Westminster Hall Sitting of 20 April 2004

Preamble
[MR. EDWARD O'HARA in the Chair]

Anti-Semitism
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—[Derek Twigg.]
9.30 am
James Purnell: Before I start, I draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members' Interests and to my position as the chair of Labour Friends of Israel. I would also like to thank Mr. Speaker for granting this debate because anti-Semitism is an important subject. This is a good time to discuss the issue because anti-Semitism is on the rise and we must combat it as we do all for ms of racism.
Anti-Semitism is not only a growing threat but it has mutated into a new form of race hatred that has found cover in extreme and unreasonable anti-Zionism. We must not forget the lessons of the past that anti-Semitism must be fought when it starts and must never be allowed to become a force that cannot be put back in its bottle. It is not for the Jewish community to solve the problem but for the rest of us to solve it for them. They suffer from the problem, but we must solve it.
What is anti-Semitism? It is the hatred, fear, targeting or attack of people simply because they are Jewish, and it is increasing. Last year there were 375 anti-Semitic attacks in Britain—the second highest total since the figures were first collected and a 7 per cent. increase on the 2002 figure.
Examples speak louder than statistics. Last year, a rabbi in Birmingham was spat at and attacked while walking home from Friday night prayers. Bricks were thrown through windows of the Edgware synagogue. Synagogues across the country were daubed with swastikas and graffiti, and there were arson attacks on synagogues in Finsbury Park and Manchester. Five hundred gravestones in Plashet cemetery were defaced causing £1 million worth of damage—the largest ever attack on a Jewish cemetery in Britain. Perhaps most chilling of all was that Britain produced its first suicide bomber, someone educated in this country who used his passport to enter Israel and blow himself up in a beachfront bar. It is chilling not only that this country produced him. Because of the lack of moral outrage and soul searching in this country, the event did not convulse our moral conscience as it should have done.
The picture outside Britain was even more chilling. Over the past year, for example, the Malaysian Prime Minister in his outgoing speech called for the targeting of Jews worldwide. In November, a terrorist attack on two Istanbul synagogues—Oasis of Peace and Beit Israel—killed 25 people and injured more than 300. An arson attack on the same day destroyed a Jewish school near Paris in France. Those attacks were preceded by deadly terrorist truck bombs on synagogues and Jewish community centres in Casablanca and Tunisia. Just two weeks ago, police in Hungary discovered and foiled an attempt to bomb Hungary's new holocaust museum
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during the visit of the Israeli President. The trend is serious and growing, with al-Qaeda attacking Jewish centres every six months or so. It is a terrible and incredible fact that anti-Semitism is on the rise once again, 60 years after the holocaust.
For 60 years the memory of the holocaust largely inoculated Europe against anti-Semitism. Of course, like all forms of racism, such as Islamophobia, anti-Semitism continued to exist—there are bigots everywhere. However, civilised people learned the lessons of the holocaust and overt anti-Semitism in public debate became taboo. Most people learned the lessons that anti-Semitism starts with talk of cabals and conspiracies and with the demonisation of Jews and that that demonisation can lead all too quickly to persecution. We need to reflect on those lessons.
Anti-Semitism is perhaps the oldest form of racism. For centuries, it has existed deep in the European psyche, in our literature and songs and in our popular culture. As Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has said, the Jewish community could never win: it was attacked whatever it did. Jewish people were attacked because they were rich and because they were indigent. They were attacked because they were capitalists, but also because they were communists. They were attacked because they lived apart, but also because they were everywhere in our society. They were attacked because they were religious fanatics, but also because they were thought to epitomise the moral degenerate.
Linda Perham: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important to support the work of FAIR—Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting—Palestinian Media Watch and other organisations that keep an eye on the amount of anti-Semitic literature in the media in this country and elsewhere to ensure that we are ever vigilant about such attacks on Jewish people?
James Purnell: I agree. It is of course important that we have a vibrant debate about the middle east, but we need to be very careful that the debate does not turn into racist attacks on any side and, in particular, incitement to violence against Jewish people.
As the Chief Rabbi says, the Jewish community could not win: it was a target whatever it did. Over the centuries, that widespread hatred occasionally erupted into violence, frequently erupted into persecution and, in tragic times, developed into pogroms—that very Jewish word for a very Jewish form of suffering. The holocaust was the final evolution of that anti-Semitism, and it was so inhuman that anti-Semitism virtually disappeared from civilised debate for the rest of the 20th century.
Today, overt anti-Semitism is still taboo, but it is a virus and it has once again started to infect our body politic. The virus is spread by age-old caricatures. It is spread, for example, by television pictures and graphics of spider webs of prominent Jewish people. Those images represent a perceived Jewish lobby with malign and excessive influence. The influence and even the very existence of that lobby is often only imagined in that people who are thought to be Jewish are not Jewish.
Mr. John Randall: The hon. Gentleman has said that anti-Semitism is taboo in civilised debate, but it can occur in civilised debate. I seem

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to remember that one hon. Member said not so long ago that the Prime Minister was being influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers. That is exactly the type of thing to which the hon. Gentleman is referring.
James Purnell: I have no desire to get into discussions about individuals. I am saying that people use such images without anti-Semitic motives and without feeling themselves to be anti-Semitic. Indeed, they would be horrified if they were accused of being anti-Semitic, but the images perpetuate and spread anti-Semitic ideas, and people have forgotten the power of those images.
Mr. Randall: My point is that, somehow or other, we are forgetting something. People may talk about a cabal of Jewish advisers, but we would be appalled if someone spoke about a cabal, for example, of black advisers.
James Purnell: Indeed, I echo the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. The danger of that conversation is that people get into discussion of good Jews and bad Jews. Frankly, anyone, whatever their racial or religious background, should be allowed to work for any politician, and there should be no discussion of their views based on those grounds. We should discuss only the merits of their views.
Lembit Öpik: I am involved with the Holocaust Educational Trust and it strikes me that the issue is that people mix up criticism of, for example, Israeli Government policy with justification for criticising an entire faith. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is no more acceptable to justify one's anti-Semitism on the basis of criticism of Israeli Government policy—for example, towards Palestinians—than it would be to criticise British Government policy on Iraq on the basis of the Prime Minister's religious faith?
James Purnell: I entirely agree. It would be completely outrageous to say that the American Government had pledged money to eradicating AIDS because people of African-American origin were highly placed in the American Administration. In the same way, it would be completely outrageous to try to assign particular policies to the ethnic or religious background of people in particular Administrations.
I gave one example of how the virus is spread. Other examples are the cartoon of the star of David piercing the Union jack under the headline, "Kosher conspiracy," and pictures of Prime Minister Sharon biting the heads off babies. We need to remind ourselves why those images are so dangerous. The idea of the foreign, unpatriotic and controlling Jew is deep within our culture. It is reminiscent, most obviously, of the forged KGB document—the protocols of the elders of Zion. That is one example of the permanent theme of the Jewish community having an effect beyond the justice of its arguments, and it is a way of undermining the justice of those arguments.
Mrs. Louise Ellman: Does my hon. Friend agree that the perception of the all-powerful Jew is as fallacious as it is pernicious? Criticising Israeli policy is not anti-Semitic in itself, but
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does he agree that too many critics of Israeli policy invoke images of all-powerful Jews when, in fact, the Jewish population of this country is about half a per cent. of the population, and in the United States is about 2 per cent. of the population? Does he also recall that the Hamas charter supports the protocols of the elders of Zion and talks about world wide Jewish conspiracies to control and corrupt the world?
James Purnell: I entirely agree. My hon. Friend makes a very important point about the Hamas constitution, which illustrates a continuum of which we should all be very aware: what is well known elsewhere to be a forgery is believed to be an authentic document and is treated as such. Another example is the film that is sometimes shown of someone trying to represent Prime Minister Sharon. This film tries to perpetuate the blood libel against the Jews and is an incredibly dangerous image.
People in America often refer to the strength of the Jewish lobby. It is worth remembering that American Governments are so strongly pro-Israel because the American population is very strongly pro-Israel. There is a very strong commitment among American voters to the continued existence of the state of Israel, and revulsion for what happened during the holocaust. Their support for America's support for Israel is fairly unshakeable. People in this country often forget that and it is rarely mentioned.
It is very important to remember why those images are dangerous. When I visited Yad Vashem—the holocaust museum in Jerusalem—I was struck by the resemblance of some of the modern images, examples of which I quoted, to some of the Nazi imagery that appeared in Nazi publications in the 1930s.I do not believe that these modern images had anti-Semitic motives or were produced by people who were anti-Semitic. My worry is that members of my generation are forgetting the lessons that we learned in the 20th century that those images spread a virus of anti-Semitism and echo themes that are deep in our culture. My generation did not live through the second world war and its aftermath and it did not learn those lessons in a way that we have not forgotten. In fact, we never learned them in the first place. We need to learn those lessons again, because in my view the struggle will now come to the fore and we all need to play our part in winning it.
Mrs. Gillian Shephard: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate, and I regret that I cannot remain for the whole of it. As chairman of Conservative Friends of Israel, I very much support him.
The hon. Gentleman mentions learning lessons, but has he looked at the way in which the French Government have chosen to deal with the greater number of outbreaks of anti-Semitic attacks in France? We could perhaps draw lessons from that. There have been more attacks, some of which have been more violent, and there have been attacks in the entertainment industry as well as physical attacks on Jewish subjects. However, the President of France, backed by his whole Cabinet and the Chief Rabbi, has led an enormous number of initiatives in the French media rejecting anti-Semitism. Those initiatives are repeated, repeated and repeated. We do

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not take the same approach, and I wonder whether that is because of political correctness. Does the hon. Gentleman have a view?
James Purnell: I applaud what President Chirac did. I think that the problem in France is slightly different; the number of attacks has been greater and more serious. I know from speaking to Jewish friends of mine in France that members of the Jewish community feel uncomfortable about remaining in France. The French political world has also slightly swept the problem under the carpet for a long time and, because of the French commitment to equal citizenship under the republic, there has been a general reluctance, compared to Britain, to talk about religious or racial differences. Parties of all colours in this country have been addressing the issue for a long time.
The reaction in France is commendable, but it is a reaction to a particular, very serious, problem in France. What has been done in this country—holocaust memorial day and the Holocaust Educational Trust are clear examples—shows that the issue has been dealt with at a political level over a longer period. However, I would be happy for the Government to come forward with any further initiatives. I am not arguing for any particular policy initiatives today. I merely want to raise the issue and to say to all opinion leaders that it is our responsibility to show leadership on it.
Mrs. Shephard: I absolutely accept the hon. Gentleman's argument that the position in France, and in each country in the world where anti-Semitism exists, is different. In France, that is partly because of quite recent historical events. However. it is interesting to note the even-handed treatment by the written press of the middle east question and the removal from their arguments of anti-Semitic approaches. I wonder whether that is because of the extremely strong line taken by the French Government in recent months. Perhaps, like me, the hon. Gentleman will hope to hear the Minister's response and her view of the French Government's approach.
James Purnell: I am, of course, looking forward to hearing from the Minister. I would also be delighted to swap the French written press, in some ways, for the English written press. If the right hon. Lady has any suggestions for a way in which we might achieve that, I would also be all ears, as would many of our colleagues.
Had I heard myself making this argument two years ago, before I became the chair of Labour Friends of Israel, I might have dismissed it as paranoid. I might have thought that it was special pleading. However, my experience as the chair of Labour Friends of Israel has brought home to me the way that the Jewish community feels about the attacks and their existence. I could quote a large number of examples, but I want to refer to one in particular.
I made some comments recently in t he press following the comments made by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge). I received a tenet from someone who had been a member of the Labour party in my area. She said that she had not known that I was Jewish and that had she known that I was Jewish, she would not have voted for me in the selection battle. She thought that it was completely outrageous that I had not made my
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ethnic background clear. After some horrible paragraphs, the letter finished with a large, underlined postscript saying, "Are you Jewish?" I ignored that and replied to her, but she wrote back, with the postscript again asking, "Are you Jewish?" The third letter said that, because I was refusing to answer her question, she would now vote for the Conservative party at the next election. I am sure that my Conservative opponent would be happy to reject her vote, as would a candidate from any party in this House. I was deeply shocked to find that attitude in my constituency and in the Labour party, and the extraordinary thing is that it is something that members of the Jewish community encounter on a regular basis.
I am also shocked to find that when I say that I am chair of Labour Friends of Israel, many people say, "Well, I'm not a friend of Israel". We have to ask ourselves how many other countries one would say that about. To how many other democracies would someone have such a visceral reaction? It illustrates an important point. Like any strong virus, anti-Semitism has survived by adapting to its circumstances and mutating. Modern anti-Semitism is no longer an overt hatred of Jews—people know that that is taboo and that they cannot get away with it. Instead, as has been said, modern anti-Semitism has found a home in overt, extreme and unreasonable attacks on Israel and in extreme anti-Zionism.
Mr. Richard Spring: I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. It is welcome and timely. To echo the point of my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard), I refer to once hearing Bishop Trevor Huddleston say that he gave thanks to God for the Jewish community in our country. What he meant is that although the Jewish community is a small one, its contribution to our national life has been stupendous, whether it has been in this place or each field of scientific, medical or judicial activity. It is incumbent on us to say that occasionally, because it is true. The Jewish community is a special part of the whole community in the United Kingdom.
James Purnell: I echo what the hon. Gentleman said, and I am sure that all hon. Members would do the same. It is appropriate that he said it.
I must say that I have been stunned by the viciousness of some of the attacks on Israel in debates on the middle east and by the unbalanced tenor of many of those debates. Most blatant is the analogy that is increasingly made between what is happening in Israel and what happened in Nazi Germany. That analogy has gained ground in some left-wing circles, particularly among certain academics. I find it unbelievable to hear people saying that the Israeli army is the Zionist SS, to read about Jewish academics being thrown off editorial boards or refused interviews for jobs purely because they are Jewish and for those decisions to be justified by an attack on Israel by people saying, for example:
"Israel has gone beyond just war crimes…many of us would like to talk about it as some kind of Holocaust".
We have to pause, listen to those words and think about the analogy that is being made between what happened in Nazi Germany, with the murder of millions of people and the deliberate and planned attempt to exterminate a whole race, and what is happening in the

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middle east. There is suffering on both sides in the middle east, and to compare in any way what happened in Nazi Germany to what is happening there defies belief. One has to question the motives of the people who do it.
Mr. Randall: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one problem is that the words "holocaust" and "genocide" have become undervalued as they have been used too often, perhaps sensationally, to describe various incidents around the world? We tend to forget what actually happened during the years of the Nazi holocaust.
James Purnell: That is a very good point and one that I had not thought about. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making it. It is also worth saying that the comparisons between Nazi Germany and today's situation are simply wrong. The novelist Howard Jacobson put it very well when he wrote:
"Examine what is meant by 'reminiscent of the Nazis' and you find no extermination camps, no master-race eugenics programmes, no extirpation of an entire culture, no final solution".
Some on the extreme left have allowed themselves to pick up some strange bedfellows in their vitriolic criticisms of Israel. There were some terrifying pictures of individuals at the anti-war protests who were dressed up as suicide bombers, holding banners with the star of David, an equals sign and a swastika. The apparent embrace of such symbols by the anti-war left is astounding. Jewish friends who went on anti-war marches told me that they were shocked to the core to see some of the symbols and to hear some of the chants.
We must understand what such comparisons do. They seek to undermine the moral force of the argument for a Jewish state. They seek to say that what the Nazis did to the Jews, the Israelis are now doing to the Palestinians. They seek to say that Israel and the Jewish people do not deserve their own state. They then somehow lead on to the idea that it is acceptable to kill innocent Israeli civilians, that that can be explained, that we can blunt our moral outrage at suicide terror and that it has become a legitimate tool of political debate.
Ned Temko, the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, put it very well when he said that when there is a suicide terror attack against whatever nationality, whether it is Muslim or Jew, there can be no buts: suicide terror has to be condemned. There can be no buts. There can be no following sentence in which we say that of course we condemn this act of suicide terror, but that "xyz" has to be understood.
Mrs. Ellman: In view of the very important observations that my hon. Friend has just made, does he think that the time has come for those involved in the anti-war coalition to dissociate themselves from the supporters of Hamas and the Muslim Association of Britain?
James Purnell: That time came a while ago. I certainly agree that now would be a good time for that to happen. Although it is true for all parties, this is a point on which the left needs to search its conscience. We pride ourselves on standing up against intolerance, ignorance, prejudice
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and racism, but some on the extreme left are now fostering precisely those terrible instincts. They have to ask themselves who they are sharing platforms with and whether they are crossing the line from valid criticism to distorted prejudice. I believe that that violent anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.
We need to be careful about this. We should never allow ourselves to be accused of using anti-Semitism to prevent debate about the middle east. It is perfectly fair to disagree with policies of an individual Israeli Government. It becomes illegitimate when it turns into criticism of Israel itself and a denial of Israel's right to exist. One can disagree with Israeli Governments without being anti-Semitic. I find it hard to see how one can be anti-Zionist without being anti-Semitic. We all argue passionately for the rights of people around the world to self-determination. Why should we single out Israel as being the one country that is not allowed to have self-determination and, particularly in the light of the holocaust, why should we deny its people the right to live secure within its borders?
Richard Burden: I agree with a great deal of what my hon. Friend says about the scourge of anti-Semitism. If I manage to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I will say a little more about that. I am worried by his comment that anti-Zionism must therefore be anti-Semitism. I take the view that Israel has the right to exist and that there should be two states. However, there is Jewish opinion that disagrees with a state of Israel. Presumably that kind of anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism.
James Purnell: I use the term Zionism in a specific sense—Israel's right to its own state if it wants that. I believe that, following the holocaust and the example of the 20th century, the case for that is incontrovertible. I worry whenever anyone denies that. I heard a national magazine editor saying in private the other day that we had made a mistake by creating the state of Israel. Such arguments worry me.
A recent collection on this matter contains a very good piece by Jonathan Freedland, which goes through all the arguments. I found it very persuasive. It is hard to see why we should have supported South Africans' right to self-determination and to run their own country, and supported those rights elsewhere in the world, but not have given the same support to Jewish people in Israel.
Anti-Semitism is not a problem that the Jewish community can solve. It is a problem that it suffers and one that the rest of us should solve. Of course anti-Semitism has not yet reached the level that it reached in the 1930s. However, that is precisely why it is up to us to deal with it today. If we can deal with it at the beginning, it will not be able to get out of the bottle and become as deadly as it did in the previous century.
I ask only one thing of today's debate. As I have said, I do not have any particular policy prescriptions or desires. I wanted only to raise a flag against the renewed menace of anti-Semitism, to pledge that we shall do all that we can to prevent anti-Semitism from scarring our society today and to ask for moderation and balance in debates about the middle east. I shudder when people get cheers for attacking the state of Israel. I hate it when people talk as if Israel brings suicide terror on itself by its policies. I hate

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it when people ignore the hundreds of people from that small country who have been killed in this terrible conflict.
Of course there is suffering on both sides. Of course the Palestinians' plight is terrible. Everyone should recognise that. However, it is incumbent on all of us who take part in these debates to try to ensure that we do not exacerbate the differences of the middle east; we should instead do all that we can to bring both sides together, argue for moderation and present a balanced picture of the debate in the middle east. In this of all places we can secure a balanced debate and stand up against anti-Semitism. As opinion formers and leaders we have that opportunity and we should take it.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Edward O'Hara): Order. I remind right hon. and hon. Members that the winding-up speeches must start not later than 10.30.
10.3 am
Mr. Stephen Byers: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell) on securing this timely debate on anti-Semitism. As he said, he chairs Labour Friends of Israel and he has been highly effective in that capacity. The fact that he has secured the debate shows how he pursues the issues on behalf of not only that group in the House, but the Jewish community in the United Kingdom.
I am keen to take part in this morning's debate in my capacity as chair of the parliamentary committee against anti-Semitism. I was approached last autumn about whether I was prepared to take on that role. I gave it some thought and looked into the present situation. Rather like my hon. Friend, I was unaware of the particular problems being experienced and of the increase in anti-Semitic attacks occurring in the United Kingdom. However, once I had looked into the matter, I had no doubt that it needed to be addressed as a priority. That is why I agreed to chair the parliamentary committee against anti-Semitism, which represents all parties in this House and in the other place.
I want to make only a few brief comments so as to enable hon. Friends whom I know want to take part in the debate to make their contributions. At the beginning of such a debate, it is important to stress that all forms of hatred and discrimination must be confronted and challenged. Although we are debating anti-Semitism, that does not mean that it is the only form of prejudice that exists in our society. Islamophobia is increasing. I know many good, decent Muslims who feel tainted by the views of a minority of radical, fanatical fundamentalists and are concerned about how the debate is developing. Hindus and Sikhs find that there is a continued lack of understanding of their beliefs and religion. Discrimination on the ground of colour still exists and must be confronted. It is worth putting the debate in that context.
It is important to debate anti-Semitism today because verbal and physical attacks are increasing and because of the development of an intellectual argument in favour of anti-Semitism. I shall focus most of my remarks on that latter aspect. I shall comment first, however, on
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visits that I made recently as chairman of the parliamentary committee to Bury and Manchester in the north-west and to Leeds in Yorkshire. The purpose of those visits was to talk to leaders of the Jewish community, schoolchildren with a range of beliefs and university students to find out their views on what is happening in their communities and areas.
Interestingly, there was a real sense of cohesion in the Jewish community in those parts of the UK. The community is strong and it takes great pride in the role that it has played over the years in developing civic life in those areas. The community has also played a very important part in the cultural life, the academic community and the business world of those areas.
Despite its strength, the community also has real concerns. One person said to me, "Things were really bad during the 1970s, but they are a lot worse now." A sixth-former—a bright, able young girl—said to me that she is unsure about going to university because she is worried about the safety and security of the environment into which she would be moving. A 15-year-old—a little lad with glasses—said that bullying and verbal abuse are parts of his daily experience that he almost takes for granted. The bullying and name-calling occur not because he is not a strong-looking individual, but because he is Jewish. It is not acceptable to me that someone in the UK at the beginning of the 21st century has to be brought up in such an environment. We must say to people in those communities that we in Parliament understand their concerns and recognise that those attacks are increasing.
My main concern, however, is not that anti-Semitism is resurgent, but that in some circles it is becoming respectable. It is being portrayed almost as anti-Semitism with a social conscience, because it is based on support for human rights and on concern for the Palestinian people.
I want to make it clear that criticising the Government of Israel is not anti-Semitic. Some of the strongest criticisms that I have heard of Prime Minister Sharon have been made by Jews, but there is a danger that the legitimate criticism that can be made of any Government could be misused against the Government of Israel. It should not be used as a cloak of respectability for anti-Semitic views. All too often, the line between making legitimate criticism and comment and demonising and dehumanising Jews is being crossed, and double standards are being applied. That is dangerous territory, because some intellectual commentators are demanding that Jews denounce the Israeli Government's actions and policies to earn a commitment to fight with them against anti-Semitism. That is unacceptable.
I repeat that criticism of the Government of Israel and their policies is not anti-Semitic, but it can become so when it involves the application of double standards, holding all Jews responsible for the Israeli Government's actions, or demonising Jews. Clearly, it is anti-Semitic if it provides an excuse for anti-Jewish hatred.
No one should be asked to take a loyalty or morality oath as a precondition of protection against racism, but that is what some people ask Jews to do. No citizen in this country should feel that their equality before the law depends on their embrace of political views that we

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happen to approve of. That is totalitarian logic that undermines the very freedoms that form the basis of our society and our country, yet it is what modern-day anti-Semites are demanding.
Anti-Semitic acts are being justified by commentators who accuse Jews of being the cause of their own suffering. That logic borders on an apology for hatred. Worse, it is a thinly veiled threat that if Jews fail to oblige, people will not stand by them in their hour of need. Instead of sympathising with victims, anti-Semites exploit the Palestinian cause to side with the people responsible for terrible acts of terrorism. Around the world, it is only Jews, and Israel, that earn that particular treatment.
We need to be robust in confronting anti-Semitic views wherever they occur. Anti-Semitism is not rational. The Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, said that it is a virus that mutates. It will not be defeated unless it is treated as an act of senseless hatred that has no logic, reason or justification and which is based on myths and prejudice. That is the basis on which it should be tackled, but we must ask ourselves why that age-old hatred is resurging now. It is because people with anti-Semitic views feel strengthened.
The prejudice of those people—suppressed out of guilt for over 50 years—is coming forward and finding its way back into the mainstream of political thinking and comment in civilised circles. When we see that happening, or hear or read such comments, we all have a responsibility not to accept it in a spirit of tolerance. It would often be the British way of dealing with such things to say, "Well, that is a fair view which is being expressed," but it is not a fair view. It is prejudice, and it needs to be confronted as such.
The debate gives us all a timely opportunity to recognise that we must be eternally vigilant. It also provides this mother of Parliaments with the opportunity to reaffirm its commitment to exposing, confronting and fighting anti-Semitism in whatever form it may take and from whatever quarter it may come. Of course, we do this for the Jewish population in the United Kingdom, but also to defend the principles and values on which our country is based.
10.15 am
Linda Perham: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell) on securing the debate. It was a privilege to visit Israel in July as part of the Labour Friends of Israel delegation, which he led.
My previous visit to Israel was in 1998, when the outlook on our return was pessimistic; that was before the intifada in September 2000, after which the number of anti-Semitic attacks in this country and elsewhere increased. I speak as secretary of the British Israel Group, a vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel and as Member of Parliament for a London borough that contains 15,000 Jews. That community is deeply worried by the rise of anti-Semitism in the form of physical attacks and in the media; they are concerned about prejudice in television accounts of the middle east. My constituents constantly raise the issue of anti-Semitism at my surgeries and at events and gatherings that I
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attend, such as the Jewish Association of Cultural Societies. I am going to one such event on Thursday, when I am sure that the issue will again be raised.
I also take part in question-and-answer sessions at the local Jewish centre, Sinclair house, which is based in my constituency. It is a thriving centre, which is very well attended. It was my privilege to accompany people from that centre and Jewish friends from the constituency to the rally for Israel in May 2002 in Trafalgar square. Thousands of people were present, including a handful of MPs, and there were signs saying, "Israel we support you". Unfortunately, on the other side of the road, there was a counter-demonstration of a few hundred people carrying signs saying things such as "Kill the Jews". Lord Greville Janner, who spoke at the rally, said, "We don't have signs saying 'Kill the Muslims' or 'Kill the Arabs', but they have signs saying 'Kill the Jews'". I took that point to heart.
In September, I accompanied Lord Janner and Lord Parry Mitchell on a visit to the opening of a Jewish school in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, which is a 93 per cent. Muslim country. However, we found a great tolerance of all religions. We also visited the Qaba region further from the capital where the synagogue and the mosque were next to each other and where the rural community tolerated different religions. I hope we can foster that sense of peaceful co-existence and tolerance in this country by confronting anti-Semitism wherever it raises its head.
I agree with my hon. Friends that this debate is timely; anti-Semitism, which causes deep anxiety in my constituency, is something that hon. Members must challenge.
10.19 am
Mr. Andrew Dismore: I represent Hendon, which has one of the biggest Jewish communities in Britain. I am also a vice-chair of the Labour Friends of Israel and one of the officers of the body about which my right hon. Friend the Member for Tyneside, North (Mr. Byers) spoke.
In the short time available, I want to focus on some of the anti-Semitic activities of fundamentalist organisations. Rather than describe them all, I shall concentrate on the activities of al-Muhajiroun and its leader, Omar Bakri Mohammed, and its sister organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir. I first took an interest in their activities five or six years ago, but particularly after I witnessed an anti-Semitic demonstration that they had organised outside Brent town hall in May 2000. They were picketing a celebration of Israel's independence day, and their chants included "Dirty Jews we want your blood", "All Jews burn in hell", "The Muslim will fight the Jew—we will kill the Jew" and so on. Two demonstrators were arrested but released without charge.
However, al-Muhajiroun has a much longer history of anti-Semitism. In June 1998, one of the group's activists, Avais Khan, told a rally in Trafalgar square that
"the Holocaust was a fabrication. How wicked, how evil the Jews are. They don't even deserve the death of the dog."
In September 2000, the group produced a leaflet referring to "Jewish Murderers". At a demonstration in January 2000, its members chanted "Gas the Jews". In May 2000, the group issued a leaflet stating:

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"O Jew, hide in your bunkers, because the Mujahideen are coming so be ready to surrender or die like a dog."
The group's leader is Omar Bakri Mohammed. In October 2000, he said that Jews who actively supported Israel did so at their peril:
"If they are going to raise funds for Israel, they are going to put themselves in the conflict and become legitimate targets for Muslims wherever they are".
On 13 October 2000, al-Muhajiroun put out a leaflet saying:
"The hour will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill them".
On 20 October, in Derby, the group organised a demonstration with leaflets saying "Kill the Jews". So it goes on. There are many examples of the group's anti-Semitic activity. Has any al-Muhajiroun leader or activist been prosecuted? Absolutely not. I regard that as a pusillanimous response from our forces of law and order. How can the organisation continue to promulgate its message of hatred against the Jewish community with such impunity?
After 11 September, things got even worse, and the group started issuing statements praising the attackers. Soon after 11 September, Omar Bakri was quoted as saying:
"When I first heard about it, there was…delight about such an attack."
On the very night of 11 September, posters were put up urging Muslims to kill the Jews; Omar Bakri's mobile phone number was at the bottom The year after, the group organised a demonstration in Trafalgar square—the so-called magnificent 17 demonstration—to praise the suicide bombers. The London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, banned the demonstration. He was the only person who was prepared to take any action against the group, but it took no notice and held the demonstration anyway. Anjem Chaudhary and, I think, one or two others who were responsible for organising the demonstration were prosecuted but let off with a very minor penalty.
Other hon. Members have referred to al-Muhajiroun's activities on university campuses. For years, the group and its sister movement, Hizb ut-Tahrir, have contributed to a climate of fear for Jewish students and other minorities on British campuses. In October 2000, a poster appeared on campuses throughout Britain stating:
"The last hour will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill the Jews."
I am pleased to say that, after that, the National Union of Students took action to ban al-Muhajiroun from student unions for distributing anti-Semitic material. That is an important step, but the group nevertheless continues to organise around universities and, I regret to say, some sixth-form colleges.
There are many more examples of what al-Muhajiroun has been up to, but I shall mention just two. In January 2003, I was debating on television with Omar Bakri Mohammed. He told the audience that I said what I did only because I was Jewish and therefore "biased by default". I have no hesitation in saying that I am not Jewish, unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell). None the less, those comments demonstrate the extent of the anti-Semitic behaviour of al-Muhajiroun and Omar Bakri
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Mohammed, who automatically assume that anybody who criticises them must be Jewish and, no doubt, that everybody would otherwise agree with them.
Omar Bakri Mohammed is undoubtedly a controversial figure. In April 2003, he was under attack for receiving state benefits. He said:
"Ask the Muslim people where they would prefer their taxes to be spent—on me, or homosexuals, lesbians or Jews".
Again, that reveals his anti-Semitic behaviour.
There is a more sinister side to the organisation. Omar Bakri Mohammed is not the buffoon that some people believe him to be. He comes from a wealthy background in Syria. He was a Hizb ut-Tahrir activist in Damascus who fled to Beirut and then to Saudi Arabia, where he was wanted for illegal Hizb ut-Tahrir activity. He fled to the United Kingdom in 1985 and, in 1991, he called for John Major, the then Prime Minister, to be assassinated. Despite that, he was given indefinite leave to remain in 1993. Ten years later, the threat was repeated. In 2001, al-Muhajiroun activist Abdul Rehmon Saleem called for the assassination of Prime Minister Blair. The organisation actively supports terrorism, and it is about time that we dealt with it.
In the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat, on 30 May 2000, Mohammed boasted of the extent to which young British Muslims were being recruited for military training overseas. They were sent to fight in the trouble spots of the world but only, he said, when they were fully trained—not just militarily but ideologically. On the BBC Radio 4 "Today" programme in June 2000, Abu Yaya, who turned out to be a mujaheddin activist, talked about the weapons training that he had had overseas. He had learned to use a Kalashnikov, to ambush, to make bombs and even to use artillery.
It was not just idle boasting. The Mike's bar bombers in Israel in 2003—two Britons, Asif Muhammed Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif—were associates of Omar Bakri. He openly claimed on the BBC that the two men had come to him for instruction, and in The Daily Telegraph, he stated that Sharif was a martyr, who had died in the cause of Muslim lands and Muslim people. He said,
"I knew Sharif very well and he used to attend regularly at my sessions. He was my brother and I am very proud of him and any Muslim who will do the same."
It goes on. Hassan Butt, another al-Muhajiroun activist, said in May 2003 that "close to 50" British volunteers had approached him for advice on emulating the suicide attack in Israel. Asked whether that meant suicide missions in Britain, he replied,
"Yes, absolutely. When they're needed and when they're required…if they want to and they believe Islamically that it's allowed, then fair enough."
He went on to say that
"it would not surprise me if a suicide bomb did take place in Britain. It would not surprise me at all."
Those are very forward-looking quotes, bearing in mind last night's arrests in Manchester of people who, I have little doubt, will be tracked back to al-Muhajiroun, Omar Bakri Mohammed and supporters of sharia and Abu Hamza. They show clearly how young British Muslim society has been affected and why action has to be taken. The organisation's boast is that its objective is to see the black flag of Islam flying over Downing street, a claim that is repeated time and again.

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We have powers under section 76 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 to remove Omar Bakri Mohammed's indefinite leave to remain. I urge the Home Secretary to use them, so that Mohammed can be removed from our society. The time has undoubtedly come for al-Muhajiroun to be proscribed under the terrorism legislation as an active organisation promoting and supporting terrorism, not just overseas but in the United Kingdom.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Because of Back Benchers' great interest in the debate, it has been agreed that the winding-up speeches will start at not later than 10.40 am. I am sure that hon. Members will co-operate.
10.29 am
John Mann: My preparation for the debate began yesterday morning when I received an unsolicited letter from a constituent, who enclosed printed copy about the "Jewish-controlled media" and the "Jewish media spin doctors" and wrote that the Prime Minister is in the pocket of Jewry. It is worthy of the attention of the Chamber because it is clear that the individual who sent it would claim to be on the left. I shall restrict my comments to the issue of anti-Semitism on the left, which does not receive enough attention.
I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell) was rather too gentle in his comments on those who are prepared to talk about cabals of Jewish advisers to the Prime Minister. I recall that Senator Jesse Helms's campaign during the North Carolina senate elections of 1984 was entirely based on a poster with a picture of his Democrat opponent surrounded by black faces and the words "Know him by his friends".
Such insidious racism is not new, even in my political generation. In the early 1980s, anyone in the student movement in this country who had the temerity to say that Israel had the right to exist would be isolated and howled down as a racist. That was a time when Jewish societies were repeatedly banned in student unions across the country. My recollection of those days is vivid. Comrades and colleagues on the left were happy to tell me that they would not be prepared in any circumstances to support me in an election just because I was prepared to articulate a two-state solution to the problem in the middle east. They were categorical about that, but polite on all other matters. That was not a minority interest, but a significant factor among people on the left, who were and are important political players. The subterfuge that such people used was Zionism. They seemed to think that quoting the term "Zionism" made everything okay and meant that they were attacking not Jewish people, but Zionists and the concept of Zionism, but that was a subterfuge.
That is not to say, however, that the people whose arguments and beliefs were virulently anti-Zionist were racist or anti-Semitic, because some were not. Their arguments were well thought out and they understood the differences. Equally, however, other people's arguments were not thought out, and they were happy
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to lump things together. Such people used the subterfuge of anti-Zionism to act and think in a way that was anti-Semitic, hence letters such as the one that I mentioned. Such people have employed a straightforward concept: that there are conspiracies—smaller conspiracies, not a world conspiracy—involving a group that has managed to infiltrate the higher echelons of power in the United States, Britain and other countries and is thereby exercising an undue influence. That is the basic tenet of such individuals' beliefs, which caricature an entire people.
It is of course nonsense to suggest that the rather communistic early kibbutzniks were ideologically close to some of the more extreme right-wing settler groups of the last 30 or 40 3ears. One would not suggest, for instance, that Christianity was an amorphous mass that could be criticised as one. It would clearly be nonsense to say that Billy Graham and the Southern Baptist Christian evangelicals—some of whom are, in my experience, rather anti-Semitic—are exactly the same as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Dom Helder Camara or the left-wing Christian ideologues. The vitriol contained in attacks on the term "Zionism" masks a much deeper underlying anti-Semitism that exists in the minds of some people.
I am not a great supporter of the actions of the state of Israel. I have visited the country, but I have also visited the west bank with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. I therefore take a neutral stance on the matter, and few voters in my constituency are anything other than lumpen Anglo-Saxons. No votes are at stake in relation to anything that I may say on the subject. However, the concept of self-determination cannot be divided. The fact is that the self-determination of a people will lead to conflict; and the word for such conflicts is politics. Those who mask under their anti-Zionism a much deeper anti-Semitism fail to appreciate and understand the difference between the political dynamic and the self-determination of a people. We must remember that it is determination not of "I" or of "others" but of "self". In our debates, we need to tackle that question head on.
Finally, I suspect that, in many conferences or meetings of the left, a debate on anti-Semitism would have many speakers talking about the middle east. I rest my case on that point, as it highlights the problem that exists in some people's minds.
10.36 am
Richard Burden: I am grateful to those on the Front Benches for making time to allow me to speak.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell) on securing this debate. I speak as an individual Member and as chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Palestine. I place on record that the group stands no truck with anti-Semitism. Indeed, I am proud to be the co-sponsor and co-author of early-day motion 123 on combating anti-Semitism, which stands in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Linda Perham).
We need to reject racism in whatever form it takes. There is an Islamic community centre in my constituency; it was doing no one any harm, but it was

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recently burnt out. What scared me about that was not that racists were responsible, but that otherwise perfectly rational people should have come up to me afterwards and said, "Yes, but if they weren't here, it wouldn't happen to them." That logic underlies anti-Semitism, as much as it does Islamophobia.
In the short time available to me, I want to say something about the relationship between our debates on Islamophobia and anti-Semitism and the situation in the middle east. It is true that some people criticise Israel, but some use that criticism as a cloak for anti-Semitism. We need to distance ourselves from such people and condemn their action. However, on the other side of the argument is the fact that criticism of Israel is also too easily conflated with allegations of anti-Semitism. We need to be equally careful about that.
In an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde, I mentioned Israel's right to exist. I make clear that I believe in the two-state solution—a secure Israel alongside an independent Palestine. However, there are different views on the solution to the middle east conflict.
An eminent Israeli academic called Jeff Halper has just written a book called "Obstacles for Peace" in which he says that the extent of the occupation and the matrix of Israeli control in the west bank is such that one could not have two states. He suggests that one solution would be to have a single state, in which all citizens—Jews, non-Jews, Christians, Muslims and people of no religion—could live together with equal rights. Would that be the end of Israel? It probably would. Would it be the end of Palestine? Yes, it definitely would. Does it mean that the author is a Jewish anti-Semite? No, it does not. The idea that someone like him could talk about throwing all Jews into the sea is nonsense. If we are to tackle racism properly in this country, we need to differentiate between people's motivations and what they actually say, and what it is convenient to believe they are saying in order to establish our position.
There is racism on both sides of the argument in the middle east. We need to reject it on both sides. Is anti-Semitism a problem in our communities? Yes, it is. Is Islamophobia a problem in our communities? Yes, it is. Is anti-Arabism a problem in our communities? Yes, it is. Are those that suffer from one type of racism sometimes susceptible to employing racism against others? Sadly, yes, they are. That is why, in this place, whatever our perspective on the middle east conflict, Israel and the rights of the Palestinians, we must be utterly consistent and uncompromising in our rejection of racism, from whatever direction it comes.
10.40 am
Mr. Alistair Carmichael: I am keen, since we have already curtailed our time, to leave as much time as possible for the Minister to reply, so a lot of what I might have said will remain unsaid.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell) not only on winning the raffle and securing the debate, but on the bulk of what he said and, more important in a debate such as this, on the way in which he said it. There were one or two points in his speech with which I did not agree: his reference to the equation between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism jarred in my mind, but we could have that debate in this
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reasoned atmosphere. I much preferred his original definition of anti-Semitism as the hatred, fear, targeting or attack of Jewish people simply because they are Jewish. If we keep that as a definition, we can find much more common ground.
The hon. Member's debate is timely for two reasons. First, as he pointed out, there has been a rise in anti-Semitism. For so long since the second world war, this country has accepted a consensus that anti-Semitism is absolutely abhorrent. With the passage of time and other political influences, many of which are not well motivated, that consensus is in danger of breaking down. Debates such as this are exceptionally important. Secondly, to put it into its current political context, there will be election campaigns throughout much of England and Wales in the next few months, which will see a record number of candidates from the British National party. The BNP feeds on anti-Semitism and targets Jews and other minorities within society in a way that I, as a Liberal Democrat, find absolutely abhorrent. At a time when such activity has become an increasingly poisonous feature of our politics, it is important that those of us in the mainstream political debate are prepared to stand up and defend that consensus.
If I have any criticism of the debate, it is that it has been long on analysis and short on solutions. The hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) referred to a demonstration whose tone was violently anti-Semitic, and said that two arrests were made, but that nobody was charged. We must consider that point seriously. I should be interested to hear from the Minister what the Home Office's thinking is about the need for legislation for hate crimes. We already have that north of the border, after my colleague in the Scottish Executive, Donald Gorrie, introduced a Bill—it is now an Act—to deal with sectarian violence and hatred, which is sadly endemic in parts of west central Scotland. If we identify anti-Semitism as a problem of that scale, as we have done today, surely the time has come for the Government to start to think about other actions.
One of the interesting pieces of research that I came across during my preparation for this debate was a report published at the end of last month by the European monitoring centre on racism and xenophobia, which pointed out that anti-Semitism is rising in Britain, Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands. That report used data provided by the Community Security Trust, which showed that there were 350 reported anti-Semitic incidents in 2002. That is a 13 per cent. increase on the 2001 total—a dramatic statistic. The report noted, however, that London's Metropolitan Police Service already records hate crimes such as those committed against the Jewish community, but that is not the case in Manchester and Leeds. Will the Minister confirm today that other police forces for which she has responsibility will carry out such monitoring? We all believe—indeed, we have almost a gut feeling—that anti-Semitism is wrong, and that there must be objective analysis of the scale of the problem in our society, which it is well within the Government's scope to do.
This has been an exceptionally useful and timely debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde on securing the debate, and all hon. Members who have spoken in it. I hope that as well as analysing the problem, the Government will start to act to deal with it.
10.46 am
Mr. James Paice: I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell) on securing the debate and on the very well developed way in which he presented his case. I also congratulate other hon. Members who have spoken. I was particularly impressed and interested by the powerful contribution made by the right hon. Member for Tyneside, North (Mr. Byers) on this very serious issue.
The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde made the percipient remark that he would have considered many comments to be over-sensitive—I believe that he used the phrase "bordering on paranoia"—before he became the current chairman of Labour Friends of Israel. It was very interesting to hear him say that, since he has become more involved, he now realises that things are not as he might first have thought. He says that as a Jewish person. I am not a Jew, but I believe that it is totally irrelevant whether one is a Jew, black or a member of any other race or creed. We must treat people as individuals, regardless of their attributes.
No doubt, anti-Semitism is the oldest form of racism at least in the known history of the western world. That in no way makes it more acceptable; indeed, in many ways that makes it even more evil. The fact that it has not been eradicated before makes it even harder to eradicate now. I will not repeat the figures, which the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde cited, for the increase in the number of hate crimes that have been committed. I shall, however, stress a point that has already been made. I was brought up to associate anti-Semitism with Nazism and the extreme right, but it is increasingly becoming a feature of the left and is being linked, in particular, with some sections of Muslim society. Interestingly, the European Union monitoring centre report made the statement, which it qualifies by saying that it is not easy to generalise, that a further source of anti-Semitism in some countries was young Muslims of north African or Asian extraction. Traditionally, anti-Semitic groups on the extreme right played a part in stirring opinion. That underlines the fact that there is a problem at both ends of the political spectrum.
Several hon. Members made a point that goes to the heart of the issue: we should not confuse criticism of the actions of this or any other Israeli Government with a form of anti-Semitism. As hon. Members have said, there is no doubt that many people criticise the actions of the current Israeli Government as a way of criticising all Jews. That is absurd. I hope that hon. Members will accept that it is just as absurd for the Israeli Government to suggest that all their critics are automatically anti-Semites. That is certainly not the case and, as several hon. Members have said, some of the strongest critics of the Israeli Government are Jews. It is just as absurd as President Mugabe suggesting that any criticism of his regime is automatically racist—it is not. It is patently absurd to make that allegation, and the two are close analogies.
We must be tolerant of other religions and of other races and creeds. It is easy to find reasons to object to other people—there are objectionable people in the world from all backgrounds. That is not related to religion, creed or colour; it is a natural part of human
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existence. The intolerance of racism and religious discrimination has been the largest cause of conflict over the centuries and is so today.
I conclude by proffering the solution, although it is not a detailed policy, that anti-Semitism must be considered as abhorrent and given the same profile as racism against black people or discrimination against people of different sexual orientations. In those cases, it has become accepted that we do not discriminate and that such discrimination is abhorrent. There is a belief, as the right hon. Member for Tyneside, North touched on, that anti-Semitism is somehow more of an intellectual position and more acceptable than criticism of someone because they are black, but that is wrong. It must be considered as being just as evil and abhorrent as all other forms of racism and religious discrimination. If we do that, we will begin to address what is a fundamental problem. The intolerance that accompanies anti-Semitism, to which several hon. Members have referred, is not only wrong but is extremely dangerous for the peace of the world.
10.52 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Fiona Mactaggart): I hope that hon. Members will forgive me if in eight minutes I cannot respond to all the important points raised. That would not be possible but I want to echo some of those that were made. The first is the comment made on all sides about the important contribution that the Jewish community has made to British society. As the Minister responsible for charities, I am constantly reminded of the generous contribution that the Jewish community makes to charitable life. It is a coincidence that this afternoon the Home Secretary and I will meet the Board of Deputies of British Jews as part of the regular dialogue with that community and others about their role in society.
I shall also concentrate on the profound scar that all forms of racism, and specifically anti-Semitism, place on society. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell) on arranging the debate because he is right to highlight the growth in anti-Semitism and the risks to people. That can be done without generating unnecessary fear, but we must recognise that it is an important issue facing us all and with which the Government have a responsibility to deal robustly.
The European monitoring centre on racism and xenophobia report revealed that the United Kingdom was one of five EU states that have experienced a rise in anti-Semitic incidents in 2002–03. Its figures corroborate those of the Community Security Trust and the Metropolitan police, which also show a growth in race attacks. My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) asked about the monitoring of those incidents, and I can tell him that, together with the Institute of Jewish Policy Research, the Metropolitan police is conducting research into such incidents to get a more accurate feel for their nature and to develop a more effective response to them. That is something that we have considered at various points in this debate, and the response can be made partly by effectively targeted actions and partly by effective legislation and prosecuting criminal acts such as incitement to racial hatred.

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Generally, we have tough and effective legislation in the UK, including the legal framework against race discrimination. Specifically, the additional penalties for criminal offences such as incitement to racial hatred and racially and religiously aggravated assault and criminal damage have been used effectively to tackle some of the problems. I was pleased that the Crown Prosecution Service recently gave a public commitment to prosecute racist and religious crimes fairly, firmly and robustly. The aim of that statement was not just to encourage prosecutors to take on such prosecutions, but to send a clear message to perpetrators that they will not get away with threatening, violent or abusive behaviour towards members of racial or religious groups.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon will feel tempted to ask, "But what about the examples that I raised?" and he was right to highlight the evil acts of al-Muhajiroun in many cases. I hope that he will be reassured by the fact that there have been a number of successful prosecutions of people who share its views. Abdullah al-Faisal was sentenced to nine years in prison for soliciting murder and inciting race hatred against Jews and Hindus. We closely monitor and will continue to monitor the activities of al-Muhajiroun, its web broadcasts and its organisations in universities and other places that encourage youngsters to support its views. I recognise the continuum that my hon. Friend identified as running between some of that group's statements and the more violent terrorist activities among young people. That is one reason why the Home Office has put an extra £15 million into focusing on terrorist activity. It is important that we deal with it effectively.
I want to use the final minutes to deal with the most difficult issue on which my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde and many other hon. Members focused, which is the important question of how anti-Semitism works. It is clear that criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic in itself—we are all agreed on that. There is a place for legitimate democratic debate about domestic or international affairs, including Israel and the middle east, but it is completely unacceptable if such criticism manifests itself in a discriminatory, threatening, harassing or violent form that is directed at people because they are Jews.
That is the important point. People become a victim in such cases because of their race or religion, and that is why we have put additional penalties on offences. Race hatred has a terrorising effect on the whole community, and it is important to recognise that that is the reason for having additional penalties.
The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) was right to say that the British National party will make its arguments in coming elections. Such groups will say that they are being picked on, but their activities terrorise classes of people. If people who criticise Israel fall into the trap of stretching their language to add weight to the table and suggest that all Jews are wrong, that is unacceptable and contributes to that terrorising effect.

PC Gerald Walker
11 am
Mr. Graham Allen: I rise to introduce a serious debate on a matter of great concern to many Members of Parliament. Perhaps I may break with tradition by acknowledging the presence in the Gallery of Mrs. Tracy Walker, the widow of PC Ged Walker. No amount of debates, Acts of Parliament, meetings with party leaders or anything else can achieve what we would all wish for—turning back the clock on the events that have taken place—but I hope that Mrs. Walker sees today that Parliament takes her tragedy very seriously indeed.
I would also like to put on record Parliament's tribute to PC Ged Walker. He made the ultimate sacrifice in losing his life—as so many of his colleagues are prepared to do, today and in the future—to maintain law and order and to ensure that our streets are safe. There are many lessons to be learned and I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer), Mr. and Mrs. Walker's Member of Parliament, is here today. He has, on behalf of Mrs. Walker, been foremost among those pressing the case repeatedly and I know that he will continue to be so. Although my hon. Friends the Members for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) and for Bassetlaw (John Mann) can be here only to pay their respects, their presence is a measure of the importance that this debate has for us in Nottinghamshire. Other colleagues have also expressed their support for the holding of the debate, which I have been lucky enough to introduce.
PC Gerald Walker should be alive today. He was killed in my constituency in January last year while trying to stop David Parfitt, a drug user and convicted robber, driving off in a stolen taxi. PC Walker suffered head injuries after being dragged along by the speeding car and he died in hospital. Parfitt was out of prison on an early release scheme. As he had breached his release licence more than three months earlier, he should have been back behind bars.
The inspector of probation, Rod Morgan, was asked to inquire into the tragedy. Indeed, I am pleased to note the presence of the director general of the probation service, which, again, underlines the importance of the case. Professor Morgan reported back around four weeks ago with a series of recommendations, and he is certainly right to highlight the need for cleaner and swifter co-ordination between prisons, probation and police. I gather that the Home Office, local police and probation officers have all welcomed and accepted his key recommendations, but we must go further to tackle the immediate and the more deep-rooted problems that this tragic case has revealed.
Dr. Nick Palmer: Before my hon. Friend moves on to the more general issues, perhaps he will say how Mrs. Walker and the public can be confident that the promised reforms, which were requested or demanded in the report, will be implemented. Does he agree that the probation service needs to ensure that its staff are fully trained in respect of the new regulations? Is it not essential that an explicit review of progress be conducted to ensure that such

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commitments are being met? Is it not also vital that the probation service receive adequate funding to discharge its responsibilities?
Mr. Allen: I agree very much with all the points that my hon. Friend makes. I should say again how assiduous he has been in pursuing all aspects of the case, and I suspect that his assiduity and that of fellow Nottinghamshire Members of Parliament will not diminish as the months go by. It is incumbent on us all to ensure that the lessons are learned. I know that my hon. Friend and I will pursue that aspect of the case, and I am sure that my other hon. Friends from Nottinghamshire will do so as well.
In addition, I look forward to the Minister's winding-up remarks. I am sure that she too is keen to ensure that the report does not gather dust and that the recommendations made will be followed through. I think she knows us all well enough to know that we will continue to chase this up and aim to ensure that the recommendations are implemented so that the lessons can be learned.
One of the immediate lessons that we need to consider from the case is this: when a prisoner's licence for temporary release is breached, as when Parfitt tested positive for cocaine use, the offender should be returned to prison immediately. I know that there are difficulties with that and that it would not be easy. None the less, the person being tested should be required to wait in the testing area—the office, centre or whatever—until the results come through. As I understand it, a straightforward swab test is involved and the results can be delivered very quickly. An immediate decision could then be made, perhaps on the authority of an assistant chief probation officer, either to release that person back on licence or to ensure that that person is taken back to prison immediately. I see my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw nodding, and we all know that he has great experience and expertise in this area.
All would benefit from the certainty and immediacy of such a procedure. It would also help to reduce the horrendous work load and bureaucracy referred to in the Morgan report. That is clearly one reason for probation officers labouring under an immense burden about which we can only sympathise. They are trying to clear up all that paper and some clarity on the issue would help everyone.
Dr. Palmer: I want to put it on the record that Mrs. Walker and a number of PC Walker's colleagues are frustrated by what they see as the elusive nature of the responsibility for what happened. It needs to be accepted clearly that this is not just a question of excessive work load. Specific mistakes were made by specific people.
Mr. Allen: I am confident that that is the case, and I endorse my hon. Friend's remarks. Perhaps one or two suggestions that I shall make later will address some of those points specifically.
If the person who is in breach is not on the premises, the police should be told immediately by the probation officer responsible, informing a named police officer
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who would be responsible for the service, and an arrest should be made without delay by local officers familiar with the offender. The probation service and the Prison Service should perhaps pilot the employment of enforcement teams to return those who breach their release conditions, thereby creating a unified service less prone to the communication breakdown identified in PC Walker's case. An alternative might be seconded police officers who are dedicated to enforcement and detention when a breach occurs.
There are a large number of specifics, which I am sure the Minister will address in her winding-up speech. I am very pleased that we have this Minister, with her expertise in drug testing and enforcement, here to respond to the debate.
The lessons go far beyond the immediate responsibilities for the bureaucratic practices and poor interfaces revealed by the Morgan report. The Government, Parliament and the judiciary need to look at themselves if another such tragedy and a thousand smaller ones like those that happen every day and never come to public attention are to be avoided. For example, I have written to the National Criminal Justice Board asking it to address the deceit that still passes for sentencing policy. I have yet to receive a reply, so I look forward to receiving one without too much further delay.
Sentences should be honest and comprehensible, not only to criminal justice professionals, but to victims, witnesses and taxpayers. When judges give a one-year prison sentence, plus one year out on licence, they should not announce it as a two-year sentence, as happened in the Parfitt case. That practice, which is often abetted by sloppy media reporting, diminishes public confidence in the criminal justice system and it should be addressed by the new Sentencing Guidelines Council, the Home Office and the Department for Constitutional Affairs. We must bring back public confidence in sentencing. This is not a plea for heavier or harder sentences; it is just a plea to be honest with the public about what sentences mean. People should not need a legal dictionary to understand what a judge is saying when sentencing an offender.
In addition, the Government, at the highest level, must review the wholesale retreat of public service provision from the front line, especially in the outer-city estates. A rethink is needed on the policy of short-term savings, which result in a massive economic and social cost. The drive to pay state benefits directly to individuals is leading to the closure of post offices, which removes a pillar that supports the outer-city shopping precincts. That is echoed in this case by the flight of local probation officers from local communities, the consequent loss of networks and informal multi-agency working, and an erosion of local knowledge and sensitivity. The new criminal justice boards, which have been set up on a county-wide basis, need local one-stop shops, rather than huddling together away from their customers and the public. Let us get those services back out on the estates, face to face, where they are needed and where people understand them. It is absolutely pointless passing Acts against antisocial behaviour while stoking up its causes with other policies. We must have joined-up thinking in this area.

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National policy made by the Government and the civil service must reconnect with on-the-ground delivery. We need to give clarity to officers—in this case, officers who had to deal with half a dozen different drug orders—on when an order is breached and the expectations of enforcement. That applies equally to the failure of national policy to involve communities practically in community sentencing, of which all of us in this Room have seen evidence. We must make antisocial behaviour orders work. Despite national intentions, there is some confusion in the Nottingham magistracy about whether hearsay evidence from the police can be accepted and whether a high level of criminal proof, rather than a lower level of civil proof, is needed to demonstrate a breach of an antisocial behaviour order.
It may seem a long way from the tragic death of a police officer to the inadequacies of the British constitution and how the Government work, but if the Government allowed Parliament to do its job the two-way street involving local best practice informing good national policy and vice versa could be unjammed. Of course, the Government should make policy, but they should hand back law-making to Parliament, enabling it to do its rightful job of conducting proper legislative scrutiny to turn national policy proposals into practical law.
Pre-legislative scrutiny should be done online, so that practitioners, victims, communities and others can participate in making better, more practical law together. I note the attendance today of Nottinghamshire's chief probation officer. It is inconceivable that those involved in the process for framing early release and drug-testing orders would not have benefited massively from listening to practitioners and consumers—perhaps a death could have been avoided. We should not depend on entrepreneurial Members of Parliament chasing the Lord Chancellor and other Ministers to clean up defects in legislation long after it has been enacted.
There should also be a proper process of post-legislative scrutiny to ensure that the policy operates as intended in the light of experience. There are local lessons to be learned. Indeed, there are lessons to be learned by all of us—including Members of Parliament, the Government and the judiciary—from this awful case, which occurred in my constituency and involved the constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe. What is not in doubt is that lessons must be implemented from the front line, by practitioners such as local probation officers and police officers, right up to the Head of Government—the Prime Minister. If those lessons are not learned—I give the Minister a guarantee that we will follow this through—the death of a brave local police officer will be a greater tragedy than it already is.
Thank you for allowing me to introduce this debate today, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Once again, I hope that it stands as a small tribute to the life of PC Ged Walker and the tireless efforts of Mrs. Tracy Walker to ensure that we all learn something from this awful tragedy.
11.16 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Caroline Flint): I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen)
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for securing the debate. I am grateful for the attendance of my hon. Friends the Members for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer), for Bassetlaw (John Mann) and for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), who have now left the Chamber. I also acknowledge the presence of Mrs. Walker here today.
The spur for the debate, as we have heard, was the tragic death of PC Gerald Walker, known as Ged to his family and friends. PC Walker, an officer of the Nottinghamshire constabulary, was killed in January 2003 by the offender David Parfitt, who was then unlawfully at large following his recall to prison for a breach of his parole licence. That recall was triggered by a succession of failures to comply with the terms of his licence, including missed appointments to attend the probation service for testing for the presence of class A drugs, and a number of positive tests for such substances.
Following David Parfitt's conviction for the manslaughter of PC Walker, my hon. Friends the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale, East (Paul Goggins)—who is responsible for correctional services—and the Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety ordered an inquiry into the events leading up to and following the tragic killing of this brave officer. Unfortunately, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary cannot be here today, because he is engaged on other parliamentary business, but he has spoken to me and the Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety and he will try to be here for the end of the debate and to meet Mrs. Walker if she wishes him to do so. He has told me that he would like to take this opportunity to express the Government's condolences over the death of this dedicated officer in such tragic circumstances. I offer my own condolences to Mrs. Walker and her two children.
On 25 March, Professor Rod Morgan, who was then Her Majesty's chief inspector of probation, submitted to the Under-Secretary his report on the inquiry into PC Walker's death. The report identified a number of failings at local operational level and in relation to the national policies that underpinned local practice. The chief inspector was of the view that if practices had been handled differently, they could have resulted in the earlier revocation of Parfitt's parole licence and the possibility of his earlier arrest and return to prison. Professor Morgan's report includes 10 recommendations that he believes would, if implemented, reduce the risk of similar failings arising in future and, in so doing, would contribute to the greater safety of the public. The Under-Secretary laid a copy of the report in the Library on 25 March, together with a detailed action plan setting out how the police, prison and probation services will implement the inquiry recommendations.
My hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe asked how that would be followed up. The Under-Secretary has asked the director general of the national probation service to be personally responsible for reporting the delivery of change in line with the published action plan, and has set a challenging deadline of this October for that to happen. I am sure that, once that report is provided, there will be other opportunities for hon. Members to raise issues.

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In the opening speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North reflected the thrust of the recommendations of the Morgan inquiry, but he rightly asked us to look further at the environment that contributed to the circumstances leading up to PC Walker's death.
The Government have always made it clear that we will not tolerate criminals who prey on society, and we have taken measures that are having an impact on crime. Overall, crime—as measured by the British crime survey—fell by 25 per cent. between 1997 and 2002–03, but we cannot be complacent. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has been forthright in saying that prison is the right place for those who present the greatest risk to the public, either because they have committed serious sexual or violent crimes or because they are prolific and persistent criminals. Equally, if we are to be successful in bearing down on crime, we need to have in place a range of tested models that support offenders in addressing their criminal behaviour. I know that only too well from having to deal with those offenders who, because of their drug addiction, create a huge amount of crime. We have in place programmes to address that problem by providing treatment to try to get such offenders off drugs, and therefore to reduce the crime rate. However, it is a challenging situation; and there is no short-term solution.
Mr. Allen: I thank the Minister for generously giving way. To underline her point, she may be aware that more than 60 per cent. of offenders over the age of 18 who are held overnight in Nottinghamshire test positive for class A drugs. That is an appallingly high statistic. In that context, will she consider focusing some activities on drug testing orders? There seems to be a plethora of such orders, but, without excusing any actions, it is easier for people to operate with a more tightly defined and focused number of drug testing orders.
Caroline Flint: It is certainly the case that we need to consider how the orders operate. The new National Offender Management Service will consider how better to address the criminal behaviour of individual offenders, and will also consider the use of the generic community order, which could have drug treatment and other associated drug elements attached to it. However, we must make clear that whatever laws Parliament passes have to be implemented in a way that people understand, including the probation officer and the police officer on the beat.
Whether the offender serves his or her sentence in the community or in prison, the public must have confidence that the criminal justice system is operating effectively and with proper regard for their safety. That is why local implementation is so important. My hon. Friend pointed out the thuggish and antisocial behaviour that increasingly blight our town centres and out-of-town areas and which cause real concern to many. We must deal with those concerns, as well as pressing down hard on crime itself. He also pointed to several ways in which that pressure could be made more effective.
My hon. Friend spoke also about pre-legislative scrutiny of Bills, and of a later parliamentary review of the effectiveness of legislation. The Home Office is
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constantly looking at various issues—I in my area, and my colleagues in theirs—including how DTOs are working, how different parts of the country seem to be handling such matters differently and possibly having better results, and what we can learn from good practice.
My hon. Friend rightly identified several issues aimed at establishing confidence in the criminal justice system. For example, he mentioned sentencing, which is important. Transparency in sentencing can have a great impact on the public's understanding and confidence.
The Criminal Justice Act 2003 imposed a general statutory duty upon courts to give reasons for, and to explain the effect of, the sentence passed. The general duty consolidates and strengthens the various requirements that are currently scattered throughout different sentencing statutes. That duty requires the court to explain in open court and in simple language why a particular sentence was considered appropriate.
The court will also be required to explain the practical effect of the sentence passed. That explanation will set out how the sentence is actually structured—for example, how long the offender will be required to spend in prison before being considered eligible for release; what requirements the offender must adhere to; and what will happen to the offender should he breach his sentence. Those explanations will enable the offender and other interested parties, including victims, to understand why a particular sentence was chosen and how it will operate. I hope that that will promote public confidence in the criminal justice system.
The introduction of the Sentencing Guidelines Council will also encourage greater transparency and consistency in sentencing. The council will be independent and chaired by the Lord Chief Justice. It will aim to produce a more robust and comprehensive set of guidelines for all courts, enabling them to approach cases from a common starting point.
My hon. Friend's reference to the strict enforcement of licence conditions is relevant here. The effective and rigorous enforcement of breaches is critical if the courts and the public are to have confidence in community-based provision. Compliance with licence supervision is, I am pleased to report, generally good at around 89 per cent. However, when a licence is breached, action must be taken quickly and in accordance with the probation national standards. As the Morgan report identifies, that was not done in David Parfitt's case.
There are clear lessons that must be learned from the awful events in question. The probation service, and other enforcement agencies, including the police and magistrates courts committee enforcement staff, are already working with the national criminal justice board to review all enforcement practice and to see where improvements can be made. I shall make sure that a copy of today's debate, with my hon. Friend's points, is made available to those agencies.
The review will examine whether the various agencies have the necessary powers to ensure that enforcement is effective. Closer working links, more effective communication and a better local understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the various criminal justice agencies are fundamental to better working and, ultimately, improved public confidence in the criminal justice system.

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Issues to be considered include local access, and the way to provide such access is the subject of debate. Perhaps I may take the probation service as an example. When the 54 probation services were integrated into a single national probation service of 42 areas, in April 2001. the new national service found that it had a portfolio of more than 1,300 properties. It recognised the need for an improved offender management environment and set out a commitment to try to provide accommodation fit for that, and suitable for the staff, in the work that they wanted to do for the people whom they support, or whom they monitor, if they are on contracts. The service also recognised its duty to its staff to provide a safe workplace.
In response to those changing service delivery needs, increased offender contact and more active intervention, the accommodation needs of the service have undergone a period of continuous, careful review, led by the local probation area's assessment of operational needs. However, even if one does not have an office on one's doorstep—and there is not one in my constituency—this is a matter of local access, relationships and good communication. A Member of Parliament may want to know where to go to find answers to issues raised in surgeries, but the issue of access affects the wider community as well. That is just as true in this context as in the work that I do with drug action teams.
Mr. Allen: The Minister is very generous in giving way again. I have mentioned to her that when I began as a Member of Parliament there were at least three different probation officers, in their own local offices, in my outer-estate-based constituency in Nottingham. I could pick up the phone and have an informal discussion with those officers, and it would often involve social services, housing or other departments. Through that informal network it was possible to take positive steps to help offenders and to help the community make sure that offenders' treatment was robust and adequate. That no longer happens and I no longer have that relationship with the probation service.
Will the Minister consider the fact that perhaps the pendulum has swung too far towards consolidation and centralisation and that we should be looking at a wider
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dispersal of people to the front line, where the problems are—and where the public whom we need to serve are, too?
Caroline Flint: We have representatives here from Nottinghamshire probation service, and I am sure that they have listened to what my hon. Friend has said.
The area that we are considering is complex, and deals with a complex group of people. The work in which I am directly involved concerns people who commit offences because of their drug addiction, and in some parts of the country probation officers work in buildings with treatment providers: perhaps that does not happen 9 to 5 every day, but there is a connection there. That is also part of how we deal with the problem.
In some ways, it is not a matter of the offenders coming to the professionals; it is a question of professionals—whether they are probation officers, police officers, the people who provide treatment if drugs are involved, or others who can deal with social housing needs, employment or education—identifying ways to engage people who may not turn up for appointments, as in the case that we have heard about today, and how that should be followed up.In this complex area of work, the key is trying to ensure that different individuals work together across agencies. Sometimes that will mean that several agencies occupy one building.
My hon. Friend raised several issues such as breach of antisocial behaviour orders, and my hon. Friend the Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety will write to him about that with some good news.
I thank my hon. Friend for introducing the debate. There are some wide-ranging lessons to be learned from the death of Ged Walker. We need not only to learn from this one case, but to be constantly vigilant about the policies and laws that we pass in Parliament, and how they are implemented. Constant scrutiny and evaluation is needed, without undue bureaucracy, so that we make sure that policies are working and are understood by those who implement them.
11.29 am
Sitting suspended until Two o'clock.

Mathematics and Science Teachers
2 pm
Dr. Vincent Cable: May I express my appreciation for the opportunity to introduce this Adjournment debate? The subject is timeless, but it is also highly topical, because this is the first opportunity that party spokesmen and other Members, of whom dispiritingly few are present, have had to comment on Professor Adrian Smith's report, "Making Mathematics Count". The report is of major importance not only for educationalists and schools, but for the wider economy.
The Secretary of State deserves some credit for having chosen a hard-hitting professor to examine the problem. The comments and analysis that have emerged from the report have been worryingly harsh. At the launch of his report, Professor Smith said about specialist maths teaching:
"Everyone I have spoken to says the position…is a disaster…There is a dire, catastrophic crisis level shortage of specialists."
That is fairly hard-hitting. The problem is clearly very serious. It is also tricky, and not easily defined and turned into one quantifiable bite. The analysis reveals a vicious circle in which a succession of problems feed on each other and are brought to a head at GSCE level, from which far too few students emerge with mathematical skills suitable for modern apprenticeships.
In addition, far too few students study the top tier of mathematics that enables them to go on to AS-level. Too many students fail AS-levels and too many do A-levels. Far too few study further maths, which is increasingly becoming the preserve of the private sector, and far too few study maths, physics and chemistry at university. The number of students studying physics and chemistry is steadily declining, and there are far too few graduates as a consequence. Of those graduates, far too few go into teaching or teaching teachers. We therefore have a vicious circle in which one shortage and inadequacy feeds on another.
I will discuss in a moment the details of that vicious circle and Smith's analysis of the problem and his suggested remedies, but before I do so, I must tell hon. Members that I took up the matter partly because of constituency concerns. I am sure that other constituencies have more mathematicians, scientists and PhDs than mine. I imagine that Cambridge or the two Oxford seats outbid Twickenham, but it has a substantial concentration of scientific institutions. For example, we have the National Physical Laboratory, a Government-owned institution and a centre for physics research in general and for metrology in particular, which is the science of measurement. When people talk about Greenwich mean time, they tend to forget that they are actually talking about Twickenham time or, more precisely, Teddington time, because Teddington is where the atomic clocks are.
We also have the Laboratory of the Government Chemist, which is a very successful example of a privatised former Government research laboratory that now does a lot of basic standards work and very high-level research. We also have large numbers of small IT companies. Consequently, the maths and science results
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of schools in my borough regularly put those schools at the top of the league tables, for what those tables are worth, which clearly reflects the background of many of the parents. I therefore have a local interest in the subject as well as a broader one.
I have a broader disciplinary interest in economic policy, both personally and as a spokesman in the House. I want to link this subject to the wider question of how the deficiency in maths and science education is seriously affecting our economic performance. I am very sceptical of many of the things that the Government supposedly do to support industry, which is one reason why I argued for the abolition of the Department of Trade and Industry. I have no doubt that the Government have a critical role to play in education, and in educating maths and science teachers in particular.
The economic importance of maths and science was underlined by another report that was published recently by the Science, Technology and Mathematics Council, which dealt specifically with what it calls mathematical literacy. Such concepts are a little elusive. Mathematical literacy is a broader and deeper concept than numeracy—it is not only about adding and subtracting, but about manipulating mathematical ideas such as proportions and percentages.
It is difficult to be precise about mathematical literacy. Teachers in our constituencies tell us about cases of seriously challenged pupils who consistently fail maths GCSE but go on to become market traders or bookmakers and display a brilliant understanding of the laws of probability and permutation far in excess of most PhD holders. Mathematical literacy is not necessarily formal and academic; it reflects a wider set of attributes.
The Science, Technology and Mathematics Council's study came to several clear conclusions. First, mathematical literacy is of growing importance to the economy and specifically to industry. Secondly, the need for it is moving steadily down the job hierarchy. That is a counter-intuitive conclusion because we have been brought up to think that as long as people have calculating machines they do not need to be competent with numbers. Manual workers, however, such as those working at supermarket counters, need to be increasingly mathematically literate because they need constantly to cross check and deal with anomalies, and they cannot do that unless they have calculation skills. Thirdly, the study makes the point that there is a perception that standards of mathematical literacy are falling. It does not suggest that standards are necessarily falling—that is a difficult thing to measure—but that the perception is that they are.
The study goes on to illustrate areas in the economy for which those findings are crucial; IT is an obvious example. In addition, growing industries, such as pharmaceuticals, require a large number of people from research level to technical lab assistants who desperately need to be mathematically literate but frequently are not. The study highlights the national health service as a key area and mentions the growing problems in respect of nurses who are admirably competent and excellent at caring but do not have the capacity to measure drugs or interpret graphs and numbers on screens. That is a serious impediment to health service delivery.

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A lack of mathematical literacy also affects the financial services industry. Our constituents have problems with endowment mortgages and credit card interest rates, which often assume an understanding of compounding that many constituents, not to mention financial advisers, do not have. The industry is severely disadvantaged by the lack of such competence.
The economic importance was reinforced by a message that I received shortly before the debate from the Engineering Employers Federation, which pointed out that only 43 per cent. of people studying GCSEs achieve A to C grades. Importantly, that is the minimum qualification needed in maths and English to undertake a modern apprenticeship scheme. As most of that 43 per cent. go on to study A-levels, the number remaining to go into industrial work at a technical level is small and declining, and the federation is alarmed about that.
I shall now proceed to what Professor Smith said in his report. There are two key elements of the analysis: the first relates to the shortage of specialist teachers, and the second to deficiencies in the curriculum. I have already said that he considers the position disastrous in terms of specialist teachers. The disaster is manifested in both quantity and quality—the fewer the teachers, the more non-specialists are teaching and therefore the lower the quality. I shall provide a few stylised facts that illustrate the points that Professor Smith is making about the lack of quantity and quality. He points out that there is probably—it is difficult to be precise—a shortage of 3,400 maths teachers, which is 16 per cent. of all vacancies. There are also serious shortages in science and IT. In the long term, to fill that shortage, it would be necessary to recruit 40 per cent. of all maths graduates into teaching, which is unachievable given current market conditions and the alternatives available to those with maths degrees.
I acknowledge that the cup is half full as well as half empty, and progress is being made in teacher training recruitment. Last year's figures are encouraging and attempts have clearly been made to deal with the problem. However, I hope that the Government will acknowledge in an equally open spirit that they have failed to reach their targets every year. The figures from Professor Howson of Oxford Brookes university, who is one of the leading authorities on the matter, suggest that the Government will again fail to meet this year's recruitment targets.
Moreover, the problem in terms of the structure of the profession is getting worse rather than better. The age profile of maths teachers is old: 30 per cent. are over 50—a higher percentage than in any other subject—and only 15 per cent. are under 30, which is one of the smallest percentages. There are similar disproportions in science, and they are even worse in teacher training: half those involved in the training of maths teachers are over 50. There will thus be a replacement bulge in addition to the built-in problems of recruitment, which will affect quality as well as quantity.
The following are some of the examples given in the report and elsewhere of the qualitative problems associated with the lack of specialist teachers: 26 per cent. of all people teaching maths in schools do not have a qualification beyond A-level—the proportion was 20 per cent. seven years ago; the recent Ofsted analysis of key stage 3 teaching found that a third of all classes were seriously deficient; a third of entrants into science
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teaching have a third-class honours degree or lower; and many physics and chemistry teachers have not done maths beyond GCSE level, so the problem spreads to other subjects, too.
The most damning figures of all are in the table in the Smith report that contrasts the British situation with that of other OECD countries. The study shows that in terms of the proportion of schools that are currently suffering from a deficiency in the quantity or quality of maths teachers, 23 per cent. of British schools are affected in respect of science, as against 12 per cent. in the rest of the OECD, and 29 per cent. are affected by shortages in respect of maths, as against 12 per cent. in the rest of the OECD. One cannot make absolutely precise comparisons, but the figures in terms of competitiveness and relative comparisons are worrying.
Smith discussed the implications for the curriculum in schools and the cause-and-effect relationship. He said that the three-tier GCSE is "disastrous", and that we had completely lost the plot on. GCSE. There are too few people at the top end and pupils are not being stretched sufficiently to go on to do A-levels, let alone further maths, and at the bottom level too few achieve even the minimum standard. Smith described curriculum 2000 as a disaster because of its effect on maths. In the first year, there were large numbers of failures, which in turn meant that in the following two years much smaller numbers took the course. That will feed through the pipeline of universities and teacher recruitment for years to come.
Most serious of all is the number of people taking maths and science at A-level. Since 1997-98, the period for which the Government are responsible, there has been a fall of 20 per cent. in the number of A-level maths students. It is true that in the last year that has recovered significantly, which is a positive countersign, but there is no relief in respect of chemistry and physics, where there has been a decline of 17 per cent. and 11 per cent. respectively, with no recovery.
David Taylor: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and I apologise for missing the first few minutes of his speech. Will he take this opportunity to correct his inadvertent comment that the majority of those who got grades A to C at GCSE—43 per cent.—would go on to A-level? In fact, the figures are much worse than that: of the 600,000 pupils who take GCSE maths, 90 per cent. drop the subject, leaving only 60,000 taking A-level. Some 90 per cent. of those drop the subject before university, leaving as few as 6,000 going on to maths degrees. Is that not the serious problem?
Dr. Cable: That was an extremely helpful intervention. Those are useful numbers, and I am sure that they are right. They reinforce the fact that the position is serious. I was trying to make a slightly different point. It is because of the small numbers getting GCSE, in addition to the limited numbers going on to academic work, that there is a shortage of people who are able to go into proper vocational training.
In conclusion, I should like to talk a little about where we go from here and what the policy implications are. It is probably useful to preface my comments by saying that there are clearly no easy answers. We are dealing

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with a big and complex problem. Intervention at one precise point will not solve that problem. There is a sequence of difficulties. I shall touch on several of Professor Smith's conclusions and ask the Minister to tell us how the Government view them.
The first and most radical conclusion is Professor Smith's judgment that there has to be a much greater use of market forces in respect of mathematical teaching and, by implication, sciences. He acknowledges that the Government have gone some way down this road through golden hellos and teaching bursaries, which are attractive, but only to new entrants. They do nothing for those already in the profession. He raises the possibility that if market forces were operating in this area, maths teachers might be paid £10,000 more than their colleagues.
When that proposal was made in relation to science teachers in the Roberts report, the Government rejected the idea that there should be such disparities. I can see the obvious problems in terms of staff room morale, not to mention cost. None the less, there is clearly a problem here. I should be grateful for the Minister's reaction. Does he see the proposal as the direction in which recruitment should move? Should there be a greater use of incentives and should they apply to existing teachers as well as new teachers?
Secondly, there is a whole set of ideas for recruitment, some of which are quite challenging. The point is made that whereas there is a shortage of 3,400 maths teachers, there are 7,000 other maths teachers who are not teaching maths. Some of them are teaching subjects such as IT, and pulling them out of such subjects will create another shortage. That is not a magic cure, but how big a potential is there in that area? What can be done to steer that unused resource in a more productive direction?
The suggestion is also made that maths and physics undergraduates might be used in the classroom, presumably working as classroom assistants. Given the current reaction of the teachers' unions to classroom assistants, that might not be the most popular idea around. None the less, it is unconventional and interesting and I see no fundamental objection. It would be interesting to hear how the Government see it.
The report also makes a perhaps more practical suggestion about the importance of in-service training. It makes the point that if we are to get to a position where no child has to be taught by an unqualified teacher in a particular specialism, which is what we surely should achieve within a reasonable period of, say, three months, the only practical solution is to have a great deal of in-service training. People who may not be maths or science graduates should be able to train in post. Professor Smith makes the further suggestion that people should be qualified to teach at different levels. In other words, why not have teachers who can teach up to key stage 2 or 3, not necessarily to A-level, and have more variegated standards of training and certification? That seems eminently sensible.
A third set of recommendations relates to how to encourage students to do more in maths and science. It makes the radical suggestion that GCSE maths should count double and that A-level maths should count
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double for university admission. One can see the obvious problems if that were extended to many other subjects but it seems an obvious practical suggestion. I do not see the fundamental downside to it. Again, the Government might want to give their reaction.
David Taylor: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. There is nothing new in that suggestion. It represents a reversion to what was common in the 1960s, when I took A-level mathematics; one could take pure and applied maths together or separately. Many chose the latter option, which is an attractive way ahead.
Dr. Cable: I followed the same path as the hon. Gentleman; I remember it well, but I struggled with the more difficult maths. The key conceptual point that we have been asked to consider is that not all subjects are equal. The radical suggestion is that subjects should be valued differently for university admission.
The report makes some radical suggestions for creating what it calls centres of teacher excellence, costing £100 million or thereabouts. It builds on the existing model for science teaching, which at least in its early stages appears to be a well-conceived initiative. If people are being sharply party political, they might ask how it will be paid for. My answer would be that the Government spend an awful lot of money on trade and industry in industrial support and tax credits to encourage the private sector to do research and science that it would probably do anyway, and that diverting a small fraction of that sum into science and mathematics teaching would be a much more productive use of taxpayers' money.
2.21 pm
Mr. Robert Key: I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) on his good fortune in acquiring today's debate, which is on an important subject The hon. Gentleman is a distinguished mathematician; he was a professor at Nottingham university.
Dr. Cable: Of economics.
Mr. Key: Indeed. None the less, the hon. Gentleman is a distinguished mathematician. However, I bet that he is glad that he is no longer the chief economist of Shell, which is clearly short of mathematicians.
In following the hon. Gentleman's excellent remarks about mathematics, I must tell the House that I, too, have read the essential chapter 2 of Professor Adrian Smith's report. However, I do not agree with his conclusion, which was endorsed by the hon. Gentleman, of using market forces, with golden hellos and other inducements. As a former teacher, I believe that teaching is a vocation.
I spent 16 years at the chalkface, and my experience was that differential pay rates for subjects or responsibilities—perhaps for games or certain other subjects—gave rise to all sorts of petty jealousy in the staff room. That was human nature. I recall that one of the headmasters under whom I served conducted a survey and discovered that more than 90 per cent. of the teaching staff were receiving some sort of special payment. We had round-table discussions about that,

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and we decided that it was unfair. We agreed to scrap nearly all the special payments and to increase all salaries by a sensible amount, which was much more motivating. The professor's suggestion is the equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns.
As a member of the Science and Technology Committee, I visited Culham last year. While going round a Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council establishment, we met some brilliant teachers—except that they were not teachers. They were researchers, but they were so good at explaining the principles behind their advanced physics that I wished that they were working in the classroom and not at the cutting edge of science. That is one of the dilemmas facing those who care passionately about mathematics or science subjects; they are torn between the pursuit of academia or business and basic schooling and education.
One aspect of the subject has not yet been mentioned. I would like to know what the hon. Gentleman thinks of it, and the Minister may have something to say about it. I speak of the enormous scope in specialist science subjects and mathematics for distance learning and a greater use of the internet, which has become so much more sophisticated. The work of the Open university at undergraduate level suggests a huge potential for using the internet much earlier in the curriculum—let us say from the age of five.
I shall concentrate more on science. The day after tomorrow will be my birthday. I have always enjoyed birthdays. I wonder whether you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, remember the coelacanth. Fossils of that fish can be 400 million years old, predating dinosaurs by millions of years. A living specimen was caught off the coast of southern Africa in 1938, and another was hauled aboard a boat near Grahamstown in 1952, just in time for my seventh birthday. My father ordained that my birthday treat was to be coelacanth and chips all round, followed by my favourite BBC Home Service radio programme—there was no TV then of course—"Journey into Space".
Now, as then, most children of that age are excited, engaged and motivated by dinosaurs and space, and recent blockbuster movies and TV series on those themes prove my point. So why is it that most young talent deserts the world of the sciences when GCSEs and A-levels demand subject choices? The issue really matters and must be addressed if the United Kingdom is to make sound judgments on ethics and investment and to compete at the leading edge of world industry and wealth creation.
The quality of public debate about genetic modification, the sources, use and abuse of energy, therapeutic cloning, reproductive fertility and a host of other issues is truly abysmal. In the difficult world of science, self-serving pressure groups have become the refuge of politicians, journalists and voters alike.
Last December, the Science and Technology Committee took evidence on nanotechnology from Professor Sir Harry Kroto, the president of the Royal Society of Chemistry. I asked him whether the lack of people in science was down to the lack of science education, and he replied:
"Yes. I think it is the most dangerous thing we face at the present time is, the lack of science teachers of pre-16s. I think we have got a disaster of enormous proportions facing us. Of the
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number of physics teachers teaching pre-16s, 80% do not have a degree in physics and 50% do not have an A level in physics. If that is not staring a massive problem in the face in six years, I do not know what is."
Why does science lose its appeal after such a sparky embrace from our children? A glance at the website of the excellent Association for Science and Education at www.ase.org.uk reveals that science teachers are working their socks off to attract the best pupils. Is it just that science is hard and media studies are easy? That is true, but it is an insufficient excuse. That says something profound about the message that our science and maths teachers are able to pass on to pupils who they believe have the talent to move into science and mathematics at a higher level.
The Select Committee's report "Science Education from 14 to 19", which was endorsed by my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban), a member of the Committee at that time, concluded:
"GCSE courses are overloaded with factual content, contain little contemporary science and have stultifying assessment arrangements. Coursework is boring and pointless. Teachers and students are frustrated by the lack of flexibility. Students lose any enthusiasm that they once had for science."
To add insult to injury, we also need at least 4,000 more technicians, given that practical science in schools depends on them. However, we will not recruit them unless their appalling pay and conditions are improved.
We need a serious five-point plan for science in schools. First, we should adopt a coherent approach to the current dysfunctional time scale for key stage strategies and examinations, which is much criticised by science teachers. Secondly, professional bodies continue to report a serious shortfall in qualified science teachers; the hon. Member for Twickenham referred to that. Reversing that trend should be a national priority, and there can surely be agreement on that across the political spectrum, and between employers and employees.
Next, we must sort out the plethora of standards for trainee teachers, newly qualified teachers, teachers passing the threshold, subject leaders and head teachers. Again, I disagree with the conclusions of Professor Adrian Smith's inquiry, which recommends that
"consideration be given to the introduction of new mathematics teacher certification schemes which award certification to teach mathematics only up to certain specified levels, eg Key Stage 3."
That is just adding to the plethora of suggestions that are neither appreciated nor approved of by those who try so hard to teach these subjects.
Fourthly, we need to recognise that science teachers need less pressure and fewer initiatives if we are not to stifle their passion for the subject. Passion for the subject is the key to raising standards in schools and attracting people to those subjects. Finally, without proper professional development opportunities for teachers, standards will not be raised. The future supply of scientists will be threatened and young people will live in ignorance of the world of science.
Those who make it through school to university and who can find a science department that is not being forced to close will encounter unsustainably low levels of clinical research. The first of two challenges is the dearth of experimental medicine—testing the validity and importance of new discoveries or treatments in patients or healthy volunteers. The second is the lack of large-scale clinical trials of all new forms of health care innovation.

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The Medical Research Council is now tackling that fact in partnership with the NHS and other funders, but it has many competitors for Treasury funds in the spending review process. I hope that the Minister will use all the power at his command to persuade the Treasury of the importance of that. We should all be backing him up and battling with the Treasury on that important national priority.
How seriously are the Government taking the crisis in science? In the Select Committee's recent scrutiny report on the Office of Science and Technology, which was published on 4 March, we expressed deep concern that the Science Minister is not fighting the corner of science and research at the Department for Education and Skills. There has also been poor integration of the OST's activity with that of the rest of Government—the Treasury and the DFES in particular.
Last year there were six reviews of science and research policy in government. All were conceived separately and without reference to each other. As the Chairman of the Select Committee said,
"The Government wants a knowledge-driven economy but all we get is a review-driven Government."
That will not do.
The problem is appreciated across the spectrum. Not long ago, Baroness Susan Greenfield invited some of us to a Royal Institution evening meeting on science education. Present were some 15 blue-chip chief executive officers, academics and politicians, to discuss what was wrong with science education. I thought that they would all come up with the answer that the problem was lack of postgraduate opportunity, lack of research facilities, lack of funding for PhDs and so on. Not a bit of it.
Whether it was the CEO of a big company like Siemens or the vice-chancellor of a university, the same conclusion was reached: what was wrong with British science was a lack of teaching in primary schools, and if we do not grasp the nettle of primary school teaching and take the long-term view—something that politicians are not normally credited with doing—we will do our country a disservice in the long run.
We all have little anecdotes about why we have suddenly become convinced on an issue. I was at a reception on the Terrace last summer for the brightest and best of our graduate scientists, who presumably all at least had first-class honours degrees, and some of whom probably had second degrees. I chatted away to three of those attractive, bright young people about—although I am not a mathematician—the measurement of things. They talked about the latest supercomputers and so on. I quietly asked if they had all used slide rules. They had all heard of them, but none had used one. Two of them had heard of log tables; none knew how they worked. Only one out of three had even heard of an abacus. I may be very old-fashioned and my birthday may be approaching rapidly, but I am happy about supercomputers, and believe very much in looking forwards, not back. However, it is perfectly clear to me, at the ripe old age of 58, pushing 59, that if we do not deal with the problem soon, we shall be letting down a whole generation of young people in this country.
2.34 pm
Mr. Tony McWalter: This afternoon I had intended not to speak but to listen to the wise words of others, in the expectation that the Liberal Democrats would have arranged for a rank of speakers to address us during the hour and a half of the debate. However, in the absence of any other speaker, I would hate there to be no contribution from the Labour Back Benches.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key), whose commitment and enthusiasm in this area are legendary, and I would like to reflect on some matters that he raised. I disagree with him on what is to be done about the Smith committee recommendation that thought should be given to differentials in teachers' remuneration. Like the report's other 43 recommendations, it should be taken very seriously.
We are considering a culture in which it is assumed not that all animals are equal but that all subjects are equal. However, some subjects connect with the human psyche differently from those with which we become familiar as young children; subjects such as mathematics make demands on our brains that others do not. I speak as one who undertook a mathematics degree but then realised, perhaps like the hon. Gentleman who opened the debate—let us call him the hon. Member for Teddington—that there are much easier ways to earn a living.
It is hard to put it over to people not only how difficult maths can be but how extraordinarily it can develop one's personality and understanding. We should consider what motivates students. I am the father of three children, the eldest of whom is at university studying American studies for the good reason that his degree course involves his spending a year in America. It was a wise choice, and I had an interesting discussion with him over Easter about which American university he would like to go to. The question of what job he will do has not arisen, but I suspect that there will be a significant market in this country for people with a considerable understanding of American history, culture, art and so on. In any event, such subjects are clearly tremendously attractive.
My daughters, aged 12 and nine, are both pretty good at maths, but I should be surprised if they went on to study it in depth. It is my pleasure to take them on a Saturday morning to an organisation called Theatre Train, where they sing, dance, act and have a wonderful time. If someone were to ask them to compare that pleasure, and the prospect of doing those things as fledgling adults and then as young adults, with doing a lot more of what they do in their maths classes at school, I have little doubt about what their answer would be.
It is extremely difficult to get an idea of how pleasurable mathematics can be. We have a system under which people are treated as though gaining a degree will qualify them for jobs in the City and elsewhere. So long as all subjects are equal, those that look more taxing will lose out. The stronger the range of subjects and the more exciting the opportunities—such as going to America, studying Burmese history or doing any of the other wonderful things that can now be done in education—the more they connect with people's motivations to study. It becomes progressively more

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difficult for people to understand that there is another world beyond, of which they have little concept or experience.
David Taylor: It is difficult for those with a lifetime's love of mathematics, such as me, to understand why others do not share that affection and enjoyment. Does my hon. Friend agree with one of Professor Smith's other conclusions—that there is great potential for promoting mathematics through, for example, a national centre of excellence, regional centres of excellence and perhaps even local centres? That could encourage young people in the belief that there is huge enjoyment not in log tables and abacuses, but in modern mathematics.
Mr. McWalter: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I sign up not only to the recommendations at the end of the report that he mentions, but to all of it. We could grab this problem by the scruff of the neck and do something about changing the culture. My children tell me that the current term is nerds—people who have an extraordinary interest in things that are deeply remote from the set of "EastEnders"—but nerds and nerdish concerns are increasingly marginalised in our education system. I am sometimes thought of as rather nerdish myself; yesterday, I had the opportunity to say some words to the parliamentary Labour party that were regarded as sufficiently abstract as to cause mirth.
We must find a way of getting people to understand that "education" is in many ways a misnomer. The word "educari"—to lead out from somebody their potential for learning—is only part of the process of education. Hon. Members may know that it comes from the model in "The Meno", one of Plato's dialogues, which portrays a slave boy with the potential to have an understanding of geometrical form led out from him. In truth, education is about not only pulling out from somebody what they are interested in and what they think, but getting them to understand the world—not just the material world, but the world of ideas and beliefs—and the powerful intellectual forces that have shaped the world we have inherited.
Mathematics is a powerful part of that, yet that side of the subject is often entirely ignored in what we call mathematical education. I share an enthusiasm with my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor)—for such things as seeing scratched on a piece of paper six symbols associated with Gauss, ei = -1.
David Taylor: That's right.
Mr. McWalter: My hon. Friend knows the power of those symbols. That idea—one could have the exponential number, 2.78 et cetera, raised to the power of pi, which is the extraordinary number that reflects the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, and then multiplied by the square root of minus one, which somehow could equal minus one—is extraordinary. However, most people, if they looked at that series of symbols on a page, would just turn off and say, "What's that all about?" In my view, it is one of the most extraordinary achievements in the history of mathematics.
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On the one hand we have a phenomenal achievement and on the other a complete absence of consciousness on the part of even the most educated people of what that achievement really means. As I have described it, of course, it is just a series of symbols. However, let me take only one portion of that idea of Gauss—the idea of the exponential number. That number plays a significant role, for instance, in understanding the processes of radioactive decay. The equation for radioactive decay involves that exponential function.
If one is to understand how radioactive particles decay or how we deal with radiation rising from natural or unnatural processes, it is a pretty good idea to have some grasp of the concept and to understand the equation governing the process. However, most people in this country have not a clue what the exponential function is. As a result, they cannot engage in debate on or claim to have an understanding of the process of radioactive decay. Again, we come to the idea that understanding how natural processes are to be quantified is hugely difficult for most of us to take on.
The hon. Member for Salisbury—I sometimes accidentally call him my hon. Friend, and perhaps I should do that—talked about some reports of the Science and Technology Committee. We have a report, not yet finalised, that deals with issues involving how we go about trying to help with acting on the agenda of the Johannesburg summit, where there was a particular emphasis on the need to get an effective water supply to some of the poorest countries in the world.
One of the issues that came up when we spoke to the chairman or chief executive—I cannot remember his precise title—of the Natural Environment Research Council was the fact that people had taken that agenda on board and sought to act on it, which is great. People want to drill wells to service the needs of villages in some of the poorest places in the world, but with no quantification and no thought given to the fact that if they drill at point A they might give people a water supply for 100 years, but if they drill at point B they might give people a water supply for six months.
Quantification, understanding the processes and working out the shapes, geology and the porousness of rocks are all mathematical processes, some of them governed by the same exponential function that I talked about. However, if people went into such things with good will and mathematical ignorance, they could do more damage than if they tried to do nothing at all. Mathematics is part of education and of action—it does not involve only referring back to a beautiful equation of the late 18th century—which gives us the power to understand how the world is and how we can influence and change it for the better.
David Taylor: Is not mathematics also important in politics? If Ministers in successive Governments had been more numerate, perhaps we would not have landed ourselves with the public relations disaster of an education grant settlement that left some schools less well funded than they were and with a private finance initiative that is prohibitive in cost, flawed in concept and intolerable in consequence, all of which could have been calculated and predicted merely by considering the

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mathematics of the enterprise. Should we not be looking for improved numeracy and mathematical skills at high levels of government?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Edward O'Hara): Order. It is fascinating to hear about the importance of mathematical concepts and their applications, but I remind hon. Members that we are talking about the supply of mathematics and science teachers.
Mr. McWalter: I am grateful to you for your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I strayed slightly, but I was trying to emphasise that we must give people an understanding of mathematics as a power to change the world for the good. Most young people whom I have met want to do things with their lives that will enhance the lives of others, so if people had that idea of mathematics and science we might begin to change motives. To do that, however, we must give people a motive to work through difficult or unnatural concepts.
It took 1,500 years for people to gain an understanding of how to begin to come up with a set of numbers that might describe the flow of liquids. None of those things is natural; they are huge achievements by our culture. We cannot just assume that now we have a way to produce some of those numbers, they will easily be latched on to by the average pupil aged 13 or even 23. Those cultural achievements are monumental and to change our world for the better we must find a way to communicate them and to empower people who have become the reliquaries of those achievements. If we could give people a much more positive sense of those things, we might not face shortfalls in teacher numbers such as some of those we face currently.
Mr. Key: I want to return for a moment to the example of the hon. Gentleman's family, as my younger daughter did exactly what his child is doing. She took an American studies course and went to the university of Texas, where her mind was broadened enormously, not least to the wealth of American universities and the money spent on science and maths education in such places. I want to give the hon. Gentleman some hope, following what he has said about doing the world some good. Would he care to comment on the fact that my late father studied mathematics at Cambridge and ended up a bishop?
Mr. McWalter: I cannot claim that studying mathematics always leads people to be useful to society; it simply gives them capacities that they may decide to implement. Of course I think that bishops do a good job as well; perish the thought that I would say otherwise.
I look forward to the Minister's reply to the debate. Obviously, I want to hear that he and the Department have taken the issue on board and will achieve a sea change in how we think of these matters. That would be immensely to the good of our children and their children. If we can begin to ensure that those capacities are cosseted and improved, we can enjoy the prospect of continuing to live in a successful country that not only innovates scientifically, but uses those ideas in powerful ways to improve our world.
2.55 pm
Mrs. Annette L. Brooke: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) on securing this timely debate. I had perhaps not anticipated the direction that it would take, but it has been of great interest. I intend to concentrate on the title, but, funnily enough, something flashed into my mind as the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. McWalter) was speaking. I recall that when I was studying for my maths A-level, which I loved and worked on at all hours, I strayed and read something that Bertrand Russell had written. He wrote that as a young man the only thing that stopped him committing suicide was his love of mathematics. I found that inspiring as an A-level student. However, I return to the topic.
We can quote all sorts of statistics. For instance, more than a quarter of secondary school maths lessons are even now taught by teachers without relevant post A-level qualifications. As has been said, we can go round and round, arguing whether the problem is to do with our uninterested pupils or a lack of inspirational teachers. An article in The Independent on 19 February succinctly illustrated the vicious circle that we face with two equations, which I rather liked. It said that
"unqualified maths teachers + uninterested students = a drop in the number of people taking A-level maths",
and
"fewer maths undergraduates = fewer qualified teachers."
I would add my own comment, albeit on a slightly different tack. The highest level of academic qualifications does not necessarily equal the highest level of teaching ability. We should bear that in my mind. I am sympathetic to Professor Smith's idea about mathematical qualifications at different levels. The inspiration that is needed at the primary school level may or may not come from people with PhDs in mathematics. I would not make a presumption in either direction.
My underlying premise is that all our children have a right to be taught by a teacher who is not only qualified, but qualified in the subject or area being taught. Equally, teachers have a right to professional development. They need to enhance expertise or subject knowledge. I find it scandalous that the most recent secondary schools curriculum and staffing survey took place after a six-year interval. Prior to 1966, such surveys were conducted at four-year intervals. Concern about the shortage of subject specialists is not new. If there is to be a timely, planned response. it is essential that decision making is based on the most up-to-date information and that clear responses are made to identify trends.
Professor Smith commented on that deficiency. He said that he regretted the fact that only preliminary findings on qualifications and age profile were available to him when he was working on his report. How can vital targets for teacher training be set without sound information, collected regularly? I understand that the most recent data are made up of responses from only about 200 schools, which account for fewer than 25 per cent. of those asked to participate.
We have heard reference throughout the debate to two important reports, one by Sir Gareth Roberts, primarily on science but covering other subjects too, and

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another more recent one by Professor Smith. It is interesting that although they at times approached the problem from slightly different angles, they reached similar conclusions. That is certainly true of their views on centres of excellence, although the formats were slightly different. Both reports say that we seem to have an ageing population of science and mathematics teachers—I presume that the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) was a science teacher.
Mr. Key: No.
Mrs. Brooke: I apologise.
The point has also been made that school children are not finding science or mathematics exciting. I agree with other hon. Members that it seems nonsense in this day and age that science is not exciting. With the pace of change and exciting developments, how can children be bored by science? We should question what is happening in our schools. I personally have always had a great love of mathematics, and I am not sure how we have managed to turn children off the subject.
It emerges from the findings of both the reports that we compare unfavourably with other countries in both science and mathematics. The curriculum content is vital. We heard from Professor Smith about the fiasco in 2001, which had a particularly bad effect on mathematics. It was bad that such a large number of students failed, particularly as they had already had a bad time with the AS-level. As far as mathematics is concerned, Professor Smith's recommendations to change GCSEs are quite exciting. The possibility of the double qualification that would emerge from those changes would be worth considering. There is a lot of scope for change in that area.
My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham referred to mathematical literacy, which we all see as important. It is a basic life skill. I recall an incident in my local authority area. The weeds were growing at a great pace in the pavements, and a new EU regulation required those who were to apply the weedkiller to have a paper qualification. There was great difficulty in getting the workers through that qualification because they needed to know the proportions. If people can do such things instinctively but cannot translate them on to paper, it is nonsense that they should be required to do so. We should ask questions about our approach.
It is difficult to know how severe the shortage of teachers is. One of the surveys found that many of those teaching mathematics did not have a post A-level qualification in mathematics. However, many of those teachers may have had a degree similar to mathematics, which would mean that they would be adequately qualified. They might, for example, have a degree in physics or in economics. I have a degree in economics, and would consider myself qualified to teach up to key stage 3, although it would be helpful if I had continual development and courses to keep me up to date. We must think outside the box, and perhaps work on the fact that there are people available with degrees with a high level of mathematical content.
Mr. Key: The hon. Lady has just made a profound point. Professor Smith also pointed out in his report that
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25 per cent. of mathematicians teaching in schools are not teaching mathematics, which is a huge untapped resource. Like her, I was an economics teacher.
Mrs. Brooke: I was going to refer later to the matter raised by the hon. Gentleman, but I shall do so now. I do not think that we need to worry about it too much, although research probably needs to be carried out. I know of a secondary school mathematics teacher who did not feel supported in dealing with behavioural problems in their school. The teacher then moved into a middle school and is now making an enormous contribution, not as a specialist mathematics teacher, but teaching mathematics, heading IT, and doing many other things with their skills—[Interruption.] I would give way under normal circumstances, because I enjoy talking about this subject, but I am really short of time.
Many people have identified the problems; we must now explore solutions and ensure that those solutions are the right ones. Top of my list—perhaps because of my teaching background—would be valuing teachers in general. Running teachers down and making false criticisms of them does nothing at all for the profession. I was unhappy about the recent statement made by the Secretary of State for Education to the General Teaching Council. He is quoted as saying:
"It is almost hit and miss whether your classroom teacher is working rigorously and systematically to improve the classroom experience for every child."
That statement worried me in many ways, not least because it is damning of the teaching profession. I found some of Chris Woodhead's comments damning of the profession in general and not necessarily reflecting the experiences to which I could relate. If we want enthusiasm and teachers to give 300 per cent.—I think most of them give more than 100 per cent. now—we need to support them and provide training opportunities.
We have also to consider why teachers are leaving the profession, as the lack of retention is affecting the supply of teachers. A recent survey by the university of East Anglia reveals why new teachers choose to stay or leave. Administration and red tape was cited by 88 per cent. of trainees as what they liked least about teaching, and it certainly does not help inspirational teaching. Poor pupil behaviour is also mentioned and, although I am in favour of inclusion, it should also involve plenty of support, which is often lacking in schools. We know that the work load is too high, and I wonder whether the resources will exist for work-load reform. Currently, about 40 per cent. of trainees leave the profession within three years. Other studies talk about the degree of stress that teachers feel. We have to address all those issues in the wider sphere of teaching as well as homing in on particular subjects.
We could be much more innovative with continuous training and development. I have mentioned the idea of those without pure mathematics or pure science degrees having enhanced training, and that should take place in school or paid time. Will the Minister consider something like a mini-SCITT—school-centred initial teacher training—scheme, in which someone with a degree has to do only three months to bring them up to the required level? We need to consider that, and I endorse what Professor Smith said. Many qualifications could be considered, but the system would have to be simple.

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Monetary incentives have been suggested, and I agree about salary differentials. If we are talking about higher salaries, they should be for all teachers. If they attract more teachers, it will be all to the good because there will be more choice and higher quality teachers in other subjects. At the moment, schools in some parts of the country have barely any choice after advertising a maths job. They are lucky if anyone applies, certainly in my part of the country. where house prices are high. That is true for other subjects as well.
The economics argument, which I had thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham might mention, is that we would be giving someone an economic surplus if we paid them more that we needed to attract them, but there is an overwhelming argument for increasing salaries generally for teachers. That will drive up the number of people applying for each job, and market forces could work effectively. I know from experience that having different salaries for the same job in a school leads to a lot of differentials and unhappiness.
We could also think of other ways to improve teacher recruitment. In the last general election manifesto—that is not to say that it will be in the next one—the Liberal Democrats proposed the policy of improving teacher recruitment by paying trainee teachers a full pro-rata salary during their training year. There are many points to consider, including parity for students on the four-year courses and degrees and education qualifications going together, but the idea of training salaries ties in with Professor Smith's thoughts about using the physics and mathematics students in the classroom and paying them. A lot of work could be done on that.
Overall, we are talking about the importance of getting it right at all ages. The emphasis on primary education has to be the most important because there is no chance of stimulating and interesting children if we have not captured them early. We need to appreciate that, although we need the highest level of mathematical skills, we also need basic skills for so many jobs. People cannot take on today's jobs without the fundamental mathematical numeracy and literacy skills.
This has been an important debate. There are many questions for the Minister to answer, and he has a challenge. He must do something about this very big problem.
3.10 pm
Mr. Mark Hoban: I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) on securing the debate, and on his lucid introduction in which he set out some of the important issues that Professor Smith and others have raised about the teaching of mathematics and the shortage of maths and science teachers.
As we are all displaying our mathematical qualifications, or lack of them, in today's debate, I must say that I, too, have an economics degree, although I confess that I did the least possible number of mathematical options available to me at the London School of Economics. So unlike the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mrs. Brooke), I may not be considered suitable to teach up to key stage 3 in class.
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The hon. Member for Twickenham was right to highlight the vicious circle of events that stem from the shortage of maths and science teachers, the poor quality teaching that our pupils will receive, the fact that GSCEs may not enable our pupils to realise their full potential, and the fact that fewer pupils will do A-levels and degrees, which will lead to fewer teachers and restart the whole cycle. He was also right to highlight the importance of numerical literacy to the wider economy. I, too, noted the article and the comments about the need for the mathematical training of nursing staff and those working on a range of topics, such as water exploration, which the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. McWalter) mentioned very appropriately. The hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) was right to point out the need for numerical accuracy among politicians. He and I are two of the very few accountants in the House, so I have some sympathy with that point, although I may not agree with some of the contexts that he mentioned.
My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) is certainly not a dinosaur, despite his approaching birthday. He is a lively specimen, and he was right to call for the simplification of the maths and science curriculum. When the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead and I served on the Science and Technology Committee, it was clear to me that schools were faced with an overburdened curriculum and that young people lacked the time to study some of the more exciting but sadly neglected aspects of science, leading to a shortage of maths and science teachers in later years.
The hon. Gentleman reminded me of those days on the Select Committee when he vociferously pointed out the cultural reasons for the decline in the take-up of maths and science degrees. If we are to address the shortage of graduates and the consequent shortage of maths and science teachers, we must recognise that the cultural aspect is as important as the detailed recommendations of the Smith report.
It is clear from the figures that there is a shortage of maths teachers. In the 2003 teacher vacancy tables, out of 16 subjects, maths had the third highest vacancy rate of any subject and science had the eighth highest. The vacancy rates in maths and science have trebled since 1997, although they have declined significantly since 2001, when they peaked.
The number of non-degree specialists teaching maths is a problem. Some 52 per cent. of maths lessons are taught by those who have a maths degree. The situation in science is better: a high proportion of people who teach science have a science degree. From the work done by the Select Committee, however, I am well aware that there are people with biology degrees teaching physics and chemistry as well as biology in the double science award. It became very apparent during that investigation that a love of one's subject is important in passing on knowledge and information to students. If someone has a biology degree, they cannot pass on to their pupils the same love of physics and chemistry as they have of biology.
The hon. Member for Twickenham was right to highlight the fact that science teachers are older than other teachers. The age profile of maths teachers has deteriorated since 1996 and the previous census of teachers.

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Given the shortage of maths teachers, what are schools doing? Part of their solution is to use non-specialists to teach, which is a problem for communicating knowledge and encouraging people to do more detailed work in maths and attain higher qualifications. The table in the Smith report which caught my eye dealt with what schools are doing to fill the vacancies for maths teachers. The report stated that 56 per cent. of vacancies were filled by either good or satisfactory appointments. In almost 11 per cent. of cases, the appointee needed support, and in just under 11 per cent. of cases, the appointee was unsatisfactory—head teachers are forced to appoint staff that they believe to be unsatisfactory to fill important maths vacancies. In 21 per cent. of cases, staff were moved to fill a vacancy for a maths teacher and no appointment was made. I suspect that those were non-specialists moving to teach maths, which is another worrying factor.
The problem goes deeper than that. There has been a recent improvement in recruiting maths teachers but there is still a disappointing failure to convert applicants for postgraduate certificate of education courses in maths into accepted trainees. The conversion rate for maths is well below that for subjects such as design and technology and religious education. The level of qualification for those being brought in to teach maths also causes concern. The Smith report states that the proportion of trainee teachers with a 2:1 and above has remained broadly constant—between 33 and 38 per cent. of the total intake. However, a lower proportion of the best graduates go into teaching maths than into IT, modern foreign languages, science, PE, geography, RE, history and English.
Why do maths and science graduates not go into teaching? In his presidential address to the Association for Science Education, Sir Peter Williams highlighted relatively low pay compared with other professions as a reason. However, the National Union of Teachers pointed out that there are other aspects, such as discipline in classrooms, to which the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole referred. Further reasons include the continued interference in what goes on in the classroom through Government initiatives and the high work load that teachers experience.
There is no consensus on the question whether to recruit more maths and science teachers by increasing pay. Dr. John Dunford, the general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, argued against that when the Smith report was published, although I must say that the NUT recognises that part of the reason for the shortage of maths teachers is the difference in pay rates compared with the outside world. We need consensus among teachers unions before politicians have to reach consensus.
The Smith report raised important issues about methods of increasing recruitment, but the problem also lies in the retention of teachers—it is a matter not only of getting teachers through the door and on to the training course, but of ensuring that they remain in the profession. Important changes have to be made on discipline, and to the work load and the wave of initiatives. That would make the job of teaching more attractive and encourage people to remain in the profession. The Minister has many questions to answer, one of which is when the Government will give their response to the Smith report.
3.19 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills (Mr. Stephen Twigg): I join other hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) on securing this important debate. We have had a thoughtful debate on both sides of the Chamber, and the issues have been fully aired. I pretty much concur with everything that has been said about the scale of the challenge that we face with science and mathematics in our schools. Since his appointment 18 months ago, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has sought to place much greater emphasis on subject specialism. I very much agree with the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) that one thing that really enthuses teachers in their work is a passion for their subject. Whether that subject is science, mathematics or from another part of the curriculum, colleagues on both sides of the Chamber will welcome the greater focus on subject specialism.
Although I am responding to the debate, the importance of science and mathematics is demonstrated by the fact that my right hon. Friend has taken direct responsibility for leading our work in the DFES on mathematics and science. I tread with care in responding to the debate, because I am, I think, the only non-mathematician, non-economist and non-accountant in the debate. Indeed, I must confess that I gave up my maths A-level after a year. I decided to do pure maths and managed to get an additional O-level in it, but I was persuaded by my economics teacher to focus on applying to do philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford rather than on doing my fourth A-level in mathematics. I regret that because, like other hon. Members, I found mathematics exciting at school.
I have a short time in which to respond, and if I do not manage to take up all the points that have been raised, I shall write to hon. Members. In opening the debate, the hon. Member for Twickenham noted that it was timely, given the recent publication of the Smith report. He rightly emphasised the educational and economic importance of the focus on mathematics and science.
The hon. Gentleman raised the interesting issue of mathematical literacy. That is one of the issues that we must address in the maths curriculum, but it is also linked to other parts of the curriculum, such as personal and social health education and citizenship, as well as to questions of financial literacy. He gave the example of compound interest, and there are many other positive examples. He also emphasised the scale of the challenge that we face, and I in no way underestimate it. Towards the end of my speech, I shall say a bit more about that.
The hon. Member for Salisbury made an interesting speech. He started by making a powerful case against market forces, which was interesting. It was also interesting to hear my hon. Friends and, indeed, the Liberal Democrats make the case for market forces. We live in interesting times. However, the hon. Gentleman also made an important point about distance learning and about the opportunities that new technology gives us to share good practice between schools and colleges, and possibly internationally—a point that I would like to take away with me.
The hon. Gentleman set out a five-point plan, which I would like to consider after the debate. I undertake to come back to him about it.

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Perhaps the hon. Gentleman's most important point was about the critical importance of getting our approach right in primary schools. Almost a year ago, we published our primary strategy document "Excellence and Enjoyment", which seeks not only to reaffirm the central importance of literacy and numeracy in our primary schools but to celebrate the broader curriculum. The science element of that broader curriculum is critical to getting things right.
That brings me to my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. McWalter), who challenged us to make science and maths attractive not only to nerds—his expression, not mine. He is right. As he said, there is a notion that all subjects should be treated equally, and there is a really tough balance for us to strike. As the Minister with responsibility for primary schools, I am used to the opposite criticism—that we put too much focus on numeracy and literacy. People ask, "What about the rest of the curriculum?" We must all think about how to advance the basics—I would include science along with literacy and numeracy—in the context of the broader, richer curriculum. I see no reason why we cannot achieve that, but I very much accept, for all the reasons that have been set out in the debate, that we are nowhere near doing so at this stage.
My hon. Friend made a powerful, emotional case for seeing maths as a force for good in the broader social and economic context. That is one way in which we can start to address the question of how to make such subjects more attractive to children and young people of all ages.
I want to share a few statistics with hon. Members. I do not like to fill my speeches with statistics, but a few have been mentioned, and it is only fair that I give some of the good news to balance the perfectly reasonable points that were made earlier. Good progress is being made with the number of children who leave primary school having achieved the expected level, or better, in mathematics at age 11. It is still not good enough, but 73 per cent. of pupils achieve level 4 or better at age 11, which is a 14 percentage point improvement since 1998. That investment in, and support for, numeracy skills at the youngest possible age is very important, as several colleagues have pointed out.
At key stage 3, last year. 71 per cent. of pupils achieved level 5 or better—up four points from the previous year. At GCSE—to correct the hon. Member for Twickenham, who quoted a figure of 43 per cent.— I understand that the latest figure is that 48 per cent. of pupils achieved grades of A* to C. I accept that those figures are not good enough, but they represent progress in the number of 15 and 16-year-olds achieving the level that we would all expect them to reach in mathematics.
I will say a few words about teacher training and recruitment before I finish by talking about the Smith report and taking up the challenge of the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) about the Government's
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response to that. There are some encouraging signs, which have been referred to by Members on both sides of the Chamber, that the position of teacher vacancies generally, and specifically in science and mathematics, is improving. I accept that we still have a long way to go to make it right, but vacancy rates in science and mathematics teaching have fallen.
In initial teacher training, the position that we inherited in 1997 was that there had been a decline in recruitment. We have sought to put much more emphasis on recruiting people into teacher training generally, and particularly in shortage subjects. There has been a large increase in those going into initial teacher training and specialising in maths—about a 50 per cent. rise in just four years. There has been a more modest improvement with science places, with a 20 per cent. rise over the comparable period. It is a big challenge, as hon. Members have said, but we are at least beginning to meet that challenge with support for, and investment in, initial teacher training.
There are also employment-based routes into teaching, and there have been significant increases in the numbers going into teaching through routes such as the graduate teacher programme—again, with particular focus on mathematics and science. I am sure that that will be welcomed.
We have also created a number of incentives for maths and science teachers, several of which were mentioned during the debate—golden hellos, for example—so I will not go into them again. We are looking at ways in which we can assist with student debt for graduates who go in to teaching shortage subjects such as mathematics and science. That is of critical importance. Finally, we have the undergraduate ambassador scheme, which operates alongside the student associate scheme to enable students to get degree credit for their classroom activities in line with what Professor Smith was talking about, and upon which we have the opportunity to build. That scheme aims to recruit about 1,000 maths and physics students by 2005–06.
There has been progress, but I accept that we still have some way to go to get it completely right. We now have Professor Smith's report "Making Mathematics Count," which we welcome, as do all Members in the debate. We, as a Department, are taking it seriously and are actively considering all 44 of its recommendations, particularly how best to take those recommendations forward with key stakeholders, including subject specialist associations, and in the context of the work of Mike Tomlinson's group on 14-to-19 reform.
If we are to learn all the lessons to which hon. Members have referred, it is vital that we introduce a set of changes that can be sustained long term, so that we can ensure that maths and science are attractive subjects in our schools, and that we are able to recruit and retain the highest quality maths and science teachers for the future. I welcome the contribution that today's debate has made to taking that forward.

European School, Culham
3.30 pm
Mr. David Cameron: I am delighted to have this opportunity to speak about an excellent school. The debate is very much a two-handed affair: the European school at Culham is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson), but is attended by the children of a number of my constituents in west Oxfordshire and of constituents throughout Oxfordshire. My hon. Friend and I had a pact to apply for an Adjournment debate in the hope that one of us would be successful, and it fell to me. We want to put on record the role of this school and our concerns about its future, and we want some quality time with the Minister, whom I am glad to see in her place.
A lot of debates in Westminster Hall bring forward problems, but we like to think that we are bringing forward an opportunity for Oxfordshire and the country at large. Culham is an excellent school—a little gem. All we are asking is that everyone who has a stake in the school—the local education authority, the European Commission, the Government and the teachers, parents and board of governors—play a constructive role in trying to secure its future. That is what today's debate is about: an invitation to the Minister to consider the school and to do what she can to help.
Let me rewind and put on record some facts about the European school at Culham: what it is, what it does, who goes there, why it is facing some difficulties, why it is worth keeping, what needs to be done about it and how the Minister can help. My hon. Friend the Member for Henley will then bring it all to life in his inimitable way, as he is himself the product of a European school. He spent some of his formative years at one in Brussels, which goes to show that although such schools have a European ethos, the children can develop into Europeans in the broadest possible sense of the word.
The network of European schools around the European Union was first set up some 50 years ago for the children of those working for European institutions. There are 12 of them, and Culham was opened in 1978. They teach in many different European languages and specifically teach the European baccalaureate. The European school at Culham serves 900 pupils. Some 40 per cent. of them are British or of mixed British and other EU nationalities, and the rest come from other EU countries. The school has five language sections: French, English, German, Dutch and Italian. Danish, Irish and Spanish are also taught.
There are three different types of pupil. First, there are the children of those who work for European institutions, who at Culham tend to be the children of scientists and others working at the Fusion project at Culham. They account for about 5 per cent. of the total, including the children of teachers. They are category 1 pupils, and pay no fees. Secondly, there are the children of parents working for other continental European companies or organisations that contract with the school. BMW, for example, which is now booming in Oxford and producing the very fashionable Minis that race around our roads, has an agreement with the school. These are category 2 pupils and the agreements
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cover the costs of the places that they take so, again, no fees change hands. Thirdly, there are the children whose parents are attracted to the school and its ethos, its emphasis on language and its good record. Those parents pay fees, which are low compared with those of most private schools.
Currently, the fees are some £1,500 for primary pupils and £2,500 for secondary pupils. Rises of 20 per cent. or more are planned for the next two years, but the Minister will agree that those are very low figures, which make the school accessible for many parents in Oxfordshire. However, costs at the school are high because of the structures that it needs, such as teachers of all the language sections. The cumbersome and top-heavy structure leaves some room for cost-cutting, which I shall come on to.
The facilities at the school are not particularly special or privileged. I have been to the school and looked at the buildings, and there is nothing particularly magnificent about them. The school has an ethos as a state school. It is, as it were, a European state school, open for all. Crucially, the results are excellent. In most years, everyone obtains the European baccalaureate, and the EB is testing. Another indication of results is that pupils get into good universities, at which they tend to do well in lots of different subjects, not just languages.
The school is important to Oxfordshire, and all the Oxfordshire MPs have met and discussed it. It makes it possible to attract and retain highly qualified individuals in industry, research and the universities who might not otherwise come to Oxfordshire. It therefore provides a significant contribution to the economy of Oxfordshire and the UK. In Oxfordshire, there is the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority at Harwell, the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and the Culham JET—Joint European Torus—project, and many other science-based and start-up businesses in my constituency have grown out of Oxford university. They value such schools, which will provide them with the scientists and bright people of the future, as well as places for their children to go to school.
I have recounted what the school is, who goes to it and what it does, but I now want to explain why it is in some difficulties. Funding is fairly standard across all the European schools. More than 50 per cent. comes from the European Commission, and the rest comes from the UK Government and other EU member states. In addition, as I said, there is funding from the contract partners such as BMW and the parents.
The funding problem comes from the fact that the European Commission wants to reduce its funding. That is not, I admit, unreasonable, as the employees of the European institutions make up quite a small proportion of the total. Also, as the EU enlarges, it will not be possible to set up such schools everywhere. The expense of all the different language sections that would be required to ensure that schools covered all the new nations of the EU would be very great.
The European Commission has, however, also proposed to exclude pupils whose parents do not work for the Commission or the diplomatic service, to eliminate certain language sections and to increase fees. Those latest proposals are exacerbating the problem. They threaten schools such as Culham with

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strangulation at a time when they desperately need a breathing space to find a solution. The briefing note that the parents have helpfully drawn up for us states:
"Hasty action would destroy the school".
I hope that the Minister will think about that.
What is the answer, and what do we ask for today? The answer flows from the fact that the school is a good one, and worth saving. All of us who want excellence in schools, want languages to be well taught in them and want choice in provision should want the school to survive and thrive, not only to provide the benefits to Oxfordshire that I spoke of, but for the broader economy and our education system.
The answer lies in all those with an interest in the school straining every sinew to find an answer. Those with an interest include the European companies that employ people locally; the development agencies that would like to attract more such companies to our shores and to south-east England; the science, research and development facilities of the Oxfordshire region—particularly taking into account the likely expansion around Rutherford and Harwell—and the European Commission, which retains a responsibility to the schools and must see them right. The list continues with the local education authority, which could and should, in my view, work with Culham as a language school. The authority could benefit hugely, as could the Government, who already provide some funding, because of the way in which the teachers are funded, and who apparently have a desire, which I share, for a blossoming of choice in our education system.
We want the Minister, first, to oppose any hasty moves in Brussels to change things—in particular to ramp up fees, reduce the number of sections or restrict access. We need to make sure that there is breathing space. That is the key phrase in today's debate. Secondly, we want the Government to vote in favour of a period of gradual transition, to give the school the chance that it needs to draw up its own business plan and to succeed. Thirdly, we want the Minister, who is, I know, very busy, and her officials to work with the school and the other partners to try to find a solution.
I admit that I, in my modest office at Westminster, do not have the solution at my fingertips. However, would it be too hard to imagine something along the following lines? I am thinking of a school that specialises in languages, that still receives some money from the Commission for the work that it does with the European institutions and that has special arrangements with businesses that want to fund it, such as BMW, but which is part of the mainstream British education system, with a mix of pupils. Is it hard to imagine some of those pupils being funded by the LEA, some paying fees and some having scholarships? That is the sort of mixed system that we should be looking for in this country. The European schools, and particularly the one at Culham, provide an opportunity in that respect.
What I have outlined may not be neat and tidy. It may require a lot of work and quite a bit of planning. However, our message to the Minister today is that it would be well worth making the effort. I look forward to hearing what she has to say.
3.39 pm
Mr. Boris Johnson: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) on securing the debate and putting the case as succinctly and comprehensively as he could have done. We are trying to stop a very good school being closed. That is the sad event that we face. It is particularly sad, but not only because the school is a good one—I have been round it and seen lots of chirpy children babbling away in many European languages—and a wonderful institution. I speak rather sentimentally because, as my hon. Friend has indicated, I am the beneficiary of that kind of European education. As he reports, I was educated at the European school at Uccle in Brussels, and it did me proud. I remember fondly my days under the august headmastership of Mr. Mittler—Herr Mittler as he was known—a genial and charming man with curious leather gloves, and our bus driver Vendredi. I do not know why he was called that; perhaps that was when he turned up.
Funnily enough, the playground in that school was very much like the Council of Ministers, which I later came to know well as a reporter in Brussels. I know that some here today are closely connected with the school in Culham, so I shall do my best not to tread on their corns. However, in my day, it was striking that the Danes and the Dutch tended to team up with the Brits to bash up the French and the Italians. Perhaps it does not work like that any more—I sincerely hope that it does not—but that was what happened back in Uccle. It was a wonderful time; there was an ethos of European integration. Inscribed on some great stone at that school are the words of Jean Monnet that informed that ethos. This is how he rhapsodised in 1958 about what he hoped for from the school:
"Educated side by side, untroubled from infancy by divisive prejudices, acquainted with all that is great and good in the different cultures, it will be borne in upon them as they mature that they belong together…Without ceasing to look upon their own lands with love and pride, they will become in mind Europeans, schooled and ready to complete and consolidate the work of their fathers before them, to bring into being a united and thriving Europe."
That was the ethos, and a good thing it was too. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, it does not produce identikit Europeans. Many of us, including my brothers and sisters and other alumni, are testimony to the diversity of the pupils who were turned out by the European school. It produces people who have, to the great benefit of this country, an instinctive familiarity with other cultures and civilisations. It would be sad if that were lost. The problem, as he has well illustrated, is that it is a Community institution; it is funded by the European taxpayer, n'est ce pas? Oui. Si. It is hard to see why the European taxpayer should continue to do that when, as Neil Kinnock has pointed out, only 13 out of 883 pupils are what is called category 1 pupils. I was the son of a commissionaire fonctionnaire, but by no means everybody at Culham now comes into that category; 85 per cent. are category 3 pupils—the children of parents who have come to some kind of arrangement with the board of governors so that they can attend the school even though they have no direct association with the EU institutions. I still think that it is a good system, and it is wonderful to encourage it. It is fantastic that we should do so. Those parents pay fees, albeit that, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, they do not cover the real cost.

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They might pay £2,500 for a secondary level place at Culham that costs £9,000, the difference being met by the European taxpayer.
It is obvious from Neil Kinnock's letter that, given that considerable subsidy and the proportion of pupils who are the children of Commission officials to those who are not, he is moving against the school. Unless we can find an imaginative solution that will keep it going, it will die a slow death. My hon. Friend set out very well the options that we should pursue—not just the Government, the local education authorities and so on, but, above all, the parents themselves. The parents and the governors must seize their destiny with their own hands, develop a business plan to save the school and present it to Ministers for their consideration. He mentioned some of the obvious options: going to BMW, for example, and other local and international businesses and saying, "Come on, this is a fantastic institution. Let's support it." I know that parents have already explored the option of charging for boarding, which is permissible under the terms of the relevant legislation.
Parents and governors rightly say that they want to maintain the state-school ethos. As someone who uses state education in Islington, in spite of everything that the Minister managed to do to the set up when she was in charge of it, I can see their point; I can see its advantages. I admire the state-school ethos and I can understand why they want to keep it. However, I cannot but agree with Ministers and with the Secretary of State for Education, who said, repeatedly, that the parents and governors cannot realistically expect Her Majesty's Government to step in and pick up the tab if and when the Commission withdraws. Everybody, including the parents and governors, accepts that. They also accept my hon. Friend's point about the teachers' pay scales, which are out of whack with the set-up in the rest of the country. It would be difficult for the taxpayer to bear the cost.
What the school needs above all from the Government and from all the other institutions involved is time. As my hon. Friend said, it needs breathing space and a commitment—a confirmation that it is valued and appreciated for three reasons. First, it offers a unique form of education that could be rolled out across the country; its model of education might prove very popular. I do not say that I am a shining exemplar of the benefits of this style of education, but it is a wonderful thing that we would be rash to throw away. Secondly, however one looks at it, there will be a cost to the taxpayers in south Oxfordshire if the school is closed, which is a legitimate matter of concern for the Department for Education and Skills and for Oxfordshire.
Thirdly, as my hon. Friend said, there are considerable strategic advantages to the country in having a school that can cater for the children of distinguished scientists and business folk of all kinds, from all over the world, who want to send their children to an international school with an international ethos of the kind that Culham provides. He has already mentioned the Rutherford-Appleton laboratory and the Joint European Torus project in Culham. It is possible that as the school evolves it might have to move away from the strict federalist ethos of Jean Monnet, becoming in mind European, to a more international solution, which would not necessarily be a bad thing.
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I hope that the Minister will agree that Culham school is a good institution, and that in the name of diversity, choice and excellence, it falls to her as much as to anybody to try to keep it going. It would be sad and paradoxical if in a career that I have spent trying to close down various European Union institutions, the first one with which I had any direct relationship, and which I particularly like, admire and value, were to be closed in my constituency.
3.49 pm
The Minister for Children (Margaret Hodge): I congratulate the hon. Members for Witney (Mr. Cameron) and for Henley (Mr. Johnson) on securing the debate. On the day that the Prime Minister was going to—
Mr. Cameron: U-turn.
Margaret Hodge: I was going to talk about the hon. Gentlemen's possible conflict of interest, but on the day that the Prime Minister told us that there will be a far-reaching debate on our position in the context of Europe, it is a joy that two members of Her Majesty's Opposition should give a stunningly wonderful endorsement of the best of European culture. I hope that they take that forward. Indeed, I hope that the education that the hon. Member for Henley enjoyed at that European school bred a good European member of the Conservative party.
By the age of five I had learned four European languages. Although I never learned to read and write them—one is Italian. Mr. Deputy Speaker, which we share—I have found them invaluable. That knowledge has helped me to develop a strong European sense of being and an international persona, which have been invaluable in my work and in my attitude to others. I strongly support the concept of the European schools, including the European school at Culham.
Conservative Members have asked for three things. Knowing how such debates go, let me say immediately that all three requests are reasonable. The first is that we should seek a breathing space in which to find an imaginative solution. To an extent, that has already been achieved as a report is being compiled, which will delay a decision until well into the autumn. That gives us six months to work with the various organisations mentioned by the hon. Member for Witney—the local education authority, private sector companies and the Commission—and to see whether the Government can play a role in putting a package together. That gives us the breathing space that was requested.
The second request is for a gradual transition. I give the assurance that if the closure of the European school at Culham were proposed, we would insist on a suitable phasing-out period. That would enable not only pupils to complete their education, particularly those who are getting close to their baccalaureate exams, but the putting in place of other transitional arrangements.
The third request is for the Government to work with the school in an attempt to find a solution. Again, we give a commitment that we will do our best. However, as both hon. Members understand, it would be inappropriate to expect the Government readily and easily to invest money in the school's future, especially

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as the costs would far outweigh what is invested per pupil in the state secondary school system. We are trying to be fair in our use of funds, so it would be difficult to justify expenditure two or three times higher per pupil, which is the cost of educating children at Culham.
The Secretary of State and I strongly endorse the concept of the European school. It is an institution in which pupils can enjoy a unique form of education and it helps to build a better understanding across European states, which is essential if the European project is to be effective. However, I am sure that hon. Members are aware that there are problems. When Culham was established, it was one of a network of 12 European schools. It was set up on the basis that it served in particular the people who worked locally at the Joint European Torus project. Given that very few people employed directly through the Commission use the school, it is difficult to see how we can find a mixture of funding that will keep the ethos of the school going without having recourse to public funds, which are not readily available.
Mr. Cameron: I seek one assurance. My understanding is that the Government own the buildings, provide some funding for the teaching staff and pay some money to the Commission that ends up back at the school. They are involved in investing already, so I hope that they do not get too hung up on the money issue. The answer is to try to find a solution.
Margaret Hodge: Clearly, we need to find a solution, but our commitment to funding the institution arises from our commitment to funding institutions partly supported through the European Commission for the purposes of funding institutions that can educate the children of people employed by the Commission or organisations associated with it. We must remember the origins of the funding to justify its continuation, which
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will present some future difficulties for the Government. Nevertheless, I give the commitment that, together with the governors and those responsible for the school, we shall use all our imagination to try to ensure that it has a future.
As hon. Members probably know, at a meeting in January 2004 the European schools international governing body took a provisional decision to close seven language sections in the four small European schools. Those language sections include the Dutch and Italian sections at Culham, which are regarded as non-viable in terms of entitled student numbers. It is interesting that at Culham neither the Dutch nor the Italian language section has a single pupil who is the child of an EU employee. That is quite surprising given the international investment, particularly by Dutch companies, in the UK. We can perhaps think of partnerships that could be established with multinational companies to see whether they might contribute to funding children in the institution.
I understand that the uncertainty over the future of the European school at Culham is not only an issue of principle. It matters a lot to parents of pupils, but it is not a state school. It is run by the European school board of governors, so the issue is their responsibility. However, if proposals for closure have to be made, it is critical that the interests of pupils be protected and that their educational future is promoted.
In the light of this morning's statement to the House by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, I hope that Conservative Members recognise that EU enlargement will mean increased demand for the European schools system as a whole, so it is totally proper for the European Commission to consider whether the location of schools in the area is appropriate. I hope I have given the reassurances that hon. Members seek and that they ease the minds of the constituents of the hon. Member for Witney whose children attend the European school at Culham.

Mr. John Tero
4 pm
Ms Sally Keeble: I am grateful to have secured this Adjournment debate on the treatment in prison of the late Mr. John Tero, who was my constituent. It is the second Adjournment debate about him that I have initiated. Since the previous one, which was held last July, Mr. Tero has sadly died. He spent a year in prison before his conviction was quashed in December 2001. Sadly, he finally succumbed to the cancer that he developed and that went untreated while he was in prison. He was 72 when he went into prison and 74 when he died. Although progress has been made in clarifying his treatment in prison, there are still some outstanding issues. In particular, there is the quite appalling delay in getting the case resolved. I am grateful for this opportunity to deal with some of those issues. The case also raises wider issues involving prison medical services, and it is right to take the opportunity afforded by an Adjournment debate to consider some of those too.
First, I welcome the prison ombudsman's report on the case and the fact that the two prison governors have apologised for different aspects of the administration of Mr. Tero's appeal and release. I also welcome the changes that have been made as part of the independent clinical review, and I am glad that my hon. Friend the Minister set it up. The recommendations are substantial. Each prison should have and use the current guidelines for treatment of suspected cancer. I suspect that there is quite a long way to go to ensure that those are in place and that people know how to use them properly.
Other recommendations are that each prison should have regular clinical effectiveness meetings and that changes should be made in referral systems and record keeping. Greater accountability on getting prisoners to hospital appointments is needed. It is important that these changes are fully implemented as they will go some way towards preventing some problems that my constituent so sadly experienced. More changes are needed, however, and I will set them out.
One of the biggest issues for me in dealing with this case, and for the family as well, has been the time it is has taken to get even the most basic information. Moreover, some of that information is wrong or misleading. I will give two examples. One of the first things that my constituent raised with me was his weight loss in prison, which he rightly attributed to his illness, yet I received three letters—two from my hon. Friend's predecessor and one from the director-general of the Prison Service—giving his only recorded weight as 77.5 kg, 75 kg or 77.8 kg. I repeatedly asked what explanation the Prison Service had for John Tero weighing only 66 kg when he arrived at Northampton general hospital on 8 January 2002, which was about 10 days after he left prison.
The letter from my hon. Friend's predecessor stated that Mr. Tero's weight
"remained fairly stable throughout the period in question".
Phil Wheatley, the director-general, wrote to me on 27 March 2003 saying that Mr. Tero's weight had increased slightly, adding that
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"his records show no requirement to weigh him more often."
When I got a copy of his prison medical records earlier this year—as a result of the ombudsman's reports and findings, not in response to my requests—I discovered that those statements are not accurate. There was a clear entry on the inmate medical record in October of John Tero's weight falling to 73 kg and a further clear entry on 14 December stating, "BW 68 kg". I take that to mean body weight 68 kg.
It is clear that the Prison Service knew how much weight Mr. Tero had lost. There was no need for a review or an inquiry. All that was needed was someone being honest about what was in the prison medical records and providing the obvious explanation for it, which is that my constituent had developed a serious illness. Just yesterday—this is an example of how frustrating the case has been—I received a letter from Preston hospital with John Tero's medical records. I had asked for them some months ago. They list under his indications for an endoscopy
"reflux symptoms and weight loss".
It was clearly known that he had been losing weight.
Furthermore, John Tero complained of being sick and unable to eat. Mr. Wheatley's letter said that there was no reference in the records to the fact that he was
"declining food at this period, the only complaint recorded was one of gastric reflux."
However, the records show an entry for 15 October of
"vomiting after meals x 3/12".
I take that to mean vomiting after meals for three months. The same note is repeated in the information that I received yesterday. Those are just three examples, and there are others. They have been profoundly damaging in the months after Mr. Tero's death as we have tried to take the family through what happened to their husband and father.
Reading the inmate medical record gives a sad picture of an elderly man trying to attract attention to his steadily fading health. A steady catalogue of complaints starts on 26 April and ends when he was finally found to have cancer—on 17 December, the day before he won his appeal against conviction and two days before he went home. This is a completely different picture from that painted in the three Home Office letters that came in response to my early inquiries.
This place relies on Members being told the truth the whole truth. It is impossible for us to represent our constituents properly and to take up issues with the Government on their behalf if we do not get full and honest answers. What makes this particularly galling is the fact that if that information had been provided with those explanations—as it should have been—on the basis of an exchange of letters 17 months ago, my constituent would have probably got what he wanted, which was an apology before he died.
The issue of access to information is a big one. People have a right to information about themselves, and Departments and other agencies must respect that. On a more practical level, if prisoners are to be able to manage their health, they need access to their medical files and they need the ability to complain—as they will have the right to do—and to get improvements in their care. A closed medical system inside a closed institution

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will leave vulnerable the most frail and elderly prisoners. My constituent was a pensioner when he was sent to prison.
Another issue about which I am very concerned is a muddle in the record keeping. There appears to be little consistency about what is recorded and in how much detail. There is certainly enough detail in John Tero's medical records to see after the event how my constituent's health deteriorated, but I am not sure that there was enough for the doctors treating him at the time.
There are also failures in how the notes were recorded. I have spoken to my hon. Friend about that, and I think that he observed the same thing. Some entries, to put it politely, did not withstand being photocopied. For example, there is still a dispute over the date on which John Tero first reported his stomach problems. My photocopy shows 26 April; Dr. Blackburn's photocopy, which was of worse quality, showed 17 July. That is a small point, but I have requested revised copies of some pages and I would be grateful for those. The family still cannot see exactly what happened because we have not had a fair copy of some pages of the records. I will give my hon. Friend a note of those pages later.
Dr. Blackburn's review deals with many of those issues, and I certainly welcome the changes that he proposes on record keeping, but it does not deal with some of the muddle that is the reality that lies behind the records. For example, I understand that there is a procedure for getting to see someone at some prison health care units. Prisoners do not get to see a medical officer on demand; there is some gate keeping or referral by prison officers. I am not clear whether John Tero's repeat visits to the health care unit represent all his requests for medical treatment or whether he spoke to prison officers several times without a referral note going through.
It is also not clear from the records exactly who John saw when he visited the prison health care unit, whether they were doctors or nurses and what authority their notes carried. For the protection of the staff and prisoners, there must be clear, standardised procedures to allow prisoners to see health care staff, with the requests recorded. There also needs to be some clarity as to who the prisoner should see and whether they should be a nurse or a doctor. I assume that the rights of prisoners in that regard should be the same as for people outside prison in wider society. The records also show how John Tero very nearly got access to the treatment that he needed and how his hopes were cruelly dashed—not just once, but twice—because of weaknesses in the administration of the prison system.
Bizarrely, John did not get to see the more specialist doctor the first time because in the six days or so between the referral and the appointment he was declared medically fit to be moved. On the very day he was supposed to see the doctor, he was transferred to a prison almost at the other end of the country. We must ask why prisoners are transferred when they have appointments and such outstanding medical difficulties. There is a problem with churning in the prison system, which I am sure the Minister is aware of. The repeated moving of prisoners disrupts education and other programmes. Why a person who has been referred for
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medical treatment should be moved before they are due to receive that treatment is quite incomprehensible. It should not happen.
John Tero did not get access to a specialist doctor for a second time because a hospital appointment was cancelled owing to the lack of a prison escort. That is also completely unacceptable. It did not help that, when he finally got to the hospital, the request form for the appointment was only partially completed. I am sure that we could dispute how much priority he should have received, but it is a fact that he was not given high priority and he did not receive an urgent appointment.
I want to raise issues involving Dr. Blackburn's reports and what happens when things go wrong. It is of course helpful to have a review and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that. However, a closed investigation of a closed institution will not persuade the outside world, much less a grieving family. The ability to have an open and transparent review when things go wrong would help to build confidence and it is also consistent with our obligations under various human rights legislation. That ability would also help to avoid some basic mistakes that have, to an extent, marred the Blackburn review for some members of John Tero's family.
One result of the decision to wait until after the report had been written to open up the review and allow the family to speak, question and give their own evidence is that now, some 17 months after John first came to see me, some basic facts are still unclear, including the date on which he first complained about stomach problems. The sequence of his complaints is also unclear, because of mix-ups involving the dates in some prison medical records. I hope that my hon. Friend understands that having to haggle over the most basic facts at this late stage continues the hardship that Mrs. Lilian Tero and her family have suffered when they need to put some of the sadness behind them. It is quite incredibly and needlessly cruel.
Therefore, I ask my hon. Friend to do the following quickly, but of course properly. He should ensure that Dr Blackburn agrees with the family the correct sequence of events during John Tero's period in Woodhill and Wymott prisons. The various evidence from the prison medical records, the prescription records, evidence from Northampton general hospital and Preston primary care trust, the information from the ombudsman's investigations and the original records—not the poor photocopies—should all be compared. My hon. Friend should deal with the outstanding request for compensation that I first made in November 2002. He should provide assurances on how the recommendations of the Blackburn review will be implemented and monitored, so that the rest of the Tero family and prison reform groups can be certain either that such cases will not happen again or that there will be proper means to deal with them if they do. I am sure that my hon. Friend has come across other cases where the family want to know not only that recommendations have been made, but that they have been implemented.
My hon. Friend would also do well to consider some wider implications of the case. What does it say about the provision of information by the Home Office and the Prison Service? How can prisoners better access health care services and, in particular, how can older and more vulnerable prisoners be protected? The problems of the

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prison medical service have been well documented by the chief inspector of prisons and by prison lobby groups, in particular the Prison Reform Trust. The chairman of the British Medical Association civil service committee has described the prison medical service as a "crisis waiting to break". That was in 2001, but many of those criticisms still hold true. With an ageing prison population and serious levels of mental illness among prisoners, the demands on the service are huge and growing. It needs to be able to meet those needs in a professional manner that provides proper medical care and respects the humanity and dignity of the prisoner.
It will not do to say that John had a terrible form of cancer and that the outcome would sadly have been the same, because that is not the point. He could have been spared much physical suffering and mental anguish, including that of dying with a burning sense of injustice over the treatment he received. My constituent wanted other people to be spared what he suffered, and I hope that that is the final outcome of this very sad case.
4.16 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Paul Goggins): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble) on securing this debate. Once again, she has rightly brought to the attention of the House in a fair and balanced way her concerns about the health care and medical treatment that was given to her late constituent, Mr. John Tero, when he was in prison.
My hon. Friend first raised this issue in correspondence with my predecessor at the Home Office and subsequently raised it in a debate in the House on 14 July last year. As she mentioned, Mr. Tero sadly died on 22 September last year. Even at this late stage, I join her in expressing my condolences to Mrs. Tero and other members of her family.
I listened carefully to the points made by my hon. Friend, and I have had the opportunity to discuss the matter with her several times outside the Chamber. I pay tribute to the tenacity with which she sought to get at the facts of the case. It is clear that if she had not done so, some of the information that we now have would have remained unclear or even unknown. I hope that she will find it helpful if I respond initially by setting out some of the background.
Mr. Tero was first received into Woodhill prison on 15 December 2000. In May 2001, he successfully underwent surgery for a condition that had been diagnosed before he went to prison. At around the same time—I shall return to this issue later in my speech—he began to report symptoms of what turned out to be a different condition. During the next few months, he was seen several times by the NHS general practitioners working at Woodhill, who prescribed medication for him.
Mr. Tero was transferred to Wymott prison on 9 October 2001. During the routine reception health screening, his continuing health problem was again identified and recorded. On 15 October 2001, he consulted a doctor at Wymott with more symptoms. In view of that development, he was referred to a local NHS hospital for special investigation. Regrettably. the first appointment made for him for 20 November was cancelled at short notice. A new one was arranged for 12
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December. When the investigation eventually took place, it revealed a serious condition—cancer of the oesophagus—that merited further intervention. The hospital made another appointment for him on 19 December. As my hon. Friend explained, however, he was released from Wymott on that day, and subsequently underwent treatment for his condition from the NHS in his home town of Northampton.
Mr. Tero's weight remained largely stable until October 2001, but it dropped significantly when he was released from prison because of the development of his illness. On 1 April, I wrote to my hon. Friend to apologise for the erroneous information provided in earlier letters from the Prison Service and the Home Office about his weight loss. It is clear from Mr. Tero's medical records that between 4 October and 14 December 2001, his weight fell from 77 kg to 68 kg. It is regrettable that this was not confirmed earlier to my hon. Friend. The letters were written in good faith, but they fell short of the standard that should be expected. Again, I apologise.
Last July in the House, my hon. Friend voiced several serious concerns about Mr. Tero's treatment in prison, which she felt merited at the very least a full apology for the suffering and hardship that he had experienced. I said in my response that I would be the first to offer such an apology on behalf of the Home Office and the Prison Service if one was merited. To enable me to make a proper judgment, I asked the director of prison health to arrange for an independent clinical review of Mr. Tero's care and treatment in prison. In turn, he commissioned Dr. Joseph Blackburn, a general practitioner and clinical governance lead for North Surrey primary care trust, to conduct that review. I welcome the welcome that my hon. Friend gave to that clinical audit.
Dr. Blackburn submitted the report of his review on 25 November, but was then asked, at my hon. Friend's suggestion, to take into account Mr. Tero's own notes, which he had passed to her. She also asked that Dr. Blackburn interview Mr. Tero's family before completing his report. However, although there was sympathy for the family's position, it was not readily apparent that asking Dr. Blackburn to interview them was likely to add anything of substance to what was intended to be a tightly focused clinical review of Mr. Tero's care and treatment in prison.
One recommendation in Dr. Blackburn's report was that an NHS consultant oncologist should be asked for a specialist opinion on whether an earlier diagnosis might have increased Mr. Tero's chances of being cured of his oesophageal cancer by treatment. That recommendation was accepted, and Dr. Blackburn commissioned Dr. Daniel Hochhauser, the Kathleen Ferrier reader and consultant in medical oncology at the Royal Free and University College medical school in London, to provide that report.
After Christmas, I wrote to Mrs. Tero to offer her the opportunity of a meeting with officials at which the contents, conclusions and recommendations of Dr. Blackburn's report could be disclosed to her together with the Prison Service's response, including any appropriate apology. Dr. Hochhauser completed his report on 27 February. That enabled me to send copies of both reports to Mrs. Tero in good time for that

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meeting, which took place in the House on 15 March. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for helping to arrange that.
In my covering letter to Mrs. Tero, I gave an indication of both doctors' principal conclusions. I also offered her my sincere apologies for the failures that Dr. Blackburn had identified in the medical treatment afforded to her husband at both prisons. Dr. Blackburn's principal findings, which we accept entirely, were that Mr. Tero should have been referred for specialist opinion at an earlier stage during the time that he was in Woodhill prison, and through the urgent cancer referral guidelines. If that had been done, it is clear that we would not have transferred Mr. Tero to Wymott prison in October 2001. In addition, Dr. Blackburn concluded that the appointment for the endoscopy made for Mr. Tero while he was at Wymott should not have been delayed owing to a lack of escort staff.
I should add for completeness that we have also accepted two findings of the prisons and probations ombudsman, whom my hon. Friend asked to look into other aspects of Mr. Tero's treatment. Those findings were that there was maladministration at Woodhill prison in his appeal paperwork and that the Prison Service should have taken more care when releasing him and in helping him to travel home.
At the meeting on 15 March, my hon. Friend raised several questions about the documentation used by Dr. Blackburn that it had not been not possible to resolve at that time. One significant issue was that copies of entries in Mr. Tero's medical record, of which she had obtained a copy, suggested that he had complained about a stomach problem some time earlier than was indicated in Dr. Blackburn's report. It appeared that Dr. Blackburn's conclusions were based on an incomplete copy of Mr. Tero's medical record. It was therefore agreed that the prison health team would obtain and check my hon. Friend's assertion against Mr. Tero's original inmate medical record. Dr. Blackburn would then, as a matter of urgency, consider whether the points made by my hon. Friend affected his report and revise it if appropriate.
It was agreed that Dr. Blackburn and Dr. Howells, the medical director in the prison health team, who was also present at the meeting, would then meet Mrs. Tero and her son again, this time in Northampton, to discuss the outcome of the further work. Dr. Howells went on to offer Mrs. Tero and her son a personal apology for the failures in the care and treatment afforded to Mr. Tero. He also explained the specific actions that were being taken to ensure that the lessons of his experience were fully learned at both local and national level. I am sure that my hon. Friend and the House will want me to set out some of those this afternoon.
First, the prison health team will ensure that all prison health care managers are reminded of the referral guidelines for suspected cancer that were issued to all general practitioners in health service circular 2000/13.
Secondly, managers will also be asked to ensure that those guidelines are considered at local clinical effectiveness meetings as part of their local clinical
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governance systems. I assure my hon. Friend that appropriate action on both issues is already being taken at the two establishments most immediately concerned.
Thirdly, the prison health team will seek to ensure that every prison establishment has a system in place for identifying priority out-patient referrals to hospital and managing them appropriately. They will do so by including appropriate material in proposed prison service orders, both on improving continuity of care and governors' responsibilities.
Fourthly, the prison health team will produce guidance on the special circumstances of discharging prisoners who are physically ill, which will also be included in the new Prison Service order on improving continuity of care. When the new prisoners' clinical record comes into use later this year, it will be accompanied by guidance to staff on the proper completion of medical entries. That point was made by my hon. Friend and I assure her that issues such as the sort of pen that should be used when making notes will be important, particularly with reference to the medical record to which she referred.
Finally, to ensure that issues raised about the performance of NHS organisations outside prison are also reviewed, the prison health team will send copies of the reports from Dr. Blackburn and Dr. Hochhauser to the clinical governance leads at the relevant NHS trust.
Dr. Howells concluded the meeting with Mrs. Tero and her family by explaining the general background of the changes now under way to the organisation and delivery of health services to prisoners, which will culminate in primary care trusts assuming full commissioning responsibility for prison health services by 2006. He agreed to set that out fully in writing to Mrs. Tero and her son after the meeting in Northampton. With regard to the powerful point that my hon. Friend made towards the end of her speech, with that move to commissioning in 2006—it has already begun, but it will be complete by 2006—there will be proper NHS oversight of the health care that is available in all our prisons. That will lead to higher standards.
A number of outstanding issues remain in this case and I believe that the best way to resolve them is, in the first instance at least, to proceed along the lines agreed with my hon. Friend, Mrs. Tero and her son at the conclusion of the meeting on 15 March. In addition, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary agreed to meet my hon. Friend, Mrs. Tero and her family in an attempt to bring this sad experience to a conclusion.
With regard to the request for compensation in the form of an ex gratia payment to Mr. Tero's family, I will establish immediately a process for giving careful consideration to this matter. It will not, of course, be possible to reach a final conclusion until Dr. Blackburn has concluded his further work.
I will continue to liaise with my hon. Friend as matters progress towards a conclusion. Nothing can put right the errors that have been made and nothing can bring Mr. Tero back, but I shall not be happy until Mrs. Tero and my hon. Friend are happy that they are in full possession of all the facts and that all the appropriate action has been taken.
It being half-past Four o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the sitting lapsed, without Question put.