Westminster Hall Sitting of 17 June 2003

Preamble
[MR. PETER ATKINSON in the Chair]

Christian Communities (Africa)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—[Mr. Jim Murphy.]
9.30 am
Alistair Burt: I am delighted to have the opportunity to raise this subject today, but even more delighted to welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), to his post. His reappointment will be extremely popular in the House. He is unaware of the part that he played in my downfall and my years in the wilderness, but he may recall that his was one of the earliest results to be declared in the 1997 general election. Due to the size of the hon. Gentleman's majority—his was a safe Labour constituency—Peter Snow was unable to discern the national trend, but I knew full well that in my marginal seat it was doomsday for Burt. Seeing the hon. Gentleman before I went to the drill hall to receive the verdict from the good people of Bury, North told me all that I needed to know. Despite that, however, I never bore him a grudge. It is a great delight to see his return to the Front Bench and I am sure that all Members wish him well in his new post.
I am grateful to have the opportunity to raise the important issue of Christian persecution in Africa. Hon. Members will be aware that people in many parts of the world suffer a huge amount of persecution. People of many faiths and none find themselves facing discrimination or full-blown persecution in many countries. However, we have good reasons to consider the plight of Christian communities in particular. Some hon. Members here today may remember a Westminster Hall debate last year on violence against Christian communities in Asia, when the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew)—I am delighted to see him in his place—focused our attention on two reports published a few years ago that demonstrated that Christians suffer more persecution than any other religious group. He also reminded us that more Christians were killed because of their faith in the 20th century than in the previous 19 centuries.
In the continent of Africa, we can see several prominent examples of Christians taking the brunt of persecution, as I shall demonstrate in a moment. Before proceeding further, however, I want to make it clear that the persecution of Christians is closely linked to other human rights issues. I make no secret of my Christian faith, nor therefore of my deep concern for those who suffer persecution for their following of Jesus Christ. This morning is their brief moment in Westminster. I am also a long-standing member of Amnesty International. The religious and civil rights of the persecuted are indivisible and I raise the issues that affect Christian believers today as a symbol and in support of others who are persecuted.
2WH
In last year's debate, I made the following observation:
"If a state will not respect the most intimate beliefs of individuals, it is far less likely to respect other personal rights. Religious liberty can be seen as a benchmark for whether human rights are flourishing in general.—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, I7 July 2002; Vol. 389, c. 95WH.]
That is as true now as it was then and it is worth reiterating. By standing up for the rights of persecuted religious groups, we are also helping to tackle other human rights abuses and to promote a more healthy respect for human rights throughout the world.
I draw attention to my sources. I am indebted to my friends in Christian Solidarity Worldwide for their painstaking research and careful verification of allegations. Their work is not easy and it is easy for them to fall prey to charges of hopeless religious bias or making serious but unverifiable allegations. Ministers support my view that they do not fall into such traps.
On 28 January, in relation to North Korea, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Rammell), told the Foreign Affairs Committee:
"I think there are very credible reports both from defectors and from Christian Solidarity Worldwide that suggest widespread and serious human rights abuses."
The hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle), when a Minister at the Foreign Office, said in a Commons debate that he wanted to continue to meet with Christian Solidarity Worldwide, as it had good contacts and valuable information.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has a religious freedom panel that represents many faiths. A representative of CSW, Alan Hobson, attended its last discussion, again verifying its good credibility with the Government and others. I am proud to pay tribute to Christian Solidarity India, which works to support Muslims with regard to the pressure that they feel from militant Hindus.
I make those points because I am acutely aware that what is said in Westminster on international issues resonates far beyond our shores and, as we shall be on difficult terrain during the debate, it is right to set out the credibility behind the sources of a number of comments. I have also used Amnesty's website for further confirmation of a number of issues.
In some cases that will be mentioned today, the perpetrators of persecution of Christians are of the Muslim faith. That does not mean that all the adherents of Islam worldwide act in the same way. Countless millions of Muslims live peaceably with their neighbours, just as those of other faiths and none do. However, where there are those who do not, it is dishonest and unjust not to call attention to the situation.
Those who wear the badge of Christ are not immune to such a charge. In recent times, the Christian militia in the Lebanon, the two sides in Northern Ireland and the members of the Church in South Africa who defended apartheid have not acted in peace, in truth or in His name. Let us be clear that the debate is not about singling out the members of a faith as persecutors, but about drawing attention to the failure of humanity, in whatever name, to recognise justice, tolerance and the freedom of religion and to defend the same.

3WH
The focus of the debate is Africa, which is a continent of extraordinary beauty and diversity. I was there over Whitsuntide with the hon. Members for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) and for Burnley (Mr. Pike). We returned to South Africa 17 years after our first visit and saw the extraordinary changes that had taken place in that country over the years. Africa has contained great civilisations and cultures and has a rich history, but it is clear that today's Africa is a continent in turmoil.
In many countries, there are substantial human rights abuses. Amnesty International's most recent report noted:
"The human rights situation remained serious throughout much of the continent."
It goes on to include more than 30 African countries where there are substantial human rights abuses, and that is excluding north Africa, which it groups with the middle east in a separate section.
The persecution of Christians in Africa takes place over a wide geographical area. The example of Eritrea helps to show why we are focusing on the plight of Christians in particular. In Eritrea, the most persecuted religious groups are newer Christian denominations: Pentecostals, charismatics and evangelicals. The debate is particularly timely as far as Eritrea is concerned, because during the first half of the year, the Eritrean Government have been clamping down heavily on those groups. I gather that the hon. Member for Stroud hopes to discuss the situation there.
Côte d'Ivoire is another country where religious issues have been overlooked. The widely publicised rebellion there late last year had major political and ethnic causes, but there was also a religious dimension, which was neglected by the media and Governments around the world. Many of the rebels had a strong Islamist aim in attempting to overthrow their Government, and they targeted people of other religions—chiefly Christians and animists. There is much evidence that those who follow traditional beliefs in Africa, such as animists, experience similar pressure to Christians under a number of regimes.
A number of sources that spoke to CSW about the persecution of Christians were traditional believers, not Christians. An eyewitness in the Côte d'Ivoire noted on 14 October 2002:
"Rebels … are conducting systematic killing of non-Muslims, Christians and supporters of other political parties".
Other first-hand accounts back that up.
An obvious example of religious violence in Africa is found in Sudan, where more than two million people have died in the bloody civil war that has raged since 1985. That war has a number of causes, including political, ethnic and economic ones, but religion is a hugely important factor. The National Islamic Front—NIF—regime has targeted Christians and animists in the south of the country and elsewhere, including the Nuba mountains. The regime has also targeted moderate Muslims, including the Beja Muslims in the east and the Fur Muslims in the west, because it does not consider them to be true Muslims. I shall say no more about that, however, as Sudan was the subject of a
4WH
major debate in the Chamber a few weeks ago, and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) plans to cover the subject later.
Tanzania is not a country that one would automatically associate with religious violence. Last year, however, Gaeten Zimulinda, a Christian leader who was concerned about the activity of Christian fundamentalists, was brutally murdered in front of his wife and children. He had written repeatedly of his concern about Muslim extremists, some of whom had broken into and attacked churches. Muslim extremists are believed to be responsible for his murder. In Tanzania, those same extremists are also attempting to have strict Islamic law imposed. Several Muslims have also been victims at the hands of Government troops, which has added to the religious tensions in the country.
The religious dimension is also overlooked in Zimbabwe, although it is obviously not one of the main causes of the troubles there. Those causes are well known to the House. There is, however, a strong likelihood that when the Church in Zimbabwe speaks up for those opposed to the regime, as the Church has done worldwide, those who shelter or support political opponents of the President will be targeted. It is right that Christians worldwide draw attention to that and to say that they will be watching the situation carefully for the next few weeks and months. We pray, as everyone does, for a peaceful resolution of a situation that has cost countless lives and that is leaving an economy and a people adrift in a physical and metaphorical drought.
The fact that I can include Kenya in today's debate demonstrates the extent of the problem facing us. Kenya is a secular state that was once regarded as a model for the rest of Africa. There is, however, growing controversy about the country's new constitution. Islamist elements are campaigning hard for sharia law to be included as part of the constitution. There have been threats and warnings about what might happen if that wish is not granted.
Chad is another country in which the Christian community lives in fear. There have been numerous examples of discrimination and persecution in the past few years. They have not yet led to violence, but that is not a remote possibility. There has been a process of Islamicisation throughout much of the country, which according to reports, has been stepped up in recent years. In an interview, a Christian teacher said:
"If we react … there will be trouble because the Muslims are armed."
He also noted:
"Chad is a powder keg, just waiting to ignite".
Another source, a Christian leader, warns:
"Anything can be done to the Christians in the north and it will be ignored by the officials."
So far, Zimbabwe, Chad and Kenya have seen few instances of violence against Christian communities, but the warning signs are there, particularly in Chad and Kenya.
The debate concerns not only the violence that has already occurred, but the scenarios that may lead to violence. So often in the House, we have to deal with attempted cures long after situations have exploded into chaos and lawlessness. It would be best to deal more often in prevention before problems erupt. I hope that

5WH
the Minster will take these points on board when he and his colleagues consider their attitude to the countries concerned.
I want to devote the remainder of my speech to Nigeria, a country where problems exploded into violence long ago. In recent years, the historical background and ethno-religious composition of Nigeria have resulted in bouts of religious violence. The country is divided almost equally between Christians and Muslims: Muslims are mainly in the north and Christians are in the south. They each form about 45 per cent. of the population. For the reasons that I gave at the beginning of my remarks, it would be easy to claim that both sides are equally at fault. On closer examination, however, that does not appear to be the case.
On the whole, Christians and non-Muslims support Nigeria's secular status, seeing it as necessary in view of the religious divides in the country. For many Muslims, on the other hand, the separation of state and religion is unacceptable, since Islam is seen as encompassing all religious, political, social and cultural activity. It is vital that outside observers grasp that point, however unpalatable it may be.
As long ago as the early 1960s, a Muslim northern leader, the Sultan of Sokoto, raised religious tensions by vowing to
"dip the Quran into the Atlantic Ocean"—
in other words, to Islamicise the entire country. Some modern-day Muslims have attempted to fulfil that aim.
In 1986, the Nigerian Muslim leader, General Babangida, took the country into the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, despite the fact that Muslims are in a minority. That provocative decision caused inter-religious violence throughout the country.
The present bouts of violence started in 1999, when northern Muslim states began to impose sharia law. Some Nigerian Muslims openly admit that the ultimate aim is to impose full sharia law in a majority of Nigeria's 36 states. Once they have that majority they can challenge the country's constitution and, eventually, declare Nigeria a fully Islamic state, rather than the secular one that it is, by consent, now. That should be of deep concern to anyone who is interested in Nigeria's future welfare. The implementation of sharia has had disastrous consequences: more than 6,000 people are said to have died in religious and ethnic clashes arising from confrontations over sharia law since 1999.
In the states where sharia law has been implemented, there have been other worrying developments, affecting not only religious liberty but wider human rights. Islam is promoted to the detriment of other religions such as Christianity and animism.
Although it was claimed that sharia law would apply only to Muslims, which is a matter of religious choice and freedom with which we can have no quarrel, that has not proved to be the case. For example, many Christian women in northern states have been put under intense pressure to convert to Islam. When the cases come to court—for example, if a girl has been coerced into marrying a Muslim—the courts are usually unsympathetic to the woman. Furthermore, during a fact-finding visit to Niger state in October 2002, Christian Solidarity Worldwide found that non-Muslims are continually brought before sharia courts by the police, without being offered the choice of systems of justice to which they are entitled by law.
6WH
There have been several instances of Christians being killed after accusations of having offended against either the Sharia or Islam generally. In one of the worst incidents on 6 June 2002, a Christian police officer was clubbed to death by a mob in Katsina. He had warned a Muslim preacher not to incite religious hatred. The preacher, fearing arrest, accused the police officer of having trampled the Koran and incited the crowd to murder him.
Under sharia law, punishments are advocated—including stoning, flogging and amputation of limbs—that constitute a violation both of the Nigerian federal constitution and of the Government's obligations as a signatory to the United Nations convention against torture. Another area of concern is the discriminatory impact of sharia law on the lives of women. It is also the case that the majority of people who have been sentenced to punishment have been poor or disadvantaged, while criminals from the governing classes, such as embezzlers of state funds, have often gone unpunished.
There have been orchestrated attacks on Christian and animist/pagan communities in a number of states in Nigeria in the past few years. Some of the worst incidents have been in Plateau state. The combined population of the indigenous tribes—which practise a number of religions, but are predominantly Christian—forms a majority in Plateau state. However, each individual tribe is outnumbered by the Muslim Hausa Fulani settlers. According to many local Christian leaders, the Muslims have adopted the divide-and-rule tactics that in previous centuries eliminated Christianity in north Africa. The Hausa Fulani start to fight a particular indigenous tribe while being careful to claim that it is an ethnic, not religious disagreement. Sadly, all too often, international observers and Government Departments have been ready to take such assertions at face value.
Mr. Mark Francois: I am pleased to report that the Christian church in my constituency is in relatively good heart, and I suspect that many of my constituents will have considerable sympathy with my hon. Friend's argument. Does he agree that Her Majesty's Government have a considerable role to play in liaising with the Governments of countries such as Nigeria, to express our deep concern about these matters and to let them know that we remain ever vigilant about the treatment of Christians in their countries?
Alistair Burt: My hon. Friend and his constituents are correct. He anticipates a key point that I shall come to in my conclusion, when I consider the responsibilities of our Government. He is right to raise the fact that the Government have a responsibility and I am certain that the Minister will take the matter further.
During incidents such as those that I have described in Plateau state, Christians are killed, regardless of their tribal affiliation, while Muslims from indigenous tribes are left unmolested. That helps to demonstrate that the attacks are religious, rather than ethnic, in origin. One of the most shocking incidents in Plateau state was in the Wase area on 3 July 2002. Armed groups of Muslims attacked Christians, killing some 5,000 and displacing about 100,000. There is now no church building in Wase

7WH
town; all the churches were totally destroyed. At least 88 Christian villages were also destroyed during an orgy of violence that the state Government seemed powerless to bring to a swift end. It was reported that women were raped before being killed, while several younger children died as their heads were smashed against trees and walls. There are now only three Christian settlements remaining in Wase local government area. Kadarko, which has the most churches, suffers repeated attacks to this day.
Events in Wase since July 2002 demonstrate the manner in which the Hausa Fulanis and their fellow travellers take on one tribe at a time. At present, the main target in Wase is the Taroh, a tribe with the largest number of Christians in the area. During the attacks, Taroh Muslims have been left unmolested. That is one example of many that I could quote. The evidence I have discussed today helps to show that there is a major problem, which will not be resolved if its nature is not understood.
In 2001, the then Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson), said in a written answer:
"The root causes of much of the conflict in northern Nigeria are long-standing differences between ethnic groups. These differences are over a range of issues, including control of territory and resources, and are not primarily religious."—[Official Report, 3 May 2001; Vol. 367, c. 736W.]
I do not believe that that is the case. That we cannot comprehend religious intolerance is not a reason for failing to observe intolerance and injustice in others. Therefore, I ask the British Government to recognise the fundamentally religious aspect to events in northern Nigeria.
Mr. Andy Reed: The hon. Gentleman said that he is keen for the Government to play a role in monitoring the persecution of Christians. Does he think that it would be helpful if the Foreign and Commonwealth Office desk officers had special training in recognising religious persecution in order to understand the difference between persecution and specific Christian persecution?
Alistair Burt: The hon. Gentleman has raised that matter before. I agree with him and the Minister will have heard his plea. There is a religious dimension to the issue which, from our vantage point in western Europe is easy to miss, but because it does not happen here in the same way as it might elsewhere is no reason to miss that dimension. There have been examples of religious intolerance that have led to conflict and violence in our continent too. I encourage the Minister to consider the hon. Gentleman's proposal carefully.
When the Government are making representations to the Government of Nigeria about the abuse of human rights in that country, the understanding of the nature of religious difference will be most useful. Then our Government, who repeatedly stress that religious liberty and human rights are at the heart of their foreign policy, can urge the Nigerian Government to ensure the primacy of their federal constitution by challenging the constitutionality of the imposition of full sharia law in
8WH
the 12 northern states. The Nigerian Government can also be urged to ensure that the rights of non-Muslims in the northern states are respected, and that non-Muslim establishments, families or individuals receive adequate compensation for losses or damages during episodes of inter-religious violence.
In the brief time available—I am grateful to the House for giving me as much time as it could—I have attempted to give an overview of the plight of Christian communities in a number of African countries. In some of them, violence has already claimed many lives; in others, the countries are in danger of descending into violence unless steps are taken to avoid it. There are many causes of violence in Africa, as there are in other parts of the world, and there are also many victims. The debate has focused on one cause of violence, religious persecution; one fundamental right, the right to worship freely; and one vulnerable community, the Christian community. It does not seek to minimise other causes, rights or communities and I look forward to debates tackling other aspects of the problems of violence and injustice. However, I hope that this debate will be of use within its remit.
I believe in healthy, multi-faith communities, where people can live side by side in religious harmony. The concepts of justice and religious liberty are fundamental to achieving that, and indivisible. In each of the countries I have discussed, there is a strong case for saying that those fundamental concepts need to be more widely implemented. The methods used to encourage that will vary from country to country. In Eritrea, it would mean implementing the intended constitution, which guarantees religious liberty, whereas in Nigeria it would mean upholding the constitution that is already in place. I urge the Government to make strenuous efforts to help such countries and their peoples to establish one of the most basic of all human rights: the right to worship freely.
9.54 am
Mr. David Drew: I am delighted to take part in this debate—the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) has done us a great service. I preface my remarks by welcoming the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), back to his position in government. I look forward to his taking part in more debates in future, and I am sure that there will be a more ethical framework to our foreign policy from now on.
I wish to talk largely about Eritrea, which the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire referred to briefly; I agree with everything that he said about other parts of Africa and take a particular interest in Sudan. We had a good debate a few weeks ago about Sudan, in which we talked about the religious context, which can not be underestimated in considering that dreadful conflict.
In talking about Eritrea, I have some expertise in that I visited Ethiopia with the Inter-Parliamentary Union last year under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson). It is fair to say that the region is an unhappy part of the world. It is sad that, having achieved their liberation from the Derg, Eritrea and Ethiopia have spent an awful lot of time in conflict

9WH
with one another, in part as a result of the tensions caused by the replacement regime. That conflict has come to a head in the long-running dispute over the town of Badme. During my visit I talked to the British general who is responsible for trying to bring the two parties together. It may interest hon. Members to know that the British general in question is General Gordon—only the British Army could have as a current general the grandson of the General Gordon who got his comeuppance in Khartoum, but real life is always better than fiction, as they say. We are playing our part in that respect.
I am eternally grateful to my friends in Amnesty International, particularly those in the mid-Gloucestershire group, who keep me regularly informed of some of the abuses. To give a flavour of what is happening, Eritrea is a diverse country, like the rest of Africa. The population is equally divided between Christians and Muslims. Among the Christians there are Coptic, Ethiopian, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Lutheran Protestant churches, and also more minor groups.
There is a very strong Muslim tradition in parts of the country, as well as traditional religions, particularly in the Kunamas community, which practises a religion centred around the worship of Anna. The country is therefore complex. However, it is not known that under Issaias Afewerki, who is a very strong leader—I put it no more definitively than that—there is a recent history of repression in Eritrea. That is particularly borne out in the way that the Christian community has been treated, which has included a number of major human rights abuses.
When the Eritrean state was set up, a very liberal constitution was drafted which promotes religious, political, social and economic rights. Included in that are the basic freedoms, such as freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and so on. Tragically, however, the conflict with Ethiopia has resulted in the curtailment of many of those freedoms. That in turn has stunted democratic development in the country and led to a failure to implement the real meaning of the constitution. Dissidents have been arrested and some have disappeared. Journalists, politicians and students are targeted if they are deemed less than entirely loyal to the regime.
The main theme of today's debate—in keeping with the excellent presentation by the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire—is religious persecution. The ruling Popular Front for Democracy and Justice party is fearful of anything that is outside its control, including religion. It is particularly wary of Muslim extremists and newer Christian denominations. Restrictions brought in by the Government include a ban on involvement in politics for religious organisations, and severe restrictions on international non-governmental organisations in a bid to prevent any proselytism. The Government have also compared Pentecostal, charismatic and evangelical church members to extreme Islamists and branded them a danger to national security.
One of the most severe steps taken by the Government occurred last year. On 21 May 2002, the PFDJ issued a decree ordering the closure of all churches not belonging to the Orthodox, Roman Catholic or evangelical Lutheran denominations.
10WH
According to sources, more than 36 churches have so far been closed. Those include Kale Hiwot, a church affiliated to Serving in Mission, an evangelical Protestant organisation with a history in the region that can be traced back to 1893. Thus it can be seen that even churches that have been around for over a century are not safe. It is now impossible for those Christians to meet, even in private homes.
Since then, the pressure exerted by the PFDJ Government has increased further. During January 2003, 50 members of the charismatic Rhema Church were jailed for 10 days following a police raid on a new year celebration in Asmara. The period from mid-February to April this year was marked by severe repression. The NGO Compass Direct reported that a total of 170 Christians had been jailed, beaten and threatened with death by security operatives, following five separate police raids on worship services, wedding ceremonies and other gatherings. The police jailed men, women and children for practising a new religion. Most were held for more than two weeks without being formally charged.
One group was held for 15 days in metal containers designed to serve as severe punishment cells, while another group witnessed their pastor being humiliated, tortured and forced to walk along sharp rocks for half an hour. Moreover, people who bailed out jailed relatives were forced to sign a document stating that the bailed prisoner would be liable for execution if he or she were to be caught at any subsequent church meeting. On 18 April this year, members of the Mesert Christos Church in Asmara were held in detention for an entire day and, upon being released, were warned by the authorities never to meet again.
That repression continued throughout April. More than 56 Protestants from towns in the northern province of Sahel were forcibly conscripted following police raids, which occurred during working hours on 29 April. Most were health care and other professionals and the majority had already served their terms of military service. Subsequently, 36 members of Kale Hiwot Church were taken from their homes and work places to a military training camp. As they were led away, the police taunted their friends and relatives, saying that church elders were next in line for detention.
Even members of a permitted denomination are no longer safe from persecution in Eritrea. At the end of April, members of the evangelical Lutheran Church were celebrating Easter by singing hymns in the streets. However, they were confronted by an angry security service officer who informed them that such activities were forbidden to members of closed churches. On his being informed of their denomination, the officer accused the group of misusing the freedoms granted to their Church. Two young men stood their ground and were subsequently arrested. They were kept in detention for three days and warned severely against repeating the Easter tradition. That repression continues. Arrests of the members of the Rhema Church in Asmara have continued.
It is worth stressing that not all the persecution is aimed at Christian denominations, or even minority Christian denominations. However, it is especially violent against those minority Christian religions. Sections within the Orthodox Church are alarmed by the growth of what they consider heretical newer

11WH
denominations. They also resent the loss of members—particularly from younger age groups—to those denominations. Local sources report that persecution has been occurring for some time, resulting in people looking for alternative ways in which to pursue their faith. However, that is not freedom as we know it.
One of the significant aspects of the persecution emanating from the Orthodox Church is that the Church works closely with the state. The state gives backing to repressive actions taken by some in the Orthodox Church, and sometimes those actions appear to be co-ordinated. The Government of Eritrea, instead of co-ordinating repression with the Orthodox Church, should be ensuring that other denominations are protected from that repression.
There is continuing repression, particularly in the army, in which, partly as a result of the conflict with Ethiopia, a tradition had developed of support for several Christian denominations. Prayer meetings are now forbidden and attendance is punishable by imprisonment. Moreover, anyone found in possession of a Bible can face severe punishment. There are even reports that several young Christian soldiers were shot after being discovered reading the Bible.
Compass Direct recently reported that at least 77 soldiers, including 13 women and 16 married men, were jailed in Eritrea. All were Protestants and were jailed for refusing to deny their beliefs and return to orthodoxy. Most have now been incarcerated for more than a year, and all are denied contact with their relatives. It is reported that those held in Assab military prison have been put into 44-gallon drums and rolled in front of other prisoners, with the result that some have been partially paralysed. Other physical assault and torture has occurred, and several female prisoners have suffered sexual abuse.
Incredibly, the Government of Eritrea issued a blanket denial, stating that no groups or persons were persecuted in Eritrea for their beliefs or religion and that people were free to worship according to their beliefs. That flies in the face of all the evidence that I have outlined, and it is to be hoped that the British Government will have something to say about it—the Minister will have an opportunity to respond later. Moreover, the hon. Members who have spoken so far, including my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Reed), might like to take up the matter of how such issues may be highlighted when dealing with Governments such as that of Eritrea.
I would like to thank Christian Solidarity Worldwide, which benefits us all in highlighting such issues, and particularly Dr. Alan Hobson who has helped in compiling some of the evidence.
Our Government have a great opportunity to take action. They have consistently argued that human rights, including religious liberty, are at the heart of our foreign policy. I hope, therefore, that they will make strong representations to the Government of Eritrea on the issue. In particular, they should tell the Eritrean Government that there is substantial evidence to contradict their claim, made on I May, that there is complete religious freedom in Eritrea.
12WH
The right to choose one's religion and to practise it freely is one of the basic human rights. That in itself would be a good reason to take issue with the Government of Eritrea on the question of religious liberty. As the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire said in his excellent speech, we should also monitor carefully what is taking place. As Christians, we should act in solidarity and draw attention to what is happening in parts of the world where people do not have religious freedom. I hope that we will do that as a result of today's debate.
10.8 am
Andrew Selous: It is a pleasure to take part in the debate this morning and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) on securing it.
It is worth reminding ourselves that about 250 million Christians around the world are either persecuted for their faith or not free to practise it. That is a significant number, but we are perhaps accustomed to overlook it while enjoying our own religious freedom in the United Kingdom, and throughout the western world. I, too, pay tribute to Christian Solidarity Worldwide. It does excellent work in publicising the plight of our fellow Christians who suffer around the world, which would not otherwise come to light. I hope that this morning's debate will allow that information to flow to a wider audience.
I shall speak about three African countries where significant violence and persecution against Christians are already taking place, namely, Ethiopia, Côte d'Ivoire and Nigeria. I shall touch on aspects other than those referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire. I shall also look briefly at Chad, Zimbabwe and Kenya, which are showing worrying signs that they, too, may be heading down a road that will lead to the significant persecution of Christian and other religious minorities. I hope that action can be taken before it is too late.
First, on Ethiopia, we can be encouraged and give thanks for the fact that freedom of religion is guaranteed under its constitution. However, it is worrying that, since the 11 September outrage, clashes between Muslims and Christians have escalated significantly. Not so long ago, a church in the town of Hargessa was destroyed, and three church leaders—Hanna Bekelle, Solomon Worku and Zewdnesh Bekele—were imprisoned and reported to have been beaten. In March 2002, two churches near Wello were destroyed and many Christians were attacked by Muslim mobs—we believe that some of those attacked were badly injured. A Muslim who converted to Christianity had his life threatened and was accused of apostasy; he was beaten and hospitalised, and had to take refuge in a police station.
It is important that we know what individuals are going through in Ethiopia because indications are that even if the Ethiopian Government were not behind the destruction of the church in Hargessa, they turned a blind eye to the incident. As a result, we have grave concerns about that country.
Côte d'Ivoire has been much in the news in France in the past year or so. Again, the extremely worrying reports that emanate from that country do not always

13WH
receive the media attention that they deserve. For example, the attempt by the Côte d'Ivoire Government to liberate the town of Bouake on 7 October 2002 failed, but we know that the rebels set about killing non-Muslim, predominantly Christian, groups there, while sparing the Muslim communities. That was not reported in the western media.
There are worrying signs of international Islamic influences working to bad effect in Côte d'Ivoire. It was reported in the French media that Colonel Gaddafi had been arming rebels in that country. Agence France Presse reported that, at the Organisation of African Unity summit held in Porto Novo in Benin in July 2000, Gaddifi addressed a meeting of more than 15,000 people in the Charles de Gaulle stadium. He exhorted them as follows:
"Africa must throw away the coloniser's religion. Christianity was imported in Africa in order to dominate us. You must increase your efforts to make Islam triumphant".
Colonel Gaddafi's reported involvement in Côte D'Ivoire should be seen in that light. Whatever our views about Colonel Gaddafi, he is a significant player in many African countries and the fact that he said that at such a large meeting is cause for concern. Photographs taken by reporters from Reuters and Agence France Presse showed many Muslim rebels sporting tee-shirts with the face of Osama bin Laden over Côte D'Ivoire, so there are worrying elements there, of which I am sure the Government are aware.
I shall add a few remarks to those that have been made about Nigeria. More publicity has been made available in the west about what is happening there, particularly between Christian and Muslim communities. What is worrying is the evidence that groups from outside the country go into Nigeria to foment the unrest. In the three major episodes of sharia-related unrest—in 1991, 1995 and 2000—non-Nigerian Muslims were present. They did not speak the local language, wore different clothes and headdresses, had different skin colours and sported either military uniform or the black clothes of the Islamic groups operating in the region; it is believed that they were from Chad, the Republic of Niger or Mali. Such movement between countries and across borders, fomenting violence within Africa, is extremely worrying.
In the massacre at Wase in July 2002, about 5.000 Christians were killed by Muslim extremists and 100,000 people were displaced. The bodies of the victims were mutilated and dismembered. Again, there is evidence that militiamen from Niger and Chad were involved. There have also been reports that the Emir of Wase, Alhaji Haruna Abdullah, was implicated in the violence. In October 2002, 40 Christians were killed during an attack on Fajul in Langtang south. Eye witnesses said that the militia were well armed and dressed in military uniform and, again, that several came from Niger and Chad.
In late October 2002, 58 Muslims were arrested in the Rikkos Damisa area. Some were from the Republic of Niger and Chad and they had significant weaponry including sophisticated automatic and semi-automatic guns, knives and machetes. Six Pakistani Muslims were arrested in Sagamu on 16 November 2002 and deported for inciting religious hatred. It is good to see that at least the Nigerian Government took action in that case. I am
14WH
not so clear about the action that they have taken as regards those coming in from Niger and Chad. Perhaps the Minister can enlighten us. So far as Nigeria is concerned, it is important that we realise that the response of the United Kingdom and the west should not be just to fly in the aid after massacres have taken place. We must look at prevention rather than cure and do all that we can to ensure that such incidents do not take place.
In Chad, the violence against Christians is not so severe but there are worrying warning signs that things could get worse. Chad is roughly 60 per cent. Muslim, the rest of the population being either Christian or of animist or pagan faith. Christians are being thrown into prison, often on trumped-up charges raised by Muslims against them, and are being pressed into forced labour. One Christian pastor was not allowed to drink from a particular well as a result of local Muslim pressure, and we understand that such low-level injustices are taking place all the time. As one local source put it, Chad is
"a powder keg, just waiting to ignite".
In Moundou in southern Chad, a church was closed in 2001 as a result of pressure by the local Muslim population, who said that it was interfering with the operations of the local mosque. Christian teachers tell us that there is open discrimination against Christians throughout the education system and we have heard several reports of fighters from Chad going to Nigeria and Sudan to foment religious unrest. Again, it is important to be aware of what is going on in Chad and do all that we can to prevent it from developing into a situation such as those in Nigeria and Côte d'Ivoire, where, sadly, there is established and often repeated violence against Christian communities.
Zimbabwe has been mentioned, and it is important to pay tribute to the courageous stand taken by those such as the Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube, who has bravely stood out against the Mugabe regime. Some people, such as John Makumbe of the university of Zimbabwe, believe that the Church could end up as one of the main focuses of opposition against the Government. We must be aware of the Church's position in Zimbabwe. For example, Christians were arrested purely for conducting a prayer walk within the country and I fail to understand how the Zimbabwean Government could have been worried or threatened by that activity.
The last country that I want to mention is Kenya, where a draft constitution is being drawn up as we speak. Just under 20 per cent. of the population is Muslim, so it is a minority, but Kenya's draft constitution includes proposals to entrench khadi or Islamic courts in the justice system. That would be a significant expansion of such courts' scope and power and we should consider the example of Nigeria, whose 1979 constitution established sharia law, which was perhaps the beginning of many of the problems since then.
A few months ago, on 25 April, about 2,000 Muslims protested in large gatherings around the country against any possibility that the Kenyan Government might back down from entrenching the Islamic courts in the constitution and threatened to balkanise Kenya, imposing sharia law in the local areas in which the Muslims are a majority of the population. Kenya is

15WH
extremely exercised about such issues following the recent bombings of the US embassy in Nairobi and the Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, and recently, if not currently, British Airways was not flying there because of the security risk.
Only a few days ago, three Christian churches in Bura-Tana, which is about 250 miles north-east of Nairobi, were destroyed, encouraged by someone whom Christian Solidarity Worldwide described as a cleric of a non-Christian faith. That is hard evidence of three churches being shut down in Kenya, so it is important to be aware of what is happening there. The last thing that any of us want is to be here in 10 years talking about Kenya in the way in which we are talking about Nigeria. If this morning's debate serves any purpose, I hope that part of that will be to flag up our concerns about Kenya so that the situation does not worsen as it has sadly done in Nigeria.
Finally, will the Minister say to what extent the Government are concerned about these issues when they negotiate with those countries and consider trade and aid deals? We hear much talk from the United States about most favoured nation status. That is a specific trade status that the US Government grant to those countries that pass certain tests on human rights, decency, respect for their populations and international good behaviour. To what extent are the Government mindful of those sorts of issues in the African countries that we have discussed in their negotiations with them?
10.26 am
John Barrett: First, I congratulate the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) on a thoughtful and considered approach to the debate. I also welcome the Minister. I was unaware of his part in the hon. Gentleman's downfall, but in the short time that I have been in the House, I have found that it is wise to congratulate Ministers quickly because sometimes they move on at great speed.
We have heard today about several outrages and atrocities and about man's inhumanity to man, all of which should have no place in this world. We have also heard about examples of violence against Christian communities, in some cases because they are Christian and in others simply because they happen to be part of a wider community under threat. Violent attacks on any family, group or community in any society should be condemned, whether or not they are Christian. It is important to stress from the outset that it would be wrong to claim that violence against Christians is in any way worse than violence against members of other religions or those who have no particular faith.
Today's debate is a good opportunity to show that violence against Christian groups is often an indicator of the risks and threats under which others in the same society live. If the human rights of Christians are under threat, then so are the human rights of other groups in the same country. No one is safe where Christian communities in Africa are subject to violence. By its very nature, violence spreads, and potential victims cannot always be identified in advance. The vulnerable in society deserve protection when they are under threat. African countries often face problems of hunger,
16WH
conflict and HIV/AIDS and other diseases. To be threatened because of one's religious beliefs adds to the already high risk of day-to-day living.
Before I talk about specific problems in more detail, it is worth going back some years to see how little has changed since the days of the early missionaries such as David Livingstone, who was from my part of the country, and Dr. Robert Moffatt, who went to Africa in 1840. Violence was common then and in the 160 years since some things have not changed much. In those days, violence was sometimes linked to the slave trade, which still persisted on the east coast of Africa. Today, there are other reasons, and sometimes no apparent reason, for the violence perpetrated against Christian communities.
Sometimes, such violence is part of a wider conflict involving others. At other times, communities are specifically targeted because of their Christian beliefs and the work that they do. That violence has a double impact, because the work that is being done in health or education for the local community is often exactly what is required if the most vulnerable people, often children, are to have any chance of a brighter future.
Many hon. Members mentioned cases in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Eritrea, Sudan, Côte d'Ivoire, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Chad. I shall add other cases to that catalogue of outrages, ranging from the individual case up to full-scale war. In Ethiopia, there have been documented cases of elderly men and women suffering beatings, with some suffering permanent disabilities. In Maychew, violent demonstrations led to the burning of all Christian churches. On a larger scale, last October, an armed uprising left more than 270 people dead and 300 injured in Côte d'Ivoire. There have been many deaths when the mainly Muslim rebel soldiers who control the north battle the Government in the south, where Christianity dominates.
Ordinary people caught up in the violence—which has included the killing and kidnapping of a number of politicians—were shocked. One of the key factors is the amount of weaponry acquired from abroad. Our Government must play their part in restricting, where possible, the availability of weapons, including small arms, which were never intended for the defence of legitimate regimes.
A number of hon. Members have mentioned incidents in Wase, a town in northern Nigeria, where at least 500 people died in an outbreak of religious fighting. The total number of deaths is uncertain, but more than 5,000 have been reported. Stories abound of women and children being slaughtered, with many women being raped first. The number of horror stories is such that the authenticity of some cases has been called into question, but the sheer number of cases already raised today, and the authentication mentioned by the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire, leave me in no doubt as to the scale of the problem.
Where do those people whose lives are turned upside down by this violence end up? Sometimes they end up in camps for displaced people. That often results in the risk of epidemics because of the lack of food, health care and adequate hygiene. The greatest disaster has occurred in Sudan, where more than two million lives were lost in a civil war spanning decades.

17WH
How has all that come about? There is no single answer, but world leaders must, if possible, head off other potential conflicts. One aspect that must be examined is the potential for increased conflict between the Islamic faith and Christianity. In countries where there are major religious divides, such as Sudan, Nigeria and Côte d'Ivoire, the rise of both Christianity and Islam has created huge potential for destabilisation.
A recent article in the Sunday Herald explored the theory that when European colonisation was at its peak in the 20th century:
"European political occupation often led Africans to seek alternative world views, and Islam was one of them."
Now, some fundamentalist groups are using Islam as a means of political empowerment, either through the ballot box or resorting to violence. Many fundamentalists view Islam as being ranged against what they see as the onset of western decay. One contributor to that article added that
"fundamentalism has a special appeal, partly because it is anti-West, or anti-American, and this has mass appeal in some areas."
A real danger would be if Christian groups in the USA took the moral high ground against Islam. While Islam is growing in many areas, the appeal of Christianity is also on the increase, from Nigeria to South Africa. In Kenya, in the aftermath of the bomb attack on Mombasa, there are tensions similar to those in Nigeria and Sudan. Some Kenyans believe that Muslims are determined to root out the Christian faith in their country. Despite all those clashes, millions of Muslims and Christians get along perfectly well, as the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire has said. In a continent plagued by hunger, disease, unemployment, illiteracy, HIV and AIDS, ordinary people need hope. Many are turning to Islam, and many are turning to Christianity.
There are enough problems to be tackled without creating any more. What can we do? What should the Government do? I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say. Why do we go to war in some countries, while in others we watch thousands die and do nothing? It is not only Bob Geldof who gets frustrated at the lack of progress in Africa. It is an outrage that those who are doing vital work on behalf of all sectors of society are subjected to violent attack. I have already highlighted the problem of the widespread availability of arms. We must attack corruption. Good governance is all too rare. On a recent visit to Malawi by the International Development Committee, it was clear that many people had profited out of the sale of that country's grain reserve.
We should also offer support to all those whose human rights have been denied, and to organisations such as Amnesty International, which monitors those abuses. While there is persecution of Christians, there will be a lack of human rights for all in the same country. Pressure must be applied at all levels of government. Our Government should encourage open and transparent dealing by British companies in Africa.
Violence can grow from poverty, and poverty can be found in countries where the ruling elite salts away millions of pounds in western banks. Local people must get a fair deal from their Governments' contracts. Taxation of the rich in countries such as Nigeria must be made more equitable. A fair distribution of the value of
18WH
natural resources would ease tensions. Fair trade and a fair deal for coffee farmers would also help. When people work hard all year round, but do not end up with enough resources to feed their children, can anyone blame them for seeking someone else to blame for their troubles, especially in the face of so much wealth in the world?
There is hope. Much good work is being done on a continent that has suffered more than any other and that is currently being ravaged by disease, war, poverty, unemployment and hunger, as I mentioned. The last thing that Africa needs is more violence against Christian communities or anyone else, but battles continue to rage. If this is a battle for the soul of Africa, it is definitely a bloody one.
10.36 am
Mr. Peter Luff: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) on initiating the debate and on the way in which he introduced it. His speech was extremely impressive. In a sense, there is little to add to it, but as he indicated, I want to speak in particular about Sudan, an issue to which I shall return.
It is a great pleasure to be the first member of Her Majesty's official Opposition to welcome back the Minister—the Frank Sinatra of the Government, on another farewell tour possibly. I think that this is his 40th Adjournment debate, give or take one or two, so he is a new Minister but also an old one and a welcome face back on the Bench. We take genuine pleasure in seeing him back in the Government.
In a sense, we all need to declare an interest as I think that all of us who have spoken so far are Christians. I certainly am, and my Christian constituents take a close interest in these issues. I have been lobbied particularly hard not about Africa but about Burma and Vietnam, where similar problems exist. This week, I was in Worcester cathedral, where we had a visit from our twin cathedral, Magdeburg. The dean of Magdeburg cathedral preached an impressive sermon, reminding us of the persecution of Jews in Germany only 60 years ago and the persecution of Christians in the German Democratic Republic only 20 years ago. Our continent has form when it comes to persecution of religious faiths. We must remember that and be honest about it.
Our country still has form. There is still sectarianism in Ulster and there is a growing intolerance of Muslims in British society. We have only to look at Burnley to see that. Sikhs and Hindus suffer their own discrimination. Anti-Semitism and racism are still unpleasant features of British society, so we cannot imagine that we have any great moral superiority on this issue. However, the fact remains that the situation in Africa and the persecution of Christians is almost uniquely worrying. I therefore endorse what my hon. Friend said when he reminded the House that we have no monopoly on virtue but that does not mean that we should not act where we can to improve the situation of people suffering elsewhere in the world.
I have read the Koran and there is nothing in it to justify religious violence of the kind that we see in Africa, just as nothing in the Bible justifies the activities in which many Christians participated in the past. Indeed, as the House will know, the Koran commands

19WH
special respect for the people of the Book, and Moses and Jesus are major prophets of both Islam and Christianity.
erhaps it is because of the political dimension, about which the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett) spoke, that religious differences in Africa have taken a curiously unpleasant turn. Human society cannot easily tolerate difference and a difference of religion, multiplied by the political dimension and the fear that some people have of the United States of America, which I think is misplaced, creates particular difficulties in Africa.
As I listened to the debate, I thought that there was a danger of being overwhelmed by a sense of evil. The scale of what is happening in Africa is truly shocking. However, we should reassure ourselves that it is possible to take steps to deal with many of the problems. We have heard a number of suggestions about how the Government could have some influence on matters. The hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) made that point in his impressive remarks.
My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) spoke about Colonel Gaddafi's ambition, which is shared by many others, for the Islamicisation of Africa. However, it is well to remind ourselves—here I return to what the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West said—that Christianity is no more a western religion than Islam is. Islam, Christianity and Judaism are all middle eastern religions and there is much commonality in their faith systems. Those who see Christian imperialism as another face of American or British imperialism are therefore making a fundamental mistake and it is well that we remember that.
My hon. Friend showed us, in his fine speech, the sheer scale of what we face in Africa, and I wish to add to his comments. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West rightly said that all violence against humanity is evil and that there is nothing uniquely wrong about attacking a Christian. However, there is something uniquely wrong about an attack on an individual that is motivated in part by hatred of the faith of that individual, whether that be a Muslim attacking a Christian, a Christian attacking a Muslim, a Jew attacking a Palestinian, or whatever. Any religious dimension compounds the scale of the evil.
The situation in Sudan looks no more promising now than it did when we had a debate here only one month ago. Christian Solidarity Worldwide has rightly been praised during this debate, not only because it looks after the interests of Christians worldwide, but because it takes a Christian interest in people worldwide and produces extremely impressive briefing material that concentrates on the suffering of all the people—Christians and others—in the countries that it examines. In a press release dated 4 June, Christian Solidarity Worldwide reported:
"At least 59 people were killed, 15 were injured, and ten children and six women abducted when armed Sudanese government forces simultaneously attacked ten villages in Southern Sudan on May 22.
The attacks happened in eastern Upper Nile in violation of internationally agreed ceasefire provisions.
20WH
Government militia attacked the village of Longchok in eastern Upper Nile using a combination of rocket-propelled grenades, heavy machine guns and assault rifles, according to information received by the US NGO Servant's Heart.
Huts were set ablaze and many villagers were burned to death in their homes, including Presbyterian minister Jacob Gadet Manyiel, the region's only Christian pastor. He was burned to death along with his wife and four children as government troops surrounded their home, threatening to shoot any family member attempting to escape the flames."
Another more recent event was not as tragic as that one, but demonstrates the persecution of Christians in Sudan:
"Six weeks after a Sudanese court jailed an Episcopal priest for refusing to tear down his own church, the Rev. Samuel Dobai Amum has been set free, with the legal process set in motion for his Khartoum North parish to obtain official ownership of its land."
Rev. Samuel Dobai Amum built a church but was then sentenced to an indefinite period unless he demolished it or purchased the land. That would have been impossible but for the intervention of a visiting American delegation that, I believe, had met the President of Sudan and pressed the case. As a result, the money was forthcoming—it was raised partly by local people but largely by the Americans—and the priest was freed from jail. What kind of country is it that sends a man to jail for building a church?
Those examples are just two anecdotes from the continuing tragedy in Sudan. About two million people have died and four million have been displaced as a result of the conflict. My right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) and my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) both visited Sudan early this year.
The Minister will rightly want to remind the House that to view the conflict as north versus south, or Muslim versus Christian would be greatly to oversimplify the complexity of the situation in that country. There are, for instance, tribal sub-conflicts in both halves of Sudan. However, it must be recognised that the south is predominantly Christian and that daily violence is occurring against the south Sudanese people. We have a duty to try to get a fair deal for the south Sudanese people in the peace process that is being conducted, otherwise the peace will not endure. It is a shame that the target for a peace agreement this month does not now appear achievable, although the Minister may have different information. Governments such as ours who want to help to bring peace should not, however, be so anxious for success that they gloss over aspects of the conflict that deny significant parties a voice at the negotiating table. I agree with Paul Savage of Christian Aid, who said:
"Failure to address bad governance now—the current lack of representation, injustice and abuse of human rights—means that the root causes of the conflict will persist. If they are not tackled as part of the present peace negotiations, the manipulation of power and wealth will be as inevitable in peace as in war."
The Minister will not be able to answer all my questions in the brief time available for him to respond, but if he can do so later I would appreciate it. What importance does he place on achieving security before the peace deal in Sudan is signed? Agreement is needed, as peace acts will crumble if there is no security. Does the Minister envisage their continuation on the cessation of hostilities? What is the timetable for future talks on

21WH
security? If the peace agreement is signed, will the leaders be immune to prosecution for abuses committed during the war?
On 16 April 2003, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights rejected a European Union resolution that condemned the
"continuing violations of human rights and international humanitarian law throughout the Sudan".
The resolution would have kept the Government of Sudan under the scrutiny of a UN special rapporteur, but it was defeated by a 26 votes to 24. Twenty-six African and Muslim states voted against the motion; a notable, and honourable, exception was Uganda, which abstained. At present, the head of the commission is Libya, a country where human rights continue to be abused on a daily basis.
Can the Minister assure us that human rights monitoring will be allowed to resume? The UN seeks $255 million in aid to assist the vulnerable people of Sudan. How much aid does the Department for International Development give to Sudan, especially south Sudan where Christians are concentrated?
What plans are in place for the fair redistribution of oil revenues throughout Sudan? In relation to the Christian population of Sudan, the number of internally displaced people, or IDPs to use the jargon, is estimated to be 2.3 million. Ten per cent. of the population in Khartoum is from the south and is expected to stay. There is great unemployment in IDP camps and AIDS is spreading. The Government of Sudan have decreed that everyone has to pay for their medicines, which works against the refugees, who have nothing. What is being done to protect Christians in the IDP camps in northern Sudan? If there is a peace agreement, what plans are in place to enable those IDPs who want to, to return to their homes? What discussions have there been to exempt IDPs from the imposition of sharia law in the north?
The south has been left with virtually nothing. It would like to separate from the north but it would struggle to be a viable state. Are plans in place to reconstruct the south? Women are regularly raped; the day before my hon. Friends visited the country, women had been gang raped. The situation is genuinely dreadful.
Education is often the key to the issues. The southern Sudanese are discriminated against because of their religion. Children in Christian schools, which are run by volunteers and have up to 120 children in a class, are outside the official education system. What plans are there to ensure that all Sudanese children have access to good education?
I echo my hon. Friends in asking about Nigeria. What discussions have the Government had with the Government of Nigeria about the protection of religious freedoms for all groups and the full implementation of sharia law throughout Nigeria? Largely as a result of the recent Miss World contest, we know about the increase in inter-faith violence in Nigeria. The situation is extremely serious. What assessment has the Minister made of violence against Christians in Nigeria, especially in the Plateau state, and what discussions have the Government had with the Government of Nigeria about it?
22WH
My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire mentioned other countries' involvement in these conflicts. What assessment has the Minister made of claims that Islamist militants have hired mercenaries from Niger to attack Christians in Nigeria? Release International is helping about 400 widows and their families in Langtang, Plateau state. What are the Government doing to help the widows and families of those Christians killed, by establishing micro-finance projects, for example?
Many countries have been mentioned in the debate. Others, such as Senegal, Mauritania, Somalia and even Egypt, could be added. Poverty is a breeding ground for extremism and the Government can take action on the issue, as they have been doing. The Minister will no doubt talk about it when he replies to the debate. The House and the Government have a duty to do all that we can to ensure that justice and liberty are protected in Africa.
10.49 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Chris Mullin): First, I thank the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) for his kind remarks at the outset, and also my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew). They have given me the opportunity to resume my career as the king of the Adjournment debate.
A range of terrible events has been described to us this morning. The issues raised by the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire have been obscured by general events in Africa, but he was right to emphasise, as others have done, that religious differences are only one of the many causes of violence and conflict in Africa. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett) was right to warn us of the danger of allowing the debate to polarise into an argument between fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity. I do not think that that has happened, but the danger exists.
It goes without saying that the Government condemn the persecution of individuals or groups because of their religion. Article 18 of the universal declaration of human rights gives everyone the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and it is important that it should be upheld everywhere. Our diplomatic missions throughout the world monitor cases in which freedom of thought, conscience and religion are denied. We are in constant dialogue with Governments who offend against those principles and we regularly make appropriate representations. I will not be able to deal with all the questions raised today, but I will examine the speeches and respond in writing.
My hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Reed) mentioned an interesting general point about training in human rights. We already run a two-week human rights course for members of our diplomatic missions, which covers a range of issues, including religious persecution. We are also in the process of appointing human rights advisers to posts in Africa. They will be based in Dakar, Pretoria and Nairobi, and their remit will include monitoring religious violence in west, southern and east Africa, respectively.
Intolerance, as hon. Members said, is not the monopoly of any particular state, religion or continent. It is deplorable wherever it occurs, and is often

23WH
manipulated by unscrupulous politicians for their own ends. Such politicians are not necessarily motivated by religion; they use whatever prejudices are to hand to achieve their goals.
Hon. Members rightly stressed that religious persecution cannot be viewed in isolation; it is often a feature of poverty, poor governance and conflict. Much of Government policy towards Africa focuses on encouraging good government, poverty reduction and the resolution of conflict, because it is only in that climate that political and religious freedoms can be guaranteed.
It is worth reminding ourselves that not all the news from Africa is bad. In Angola, the long civil war is over. Sierra Leone, where we have been heavily involved, is on the road to recovery. In Kenya, a peaceful transition of power has taken place after 24 years of one-party rule. I acknowledge the great problems that hon. Members have mentioned in Nigeria, but it has recently moved one more step away from the military dictatorships of the past.
I shall now examine some of the regions and countries mentioned, starting with Nigeria. The Government have serious concerns about the violence that has targeted religious groups. We are aware that the main flashpoints for religious conflict tend to be in areas where Muslims and Christians are more equally weighted in numbers and that both sides tend to provoke one another. Therefore, measures to address religious tensions and the resulting violence are a key part of our conflict prevention strategy. We firmly believe that dialogue between Christians and Muslims at all levels is the best way to gain understanding and build mutual tolerance. The UK is therefore working with international agencies and Nigerian authorities on the longer-term, underlying causes of conflict. For instance, the Government support the work of Coventry cathedral's centre for peace and reconciliation, which has built trust between religious communities in Kaduna in the past two years. Hon. Members may know that the centre produced the Kaduna peace declaration in August 2002. We hope to extend the programme to the troubled Plateau state.
Likewise, we support the Nigeria-Britain consultative process, which works through faith-based organisations in health and education. Officials from the British high commission in Abuja regularly visit troubled areas. A conflict prevention team visited Plateau state in July 2002 to investigate causes of violence and examine how to prevent further disturbances; the team convened a round-table discussion attended by both Christians and Muslims.
We are realistic about the chances for early reconciliation between the groups. We recognise that long-held suspicion and rivalries, and the mistrust arising from recent events, mean that reconciliation
24WH
work is inevitably a long-term process and that it may suffer many setbacks along the way. However, we remain hopeful and will continue our efforts.
Alistair Burt: Could I draw the Minister's attention to a key point? I referred to the remarks of one of his predecessors, who said that it seemed that the religious dimension to the causes of conflict in Nigeria was either underplayed or not thought to be as serious as we now believe it to be. Will the Minister and the Government revisit that question and recognise the key importance of the religious aspects of the troubles? An understanding of that may assist them in their approach to the Nigerian Government in relation to the activity that he has described.
Mr. Mullin: Yes, I can give the hon. Gentleman that undertaking.
I realise that only four minutes remain and that many issues were raised in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud gave a graphic account of some of the things that have been happening in Eritrea. I will ensure that his speech is drawn to the attention of Eritrean diplomatic representatives, and to indicate the interest that the House is taking in what is happening in that country.
There is no doubt that the conflict in Côte d'Ivoire has a significant religious and ethnic dimension. However, the root problems are political and economic. The Government—largely drawn from the south, where Christianity and animism predominate—have responded to economic and political pressures over the past decade with a series of measures that clearly discriminate against significant Muslim immigrant communities and against the largely Muslim northern part of the country. There have been attacks and human rights abuses on both sides. We share concerns raised about attacks on Christians.
The hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) asked many questions about Sudan. We are concerned about violence there. Last year saw some progress towards peace—for example, the March agreement between the Government of Sudan and the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement was recently extended, and we hope that it will be extended again. I shall write to the hon. Gentleman on some of the detailed questions that he raised.
Zimbabwe is very much a preoccupation for the Government. I am sure that all hon. Members will accept that it is important to underline that the political crisis in that country has little to do with religion and everything to do with the determination of the ruling elite to cling on to power. Zimbabwe is predominately a Christian country and persecution there is not based on religion. I join the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) in paying tribute to Archbishop Pius Ncube and the other religious leaders who have been outspoken against the bad things that are happening in that country.
I shall conclude on that note, given the limited time available, but as I promised, I will get back to hon. Members on some of the detailed questions that have been raised.

Scholl Funding (South-East)
11 am
Mr. David Cameron: I am delighted to have the opportunity to introduce the debate, and I am pleased to start by congratulating the Minister of State on her new responsibilities, which are, I think, for young people. The fact that she is responding to the debate I take as a compliment to my relative youth.
Although the subject of the debate is school funding in the south-east, I shall focus principally on Oxfordshire and on my constituency, although the same issues affect us across the south-east. I have tried to get to the bottom of the funding conundrum. It is a mystery: a Government committed to education, education, education have got themselves into a position in which schools set deficit budgets, teachers lose their jobs, and difficult cuts are made in the curriculum and elsewhere.
I want, in the tradition of Westminster Hall, to be reasonable, not political, and to get some answers, not just to score points, so I shall try to proceed in that spirit. There is a lot at stake, and we should not play games. People in my constituency are genuinely worried; I have had a huge mailbag from school governors, parents, teachers, heads and others. As the leader of the west Oxfordshire secondary head teachers, Mr. Rod Walker of Henry Box school put it in a very succinct letter:
"There is a problem. None of us anticipated it. The questions are: how can we put school funding back on track for 2004/5 and what can be done to alleviate the problem in 2003/4."
Those are the subjects that I want to address.
Inevitably, to get to the bottom of what has gone wrong, there has to be some element of a blame game because there are three possible groups to blame: the schools, the local education authorities and central Government. I have considered the matter carefully, and I can only come to the conclusion that central Government funding decisions are principally, although not wholly, to blame.
The only finger of blame that can be pointed at the schools concerns the way in which performance-related pay has been used in many instances. The Government assumed for funding purposes that only 65 per cent. of teachers would pass the threshold for performance-related pay, whereas the actual figure in most schools is more like 95 per cent. If the Minister considers the problem of teacher vacancies and unfilled posts in places such as Oxfordshire, she will realise that we need high levels of pay for teachers. When a teacher resigns from a school in my constituency, there are often only two or three applicants for the post.
The first mistake that the Government made was hyping the education budget. Like others, I fell for it. Ministers told us that we would receive £2.6 billion, an increase of some 11 per cent. Schools were, naturally, very excited by the prospect of the extra money, but by the time deductions had been made for teachers' pay changes, pensions, national insurance increases and other changes, the real increase was more like £250 million, or 1 per cent. As the acting head of finance in my local education authority put it in a letter to local councillors:
"I do have sympathy for our schools in that we have only been able to give them a standstill budget at a time when the DFES is continually announcing significant growth in financing for education."
26WH
The lesson to learn for next year is not to hype.
That deals with the past. What needs to be done now? The Government must accept the scale of the problem in the south-east, and in Oxfordshire in particular. I do not claim that schools in Oxfordshire will sack hundreds of teachers; they are much too responsible for that. I met the secondary heads last week. They are moving heaven and earth not to make teachers redundant, but what is happening is just as worrying—there are significant school deficits. Henry Box school in Witney has a deficit of £70,000, Burford School £100,000 and Eynsham School £45,000. Those deficits cannot go on year after year, or the schools will build up significant debts.
All the schools report the same thing: they are having to run a staffing-led curriculum. That means that they take the staff that they can afford, and they have to do the best that they can in the circumstances—not what they planned to do, what the Minister or I would like them to do or what the parents want them to do, only what they are able to do. That means larger classes—in one secondary school in my constituency, there will be classes of between 25 and 31 in year 7—and subjects are being dropped. One secondary school has virtually had to drop business studies altogether.
Vital repairs are being put off. The head of another secondary school told me that he is spending some of the repairs money on salaries because he can and because he has to; it is the only thing that he can do to keep the show on the road. All of the secondary schools said that there would be narrower choices at A-level. I hope that the Minister will look carefully at the way in which local learning and skills councils are funded, because the squeeze on funding seems to be particularly bad at A-level. All schools, including primaries, have said that there will be fewer teaching assistants. In a debate in the House on community services, I mentioned the serious problems that Charlbury primary school and William Fletcher primary school in Yarnton were having, about which I have written to the Minister.
The leader of Oxfordshire county council has written to me to make similar points. He said that schools will not fill teacher vacancies, with a consequent impact on curriculum coverage, or continue lapsed temporary contracts. Their use of teaching assistants will decline, and they will reduce supply cover budgets and increase head teacher training commitments and mixed-age primary classes. All those changes will have a damaging effect on the education of children in Oxfordshire.
It is important that we ensure that the Government understand that the fault does not lie with the LEA. I wrote to the Minister for School Standards about this, but I shall run through the figures again to make the point absolutely clear. The Department for Education and Skills asked every LEA four questions. The first was whether it passed on 100 per cent. of the schools budget increase that came through to it. Oxfordshire's answer is clear: yes, it did.
The second question was how much the non-delegated element of the schools budget had increased and why. In Oxfordshire, that element of the budget increased slightly, because of an increased requirement to fund places for three-year-olds, rising from 68 to 85 per cent. of three-year-olds in 2004. That is to implement a Government policy, which was previously funded through a specific grant, so the LEA has no choice. The

27WH
special educational needs budget has also increased slightly, in response to increased demand for those services. Again, the LEA cannot do anything about that.
The third question was whether revenue funding provided to the LEA was being used for capital purposes. Oxfordshire has some £5.7 million of such funding. Just over £1 million is for linking schools to broadband—we support that Government policy of giving schools access to the internet—and the remainder is for essential repairs, although a similar figure was spent from revenue for capital last year, so that cannot be the reason for the funding problem.
The fourth question was about unallocated money. In Oxfordshire, there is a contingency fund of £1.9 million, which is a relatively small sum, to cover the reorganisation of the middle schools system in the city of Oxford. Again, that is necessary, but even if that were cancelled and the money spread across the county, it would make very little difference.
I hope that I have proved that the fault does not lie with the LEA, which is a good one. It delegates almost its entire budget and wants to fund its schools properly. It is not playing politics but wants to get the right answer, and it is not too late for the Government to take action this year. The head teacher of Burford school suggested that the Government could directly fund schools, as they have done in the past, and if they gave £100,000 to each secondary school and £50,000 to each primary, that would solve the problem. We would not have teacher redundancies, cuts in he curriculum or any of the other problems that I have described.
The Minister may want to know where the money would come from, and I can give her two suggestions. The first is to use the £1 billion underspend in the DFES, and the second is that the Government should examine their running costs, which for central Government as a whole have increased by £3.5 billion, or 20 per cent., since 1997. I know from friends who work in the DFES that not all of that money is spent wisely. The Government should start to plan to reduce their central costs, as every business is trying to do, and to devolve more money to schools. They are asking the LEAs to do that; it is time that the Department did it too.
The Government should also quickly examine next year's situation. All the head teachers to whom I have spoken made that point. This year, they will cope one way or another, but they are desperately worried about next year for two reasons. The first is the dampening grant—dreadful jargon—of £4.7 million, which Oxfordshire is to lose; it will not be available next year. The second is teachers' pay. As more teachers pass the threshold and are being paid more, the gap between what the Government are saying is available and what is actually needed will grow. They will not be able to claim to be shocked at that funding gap, as they have this year. They have been warned, and I hope that the Minister will make preparations for it.
I want to ask the Minister some specific questions. She may not be able to answer them all now, but governors and teachers in my constituency are anxious for
28WH
answers. Announcements have been trailed in the media concerning the fact that there may be an additional £50 million to cover pay pressures caused by the number of teachers passing the threshold to the new, higher pay spine. Are those press reports true, and how and when will that new money be released? We would love an answer.
How will pay pressures be dealt with in future? I say again to the Minister that that is probably the most important question of all for those of us who live in areas of high housing cost where we need high pay to recruit and retain good teachers. I mentioned the significance of the dampening grant of £4.7 million that Oxfordshire receives this year but will not get next year. How will that be dealt with in 2004, and when we will know the answer?
Schools have been told to spend delegated money for capital on salaries and other revenue items. I mentioned a school that has spent a large amount of capital funding in that way. How will that shortfall be addressed in future? This is a last-minute plea to the Minister, but I make it in earnest. West Oxfordshire has very good primary and secondary schools; they are inventive and they are trying hard to deliver a high quality of education.
Two teachers from Henry Box school in Witney came to see me yesterday about a project to set up a permanent link with a school in Rwanda, not only for pupil exchanges and to teach in that school, but to record living history as a testament to the dreadful genocide in Rwanda 10 years ago. I know that that is exactly the sort of the thing that the Minister wants to encourage, but I fear that we are letting schools down this year, partly because this was so out of the blue that they had no time to plan.
I end with a final plea to the Minister. I believed that the Government were trying to get rid of some of what I call the fiddly grants—if schools do a little of this or that, they receive more money. The message was that more money would go straight to the schools and more funding would be calculated on a per-pupil basis. Why then do we still have all these extra schemes such as the leadership incentive grant? Secondary schools in my constituency are desperate for extra money. They apply for everything that they can from the DFES, but they never qualify for any of it. In the case of the leadership grant, one has to qualify; one does not apply. The money, £125,000 for three years, will simply not be available to areas such as mine.
Another scheme is leading edge schools. There are no leading edge schools in Oxfordshire. Why not? If the scheme is about linking very good schools with less well performing ones, I could recite a list of fantastic secondary schools in my constituency which are itching for that money and would love to link up with schools in Banbury or Oxford, which they would do brilliantly.
A very experienced head teacher told me that the problem with the current system is that it is as if there is only one place where good ideas in education are allowed to germinate—the DFES. I know, as I am sure the Minister does, that that is simply not true. We must move to a system in which we place more trust in the

29WH
governing bodies and head teachers to spend more of their own money. If the Government have learned anything from this year's problems with education funding—a crisis that has surprised them as much as the schools—it is that we need to move to a system in which more money is devolved directly to schools. The attraction of giving schools the money and letting them get on with the job have never been greater, and I hope that the Minister will give that serious consideration in the year ahead.
11.14 am
Mr. Andrew Turner rose—
Mr. Peter Atkinson (in the Chair): Order. Can I confirm that the hon. Gentleman has the permission of the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) and the Minister to make a contribution?
Mr. Turner: Yes, Mr. Atkinson. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) on securing the debate. As a former governor and teacher in Oxfordshire, I am familiar with some of the schools that he has, rightly, applauded.
The Isle of Wight falls within the curiously named south-east region, as the Minister will know. I have met middle school and secondary school head teachers who are concerned about cost pressures. I have no interest in defending Isle of Wight council, but it has included £800,000 more in the education budget than it was necessary—in the Government's view—to passport to schools. The council tax has risen by 14 per cent. this year, and by 34 per cent. in the past two years. However, head teachers still face the problems of performance-related pay thresholds, the increase in pension contributions, the absorption of the standards fund's responsibilities into the base budgets without a parallel increase in funding, and of the profile of the teacher work force on the island, which contributes greatly to the security and experience from which pupils benefit. Other problems include Government pressures such as national insurance and the fact that the cost of the Criminal Records Bureau checks will double this year. The teachers' contract that will be unveiled this afternoon will cost £1 billion, but the Government are funding it to the tune of only £60 million.
Those are the threats and the current problems facing schools. I hope that the Minister will say something about the remedies to those problems. Two remedies have been mentioned; one is transferring capital into revenue. Some of that capital is already committed to projects; in some cases, it has already been spent. The other remedy is that schools can overspend. They can overspend this year, but they will have to meet that overspend next year. Governors and head teachers are concerned about their legal liabilities. I ask the Minister to state whether governors face any legal liability for an overspend in a particular year. I thank the Minister for allowing my intervention. I look forward to hearing her answers.
11.16 am
The Minister for Children (Margaret Hodge): I congratulate the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) on securing the debate. I understand his interest in how the new funding arrangements have affected schools in his constituency, and I understand the interest of the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) in the broader context of the south-east.
I start by paying tribute to teachers in Oxfordshire for the excellent work that they are doing. We in the House should recognise the outstanding work that is carried out in our schools. For example, the percentage of pupils leaving primary schools in Oxfordshire who are doing well in English has risen from 66 per cent. in 1998 to 76 per cent. in 2002; in maths, that figure has risen from 61 per cent. to 73 per cent.; and, in science it has risen from 73 per cent. to 87 per cent.
At GCSE, the percentage of young people achieving five or more passes at grades A* to C has risen from 46.5 per cent. in 1998 to 51.5 per cent. in 2002. I am sure that the hon. Member for Witney will join me in congratulating the teachers in his area on that success.
There has been a record £2.7 billion increase in funding for schools this year, and that will go up by another £1.4 billion in 2004–05. With a further increase of £2.1 billion in 2005–06, that will mean a total cash increase over the three years of more than £6 billion. That is an injection of real money after—I have to say to the hon. Gentleman—years of cuts and a lack of investment in our school infrastructure.
In Oxfordshire, the picture on funding is striking. Between 1997–98 and 2002–03, Oxfordshire's education spending assessment increased by more than £67 million—an increase of 34.6 per cent. over five years. I am delighted that Oxfordshire has decided to passport that full increase in its schools funding assessment on to its schools budget. Funding through that formula is only part of the picture. The school standards direct grant takes account of both revenue and capital. As a result, a typical primary school with 250 pupils will receive £10,000 more this year than last, a rise from £40,000 to £50,000, and a typical secondary school with 1,000 pupils will receive £50,000 more this year, a rise from £115,000 to £165,000. Such funding did not exist under the previous Conservative Government.
The same picture emerges for capital. That, too, has increased. One of the most shameful things that happened under the previous Government was the under-investment in the school buildings in which our teachers teach and our pupils learn. In 1998–99, capital funding in Oxfordshire was £10.6 million; this year it is £33.9 million. I hope that the hon. Gentleman appreciates that.
This has been a year of change for the school funding system. Partly in response to the requests of LEAs and schools, we have introduced a range of changes to education funding and the wider local government finance system. In particular, changes to the distribution formula for education formula spending, together with the ending of a substantial body of ring-fenced grants from the Department's standards fund—just what the hon. Gentleman asked for—have resulted in different LEAs and schools receiving a wide range of year-on-year increases in overall support for education.

31WH
Both sides of the House agreed that reform of the education funding system was badly needed. It was out of date, complicated and hard to explain, it did not reflect the division of responsibilities between schools and LEAs, and it was widely seen as unfair because it was based on spending patterns that dated back to 1991.
Our aim in the new system is to ensure that similar pupils in different parts of the country receive a similar amount of money from the Government. We want funding to recognise the separate responsibilities of schools and local education authorities. That is why the schools and the LEA funding blocks are separate under the new system.
As hon. Members know, there are three basic funding entitlements for all pupils: first, for primary and secondary schools; secondly, factors for deprivation and additional educational needs; and, thirdly, factors to reflect area costs for salaries and recruitment and retention, which I know is an issue in the hon. Gentleman's constituency and in that of the hon. Member for Isle of Wight.
The new system is based on evidence suggesting that authorities with significant deprivation that face additional costs in recruiting and retaining staff need to spend significantly more to achieve the same results for the children. I know from my constituency that many schools, particularly those in London and the south-east, face particular pressures because of the extra cost of recruiting and retaining staff. However, the new system recognises the fact that authorities outside that area face similar problems. That is why we refined the system for area costs, making it much more sensitive to local circumstances. I hope that hon. Members recognise that high cost areas can exist outside the south-east and that there are variations within London and the south-east.
We acknowledge that some local authorities have to adopt special measures to recruit and retain teachers, which leaves them facing extra costs. The new system provides additional allowances to help recruit and retain staff; to cover the costs of supply cover for vacant posts, which is generally higher than the cost of employing a permanent member of staff; and to help with the costs of recruiting and advertising for staff. The allowances are not based on teachers' pay scales, because they do not fully reflect differences in the cost of recruiting and retaining staff in different areas of the country. They are based on general wage differentials. The result is that the coverage of the adjustment for area costs has been extended; it will now cover 99 authorities, whereas it previously covered only 59. I hope that extra funding is available.
In introducing the new system we also took account of the additional costs that schools face due to the additional educational needs of their pupils. The current system for doing that is based on odd data, including the 1991 census and such things as whether the children have lone parents or parents who were born abroad. It also uses information about children from families in receipt of income support. The 1991 pattern of expenditure is not a good predictor of need to spend now. Pupil characteristics in 1991 do not best measure the additional educational needs of children today. In
32WH
particular, just because a child's parents were born abroad, it does not necessarily mean that that child has additional language needs.
Under the new system, we reflect a wider definition of poverty. The number of children of parents on income support is supplemented by the number of children of parents in receipt of the working families tax credit. That picks up those children whose parents are in low-paid work. The measure has received particular support from rural authorities, like those of the hon. Gentlemen, where pay rates are lowest.
The new formula also contains a sparsity element to reflect the costs of home to school transport in rural areas such as Oxfordshire, and to help rural primary schools. We have increased the funding for sparsity since the summer consultation in response to evidence received.
I turn to the funding problems that have been faced by a number of authorities. In our view, the funding of schools is a shared responsibility between central and local government and we recognise that the challenge for us all this year has been to manage the complex interaction of a series of changes. We have transferred funding to reflect the teachers' pensions increase and we are working through the teachers' pay settlement. Although there have been large cash increases in education overall this year, we recognise that the cost pressures have been substantial and have varied from school to school, because of threshold and other issues, and from authority to authority depending on cost structures and local deployment of resources.
We recognised that in some authorities the combination of a low increase in education formula spending share and reductions in grant through the standards fund was likely to result in low budget increases for schools. That is why we announced the extra £28 million, to ensure that the effective increase in education funding for LEAs and their schools between 2002–03 and 2003–04 is no less than 3.2 per cent. per pupil. That protected pupils in Oxfordshire.
We have provided extra money for London LEAs and we have met the full cost of the teachers' threshold, which will be paid by additional grant from my Department. The hon. Gentleman was right to draw attention to that as a continuing problem that we need to tackle in next year's funding settlement.
Mr. Cameron: Will the Minister clarify whether the extra money for funding teachers will be available to LEAs like mine for this year?
Margaret Hodge: Indeed it will. We sent a letter to LEAs on 2 May, which I hope that the hon. Gentleman has seen, in which the £205 million performance-related pay grant that the Department will be paying was set out. We also announced a relaxation in the regulations to devolve capital that could be used for revenue purposes and the hon. Gentleman is right to say that that was for one year only. On damping, that will carry on into 2004–05, both for the education formula and the overall revenue support grant. Although we have not yet set them, there will have to be floors and ceilings to carry on the transition to the new local government finance system. I recognise what the hon. Gentleman says: we need an early resolution to the issue of funding for next year, and we are working as hard as we can to achieve that.

33WH
The new system is a substantial improvement on the old. When it settles down, we shall see that. It is evidence based, not backward looking; it reflects LEAs' and schools' separate responsibilities; it uses up-to-date data; it is relevant to the current needs of children and it is simpler than the old system. We promised a fairer, simpler system and I believe that that has been delivered.
We must look forward and learn quickly from the experience of this year, so that we can put in place better arrangements for next year. We are working hard with all stakeholders and our priority is to ensure that all schools receive a reasonable per pupil settlement in 2004–05. To meet that goal we are talking to all our national partners and I shall list our principles for the hon. Gentleman: sufficient education funding; increases for every LEA; the right balance between general grant and ring-fenced and targeted money; confidence that schools and pupils will receive the money intended for them; the right balance between in-school and out-of-school provision; fair and appropriate variations in the budget increases; and, work force reform in line with the national agreement.
11.30 am
Sitting suspended until Two o'clock.

Minorities (Former Yugoslavia)
2 pm
Mr. Neil Gerrard: I am glad to have secured this debate, as it gives me the opportunity to raise a number of issues. I shall concentrate on minority rights in Kosovo, but I shall refer also to other parts of former Yugoslavia. Hon. Members will have seen some of the recent reports: Amnesty International produced one in April, and in May we saw the latest reports of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe's mission in Kosovo and of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, both of which discussed minority rights. Those reports acknowledge that progress has been made over the past four years—the situation has improved since 1999—while accepting that substantial ongoing problems remain.
I do not think that any of us underestimates the difficulties and problems of the region, given its history and the ethnically based conflicts that have happened there in recent years. We do not expect everything suddenly to be resolved, or to find that the problems caused by fighting over ethnic divisions have disappeared. However, we should remember that there are international responsibilities. When the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, or UNMIK, was established in 1999, through Security Council resolution 1244, it was given responsibility for protecting and promoting human rights. That resolution referred also to the establishment of an environment in which refugees and displaced persons could return home in safety. A legal framework was created by the UN, and that imposed responsibilities on the international community.
In 2001, the constitutional framework created by the UN Secretary-General's special representative referred specifically to the rights of all communities in Kosovo, including minorities. It spoke about the right of people to use their own language before courts and public bodies, to receive education and to have equal opportunities in employment—specifically employment by public bodies—and about the need for legislation to protect the rights of minority groups. As I said, although Amnesty International, the OSCE and the UNHCR acknowledged that improvements have been made over the past four years, they point to ongoing and systematic discrimination—and worse—against minority groups.
The minority groups in Kosovo cover a huge range of people, including Serbs, Roma, Ashkaelia and Egyptians. In certain parts of Kosovo, especially to the north, Albanians are an ethnic minority. Depending on where they happen to be, virtually every part of the population is a minority. Although there has been a decline in the number of what appear to be ethnically motivated attacks over the past three or four years, they are still happening, but very little has been done to bring anyone to justice for many of the attacks, which often go unreported as a result of failures in and the lack of a justice system.
In the first six months after the entry of KFOR and UNMIK in 2002, the number of ethnically motivated killings declined from more than 400 to fewer than 100, according to UNMIK. That is certainly an improvement. There is no question but that returnees are particularly

35WH
vulnerable to attack, especially in areas where they are in a minority. A virtual system of apartheid has developed in Kosovo. Minorities have been driven into enclaves. Those outside the enclaves are at risk, and even those within them very often remain protected by static or mobile KFOR troops. Children still have to be escorted to school by troops, and people cannot travel freely outside the town or village where they are living without KFOR's protection.
The reduction in the number of ethnically motivated killings may reflect the fact that people have withdrawn into enclaves where they feel safer, rather than their being able to travel and mix freely. In many cases, people have left their homes to live somewhere where they feel more secure. Last year, according to Amnesty International, UNMIK could not supply figures for the number of recorded crimes that were believed to be ethnically motivated and that had led to arrests. Those figures refer not only to the killings that I mentioned. I will not list the incidents that are detailed in the Amnesty or OSCE reports, but they cite reports of attacks on property, churches and cemeteries, and a continuing problem of access to justice. Many see the judiciary as biased and unable to act, so that attacks are carried out with impunity.
There are problems of access even to basic health care—allegations have been made that doctors refuse to see patients from minority groups—and to education. I was struck by Amnesty's reporting of some of the problems that children experience. Schools have problems recruiting qualified teachers because of security concerns, and problems with the provision of escorts. Amnesty cited the example of a Serbian elementary school teacher teaching in a small Serbian village about 16 km from where she lives. On Monday mornings, she has to be collected from her house by a KFOR armoured personnel carrier and taken to the village where she stays until Friday evening when KFOR returns her to her home. Such conditions still exist.
Employment is clearly a major problem throughout Kosovo. Three years ago, I and two other Members of Parliament went there with the Refugee Council. We went to see what had happened to people who had been to this country through the humanitarian evacuation programme and had returned to Kosovo. It was clear then that anyone who went back had enormous difficulty in finding work. The position was distorted—and I expect that it still is—by the presence of the international organisations. It was striking that, of the people we met who had gone back, the one who was best off was doing the laundry for KFOR. Others who had much better developed skills had been unable to find any useful work. All the jobs had been taken by people who had never left or had returned sooner.
The latest statistics that I have seen suggest that, across Kosovo, unemployment is running at about 50 per cent. That applies to the entire working population, but among minority groups, especially among Serb and Roma communities, that figure rises to more than 90 per cent. If one is a member of a minority community, the chances of finding any work are minimal.
36WH
The Home Office provided me with an answer to a recent parliamentary question that made it clear that British policy was not to enforce the return of people from minority communities to Kosovo. Unfortunately, that is not necessarily true of other western European Governments. There are certainly worrying trends developing of forced returns. None of us would be against the idea of people returning—indeed, there is a right of return for refugees—but any return must be to conditions that are safe. So far, the vast majority of the displaced Serb and Roma refugees are not showing any signs of being able or willing to return.
We ought to look again at what UNMIK is able to do, and what support we are giving it. We must examine what resources it has to investigate human rights abuses, to help and protect witnesses, to develop the right of the freedom of movement, and to start to break down the enclaves that still exist. It is a difficult issue, because the withdrawal of KFOR protection around an enclave may be seen in a very negative light by people who feel that they need that protection.
There is no question but that the position of the Roma people is desperate, not just in Kosovo but in the whole of the former Yugoslavia. When I was in Kosovo in 2000, I visited a Roma village. It was one of the most depressing experiences of my life. I have never seen people living in worse conditions within Europe. In 1999, Roma people became targets for attack. They were viewed by the Kosovo Liberation Army as having collaborated with the Serbs in ethnic cleansing of Albanian Kosovars. Some may well have been involved in that, perhaps under duress. However, many were targeted simply for working for a Serb employer. They are now reduced to living in enclaves and many have not returned to Kosovo. It is estimated that up to 45,000 Roma people are still in Serbia and Montenegro and Macedonia. Those now in Serbia and Montenegro are living in the most appalling conditions. They cannot return and they are not accepted where they are. The conditions for Roma people who have always lived in Serbia and Montenegro are bad, and for those who have been displaced there, it is probably even worse. They live in settlements without even the most basic infra structure. There is segregation in education where the children can get into schools. There are forced evictions and there is physical abuse by the police and other public authorities.
There are specific problems in Macedonia. In mid-May, a group of roughly 700 Roma refugees in Macedonia attempted to travel to Greece to seek asylum because of the conditions in Macedonia. However, they are still on the Macedonia-Greece border in a makeshift camp with no proper shelter and no food, water or medical care. According to people who visited the camp, the conditions are dreadful. People are suffering from serious infections. Life-threatening conditions are developing, particularly for young children. The UNHCR has distributed some food, although it was the UNHCR that closed the camp where those people were living in Skopje. They are now on the Greek border, but Greece refuses to allow them to cross into Greece and apply for asylum. No one seems to be doing anything about those very vulnerable people.
Let us recall what we did in 1999, when Albanian Kosovars crossed into Macedonia. We established the humanitarian evacuation programme, which in many

37WH
ways worked quite successfully. We should be thinking about what we can do for the group to which I have been referring. We are not talking about huge numbers of people, but they are in the most dreadful position, stuck on the border and unable to go anywhere. They cannot return to Kosovo, where they came from, are not accepted in Macedonia, and cannot cross into Greece to apply for asylum.
We should be considering what we can do, through the EU in particular and UNMIK, to provide the support necessary for minorities. We must develop better structures. A recent report from the International Crisis Group made a number of suggestions about what could be done throughout the former Yugoslavia, including trying to persuade Belgrade to co-operate more with UNMIK and to stop actions that may destabilise conditions. The suggestions also included things that could be done by the Kosovan Albanian leaders, the Kosovo Serb leaders, the United States and the EU.
When we went into Kosovo, set up UNMIK and were party to KFOR being set up there, we accepted some duties and responsibilities. There is an international dimension, of which we are part. However, there is a danger that what is happening there now is being forgotten. The feeling is that the trouble in Kosovo was four years ago, it is all over and everything is improving there. In fact, there are still extremely serious problems for all the populations, particularly those, wherever they happen to be, that are in a minority in the region.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister can tell us something about actions that our Government might be able to take to exert pressure in the right places and to try to ensure that some of the conditions change.
2.19 pm
Mr. John Randall: I congratulate the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard), who has done the House a service by raising this subject. He is well known for his work with refugees and asylum seekers. Much of what is going on is not only a local problem but has a knock-on effect, as asylum seekers and refugees try to escape to western Europe and elsewhere from the misery that they suffer in various countries in the region.
The whole area, not just the former Yugoslavia, is rich in minorities. That is a result, I imagine, of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires having been in control of the Balkan region and up into Hungary. Throughout the region, there are significant minorities stuck in enclaves. It is not like places that have clear boundaries; there are whole villages in Slovakia or Romania, for example, that are exclusively Hungarian—or the other way round. It is not at all simple.
Today, we are confining ourselves to the boundaries of former Yugoslavia, whose former territories, with the possible exception of Slovenia, all have sizeable minorities. Some of the things that have gone on have been heartbreaking. Many hon. Members know, because I find myself repeating it, that I studied out there at a time when Yugoslavia was something of a model country and people in the west hoped that it would be an example of how central and eastern
38WH
European countries would be freed from the tyranny of communism. When was in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the area provided an example of how people could live happily together. How sadly that has all changed.
Like the hon. Gentleman, I shall restrict myself mainly to discussing Kosovo, because that is where the situation has been polarised. I shall also mention Macedonia. However, it is important to make the point that in Croatia there is a severe problem with the Serbian minority—those who are left—in the district known as Krajina, around the town of Knin, and surrounding areas, where the whole population was, effectively, ethnically cleansed. Returns to the area have been singularly unsuccessful. It is very sad that such problems exist in countries that aspire to be members of the European Union.
Let us not kid ourselves that the problem is exclusively in the Balkans area. There are minority problems throughout central and eastern Europe. Some of them have been somewhat subsumed, but there are border disputes quietly fizzing along. Not long ago, I was in Slovakia with an Hungarian group. Every time we went into a Slovak town, they insisted on calling it by the old Hungarian name, not the Slovak one. That is common throughout the region.
I would like to start with Macedonia, because in some ways it had more of a chance, and happily it has still not suffered the major problems that occurred elsewhere. However, there are Potential problems there. It had a census last year, with international observers present during the collection of the data. To date, so far as I am aware, no official results have been produced. The thought, backed up by some western diplomats in Skopje, is that the census showed that ethnic Albanians accounted for less than 20 per cent. of the population. In an area in which populations and ethnicity are an important part of politics, that seems unacceptable to many of the Albanian minority. Even the Democratic party of Albanians, which is now part of the Government, says that any number that amounts to less than 25 per cent. is unacceptable. It may seem incredible to us that any party could say what result is acceptable and what is not. The Conservative party might sometimes say that the result of a Division was unacceptable, but we know that we must face facts. However, when official censuses are conducted in the region with western observers, it would be helpful if the results were accepted.
The census might have produced the result that it did because persons who are absent from the country for one year or longer are not counted. However, the Macedonian Government cannot be blamed for that condition, because the UN insisted on it. Ethnic Albanians are the largest minority group in Macedonia, and they participate in the Government. There are times when even those in the coalition are not as co-operative as they might be, perhaps owing to the nature of the political system, although some would say that things go beyond that. A couple of years ago, I was asking questions about Macedonia to the then Minister and was lucky enough to be able to go and have a look at what was going on with the Government party. The aim was partly also to try to persuade the Macedonian politicians that the Ohrid agreement was a good thing. Some of the answers that some politicians gave us showed that there was still a long way to go. In

39WH
particular, I remember discussing the removal of weapons and the fact that people were disarming. Eventually, I was told, "Well, it doesn't really matter, because there's plenty more where they came from." That shows the sort of commitment that certain parties were making.
Unfortunately, it is not one ethnic group that is causing problems, as is the case in a lot of other areas too. In the pre-11 September world the word "terrorism" probably did not have quite the same connotations as it does now—there was no war on terrorism—yet that was how Lord Robertson described much of the activities of some separatist Albanians. Such people do not terrorise only the majority—they terrorise their own people too. We saw that in Kosovo when the KLA terrorised its own Albanian population.
I mention that in particular, because—as I am sure the Minister, a capable man, knows—the Home Office cannot send some Kosovan Albanians back to Kosovo, as it is not safe for them return, which shows the problem that exists. The hon. Member for Walthamstow mentioned that minorities such as Serbs and Roma cannot return to Kosovo. However, there are people in my constituency who feel that they would rather go back to Albania than to Kosovo because they feel that it is an unsafe place to be It is therefore worth remembering, when we congratulate ourselves on our great achievements in 1999, that things are far from what we hope them to be.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Roma who came from Kosovo who are now trying to leave Macedonia. Throughout the area the Roma people have suffered greatly for a long time. It is not just within the Balkan regions, either. The Roma in some of the accession countries that will soon be coming into the EU have had a rough deal, as we know from those who have come here. We only have to go back to the 1940s to realise that the Roma, who in those days were called gypsies, were persecuted then. They seem to get the rough end whoever is in charge.
The other minorities in Macedonia—the Turks, Vlachs, Serbs and the Roma—are allowed to have political parties and most are represented in Parliament. There are media in their languages and the third channel on Macedonian television broadcasts only in those minority languages. There are also private media in all the minority languages. Macedonia is trying its best, but the international community must not be blind to the problems caused, which are being exported because of some of the problems in today's Kosovo.
When we talk about minorities, the Minister should look at the Macedonian minority in Greece, which Greece is happily looking after in a far more civilised way—there was a time when their language was banned and they had a rough time.
We should really sort out the question of the name of the country. The Minister looks exasperated. I do not blame him for being exasperated—I would be exasperated. It seems incredible in today's world that a member of the EU has a problem with a country being called by a certain name, so that it has to be called the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. It is a bit of a mouthful, and it will be a problem in September with the
40WH
football scores, but it is a serious matter that must be addressed. The Macedonians have been doing an awful lot to try to help the international community achieve a multi-ethnic state, which we all want. We should do our little bit to give them some backing.
The situation in Kosovo, or Kosovo-Metohija, is not such a jolly picture. We intervened in 1999 to try to stop the persecution of a minority. I am not going to dwell on the rights and wrongs of that action—there is probably enough there for another day. Suffice it to say that in today's world as we look towards what evidence we had regarding Iraq we should be looking cleverly and intensely at the evidence that was presented at the time and at what subsequently proved to be accurate. There are many parallels. Interestingly, some of the people who today question the reports from Iraq and resigned from high-level positions are those who previously gave evidence.
The state of Kosovo is a disgrace to Europe. It can only be described as a gangster state. The Christian Albanians, the Montenegrins, the Albanians, the Turks, the Jews, the Roma, the Gorans, the Serbs and the Macedonians have been effectively ethnically cleansed from the province. One has only to go across the border to see such internally displaced persons. The hon. Gentleman talked about the conditions of the Roma in their camps. I visited a refugee or an IDP camp in southern Serbia. I found it appalling to see in today's Europe people still living in such conditions.
The hon. Gentleman effectively described the conditions and what happens: the very few children who are left are taken to school in armoured vehicles. The country, along with other members of NATO, the UN and the international community, did what it did to create a multi-ethnic society. It has failed miserably. What is more, it has stored up problems for years to come.
Malcolm Bruce: I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but he is being a little harsh. We did what we did to prevent them from killing each other at the time. We obviously hope that we can build a multi-ethnic society, but given the bitterness, we can hardly expect quick results.
Mr. Randall: I do not doubt the sincerity of those who intervened: I always said that they did so for the best possible reasons. All I am saying is that the results of that intervention are far from what we hoped. Knowing the region as I do, I must say that any optimism that the situation will change dramatically is mistaken. Our evidence suggests that the Albanian Kosovars do not want any Serbs to return: indeed, they have set their minds against it.
On that note, it may be worth mentioning something that happened a few days ago. On 17 May, Zoran Mirkovic was killed. He was a Serbian professor of Russian from Vrbovac and the father of three small children. On 19 May, there was the attempted kidnap of Stanko Misic, who was on his way to tend his field. A family was also murdered recently. There is a constant catalogue of these crimes, and it is not by chance that they occur often when the authorities have been trying to persuade the local Albanians or Serbs to return.
As the hon. Member for Walthamstow rightly said, we have a severe problem in Kosovo. What has been done has been done, and if I had anything to do with the

41WH
Foreign and Commonwealth Office or the diplomatic service, I would want to be well shot of the state of Kosovo and its future. It makes Northern Ireland look like a picnic. However, we owe it to the people in the refugee camps, whether they are from Kosovo or the Krajina, to offer real clout. We were prepared to intervene militarily, and we should now apply every diplomatic pressure to try to sort out the problems in that benighted area.
2.37 pm
Mr. Robert N. Wareing: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) on securing this vital debate on a subject that has fallen from the headlines in the past few years. We have turned our attention more to the problems afflicting the middle east—Palestine, Israel and Iraq. Many people may think that the problems that Kosovo experienced during the period of ethnic cleansing have suddenly disappeared, and that we are witnessing the emergence of a new state in which ethnic cleansing is no more. However, that belief is false, as my hon. Friend said. I know of his interest in the former Yugoslavia and that he studied there for a while.
Mistakes were made. I believe that the occupation of Kosovo is illegal, but the Serb minority would have been much more reassured if Russia had been allocated a zone. If, in the north of Kosovo, there had been a Russian contribution to UNMIK, many more Serbs would have felt able to go back to their homes. However, that did not happen, so presumably we still regard Kosovo as part of the sovereign territory of Serbia and Montenegro. If that is so, the future in Kosovo will be difficult for the Albanian majority who do not wish to belong to the state that they believe oppressed them in the past.
Kosovo is an interesting case, as before the second world war the majority of its people were Serbs. Largely because of their reproduction rate, the Albanian population are now in the majority in that part of former Yugoslavia. A similar situation could arise in Northern Ireland if the future reproduction rate of one religious group, now a minority, led to it becoming a majority.
How do the Serbs interpret the issue? Unfortunately, they need to be reassured that United Nations and NATO activity is not biased. Throughout the 1990s there was anti-Serb hysteria; as the Serbs see it, that was opposition not just to Milosevic but to the Serb nation. Those Serbs who have left Kosovo are suspicious about what would happen if they went back. They know about the attacks, which are catalogued in the Amnesty International report, and history tells them that if they go back to Kosovo they may not get the assistance of the international forces.
In answer to a parliamentary question, the Minister told me recently that it is estimated that 110 Orthodox churches have been demolished since KFOR came into the region. That does not suggest to Serbs—or to me—that the people of Kosovo, especially Serbs, are protected. Many Albanians, too, have been attacked. I have visited the representatives of Mr. Rugova, who is, I believe, the only Albanian to have been democratically elected to lead the Albanian people in Kosovo. Throughout the conflict, Rugova's supporters were
42WH
under attack from the KLA, which many Serbs suspect run the police force. In Macedonia, many people believe that their troubles just after the end of the Kosovo conflict were generated by the KLA; twenty-five per cent. of the population of Macedonia are Albanian.
I was comforted this week when I met the Foreign Minister of Macedonia who assured me that the Albanian party is in coalition with her party. It is a sister party to the Labour party and is striving to enter Socialist International. I hope that it will be successful.
In Serbia, it is said that Kosovo needs to be partitioned. That suggestion has not come from extremists; Prime Minister Djindjic, who was assassinated a few months ago, said on 22 February that there should be a Serbian mini-state in Kosovo. He claimed that the transfer of sovereignty in Kosovo away from what was still called Yugoslavia had been planned, and the aim of the international community was an independent Kosovo, taking away Yugoslav sovereignty over that province. He suggested that 1,000, or even a few hundred, Serb troops should be deployed in Kosovo to help the Serb refugees to return. That would be a difficult task because, as my hon. Friend said, there are Albanian minorities within Serb enclaves.
We should be conscious that Prime Minister Djindjic advocated a northern Kosovo Serbian state rather like the Republika Srpska in Bosnia and there may be a possibility of such a development.
Mr. Randall: Does not the hon. Gentleman recognise that however appealing that might seem, redrawing the boundaries in that area would be highly dangerous?
Mr. Wareing: I appreciate that, but it was true of Bosnia before the Dayton agreement; many areas contained substantial minorities.
As the hon. Gentleman said, the Serbs were driven out of Krajina and areas around Vukovar where there were substantial Serb minorities. I will never forget the bias against the Serbs, not so much by the Government—for most of that period there was a Conservative Government—as by the international media. With my right hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton, North and Bellshill (Dr. Reid), who is now Secretary of State for Health, I witnessed the mass graves of Serbs as a result of ethnic cleansing at Bosanski Brod early in 1993. The Scottish media refused to publish my right hon. Friend's statement when they heard that the victims were Serbs. They said, "We can't print that." When asked why not, they replied, "Because it would confuse people."
The Amnesty Inter national report calls for an inquiry into some of the atrocities committed since KFOR has been in Kosovo, especially into the Podjevo attack in a town in a remote area. A controlled bomb was set off; 11 Serbs were killed and more than 40 injured, despite the advance warning to KFOR. The report also stated that investigations into some of the crimes were frustrated by the conduct of United States KFOR personnel. I hope that if he has not already read the report, the Minister will take note of those points.
We can directly affect the matter of the 340,000 Hungarians in the former Yugoslavia, who are 25 per cent. of the population of Vojvodina. Hungarians who live in that northern province have been able to go backwards and forwards without visas. They buy much

43WH
of their produce in Hungary, take it back to their farm markets and sell it. When Hungary comes into the European Union, they will need a visa. Will the Minister consider making a concession to the Hungarian population in the north of former Yugoslavia?
2.50 pm
Malcolm Bruce: This is a timely debate, and one that must continue, whether it is in or out of the headlines. Unfortunately, as the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) perhaps knows better than anyone, the history of the Balkans is composed of 1,000 years of trouble, oppression, internal fighting and civil war. We could not expect to resolve that in the few short years after the collapse of Tito's Yugoslavia. However, if the ideals and ambitions that we are trying to build in Europe have any meaning, they would lead us to try to create a society in the Balkans that aspires to the values taken for granted by the rest of Europe—although sometimes I wonder about that when I read the populist right-wing press in the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, most of us recognise that that is the case.
I am not being facetious when I say that within our own islands we have many ethnic minorities—indigenous as well as immigrant—and have our moments of racial tension. However, even in the long history of Northern Ireland, we do not have the record of appalling massacres of hundreds of thousands of people as in the Balkans—the scale is almost incomprehensible to people living in our society.
In Scotland, it is interesting that the mix of the population is changing rapidly: 25 per cent. of the population of the city of Edinburgh is English. I suspect that a similar percentage of my own constituency is English, and in some villages in the highlands 50 per cent. of the population is English. However, it is incomprehensible to us that people who have such differences would resort to the sheer frenzied brutality, mayhem and murder that have taken place in the Balkans. If we can engage with the people in the Balkans, we must try to work out how, together, we can make progress.
I did not take issue with the hon. Member for Uxbridge, but agreed with him. Everything I hear about Kosovo—I visited the neighbouring areas, but have not yet visited Kosovo—tells me that it is, as he described it, a hell-hole and a disaster area. I understand the argument of those who say that we should not have taken action in Kosovo—that the action was illegal. However, I would say that those of us who supported that action did so not because we thought that it was a long-term solution, but because we wanted to stop a short-term situation in which people were killing one another in their thousands on a daily basis. We thought that we had to act, and try to rebuild thereafter. I do not think that there is a difference of view about what we are trying to do. I did not believe that we would immediately solve Kosovo's problems. I hoped that people would stop being killed, and that there would then be time to address the issues.
The debate refers to the whole of former Yugoslavia, and so some comparisons can be made. Kosovo is the worst and most acute problem, and it is possible that
44WH
Kosovo can begin to emerge from its nightmare only if we can demonstrate some progress in the surrounding area. That may be the way to make people recognise that there is hope and a positive way forward.
I remember encountering an Hungarian immigrant from the former Republic of Yugoslavia early in the period after the break-up of that country, who had already made up his mind to get out and come to the UK before the ethnic cleansing got under way. When it started he was watching the situation from the UK and saying, "I can't believe what's happening. My friends were Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks." He said that he had had a pop group with four members, one from each community, not by design, but because one was a good bassist, one a good drummer, one a good singer and the other a good rhythm guitarist. He said that they did not ask one another about their backgrounds, although they knew what they were. He had to stand by and watch those people kill one another. He said that he could not comprehend how that situation had come about. For me, as someone who has become involved in the problems in the Balkans only in the past few years, particularly as a member of the Council of Europe, and who has visited some of those wonderful areas, it is a matter of incomprehensibility that people can degenerate to such depths of violence and viciousness. As an optimist, I hope that we can create institutional frameworks that will give us a chance of moving forward.
Mr. Randall: Perhaps I ought to redress the balance. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there are huge areas today—and were even during the bombing of Belgrade—where Albanians live very happily together?
Malcolm Bruce: I agree. I am trying to make the point that we must build on that practical success and create institutions that will work. We could then spread that attitude to some areas where conflicts are as intense as ever. Parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina—depending on one's point of view, and which commentator one listens to—are either moving towards making progress, or are on the verge of falling back into disintegration.
I turn to one or two personal experiences that I had when I was monitoring elections in and around Sarajevo. In one of the polling stations that I visited, which was high up in the hills, about 15 miles off the main road, I found myself in a Serbian hunting lodge. The people there felt relaxed as Serbians living a long way from everywhere else, but said that there was no real future for them in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I asked them what was wrong with their lives, and they said that they were absolutely fine. I asked who was interfering in their lives, and they answered that no one was. I asked what the problem was, and they had no answer that made any sense.
On the other hand, I had with me a Bosniak driver and interpreter. One of them related the most terrifying experience that he had had was when his car was stolen in the street in Sarajevo. He received a telephone call to say that his car would be available if he cared to venture into a small town in the Republika Srpska, about 10 miles from Sarajevo. When he did that, he was blindfolded, taken into the middle of a forest at gunpoint, asked whether he had a mobile phone, and

45WH
told that if he wanted his car back, he would have to get someone from Sarajevo to arrive with $3,000 within an hour. If they arrived, he could have the car hack. If they did not arrive within an hour, they would find his body. That is not ethnic cleansing: it is crime and terrorism. When I asked what he did about it, he said he had done nothing. He said that the next time they took his car, they could keep it. He had no confidence in the law enforcement agencies.
Having said that, there are more than 300,000 returnees in Bosnia, including some who have returned to the Republika Srpska. Perhaps it is easier for Bosniaks to return to Sarajevo. I met a Serb who had previously been in Sarajevo who was not interested in reclaiming his property, at least not yet. I know that Paddy Ashdown, the UN high representative—the lord high executioner, as I sometimes call him—is very committed to that community. He is a perpetual optimist. I was interested to read in the Library brief that his analysis of the significance of the elections in Bosnia was echoed by others. On the face of it, it seemed to be a retrograde step, a return to the old nationalisms, but it is a more complicated and positive measure, and a greater recognition of the fact that the communities will succeed only if they work together. Paddy Ashdown makes the point incessantly that the international community will not come up with the necessary investment without sufficient confidence.
Economic development is part of the key. If people can see a material improvement in their lives, have more confidence in the institutions and start to relax about the future, it is a realistic possibility that they will recognise at last that the old battle lines are destructive in every sense. They are appallingly destructive not only of life and relations but of the purpose of life. What kind of life is it if people live in total fear, with no prospect of employment, no stake in the land, no confidence in the institutions of law and order—and no hope?
Ultimately, those working through international institutions, Governments, the European Union and the Council of Europe must keep saying that we are genuinely trying to give those people a vision of the future that is worth aspiring to, but that they will not achieve it unless they break out of that cycle. The hon. Member for Uxbridge, with all his experience, takes the view that nothing will change, but I hope that he is ultimately proved wrong, although I appreciate that history is so long and the turmoil so short and recent that even the most optimistic can hardly be overjoyed.
I hope that we can ask people to focus on the next 100 years rather than the last 1,000. If they recognise the benefits that will flow from a peaceful Europe, and the aspiration of membership of the EU and the euro, they will realise that what we are offering them will make a positive difference; however, they must realise also that they will have to work with us to make the necessary changes.
3.2 pm
Mr. Richard Spring: I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) on securing this debate. It has been interesting not least because the four hon. Members who have spoken did so with a profound understanding—their knowledge of the area came across powerfully. It has
46WH
been an extremely useful and important debate because it goes to the heart of the horrific conflicts that occurred in the former Yugoslavia, particularly those of the 1990s. Indeed, some of those tensions continue today.
Hon. Members might recall an earlier debate when we touched on the broader topic of Serbia-Montenegro. The area covered by former Yugoslavia remains of considerable political and economic importance, and I echo the sentiments of the hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) on that front. In that debate, I referred to the monitories within former Yugoslavia, albeit in the context of Serbia, including Kosovo and Montenegro, as dictated by the title of that debate. However, although our subject matter today is more restricted geographically, we are considering a broader area that includes all the former Yugoslav states—Serbia and Montenegro, Macedonia, Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The ethnic patchwork of that part of the Balkans that was once Yugoslavia, with its inter-ethnic conflicts, is the main reason for the horrendous problems that engulfed Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and later Kosovo. As has been pointed out already, it is impossible to draw neat lines on a map to create a contiguous state made up entirely of Christian Serbs, Muslim Bosnians, Muslim Albanians or Roma. We have heard about the patchwork quilt that covers the area, sometimes in conflict and sometimes more hopefully, with people living peacefully side by side. The different ethnic and religious groups intermingle in communities throughout the former Yugoslav states, and as in this country, that means the existence of minority groups in areas all too frequently dominated by other groups.
As in this country, and countless others, the rights of those minority groups must be protected from infringement by the majority. In the early and mid-1990s, the opposite occurred in the former Yugoslavia, leading to conflict, the massive loss of life that we have heard about this afternoon, political implosions and a flood of tragic refugees from the minority groups into many different countries, including the UK.
Because of the nature of the region, it is tempting to examine the issue country by country, which I shall do in a moment. However, it is also important to view the region through a broader perspective and in terms of principles, as I have just tried to do. The issue of minority communities is closely linked to that of refugee returns, which has also been touched on this afternoon.
In Croatia, although we hear little of it, the idea of refugee return is still contentious. As in many areas of the former Yugoslavia, the ethnic Serb population there constitutes the minority and is currently suffering prejudice and even violence on ethnic grounds. The Croatian Government elected in 2000 inherited unfair and discriminatory laws that particularly penalised ethnic Serbs. Remaining obstacles to the return of those who were Croatian and who fled during or after the war must be removed by the Croatian Government, which must continue to demonstrate their determination to counter such discrimination.
It is regrettable that, as late as last December, temporary owners of what was previously Serb property effectively took precedence over returning Serb owners until they could be rehoused. Although I understand the

47WH
difficult choices such a situation entails, it is fair to say that the rightful owners were unduly penalised. Will the Minister tell us what progress has been made in that area?
Despite those problems, the situation in Croatia is assisted by a climate that is more conducive to law and order than in other areas. Sadly, a security climate conducive to the return of Serb refugees to Kosovo does not appear to exist. As in much of Yugoslavia, residual tensions and ethnic prejudices remain, bedevilling attempts to create a multi-ethnic state based on mutual respect. I remember visiting Sarajevo many years ago, when communities co-existed side by side with people without any practical sense of their neighbours' religious or ethnic origins. Attempts must be made through education, as well as by more proactive political, legal and economic means.
In Kosovo, the ethnic Serbs continue to feel deeply vulnerable to violence and prejudice from elements of the Albanian majority. The place is still scarred by intercommunity violence and the large number of missing persons still unaccounted for. As one of the nations that intervened, rightly, to bring the violence in Kosovo to an end, we have a duty to continue assisting in building peace. The very limited number of Serb refugees who to date have felt that Kosovo is safe enough to return to shows that there is much that we, and the Kosovans themselves, have to do.
If it was handled with care, the return of Serbian Kosovans could help to strengthen the position of minority Serb communities within Kosovo. The protection of minority communities within Kosovo and buildings such as churches must be a priority. We heard from the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing) of the terrible attacks on the wonderful religious heritage of the Christian communities. It is ironic that Kosovo is the one area in which real progress does not yet appear to have been made, but the one in which the international presence is greatest. Will the Minister enlarge on what specific steps the UK Government are taking to encourage refugee return and the commitments that he can make about the protection of the rights of such individuals as they return?
I turn to Bosnia and Herzegovina, where some progress has certainly been made. That slightly belated success in attracting the return of refugees is welcome and shows that linear progress should not always be expected, but is indicative of a restoration of the rule of law affording protection for all communities. The authors of Dayton placed great emphasis on returns of refugees and internally displaced persons, and although there was no immediate progress, we have subsequently seen an ever increasing number of people feeling safe enough to return to their original homes, which is hugely welcome.
Despite recent perceived setbacks, the trend has continued, and the fact that nearly 400,000 Bosnians have shown a willingness to live as minorities in areas governed by other groups shows how far Bosnia and Herzegovina has come. There is, of course, never room for complacency, but the determination to create the social, economic and political conditions in which that is possible shows that, with a similar determination, such progress could be mirrored in provinces such as
48WH
Kosovo, despite all its difficulties. What is needed is the will, and a willingness on all sides to forgive. I recognise what a tall order that is.
I have focused on the refugee issue because it is inextricably intertwined with the question of minorities in the former Yugoslavia, and with feelings of security and being an equal part of the community. The treatment of minority communities in the region and the willingness of refugees to return are indicative of the political stability and economic prosperity of the lands to which they are returning and the extent to which they have made progress on the path to securing the rule of law. I hope that the welcome moves towards economic liberalisation and the improvements in the economic base will continue.
It is also worth noting that, aside from regional stability, what goes on in the former Yugoslavia has a real and direct knock-on effect in the UK. That, alongside our humanitarian obligations, constitutes a compelling argument for us to continue to be engaged in protecting the minority communities in the former Yugoslavia and to create a safe and welcoming environment for the return of refugees. Many of those who sought asylum here at the time of the conflict will have an incentive to return to their homes.
Important progress has been made after the tragedies of the 1990s. I look forward to hearing the Minister explain what steps the British Government are taking to help remedy the situation—particularly that which I have described in Kosovo—and establish truly multicultural communities in the former Yugoslavia, with no individual or group living in fear of its neighbours.
This has been one of the most horrific episodes in European history for many decades. Of course, there are many factors that will give people hope, but I agree with the hon. Member for Gordon: the hope of some sort of process of enhanced democracy leading, ultimately, to relationships with the European Union, with all the incentive that that provides, will be a powerful motor to try to resolve some of the terrible problems that have blighted the landscape of Europe for too long.
3.13 pm
The Minister for Europe (Mr. Denis MacShane): This has been a good debate and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) for having initiated it. He sketched out the broad picture very well and we benefited from the expert knowledge that the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) always brings to our debates on the former Yugoslavia. As he pointed out, there are minorities everywhere. Last year, I was in the regional parliament of Novi Sad, the capital of Vojvodina, where six language booths were needed just for interpretation among representatives of that small but multi-cultural part of the region.
It is important to break away, as we have done in this debate, from the notion that one community, ethnic or national group is somehow intrinsically better or worse than another. That is an attitude of mind. It is about terrorism and exploiting fears, often for criminal purposes. We have to deal with that. The ultimate criminal was Slobodan Milosevic. He took a country that 13 or 14 years ago was a model for communist states anywhere in the world—it had a high standard of living

49WH
and thriving cultural life in its cities, and its people could travel visa-free anywhere in Europe—and turned it into what we saw at the end of the last decade.
There are new attitudes of mind now. I know from my work, which involves travelling to the region as often as I can and receiving its representatives in London, that a distinct and new approach is being taken. As the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring) said, it is by turning firmly towards the European Union and using Europe to provide a set of benchmarks by which to raise standards and do what needs to be done so that the region can make progress. The road out of the past 10 or 15 years is the road to Europe.
That is why it is important that when parliamentarians, Ministers and party representatives travel to the region, we should speak positively about Europe and explain to our friends in the different Governments and capital cities of the region that the anti-European isolationist hostility that we get, alas, from some members of our press does not represent the broad mass of the British people and certainly not the future interests of Britain.
I shall try to deal with the specific questions that I was asked. I was struck by what the hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) said when he asked rhetorically whether we were making progress or going backwards. On the basis of two years of duties and responsibilities as a Minister, I can report progress in every area, so the picture that was painted of Kosovo, which may have been true in the first year or two after the conflict, is not a picture that many would recognise today. The Pristina that I travel to these days is a livelier, busier and more bustling city than it was a year ago and much livelier, busier and more bustling than it was two years ago. The indomitable human will to get on with life once murderers and torturers such as Milosevic have been removed from the scene is asserting itself in Kosovo.
I have read the excellent report by Amnesty International, whose work I greatly admire, but it reflects the position circa 2001. The atrocity to which my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing) referred, in which 11 Serbs were killed, was the famous explosion of the Nis express. That disgusting crime was committed two years ago. Now, in many parts of Kosovo, Serbs can travel freely. In fact, the Nis express has been discontinued because it is no longer needed. There is now a railway link to Gracanica, that beautiful Serb city with a beautiful monastery that I am sure many of us have visited. I have certainly had the pleasure of doing so. Two years ago, the area was a fortress, with armoured personnel carriers, barbed wire and KFOR soldiers patrolling with machine guns; now, there is at least a normal railway link.
I do not for a second deny the fear, concerns and tensions that exist, but I think that when I was in Pristina a couple of months ago—I may have to refresh my memory—I was told that just six Serbs had been killed in violent incidents in the past 12 months and three of the incidents were believed to be the result of feuds or disputes within families or communities.
Mr. Randall: The Minister has an advantage over me: I have not been back to Kosovo for some time, although I hope to go shortly. I am not sure that the picture looks
50WH
all that rosy. On the night between 3 and 4 June, a family of three Serbs were killed in Obilic. The UN administrator for Kosovo, Michael Steiner, said:
"This is a heinous act and perfidious crime which was directed against multi-ethnicity in Kosovo".
They may say in Pristina that there is no problem, but they would say that.
Mr. MacShane: The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, and the British Government condemned the Obilic attack, in which three people were killed. It now transpires—I am giving hon. Members the news agency reports—that it may have been an internal Serbian family feud, rather than ethnically or politically motivated violence, which is what we thought happened at the time. The hon. Gentleman was right to refer to the British Government reaction, but intensive investigations are taking place and they suggest that it may not have been an ethnic or political crime.
Indeed, Kosovan leaders were at the forefront in condemning the crime and visiting Obilic, which was a sensitive and difficult thing to do. Mr. Thaci, who was recently on a private visit to London, was also outspoken in his condemnation of the crime. I put those points to the House, not to be Panglossian, but to make it clear that, on the question of whether people can return safely after seeking refuge in the UK from Kosovo, the answer is yes. All ethnic Albanians can be safely returned. If they come from areas where they are in a minority, they might be expected to relocate to a majority area.
Mr. Gerrard: Does my hon. Friend agree that many of the incidents covered in the reports were not recent? I want to draw his attention to the report that was just released by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. It covers a more recent period and recognises that the situation has changed. However, it says:
"Notwithstanding the stabilisation of the security situation, the fear of harassment, intimidation and provocation remains part of everyday experience for members of minority communities throughout Kosovo."
The report acknowledges improvement but by no means says that everything is fine.
Mr. MacShane: I completely agree with that and one has to spend only a short time in any part of the region to sense the tension and fear. That is why I made a point of visiting an association of displaced Serb families, which now has its offices in Belgrade. It is important to maintain a dialogue, but we should acknowledge that more than 775,000 refugees and displaced people who fled in 1998 and 1999 have returned to Kosovo. We should not forget that Kosovans who fled for their lives under the tyranny and terrorism of Milosevic have been able to return home.
In Pristina, I had the recent pleasure of talking to elected Serb representatives who travel freely from different parts of Kosovo, including Mitrovica. They came to a party with Albanians and talked openly. Again, I am not trying to paint a rosy picture, but the situation is different from two years ago.
The picture is problematic in other parts of the region. Reference was made to Macedonia and the hard work of Javier Solana, the European Union's high

51WH
representative and Lord Robertson of NATO two years ago in securing the Ohrid agreement has helped to stabilise the situation. Again, there is a constructive relationship between the current coalition parties, one of which represents the Albanian community while the other represents the Macedonian community.
The situation is far from perfect, though, and I want to give the House a quick anecdote. On seeing the visiting card of elected members of the Macedonian Parliament, I was surprised to see that the Albanian political leaders had on one side of their card their name and titles in English and on the other side their name and titles in Cyrillic. I asked why they did not have one in Albanian, and I was told that it was not in the Ohrid agreement; in other words, if it is not stipulated in the Ohrid agreement then it is not going to happen.
The British Government are making a small contribution to help to provide interpretation equipment for the national Parliament so that people can speak in their own language—a point of fundamental principle in bilingual nations such as Canada and Switzerland. It had not happened before. That is a way in which we can collectively help people to have some sense of not being under threat because they come from a minority community.
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby, asked me about Hungarian communities travelling across what will now be the EU border into Hungary. That is a problem all around the new frontiers of the EU. I was in south-eastern Poland recently. The Ukraine has many Polish villages and there will now be an EU frontier there. I think that local arrangements can be made, but it was always the case as the EU expanded and had a common frontiers policy that—whether it was in relation to Switzerland or wherever—local arrangements would have to be made. We will have to edge these things through but not make them into a major issue of difference.
The challenges today are the same as two years ago. We need the whole of the region to establish the rule of law. Without that, nothing works and citizens have no protection. The Milosevic era was the disintegration of the rule of law. One cannot have democracy or prosperity in those circumstances. The rule of law
52WH
requires effective and honest law enforcement agencies. We also need efficient and impartial courts. It means fighting organised crime, and highlighting the need to combat organised crime has been a focal point of Foreign Office work in the region. It will be discussed at the summit meeting of all western Balkan leaders at Thessaloniki this Saturday. It also means respecting the international rule of law, in particular the authority of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. I congratulate in front of the House the determination of the Belgrade authorities in arresting Veselin Sljivancanin last week in Belgrade, from where he was transferred up to the Hague, despite resistance. We are still waiting to get Mladic and Karadzic and we are still waiting in Croatia to get Gotovina. We need the ICTY to be fully complied with.
As a second challenge we need to reform the economies. As the hon. Member for Gordon pointed out—I believe he was quoting Lord Ashdown, who is doing an outstanding job in Bosnia and Herzegovina—investment does not go where it senses insecurity. Money in a sense is a coward. Until we sort out some of the organised crime, corruption and law and order problems, the region will not attract the investment it needs.
The third challenge is to strengthen democracy, not via elections—I think Lord Ashdown pointed out that if anything, there may be too many politicians and elections in the region—but the idea of democracy in terms of a free and responsible media, and constitutional checks and balances. The British Government are actively engaged in trying to meet those challenges. I was grateful 18 months ago when the hon. Member for Uxbridge was able to visit Macedonia. As the Minister responsible for the region I am happy to make every effort to encourage parliamentarians to visit to obtain the most up-to-date reports on the situation on the ground.
We now have an opportunity to move away from the past and the settling of historical accounts into arguing for a clear new perspective for the entire region. That perspective is called Europe. It will take time; how long it will take depends entirely on the determination of the regions—the future lies in their hands. If they search with us to be good partners in the new European Union, the western Balkans can have a much better future.

Crime and Drugs (Plymouth)
3.30 pm
Linda Gilroy: I congratulate the Minister for Policing, Crime Reduction and Community Safety on her promotion. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has put together a formidable team to join her in her new post: the Under-Secretaries of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friends the Members for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) and for Slough (Fiona MacTaggart), and the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration. That bodes well for success in a Department to which we all look to solve many of the huge challenges that face our constituents. I want to cover one such challenge—drugs and crime—in this short debate.
Plymouth has had a successful track record in fighting crime. It is an example of a can-do city that creatively develops its own solutions in a way that fully supports prevention-focused Government policy. In June 2001, I had an Adjournment debate that celebrated that track record. Sadly, things changed not long after that, and I want to share with the Minister my concerns and those of the people of Plymouth about what is happening in our city, especially about the link between crime and drugs and what we need to do to tackle it.
The Minister will be pleased to hear that the number of drug-related deaths in Devon and Cornwall fell from 86 in 1999 to 69 last year. Does she share our concern, however, that drug deaths in Plymouth have nearly doubled from nine to 17 in the same period and more than trebled since 1997, when there were five? Each of those deaths is a tragedy for the people close to those who died and a source of huge frustration for our public services, especially the coroner, Nigel Meadows, and Judge Taylor and Chief Superintendent John Isaac, each of whom has given more thought, attention and personal commitment than is the norm. That is very much in line with what the Home Secretary recently called for in visible and accountable public servants.
That commitment to partnership work is reflected in our crime figures. I ask my hon. Friend to imagine having had one of the first community safety partnerships in the country with the sort of track record that I described in 2001. Then, I was able to tell our hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Ainsworth), who responded in that debate, that in the 12 months to March 2001, even figures for violent crime were going down in all but one of the eight wards in my constituency. That was at a time when that was not the trend in the rest of the country and against the background of a substantial problem of heroin addiction. Vehicle crime had been driven down by 50 per cent., and burglary by 60 per cent. in the previous six years. I said then that it would become more challenging to keep bearing down on crime in that way. Little did I know how true that would be. I highlighted the work of the arrest referral scheme and what the coroner was doing to alert young people to the dangers of drugs.
Sadly, Plymouth is now experiencing a period of rising crime. It has seen a rise in burglary and vehicle crimes during the past year. The new crime-counting rules introduced nationally last April have had an
54WH
impact on figures, but there is no doubt that drugs and stealing to feed a habit are contributing substantially to those increases. In 2002–03, domestic burglaries rose by 22.4 per cent. against the reduction target of 12 per cent.—a reasonable target when set against recent pre-crack trends. That target was achieved by neighbouring south and west Devon's basic command unit, which does not experience the same acquisition crime/drugs profile. Vehicle crime rose by 14 per cent. against a reduction target of 5 per cent.
However, Plymouth achieved a 12.5 per cent. increase in arrests for class A drugs and a 52.6 per cent. reduction in recorded public disorder offences, as well as a 7.5 per cent. fall in road casualties, which demonstrates that our BCU still has the capacity to succeed in tackling some of our key crime challenges. Plymouth led the way. It was a trail-blazer in innovative partnership work to tackle drugs and substance abuse. We have a very robust and respected arrest referral scheme, which has been operating since 1995.
It was the innovative partnership of John Isaac—now our chief superintendent—and Judge Taylor, resident judge for Plymouth, that led to the introduction of Fast Track, making the simple but effective link between offenders with drug problems and treatment by use of a probation order. That was the cast from which drug treatment and testing orders were formed and legislated for.
As a result of that initiative, domestic burglary was reduced by 57 per cent. That was made possible by providing immediate access to treatment. More recently, offenders known to be involved in crime but not currently in the criminal justice system, have been identified and offered immediate treatment. The Plymouth seamless access to drug treatment initiative aspires to a self-sufficient drug treatment team with the aim of enabling rapid entry to treatment for drug users who commit crime to pay for their drugs at whatever stage they may be in the criminal justice system.
As Chief Superintendent John Isaac pointed out recently, however:
"While we have got up to 2,500 heroin users turning to crime involving property to convert it into cash to buy drugs, it will continue."
The number of crack cocaine users in Plymouth has increased over the last year. It is estimated that just one crack addict needs between £10,000 and £20,000 a year to feed their habit, and the majority of that money is obtained by crime. There are about 40 areas—half in London, but sadly now including Plymouth—where a significant number of drug users use crack as their primary drug of choice. Heroin addiction was a bad enough problem, but crack addiction and markets have an even more damaging effect on local communities. I raised Plymouth's crack problem here in Westminster Hall with my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-East, then a Home Office Minister, at the cross-cutting Question Time just a couple of weeks ago. I told him how the problem had developed in Plymouth after a successful blitz on supplies in London through Project Trident.
Heroin makes people's lives a misery—the people who use it, their families and their neighbours. It leads to crime; four out of five addicts say that they fund their habit by stealing. Deprived communities such as those

55WH
in my constituency suffer from all aspects of drugs more than most. My hon. Friend the Minister is familiar with a similar situation in her constituency. However, crack is even more devastating than heroin. It costs more, and I understand that the craving and the need for treatment are more spontaneously demanding. Therefore, it has even stronger links to crime, especially violent crime.
Although our police moved smartly through Project Ovidian in Devon and Cornwall to deal with some of the worst aspects of the problem, crack is now established in Plymouth. I appreciate that new money and new approaches through our drug action team are coming, and that the pooled treatment budget in Plymouth is increasing from £1.2 million to £1.6 million—a 30 per cent. rise over the three years of the current comprehensive spending review. However, we still need to complete the loop to create the virtuous circle envisaged in the seamless drugs action project. That is the subject of a £1.1 million bid under invest to save round 6, mainly to provide services for the 600 prisoners per annum who return to Plymouth and cannot access such a service, and so return to crime.
That will indeed be an investment to save: to save wasting the effort that people in Exeter put into rehabilitating people while they are in prison; to save the £1 million-plus cost a week to victims of burglary and theft in Plymouth; to save the human misery of drug addicts, those close to them and their neighbours and communities; and to save wasting the significant investment which is now taking place in our communities through the neighbourhood renewal fund. It will build on the investment that we have already had in police resources.
Police numbers are rising, and new partnerships between the police and the local community are being created to combat crime. Since 2001, 211 more police officers have been recruited in Devon and Cornwall, making a total of 3,145 police to tackle crime locally. There are 117 more full-time equivalent police officers in Plymouth than in 1997. Recorded crime in Devon and Cornwall fell by 5.4 per cent. in the year to March 2002, which was better than the national average.
As I said, the pooled treatment budget for the drug action team increased by 17 per cent. last year and will increase by 30 per cent. over the three years of the current spending round. However, not only more money but smarter working will be needed, and there is wholehearted commitment in Plymouth to local partnership through the drugs action team framework initiated by the Government. The innovative partnership approach of John Isaac, who is now our chief superintendent in Plymouth BCU, made the simple but effective link between criminal activity and drug use and targeted those people for treatment, at whatever stage they were in the criminal justice system.
I hope that the Minister will help by ensuring full and proper consideration by the Treasury of that invest to save round 6 bid. I promise her that the money will be well used, and that she will see Plymouth's usual level of commitment and innovation to ensure its best use in meeting the Government goals that we share. I hope that my hon. Friend will also recognise the role played by all the people that I have mentioned in trying to turn the tide of the dreadful impact of drugs on our
56WH
community. I would particularly like to pay tribute to the Harbour centre—a voluntary group that was established many years ago to tackle alcohol abuse, but subsequently focused on the drugs problem as that emerged in Plymouth.
I shall also mention the health teams. We had a health action zone in Plymouth, which made a significant contribution to preparing the way for the drugs action team. The drugs action team brings all the partners together, to identify ways in which they can co-operate, to ensure that they are all singing from the same hymn sheet and to make the best use of resources.
I also pay tribute to the responsible attitude of and the role played by our local newspaper. It is about to cooperate with the police to raise awareness and act as a channel between Plymouth people and the police to crack down on drug dealers who blight the lives of people in our communities. I am sure that the Minister will watch with interest how that local newspaper brings to bear the journalistic skill that won it the accolade of regional newspaper of the year in recent years.
The editor, Alan Qualtrough, is working closely with the police on a campaign to clamp down on the supply side of the drugs challenge in our city, which of course must be tackled at the same time as the treatment side, although that has been the main subject of this debate. The campaign will invite the public to co-operate in shopping drug dealers in their community to the police. The police will staff a special hotline during the campaign. In the coming weeks, a series of articles will examine issues related to the acquisition, legality and consequences of drugs, as well as the many police successes in enforcing the law on drugs in Plymouth.
Mr. Qualtrough tells me that Jayne Freer will be the lead journalist working on the campaign. Since she has been shortlisted for the prestigious regional news reporter of the year award for her previous coverage of that serious issue—examining how the police have already been able to get at some of the serious drug-dealing networks—I think that we can look forward to a robust, hard-hitting and effective campaign attempting to turn the tide of this dreadful scourge.
In summary, we have enterprising public services, a quality local community newspaper and a strong record of communities and people working in partnership. That record was established through the trail-blazing community safety partnership. Just as Fast Track was the predecessor of drug treatment and testing orders, coining out of the Morgan report in the mid-1990s, the voluntary initiative of the Labour-led Plymouth council and the local police unit paved the way for what became the crime and disorder reduction partnerships that were introduced in the early years of this Government. Nowhere can show more than Plymouth how a community faced with some of the most challenging problems can become one of the most difficult places to deal in drugs.
3.45 pm
The Minister for Policing, Crime Reduction and Community Safety (Ms Hazel Blears): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) on securing the debate and on her tremendously powerful contribution on behalf of the

57WH
community. She works tirelessly for local people on crime reduction and regeneration and encourages them to feel that they can make a difference and turn the area round. I had the pleasure of visiting a regeneration partnership in my hon. Friend's constituency to discuss the issues with local people. She cares deeply about this matter.
It is vital to break the link between drugs and crime, as problem drug misusers, especially of class A drugs, account for a huge proportion of the crime that affects our communities. Drug treatment works; for every £1 spent on treatment, £3 is saved in criminal justice costs, so there is good evidence for our investment. Direct funding for drug treatment, including that in prisons, will rise from £438 million in this financial year to £573 million from April 2005. Significant extra resources are being allocated because it is a priority. We will use every opportunity from arrest to court to sentence to get offenders into treatment to break the link between drugs and crime.
The updated drugs strategy issued in 2002 recognised the need for a comprehensive programme of aftercare and resettlement provision. It was no good merely getting people into treatment; other issues in their lives, such as education, training, housing and rehabilitation into the community, were also vital, especially for those leaving prison. We must ensure that the gains we achieve when people are in custody are not immediately lost when they are released. We have been less successful in that aspect of the treatment pathway than we have in others. People must be contacted as soon as they are released. It is crucial that they have a support system and appropriate treatment in the right place at the right time.
I have a key role in delivering the drugs strategy in communities. To strengthen the links between drugs and crime reduction strategies, we want drug action teams in unitary authorities to merge with their local crime and disorder partnerships to ensure that there is an integrated process. For too long, people in the crime and disorder partnership have mirrored those in the drug action partnership. Bringing the two together will have a significant advantage as it will help us to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of planning and delivery, and it will gladden our hearts if we can cut bureaucracy in drug treatments, for example, in reducing the number of funding streams and the amount of administration. That is a top priority.
As the trail-blazing partnership in my hon. Friend's constituency has shown, good local partnerships throughout the country have delivered dramatic improvements in services. Waiting times are falling; the number of drug misusers entering treatment rose by 7.5 per cent. in the last period for which we have the figures, and we are on track to deliver the target of doubling the number of problem drug misusers in treatment in the next few years. Every area now has a young people's substance misuse plan to try to stop young people today becoming drug misusers tomorrow.
We have a good national strategy, but my hon. Friend is right to say that a minority of local partnerships are not performing well, and we must invest time and energy in helping them to improve their performance. In some cases, where partnerships are struggling or failing to deliver, we have directly intervened through the Government offices for the regions and the National
58WH
Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse. We are already doing that in Bristol, and the Government office for the south-west is considering how to evaluate how well the partnerships are working, in order to make them more efficient. We are expecting a report in July with recommendations about practical action to support the partnerships.
In the case of Plymouth we are, as my hon. Friend acknowledged, investing more than £2 million this year to help to tackle the problems of drugs and crime, which includes bringing down waiting times for treatment, which is important. The pooled treatment budget for this year is nearly £1.4 million, which is an increase of £202,000 on last year. Moreover, there is £250,000 for arrest referral, £224,000 for communities against drugs and £221,000 under the borough commanders fund, so there is a range of funding streams into drug treatment in Plymouth.
Plymouth has the second-largest pooled treatment budget allocation per head in the south-west region; it is second only to Bristol. I hope that that is a reflection of the issues that my hon. Friend has outlined today. The 17 per cent. increase in the allocation for Plymouth this year is in addition to a minimum 30 per cent. increase for all health authorities, and that is a sign that the Government recognise the pressures that Plymouth faces.
My hon. Friend also mentioned the importance of communications in the drug strategy. I commend the work of her local newspaper and the reporters who have been involved in trying to ensure both that the issue is right at the forefront of local communities' concerns and that local people feel that they can do something to make a difference. As my hon. Friend will probably know, we have just launched the Frank helpline service, together with extensive television and radio advertising. We are trying to make contact not only with young people but with their parents and carers, and with anyone who wants good, authoritative, independent and accurate information about the problems that drugs can cause and the harm that they can inflict. The campaign is very new, and we are looking forward to the evaluation, but I think that it will help us to tackle the problems that drugs cause.
There are signs that the Plymouth partnership is beginning to respond to the challenge, but I know that there are still significant problems. In the last year Plymouth has developed an integrated criminal justice team, which is funded by resources allocated to Plymouth under the drugs strategy which amount to about £1 million. That will target drug-using offenders; it is an excellent example of joined-up working to get the offenders into treatment; and it will, I am sure, impact on local crime. The team has commissioned a new structured day-care programme, filling a major gap in the available services. That will help to bring down waiting times in the other modalities of treatment that are available in the community.
The problem of crack has been recognised—my hon. Friend was eloquent in describing the misery that it causes—as has the new set of issues that it poses compared with traditional opiate dependency. Work is under way to ensure that crack users are supported through the existing drugs services, and there is now a comprehensive system of training for key staff, because it takes new skills to deal with the problem. The

59WH
intention is to integrate crack treatment into the Harbour service that my hon. Friend talked about, which is a major step forward in recognising the local problems.
However, my hon. Friend is absolutely right that we need to build more capacity and more treatment services to meet demand. However, that takes longer than any of us would want. We are starting from a low base on drug treatment, which was never a priority for previous Governments, so increasing capacity takes time. Doing so involves the training and recruitment of staff and the introduction of new services where appropriate, many of which will become operational as the funding feeds through. It is fair to say that the recruitment of staff, as in many parts of the public sector, is one of the constraining factors. However, I am pleased that we have exceeded our targets for the recruitment of new staff into drug treatment quite significantly this year, which is a sign that people are beginning to think that it is well worth pursuing a long-term career in drug treatment, which the Government are increasingly supporting and mainstreaming.
Waiting times for some treatment services in Plymouth have been far too long: indeed, they still are. I know that waiting times for detox services and residential rehabilitation have stretched to three months and that those for specialist community prescribing have risen to nearly six months. That is unacceptable, and waiting times must be reduced if we are to break the link between drugs and crime. However, I am encouraged by the fact that the wait for non-specialist community prescribing is down to four weeks, with good shared care with local GPs; that the wait for structured care planned counselling is down to four weeks; and that there is no wait for structured day-care programmes. That is significant progress. If we can continue with it, I believe that it will have a positive impact on crime levels.
Building treatment capacity is not about making the system bigger or simply having more of the facilities that are already on offer. We must get extra value out of the money that we spend. Ensuring that the commissioning process is effective, transparent and properly informed by all partners is a key factor. When partnerships are struggling and have a poor track record of delivery, I am determined that we should intervene to help and support them.
Linda Gilroy: Does my hon. Friend accept that Plymouth is not failing but has a successful track record? It merits support from the Department of the sort that was forthcoming from my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-East in the round 6 invest to save bid. I understand that a decision will be taken on that at the
60WH
end of July or in August, and we should all work proactively towards that end. We share the Government's goals, and together we can help to achieve some of the targets, nationally as well as locally.
Ms Blears: Yes, I am very aware that the ethos, philosophy and practice of partnership working is exhibited strongly in Plymouth, and that partners there are signed up to delivering effectively. I know that my hon. Friend supports an ambitious bid in the invest to save programme to try to ensure even more drug treatment services. I have no doubt that the application will be considered extremely carefully and that a decision will be made shortly, during the next round.
We need to support partnerships in the next stage of development. The Plymouth crime and disorder partnership was a trail-blazer in its early days, and it has gone on to do some excellent work, but I want to ensure that all partnerships can deliver. We must help them to take the next leap forward so that they can become even more effective.
We have the opportunity to develop a strategic framework under the newly merged partnership. It is a crucial time for places like Plymouth to take that step. I hope that the local partnership grasps the opportunity, and that it develops a robust framework for the joint commissioning of treatment services to ensure the effectiveness of the local drug treatment system. The resources are being made available, and I am sure that the partnerships are committed to getting full value.
The development of the new commissioning structure over the next few months will enhance the capacity, quality and effectiveness of the treatment system. I want to ensure, at both national and Government office level, that we give all partners enough support to ensure that they can serve my hon. Friend's constituents, who are so greatly in need of those services. That will be a lesson for us all. We need to work collaboratively nationally, regionally and locally in our communities; only by working together can we get better results. It is my responsibility to simplify the bureaucracy so that staff can spend more time delivering services instead of dealing with administration. I am committed to trying to achieve that.
Once again, I commend my hon. Friend for her debate. Once again, she has exhibited how much of a champion she is for the people of Plymouth. I have no doubt that the partnership will go from strength to strength, delivering some excellent treatment services in the community. If it breaks the link between drugs and crime, it will reduce the misery and personal anguish that drugs cause to all communities. My hon. Friend knows as well as anyone the distress and difficulties that drugs cause to her community, and she is doubtless an effective player in ensuring that such distress is dramatically reduced.

Stamp Duty (Edinburgh)
4 pm
John Barrett: I welcome the opportunity to discuss the impact that stamp duty is having not just on my constituents but on those seeking to enter or move up the property market throughout Edinburgh. I hope to be positive and constructive, and I am very pleased to see the Minister in his place. I am grateful that he has taken the time to come to respond to the debate. While he might not be able to answer all my points, I would appreciate it if he could write to me with the answers to some of my more detailed questions.
I must declare an interest in that I am in the process of selling my house. However, I hope to show that it is the impact that the duty has on younger people and the less well-off that causes me concern, and not the fact I will shortly be contributing to the Minister's Department. Some might he surprised about this debate. Many do not see Edinburgh as a city in particular need—in fact, most people see it as a booming city, with a thriving tourism industry and a strong local economy. For the most part, that assessment is true. Having said that, I remember sitting in this very Chamber last week during a debate on the impact of the London Olympic bid on the rest of the country. Hon. Members from the north of England complained strongly that a rich and prosperous London would benefit from the Olympics at the expense of a poorer and more needy north, while hon. Members from London rightly pointed out that, within the overall affluence of London and the south-east, there are pockets of real deprivation. The same is true of Edinburgh, as is shown by its eight areas that are included in the national index of deprivation.
Stamp duty was first introduced by the Government in 1694 and was always intended to be a tax on the wealthy, or at least on wealthy property transactions. In the past few decades, there have been many changes to it, most of them positive. In 1958, the threshold at which stamp duty rates applied was £3,500. That was increased in 1972, 1980, 1982, and most recently in 1993, when the threshold for paying 1 per cent. stamp duty was doubled from £30,000 to £60,000. The 10 years since that change have seen dramatic changes in house prices in the UK, and in Edinburgh specifically.
To put it in perspective, the average house price in Edinburgh in 1988 was just over £47,000. The most recent figures from the Edinburgh Solicitors Property Centre show that the current average house price in the city is more than £130,000, an increase of 176 per cent. The increase last year in Edinburgh was 17 per cent. and, contrary to some predictions, the price boom shows little sign of abating.
Edinburgh is far and away the most expensive place in Scotland in which to buy a house—on average it is more than £25,000 more expensive than its nearest rival in Stirling. The price increases have had a major impact on the ability of a huge section of people, particularly first-time buyers who are trying to get on to the first rung of the property ladder, to purchase a house. Most of those people, when they do move, face an additional and quite considerable charge by way of stamp duty, because it is almost impossible to find a property costing less than £60,000 in Edinburgh. The ESPC tells me that
62WH
when the £60,000 threshold was introduced in 1993, only 32 per cent. of the properties sold in Edinburgh were subject to stamp duty. This year, 92 per cent. of properties were sold for more than £60,000.
The figures are clear. Massively more people in Edinburgh have to pay stamp duty than was ever previously the case. It is no longer a tax on the wealthy; in my city, stamp duty has become a basic tax on moving, and many people, especially those involved in the property market, are amazed that, despite the dramatic increases in house prices over the past few years, the Government have chosen not to review the threshold, as has been done on nine occasions since 1958. That has had a particular impact on some of my constituents, who have been forced to move because of redundancy—there have been major redundancies on the west side of Edinburgh in recent years; the large employer Ethicon is in the process of scaling down and, prior to that, Grampian Foods and Continental Tyres laid people off.
The chief executive of the National Association of Estate Agents, Julie Westby, has said that £60,000 is no longer a realistic figure. She has advocated a threshold of £120,000—the current average house price across the UK. Halifax Bank of Scotland and the Council of Mortgage Lenders have advocated a similar increase.
Serious implications also arise from the Chancellor's refusal to raise the £250,000 threshold at which stamp duty jumps from 1 to 3 per cent. When the higher rate was introduced, he promised that only 2 per cent. of property sales would be affected. However, I can tell the Minister that in Edinburgh today, the figure stands at 20 per cent. The Government must recognise that paying £250,000 for a house no longer represents a transaction carried out only by the wealthy, as it once did. Ordinary families are now hit with massive costs of £7,500 or more for average properties in the city.
My other major concern relates to the operation of the disadvantaged areas relief, which the Chancellor introduced three years ago. I stress at the outset that I very much support that initiative and appreciate the good intentions that the Chancellor and the rest of the Government had when they pursued the introduction of the scheme through the House and the European Union. Although 1 was not a Member of Parliament at the time, I recall from the Library note that the initiative met with little opposition or controversy.
As the Minister will know, many people have benefited from that relief. One who has benefited recently is a constituent of mine, Louise Lang, who is in the process of making one of the biggest investments that she will ever make in purchasing her first property. She is buying a flat in the constituency of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mr. Lazarowicz), which comes under the EH6 disadvantaged area. The stamp duty relief more than halved her estimated moving costs, which had stood at £2,000. She told me that the relief had made a major and positive difference to her move.
However, the disadvantaged areas relief system is far from perfect. Three years after its introduction, the Government would do well to reconsider whether it is having the desired impact. I strongly believe that the way in which the relief operates has thrown up a range of anomalies. That is illustrated by the scheme's operation in the city of Edinburgh.

63WH
As the Minister will be aware, Scotland is unique when it comes to the relief, because the areas included in the scheme are determined by postcode rather than council ward. That brings a set of disadvantages and advantages. It is clear that council ward boundaries do not always respect boundaries of deprivation, although the boundary commission is always alert to the idea of keeping natural communities together.
When I learned that postcodes were used to determine deprived areas, I thought that that was a better system and would allow for more detailed and specific targeting of the relief. However, I quickly discovered that only the first three or four characters of the postcode are taken into account—for example, EH4 4 or EH11 3. In Edinburgh, eight such districts are included under the relief system. Roughly speaking, those correspond to Muirhouse in my constituency, Granton, Leithharbour, Wester Hailes, Craigmillar, Holyrood and Fountainbridge.
Broadly speaking, inclusion of those areas in the disadvantaged areas relief system is right and has had a positive impact. However, the decision to operate the scheme according to broad postcode districts brings with it a series of anomalies. One property in Muirhouse Green in my constituency is included in the EH4 4 disadvantaged district, so a person purchasing a house there for some £82,000 will not have to pay stamp duty. However, a person purchasing a flat just up the road in Wester Drylaw place, which is five minutes away and could be described as equally disadvantaged, will not be eligible for the relief and will be landed with a stamp duty bill of some £700. That is because, for postcode purposes, Drylaw is lumped in with leafy Craigleith, Blackhall and even part of Fettes village, which includes Prime Minister's old private school. I simply do not understand why my constituents in Drylaw, for whom an upfront payment of £700 is a lot of money, should be further disadvantaged in relation to their neighbours living just across the road.
In an even worse example, postcode districts EH3 8 and EH8 8, which the ESPC mentions as
"including parts of Holyrood and the West End which are now among the city's biggest development hotspots"
are included in disadvantaged areas. That means that while someone buying a small flat in Alan Breck in Clermiston in my constituency for around £70,000 has to pay stamp duty of around £700, someone purchasing one of the plush Georgian apartments near Gardners crescent at the West End might not have to pay a penny.
I do not know how the Minister can justify those disparities. Surely there could be a better system and some improvement to take more detailed account of local considerations. If the first three or four digits of a postcode can be considered, why not the fifth digit, which would help other areas in Edinburgh, especially those such as Drylaw, Clermiston, and even Ratho Station and Kirkliston, which I believe should benefit from disadvantaged area relief schemes? Those areas are left out because they have the same postcodes as other, more affluent areas.
Mr. Mark Lazarowicz: The hon. Gentleman has made valuable points about
64WH
the way in which the boundaries of stamp duty relief are drawn. Does he agree that that illustrates the necessity for a fundamental review of the way in which we finance housing and encourage housing to be built through the tax system and through the financial services industry, which the Chancellor has announced he is investigating? Does he accept that that is what we need if we are to address some of the fundamental difficulties for people on low incomes and first-time buyers buying houses in places such as Edinburgh? The problems that he mentioned are probably even worse in my constituency, where there have been even more substantial house price increases in some areas, and where it is now extremely difficult for anyone not just on an average income but on anything other than a high income to buy a house.
John Barrett: The hon. Gentleman makes some valid points, on access to low-cost housing and by first-time buyers. I urge all hon. Members to pressure the Chancellor, if possible, to consider stamp duty relief for first-time buyers. That would be a great change for the better.
I will make a few more general comments about stamp duty to raise some additional concerns. I make no apology for saying that in my view stamp duty should be abolished in the long term. Certainly I would like to see the Government work towards that aim. However, to be fair to the Government and the Minister, I also recognise that, because of the boom in property prices, the duty now raises a significant amount of money for the Treasury. The figures that I have—the Minister may be able to provide us with more up-to-date figures—show that some £3 billion is raised every year from stamp duty, compared with just £600 million when the Government first came to office in 1997.
Scotland contributed more than £235 million in stamp duty last year, so I accept that abolition of the duty would have a major knock-on effect in terms of the money available for spending on public services. However, there are a number of ways in which the Government can reform stamp duty to make it more simple and progressive. The structure of the duty makes it unusual compared with other taxes in the way that the different bands increase with the level of transaction, yet the tax applies to the entire transaction. There are major incentives for property to be sold at just under the three different levels at which stamp duty increases. For example, selling a house at £59,999 rather than £60,000 would save £600 in stamp duty. Selling a house at £249,999 rather than for £1 more saves £5,000. As a result, there is a strong incentive for people to sell fixtures and fittings at an increased price, while decreasing the price of the property to try to avoid stamp duty.
The director of the Council of Mortgage Lenders has conceded that fact. Research carried out by my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and St. Austell (Matthew Taylor) has shown that, as stamp duty has increased, the number of properties sold at just below the threshold has also increased. The cost of that practice to the Treasury has been estimated at around the £10 million mark. If the Minister has any more up-to-date figures, I would be keen to hear them.
What consideration have the Government given to measures that would tackle this blatant tax avoidance? Why are the Government so attached to the current

65WH
structure of stamp duty? What particular advantages does it have, and why can there not be a more progressive system, whereby duty could be paid on the sale price over a particular threshold? There is evidence to suggest that that could be done on a cost-neutral basis. Could there be an exemption for first-time buyers, to allow people to get on to the first rung of the property ladder?
Finally, I have been very concerned about reports of recent Treasury discussion papers, which suggest that the Government are considering varying stamp duty with the economic cycle, on the premise that housing is relatively lightly taxed. I do not understand why the Government wish to tax and financially penalise people simply for moving home. I do not understand why that is something that the Government would wish to discourage.
I hope that I have spelled out the problems of the system as it stands, and why it has been affecting some of my constituents in such an adverse fashion. I do not wish to be too negative—I repeat my praise for the Government for some of the reforms that they have pushed through—but there is still some way to go. I look forward to hearing the Minister's comments.
4.15 pm
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Healey): I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett) on securing the debate, and on the constructive and measured way in which he put his arguments. I also welcome the interest shown by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mr. Lazarowicz).
As a result of the macro-economic changes and policies that the Government put in place from 1997, base rates are now at their lowest level since 1955. Economic stability is delivering rising prosperity and record employment. Real household disposable incomes have also continued to improve and consumer confidence is rising. Net household wealth in the UK has increased by more than 40 per cent. since 1997. Employment is at a record high and unemployment is at its lowest since the 1970s. It is partly because of continuing high employment that demand for houses in cities such as Edinburgh is so strong.
Continuing stability through the Government's policies, and in particular, continuing low interest rates, have more than anything else helped people to be able to afford to buy their first home. Furthermore, continuing low, stable inflation means that there is less of an artificial incentive to use property purchase as an inflation hedge. Continuing economic stability means that households are better able to judge their long-term commitments, such as mortgage debt.
Of course, there are more affordable houses in some areas than in others. That is true across the UK. I recognise that Edinburgh—as the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West has explained—has experienced especially marked increases in house prices in the past year. He said that house prices had increased by 17 per cent.; that figure comes from a Halifax Bank of Scotland survey. He might be interested to know that the comparator is a UK average house price increase over the same period of 23.4 per cent. In Leeds, which is close to my constituency, the increase has been 29 per cent. In
66WH
Bristol, the figure is 28 per cent. In Brighton, which is comparable to Edinburgh, there has been a 19 per cent. rise.
I emphasise that it is buyers and sellers, not the Government, who set prices in the housing market, and consequently the amount of stamp duty that is payable. In the end, the market is determined by what people are willing and able to pay. Stamp duty is a very small factor in that. The hon. Gentleman, and my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith may have read in The Economist last week that the UK has extremely low costs for buying a home: around 4 to 5 per cent. goes to estate agents, solicitors and duty, while in most of Europe and in America those costs are at least 10 per cent.
I turn to the specific concerns that the hon. Gentleman raised about stamp duty. He cited figures for Edinburgh and the slightly wider area of Midlothian. In 2002, just under 30 per cent. of residential purchases were for property valued at less than £60,000. As he said, purchasers pay no stamp duty when the purchase price is £60,000 or less. Therefore, well over a quarter of residential purchases, which would include many first-time buys, pay no stamp duty in Midlothian.
For purchases where the purchase price is between £60,000 and £250,000, stamp duty is charged at 1 per cent. of the purchase price. In 2002, 64 per cent. of residential purchases in Midlothian were within that bracket. The average price paid by a first-time buyer in Edinburgh in the fourth quarter of 2002 was just over £75,000. That results in a stamp duty charge of only £750. In the traditional entry areas—including some in the hon. Gentleman's constituency—the average price paid by a first-time buyer was about £65,000, so many such purchases would have been below the £60,000 threshold and most of those who did pay stamp duty will have paid less than £700. There must be more significant factors for first-time buyers than that.
Stamp duty is a one-off charge, and it is often much lower than other charges that house purchasers face. The hon. Gentleman asked about the Government's policies and principles in relation to stamp duty. We are committed, with stamp duty as with other taxes, to target relief where it is most needed. We are not convinced that an increase in thresholds, which takes no account of the circumstances of individual buyers, is the best way to assist those on the bottom rung of the housing ladder. Indeed, an increase in thresholds might actually fuel house price inflation and make property less affordable for first-time buyers, as would removing stamp duty for first- time buyers, as he proposes.
John Barrett: Will the Minister outline any proposals that the Government have to assist first-time house buyers who are normally up against people who have a property to sell, and who find themselves at a disadvantage? Can they be helped?
John Healey: I said a moment ago that our policies are informed by wanting to target relief where it is most needed. I shall explain where we are targeting that relief and why we believe that that is where it is needed. The definition is not necessarily based on those who are buying property for the first time.
The housing market has been prone to boom and bust, and that has too often contributed to the UK's unhappy history of macro-economic instability. Indeed,

67WH
the hon. Gentleman will recognise, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith does, the importance of stability in housing markets in increasing convergence between the UK's economy and that of the eurozone. A tax such as stamp duty, which progressively takes more yield out of a rising housing market, can help to dampen housing market fluctuations. Any moves to uprate stamp duty thresholds in line with rising house prices would undermine that valuable stabilising property of the tax.
The hon. Gentleman cited some of the advocates for a higher threshold and referred to a suggestion of £120,000. If we increased the stamp duty threshold to £100,000, the cost to the Exchequer would be £300 million. That loss of yield would have to be made up elsewhere, or balanced by cuts in public services.
Instead of an across-the-board increase in thresholds, the Government will continue to consider reliefs targeted at those in most need, and the hon. Gentleman has mentioned one of the most significant: the introduction in 2001 of exemption from stamp duty for purchases in disadvantaged areas where the purchase price is £150,000 or less. He described the policy as one informed by good intentions. I welcome that, and I am glad that it has helped his constituent, Louise Lang. She is one of 400 in Edinburgh who have been assisted by that stamp duty relief. However, as he expressed some concerns, let me dwell on them.
When the relief was implemented on 30 November 2001, it provided for an exemption from stamp duty in respect of all property in designated disadvantaged areas where the consideration, or premium, for a lease does not exceed £150,000. In this year's Budget, the Chancellor announced the implementation of an extension of the relief. That removed the £150,000 limit for non-residential property, effectively affording unlimited relief in those areas.
Mr. Lazarowicz: In my constituency, the public sector partnership leading the redevelopment of West Shore road, Granton—a major development—estimates that it will gain hundreds of thousands of pounds, or possibly millions, from the relief granted for commercial elements. It can already use the benefit of the scheme to redevelop an area in great need of regeneration. If my
68WH
hon. Friend the Minister passes through Edinburgh, I invite him to visit the area to see what good work the scheme has already done.
John Healey: I am delighted that the relief appears to be working well in my hon. Friend's constituency. It is designed to stimulate greater business and economic activity in areas that for too long have had less economic activity, fewer firms and fewer jobs.
In addition to the announcement about the removal of the £150,000 limit for non-residential property, the Chancellor also provided for relief from duty in the rental element of new leases executed on or after the Budget on 10 April 2003. The areas were selected using the indices of deprivation produced in each of the four parts of the United Kingdom. In each case, the index ranks areas according to an overall score achieved by measuring a range of factors relevant to deprivation. They include income, employment, health, education, poverty and access to services.
The national indices of deprivation provide the best available evidence of disadvantage, thereby allowing the Government to meet their objective of targeting the relief at the most deprived areas of the UK. In some areas, there may be pockets of prosperity. Similarly, some wealthy areas in Scotland and in England will contain pockets of deprivation, but are not deprived overall. I must say to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West that the indices of deprivation are the best method of ensuring that the relief goes to those who most need it.
Some 135 of the qualifying areas are in Scotland, nine of which are in Edinburgh. The indices for Wales, England and Northern Ireland define an area as an electoral ward. The index applied in Scotland uses postcode areas, not wards, as the hon. Gentleman said. The Scottish Executive recently published an updated index of deprivation and will deliver final measures of deprivation in 2004. That programme of work uses wards, which he might find encouraging. We will consider the implications of this work in conjunction with the work being undertaken in England.
The Government will continue with policies that lead to low and stable inflation and will continue to target tax reliefs at those most in need of them. Increasing the stamp duty threshold could reduce the stabilising role of the tax. It would certainly reduce the revenue to the public finances, which would have to be recovered by tax rises or public service cuts elsewhere.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes past Four o'clock.