Westminster Hall Sitting of 11 March 2003

Preamble
[SIR NICHOLAS WINTERTON in the Chair]

Women's Pensions
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—[Mr. Woolas.]
9.30 am
Vera Baird: A subtitle for a debate on women and pensions might well be, "A Tale of Poverty and Inequity". As many as 46 per cent. of single female pensioners now live in poverty. I do not feel very happy about the fact that, in the early part of a new century, almost half of single female pensioners are in such a state, but poverty there is. Another 31 per cent. of single elderly women—I assume that that figure is additional, but I am happy to be corrected—are in danger of falling into poverty compared with 25 per cent. of elderly men.
The average single female pensioner has £153 a week; the average man has£194. For couples, the average man gets £248, and the average woman gets £96. The debate is about inequity, not inequality. The situation is particularly harsh in that women make up the majority of pensioners—almost two thirds of pensioners, about 7 million, are women. More women pensioners than men live on their own and therefore have to manage their households out of reduced and limited earnings and 70 per cent. of female pensioners have no private pension. Before I weary the Chamber with more statistics, I shall pick out the last and the first figures: 70 per cent. of women pensioners have no private pension and 46 per cent. of single women pensioners live in poverty. What does that say about the adequacy of state provision for women pensioners?
There are of course cultural and historic reasons why women pensioners are poor. The lifetime model for the generation of women now in retirement would have been to leave school, work for a few years and then marry, stop work, make a home and, usually, raise children. However, not all women wanted to stop work on marriage. Lest anyone should think that by following the cultural norm, those women are reaping their current poverty from having led pleasurable lives of economic inactivity, I shall mention two factors. First, I doubt whether anyone nowadays is prepared to say that caring for a partner and family, particularly and exclusively in the absence of any other role or identity, is either easy or, in a modern sense, fulfilling. Secondly, in many cases it was compulsory for women to leave work not on having children but on getting married. My mother in law had to give up her job as a civil servant not when she became pregnant but on her marriage. I assume that in the post-war era it was regarded as important to preserve jobs for men. Whatever the cultural norm, however, some women simply did not have a choice.
The present generation of pensioners is reaping the result. As women have participated less in the labour market, they have built up less state income in their own right. Until 1978, even when they were working, women
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usually paid the reduced rate of national insurance—the women's contribution. They never became entitled to a pension in their own right, but depended instead on a category B state pension—a maximum of 60 per cent. of the full rate. That would be calculated on the husband's contributions, which may or may not have been sufficient. Women's more limited participation in the labour market of course meant lower rates of pay. They either withdrew or worked part-time when they had their children, and part-time rates of pay are lower. Very few women in the generation that is receiving pensions had the opportunity to invest in private pension provision to supplement state provision.
In 1978, there was a helpful change and home responsibilities protection was introduced. It reduced the number of years needed to qualify for the state pension for every year—up to a maximum of 19—that a person looked after children. One can now qualify for a basic state pension after just 20, not 39 years of work.
In the Social Security Pensions Act 1975, Barbara Castle abolished the married woman's option, although she allowed those who had taken it to retain it. In 1975, she called the option the "alibi" for the inferior treatment of women. Ever since, however, the terms of the partial abolition and retention of the married woman's option have remained a source of great contention between older women and the Government. Its removal was non, the unalloyed benefit that Barbara Castle—that truly great pioneer of women's equality—intended it to be.
Eileen, my caseworker in Redcar, is highly articulate and very skilled and she is a case in point. She started work 36 years ago and was told, "You don't need to pay. Your husband's payment will cover you." She told me, "In those days, husbands told wives what was good for them and so did bosses." The chances are—this is certainly true in Eileen's case—that women thought that the man's stamp was for both of them and that it would be silly to pay more. It is eminently believable that that would be the view. However, as Eileen put it to me, women were not covered as adequately.
Eileen opted for the small stamp. In 1989, she took the option to change over, but she has not accumulated enough years to get a proper pension. She worked part-time while her children were young. She never worked less than 20 hours, but she was not allowed to join the company pension scheme, so she lost out there as well. She therefore has no full retirement pension. Her occupational pension is starting to accumulate, but it is severely reduced. She also lost out on home responsibilities protection because her children were born a shade too early for the system to apply. She expects a basic pension of about £30 a week.
We should not rest easy, telling ourselves that these women were simply victims of the bad old days and that we now look at things from a more modern and egalitarian standpoint. We should not simply say that it will not happen again, because women have been given the minimum income guarantee and are supported. As a nation, we treated those women unfairly.
Governments have said that a leaflet was sent out explaining to women that those who did not pay the full stamp would not get any pension, but that is not an adequate response. Everyone understands that women were just starting to emerge into the world of affairs—

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by which I mean business affairs. They were unlikely to take that information on board. If they did, their husbands would tell them—again understandably, given the culture at the time—"Of course, the Government have to send information out. Some men are villains, but I'll look after you You're quite safe. There's no point having independent provision."
These women are now likely to be poor and to be on the minimum income guarantee or perhaps pension credit, with its different criteria. They have been left with low incomes by an act of unfairness. The Government should return to the issue when, in pursuit of their Green Paper consultation document, they consider the position of pensioners. They should examine whether it is possible to return to the question of women who paid the small stamp, which was sometimes bigger than the one that would have qualified them for a category A pension. They paid as much as £19 a week for nothing. For instance, a woman who had not paid any stamp would receive a category B pension, based on her husband's national insurance contributions, as would the woman who had paid the£19 stamp.
I invite the Government to consider giving those women, on retirement, some form of accumulation of what they have forgone—whatever proportion it might be practical to disburse in that way. That would help them to remain off state benefit, or less dependent on it, so it would be in the interests of all of us. At the same time it would be fair and would redress a wrong that is harshly felt, particularly in places such as Redcar, for a long time home to heavy manual industry such as steel works, in which gender roles were extremely polarised. Women there were late to emerge in their own right, continuing to be dependent on their men for longer than metropolitan women might have been. They, like my researcher Eileen, now find themselves in a predicament. They were denied financial self-determination in their youth and they were denied it by the culture in their middle lives. If some recompense is not made, they will be denied financial self-determination in their old age and will spend it in pensioner poverty.
Nothing in my contribution is intended to be critical of the Government. They have done an enormous amount, quickly, to pour money into the poorest pensioners, predominantly women. Nevertheless, about 1 million women pensioners are on the MIG. When pension credit comes in, two thirds of those entitled to it are likely to be women, although that is designed for those who are slightly better off than those on whom I have focused. The Government have acted, and they have acted well.
Lynne Jones: Recalling my hon. and learned Friend's comments about her case worker, who has a small occupational pension, is she not concerned that Eileen will not receive the benefits of pension credit because she does not have a full basic pension?
Vera Baird: I suspect also that because the pension credit is assessed on Eileen's income and that of her husband, she is likely to be outside its limitations. That
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is another problem with pension credit—the incomes of both parties are aggregated in considering whether they qualify. I thank my hon. Friend for that point.
Mr. Oliver Heald: Does the hon. and learned Lady agree that one concern is the low take-up of minimum income guarantee and pension credit? About 770,000 households do not take it up with the result that, despite what the Government have done, the income of single pensioners as a percentage of national average earnings has remained exactly the same since 1997 and the gap between the richest and the poorest pensioners has widened.
Vera Baird: I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman's figures are right, but I shall leave it to my hon. Friend the Minister to correct them if necessary. It is a continuing problem that older people are reluctant to take up benefits such as the MIG. It is difficult to get them to do it, and nobody could have tried harder than have the Government. The hon. Gentleman makes an opportune intervention. This Saturday, a team of Labour party activists in Redcar, led by me, will go out to try to encourage better take-up of those benefits by older people. We Labour MPs have good relations with our pensioners' forums. From them we get advice on the best ways to encourage take-up.
Mr. Heald: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Lady for giving way to me again. Is she aware that in 1996 the number of pensioner households not taking up income support was 600,000 and that now, despite all the efforts that she has mentioned, the figure is 770,000? Is that not a sign that despite the best efforts of Governments we have not cracked the problem of getting the money to those who need it?
Vera Baird: As I said, the difficulty is almost intractable. There are problems with the complexity of forms, although many of those have been substantially tackled. The leader of my pensioners' forum tells me that although the application form is quite a few pages long, it is now just over a third of what it used to be. Many unnecessary questions have been cut out. One cannot fault local authorities, the Government and Labour councillors and MPs who have gone to the trouble of setting up such liaisons to find out what the problems of take-up are.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Eagle): On a point of information, the minimum income guarantee claim form has been cut from 40 pages to 10—questions such as, "Are you pregnant?" have been removed. It is a quarter of its former length.
Vera Baird: I thought it was a third, but I shall leave most of the figures to my hon. Friend, who is a mistress of figures.
Mr. Mark Francois: On the complexity point, most pensioners receive their pension over a post office counter. Many pensioners, many of whom are women, are extremely concerned that the Government have made the process of collecting their pensions more complex by insisting that pensioners have some form of

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bank account at their post office. That is highly unpopular with pensioners. The system was not broken, so why on earth did the Labour party have to fix it?
Vera Baird: The hon. Gentleman is being somewhat unfair. It will still be possible to pick up pensions and associated benefits at a post office by using a card. I have received few complaints about that. I have heard concerns about the closing of post offices, and that is entirely natural, but I have not heard many concerns about pensions no longer being available.
Limited take-up has more to do with the complexity of the forms and the process than being unable to find the way to one's local post office. Fortunately, the process has become less complex. I suspect that hardest for all Governments to get to grips with is that older people are reluctant to apply for anything that they do not regard as absolutely theirs by right. That is a hopelessly intractable problem. All we can do is improve our literature and our efforts.
Moving on to future women pensioners, I shall quote the Green Paper and raise some concerns about it. It says on page 57:
"Much of the improvement in the pension provision of future female pensioners will come from labour market improvements—higher employment rates and better pay."
I detect a worrying tinge of complacency there. However, the paragraph after that readily concedes
"pension provision will still lag behind that of men for some years."
My concerns are not allayed by the next sentence, however, which states:
"Many of these problems flow in part from a lack of awareness and understanding of the pensions system."
It is not a good idea to blame the victim. Had I done a PhD on "Pension Planning for Women in the 21st Century" it would not be of much use to me if I were one of the 40 per cent. of women who earn less than £100 a week. Let us consider women earners and not women pensioners. Knowing a lot about how pensions work would not be a great deal of use to me if I were one of the 40 per cent. of women who still earn less than£100 a week. Consequently, with the thesis that we will rectify the poverty of women on pensions by gradual trickledown, I have some concerns. I appreciate that the document is a Green Paper and so the Government are open to argument. However, the suggestion that the problems that women face about pensions will decline and eventually disappear in time is a myth. There are still fundamental socio-economic differences between men and women that will impact on their financial provision in retirement for a generation.
Women still suffer from a gender pay gap, which is not really closing. The first reason for that is because there are 1.4 million women who are below the lower earnings limit and are not in the national insurance system at all. There are far more women than men in that position. The Equal Pay Act became law in 1970, some 33 years ago. As the Green Paper says, the real landslide that has taken place since then is that average female pay is no longer two thirds of average male pay but is now four fifths. The average weekly male pay for a full-time worker is £100 more than the average weekly female pay for a full-time worker. Again, that figure is from the Green Paper.
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Although we have the highest female participation in the labour market in Europe, only 40 per cent. of it is full-time. When the average male and female wages are compared, taking into account part-timers, the gap is £200. Calculations by the Fawcett Society and the Women's Budget Group clearly show that, at that landslide rate of progress, it will be 75 years before there is anything approaching equal pay between men and women.
There is no doubt that the increase of hourly pay for young women has progressed well; it is now about 95 per cent. of the hourly pay for young men. However, that is not reflected in the incomes of women over 40, which have simply not moved. Between the two—earning reasonably close to what men earn in one's 20s but substantially less per hour in one's 40s—is the second socio-economic difference between men and women that stops women from trickling down to having good pensions, which is the career break. After she has been out of the labour market for a year, the average woman's drop in pay is 16 per cent. That is a wage penalty that is apparently double that to which men in the same situation succumb.
I am again grateful to the Women's Budget Group for calculating that a woman who starts contributing to a pension when she is 25 and takes five years out when she is 30 will have a fund worth 20 per cent. less than it would have been had she worked consistently. If the woman waits until she is 38 before having a child, the reduction is 18 per cent. A woman who does not start paying until she is 30 will build up a fund worth 25 per cent. less at 60 even if she does not have any break at all. Despite the HRP all that time ago in the 1970s being almost fully operative, women who take career breaks still face real problems in saving for their retirement.
Angela Watkinson: The hon. and learned Lady is bringing back all sorts of memories. I started work in 1958. I remember very well the days when there were two different salary scales for men and women doing the same job. On the reduced stamp for women, when I married in 1961 I was persuaded to go on to a reduced married woman's stamp, but I did so in full knowledge of the implications. After quite a substantial career break, during which I brought up my family, I was given the option of going back on to a full stamp. Again, I made a fully considered decision to do so. The literature that was available at the time was clear and I knew exactly what I was doing, so it is not fair to paint all women as victims who did not understand the implications of the reduced women's stamp at that time. That is rather a dangerous generalisation.
Vera Baird: I do not accept that. On what the norm was, I have my informant Eileen, who is my caseworker and was my predecessor's caseworker too. Over the years, she has dealt with a large number of women who were in exactly the same position that she is and who were of exactly the same understanding, namely that they needed to do more than rely on their husbands for future resources. Although I entirely accept what the hon. Lady said about her state of mind, I simply do not accept that that was widespread.
On future pensioners, the second state pension will be immensely helpful to future women pensioners and will assist carers. I understand that it is passported via child

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benefit until the youngest child is five. Passported by the presence of an invalidity care allowance, the second state pension will assist 2 million carers, almost all of whom are likely to be women, to accrue some more pension. However, it is a relatively modest step—I think that the fund is £2.3 billion. Although that is progress, it is small progress that will make some difference but not an enormous amount.
I shall quote a few more figures to try to make that point. At present, to avoid making a claim on minimum income guarantee, it will be necessary to have a stakeholder pension—a third party pension income—of about£30 a week. By 2060, that figure will be about£100 a week. Someone who saves from the age of 25 will have to put aside about£22 a week to be able to receive that income. A person who saved for only 20 years of their life before retirement would need to put aside£62 a week to get that level of income. Given the figures on equal pay that I have quoted, it is self-evident that many women will not be able to set aside that amount of money every week. If they have that money at all, they will have far more pressing needs for it and some apprehension about locking it away in a fund that is not easily liquidated if there is further need.
Those figures show how difficult it will be for many women to climb significantly above the minimum income guarantee. They also point to this truth: that unless radical change is made toward pension financing for women—way beyond what I slightly unkindly characterise as the trickle-down theory on page 57 of the Green Paper—women will not in the foreseeable future be able to acquire significant pensions to keep them out of poverty in old age. Again, the Green Paper says that the Government currently finance 60 per cent. and the private sector 40 per cent. of pension provision. However, it is key to switch that ratio around, so I point again to the figures to which I referred and to how difficult that switch-around will make matters for women in low pay.
What is to be done? First, let me excuse myself by saying that the document is a consultation paper and I introduced the debate not because I have cut-and-dried answers to the problem but because I am keen to put forward a few pointers and suggestions and anxious that others should also put forward their pointers. Certain facts seem plain to me. At present, only the state can remove the unpredictability of women's working lives in relation to pension provision. If both current and future generations of women pensioners are to come out of poverty, it is essential that the basic state pension should be improved, for example, by increasing it at least to the current level of means-testing, by linking it to earnings growth and considering raising age-related additions.
Obviously, the remaining gaps in basic state pension coverage must be plugged by changing the eligibility criteria. The system was designed around a post-war breadwinner-dependent model of work, which is in radical need of updating. It does not fit many men's work patterns these days and it certainly does not fit women's. The requirements have now become unrealistic. People are going into education for longer and starting work later. Further minor but important proposals include reconsidering the lower earnings
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limits. At present, 1.4 million women earn less than£75. At that rate, they will never accrue any NIC credits at all.
Clearly, the number of years of paid employment that is required for entitlement to a full basic state pension should be reduced. I suggest that the definition of "contribution year" could be altered to allow for some sort of aggregation of part-time work into the contribution rate. As I understand it, the Government currently contribute£60 billion to pensions but, in a different sense, they also contribute£20 billion through the tax relaxations available for investors in private pensions. That money could be better used to redress the imbalance in pension provision. I fear that if none of those ideas is taken up and if more radical steps are not taken, in 15 or 20 years, when Eileen is retired on her£30-a-week pension and I have retired on my gold standard—relatively speaking—parliamentary pension and we tune into the Parliamentary channel to hear someone talking about women and pensions, the appropriate subtitle of the debate will continue to be "A Tale of Women's Poverty and Inequity".
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I intend to start the winding-up speeches at, or just after, 10.30 am. I think that four hon. Members want to catch my eye in the debate, so if they are self-disciplined and speak for six or seven minutes each, we shall get them all in.
10.3 am
Annabelle Ewing: I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) on securing this important debate. As has been said, the majority of the poorest pensioners are women. There are several reasons for that, including the well-documented pay gap that women experience during their working lives, even if they are working full-time. Many women work part-time, mainly because they have commitments to look after children, older relatives or both. In addition to receiving lower pay for such part-time work, those women are also unlikely to have any pension provision additional to that of the state pension. Many women have incomplete national insurance contributions records. What should the Government be doing to deal with those problems and ensure that women have decent pensions and are not forced to live in poverty?
In light of the time constraints this morning and the fact that other hon. Members wish to contribute to the debate, I shall simply examine a couple of issues. First, the married woman's stamp is a matter of concern to many of my constituents. Were women who paid the reduced stamp made fully aware of the consequences? Many of my constituents were unaware of the consequences of exercising that option in any detail and they now find themselves facing a bleak future. Does the Minister think that that is equitable and do the Government intend to offer any hope to women in such a position? What plans do the Government have to provide women who have not yet reached pension age and who have incomplete national insurance contributions records with pension forecasts? That would be a useful exercise.
The second key issue, to which the hon. and learned Lady alluded, is the provision of a decent basic state pension. The lack of a decent basic state pension

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penalises those women who have an incomplete employment history. The Government's latest approach to the issue is the pension credit, but it is difficult to see how that is compatible with ensuring a decent state pension for all because it is premised on a massive extension in means-testing of pensioner benefits. As I have said many times, the massive extension of means-testing runs contrary to the Labour party's 1997 manifesto commitment.
Maria Eagle: Is it not the policy of the Scottish National party to abolish pension credit?
Annabelle Ewing: Today, we are talking about the Government's policies. The Scottish National party is arguing for a decent basic state pension and we are not in favour of the massive extension of means-testing proposed in the State Pension Credit Act 2002. The Minister will be aware that I voted in favour of that Act, but I did so having expressed concerns about the effect of means-testing on take-up, concerns that I have expressed again today.
Maria Eagle rose—
Annabelle Ewing: I will not take another intervention because I have only a few minutes left if I am to allow time for other hon. Members to speak.
That is the key issue for dealing with pensioner poverty and women pensioners in the long term. Means-testing demeans pensioners. They feel disinclined to take up means-tested benefits. The system is incredibly complex. It acts as a disincentive to save and has a negative impact on take-up. The Government's record on the take-up of means-tested benefits is poor, as is their record on tackling pensioner poverty. Indeed, in Scotland, after six years of a Labour Government, one in four pensioners lives in poverty. That is a scandal at the beginning of the 21st century. The most effective way to tackle pensioner poverty, including poverty among female pensioners, is to set the basic state pension at a decent rate.
10.9 am
Lynne Jones: I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) on raising this important issue. Women are, and are destined to be, among the poorest pensioners. I am old enough to have paid the married woman's stamp for a short time. I did so simply because I was just starting my career and life was tough. Every penny saved was welcome and I did not look beyond my immediate needs. That must apply to many women.
As my hon. and learned Friend said, many people who carried on paying the married woman's contribution ended up contributing more than they would have done had they paid earnings-related national insurance contributions. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will respond to that point. It is important and relevant to the fact that women who do not have a full pension contribution record will not benefit in full from the Government's pension credit. Something should be done to recognise that fact and to improve married women's basic state pension.
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The pension credit is a useful mechanism to assist men and women on small occupational pensions who feel aggrieved because, having put by savings for an occupational or personal pension, they find themselves no better off than if they had relied on the state. Instead of being penalised 100 per cent. for every additional pound of savings, they are to be penalised by only 40 per cent. However, I echo the calls from both previous speakers that a more effective way of dealing with the problem would be to set the basic state pension at the same level as the means-tested benefit. There is a growing clamour for that, not just among old socialists such as myself, but increasingly in the pensions industry.
The Government said that they wanted to increase the proportion of pension savings from the private sector and reverse the current balance of 60 per cent. state and 40 per cent. personal, but they will not succeed unless the basic state pension provides a secure platform so that people can have confidence that everything that they save will benefit them in the long run. It is not only the Institute for Public Policy Research—the so-called favourite left-wing think tank—that is calling for that measure, but other bodies, pension experts and organisations such as the Pensions Policy Institute and the Faculty of Actuaries. That is crucial if we are to have a stable, long-term pensions policy.
The Government have made pensions so complex that people can have no confidence in what the future will bring. I hope that we shall have a Labour Government long into the future, but if no one understands the pensions system it is easy for it to be undermined by future Governments. That occurred with the state earnings-related pension scheme, which the previous Tory Government undermined and, to some extent, the basic state pension with the removal of the right to earnings-linked basic pension and the link to prices.
It is now possible for people to receive annual statements and if we still had the system that Barbara Castle put in place it would be difficult for future Governments to undermine it because people would receive a statement of their entitlement year on year, but that is not the case with the current complexity. It would be difficult to tell people about the interaction between their private, personal pension and the state pension. When I ask parliamentary questions on that matter, the Government always shy away from answering them. We are to require occupational providers to give an annual statement, but there is no provision for giving information about the interaction between the occupational or personal pension and the loss of state entitlements to means-tested benefits because of small pension savings.
In my book, the Government need to be more concerned about the pension savings of people on low incomes than of people on higher incomes, who can take care of themselves. People in this Chamber have access to a good pension and the interaction with mean-tested benefits is of no interest to them. It is of interest to the people for whom saving for a pension means doing without other basics that we take for granted. It would be wrong for the Government to encourage people to embark on personal and private pensions that will leave them no better off than the pension they would have received had they relied on the state. That is the great danger of the Trades Union Congress campaign for

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compulsory pensions. We could find ourselves forcing people to make savings for pensions that will leave them little or no better off than if they had saved in other vehicles.
If future generations are to be better off than today's pensioners, we will all have to save more than we do. The question is how we make those savings. It is essential that we have a strong platform of state benefits, which will enable people to make personal savings with confidence. That particularly affects women, who, as my hon. and learned Friend explained, earn far less and have a shorter earnings span than their male counterparts. If women have private pensions and are not fortunate enough to have good occupational pensions with defined benefits, which will increasingly be the case, they will find that if nothing is done on average their personal pensions will be 10 per cent. less than men's, because of the difference in annuity rates.
The Green Paper touched on that matter, but the Government have shied away from doing anything about it on the basis that because women live longer it would be wrong to require that their pensions from annuities be set at the same level as men's. On average, wealthier people live longer, but if anybody suggested that a rich person should have a lower annuity rate people would be outraged. The Government should deal with that question and make it illegal to discriminate against women in relation to personal pensions.

The Government do not need to worry too much about more affluent people setting money aside for their pensions, but they need to do more to encourage people on low incomes to do so. According to a parliamentary answer on the cost of giving tax relief on pension contributions to higher rate taxpayers, if that tax relief were withdrawn and tax relief were given only at the basic rate, it would save about£1.7 billion. I strongly advocate that, in the interests of having a more robust pension system, the Government should consider redistributing that money to encourage people on low incomes to make more pension savings, perhaps by having a£1 Government contribution for every £1 of savings that people make. That would be much easier for people to understand than current tax relief arrangements. I welcome the proposals in the Green Paper to simplify the tax basis for pension contributions, but there is no real proposal for the distribution of Government support for pension savings. I hope that the Minister will consider that matter.
Time is short, so I shall make my final point. The Green Paper shows that the Government recognise that low-paid and part-time working women may face difficulties in accruing sufficient individual rights for their state pension. It also said that the Government would continue to review the effect on overall entitlement to contributory and other benefits in retirement. Would the Minister give us some idea of the Government's thinking on the matter?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before I call the next speaker, I wish to thank the hon. Member for Perth (Annabelle Ewing) for her self-discipline. Unfortunately, just as she sat down, I was advised that a Member who I thought was seeking to catch my eye
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had to leave to go to a Committee of the House. Therefore, there is not as much pressure on time, but I thank the hon. Lady for her self-discipline and co-operation.
10.20 am
Mr. Mark Francois: I shall still attempt to abide by your earlier instruction, Mr. Deputy Speaker, not least because the subject is highly complex. If I keep my remarks relatively brief, I will allow more time for the real specialists to discuss it in their winding-up speeches.
I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Redcar(Vera Baird) on securing this important debate. I was intrigued to hear that she and a team of Labour activists will be out pounding the pavements in her constituency on Saturday. I would be genuinely fascinated to hear about the results of their endeavour as I suspect that they could be in for a fairly lively morning, given present circumstances.
If we are to have a broad debate on pensions, we must debate them in the context of what is happening to all pensioners, whether they rely solely on a fixed state pension or also belong to a final salary scheme or have made private pension provision. We must discuss pensions against the background of, effectively, a collapse in the stock market in the past few months. At the close of business last night, the FTSE had fallen below 3,500, compared with a peak some two years ago of, I believe, well over 6,000 points. That has several important implications for people with private personal pensions, which, obviously, are largely dependent on stock market values.
It is fair to ask what the Government have done to influence such matters, and it is impossible to ignore the Chancellor of the Exchequer's£25 billion raid on pensions, which began during the first Parliament of this Labour Government. At that time many people, particularly Conservative Members, warned that such an act was not as simple as it first appeared and that the Government could not take£5 billion a year in taxation without important knock-on consequences. That has proven to be exactly the case. Many final salary schemes have closed and that has affected many women.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The thrust of the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird)—and, therefore, the subject of the debate—is pensions and women, not pensions in general. As long as the hon. Gentleman relates his remarks to women, he will remain in order.
Mr. Francois: I am grateful, as ever, for your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Heald: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the hopes for the future for women's pensions had been the fact that 66 per cent. of women in work have some private provision and that 58 per cent. have occupational pensions? Does he agree that the effect of the Chancellor's raid on pensions and the disastrous impact that that has had on the stock market has damaged women's prospects in a very real way?
Mr. Francois: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. As he pointed out, many women are very reliant on that

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type of pension and took reasonably rational decisions to invest in them some years ago when the stock market appeared to be performing in a particular way and, crucially, against a certain set of taxation rules. Those have now, in effect, been altered by the Chancellor with his grab raid.
Maria Eagle: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Francois: I will in one moment, when I have finished my point. Now that the Chancellor has altered those rules, many of those women, who took perfectly rational investment decisions at the time, have suffered mortally.
Maria Eagle: Given that the hon. Gentleman is discussing my right hon. Friend the Chancellor's taxation regime, will he mention the£3.5 billion a year offsetting corporation tax reductions that my right hon. Friend instituted at the same time?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I really do not think that the hon. Gentleman needs to respond to that question, as it is not entirely relevant to pensions.
Mr. Francois: I thank you for your guidance to the Minister, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sure that she has listened to it carefully.
Many female pensioners live on fixed incomes, as the hon. and learned Member for Redcar mentioned. Any sudden increase in taxation can therefore have a particularly adverse effect on them. They often have few financial resources on which they can fall back to pay the increases. I realise that we are debating not council tax this morning, but pensioners living on fixed incomes, many of whom are women. They will suffer in particular when large council tax increases are introduced in April. I shall not dwell further on that matter.
I intervened on the hon. and learned Member for Redcar on picking up pensions at post offices and her reply did not entirely satisfy me. At a post office on pension day, the majority of people picking up their pensions with their giro books are women. A straightforward system has been in place for many years, under which pensioners take their giro books to the post office every week to pick up their pensions. That is beautifully simple and everyone can understand it. Several hon. Members have pointed out that pensions are complicated to begin with. The Government have now complicated the matter further. When those women pensioners go to the post office to pick up their pensions, they will no longer be able simply to use their giro books, which they have been accustomed to for many years. They will either have to have a card or open a bank account at the post office.
We are not debating post office closures this morning, although I think that the hon. and learned Member for Redcar thought that that was the point that I was seeking to make. Several female pensioners have come to my surgery to protest at the change because they are very anxious about it. I have also had quite a few letters from anxious pensioners. Their simple point is that the system works very well and is not complicated. They want to know why they have to go through all these new-fangled arrangements when the old method worked
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well. I have written to Ministers to try to get that argument across and have been met with, in effect, a stone-wall response.
Given that we are debating the complexity of pensions this morning, my real point is that the system is complex enough, but that one aspect of the payment of pensions to our pensioners, many of whom are women, was delightfully straightforward. This Government, who cannot resist meddling, had to go in and fix something that was not broken in the first place.
Vera Baird: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Francois: I will in a moment, but I have an eye on the clock.
The change has caused a great deal of distress to pensioners who do not think that it is necessary. It has worried them and it did not need to happen.
Vera Baird: So far, the hon. Gentleman has ranted about the stock market, post offices and taxation. I am beginning to think that the Conservatives are not interested in the topic of this debate, which is women.
Mr. Francois: The hon. and learned Lady is entitled to her opinion, but I have some bad news for her. It is because of such actions that the Labour Government's poll rating has imploded in the past 18 months. Labour Members do not like it, which is why I am delighted to mention it. With that, I conclude my remarks.
10.29 am
Mr. Steve Webb: I sincerely congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) on bringing this subject to the Chamber this morning. It is vital that the position of women and, in particular, the married woman's stamp, to which I shall return, are considered as an all-party matter. We are all hearing from our constituents about the matter and I hope that the Government will respond positively.
The hon. and learned Lady signed early-day motion 131 on the married woman's stamp, as have other hon. Members who have spoken this morning. It has been signed by more Labour Members than those from other parties and I hope that that will send a signal to the Minister that both sides of the House believe that the issue needs to be addressed. I shall return to the married woman's stamp because one aspect of it is not understood as well as it might be in terms of how we might deal with the problem.
I have a couple of suggestions to the Government on pensions policy that would particularly benefit women. The first relates to the basic state pension. As the hon. and learned Member for Redcar said at the outset, she would like the basic pension to be substantially increased for everyone and referred particularly to older pensioners. Increasing their pensions substantially would be a step in the right direction and would profoundly benefit women. When I asked written questions about that the Government replied that their minimum income guarantee strategy is more effective at targeting the poor.
The Minister should be aware, as I am sure she is, that the computer models used by the Department to estimate the effects of the minimum income guarantee

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policy assume that everyone takes it up. As a result, two inconsistent policies are compared. Everyone takes up the age addition policy because we know that the pension take-up is, as near as damn it, 100 per cent. It is assumed that the minimum income guarantee take-up is 100 per cent. when another arm of the Department assumes in its public spending projections that two thirds take it up. Both cannot be right. The Government say that they are doing more for the poor because the MIG goes only to the poor. My answer is that the poor who receive it obviously do better, but the poor who do not receive it do not receive a penny. When age additions are used, they are all taken up, predominantly by women, and that is the only guaranteed way of getting money to the poor. Some will spill over to woopies—well-off, older people—but that is the price for guaranteeing that money goes to the poor. There is no mechanism for guaranteeing money to old, poor people other than through the basic pension.
Maria Eagle: Does the hon. Gentleman accept, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) certainly would, that some younger pensioners are also poor? How would age additions help them?
Mr. Webb: The Government have decided that the extra money they give to pensioners, instead of going on the basic pension, will go on earnings-linking the MIG. That is a legitimate policy choice, which the Tories accepted in the 1990s. They decided 'to put more money not into the pension but into the means test. That benefits young and old alike if they claim it, but one third of those who are entitled to it do not benefit. My strategy would get money to all older pensioners, many of whom are poor and form the majority of the poorest pensioners. I am not suggesting that we scrap the MIG but asking that when a decision is made about the marginal pound it should go on age additions.
Maria Eagle: I thought that the hon. Gentleman's party wanted to scrap the pension credit, which is the MIG.
Mr. Webb: We are saying that, starting from here, when the pension credit has not come in, we would have spent that£2 billion on age additions and extra pensions for older pensioners. However, the pension credit will be introduced next year. We would not scrap it, but in time we would reduce dependence on it by increasing pensions for older pensioners. That is our strategy and I hope that it is clear.
No one is denying that there are poor pensioners in their 60s, but the Government's approach fails to realise that non-take-up is predominantly a female phenomenon. Most pensioners who do not take up the MIG are female and most are old. Only age additions are guaranteed to get money to them.
My second point concerns compulsory private pensions. I agree with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones) that we must ask the question, "Compulsion on top of what?" Compulsion on top of a pathetic basic pension that only brings people up to a means test is a dud deal. However, compulsion on top of a basic pension that is worth living
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on is a pro-women policy. In Australia, where that is done, the people who gained were those who had not previously been covered by occupational provision, and guess who they were—women and part-timers. Therefore, in Australia, mandatory employer contributions to pensions have boosted those who were previously not pensioned, and they are predominantly women. If the state does its bit through redistribution and by paying a decent basic pension to older pensioners, in particular, mandatory private provision need not be a pro-men policy. It can fill the gaps, which predominantly affect women. Compulsion can therefore be a pro-women policy.
I was delighted that the hon. and learned Lady mentioned the married woman's stamp, which is my main topic. I raised it with the Paymaster General in Committee last Thursday, when we debated a regulation on the rate of that stamp. Other hon. Members and I opposed the decision to increase it by 1 per cent., and the House will have a chance to vote in a deferred Division on Wednesday on whether to increase the rate. We took the view that we should not increase it because it is unfair and already too high.
The interesting exchange between the hon. Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) and the hon. and learned Member for Redcar about whether women knew what they were doing when they signed up for the married woman's stamp demonstrated that some did know and some did not. I do not pretend that no one had a clue what they were doing. However, I have had thousands of letters from women throughout the country who say, independently, that the issue was not explained at the time. As the hon. and learned Lady mentioned, their employers did not explain it to them. They would be 19 or 20 and would have just got back from their honeymoon when the man from payroll would come round and say, "Did you have a nice honeymoon, love? Sign here. You're a married woman now and this is what married women pay." I do not pretend for a second that no one knew; I am simply saying that some people did not. That said, we will not get far with that argument because no one can prove anything now.
Incidentally, the Paymaster General told me that she paid the married woman's stamp but later realised that she had made a mistake. If someone that financially literate made a mistake, one wonders how clear the choices were. None the less, the Minister will no doubt tell us, "All these women signed a form, read a leaflet and knew what they were doing." Even if we suppose that that is true, we must remember that women subsequently had to decide whether to carry on paying the married woman's stamp, and various changes to the women's pension regime made the stamp less attractive.
The hon. and learned Lady mentioned home responsibilities protection, but her caseworker would not have got it even if she had had her children later because women on the married woman's stamp were excluded. As they say, not a lot of people know that. Once HRP came in, many women who were on the married woman's stamp in the early 1980s should have switched back and got it. That said, the hon. and learned Lady was talking about the end of the 1980s, by which time a lot of the damage would have been done to her caseworker's pension record. In the early 1980s, many

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women could have switched back but they did not do so. The issues were too blooming complicated and women did not get proper explanations.
I do not expect the Minister to pay much heed to me, but I urge her to listen to her colleagues, more than 70 of whom signed the early-day motion. I urge her to get the Government Actuary to examine the issue independently—there is no need to listen to me or to anyone else. The Government Actuary should look at the value for money, or otherwise, of the married woman's stamp, how changes in the women's pension regime in the 1970s and 1980s affected the attractiveness, or otherwise, of that stamp and whether people had the necessary information to make an informed choice.
The Minister will tell us that officials wrote to women in 1977 and 1989, but even now, with all the advantages of decades of technology, the Government do not know where half of them live. I therefore do not believe that in 1977, or even in 1989, the Government could have written to all those women telling them how the system worked so that they could make an informed choice.
You will have gathered that I could drone on all morning, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I will not do so and I am sure that you would not let me. I enormously welcome the fact that the hon. and learned Lady discussed the married woman's stamp in such an informed way. Married women's pensions are on the agenda and a chapter in the Green Paper listed the problems quite well, although it contained virtually no solutions. There are things that could be done. Age additions benefit women and mandatory private provision for the long term benefits them, too. Action on the married woman's stamp would also be hugely beneficial.
We are calling for a fair return for married women, not something for nothing. These women paid thousands of pounds in national insurance and they should get a fair return on their contributions, rather than nothing.
10.38 am
Mr. Oliver Heald: I should declare an interest. As a barrister, I practised in the area of divorce law, and I want to make a point about pension sharing.
We have had a good debate and I start by congratulating the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) on raising one of the most important issues to do with pensions. My hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) said that we could not ignore the background to pensions when considering the position for women. It is true that the present situation has many depressing features. However, it is especially sad that the positive picture and hopes for the future—the predictions that, by 2025, women would receive on average 90 per cent. of the basic state pension rather than the current 70 per cent.; the fact that two thirds of women now have private sector provision; and the fact that more younger women are investing than younger men—have been so grievously undermined by the Government's policies.
There is no doubt that the Chancellor's raid on pension funds will have a special impact on women. That is because 58 per cent. of the two thirds of women
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who have private provision do so in occupational schemes, which are closing at a record rate. According to the National Association of Pension Funds, the rate has doubled in the last year. The association is warning that many schemes are to move towards wind-up. We face a depressing background, given what might have been had the Government not acted as they did.
I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Redcar that every person, man or woman, should have an adequate pension. At the moment, we are in a period of transition from an earlier age, when a spouse tended to rely on the main earner's pension, to the current—and, let us hope, permanent—stage, when everybody has independent pension provision of their own. At the moment, women receive on average only 71 per cent. of the basic state pension. The Pensions Policy Institute recently published "The Pensions Landscape", which shows that the poorest pensioners are older, single women. As the hon. and learned Lady said, the Fawcett Society has recently produced a survey that shows that 46 per cent. of single women pensioners are in poverty, which is a sad and unsatisfactory position for a modern, civilised, western society.
The Government's response has been to load their hopes on to means-testing. However, the sad fact is that the approach is failing. On page 14 of "The Pensions Landscape" there is a good survey of what has happened between 1996–97 and now, which shows that the income of single pensioners as a percentage of national average earnings has not changed at all since 1997, and that the gap between rich and poor pensioners has widened. Means-testing is failing. Some 600,000 households were not receiving income support in 1996. Now, 770,000 do not receive the minimum income guarantee.
For all the talk of take-up campaigns and other things with which we would all agree, the policies have failed and the predictions and targets for the future are even more depressing. The Government's target is for 1.8 million households not to receive pension credit, which replaces the minimum income guarantee, because those households will not take it up. Even by 2006, the Government's target is for 1 million households not to receive the benefits
There is a sleight of hand in all that. The Government like to say how generous they are through their various means-tested benefits, while recognising that large numbers of people—a third—will not take them up. The Government get a very good press release at a modest price. I worry that that is the reason for such an approach. It is worth pointing out that a consensus is emerging, through Help the Aged, the National Association of Pension Funds and the CBI, that we should be considering whether we could simplify the state system to make it of more benefit to women and men so that they have an incentive to save on top of the basic state pension.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones) made an important point about giving people genuine, attractive incentives and flexible methods of saving. The lifetime savings account, which was announced at the Conservative party conference last year as a step in that direction, would allow Governments to add contributions to individuals' savings. People could withdraw money for important events, such as a deposit on a house or a school trip; indeed, for anything. Provided that they had returned

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the money to the account by the time they retired, they would get the Government contribution. It is worth considering whether the present savings system, with its very tight lock-in arrangements for pensions, will encourage the maximum number of people to save.
It is worrying that young people are deferring the decision to invest in a private pension scheme. Every five years, fewer young people go into pensions. They may be saving for other things and find it impossible to put money aside at that age for their retirement. However, a flexible lifetime savings account would enable us to tackle that problem by allowing the money to be withdrawn and returned while retaining the incentive.
Two thirds of women are in an occupational pension scheme, and the concern must be that the collapse in the occupational pensions sector will damage women more than men. It would be a good thing if the Government could find ways of helping those who did not understand the married woman's stamp system when they entered into it. I will listen to the Minister with great interest on that.
It was thought that one of the reasons that women did not have the pensions they should have had was that, on divorce, they did not receive adequate provision to have a pension of their own. Pension sharing was introduced to tackle that. However, there are problems with how it works. The cash equivalent transfer value that is used to value the assets of the pension at the time of divorce can be valued in a way that causes surprise in many cases. The cash equivalent transfer value is often very low considering the sort of benefit that it is supposed to be marked against.
In one recent example, an investment yield of 11.22 per cent. was used as an assumption in achieving a cash equivalent transfer value. The Government's Green Paper contains a presumption of 6.55 per cent. The effect of the transfer value being too low is that when the woman's share is paid out—if it is a woman—the capital that she receives is much too low to establish the sort of pension that the court thought it was establishing for her. There is a real issue of fairness there, and I should be grateful to know what the Minister says about it.
The second point is that, all too often, if the wife's share remains in the scheme it is a money-purchase share, whereas the husband's is a defined benefit share. He gets a return of 10 per cent. and she gets a return of 5 per cent. What does the Minister have to say about that?
I want to move on to equivalent benefits in public sector schemes. If the husband can take his pension at 50 but the wife must wait until she is 60, as is the current position, the husband can have lost his pension share and be receiving a lower pension at 50. A court can require him to pay maintenance to the wife until she is 60 and can receive her pension share, but his income is inadequate to pay her a reasonable level of maintenance. I am interested to hear what the M inister says about that.
Are we to move to a situation where private pension provision must be taken at 55 rather than the current age of 50? Several existing court settlements have been achieved on the basis that maintenance will be paid by the husband until the age of 50, at which point the wife will receive her pension share and rely on that. Will
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provision be made in any change to reflect the fact that existing court settlements have been based on the current law and that there may be some disadvantage to women if those settlements cannot be continued?
This has been a fascinating debate, but my time is up.
10.51 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Eagle): I agree with one thing that the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) said, which is that this has indeed been a fascinating debate. As ever on such occasions, we never have time to get through all the points that need to be raised. I apologise in advance because I will not be able to answer all the questions that have been put to me. I will, of course, try to write to hon. Members who have not had an appropriate response by the end of the debate.
First, I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) on securing the debate and also on the way in which she set out her points. I shall try to answer some of her main points. She is absolutely right that the demographic features and realities that face us today are obvious; people are living longer and women live even longer than men.
As we are all living longer, our pensions system must be able to deal with that by funding longer periods of retirement. That is a challenge for men and women alike. However, if a woman retires at 65—as will shortly be expected of her in any event—her life expectancy thereafter is 19 years. It is salutary to bear that in mind. The general challenge of extended lives is a good thing I am not advocating shorter lives—but extended lives present a challenge to the state and the private pensions system of which we must be aware.
Of course, it is not just this country that is facing up to those challenges. In many ways, this country is in a better position than others that have large, unfunded, pay-as-you-go state systems. Despite the doom and gloom that one hears, we have a relatively high level of privately funded pension provision in comparison with international standards, and with European standards in particular. Therefore, the combination of targeted state support with a well-developed private funded pension system puts us in a relatively strong position.
We are still in the consultation period, and I am sure that today's debate will be taken as a contribution to that. I have said that we are in a strong position, but the Green Paper recognises that there are particular issues that make it harder for many women to build up adequate pension provision. We are alive to those issues and are actively consulting and taking views from organisations such as the Fawcett Society about what we might do to improve the situation.
There are specific challenges that face women that can be expressed in a nutshell as lower employment rates and longer life expectancy, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar put it. However, it is not all bad news. Women in full-time employment are just as likely to have occupational pension coverage as men. In fact, 60 per cent. of women in full-time work have occupational pension coverage, the same percentage as for men. So, there are some good signs. Those women will benefit from many of the proposals in the Green Paper in the same way as full-time working men.

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Also on the positive side, the employment rate for women continues to rise. Between 1979 and 2002, the employment rate for women aged 25 to 34 rose from around 52 per cent. to over 70 per cent. and childbirth and child care now have a far lower impact on women's employment rates than they did in the 1960s and 1970s. That should have a positive impact on tomorrow's female pensioners.
We have to face up to some issues, particularly in respect of existing pensioners. Pensions are an intergenerational contract; they must be fair and equitable between generations and affordable and sustainable in the long run if the regime that we end up with is to last long enough to enable people to plan. We have to keep in mind the intergenerational importance of the pensions promise.
Lynne Jones: Does my hon. Friend consider that the current melange of provision can continue for the next 30 to 50 years?
Maria Eagle: I certainly think that it is affordable. One of the main elements that a system needs if it is to last is affordability. The others are fairness and equity.
I should like to deal with some of the issues that have been raised. The first is the married woman's stamp. Since 1997, women have been unable to elect to pay married woman's reduced rate contributions and those who had already elected to do so have been unable to continue paying at that level. Many hon. Members—not only my hon. and learned Friend, whose researcher is in that position but the hon. Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) and others—have made it clear that it is a difficult issue. There is no doubt that people had different perceptions. I receive as many letters from those who tell me that they knew exactly what they were doing and that those around them opted to pay less because they did not want to pay as much—knowing what that would mean for their pensions—as I do letters saying, "I did not have a clue what I was signing up for."
Many hon. Members have suggested that we should enable those who made that election to go back and make a different choice. The difficulty—administrative
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issues aside—is what that would mean for those who made a different choice. Should we also give them the opportunity to go back and choose again, and to rejig their contributions? I have only to mention that to put across the problem that we face in trying to do anything. One has to be fair to the entire population, which is not easy.
I do not accept that those married women received nothing in return for their contributions. They paid a much smaller stamp and have always been eligible for widows' benefits. They later became eligible for statutory sick pay and statutory maternity pay, although I agree that that election affected their pensions most of all. Nevertheless, married women who opted to pay reduced rate contributions made an informed choice. They were required to give written notice of their decision and had to complete a form saying that they had read information. At any time since, they could have opted back in to the full rate. It is not true that they made a once and for all decision and nothing more could have been done. I accept that there are aggrieved people around, many of whom are now seeing the consequences of their decisions, but it is not easy to deal with the matter in the ways that have been suggested.
Vera Baird: Was my hon. Friend indicating a willingness to look for a way to assist those women?
Maria Eagle: The Government accept that the issue has to be considered; we are always willing to do that. However, there is no easy solution and none that would be fair to women of all ages. We are considering not only the women who elected to pay the reduced rate stamp, but those who, in full knowledge, did not; they wanted to make pension contributions. We have to be fair across the board, which makes the issue very difficult. I shall have to answer the many other points that have been made by hon. Members by writing to them.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: The Minister is right. Time is up.

Turkey Imports
11 am
Mr. Mark Todd: Mr. Deputy Speaker, I sense that this subject will strike a chord with you, bearing in mind matters that you raise in the House from time to time.
The United Kingdom's turkey industry is large, but it does not often attract a great deal of attention. One would not necessarily guess that more turkey is produced in the UK than sheep meat, but it is true. The industry receives no subsidy. Like all poultry producers in the UK, it is a free enterprise section of agriculture that relies on the wits and investment of those who choose to manage it and produce the turkey meat that we consume. Indeed, it is disadvantaged by operating within the common agricultural policy, because the cost of cereals to feed the birds represents a substantial part of its costs. Under CAP, those costs are higher than they are in an unregulated sector in which feed can be procured on the open market.
The industry has a steadily improving food safety record, and has invested in safety consistently over the years. Some 90 per cent. of the turkeys produced in the UK are produced under the British quality turkey scheme, an industry-driven regulatory framework with independent inspections of the quality of production. That is consistent with the self-reliant approach that the industry has adopted. It is not an industry that comes round with a begging bowl at regular intervals when it runs into trouble. It has sought to solve its own problems and to operate as any other free enterprise producer would in this country. However, it has faced considerable problems over the last two or three years. Imports have increased in the past 10 years, driven by the same factors that have increased the flow of imports in other sectors; not least the relatively high value, during much of that time, of the pound against other currencies. Most turkey producers, like most other manufacturers, accept those disadvantages as being part of their business.
I should like to draw attention to some issues that most regard as being outwith the normal concern of the exchange rate. One example puts it into stark focus. Most of our constituents have a turkey at Christmas. It is a traditional British choice, one that I normally make. The difficulty this year has been a concerted campaign by Brazilian turkey producers to achieve substantial penetration of our traditional marketplace. They were assisted by some of the supermarket chains, which were happy to try to source turkey meat at the cheapest possible rate.
I congratulate the National Farmers Union and representatives of the British poultry sector. It was only because of their strong campaigns that Brazil was prevented from supplying a significant proportion of supermarket frozen turkeys last Christmas. I congratulate all the organisations that were involved in that campaign, which dissuaded, for example, Asda from continuing with a contract that would have allowed Brazil to supply a substantial proportion of frozen turkeys for the expected Christmas market.
However, the campaign did not wholly succeed. Two supermarket chains eventually let a contract to the Brazilians at a rate of €1.34 per kg. The industry has
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worked out the actual cost of producing turkeys. Taking a reasonable perspective of the costs of producing a bird in Brazil, which has much lower labour costs and other advantages—I shall return to those advantages, some of which are unfair—the cost after landing in this country is €2.21 per kg.
How does one explain the ability to support a substantial contract at what appears to be a below-cost price? The only explanation that the turkey industry has come up with is that it is, effectively, dumping. The Brazilians produced heavily for an expected Christmas market but found themselves short of contracts. They had a substantial number of surplus birds that they wished to get rid of, and they wished to persist with their strategy of breaking into our market. That meant that they were happy to sell substantially below cost price.
A presentation has already been made to the European Union on behalf of the turkey industry, which has argued that that was a case of dumping. If true, it was an illegal act and should be taken to the World Trade Organisation. I hope that the Minister will give an update on the British Government's approach to that invasion of our marketplace. What steps have they taken with EU authorities to reinforce the points that have been made by the British turkey industry?
It is important to understand the dynamics of the turkey sector. Many of the birds that we consume at Christmas are fresh birds. However, if turkey producers in this country are to be economic, they cannot simply produce fresh birds for the Christmas market. They must maintain a capacity all the year round, which means that they must provide turkeys for the frozen market for a substantial part of the year. We all recognise that demand for turkey meat is not consistent throughout the year, in spite of the efforts to market the meat for use at other times.
The aim of the Brazilian campaign—which is supported by Cargill, one of the major commodity brokers in the agriculture sector—is to take away a substantial proportion of the frozen market. If that campaign were to succeed, it would not merely take away a significant chunk of the frozen meat market, but would substantially damage the market for fresh British birds, because it simply would not be economic for British producers to maintain a supply for the much narrower portion of the year about which we would be talking.
Let me turn to the second breach that requires attention. We must understand the way in which the EU imposes tariffs on imports. There is a recognition that tariffs should differentiate according to the added value of the imported product. In this case, a seasoned bird bears a tariff of 8.5 per cent. of the value of the product, but a standard frozen bird bears a tariff of €340 per tonne. Therefore, simply pumping the bird with a small amount of basting material that makes no substantial difference to the meat or to the keepability of the product will enable one to avoid a substantial proportion of the tariff that one would bear at our borders. It is important to recognise that we are talking about EU borders. It is perfectly possible for an import to come into an EU port on the continent and to be shipped on to this country without further intervention or additional tariff.

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The same scam—it is essentially a scam—was identified with lightly salted chicken some time ago. Imports were coming into this country with a little sprinkling of salt that added virtually no cost to the process but which made a substantial difference to the tariff levied at the border. I expect the UK Government to have made representations to the EU on this obvious evasion of controls at our borders.
Let me turn to perhaps the worst example. The EU has rightly set high standards on the use of drugs and other additives to meat imports into this country. It does so partly for animal welfare concerns, but mostly to protect the health of our citizens. It is recognised that pumping animals full of drugs that enhance growth as well as prevent disease may be harmful to the humans who eat them.
Nitrofurans are antibiotics that are banned in the EU. In the past three months, nitrofurans have been positively identified in 33 cases in Brazilian poultry at EU borders. I say "poultry" because I recognise that it applies to chickens and to turkeys. That report came about only because we had already put in place a control based on a visit of the EU food and veterinary office to Brazil. As a result of that visit, a control is in place on the borders, requiring consignment checking for such products. That was absolutely the right step to take. The food and veterinary office's visit identified several alarming aspects, and I wish to quote from its report:
"The Brazilian legislation on veterinary drugs, which allows for their therapeutic use or as feed additives, does not offer the same degree of control as in EU legislation. A number of drugs prohibited in Europe are still available on the Brazilian market place and some substances, although prohibited in Brazil are still in use by the Brazilian livestock industry. Results from the national sampling plan for 2001 reinforce concerns over the use of potentially hazardous veterinary drugs in all sectors of the livestock industry in Brazil.">
I should qualify that by saying that the original purpose of the visit was to look at the livestock sector. However, only when it became clear to the food and veterinary office that it was unearthing substantial abuse of drugs in all forms of meat production in Brazil did the office recommend the border consignment checks. We have identified the problem at the border, and I should like the Minister in his response to tell us how it has been dealt with.
What representations have the British authorities made about the consistent—the examples I have quoted are not isolated—import of products into this country in breach of European Union controls? Further to that, what steps has the Food Standards Agency taken? Although we are taking our checks seriously, it is not unreasonable to suppose that some of the production is creeping into the country. What suggestions has the agency made to control the risk to human health from the consumption of meat containing nitrofurans?
I conclude by saying that Brazil has demonstrated general failures to conform to EU veterinary medicine residue testing and meat certification obligations. Again, I quote the food and veterinary office's report on its visit to Brazil. That report notes that
"certificates containing false information are issued by the … competent authority. Virtually all recent missions to Brazil have detected deficiencies in the certification system and have made appropriate recommendations for improvements to the system. As a consequence, the Brazilian system for certification of meat must be considered to be unreliable."
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A critical part of the mechanism for deciding whether a product should be imported into this country is whether we trust the certification arrangements of the exporting country. In the case of Brazil, we do not. What steps are we taking to ensure that Brazilian standards are raised? I have presented evidence of dumping, failure to comply with reasonable expectations on certification and controls on the use of drugs, and the naked abuse—as far as I can tell—of loopholes in the tariff system to import scarcely touched meat under a framework that effectively results in the avoidance of a substantial tariff.
Given all that, I argue that there is a strong case for the Government to seek action through the EU to restrict the access of Brazilian turkey products to the UK and European markets. Our industry is affected. Brandons in Scropton, an employer in my constituency, is considering closing one of its major plants in the UK to deal with the threat of imports from that source; that is why I have raised the matter at all. It cannot be right that British jobs are being sacrificed when Brazilian product is brought into the country in flagrant breach of a number of controls that we should expect any exporter to comply with.
11.17 am
The Minister for Rural Affairs and Urban Quality of Life (Alun Michael): I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) for the manner in which he has introduced the debate. He touched on a number of important issues. I certainly agree with his introductory remark that poultry meat is an important product on the international commodity market, as well as on the EU and UK wholesale and retail market. UK poultry producers do not receive any direct support from the common agricultural policy, and prices therefore closely reflect market supply and demand. The poultry sector is a success story.
Nitrofurans are an issue for the Food Standards Agency. We shall relay the concerns that my hon. Friend has raised in this debate to that body. I assure my hon. Friend that action is being taken at the EU level. All poultry imported from third countries must enter the EU through designated border inspection posts, where it is subject to veterinary inspection. All consignments are subject to documentary and identity checks, and at least 20 per cent. of consignments undergo physical checks in the normal course of events. The purpose is to ensure that import conditions are met and that the products remain in a satisfactory condition during transport. That is the context in which nitrofurans have been identified.
Nitrofurans are unauthorised veterinary medicines and were found in poultry meat from Brazil. They are not permitted in the EU for use in food-producing animals because of public health concerns. Those residues should not be present in food, and I share my hon. Friend's concerns about them.
Recently introduced Community rules require all consignments of poultry meat from Brazil to be subjected to a chemical test to ensure that they do not present a danger to human health. The test must be carried out with a view to detecting the presence of antimicrobial substances and in particular nitrofurans and their metabolites. The consignment must remain at the border inspection post while testing takes place and

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it is allowed entry into the Community only after favourable test results. If nitrofuran residues are detected, the consignment is destroyed, which is a stringent measure that sends a strong message on the commercial impact of nitrofurans being detected.
My hon. Friend referred to the basting scam. We will make representations to the Commission—along with Customs and Excise, which is responsible for duties—if the industry gives us the details. We need evidence in order to make the case to the Commission. We suspected that there was a problem in that area but the industry has not confirmed it, and I hope that my hon. Friend will reinforce that message. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is willing to represent the industry to the Commission, provided there is evidence on which we can make a strong argument. We need such evidence in order to be taken seriously.
My hon. Friend referred to the question of dumping. We are aware that the UK poultry product market can be threatened by low-price imports from a third country. In those circumstances, safeguard actions may be taken. When it is reasonable to do so, the Government are prepared to argue for those measures to be taken.
There is also the issue of the unfair application of WTO rules. For instance, concerted pressure from a number of member states, including the UK, recently led to the amendment of the classification of frozen, salted poultry meat imports to close a loophole, which some importers were exploiting to pay less tariff on lightly salted frozen products; my hon. Friend referred to that situation. That loophole has been closed but, as I have indicated, we need evidence o go further. There has been direct representation by turkey producers, rather than the UK Government, to the EC. Given the evidence, we are happy to represent the industry.
WTO rules allow for temporary special restrictions to be imposed on imports to offset a sudden significant drop in market prices or a surge in the volume of imports. Under WTO rules, however, those additional duties can be applied only to a limited number of chicken and turkey products. In general, it is fair to say that there is little obvious prospect of reducing the level of imports. Indeed, the Government's wider policy is to open up trade and it would be inconsistent to exclude poultry. In the longer term, import volumes are likely to grow further, particularly following further tariff reductions as part of a WTO settlement. Consequently, UK producers are unlikely to be able to compete on price alone, which means that they will have to rely increasingly on producing quality assured products for which they will obtain a premium price. My hon. Friend has rightly indicated the steps that the industry has taken effectively to compete in that market. It is fair to say that local and regional marketing can also assist the industry, which is something that DEFRA and the Government seek to promote.
There are other issues of concern, such as the additional costs faced by UK producers for higher welfare standards. A positive note is our success in ensuring that animal welfare issues a re recognised in the Doha ministerial declaration. There is obviously a long way to go before a final settlement, but we will work
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hard to ensure that the issue remains part of the negotiations. In other words, we will balance the need to pursue animal welfare considerations with the need to achieve a level playing field for home producers and those who produce imported products.
Mr. Todd: My right hon. Friend will accept the distinction between long-term planning of trade policy—I entirely agree with what he has said about that—and the short-term issue of dealing with apparent naked abuse of existing trade rules. Will he focus more on the steps he can take in such cases? He has referred to the need for better evidence; I have some on the dumping issue. Will he agree to meet representatives of the poultry sector to build up a portfolio of knowledge on such abuses so that action can be taken by the UK?
Alun Michael: I should be very happy to take up that sort of issue. It may be better for my noble friend Lord Whitty to undertake such a meeting. I shall draw my hon. Friend's concern and his earlier correspondence to Lord Whitty's attention, and I am sure that a meeting can be arranged.
I am sure that my hon. Friend will accept that the issue is to identify where there are breaches of WTO regulations or the controls appropriate in the UK and Europe and to take action in those cases, rather than taking action when there is no strong evidence. Evidence is at the heart of what actions can be taken. There are also issues relating to the burden of the large numbers of regulations to which the poultry industry needs to conform. There is always a delicate balance to be struck between the need for regulation, and the need not to overburden industry. Although there is still much more to be done in that area, I hope that the efforts that we take not to over-regulate the industry are recognised.
It is true to say that, in recent years, the EU turkey market has been over-supplied. The UK industry has taken significant steps by reducing production and placings to compensate for problems of oversupply in import penetration. The industry is to be congratulated on its past voluntary efforts to improve the market situation. As my hon. Friend will agree, we must ensure that dumping does not take place and that rules are not breached to ensure that the competitive situation allows the UK industry to retain as much market share as it can fairly do.
Mr. Todd: I would not wish to set aside the reputation for self-reliance that the industry has established, but it would be helpful if the Government participated in a review of the trade environment of the sector, so that it can be assisted in planning further ahead. The Minister has rightly focused on the added-value, high-quality elements of the potential product range for British turkey in the future, but that has not had much assistance from Government. Perhaps he can consider research that may assist them in future planning.
Alun Michael: I am glad that my hon. Friend does not want the self-reliance of the industry to be undermined, and I share that view. The British quality turkey standard and the farm fresh turkey assurance schemes help to promote UK-produced turkey. There is a market, and a response from the public to home-produced product of high quality. I am sure that that is

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the way to go. The scheme has set turkey production standards from the sourcing of breeding stock, to all aspects of rearing, right up to final processing. Traditional farm-fresh turkey producers also set a code of practice for the production of traditional free-range turkeys for the Christmas market. Those schemes will help to ensure quality products that are likely to receive premium prices, which is the way to compete in the market, alongside taking measures to ensure that advantage is not taken of the ability to breach regulations.
My hon. Friend rightly referred to the poultry sector as one of the success stories of UK agriculture. Sustained growth has been achieved through investment, innovation, skilful marketing of products and offering value for money, of which it can be justly proud. The Government recognise the benefits that that has brought to the poultry industry. Our role is to act on evidence to maintain the level playing field.
I understand the industry's concerns about the competition it faces due to imports. As a result, it is not surprising that poultry producers see the Government's main role as ensuring that the field upon which they work and trade is level. That role is comprised of our work on international negotiations, our overall approach to regulation and a range of specific environmental, animal health, welfare and food-related concerns, which we shall be able to go into in more depth if my noble friend and I meet my hon. Friend and representatives of the producers, as he suggested.
I am happy to explore those issues to ensure that all imported meat from third countries complies with EU animal and public health standards, and we have the appropriate checks in place.
11.30 am
Sitting suspended until Two o'clock.

Rural Housing
Mr. Deputy Speaker: We now come to a debate on a most important subJect.
2 pm
Andrew George: Indeed, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you are right. This is a very important subject, and I am delighted to have been successful in securing the opportunity to kick off the debate. I noticed that last week the chief executive of the Countryside Agency, encouraging the Government to look again and give a better definition to the matter of rural proofing in respect of housing, commented in a press release circulated jointly with the Local Government Association:
"All our evidence points to the fact that the lack of suitable affordable housing is one of the biggest barriers to keeping rural communities sustainable."
Speaking as a representative for a Cornish seat—I also represent the Isles of Scilly—I would say that that is certainly true, and that it is the biggest barrier. Enabling people to have a home of their own, and ensuring that there is adequate affordable housing for local people in rural areas, is key in the maintenance of rural communities.
Rural areas face a crisis as great as that of the late 1980s, when we experienced a sustained period during which private house prices spiralled upwards out of control. They then fell. In the early 1990s many people were caught in negative equity if they had bought at the crest of the market. I am not sure that on this occasion the market will necessarily behave in that way. Many people in rural Britain will experience sustained levels of high house prices that are completely out of kilter with rural wages for many years to come. Therefore, the problem will not resolve itself through the activities of the marketplace. That is why it will require important Government intervention, and I am pleased that the Minister is here today.
Together with local authorities, the Local Government Association and others, I was of course shocked that the Government announced their intention to withdraw local authority social housing grants. Those were significant in providing for a large number of schemes in rural areas. The Government gave local authorities only seven weeks' notice of the withdrawal taking elect prior to the beginning of April this year. I do not doubt that it was in anticipation of the debate, and the fear of the mauling that I would give the Government, that they announced last week a three-month transitional arrangement, leading from the beginning of the next financial year. Although that is welcome, I shall argue that the Government need to do a great deal more if they are to resolve or begin to make any kind of inroads into the problems experienced by rural areas.
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: The withdrawal of the local authority housing grant is important, as the hon. Gentleman said. In fact, the situation was worse than he suggested because it was within three weeks of the statutory date for the setting of some local authorities' budgets. Undoubtedly some local authorities will be forced to set a supplementary

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council tax part of the way through their financial year. As I understand it, as of yesterday councils still had not been officially informed of the withdrawal of the grant. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the matter has been handled incompetently?
Andrew George: It is certainly true that representatives from local authorities in my constituency made strong representations at the time of the announcement and made exactly that point about budgets being set and programmes being largely put in place. It was anticipated that there would be a continuation of the kind of affordable housing developments that local authorities in many rural areas desperately require, but the rug was pulled from under their feet. No doubt the Minister will want to address the points that that hon. Gentleman and I have made in his reply.
Let me explain the extent of the problem in Cornwall. When we are talking in terms of generalities, sometimes we miss specific points about local areas. I will talk about my constituency, which includes west Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, where there is a significant and large private housing market. I call it that because I do not like using the phrase "open" housing market. The market is not open to all local people. It is important to call it a private housing market. It is a bit like a golf club: one can enter only if one has certain credentials and can pay the membership fee.
The private housing market is extremely restrictive in places such as Cornwall. House prices have doubled across much of Cornwall over the past three years—no doubt that is reflected across much of the rest of the country. There is a serious affordability gap. Since records began, Cornwall has been at the bottom of the earnings league table. The mismatch between earnings and house prices in Cornwall—especially the far west of Cornwall—is probably greater than it is in some areas of the south-east, where house prices are significantly higher. There is a significant problem because of the affordability gap between earnings and house prices, which is not properly taken into account in the way in which housing grants and investments are made.
On the Isles of the Scilly, the problem is even more significant. Earnings are no higher than they are on the mainland, yet house prices are similar to those in London and the south-east. It is difficult to find a flat with two bedrooms—a leasehold property—for less than £250,000, and that is the most bare and basic property that one can possibly gel:. House prices are astronomically high in such areas.
For people who cannot even begin to look at the private market, which is the vast majority of people on ordinary local wages, the question is where else to look. Of course, they look to the private rented sector. The private rented sector in Cornwall accounts for less than 10 per cent. of the housing stock—it is rather lower than that across most of Cornwall. That figure is much higher in many urban areas, but in areas such as west Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly the private rented sector has to compete with what sensible landlords wanting to maximise the return that they get from the investment of their capital will consider, which is the holiday trade.
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Many properties are lost to the holiday trade because one can get a far better income and there is also the security of being able to retain the property regularly if that is required. For example, one might want to sell it into the private market, given that house prices are very acceptable to someone with a spare property.
The private rented sector therefore affords little opportunity for people looking for accommodation. Rents in the far west of Cornwall are astronomically high. People who are entitled to housing benefit often receive a benefit level that in no way makes up the full cost of their rent. Where else can they live? They look to the social rented sector, which used to be called council housing. In my constituency, both Kerrier and Penwith have gone through stock transfers and all the properties are, one way or another, the responsibility of housing associations. On the Isles of Scilly, few properties—there are little more than 100 of them—are council houses. Even there, somewhere between 11 and 12 per cent. of the stock consists of social rented units.
According to a recent parliamentary answer, in urban areas 19 per cent. of stock consists of social rented units, but in many towns and metropolitan areas the social rented sector is more significant than that. The opportunities to get rented accommodation in urban and suburban areas are therefore significantly greater than in many rural areas.
Mr. Paul Tyler: I am following my hon. Friend's speech with great interest because his experience is paralleled in my constituency. I wonder whether he has seen the figures in the Western Morning News, which has done an admirable job in bringing the matter to the attention of local decision makers, demonstrating the effect of the forced sales of properties, which local authorities did not want to sell, under the right-to-buy scheme. North Cornwall district council, for example, currently has a waiting list of 1,600 persons, but it has had to sell off 1,247 properties in recent years, which is a major discrepancy. In Restormel, there are 2,700 people on the waiting list while 1,939 properties have been sold off. Does my hon. Friend accept that any extension to the right to buy affordable housing would be devastating in a rural area such as Cornwall?
Andrew George: Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes the point well. In North Cornwall, where only 3,500 properties are available for rent through the local authority, given that there are more than 1,600 people on the waiting list, nearly half the properties could be immediately let again to people on the waiting list.
Penwith went through the process of stock transfer in 1994. As a result, it is debt free and is therefore entitled to levels of housing grant for further capital investment to which many other local authorities are not entitled. With the money from the stock transfer, and the extra money that it is able to obtain from the Government through local authority social housing grant and other sources, it is able to engage in a social housing building programme that many other local authorities would envy. Last year, it built 40 properties of which it is particularly proud as a result of its investment, but it had to sell 45 of its properties under the right to buy. It is therefore running as fast as it can in order to slide backwards, which is the nature of the unsatisfactory system.

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Many of my constituents in Penwith find themselves with no alternative but to be housed in entirely unsatisfactory bed-and-breakfast accommodation. Many of them come to see me in my casework surgery. I know that many hon. Members who have experienced the problem feel, like me, absolutely helpless. One can ensure that the system works fairly on behalf of one's constituent, but one knows full well that there are not enough private rented and social rented properties in the marketplace. We are talking about families who have to uproot themselves from their local communities and live in bed-and-breakfast establishments in which people's children are often not even in neighbouring rooms. The accommodation can be small and cramped, which is totally unsatisfactory, and located far from people's workplaces and their children's schools. The issue increasingly affects local authorities.
I know that the Government have set a target that within the next year local authorities must no longer have people living in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. In Penwith, 80 households are living in such accommodation and I doubt whether an authority such as Penwith district council, even if it works heroically during the next year, can achieve the Government's target. I have serious concerns about that.
I have talked specifically about west Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, but rural areas in general have fewer properties available in the rented sector and people in such areas have to wait longer to find accommodation. A parliamentary answer to me from the Minister on 27 February stated at column 732W that people in urban authorities must expect to wait 370 days to be housed, but in rural areas they must expect to wait 426 days. That is a significantly longer wait. No one can say that the housing crisis in this country is an urban one when people on waiting lists in rural areas must wait longer. If people in my constituency thought that they would have to wait only 426 days, they would be pleased.
There are fewer opportunities for people in rural areas. There is also the issue of invisibility. In deep rural areas, people who want to remain living in their community because they are farm workers or work in the area know that all the council properties have been sold off and that there is no point in trotting along to the local authority or housing association and putting their name down on the waiting list. They also face the added problem of invisibility. What is the point of waiting for a bus on a Sunday if there is no bus? What is the point of putting their name down on a local authority waiting list if there are no houses in the vicinity in which they want to live? People in rural areas on the Isles of Scilly and mainland Cornwall sometimes find themselves living in cramped accommodation with three generations in one household if they want to stay in the vicinity. Because of the informality of rural areas, people tend to be tolerant of such arrangements and do not sleep on park benches. Homelessness is hidden in rural areas, but it certainly exists.
If the Government are saying that they want to invest in the completion of affordable new units to meet that need, I would point the Minister to a parliamentary answer on 6 February at column 418W. In reply to a question about how many social rented unit completions in local authorities are defined as rural, the answer was—I shall give only two figures for
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comparison—5,514 in 1989 and 2,021 in 2002, a significant drop of more than 60 per cent. There are significant difficulties in rural areas and the Government are not keeping up with that need, which is increasing.
Mr. Tyler: My hon. Friend will recall that in the White Paper on rural affairs in 2000 the Government gave a commitment to double the Housing Corporation programme for rural housing in 2003–04 and in so doing to provide a total of 3,000 affordable homes a year in small settlements and to provide a total of 9,000 homes a year throughout all rural districts. He will also recall that just four months after publication of that White Paper the Government's implementation plan downgraded that commitment to just 1,100 homes in 2001–02 and 160 in 2002–03. Does he accept that the problems in Cornwall to which he has rightly referred—he and I have a direct personal interest in the matter—are reflected all over rural Britain?
Andrew George: Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes a good point and no doubt the Minister will wish to address that serious concern. We want to support the Government if they intend to match their words with actions in rural areas. There are concerns—perhaps the Minister can reassure us on this—that the Government's primary focus on housing is a belief that there is only one region with a housing problem, which is the south-east and London, and that there is little need for action beyond that. People are getting that impression, although I hope that that is wrong. Perhaps the Minister will address that.
I must congratulate the Government—the Minister will be pleased to hear it—on having listened to a campaign, in which I have been much involved, to bear down on the large number of second homes in rural areas. That includes withdrawing the absurdity, which some people find offensive, of spending more than £200 million a year subsidising the wealthy through a 50 per cent. council tax rebate on their second homes when, as I have pointed out, thousands upon thousands of people live in appalling situations such as the bed-and-breakfast arrangements that I described. That is clearly unacceptable. That£200 million could be far better spent meeting the needs of local people in rural areas. If we want to spend Government money, that is a more effective use for it.
I was pleased that one of the Minister's predecessors, the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), in a debate with me on 9 February 2000, although successive Ministers had previously failed to accede to my request to review the 50 per cent. rebate, put down his notes—I hope that the Minister will follow that precedent—saying that he was no longer willing to read from the notes given to him by his civil servants and that he would examine the provision. As a result, we had a change in the White Paper on rural areas in November 2000. I congratulate the Government on having listened to the case and made that change.
However, I urge the Minister to look again at how the receipts from the withdrawal of that council tax rebate are used. Local authorities, under the Local Government Bill, can increase council tax on second homes only to 90 per cent., not to 100 per cent. If the money is to address the problems created by second home ownership in rural areas, the Government should

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ensure that local authorities can direct it at social housing. It should not be withdrawn and used for other local government purposes. I urge the Minister to listen to the many authorities directly affected by high levels of second home ownership and ensure that the money is kept within the billing authorities. The Government should then urge billing authorities to direct the money at social housing.
Peter Bradley: I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman has just said, but he will be aware that the local economy in Cornwall is greatly reliant on tourism. As one who spends his Whitsun week in Cornwall—perhaps in the hon. Gentleman's constituency—I would not want to be deprived of the ability to rent holiday accommodation. There is a difficult balancing act to be performed. Is the hon. Gentleman aware of any research that shows what proportion of receipts from holiday lets go into the Cornish economy rather than into the pockets of landlords who, perhaps, live primarily in London, the south-east or elsewhere?
Andrew George: I must point out to the hon. Gentleman that there is a distinction between second homes and holiday homes. Holiday homes pay business rates, not council tax. However, the 140-night rule enables people to net an income for 140 nights and still pay council tax. Many people find that even more offensive. There are many second homes used as holiday homes that produce a great deal of income.
The hon. Gentleman, by implication, is absolutely right. Where those second home owners live elsewhere, as many of them do in the case of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly—where about a quarter of properties are second homes—that money goes out of the local economy to be spent elsewhere. If people are not living in an area, they cannot support the local shop and local facilities. Of course, they spend money on improving their properties. However, we would prefer to see the limited supply of accommodation available in west Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly being used to meet the area's needs and not used purely for recreation and investment. Such secondary purpose; will be acceptable only after all the local housing need has been met. At present, however, they are unacceptable. I urge the Government to consider changing the use class order for second homes purely for the lifetime of a particular occupancy in order to discourage further second home ownership. That would give local authorities powers to deal with those issues.
I want to draw my comments to a conclusion as others wish to speak. I urge the Government to address a few issues of future work. The first is exception sites. In rural areas under planning policy guidance note 3, which was introduced by the last Conservative Government, there has been a complete change in the ethos of the planning system. The change was in accepting that planning could take account of the user as well as the use of land. That policy allowed local authorities to discriminate in favour of local housing need in developments on the edges of villages and rural settlements. That is very welcome, as it has enabled a few—a very few—schemes to meet local housing needs. The problem in developing
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them is matching the money with the planning opportunities so that landowners understand that they are not subsidising the scheme; rather it is the planning system that is enabling the low land price. There is a distinction between a small multiple of agricultural value and full development value, which in places such as west Cornwall can be up to £500,000.
That subsidy comes in through the planning system and enables social housing to be developed. I urge the Government to consider ways of strengthening that policy in order to encourage local authorities to use it; otherwise, on sites on which there is a cross-subsidy, there will be bungalows all over the hills. If we want to retain our valuable countryside, the Government should recognise that we cannot have a let-rip planning policy in rural areas in the hope that a small proportion of those properties will meet an affordable housing need.
Secondly, I urge the Government to take a second look at the question of second homes to ensure that the receipts are properly spent to meet a social housing need. The Government should also look at planning policy and at a change in the use class order for the lifetime of the occupancy of a property.
Thirdly, I urge the Government to look again at developing what I call the twilight market: those who cannot get council or housing association properties and who cannot make the enormous leap into private market housing but who could go somewhere in between. That could be through shared equity or leasehold schemes. I know that many housing enablers, housing authorities and housing associations have very imaginative ways of helping that group of people. I urge the Government to invest in such schemes to ensure that the golden share can be retained for perpetuity and that there are constraints on market equity schemes in market town sites.
I ask the Government to extend the approach that they have adopted in the south-east of England on the right to buy, key worker housing and investment in social housing so that rural areas are given the same priority that the Government have given to the southeast and London.
2.29 pm
Peter Bradley: I start by thanking the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) for introducing the debate. It is not the first time that these issues have been discussed either in the Chamber or in Westminster Hall. It is a very important issue, and, although I realise that important debates are taking place in the Chamber, it is a shame that this debate is so poorly attended. I must own up to feeling disappointed that representation on my side is not impressive; it may be thought impressive because I am on my feet, but it is not impressive in numbers.
There has been much discussion in recent years about what matters most in the countryside. Frankly, nothing matters more than housing, especially the provision of affordable housing. The future of rural communities depends on it. In fact, a significant increase in the provision of affordable housing is needed. The recent decline in rural communities is a direct result of the loss of affordable housing to which the hon. Gentleman referred. I shall try to substantiate those remarks.
The Rural Development Commission estimated that between 1985 and 1990, some 91,000 homes in the countryside were sold under right-to-buy legislation. It

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further estimated that in the next six years, about 80,000 homes would have to be built to meet demand. In fact, as few as 17,700 were built, which has left a significant deficit. The market in what was once socially rented accommodation brought about an influx of commuters, retirees and people wanting to buy holiday homes. There is nothing wrong in that, or in people exercising their right to buy if they can afford to do so, but the direct consequence of social housing stock not being replaced has been an exodus of people who have been priced out of their communities.
It may come as a surprise to discover that 25 per cent. of people living in the countryside are living in poverty or on the margins of poverty. According to the RDC, 40 per cent. of people living in the countryside cannot afford to own a home. That puts into stark context the impact on rural communities of the wholesale disposal of affordable housing.
Between 1971 and 1996, there was population growth of 24 per cent. in the countryside. That compares with national growth of only 6 per cent. According to the Countryside Agency, 25,000 new households a year in the countryside are formed through inward migration; and 25,000 new households have formed themselves from existing communities. However, no housing provision has been made for many of those new households.
I suspect that the figures have not changed a great deal since, but in 1999 about 77 per cent. of homes in urban communities were owned or mortgaged by the occupier. That figure is 86 per cent. in rural communities. That means that only 14 per cent. of homes in rural communities are available for rent, compared with 23 per cent. in urban neighbourhoods.
The lack of affordable housing has far-reaching consequences. Young people who are forced to migrate to the towns, either to the local market town or further afield, take with them the children who would keep the village school going, and they take their custom from the village shop, the post office, the pub and the church—all of which are landmarks of community life. Those who replace them in the homes that they may once have hoped to rent, but which are now available only on the open market, typically do not have children of primary school age; and they shop and conduct business near their places of work or, increasingly, online. Housing shortages also have a knock-on effect on the business community and the rural economy, because a vital source of labour has been lost.
It is a vicious circle. Community breakdown leads to increasing difficulties in securing sustainability, and that loss of sustainability leads to further community breakdown. We need to reverse that process. I believe that it can be done, but it requires concerted and more determined action than we have seen over the past few years.
I welcome the Housing Corporation's target, mentioned by the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler), who has left his seat. The corporation plans to provide 9,000 new affordable homes in rural settings by 2003–04. That is not a long way short of the Countryside Agency's target of 10,000. The situation is not as bad as the hon. Gentleman suggested, because the Housing Corporation has exceeded its targets in the rural programme, but he was right to point out that
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currently only 1,600 homes a year are being provided in settlements of fewer than 3,000 people. I believe that we need at least to double that figure. Moreover, we need to ensure that those homes are provided where they are needed, and not just in the south or the south-east. Those are the target areas established by the Housing Corporation, but housing must be provided where it is needed—that is the key. Unfortunately, until now the planning system has been too inflexible and too rigid to assess housing need properly or to meet it when it is identified. Planning officers are often more committed to development control than to the more creative discipline of planning.
Matthew Green: The hon. Gentleman says that there is concern about the fact that the Housing Corporation has primarily identified the south-east as a target area. Surely he would have been encouraged in the year 2000, when the Government White Paper identified a severe shortage of affordable housing in the west midlands. The Housing Corporation, however, seems to be ignoring the fact that that problem was identified two years ago.
Peter Bradley: I am sure that the Housing Corporation would dispute the fact that it is entirely ignoring the problem. As we are all aware, the greatest pressure, particularly for key members of the labour force, is in the south and the south-east. In that respect, I am arguing not that resources should be diverted away from the south and the south-east but that they should also be provided to those regions that need them, including the west midlands.
I was referring to the role of planning and planners. I have said many times, because I believe it, that planning can be a very creative engine of social change. Too often, however, it has become bogged down in development control and heavily weighted—too heavily, in my view—towards protecting the environment against the interests of the people who live in it. A balance must be struck, but, too often, it has not been.
Andrew George: Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that for an exceptions policy to be successful in rural areas, it is important not only to adopt a rigid and strict planning policy but to stick rigidly to it? If a planning authority fails to do that, and shows too much flexibility, there is little likelihood that landowners will want to deal with an exception site, because there will always be the possibility of achieving a much larger value on their land.
Peter Bradley: I accept the hon. Gentleman's point, but I would make one point. It is clear that exception sites have often made an important contribution to the provision of social housing, but they are not the answer on their own. They are not sufficient to provide for all the needs of all the people who require affordable housing. I shall try to outline in a few minutes some of the steps that the Government and, indeed, local authorities must take to overcome that problem.
The hon. Gentleman's reference to exception sites has provoked me to refer in passing to the Conservative party's extremely unhelpful intervention in the past few months. Its announcement that it would extend the right to buy to housing association properties had an

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immediate and direct impact on the provision of exception sites. That is curious, and it is difficult to divine what caused that response. It seems to have been predicated on the conception—perhaps the misconception—among many landowners that there would be a Conservative Government in the not-toodistant future who could actually implement that policy. The hon. Gentleman shows by his facial expressions that he finds that as bewildering as I do. Nevertheless, it meant that, almost overnight, exception sites were being withdrawn from the market, which caused dismay among social housing providers, including the rural housing trust, with which many hon. Members will be familiar.
I want to refer to one recent Government initiative, the basis for which I accept and applaud. We need to ensure maximum use of Brownfield sites in order to protect greenfield sites from the pressure of private development. However, PPG3 and the sequential test therein continues to force young people out of their villages and into local market towns. The hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) may wish to comment on that because it is a feature of the local housing plan in Bridgnorth, a district that both our constituencies share. If local people want to remain in the village where they were born and raised, which is especially likely to be the case if there are jobs there for them, they will also want housing to be developed there, not in the local market town simply because it happens to be near a motorway or major road or on a railway line, if young people are forced away from their communities against their will, we shall continue to break family connections and community links, contribute to the downward spiral of community life in rural neighbourhoods and reduce the scope of the local labour force.
We need less top-down and more bottom-up planning. I am pleased that the Government are committed to the future of parish councils. The vital villages programme, funded by the Countryside Agency, has given parish councils not only a key role in determining the future of their communities but the wherewithal, the programmes and funding to fulfil that responsibility. Parish councils really can show local leadership, both in identifying the need to which I referred earlier and in building the essential consensus on which a successful planning system must be based. We are talking about sensitive environments and landscapes, but we must also consider the needs of people who live in those landscapes and try to build agreement about what a community needs to sustain itself.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: The hon. Gentleman talks about a bottom-up approach and building consensus in local areas but, unfortunately, his Government are doing precisely the opposite. Creating regional housing and planning bodies simply takes power away from local communities and will make the consensus and bottom-up approach that he advocates much more difficult.
Peter Bradley: I do not agree with that. There is a great deal of sense in strategic planning, both nationally, through planning guidance, and in the regions, but it makes it all the more important that there should be
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grass-roots regeneration of our democratic system and grass-roots identification of what is needed to give substance to those strategic plans and ensure that they meet local needs. I see no conflict at all between those arrangements. It is a shame that the Conservative party does not spend more time encouraging parish councils to fulfil their potential, rather than spreading scare stories about the Government's intentions to abolish them and place what the Conservatives claim are such onerous new burdens on their members that 75 out of a total of 70,000 have thrown up their hands and resigned. The Conservative party needs to talk more sense about parish councils and give them more encouragement to fulfil their huge potential.
Mr. James Gray: I broadly agree with the thrust of the hon. Gentleman's remarks. I am just a little puzzled by one aspect of what he says. Parish councils have no formal role to play in the planning process. Is he advocating that parish councils have a formal planning role under regional government, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) mentioned, his Government are introducing?
Peter Bradley: I am coming to my wish list, or shopping list, for the Minister, and all will be revealed shortly. Indeed, parish councils have an important role to play, along with their local district or borough council, in undertaking housing needs surveys. There should be an obligation on every local authority to undertake such surveys and to incorporate parish plans in the local planning framework. Recently, in Portcullis House, the clerk of Little Wenlock parish council, which is in my constituency, unveiled a parish plan that he and the parish council, working with the community, had developed—an ambitious but very practical plan. His task now is to convince Telford and Wrekin council to treat it with the seriousness that it deserves.
Matthew Green: That might be tough.
Peter Bradley: I hope that it will not be tough. I hope that, in future, there will be a genuine compact and that parish councils will live up to the expectations of their communities, rather than letting them down, which has been a feature of some parish councils. The very best have been doing a much more important job during the past five years than they were previously allowed to do.
Therefore, parish plans should be developed and incorporated into local plans. Sites for housing should be allocated beyond the exception sites, and the village envelopes that have constrained the development of affordable housing in recent years should be loosened.
Central Government, as well as local government, need to do more. We have depended far too much in recent times on crumbs from the developers' table, such as the odd affordable home here or there that is contingent on planning consents for private housing developments. The presumption should be reversed. Registered social landlords should be given the opportunity to fund at least part of their social housing provision by building perhaps one or two private houses for sale on the open market.

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A threshold should be introduced for communities with a population of fewer than 3,000, and it should be reduced for communities with a population of more than 3,000. There should be a moratorium on the right to buy in communities of less than 6,000. If I caught correctly the drift of the comments of the hon. Member for St. Ives on tenure, discretion should be given for specified tenure in the granting of planning consents in areas that are experiencing housing pressure.
Council tax should be hypothecated for the provision of affordable housing. I do not entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that it should be limited only to the district in which it is raised. We must take a balanced view of need and understand that the opportunity to sell housing to people who seek second or holiday homes is rather limited in some areas, but that does not mean that their housing need is lesser.
The sequential test that I alluded to earlier should be suspended in designated areas, in so far as it prevents people from finding housing in their own community and forces them away to the towns. A rural key workers strategy should be adopted, similar to the key workers strategy that has been developed for the south and south-east.
There is a need for boldness, courage and commitment. When a community says that it wants housing on greenfield sites or even in the green belt, there is a case for providing it. People live in such landscapes, and we should encourage them to remain in them. We must listen more attentively to what rural communities tell us. They are far more permissive than they have been represented as being in the past.
We can reverse the decline. We have levers to pull, if we choose to pull them. However, those decisions need to be taken now because it is almost too late for the current generation. We owe a duty to the next generation to ensure that they can bring up their own children and find a prosperous future in the villages in which they themselves were raised.
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Matthew Green: This is a welcome debate and, in my Front-Bench role, I welcome the fact that it has been raised from a Back-Bench, constituency point of view. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) for securing the debate. He made a thoughtful speech, which was followed by a similarly thoughtful speech by the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Peter Bradley), who proposed some ideas with which I had a great deal of sympathy. Perhaps there could be some unity of thought in dealing with the problems of rural housing.
I realise that the Minister has a great deal of sympathy with the problems. I know from discussion that he understands many of them. Pressures in London and the south-east seem to be drawing the Government's attention away from rural areas—perhaps one could argue rightly so—at a time when the problem is getting worse. The Government and the Minister need to resist the temptation to be drawn entirely to London and the south-east, to see where the other problems are.
The Government's figures show that the number of rural households in England deemed to be unintentionally homeless and in priority need has increased by 13 per cent. in the last five years from just
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over 15,000 to 17,000. We have heard figures from my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives, the hon. Member for The Wrekin and, through interventions, my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler). They identified some of the statistics that show the real scale of the problem in rural areas.
Problems in rural areas have a variety of causes that are not the same as those that fuel the affordable housing shortage in London and the south-east. Ludlow, North Cornwall and St. Ives are all constituencies that suffer from people buying second homes—in the case of Cornwall—or retiring into the area from London and the south-east. People sell a three-bedroom semi-detached house on the outskirts of London for a third of a million, and wander up to Shropshire and buy a country cottage for£250,000. However, in Cornwall or Shropshire,£15,000 is a good salary.
How can one afford a family home that costs£250,000? I see the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown), and I am sure that the problem is the same in his constituency. People who are working and living locally cannot afford to purchase homes in their area. If they want to buy a home, they are driven away from the area in which they live. That economy is fuelled not by salaries, or people commuting, but by people retiring into the area, particularly from London and the south-east, and using the capital advantage that comes from having worked and lived there to force up the house prices elsewhere.
In some ways the problem is hidden. We have heard about the problems of the number of people in rural areas that cannot afford to live there. However, that is only part of the problem. Many young people in those rural areas move away.
If one looks at the demographics of my constituency—I am sure that the problem is the same in St. Ives—one finds that there are next to no people between the ages of 18 and 35 living there. They cannot afford to live in their communities. People move back into the housing market in their area when they are in their 30s or 40s after they have established careers and built up some capital in other parts of the country. There is a 20-year gap that has a huge knock-on effect, as we have heard from the hon. Member for The Wrekin, on primary schools. There is a declining number of children of primary school age, and when the school is lost, the community suffers. The shop goes, the pub goes, and there is a loss of community purely as a result of house prices.
On several occasions, not least in the rural White Paper of 2000, the Government have identified the problem. We cannot fault them in that regard. They share our concern. However, the record shows one step forward and four steps back. We welcome the one step forward—the changes to the second-home discount. We are delighted that the Government have finally done something. However, they would do well to take note of the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives about building social housing.
That was the step forward. Let us consider some of the problems that have taken us backwards. The first is the right to buy. That has had a disproportionately devastating effect on rural areas. To be kind to the Conservative Government who introduced it, they

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sought to break up the large-scale social housing estates so that they contained a mixed tenure. One reason for the introduction of the right to buy was to enable people to own their homes. However, the reality is that home owners cherry-picked. Those who lived in desirable country council houses bought them; those living on large estates did not. Therefore, the problems in the large estates in metropolitan and northern cities have not gone away, but the social housing stock in rural areas has been decimated, with the result that we no longer have the social housing stock that we need.
There are two districts in my constituency. One, South Shropshire, did large-scale voluntary transfer; the other, Bridgnorth, did not. Both are losing 100 homes a year. Their housing stocks are just over 2,000 apiece. Work it out; we shall not have any homes in 20 years unless we keep building them. There was a solution, particularly in South Shropshire—local authority social housing grant. The electors there, in survey after survey, identified social housing as the No. 1 priority, and the district council recycled every capital receipt that it had through the local authority social housing grant. Magnificently, over five or six years, it has managed to increase by 5 per cent. its number of affordable homes—they are available through housing associations rather than through the council. The council managed to increase its stock, but only by allowing it to be taken from it.
The Government's White Paper hailed the Ludlow foyer project in South Shropshire as an excellent example of rural regeneration and affordable housing for young people. It has had£300,000 of local authority social housing grant. I suspect that if it had had to go through the normal Housing Corpo ration route it might have arrived several years late, if at all. Therefore the local authority social housing grant has enabled at least one rural district to deal with its problem.
With the announcement that local authorities had to make known details of their schemes by the end of February, the Government have shown that they realise that they must do something. They backed away to an extent, but the abolition of the scheme is a mistake. The fact that they gave only three extra months and£275 million instead of£500 million means that if all the affected authorities rush to register their schemes, and they exceed£275 million, someone—the Government—will have to prioritise between areas. I am afraid that in some parts of the country where social housing would have been built in the next 12 months there will be none. Although I welcome the slight backtracking of the Government, and I appreciate that they might not have realised the full extent of the problem when they first made the move, they should reconsider the matter and go further still.
The Government allocated£250 million to their starter home initiative, announced in March 2002, of which£8.7 million was allocated to rural areas. After some quick maths, I reckon that about 3 per cent. of the total was allocated to rural areas. Once again that is an indication that the Government are tackling what they perhaps see as a more urgent problem, while there is, frankly, a problem in the rural areas as well.
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Finally, there is at times an artificiality about the housing numbers. The Minister has considerable sympathy on that point. I realise that the changes that the Government are making mean that in a couple of years the housing numbers will not be a problem. However, I should like to highlight the case of South Shropshire, which had a disagreement with Shropshire county council over the number of houses. South Shropshire wanted more because of the social housing need, but the county council wanted to allocate them elsewhere. An agreement was reached, but then the Government office for the west midlands stepped in, took 500 homes away from South Shropshire's allocation and gave them to Telford and Wrekin to build the millennium village—an excellent idea—at Ketley. South Shropshire has 569 housing permissions left by 2011, yet its survey identifies a need for 1,400 affordable homes. I realise that the Government will tackle that and the Minister has considerable sympathy on the matter, but those are some of the problems that impinge on rural areas.
It is not all about problems. What are the solutions? We need to see a change to the right to buy. That change should be not just for areas in London and the southeast, but made available to any council that wishes to make those changes, because there are pockets around the country where the right to buy has devastated the social housing stock. The problem is not confined to London and the south-east. Councils should be able to change the discount, and in some circumstances any discount under the right to buy should be ended. I would much prefer encouragement of the right to invest. Ironically, the Conservatives introduced the right to invest at the same time as the right to buy, back in the 1980s, but they then abolished it because no one was using it because everyone was taking advantage of the right to buy. In my mind, the right to invest is the shared equity route, and very much the way forward in ensuring that houses remain in the stock but also that people pay back and build up their capital receipts.
I should like to share with hon. Members news of a successful scheme in South Shropshire, which I have mentioned to the Minister. The golden shares scheme seeks to create a middle tier of housing. It uses section 106 agreements about local need housing, often when a farmer builds in an adjoining field for his family. Under those provisions, individuals are tied, and must sell to other local people at an agreed maximum growth rate in house prices. The result is that the housing remains affordable to local people but that that person still owns 99 per cent. of their home. I would recommend that laudable scheme to hon. Members around the country as a practical, middle way—for want of another term—forward between the social housing market and the open housing market.
I would urge the Government to encourage councils to increase targets for the percentage of affordable homes. In South Shropshire we have now achieved the position where there is 50 per cent. affordable housing on all new sites over two homes. That is probably the most draconian—or radical, depending on how one looks at it—set-up in the country, and a pragmatic approach to dealing with a problem in rural communities.
However, there is another matter that is perhaps a little difficult for the Government to deal with and is not an easy problem: the effect of PPG7, which defines

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sustainable communities. The hon. Member for The Wrekin touched on that matter in a way. That guidance says that housing can only be built in settlements of a certain size and with certain facilities. However, there are villages just below that size that have village shops, pubs, a church, a village hall and a community. In some of those cases, some affordable housing is necessary to ensure the future viability of that village. The problem with PPG7 is that it will cause communities below a certain size to stagnate. This is a difficult issue. We do not want random growth; we do not want to concrete over the green belt as people often say. We need a sliding scale that allows communities that are a little below the scale to have the housing that will ensure that they remain viable for the long term.
I am very pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives introduced the debate, as it is an important matter for many in rural areas. Lack of affordable housing in rural areas blights lives. It is a shame that events in the other Chamber have taken many hon. Members away, but I hope that the Minister might, in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives when talking about another Minister, throw away his notes for once and pick up the baton. I hope that he will act on a matter that gives him concern by fighting for an increase in affordable social housing in rural areas.
3.5 pm
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I am grateful to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) for securing the debate. Lack of affordable social housing concerns all of us who represent rural areas and, sadly, it is a problem that is getting worse. Lack of affordable housing is a problem everywhere but it is particularly bad in rural areas. Homelessness in rural areas has soared by 13 per cent. since the Government came to power. Rural homelessness has risen more than three times faster than that in urban areas. At present, more than 17,000 rural households are unintentionally homeless and in priority need. Only 20 per cent. of the affordable social housing built between 1997 and 2001 was built in rural areas. In that time, the Housing Corporation's budget was reduced by more than £300 million.
In March, the Government announced that they had allocated another £250 million for starter home initiatives to help key workers to buy homes over the next three years. The trouble was that only 360 key workers were in rural areas. Rural property prices are 15 per cent. above national averages, so locals cannot afford them. That is the root of the problem. Many people dream of a rural idyll where it is easy and cheap to live, and that is why they move to rural areas. Once there, however, they find that the idyll is not what they expected.
In an excellent article in The Guardian in October 2002, Alexander Garrett makes the point very well about higher costs in rural areas. He makes the point that the high cost of rural transport is a long-running sore. He also says that fuel costs and council tax are higher. One or two things are cheaper in rural areas, such as parking, insurance and domestic help. However, he concludes his article, which I commend to anyone who has not read it, by saying:
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"Overall, though, the cost of living means many areas of the countryside are becoming increasingly exclusive, says Professor Shucksmith. 'The real issue is that there are some people in rural areas facing a high cost of living and with poor access to services and markets, and who are on low incomes,' he explains. 'There are others who have professional salaries and who can afford to pay the prices. They are also more likely to be oriented to the nearby urban areas, and so have more choice about the price they pay. So it's not just about town versus country: there is inequality within the rural community.
The hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) made the problem very clear, and his analysis was exactly right. The question is: what is to be done about it? In my own area, Cotswold district council did a large-scale voluntary transfer four years ago. It sold 500 houses, and with the interest on the money and with the local authority social housing grant it has managed to build in the past four years 480 additional houses. The problem is that councils will no longer be able to do that because of the changes that the Government are making. The disgraceful withdrawal of the local authority social housing grant at very short notice will hit debt-free councils very hard indeed. It will make it much more difficult for them to build affordable social housing. The pooling of capital receipts will make it even harder for them to build.
It is wrong, just because those councils are debt free, that they should be punished in that way. After all, the people who live in those areas have as much right to affordable social housing as those living in other areas. In fact, it is largely those debt-free councils in the southwest and south-east of England that have the biggest problem in building affordable housing. The difficulty is caused by the very word affordable. In those areas, land prices are so high that the ratio between the permissible rent and the cost of building such houses makes it difficult for registered social landlords to build new affordable houses.
What is to be done? Hon. Members have come up with a number of solutions. One area that needs to be looked at closely is the planning system. It is highly regrettable that the Government have ripped up the planning system and are replacing it with a new system. Whether it will work does not matter; it will take a number of years to bed in, and in the interim it is bound to be slower and less responsive. We regret, from the Conservative point of view, that it will be based on the regions. That is not the correct way to run a planning system. We think that local councils and local people should have more say.
The hon. Member for The Wrekin (Peter Bradley) is entirely right; where they are able and willing to do so, parish councils—on their own or in clusters—should have a greater role in the planning system. That must be entirely right, because local people know what is needed, particularly what is needed for local people rather than for incomers. The Government are going in the wrong direction by moving planning and housing to the regions.
I urge the Government in a non-partisan way, but I hope that the regions will use a light touch in planning and housing matters and that those powers will be used only in extreme circumstances. By and large, local authorities should be left to make their own housing plans, which they are required to do under the Local Government Bill, and their local development frameworks, which they are required to do under the

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Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill, and they should be able to do so with little interference from the region.
Peter Bradley: I am glad to discover that we agree at least about the role of parish councils. However, would the hon. Gentleman accept it if a parish council said on behalf of the local community that it needed to develop affordable housing in the green belt?
Mr. Clifton-Brown: The hon. Gentleman might be slightly confused by the difference between greenbelt and greenfield land. The green belt itself is a difficult issue. On the whole, green belts should be preserved, although a case could be made for replenishing the green belt with other areas, and for building on the green belt itself provided that areas are added in compensation. There is a clear need for more affordable housing—for more housing, full stop. That will involve some building on green fields, although the Government could do far more to encourage the use of brownfield land.
The Government's target is for 60 per cent. of new housing to be built on brownfield land. They will find it difficult to achieve that target when the rate of housing building accelerates—as it must. We are now building the fewest houses since 1924. That is unsustainable. It is also unfair, particularly to those at the bottom of the pile who need affordable housing. That is why the number of homeless people is at its highest level, and why we have the highest number of people in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. The Government have clearly got us into an unsustainable position.
We need to build more houses, but they need to be built on brownfield land. I have met many councillors, particularly in the south-east, who have told me that they do not have any land, but when I start examining their plans, I find that they have allocated 5,000 homes on brownfield land. Even in the Cotswolds, which is one of the most difficult areas to find building land, because 80 per cent. of the land is designated in one way or another, they have found brownfield land such as old airfields and other such places, where they could build houses—and they should be doing more of it.
Hon. Members have cited the right to buy as part of the problem of the shortage of affordable housing. Let me put right one mistake that hon. Members have made today. When a house is sold off, it does not disappear from the housing stock. If one is at the bottom of the pile, one needs availability. The average tenure of an affordable house is between 10 and 20 years. That is a fact. In a small village where there are, for example, half a dozen affordable houses, the chance of one coming up often is very small.
The problem with the right to buy, which we introduced, was that all the proceeds were first applied to paying off debt, although there was a good reason for that. Under the new extension of right to buy that we have proposed, all the proceeds will be ploughed back into building further affordable houses. By extending the right to buy to registered social landlords, we could sell up to 30,000 houses and build an additional 15,000 affordable houses. Given that the Government are currently building only 21,000 additional affordable
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houses in any one year—down from 35,000 when we left office—we would, at a stroke, increase the number of affordable houses that could be built in this country by about 70 per cent., at no cost to the taxpayer.
Matthew Green: The problem is that once houses are bought under right to buy, their prices rocket up to normal house prices. When I looked at the housing market recently, I found that the cheapest former council house in Much Wenlock was£160,000. Given that the average salary in Shropshire is £15,000,that has been taken right out of the affordable market. Because of the discount, even under the hon. Gentleman's scheme, there would be less money available to build homes.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: That is just a function of the market. If the Liberal party thinks that it can buck the market, it has another thing coming.
I have nearly finished, because I want the Minister to have plenty of time to reply to this important debate. The Government have, at my urging—I raised the subject three years ago, long before almost anyone else in the House—amended the council tax in the Local Government Bill currently in progress so that local authorities have the discretion to charge council tax on second houses at up to 90 per cent. My party welcomes that, but it raises only £60 million. The Government have, quite rightly, said that local authorities can keep that money, but they will be able to use it to subsidise services in general. We would have preferred it to be ring-fenced for additional affordable housing.
The real problem is that although the Government have given local authorities the power to raise council tax on empty homes, which could raise a maximum of£160 million, they will take all the money away. There is therefore no incentive whatever for councils to charge council tax on empty homes. Obviously, with 753,000 empty homes in this country, that is a real problem. We must address it, and not in some of the draconian ways that the Government and the Liberal party propose, but by incentives. There is an awful lot that we can do to encourage some of that empty housing to be brought back into use, as it should be. It is a waste of national resources.
There is clearly a problem in rural areas, which must be addressed. It is part of the Government's policy of not giving fair treatment to people in rural areas, compared with people in some of the urban areas that they control. We must have a better distribution of resources. We need to build more affordable housing in rural areas. We must look at the planning system. We must see whether we can bring brownfield land and empty and second homes into use. There is much that can be done; I urge the Government to do it.
3.18 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Tony McNulty): I apologise to the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) for having so little time to respond to what has been, in the main—I exempt the last contribution—a serious and properly focused debate. I have to say, with the best will in the world and in the nicest possible terms, that what we have just heard was clumsy, cliché-ridden

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drivel, as usual. There is no justification for the real, substantial damage that the extension of the right to buy would do—in rural areas in particular, as alluded to. The hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) implicitly suggests that registered social landlords can magically sell a house, collect the proceeds and persuade the banks that the phantom house still exists and should still be on the books as a suitably valued asset. His policy is complete and utter nonsense. Simply because the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) had to pull a rabbit out of the bag at the last party conference, it is not appropriate substantively to fool people that his policy will magically secure an addition to the stock of affordable housing in rural areas, for which there is a real need.
Equally, it is not terribly helpful to run around like the soothsayer in "Up Pompeii!"—I know that that shows my age—shouting that we are all doomed because any number of councils up and down the land affected, albeit temporarily, by the abolition of the local authority social housing grant will suddenly impose supplementary rates. There is no such thing as supplementary council tax or the ability to secure supplementary council tax in this land. Unless the hon. Member for Cotswold is suggesting that affected councils should act illegally, he is talking complete and utter nonsense. With the greatest regard, under British law councils do not have the ability to lay a supplementary council tax. It is not possible and to suggest otherwise is nonsense.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. McNulty: With the greatest will in the world, I have nine minutes in which to address the important comments made by the hon. Member for St. Ives and my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Peter Bradley). However, I could not let that matter go.
It is not appropriate to say that councils only had seven weeks' notice for the abolition of local authority social housing grant. They were consulted last autumn on the impending abolition of LASHG in April 2004. If people were making plans in perpetuity for April 2004, it was an error.[Interruption.] I shall come to the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) presently. The transitional arrangements are generous: it is misconstruing the matter to suggest that things are somehow worse in the transitional period than they were before it.
I have not yet come to my notes, but I must tell the hon. Member for St. Ives that we were not quaking in our boots last Wednesday morning when we saw the title of today's debate. The communities plan mentioned a £175 million initial transitional payment, albeit for debt-free authorities. Although there was a coincidence between the publication of the debate's title and the issue of the statement, sadly statements do not drop from the sky. It was well into Tuesday, the day before I had any hint of the debate's title, when the appropriate written statement was signed off. None the less, when one puts together the£275 million transitional relief for debt-free authorities with the relief offered on the interest that will accrue for non-debt-free authorities, which is what they will be seeking to do over the next year with LASHG, cumulatively£550 million of
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programmes will be sustained over the next year rather than the anticipated£500 million. If anything, the settlement errs on the side of generosity.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: Pure sophistry.
Mr. McNulty: With the best will in the world, the hon. Gentleman has already shown his complete lack of understanding of LASHG. Please do not compound the matter by repeating the point about sophistry, which LASHG is not. For those authorities with debt, LASHG was about sustaining and funding the interest accrued on investment, not spending money. If the hon.Gentleman thinks otherwise, he is simply showing his lack of both information and comprehensive understanding, which is the polite way to put it.
The hon. Gentleman showed his misunderstanding in spades when he discussed the right to buy. Government and Opposition Members have accepted that right to buy is important because it has had a measured and substantial effect on rural housing, which is something that the Conservative Government accepted in their initial designations and exemptions. It troubles me that any number of the authorities that are covered by the designation and the widening of the ability to alter the criteria have not yet used that ability. Many of the authorities that the hon. Gentleman quoted are covered in some way by the restrictions. In Caradon and North Cornwall there is a requirement on the buyer, if he or she wishes to resell within 10 years, to offer the property back to the authority, returning it to the affordable housing stock. In Carrick, Kerrier and Penwith, people are allowed to sell only to somebody who has lived or worked locally for at least three years. We do not yet know about Restormel. If those restrictions are not working, the relevant districts need to reconsider the matter.
When we announced the 42 areas in which we were restricting the discounts on right to buy, at the same time—receiving far less press coverage—we said that we would extend the ability of all the areas designated as rural to consider whether any of the criteria should be further restricted. We have heard only from the Isles of Scilly and we are talking to people there about the home ownership taskforce. We are considering not merely reforming right to buy. As the hon. Member for St. Ives says, one way in which we can tackle housing in rural areas is to find new models of low-cost home ownership—equity transfer, shared ownership or any new way of giving people scope to get on the property ladder without taking the social unit with them and denuding progressively the limited social housing stock. I am happy to discuss further why the restrictions are not working in relation to particular authorities, or where the Isles of Scilly go from here in terms of the low-cost home ownership taskforce. I have come to know in detail some of the authorities in Cornwall, not least because, in some cases, fairly eccentric—
Mr. Clifton-Brown: The names.
Mr. McNulty: Kerrier, for one, absolutely.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: The names.
Mr. McNulty: Kerrier is the one that I am referring to in terms of its eccentric interpretation of some national

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Government policies and policy planning guidance. I have written to that authority on a number of occasions, not least about PPG7. Much existing policy is in the hands of local planning authorities.
I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin about proper reform of the planning system. The hon. Member for St. Ives will know that we are looking seriously at 6/98 and I look forward to hearing his points about greater flexibility in the review of affordable housing and the notions of exception, especially in rural areas, when we review PPG3. The point about the new planning system enabling us to be more sensitive and more flexibly responsive to strange and complex things was well made.
If we are talking about sophistry, the hon. Member for Cotswold needs to understand that until now the Housing Corporation has imposed downwards any notion of what is going on in the regions and the counties. Moving that down to regional level will mean greater sensitivity and flexibility within each locality where planning is concerned. The relationship between the regional spatial strategy and the local development framework will also be more sensitive. I have already spoken specifically to the hon. Member for Ludlow about the numbers in South Shropshire and I shall continue that investigation.
I apologise; I have limited time. I can tell the hon. Member for St. Ives that we take the matter very seriously. Other hon. Members have shown that they do too, except, sadly, the hon. Member for Cotswold, who clearly knows nothing about the matter, and given his contribution, could not care less about it. That is a matter of some regret, given that in assorted rural forums, there is a goodly deal of cross-party consensus on the matters, the seriousness of which belies the yah-boo tactics of the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hesitate to interrupt a Minister in full flow—a torrent, I would have said—but I have done, and I am grateful to him for sitting down.

Hospital Services
3.30 pm
Dr. Richard Taylor: I greatly enjoy debates in this Chamber, because there is a seat for me, bang in the middle between the two warring factions. I am particularly delighted to see the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Salford (Ms Blears), because the document that has sparked off this debate, "Keeping the NHS local—a new direction of travel", reflects something she wrote in September 2001 that I often quote. As I am sure she remembers, she wrote:
"The culture within the NHS needs to change so that the views of patients and citizens are not only valued but listened to and acted upon as well."
I had been rather sceptical about that, but now we have a document that provides strong evidence that the Government are listening and are prepared to act on the views of citizens. I would go so far as to say that some of us could have written the document almost as well as the Department of Health has.
In the time available, I will touch on three topics: the key messages from the document, with reactions from some groups; an outline of some of the difficulties the Government will face as the champion of the people, to whom the NHS belongs and who pay the staff salaries; and a brief mention of local situations. I hope to finish two or three minutes early to allow another hon. Member to speak—with your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for mentioning that another hon. Member wishes to speak. In a personal debate, it is normally the form that any additional hon. Member wishing to take part in the debate should not only get the permission of the owner of the debate—in this case, the hon. Gentleman—but that of the Minister and the occupant of the Chair. I have made the point.
Dr. Taylor: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I apologise.
I can pick out only a few key messages. First, the document recognises that patients want more, not fewer, local services. It encourages the NHS to work
"in a new stronger partnership with the public and staff to find high quality, sustainable solutions for local services, and deliver the agenda for reform."
The document describes what consultation should be, stating that consultation
"with patients and the public, and with staff, needs to begin right at the outset— before minds have been made up about how services could or should change."
That makes a delightful change from some of the mockeries of consultation that we have seen.
One of the core patient principles—the word is patient, not NHS or staff principles—is
"developing options for change with people, not for them".
The document also recognises that patients will accept the need to travel for high-powered specialist services, but not for bread-and-butter services relating to common emergencies. That fact was picked up by the Nuffield Trust in its 2001 publication, "Local medical

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emergency units". Referring to Downe hospital in Northern Ireland, which was due to be drastically downgraded, it acknowledged that people would not budge from their resistance to the removal of basic local emergency services. A pilot involving Downe hospital and hospitals in Belfast, which is intended to work out a partnership arrangement that will work, is mentioned in the document.
There are major messages about changes in the roles of clinical staff, involving teamwork within hospitals, networking with other hospitals, the information technology necessary for communication, different ways of covering night work, balancing generalist and specialist work and, most important, integrating primary and secondary care. I have time to mention only two reactions. The Royal College of Physicians has made a brief comment, prior to making a much more detailed one, that welcomes the challenge of improving the NHS and looks forward to responding to the document in detail. It pleases me by stating that the document recognises the need to balance three carefully chosen concepts: convenience, humanity and safety. Those words say an awful lot. The Royal College of Physicians also points to the difficulties, which I will deal with later.
The only contrary view of which I am aware was expressed in a letter to The Times on 18 February. The chair of the junior doctors committee of the British Medical Association obviously fears that the document is politically inspired and will be to the detriment of hospital services. I do not take it that way at all. The document is a very definite example of the Government listening to people. If it was inspired by the ballot box, so be it—perhaps that is the function of the ballot box.
The first difficulty is medical staffing and the European working time directive, which cuts junior doctors' hours dramatically. I cannot help wondering how continental European countries will cope. Will they be bound by the directive as tightly as it seems we plan to be, or will they turn a blind eye to some of it? At one of the public meetings of the Select Committee on Health not that long ago, we were talking about the European working time directive and a senior civil servant said that there was "a plurality of solutions." He did not give details of that plurality, but the document mentions some of the solutions. I hope that the Minister will tell us a little about them and say whether the pilot schemes are compatible.
A crucial difficulty in relation to the European working time directive is the way in which we cover continuity of care. In its initial comment, the Royal College of Physicians stated:
"Continuity of care will be one of the greatest challenges for the new NHS."
It is easy to reminisce about the time, relatively few years ago, when people worked with their own teams and continuity of care was natural. I realise that that has gone and is impossible to recreate, but I hope that it might be a little more possible in some of the small units that are to come.
The second big difficulty is financial. Despite the extra money that the Government are putting into the NHS, primary care trusts will have little, if any, money for development, and both overspending and underfunding will be a problem. The primary care trusts are also
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overstretched managerially. I hope that the Minister will tell us whether the GP contract, if it is accepted, will help the smaller hospitals by making it more possible for GPs to cover some of the night-time work.
The third difficulty is information technology. The Royal College of Physicians puts it rather nicely. It says that the document reflects
"perhaps an optimistic view of the benefits of the early application of information technology in the NHS."
My plea is that we concentrate on IT that actually works. We know that digital X-ray services work. I would be very grateful to know the proportion of trusts that have such services, because they are by no means widespread.
Andrew George: The hon. Gentleman is making a very important point. I congratulate the Government on putting £250,000 into the West Cornwall hospital pilot study on the reconfiguration of local services. I am a stakeholder member of the steering group for that project. To pursue the hon. Gentleman's point, does he agree that it is important that emergency services are as close to home as possible? If information technology services cannot provide back-up to small hospitals, we need a system whereby staff from larger hospitals are rotated to give smaller hospitals adequate staffing cover and to ensure that emergency services are properly supported.
Dr. Taylor: I do not mean to imply that information technology can wholly replace the presence of emergency services in a community. I am simply saying that the digital transmission of X-rays actually works.
My last point is about local situations. The sites of the pilots that have been set up—in Penzance, to which the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) referred, in Downe hospital, Northern Ireland, and in Bishop Auckland hospital—make me absolutely green with envy, because they are all so much better than what my poor constituents have. The document recognises that unsympathetic, drastic downgrading of an acute general hospital does not work. In a sentence that was excluded from the final version, a draft of the document acknowledged that, in some cases, local access to hospital care had suffered as a consequence. I am not surprised that the sentence has been left out.
Sadly, in Worcestershire, everything is happening as predicted. Waiting times are rising, ambulances are queuing more, stressed staff are walking away, there are insufficient staff and beds, and the elderly are frightened. Two and a half years after the downgrading, the flow of letters to me continues. However, hope has been rekindled for the rest of the country and even for Worcestershire by this document.
I conclude with two quotes from the document. The first is that
"the objective is to provide as a minimum a "first port of call" (a service able to receive and provide assessment, initial treatment and transfer where necessary)".
That is described as a minimum. The pilot areas will have that minimum—that first port of call; other areas will not, but should have it. Secondly, the document is about
"working with local communities and staff to rebuild local services around local needs."

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I thank the Department of Health and the Minister for recognising that local people need local services, and for acting on behalf of citizens and the public to try to make an incredibly difficult compromise work.
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Before I call the hon. Gentleman to make his point of order, I wish to tell the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Dr. Taylor) that I might have advised him incorrectly. If an hon. Member wishes to intervene during a half-hour Adjournment debate such as we are having, they may do so. Whether to give way is entirely up to the hon. Member who is speaking. It is only if an hon. Member wishes to participate in the debate that he or she must seek the permission of the Minister and the occupant of the Chair.
Uniquely, I shall allow the hon. Member for Cotswold to raise a point of order. I believe that hon. Members will understand why when he has given his short address.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to the House. I spoke in the debate on rural housing, but forgot to declare my interests before I spoke. I am a fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and own rural property, although I do not believe that it will be affected by the debate. I should have declared my interest.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: The House is grateful to the hon. Member for Cotswold. He has proven himself to be a truly honourable Gentleman.
3.45 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ms Hazel Blears): I genuinely congratulate the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Dr. Taylor) on securing this debate on reconfiguration of hospital services. I am aware of his keen interest in health matters, not only in his own constituency but across the wider canvas. From the quotation that he used to start the debate, I know that he is aware of my personal commitment to making sure that citizens, the public and patients have a real role in shaping their future health services.
I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman welcomes the publication of the guidance "Keeping the NHS local—a new direction of travel". He rightly highlighted that it challenges the "biggest is best" mindset in respect of hospitals and hospital services, which we in this country have perhaps suffered from for many years. We believe that the twin opportunities offered by technological change and changing workforce roles—including developments such as new equipment, new information technology, telemedicine and other new technologies that are coming on stream, alongside the changing work force roles and the new issues relating to the skills mix, whereby nurses are beginning to do things that only doctors did and doctors are doing things that only consultants did—will enable us to design services in a very different way in future. They also open up a new range of possibilities for smaller hospitals, which are dear to the hearts of many local communities.
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I must make it clear that the guidance is not a blueprint for hospital design. If it were, it would almost defeat its own object, because talking about keeping things local means that solutions must come from local communities themselves, so that people feel a real sense of ownership and that they are stakeholders in the design. What the guidance does is try to empower the NHS to work in partnership with local people and to decide together what range of services will meet the needs of that community.
The guidance has three core principles that will in future underpin everything that we do in this field. The first principle is that options for change should be developed with patients not for them, and that before we even start to formulate preferred options, we have a sense of sitting down right at the outset to design what services should look like—their essential features—and where they should be. In the NHS in the past, a preferred option would emerge and people were presented with it almost as a fait accompli. Consultation was sometimes simply the expiry of a period of time, people would do the first thing that they had thought of, and the process was not altered by the involvement of the public. The first underlying principle is that we develop proposals for change in consultation with local communities and that we start at the outset to think about what service redesign should look like.
Mr. Peter Luff: My constituents will be encouraged to hear what the Minister has just said. Will the principles that the Minister has just underlined be expected to apply in the consultation at Evesham community hospital and in every circumstance, or is that an ideal approach that will not always apply? Do the Government expect it to apply to every consultation on hospital developments?
Ms Blears: If the hon. Gentleman listens as I develop the argument, he will see that they are core principles that underpin the whole thrust of our future policy development.
The second principle is that, where possible, services should be redesigned rather than relocated. That is a really important statement, because it means that we will look at services rather than at shifting them around the area. We will consider how services can be redesigned, and ways in which to get consultants to come out of hospitals to do things in local communities and the primary care sector rather than expect patients to travel to where the services are. It is a shift in the balance of power towards the people who use the service rather than the people who provide it. There are important constraints, which the hon. Member for Wyre Forest has mentioned, and I will try to deal with them.
The third principle takes a view of the whole system, not an isolated part, and looks at the networks between different institutions. To an increasing extent in areas such as cancer services, people receive services, including diagnostics, screening, treatment or palliative care, in as many as three or four different places. The aim is to look at the patient pathway across those different institutions rather than simply at the bricks and mortar of the institution that has provided care in the past. We want to take a whole systems view and look at genuine integration and joint planning to see who can bring what to the overall design of services.

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The first principle, involving patients and the public, is now underpinned by a new legal framework. Last year, I was delighted to introduce the new system for patient and public involvement. Despite being the former chair of a community health council, I am absolutely convinced that the new service will be more vigorous and vibrant and will get patients involved in service redesign. We now have a legal basis for that framework in section 11 of the Health and Social Care Act 2001, which places a duty on the NHS to make arrangements to involve and consult the public in everything that it does. Under that new statutory framework, the NHS has a duty to involve the public in planning and developing services and in making decisions about how services will operate.
That is a world away from the old system in which people were left with the options of complaining after the event or objecting to a proposed service redesign. It is difficult to get one's views heard when a decision has almost been made and one is on the outside saying, "This should not have happened." We all know how difficult that has been, whether the complaint has related to the process or to the merits of a proposal. If we can get people involved in designing services, community involvement should be vastly increased by the time we reach the decision-making stage.
Andrew George: Despite all that, what can the Minister say to reassure our constituents about the delivery of emergency services? Consultants have shown a tendency to retreat from local hospitals to a few large centres. What can the process she describes do to reverse that trend?
Ms Blears: I direct the hon. Gentleman to the document that we published last year, "Reforming Emergency Care", which emphasises the need to take a whole systems approach. Emergency care is not only about what happens in accident and emergency. About 40 per cent. of people who turn up at A and E could be better served in primary care, by community mental health teams, crisis teams or access outreach; and some of the capacity problems in A and E are the result of delayed discharges at the other end of the system.
Whole systems redesign is the third principle of "Keeping the NHS local". We must look at the patient pathway and find out which services are most appropriate for the person who needs emergency care, primary care, acute care, residential social care, outreach care or community care, then put those services in place around the patient. We should engage consultants in the whole systems redesign, rather than see them as part of the bricks and mortar of the A and E department and a separate part of the system. If the hon. Gentleman looks at that document in detail, he will see that the emergency care networks that are being established throughout the health service bring together primary, secondary and community care.
We are publishing guidance entitled "Strengthening Accountability" to put flesh on the bones of the section 11 duty. That guidance and the document "Keeping the NHS local" provide two powerful tools to ensure that the new way of working will be embedded in the NHS. The guidance contains some really good practical suggestions for people in the health service. It is all very well for the Government to say, "You must do this or
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that", but we also have a responsibility to give people good practice cases so that they can share good ideas about practical ways in which they can make a difference.
The Health and Social Care Act has given new powers to local authority overview and scrutiny committees. As the democratically elected representatives of communities, local authorities will have the opportunity to look at reconfigurations to see where there is conflict. I urge local authorities to become involved at the outset in the service redesign process so that we can minimise the occasions on which there is real conflict. In addition, there is the independent reconfiguration panel. On 14 February, we announced eight members of the panel and we expect to be in a position to make the final appointments shortly.
The panel, chaired by Dr. Peter Barrett, will offer another means by which the voice of the patient can be heard. The panel will use the two documents—"Keeping the NHS local" and "Strengthening Accountability"—as the basis for its considerations. It will look at how patients were consulted and local people were involved. It will ask whether that process was real—did patients have a good opportunity to participate, or was it a matter of two public meetings held on a Thursday night in a far-flung part of the area that nobody attended? The independent reconfiguration panel will take a pretty robust look at the involvement processes and will also set great store by "Keeping the NHS local".
The panel will look closely at whether NHS bodies and their partners have incorporated the three core principles that I have described. There is a series of checks and balances in the system to ensure that there is not merely a headline message, but permeation through every part of the service.
Matthew Green: That is a welcome announcement, but for Kidderminster hospital, which serves about 15,000 of my constituents, it is six years too late. If only what the Minister describes had been in place six years ago. Is there anything in the document that might encourage health authorities and primary care trusts to consider bringing back some services that were wrongly taken away?
Ms Blears: I shall mention Kidderminster hospital al the conclusion of my remarks. There are great grounds for optimism, and I urge the hon. Gentleman to consider matters in a more positive light.
The process of redesign is near the top of the agenda for all primary care trusts. In their commissioning processes, they will look at how services can be redesigned. PCTs have 75 per cent. of the budget and are in the driving seat when it comes to asking what local services should look like. PCTs are increasingly developing their skills in process redesign, which is new for them. The best PCTs now have skilled people who are looking at the patient pathway and asking, "How can we redesign our services to have more things at primary care level than in the acute sector?" There is now the money to make those commissioning decisions a reality. Again, we have put in place not only the ideas but the tools to do the job.
Let me explain about the pilot projects. At West Cornwall hospital, people are looking together at the emergency services. Specialist medical staff from Truro

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are advising via a telemedicine link so that more people can be kept in the local area. Clinicians in Penzance and Truro will make the decisions together on whether someone needs further treatment, and then refer them without a further wait in A and E. The second pilot is at Bishop Auckland hospital, where emergency medical care and critical care is being looked at, but only in relation to elective surgery. Those involved have to depend on networking between the three neighbouring institutions—Bishop Auckland hospital, Darlington Memorial hospital and University Hospital of North Durham—and see how those networks develop. The third pilot is at Central Middlesex hospital, London. That hospital provides both emergency medicine and emergency surgery, and is strongly reliant on networking with neighbouring sites for critical cases. There are new series of networks there.
The pilots illustrate the whole systems approach to service redesign. We want to learn what the good things are and what the problems are. We recognise that the processes are not easy to go through. The hon. Member for Wyre Forest has mentioned three imperatives: the working time directive, continuity of care, and funding. Those are serious issues. We can learn from the pilots how to provide services in a smarter way, rather than sweat services more so they produce more. We have lessons to learn.
We are putting in place a major independent evaluation of the pilots. The NHS research and development programme has just advertised in respect of that evaluation. We are really keen to learn the lessons, and we want them to provoke discussion and debate across the health community to see what we can learn.
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The hon. Member for Wyre Forest and the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) are concerned about Kidderminster hospital. The guidance does not say that we should go around unpicking decisions that have been made. The health service develops and thinking moves on all the time. We shall probably move on from the pilots as we develop the process. However, the decisions made on services at Kidderminster hospital have led to substantial new investment, including £13 million to develop a state-of-the-art diagnostic and treatment centre, an ambulatory care centre, a modern minor injuries unit, a primary care centre, outpatient clinics, operating theatres with 23-hour recovery facilities, and radiology facilities, including X-ray and a computerised tomography scanner.
Those services are not all in place yet, so I entirely understand why people do not feel as confident as they might do. I urge both hon. Gentlemen to help the new services at Kidderminster hospital to get established. Now is the time to start to work with those services and to look to the future. When the new facilities come on stream, both hon. Gentlemen can play a real part in encouraging the people in the local community to have confidence in their health services. They can continue the debate on service redesign so that we get services that meet the expectations and aspirations of that community. I know that both hon. Gentlemen want to lead on these issues in the local area, and I urge them to join me in ensuring that we help local people to make the most of the benefits on offer.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am grateful to the Minister for her reply. We now move to today's final debate in Westminster Hall, on a subject initiated by the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney): the future of farming and food in Staffordshire. I welcome the Minister for Rural Affairs and Urban Quality of Life to Westminster Hall for the second time today.

Farming and Food (Staffordshire)
4 pm
Mr. David Kidney: It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and the Minister in his place.
I am genuinely thrilled to have this opportunity to tell the House about the positive attitude developing in Staffordshire towards the farming and food sectors and to say a little about a conference held on that subject in Staffordshire last month. I shall put to the Minister some of the issues that came across very strongly during that conference and describe the aftermath witnessed in Staffordshire.
By way of introduction, I shall say something about my approach to the subject. It is important to examine the farming and food sectors in the broader context of the rural economy as a whole. Agriculture is without doubt the foundation of the rural economy, but clearly if the foundations are weak, the buildings on them are at risk. It is therefore important to examine agriculture in particular.
Recent years have seen falling employment and declining wealth-creation in farming. There are several reasons for that, not least a run of food scares, BSE, classical swine fever, and the recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease. Another factor has been the launch of the single European currency and the weakness of the euro against the pound—although as far as I can tell from current movements in the exchange rate, that is beginning to turn the other way around—and the fact that for several years, British farmers and British manufacturers have struggled with competition from people who have an edge in terms of the value of the currency in which they are dealing. A further factor has been international over-production of food in some key sectors, leading to incredibly low commodity prices. Milk is a good example. Farmers struggle to fetch a price for their milk that is greater than their production costs.
Against that background, it is not surprising that farmers in Staffordshire have asked their Members of Parliament whether there is a future for farming. I am sure that that question is echoing round the whole country. I am happy to say that I think that the answer is yes, there is a future. Last year at national level we began to see why that is so. First, we had the impressive report on the future of farming and food from Sir Don Curry and his colleagues on the policy commission on that subject. That gave an acute analysis of the problems and possible solutions. Secondly, at the end of last year, the Government issued a response to that Curry report and their own strategy for sustainable farming and food. That, too, answers the question resoundingly: yes, there is a future for farming in the UK.
If we lift our eyes beyond the boundaries of our country for a moment, there are big international pressures that must also be responded to if there is to be a healthy future for the industry. Perhaps the most important is the reform of the common agricultural policy, but not far behind are the talks on trade in the World Trade Organisation. If our Government's ambitions are to be realised, we must see European and international recognition of the validity of agri-environmental schemes to support farming rather than old-fashioned production support.
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I shall say a little on the conference that we held in Staffordshire last month on the future of farming and food in our county. It was a staggeringly successful event and there were three very good elements. The first was that it was a genuine partnership arrangement, the second was all that went into it, and the third was all that came out of it. I shall elaborate on those three elements.
The partnership was a genuine one between the National Farmers Union at county and regional levels, the Country Land and Business Association—the CLA—at regional level, and all the county's Members of Parliament, irrespective of political party. It was understandable that I took the lead for the Members of Parliament because the venue was the county showground in Stafford, which I have the honour to represent in Parliament. All the Members of Parliament expressed their support for the event, which was helpful in preparing for the day.
When we arrived, we found that we had drawn all the relevant people together into the same room at the same time, including farmers, food processors, food retailers, other rural interest groups, environmental interest groups, Government agencies and non-governmental organisations. We had a superb range of speakers and presenters to assist us in our deliberations and, not surprisingly, there was a combination of successful presentations, workshops and question and answer sessions that helped us to examine the future of farming and food in Staffordshire.
Before moving on to what came out of the event, I shall pause to speak about Staffordshire's position, as it were, on the ground. Eighty per cent. of Staffordshire's land area and 20 per cent. of its population are rural. We have 190,000 hectares of agricultural land in 5,000 holdings. One fifth of the agricultural land and one quarter of the farm holdings in the west midlands are in Staffordshire. The farming is mainly livestock and dairy. but if we add the farming sector to the food and drink, leisure and tourism sectors, together they account for 13 per cent. of employment in the county. We are discussing a substantial and significant countywide and regionwide presence.
What came out of the conference? To start with the most obvious negative, there were too few examples of co-operation within the same sector, for example, between farmers. There were also too few examples of co-operation between sectors, for example, between farmers and food processors. That was disappointing, but we recognised that there was a gap. More encouraging was the evidence of local interest from producers and consumers in farmers' markets, organic farming, reducing food miles and so on. Also encouraging was a desire for more co-operation between the sectors, stronger food links, shorter food chains and more emphasis on local and locally produced food. We recognised that we need more business advice, training and support from external sources.
That conference took place three or four weeks ago, and during the brief time since, my response to what happened that day has been as follows. Last week in Staffordshire, by great good fortune, a conference was organised by Rural United, a rural economic forum that was created in response to and in the aftermath of the dreadful foot and mouth disease outbreak. It was led initially by the county council but is now widely based in our rural economy as a whole. At the conference I saw

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the launch of a new website with the address www.GetRural.co.uk. That was helpful for making contacts, which I now want to discuss.
First, we considered a "Taste of Staffordshire" brand for local marketing and local foods in Staffordshire. We have a "Taste of Staffordshire" awards evening once a year, which is about the service of food in restaurants and other eating places. It is promoted more widely in the region by Heart of England Fine Foods, which is replicated in each of the counties involved. My suggestion was to take that one step further and brand locally produced food in Staffordshire as "Taste of Staffordshire" food. My vision is to have shelving in all the local supermarkets carrying the label "Taste of Staffordshire" so that people know that that food has been produced in their own locality.
I have also had discussions with the local business link, which has been our adviser to businesses, and Rodbaston further education college—a college with particular expertise in land-based sectors—on whether we could have some unified support for businesses in food and farming relating to business management skills, lifelong learning, and the acquisition of the skills necessary for the jobs that they want to do. I have also had talks with those involved with the local health economy, such as health trusts and local agenda 21 organisations, about health links, such as healthy diet, exercise, and environment. Finally, I have been incredibly lucky in the ballot to secure this debate so soon after the conference.
With that wealth of information and research behind me, I come to the debate on behalf of Staffordshire to put three issues to the Minister. They come under three loose headings: joined-up businesses, a stronger rural business economy, and specific help for farmers in particular. On joined-up businesses, all sectors would like to feel that they can co-operate with others in the same sector and between sectors—I include farmers in that. I want to ask more widely about the help that is available for any sector connected with farming and food that wants to build co-operation between its members. We want stronger links in Staffordshire between farming, the food and drink sector and the leisure and tourism sector. I would like the Minister to say something about the support that is given to people who appreciate what they want to do, but are not sure how to go about achieving it.
On the same subject, it is important to establish stronger links between town and country—after all, most of the food that farmers and others produce and process will be consumed in towns and cities by people who might never have seen a farm, or food production in process. It is very important that people understand the provenance of food. They should know whether it is wholesome, how, in the case of livestock, it was raised, and how, in the case of other foods, it was produced. They need to know where food is coming from and how safe it is. We see the importance of that in the health scares. Farmers' markets carry out a good, educative job by enabling producers to understand the needs and wishes of consumers, and consumers to understand what goes on in the production of food. More education
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of that sort can be provided. Labelling is part of that process because it gives people the information that they need.
There is a big role for local sourcing of local foodstuffs. I would like many Staffordshire businesses to source their food requirements locally, but I want the public sector to do the same. In Stafford, we have the headquarters of the county council, the local education authority, the police, the ambulance trust, several health trusts and the fire service. They are all big buyers locally. I would be interested to know if the Minister has a view on what public procurement policy ought to be on buying food locally. Will the Minister offer help to those who want to brand locally the food that they produce? I would like "Taste of Staffordshire" to be more than my vision, but a reality on the shelves of the supermarkets in Staffordshire.
The whole of the rural business economy is important, and a number of issues are relevant to all rural businesses. I shall start with new technology and access to broadband, which is the foremost issue that business people raise with me. I was frequently harassed about that when I recently attended the fourth annual Women in Rural Enterprise conference at Harper Adams university college in Shropshire. Many admirable female entrepreneurs from rural businesses accosted me about their inability to access broadband.
Although about two thirds of the country has access to broadband, the third that does not is the most remote—usually the most rural. Does the Minister have a view on how his colleagues in other Departments could more actively promote the take-up of broadband throughout the country? All businesses want help with managing change. We have done a marvellous job in establishing the small business service through business link, which is already having some success. How do we help all businesses, large or small, when they want to make change but need guidance, help and reassurance? Broadband is also important—farming is a good example of this—in helping to drive up efficiency and productivity. Again, those are things that people in Staffordshire want but sometimes need outside help to achieve.
Similarly, I want to ask the Minister about his support for new types of businesses as well as the diversification of existing businesses. I am particularly interested in non-food crops, which apply to not only agricultural processes but most parts of the economy such as cosmetics and toiletries, energy and fuels, pharmaceutical products and textiles, which are all areas in which non-food crops can be developed.
I have mentioned people's desire to access business advice, training and support. People say to me that there are many schemes for getting advice and access to grants, loans or venture capital, but there seems to be a multiplicity of suppliers of those services, even when the initial source is the Government. Some help with simplifying access to funding and advice would be useful.
I have briefly mentioned the third issue of specific help for farmers, to whom many of the things that I have said apply. Perhaps it is a new desire, but they are particularly keen on co-operation. They want help with becoming co-ops, which is a worthwhile aim for the Government to encourage. They would like to know

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more about best practice and how to spread one farm's best practice to other farms that do similar work. There is a role for the Government in helping that to happen. Demonstration farms are a good way to provide a practical best practice guide on the ground.
Farmers are keen to promote the wholesomeness and safety of their food through food assurance schemes. The red tractor scheme, which was launched by the National Farmers Union a couple of years ago and relaunched last year, is perhaps the most eminent scheme, but it is not the only one. Last year, the Food Standards Agency carried out a review of all food assurance schemes, and the Government could help consumers to get the message that there is a strong and reliable assurance scheme.
Those are the three issues that everybody in Staffordshire wants me to put to the Minister. Along with the residents of Stafford, I have a particular and personal interest in the future of a scheme called "The Great British Kitchen", and I should like to know whether he has any information about it. For several years, it has been the dream of Prue Leith and the British Food Trust to create a visitor attraction following British kitchens through the years and covering the history of cooking and catering. That would be allied with a hotel and training college for this country's chefs of the future and a retail hall selling every kitchen item that people might want to buy. It is a superb idea, and a site has been identified in Stafford. The site is in public ownership and the public authorities are willing to use it for the scheme. A developer, St. Modwen Properties, has been identified, but there seems to be a delay for some reason in getting the last contract for the work. I wonder whether the Minister knows anything about the scheme, whether he would be willing to find out what the hold-up is and whether anything can be done to help.
One day, the kind of responses that the Government made to the Curry commission, such as the new food chain centre, could be located at "The Great British Kitchen" in Stafford. What a boost it would be for the farming and food industries of Staffordshire. I am sure that I have given the Minister more than enough food for thought and I should give him a little time in which to respond.
4.18 pm
The Minister for Rural Affairs and Urban Quality of Life (Alun Michael): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) on securing the debate. I commend the leadership that he has offered not only by raising these issues in today's debate, but in the conference to which he referred. He has demonstrated his capacity to be both entrepreneurial and co-operative in the way in which he represents his constituency and farmers in the wider Staffordshire area. His approach is impressive because he has looked at farming's needs and the way in which those needs fit into the wider context of the future of rural communities. He has raised several key issues, and I am grateful to have a little time in which to reply, although it is doubtful that I shall be able to cover everything. I will follow up in writing on some of the detailed issues that he has raised.
I agreed when my hon. Friend said at the beginning of his speech that there is a future for farming, provided that a positive approach is taken and the agenda set out
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by the Curry commission is pursued with enthusiasm by the farming industry and by the Government. I also agree on the importance of and the interrelationship between CAP reform and the world trade round. Both are crucial for creating the right arrangements for trade and for the future prosperity of farming.
As this is fair trade fortnight, it is appropriate to point out that the importance of fair trade has been recognised by farmers in this country. In fact, later this week I shall speak at a conference organised jointly by the NFU, Oxfam, the co-operative movement and a variety of other partners. The future of farming must be viewed not in terms of protection or production-related subsidies but, as my hon. Friend rightly said, in terms of relating the needs of farming to the needs of the market and consumers and ensuring that we have a high-value farming industry in which added value brings the necessary added income.
My hon. Friend covered a variety of issues. He engaged directly with the issues that affect the farming industry in the wider economic and social context. I am pleased that last year the Labour party held a conference, which I believe was the first rural conference held by any political party, at Harper Adams university college in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Peter Bradley). After some fairly horrendous times for the farming industry, such engagement across boundaries is a most exciting development.
I echo the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford about co-operation. There are some good examples. In December 2001, the Bishop of Hereford organised a conference deliberately to enable people to speak about their successes in breaking through the boundaries. It was a remarkable day, especially as we were only starting to lift our eyes from the impact of foot and mouth disease. It was an example of how one could be positive, given the right conditions and support and an understanding of what has worked elsewhere.
I will reflect on the accuracy of my hon. Friend's comment about the desire for co-operation, which is encouraging. I am delighted to hear that that is the case in Staffordshire, and I believe that it reflects a wider feeling. The Government certainly recognise the importance of co-operation. It forms a central strand of the strategy for sustainable farming and food, which was launched on 12 December.
To encourage co-operative activity, we are supporting an industry-led initiative to establish a new body, which will be called the English farming and food partnership. We have worked with industry to establish the new food chain centre and are partially funding its initial programme of work. We provide £5 million a year through the agriculture development scheme to strengthen collaboration, employ benchmarking and spread good practice. Grants to encourage collaboration are available under the processing and marketing grant scheme and the rural enterprise scheme.
My hon. Friend referred to local food sourcing. We have established a cross-departmental working group to develop Government policy. We have also set up workshops with the Institute of Grocery Distribution to bring supermarkets and small local producers together to explore how barriers to local sourcing can be

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overcome. Much is in the hands of the industry, but we need to encourage all parts of it, large and small, to engage in the process. I hope that my hon. Friend, through his co-operation with the Department, will ensure that Staffordshire is tied into the new initiatives.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Food from Britain, the regional development agencies and the Countryside Agency have prepared a new structure for supporting regional food initiatives. Emphasising what is special and local in the context of a region is the key to success. The west of England has done that particularly well by identifying food from Cornwall, Devon and other parts of the south-west, but doing so within a wider regional marketing plan. Many other localities and regions of England could learn from that.
A good example from the Food from Britain initiative is Heart of England Fine Foods, which was established in March 1998 and helps to deliver projects within the regional speciality foods and drinks sector of the west midlands. I have seen a number of good products that it has supported. In line with the Curry recommendations and our policy on a co-ordinated regional food strategy, we support that sort of joined-up approach.
On public policy on purchasing, there is a danger of distorting the market or contravening procurement rules. That would be unwise from the point of view of British agriculture, which wants to sell abroad. It is necessary that we consider competition in the supply chain. We want to support measures to enable the industry to operate on a level playing field and be successful.
I am fully aware of the importance of links between agriculture, tourism and the rural economy. I was interested to hear that some 13 per cent. of the work force in the county of Staffordshire are engaged in farming, tourism, leisure and the food and drinks industry. It is an interesting percentage because it demonstrates a considerable contribution to the economy, but when one breaks it down, one discovers that it comprises about 2 per cent. in agriculture, some 3 per cent. in food and drink and about 8 per cent. in tourism and leisure. The farming element is fairly small in terms of the numbers employed, but linked into the wider economic driver, it becomes immensely important. That is far more understood nowadays.
Reference was also made to access to new technology, which is a key priority for the Government. The Department of Trade and Industry has made£30 million available through the UK broadband fund to help the regional development agencies and devolved Administrations to develop schemes to extend broadband networks. Many people in rural communities pick up the theme. Some fully understand the potential of broadband, but others do not. We need to ask why connections need to be made and to ensure that there is a good business argument and that opportunities are being taken up properly.
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The strategy on broadband draws heavily on the recommendations of the Broadband Stakeholder Group, which was set up in February 2001 and which is now an independent body that brings together infrastructure, service and content companies with broadband users from the public and private sectors. The Government and the industry agree that there is no magic bullet that will deliver broadband roll-out in the UK, but there is a virtuous circle, which we need to stimulate, in which demand and supply grow in parallel. I am engaged with colleagues in other Departments in discussing the way in which broadband delivery, for instance in relation to schools and health, can help the wider community. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills is a great personal supporter of ensuring that we take such opportunities.

"The Great British Kitchen" is an interesting project and I know that my ministerial colleague Lord Whitty has met with my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford to discuss it. There have also been a number of meetings between my officials and the British Food Trust. We are happy to continue that dialogue and, from the Government's point of view, I am certainly not aware of anything that would obstruct it. The challenge is whether a real business case can be made, whether the figures stand up and whether the undoubted enthusiasm that my hon. Friend has for the project is reflected by potential investors and participants. None the less, I commend my hon. Friend for not letting go and for trying to ensure that the initiative is followed through.
It is true to say that the strategy for sustainable farming and food arising out of the Curry report is crucial to the future of farming and its context in the wider rural economy. The strategy will help farmers to manage change and reconnect with their customers and the rest of the food chain. I have already given the example of the creation of the food chain centre. The strategy will reward them for providing environmental goods—for instance, there is the new entry level or broad and shallow scheme. I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of agri-environment schemes in future. The strategy will also help farmers to get the right training and advice to develop their businesses. I agree about the importance of the demonstration farms, and pilot demonstration farms are being established. The first event took place on 29 January, and there will be work for the next for 15 months or so, after which we will review the lessons that can be learned.
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend about the engagement that is necessary if the farming industry is to have a successful future. We should build on the good examples, rather than in places in which people, perhaps understandably given the challenges of the past few years, have given in to being negative and depressed about the whole thing. If we can link the farming industry within the wider rural economy and food and drink industry, there is every reason to anticipate success. I commend my hon. Friend and others like him who take a full part in providing leadership and partnership to the industry in their constituencies.
It being half-past Four o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the sitting lapsed, without Question put.