Westminster Hall Sitting of 14 March 2001

Preamble
[MRS. SYLVIA HEAL in the Chair]

Rail Services (London and the South-West)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—[Mr. Kevin Hughes.]
9.30 am
Mr. Ben Bradshaw: I am sure that I do not need to tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the past few months have been miserable ones for rail travellers in the south-west. The post-Hatfield investigation of gauge corner cracking and the worst floods on record have conspired to make railway disruption in the south-west the worst in the country.
Thanks to the engineering genius of Brunel, we in the south-west enjoy one of the best railway services in the country. In 1904, ours were the first trains to exceed 100 mph. Since the introduction of the InterCity 125 trains in the 1970s, it has been possible to travel between my Exeter constituency and London in two hours. The Minister will know that a travelling time of two hours to or from London is an important factor in business and investment.
Since Hatfield, we have been lucky to complete journeys between London and Exeter in three hours, and between London and Plymouth in four. Hardly a week has gone by without some stretch of the line between Paddington and Penzance being closed by Railtrack and passengers being shunted off the trains and on to buses. The main line between Exeter and Taunton is closed yet again this week, and next week it will be closed once more. On Monday, the important branch line between Exeter and north Devon was reopened for the first time since the floods in October. It was open for four hours. Deadlines were given after Hatfield, assuring us when the work would be finished: the first end date was December, followed by January, then Easter; it is now clear that the service will not be back to normal until well after that.
I recently attended a public meeting in Axminster, which is in the constituency of the right hon. Member for East Devon (Sir P. Emery)—not exactly a bastion of socialism. The member of the audience who called for the re-nationalisation of the railways received the best applause of the evening. I do not want to go into that argument here, as it has been well rehearsed elsewhere. I mention it merely to illustrate the depth of frustration and anger among ordinary west country people at the quality of service that they have been offered by the railways in recent months.
I have in the past accepted the argument that it would be a waste of taxpayers' money further to line the pockets of the privatised railways by buying them back, especially as that money could be used for investment. However, to quote a former Conservative Minister, I believe that Railtrack is drinking in the last chance saloon. I hope that the Minister agrees.
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That is the sorry background to the debate. My reason for requesting it now is a recent decision made by First Great Western, which provides the inter-city service between London and the south-west, that will make matters even worse. Great Western, as most of us call the company, agreed some time ago to introduce a new half-hourly high-speed service between Cardiff and London. At some time in the past few months—we do not know when—the company became concerned that the new rolling stock that had been ordered for that service would not be delivered in time for the service to start in May, as scheduled. Rather than delay the introduction of the new Cardiff service, Great Western decided to take some of the high-speed trains that serve the south-west and use them on the Cardiff to London route. We in the south-west will have to put up with the old 1960s locomotives.
Coming on top of what we have suffered in the past few months, that decision is staggering. Great Western says that it was encouraged to make that change by the Strategic Rail Authority, because a failure to introduce the new Cardiff service on time would have been a breach of contract, which would have resulted in the company being fined. However, the introduction of the old 1960s trains in the south-west will mean a failure to meet maximum journey times, therefore a breach of contract will occur and, one assumes, fines will be levied.
The company and the Strategic Rail Authority say that only a small number of services will be affected, but that is simply not true. All services, including those still provided by the high-speed trains, will be slower to accommodate the slower 1960s locomotives in the timetable. Great Western's decision has been such a public relations disaster for the company in the south-west that the only possible reason for its being made is that the fine that would be levied for failing to introduce the new Cardiff service on time is by far the greater one. In effect, the travelling public in the south-west are being asked to make a further sacrifice to help Great Western out of a problem elsewhere.
What are we being offered in return? Free tea and coffee as we trundle along on the old, slow trains. Seriously, that is how Great Western representatives said that the company intended to compensate south-west passengers when they attended a meeting of the region's Labour Members of Parliament here at Westminster last month. As my excellent local paper, the Express and Echo, put it in a front-page editorial this week:
"The cost to individuals and businesses in terms of their time alone far exceeds the value of elevenses."
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will agree that that offer simply added insult to injury.
Throughout this sorry saga, it has been extremely difficult to get straight answers to straight questions from either Great Western or the SRA. I am still waiting for replies to letters written a month ago. However, Great Western wrote to me last week, kindly inviting me to inspect the old 1960s rolling stock at Milton Keynes. The visit, which is scheduled to take all day, includes a buffet lunch. I have nothing against Milton Keynes, and I am sure that the food on offer would be delicious, but if Great Western honestly thinks that Members of Parliament have the time to go on a day trip to Milton Keynes to look at 40-year-old rolling stock, that says

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something about the company's grasp on reality. I am 40, so I remember the 1960s trains extremely well from my childhood.
My fellow west country Members of Parliament and I want simple answers to simple questions. How much would Great Western have been fined for delaying the introduction of the new Cardiff service? How much will it be fined for breaching its maximum journey times in the south-west? Does the SRA not recognise that all our trains—not just those that will exceed their maximum journey time—will be slower? What efforts have been made by Great Western to recover its losses from the company that has failed to deliver the new rolling stock on time? If such a provision was not written into the contract, why not? How much money is being allocated to compensate passengers in the south-west, who are again being asked to bear the brunt of other people's mistakes? To what extent has the SRA been standing up for passengers? So far it seems to be more concerned about making life easy for the train operating company than for its passengers.
When Great Western representatives met Labour Members of Parliament, we asked about the wider issue of post-Hatfield compensation. Hon. Members will be aware that Virgin Trains, which also runs trains in the south-west, has been offering half fares in recognition of the disruption that passengers have suffered since Hatfield. I have already mentioned Great Western's bad joke about free tea and coffee for passengers on the old trains; well, the company told us that it intended, as part of a wider post-Hatfield package, to offer ticket reductions to some off-peak leisure travellers. That is totally inadequate; it is not the leisure traveller but the regular traveller who is not a season ticket holder who has suffered most since Hatfield, yet such travellers stand to get absolutely nothing from Great Western's proposed compensation package.
Just in case hon. Members feel that they have not heard enough, in the past few days I have been told that First Great Western is planning to cut the number of services on which it offers restaurant facilities. I have written to the company for clarification. In addition, I learned from a recent article in Rail magazine that First Great Western is seeking a two-year extension of its current franchise from the SRA. Unless the company undertakes a rapid rethink of the way it treats the people of south-west England, that will be unacceptable.
There are many reasons to feel hopeful about the medium and long-term future of rail services in the south-west. Railtrack and the rail companies have exciting investment plans for the region. We can expect faster services between Exeter and London to be introduced in a few years' time. Beyond Exeter, down to Penzance, even more time will be gained, owing to the new generation of tilting trains that can handle the bends of Devon and Cornwall much better. There is a prospect of more branch lines and stations being opened, and we can expect long overdue investment as well as improvements to the Exeter-Waterloo line. A railway renaissance in the south-west is in prospect. We need that desperately if our economic prospects are to continue to improve.
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None the less, the current situation is dire. The appalling rail services of the past few months, coupled with the devastating impact of foot and mouth, are beating the stuffing out of the region. Tourism—our most important industry—has already been affected by the state of the trains, and it now stands on the brink because of foot and mouth. In the past few years, Devon and Cornwall have had much to boast about economically, including record investment and employment. However, if we are to sustain that record, we can ill afford the impact on our transport infrastructure of the chaos of the past few months. On behalf of all the people of the south-west, I suggest that it is time for the Minister to get together with his right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister and do what he does best—bang some heads together.
It would be an understatement if I were to say that the managements of First Great Western, Railtrack and the SRA have not exactly covered themselves in glory in the past few months. By way of an aside, may I ask whether it is really acceptable that it is impossible to get anyone at those organisations to answer the telephone after 5.30 pm? All three have shown scant regard—nay, contempt—for the people whom they are supposed to serve: the travelling public. Their recent performance does not give me confidence that they can bring about the railway revival that the country and the Government want, but I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister can persuade me otherwise.
9.42 am
Mr. Anthony Steen: I am sure that all hon. Members present congratulate the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw) on being imaginative and fortunate enough to secure a one-and-a-half-hour debate this morning I should really call the hon. Gentleman my hon. Friend, because I have known him since he was 12. His family have a home in my constituency not far from where I used to live. I pay tribute to his growth and development and to his ability, now that he has reached the age of 40, to make such a splendid speech. I knew when I saw him at the age of 12 that he had a great future ahead of him.
All those who work and live in the west country and those of us with constituencies there are sadly aware that the hon. Gentleman's speech was spot on. It is extremely unfortunate that his description of the situation is so accurate. It is not only rail that has been devastated. The Automobile Association has said:
"The South West…remains remote and isolated. Expenditure per kilometre of local roads is the lowest of any region of England."
I am glad of the debate because it enables me to voice my concern about the transport network and transport infrastructure into the west country. I am not interested in blaming the Government, but in making them aware of the problems. I ask the Minister to look to the future and to find solutions. The debate provides an opportunity, not to ascribe blame, but to lay down markers as to ways in which we might resolve the problems.
The need for new railway lines is a major issue. I am a great train buff who wonders at Brunel's imagination in building a magnificent and scenic rail route between Exeter and Plymouth. The feat of engineering involved

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in driving that railway along the cliffs above the sea is amazing. In the past few years, Dawlish has suffered the effects of global warming: the encroaching sea constantly buffets the embankment there, damaging the track and necessitating regular closure. Railtrack has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds to shore up the gaps, but we know what will happen—King Canute did not succeed either. The sea will win when it wants to: not only will it destroy the track at Dawlish, but it will cut off the whole of the west country from main line traffic.
The Dawlish line is now the only one into Newton Abbot, Totnes, Plymouth and all stations to Penzance. Before the Beeching cuts, there was track between Exeter and Okehampton which continued to Plymouth. The Government must consider the introduction of new track before the sea washes away the existing structure. The area suffers damage from causes other than the sea; a few months ago an 80-tonne rock fell on the track at Teignmouth, which again caused the closure of the rail link near Dawlish. That incident was attributed to the change in rainfall patterns.
While I do not blame the Minister, I urge him to press Railtrack and all those involved in transport to plan a new route into Devon and Cornwall. I suggested—not without meeting the criticism that is typical in this country, especially from Liberal Democrats—the building of a new track alongside the A38 between Plymouth and Exeter. The two-hour mark is important between the capital and principal cities, but the two-and-a-half-hour mark is equally important. It should be possible to get from Plymouth to London in two and a half hours if new track were built through Haldon Hill, along the A38, straight into Plymouth. I am not wedded to that exact route, but I am wedded to the opening up of the west country. I want a commercial growth corridor to develop between Bristol and Plymouth that is as important as the existing London to Bristol corridor.
An increasing number of companies will not contemplate relocating in the west country because of the transport infrastructure. One company in my constituency is building an extension in Texas, because the work force and the transportation there are better than it can hope to find if it builds a factory in Totnes. A first-rate public transport infrastructure for the region is long overdue.
The Government might be concerned, as I am, about the multimodal study that was set up some two years ago to examine transport needs in the south-west. Rumour has it that there has not yet been a report, and that when it comes its proposed solution to our transport problems will be tolls on roads, no more rail, no more new roads and the focus of the west country to concentrate on Bristol rather than Plymouth and Exeter. I hope that the Minister will tell us that I am hopelessly wrong and that the multimodal study, whatever it is—it sounds like something from science fiction—will provide a more imaginative solution.
I have given the general background to the west country's appalling infrastructure problem in terms of road and rail. The future of rail is tenuous, and I shall give some vivid examples to support the hon. Member for Exeter. I am a great train user. I used to be a great plane user, having spent a long time in the aviation industry as lawyer, passenger and adviser to several airlines. I was persuaded by First Great Western to
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change my habits and no longer fly from Plymouth to London. My decision to go by train was also influenced by British Airways, which packed in the Heathrow link and flew to Gatwick instead without stopping at Exeter any more.
The beauty of the night train is that one can board a train at Paddington and stay in the compartment at Plymouth until 7.30. It disturbs one's sleep patterns to be called out at about 5 am in one's pyjamas and told that the coach will no longer come off at Plymouth and that one will have to travel on to Penzance or get off immediately. Several passengers, including me, found ourselves standing on the platform with our suitcases in our pyjamas and shoes on bare feet as the sleeper went straight down to Penzance. That became a regular feature of sleeper travel until I drew it to the attention of the excellent managing director of First Great Western, of whom I cannot speak highly enough. The trouble is that his railway has some problems, which I am sure that he is tackling.
Having stopped the Plymouth sleeper, there is now no hot water due to a problem controlling it. When people pressed the button, they either scalded themselves or the water came out cold. As the company does not want passengers burned, there is now only cold water. It reminds me of my school days, but at 6 am I would prefer not to be reminded of them. In addition, there is no heating. The company has decided that it is bad for passengers. Not surprisingly, I am now sometimes the only person in that sleeper coach. I understand why.
The former managing director of West Country Television keeps me advised of his transport movements. Since his company was taken over by Carlton he can afford to go by train, so he was travelling up from Plymouth on the 8.20 am train last Monday. He rang me at 14.20hrs, having reached only Reading after a six-hour journey. I make that journey regularly and I can confirm that it now takes longer to travel from London to Plymouth than it did in the 1930s.
We should go back to the 1930s—get rid of Railtrack and First Great Western and have some steam engines back. For steam engine buffs such as me, there are two lines in my constituency, one between Buckfastleigh and Totnes and the other linking Kingswear, Churston, Paignton and Torquay. Why not go back to the age of steam? It cannot be worse than our experience under First Great Western. The rolling stock is 25 years old. As the hon. Member for Exeter said, instead of its being repaired, we shall be given a tour of the coaches at Wolverton and shown how wonderful they are. I have always wanted to go to Wolverton. I am told that it is near Milton Keynes.
Travelling first class to Plymouth by train is more expensive than flying Apex to Gibraltar. It costs more to travel first class to Plymouth than to travel to any European city on an excursion return ticket with a major airline. A first-class ticket to Plymouth costs £176—and the price seems to go up by the day. When one buys a ticket at Paddington station, one expects to travel by train; if one wants to go by bus, one buys a ticket at Victoria coach station for about a quarter of the price of a rail ticket. However, every time I buy a rail ticket, I find myself travelling by bus. I sometimes wonder whether buying a bus ticket would result in one ending up travelling by rail.

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First Great Western says that one of the problems of investing in new rolling stock is that its franchise is not long enough and that a 20-year franchise is needed to make such an investment pay. I hope that the Minister will consider that point seriously, whichever company takes on the franchise. I wish to declare an interest: I am a shareholder in First Great Western—but it has been a very bad investment.
I am sure that the Minister has got the message from me and from the hon. Member for Exeter, although the hon. Gentleman's message is slightly different from mine. I am a great supporter of the railways, of the managing director of First Great Western and of the west country. We must ensure that we have the right infrastructure and that Railtrack and First Great Western deliver a proper 21st-century service to the people of the west country.
9.56 am
Mrs. Linda Gilroy: First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw) on achieving this important debate. Transport is necessary to all Members of Parliament, to allow us to travel between Westminster and our constituencies, but it is especially important to those of us who live in the further-flung constituencies.
As we often have to be in two or three places at once, it would useful to have a TARDIS, and I wonder whether the Minister would consider investing in some research and development along those lines. The hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) said that the multimodal transport study sounded rather like science fiction. Perhaps that is what we need. We certainly need to look to the future for transport in the south-west, and I was pleased to hear the hon. Gentleman mention some of the long-term strategic solutions.
The matters raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter are pressing. He referred to the frustration and anger felt by his constituents, but those emotions are felt more deeply the further west one goes. When the outrageous suggestion was made that we in the south-west should use old rolling stock and that south Wales should have the benefit of our already fairly old rolling stock, the reaction of my constituents in Plymouth was one of extreme anger.
My fine local evening newspaper, the Evening Herald, reported that Kimberly Watts-Fitzsimmons, a 19-year-old student from Plymouth who had been planning to catch a train to Southampton, had decided not to make the journey because of reports of delays and disruption. She told the reporter that she would not have felt certain of reaching the end of her journey. She said:
"Replacing the trains with older models is so typical down here. It is as if Devon and Cornwall are not important."
That attitude is reflected in the outrageous suggestion made by First Great Western at the presentation to which my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter referred that a free cup of tea would fit the bill.
The Minister knows that transport is at the top of the agenda of the business community in the south-west. I shall use my few minutes to refer to a representation made by a business man who uses the Plymouth to
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Paddington line several times a week to take him to his business in London. He was kind enough to send me a copy of the letter he sent to the managing director of First Great Western, in which he says:
"We in Plymouth have survived the problems during the three months ending December"—
which affected the whole country—
"but these are now compounded by matters which I am sure are under the control of First Great Western."
He wrote the letter on 12 February, but when I rang him just before this debate, he informed me that he had not yet received a reply. That speaks volumes about the company's attitude to a very good customer who probably spends considerably more than £10,000 a year on rail fares. That customer continues:
"We do understand, and appreciate, the disruption caused by the flooding and the apparently defective tracks."
Many people were willing to put up with that disruption for quite a long time. I saw the effects of it when I visited the national rail inquiry service, where several hundred people in my constituency were valiantly trying to give out information so that both business people and others could make sense of the journeys that they had to make.
However, the business man goes on to say:
"What is making us extremely angry is the fact that even when travelling by bus from Plymouth to Tiverton Parkway we are required to pay a First Class Fare for this part of the journey both to and from Tiverton Parkway and are then presented with rolling stock on which there are little or no buffet facilities and minimal staff on duty."
He describes how in February he made
"a profoundly unfortunate decision in travelling First Class from Plymouth to Paddington on Wednesday morning leaving Plymouth at 0730 hours. It is obvious from the 'special timetable' that the service between Plymouth and Exeter is now treated as a 'local' service since it stops not only at Newton Abbot and Totnes but also at Teignmouth and Dawlish. On leaving Exeter the train was supposed to stop at Tiverton Parkway, Taunton, Bristol, Swindon, Reading and Paddington. In fact, we also stopped at Bath, Chippenham, Didcot Parkway, Maidenhead and Slough"—
all familiar to those of us who use the line—
"each time spending precious minutes, although the train was already running 20 minutes late, sitting in stations for no apparent reason other than I assume, to generate additional revenue. The most annoying aspect of this journey was the total lack of stores for the buffet since apparently they had not been ordered the previous day."
So much for the offer of tea and coffee, which is ironic. He concludes his description of the journey thus:
"Instead of arriving at Paddington at 1209 we ultimately arrived at approximately 12.50!"
That man goes on to refer to the company's plans to transfer all the high-speed trains from the Penzance line, but I shall not go into detail, because other hon. Members have already done so. He says that the lack of information provided to regular customers such as him is "intolerable and dishonest". He has spoken to several other first-class and standard-class passengers and says that regular commuters now refer to the company as "the late Great Western".
The train is essential to that man's everyday business. He was looking forward to an early reply and explanation from the company, but has not yet received one. Instead, he has had a reply from the rail passenger committee, which says that it will be interesting to see First Great Western's response to his comments on

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first-class bus travel. I will also be interested to see it, because the company urgently needs to address that matter. The committee refers to changes and possible improvements in the refreshment facilities. Free cups of tea and coffee all round may be appropriate, but will certainly not be sufficient
Mr. Steen: The hon. Lady is right to talk about catering facilities. A little leaflet was sent to me, saying that there will be a travelling chef on the service, but I get the impression that he will be travelling on his own because there will be no restaurant or buffet facilities.
Mrs. Gilroy: Perhaps the free cups of tea and coffee will give him some company for a short period, but he will have to do much more than that to have a viable business with customers.
I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for the attention that he has given to my representations on behalf of constituents, particularly in connection with the deployment of high-speed trains, with which he will, no doubt, deal in his reply. I shall not go into the details of the rail passenger committee's comments, but I draw to his attention its reservation about whether the deployment of the old type 47 trains will give us an adequate service. In its letter to the business man whom I have quoted, the committee writes that its
"greatest fear is that an inadequate number of additional trainsets has been leased, with the result that even the reduced, slower, service will not in practice be maintained: there is literally no other main line rolling stock to be obtained, as it simply does not exist; all the more modern stock is fully utilised somewhere on the network. Given that 15 coach trains were once operated to Plymouth, pulled by 2 locos, there seems to be no excuse for overcrowding, but, if an inadequate amount of additional, albeit elderly, stock has been leased your fears may well be realised"—
that is, the fears of the business man that the company will not provide the type of service that it claims is possible, even with the elderly rolling stock.
I understand from the response of the rail passenger committee to the business man that Mr. Christopher Irwin, the chairman of the committee, has it in mind to conduct a public mid-franchise review of First Great Western later this year, and he urges the man to make his views known at that time. I in turn urge my hon. Friend the Minister to ensure that that mid-term review takes place, perhaps sooner rather than later. In connection with the fears of the rail passenger committee about whether the plans will in the interim give us a proper service in the south-west, I also urge my hon. Friend to impress upon the company that cups of tea are not good enough and that it must consider giving far more significant compensation, particularly in respect of the replacement bus, service that is such a frequent occurrence, especially for passengers from the Plymouth area.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Nicholas Winterton): Order. I am pleased to say that, following a decision made in the House last night, four of us who chair business in Westminster Hall can now be called Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mrs. Gilroy: I apologise for that oversight. It gives me great pleasure to be able to refer to you as Mr. Deputy Speaker, Mr. Winterton.
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My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment announced this morning that unemployment has fallen to less than 1 million for the first time since the 1970s. A few people may be looking with anxiety to the future of their jobs—and so they should, if they work in some of the companies that are providing such poor service to our constituents. I look forward to hearing my hon. Friend's response to the points that have been made this morning.
10.9 am
Mr. David Drew: I am delighted to take part in the debate, although I shall speak briefly because I do not want to intrude on the private grief of the south-west. We in Gloucestershire have our own difficulties, to which my hon. Friend the Minister has responded on a previous occasion, but I want to update the story and ask him to take the matter forward.
The issue of the railways is currently a difficult one for anyone who takes an interest in it, as we have been through a difficult year. I am pleased to say that my local service is almost back to normality, but we have, in effect, lost a year, as some of the proposals announced for last April have yet to take effect. We have had some pleasing news from First Great Western and from Virgin Trains, which wants to run a train through to Birmingham from Swindon—my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Ms Drown) is sitting next to me. We look forward to that service starting soon. However, we have lost a year, which is disappointing. Passenger numbers seem to be back up, but we have clearly not made progress.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will make a state of the nation announcement about the services that have been promised. That would be pertinent, given that the refranchising process has begun. By chance, I had a quick word with Mike Taplin of Gloucestershire county council last week. He is worried about the speed at which refranchising is taking place and, in particular, about the role of the Strategic Rail Authority. As a result of hearing his concerns, I tabled some questions asking for clarification about what is happening, with particular reference to the Wessex franchise, which has caused some concern. I see my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw), who introduced the debate—I congratulate him on doing so—nodding at that. Those of us who are not central to the Wessex deliberations but are affected by them none the less want to know whether there is serious bidding and whether we will get an improvement in the service rather than the deterioration that some of us fear.
My main reason for rising is to repeat my concerns about a serious lacuna in transport provision in the south-west. The hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) has already referred to the south-west multimodal study of services between London and the south-west. I think that it is now lovingly referred to as SWARMS. I dread Hansard asking me what SWARMS stands for, as I am not sure who is swarming over our public transport system. Some of us are concerned about the way in which the railways figure in that study.
My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mrs. Gilroy) spoke about the need for targets. I think that there is a black hole in Gloucestershire, down which the county disappears for the purposes of the

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multimodal study. To some extent, I am prepared to accept that in respect of roads, as I have strong views about whether we should build roads, but I would welcome comments from my hon. Friend the Minister about the strategy for the rail system, perhaps with reference to the august body that I mentioned.
I make no apology for mentioning once again the need to redouble the tracks between Kemble and Swindon on the Cheltenham-Swindon line, as doing so is key to the development of business opportunities. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton said that her local business people are keen on the development of the railways in the south-west, particularly in Gloucestershire. The Confederation of British Industry has identified the need to improve the line between Cheltenham and Swindon as the most important factor in holding back business development in the area, and general customers agree, so I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to re-examine the proposals. I know that, at long last, discussions are taking place behind the scenes, and I have managed to work with Mike Obst of Gloucestershire county council to push redoubling up the transport planning and political agenda.
People have been frustrated and disappointed in their attempts to get trains running and to improve services. I have tried to meet Railtrack, the SRA and the train operating companies, with mixed success. It is most disappointing to find that they do not even talk to one another—or, if they do, they come back with slightly different messages, which is unacceptable. Will my hon. Friend the Minister kickstart proper discussions to ensure that we have a 21st-century rail service that can actually move people around? Such discussions would enable those in my parochial backyard to see that our rail service could be useful and something of which we are genuinely proud.
10.16 am
Mr. Adrian Sanders: I congratulate the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw) on securing today's debate. I should declare an interest as a small shareholder in the South Devon and Torbay Steam Railway Society, which gives me a dividend of roughly £2 a year, on which I pay about 40p in tax.
There are three railway lines or routes into the far south-west, which I will split into the London to Exeter and the Exeter thereon parts. First, there is the front-door route, which is the old Brunel route from Paddington via Westbury to Exeter. Secondly, there is the side-door Paddington to Exeter via Bristol line, which train operators have been using recently to project that they are adding more services, whereas in fact they are merely increasing journey times to London from the south-west, which makes them less useful, and adding more London to Bristol services. Thirdly, there is the back-door line—the old Southern Railway route from Waterloo to Exeter—on which some operators go beyond Exeter. There is a daily service from Paignton and from Penzance to Waterloo. The service from Exeter to the rest of the county includes several branch lines—the Barnstaple, Exmouth and Torbay branch lines—and the rest of the main line to Plymouth.
There is a wonderful opportunity for competition in a privatised railway service because of the alternative routes in and out of the region. The problem is that the
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infrastructure on all routes is old and decrepit and that necessary investment is taking place on only the side-door route, which is the route that we do not want because it is the least direct and has potentially the longest journey time. A number of old routes have fallen into disrepair: the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) mentioned the old route via Okehampton; there was another route past Exeter—an alternative to Newton Abbot—that went through the Teign valley and linked Christow, Ashburton and Buckfastleigh, but that is long gone, mostly built over and impossible to bring back. New routes that would speed up journey times have also been suggested. One is to take the line between Exeter and Newton Abbot through Haldon Hill to bypass the seaside route, which would be an extraordinarily expensive feat of engineering, but probably no more so in modern terms than Brunel's seaboard route.
The hon. Member for Totnes suggested bypassing that route all the way to Plymouth, but that would also bypass Totnes and the great railway town of Newton Abbot. In talks with Railtrack representatives on Monday about the possibility of such a plan, they said that it could be done. A feasibility study would be needed, the permission of all the landowners along the route would have to be sought and the councils involved would have to be consulted; then, assuming that a funding package could be assembled, such a scheme might be possible in three decades. It is a long-term proposal, which my constituents would oppose as we already lie on a branch line some distance from the main route. The hon. Gentleman's proposal would put us even further away from that route than we are now.
However, Railtrack assured me that the work being done on the coastal route between Exeter and Newton Abbot is both substantial and successful and should see the line safely through at least the next two decades. The foundations are being underpinned to prevent further slippage of the ballast upon which the rails rest, which can be breached in strong storm conditions. Thus, there is a future for that stretch of railway, which is considered by many in the west country to be our shop window—the starter for journeys into the west country that whets people's appetite for the rolling hills and the beauty further down the track. The important thing is to reduce journey times, to increase reliability and to ensure that there is a good, modern link with the capital.
Mr. Paul Tyler: My hon. Friend will recall our discussion with Railtrack in which it was made clear that the long-term prospects of major rerouting in three decades—the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) may be prepared to wait for 30 years but most of us are not—ran the risk of diverting attention from action that is necessary now and of insufficient sums being spent on upgrading the route and tackling the various engineering difficulties throughout Cornwall. My hon. Friend, inadvertently, did not mention the route beyond Plymouth, which is extremely important. No doubt he will come to it in a moment.
Mr. Sanders: I certainly was going to mention it. My hon. Friend knows that to get anywhere else by rail, people in Cornwall must go through the beautiful county of Devon, so whatever happens there is crucial to the future of rail services the other side of the Tamar.

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The Government and the companies must consider the three options and decide which route to invest in. For example, there is more likely to be a future for the Paddington-Bristol line than for the Westbury line, which links only to Taunton. The Paddington-Bristol line goes on to Wales, or north to Gloucestershire and other destinations, or south into Somerset. There is more potential business in that line and a greater return on investment is likely.
The Waterloo line is the most overlooked. Large parts of the line between Yeovil junction and Exeter are single track because one part of the track was ripped up in a cost-cutting exercise about 20 years ago. If it was double-tracked, it would speed up journey times. If services could be introduced on a double-tracked line on the Waterloo route and the train became an express service after it had passed through Devon and Cornwall, journey times would be significantly reduced to the point where competition would be possible with the fastest times on the Paddington route. That sort of competition in the railway services linking Devon with the rest of the country would lend to an increase in passenger numbers and inward investment, and Adjournment debates such as this one would become unnecessary.
I look forward to hearing the Minister's response. As he knows from my correspondence about the need for a Kingskerswell bypass and improved road building on the A303-A30, which is still short of dual carriageway into the capital, the west country is poorly served by road as well as rail. The railway line north of Exeter has vulnerable points at Cowley bridge when the water rises too high and the bridge is closed to traffic, all rail services to most of Devon and all of Cornwall, except for the Waterloo link, are cut off. That line, too, is vulnerable where it is single tracked, because there are no passing points when a train breaks down. That route must be examined—
Mr. Steen: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Sanders: I was getting to the end, so it will have to be a quickie.
Mr. Steen: It will just be a quickie. I merely wanted to express my support for the hon. Gentleman's approach. I would willingly forgo my campaign for a new line between Exeter and Plymouth if existing services were improved. His views on Waterloo and Exeter are interesting and important: I agree entirely that competition is lacking.
Mr. Sanders: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. The water here is always more pleasant than south-west water—and certainly a good deal cheaper. I shall end on that note.
10.26 am
Mr. Robert Syms: It is a pleasure to see you in your place chairing our proceedings today, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw) on initiating our important debate. We have heard a sorry catalogue of woe that has had a tremendous impact on the south-west which as a region
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has not been well treated by Governments of all political persuasions. Our local authority grants are less than other regions' and our road network attracts less investment.
The clear point emerging from this morning's debate is the economic impact of disruption to the rail network. From London, it is possible to reach Manchester and Leeds much quicker than parts of the south-west.
Mr. Steen: And Madrid.
Mr. Syms: Indeed.
The economic prospects of the south-west are somewhat disparate. I represent one of the richer areas of the region, in south-east Dorset, and Wiltshire, too, is fairly well off, but as one moves westwards, especially as one passes into Cornwall, the problems of unemployment and deprivation become more apparent. Cornwall's picturesque scenery makes it is easy to forget how many problems need to be tackled in the county. Great attention is given to inner-city areas, but Cornwall has been deprived of the attention that it deserves given its economic prospects.
Lying at the end of the railway line adds to Cornwall's difficulty. The disruption that has been continuing for some months must have had an adverse impact on inward investment and on people with businesses in the south-west travelling to other areas to drum up business. It is a serious problem and I hope that the Minister will assure us today that things will get better.
The rail network has witnessed a tremendous 26 per cent. increase in passenger numbers in the past five years—due in part to privatisation and in part to rising GDP—which has put tremendous pressure on the network. Much of it is ageing after decades of under-investment, so it struggles to cope with the increase. Recent tragic accidents have led to a loss of confidence among both passengers and rail industry management. I will not describe it as over-reaction, but part of the fallout of the Hatfield crash is that the many repairs and speed reductions have made it extremely difficult for the network to provide anything like a normal service in any particular region. More recent difficulties, including the collision the other day and what looks like a genuine accident near Selby, have not helped the general situation. It is vital that the Government, the Strategic Rail Authority, the train operating companies and Railtrack do what they can to improve public confidence in a means of travel that remains comparatively safe. Rail is an industry of the future, not of the past. As I listened to the contributions today I reflected on the fact that if Isambard Kingdom Brunel were head of Railtrack, confidence would be higher and we would have made a great deal more progress.
There have been many good contributions today. When my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) started to reminisce about the childhood of the hon. Member for Exeter, I thought we might be treated to some stories, but we did not get that far. The hon. Member for Exeter set the general scene very well and my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes described how it affects both him and other south-west Members of Parliament and their constituents. He talked about the difficulties of sleeper services, heating, water and ticket costs, and made a good point about buying tickets to travel on the train and finding himself on the bus and vice versa. It has been a good debate.

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The SRA made an announcement yesterday about its future plans. It unveiled a £60 billion overhaul of the railways, although it warned that it did not think that Railtrack had the financial and management capability to carry out much of what it regarded as the future. There has been press speculation about disagreements between Sir Alastair Morton and the Department, so the Minister might take this opportunity to express confidence in the Government's appointee. Hon. Members would be interested to hear any comments about that announcement and the impact that it may have.
The multimodal study has also been mentioned. This has been a wonderful Government for consultants. People have looked at problems, but they have not always come forward with solutions, even after four years of Labour Government. We shall look to the Minister for an indication of when the study will report and what solutions it might offer to the difficult traffic problems in the south-west. We need clear answers on those matters from the Minister.
There is no doubt that the disruption, particularly the problems with First Great Western, has greatly upset people in the south-west. Many hon. Members have full mailbags on the subject. In view of the assurances that had been given, I have asked Ministers at the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions whether Easter will be the date for getting the rail network back to normal. Is that still the date or has it slipped again? A number of hon. Members pointed out that we were originally told December, then January and now Easter.
It is particularly important that we get the rail network back by Easter, because it is an important time of the year for the many people working in the tourist industry. Foot and mouth in rural areas is having a dreadful effect on the tourist industry. Until the rail network gets back to normal, those areas that are not affected by foot and mouth but that rely on tourism, such as Torquay and other places in the south-west, will be in difficulty. The Government must give assurances that the network will return to normal, that passengers can be confident that they will arrive at their destination at about the right time, and that the situation will improve, not worsen.
10.35 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Keith Hill): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw) on securing the debate on rail services between London and the south-west. I also congratulate him on the forcefulness and eloquence of his speech.
The debate has been unexpectedly wide-ranging and there have been many valuable contributions, several of which reflected the considerable concern that is felt in the south-west about transport. I am unable to respond to them in detail, as I must focus on the key issue of the redeployment of rolling stock on First Great Western services, but I will study the record of the debate in the Official Report and write, where possible, to hon. Members to respond to their questions.
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First, I must firmly rebut any suggestions that the Government have neglected the transport concerns of the south-west. In December 2000, we announced our local transport settlement, which awarded a doubling of investment to local transport in Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Dorset. That included major schemes such as the north corridor for the benefit of Plymouth, the western bypass for Barnstaple—
Mrs. Gilroy: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Hill: I will give way after I have concluded the roll of honour.
Taunton benefits from the north-west package scheme and Cornwall from the Camelford bypass. All those schemes have been warmly welcomed. I had the pleasure of visiting Plymouth and Taunton as part of the roll out of the announcements. Last week, I was in Cornwall to share in the county's celebration of its becoming the first county to receive a centre of transport excellence award. I also announced a £500,000 investment in bus projects in the county.
Mrs. Gilroy: I thank my hon. Friend for the investment in the northern corridor. During his recent visit to the south-west, he had a memorable experience of our air transport. I hope that he will continue to examine that important aspect of travel, as it is of particular importance to business travellers. It is crucial for business investment in Plymouth that our airport is extended.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The debate is about rail services rather than air services, but I am sure that the Minister will be able to slip in a response.
Mr. Hill: It was our recognition of the importance of those airport facilities that led to the announcement on the Plymouth north corridor transport scheme, and I am grateful for my hon. Friend's welcome for that news.
I was aware of the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter about the late delivery of new class 180 rolling stock, which has necessitated the transfer of rolling stock to the Cardiff route. I have corresponded with him on the issue, as has the SRA. The House is aware that the Government are unhappy with the performance of rolling stock manufacturers. Last year, my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister asked Sir Alastair Morton, the chairman of the SRA, to set up a pan-industry working group to identify and tackle the problems being encountered in bringing new stock into service. Although some progress has been made, the problems on Great Western show that there is much more to do.
I assure hon. Members that Ministers will continue to put pressure on rolling stock manufacturers and make it clear that their performance in delivering new stock is unacceptable. Manufacturers must ensure that they provide new stock on time and that it is reliable from the outset. My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister will soon meet rolling stock manufacturers and other key players in the rolling stock acceptance process to ensure that efforts to improve delivery times and reliability are redoubled.
Mr. Steen: What is the problem in the manufacture of rolling stock? Is there a technical problem? Is there no

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money in the business? Are there no companies in this country that make it? I do not understand what the problem is.
Mr. Hill: In fact, few companies in the United Kingdom make rolling stock. Much of it is delivered by companies based in Belgium, Canada and Switzerland, and one problem is that the companies are unused to delivering new rolling stock to the British rail system. Notwithstanding the difficulties that we have experienced with the railway system in recent years, the problem is actually a positive reflection of the system's expansion, because new demands are being placed on rolling stock manufacturers.
There are also technical considerations. In carrying out trials, long lengths of track are required so that adequate speeds can be built up to test stock, but such track does not exist in this country—it is available in Switzerland, but not in the United Kingdom. We are working on the possibility of securing provision that would aid proper testing in advance of the delivery of rolling stock. The subject is an interesting one, and I dare say that the hon. Gentleman and I could discuss it at length, but I must return to the key issues that concern my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter.
As my hon. Friend knows, the transfer of rolling stock has been brought about by the delay in delivery of the class 180 rolling stock. As a result, First Great Western has been forced to implement contingency plans to enable it to meet franchise commitments. First Great Western has a franchise commitment to provide a half-hourly service from London to Cardiff via Bristol from May; currently, the service is hourly for most of the day. To meet the commitment, First Great Western will, as a stopgap, transfer to the Cardiff route some of its high-speed trains that are currently in use on services to the south-west. Locomotive-hauled carriages with class 47 locomotives will, in turn, be introduced as a stopgap on some services to the south-west.
Although it is clearly not ideal, the SRA has agreed to the transfer of rolling stock because it was thought to be the most appropriate way to enable First Great Western to meet its franchise commitments and minimise disruption to passengers. High-speed trains running at 125 mph are required on the Cardiff route to meet the commitment to a half-hourly service, which would not be possible using locomotive-hauled stock that has a maximum speed of only 95 mph. The two high-speed train sets that will be transferred will be used to provide eight services on the London to Cardiff route—four in each direction. First Great Western is able to provide the full timetable only by transferring stock.
Mr. Sanders: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hill: With respect, I will not. Should the relatively limited time available allow, I shall return to the hon. Gentleman, because I want to talk about Waterloo.
The effect on services to the west of England will be relatively minor. At present, there are 16 services to Plymouth in the timetable, seven of which continue to Penzance; in the opposite direction, 14 services are provided, of which seven start at Penzance. Mathematicians in the Chamber will appreciate that that is a total of 30 services, most of which are operated
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by high-speed trains. Only two are operated by locomotive-hauled stock, and a further four services will be provided by locomotive-hauled stock from May; therefore, only six services out of the 30 in both directions will be locomotive-hauled. The stock is not a great deal older than the high-speed trains, and will be refurbished before it is introduced. As a result, the degree of comfort offered will be equal to if not better than on the high-speed trains currently in use. I also understand that First Great Western has invited representatives from several rail interest organisations to its depot at Wolverton to view the stock before and after refurbishment—indeed, the invitation has been extended to local Members of Parliament, and I dare say that the visit could be made without benefit of a buffet lunch.
Three out of the four services that will become locomotive-hauled from May will exceed the maximum journey time specified in the passenger service requirement: one will exceed it by 10 minutes, one by 12 minutes and one by 27 minutes, the last making three additional stops on the way to London, at Pewsey, Castle Cary and Newbury. The Strategic Rail Authority has granted First Great Western temporary derogations from the maximum journey times for those three services for the duration of the summer 2001 timetable.
The Strategic Rail Authority considers that First Great Western has made efforts to honour its franchise commitment to provide the half-hourly service to Cardiff despite the late delivery of new stock, and that the company has tried to minimise adverse effects on passengers. However, on the advice of the Strategic Rail Authority, First Great Western is considering compensating benefits for passengers in the south-west. I understand that it will release details shortly. I take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter that the compensation offered should constitute more than an occasional free lunch or a cup of coffee.
The locomotive-hauled stock will be kept on lease for two years. Therefore, even when it has been replaced, First Great Western will have it on the sidelines for use for special events or when other stock is unavailable.
Mr. Sanders: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Bradshaw: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Hill: I shall give way to the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr. Sanders) first.
Mr. Sanders: Why are the franchise requirements for the Cardiff service more important than those for the south-west?
Mr. Hill: I understand that key question and I did try to answer it. The answer in a nutshell is that to meet the franchise requirements for the Cardiff service, half-hourly services will be required from May. The services that First Great Western will be providing to the south-west comply with the passenger service requirements written into the contract for the south-west. First Great Western is not prioritising one service rather than another, but trying to comply with both contract requirements in terms of its franchise?
Mr. Bradshaw: I am extremely pleased to hear a suggestion that the offer of compensation may be about

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to be improved. Should not First Great Western compensate passengers for the full difference between the sum that the company would have been fined for breaking the Cardiff contract and the sum that it might be fined for breaking the south-west contract? Clearly, the first fine would have been much greater than the second will be. Furthermore, why do rail companies not write into their contracts with providers a provision that if rolling stock is late, compensation should be received? That compensation could be passed on to passengers, or, if necessary, the providers could be sued.
Mr. Hill: My hon. Friend has made two important suggestions and I shall follow up on both of them. I shall comment further about compensation and use some rather strict words in due course. However, I take my hon. Friend's point.
Mrs. Gilroy: Will my hon. Friend also respond, either now or later, to the point made by the rail passengers committee in relation to whether sufficient rolling stock has been leased to maintain services as predicted?
Mr. Hill: I am not sure that I shall respond to that point in this debate, but I shall follow it up in writing.
I shall now explore the relationship between Ministers and the Strategic Rail Authority. During my brief parliamentary career, I have noticed that Ministers are generally required to intervene in practically every aspect of our society, economy and public policy, despite the desire often expressed by all political parties to roll back the frontiers of the state. However, neither Ministers nor the SRA have direct control over the deployment of rolling stock. Rail services are provided under a franchise agreement, compliance with which is monitored by the SRA, having regard to Ministers' directions and guidance. Franchise agreements typically specify the outputs that should be provided, such as the number and the quality of services, but they do not specify how a train operator must provide such outputs.
If rolling stock is fit for use—if it has the necessary safety acceptance—its deployment is a decision for the train operator. The SRA has the power to intervene only if there is a failure to meet contractual commitments. Such intervention includes the derogations agreed with First Great Western for the three services that exceed the permitted maximum journey times.
Mr. Tyler: Will the Minister confirm that he and the SRA will be prepared to intervene if the outcome of the change of arrangements that he has outlined—giving priority to Cardiff rather than the south-west—turns out to be even more disadvantageous to the south-west and the predicted journey times prove to be overly optimistic?
Mr. Hill: If the service outputs set out in franchise requirements are not met, the SRA has the right to intervene. Ministers will scrutinise the SRA's activities in such cases, especially in the light of the powerful passions that have been evinced in this debate. I congratulate all hon. Members from the south-west on their forceful observations on the matter, which I am certain will have been carefully noted by First Great Western.
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I emphasise that the substitution of the high-speed trains is a temporary measure. High-speed trains will be restored to west country services as new trains become available on the Cardiff route. I appreciate that my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter is concerned about the service that is provided to his constituents, but it would be inappropriate to continue to criticise First Great Western on that matter given that, in truth, it is reacting to the failings of Alsthom Transport. I hope that my hon. Friend will draw some comfort from First Great Western's efforts to minimise disruption and inconvenience. I also hope that the debate acts as a timely reminder to Alsthom to deliver the new stock as quickly as possible.
My hon. Friend and other hon. Members rightly raised the need for passengers to be adequately compensated for the disruption that they have suffered and, in some cases, continue to suffer. I am sure that my hon. Friend welcomed the industry's announcement of two compensation packages worth £70 million for passengers whose journeys were severely disrupted by speed restrictions and flooding. Passengers who hold season tickets of a month or longer can claim up to four weeks' free travel. Weekly and daily ticket holders will be able to claim compensation under train operators' passenger charters. While disruptions continue I urge the industry to consider all compensation claims sympathetically and to deal with them quickly, but compensation packages alone cannot make up for delays and inconvenience experienced by passengers. Train operators must work hard to rebuild passenger confidence and I urge them to consider other ways to attract passengers back on to the railways.
I look to the future of train services in the south-west. I am pleased that a number of improvements to such services are in the pipeline. First Great Western will introduce 40 new vehicles later in the year, with a further 30 to be introduced next year. I understand that Railtrack and the SRA are assessing various options for improving the Great Western main line, focusing on the relief of bottlenecks on the route, which are a significant cause of delays. That work should bring tangible improvements for passengers in the south-west.
As for the franchise replacement process, the replacement of the current short franchises is essential to the delivery of a better railway. The SRA has already begun a programme of franchise replacements to put in place new contracts that will facilitate the achievement of those goals. Franchise replacement aims to secure a sustained improvement in performance and a step change in customer service through increased levels of investment. The SRA is working to replace the shorter term franchises, but has not ruled out replacing the longer term franchises, of which Great Western is one, should the opportunity arise.
Earlier this month, the SRA announced that seven companies and consortiums had prequalified to submit proposals for the new Wessex franchise, which will comprise services currently provided by Wales and West Passenger Trains in the west country and some of the services provided by South West Trains, including the line from Waterloo to Exeter referred to by the hon. Member for Torbay. The SRA has stated that one of the key objectives of the Wessex franchise is to increase track capacity on that line to enable a more frequent service to be run, thus providing an alternative to the

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busy A303 and the Great Western main line. The seven bidders will now submit proposals to the SRA for consideration. The authority is encouraging those parties to consult local partners so that their aspirations can be taken into account in formulating bids.
South West Trains' franchise is also subject to replacement negotiations and the SRA is considering the best and final offers of three parties. It has stated that providing relief for capacity constraints on the approach to Waterloo is a prerequisite for the replacement of the franchise. However, with the transfer of the Exeter-Waterloo service to the Wessex franchise, the franchisee will no longer provide long-distance services to the south-west. I understand that a decision on the preferred bidder is expected shortly.
In conclusion, I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter and other hon. Members are encouraged by the planned improvements to rail services to the south-west. As today's debate has shown, there is still some way to go before we can achieve our vision for the railways set out in our 10-year plan for transport. The legacy of years of neglect cannot be turned around overnight, but through the Transport Act 2000, the establishment of the SRA and the £60 billion that we have earmarked for the railways, a framework has been put in place to turn that vision into reality.
Mr. Steen: With your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as another three minutes remain for the debate, I should like to make a further contribution.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: That decision does not lie entirely with me. If the hon. Gentleman wants to address the House for the second time, he may do so only with the permission of the House as a whole. Is the House in accord?
Hon. Members: Aye.
10.58 am
Mr. Steen: I am most grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to the House for giving me the opportunity to speak for another two minutes. I do not expect the Minister to reply, but I ask him, in the spirit of support for all who have spoken, whether it would be possible for him to meet the managing director of First Great Western after this debate to discuss the issues that have been raised by hon. Members on behalf of their constituents; he should be interested in the comments of both individual Members and their constituents. Each individual point should be raised because the problem relates not only to rolling stock, but to Railtrack itself. Although the managing director accepts many of the criticisms that I have made and many of the problems that we have highlighted, he has encountered major problems with the way in which Railtrack manages its affairs.
The Minister mentioned the lack of management, and that is one of the problems that we face in Railtrack. We lack engineers, experience and knowledge. I do not suggest that we should import more than rolling stock from Switzerland and Canada, but we must address the shortcomings of Railtrack's management, which is compounding the problems and making matters difficult for First Great Western.
Mrs. Gilroy: Will the hon. Gentleman draw the Minister's attention back to his point about the role of rolling stock supply companies, especially Alsthom? We did not fully cover that in debate.
Mr. Steen: I shall draw the Minister's attention to that important point—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We have run out of time, and money.

International Sporting Events
11 am
Mr. Stephen Day: This is an important subject that relates to the Commonwealth games in Manchester. It is desirable that Britain succeeds in bids to host major international sporting events. Hosting an event inevitably encourages a nation's people to be enthusiastic about sport, and we should all approve of that. It also has huge economic benefits, and increases a country's chances of winning at the event.
If sports bodies can persuasively argue the case for a national bid, it is vital that the Government offer firm leadership. Sadly, while Labour has talked a good game, it has characteristically failed to deliver. It has succeeded only in causing chaos, instead of offering leadership and encouragement. It has alternated between interference and head-in-the-sand indifference.
Nowhere has that attitude been more evident than during our 2006 World cup bid. Labour promised in its April 1997 manifesto:
"We will provide full backing to the bid to host the 2006 football World Cup in England."
The Prime Minister was quoted in campaign literature as saying that he was fully behind that project. However, the first sign that all was not well was the decision to appoint the former Minister for Sport, the hon. Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks), as a special envoy. That was a puzzling decision, given that he had tabled an early-day motion in support of South Africa's bid to host the tournament. Labour was content to talk up the project for as long as it appeared politically expedient. At the first sign that our prospects were bleak, it wanted nothing more to do with the bid—it hung the bid team out to dry.
Mr. Christopher Fraser: May I assist my hon. Friend? In the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, I questioned the hon. Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks) about his endorsement of South Africa's bid. His response was that what one says in opposition is separate from what one does in government. That is indicative of the Government's attitude.
Mr. Day: Indeed. My hon. Friend could have been referring to many Labour policies, and its promises before the election and lack of delivery afterwards.
Nelson Mandela went to Zurich for the announcement of FIFA's decision, while the Prime Minster stayed at home. The hon. Member for West Ham has unapologetically admitted:
"I knew that if the Prime Minister came out, and we lost the bid it would have been portrayed as 'Blair's humiliation'. I could not guarantee we would win and for that reason I couldn't recommend he travel."
Such important bids require the attention of the country's leaders. Whether the Prime Minister attends should not depend on what publicity might result. That says everything about the Government's attitude and how they operate. Days after the bid was lost, the current Minister for Sport said:
"We never had a chance of winning".
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The situation at Wembley has been quite a saga. Thanks to the Government, the World cup bid has given very little help to our chances of hosting future events. The Wembley fiasco has damaged our efforts even further. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) will provide further details, but I will briefly rehearse what has happened.
In July 1999, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport said that Wembley, complete with athletics, would be the
"centrepiece of a future Olympic bid".
In November 1999, the Minister for Sport said that she would scrap the design if she could, because it was
"the wrong kind of stadium".
The following month, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport took the capricious, and much criticised, decision to scrap the design that he had praised so warmly He later explained that the Government believed that they
"could secure our aim—the best long-term deal for football, rugby league and athletics—only by removing athletics from Wembley."
It is strange, then, that Sir Rodney Walker, who took over from Ken Bates as chairman of Wembley National Stadium Ltd. in December 2000, has said that
"architects are examining design solutions for accommodating athletics".
That is a history of contradiction and indecision, and all the chaos and confusion have thrown into grave doubt our hopes of hosting a future Olympic games.
A more immediate concern is the need to deliver on a national pledge to host the 2005 world athletics championships. The Government say that that will happen at Picketts Lock, but there is no design, and transport concerns have not been properly addressed. We face a race against time to get things ready by the necessary date. More crucially, there is a large question mark over the funding of a stadium at Picketts Lock. I will leave it to my hon. Friend to explain that further, but the Government's claims do not tally with what Sport England has said. As happened with the dome, officials might be made scapegoats for a fiasco created in Whitehall.
Can the Minister shed more light on the proposals to base an Olympic bid around a stadium in east London, at Stratford? Do the Government support them? Is it true that a feasibility study would cost £300,000? Is it also the case that the British Olympic Association cannot afford to pay for that and that neither her Department nor UK Sport is willing to pay for it?
Manchester is nearer to home for me, and also for you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Our fantastic success at the Sydney Olympics bodes well for our hosting of the 2002 Commonwealth games. Preparations are progressing well. The games will he based around a £90 million stadium, with a running track, built on an earth infill. The venue will hold 38,000 spectators. After the games, it will be converted for football use and become Manchester City's new home. That will please many of my constituents, a fair proportion of whom support City. An extra tier of seating, which will increase capacity to 48,000, will be built beneath the existing two tiers.
Sport England has made £114 million available for the games. The Manchester Commonwealth 50 pool, which is the swimming pool that will be used in the

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games, received £22 million in May 1997. Eastlands SportCity, which incorporates the Commonwealth games stadium and the UK Sports Institute north-west network centre, received £92 million in March 1999. Central Government have pledged to meet the expected £10.5 million cost of the opening and closing ceremonies.
Local people are still worried that there will be a £20 million funding gap, which I understand—although it will help if the Minister explains the situation—will be passed on to the Manchester ratepayer. I presume that that means the people of the city of Manchester rather than Greater Manchester, but I would like her to clarify the point.
A Commonwealth games official stated that
"there is a real concern that there is going to be a £20 million hole and it is going to be very difficult to reduce that. The organisers have not attracted enough well known multinational companies. I am confident that the organisers could raise £30 million, but the problem is going to be where the other £20 million is going to come from."
Local people in my area, and especially those who live within the city of Manchester, are worried. The reluctance of companies to come forward is a result of many of them getting their fingers burned with the dome. The dome disaster has reached up to the north-west and caused a lack of funding from private finance. The promised Commonwealth games will be the biggest multi-sporting event in Britain since the 1948 Olympics, and the whole country is looking forward to it, but we need more than empty rhetoric, because the games will bring massive economic benefits to the Greater Manchester area, but will also bring economic concerns unless it is made clear what is to lie done about the potential gap between the available money and the cost.
I would like the Minister to assure me that, although Manchester city council has said that it will underwrite the games, that will not involve the whole of Greater Manchester and especially not my borough in Stockport. A shortfall would be a disaster for council tax and business rate payers in the city of Manchester, but there would be extreme concern were it to be spread to other local authorities beyond the borders of the city. I hope that she will clarify the situation.
You share my interest in transport issues, so you will understand my concerns, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Because the Commonwealth games is coming to Manchester, I hope that the Minister will make representations to her ministerial colleagues in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions to complete the Manchester airport eastern link road. The central section has been built, but it is not connected to the airport. I know that the eastern section—the Poynton bypass—is of especial interest to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because it will link the central section with the A6. It would also be nice if we could have the Hazel Grove A6 bypass in time for the games. It would be helpful if the Minister made representations on behalf of the numerous constituencies along the route so that the link road is built in time for the games. That is now unlikely, because the Government made the mistake of cancelling it.
The Culture, Media and Sport Committee recommended that the Government review the finances of the games, so that the scale of central Government support could finally be decided. The most worrying
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factor is the uncertainty, at the heart of which is the Government's lack of clarity about what will be their level of real—as opposed to rhetorical—support. The Committee also suggested that the Government should involve themselves more closely in the strategic management of the games. Manchester's ratepayers will not have been reassured, thus far, by the Government's silence on these fundamental issues.
If nothing else, the debate gives the Minister the opportunity to set the record straight, and I look forward to hearing her do so. I hope that she will be able to reassure us about this important issue. I thank hon. Members for listening. Finally, although I am grateful to be able to raise such matters in any forum in the House, they should be debated in the main Chamber of the House of Commons, not in this mock Chamber.
11.16 am
Mr. Ivor Caplin: I am pleased to see you in the Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It would be strange to have a Wednesday morning without seeing you, as I normally would in the Modernisation Committee.
I came here this morning intending only to listen, but I am afraid that the final comment by the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr. Day) has forced me to my feet. It implied that Conservative Members do not accept parliamentary democracy as we do. The House decided that Westminster Hall was a good idea.
Mr. Nick Hawkins: Does not the hon. Gentleman accept that it is precisely because Conservative Members believe in parliamentary democracy that we believe that debates such as this should be dealt with in the traditional way in the main Chamber of the House of Commons? Perhaps 30 or 40 Members would then have been present, not five or six. If—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Nicholas Winterton): Order. The debate is about the staging of international sporting events, not whether there should be sittings in Westminster Hall—although on that subject, I am happy to tell hon. Members that last night the House took a decision, for which I am grateful, officially to reappoint myself and three colleagues as additional Deputy Speakers. That was long overdue.
Mr. Caplin: I fear that I am straying into business of the House matters, which is not allowed. Suffice it to say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that with your guidance we now debate four times as many Back-Bench issues as before. That is why we have the time to debate this important matter.
I start where the hon. Member for Cheadle finished—in Manchester. I was fortunate enough to visit Manchester in January with several colleagues and the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins). I do not recall seeing the hon. Member for Cheadle there. Of course, you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, are a vice-chairman of the all-party Commonwealth games 2002 group, in which I am happy to be the token southerner.
Mr. Hawkins rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I hope that this is relevant.
Mr. Hawkins: On a sporting matter, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman may have forgotten that

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I am also an officer of the group, as the Member of Parliament whose constituency includes the only southern venue in the Commonwealth games—Bisley, where the shooting events will be held. He and I are the two very much more than token southerners of the group.
Mr. Caplin: I was never much good at geography.
During my visit to Manchester, I was astounded by the way in which preparations for this important sporting event are progressing. The swimming arena was first class, and we should have many more like it. I know that that is the plan of the Amateur Swimming Association. The design of the arena is superb, and it was in full use on the day that I was there. I have asked people in the city of Brighton and Hove to consider the development of the seafront area, which has some old, out-of-date swimming facilities. I hope that that will be possible.
The swimming facility in Manchester is first class and worthy of a visit from anyone. I was hugely impressed when I went to the main stadium arena. It was possible to gain the impression, even though the grass and track had not been laid, of a stadium that would be really something, not just for Manchester but for the whole country. The Commonwealth games are a celebration not just for the north-west but for the entire United Kingdom. The event will be a coming together.
The hon. Member for Cheadle rather talked down the city of Manchester, which was unfortunate. The people and politicians of Manchester have made good progress in developing the stadium and the facilities that they need. A comparison can be made with major sporting events in other countries, and they are way ahead in their preparations.
Mr. Day: I was not running down the city of Manchester. I think that I praised the preparation work so far. The uncertainty comes from the Government, not the city of Manchester. If anything I was standing up for the people of the city of Manchester and Greater Manchester, who may—although I hope not—be presented with a large bill. We need clarity about the Government's attitude.
Mr. Caplin: The hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I allow my hon. Friend the Minister to deal with those issues. She and my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, who has been leading the Government's task force on the matters in question, are much closer to them.
I accept what the hon. Gentleman said. I found Manchester first class. I had the impression of a city that was ready to stage the Commonwealth games. As soon as I arrived at the airport I encountered marketing and advertising about the games. When I talked to ordinary people, I had the impression that they were ready to host the Commonwealth games in summer 2002, and looking forward to it. I, too, look forward to attending.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned Wembley. I was one of those who vigorously lobbied my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State about whether athletics should be included at Wembley stadium. My view is not a secret:
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I wanted athletics out. I believe that Wembley should be primarily a football stadium, able to hold rugby league and rugby union events as well. That is also the view of the all-party football group, of which I am an officer. We have strong views about it, which we made clear to my right hon. Friend at the appropriate time. I argued in favour of the decision to remove athletics from the plan. I thought that athletics confused the issue and would delay the project.
I have no problems with respect to the team that is now running the project. Wembley National Stadium Ltd. has a good project to pursue. However, Wembley is a football arena, and has been for 80-odd years—since it was built. To include international athletics would be difficult. There is no space for the additional facilities that are needed. As a local example, it was possible in Brighton this year to stage, for the first time in 30 years, the south of England athletics championships. That was possible because the athletics stadium had been improved, so that, ironically, football could be played there, but also because warm-up facilities had been attached. Those are a requirement in international athletics.
I know the stadium area well and it would clearly not be possible to provide the type of facilities that my hon. Friend the Minister saw in Sydney, about which a great deal has been said. I was delighted with the Secretary of State's decision. It was right. The challenge for Rodney Walker and his team is to rebuild Wembley so that it is ready for business as quickly as possible.
I shall work backwards through the points made by the hon. Member for Cheadle. The World cup bid was worthwhile; we will not be regarded as a serious player if we do not say that we want to stage such events. The outcome was interesting: it was decided not by Governments but by FIFA. The hon. Gentleman's accusation that the Labour party did not support the bid was futile. It was clear that we did support the bid. When I arrived in the House in 1997, I understood that the 2006 World cup bid was supported not just by the Labour party but by the Conservative party. Now that the bid has been lost, coats are turning.
Mr. Fraser: I have just come from the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, where the same subject is being discussed. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the comment by Simon Clegg of the BOA that the Government and the Prime Minister should have been involved throughout, and that we might have missed an opportunity to stage the Olympic games in 2012? The inference is that the Prime Minister did not get behind the hid.
Mr. Caplin: I have been playing football, which I find healthier than attending Culture, Media and Sport Committee meetings, so I cannot comment on what Simon Clegg said, although I have met him many times, including in the week before my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made his decision about Wembley. I told him at that time—before what has happened in the past 36 hours—that I could not see how the BOA could produce a proper plan to stage the Olympic games in London. I accept that events have since moved on, but at that stage no progress had been made on Wembley, so the decision was right. There are now new ideas, and I hope that the BOA can make progress, as I would like the Olympic games to be staged in London, if possible.

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Like many others, I believe that the Manchester Commonwealth games will be a huge success. I hope that all political parties will maintain their backing and support for the people of Manchester and the north-west for the staging of this important international event, which will be seen in perhaps 50 or 100 countries. As politicians, we should say what we believe. That is what the Labour party has done with regard to sport. We backed the 2006 bid and lost. That is how it goes. We backed 2002 in Manchester. It will be a success. I hope that there will be a future bid for the Olympic games that we can also back.
11.28 am
Mr. Christopher Fraser: The hon. Member for Hove (Mr. Caplin) has a passion for football. The Conservative party would like to give him the opportunity to spend all his time playing football in the next few months, so that he can take up some of the issues that he has mentioned this morning. I shall report his views about the Culture, Media and Sport Committee to his colleagues on that Committee, who are discussing this subject. I have heard more talk of sport in the Palace of Westminster this morning—both in that Committee and in this Chamber—than I have heard from the Government since the 1997 election. That is a sad indictment of this Administration.
The debate is timely. In May, Cardiff will host the FA cup, having already hosted a very successful Worthington cup final. Although football has been thrown out of Wembley stadium, we are no closer to knowing what to expect in 2004 The millennium stadium in Cardiff cost £120 million and has already been host to world and major domestic events, yet estimates of the cost of the proposed new Wembley stadium are between £475 million and £660 million—I am sure that the Minister will confirm those figures today. The latter figure would make it the world's most expensive sporting venue. That cost compares badly with the £260 million paid to build the Olympic stadium in Sydney, which I visited with the Select Committee—we were impressed with what was achieved with that sum—and with the Stade de France in Paris, which hosted the most recent World cup final, and the cost of which was also estimated at £260 million.
Not only does Wembley appear incredibly overpriced, but it has changed its concept. The original concept was for a multi-purpose stadium to stage athletic events. The bottom tier of seats would have been retracted and a running track inserted above the pitch. The Secretary of State explained:
"It has hitherto been the desire of this Administration—and, indeed, of the previous Government—that England should have a stadium able to stage a wide range of the world's major sporting events. As the House knows from previous debates and questions, the consistent aim has been to design a new national stadium that can stage the premier events of football, rugby and athletics."
However, there were serious reservations about the feasibility of the design. One of the main causes of contention was that the reduced capacity following the insertion of the athletic track would have been below the 65,000 required by the International Olympic Committee for an Olympic bid.
A report prepared by sports architects DLA Ellerbe Becket raised serious doubts about the stadium design for international athletics events. The Secretary of State explained the report's findings by saying:
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"In any likely configuration, the sightlines for large numbers of spectators would be poor, and in some cases could fail Olympic requirements; the seating space for individual spectators would be far from ideal; the roof would cover some lanes of the track and not others; there would be no portal for people and equipment to gain access to the deck; the east-west alignment of the track would be detrimental to athletes; and, for any Olympic games, the deck would have to be constructed and in place for at least a year in advance, which could render the stadium unusable for international standard football for more than two years."
He said:
"My reluctant conclusion from the Ellerbe Becket report is that the stadium as designed—or in any similar configuration—cannot readily provide the central venue for an Olympic games bid for London."
Mr. Hawkins: Does my hon. Friend agree that one concern that we repeatedly expressed—not during the time of the current Minister—was that this Government made the mistake of going for the trendiest, most fashionable architects and ended up with an appalling design that, when it was presented to hon. Members, was clearly seen to have all the failings that it took the Secretary of State so long to appreciate?
Mr. Fraser: One need only look at the dome to realise that one does not design a sweet wrapper without knowing what the sweet inside will be.
The Secretary of State continued:
"Furthermore, it seems unlikely that it could provide an appropriate venue for the world athletics championships, for which we hope to bid in 2005. It will, however, be able to provide the best venue in the world for the 2006 football world cup."—[Official Report, 1 December 1999; Vol. 340, c. 305-6.]
Three weeks later, the Secretary of State made a further statement, which is worth repeating, because it is important that we consider what he said. He said:
"Since my Statement to the House of Commons on I December, we have made considerable progress in resolving the difficult issues raised by the DLA Ellerbe Becket report…while WNSL have successfully addressed many of the concerns highlighted by Ellerbe Becket, it is widely accepted that the proposed stadium is not the ideal for athletics. There is general agreement therefore that, subject to the satisfactory conclusion of further detailed discussions among the interested parties, Wembley should be the focus of a world class stadium for football and rugby league and that alternative arrangements should be made for athletics…In the light of the prospective agreement between Sport England, the Football Association and WNSL on a revised Lottery Funding Agreement based on the new Wembley Stadium being focused on football and rugby league, the Football Association has proposed that £20 million of the existing Lottery grant be returned to Sport England."
He explained that
"the return of this money to Sport England together with the sums Sport England had earmarked for financing the conversion of Wembley to athletics mode for covering any loss of revenue while in athletics mode and for the purchase of land and construction of the athletics warm-up facility, will give Sport England scope to consider alternative options for an athletics venue in London."
The situation is complicated, but that was worth putting on the record, because an awful lot has happened. The overriding problem of the complete mess is that a venue is required so that London can host the 2005 world athletic championships, because a successful bid was announced on 3 May 2000. That is fantastic for London, Britain and British athletics, but the nub of the problem is whether a feasible and worthy venue can be provided.

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In a statement in December, the Secretary of State suggested:
"Since 1 December, Sport England has together with UK Sport, UK Athletics, the British Olympic Association and my Department undertaken further work on the non-Wembley options for staging international athletics events in London. In this context, I particularly welcome the proposal from the Rugby Football Union that Twickenham be used for such events.
Constructive initial discussions have taken place between the DCMS, Sport England, the RFU and the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Sport England is taking forward further immediate work to establish the viability of this and other possible sites as the venue for the World Athletics Championships in 2005 and a further announcement will be made once this work has been completed.
This work will be carried out in close co-operation with UK Athletics, and the Government will wish to do everything possible to assist a bid for the 2005 event. Sport England will also assess the extent to which possible venues can be readily upgraded to accommodate Olympic requirements.
The Government remains committed to supporting a viable UK Olympic bid and is continuing its discussions with the British Olympic Association, UK Sport, and Sport England on the possibilities of a London bid for the Olympic Games."
On 25 March last year, UK Athletics chose Lee Valley park in north-east London ahead of three other contenders, including Twickenham, as the preferred site to stage the 2005 championships. In response to a parliamentary question, the Secretary of State said:
"UK Athletics selected Picketts Lock as the site on which to base their bid for the 2005 World Athletics Championships following extensive discussions with Sport England, UK Sport, the Government Office for London, a number of local authorities and with my Department. Since the success of the bid, the Lee Valley Stadium project team comprising the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority and UK Athletics have commissioned consultants to advise on the optimum design for the stadium and on business planning options."
On the same day, the Minister for Sport said:
"UK Athletics are required to give the IAAF a progress report on the staging arrangements, including the development of the venue, by the middle of next year."—[Official Report, 30 October 2000; Vol. 355, c. 327W.]
That is this year, so I would like to hear a full progress report this morning.
Questions have also been raised about the suitability of the proposed venue. My hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Mr. Faber)—alas, he is not present, as he is currently quizzing the Sports Council and others about similar issues in a Select Committee meeting—asked how many of the seats at the proposed Lee Valley stadium would be provided on a temporary basis for the world athletics championships in 2005. The Minister for Sport replied:
"According to the current design concept developed by Drivers Jonas as part of the feasibility study for the Lee Valley Stadium, between 15,000 and 20,000 of the 40,000–45,000 seats available for the World Championships will not be included in the long-term legacy stadium."—[Official Report, 30 October 2000; Vol. 355, c. 326W.]
It is unclear how the stadium will attain the 65,000 seats needed under International Olympic Association guidelines for the hosting of future Olympic games. That is one of the main difficulties with the design for Wembley, although I accept that it is not the only one.
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My hon. Friend also asked what assessment the British Olympic Association had made of the suitability of the proposed Lee Valley stadium as a venue for track and field athletics and the opening and closing ceremonies of a London Olympic games. The Minister replied:
"I have received no such assessment. The British Olympic Association are involved in discussions about the possible future uses of the stadium and attend meetings of the Lee Valley Stadium Forum."
We know that the BOA has since made an assessment of the feasibility of London hosting the Olympics in 2012 or 2016, but we are not allowed to see it.
My hon. Friend asked whether it was Government policy that the proposed Lee Valley stadium should be capable of being upgraded to act as the venue for track and field athletics and the opening and closing ceremonies of a London Olympic games. The Minister said:
"The main priority for the project partners involved with the development of the new National Athletics Stadium is to provide a world class facility capable of hosting the World Athletics Championships in 2005 which is also capable of ensuring that athletics have a national centre for the future development of the sport. No decisions have been taken which would rule out the possibility of the stadium being used as a venue for a future Olympic Games."—[Official Report, 30 October 2000; Vol. 355, c. 326W.]
Mr. Caplin: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Fraser: No. You have had your say. Perhaps you can intervene when the Minister sums up.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have not had my say at all, although the hon. Member for Hove (Mr. Caplin) may have had his say. Perhaps the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mr. Fraser) could use parliamentary language correctly.
Mr. Fraser: I am always interested in what you have to say, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If I had not been so rudely interrupted by the hon. Member for Hove, I could have finished my speech and allowed him, you or any other hon. Member to say what they wanted.
Mr. Day: Had you had an opportunity to have your say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you certainly would not have let it pass without mentioning the Poynton bypass.
Mr. Fraser: Now I will have my say. I am sure that the hon. Member for Hove can speak later if time permits.
We do not know the cost of Wembley stadium or what progress has been made, yet it is set to begin hosting sporting events in 2004. We do not know how much the proposed Lee Valley stadium will cost or when progress will be made towards its development, yet we are assured that it will be ready to host the 2005 world athletics championships. In addition, we do not know whether those plans will aid or hinder a future Olympic bid for London. We do know that the Department and the Government have presided over yet another fiasco. We thought that things could only get better after the dome, but sadly they have not.
Ken Bates, who was at the time chairman of Wembley National Stadium Ltd., accused the Minister of "interfering" in the redevelopment of Wembley football

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stadium and of "constantly undermining" him. He also said that her period of office had been characterised by ignorance. I have an awful lot of respect for her in many other spheres, but I should like her to respond to that point made against her by Ken Bates. Appearing before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, on which I serve, he said that it was
"more in sorrow than in anger"
that he contrasted the "mess over Wembley" with the success of the Australian Olympic stadium. He said that there had been
"nothing but criticism and undermining based on nothing but ignorance… The Government should have been on the sidelines cheering us on but instead spent 19 months knocking"
the project. He commented:
"We only know what she thinks when we read the newspapers".
I am afraid that that is nothing new. In fact, it would be interesting to see that in the first line of the Labour party manifesto, because we know what is happening on so many matters only when we read about them in the paper and not when they are discussed in this place.
Several questions need to be answered. How much will the new Wembley stadium cost? What progress has been made towards its development? Will Sport England get its £20 million back, and how did the Government arrive at that figure? Is the Lee Valley stadium a suitable venue for an Olympic bid in 2012 or 2016 and will it be ready in time for the championships in 2005, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr. Day) asked? Does the Minister believe that the fiasco over which the Government have presided throughout their term of office has made Britain more or less viable as a venue for international sporting events, including the Olympics?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Before I call the next speaker, I point out that this is a very important debate and I want the shadow Minister and the Minister for Sport to have adequate time to reply to all the questions. Is the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) present as a Back Bencher or as the spokesman for his party, as the office of the Chairman of Ways and Means gave me notice that the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones) was supposed to be present to reply on behalf of the Liberal Democrats?
Mr. Richard Allan: My hon. Friend was not able to be here. I wanted to come because Sheffield has a great interest in international sporting events. I am wrapping up the two functions, as it were.
11.46 am
Mr. Nick Hawkins: I congratulate you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on your reappointment.
While I share the strong views expressed by my hon. Friends the Members for Cheadle (Mr. Day) and for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mr. Fraser) in their criticisms of the Government, I do not propose to attack the Minister. As she knows, and as has been said, we respect her as an individual. We believe that she was handed a poisoned chalice, and while 1 do not agree with everything that she says on sport, she has done her best to support athletics and sport in general. I wish to
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concentrate on serious issues and problems that arose before her time and that she, as a junior Minister, has perhaps not been able to sort out.
Where I make criticisms of the Government, they are targeted on the Minister's predecessor and on the Secretary of State. Opposition Members, and especially those of us who are passionate about sport—as I have always been—often get extremely irritated by his pathetic attempts to paint himself as a sports enthusiast when, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole said, he has presided over a series of fiascos in which his lack of attention to and interest in sport to back up the hype have been only too evident.
There are many positive aspects to sport in this country. I pay particular tribute to the work of Sport England, which, led by Trevor Brooking and Derek Casey, has done a fantastic job in the past few years, not least in delivering the vision originally set out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) when he was Prime Minister. As I have said, it would be appropriate if in due course the national lottery became known as the Major lottery. There is no doubt that without my right hon. Friend's decisions, we would not have had the huge injection of capital for sport and the development of sporting facilities.
In considering recent political history, and my right hon. Friend's term of office—indeed, his whole political career—one of the biggest tributes to him will undoubtedly be the fact that he created the lottery. It was not universally popular at the time. Indeed, it was roundly attacked by many Labour Members in opposition: they said that it would never work and would be a fiasco and they doubted that it would provide what we consistently said it would in terms of sporting facilities. Now that they are in government, they of course behave as though it was their idea all along but those of us who were here in the previous Parliament remember the bitter debates about the concept of the lottery, and the savage criticisms that many Labour Members made of it. I remember in particular the attacks on my right hon. Friend when he said that it would provide huge amounts of new money for sport.
The Government have been ready to claim credit for sporting success—not least that of our Olympians, who produced the best performance by a British Olympic squad for 80 years. Much of their success—and the Olympians acknowledged it—was due to lottery funding, particularly of elite sportsmen and women. Without the drive and determination of my right hon. Friend, and the Ministers and Back Benchers who supported him, there would have been no lottery funding.
Mr. Caplin: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hawkins: I will in a moment.
I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway). He and I were Conservative Back Benchers in the previous Parliament and we regularly spoke in sporting debates to support my right hon. Friend and to back up his vision of lottery support for elite sportsmen and women leading to Olympic and international sporting success.

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I now give way to someone whose sporting achievements should be recognised—he has scored some extraordinary goals for the parliamentary football team—even though I passionately disagree with him about politics.
Mr. Caplin: I served on the Committee considering the National Lottery Bill in 1998 when changes to the new opportunities fund were bitterly opposed by the Conservatives.
Mr. Hawkins: The hon. Gentleman is right. I did not serve on that Committee, but my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole did. We felt that the Labour Government were wrong to take money away from sport by the creation of this so-called new opportunities fund, because it completely undermined what Labour Members had said in the previous Parliament—the hon. Member for Hove was not then a Member of Parliament—about the National Lottery etc. Act 1993.
I clearly recall from debates in the House that Labour Members constantly insisted on no substitution, or no use of lottery funding for matters generally funded out of taxpayers' revenue—especially health and education. Labour Member after Labour Member declared that lottery moneys should never be used to supplement health or education spending, which should always be funded through general taxation. What did the Labour Government do when they came to power? They introduced the new opportunities fund, so that resources could be diverted to health and education. They attempted to explain the U-turn by claiming that only specific projects within health and education were affected. Without doubt, however, as a result of the creation of the new opportunities fund, fewer resources were directed to sport. The lottery was hugely more successful—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hesitate to intervene, but I have advised hon. Members that we should stick to the subject of our important debate—the staging of international sporting events. I want to ensure that those who have not yet spoken—not least, the Minister—have the opportunity to do so. I would appreciate it if the hon. Gentleman would direct his remarks to the specific issue before us.
Mr. Hawkins: I am sorry, but I was tempted too far down that road by the intervention of the hon. Member for Hove.
I have already mentioned Sport England, which emphasised the benefits to the whole country of hosting major international sporting events. I am fortunate that part of the Bisley shooting ranges—the only southern venue for the Commonwealth games in 2002—lies within my constituency. The boundary between my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) crosses the shooting ranges. I have always taken a personal interest in all sports, and I am proud to represent the village of Bisley. I hope that my constituents will benefit hugely from the staging of the Commonwealth games in Britain.
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Sport England is right about the substantial economic impact of international sporting events. Infrastructure developments required to stage events remain for the benefit of the public after the event is over, and there are other longer-term gains. The Euro 96 football championship attracted 280,000 visiting supporters who spent more than £120 million in the eight host cities.
The Minister and I agree about the importance of sporting tourism. Sadly threatened by the tragic foot and mouth epidemic, tourism is the fastest growing industry in the UK. When that problem is behind us, sporting tourism will once again become a significant economic generator of income and jobs. The additional expenditure by visitors to Euro 96 was estimated at £195 million, with a further £64 million paid in taxation. The Barcelona Olympics in 1992 also provide a good example of the long-term economic benefits that major events can bring to a country. That event certainly put Barcelona on the tourism map. We all know about the huge economic impact of the 2000 Olympics on Sydney.
There is no doubt that governing bodies use major events to build on existing sports development. One of the sports that I am passionate about is cricket. The efforts of the England and Wales Cricket Board surrounding the 1999 World cup included employment of numerous cricket development officers, £120,000 of funding from Sport England, and promotion of the event as a carnival of cricket. Despite the fact that our test side had not yet undergone its recent welcome rejuvenation and success, the country as a whole benefited. The enthusiasm for cricket, especially among children, was hugely beneficial. World cup matches were taken all around the country, particularly to areas with large ethnic minority populations, and considerable efforts were made to attract younger supporters.
Many of us have talked about the vital importance of covering international sporting events that are held in this country on terrestrial television. I feel strongly that youngsters who participate in sport are far less likely to get into trouble with crime, and drugs in particular, because sport is a healthy activity. To encourage them into sport, youngsters should be able to see sporting events and their heroes on television. Unfortunately, the families of many youngsters in inner-city areas cannot afford satellite television, so it is vital that international sporting events are shown on terrestrial channels. I hope that that will always be possible.
I could say a great deal more about social regeneration and the Commonwealth games in Manchester. I was among the Members of Parliament and of the European Parliament who visited the Manchester Commonwealth games venues. I wish that tournament every success, and not only the shooting events that will be held in my constituency. I agree with what the hon. Member for Hove (Mr. Caplin) said about the superb swimming facilities. Competitive swimming was by far my best sport when I was young. I was fortunate enough to swim at county and area level—I was not quite good enough to get into the national squad—and I have always been passionate about sport. I believe that Britain has a great future in developing its sporting facilities and hosting international sporting events.

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My final point is about an article in today's edition of The Daily Telegraph by its chief sports writer, Paul Hayward, a journalist whom I respect. I read it on my way into the House this morning. He is savagely critical about the lack of infrastructure, and especially transport. He directed his remarks to the Select Committee hearing this morning and asked how this country can make a credible bid for the 2012 Olympics if we cannot solve our infrastructure problems. I believe that we can host the Olympics. I am not sure whether that will happen in 2012—the competition has not yet been held—but I will support this country whenever it bids for international sporting events. However, I think that the journalist was right to say that we must get our act together. Sometimes we run ourselves down too much, but the article raised serious issues.
I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) will continue his commitment to sport. I believe that the Minister will do her best for sport, even though she represents a Government who have made many mistakes in that respect. I wish that she did not have to cope with the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister, who have done a huge amount of damage to the country.
11.58 am
Mr. Richard Allan: I was moved to participate in the debate because of Sheffield's experience. This year is the 10th anniversary of the World student games, staged in 1991. In many ways, Manchester is dealing with similar issues.
I should declare an interest: I am an unremunerated director of Sheffield City Trust, which is the charitable company that was set up to manage the sporting venues after the World student games events were staged. My agenda is not to pick over the bones of what happened in 1991; it is about making things work now, as best we can. That is why I want to draw hon. Members' attention to our experience of a major event in Sheffield 10 years ago.
I am disappointed at the business plan's over-optimism about the sponsorship and cost of the event in Manchester. That is a recurrent theme in international sporting events. As the Select Committee report on Manchester showed, people are left scrabbling around at a late stage trying to plug financial holes. In the case of Sheffield, the hole was not plugged and the people of Sheffield are still paying for events that cost more than the original projections. That is a particular problem when local authorities are leading the events.
One of the most important recommendations of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee is that national Government should take the lead, with local authorities acting as partners, because acting as the lead agent is too great a financial risk for local government. I hope that local citizens in Manchester do not have the same problems in that respect as those in Sheffield.
By contrast, Euro 96 was a good experience for Sheffield because it was a national event. The Danes moved in and, true to their stereotype, managed to drink the city dry, yet there were no problems whatever. The event was a great boost for Sheffield. We should learn the lesson that it is better to accept the full cost of staging international sporting events at the outset, rather than trying to put together a business plan that will fall apart later.
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The Culture, Media and Sport Committee report stated that Government strategy should set out clearly the rationale for public support for and investment in sport. The rationale is important in international events. We may have to accept that the financial hole created by an event will not be plugged by sponsorship and that it will cost the Exchequer £10 million, £20 million or even £50 million, and justify that cost in other ways, rather than making a plan that is intended to cover the cost, but finding later that the Exchequer ends up paying, either directly or through the local taxpayers.
People should not be able to justify or attack a project on the basis of their own partisan considerations. That happens in all parties: the Labour opposition in Sheffield attacks the Lib Dem administration when it dedicates council funds to support sporting events , just as the Lib Dems did when they were in opposition and Labour was in power in the city. There will probably be similar rows and recriminations on the political scene in Manchester, not when the event is going on, as people tend to pull together then, but when it is over. After the event, no one has the facts to be able to confirm that the event brought in the promised funds, or to say how that money was spent.
The Select Committee report makes a worthwhile recommendation that research into the matter should be a priority. We should have a more objective understanding of the costs and benefits of a sporting event rather than leaving it to partisan political operatives to find the facts that suit their case.
In considering the subsequent benefit from major events we should look at the role of sporting bodies in the United Kingdom. I am something of an outsider in these matters, as sport is not my specialty. I became involved by working with sporting venues and I was shocked at the bidding to hold events at sporting centres. I was told recently about events for which Sheffield was bidding. The city felt that it was being used to bid up the amount that the winning venue would receive. The bidding wars are ridiculous enough at national level; at international events they are appalling. I hope that the Government will use their weight to persuade international bodies to take action to stop "beauty contests" and ridiculous amounts being spent.
There is insufficient clarity or accountability in the processes at national level, too, and with more venues coming on stream all the time, the situation can only get worse. Cities throughout the country will be asked to bid for events. They will feel that they must go cap in hand to bodies that they do not believe are accountable to try to secure events to keep their venues open. Missing out on events can cause financial ruin. I hope that the Minister will say that the Government favour a stronger voice for cities and regions that try to hold events, rather than leaving them alone to go cap in hand.
The UK Sports Institute was intended to assist the strategy of creating centres of sporting excellence and to boost our ability to stage events. Sheffield will play a major part, and we are grateful to the sporting bodies for their investment. However, we are still disappointed that we did not get the headquarters, despite the fact that we felt that our bid would have reduced the overall costs of the institute. The decision to go for London was unimaginative and part of a London-centric perspective, which we as outsiders feel still pervades sport. We heard the argument that people from abroad

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would not want to go outside London. That is depressing, particularly given that we have a major centre of excellence in Sheffield, with two universities doing work in sports medicine, science and nutrition and events research. We have no trouble attracting people from throughout the UK and around the world to Sheffield, yet some sporting bodies do not support and invest in our area as much as they could.
I finish with a plea to the Minister to respond to the helpful report from the Culture, Media and Sport Committee by opening up the process of sports event decision making. Most funding is public, through central or local government grants and lottery money, but I do not believe that the stakeholders—the cities and regions of the UK—have a sufficient voice. We should have a national strategy that holds the debates on bidding for events in a public and accountable forum among the various cities and regions involved. If we had such a debate, we could accept the decisions, but as it is, individual sporting centres feel powerless in the process, which does not appear to be democratic or open. I hope that the Government will realise that, if they want a successful sport strategy, we need a national framework, so that event organisers in Sheffield or Manchester, for example, can take part in the process, rather than simply in the bitter and recriminatory cycle of finding that they have not been as successful as they expected.
12.7 pm
Mr. John Greenway: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr. Day) on securing the debate. He and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mr. Fraser) have already discussed Wembley and Picketts Lock, and many people are anxious about whether those prestigious projects will be completed as originally intended or in the appropriate time scale. We must not lose sight of the fact that Wembley was meant to be a national, multi-purpose stadium. It will not be such a stadium, which I believe represents a failure of public policy.
As long ago as July 1999, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport said that the new design for Wembley would make it
"the finest arena in the world".
It was to be an arena for athletics, as well as for soccer and rugby, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle reminded us, the centrepiece of an Olympic bid. We have come a long way since then and the Secretary of State might think that he is right to kick athletics out of Wembley. I do not want to go into that argument again except to say that, as recently as December, the Minister said in a Radio 4 interview following the appointment of Sir Rodney Walker that athletics might be reinstated, renewing speculation that that was the Government's preferred option.
We also know that Wembley National Stadium Ltd. has always been willing to stick to the original design of the stadium so that major athletic events could be held there. That will now not happen, which focuses attention on where we will host the 2005 world athletics championships. It is now abundantly clear from what Sir Rodney Walker has said that Wembley cannot
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possibly host the athletics championships in the nightmare scenario that the proposed Lee Valley national athletics centre at Picketts Lock is not ready. That is what the Minister must face up to. The event must be held at Picketts Lock or it cannot be held in London at all. It is vital that Picketts Lock goes ahead so that it can host those 2005 world athletics championships and to honour the Secretary of State's obligation to the International Amateur Athletics Federation to provide a suitable venue in London.
Before I raise some questions about Picketts Lock, we should pause to think about a few matters relating to Wembley. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole rightly drew attention to the comparative costs of Wembley and other new stadiums, including the marvellous Olympics 2000 stadium in Sydney that we all saw on our television screens. It was built for rather less money and it may have been less ambitious. The scale of Wembley has created problems.
The events this week have highlighted just how important the Wembley project will be to provide again a major venue for soccer in London. With Wembley awaiting demolition there is nowhere in London to host the semi-final of the FA cup between Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur—a match in which the Minister and I share an interest. I am fascinated to know why Chelsea's ground at Stamford Bridge was not thought suitable. Equally, football supporters generally have not been given an adequate explanation why Twickenham, which is one of the finest stadiums in the world, is not considered suitable for football.
Mr. Caplin: Nimbyism.
Mr. Greenway: The hon. Gentleman may be right. I know that this is not the subject of the debate and I crave your indulgence, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I should like to take this opportunity to say that the decision to host the match at Old Trafford at 1.30 on a Sunday afternoon is crass and shows that the interests of football supporters are not being considered. All that matters is the television schedule. I suspect that many fans who might have gone had t he game been held in London will not now do so.
Can the Minister clarify the situation with regard to Wembley's commitment to repay £20 million of its £120 million lottery grant? Many outside observers think that that has been done, not least because the Secretary of State has made clear his intention that the £20 million should be used towards the cost of Picketts Lock. Is not the truth that the money has not been repaid? I wrote to him before Christmas and in a reply dated 14 January he said that the agreement that has been renegotiated will not give effect to the repayment of the £20 million until— this is very important and I do not think that it has come out in public as yet—
"the successful completion of Wembley's loan syndication."
Can the Minister confirm that that means that the money has not been repaid and that it is conditional on Wembley being able t o raise through loan syndication the money that is necessary for the Wembley redevelopment to go ahead?
We know that the £20 million is crucial to funding the development of the proposed Lee Valley national athletics centre at Picketts Lock. We are told that it will

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cost £95 million. I am grateful to the Minister for placing in the Library the minutes of the Lee Valley stadium forum meetings. That has helped us to monitor the progress on the project. The minutes of the 16 January meeting state that Mr. Shaun Dawson, speaking on behalf of the Lee Valley regional park authority, reminded the forum that the feasibility studies completed in November estimated that a new stadium would cost approximately £95 million and that there was a funding gap of £23 million. Does the figure of £23 million refer to the £20 million that is to be paid back, or does the £72 million that is secured include the £20 million? If that is the case, there is still a funding gap of £23 million, and £20 million may still not come back.
I understand that the Secretary of State attempted a few weeks ago to give an assurance to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee that the funding for Picketts Lock was secured, but the briefing note for this debate from Sport England says that the conclusions of the feasibility studies will help the
"panel make an informed decision as and when it receives an application for the proposed Picketts Lock stadium to receive Lottery funding."
That shows that there is no commitment as yet from Sport England to fund the project, although I am sure that it will treat the matter sympathetically.
As the Minister knows, I have tabled questions to her regarding the timetable for Picketts Lock, and I note the progress that she outlined in the Lee Valley stadium forum report. However, many questions remain unanswered. What time is allocated for the design brief, consultation over planning, and completion of the planning application? Will the Secretary of State for the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions be required to determine the application? Will a public inquiry be necessary? What proposals are there for transport infrastructure including a new railway station and a road link to the M25, the construction of 3,000 units of residential accommodation and warm-up facilities and the demolition of the existing centre including the indoor bowling facilities, which will not be replaced under present plans?
What proposals are there for the tendering process to secure the contract cost and for the funding gap? We all know that that must be done, but we seek from the Minister a little more candour and a sense of urgency about the mammoth task associated with the project. As Sir Rodney Walker has said, the development of Wembley is at least two years ahead of Picketts Lock. If Wembley will not be ready by autumn 2004, how can anyone be confident that Picketts Lock will be?
I wish to stress, yet again, that the Minister must get a grip of the problem. If the Picketts Lock project fails, the Government of the day could have a major embarrassment on their hands. Who would then trust us to host a major international sporting event in the future? Our reputation is at stake. As the Minister knows, these issues have been repeatedly articulated in the national press. I will be charitable, and not refer to some of the things that have been said. However, regarding the current discussion of an Olympic bid, we are, quite frankly, miles away from being in a position to launch such a bid. We should first make a success of the Manchester 2002 games. I have been there and seen the stadium under construction, and I believe that the games will be successful.
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We must also ensure that we honour our obligation to show what we can do in hosting the 2005 international athletics championships. That is the real task facing the Government—not only this Government, but the Government who will replace them after the general election. It is only then, when we have made a success of those two great events, that we should turn our attention to hosting an Olympic bid.
If the 2002 games and the 2005 championships are successful, the rest of the world will want to come to Britain, and will treat with urgency and respect the possibility of the Olympics coming to this country.
12.19 pm
The Minister for Sport (Kate Hoey): I congratulate the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr. Day) on securing the debate. It is normal to say that such a debate is timely, but on this occasion it is untimely as it clashes with this morning's Culture, Media and Sport Committee meeting on the same subject. That is unfortunate, because I know that many hon. Members would have liked to attend. I look forward to the Select Committee's detailed report. Many questions have been asked today, and I will not be able to answer every one, but I undertake to write if specific questions are not answered.
I emphasise that the Government and the country support the staging of international events and recognise their importance. I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman about that. The events bring a feelgood factor to a country, as seen by the effect of the Sydney Olympics on Australia. They also help the economic state of the country in aspects such as regeneration and improvements to transport infrastructure. I assure him that I will pass on his comments about transport links to my colleagues in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions.
The staging of international sporting events gives our elite sportsmen and sportswomen the opportunity to appear on the world stage in their home country. That is why the Commonwealth games will be important, and we are determined to make them a success. The games will be important not only for Manchester but for the north-west and the whole country. One of the Select Committee report's suggestions was that a Minister should have overall responsibility for such large events. That is why the Prime Minister gave my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Cabinet Office that responsibility. He has ensured that all factors work together. The games are not only about sport but about bringing together other aspects of the event. That is why a huge amount is being invested in the festival side of the games.
The support that the games have received through Sport England has been mentioned. Everyone is confident that the facilities will be wonderful and that those that are yet to be completed will be completed on time, and will bring great credit to the country. However, other Government support will be given, which shows that everybody must work together towards such an event. The Department of Health, at substantial cost, is appointing an assistant medical director over two years. The Department for Education and Employment is funding a range of education projects linked to the games. The Department for International Development is giving a grant for

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education to the Commonwealth Institute. A range of arts facilities will be provided for the spirit of friendship festival, which will receive £1 million of lottery funding. People say that lottery funding is not Government funding. It is not Exchequer funding, but public funding that comes from people who spend money on the lottery.
The hon. Member for Cheadle was right to point to the funding gap, but that potential gap will remain only if sponsorship money is not received. At present, all those involved in the Commonwealth games are confident that the money will be raised. The games organisers are clear that they are ahead of sponsorship expectancy and further announcements are expected soon. The revenue target of £62 million is ambitious, and it is true that people who wish to win a bid are sometimes overly optimistic—that was the experience of Sheffield. However, the organisers have already attracted £30 million of commercial income, which places them ahead of any previous games at this stage of preparation. People said right up to the last minute that the Sydney Olympics would be a disaster or would fail to raise as much money as they were supposed to, but they were subsequently declared the best games ever.
Manchester city council gave a commitment to underwrite any shortfall. I know that the hon. Gentleman wanted to hear that. His constituents outside the city of Manchester will not be liable. The Government are working closely with the council and hope that no further support will be necessary, because we are determined that the games will be successful. I am optimistic, although I think that a danger sometimes exists in that, as the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) said, we as a nation have a capacity for playing the country down and saying that we cannot do things, rather than having a can-do approach.
The Lee Valley stadium will be built and will provide a terrific centre for the 2005 athletics championships. I point out to those who have referred to Wembley that there is no definite date for Wembley to reopen, so we cannot be confident that that complex will host the 2005 championships. In the next few days, the next stage of the Lee Valley stadium will occur, and the designs will be made public. That project has been criticised by the media, but more people now seem to understand it. It is good to hear that the hon. Gentleman is pleased that we are putting the relevant minutes into the Library. I am
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keen to have as much transparency and openness as possible and have asked that after every meeting of the Lee Valley project team we give a press briefing. There is nothing to hide, and we should not be afraid of putting the facts to the public.
The Olympic games bid is at an early stage. Hon. Members who have just come from the Select Committee will have heard the statements of the British Olympic Association. I am not privy to what Simon Clegg said this morning, but we put our commitment in the manifesto and clearly stated that we want to support a viable Olympic bid. However, any decision on that will have to come from the BOA first. It will need to say which location is preferable. The association has presented its first assessment to us of what is required for a possible London bid, and last week it met the Mayor of London and presented the bid. DCMS will convene a meeting of all the stakeholders.
We are still at an early stage. A successful and viable Olympic bid will require huge amounts of money. We will have to take a decision as a country on whether we want the Olympics to happen here, taking into account all the national and sporting interests. As Minister for Sport, I am committed to ensuring that the process is as transparent as possible, that we have the debate in public and that there is nothing to hide. People must want to support the bid if huge amounts of money are to be spent on it.
I shall not answer any questions about Mr. Bates or Wembley. However, I shall make some points about Wembley stadium in the Select Committee. At this stage, in the last minute of my speech, it would not be worth while to try to address the many erroneous comments made by the former chairman of Wembley National Stadium Ltd. The project is football-led and under the direction of Sir Rodney Walker and WNSL, although we are working closely with them. The £120 million initially invested was provided primarily for the purchase of the land and there is agreement to return £20 million. Of course, it will not be given back until the parties involved have obtained their loan syndication. If they do not obtain it, there will not be a new Wembley stadium in any case. Sir Rodney Walker has already talked about other alternatives.
We could spend a lot of time speculating about what might happen, but it would not be helpful. I give my best wishes to the hon. Member for Cheadle and everyone in Manchester in their desire to stage the Commonwealth games, which is important for this country.

School Bus Safety
12.30 pm
Mr. Eric Joyce: Last month, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, a 15-year-old pupil at St. Mungo's school, Falkirk, in my constituency, died tragically in a road accident. Kathleen had travelled home from school by a contracted school bus, as she did each day, to be dropped close to her family home in the village of Bonnybridge. On this clay, however, she stepped from the bus on to the pavement and walked around the front of the stationary vehicle, at the same time as a car passed the vehicle from behind on the offside. Perhaps distracted, Kathleen stepped out in front of the car. It seems that the oncoming car was not moving fast but that the driver had no time to react. Tragically, Kathleen was fatally injured. Her younger brother had been on the bus with her, and her mother arrived at the scene soon after the accident. Naturally, both remain deeply shocked, as do the rest of Kathleen's family.
That story is not remarkable or unusual. Such human and family tragedies happen every day, and often involve a painful period of adjustment for those left behind. Few things in life are surer than the fact that risk will manifest itself from time to time. When a child dies, however, the tragedy seems to be all the greater, because of the sense of injustice at the loss of a young life not properly lived. When tragedies such as Kathleen's death take place, we are obliged to determine whether anything can be done to reduce the chances of their happening again.
My aim today is to draw attention to several issues surrounding accidents such as Kathleen's death. I have no doubt that Her Majesty's Government are well aware of the need to work continuously on child safety, and I know that organisations such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and Brake are excellent advocates of the same cause. I want to suggest to the Minister one or two measures that in might make a modest contribution to child safety on our roads.
This week RoSPA has been holding its annual road safety conference in Glasgow. The focus of the conference has been child casualties on our roads. Some of the statistical trends presented in research conclusions have been shocking but, sadly, often predictable. For example, road crashes are the leading cause of death among children. Furthermore, 20 per cent. of all child road casualties happen on the school journey, with the greatest period of risk being, as one might imagine, between 3 and 4 o'clock in the afternoon, as was the case with Kathleen.
There is also a socio-economic dimension. Recently, David White, Robert Raeside and Derek Barker of Napier university conducted a study of child road injuries in the Lothians, which border on my constituency. The research showed that children from less well-off backgrounds were as much as six times more likely to be injured in a road traffic accident. The research also showed that children from single-parent families and minority ethnic backgrounds in the less well-off areas are subject to the greatest risk. Other related findings were that the decline in children's death rates from injury over time has been less for children from the manual social classes than for children from
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the non-manual social classes. As a result, mortality differentials between socio-economic groupings have increased. Moreover, injuries to children from socio-economically disadvantaged families tend to be of greater severity. In addition, those children have a higher risk of physical injury in the first place.
The answers to risk reduction across the board depend on several factors, as RoSPA points out. For example, research seems to suggest that as young boys tend to be more physically boisterous than girls, they, in effect, receive a training in spatial awareness that girls do not have to the same degree when they are very young. The apparent effect is that as girls in their early teens start to catch up with boys in terms of boisterousness, they appear to be exposed to a greater risk of road accident injuries. Perhaps schools can tackle that through education and awareness training.
Children now seem to spend less time outdoors than in previous eras, and parents can help to educate them about the dangers of the roads. Statistically, children walking to and from school are at the greatest risk, so parents should be alert to ensure that their children take a safe route for that journey.
The Government can also do many things, and the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions has initiated the child road safety and Think! road safety campaigns and the road safety strategy. The Minister might want to say more about that.
To return to children travelling to school, children who use public transport should, if possible, be accompanied by escorts, and drivers of contracted school buses should be trained and educated for the task.
The DETR is planning a pilot scheme in conjunction with FirstGroup, a bus operator in the United States of America, to import American yellow school buses of the type that many people have seen on television, in films, or while on holiday in America.
Alexander and Sons has been manufacturing buses in Falkirk in my constituency for many years. It is not a part of FirstGroup; it is a manufacturer rather than an operator. However, it is important that there is a local bus-manufacturing presence, as that gives my constituents an awareness of the industry and the issues that surround it.
It is poignant to note that the Alexander and Sons manufacturing plant is close to St. Mungo's school, where Kathleen Fitzpatrick was a pupil. Her daily journeys took her past the gates of the factory. Local people have noted that sad fact.
American yellow buses have several advantages. They are immediately identifiable by all American drivers, who are expected to take measures that take into account the likelihood that children will decant on to the road. They have additional features, such as flashing lights and extending warning arms that stick out to make it clear to drivers that the school bus is stopping and that children are about to be dropped off. Also, I believe that, in America, drivers are not allowed to pass a stationary yellow bus from which children are

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alighting, which neutralises the risk of children such as Kathleen being run down as they step out in front of a stationary bus.
It is self-evident that the United Kingdom can learn lessons from such American practices, although I accept that the roads and the culture are different in the United States of America, so the UK must cherry-pick the measures that are appropriate to its environment.
In the USA, 54 per cent. of children travel to school by yellow bus. In the UK, the equivalent figure is 20 per cent. In part, that gap might be explained by the greater average distance that American children travel to school. An increase in the number of children travelling to school by identifiable school buses would yield benefits in terms of not only safety but the environment, as cars depositing children at school account for 20 per cent. of morning rush-hour traffic.
At present, most of the 20 per cent. of UK children who travel to school by bus, travel on coaches that are subcontracted by local authorities. It is not unusual for such buses to be rather old—although undoubtedly legal—in style and specification. I have seen some very elderly examples on the roads. Buses on contract must display in their back windows yellow signs to alert passing drivers that they are on contract to schools and that therefore there are attendant risks with children getting off them. However, the contracts are temporary, so the signs should be displayed and removed when appropriate. Children sometimes take signs from the back of buses, so companies nail or screw signs to the back of the bus; when the bus is used for non-school contracted business, the sign is still displayed. As a result, drivers could become desensitised to the signs.
I hasten to add that the DETR inspects such things to minimise risks, but it is likely—I hope that this does not sound too sceptical—that those practices will continue at the margins because expediency is a fact of life. That is not a problem with yellow buses because they are not used for any other purpose. Drivers who see a yellow bus know that schoolchildren are in it. I accept, however, that in economic terms they are relatively inefficient and are therefore expensive.
I understand that FirstGroup, which buys but does not manufacture buses, believes that its bulk-buying capability would enable it to reduce the price of a normal school bus from £110,000 or £120,000 to £30,000—a remarkable reduction. However, I am sure that the DETR would not allow buses to operate unless it was confident that their specifications conformed to safety requirements. In other words, driving down the cost must not lead to driving down safety standards.
Whether or not yellow buses have a place on our roads, one US practice that is worthy of consideration in respect of reducing the risks for children alighting from them is barring vehicles from passing identifiable—however we decide that they should be identified—and stationary school buses in either direction when children are alighting. We could trial the concept as part of a yellow bus pilot scheme, but whether or not that happens, will the Minister say whether the idea has a future? Indeed, does he have other initiatives in mind that may reduce risks for schoolchildren alighting from school buses or travelling to school by other means?
12.42 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Keith Hill): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Joyce) on securing this important debate. I add particular congratulations on the eloquence and effectiveness of his speech, because I understand that this is his maiden performance in Westminster Hall. I also thank him for his courtesy in providing notice of the major issues that he wanted to raise.
I assure my hon. Friend that the Government, in the form of the Minister with responsibility for Road Safety, Lord Whitty, will carefully consider his remarks. I was sorry to hear of the accident that he mentioned and should like to offer my sincere condolences to Kathleen Fitzpatrick's family and friends. It may be little comfort in such circumstances—indeed, it will provide none at all to the family—but I believe that such accidents do not occur that often. In truth, I cannot provide reliable statistics because the fact that the child had just alighted from a bus was in a sense irrelevant to what happened. That may sound strange in the light of my hon. Friend's remarks, but when someone gets off a bus they are by definition a pedestrian rather than an ex-bus passenger.
The statistical returns for road accidents compiled by the DETR—the STATS 19 forms that are completed and returned to us by local police forces—ask whether incidents occur when people are alighting or boarding a bus. However, when they clear the doorway they are counted as pedestrians. The accident described by my hon. Friend was a case of someone walking into the road from behind a parked vehicle when her view of approaching traffic may have been partly, if not wholly, obscured. Indeed, that is how such accidents are most likely to be recorded.
My assertion—perhaps it is more a hope—that such accidents are few and far between is based on two factors, and although neither is particularly systematic, each might be regarded as a reasonable indicator. First, in response to recent informal inquiries the Local Authority Road Safety Officers Association said that it was unaware of any significant problem in this regard. Secondly, only two such cases have been brought to Ministers' attention in the past two years. One occurred in 1999 and the other in 2000, and in both cases a child was knocked down by a passing vehicle while trying to cross in front of the bus from which they had just alighted.
I shall not pretend that this is a satisfactory state of affairs as far as the statistics are concerned, and my Department will certainly consider whether it would help to amend the accident report form so that more detailed information can be gathered. A further reason to consider changing the form is the risk of an increase in the number of such accidents, if only because, hopefully, more children will use buses for part of their journey to school instead of travelling by car. One objective of our 10-year plan for transport is to increase the use of buses and other public transport—and, indeed, of walking and cycling—to help reduce the unnecessary car journeys that give rise to much congestion and air pollution. Hon. Members will recognise a potential conflict between such objectives and our targets for reducing road casualties, given that it is a fact that, mile for mile, travelling by car is safer than walking or

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cycling. However, I can assure hon. Members that we hope and expect to succeed on both fronts, and are fully conscious of the challenge that that presents.
With the 10-year plan in mind, and as my hon. Friend said, local authorities and bus operators are developing various innovative and dedicated school bus schemes, some of which are based on the American system. My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister was pleased to announce in Glasgow on 17 February that agreement has been reached on the piloting in Britain of FirstGroup's US-style yellow school buses. The vehicles will be modified to meet all the requirements in our structure and use regulations, and they will satisfy accessibility regulations except where it is reasonable to grant a special authorisation. To avoid doubt, I should point out that, none the less, no exemption will be granted from the recently reduced maximum first step height for new buses that provide a local or scheduled service. The new maximum is no more than 320 mm, instead of 435 mm. For those who still prefer the old money, that translates into a new maximum of about 12½, in, instead of just over 17 in.
Perhaps more to the point, I can assure hon. Members that, like our native British buses, the new ones will be right-hand drive with doors on the left, so in that regard there will be no new safety worries. One road traffic rule in the United States, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk, West referred extensively, is that other vehicles must not overtake school buses when children are alighting or boarding. As he said, American buses are fitted with flashing lights and waving arms to warn approaching drivers at such times. However, FirstGroup says that at the moment it has no plans to fit such signals to the buses that it imports, so they will not figure in the pilot schemes here. Not is it proposed that the pilot schemes should include a provision on the overtaking of buses, and I shall explain why in a moment.
We shall want to evaluate the FirstGroup pilot schemes in due course to ensure that we learn as much as possible from them. To that end, officials in my Department will draw up proposals shortly. We shall be particularly interested to know what parents and children think of US-style buses, and we shall want to identify the schemes' success in persuading parents to let children whom they take to school by car to travel by bus instead. We shall also involve the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee in our evaluation.
Given that there is a large bus factory, Alexander and Sons, in my hon. Friend's constituency, it might help to point out that other operators and manufacturers are of course free to develop and market alternative school bus schemes using US-style or other types of vehicles, provided they meet the UK regulatory requirements. However, we shall consider applications for special authorisation on merit only until the end of September 2001. Thereafter, we do not expect to give special authorisations for vehicles with the same design, or which offer the same package, as that proposed by FirstGroup until evaluation of the pilot projects has been completed.
I revert to the safety issues involved in getting on and off buses, and not just school buses. As all drivers should know, the highway code has several separate references to the need to take special care when passing buses and bus stops, because of the increased likelihood of people
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crossing the road nearby. Pedestrians should also take great care, because the size of buses obscures people from the view of passing drivers.
In most senses, the advice is inherent in the green cross code, which most children know well but do not always apply—like their elders and, supposedly, betters. In its most abbreviated form, it is the best advice that anyone can have when crossing the road. It says, "Think, stop, look, listen"—and not necessarily once only—
"and wait until it is safe."
However, reality can be more complex. Obviously, it is necessary to find a safe place to cross. That is the basic message of the hedgehog cartoon film, first shown last October, that will be screened again later this year. The message is also included in "Arrive Alive—a Highway Code for Young Road Users". About buses, it says:
"If you do need to cross the road after getting off a bus, wait for it to move away first".
My hon. Friend has asked us to provide advice to enhance the safety of children travelling on buses. We will repeat the messages about the safe use of roads wherever possible, not only to children using buses, but to those out and about on foot and on their bikes. We will direct the messages not only at children. I am not trying to put responsibility, still less blame, for road accidents exclusively on pedestrians. Drivers, too, must take proper care. They should slow down as they pass buses at bus stops, and be prepared to stop quickly if necessary. Through better training and testing, we are helping drivers to become aware of their responsibilities to all vulnerable road users.
I understand that in the case of the accident in Scotland in 1999 that I mentioned earlier, the driver was convicted of careless driving and fined about £300. It would not be appropriate for me to comment on the case, which remains a matter of local controversy, so I will not go into detail. A fatal accident inquiry is to be held. The accident prompted the local Member of the Scottish Parliament, Bruce Crawford MSP, to table an amendment to the Transport (Scotland) Bill during its passage last December. It would have given local authorities the power to designate school bus priority routes where other vehicles would not be allowed to pass a stationary school bus. Although Scottish Ministers were sympathetic to the idea, the amendment, as drafted, did not work in legal terms.
I accept my hon. Friend's point, but we are not convinced that such a measure would be the safest option. It also has practical drawbacks. Some drivers, on seeing a school bus that was about to stop, might take unnecessary risks to get past it before it stopped. Drivers waiting to pull out from a side road might be tempted to come out ahead of an approaching bus, even if in other circumstances they might have considered it safer to let it pass first.
The proposal could also have an adverse effect on local traffic flows, with possible consequences for a wide area, and might be especially difficult to enforce in towns that are already congested. Most important, we fear that, if children were afforded such protection on school trips, they might develop a false sense of security, and take less care when getting off service buses, or when crossing the road at other times.
The Government take road safety seriously. That is clearly evidenced by the publication, last year, of our new road safety strategy. One of its targets is to reduce

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child deaths and serious injuries by 50 per cent. by 2010. I warmly welcome yesterday's announcement by Sarah Boyack of the Scottish Executive of a £11.85 million funding initiative aimed at reducing the number of child road deaths in Scotland.
If we find that accidents involving school buses are a particular problem, we shall consider what more we can do to reduce them. Needless to say, we shall get a copy of the sheriff's determination in the Scottish case as soon as it is published. As ever, Ministers will be ready to listen to any ideas that hon. Members wish to suggest.

Home Energy Efficiency Scheme
12.55 pm
Mr. Christopher Chope: I welcome the Minister. I hope that he can respond to my concerns more fully than he did when I raised a constituency matter in the House at 2 o'clock this morning—although, as he said, I had not given him much notice. I gave him more notice on this occasion.
Although the debate was prompted by constituency cases, it will be of much wider national interest. The administration of the home energy efficiency scheme now amounts to no less than a national scandal. Answers to questions that I put to the Minister's Department, which are recorded in columns 530–34W of yesterday's Hansard, reveal that more than 58,000 households are waiting for about £44 million of work to be done under the scheme. Since it was extended last June, about £27 million of work has been carried out. At that rate, a £44 million backlog is equivalent to about one year's output. Those delays are substantial and unacceptable, yet the Government are still heavily promoting the scheme with advertising, raising expectations by so doing. They have spent about £3 million this yea] on advertising and promoting it.
The delays that are being experienced are being blamed on a shortage of heating engineers. However, it is clear from parliamentary answers that too few heating contractors have been engaged to do the work. There are 22 nominated heating contractors in the eastern area of England, and only 37 in the remaining three quarters of the country. Two contractors appear on both lists, one of which is NW Heating Maintenance, a firm to which I shall refer.
The previous Conservative Government established the home energy efficiency scheme under the Social Security Act 1990. While we were in government, well over 2 million people benefited from grants under the scheme and were consequently able to have energy efficiency measures carried out in their homes. Those who benefited were people on benefits, the disabled and the over-60s. Throughout that period, the scheme was overseen by the Department of the Environment and its administration was contracted out to an organisation called EAGA Ltd., a spin-off from National Energy Action. The company, which is now called the EAGA Partnership, is still responsible for the administration of the scheme across three quarters of England, including Dorset—specifically, my constituency of Christchurch. In its 45th report, published in the year 1997–98, the Public Accounts Committee stated:
"There have been wide variations in the cost of work done by installers, even for work on similar properties in the same area, and it is striking that some installers made almost all their claims exactly at the grant maximum. This may be a consequence of the way in which EAGA have limited the competition between installers."
The PAC concluded:
"There is now scope for the Department and EAGA to promote more competition between installers so that more can be achieved from the funds available to the scheme."
Against that background, I draw hon. Members' attention to what has been happening in practice. The scheme may have the word "efficiency" in its title, but experience on the ground shows that its delivery and

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administration is far from efficient. EAGA has been much better at spin than delivery, taking a leaf out of the Government's book.
The present scheme was launched by the Government with their customary blaze of publicity. More than £100 million was allocated to be spent in England. It was no surprise that many people were attracted to the idea of having up to £2,000 of free central heating provided at the expense of the taxpayer. I have no quarrel with the concept of the scheme: I welcome it. My concern is that, so far, none of my constituents has benefited from it. Nine and a half months after it started, on 1 June 2000, not one central heat rig installation has been completed under the scheme in my constituency.
On 9 March, EAGA answered my question about how many heating jobs had been completed in Christchurch by saying:
"Within your Christchurch constituency, there are currently thirty nine heating jobs waiting to be allocated to installers and thirty five currently allocated, being carried out."
None had been completed. EAGA based those figures on claims from people living in postcode areas BH6, BH7, BH8, BH9, BH21, BH23, BH24 and SP6. That is an area wider than my constituency. On behalf of the wider Christchurch area, I ask the Government, why do my constituents appear to be discriminated against in this respect, as they are in so many others?
Among those attracted to the scheme in Christchurch were Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths of Burton and Mrs. Donovan of Ferndown. In March 2000, Mrs. Donovan's oil-fired heating broke down five times. She applied to the local council for a grant towards the cost of repair, but was told that the Government were introducing a different scheme to ensure that pensioners and older people would have adequate heating for the winter. In June, she registered for the new scheme. She was visited in August by an EAGA representative who told her that she qualified and would have a new system fitted, and that an engineer would call soon.
Nothing happened. On 2 December, Mrs. Donovan wrote to the EAGA Partnership to complain and she did not even receive a reply. After making other representations in February, in desperation, and having tried every other avenue, she turned to her Member of Parliament. She had been incredibly patient, perhaps too patient: she had waited for the engineer since last August. Her letter to me described her various health problems and said that she
"was very, very cold and had borrowed a warm air blower and a one bar electric fire."
She explained that she spent most of her time in her bedroom to keep warm. She said that she had made several telephone calls to EAGA, only to be told that she was at the "top of the list".
I took up Mrs. Donovan's case by writing to the chief executive of EAGA and received a holding reply. Shortly afterwards, Mrs. Donovan was visited by an engineer who confirmed that she needed a new boiler and said that he would be back soon—she imagined, in a matter of days. More than two weeks later, she telephoned me to say that nothing had happened. I telephoned EAGA and last Friday received a faxed letter to say that Mrs. Donovan would be sent a postal order for £40, which
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"can be used to purchase a temporary heating measure—such as electric fan heating".
I was assured that her work was scheduled as a priority.
Interestingly, EAGA wrote to hon. Members on 7 November saying that there were clients who might have to wait up to four months before the backlog was cleared. The letter said that EAGA was operating a strict first-come-first-served policy. That has turned out to be palpably untrue. If such a policy had existed, Mrs. Donovan's heating would have been installed months ago.
Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths came to my surgery 10 days ago to discuss their experiences with EAGA. Mr. Griffiths is registered disabled and lives with his wife and four children. He applied to the scheme in July 2000. In August, he was visited and his application accepted. In October, he was told that the correct boiler for his needs was a Glow-worm Micron and that he would be provided with one. In November, he received a letter to say that because of especially high demand, delays were being experienced, but he should continue to be patient. It continued:
"Please do not chase your work by telephoning us as we cannot prioritise your job ahead of other people's work. We will not forget you and I will write to you again on 30th November to keep you aware of our progress."
The letter also assured Mr. Griffiths that all the work was being done on a first-come-first-served basis, that no one was jumping the queue and that additional contractors were being appointed to speed up the work.
On 8 December, Mr. Griffiths received another letter from EAGA's customer services, requesting him to be patient. Eventually, he was visited by a representative of NW Heating Maintenance and on 13 February he received a quotation for supplying and installing a new boiler in the sum of £1,288.56 including value added tax. He was surprised, because he had earlier been told that he would qualify for a grant of £1,000, but was now told that he would have to contribute £677.93 towards the cost of the new boiler.
After meeting Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths, I telephoned EAGA and NW Heating Maintenance. The latter, which is based in Liverpool, proved to be unable to respond to any of my calls, but I found out from EAGA that the £1,000 grant had been reduced because Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths had received cavity wall insulation and window draught proofing at a cost of £326, which had been set off against the £1,000. That came as a surprise to Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths because no cavity wall insulation had been installed. An engineer who called to do the work discovered that the house already had cavity wall insulation. He drilled a hole and found that out, and then fitted one window with some rather inadequate draught proofing. It now turns out that he charged EAGA £245 for the cavity wall insulation and £81 for draught proofing.
It would seem that Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths are the victims of a serious rip-off. The firm concened, Cosytherm Ltd., has been paid by EAGA—by the taxpayers, effectively—for work that it did not do. However, that is not the only rip-off to which Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths have been subjected. Mr. Griffiths has discovered that he could purchase a Glow-worm Micron boiler off the shelf for £413 including VAT. He has obtained a written quotation from a firm in

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Bournemouth that could supply and fit a Glow-worm Micron, remove the old boiler and connect up the system for £879.90 plus VAT. NW Heating Maintenance has quoted £254 more to do the same work, despite supposedly enjoying all the advantages of massive bulk purchasing. Obviously, if Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths accepted the quote from the local firm, which they are not allowed to do under the Government scheme, the additional cost to them would be only £34 instead of £677. That is the difference between whether the work is affordable for them or not.
The Minister can be under no illusions. The unacceptable delays, uncompetitive pricing and general inefficiency of the new heating scheme arrangements are a scandal. However, insult has been added to injury by television advertisements encouraging more people to apply for free central heating, which both Mrs. Donovan and Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths mentioned to me. The advertisements for the scheme, which has been renamed "Warm Front", involve 85 advertising spots in the Meridian television area, at a cost of around £80,000, with the advertisements costing a further £95,000 to produce. I presume that they have been timed to give the impression of a caring Government in the run-up to the general election. It is a pity that they do not make it clear that, at the present rate of progress, people who apply now will not have their heating installed for a year, and that those who applied last summer, like my constituents, have still not had their work done.
Why are the Government carrying out expensive television advertising for a service that is already in crisis, and which cannot be provided? Why is there no effective competition among central heating installers under the scheme, so that the monopoly suppliers can not only delay serving their customers, but overcharge significantly, as my example shows?
Why is the EAGA Partnership the recipient of a soft contract that covers three quarters of England when it is obvious that it cannot deliver? What redress will the Minister seek from EAGA for the way in which it misled Members of Parliament and its customers with circular letters that assured people that it operated a strict first-come-first-served policy? I take that issue seriously. Those constituents waited patiently, believing those words at face value. I am sure that I was not alone among Members of Parliament in believing that the problem was under control, and that we should not worry about the delays because the people who applied first would be served first. We took that circular letter at face value, but it was not true.
Will the Minister now ensure that the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee investigate urgently the contractual arrangements that surround the Government's home energy efficiency scheme? That investigation should include the costs of the latest advertising campaign and the abortive costs of having to pay £40 for every customer whose heating has not been delivered or who has been otherwise adversely affected by the delay. I should also like an inquiry into the rotten deal that customers and taxpayers receive as a result of lack of competition between installers.
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Finally, as the scheme is designed to provide the most environmentally friendly and cost-effective heating systems, I hope that the Minister can explain why the quotes are for non- condensing boilers. Under a scheme with more than £100 million of taxpayers' money, surely it would be much more sensible for the boilers provided to be condensing boilers. That would reduce costs for the need group to which the scheme is directed, and it would have environmental benefits, but it does not seem to happen in practice.
I hope that the Minister can allay some of my serious concerns.
1.12 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Robert Ainsworth): I thank the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) for initiating the debate. It is good to see him again; it is such a short time since we parted company at 2 o'clock this morning.
The Government are determined to tackle fuel poverty, which affects millions of householders. Many of them are the most vulnerable in our society—pensioners, families and disabled householders—and struggle each winter to keep warm. That is why, last month, we published our United Kingdom fuel poverty strategy, which sets out our commitment to end the blight of fuel poverty for vulnerable households by 2010. It will help more than 3 million households.
In England, vulnerable households in the social sector will be helped by our drive to bring all social housing up to a decent standard by 2010. That will ensure that they no longer suffer from fuel poverty. Those living in the private rented sector or who own their own home will be helped through the warm front team and the revised home energy efficiency scheme. The scheme, or HEES, is therefore a key element in our strategy to tackle fuel poverty.
As the hon. Gentleman said, HEES was started in 1991 and provided households with a single insulation measure, often simple draught proofing for windows and doors. A review of the scheme showed that it reduced heating costs of households by, at most, £100 a year. That level of reduction was not sufficient to move households out of fuel poverty, and it did not tackle the difficulties faced by those who lacked a central heating system or whose central heating system had broken down.
We have radically revised the scheme. The new scheme, introduced in June 2000, provides grants of up to £2,000, which is up from the £315 available under the scheme introduced by the Government whom the hon. Gentleman supported. The increased grant allows us to provide complete packages of insulation and heating measures, which can reduce the cost of keeping warm by up to £1,000 a year. For the first time, we are providing efficient central heating systems for low-income householders aged 60 or over. We also believe that although HEES could never offer an emergency-type service, it should offer to repair central heating systems that have broken down.
The HEES package of measures should be sufficient to move the large majority of householders out of fuel poverty. We are providing funding of more than £600 million for the first four years—more than double the

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level of the previous scheme—and our aim is to assist about 800,000 householders by 2004. To date, more than 76,000 pensioners and families have benefited from the scheme and enjoy substantially warmer houses as a result. A further 58,000 will have work carried out in the next few months.
HEES is managed in eastern England by Eastern HEES, a not-for-profit subsidiary of the energy supplier TXU. In the rest of the country, it is managed by the EAGA Partnership—an employee-owned company that has managed the scheme since its inception in 1991. The contracts were placed following a full, open competition in accordance with the UK public procurement regulations. The tenders were assessed by a panel that included external commentators. It was a unanimous decision of the panel to award the contracts to EAGA and Eastern HEES, as they offered the lowest prices of technically compliant bids.
The two scheme managers are now responsible for much more than simple administration. They are required to market the scheme, survey homes and recruit subcontractors to carry out the work. As their fees are not linked to the measures installed in each home, elderly and other vulnerable householders can be sure of receiving clear, independent advice on the most appropriate measures for their home. However, the scheme managers are paid according to the volume of work carried out, and so have a powerful incentive to ensure quick delivery. The UK public procurement regulations were also used by the scheme managers to recruit the individual heating and insulation subcontractors. I understand that the scheme manager placed advertisements in the trade press and wrote to all members of the Confederation of Registered Gas Installers—some 40,000 companies—inviting them to tender for work. Contracts were awarded, on the basis of lowest cost, to those companies that met our robust technical, quality and safety requirements.
When we announced the scheme in May 1999, many doubted that gas heating systems and insulation could be fitted within the grant maximums suggested. There is evidence to suggest that the prices paid by HEES are lower than those achieved by either energy suppliers, in respect of insulation, or local authorities, with regard to heating.
Changes to the scheme introduced last June were considerable, so it is not entirely unexpected that there have been problems with its implementation. The hon. Gentleman quotes examples from his constituency. I have also received constituency complaints—as, I am sure, have other hon. Members. The hon. Gentleman should remember that the scheme was substantially new and introduced nationwide last June. For example, during the first three months, there were delays in surveying homes that caused follow-on delays in installation. That problem was resolved.
At present, there are serious difficulties in providing heating improvements due to a national shortage of qualified heating engineers. The scheme managers continue to encourage heating companies to tender for work under the scheme. Existing installers are being encouraged to transfer resources from areas of low to those of high demand. We are also considering how to encourage more smaller installer companies to come forward.
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The long-term solution is to increase the number of gas engineers. From last month, in conjunction with Transco, we introduced training programmes to provide an additional 800 engineers to work under the scheme over the next 12 months.
In much of the country, including the south-west, a fast-track system for heating repairs is being introduced. If an engineer has to shut down a boiler and the household has no other source of heating, the fast-track system should normally ensure that the replacement is fitted within five days. If the boiler can be made to work but still requires replacement, the change will be handled more routinely.
Those measures have led to substantial improvements. In much of the country, new gas heating systems and replacement boilers are being installed within three months of survey. The hon. Gentleman extrapolated figures from the start of the scheme and used them to suggest a waiting list of one year. However, that ignores the fact that, because the other scheme was so different, we started from zero. It is totally unrealistic to suggest that people are facing a year's delay when we were going through such a good rate of climb. They are not.
Mr. Chope: Would not the Minister accept that if we are told that it is a first-come-first-served scheme, my comments are fair? Mrs. Donovan applied in June, but she is still waiting.
Mr. Ainsworth: I shall try to deal with individual cases later.
In some areas, including that represented by the hon. Gentleman, serious delays remain in the installation of new heating systems, but we continue to seek improvements. Both scheme managers are keeping those with an interest in the scheme up to date. We realise that many people do not have other heating in addition to the central heating. The scheme managers will shortly be writing to all households that are awaiting heating repairs to offer those without supplementary heating the use of thermostatically controlled electric heaters while they wait for their systems to be repaired. The hon. Gentleman referred to that communication. I must point out, however, that although heating is an important component of HEES, the most popular measure remains the installation of effective home insulation, and insulation continues to be installed as normal and within agreed time scales.
The hon. Gentleman raised a number of questions. First, he complained that the advertising was being done for political purposes and asked why we should be advertising when people were suffering delays. I ask him to accept that huge efficiencies can be gained if people come forward in greater numbers, particularly in areas where they have not been doing so. The area covered by Meridian has one of the lowest number of people coming forward, and that has led to inefficiencies.
The hon. Gentleman says that the Government are advertising something for their own ends. In fact, Age Concern criticised the Government for failing to advertise the scheme properly. On 12 January, Andrew Alsop of Age Concern told the BBC that the Government should publicise the scheme properly. It is a good scheme. Help is available and so is the cash.

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However, the Department for Social Security needs to publicise better the help that is available. We were under pressure from organisations such as Age Concern to get the scheme up and running, and we needed to ensure that contractors were coming forward in greater numbers than they were. That will help solve the inefficiencies that are the result of low take-up; if the work is obtained in clusters, prices will fall and efficiency will rise.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned two cases. He tried to suggest that what happened to his constituent, Mrs. Donovan, is proof that the scheme is not being handled on a first-come-first-served basis. There was a delay in dealing with Mrs. Donovan, but EAGA issued the job to an installer that was unable to complete due to a high work load. We should investigate the juxtaposition of the hon. Gentleman's claim that no schemes are being installed in his area with the installer's assertion that its heavy work load was causing the delay to Mrs. Donovan's work. The installer may well have been unable to fulfil the commitment that it had given to EAGA—we should investigate that, and any information that the hon. Gentleman has will be useful. This was not just a case of "first come, first served" not applying; the work was issued to an installer, and the installer caused the delay. The work has now been reissued so that Mrs. Donovan can be treated with the priority that she deserves.
The hon. Gentleman made serious allegations in the case of Mr. Griffiths, in which payments were claimed for the installation of cavity wall insulation. I hope that the hon. Gentleman knows that that case is under investigation by EAGA, so I cannot comment except to say that it will be investigated. We hope to advise him of the outcome, and to learn any lessons that arise from it,
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so that we can ensure that we properly protect the public purse in such matters. There is no question of discrimination—the hon. Gentleman has rightly raised two matters on behalf of his constituents and will receive a response.
At the moment, scheme managers are carrying out little or no advertising of the warm front team or of HEES in much of the country. They are able to rely on word of mouth to generate sufficient interest to meet the scheme's capacity in these areas. The exceptions are the south-east and parts of the south-west, where local referral networks are not fully effective. To ensure that eligible households do not miss out on help, the scheme manager, EAGA, is using advertisements in the local media.
A pilot series of television advertisements is running on weekday afternoons to reach older people in the area. The cost of the four weeks of television slots is some £80,000, and the advertisements cost about £95,000 to produce. Early indications are that they have generated a good response. More than 1,200 inquiries have been received from eligible households in the first three days alone. It is up to EAGA to determine whether the campaign offers better value for money than other routes. At the same time, EAGA is developing the local referral networks to make them more effective, and so remove the need for further advertising.
I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are doing all that we can to tackle the delays faced by some householders. Their difficulties should not detract from the achievements of the scheme. More than 76,000 vulnerable households have already benefited and a further 58,000 will have work carried out in the next few months, with the result that they will enjoy substantially warmer homes. We have allocated more than £600 million for the first four years of the scheme, with the aim of helping 800,000 households by 2004.

Suez Canal (Service Medal)
1.29 pm
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise, in a short debate, the Government's failure to recommend or the Queen to award campaign medals to those who served in the Suez canal zone between 1951and 1954. I had hoped that there would be more time for the debate because many other hon. Members are concerned about the issue. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth (Mr. Healey) is present; no doubt he will hope to speak, and he has my permission and that of the Minister to do so briefly. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Cryer) has also raised question about the matter.
I place on the record my appreciation of my constituent Mr. Davenport, who has been keeping me up to speed on the issue, and of the late Pip Newton, who led the delegation to press the case with my hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces, 18 months or so ago, when my hon. Friend was a junior Minister. Mr. Newton worked extremely hard to press the campaign. I also wish to record my appreciation for Mr. Blackburn, Mr. Golder and M r. Radford for all their work in documenting the case.
This issue matters to many people. They deserve recognition and, even at this late stage, justice can be done. The case for a campaign or service medal is simple. As people get older, children and grandchildren ask, "Dad,"—or "Grandad,"—"what did you do in the Army?" The person starts to talk about his experiences and is then asked, "Well, show us your medal: prove it!" Although that is said jokingly, it clearly rankles with many people who put in a long period of service in the armed forces and who then served in the difficult theatre of the Suez canal zone that that has not been recognised.
The question of medals also arises when old comrades meet, particularly on occasions such as Armistice day parades. When one is talking to someone at such events, the temptation is just to look at their medals or ribbons to see where they served. People who served in the Suez canal zone have nothing to show that they did so. About 18 months ago, I tabled a series of early-day motions listing the people involved in the campaign. I was amazed at the number of people who wrote to complain that their names could not be added because, despite having included three, we had exceeded the word limit for early-day motions.
Many people believe that they should have received recognition for their service in the Suez canal zone. Is such recognition deserved? The best evidence for that can be found in the autobiography of Selwyn Lloyd, who said firmly that one of the reasons for our withdrawal from the region in 1954 was that the conditions in the canal zone were so bad that it was having an effect on service recruitment and retention. I have with me a document prepared at the time to brief Members of Parliament. It states about life in the canal zone:
"Life is extremely monotonous. There are few amenities. Accommodation is very poor, with no prospect of improvement in view of the uncertainties of the future. Some men are doing guard duties every other night; the luckier ones every third night. All vehicles have to travel in pairs; all senior officers have a jeep escort, and, except in a few places, even bathing parties are accompanied by an armed escort."
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It later states:
"To sit in a sand-bagged post, illuminated at night by arc lamps, with a village 100 yards away from which shots are fired every night and quite often during the day, without the slightest prospect of being able effectively to return the fire, is quite an ordeal for the old Sweat, let alone for the National Serviceman."
I could continue quoting from that document, which gives a great deal of evidence that serving in the canal zone was at least as difficult as serving in many other parts of the world. At any time, about 80,000 personnel were working there. The figures are disputed, but evidence suggests that more than 300 people lost their lives either from snipers and other violent activity towards them, or from accidents. Many more were injured.
I have acquired various press cuttings on the subject. A headline on 22 November 1951 reads, "Soldiers murdered by Suez mob". Others from the same period include "Suez flare-up: 12 die" and "British Army convoy ambushed". "New Suez road completed by Army" is another, which is followed by
"two British soldiers were stabbed to death and a third was seriously injured on Saturday night."
I could go on.
Since 1945, at least 16 conflicts around the world have led to loss of life. Only those who served in the Suez canal zone, however, have failed to be recognised by the award of a service medal. In terms of the number of people who lost their lives, the Suez canal zone veterans are seventh on that list of 16. The lack of recognition is ridiculous. Service there was extremely difficult. People had to put up with appalling conditions, yet they have never been awarded gallantry medals. They should have gained recognition for their services.
We could spend a long time examining why recognition was not given. Some suggest that it was the politics of the time—that it would have given offence to the Egyptians and made negotiations difficult. Others suggest that it was simply a muddle—that a recommendation was made to the medals committee in 1952, but it was too early to realise how much suffering people had gone through. Whether politics or muddle, the question remains whether it is too late.
I understand the argument that it would have been more appropriate to grant recognition at the time, but if something goes wrong, it is never too late to put it right. Another argument made by Ministers is, "If we concede on this, we shall face claims for more medals in connection with other circumstances." I view that as the worst of all arguments, because cases should be decided on their merits.
It is time for the Government to review the issue afresh. If they do not want to make a recommendation, they should allow the medals committee to examine the issue again. I am certain that the committee would become convinced that it matters to many people. A campaign medal is more justified in this case than for at least 10 or 12 others where campaign medals have been issued.
The question remains whether the medals committee should reconsider so long after the events took place. Since it was established in its present form, there has been no review of the way in which the committee works. The committee must have the opportunity to examine the merits of the case again. It needs to assess

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whether there is a strong case for acting and what procedure is appropriate for taking action. I am convinced that if the committee were allowed to reconsider, it would decide that it is high time that the campaign medal was awarded.
I shall listen with interest to the Minister. My plea is for him to give the matter more thought and to find a way of letting the medals committee decide whether there is a valid reason—as I am sure that there is—for awarding a medal in this case.
1.39 pm
Mr. John Healey: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) on securing the debate, and thank him for encouraging me to make a short contribution.
We have worked together on the campaign for some time, and my hon. Friend has worked extremely hard on behalf of the veterans. I welcome the Minister, who is part of a Government team that was ready to take a fresh look at military matters when there appears to be a long-standing grievance or injustice.
In this case, there is a grievance and an injustice. The case for recognition for the service and the lives given by our troops in the Suez canal zone between 1951 and 1954 has never been considered by the Committee on the Grant of Honours, Decorations and Medals. I have done much research on the subject, especially in the past couple of years, in the Public Record Office and in the Ministry of Defence library. I looked through the Committee's minutes in detail and it became clear to me that the HD committee has a good and consistent record as a committee; it is not, and never has been, a rubber-stamp body. It scrutinises the submissions made to it and rejects or accepts the cases made for medals, such as the general service medal.
The Committee uses no hard and fast criteria; nevertheless, it is clear that in every case it has taken account of similar factors, both before and after the Suez period, all of which are relevant in the claim for the Suez veterans to be entitled to receive the general service medal. However, despite the Commander-in-Chief, Middle East Forces wanting the GSM to be awarded to his troops serving in the Suez canal zone, the recommendation never reached the HD committee. The Army Council never even discussed the case formally.
Although I do not underestimate the strength of attachment that the establishment has to the practice of non-retrospection, I make the following plea to the Minister. This year is the 50th anniversary of the deployment of our troops in the Suez canal zone. I urge my hon. Friend and his ministerial colleagues to make this year the one in which we allow the Committee on the Grant of Honours, Decorations and Medals finally to give the case a full and fair hearing.
1.42 pm
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr. John Spellar): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) on securing the debate on a subject that is dear to his heart, and to which he has given considerable time and attention. It is appropriate that he raises the matter in Westminster Hall rather than
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over a cup of tea at breakfast time in the Members' Tea Room. Since becoming a Member of Parliament, my hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth (Mr. Healey) has also taken a strong interest in the matter and continues to do so.
Service in the Suez canal zone in the early 1950s was an unpleasant and, at times, dangerous experience. The climate was oppressive. Troops were on declared active service. Their accommodation was mostly in tents and the conditions were Spartan. There were killings and woundings, although not as many as some, including my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish, suggest. There are reports that 60 service men were killed and 600 wounded during the three-year period; the reality, although still regrettable, is that 40 deaths and 75 woundings were attributable to terrorist action in that time.
In January 1952, the Commander-in-Chief, Middle East Land Forces, General Sir Brian Robertson, wrote to the Military Secretary about the award of operational guaranteed decorations for service in the canal zone. Only an extract from his letter survives, but it seems that he also raised the matter of a campaign medal. In his reply, the Military Secretary said that he would "sound out" the Adjutant-General about that possibility. That would have been only one step in the procedure; the institution of a new medal or clasp was not, and is not, within the power of any single Department. Recommendations require the agreement of the Committee on the Grant of Honours, Medals and Decorations, usually referred to as the HD committee, which in turn submits the request to the Sovereign for approval. No record has been found of the sounding out of the Adjutant-General, but we know that the Army Council decided that operational awards would be inappropriate, and that the War Office did not submit a case for a campaign medal to the HD committee.
General Robertson seems to have accepted that. There is no record that he appealed or asked for reconsideration. An opportunity to reopen the question arose a few years later when a clasp to the general service medal was instituted for the 1956 Suez operation, but no one took advantage of it.
As my hon. Friend said, there has been much speculation about why no case was put to the HD committee. It is often claimed that the Foreign Office blocked the case, and there are two conflicting interpretations as t3 why that might have happened. One is that the Foreign Office did not want to upset the Egyptians by admitting that we were, in effect, at war. The other is that the award of a medal would have pleased the Egyptians by conferring the status of a military operation on what was, in fact, terrorist activity.
Service deployments are part of a foreign policy that has diplomatic, economic and military aspects. If a case had ever gone to the HD committee, the Foreign Office would, quite properly, have had a say in the discussion. There is no indication in War Office or Foreign Office records that the two Departments had any consultation on the subject, or that the Foreign Office expressed a view, formally or informally.
The possible effect on opposing nationals did not prevent the award of medals for contemporary or near-contemporary security operations in places such as

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Palestine and Malaya. Neither argument about the effect on the Egyptians would have carried any weight when the further opportunity to make a case arose in 1956.
It has also been claimed that a case was not put forward because the canal zone was a cause of embarrassment to the War Office. Those who claim that appear to be looking at the situation from their own viewpoint, not that of the Army 50 years ago. Troops were deployed in the canal zone to ensure the safe passage of shipping and to protect a limited British presence that existed by treaty with the Egyptians, even though the Egyptian Parliament had abrogated it. There is nothing embarrassing about that. If the War Office had been embarrassed, the Military Secretary would not have taken steps to ensure that so many of those stationed in the canal zone received awards in the 1952 birthday honours list.
Another allegation is that the War Office was influenced by the strength of public and political opinion against the operations. However, public opinion was divided, and there is no reason to believe that the War Office was swayed either way. The then Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Sir William Slim, widely acknowledged to have been the finest "soldier's general" since Wellington, is unlikely to have been deterred if he had thought that there was a good case.
It is frequently alleged that the members of the Army Council in 1952 were unaware of the conditions in the canal zone, including the casually rate to which I referred. The suggestion that the Army's most senior officers were ignorant of the situation in the biggest British forces base in the eastern Mediterranean and middle east is, to say the least, surprising. They were fully aware of the situation, and in September 1952, the Secretary of State spoke at a meeting of the Army Council about a visit that he had made to the area.
Half a century after the events, and without comprehensive documentation, any explanation of why no case was made can only be speculative. However, the most likely reason is that the Army Council did not consider that the scale and scope of the operations in the canal zone were in the same category as those of other contemporary or recent deployments. The second world war was a recent memory, and the Korean war was still in progress.
A few years previously, internal security operations in Palestine, over a roughly similar three-year period, had resulted in more than six times as many deaths and almost 10 times as many woundings as those that would eventually result from terrorism in the canal zone. A comparison with Palestine was made when the question of operational awards for the canal zone was considered. The British forces in Palestine were heavily involved in a large number of military operations of various types, against an enemy that was fully armed with modern weapons and organised on a proper military basis. In the canal zone, apart from one military operation that lasted one day, when British troops assaulted the Egyptian police barracks at Ishmaelia, the role of the forces was to provide static guarding, convoy protection and personal security against a quite different type of opponent.
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Some veterans argue that their service compares favourably with present-day deployments for which medals have been awarded. That was part of the case that my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish made in drawing attention to operations that had taken place in the period since the war. We need to be clear that the case must be considered against the standards of the time. Policy on medals changes over the years, and it is for each generation to consider whom it should honour. One view was taken during the first world war, another during the second world war and yet another is taken now. We cannot rewrite history.
Whatever the reason for the initial decision, the fact remains that no case was put to the HD committee either at the time of the deployment or later. There does not seem to have been sufficient agitation for the matter to be reopened until some 20 years after the events, when the late Pip Newton, to whom my hon. Friend referred, instituted a lobbying campaign.
The HD committee has a long-standing policy that it will not consider the institution of awards and medals for service given many years earlier. It will not look back at claims for medals if the operation concerned finished more than five years previously.
Mr. Bennett: Could my hon. Friend tell me when the committee arrived at that decision? Is it not now time for the committee at least to review it?
Mr. Spellar: That decision was taken shortly after the end of the second world war. It might be appropriate to put that point to the committee again, but it believes that there are sound grounds in respect of trying to judge historical decisions against the different criteria of the day. The reasons given by the committee are that, when no contemporary claim was made, it cannot second-guess why those who were in a position to ask for a medal decided not to do so. It also says that claims that were rejected at the time, either by the Ministry of Defence and its predecessors or by the HD committee, were based on contemporary evidence and that those who rejected the claims would have had access to the full facts at the time and would have had valid reasons for rejection.
As I said, that policy has been in force since the end of the second world war, but there had in practice been no retrospective institution of medals since the 19th century. The HD committee has made it clear on a number of occasions that it does not intend to reconsider the policy and nor will it admit that decisions taken in the 19th century should be precedents for the present day.
That is not to say that the Ministry of Defence has a closed mind on the question. In 1990, the then Adjutant-General set in train a review, which examined all the open and closed MOD records that could be found and consulted the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Public Record Office. The then Chief of the General Staff also took an interest in the case. The Adjutant-General concluded that no evidence had been found to

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indicate that the Army Council decision taken at the time was unsound or should be re-examined. Colonel Newton was given the opportunity to study the documents that led to that conclusion.
The following year, the next Adjutant-General sought guidance from the Cabinet Secretary, the chairman of the HD committee. The advice given was that the Ministry of Defence was
"right, so long after the event, to treat this matter as having been settled long ago and to continue to refuse claims for retrospective recognition".
Four years later, Colonel Newton raised the matter with a new Adjutant-General who studied the available material and concluded that the earlier decisions should not be re-examined. The following year, the then Chief of the General Staff examined the relevant papers and also endorsed the conclusion that the matter was settled long ago.
Three years ago, as Under-Secretary of State for Defence, I met a delegation headed by my hon. Friend that consisted of eight canal zone veterans, including Colonel Newton. They stated their case and handed me a number of documents. I asked my Department's Army historical branch to carry out a further review of all available documents to see whether any new facts had come to light and whether there were any grounds for reopening the case. The review was very thorough and my conclusion was that there was no new evidence to persuade me that I should make a case to the HD committee asking it to break its long-established policy and overturn the decisions taken at the time.
We remain willing to look at fresh evidence. For a long time it was believed that the correspondence dating from 1952 had been destroyed or lost. Some of it came to light in July 1999 with the discovery of a folder of papers that should have been passed to the Public Record Office 15 years earlier. We were open about that, and copies of the documents were sent to all hon. Members who had received ministerial letters mentioning the 1952 correspondence and to some of the more frequent correspondents among the veterans. I arranged for the papers to be examined by the Army historical branch; again, its conclusion was that they contained nothing to justify an approach to the HD committee.
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A year ago, my hon. Friend and a colleague presented my successor as Under-Secretary with papers relating to contemporary political and public opinion about the canal zone; again the papers were examined and yet again the same conclusion was reached.
In summary, there are three basic facts. First, the War Office did not submit a case for a medal at the time of the canal zone deployment or shortly after. Secondly, the HD committee has a long-standing and firm policy of non-retrospection. Thirdly, despite successive reviews, no evidence has come to light that demonstrates that the War Office got it wrong and that the HD committee could be persuaded to breach its policy.
Mr. Healey: Can my hon. Friend explain what new evidence would persuade him to alter his position?
Mr. Spellar: Evidence relating to, for example, the Army Council could persuade me to alter my position. I mentioned earlier that General Robertson did not appeal or argue against the decision. However, we believe from the surrounding evidence that he probably made an initial inquiry. Evidence relating to whether the case was considered properly in terms of procedure might constitute grounds for reconsideration.
Mr. Bennett: There is increasing evidence about how delicate the situation was among Conservative MPs at the time. One faction was keen to get out of the zone as quickly as possible; the other faction was keen to stand and fight. That sensitivity suggests that there may have been a little political persuasion not to award a medal because it would have caused political difficulties for a party that had a small majority at the time.
Mr. Spellar: The fact that engagements were controversial has not prevented medals being awarded. I mentioned the Korean war, which was controversial in British domestic terms. I say to both my hon. Friends, and to the other hon. Members who have taken a considerable interest in the matter, that we are ready to examine further evidence and we understand the strength of feeling about the case. We acknowledge the service that was given by the veterans in the Suez canal zone in that period.
It being Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the sitting lapsed, without Question put.