Westminster Hall Sitting of 16 December 2003

Preamble
SIR NICHOLAS WINTERTON in the Chair]

Supreme Court
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned. —[Mr. Heppell.]
9.30 am
Mr. Alistair Carmichael: I am pleased to have secured this debate. I was greatly assisted in my deliberations by the investigation, and the evidence taken during it, carried out by the Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs, which is chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith). I understand that the Committee is due to sit at 10 o'clock this morning, which may account in part for the sparse attendance in the Chamber.
I started with a clear view on several matters relating to the topic, but then I read the evidence received by the Select Committee from several erudite and learned sources and found myself questioning some of the simplest and most straightforward aspects of the proposal. I mention that because it is important to put it on the record that the subject is of immense constitutional significance.
Ever since Montesquieu wrote his seminal work, "De l'esprit des lois", there has been fairly widespread acceptance of the desirability of separating powers among the three pillars of the state: the judiciary, the Executive and the legislature. In our own way, we have managed in the United Kingdom's constitution to respect that principle, but our acceptance of it has sometimes been muddled and messy. The office of the Lord Chancellor and the House of Lords as an appellate court is perhaps one of the best examples of that muddle.
I do not know whether lofty legal principles or lofty legal personnel first spurred the Prime Minister to embark on his consultation in June, but I suspect that it was the latter rather than the former. My one reservation about consultation on the proposal, which I broadly favour, is that we might be biting off more than we can chew because a number of substantial issues that could be considered are not being considered, or are in danger of not being considered properly. My basic thesis is that I would rather get it right than get it quick. I am concerned that a rush to legislate in such an important sphere will, if we do not get the legislation right, have profound and severe implications.
My approach to the subject arises principally from my concerns relating to the position of Scots law. I wish to register my mild irritation that the Advocate-General, the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland are not in the Chamber for this debate. I am delighted that the Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie), is here, and I am sure that he is more than equal to the task of answering any questions that I shall ask, but the matter will have a profound effect on the conduct of Scottish business here. Despite
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that, the Scotland Office, notwithstanding its continuing substantial presence in Dover house, cannot find the time or personnel to attend. Frankly, that is not good enough.
The separation of judicial business from the House of Lords is welcome, although in evidence to the Select Committee, Lord Hope of Craighead said that being able to mix with MPs and other peers and to walk the corridors of Westminster was an important way for him to stay in touch. That is an interesting perspective from a man who is an exceptionally capable judge, and whose father and, I think, grandfather were also judges, and who, notwithstanding his immense talent, typifies the sort of person who becomes a judge. That is how he stays in touch. I feel that I am in danger of being out of touch when I am in Westminster and I go home to my constituency to get in touch, but it is all a matter of perspective. In passing, I point out that if we are to get the judges out of the House of Lords, the Church of England bishops must surely be the next to go.
Principally, I shall discuss the Scottish aspects of a supreme court, but there are two issues of wider importance that I would like to touch on first: the appointment of members of the supreme court and whether a broader range of constitutional issues should be within the court's remit or jurisdiction. Who appoints judges to the supreme court strikes at the heart of the independence of the judiciary. People have struggled for centuries with the question. who judges the judges? Time has moved on and now we have to ask who appoints the members of the independent appointment commission. The Government seek to pursue a policy that involves minimal change, whereby the Prime Minister, following consultation with the First Minister in Scotland and the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland, will make suggestions on appointments to Her Majesty. Concerns have been expressed that that formalises a process that gives the Executive undue influence in judicial appointments. If judges can be appointed by the Executive in that way, there is a question about their overall independence.
I commend to the Minister the proposals made in response to the Government's consultation by the Law Society of Scotland, which opposes the direct line of appointment from the Prime Minister to the sovereign. It suggests that the chair of the Judicial Appointments Board in Scotland. the Commissioner for Judicial Appointments for Northern Ireland and the chair of the Commission for Judicial Appointments in England and Wales, together with three supreme court judges, should be appointed as members of an appointments panel. My initial concern about that proposal was that it might tend to continue the self-perpetuating appointment of small "c" conservative men by small "c" conservative men, but, in fact, if one applies to that process the Nolan principles of openness and transparency, there is a great deal to be said for it. It balances the need for independence on the one hand with the obvious need for that degree of transparency that we now seek in all public appointments. If the three supreme court judges were, as a matter of fact, if not of law, drawn from each of the jurisdictions in the British Isles, we would have on the appointments commission two members from Scotland, two from England and Wales and two from Northern Ireland. That would go some way to addressing some concerns that have been expressed

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north of the border and, no doubt, in Northern Ireland that the proposed system will, in effect, be an English court.
The important question of the constitutional matters that might come before the supreme court is not properly considered by the Government's consultation paper. When one speaks of a supreme court, one of course immediately brings to mind the model in the United States, where the Supreme Court exists primarily to adjudicate on questions of constitutional propriety. However, there is now a very strong case for saying that a stronger role could be given to the judiciary in the United Kingdom, especially in respect of the implementation of human rights legislation.
At present, Acts of the Scottish Parliament can be struck down by the courts on the ground of their noncompliance with the Human Rights Act 1998, whereas Acts of the UK Parliament can only be made the subject of a guidance note advising of a lack of compliance with the 1998 Act. That is an obvious difference between the two systems. To my mind, the 1998 Act introduces to United Kingdom law, probably for the first time, the notion of a hierarchy of legislation. The idea that ordinary legislation, if I may call it that, can be struck out by human rights legislation is fairly novel, especially to the constitutional practices and theories that have been followed south of the border.
The proposed supreme court is of huge importance, as it would represent a significant shift in the balance of power between the judiciary on one hand and Parliament and the Executive on the other. It requires more substantial and careful consideration than it has so far been given with the somewhat rushed nature of the consultation. At the same time, however, the measure is necessary. If it is not in the Bill to be introduced early next year, it will almost certainly be in a Queen's Speech two, three or four years down the line—or at some stage. There is an inevitability about it. The fact that an Act of the Scottish Parliament can be struck out by a court puts a foot in the door. If we go down that road, however, the power that we give the judiciary must be very carefully prescribed and defined. It is a missed opportunity that the Government's consultation process does not allow that to be done in the time scale set.
The other point of some significance for me as a Scot is the current practice whereby devolution issues come from Scottish courts to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Like many Scottish lawyers, I viewed that with great suspicion at first because, in effect, it brought Scottish criminal cases within the jurisdiction of a court in London, which had never been the practice hitherto. However, having observed it for the past six years, I have to say that it has worked well.
None the less, the Government should exercise caution before they move from a position in which such cases go to the Privy Council to one in which they are placed under the jurisdiction of the supreme court. The Minister may be aware that Lord Hope of Craighead made a very good point in his evidence to the Select Committee: there is a degree of flexibility in the composition of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council that allows extra, almost ad hoc, judges to be imported from north of the border to sit on such cases.
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That arrangement has worked exceptionally well. As things stand, the supreme court would not have that degree of flexibility. For that reason if for no other, the retention of devolution issues within the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is devoutly to be encouraged.
A number of items of Scottish business arise from consideration of a supreme court. I am interested in the view of Lord Hope of Craighead on one matter, and I will be very interested to know what advice the Minister has had on it. I quote from Lord Hope's answer to question 300, which is on page 13 of the transcript of evidence to the Select Committee, which I understood was to be placed in the Library or the Vote Office. He says that
"the whole issue of Scottish participation in the new court is a matter which is devolved, because, if you look at Section 126 of the Scotland Act, the whole of Scots private law and criminal law is a matter for the Scottish Parliament unless it touches on reserved matters. That suggests to me that what we are talking about, when we are talking about a final court of appeal in Scottish cases, is an amendment of the Court of Session Act, which is a Scottish Act, which really is under the supervision of the Parliament. Certainly it will be dealt with by a Sewel motion, which would require a vote in Edinburgh, but the ideal position would be for the matter to be debated fully by the Members of the Scottish Parliament."
Does that coincide with the Minister's understanding of the situation? Does the measure constitute an amendment to the Court of Session Act, and will it be taken from the Scottish Parliament by way of a Sewel motion, or dealt with by the Scottish Parliament under its own powers? The Minister may wonder what will happen to the Government's time scale if the Scottish Parliament declines to pass such a Sewel motion. I find it more than slightly alarming that we have reached the middle of December and an issue of that fundamental importance does not appear to have been dealt with, at least in public.
Lord Hope of Craighead also raised several practical considerations—I hesitate to call them objections. He made the point that situating a supreme court close to the Strand and the Inns of Court would send a rather poor message to those of us who are not subject to the law of England and Wales, as it would appear somehow to subsume Scottish business within the greater mass of English and Welsh business. Given the difficulties experienced by my colleagues in Edinburgh, I hesitate to suggest the creation of a new building, but there is a lot to be said for keeping the supreme court closer to this place than to the Strand, and wherever it is, it should not be seen as an adjunct to the English and Welsh system.
Mr. David Heath: Would my hon. Friend consider the Middlesex guildhall, a building close to here, an appropriate place, given that it would symbolise proximity to the UK Parliament?
Mr. Carmichael: I shall not get drawn into a debate on the relative merits of different buildings at this stage. Apart from anything else, besides the Palace of Westminster, its surrounding satellites and my flat in Kennington, I do not really know many buildings in London, such is the nature of the life that we lead, but I am sure that the Middlesex guildhall is delightful.

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In passing, I wonder why the supreme court has to be in London at all. Why are we pulling yet another aspect of Government business into London? I am sure that Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Belfast or Cardiff could easily provide suitable facilities. Why should there be an assumption that the court comes to the capital? I merely float that idea, but if we are to start with a blank sheet of paper-apparently we are—why not take advantage of that? If we are looking for value for money and best value, as we are encouraged to do, surely best value would be found in the property market elsewhere in the country.
Substantial concern has also been expressed about the proposed administration of the supreme court by the Court Service of England and Wales. That would be an unfortunate signal to send to the rest of the country. Again, if the court is to be seen as truly independent, it has to be independent in all its structures. It would be a missed opportunity if the supreme court were seen to be dependent on the court system in England and Wales.
I turn to the question of the business that would be justiciable by the supreme court. At present, all civil cases relating to statute or Scottish civil law can go from Scotland to the House of Lords; there is no right of appeal to the House of Lords on criminal matters. Devolution issues can be taken to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. We should perhaps consider the matter afresh. My gut instinct is to say that the present arrangement works pretty well. I do not favour the repatriation of common law civil cases to the Court of Session in Edinburgh; that is unnecessary and undesirable. Taking statutory law but not common law cases to the supreme court artificially divides the law and is unhelpful.
Interestingly, some thinking north of the border says that there is a case for taking Scottish criminal cases to the supreme court on appeal. I can see some advantage to that, but I remain to be convinced that Scots criminal law, which is a much smaller branch compared with the totality of Scots civil law, could survive being subsumed in that way. The principles of Scots civil law are broadly similar to those south of the border, particularly in relation to cases that go to the House of Lords, which tend to be the larger commercial cases. In an article in The Scots Law Times on 31 October, Professor George Gretton described the procedure as
"a mere historical anomaly that few would seek to defend."
However, it is an historical anomaly that has worked rather well. I would not close the door on bringing appeals from criminal cases to the supreme court, but I would require further persuasion. That is another issue that might have been considered by a fuller and lengthier consultation period, but it will not be done properly now.
I am aware that others wish to speak. I am pleased that we are at last seeing some meaningful reform of the conduct of judicial business within the House of Lords. I hope that the Minister will take it from one who is broadly supportive of the Government's aims that there are big issues to consider and there are still opportunities to do things better.
Mr. Dominic Grieve:rose—
Sir Nicholas Winterton: Order. I see the shadow Attorney-General rising. It is not entirely appropriate for him, as an Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, to participate in the debate.
Mr. Grieve: indicated dissent
Sir Nicholas Winterton: I have the hon Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) down to speak for the Opposition. Clearly, the shadow Attorney-General can intervene, but, prior to taking further advice, I am not prepared to call him in the debate.
Mr. Grieve: On a point of order, Sir Nicholas. I ask you to take advice, because I wish to participate in the debate. I shall stand corrected by any ruling you may give, but my understanding is that, as a Member, I am entitled to participate, and I wish to do so.
Mr. Alan Duncan: Further to that point of order, Sir Nicholas. It may assist you in appreciating the structure of the Opposition Front-Bench team if I were to explain that I am the official spokesman on this issue. Given the fluid structure of the Opposition, my hon. Friend the shadow Attorney-General would speak as if from the Back Benches. Therefore, I trust that you will see fit to call him, as I am the official Opposition spokesman for the purpose of this debate.
Sir Nicholas Winterton: The hon. Gentleman is always extremely courteous, but what he has said about how the Opposition organise their Front Bench is not the business of or a matter for the Chair. I shall take further advice, but I intend now to call the hon. Member for Perth (Annabelle Ewing).
9.56 am
Annabelle Ewing: Thank you, Sir Nicholas. I am pleased to be called to speak in this debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) on securing this extremely important debate, which neither the UK Government in London nor the Government in Edinburgh appear to want to have in their own time—at least, not to date. I am not entirely sure whether I am required to declare an interest, but I am a qualified Scots lawyer and, hence, a member of the Law Society of Scotland.
Mr. Carmichael: I believe that the hon. Lady is required to make such a declaration. Perhaps I, too, should have made such a declaration, but I did not because I do not hold a practising certificate, although I am an enrolled solicitor.
Sir Nicholas Winterton: The hon. Gentleman's courtesy is noted.
Annabelle Ewing: I felt that I should make that declaration, as I do hold a full practising certificate, although I am not practising at present.

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I also join the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland in noting with some astonishment and, indeed, dismay that no Scotland Office Minister is here today, nor is the Advocate-General for Scotland or any Scottish Labour Back Bencher. That speaks for itself and for their commitment to uphold the integrity of Scots law.
As far as Scotland is concerned, the proposals for a supreme court represent a missed opportunity to end the 18th century anomaly whereby final appellate jurisdiction in civil cases in Scotland lies south of the border. As we have heard, the final appellate jurisdiction over Scots criminal law, leaving aside the particular instances of devolution cases, lies with the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland and not, thankfully, the House of Lords. Therefore, the question must be posed as to why in post-devolution Scotland the final right of appeal in civil cases should lie south of the border.
Both the announcement and the substance of the proposals to create a new supreme court with jurisdiction in Scotland attracted fairly strong criticism from those in senior legal circles in Scotland. Of course, the announcement followed the Prime Minister's botched reshuffle in June and was preceded by no consultation whatever with the Scottish First Minister, Scottish Executive Ministers or the Scottish Parliament. I raised the matter in a point of order in the Chamber on 1 July and argued that that cavalier approach to Scots law showed breathtaking contempt on the part of the Prime Minister towards the Scottish Parliament and democracy.
On the lack of prior consultation, Scotland's estimable First Minister said simply that there was "absolutely no reason whatsoever" for the Prime Minister to have consulted him on such a major constitutional change. That speaks volumes about the limited length to which the estimable First Minister is prepared to go to stand up for the Scots legal system and the interests of his country.
Mr. Grieve: The hon. Lady will appreciate that the First Minister was in good company. The Secretary of the Cabinet was given 20 minutes' notice of that proposal, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales was not informed about it and no member of the judiciary was informed—nor were the Law Officers.
Annabelle Ewing: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He is correct in saying that the way that the proposals were dealt with—their announcement and the prior consultation—was a disgrace. I hope that the Minister will reflect on that in his winding-up speech.
Many concerns have been raised by senior legal figures in Scotland on the substance of the proposals for a UK supreme court. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland referred to Lord Hope of Craighead—a senior Scottish Law Lord—who raised serious concerns at the outset about whether the proposals would fall foul of the treaty of Union of 1707. Those concerns were raised in the light of the fact that Scottish cases could be heard on appeal south of the border only in a court that was entirely separate from the English legal system.
As the Minister will be aware, that key issue was the nub of the response by the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh to the Department for Constitutional Affairs
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consultation paper. The Faculty of Advocates concluded that the proposals were both unconstitutional and unlawful in their present form. That conclusion has been widely regarded in Scotland as a devastating critique of the proposals and was based on the fact that they did not meet the requirements of the Act of Union. Indeed, they contain no provision for the new supreme court to be run, administered and—importantly—funded separately from the DCA, which is also responsible for the administration of legal services in England and Wales. That is the key issue—the nub of the matter.
The Government may not have realised initially that the treaty of Union of 1707 had implications for their proposals. They may not have been aware of that issue—indeed, they may prefer to regard it as unimportant—but it remains the key constitutional matter regarding the application of the proposals to Scotland. Aside from the constitutional implications, that raises the question whether the proposals would be in breach of the Act of Union if they go ahead in their current form, which is the view of senior legal figures in Scotland. What validity would a judgment handed down by that new body have in Scotland, when the Government have clearly breached the founding constitutional document setting up the Union between Scotland and England? The fact that the UK Government and the Government in Edinburgh do not appear to have grasped that key constitutional dilemma is difficult to fathom and alarming.
I had the great pleasure of attending the Scottish Grand Committee on 12 November 2003, along with the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, whom I hear muttering. Nevertheless, it is always a pleasure to attend that Committee. During that sitting, the Secretary of State for Scotland replied to the debate on constitutional arrangements for Scotland. I shall quote the whole of his enlightening statement:
"The question of who pays for the supreme court and whether the money comes through the Department for Constitutional Affairs would. perhaps, be of extreme interest in a rarefied debate in the Court of Session, or somewhere similar. In practical terms, however, for money to come to a particular organisation, it must go through one Department or another. There is no escaping that." —[Official Report, Scottish Grand Committee, 12 November 2003; c. 25.]
That statement, by no less a person than the Secretary of State for Scotland, reflects a breathtaking lack of understanding of the key constitutional issues involved. Thank goodness that, in the absence of the Government, we in Scotland have defenders of the integrity of Scots law and strong voices in the legal profession that are prepared to stand up and be counted.
For the record, we in the Scottish National party are in favour of the general principle of the separation of the judiciary from the Executive and legislature. Of course, as democrats, we are also in favour of a written constitution and a Bill of Rights for our citizens.
As far as Scots law is concerned, the proposals represent a missed opportunity. The renowned and well-respected professor of Scots law at Edinburgh university recently described the present system of sending final civil appeals to the House of Lords as "crazy". He went on:
"I've always thought that civil appeals should be decided in Scottish courts... A UK supreme court should only be for constitutional issues."

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That quote was taken from the Holyrood magazine of 6 October 2003. 1 entirely agree with Professor Black's statement, with the proviso that, on Scotland's regaining the normal status of independence, the UK supreme court will have no writ whatever over constitutional matters or anything else in Scotland.
In conclusion, in post-devolution Scotland, the 18th century anomaly of final appellate jurisdiction in civil cases lying south of the border should be brought to a timely close.
10.6 am
Mr. David Heath: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) on securing this debate, which is a valuable curtain-raiser to the Government's proposals. Oddly enough, we have not yet had the opportunity to debate them either on the Floor of the House or in Westminster Hall. Clearly, there are some big issues on which we should at least express some view before we move to legislation, which, I suspect, may not be far away in the new year.
In constitutional terms, nothing could be more significant than the Government's proposals for the supreme court. I suspect that that was lost on the Prime Minister when he made the initial announcement; things were not thought through. A matter of such importance should not be essayed on the back of a rather botched reshuffle and the need to move one Secretary of State into another role.
My hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland started the debate in a high tone of academic brilliance—as is his habit—with a reference to Montesquieu. He is quite right that the concept of the separation of powers, although not explicit in the British constitution as it is in the constitutions of other countries with comparable jurisdictions, is nevertheless a theme that has been well understood by jurists, politicians and the general public. That makes anomalous the position in this country, where a single individual sits as a member of the Cabinet, the Executive and the legislature and as head of the judiciary. That point has been raised many times.
My hon. Friend said that on the whole that system has worked okay. I am inclined to agree, although, in history, there have been many examples of Lord Chancellors who were anything but impartial in their political outlook and in the actions that they undertook. At times, the post has thrown the question of the role of the Lord Chancellor into very sharp relief.
Mr. Grieve: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Heath: I give way to the hon. Gentleman, who has returned to the Back Benches, although I hope not on a permanent basis.
Mr. Grieve: I thought that I was on the Back Benches anyway, because I did not think that this Chamber had a Front Bench and Back Benches as Committees do.
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, in the past 50 years, no questions have been raised about the impartiality of judicial appointments made by Lord Chancellors, whether they are from one party or another?
Mr. Heath: I am inclined to agree. I am trying to remember whether there have been problems with
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judicial appointments, but I do not believe that there have. However, that does not alter the fact that it is a constitutional anomaly—I would say, to use the mildest terms, a constitutional outrage—to have that mixing of roles in the Cabinet embodied in the present post of Lord Chancellor. We have argued that for a long time. Indeed, we have argued that case in the face of blank rejection from the Government in previous years. I recall several occasions on which the point was put to Ministers occupying the post held by the Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie), only for it to be met with the blank assertion that all was well and the Lord Chancellor right. It is difficult to reconcile that with the present policy direction, but I welcome the change in tone.
If the Government are right in principle, why have they made such an unholy mess of the process, which, frankly, is what they have done? This fundamental reform to our constitution and legal system has been introduced in such a manner that it has caused the maximum upset, disagreement and loss of confidence. That is extraordinary.
My hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland concentrated, for obvious reasons, on some Scottish aspects of the proposals. That is the right thing to do from his point of view, and he will forgive me for not being as expert in those aspects as he or the hon. Member for Perth (Annabelle Ewing). I agree that it is odd that the Advocate-General for Scotland did not feel that examining this matter might be a profitable use of her time. I know that she is busily engaged in her duties; we regularly discover that at Advocate-General's questions. However, I had hoped that she might spare a little time from her busy day to understand more fully the concerns of hon. Members about the Scottish aspects of the supreme court.
There is a fundamental issue. Is this going to be a supreme court of England and Wales or a supreme court of the United Kingdom? The Government's proposal is that it will be a supreme court of the UK. If that is the case, why were discussions not opened at an early stage to examine the consequences for Scotland? Scotland has a separate legal identity and system. If the supreme court is established, it will have an appellate function on matters that come in some instances from the High Court of Justiciary and in others from the Court of Session, but it is unclear whether that can be effected without primary legislation being passed in the Scottish Parliament. I tend to the view that that will be needed. If so, it surely would have been better to examine those consequences in depth before embarking on over-hasty legislation.
That haste is at the core of many objections that have been raised. It is deplorable that splits have now occurred among the Law Lords on this issue: it is sad that the Government have been unable to take with them the highest echelons of the judiciary in England and Wales or in Scotland or in Northern Ireland. One of the first problems was the haste to which the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) referred. The Lord Chief Justice was not consulted before the proposals were brought forward. It is deplorable that the Lord Chief Justice was not given the opportunity of expressing a view on those matters before they were announced. Indeed, as we recall, the original

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announcement was that the Lord Chancellor's post no longer existed. A few hours later, we discovered that it did, because otherwise the House of Lords could not sit. So we have the spectacle of the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs having to don a wig and sit on the Woolsack in the full post of the Lord High Chancellor, despite having disavowed it only a matter of hours earlier.
Mr. Grieve: Let me enlighten the hon. Gentleman further; there was a famous e-mail in which the Lord Chief Justice, on hearing what happened, told his brother judges that he felt that, in the circumstances, he had to take over as head of the judiciary. When that reached the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, as he then was, he was rather upset, and said, "No, no, no; I'm still head of the judiciary." It was only at that point that the Secretary of State decided that it was inevitable that he would have to maintain the title of Lord Chancellor. That is the extent to which the Government have messed up the system through complete arrogance and lack of consultation.
Mr. Heath: I tend to agree. It reminds me of the shooting of President Reagan, and of Al Haig not being able to decide whether he was in charge of the country. He first said that he was, and then that he was not. The matters that we are discussing do not have quite the same consequences for the freedom of the western world, but it is none the less important to decide who is in charge of the judiciary.
I do not accept the second argument against the supreme court, which is simply one of reaction. It is the view that everything works okay so we have no need to reform or change—a traditional Conservative position. The role of the Lord Chancellor was unacceptable, and I see great merit in a supreme court. I would not die in a ditch to preserve the term of Lords of Appeal in Ordinary. If one were to ask average citizens what a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary was concerned with, they would have some difficulty in identifying the fact that the title referred to the supreme appellate court of England and Wales—and of the United Kingdom, in some cases. The term "supreme court" is not new, of course; in fact, there is a question about what we do with the existing supreme court's nomenclature: it is, of course, the higher court in England and Wales. Nevertheless, there is a strong argument for moving forward.
There is a more substantial argument about judicial independence, and that has to be grasped. Under the proposals, the role of the Lord Chancellor as the underwriter of judicial independence in the Cabinet has effectively been lost, and that has to be replaced, whether by statute, as I attempted to do through amendments to legislation in the last Session, or by other means. We have to ensure, in the absence of a written constitution, that the concept of judicial independence is clearly delineated. It is just too easy for senior Ministers to get on their high horses and start judge-bashing—they do it with monotonous regularity—and undermining the concept of judicial independence.
A less valuable argument is that judges rather like sitting in the House of Lords. I noted the references to
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Lord Hope of Craighead and his evidence; he thought it was rather a good idea to mix with the common people in the House of Lords to gain life experience. I do not think that that is a good enough reason. There is an argument for what we have—an appointed part of the House of Lords—although I hope, for heaven's sake, that we do not continue to have that because I would like an elected second Chamber. However, if we have an appointed section, there is a case for making sure that retired Law Lords or lords from the supreme court are appointed, because the value of their judicial experience is evident. There is no obvious reason why a sitting judge should be a Member of our second Chamber.
I must draw my remarks to a close, but there are still a number of unanswered questions about the appointments system. I am concerned that the Government are attempting to preserve an influence in the appointment of the judiciary that their rhetoric suggests they wish to remove. That needs to be looked at closely.
There is the issue of funding the supreme court. I agree that it should have independent funding, and I believe that that has to be ring-fenced from the generality of English and Welsh courts. I particularly take the point made by Scots colleagues that, if it is to be a wholly owned subsidiary of the courts of England and Wales, it will have less value as a supreme court of Scotland.
Premises are important, and the betting seems to be on Somerset house. There are various reasons why that is not the ideal solution. I had not appreciated the strength of feeling in Scotland against placing the supreme court so clearly within the purview of the English and Welsh court system because of its proximity not only to the Royal Courts of Justice, but to the Inns of Court. As a genuine suggestion, I believe that the Middlesex guildhall would be a suitable place; it looks out across Parliament square at the Houses of Parliament, yet it represents the independence of the judiciary. I hope that that suggestion will be seriously considered.
Lastly, there is the question of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. I do not accept that it must be preserved simply as a last court of appeal for those countries in the Commonwealth, principally, to which we provide that service. Logic suggests that if we have root-and-branch reform, we should lose it, gain a single appellate body-the supreme court—and make it available to other people. We must take into account the suggestion for a panel of judges that can support the supreme court in matters of Scots law, where appropriate, and on matters involving jurisdictions that look to Britain for their final court of appeal.
The problem is that we have a rushed proposal with huge consequences that has not been thought through. It emanated from a Prime Minister who was trying to carry out a reshuffle on the back of an envelope rather than considering the constitutional round and putting forward sensible proposals that we would support. In its present form, we have serious questions about it.
Sir Nicholas Winterton: Before I call the next speaker, may I help the House? First, I apologise for the rather confused structure of this very important debate in Westminster Hall. There has been a lack of

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communication between the authorities in the House, resulting in this important debate taking place when the Constitutional Affairs Committee is meeting upstairs. I hope that the authorities will take note and ensure that it does not happen again. I am sure that the Minister will take that on board.
Secondly, in so far as Members can sit where they like here, this is a more informal Chamber than the main Chamber of the House. Perhaps the atmosphere is less confrontational, but I must say to the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) that the rules of the House apply in Westminster Hall as they apply in the House. In the House, we do not have two Front-Bench spokesmen. Quite exceptionally, because of the time that is available, and without setting any precedent, I am prepared to call the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) as a Back-Bench Member to participate in the debate.
10.24 am
Mr. Dominic Grieve: Thank you, Sir Nicholas. It was not my intention to sow confusion on proper procedure. However, if this situation helps to clarify matters, it will have been helpful.
One merit of the post that I hold in my party is that I am asked to engage in independent thinking; I thought it might therefore be useful if I were to participate in the debate. The subject is of interest to me, as a practising barrister; however, I am also a pragmatist. If somebody were to propose to me that improvements could be made to the judicial system, I would be prepared to listen and, as it might turn out, to work with the Government to try to achieve a satisfactory outcome.
The proposals we are discussing started off in a most extraordinary fashion—extraordinary because of the way in which the Government launched the reform as a diktat back in the summer. They pronounced on the form that they wanted, did so without any prior consultation or warning, including with those parties most intimately connected with the situation, and tried to implement the proposals in a way that was total nonsense: they were impossible to implement because the post of Lord Chancellor could not be abolished without primary legislation. Serious questions were raised about the underlying motive behind the Government's proposals.
I listened care fully to the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) and I congratulate him on prompting this debate and. in particular, on his comments about Scotland. From his participation in debates, I know of his expertise. He raised important issues that we are going to have to consider. I hope that he will forgive me for widening the scope a little to one or two other matters.
The hon. Gentleman started by referring to the doctrine of the separation of powers and Montesquieu. As I am half French, I have some interest in that doctrine. Constitutionally, I do not believe that it has ever existed in this country. It is a philosophical principle that has been widely adopted on the continent and that undoubtedly commands and deserves respect. It is something that we must take into account in deciding what arrangements to have here. However, it is worth pointing out that in the country where Montesquieu lived, wrote and died, and where his
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maxims are applied as far as possible, it is the unfortunate truth that, far from the public perceiving that there is a true separation of powers between the judiciary and the Executive, there is a widespread perception that the Executive can influence judicial decisions.
In a country that, on the face of it, has put the relevant structures in place, not a week goes by without the newspapers reporting instances of examining magistrates having been placed under improper pressure during their conduct of investigations in a judicial capacity. There are also allegations that the French court system comes under political influence. I make that point because we need to contrast it with the bizarre, archaic, curious system that we have in this country. I have never come across allegations of political bias against the judiciary in this country, especially the higher judiciary, about the way in which they make their decisions, notwithstanding the fact that the Law Lords sit in an assembly.
I read what the Government had to say in their reform document. The preamble—I always pay some attention to preambles—is a woolly piece of writing. For example, it says:
"The considerable growth of judicial review in recent years has inevitably brought the judges more into the political eye. It is essential that our systems do all that they can to minimise the danger that judges' decisions could be perceived to be politically motivated."
The growth of human rights legislation makes almost inevitable the risk of political motivation being attributed to judges being realised. That will continue irrespective of whether there is an Appellate Committee of the House of Lords. We have a lot of evidence already that, with the changes to Kilmuir rules, judges are being obliged to speak out more frequently and to justify their decisions. That worries me; I am not sure that it is desirable. If I had to choose between that and a senior judiciary whose members have the ability occasionally to participate, with great restraint, in debate in the House of Lords, I would prefer the old arrangement.
The Government then tell us in the preamble:
"It is not always understood that the decisions of the 'House of Lords' are in practice decisions of the Appellate Committee and that non-judicial members of the House never take part in the judgments."
I have to say to the Minister: come off it. I have never heard it suggested that decisions taken by the Appellate Committee are taken by the House of Lords generally. That is a fantasy, yet it is the fantasy that underpins the preamble on which the Government build their arguments.
Towards the end of the preamble. the following statement is made:
"In proposing that the time has come to change these arrangements, no criticism is intended of the way in which the members of either Committee have discharged their functions. Nor have there been any accusations of actual bias in either the appointments to either body or their judgments … The arrangements have served us well in the past. Nonetheless, the Government has come to the conclusion that the present position is no longer sustainable."
I am prepared to accept that it is no longer sustainable, but I need more persuasion than is contained in this document that that is the case.

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What will be the consequences of the proposals? The House of Lords might be turned into a supreme court. The expression "supreme court" is wrong, and I think that the Government are halfway to acknowledging that. We cannot have a supreme court in this country because the court system is not the supreme body, as is the case in the United States. If a supreme court exists anywhere, it is in this Parliament. If the Law Lords are set into a separate body and are unable to take their seats in Parliament, the cross-fertilisation between them and senior Members of the legislature will be lost. I suspect that that is one of the ingredients that has made the independence of the judiciary from the Executive so successful in this country.
What mechanisms will be put in place to ensure that that independence can continue? The risk to the judiciary's independence comes not from the legislature but from the power of the Executive, who manipulate the media by making hostile pronouncements on judicial decisions that are intended to influence the judiciary thereafter. The great protection that the judiciary has always had in that respect comes from the office of Lord Chancellor, because he takes the judge's oath and he is a judge within Government. It is a unique institution that has served this country very well. The office of Lord Chancellor might need to be reformed: if he does not sit as a judge but still takes the judicial oath, the independence of the judiciary would be strengthened, whereas the Government's proposals raise a great fear that it might be weakened.
Cost is a small matter in the context of the totality of the Government's proposals. I accept the comments of Lord Bingham of Cornhill that the Law Lords are under-resourced. Apart from judicial salaries, they cost about £600,000 a year and recoup £400,000. In administrative terms, therefore, the cost to the taxpayer of this extraordinary court with a worldwide reputation is £200,000 per annum.
One thing we can guarantee—everything might be shoved off to Somerset house. I can tell the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) that Middlesex guildhall has already been ruled out. My understanding—the Minister might tell me more about it is that Middlesex guildhall is a grade 1 listed building and its main court would have to be changed, because as currently constituted it is wholly unsuitable for the Appellate Committee's sittings. The hallmark of the Appellate Committee is that it has informality. The Minister might not have been to have a look at Middlesex guildhall, but I assure him that its main court has everything except informality; it is a very grand room. Therefore, there are cost implications. We are entitled to know whether we are going to get value for money, or whether we will spend £50 million on building a new court complex with many hundreds of thousands of pounds of running costs.
If the Government want to introduce changes that command widespread acceptance, they must start arguing from basic premises about the basic philosophical ideas underlying the proposals. Saying, "We have an idea and you can provide a few steers on the detail," is not enough. I am unconvinced of the need for the changes, although I am open to be convinced. However, one thing is clear: a system that has served us
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very well for a long time does not need to be changed overnight—there is no urgency. If the Government would like to start the process properly, we might end up with a satisfactory outcome.
10.35 am
Mr. Alan Duncan: Sir Nicholas, thank you for your earlier guidance on how this Chamber works. It showed the confusion that can arise when established practices are disturbed and was a microcosmic and useful example to us in our debate today.
All of us thank the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) for securing the debate. It was mentioned earlier, and all hon. Members can see, that the proposal for a supreme court was born of a botched reshuffle. It came out of the blue —none of us knew that it was coming. It is as if the Government were forced to make the proposal by accident, on the back of ill thought out proposals for the reform of the upper House. Although the Government's stated objective is to make the upper House more democratic and representative, perversely they want to appoint all its Members and, doubly paradoxically, they want to remove the Law Lords.
There has been no debate. There is no consensus. As a former Law Lord said in The Spectator:
"I can understand the argument that the Lord Chancellor as a member of the executive should not sit as a judge"
incidentally, we Conservatives can, too—
"But I can see no reason at all why the law lords, who are not members of the executive, should not sit as members of the Upper House."
The Liberal Democrat view was expressed in the upper House by their spokesman Lord Goodhart, who said, as if with a flick of the hand, that the proposals would
"do no more than put an end to what is now an historic anomaly." —[Official Report, House of Lords, 8 September 2003; Vol. 652, c. 129.]
His analysis is wrong. The present arrangement is, perhaps, anomalous in some respects—although I would challenge that—but it is fundamentally wrong to say that the proposals would simply put an end to that anomaly and formalise the position. In fact, they would do much more.
Perhaps across this horseshoe Chamber there is a fundamental political difference in our approach to change. For a socialist, a clean sheet of paper and abstract thinking are permissible. A conservative, however, prefers evolution, rather than revolution, in any change that we oversee. We believe in tests of practicality, rather than mere conformity to abstract thinking, and although we are always happy to make changes, we prefer them to be made gradually. Teachers have commented on many a student's great proposals by saying, "Well, that might work in theory, but it does not work in practice." The House of Lords and the existing judicial system work in practice, but not in theory. We regard that as an adequate reason for retention.
The proposed changes are based on a flawed concept. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland and my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) touched on that. They made a distinction—which exists—between the independence of the judiciary and

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the separation of powers. However, there is confusion in this debate around the Government's defence of their reforms. Although they claim that the changes are about the judiciary's independence, they deploy arguments about the separation of powers. Let me quote a Law Lord, Lord Hobhouse of Woodborough, who encapsulates so much of our thinking in two paragraphs:
"It is important not to confuse the United Kingdom's constitutional principle of the independence of the judiciary with the United States of America's principle of the separation of powers."
One might mention Montesquieu at that point. Lord Hobhouse continues:
"The latter is a doctrine based on a mistaken analysis of the British constitution developed by French thinkers in the 18th century. It involves the complete and balanced separation of all three branches of Government —the Executive, the legislature and the judiciary —from each other. Thus in the United States, the President and other members of the Executive are debarred from being members of the legislature whereas in the United Kingdom the position is the reverse. It is the serious flaw of the Consultation Paper that insofar as it adopts any constitutional principle, it appears to choose the doctrine of the separation of powers not the independence of the judiciary."
As such, the entire project is, intellectually, profoundly flawed. Lord Hobhouse says:
"It is convenient, at this stage, to mention"
a matter that has
"been used to justify the proposal and … shaped some of the questions asked."
That is
"the level of public understanding of the existing structure. The general public are often ignorant of the structure of the court system and, in particular, by the terminology used. Some still believe that an appeal to the House of Lords is determined by the political peers. If this is the cause of the Department's concerns, the correct solution is clear and long overdue. There should be a better education, and dissemination of information, concerning the British constitution. This lack of knowledge and the solution lie in the hands of the Executive and are not a reason for introducing potentially damaging constitutional changes."
So says Lord Hobhouse, even though our young, vibrant and no doubt intellectually acute Minister jeers.
Another aspect of the argument is supposedly the untenable position of the Lord Chancellor. One argument subliminally deployed but never properly put is that his having multiple roles is somehow inconsistent with the convention on human rights. I contend that that is not true. It is the responsibility of the Minister to challenge my contention if he believes that I am wrong. The Lord Chancellor sits in a judicial capacity extremely rarely. It has never been suggested formally that that contravenes the convention on human rights. In any event, it would be part of the Conservative party's proposals that the Lord Chancellor, while retaining his existing position, should cease to sit in any judicial capacity.
Far worse than any supposed conflict now is the danger that may lie ahead if the Government's proposals go through. Ultimately, it is what they are proposing rather than anything that exists now that could lead to the politicisation of the judiciary. At the moment, it has a reputation of total independence. Paradoxically, that independence is well guarded by the
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Lord Chancellor in his peculiar hydra-headed role. If anyone doubts that, I ask —the Government may be slightly uncomfortable about this —that if we want an inquiry, to whom do we turn first but a judge? That is because of judges' well-established reputation of independence, which by the middle of January the Government may have cause to regret.
What could really politicise the judiciary are the notions that the Government embrace in their criteria for appointment. They say that judges must be representative —not a judicial notion, but a political one. I shall paraphrase an argument put in another place by Lord Mayhew. He said that he did not want his surgeon to be representative and did not care about his background; he wanted him to be good at cutting him up and sewing him back up again. So it is, in a slightly different professional capacity, with a judge. Judges are not there to be representative; they are there to apply and interpret the law. The Minister scoffs at that, but he has to put a clear argument as to why judges have to be representative; merely sneering at my argument will not suffice.
I alluded to the Liberal Democrats' view. Essentially, they argued in another place that the proposals are simply about removing an anomaly and giving the judiciary good facilities. However, let me quote from an interesting article in the Financial Times that cites his honour George Dobry:
"The only practical reasons for the immediate abolition of the appellate committee of the House of Lords are that its position as part of the House of Lords has 'inevitably limited the resources that can be made available to it'".
It is not clear what this means and there is no detailed discussion in the consultation paper of the resources that are thought to be needed. Nor is there any evaluation of the need compared with other priorities for the court service.
No case is made out for treating the reform of the House of Lords in its judicial capacity as a matter of particular priority."
As my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield said, the existing system costs only about £200,000 a year, net. In suggesting evolution rather than revolution, we would say that if judges need a bit more money, support and better accommodation, let them have it. What they do not need is a whole new edifice and budget under a new structure, as the Government propose. As George Dobry QC points out, there is no assessment of other competing priorities. If there is another, better priority, it is that we should have a proper commercial court in London. If the Government want to spend money on improving the court system at this level, we should have a commercial court before we have a supreme court.
The legal community is astounded and perturbed by the Government's agenda. The sudden end to the post of Lord Chancellor —albeit delayed, it would seem —an end to Queen's Counsels, a questionable system of judicial appointments and the setting up of a supreme court have caused great turmoil in the legal community. I urge that community to have the confidence to make its voice clear in challenging what the Government are doing, as many of its members are already doing. We will certainly try to pitch the debate at a higher level than has the Prime Minister, who degraded it when he said in the Chamber that the aim was to get rid of the man in tights. The debate must be pitched much higher.

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The Prime Minister is undertaking yet another piece of what I would describe as teenage radicalism, which will give the British legal system a new building, but will not deliver better justice. The Law Lords have served this country expertly for centuries, but the Government seem prepared to restructure them and consign their existing structure to the history books. The Prime Minister seems to think that anything old is bad. He does not understand that it has probably become old because it is good. His arguments in favour of judicial independence are vacuous when that independence already exists and has done for ages. The plan will not secure the independence of the judiciary; it will lead to its eventual politicisation. We all say, spare us from that.
10.46 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs (Mr. Christopher Leslie): First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) on securing the debate. I regret the fact that the House authorities did not find it possible to have the sitting of the Constitutional Affairs Committee at a time that did not coincide with this debate in Westminster Hall.
Annabelle Ewing: Will the Minister give way on that point?
Mr. Leslie: No, because I have many substantive points on which to comment. There are some significant constitutional issues and it is important that we have an opportunity to debate them completely, certainly before legislation is considered by the House.
Our proposals on the supreme court have been sent out for consultation, and the core proposals were made in the consultation paper. It stated that the Appellate Committee should be taken out of the House of Lords and set up as a separate free-standing supreme court, taking with it all its current functions; the devolution jurisdiction of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council should be transferred to the new supreme court; and the sitting Law Lords should become the first members of the new supreme court.
The consultation paper sought views on those issues and related matters, such as whether holders of high judicial office should cease to sit and vote in the House of Lords while actively sitting as judges; whether we should take the opportunity to separate the judiciary from the legislature by removing all the judiciary from the House of Lords; the number of permanent members that the court should have; how to secure proper representation from all three jurisdictions; how to develop a transparent appointments process; what the qualifications for membership of the court should be; and whether the court should sit in panels or with all the members together on every case. I intend to address many of those points individually.
The consultation period closed on 7 November and we received more than 160 responses, which we shall carefully consider when finalising our proposals for reform. I expect to announce our final policy early in the new year. A number of those who responded, not least hon. Members here today —including the hon. Member
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for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath)—have asked what the rationale is for the creation of a supreme court, and why it is so important for us to create one now. The answer is simple: this is a modern democracy that needs constitutional arrangements that meet the demands of this century. We can no longer continue with arrangements that have evolved over such a long period and, in the case of the Appellate Committee, were largely put in place nearly 130 years ago.
Mr. Grieve: This is all fascinating, but the Minister's peroration does not explain —I am prepared to be convinced—why the present arrangements would be unworkable in future. Indeed, the Government's own consultation document does not do that, and the subject has never been debated or put to the electorate in a manifesto. Will he explain, if he can, the philosophical problem that underpins the Government's main decision, because that must be the starting point of the debate?
Mr. Leslie: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman, unlike many other hon. Members, cannot see the glaringly obvious. If we are to ensure that our judicial system meets the requirement of independence that would be expected by any mature democracy, the blurring of judicial, Executive and legislative responsibilities must be brought to an end. That is the simple principle.
Mr. Duncan: Why?
Mr. Leslie: Saying that we need reform does not imply criticism of the Law Lords or dissatisfaction with the quality of their work. They are respected the world over for their expertise and have always acted with the utmost integrity and honesty. There has never been any question that they do not act impartially or are not objective.
Mr. Duncan: Exactly.
Mr. Leslie: Nevertheless, the Law Lords have had to find a means of dealing with the constitutional difficulties of their position, which is the point that I am trying to communicate clearly to hon. Members. The Law Lords' solution has been to impose a self-denying ordinance that they will neither speak nor vote in the House of Lords on matters that might come before them in their judicial capacity. However, is not the fact that they have to limit the extent to which they can participate in the business of legislating the clearest signal that something is wrong with the arrangements? If they feel it necessary to impose a self-denying ordinance to clarify the fact that they do not have any dealings in the legislative business of the House, it follows that the present arrangements, which allow for potential conflicts of interest, are flawed.
Mr. Nick Hawkins: This really will not do. The Minister is merely asserting things while paying tribute to the House of Lords instead of answering the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve). We are asking

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for the philosophical underpinning for what the Government are doing. Mere assertion is not good enough.
Mr. Leslie: I do not wish to —
Sir Nicholas Winterton: Order. I deplore the intervention of the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins), who has not been here for anything near the whole debate. Furthermore, he is another Opposition Front-Bench spokesman. Without setting any precedent, I established that the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) should speak, but I hope that the Minister will give way only to those who have been present during the debate.
Mr. Leslie: You make a fair point, Sir Nicholas. We have already heard about the fluid nature of the Opposition Front Bench. It is becoming more like liquidation as the debate goes on.
The time has come to reform our constitution and settle the anomalies that all people recognise. The Opposition look set to oppose a supreme court, as is their right, but it is vital that we make the judicial system more comprehensible and create more transparency in our institutional arrangements.
Mr. Grieve: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Leslie: If the hon. Gentleman will listen for a moment, I shall explain my point precisely. The House of Lords Appellate Committee is, in effect, a separate court and should be openly acknowledged as such. A UK supreme court will be a far more visible and distinct entity than is the Appellate Committee. It will reflect and enhance the judiciary's independence from the legislature and the Executive. That really is the nub of the matter.
Mr. Grieve: May I take up the Minister's comment about the need for self-denying ordinances for the judiciary in the House of Lords? He is a Minister of the Crown. He is also a Member of Parliament. He must exercise a self-denying ordinance daily when he says in the House, not what he thinks or believes, but what he as a Minister of the Crown must say as part of being a member of the Government. Surely, when he considers that and thinks it through, he will immediately realise that that is no different from the position of members of the judiciary in their self-denying ordinances. It is a convention. There is nothing wrong with conventions unless it can be shown that they do not work. In this case, they do.
Mr. Leslie: It is quite clear that Conservative Members have taken it into their heads that what is proposed is some isolated separation of the powers of the Executive, the legislature and the judiciary. That is not the proposal. We have a constitutional anomaly whereby there is blurring and confusion between the judicial, the legislative and the Executive, not least in the form of the office of Lord Chancellor. It is important not only to secure the integrity of each branch of our constitution, but to have a clear and transparent system for members of the public, who need to see greater independence for our judiciary from the Executive and
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the legislature. That is the proposal. We do not have a proposal for an absolute, clear separation of each branch, because of course they will all always be related, but we must always have an eye to improving the independence of the judiciary. That is precisely the rationale behind our proposal to create our new supreme court.
Mr. Carmichael: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Leslie: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, in the five minutes that I have left, I should like to answer some of the points that have been made.
The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome asked about the impact of the reform on the House of Lords. I do not believe that the other place will suffer greatly should a new supreme court be established separately. There is a great deal of other legal expertise in the House of Lords, enough to ensure that, although the Law Lords will not be present, there are many others who bring a legal perspective to debates and Committee work.
The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland sought to scrutinise the implication of the proposals for devolution and the devolved powers. Although we are open to consultation, we have expressed our preference that the devolution issues currently heard by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council should be moved to the supreme court. I believe that that would be consistent with the strong arguments that I have already advanced on the need to establish a visible separation between the highest court of the land and the second Chamber of the United Kingdom legislature. It cannot be right that cases that might turn on a dispute between the UK Parliament and the UK Government on the one hand and devolved institutions on the other should be argued before a Committee of the UK Parliament. That argument would not apply to a supreme court, so its creation would give the perfect opportunity to rationalise the situation and remove potential conflicts of interest.
I know that hon. Members, including the hon. Members for Orkney and Shetland and for Somerton and Frome, have raised issues about location. No conclusions have yet been reached on where a new supreme court should be housed. All options are open for consideration, although there is a strong likelihood that it will need to be located in the UK capital city to reflect its UK-wide jurisdiction. However, subject to the results of consultation, I am keen to allow the court to sit around the United Kingdom when hearing devolution matters, if need be. That could enhance the public perception of the supreme court as a UK court. It seems only right that where possible and subject to logistics, cases relating to Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish devolution could be heard in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland respectively.
As I have already stated, it is vital that the supreme court is a UK body and viewed as such by the public. The court, like the Appellate Committee, will have judges from each of the three jurisdictions.
Mr. Carmichael: Briefly, does the Minister agree with Lord Hope of Craighead who says that the legislation can be implemented only with at least the concurrence,

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if not in fact the active participation, of the Scottish Parliament through amendment of the Court of Session Act 1988?
Sir Nicholas Winterton: A perfect intervention—brief.
Mr. Leslie: To give the devolved institutions adequate input to our overall proposals, they have all been consulted in the preparation of the consultation paper. My officials have been liaising with officials from the devolved Administrations and we will ensure that the final package takes proper account of the devolution arrangements. We are fully aware of the historic importance of an independent legal system in Scotland and of the requirements of the devolution legislation in relation to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
The Scottish Executive have announced their broad support for a supreme court. On the point about the Sewel motion, I can assure the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland that we are working closely with Scottish Ministers to identify any legislation in Scotland that needs amending and to bring before the Scottish Parliament any necessary Sewel motion.
I remain firm in my view that the establishment of a supreme court is a vital step forward for our constitution. It will mean more institutional transparency and it will be more clearly independent and more comprehensible to the general public than the Appellate Committee is. We are working hard to analyse the consultation responses to ensure that we make the right and proper decisions on the detailed policy issues. We are talking about historic changes, and I am proud to be involved in making such a landmark change to the UK legal system.

Uzbekistan
11 am
Mr. Simon Thomas: I am pleased to initiate this timely debate, which provides the House with a perhaps overdue opportunity to examine Government policy on Uzbekistan.
I start with two quotations. The Minister will recognise the first, because he referred to it in a speech on 25 November:
"There is no such thing any more as a quarrel in a faraway country which is indifferent to our interests … States where human rights are gravely violated, because the rule of law has broken down or because only repression and violence can sustain a ruling clique in power, are the main source of risk to our and our allies' security … So promoting democracy, human rights and the rule of law is right at the heart of working for our interests."
The second quote is from one of our ambassadors, who said:
"We believe there to be between 7,000 and 10,000 people in detention whom we would consider as political and/or religious prisoners. No government has the right to use the war against terrorism as an excuse for the persecution of those with a deep personal commitment to the Islamic religion, and who pursue their views by peaceful means."
The Minister was speaking in general terms, but the ambassador was referring to a real situation—that in Uzbekistan. I want to examine the assessment that the ambassador made of human rights in that country in a speech that I understand was sanctioned by the Foreign Office. That assessment should be taken more seriously by the House and the Government in their dealings with the Uzbek authorities. I also want to ensure that, having captured one tyrant this week in Iraq, we do not allow or encourage another to rise in Uzbekistan.
Although, of the former Soviet Republics, it is Georgia that has captured our attention in the past few weeks, it is perhaps Uzbekistan that should give us the greatest concern about human rights and democracy in the long run. It is an authoritarian state with limited civil rights, and neither the January 2003 referendum to extend the president's term of office, nor previous elections, were judged to be free or fair by international standards. The Parliament consists almost entirely of officials appointed by the president and members of parties that support him, and meets for just a few days a year. The Government influence the courts heavily in both civil and criminal cases.
The human rights record remains very poor, with both the police and the national security service—the former KGB —committing numerous serious human rights abuses, including causing the death of several citizens in custody, torture and beatings. The UN special rapporteur on torture visited the country in November 2002 and found poor prison conditions and arbitrary detentions by the police, often for bribes, particularly of Muslims suspected of "extremist" —that is, non-state sanctioned —sympathies. There was also planting of evidence on persons. Some 6,500 persons were in prison for political or religious reasons.
The Government in Uzbekistan restrict freedom of speech and press, and ban unauthorised public meetings and demonstrations, and the police forcibly disrupt peaceful protests. Internal passports are required for movement within the country and permission is

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required to move from one city or district to another. The Government restrict freedom of religion. Members of domestic human rights groups are abused and targeted for arrest. Only one such domestic group has been recognised to date. In short, citizens cannot exercise their right to change their Government peacefully.
That damning criticism comes not from Human Rights Watch or the much-maligned Amnesty International. but from the 2002 country report on Uzbekistan by the US State Department bureau of democracy, human rights and labour. Those are comments to which we should pay a great deal of attention. Perhaps we should add to them another matter that, for understandable reasons, may not concern the US Government so much: the use of the death penalty in Uzbekistan. Its use is a state secret, but Human Rights Watch has identified at least 22 people who were sentenced to death last year. When that is taken with the report of the UN special rapporteur on torture, who found that torture was systematic and that
"many confessions obtained through torture and other illegal means were then used as evidence in trials,"
including
"in trials that are leading to the death penalty or to very severe punishment",
its use becomes even more abhorrent.
Independent human rights organisations such Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have scores of examples of the abuses faced by peaceful opponents of the Uzbek regime. Let me share just two examples with the House. Two women, Larisa Vdovina and human rights defender Elena Urlaeva, were forcibly confined in a psychiatric hospital to stop their human rights activities. They were detained on 27 August 2002 during a demonstration outside the Ministry of Justice building to protest against human rights abuses. They were transferred to Tashkent City psychiatric hospital the next day. Elena Urlaeva was released at the end of December 2002. The whole episode is horribly reminiscent of the way in which the old Soviet system abused the psychiatric hospital system.
I will continue with the evidence that, at least in Uzbekistan, Soviet-style suppression continues under another name. The second example is even more grisly. In August 2002, the body of Muzafar Avazov was brought from Jaslyk prison to his family for burial. He had been imprisoned for membership of a proscribed Islamic party. In May 2002, Human Rights Watch reported that prison authorities had beaten Muzafar Avazov and put him in a punishment cell for stating that nothing could stop him performing his prayers. Prisoners are often placed in such cells for praying or refusing to ask for forgiveness from the Uzbek president. A 35-year-old father of four, Avazov's body showed signs of burns on the legs, buttocks, lower back and arms. Some 60 to 70 per cent. of the body was burned. Doctors who saw the body reported that such burns could have been caused only by immersing Avazov in boiling water. They also reported that there was a large, bloody wound on the back of the head, heavy bruising on the forehead and side of the neck, and that his hands had no fingernails.
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Uzbekistan has perhaps a worse human rights record than Zimbabwe —I know that that will interest you, Sir Nicholas —but it has received little attention in this House. Its importance is due not only to the perspicacity of the Minister when he reworded John Donne for a globalised world, but to the fact that both the US Government and the UK Government have regarded Uzbekistan as an ally in their war on terrorism. I understand that, to that end, the country has received more than $200 million of aid from the US Government, including some $70 million used directly to support its state security system, which, as I have made clear, is oppressive to say the least. Uzbekistan has also been given favourable treatment under the UK arms sales regime, which I will consider later.
Hon. Members may well be aware that certain countries, such as Zimbabwe, Burma, Argentina, Cyprus, India and Pakistan, feature on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office list of territories in respect of which arms restrictions of one sort or another apply. All told, some 40 countries are on the list, but unfortunately Uzbekistan is not one of them. Indeed, despite the prevalence of internal repression, Uzbekistan is one of those favoured few countries for which open individual export licences are granted. In 2002, five such licences were granted, mainly for dual-use equipment.
Uzbekistan is also supported by EU overseas aid. The EU-Uzbekistan Co-operation Council implements a partnership agreement. However, the EU and the UK seem to have missed an opportunity to wring from the Uzbek Government specific commitments on human rights, allied to that partnership agreement. Similarly, both the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development have seen their meek criticisms of the Uzbek Administration treated with disdain, to the extent that, at the meeting of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development this year in Uzbekistan, the president did not condemn the use of torture, as he was expected to do.
Baroness Symons, in the other place, has described the relationship between the UK and Uzbekistan as one of critical engagement:
We must proceed with the Government's policy of critical engagement; it is through such dialogue that we hope to bring Uzbekistan to a better understanding of its obligations."- [Official Report, House of Lords, 11 November 2003; Vol. 654, c. 1214.]
To date there has been precious little dialogue and little understanding of obligations, certainly on the part of the Uzbek Government. Only two weeks ago, they cancelled an expected conference on the use of the death penalty.
I conclude with some specific questions for the Minister on our relationship with Uzbekistan and offer some suggestions as to how we might improve that relationship to the benefit of human rights. First, I understand there will be a further meeting of the EUUzbek Co-operation Council early next year. Will the Minister confirm the location and date of that meeting and state what specific obligations under human rights he expects the council and the partnership agreement to set out as a condition of further EU support for Uzbekistan?

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Will the Minister take the opportunity to look at the words of Baroness Symons, who said that
"the fact is that Uzbekistan has not been a traditional market for UK defence exporters-primarily because of its human rights record"? —[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 November 2003; Vol. 654, c. 1213.]
Although I accept the validity of those words, I ask the Minister to consider the fact that they are an inadequate safeguard against unwelcome exports under the open licence system. In other countries —Israel comes to mind-we have seen exports with dual use used in a military manner and an offensive way against a civilian population. We should not allow exports from this country to be used in that manner in Uzbekistan. Will the Minister review the open licence system and confirm that the Government find the Uzbek record on human rights so poor as to demand an arms embargo?
Will the Minister pressure the Uzbek Government to ensure that the conference on the death penalty, which is scheduled to take place on 5 December, goes ahead, and that civil rights groups in Uzbekistan have the opportunity to take part without harassment? Will he urge the Uzbek authorities to make public their statistics on the use of the death penalty and to disclose the locations of prisoners' burials, which are often withheld from families, and to release their bodies to their families?
Will the Minister ensure that the UK takes a leading role in the EU, the International Monetary Fund, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe in setting firm standards and a timetable for improvement on the record of human rights, to be met by the Uzbek Government as a condition of any further aid? I believe that the answers to those questions are, at least in part, key tests of the Minister's claim, made in his speech on 25 November, that
"human rights and the rule of law is right at the heart of working for our interests."
I have yet to mention the name of the Uzbek President, Islam Karimov. He has dominated the leadership of Uzbekistan since 1989, when he was the Communist party leader of what was then the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. The following year, he became Uzbek president and he continued in the post after independence. He has won every election on grounds that are dubious by any international standards. He won his first election with 88 per cent. of the vote. In 2003, his Parliament, filled with his supporters, passed a law granting him immunity from prosecution for his activities as president should he cease to hold the post. The Uzbek president, Islam Karimov, maintains a Soviet-style dictatorship over his country. In Uzbekistan, we see the continuation of the malignant human rights record that existed under the USSR.
I hope that the Minister will assure the Chamber that in the future we will not have cause to be ashamed of our support of and co-operation with the Uzbek president, and that all steps necessary will be taken to ensure that the human rights record of Uzbekistan —which some would argue has improved slightly over the past few months-continues to improve and that Uzbekistan meets the standards that we should demand of it as a country that receives aid from both the UK Government and the EU.
11.15 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Bill Rammell): As I have indicated both to you, Sir Nicholas, and to the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas), I apologise for the fact that I shall conclude my remarks before the normal end time of the debate owing to the fact that I have, for want of a better parliamentary phrase, to leg it to the Chamber to answer the first question at Foreign Office questions.
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on having initiated the debate. The discussion is timely, given that there has been significant parliamentary and media interest in Uzbekistan, and I welcome the opportunity to put on the record the Government's position and policy.
Our relations with Uzbekistan are generally constructive —the characterisation of constructive engagement put forward by my noble Friend Baroness Symons in the other place is correct. However, despite that constructive relationship, we have serious concerns about human rights and the lack of economic and political reforms. Uzbekistan became an independent state only when the former Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, so the relationship is relatively young and is developing.
Uzbekistan is developing its relations with us through multilateral forums such as the European Union. In addition, it is a member of international financial institutions including the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which held its annual meeting in Uzbekistan in May 2003. There was some criticism of that move at the time, but the meeting, chaired by our then Secretary of State for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short), provided an opportunity for a free and frank discussion between the international community, the Uzbek authorities and Uzbek civil society about the importance of economic and political openness. Before the meeting, the EBRD agreed a country strategy for Uzbekistan; it set seven key benchmarks for progress on economic, political and human rights reforms. The clear implication of the strategy is, rightly, to warn the Uzbek authorities that insufficient progress against the benchmarks could lead to the EBRD adopting a reduced lending strategy. We support that stance. The benchmarks are due to be reviewed by the EBRD in early 2004 and we are strongly encouraging the Uzbek authorities to make substantive progress against them.
The hon. Gentleman referred to our relationship with Uzbekistan and the war against terror. We are grateful for Uzbek support, particularly in relation to Afghanistan. Uzbekistan was also strongly supportive of the coalition efforts in Iraq. The important role that Uzbekistan has played in the war against terror is reflected in high-level exchanges of defence visits-most recently, that by the Uzbek Defence Minister in October. That provided an important opportunity for us to encourage further reform in the Uzbek armed forces and Uzbek participation in international peacekeeping operations. A memorandum of understanding that was signed will enable our armed forces to assist the Uzbeks with those goals. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would support that initiative.

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Uzbekistan is a key player in a region of increasing strategic importance to the UK, so defence co-operation is important. However, while bilateral defence cooperation is effective, it is important to note that the Uzbek armed forces are not implicated in human rights violations.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned defence exports. Uzbekistan has not traditionally been a market for UK defence exporters. I have seen a number of press articles —I think that he quoted from them —accusing the Government of breaking their own arms export guidelines and selling weapons to Uzbekistan. It is necessary to answer that accusation by stating clearly that the UK has not sanctioned arms sales to Uzbekistan. The equipment covered in the export licences that have been granted consists of replacement components for civil passenger aircraft, goods for the oil and gas industry—those were sent for rental purposes only to companies operating in Uzbekistan—and goods to be used by a named UK exporter in Uzbekistan.
Relations with Uzbekistan are also developing well in a number of other areas—for example, education and culture. In May, we signed a memorandum of understanding on education at the opening of the British-Uzbek university in Tashkent. The British Council is also active in Uzbekistan: it has helped more than 200 Uzbek scholars to study in the UK. Through the Chevening scholarship programme, which is a flagship initiative for the Foreign Office, the Government have funded more than 40 Uzbek students to study in the UK.
Importantly, we are developing a dialogue on trade and economic issues. Uzbekistan is an attractive potential market and has substantial resources, including gas, oil, gold and silver. The previous high-level British visit to Uzbekistan, focusing on trade and investment, was undertaken in September by the lord mayor of London. As well as promoting the City of London's financial and business services, the lord mayor raised with Uzbek Ministers some challenges that face British businesses in doing business in Uzbekistan. In terms of deepening business-to-business contacts, which is a driver of necessary reform, that was an important initiative to undertake.
There has been progress. In October, the Uzbeks signed an agreement with the IMF that commits Uzbekistan to full current account currency convertibility. We welcome that, although for the move to bring benefits to the Uzbek economy the authorities need urgently to complement it with other essential economic reforms. We raise that issue in all our bilateral relations. A well managed and open economy is important not only for Uzbekistan and the prosperity of its people; it is equally important for its neighbours. Regional trade and transport co-operation need development. High tariffs and import duties, along with the unpredictable border closures that I mentioned, mean that Uzbek consumers are forced to pay higher prices for goods than they would otherwise have to. Those policies also adversely affect the well-being of Uzbekistan's smaller neighbours-the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan —yet creating the conditions that allow trade to flourish would benefit not only those neighbours but Uzbekistan itself. There is genuinely a mutual interest in these issues.
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There has been progress on some issues of regional cooperation, notably security. An example is the establishment of the Shanghai co-operation council. Regional security is important in countering the threat posed by Islamic extremists in central Asia—a threat that we would do well not to underestimate.
The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan has called for the overthrow of President Karimov's Government. In 2000, that movement made armed raids into Uzbekistan. IMU fighters received training and support from the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Although the IMU suffered serious losses during Operation Enduring Freedom, it is still active in central Asia. We support efforts to curtail the activities of the IMU, which we proscribed in October 2002. It is a threat to Uzbekistan's internal security and, through its links to al-Qaeda, to British interests and those of the wider international community.
It is important to point out that our concern about Islamic extremism in Uzbekistan and central Asia more generally does not mean that we turn a blind eye to human rights abuses or regard perceived threats to security as justification for imprisoning young men simply on religious grounds—far from it. On that point, I concur with the hon. Gentleman.
We want a prosperous and stable Uzbekistan, based on the rule of law and an open and democratic society, but Uzbekistan's respect for human rights has been poor. On that, I agree with some of the hon. Gentleman's comments. We acknowledge and support the small steps forward that the Uzbek Government have taken-for example, inviting the UN special rapporteur on torture to visit Uzbekistan. We now need to see the Uzbek authorities fully implementing his recommendations. It is welcome that the Uzbek criminal code has been amended to define torture and that a draft national action plan on torture is being drawn up. We shall look closely at the detail of that plan, and we hope to have open and constructive dialogue with the Uzbek authorities to ensure that it is implemented. I am also pleased that the Uzbek Government have granted access to prisons to western ambassadors and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, there have been many well-documented cases of human rights abuses in Uzbekistan. We have used every opportunity to press those with the Uzbek Government. Earlier this year, I went into detail about the concerns over human rights in Uzbekistan at the Foreign Affairs Committee when it discussed the Foreign Office's international human rights report. I made it clear that we had
"concerns about the deterioration of the human rights situation in Uzbekistan, particularly in relation to torture".
We shall continue to press those issues at every opportunity.
I now move to another issue to which the hon. Gentleman referred. Last week, staff at our embassy in Tashkent publicly expressed concern that a scheduled conference in Tashkent on the death penalty, which we were jointly sponsoring with Freedom House, was not allowed to go ahead because the non-governmental organisation that was organising it was unregistered. We will continue to push for the abolition of the death penalty and the registration of political parties and NGOs.

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We are also monitoring the persecution of religious minorities in Uzbekistan. We understand that there are 7,000 religious and political prisoners —that is 7,000 too many. Of those prisoners, many are simply devout Muslims, whom we believe are often unfairly convicted of being extremists. We will continue to stress to the Uzbek Government the fact that falsely accusing citizens of extremist activity is likely to foster rather than discourage extremism.
It is worth taking this opportunity to put on the record the situation with our ambassador. There has been much comment and speculation in the press, and it has been suggested over the past few months that we do not support our ambassador to Tashkent, and that we have recalled him from that post because of pressure from our allies. Neither assertion is true. The ambassador is in the UK for private medical reasons. It would be inappropriate for me to comment further, other than to confirm that he remains our ambassador and to say that we endorse his comments about the human rights situation in Uzbekistan; I explicitly endorsed them at the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs.
I will now briefly deal with some questions raised by the hon. Gentleman. As regards the EU-Uzbek Cooperation Council, I am not yet aware of the date and place of that meeting. That has not been settled. Certainly, continuing European Union engagement depends on Uzbekistan's progress on human rights.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the death penalty conference. I have made clear our stance on the death penalty, both generally and with regard to Uzbekistan. We will continue to pursue that issue. He also discussed pressing the Uzbek authorities to publish statistics on the death penalty and burials. I will consider putting some of those points to them.
The subject of defence sales was also raised. I made it clear that the UK has not sanctioned arms sales to Uzbekistan. There have been indications to the contrary in some of our national newspapers, but it is important to make that point clear.
Both the Government and the EU continue to lobby for the abolition of the death penalty. With our support, the EU recently criticised six executions that took place in Uzbekistan. The EU, the UK and our embassy will continue to lobby for a moratorium on the death penalty.
To sum up, it is clear that Uzbekistan faces many difficult challenges. There is much work to do, but we should bear it in mind that it is only 12 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. We are engaging constructively with Uzbekistan, and will continue to press our human rights concerns and give what support we can to the Uzbek authorities. There are difficult concerns and challenges, and it is critically important that we remain engaged on them.
11.28 am
Sitting Suspended

Antisocial Behaviour
2 pm
Mr. Frank Field: If I am fortunate enough to secure another debate in this Chamber in the future, Sir Nicholas, I hope that by then I will be able to address you as Mr. Deputy Speaker again. That day cannot come too soon. I also thank whoever decides which debates are chosen for giving us the opportunity to examine what is, for many of us, the single most important issue facing our constituents. I apologise for the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), who is normally present at these debates. She has an engagement that was put in her diary long before we knew that we had secured the debate, and, quite rightly, she has kept her engagement.
This is the first time that I have debated this subject with the Minister, whom I am immensely glad to see here. I know how committed she is to examining the issue of antisocial behaviour in different ways. I shall later explain how I would like Government policy to develop. I am also pleased to see other hon. Friends present.
In developing policy further, we need to think about immediate redress for antisocial behaviour. I make a plea for the Government to think outside the box of the criminal justice system in dealing with the problem, and I shall explain why. I shall talk about the root causes of the plague of antisocial behaviour, and I shall end by saying that we require not only the lead that we are getting from the Home Office, but a concerted effort across Government.
I want to stress why this issue is the new politics. Next year, I will have been a Member of this House for the constituency of Birkenhead for 25 years. During that time, my role as an MP has changed dramatically. My role can best be summarised as one that has witnessed and tried to respond to the movement from class politics to the politics of behaviour.
When I became an MP the issues that I dealt with for my constituents may have been complicated, but usually they either had an answer or they did not. If one examined the various pieces of legislation assiduously enough, one could usually, if not always, find redress for one's constituents. There were queries such as, "Why am I not eligible for this benefit?" and, "Why have I been denied that benefit?" and constituents might want to transfer from one house to another. There were employment questions, as well as the big questions with which all Members on both sides of the House have become familiar as Britain has lost its manufacturing base, despite the noble efforts that you, Sir Nicholas, and others have made to try to reverse the tide.
About nine years ago, a group of very respectable working-class constituents came into my surgery and described the life that they were experiencing. They had young lads running across the roofs of their bungalows, peeing through their letterboxes, trying to break their windows when they were watching television, and jumping out of the shadows at night to see whether they could give someone a heart attack. Those elderly residents explained to me that of course they had been to the police, but that the police knew the limitation of

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their powers, as did the young culprits. After conversations with the police, and again with my constituents, I realised that a pattern was beginning to emerge from what I had previously wanted to see as isolated incidents of appalling behaviour. That was when my interest in the politics of behaviour began, and I started to try to discover how we as politicians could respond to this new area of politics.
Because this is a new area, it is difficult for us to deal with. It is not like passing Acts to nationalise or denationalise whole industries. For most of our history, Governments have not had to be involved with behaviour. Other great powers in the land have determined how people behave, and the character each of us has. Since at least the 1950s, we have been living off capital put in place by previous generations, which emphasised what common decencies were and how they were learned in families. Because people learned in their families, they were provided with the map and compass to negotiate the wider world beyond the family successfully.
In a growing number of families, that has ceased to happen. In Birkenhead —and, I am sure, in other Members' constituencies —there is a rise in dysfunctional families who do not see any place for trying to teach their members about how the group can get along together, despite the fact that each member is stained with original sin and thinks that the world centres around them. It is not possible to run a family —or a society —if everybody thinks that they will be the centre of the world all the time, and how their behaviour impacts on surrounding members is of no importance to them.
In the past, families taught their members that they were the most important people in the world, but that they were also surrounded by other people who were also the most important people in the world. Happy families know how to negotiate that frontier between people. We have taken it for granted that families will do that, but increasing numbers of them have ceased to do so.
This is a new area both for constituency Members and for the Government, and I make a plea for the Government to continue the approach that they have begun. They should not simply come out with the politicians' hackneyed phrase about being in listening mode although that is necessary. As we cannot draw on any previous experience from politicians about how to negotiate this new area, it will be down to luck—and only sometimes judgment —if we get all our measures right in the first instance.
Our constituents are not asking the impossible from us, but they do ask us to try. When some measures to deal with antisocial behaviour do not work as we wished them to and thought that they would, or if they have consequences that we did not foresee, we need to change our approach quickly. There ought not to be any stigma attached to politicians, including Ministers, saying, "I honestly got this wrong." Our constituents would cheer us if they heard that from us more often. In an area in which politicians have never before had to be involved —the politics of behaviour —it is inevitable that in our first attempts to get things right our batting average will be lower than usual.
Mr. Tim Boswell: The right hon. Gentleman is making a fascinating and compelling argument. Does he agree that the problem may be aggravated if society and its forces, which are represented by the Government, councils and other people in authority, are not seen to care and respond? Might that not give rise to vigilante action—as it has in certain cases —which none of us would wish to see?
Mr. Field: I agree with the first part of that. In the past, there were what are euphemistically called strong community ties, which included clear knowledge about what happened to people if they crossed certain boundaries. Many of us led more peaceful lives then, because we did not investigate too carefully how those common rules were enforced. Of course, I would not wish to go on the record as giving any support for, or making claims for, vigilante groups. It is significant, however, that in my constituency, and perhaps in other constituencies, too, the common decencies upheld by local force—if need be —generally ceased. Even some of the youngest members of the community know their rights under the law and what aid they will get under the legal aid scheme should anybody box their ears—that is what would have happened in the past, and it would have been helpful in guiding their actions.
In Birkenhead and elsewhere we have also lost the role that heavy industry played in disciplining people. People could not misbehave in the steelworks or the shipyard, because although they might have damaged themselves, the likelihood was that they would endanger one of their workmates too. Tough discipline operated regarding people who played around and risked other people's lives or limbs. Sometimes disputes in the town got settled in the shipyard, with the result that there was a more peaceable community. We know that we cannot create that world again, but there has been a loss, and it needs to be taken into account when we are trying to understand the behaviour we are now seeing. If all the checks built up over centuries are quickly stripped away, people should not be surprised if the bag of potatoes takes on a different shape.
I shall mention four issues to my colleagues and the Minister: the need for immediate redress, the need to think outside the box of the criminal justice system, root causes, and a plea for the Government to respond across Departments.
I ask the Government to think further about how we might devise means that bring redress to our constituents much more quickly than we have done so far with antisocial behaviour contracts and orders, or curfews. Nobody in the debate today has more praise than me for what the Government have done. However, although we all know from our constituencies that we are just beginning this great initiative, sadly we are not seeing the end of it.
One of the problems for our constituents is that it takes time to use the galaxy of measures that the Government have properly introduced. Even if the Government have not realised it, the subconscious model for many of their counter-measures against antisocial behaviour is the criminal justice system, which quite properly takes time, is careful, collects and weighs evidence and weights it in favour of the person

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who is accused, rather than those who are making the accusations. I question whether that is the right approach to antisocial behaviour.
Our constituents are crying out for immediate action. In a little book that I published recently, which I called "The Politics of Behaviour" but the publishers retitled "Neighbours from Hell", I defined antisocial behaviour as separate from criminal activity. Generally speaking, antisocial behaviour, on the odd occasion that it occurs, is a nuisance but no more than that. However, peeing through people's letterboxes. is too much. When such nuisances are perpetrated by large numbers of people hour upon hour, day after day, and recipients of that viciousness never know whether they will get respite from it that particular night, that uncouth behaviour moves into the category of antisocial behaviour. We need measures to act quickly against that, because our constituents need redress.
From observing what is happening it is clear that some-maybe many—of those who indulge in antisocial behaviour not only get a buzz from it, but want an increasing buzz. If such behaviour goes unchecked, it encourages people to think of more uncouth and wicked ways of behaving to get more thrills next time than they did last time. Sometimes, that behaviour acts as a recruiting sergeant for people to get a criminal record. At all costs, our counter-measures should prevent people from coming to court, becoming part of the criminal justice system and getting a record.
Because the root cause of antisocial behaviour is the failure of a small but growing number of families to teach their offspring what I call the common decencies, or social virtue, we need to consider who could act in the place of parents when the real parents cannot or will not. The police are the one body that can do that. I have advocated that they should have powers like those of a football referee. They should be able to warn people, and if they did not stop their behaviour, the police would have the power immediately to impose a contract or an order, which individuals could challenge only if they went to the courts. The police would not have to go to court to get the order in the first place, because they need it quickly.
Above all, we do not want people in the courts —although there are those who might go to court, because in any institution people abuse their power. The check against that would be that some people would go to the courts, and chief superintendents and chief constables could see whether there was a pattern, with one or two police officers being too regularly involved in cases of people challenging decisions.
Mrs. Annette L. Brooke: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider that there is a sufficient uniformed presence, whether that is police, neighbourhood wardens or community support officers, to provide that support and help?
Mr. Field: I hope that the Home Affairs Committee will do two things soon, and one of those is to examine how the police spend their time. I must tell the hon. Lady
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that when it was respectable in the Labour party to attack the police, I did not —I supported them. That does not mean that I am not anxious for them to perform better. In London, each police officer gets on average three convictions a year —one every four months. Outside London, that figure is about one every two months. I am interested in what the police do with their time. I am not suggesting that they are sitting at home playing cards, but it would be interesting to have a proper audit.
We might be able to use existing resources better, but I hope the Home Affairs Committee will address the fact that we need more police. In an age where no one can get elected by advocating a rise in direct taxation, we need to determine how we can create contracts so that local people can pay more to see more police on the beat. I agree with the hon. Lady that that is required. I am looking for people who will behave as surrogate parents.
Of course, we need to think about the longer term. If some families are failing to teach the common decencies, why does that happen? Last year, I spent part of the summer attending practically all the reception classes for four-year-olds. Two things struck me above all. First, there are pupils who cannot sit still, but run around madly all over the place. How can one begin teaching anything unless the children can sit still? Secondly, when children were collected or brought to school, it was deeply shocking to note that some four-year-olds already knew how to bully their parents. It is not therefore surprising that by the time the offspring are as tall as their parents, the parents find it rather daunting if their children decide that they will not do as they are told and will not abide by the common decencies.
I found a note of hope in the most difficult school. When I was discussing the school contracts that pupils would like to see, and how they would draw them up, there was a demand for parenting classes as part of the national curriculum. One could not describe what 40 per cent. of those young people had received as parenting, yet they wanted to be good parents themselves.
I make a plea for thinking across Departments. There is a need for extraordinary co-ordination when trying to intervene in different ways and at different points of people's lives if we are to be successful with the new politics. Because I have touched on other themes —I got slightly carried away with what I was saying, but I am very mindful of the time —I wish to emphasise before I conclude why we are in the present position.
This is a new area for politicians. My constituents started me thinking about the question nine months ago. I wanted to find out why we had originally become a peaceable kingdom. What were the causes, and in what ways could that success be replicated in the new millennium? I could not but agree with what Noel Annan wrote in his great book on Leslie Stephen. He said that the evangelical revival changed Britain, and that almost nobody was untouched by it. What it did, among many other things, was give people a real sense of self-respect and responsibility. No one could properly be a self-respecting person unless he or she equally and willingly gave self-respect to other people as well. In the areas that the evangelical revival did not touch or where it needed strengthening, a welfare state grew up from

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friendly societies, trade unions and mutual societies, through which rules about behaviour were ruthlessly enforced because of the risk that if they were not enforced, misbehaviour would bring the whole welfare initiative down around the ears of the contributors.
The values of those two great forces imbued families, and the standards of behaviour of those two great revolutions were taught to offspring. For the past 50 years, we have been living off the social capital that families somehow knew how to teach their children the common decencies, but we have never applied ourselves to the question of how that capital should be replenished. Therefore, part of my plea to the Minister is about how we can act more quickly to nip antisocial behaviour in the bud and prevent It from escalating, so that other people do not join in because they see it as the norm. We also need to think about the fact that there will not be another evangelical revival. Sadly, we will not have a welfare revolution that puts responsibility back on groups rather than the state, either.
We must therefore look elsewhere for great teaching forces. It is clear that schools are one great teaching force that we all have in our constituencies. We cannot put yet more pressure on our schools without taking some pressure off the national curriculum. After Christmas, I shall start to engage much more seriously with young pupils in Birkenhead about the contract that they wish to see in their schools. It will be interesting to see how many wish to see their abilities as parents developed, whether they believe that such skills can be achieved by osmosis and whether some practical knowledge can be taught to them.
Welfare, although it is largely nationalised, is the other great teaching force in our society. As a Government we need to begin a conversation—indeed, we have already begun it—aimed at moving away from the false system of welfare that is rights based to contract-based welfare. Each time we claim, it should be clearly spelled out what society is doing for us, and what society expects in return.
In the first world war, practically everybody who was sent to France had been baptised, but of the thousands of troops sent to the recent war in Iraq, only one third had been baptised. For two thirds of children, there is no public ceremony whereby we welcome them into our community and say, "Welcome. You are now part of something wider than your family." I therefore hope that the Government will consider making the registration of birth a public ceremony and a public event, in which we as society say, "Welcome. This is what we are going to provide for you, with Sure Start, medical help, day care and nursery education, and this is the framework within which we expect your parents to operate." That is not because we want an interfering or bullying society, but because most of us respond better when we know the rules of the game and the framework within which we should operate.
I am pleased to have opened this lengthy debate, and to see my colleagues in the Chamber ready to participate in it. I hope that I have put over the reasons why I see this as the beginning of the new politics that will dominate our lives as politicians, as the old class politics dominated for 50 or more years in our neighbouring Chamber.
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Of course we need for our constituents to consider immediate redress; we also sometimes need to use such debates to reflect on why behaviour is going wrong in so many areas. What are the root causes and what can we do, however limited, as politicians to reverse the tide of disorder that our constituents feel? They feel that disorder and, consequently, they do not make a clear distinction between antisocial behaviour and crime.
One reason why the Government find it so difficult to get over their message that crime is falling in most areas is because people see growing disorder in their neighbourhood and they equate it with crime. If we begin to get on top of that issue, the issue of crime will also settle into a better perspective.
Several hon. Membersrose —
Sir Nicholas Winterton: Order. It is my intention to start the winding-up speeches at 3 o'clock, so simple arithmetic indicates that there is about 30 minutes for the three Back-Bench Members who wish to catch my eye. That means that there is about 10 minutes each, if hon. Members need to take that much time.
2.30 pm
Mr. Michael Foster: Thank you, Sir Nicholas, for giving me the opportunity to speak in this debate on antisocial behaviour. I begin by thanking and congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) on securing the debate. As always, he showed himself to be extremely thoughtful, if a tad provocative, when dealing with social issues, which is to his credit. To take on board his comments and debate them properly is a matter worthy of Parliament and this Chamber.
I shall make some brief remarks on how we could do better in tackling antisocial behaviour in our communities. That is not a criticism of the local police, the crime and safety partnerships or the local city council, but I think there is room for improvement in all our public services. It is on those aspects that I should like to focus attention, and I look to the Minister for guidance and support where appropriate.
Worcester is not the crime capital of the west midlands; it never has been and I hope it never will be. However, as with every other community up and down the land, there are issues relating to antisocial behaviour that cause my postbag to bulge and which cause utter misery on some of our estates. The relatively low crime rate in the city as a whole brings antisocial behaviour more sharply into focus, because that is what people can see day in, day out, as crime in their local community.
I fully understand that incidents of antisocial behaviour will not rank highly for emergency response from the police, nor would I expect them to be compared to the assaults and burglaries that are committed in my area. However, a problem that my constituents can have is the long response time from the police to a reported incident. A report is made and a number given, but it may be one or two days or even a week before the police get round to talking to that constituent about the incident. There is no immediate response, a point that my right hon. Friend made. Someone affected by antisocial behaviour wants an immediate response. Improvements could be made locally in dealing with

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that, which may require extra resources. I hope that the Minister takes keen note of any plea for resources that I make later in my contribution.
Antisocial behaviour orders are, without doubt, one way in which we can get a grip on the antisocial behaviour in our communities. However, in Worcester they are the fourth and final stage of an approach that tries to nip antisocial behaviour in the bud with early intervention. That involves providing distraction and alternatives, and dealing with parents to explain what the behaviour of their youngsters has been and why it is unacceptable in the local community.
An example of an area where that has taken place and come to prominence in Worcester is a local playground at the back of Barley crescent in the Long Meadow estate and Warndon villages. It is designed for primary school children. The estate has matured and grown up, but the playground is still geared towards the children who are not on the estate any more, and it has become a focal point where young people gather. Although I do not wish to condone the actions of those young people, what starts as boredom leads to mischief making and moves on to antisocial behaviour. That is when misery for local people begins It might take the form of cars being vandalised in the neighbouring streets and closes, eggs or stones being thrown or fires being lit in the playground deliberately designed to draw attention and to show what mischief the young people are getting up to. That is the behaviour that needs to be tackled, ideally through early intervention and moving the young people into something more fruitful and positive.
When talking to my colleagues about ways of tackling such problems, I have seen that there is some good practice in dealing with antisocial behaviour in this country. One idea that came up in a discussion that I had with my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) is a system that works in Wigan with the cooperation of the Greater Manchester police. There, a leaflet was printed and distributed to the local community containing a picture of four youngsters who had all been given antisocial behaviour orders. The leaflet described what those young people had done and set out the conditions of the antisocial behaviour order. The final page of the fold-up leaflet explained what residents should do if they saw young people in breach of their antisocial behaviour orders and gave telephone numbers and so on.
That is a positive way of involving the local community and empowering people to do something within the law to tackle what they know is a problem in their area. I am keen to see the scheme move forward and I would like West Mercia police to embrace it. They have promised to consider the data protection and human rights issues, and I would welcome the Minister's clarification of whether local police could produce and distribute such leaflets.
All that got me thinking about how to involve and respond to local communities when positive action has been taken on antisocial behaviour. I have raised with the local city council issues concerning, young people —for example, the Barley crescent playground —and it has asked its detached youth team to investigate the problems and to discuss with young people why they
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become involved in behaviour that causes a nuisance to everyone. I have had full responses from the city council and they have been warmly welcomed when I have passed them on to my constituents. Occasionally, I have had a letter back saying, "Thank goodness someone has told the parents," or that action has been taken and it is good to know that people are listening. That feedback from constituents suggests that there is a real need for local police, through the Safer Worcestershire partnership. to let constituents know more formally and more regularly what is happening in their neighbourhood.
Whenever people are asked what they want, they say that they want more bobbies on the beat, but police officers are rarely seen on the beat because people must be outside or in the garden when the officers walk past to know that they are in the neighbourhood. That will not always happen, but one way in which the visibility of the police presence can be improved is to provide regular information to constituents, perhaps in a newsletter, about issues that they have reported, such as antisocial behaviour orders. That would overcome the visibility issue and provide information about what the police are doing. One of the great problems facing the police is that they feel Joe Public does not value them or their work, and that is one way of moving forward.
Without doubt, one way to deal with antisocial behaviour is with positive distractions for young people. We have seen a decline in youth service provision in our communities over a number of years, but I saw it in operation on Friday evening at the Angels in Exile in Worcester, which is a centre where young people can congregate and the police can distract them and involve them in doing something positive. Funding is an issue because the youth service has never been a statutory service, and when finances have been tight the youth service and facilities have been squeezed. It is time that society took on board the important role that youth facilities provide in our communities. If we want to tackle antisocial behaviour —people always say that they do —we must improve the facilities that we offer to our young people.
The final way we can help to improve how we tackle antisocial behaviour in West Mercia is to examine police funding. The Minister moved smartly to attention at the mention of that topical matter. West Mercia as a whole —it covers the city of Worcester —has a low crime rate and no one would argue with the statistics. My fear is that that means it does not trigger the same police resources as some higher crime areas do. I fully understand the importance of tackling more serious crimes, but a debate will crop up on whether we should provide an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff to deal with the emergencies or funding for a fence at the top of the cliff to prevent people from falling over the edge. It is the preventive side of tackling antisocial behaviour that I think will lead to fewer resources being used up in dealing with the emergency aspects of police work.
So, there is an issue with police funding but, having said that, West Mercia has record numbers of police —the most since the constabulary was formed in 1967. That has to be good news, if people can feel that the police are dealing with the antisocial behaviour on their doorstep.

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We need a big conversation on finding other ways of financing and resourcing the police. An example would be to consider placing a levy on nightclubs to pay for the extra police time and effort that we know nightclubs use. Anyone who has been to somewhere such as Worcester on a Friday or a Saturday evening knows that extra resources go to such places. While those resources are being used in Worcester city centre, they are not available in the suburbs for dealing with the antisocial behaviour issues that crop up.
Finally, over a number of years, there has been a change in police housing. One idea that I have discussed with the West Mercia branch of the Police Federation is the impact that police houses would have on some of our tougher estates, and the impact of police being seen, even just going to work and coming back. I have discussed whether such a police presence and having someone in the local neighbourhood as a port of call for information would help deliver a safer community and one less blighted by antisocial behaviour.
I hope that I have made a couple of contributions that are of use to the Minister. I would welcome a few comments on issues such as the newsletters and leaflets that I have mentioned, because the issue will not go away, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead said. It will be a measure of us, as Government Members and as politicians generally, to see how we tackle the issue, which is individualised but affects communities across Worcester.
2.42 pm
Hugh Bayley: I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) on securing the debate. He made a thought-provoking contribution. He was way ahead of the times when he said that the Labour party needed to confront its Trotsksyist entryist problem in the 1970s and 1980s and when he talked about the need for welfare reform, and I think that he is ahead of his time in posing solutions to the serious problem of antisocial behaviour, which we all face in our constituencies.
I take a slightly different line from my right hon. Friend: I believe that everyone should have the right to enjoy social order and security. Everyone should have the right to sit in comfort and safety in their home, to feel safe when walking down the street, and not to feel intimidated by people lurking on the street corners. It should be safe for children to go out and play, and for people to park their car outside their house and expect to go out in the morning and find it undamaged where it was left.
My right hon. Friend is right that we need a contract. In return for rights, everybody —and it has to be everybody —has responsibilities. Everyone has a personal responsibility to their neighbours and a responsibility to ensure that their children respect the neighbours and the neighbourhood. Everyone should also have a responsibility to join others in the neighbourhood in confronting problems, through organisations such as neighbourhood watch or tenants or residents associations, and a personal responsibility to report problems to the authorities, including the police. Too often, that is a difficulty. People come to me complaining about the breakdown of order in their neighbourhood, yet they feel intimidated or unable to approach the police. Rights and responsibilities need to go together.
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It takes only a very few shirking their responsibilities to create a serious problem for the many. That is why antisocial behaviour is a problem in so many parts of the country, not just in run-down estates and inner-city areas. It is because so few people can cause so much trouble for so many that antisocial behaviour is a problem in places such as Worcester and my constituency. I cannot hold a surgery or open my postbag in the morning without receiving complaints from constituents about the problems that we are discussing.
York's tourist industry benefits from the city's reputation as a beautiful, historic city, and the city centre is safe and clean, but in some ways York also suffers from that reputation. People forget that it is also a northern city with low wages and some serious social problems, as Seebohm Rowntree documented 100 years ago. There have been two drug-related murders in York in the past fortnight. To deal with those problems, we need more help, not just for services funded by the Home Office, but for other services, such as education. Two weeks ago I called a public meeting in Tang Hall. In common with estates in other parts of York —Clifton, Foxwood and the Groves —Tang Hall faces quite serious problems of criminal and antisocial behaviour. We gathered together the police, the Safer York partnership, magistrates, the probation service, councillors, council officers, residents associations, neighbourhood watch groups and churches.
In passing, I should say a special word of thanks to the Home Secretary, with whom I discussed the problems when he came to York early in November. He sent me a detailed letter responding to the queries that had been put to me by my constituents. Those attending the meeting were impressed by a hands-on Home Secretary who not only responded constructively to their questions and complaints but did so quickly —speed of response is of the essence.
At the meeting, we identified some good practice. In the past year, magistrates in York have issued 11 parenting orders. Magistrates issue such orders, and supervision is carried out by York city council—a good partnership is working between them. The parents who are the subject of those orders usually respond quite angrily. They say, "I have got enough problems with my children already without the courts coming down on me like a ton of bricks." However, after they have been through a parenting course, they support the system. They find that they are better able to communicate with their children to resolve conflict situations and to do things that might be second nature to some parents, such as praising their children when they do something well. Such behaviour does not necessarily occur naturally in society, and some people need help to find ways to be a more effective parent.
However, some powers that Parliament has passed in legislation are not being used locally. A common complaint made to me is that children under 10 —the age of criminal responsibility —brag that the police cannot touch them. That is no longer true, because of legislation that passed through this House. Children below that age can be taken to court and made subject to a child safety order. If a child's parents are unable or unwilling to

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enforce the terms of a child safety order, it can be coupled with a parenting order. That coupling has yet to be used in York —so some additional powers are available.
Although police numbers in York are at an all-time high and the police have a new communications centre, when people phone up to report incidents, the response time is often far too slow. I know that there are technical problems with the new control room, but I hope that the Minister will have a look at what is happening in North Yorkshire, and ask what targets for response times are being set locally and when the police think that they will be through the teething problems and able to meet them.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead is right to emphasise that this is a problem not just for the criminal justice system. In view of the time, I want to touch briefly on one set of agents for change that need more support —schools. At the meeting that I called, the head of a primary school said that it was easy when children come into the nursery at the age of three to identify which will become problem children in years to come. There are children who display a lack of socialisation —those who cannot sit down and who run about and disrupt activities for others. Getting support urgently for those children wad their parents is extremely important. A local education authority, such as York's, which performs extremely well in the league tables, does not get the education resources that allow for sufficient educational social workers and other specialist support to be provided to schools.
I am particularly grateful to one head teacher who wrote me a long report after the meeting. He highlighted the fact that schools are both victims of antisocial behaviour and stand in the front line of the defence against youth offending. In the past week, that school has faced two assaults, four bicycle thefts, a gang fight outside the youth club, the site manager being threatened by a group of children aged between eight and 13, the head being threatened by intruders, verbal abuse from many trespassers, criminal damage, theft, intimidation, threats from unsupportive parents, and many phone calls from other parents and community leaders asking it to do more to help them in the fight against crime.
This is not a question of burdening schools with additional responsibilities; it is a question of putting in resources to help them deal with the problems that they face. Schools need both additional educational resources—an educational social worker, or perhaps an additional member of the school leadership team to deal with these day-to-day crises so that the head teacher can focus on the strategic direction of the school—and better liaison with the police. Perhaps we need a special police-school contact service, which could deliver a quick response. I cannot go into details because of the time, but there was a serious incident involving a bit of stolen property. The police were called and could, had they responded in time, have apprehended the child responsible. A number of police officers or community support officers could he attached to schools to provide direct support.
2.53 pm
Vera Baird: I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) not only on securing the debate, but on the imaginative way in which he has yet again perceived a problem and applied intellectual rigour to analyse it and look for a solution. As we all know, antisocial behaviour is a huge problem. There is simply no need to describe how it impacts on the people of Redcar every day —it has an impact there, just as it does in Birkenhead, York and other places. He presented an interesting model about welfare being part of a contract, where the other part related to enforcing social duties on people.
I have read some publicity attached to my right hon. Friend's recent book, and I would be a very happy Christmas recipient of a signed copy. He says that
"crucial to any success on this front is the removal of the so damaging belief that no matter how badly the person behaves the right to welfare is inviolate. This link has to be broken whereby continual offensive behaviour leaves that individual's right to benefit untouched."
He gives an attractive example, which is also cited in the publicity, of a contract shaped so that the registration of a child's birth becomes a public event or initiation ceremony into the wider society beyond an individual family.
The contract would outline society's duty to provide support, and the registration would become the gateway to child benefit. The contract would detail the rights that parents had to natal care and other NHS care and to Sure Start, nursery and school facilities. It is attractive to set out what people can get and its purpose, because that could help a person be a responsive and complete member of society. As an educational process that is attractive because it breaks down the enforcing of social duties by removing welfare benefits. We have only to look back to the contract that my right hon. Friend set up to see which welfare benefits we are going to remove when somebody does not behave.
Let us consider Sure Start, which is not a welfare benefit in a financial sense, but a benefit primarily for poorer people who, through no fault of their own, are not likely to be able to give their children the best start in the world. People can be taught such diverse things as literacy, parenting skills, speech therapy, ways to deal with difficulties with children, and breastfeeding. There are many sorts of support and assistance to try to enable the kids who come from such homes to overcome the innate deficiencies that poverty, perhaps, puts into their background.
So what are we going to do? Should we take Sure Start away if people break that contractual responsibility, which is the logical consequence of what is being suggested? If not, why not? We do not want to do that, because we want our citizens to have such things to improve and support them and to help with the next generation. We do not want to say, "All right, there is no logic to it, but we will confirm this enforcement through a welfare contract to remove financial support." Of course, in doing that we would increase poverty at a stroke. People get financial support from the state to keep them out of poverty. Immeasurable damage would be done, even if the logic were lost and the financial support removed.
The model that has mostly been considered by the Government, and cited by my right hon. Friend, is the removal of housing benefit, which shows three problems

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with the notion of enforcement through a welfare contract. First, which benefits are removed and who, outside a court, decides when they are to be removed? Secondly, how is the punishment to be confined to the individual, when most people live in families and have dependants around them? Thirdly, however wide the model of welfare benefits is cast, there are people outside it who cannot be punished in that way. How can we avoid a two-tier system of administrative justice?
I recognise that the threat to withdraw housing benefit is designed primarily to deter people from antisocial behaviour, and I accept that it is capable of succeeding with some people. However, research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Chartered Institute of Housing on tackling antisocial behaviour found that two thirds of people involved in such activity have special needs of one kind or another, which is no surprise. Some 18 per cent. had mental illness; 18 percent. had experienced physical or sexual abuse —that figure only reveals those who talk about it —9 per cent. had a physical disability; 23 per cent. had drug and alcohol problems; and in 15 per cent. of cases kids were out of control and parents did not have the skills to deal with them.
Many households had been evicted before, but they were not able to change their behaviour or control that of their children. Such households need intensive, specialist support to encourage them to challenge their behaviour. When people have received such support, their conduct has improved. If the Dundee family project were made available to anyone facing a housing benefit sanction of the kind mooted in the Government's consultation paper and frequently mentioned by my right hon. Friend and the threat of such a sanction were accompanied on every occasion by intensive support and counselling of the kind available in very few families projects, I should have a less rooted objection to it because the threat of removing housing benefit would be a lever to push people into taking on more support. However, the resources are not available —they are very few.
What are we to do? We are to take people off housing benefit and cast them into poverty. The obvious outcome of withdrawing somebody's housing benefit is likely to be rent arrears —although the consultation paper minimised that —eviction and homelessness. I suppose that a good deal more poor women would be engaged in crime. A lot of women who are already engaged in necessity crime would get pushed into crime in an attempt to hold their home together.
Housing benefit is only paid to those who cannot meet their housing costs in any other way. Even if we are talking about a reduced rate of deduction, we cannot say that that would not inevitably cause hardship. There will be times when that cannot be done —
Sir Nicholas Winterton: Order. I must interrupt. A Bill is being discussed in the main Chamber and a vote has been called. May I suggest that we break for only 10 minutes? If Members co-operate, we can return at 10 minutes past 3, when the hon. and learned Lady can continue her interesting speech.
3 pm
Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.
3.10 pm
On resuming —
Vera Baird: I think that I was discussing the inevitable consequences of removing housing benefit, which is given only to people who cannot pay their housing costs in any other way. There will inevitably be eviction, homelessness and the intolerable burden on a local authority of having a duty to support people even when they are intentionally homeless, which it could find impossible to fulfil.
On the question of where those people go, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead has frequently said that his constituents do not care where antisocial behaviour families are moved. I understand that, and I would probably share that sentiment if I were suffering antisocial behaviour. As legislators, however, we have an obligation to be fair, and if there is no positive input to help the antisocial behaviour families change their behaviour, it is not fair to impose them on another community that is just as vulnerable as the one from which they have been removed.
There are problems with the administrative enforcement of a welfare contract of the kind that has been conceived. First, which benefits will be removed? How does one marry them up? I hope that I have demonstrated that benefits in kind, such as Sure Start, could not conceivably be removed. If one discusses financial models, such as housing benefit, however, one is in danger of throwing poorer people further into poverty. No one should present a solution without presenting a matching positive input at the same time.
Secondly, how is such a solution confined to the individual responsible? The consultation document on removing housing benefit discussed doing so only where the antisocial behaviour was caused by the individual or by someone whom people could reasonably expect to control. It is a very difficult model and it is not the kind of decision that should be taken by a local authority officer on an administrative basis or by a 22-year-old police constable who has trained for different duties. It requires not so much speed as the careful consideration and evaluation of evidence, for which the courts are primarily intended. The question of who takes the decision is extremely difficult in that kind of welfare contract.
I will leave an unanswerable question in the air: how do we deal with the inequity that there are people who are not on welfare benefits who cannot be punished in such a way? How do we avoid one justice for the poor and one for the rich? Although the suggested model is attractive as part of a programme for educationally and socially cementing progress and as a method to enforce acceptable behaviour, it needs a good deal more thought.
3.13 pm
Mrs. Annette L. Brook: I congratulate the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) on securing the debate, because this has been a fascinating discussion. It has not quite taken the route that I expected, but that makes it all the more interesting. All of us would agree that antisocial behaviour and its effect on ethers is the most frequently raised issue in our constituency postbags. I too have

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come across incidents of climbing over roofs, such as those that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, and although I might not agree with his conclusions, I am passionately committed to tackling antisocial behaviour. The question is: what is an effective way of dealing with it?
I am committed to the idea that we should have respect for others, and that we should value them. Early intervention has been mentioned this afternoon, and that is important. We must consider antisocial behaviour at different levels. If we consider it at a societal, community and individual level, we will see that what has emerged from this debate is that enforcement measures against the individual will never be enough. We have heard the analysis of how society has changed, and few of us would fundamentally disagree with it. What we must take from this discussion is the fact that some solutions have to be used at the societal level.
I concur with others that if we are to make changes in society, education is the most important feature. Every time I speak about antisocial behaviour, I congratulate the Government on Sure Start, which has been an excellent innovation. However, it is a pity that some very deprived areas are missing out until it is extended over a wider area to cover the next tranche of the most deprived communities. Within, let us say, the bottom 15 per cent. of deprived communities, there are pockets of extreme deprivation that Sure Start is not getting to yet. Doing things is going to take a long time, but doing anything at societal level takes a long time. Although we are all impatient, the Government do not have unlimited resources.
I asked earlier whether there was sufficient uniformed presence. I use the term "uniformed presence" rather than the word "police" because my constituency is probably similar to others in that its antisocial behaviour is not often serious enough to need fully qualified police to deal with it. We must give more credit to the Government by recognising that we have a record number of police. However, there is a lack of uniformed presence, and communities need that, because without it nothing can really work.
Some valid comments were made about communication involving the police and the community. That is a two-way process. Like everybody else, I frequently get complaints: people say, "I rang about that behaviour but nothing happened; nobody bothered to get back to me.' Surely we can sort that out with better use of civilians, antisocial behaviour hotlines, and people understanding which telephone line to use out of hours. People do not like to dial 999, but they do not know what to dial to deal with the less serious troublesome situations.
We need to give leadership. The only way in which we can change society and values is by giving political leadership; that is incumbent on us all. We live in a more caring society than we did 10 years ago, but we have a long way to go to overcome basic selfishness and individualism.
I like the idea that the community should be involved in the solutions. People should know what is happening. A parish council could determine what reparations
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should be made in the community, or whether something useful could be done involving area committees. If that were made very local and based on the community, some societal problems could be overcome.
As the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) said, we are dealing with individuals who have their own characteristics. They often have serious needs. The roots of what we call antisocial behaviour often lie in many factors that we have not addressed for years. We know that there is not enough investment for autism, for example, and that child mental health care has been terribly neglected. Those are long-term problems that we need to put right.
At the individual level, we ought to be thinking of changing behaviour. A real change can come about only through a voluntary contract and a genuine understanding. We must have the supportive measures that other hon. Members talked about. We have some tough measures, which I question. I accept that we need enforcement, but I worry about the counter-productive elements. I support antisocial behaviour orders, but I am wary about naming and shaming people. For example, three teenagers in Kent had ASBOs put on them for life; it may or may not be related, but one has committed suicide. That individual clearly needed support, as well as the ASBO. We must all agree with that conclusion, and we must not forget those supportive measures.
There is so much that can be said in this debate, but I planned to talk about housing and antisocial behaviour, probably because I thought that the question of cutting housing benefit would emerge. The hon. and learned Member for Redcar made a strong case, arguing that cutting housing benefit is not the answer. That would only scratch at the surface and not tackle the underlying problems. It is surely most important to have supportive measures alongside the demoted tenancies that have been introduced, which involve the ultimate threat of losing one's house. We have heard about the Dundee project, and there is an excellent scheme running in Rochdale, as well as other examples around the country. How much of that work to support and change behaviour is going on —
Sir Nicholas Winterton: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady, but I have to remind the House that we must finish the debate at 3.41 pm. The shadow spokesman has yet to speak for the Conservative and Unionist party, and the Minister will need time to reply. I am not in any way seeking to short-circuit what the hon. Lady is saying, but I am sure that the House would be grateful if she appreciated the time factor.
Mrs. Brooke: Thank you, Sir Nicholas; I was conscious that there was not quite 10 minutes for me to speak. The record of the supportive measure schemes for families undergoing them is excellent. I conclude by saying the same as the antisocial behaviour unit. We must, for goodness' sake, spread best practice across the board —best practice with housing and young people, for example —and ensure that we herald and celebrate the successes. Before we introduce draconian measures that could make things much worse for everybody and make society a worse place, please let us get it right.
3.22 pm
Mr. Tim Boswell: I. too, begin by congratulating the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) and all those who have participated. Without exception, they have made thoughtful contributions. Antisocial behaviour clearly affects us all; it is a universal problem. The town of Daventry, the largest town that I represent, has greatly expanded since the 1960s. There are, within those early developments, areas of significant social pressure where, as the right hon. Gentleman said, the infrastructure is run down. Their community spirit and community capital have run out, and require refreshing. The problem also arises in rural areas, where transport is difficult, particularly for young people, and access to leisure and sports facilities is extremely limited. Sometimes a group of troublemakers from the town goes out to one of the villages some miles away, and creates trouble there. It is clear from my regular constituency surveys that my constituents feel strongly about that.
Many hon. Members, including the Minister, will be familiar with the American experience, and the famous "broken windows" theory of Wilson and Kelling. Some of us, including myself, were lucky enough to hear William Bratton —the former police commissioner of New York, now commissioner for Los Angeles —lecture on the subject in London last week. Untended, unrepaired and unloved assets signal an erosion of local values, which is soon followed by the kind of behaviour that afflicts our constituents. The areas and the perpetrators are not typecast, and neither are those who have to put up with them. The problem affects not just the affluent, but significant numbers of poor and young people. Almost half of students report that they have been the victims of theft during their time at college.
The diagnosis of the right hon. Gentleman and others, and the Government's concern, are entirely appropriate; I would not argue about that. I am less happy about the efforts to find a solution. The Home Office initiatives, characteristically described by the Prime Minister as "eye-catching initiatives", do not necessarily bear the weight of expectation that has been laid on them. The ASBO system, even to my relatively inexperienced eye, is bureaucratic and clumsy, as is borne out by the figures. Ministers were talking in terms of 5,000 ASBOs a year —but although we had the first of them in Northamptonshire, there are still only 12 in the county. If we applied a percentage test, that would suggest that they are running at about a quarter of the number projected. Undoubtedly aided by the work done by all parties-such as my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins), who is speaking in the Chamber today, and former Labour Home Office Ministers who have expressed concern the Government have tightened the system with the new legislation. I hope that the Minister will have time to tell us about progress in that area.
At the same time, it is becoming clear that there must always be reservations, and limits on legislation that relies on restraint orders and naming and shaming, or the possibility of moving on to welfare sanctions directed at behaviour that, although recognisably offensive to the ordinary citizen, is difficult to tie down legally. In a largely positive article about ASBOs in the December edition of Youth Justice Board News, Paul
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Horrocks, the editor of the Manchester Evening News, made it clear that his colleagues do not trawl through old orders naming and shaming people, and they do not write about people who have not appeared before the courts. Those are proper restraints. I suppose that—the Minister might wish to comment on this —there is always the possibility of clever legal challenges to orders within the scope of the Human Rights Act 1998. There must be restrictions on the ready recourse to those.
In any event, ASBOs by themselves are not going to solve the problem. There have been a number of other constructive suggestions. They might help, and it would be useful to hear where the Minister thinks we are going. However, there must be reservations about whether what has happened so far has had any discernable impact on the wider issues of behaviour and culture that the right hon. Member for Birkenhead spoke about.
To help the Minister, I shall finish after making two general points. The first is that a great deal of this is about public reassurance. We need to convince the public that somebody is on their side, and that they are not unloved or uncared for. A visible police presence is important, particularly in areas of difficulty such as town centres on a Friday night. Five police officers have had to be taken from the western area of my county to parts of Northampton that the chief constable judges to have greater crime problems. That has gone down very badly. We need more police officers. My colleagues on our home affairs team have suggested a way of securing a further 40,000, as that is a major area of complaint.
The second issue, which is more a matter of culture, is that of rights and responsibilities. A strong message has emerged: both are required. If people are to be offered rights, there should be matching responsibilities or understandings. Those do not come automatically; they have to be fostered. It is clear to me that there is no chance of securing improvements without offering young people something constructive and interesting to do, and there is no question of rebuilding participant communities without some positive gear on the motor. Community policing and law and order cannot be improved from the outside without an equivalent commitment, fostered in the community, from local people. The two have to go together, and the problem will not go away until they do.
Sir Nicholas Winterton: Before I call the Minister, I thank the Front-Bench spokespeople for their co-operation in cutting their speaking time to allow the Minister adequate time to reply.
3.29 pm
The Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety (Ms Hazel Blears): I, too, thank hon. Members for restricting their speaking time. A huge number of issues have been raised that go to the heart of the dilemmas that we as politicians face; some are deep and complex, and some very practical. I hope to be able to respond to them all.
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) for securing what, as has been illustrated by the standard of the contributions made by every Member today, is a debate. We all consider this to be an important issue in our communities.

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My right hon. Friend made a plea to the Government to consider specific areas, such as immediate enforcement and root causes, and to look across the whole of government to see what we can do. That is what we are doing with policy making, the legislation that has been enacted, the launch of the Together campaign, the action plan and the funding. Everything happening in government is designed to address that agenda.
It is right that, so as to have immediate enforcement, we have introduced fixed-penalty notices for disorderly behaviour. That was a controversial step, but it provided an immediate sanction for disorderly behaviour, intimidation and harassment. We have been piloting the use of fixed-penalty notices in six forces. Today I saw an evaluation of how that trial has gone, and we shall trial further powers in relation to 16 and 17year-olds after Christmas. A new area of policy is being developed, in which there can be immediate sanction without going through the whole panoply of court prosecution, which sometimes takes far too long for the community to see results.
I hope that hon. Members accept that root causes are being addressed through Sure Start, the many other schemes that have been put in place and the new parenting fund that we have brought into being. Some £25 million has been set aside for parenting orders, to try to ensure that parents get support and learn skills. Unfortunately, far too many parents have not had the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of bringing up a family. Money is in place to help with that process. That is essential, in terms of cross-Government effort, which is why the antisocial behaviour unit, although situated in the Home Office, has a complete cross-Government brief.
Unless we engage with the Department of Trade and Industry—as with the fireworks—menace, when we worked closely with that Department for robust proposals and legislation to clamp down on fireworks—and with the Department for Education and Skills on what we can do in schools to change attitudes, simply having enforcement tools will not be enough for our campaign to change the way we live so as to reduce antisocial behaviour.
I ask hon. Members to put the situation in perspective. We have made considerable gains over the past few years in reducing crime, which is down 25 per cent. I entirely take the point raised by hon. Members, however, that convincing people that crime is down is a bigger issue, because they do not necessarily feel safer when they are out and about in their communities on their lawful business. That is why tackling antisocial behaviour and increasing reassurance are the key. We can keep driving down the volume of crime—burglary is down 40 per cent., vehicle crime is down 30 per cent., and robbery is down 17 per cent.—but, unless people feel safe going about their day-to-day affairs, they will not connect that with their real lives. That is why this agenda is central to everything we do.
The agenda is not just about crime or intimidating behaviour, it is about graffiti, fly-tipping, fly-posting, and all those things that lead to neighbourhoods looking run-down, and to people feeling threatened.
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The hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) mentioned the broken windows theory. Dealing with the whole range of such environmental crime is vital to our proposals. That is why the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 contains innovative new powers to deal with graffiti, fly-tipping and other such environmental problems. That is also why I am working closely with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on the liveability agenda, which underpins our policies.
It is important that we give our public services the tools to do the job. That is why we brought in antisocial behaviour orders as long ago as 1998, and why we listened to people who said that it was difficult to get them through the courts initially, when the use of ASBOs was a new tool. It was a new discipline, and people were not used to such powers. We have streamlined the process dramatically—and I can say that from personal experience. There are 50 ASBOs in my constituency, and 25 of those have been granted since last December, when we brought in the power to make ASBOs on conviction. The new procedure is much simpler. People do not have to listen to two sets of evidence, and the order can be made at the same time as the conviction. That has been a tremendous help to the police and the local authority, and has ensured that the orders are obtained and enforced.
For the first time, magistrates are agreeing to sentencing guidelines in relation to the breach of such orders. The inconsistency of sentencing has been a real problem, and people have been given a caution or a conditional discharge when they have breached the order. Getting sentencing guidelines in place so that breaches are taken seriously helps to build the confidence of the community that it was worth while coming forward and giving evidence because the order has been obtained and will be enforced.
The big issue is the confidence of the community, which brings me to a question that several hon. Members have raised about the publication of the fact that orders have been obtained. I acknowledge that the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mrs. Brooke) has reservations about—as she puts it—naming and shaming. I think that it is absolutely right that communities should know when orders have been made and what the conditions are. My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) made a clear case for that. The community can then take action and feel empowered in connection with what is happening on their doorstep, in their local area. That publication should be proportionate and should not demonise people. It is a question not of humiliation, but of letting the community know that when it is prepared to take a stand against antisocial behaviour, the orders will be made.
I do not know whether any of the hon. Members here were present at the "Taking a Stand" awards that we introduced in the House two weeks ago. We brought together people from all over the country who had taken a stand in their communities. They had been prepared to go to court and give evidence. We acknowledged their contribution and rewarded them with a small amount of money that they could spend on community project to ensure that we repair some damage done to them and their neighbourhoods by antisocial behaviour. We shall do that annually, and I am sure hon. Members will want to make nominations for future awards from their own areas.

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One of the interesting political debates that we have had this afternoon concerns changing how people view the state, so that we can move from a dependency culture to a welfare state that enables people to help themselves. That has been reflected in the contributions from several hon. Members. We have embarked on that big political change throughout government. How do we involve local people in coming up with solutions and empower them to take action in enforcing the standards of the common decencies to use the phrase used by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead? I have no doubt that that debate will run and run throughout many of our policy areas.
The other fascinating issue that emerged was reflected in the comments of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) about the extent to which conditionality can be part of our welfare system. She made the point that some people would comply if conditionality was introduced. I attended a fascinating seminar a few months ago, full of academics, learned lawyers and all sorts of knowledgeable people from different backgrounds. We took part in an enormous exercise about conditionality, examining where the cost benefit was, and debated whether it would punish the most vulnerable and the poorest.
The idea was that if we got as many people as we could to comply, there would always be a group of people who did not comply. What would be the effects of that? I posed the question to my colleagues, who had worked out a big empirical method, but their only answer was, "That's a matter for politicians to decide." That is a stark and graphic way of illustrating some intensely difficult issues that we have to deal with when we think about how far to put tools in place to shape people's behaviour, and what are the implications of doing so. Hon. Members have raised a complex issue, and we shall be directing our minds to it during the coming months and years.
I want to say a little about spreading good practice, a subject that has been raised by hon. Members. The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and I launched the Together action plan a couple of months ago, which shows how far up the political agenda the issue is. A key part of that action plan is the setting up of the Together
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academy, in which we shall bring practitioners together in the new discipline of coping with antisocial behaviour. They will examine how to use the legislation and the tools, how to get ASBOs in place and how to use the acceptable behaviour contracts in a more flexible way. The Together academy will bring people from the front line together and train them to use the tools that we have provided through legislation.
The Together action line will be a hotline, so that people who have a problem in their area can get immediate help from the antisocial behaviour unit. I recently visited Kendal in the Lake district. That is not a place that we would naturally associate with antisocial behaviour, but in one estate there one family was causing huge problems for people in the community and no one had a clue where to start. If they were in Salford, they would know and would have the skills and experience to deal with the problem. We can help that to happen through the antisocial behaviour unit. If my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester has a problem with his local authority or police being reluctant to act, the antisocial behaviour unit can empower them to use the tools that we have put in place. I certainly commend it to him.
I accept the support of the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole for dealing with antisocial behaviour. However, I say again that it is a great pity that her party did not support the Government's legislation to tackle such issues, which is essential to people in our communities. I hope that even at this very late stage she might repent of her party's decision and support the methods that we have introduced.
My hon. Friend the Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) spoke about child safety orders. He will know that we are actively considering the matter. I am grateful to him for his contribution on an important subject for children of 10 and under—
Sir Nicholas Winterton: I always hesitate to interrupt the Minister, but time is up. We must now move to the next debate. I must tell the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) that we are about 11 minutes behind because of a Division in the House, so he is here exceptionally early for his debate.

Traffic Management
3.41 pm
Mr. David Kidney: Compliments of the season, Sir Nicholas. Without in any way wishing away the festive season that everyone is about to enjoy, I ask you and the Minister to look ahead to Parliament's first day back in January, when we shall debate the Traffic Management Bill, part of which will move the Highways Agency from being just a road builder and maintainer to a network operator. Highways authorities and traffic officers will patrol trunk roads and motorways, manage traffic flows and respond to incidents. That is relevant to this debate.
To put this debate in a broader context, in a speech to the Automobile Association awards ceremony on 26 February 2003, the Secretary of State spoke of the Government's commitment to investment in all modes of transport, to expanding the highways network of the country, including major investments in widening the M1 and M6, and to making better use of the existing network. It is that last commitment that brings me to the Government's plans to allow vehicles to use the hard shoulder of motorways as an extra running lane.
Motorists will already be familiar with driving on the hard shoulder, but only at certain times, such as when road works are in progress or during construction. In fact, there has been wider use of hard-shoulder running in other countries, including Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States of America, but the debate is about the UK's plan to allow for the first time driving on the hard shoulder to reduce congestion on motorways. It began on 27 July 2001, with the Government's announcement of a pilot scheme, called active traffic management, on a stretch of the M42 between junction 3A, which is the M40 junction, and junction 7, which is the M6 junction. The Government then announced on 9 July this year that hard-shoulder running would be considered for other motorways.
I should like to check with the Minister whether the active traffic management scheme on the M42 will be the only pilot or whether the Government envisage a larger pilot. The Highways Agency refers to all the motorways around Birmingham as the Birmingham box. It would be interesting to know whether there will be one pilot scheme or more than one.
I raise this subject because of the concerns that have been expressed. Several of my constituents have taken the trouble to contact me to say that they are worried about the safety aspects of the proposal. Several road hauliers, both within and without my constituency, and individual members of the emergency services have expressed concerns. In addition, the RAC recently provided a written submission to the Transport Committee, in which it detailed NOP research that it had commissioned, which found that 83 per cent. of motorists think that using the hard shoulder to reduce congestion is a bad idea and 84 per cent. of them think that it would make roads less safe. In requesting this debate, I intend to investigate what is involved in the pilot and discuss the safety issues raised. I hope that the Minister and I can reassure motorists that the pilot is safe.
We should start from the premise that the UK has an excellent road safety record compared with most other countries. Too many people—about 10 a day—still die
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on our roads. Nevertheless, our roads are safer than most, and our motorways are the safest of all. It is fair to say that many people think that the system of having a hard shoulder next to the carriageway contributes to that excellent safety record, so it is understandable that any proposed changes to that system would cause motorists anxiety.
It might be helpful to establish the safety record of our motorways and the current casualty records for people on the hard shoulder. In the RAC's written submission, it is claimed that between 200 and 250 people a year die or are injured on motorway hard shoulders. However, in a written answer, the Minister said that
"in road accidents involving vehicles parked on motorways for the three-year period from 1999 to 2001",
the figures were
"62 people killed; and 118 people seriously injured."—[Official Report, 15 July 2003; Vol. 409, c. 166W.]
Those figures do not even add up to 200 over three years. Such a disparity makes it difficult to rely on any of the figures. Does the Minister agree that it would be helpful to establish a more accurate baseline before the project begins to ensure meaningful evaluation?
The Minister's advisers have studied overseas experiences and examined the subsequent research. The pilot schemes in the Netherlands, on the A27 and A28 at Utrecht, were reported to the House of Commons in a paper that the Minister placed in the Library in March 2003. Those pilots and a third of those on the A50 at Arnhem involved permitted use of the hard shoulder at fixed, predetermined times, and vehicle detection equipment in place to check that the hard shoulder was clear of obstructions before the start of hard-shoulder running. The scheme was not run through motorway junctions, only on continuous stretches between junctions. The Dutch operators claim a reduction in journey times as a result of the pilots, and a 75 per cent. reduction in rear-end collisions.
I suggest to the Minister that motorists will have two obvious fears about the scheme. First, in the event of a breakdown or damage to a vehicle, there will be no safe refuge if the hard shoulder is used by other vehicles. Secondly, if the motorway is snarled up by a major incident and all traffic, including that on the hard shoulder, is stationary, how will emergency vehicles get to the scene of an incident? It may be a serious incident, with people trapped in vehicles, a fire raging, or toxic substances released, and it would be desperately urgent for the emergency services to get there.
I shall set out my understanding of the components of the active traffic management pilot. There should be frequent overhead gantries and signs to advise motorists when to use the hard shoulder. There should be clear signs above the motorway-the green arrow and red cross system that we are already familiar with. It is also essential to apply a reduced speed limit across all lanes of the motorway before allowing hard-shoulder running.
3.49 pm
Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.
3.59 pm
On resuming—
Mr. Kidney: I understand that the components of the pilot will also include effective monitoring equipment, a constantly staffed control centre and, most importantly, a new network of emergency refuge areas adjacent to the existing hard shoulder. That is my understanding of how the scheme will operate. At times of heavy congestion—I have seen suggestions that on weekdays that will be two and a half hours during the morning and four hours during the evening—the green arrows above the hard shoulder will indicate that it may be used as a running lane.
The green arrows will be switched on only after the control centre staff have satisfied themselves that the hard shoulder is clear of obstructions and that a lower speed limit for all traffic has been set. The staff at the control centre would then have the benefit of CCTV cameras and a closely spaced inductive loop to detect rapidly any incident on the motorway. In the event of a breakdown or damage, the vehicle would have to make it to the nearest emergency refuge area.
In addition to the CCTV cameras and the induction loop, every emergency refuge area would have an emergency telephone. The control centre, by one means or more, would be alerted to the incident. I believe that a recovery vehicle would be dispatched and a decision would be made whether to close the hard shoulder in the vicinity of the emergency refuge area for safety reasons. In any event, if a recovery vehicle were to come along to assist a vehicle in exiting an emergency refuge area, signs would be operated to close that part of the hard shoulder, as it would clearly be dangerous to emerge into moving traffic from a standing start. In a major incident, I understand that the control centre staff would close off all the hard shoulder in order to allow access to the site for emergency vehicles.
Will the Minister confirm whether my understandings are correct and whether he wants to make any alterations or additions? Could he answer some queries to allay motorists' fears? Clearly, when traffic is running in more than one lane, it will not be easy to get to one of the emergency refuge areas. How frequent will they be alongside the motorway? Will they be big enough for the biggest heavy goods vehicles and their recovery vehicles to fit into without protruding on to the hard shoulder? Will they be clearly indicated for people who might need them? Will entry to an emergency refuge area be detected automatically by control centre staff? Will all the areas have an emergency telephone?
I want also to ask about the legal status of the hard shoulder signs. Will they be advisory or mandatory? The highway code tells us at paragraph 238:
"You must not drive on the hard shoulder except in an emergency or if directed to do so by signs."
The law that backs that up is the Motorways Traffic (England and Wales) Regulations 1982. Will a new offence of driving on a hard shoulder when the sign says not to do so be created? If so, what will be the punishment for doing that?
What does the Minister think about the issue of noncompliance by motorists? I understand that the Netherlands' experience was that 40 drivers an hour drove on the hard shoulder when they were instructed not to. That amounts to one every one and a half minutes. Does the Minister think that that rate of non-
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compliance in the pilot scheme would be dangerous? Will the pilot scheme apply not to motorway junctions, but only to continuous stretches of motorway between junctions?
I take it that the control centre technology will be tried and tested, and available in sufficient quantity for staff to be alerted immediately, so that they can respond immediately to problems. Is that correct? Will a recovery vehicle be dispatched in the event of an incident, and if so where from? Will it come from somewhere nearby? Crucially, are such services from the Highways Agency free? Organisations such as the RAC are concerned about the motorist's choice of recovery operator.
Is it correct that in serious incidents control centre staff will be clearly instructed to clear all the hard shoulder of running traffic? The question must arise of whether there will be room in the carriageway for those vehicles, assuming that a major incident has already caused a backlog of traffic. In such an event, will emergency vehicles co me from the opposite carriageway? If so, will traffic running on the hard shoulder on that side of the motorway be stopped? Communication between the emergency services and the control centre staff is clearly crucial in such situations. How closely will they communicate?
Consultation is a great concern, so I should be grateful to the Minister if he mentioned what consultation has taken place so far and what will take place in the future. Groups such as the emergency services, the Health and Safety Executive, other road safety organisations, motoring organisations and road hauliers all have a keen interest in the subject. Does the Minister agree that it will be important nearer the time to ensure that individual motorists are well aware of what is going to happen?
Most helpfully, the Minister handed me a new leaflet about the pilot scheme at the start of the debate, which I am sure would help many of the public to understand what is involved. Will he confirm a start date for the first pilot? Will there be a special rule about the number of lanes that heavy goods vehicles may use? I have asked that before in a parliamentary question. At the moment, on a three-lane motorway, they may not use the outside lane for overtaking. If the hard shoulder is in use, are heavy goods vehicles restricted to two lanes or three lanes? Is he aware that the RAC, which I have already mentioned several times, is still steadfastly opposed to the pilot? It says that there is a safety hazard for motorists and those working on the hard shoulder.
I hope that the Minister will appreciate that I am not speaking in opposition; indeed, if the measures provide a better way to manage the network, the pilot is a responsible way to proceed before ensuring a more general application of such practices. Clearly, there are safety issues, and some people have concerns about the scheme. I hope that the Minister welcomes this opportunity to make public reassurances about, and explanations of, the scheme, as do I.
Sir Nicholas WintertonI call the Minister to respond to this interesting debate
4.6 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. David Jamieson): Thank you, Sir Nicholas. I hope that my contribution does not make the debate less interesting.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) on the way that he presented his argument and commend him on his excellent record on matters of road safety. He always speaks with great authority on the subject, both in and out of the House, and is well respected for his views, so it is a pleasure to respond to the debate. I will answer as many of his points as possible in the time available.
I know that the issue is important to my hon. Friend's constituents, but I think that he spoke for the much wider audience of those involved with the pilot that he mentioned in the west midlands and those from outside the area who will use the roads in that area. He rightly pointed out that this country has an enviable road safety record. I think that I am right in saying that we have probably the best record in the world, given the number of miles travelled and the number of people who travel on our roads. Our motorways have an extremely good record, even in the context of the general good record in this country.
I welcome this opportunity to discuss this innovative and exciting project that we have embarked on in the west midlands. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I feel that the active traffic management pilot project could provide significant benefits for road users and the nation as a whole. It would contribute to our policy of removing some of the bottlenecks on our roads and to the improvements that we are making. Importantly, the project would enable us to make better use of the road network, and help us to see what additional capacity we can safely squeeze out of it.
I assure my hon. Friend at the outset that safety has always been, and will continue to be, the top priority in managing traffic for any project. As part of the active traffic management pilot, we are developing a wide-ranging safety strategy to ensure that the concept develops with safety at the forefront of what we do. The ongoing safety work is facilitated by our commitment to sustaining our long-lasting and fulfilling partnership with the police service and the emergency services, who are all too often on the front line of incident management on our motorway and trunk road network. Those services' commitment to the pilot project, and in particular that of the central motorway police group responsible for that section of network, has been instrumental in ensuring the successful progress of the work.
I am aware that my hon. Friend has concerns about how we will deal with the management of incidents on the hard shoulder when it is being used by traffic, and I assure him that the issues that he has properly raised today are being given the fullest attention. The emergency services deal with emergency access every day when they attend incidents on high-speed trunk roads, which do not have hard shoulders. Sometimes, access is through road works or on motorways with gaps in their hard shoulders. In such circumstances, the emergency services will seek to establish whether any traffic can pass the incident. If not, the approach may be at the next available junction.
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The active traffic management pilot will provide more traffic cameras. I stress that those cameras will not enforce speed limits, but will send information back to the Highways Agency, which will help the emergency services to monitor the situation, to take decisions using the enhanced detection method, and to speed up their reaction to any major incident on that particular stretch of road.
In the past few years, we have become increasingly aware that we need to make better use of our road space. We have made strong advances in technology to support our roads management, and we have successfully implemented several innovative traffic management measures throughout the country. For example, the controlled motorway section of the M25, which has operated successfully for several years, has shown that managing speed limits in response to the prevailing traffic conditions has created a safer and more comfortable driving environment.
As my hon. Friend said, we have paid close attention to our overseas partners' development of the active traffic management concept. In particular, we have forged close partnerships with the Dutch, who have operated a similar system for several years. Their extensive experience has proved that such innovative projects can significantly benefit road users. They have reported consistent reductions in the number of serious accidents by using the hard shoulder, owing mainly to a reduction in queuing and congestion following the introduction of the system.
My hon. Friend may be interested to know why we chose the M42 on which to pilot the project. As I am sure he will know from his journey to and from the House, the M42 regularly suffers from congestion, especially in peak periods. Accident rates are higher on certain parts of it than on other parts of the national motorway network. It is also a route of strategic national significance, as it forms part of a key cross-country route and provides direct access to the national exhibition centre, Birmingham international airport and Birmingham international station.
My hon. Friend asked whether this is the first pilot. Yes, it is, but a second is being developed in south-west Yorkshire. We will examine the experience of those pilots to see how they can be rolled out in other parts of the country, although he will be the first to appreciate that there will be limitations on where they can be rolled out on our motorway network, because the hard shoulder is not consistent in certain parts of it, as he knows. There are breaks in the hard shoulder on much of our motorway network, and it would therefore be inappropriate to use the system on parts of it.
The issues that I believe are of the greatest immediate concern to my hon. Friend relate mainly to the use of the hard shoulder as a running lane. I stress that the hard shoulder will be opened only if it is safe to do so and, even then, only under carefully controlled conditions. Trained active traffic management operators will take the decision to open the hard shoulder, which will not be opened during bad weather. When the hard shoulder is open, all traffic will be subject to a mandatory speed limit of 50 mph, or less if appropriate, to improve safety, and will be able to use the hard shoulder only between traffic junctions, not through them.

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When the speed limit on the carriageway is reduced, a red cross will be shown if the hard shoulder is closed to traffic. If it is open, the speed symbol will be used to indicate the speed limit that has been set. Green arrows will not be used. In the event of a breakdown, there will be safe refuges called emergency refuge areas, spaced at approximately 500 m intervals. I am sure that, as he drives along the M42, my hon. Friend has noticed those being constructed. The hard shoulder will be opened to prevent the onset of congestion and may also be used during incidents as appropriate once the emergency services have reached the scene.
We shall use the latest enforcement technology to ensure that drivers adhere to the speed limits that we set and to ensure that we minimise any abuse of the hard shoulder outside the times of operation. I stress that for most of the day, the hard shoulder will remain a conventional hard shoulder as we all understand that term.
I think that my hon. Friend said that there would be no safe refuges. Of course, emergency refuge areas, which will be similar to lay-bys, are being provided along the length of the scheme to give a safer area for vehicles in an emergency. Even when the hard shoulder is closed to use, those refuges will be a huge advantage. As my hon. Friend said, when motorists pull up on the hard shoulder in an emergency now, the likelihood of being hit by another vehicle from behind is, alas, very high. That is why we advise people to get out of their cars and get behind the barrier. The refuges, notwithstanding any policy decision that we take about hard shoulder running, will substantially enhance safety on the motorways where they are placed.
The refuges will be available at all times, not just when the hard shoulder is open, and will be equipped with detection technology and emergency telephones to alert control centre operators as to the presence of a vehicle. A dedicated team of people will work on the system to see who is in the refuges. They will look specifically on this stretch of motorway to see what is happening and alert the police or, later, traffic officers to go and give assistance as necessary.
As part of the project, we are providing improved incident detection techniques and technologies. That includes comprehensive CCTV coverage to allow monitoring of traffic conditions, more sensors in the road to speed up the detection of traffic queues, and more message signs and lane signals to give better information and instruction to drivers. I am sure that my hon. Friend has seen the variable message signs that have been fitted to this stretch of road. Those detection technologies will be used by operators before opening the hard shoulder to ensure that it is safe to do so. They will be able to see whether something is blocking the hard shoulder.
The signs and signals provided over each lane of the carriageway will be spaced at much more frequent intervals than is the case on other motorways in the
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network. As soon as an incident occurs, an operator. using the signs, can close the affected lanes to protect those involved in the incident, and warn road users before they reach the incident. The closed lane can then be used by the emergency services to secure access.
I am sure that my hon. Friend will be interested to hear that we have consulted on our proposals for the M42. In addition to the good partnership that we enjoy with the local police, we have discussed the project at length with the other emergency services in the area and are now drawing up detailed operational plans and agreements with them for the operation of the scheme.
We are also about to embark on a wide-ranging consultation exercise on the changes that need to be made to the road traffic regulations for the project to be implemented. That exercise will include more than 100 consultees who may have an interest in the project and our proposals. In addition, we have been talking to vehicle recovery operators and transport and maintenance organisations about the detailed development of our proposals.
A key aim of the project has been to ensure that the signs and signals that we provide are as intuitive as possible to ensure that road users can use the scheme with care and confidence. My hon. Friend will know that we have held a number of local exhibitions on our proposals for the M42, as well as appearing at national events such as the motor show.
We shall continue to raise awareness of the project among the public as we move to the start of operations. My hon. Friend asked about that. We may be able to give better guidance on it later in the year. There is some ongoing work. We want to be assured that all the safety precautions are in place first. Once that is the case, we can make an announcement.
My hon. Friend also asked whether emergency vehicles would approach in the opposite lane in some instances. Yes, that will still be possible on occasion, but of course if the other carriageway is closed, it is a total closure. We could not have emergency vehicles approaching the wrong way down a stretch of motorway, with other traffic still trying to use the hard shoulder and so on. It would be a total closure, as now, removing part of the central barrier and gaining access. That will be no different from the system that applies now.
My hon. Friend will, I hope, be reassured to hear that we are not implementing our proposed traffic management measures all at once. We will be taking a phased approach during the next few years to allow road users to build understanding and confidence in what we are doing and the Highways Agency to learn from the experience. Once the measures are implemented, we will benefit not only from less congestion but from safer roads. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to outline some details of the proposal.

Police Funding (London)
4.21 pm
Dr. Vincent Cable: I am delighted to have the opportunity to introduce a debate on this subject and, because of the staggering of the debates, to have broadened my education on British motorways. I have introduced this debate for two reasons. First, I have a long-standing interest in police matters. I chair the all-party group on police, and I hosted the meeting on 15 October at which the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities gave a preliminary airing to some of their concerns over the looming financial difficulties of some authorities, especially the Metropolitan Police Authority.
Secondly, I am raising the subject as a London Member of Parliament. My particular part of London, the borough of Richmond, is by most indicators the most law-abiding in London. Although it is not law-abiding by the standards of many other parts of the country, by London standards it is considered to be a relatively low-crime area, and I accept the relative indicators on that. None the less, there is a major fear of crime, and much of that has burst to the surface during the past year.
I hosted a public meeting about a year ago in Hampton in my constituency, where the attendance was in thousands rather than hundreds—we had to turn people away and have the meeting in shifts. Part of that public anxiety was triggered by a particularly alarming murder, that of Marsha MacDonnell, but even before that a growing worry about crime was building up. That was underlined by the fact that most people in most parts of my constituency had not seen a police officer on the streets for many years. In that sense, my area was typical of many parts of London. Particularly in the early and mid-1990s we saw a quite catastrophic decline in police numbers; in aggregate London terms they fell from 29,000 to just over 25,000 in 1997-98. In my borough, the decline was from 336 in 1990 to 267 in 1998, a loss of more than 20 per cent. of the force. Street policing simply disappeared.
The situation has stabilised since then, and in the last year we have seen an increase to about 280, a slight improvement. For the first time, people are beginning to note a visible police presence, helped by the police community support officers, a welcome development. My borough commander has recently introduced a system of allocating a beat officer to every ward. That is a big change and a welcome improvement.
I have introduced the debate because I worry that that turnaround, which, if not dramatic, improves the visibility and numbers of police, may be undermined by the overall position of the Metropolitan police and the consequences of the local government finance settlement. The calculations that the Metropolitan Police Authority has made are provisional, so the Minister may want to correct or explain them, but its assessment is that London will lose in the order of £56 million in the next financial year, compared with what it would have received had the formula applied as before.
The reasoning behind that number has several elements. First, the growth for funding for London is apparently 3.3 per cent., as opposed to an average of 4.2
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per cent. None of us can understand why London's growth is less than the average. Any needs-based system would presumably reflect the fact that London has an intensification of many law and order problems such as gun crime. Any system based on costs would take into account the fact that labour and property costs in London are rising relatively rapidly. Yet for reasons that are unclear, London seems to have done less well than it would have done under the earlier needs-based formula.
The second reason for concern relates to the funding of those elements of the police budget that are described as national and capital city functions. There are a large number of tourists in the city, as well as the monarchy and the diplomatic service. A whole set of functions accrue to the Metropolitan police on account of our being the capital city. Quite properly the Government funds them separately. The growth rate here is about 2.5 per cent., which is even lower than the overall funding allocated to the Metropolitan police.
Again, the figures are difficult to explain. The rough notional sense that many borough commanders are getting is that abstractions, particularly from suburban areas into the centre, are growing rapidly. I was informally given an estimate of a 9 per cent. annual growth last year. These are police officers who, to maintain public confidence, are being removed from routine duties and transferred to the centre of London for those national capital city functions. Yet that has not been allowed for in the funding formula.
Mr. Mark Field: In view of the constituency that I represent, I am well aware of the problem relating to capital city funding element within the Metropolitan police area. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that, for historical reasons, the City of London police have a level of independence. I pay credit to the Government: the City of London police have received a good settlement this year to take account of terrorism and fraud. However, terrorism, and the fear of terrorism, are quite large factors. Does the hon. Gentleman have any thoughts not just about police numbers, which have been used as the big idea by both the Mayor of London and the Government, but about the management of the police in the Metropolitan police area? That is of grave concern to my constituents, and to his in a more suburban area.
Dr. Cable: There has been an enormous improvement in the management of the Metropolitan police in the last few years. I will shortly give a few indicators that show that. I certainly accept that the Metropolitan police were notorious for the inefficiency of some of their operations a few years ago. That has greatly changed. The hon. Gentleman referred specifically to terrorism. There is a query about how the Government will approach that. That is not a criticism. As I understand it, some 257 new security posts were to be created in London specifically to deal with the problem. The Metropolitan Police Authority and the police have no indication of how they are to be funded. The impression they have gained is that there is to be no additional funding for that purpose.
In addition to the difficulties of the basic national formula and the national duties allocation, there is a set of queries relating to the special grants. It would be

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better—I know that the Government are moving in this direction-if some of those special grants were simplified and consolidated. What seems to be happening is that existing special grants are being increased far less substantially than the London police have been led to expect. This is a further source of concern.
The community support officers are a welcome addition and have made a major difference to policing in the capital. Some 40 per cent. of them are women or from the ethnic minorities. They are making a big change to the face of London police. However, the funding that has been made available for them for next year is substantially less than London was led to expect. The Airwave project is key to efficiency and better communication. Again, there is a big drop in funding that will be made available for it. The crime-fighting fund, which is key to recruitment, is not being extended next year. The funding of existing officers is being reduced. The funding being made available for a whole set of specific grants is less then London was led to expect. That is on top of the losses from the overall funding allocation.
What are the potential consequences? As I understand it, there is a consultation process in which the Minister will be involved. It may produce a different outcome from the one that I am trailing here. There is a set of decisions to be made by London's elected members. It is not for the Government or me. That is right. They have to decide their own priorities. But it is clear on the basis of the provisional numbers that some painful decisions will have to be made. It is quite possible that the London authorities will steam ahead with their plans for expanding the number of police officers on the ground. If they do that they will have to increase substantially the council tax precept. A figure of 20 per cent. growth has been quoted but given the overall inequity and unpopularity of the council tax system, I suspect that that would not be acceptable to many boroughs.
The alternative is for the police in London to trim back some of their plans. In particular, I am worried that the Metropolitan police may he forced to abandon or seriously postpone their step change initiative, which was to give a new dimension to policing in London by introducing ward-based beat policing across the capital. The first stage was to involve three wards per borough, including mine. My understanding is that the funding is precarious and depends on an optimistic outcome to the negotiations with the Government.
Of course, the Government could say that the Metropolitan police could become more efficient. That point was made in an intervention. They could ask why the Metropolitan police do not save money. I remember being part of a delegation that went to see the Home Secretary—now the Foreign Secretary—about four or five years ago. He produced all kind of indicators of inefficiency in the Metropolitan police to explain why he was not being more generous to them, but since then there has been a big change. The Metropolitan Police Authority has been able to demonstrate that, over the past three years. it has made, I think, effective cuts of £100 million in expenditure, through improved productivity. According to most indicators of performance, when the Metropolitan police are compared with West Midlands or Greater Manchester
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police, which are comparable forces, they come out relatively well on things such as days lost and crime reduction. I am talking about burglary, car theft and many other key crimes. Public perception of and trust in the Metropolitan police ranks higher than for comparable metropolitan forces. There has been a big turnaround in the Metropolitan police, and the old argument about not trusting them with more money because they will not use it properly is becoming rather invalid.
To draw my thoughts to a close, I have two specific points. First, how it is possible to get a simple and more transparent system of Government funding for the Metropolitan and other police services? One of the points that people in the police service make is that they currently negotiate with six or seven Departments, and the European Commission. They deal with the Treasury, the Home Office, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Department for Transport—for the British Transport police—the Department of Trade and Industry and others. Can those different negotiations and streams of funding not be consolidated in a much simpler way? That ties in with the broader argument about the need for targeting to be reduced because it merely adds to the complexity and rigidity of funding. I know that the Government are moving in that direction this year, but targeting remains a major problem.
My other point is about the funding of major events. It is estimated that the Metropolitan police spent £4.2 million on the Bush state visit. Much of that was opportunity costs—police who could have been employed doing other things—but the sum is substantial. It is assumed that that will all be covered with the national and capital city funding formula, but there is an argument for treating big events separately. I suggest that that particular event could, and perhaps sensibly should, be covered separately by the Government. It was an entirely national activity and a one-off event, and should be separately funded rather than assimilated into the costs of the Metropolitan police. London has already paid for the visit in other ways because robbery rose 20 per cent. on the day in question. Many areas, such as mine, were denuded of their police officers. Londoners have already been asked to pay once, and they are being asked to pay twice.
On major events, I have another suggestion. I understand that the argument is not simply about asking taxpayers to pay more for policing. There is an argument, in some cases, for getting commercial operators to pay more. My constituency is host to the Rugby Football Union, as we are all aware, and I am proud of that, but I often question why the Metropolitan police should be expected to provide police officers outside the ground, at overtime rates, when there are major events. I did some costings about a year or so ago, and the cost is about £35,000 or £40,000 a time. Taking into account the major events over a year, the cost is probably £500,000. If the cost of events at Stamford Bridge and Highbury is added to that, we are talking about quite a large sum of money, and that is just for sporting events, not other events. There is an argument for asking the organisers, most of whom are now highly profitable owing to television revenues, to make a contribution to that. It should not just be down to the taxpayer.

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The major question is why London, despite its exceptional needs and costs relative to other parts of the UK, appears to have suffered disproportionately in the allocations for the coming financial year and seems to have lost a lot of money for reasons that are not clear.
4.35 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Caroline Flint): As a former Twickenham girl, I am pleased to respond to this debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) on securing it. I also welcome the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) to the debate.
Such debates are always opportunities to air local concerns about issues around crime. The hon. Member for Twickenham raised the important matter of people's concerns about crime throughout the UK-in Richmond, Twickenham, London and the rest of the country. A major incident, such as a murder, is bound to induce people's concerns and fears about its handling in their local community and about how safe they feel. Much has been done on a number of fronts to tackle crime. In more recent times, the general public have welcomed the reality of our need for police officers. However, we need other people to be engaged in fighting crime, whether they be community support officers or neighbourhood wardens. Tackling antisocial behaviour comes top in my postbag and in my surgeries-it is the issue that people raise daily. People realise that unless we tackle that problem. it can develop into far more serious crimes committed by people who are engaged in such activity. Such matters are important, and I take them seriously as an MP, a Minister and a member of the Government.
As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, the 2004-05 provisional police funding settlement was announced on 19 November. Details were circulated to all police authorities and forces and have been communicated to hon. Members. The closing date for representations on that settlement is 9 January. Expenditure on policing supported by Government has increased by 30 per cent. since 1999-2000. That was indicated in the hon. Gentleman's comments on how police numbers had plummeted for a time, but were now stabilising, with the trend moving upwards. That is welcome. Next year that expenditure will be increased by a further 4 per cent., which covers police formula spending, specific grants and Home Office direct expenditure. Under the provisional settlement all police authorities will receive, within that total, an increase of police authority general grant of 3.25 per cent above inflation. To set a single rate increase is an exceptional step. I shall elaborate further on that, because it is at the heart of the hon. Gentleman's questions this afternoon.
The Metropolitan Police Authority was allocated a general policing grant of £1,764 million for the current year as part of the overall grant to the Greater London authority. That is an increase of 5.2 per cent., or £87.73 million, which places it at the grant ceiling level. It remains a ceiling authority for the next year, when its grant increases to £1,822 million—an extra £58 million. The GLA also received up to £140 million in grant for specific initiatives in 2003-04. The main items included
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£70 million for the crime-fighting fund to support more than 2,000 officers and £62 million for counterterrorism. That is substantially more than the sum received by any other force. Specific grant allocations for 2004-05 are still being calculated, but we have already announced that the force will receive £73 million for the crime-fighting fund. It will also receive a range of other grants.
Specific and targeted grants were introduced as a direct response to what the police service and the public told us they wanted. The general police funding formula is not sufficiently flexible to allocate some funding streams or funds that may not be relevant to all police authorities. Specific grants enable us to target funds in the areas where they are needed. London is a beneficiary in that arrangement.
The hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members spoke about the impact of transferring the specific grant, which was previously earmarked for Airwave menu services funding, to the general grant. That does not increase the total grant, but was done to offer police authorities increased flexibility and scope to use their grants. However, it has become clear to us that a large proportion of the Airwave menu grant was already committed for long-term services. In the circumstances, we have agreed with the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities to consider again how to reduce any relative disadvantage to forces. We have written to both bodies suggesting a way forward that includes £30 million of additional funding. Those discussions are under way.
The hon. Gentleman talked about the mechanics of the formula and about providing for grant floors and ceilings and how it disadvantages the Metropolitan Police Authority. In the provisional funding settlement, we provide for a standard level grant increase for all authorities of 3.25 per cent. That requires authorities that would otherwise have received more to contribute towards bringing others up to the average increase.
The MPA would have received considerably more grant—about £56 million more for 2004-05 —in the absence of floors and ceilings or standard increases. The GLA contributed about £10 million in 2003-04. The main cause of the difference is the grant formula review in 2002, which moved spending need assessments towards urban and metropolitan authorities, but the shift would have destabilised the finances of losing authorities. Several metropolitan authorities are net contributors to the 2004-05 standard 3.25 per cent. pot, and we are not trying to run away from that. In the absence of a large grant increase overall, it is simply impossible to give the full benefit of formula change to the winners without unacceptable damage to the losers. For example, without a floor, several authorities would lose 5 to 6 per cent. of this year's grant in 2004-05. The situation is difficult because London representatives feel that they have a case to make and lobby for. However, so do many other colleagues around the country who know that to go below the floor would have been unacceptable.
We will continue to keep the grant formulas up to date, so that if and when floors can be lifted, the MPA will be in a fair position to take an increased share of grant. For example, the provision in the formula for national and capital city functions, which the hon. Gentleman raised, was increased from £202 million to

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£207 million in 2004-05. The gain is locked into the formula and will be realised in terms of grant increase when grant can be eased.
The Metropolitan Police Service increased its budget to £2.208 billion this year: an increase of £170 million or 8.3 per cent. in line with the 8.5 per cent. average increase across police authorities generally. The precept was increased by £28.5 million or 21.9 per cent. I acknowledge the pressures, and hon. Members have referred to the inescapable pressures on precepts and to the possibility of having to tackle issues relating to police authority budget capping. I have no doubt that authorities will need to look at that matter responsibly when considering precepts for next year. They will make well-justified cases for any increases; it is important that they are accountable to local people so that they can explain why increases are necessary. They should want to consolidate the recent gains in police numbers that command universal public support.
In a number of areas, London benefits more than other parts of the country because there is recognition of need. In one of my areas of responsibility—drugs—the Met has been allocated £1.9 million for adult arrest referral, which is committed funding for the next three years until 2005-06. The Home Office is funding the Met to conduct drug testing on charging in selected basic command units—there are 12 at the moment, and another five will be added after April next year. That, along with other specific grants, should be recognised as part and parcel of the fight against crime and the effort to support communities. It also recognises the particular needs of London.
On police numbers, I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate the MPS on reaching record police strength. There were 28,845 police officers on 31 August 2003, some 861 more than in March 2003, and 2,168 more than in March 1997. That is an important part of ensuring police numbers in London, and I am pleased, too, that police support staff numbers increased by 905 in the year to March 2003. Many of the extra staff will be used to free-up police officers from paperwork.
I was pleased to visit Southwark police recently; they provide support to victims of crime who can ring in and discuss their case with civilian personnel. Victims do not therefore have to wait for the police officer involved to come on shift or to come back from leave or from being off sick; a civilian member of staff will act as case manager and give the victims vital support and up-to-date information on their case. There are plenty of good examples of the family of policing growing daily. It should not be forgotten that the Government pay considerable money to support recruitment and retention: 75 per cent. of the cost of the London allowance and £2.4 million towards free travel for Metropolitan police officers. They also try to tackle the problems of housing and additional costs involved in retaining and recruiting police officers in London.
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The MPS received capital grant and credit approvals of £41 million in 2003-04, which may be used for capital investment at the authority's discretion. I cannot say more now, but we hope to announce capital allocations for 2004-05 in a few weeks. We are funding the bulk of the capital cost of the MPA command, control and communications information system. The costs up to 2005-06 are estimated at about £160 million, of which the Home Secretary has agreed to meet up to £140 million. That will provide a centralised "one-stop" call handling despatch operation, improve performance in responding to 999 calls and provide more efficient command control, which is to be welcomed. It will reduce call handling centres from 32 to three and the use of civilians in that process will release about 800 police officers for other duties.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the state visit of President Bush. I congratulate the MPS on its handling of the security for that visit; I understand that about 5,000 officers were involved and the extra cost was about £4 million. Unlike other forces, the MPA receives an annual grant of just over £200 million for its specific national and city functions, and I have indicated that that will rise next year. It includes extra work for state visits. The £4 million for supporting that event represents 0.2 per cent. of the force's annual budget.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned further security; there is an element for security in the formula. In addition, in 2003-04 we provided £62 million for the MPS, £6 million for community support officers and £9 million for CSOs to be more widely used. I will get further information on the terrorist situation if the hon. Gentleman wants it, as I do not have it to hand. We are considering the issue of the role of the MPS and other agencies in tackling terrorism on the streets of the capital city.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman feels that we recognise the strength of the MPS and what it does in the city of London. However, there must be a balance; we must ensure that we take into account all forces in the United Kingdom and provide accordingly for special grants and the recognition of special needs. In a number of areas, London is receiving considerable funds for that purpose.
Finally, on asset recovery, I am pleased to say that a multi-agency asset recovery team incorporating a money-laundering team will be established in London, paid for from the proceeds of crime, to the tune of £5 million. A very good job has been done in London with Customs and Excise in respect of Operation Payback, which has been a great success. I am considering incentivisation for police forces, not just in London but elsewhere, to ensure that they look at criminals' assets, to ensure that where we can do so we get those back and use them for good rather than for bad purposes.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at eleven minutes to Five o'clock.