he please give them some hope?
1.15 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Mr. Peter Hain): I begin by paying tribute to the energetic manner in which the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) has supported Joe and Stella McMaster, who have suffered such terrible tragedies. As a father of two, I find it difficult, if not impossible, to comprehend such devastating events and so will many other parents. My heartfelt sympathies go out to the McMasters and to their surviving daughter and grandchildren.
I well understand why the McMasters have been intensely anxious to identify a common cause linking two of the three deaths from apparently similar illnesses. I also understand why they have sought to attribute the deaths to radiation effects, given that it has been established in research on Japanese atomic bomb survivors that those exposed to high levels of radiation have an increased risk of developing cancer. I understand also why Mr. and Mrs. McMaster should have sought compensation initially in 1990, at a time when the possible link between childhood cancer and nuclear industry operations at Sellafield had been put into sharp focus by publication earlier that year of the report of Professor Martin Gardner and his colleagues.
Professor Gardner's study had found a statistical association between the dose of radiation received occupationally by men before conception of their children and the level of leukaemia in these children. This association was both new and controversial.
Substantial further research followed to clarify the association and in particular to establish whether the evidence supported a causal link with the Seascale childhood leukaemia cluster. A review written by the distinguished epidemiologist Sir Richard Doll and his colleagues in 1994 concluded that
"the hypothesis that irradiation of the testes causes any detectable risk of leukaemia in subsequent offspring cannot be sustained."
The Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment, the Government's independent expert advisory committee—with members chosen for their medical and scientific expertise—concluded in its fourth report, published in 1996, that
"we have not found any epidemiological study elsewhere to support Gardner's findings in Seascale in relation to preconception irradiation effects."
The Committee considered that PPI—paternal preconceptional irradiation—
"cannot account for the Seascale childhood leukaemia excess."
Following publication of the Gardner report in 1990, the Department of Health and the Health and Safety Executive jointly sponsored two large-scale studies to investigate Professor Gardner's findings. These studies, the record linkage study and the nuclear industry family study, were published in 1997 and 1999 respectively. The authors of the record linkage study—drawn from the Childhood Cancer Research Group, the National Radiological Protection Board, the university of Birmingham and the Cancer Research Campaign—concluded that
"the results of this study of occupational exposure to radiation before conception of a child do not support the hypothesis that paternal preconception irradiation (PPI) is a cause of childhood leukaemia or non-Hodgkin lymphoma."
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The authors of the nuclear industry family study—drawn from the Leukaemia Research Fund, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund—concluded that
"overall the incidence of all cancers and of leukaemia was similar"
among children of nuclear industry workers
"to that expected in the general population".
These two large studies included the children of workers at Springfields, where Mr. McMaster was employed.
Two legal test cases to which the hon. Gentleman referred—Reay v. BNFL and Hope v. BNFL—were heard in the High Court during 1992–93, when extensive expert evidence concerning the statistical association found by Professor Gardner and its scientific interpretation was heard. In his judgment, the judge found that this expert evidence was "decisively" in favour of the defendant—BNFL—and the claims failed.
Understandably, however, the McMasters have sought to prove that there is a link between Mr. McMaster's exposure to uranium while working at Springfields and the deaths of their daughters. I understand that Mr. McMaster was employed at the Springfields uranium processing factory for 31 years between 1951 and 1982. One of his daughters, Lynne, was born before he joined the Springfields work force, but the others were born while he was employed there. I am told by BNFL that its records show that the cumulative radiation dose received by Mr. McMaster in the 31 years in which he worked at Springfields was not large, at under 50 mSv. For much of that time, the statutory maximum dose would have been 50 mSv or greater per year.
In 1990, Mr. and Mrs. McMaster initiated a legal claim for compensation, alleging that the death of their daughter Jill was caused by BNFL's operations. Their claim was one of a number pursued at that time, following the publication of Professor Gardner's report.
Jill was born after Mr. McMaster started work at Springfields. She died in her late teens of acute leukaemia. In the light of the independent scientific research that I have described, it appears most unlikely that her leukaemia was caused by Mr. McMaster's exposure to radiation at Springfields; although, as a parent, I can understand why that might be supposed to be otherwise. Moreover, BNFL's records show that the cumulative dose that Mr. McMaster received at Springfields before Jill was conceived was only 10 mSv over about three years. That can be compared with a current legal limit of 20 mSv per year, based on agreed international standards, although the limit at the time was higher.
Mr. McMaster's first daughter, Lynne, suffered and died from the uncommon blood disease sideroblastic anaemia. She was conceived and born before Mr. McMaster started work at Springfields. I am advised that her disease cannot, therefore, have been caused by his exposure to radiation while working there.
Mr. Evans: The 1957 fire at Windscale may have contributed to her cancer.
Mr. Hain: I understand the hon. Gentleman's argument. The McMasters have suggested that the fire at one of the Windscale nuclear reactors at Sellafield in October 1957 may be a factor in Lynne's death, and possibly also Jill's. As the hon. Gentleman said, the McMasters used to stay in a caravan in Cumbria some 15 miles south of Sellafield. In the light of work done by the National Radiological Protection Board, I understand that even if they were there at the time, the doses to their red bone marrow—the relevant tissue for inducing leukaemia—would have been small.
The NRPB's comprehensive dose assessments show that the red bone marrow doses received by children living in Seascale—which is adjacent to Sellafield—as a consequence of the fire were less than the doses received from natural background radiation during 1957. BNFL says that the doses due to the Windscale fire for children in Silecroft would have been even less, and in Preston very much less. Wherever Lynne and Jill may have been during and immediately after the Windscale fire, I am advised that the radiation doses to their red bone marrow received as a consequence of the fire appear unlikely to have been the cause of their diseases.
Twin girls were born in 1958, and Mrs. McMaster says that they were six weeks premature. One of the twins died of respiratory problems three days after birth. Unfortunately, such death in premature newborn twins was not unusual in the late 1950s. Mr. and Mrs. McMaster seem to have acknowledged in their meetings with BNFL that the death of the weaker twin due to respiratory problems would not have been unexpected at that time, especially as she was six weeks premature.
I understand that Mrs. McMaster suffered a miscarriage before the birth of Jill. The nuclear industry family study has produced no evidence that a father's exposure to radiation before conception increases the risk of miscarriage in his partner's pregnancy. In any case, the dose that Mr. McMaster would have received at Springfields before conception of the miscarried foetus would have been even lower than that received before the conception of Jill.
Mr. McMaster had lost all his teeth by 1955. I understand that all the evidence linking the loss of his teeth to radiation exposure relates to high doses received to the oral cavity during radiotherapy. That evidence provides no support for an argument that low doses of radiation received by Mr. McMaster during his work at Springfields could have caused the loss of his teeth. Tooth loss was common in the 1950s and was usually due to gum disease.
Mr. McMaster told BNFL that he was involved in an incident in 1953 that led to his being exposed to uranium. BNFL says that its comprehensive investigation of his dose records confirm that he was likely to have been exposed to uranium at that time, but adds that comprehensive monitoring for uranium-in-urine showed that his exposure was relatively low and not unusual for that period.
Mr. McMaster has also referred to an apparently unusual whole-body monitoring result just before he retired in 1982. These tests were regularly carried out by BNFL, which states that it comprehensively investigated the results for Mr. McMaster in 1982. Its
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investigation found that the result referred to by Mr. McMaster was not particularly unusual and that other whole-body monitoring tests taken at that time were quite normal. Whole-body monitoring and uranium-in-urine measurements carried out in 1997 found no evidence for the presence of abnormal levels of uranium in Mr. McMaster. The hon. Member for Ribble Valley received a full explanation from BNFL in a letter dated 16 September 1998.
Mr. McMaster also feels that a blood test carried out in 1990 shows that he has abnormal chromosomes. Tests carried out in BNFL's cytogenetics laboratory at Sellafield revealed some unstable chromosome abnormalities that BNFL's genetics expert at the time, Dr. Tawn, concluded were unlikely to be due to Mr. McMaster's employment at Springfields prior to 1982, and even less likely to be linked to his exposures in the 1950s. The level of chromosome abnormalities found were not unusual in a man of Mr. McMaster's age—he was 68 years old at the time—and raised levels can be due to exposure to chemicals, medication or cigarette smoke, in addition to ionising radiation.
Repeat blood tests were carried out by Westlakes research institute and the National Radiological Protection Board in 1997. As in the earlier 1990 analysis, the level of unstable chromosome abnormalities was not particularly unusual. Analyses were also conducted for stable chromosome abnormalities, which are more relevant to radiation exposures dating from many years ago. The frequency of stable chromosome abnormalities was slightly raised, but not unusually so, given that Mr. McMaster was 75 years of age when his blood was sampled. Also, those slightly raised levels may reflect exposure to other material such as tobacco smoke; I am told that Mr. McMaster was a smoker.
All these issues have been covered in an extensive correspondence between BNFL and the McMasters since 1993, when the possibility of successful legal action became remote. There have also been a number of meetings between BNFL and the McMasters since 1994 to explore these matters and to try to allay their concerns about their surviving daughter and grandchildren. To this end, BNFL arranged a consultation with Dr. Gareth Evans, consultant clinical geneticist at St. Mary's hospital, Manchester. Similarly, blood tests and radiation monitoring were also arranged by BNFL. The hon. Member for Ribble Valley has seen the greater part, if not all, of the correspondence between BNFL and the McMasters. He has also twice accompanied the McMasters to meetings with BNFL. He is therefore aware of BNFL's reasons for not accepting responsibility for the McMasters' tragic losses.
A recent study, published in a scientific journal last year, found that in terms of mortality as a whole, and cancer in particular, the Springfields work force has rates that are below those of the general population. BNFL has given detailed and comprehensive explanations to the McMasters, and to the hon. Member for Ribble Valley, of why it believes that there is no reasonable scientific basis for considering BNFL to be responsible for these tragedies. BNFL strongly and honestly believes, in the light of the evidence that has been so painstakingly examined, that it cannot reasonably be expected to compensate the McMasters. BNFL has offered the hon. Gentleman full access to its

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files, and I hope that he will take up that offer in order that he may be satisfied that his constituents' concerns have been scrupulously examined.
BNFL has also offered to arrange for independent expert examination of its dosimetry records, which is a helpful suggestion. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree that it should be pursued. I add my condolences to Mr. and Mrs McMaster on this deeply distressing case. I know that they will be disappointed with my response, but I have seen no evidence to contradict that which I have cited and which the courts have supported. There is no basis for an independent inquiry, but I shall be happy to receive any further evidence or representations from the hon. Gentleman, directly or indirectly, if he believes it to be appropriate.

Strangeways Riot (Woolf Report)
1.30 pm
Mr. Paul Stinchcombe: In April 1990, Strangeways prison in Manchester was the scene of the worst penal disturbances that this country has ever witnessed. Prisoners took over the chapel and defied the authorities in a roof-top siege lasting 25 days. It was the longest riot in prison history, during which 47 inmates and 147 police or prison officers were hurt.
On 5 April 1990, Lord Justice Woolf, as he then was, was appointed to lead an inquiry into Strangeways and 10 years ago last week, on 31 January 1991, he handed his report to the then Secretary of State for Home Affairs. The 10th anniversary of publication of the Woolf report was commemorated by Lord Woolf last week when he gave the Prison Reform Trust lecture. I am a trustee of that trust. The lecture was one of three speeches that we have heard during the past week about prisons and the penal system. It was made alongside the speech of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on the same day and that of Mr. Martin Narey, director general of the Prison Service, the day before yesterday. It seemed a good idea, 10 years on, to review progress since the Strangeways riot.
Lord Woolf found a sorry picture when he reviewed the prison system 11 years ago. At the time of the riot, 1,647 prisoners were held in Strangeways, which was intended to accommodate only 970. It was overcrowded by almost 70 per cent. and that was not unusual in prison establishments. In 1989–90, the 40-odd local prisons and remand centres were overcrowded by an average of 37 per cent. Some were overcrowded 100 per cent. and holding double the number of prisoners that should have been held.
The effects of overcrowding at Strangeways and elsewhere were many and serious. Prisoners were held three to a cell without sanitation or washing facilities. They were allowed just one shower a week They were forced to share a single bucket for a toilet. With too few staff and too many prisoners, there was a lack of purposeful activity for prisoners. They were locked up and left idle, often for 23 hours a day. There was a lack of decent visiting facilities, so contact between prisoners and families was severely limited. There was low morale among prison officers and when prisoners had grievances—they had many—the arrangements for addressing them were inadequate.
Lord Woolf found those factors to be the cause of the Strangeways riot. In his landmark report on the events of April 1990, he recognised that change was desperately required and provided a blueprint of a just, humane and secure prison system. The following questions should be asked 10 years on. What has been done? Has the blueprint been fulfilled? Have Lord Woolf's recommendations been implemented? Some of the recommendations have indeed been implemented and progress has been made. However, others have been implemented only partially or with only partial success; some have not been implemented at all or their progress has been lamentable.
I shall start with the good, because Lord Woolf called for more visible leadership by the Prison Service and the director general. He stated proudly last week in his Prison Reform Trust lecture that that had been achieved

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and he referred to Mr. Martin Narey. I want to put that on the record in the light of Mr. Narey's speech two days ago.
However, similar progress has not been made elsewhere. For example, Lord Woolf recommended that compacts or contracts should be used for each prisoner to develop a personal sense of responsibility. Although some establishments have made progress with compacts, especially with drug reduction strategies and the earned privilege scheme, it has been impossible across the Prison Service as a whole to deliver what the compacts should provide. The use and benefits of the compacts have not been as widespread as they should have been. The good practices of some establishments have not been shared and become the good practices of all.
Likewise, there has been some, but not enough, progress in respect of the recommendation for an improved standard of justice in prisons. At the time of the Strangeways riot, justice stopped at the prison door. Lord Woolf thought that to be one of the worst aspects of the prison system 11 years ago. As he said in his lecture last week, for the justice system to send somebody to prison, only to treat him unjustly when he is there is simply intolerable.
There have been significant improvements since then. We now have a prisons ombudsman and a grievance procedure has been established. However, there remains room for real improvement. The delays in the grievance procedure are excessive—justice delayed is often justice denied. Last week, Lord Woolf said that an ineffective grievance procedure is probably as bad as no grievance procedure at all. Unless more is done to speed up the system, it risks falling into disrepute.
In respect of many of the other recommendations, progress has been negligible. For example, Lord Woolf recommended that there be a national system of accredited standards—it has not been established. Worse still, last year the Prison Service's own key performance indicators were met in less than half of the cases and that, as Lord Woolf said, is hardly an impressive record.
Lord Woolf also recommended that slopping out should end, with all prisoners having access to sanitation not later than February 1996—five years ago this month. Officially, slopping out has ended: its demise was formally announced in 1996. But when the Chief Inspector of Prisons visited Exeter, he found that in the segregation unit not one of the cells had integral sanitation or a water supply. At Portland young offenders institution, he found that slopping out had not ended in the induction and the therapeutic wings. Five years after the announcement that slopping out was ended, cells in four wings at Strangeways still have no integral sanitation. These are buildings that should have been razed to the ground, but they are still being used.
Progress has also been slow in respect of Lord Woolf's recommendation that prisoners should be held in community prisons as near to their homes as possible. The reason for that recommendation is a simple one: research shows that good family ties can reduce a prisoner's risk of reoffending by a factor of six. We therefore know that the greatest single factor
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determining whether a prisoner is likely to reoffend on release is whether he has a stable family life to go home to. If we are going to be tough on crime and the causes of crime, a good place to start would be to implement Lord Woolf's recommendation to accommodate prisoners as near to their families as possible. After 10 years, however, 26,000 prisoners are held more than 50 miles from their committal court town; 11,000 prisoners are over 100 miles away; and 5,000 prisoners are over 150 miles from their home area.
When I visited Wellingborough magistrates court last week, Mrs. Green—the chair of the youth bench—told me that they had to send their young prisoners to Huntercombe, many miles away from their parents. Quite apart from everything else, the Prison Service currently spends over £2 million every year on fares for family visits—money that could be spent elsewhere on crime prevention.
Lord Woolf also recommended that there should be a separate statement of purpose, separate conditions and a lower security categorisation for remand prisoners. Again, that has simply not happened. As Lord Woolf said in his lecture last week, the treatment of remand prisoners all too often means that they are left at the bottom of the pack when they should, as unconvicted prisoners, be at the top. After all, of male prisoners received on remand in 1999, 53 per cent. did not subsequently receive a prison sentence; and for female prisoners that figure rose to 65 per cent. Over 20 per cent. of both male and female prisoners remanded in custody were actually acquitted or had the proceedings against them terminated early. And yet, because they may be in prison for a short stay only, remand prisoners are kept in conditions described by Mr. Narey as primitive.
Why do we have these legion problems? Why is slopping out still taking place in wings that should not even be standing? Why are prisoners still held hundreds of miles from home when we know that that makes reoffending far more likely? Why are remand prisoners held in primitive conditions when they have not been convicted of a crime, and may never be so?
In significant part, it is simply because many prisons are still grotesquely overcrowded. Lord Woolf recommended 10 years ago that there should be a new prison rule that no establishment could hold more prisoners than was certified to be its normal level of accommodation. That rule has not been introduced because, as the Minister said in March 2000, there was no prospect that overcrowding would end. Indeed in April 2000, Mr. Narey said that overcrowding was approaching the limits of what he found acceptable in terms of the risk of disorder and loss of control, and that it already surpassed what he wanted in terms of hygiene and treating prisoners decently and constructively.
Let us look at the figures. On 24 November 2000, Preston prison was overcrowded by 81 per cent, Shrewsbury by 74 per cent. and Northallerton by 70 per cent. Some 11,553 prisoners were held two to a single cell. At Leeds, 800 prisoners were held in overcrowded cells. At Birmingham and Doncaster, the figure was over 600. At Altcourse, Preston, Durham and Wandsworth, over 400 prisoners were held in overcrowded cells. Not

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just old prisons are overcrowded. Of the 24 new prisons built or re-opened in the last ten years, half are already overcrowded.
Ten years on, Strangeways is still overcrowded. One in four of its prisoners are held in overcrowded cells. That is why slopping out has not ended, why prison wings that should have been razed to the ground are still standing, why prisoners are still held far from home and why remand prisoners are still treated primitively. That is why prisoners at Northallerton remand centre are locked up for more than 19 hours a day.
The ramifications of overcrowding are wider still. The Prison Service still fails to provide adequate levels of purposeful activity. The key performance indicator of 24 hours purposeful activity a week is not met in many establishments. On average, prisoners receive just ten minutes more purposeful activity a day than they did in 1990. In Brixton, where 242 prisoners are held in overcrowded conditions, barely 11 hours of purposeful activity is provided a week.
Overcrowding is the core problem facing prisons. It has been described by Mr. Narey as a scourge, by Lord Woolf as a cancer and by Christopher Scott, the former president of the Prison Governors Association, as an obscenity. It is not the only target of reform and it must not become the excuse—the mantra—behind which establishments hide their other failings. However, when four of the six hellholes identified by Mr. Narey two days ago are overcrowded, it is a problem that must be tackled and tackled soon.
We are in a vicious cycle. We lock up more and more people and because of that we hold them in conditions that make it more likely that they will reoffend when released. With prisons already overcrowded and overstretched, 57 per cent. of prisoners discharged in 1996 were re-convicted within two years. More than three-quarters of young male prisoners are re-convicted within 24 months. Little wonder that the prison population has increased by over 15,000 in the last 10 years and that 64,000 men and women are now in prison in England and Wales.
The Home Office predicts a prison population of 80,000 by 2007. If those Home Office figures and predictions are correct, we will spend an awful lot of money locking people up only to see them reoffend shortly after their release. The average cost of a prison place is £26,000, which is about twice as much as a place at a top public school. For every 40 additional prisoners, we spend £1 million extra a year. The 30,000 increase in the prison population projected for 1991 to 2007 will cost us £750 million every year on top of building costs, which since 1995 have amounted to £1.3 billion. To spend that amount of money and keep prisoners locked up in primitive conditions, miles from home, with adverse consequences for their potential rehabilitation, is not a progressive penal policy.
What can and should be done if simply building more and more prisons is an expensive way of making little progress? What can and should be done if—as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said in a speech on penal policy last week—we cannot and will not cut prison sentences for serious and serial offenders? Within those limitations, our options are few. I shall touch on three of them.
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First, we need to cut the number of criminals and cut crime. That is not a trite thing to say, but a policy imperative. Preventative crime reduction policies are part and parcel of a properly integrated criminal justice and penal system. In Wellingborough, car crime and repeat burglaries have fallen by 25 per cent. following Home Office investment in problem estates. Cars, houses and whole estates can be made more secure; so can mobile phones. We heard today that road deaths in Northamptonshire have been cut by 28 per cent. through the more intensive use of speed cameras. We can be tougher on pubs and clubs who sell alcohol to drunks. We can work harder to confront drug-related crime by tackling the addictions that force so many into robbery and prostitution. We can better tackle the illiteracy, poverty and helplessness in which crime breeds.
Secondly, we need to develop more effective and more flexible sentences, in which the community will have confidence. We need to invest more in restorative justice. We need to look for credible alternatives to prison, as the Home Affairs Committee unanimously agreed in its recent report. As Lord Woolf said last week, initiatives to tackle offending can often work as effectively outside prison as they can within. Indeed, short custodial sentences are a poor alternative to sentences served in the community if they place a disproportionate burden on the Prison Service and then do little, if anything, to tackle offending behaviour.
Thirdly, we need to ensure that those who should not be in prison are not sent there. No one would argue against the imprisonment of serious and serial offenders; and, when appropriate, it should be for a long time. However, because we have insufficient secure and semi-secure hospital accommodation, we are also imprisoning the mentally ill. In the 12 months before their custody started, 20 per cent. of male prisoners and 40 per cent. of female prisoners had been treated or had sought treatment for mental health problems. Nine out of every 10 young people in custody have mental health or substance abuse problems—or a combination of the two.
We are also imprisoning asylum seekers,A whole landing in Wandsworth prison is dedicated to them; yet 486 prisoners there are held in overcrowded conditions. We have even imprisoned a man in Wellingborough whose crime was to set fire to some church curtains the week after his foster parents died. He put out the fire himself and waited for the police to arrive, yet he is currently serving the 22nd year of his sentence.
We should make crime more difficult to commit. We should tackle offending behaviour effectively. We should develop sentences that, when appropriate, do not involve incarceration. We should not lock up those who should not be locked up. Only then can we stop our prisons being overcrowded; only then can we start to ensure that prisons help to rehabilitate prisoners rather than becoming universities of crime. We can break the never-ending cycle between prison and crime, prison and crime.
At the end of his lecture last week, Lord Woolf said:
"What would have a greater effect on overcrowding than anything I can propose would be an announcement by the Government that it fully accepts the damaging effects of prison overcrowding and that it attaches the highest priority to eliminating this problem".

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My hon. Friend has the opportunity today to make that announcement. I invite her to take it.
1.47 pm
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mrs. Barbara Roche): First, I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Stinchcombe) not only on securing this important debate, but on the way in which he spoke. He clearly has a passionate interest in the subject, and he also has a detailed knowledge of it. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng), the Minister with responsibility for prisons, has a great deal of regard for the work that my hon. Friend has done generally, and particularly in Wellingborough, in trying to reduce crime.
My hon. Friend gave us a succinct yet comprehensive history of Lord Woolf s report and its recommendations. Great changes have taken place since 1990. Recent change and our planned future agenda have replaced the Woolf agenda. Nevertheless, the imprint of Lord Woolf s recommendations on the prison system remains clear to all. They have stood the test of time, and the Prison Service will lose sight of them at its peril. I am grateful for my hon. Friend's acknowledgement of what has already been achieved in putting many of those recommendations into effect. He is correct, of course, to say that the pressure of the prison population is the main reason why others have not yet been achieved.
The Government support the use of imprisonment for serious, dangerous and persistent offenders when it is necessary to protect the public, but we recognise that it needs to be effectively targeted. It may not be the best or the most effective option for less serious offenders, especially when tough non-custodial sentences are available. If community sentences are to be effective and credible, strong enforcement is essential. Too often, however, such sentences are seen as a soft option by offenders and the public.
The new enforcement measures set out in the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 send a clear message that flouting a court order is not an option. We believe strongly that those measures will ensure greater compliance with community sentences and give a clear signal that non-custodial sentences are real punishments. My hon. Friend will warmly welcome that. He is right to draw our attention to non-custodial sentences.
The Government have commenced a review of the sentencing framework to examine the scope for new sentencing options, especially for more flexible arrangements to combine time served in custody and in the community. We have invested more than £220 million from the comprehensive spending review and a further £200 million from SR 2000 to provide constructive regimes in prison designed to reduce reoffending, based on "what works" principles. We have established the prison and probation accreditation panel, chaired by Sir Duncan Nichol, to approve regimes that work best to reduce reoffending. Offenders serving community penalties will also be required to follow "what works" programmes.
My hon. Friend referred to the continuing need for slopping out. A programme to provide 24-hour access to sanitation was implemented by February 1996. It
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consisted of providing integral sanitation in cells, with an alternative where that was not practical of providing access via electronic unlocking. That was implemented across the estate in all cells in use for normal accommodation. There are three wings at establishments where integral sanitation and electronic unlocking are not practical. We did not intend to keep those wings in use, but population pressures have made that necessary. Staff have been provided to unlock cells should prisoners wish to use the lavatory facilities. A recent survey of all segregation and health care accommodation identified cells where it would be appropriate to install integral sanitation, and funds for that are being sought.
My hon. Friend rightly pointed out that it is regrettable that levels of purposeful activity are now similar to those in 1992–93, at 23.6 hours a week. However, that needs to be seen in the context of the prison population increase of more than 40 per cent. The Prison Service is therefore providing considerably more purposeful activity, and the average amount per prisoner was up in 1999–2000 compared with the previous year.
The quality of purposeful activity has also improved. Time is better focused on activities such as drug rehabilitation, offending behaviour programmes and basic skills education, which are known to have an impact on reducing crime. No one who visits prisons—I know that my hon. Friend does so regularly—can fail to be aware that tackling those basics, especially raising people's levels of literacy and numeracy, is essential to prevent reoffending.
My hon. Friend was right to say that prisoners, especially short-term ones, are less likely to reoffend if they have a job and stable accommodation on release. That is why my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has announced that he wants the number of prisoners who go into jobs on release to double in the next three years. We are also addressing the other factors—basic skills, drugs education and accommodation—that we know are vital to the resettlement of prisoners.
The key to effective resettlement of prisoners is an approach that works with them through the gate and into the community after release. We must ensure that prisoners are directed as far as possible to a stable address and to a job, new deal place or training place. That will be the focus of a new Prison Service custody-to-work programme, supported by an extra £21 million during the next three years.
My hon. Friend rightly mentioned the need to tackle alcohol-related crime. The amount of such crime is a matter of tremendous concern. According to the British crime survey, about 40 per cent. of violent crime is alcohol-related. Something like 13,000 violent incidents take place on or around licensed premises every week. Last year we launched the Home Office action plan on alcohol-related crime, which sets out an important programme of measures to tackle underage drinking and the problems associated with public drunkenness and related behaviour. The plan includes measures to share learning about what works in this context. We need to learn from best practice and to consider the role of education, particularly for young people, to ensure that we tackle the problem at its root.

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My hon. Friend mentioned asylum seekers in prison. He is a member of the Home Affairs Committee, which recommended increasing the removal of people who, having made unsuccessful asylum applications, have no basis for staying in the United Kingdom. The effort to meet the relevant removal targets has led to a temporary need for more prison space. We are increasing our dedicated detention space to effect removal.
The Government are not in the business of artificially reducing the prison population. We are committed to reducing reoffending. To that end, we are committed to providing the courts with an appropriate range of custodial programmes that have been shown to reduce reoffending. My hon. Friend was right to consider what those programmes might mean and to point out the need to examine them. I have seen some good ones,
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particularly in the probation service. Some of those programmes are certainly not soft options. They are focused on the prevention of reoffending, on rehabilitation and, importantly, on the protection of the community.
I commend my hon. Friend for having obtained today's debate and for the way in which he began it. It was short but important. I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister of State will be very interested to read what he said. We look forward to continuing our work in this context and to working with my hon. Friend on the matters that he raised quite appropriately today.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at two minutes to Two o'clock.