Westminster Hall Sitting of 2 March 2004

Preamble
[DAVID TAYLOR in the Chair]

Museums
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned—.[Mr. Ainger.]
9.30 am
Mr. Michael Portillo: I feel very fortunate indeed to have the opportunity to open this debate on membercontribution the important subject of museums. Next week. the national museums and galleries will launch a series of reports in which they draw attention to some of their good work and achievements and the problems that they face. I have a strong interest in the matter because my constituency contains three national museums. It is an enormous source of pride for me to represent them, such is their great excellence, and as I near my retirement from Parliament, I know that I will miss my association with them.
The debate provides the opportunity for the Chamber to recall the importance of the work of our national museums and galleries. We are fortunate to have collections of such quality and it is important that they be maintained in excellent condition, that they be restored when necessary and, in particular, that academic research make the most of them so that we may understand more about our environment, our history and human achievement, Our museums and galleries make a huge contribution in the broadest sense to the culture of this country and to its reputation for excellence and scholarship.
The reports that will be published next week make it clear that museums and galleries make a great contribution to our economy. They have been undertaking a great deal of work to adapt to the world in which we now live. They have made great strides in welcoming new visitors, in particular people from this country who, because of their background, would in the past have seen galleries and museum as places that they did not want to enter. The museums and galleries have created new environments and new sorts of exhibitions that will be attractive to both traditional and new visitors. In addition, they are king the most of electronic links so that many people who are not in a position to visit galleries and museums is can be connected with them through the internet, or can supplement their visits by continuing their learning electronically.
The museums and galleries are responding to several targets laid down for them by the Government—I think in particular of targets relating toC2, D and E category visitors and ethnic minorities. It seems, however, that the museums are expected to under take such extra work on the basis of grant in aid from the Government that has been rising only in line with the retail price index. That means that the museums and galleries have not had an opportunity to participate in the rising wealth of the country. To make that point more clear, I refer to the Government's decision to do away with admission
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charges: in many senses, that is welcome, but it means also that the institutions have no opportunity to participate in the country's rising wealth through admission charges that might otherwise have increased from year to year.
The reports have been commissioned by the National Museum Directors Conference, the first of which is called "Valuing Museums". Written by Tony Travers of the London school of economics and Stephen Glaister of Imperial college, the report details the economic, educational and broader cultural impact of the national museums and galleries. The report finds that that sector in this country has a unique, international scale and standing, and that it has an annual impact of £2 billion on the economy, which is significant. Beyond that, the extent of the contributions that the institutions make to the cross-Whitehall agendas for education, social inclusion and the regions are highlighted in the report.
The second report is "Creating Engagement". Written by Ricky Burdett of the London school of economics cities programme, it demonstrates the extent, variety and often surprising nature of the roles undertaken by national museums and galleries. It is based largely on case studies and it illustrates how those institutions engage in a range of innovative activities with different communities across the UK, from business and science to youth and fashion. The third report, "National Dimensions", is written by AEA Consulting and examines the many forms of collaboration between national museums and the rest of the museums and galleries sector, noting how much joint activity is under way at any one time.
I think that our museums carry out their basic functions extraordinarily well. Their collections are remarkable, as is the scholarship involved in their operation. Using examples from my constituency. I shall illustrate some of the ways in which museums and galleries are adapting the way in which they exhibit their material. The Natural History museum now has the Darwin centre, a splendid new building and a superb piece of architecture, which not only offers an opportunity to re house an extraordinarily large collection, of insects in particular, which in other circumstances might have been in danger of deteriorating, but offers the public a great opportunity to enter the museum and engage in dialogue with scientists. Scientists are available to the public, with whom they can hold discussions in seminars.
At the Science museum, the new Welcome building provides an opportunity for members of the public to engage in discussion and view evidence about matters of scientific controversy, allowing them to make up their own minds at the end of the day. For example, there have recently been special exhibits on the measles, mumps and rubella vaccination and genetically modified crops—two great controversies about which the public would naturally like to be better informed.
At the Victoria and Albert museum, we have recently seen the inauguration of the British galleries, which enable the V and A to take existing collections and update the manner in which they are displayed, making them more accessible and understandable to a broader public. The V and A has been involved in many other extraordinary enterprises. A number of its exhibitions are closely linked to contemporary fashion and it has made a point of giving modern British fashion designers

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an opportunity to show some of their work. The V and A has entered into an agreement with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport about funding, which states that in future there will be certain types of exhibition designed to broaden the categories of people who visit the museum. As part of that agreement, the V and A will put on an exhibition in the summer called "Dressing Black Britain". The agreement states:
"The exhibition aims to celebrate the presence of black people in Britain and to stimulate the debate about the importance of clothing and style in the telling of a history of a cultural group… It will create a series of narratives on fashion and style among Britain's black inhabitants and by extension promote an understanding of the dress culture of the African diaspora…The intended audience for this exhibition will be people of all ages from the black British communities as well as anyone—from academics through to schoolchildren—with an interest in fashion and the diversity of contemporary British culture."
The V and A, which receives about £37 million in public funding, is expected to increase the number of visits by children to 315,000 in 2005–06, and the number of C2, D and E visitors must increase by 8 per cent. to 180,000 by the same time. All that is in the agreement with the DCMS.
The V and A recently held an exhibition entitled "The Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms". Of the people who visited that exhibition, half were making their first ever trip to a museum, and some 70 per cent. were from ethnic minorities. An exhibition last year on Indian cinema, "The Art of Bollywood", drew 80,000 visitors. In September 2004, the V and A will put on an exhibition entitled "Exotic Encounters: the Meeting of Asia and Europe 1500–1800". Those are examples of the way in which exhibitions are changing to fit in with the realities of contemporary Britain.
Let me again draw on the Natural History museum to illustrate excellence. That museum has a biomedical sciences group that is a world leader in research, particularly into diseases. It is a world leader in investigating the causes of, and possible cures for, river blindness, malaria, schistosomiasis and leishmaniasis— deadly diseases that afflict the African continent in particular. All the museums continue to demonstrate their commitment to research and the spreading of knowledge. One way in which that can be measured is through the number of articles submitted to learned journals: the number of articles published by NMDC institutions that have been tracked down by the reports that I mentioned is 1,173, of which the Natural History museum contributed 535, the V and A 146, and the Science museum 48. I use examples from my constituency, but of course there are many others. The national museums and galleries in general are the subject of about 1 million educational visits a year by schoolchildren and, extraordinarily, more than 6 million private visits by children are made in addition to their educational visits. To give one example, the Victoria and Albert museum has 220,000 educational sessions either on or off site. That is a fairly substantial contribution to the education of our children.
The economic impact of the sector is by no means the be-all and end-all, but the point is worth exploring. Museums and galleries make a substantial contribution to the British economy. The overall turnover of members of the NM DC is —715 million—that represents
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a combination of Government grants, income that they generate themselves through things such as their restaurants and shops, and money that they receive in sponsorship. That is a substantial sum in itself, but the reports make further calculations—they can, of course, be debated, but the reports say that they have erred on the conservative side. The reports take the turnover, add to it the money that people spend because they are visiting a museum or gallery, and introduce a multiplier to calculate the total effect on the British economy of people visiting must ums and galleries. I shall not go into the detail of the methodology, but I have already mentioned the result: the total effect on the economy is estimated to be about £2 billion a year. As a subdivision of that, the external benefit to the United Kingdom economy, commonly called the export value, is thought to be at least£320 million, and thus similar to the external benefit that the UK economy derives from the musical, visual and performing arts sector.
One should also s although I will do so only briefly, that there is a relatively close match between expenditure and grant in aid by the national museums and galleries per head of population throughout England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The reports that I mentioned detail the contribution that galleries and museums make to employment throughout the regions and to urban regeneration, the contribution made by touring exhibitions and by institutions based in London opening museums in other regions, and the great importance of the large number of exhibits that are on loan from institutions at any one time.
As for the amount of money provided by the Government, the reports include a series of useful tables. Under the heading "Recent History", the grant in aid given by t le Government to museums and galleries from 1997–98 to 2003–04 is outlined. To quote examples from my constituency, the Science museum received an increase of 12.3 per cent., the Natural History museum an 18.6 per cent. increase, and the Victoria and Albert museum a 7.7 per cent. increase. Those figures are typical of the whole table. The British Museum received an increase of 18.1 per cent., and the National Gallery an 11.5 per cent. increase.
Let us compare those increases with other figures. United Kingdom public expenditure in the same period increased by 40.8 per cent., which is an enormous contrast. The RPI rose by 18.8 per cent. in the same period, so museums and galleries have enjoyed increases that, on average, are not far off the RPI. However, average earnings increased by 34.2 per cent. in that period. Broadly speaking, the museums and galleries have received an increase that is not far out of line with the RPI, but vastly below the earnings index and even further below the it crease in UK public expenditure.
Plans for the future do not show an improvement in the position. The planned increases for 2003–04 to 2005–06 are 2.6 percent. for the Science museum, 5.2 per cent. for the Victoria and Albert museum, and 5.2 per cent. for the Natural History museum. Those figures, which are typical of the whole sector, are in middle to low single figures. However, the departmental expenditure limit for the DCMS will increase by 10.2 per cent. during that period—twice as much as the increase in the grant to the V and A and the Natural History museum, and four times as much as the grant to the Science museum. Whitehall Departments as a whole will

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do even better, receiving an increase of 13.9 per cent. There is a contrast between the general level of the increase in public expenditure and the amount of grant in aid to the museums and galleries.
The contrasts within the DCMS are also interesting, because the Department has decided to increase some lines of expenditure markedly. Before I embark on this argument, I should point out that I do not object to increases for arts, broadcasting and media, and I should immediately declare an interest in that respect. Between 2001–02 and 2005–06, the arts will receive an increase of 63 per cent., broadcasting and media 18 per cent., and sports 91 per cent. However, over that same period, museums, galleries and libraries will receive only 26 per cent., and the NMDC members will receive only 17 per cent. Within the arts, there art some remarkable increases: the Royal Opera House will receive an increase between 2003–04 and 2005 –06 of 14.3 per cent., the Royal National Theatre 16.5 per cent., and there are numerous similar examples.
It seems odd that there is a shift away from museums in favour of other types of public expenditure and other types of client within the DCMS, and odd that such a shift is happening at a time when so much more is being demanded of museums and galleries, and they are demonstrating that they are on course to do what the Government are asking them to do. I understand that institutions are expected to produce more self-generated income, but that argument applies to everybody—to arts and sports institutions as well as to museums and galleries. Yet subsidy per visitor to museums is falling, and it seems implicit—although I have not investigated in detail—that it is to rise in the a arts. In other words, productivity is rising in galleries and museums, but falling in the arts.
To be frank, the gap between the grant in aid and the earnings index is especially important because galleries and museums have to pay people one of their main items of expenditure is salaries—paid, I hope, at competitive rates. The gap suggests that we shall suffer a loss of expertise from our museums and galleries, and the report bears that out. It will be difficult to maintain levels of service, and museums should be planning an orderly decline. They will have to consider closing galleries while exhibitions are being planned—if galleries shed people, of necessity they reduce the number of activities that they can pursue.
I should like to quote a recent article that makes rather grim reading. It refers to attendance figures for 2003, which in certain institutions were rather disappointing, and was published in The Times of 23 February 2004. The writer, Richard Morrison, states:
"The virtually new Imperial War Museum North in Trafford seems to have lost more than half its public in a year. Could that be because, once visitors have done the obligatory double-take and gawp at Daniel Libeskind's 'accident in a tin-can factory' architecture, the permanent exhibition inside is pretty thin stuff? … the once trendy Tate Modern —cathedral of pickled cows, unmade beds, copulating dolls and all the other tatty absurdiana of Brit Art—has also lost more than half a million visitors in a year, perhaps because nobody needs to see the emperor's new clothes twice. It will be fascinating to note whether Tessa Jowell's Culture Department, which was so quick to attribute the rising museum attendance figures of the previous year to the Government's expensive 'free admissions' policy, will be quite so keen to shoulder the responsibility for the falls in 2003."
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He continues:
"The truth is that the cultural leisure industry expanded far more than was prudent in the 1990s, partly because of the vast lottery grants that suddenly became available. To keep all these attractions solvent, every man, woman and child in Britain would need to visit at least two of them each week. Unfortunately, the trend is in the opposite direction…I wouldn't be surprised if some of Britain's most famous museums, zoos and theme parks crashed out of business in the next few years."
I do not subscribe to every word of that article, but there is something to the argument, and the Government must recognise what is happening.
The museums are calling for an extra £50 million above inflation in future years. As a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, I shall not labour that point, but the Government must recognise that they face the following options: they can pay more for the museums and galleries; they can adjust the balance between the museums and the other clients of DCMS; or they can watch the gradual overall decline of these institutions or allow some institutions within the sector to go to the wall so that others can flourish. That is a realistic assessment of the choices.
Although I support the Government's ambitions for the way in which the sector should expand and attract audiences—very good work is being done in that respect—there is a danger that as we push museums and galleries in that direction, we neglect that which is fundamental: their excellence, and contribution to scholarship and culture, which must never be neglected.
Several hon. Membersrose—
David Taylor (in the Chair): Order. A number of hon. Members are trying to catch my eye. They should bear in mind that I intend to call the first of the Front-Bench speakers at 10.30.
9.56 am
Mr. Chris Smith: I warmly welcome the opportunity that this debate gives us and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo) on securing it. I also offer a warm welcome to the reports that have been commissioned by the National Museum Directors Conference, which helpfully illuminate our discussion.
As the right hon. Gentleman forcefully reminded us, the starting point for any debate on this subject has to be a recognition of the huge importance of museums to our society and culture. It is worth reflecting on the way in which the role of museums has changed and grown in the course of the past hundred years. Many of the great museums were founded in Victorian times. They had two major purposes, the first of which was the holding of great collections: museums were the storehouses of the best of our past and the nation's inheritance. Alongside that was the purpose of education: the Victorians believed passionately in the value of the collections and the way in which they could inform and educate the population. Those two purposes remain fundamental to the ambition of the great museums in this country, and I urge my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Arts when she enters into negotiations with the Treasury in the next few months to emphasise

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again, as she has done before, the huge educational importance of the resource that this country's museums represent.
The two fundamental purposes of stewardship and curatorial excellence and of education have broadened in recent years. Museums are now pursuing two further ambitions, which do not diminish the first two, but have simply been added. The first of those is the engagement of ordinary visitors. The way in which museums draw in visitors and stimulate their interest, and perhaps encourage them to think about things that they have never encountered before, has developed by leaps and bounds in recent years. In addition, museums offer us the possibility to of developing at neighbourhood, city and national levels a sense of identity based on our cultural inheritance. Anyone who doubts the importance of that function need only look at the overwhelming importance to the people of Iraq of the desecration of the national museum in Baghdad. One of the noblest things to come out of the tragedy of the Iraq conflict was the imaginative role played by the British Museum in providing global leadership for the effort to restore Iraq's heritage after the war. We must therefore recognise not only the national, but the international importance of the great institutions of this country.
Museums of all types across the country, not just the national museums, are vital to our society. I have three brief points to make about what is needed. First, I agree with the right hon. Gentleman's assessment that in the coming spending round, museums should be given priority. I am pleased and proud that, in the past six years, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has managed to improve dramatically funding for the performing arts. I do not gainsay that decision, but museums have, quite patently, not done as well as the performing arts. In addition, the increases that the museum sector received were, in the initial stages, quite rightly chiefly directed at the policy objective of again securing free admission to the national museums and galleries—a policy by which I firmly stand, and which has been a great success.
However, it is now important that the Government consider the funding profile of museums and their needs. In particular, I hope that the Government will look at those museums that kept the faith on free admission throughout the years when others were drawing in money from the general public in admission charges. Some struggled against difficult financial odds to maintain free admission and did so extremely effectively. I hope that the museums sector will get an improved settlement in the forthcoming spending round, and although I recognise that it will be difficult for my right hon. Friend the Minister to secure that from her Treasury colleagues, if she emphasises the museums' importance in cultural and educational terms and the contribution that they make, I am sure that, with her excellent negotiating skills, she can secure some benefit from the Treasury.
My second point is that we should not talk about the national museums alone: regional museums are also of huge importance. Anyone who doubts that should visit the pre-Raphaelite landscape exhibition down the road at Tate Britain, where they will see loans generously made by some of this country's great regional museums
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in Birmingham, Manchester and our other great cities. Those institutions house great collections, which are part of our inheritance. It is important not to forget the regional museums in our understandable and necessary rush to support the national museums.
My third point relates to the gift aid arrangements for tax relief from which many small and independent museums across country have derived substantial benefit. The Treasury has signalled that it is likely to withdraw the provision—which the Inland Revenue has, until now, encouraged small and independent museums to use—whereby visitors, instead of paying an entry charge, make a donation to the museum and the museum claims gift Aid on that donation. It has been a real financial lifelines to many museums with no public funding and no other access to public support.
I declare an interest as the chairman of the Wordsworth Trust which has an excellent small museum in Cumbria. With the encouragement and assistance of the Inland Revenue, we recently instituted a gift aid scheme for visitors from the UK visiting Dove cottage and the Wordsworth museum. As I said, the Treasury has indicated that it is likely to withdraw that provision, which will deal a severe financial blow to many small museums throughout the country. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will persuade her Treasury colleagues to reverse their decision to withdraw the concession.
I hope that this debate will enable Parliament to put firmly on record the importance that it attaches to the role played by this country's museums and the fact that we, as a united Parliament across all parties, urge the Government to pay attention to the financial needs of museums as we approach the forthcoming spending round. I fully support my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Arts in the battles with the Treasury that lie ahead. She should know that she has support from all parts of the House in those battles and in securing a safe, secure and bright future for these important institutions.
10.6 am
Mr. Robert Key: We in this great nation can be proud indeed of our great museums and galleries, but I am passionate about our small ones, too. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo) on securing the debate, which provides us with an opportunity—which we do not always have in the House—to air such issues.
I am passionate about museums because at an early age I started collecting for my own. I was encouraged to do so from the age of eight, and in the basement of our house in Salisbury cathedral close I assembled an extraordinary and wide variety of coins, arrowheads, documents, feathers artefacts, oil lamps from Ur of the Chaldees, and goodness knows what else. The pleasure for me was in sorting, classifying, labelling and learning, which so many children love doing and which I was particularly privileged to be able to do. I recall being asked on my 10th birthday what I would like to do for a birthday treat: we had a picnic on top of a barrow beside the Roman road from Salisbury to Dorchester. That was all part of my education.
Just up the road from my home was the famous Salisbury and South Wiltshire museum, whose curator, Hugh Short, used to allow me to stand at his knee and

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observe what he was doing. Later I became a Minister at the Department of National Heritage—now rechristened the Department for Culture, Media and Sport—which was responsible for museums and galleries. There, with enthusiasm and joy, I took a particular interest in that area of Government responsibility.
Although my passion is still for what I did as a child, the functions and objectives of museums have changed; now, access and learning, including interactive learning, are far more important. We in Salisbury are fortunate to have not only the Salisbury and South Wiltshire museum, but the Wilton Town museum and Wilton Carpet Factory museum in a restored part of the old factory, which is a fine example of what a small community and a town council can do to bring together the social and economic history of a community. We also have the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire regimental museum. Regimental museums are part of the rich tapestry of museum in this country, but that museum receives no grant from the Government, let alone from the Ministry of Defence—although the MOD helps to pay for the services to the building, because some civil servants share the offices, the museum receives no formal grants That is one of the museums that will be badly affected, by the Treasury's thoroughly mean-spirited decision, which the right hon. Member for Islington. South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) commented on, to withdraw an option that was offered freely in the gift aid improvement; introduced in the 2000 Budget.
Salisbury is a centre of excellence for museums and conservation. In addition to the museums I have described, we have the Wiltshire county council conservation service, which is an, integral part of the process, and the Wessex Trust for Archaeology, which is commercially self-supporting and is by far the biggest such trust in the country, undertaking an enormous amount of work. I strongly support the campaign started by the National Museum Directors Conference, which is to launch its project on 9 March with a manifesto for museums.
The funding position of local museums is grave indeed. My local authorities, Wilts hire county council and Salisbury district councilor, to increase their council tax by about 6 per cent., but they are to cut their grants to museums. I regret that very much, although it is their decision to make, not mine. They are being forced to make severe expenditure cuts, but I hope that next year they will take a political lead and not be driven by management objectives. I hope that the district council will decide that local education, the local economy and the cultural scene are worth a little more than £3.03 per head, or 2,95 per cent. of its budget. The county council is to cut its budget by 5 per cent. this year.
It is not as though my district council is unaware of its responsibilities to our cultural heritage. It is true, but perhaps surprising, that Salisbury district council does not have a legal remit to look after the heritage of Salisbury. However, I well recall flit arguments that my right hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea and I had to listen to v hen we were both Ministers at the Department of the Environment, with responsibility for local government finance. This year, Salisbury district council's expenditure on legal costs as
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the planning authority for the Stonehenge A303 improvement scheme—the famous tunnel past Stonehenge—will run to more than £100,000, and it has forked out £100,000 for a totally pointless local government comprehensive performance assessment. A small district council has to spend some £200,000-plus on those responsibilities, which were imposed by central Government, yet its budget for arts and museums for the whole district is only £348,000. Something is out of kilter; the sums simply do not add up.
The right hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury referred to the announcement of the proposed changes to gift aid. The provision is not a loophole: museums were approached by the Inland Revenue and asked whether they were aware that they could use it, and they did so. Its withdrawal will probably reduce the revenue of the Salisbury and South Wiltshire museum by about £4,000—a dire impact. When the cuts from the county council, the district council and gift aid are taken together, they represent the equivalent of the salary of one person per year at that museum. I hope that the Minister will talk to the Treasury seriously about that problem.
Let me briefly mention an issue connected with my role as Chairman of the Select Committee on Information. Parliament established the British Museum, and there has been a development that the House might like to know about. Almost all the House of Commons Library's holdings were acquired after the 1834 fire in the Palace of Westminster, in which most of the stock was lost. During the second half of the 19th century, the spacious shelves of Barry's Library had to be filled, and the Library Committee and successive Librarians sought to create something like a country house library while maintaining the essential collection of parliamentary and other official documentation. As part of that process, the Library acquired, through a mixture of purchases, gifts and legacies, a wide range and collection of books, including some that are now of considerable antiquarian or scholarly interest. In the early 1990s, the Library recognised that many pre-20th-century holdings were not relevant to the everyday needs of modern parliamentarians, and looked for a way to make them available to a wider public.
In 1992, the British Library put the Library in touch with Nicholas Barker, a well known antiquarian book specialist. Coincidentally, he had been asked to find suitable books for the King's Library at the British Museum, which was built in the 1820s to house George III's personal collection, which formed the core of what became the British Library. It was due to be vacated with the move of the British Library to St. Pancras, and British Museum officials were already thinking about how the magnificent, 100-yd long room—the finest and largest Greek revival interior in London—might best be used. After a comprehensive review of the Library's older holdings and prolonged negotiations, the House of Commons Commission approved an agreement in 1999 whereby approximately 16,000 books would be sent on permanent loan to the Enlightenment gallery that was, by then, being planned by the British Museum for the restored King's Library.
That agreement marked a renewal of Parliament's long-standing connection with the British Museum, which dates back to the museum's 18th-century origins.

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When the physician, naturalist and collector Sir Hans Sloane bequeathed his personal collection to George II for the nation, the King did not show much interest but Parliament did. Led by Speaker Arthur Onslow, Parliament was persuaded to accept the gift, and an Act of Parliament establishing the British Museum and its trustees—the first time that trustees had ever featured as a way of administering an institution like a museum-received Royal Assent on 7 June 1753. In 1757, King George II donated the old royal library of the sovereigns of England to the museum, and with it the privilege of copyright receipt that was part of the foundation of what is now the British Library.
George IV's gift to the nation of his father's library the original King's Library—in 1823, provided the catalyst for the construction of what is now the Enlightenment gallery, as well as for the rest of Robert Smirk's quadrangular building. The books were finally moved from the Library in June 2003, when the restoration of the King's Library was completed. There is a wide-ranging selection, including many treasures, such as the complete Blaeu atlas in its original 17th century binding in good condition, and Lord Kingsborough's "Antiquities of Mexico", which unfortunately was rebound in the 1950s but whose original pages are in near-mint condition. The Library has kept any books with parliamentary connections that hon. Members might need at Westminster as part of its normal service, and all the books that have been moved remain in the Library catalogue and can be used at Westminster if required. They also appear in the British Museum's central library catalogue and are available for last resort public use in the museum under supervision. That is a great gain, as there are no facilities for public access in the Library.
That has involved a great deal of work, but the outcome has been satisfactory. The books are in magnificent surroundings and I encourage hon. Members to visit them. Not only do they form an important element of the British Museum's new Enlightenment gallery, but they look extremely handsome in their new surroundings—far happier than they were in the Library's underground store, where most of them had previously been kept. I am grateful for having had the time to put on the record my appreciation for the work that the Library staff have put into that dramatic project, which restates Parliament's long-standing relationship with the world of museums and galleries.
10.18 am
Sir Patrick Cormack: I am sure that we all endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) has just said. As a member of the House of Commons Commission, I remind hon. Members that the books remain in the possession of the House of Commons. That decision made by the Commission was important. I regard the stripping of the original collection from the King's Library as an act of cultural vandalism. To put them into a large glass case in the new British Library was not the most sensible thing to do when we had a truly unique library with its original books in a marvellous, properly designed, magisterial setting.
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My hon. Friend reminded us that Parliament established the British Museum. Last week I hosted a reception to mark t he 30th anniversary of the all-party arts and heritage group, which most of the directors of our great museums and galleries attended. In his words of thanks, Neil MacGregor—the brilliant director of the British Museum who did a wonderful job with the National Gallery—eminded everyone that all our great national museums and galleries were established by Parliament. That is not always remembered. We therefore have a continuing role and responsibility, so I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo) for initiating the debate, and I congratulate him on placing before us so many salient facts and figures, which we should take to heart.
I will be brief. I apologise to you, Mr. Taylor, and to the right hon. and hon. Members here present, as I already have to my right hon. Friend, for having to leave shortly before the close of the debate. Those of us who are attending the service to mark the tercentenary of Gibraltar have to be in our pews by 11.10 am. My right hon. Friend was kind enough to encourage me to speak in this debate none the less.
I shall concentrate, on the educative role of museums and galleries and their economic impact. I have reservations about the way in which the national curriculum has worked, and I am extremely concerned that young men am' women can emerge into the world with almost no chronological knowledge of their nation's history and little knowledge of how it relates to the history of the wider world. I regret very much that now, 20th-century history and themes and projects are over-emphasised, and there is no proper teaching of history as there was when I way a history master 35 years ago. Last week, I had the privilege of giving the keynote address at a special conference convened by the Council for British Archaeology to try to bring historians and archaeologists closer together and to ensure that the curriculum in schools and colleges is more truly comprehensive.
Many young people obtain their knowledge of English history not from what they are not taught in the classroom, but from going to museums and galleries and seeing the objects and artefacts that relate to this country's history. Those who live in London have the most wonderful opportunity to do that at the Museum of London, which is one of the finest museums of its kind anywhere in the world. All our museums and galleries teach in a most graphic and wonderful way, and their contribution to the educational life of this country, backed by t he scholarship of their curators and keepers, is incalculable. The economic impact is calculable, and immense, and it is short-sighted of any Government to ignore it, although I make no personal criticism of the Minister for the Arts and certainly no attack upon the present Government. I also pay tribute to what the right hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) did when he was Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.
No Government have sufficiently recognised what a massive contribution our museums and galleries make to the economy. The millions of tourists who come to this country and the millions of our own people circulating in the country on holiday often visit museums and galleries as part of their recreation and, in so doing, make an immense contribution to the

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economic life of the regions and to the country as a whole. That is something that Government need properly to acknowledge when deciding how much money to allow our museums, which provide a glittering display at tiny cost.
Tomorrow morning—God willing—I shall take the all-party heritage group a few hundred yards from this building to the National Gallery to see the El Greco exhibition, which could be mounted only because of the Government indemnity. We should pay tribute to the successive Governments who have maintained that. The exhibition is a wonderful visual feast, as is the exhibition of the pre-Raphaelites up the road at Tate Britain and the exhibition at the Royal Academy. We in this country are so lucky that at almost any particular time there are marvellous exhibitions supplementing the permanent collections in museums and galleries. The institutions put them on from their own resources with the aid of Government indemnity, and it would be appalling if regular galleries had to be regularly closed—my right hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea referred to that in his speech—when we have these wonderful exhibitions.
I ask the Minister for the Arts to fight her corner with the feisty skill for which she is well known in political circles. She must tell the Chancellor that we need a better recognition of the central role of museums and galleries. She must also tell the Chancellor, who is a civilised man with a real regard for scholarship, just what a terrible thing it would be if, as is threatened', the gift aid scheme were to be hit on the head. The right hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury referred to that, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury. I do not have the pleasure of knowing the Salisbury and South Wiltshire museum—perhaps my hon. Friend will take me there one day—but I do know the Wordsworth museum. To place such a wonderful museum in jeopardy when the Revenue itself has encouraged it to take advantage of the scheme and the museum has budgeted accordingly is an act of short-sighted meanness. I hope that the Minister will tell the Chancellor that this is something up with which she will not put, and that the right hon. Gentleman will recognise that in the Budget.
I have one final comment. Reference has been made to the great gems in our regional and provincial museums. I am sorry that my friend the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher) is no longer in his place. For a year or more now, he has been entertaining us in the columns of Country Life with wonderful descriptions of treasures in individual museums. The articles are the precursor of a book which, I am sure, deserves to be bestseller, and which we shall all acquire when it comes out. He has done more than any other individual to awaken the nation to the fact that all over this country in museums great and small are wonderful treasures.
That underlines the fact that not only in my right hon. Friend's wonderful constituency of Kensington and Chelsea, but throughout the length and breadth of the land, there are museums that play" a vital part in the educative process. They make a fantastic contribution to the economy of this country and are partly responsible for tourism being our greatest single earner. The Minister has a tremendous challenge and a tremendous responsibility. I very much hope that she will rise to it. I am sure that she will.
10.28 am
Mr. Don Foster: I hope that I can follow the right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken in demonstrating to the Minister that there truly is all-party agreement about the vital role that museums and galleries play in the life of the nation. As the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) has just said, they make an immense contribution—one that, I hope, none of us will ever underplay. I was delighted to hear that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher) has completed his book and is now at the final editing stage. We can all look forward to reaping reasonably soon the benefits of his many years spent gathering that information.
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo) on securing the debate and on drawing our attention to the three major reports that are to be formally launched in a week's time by the National Museum Directors Conference. The reports provide impressive statistics about what our national museums and galleries have been doing. They show, for example, that in one year more than 50 per cent. of all children in this country visited one of the national museums. They also demonstrate the work that is yet be done, and the willingness of the national museums to develop their work further.
I am delighted that the debate has not concentrated solely on our national museums and galleries. As the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) said, many excellent museums and galleries are run by local authorities, charitable institutions and other bodies. The reports referred to by the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea state that the national museums make a contribution of some £2 billion to the national economy. In the south-west, museums run by local authorities and charities have a huge impact on the economy: the 250-plus registered museums employ some 1,000 people, involve more than 5,000 volunteers and are visited by more than 6 million people a year; they contribute £50 million or more to the regional economy. One of the reasons why those museums have been able to make such a contribution is that the southwest region has been one of the beneficiaries of the funding provided under "Renaissance in the Regions". I hope that the benefits that have been demonstrated in the south-west and many other regions will be extended to the regions that have so far missed out, and that the Minister will today make a clear commitment to spread the benefits of that scheme more widely.
The south-west has done particularly well. It is worth noting that, nationally, 22 per cent. of the adult population visit a museum at least once a year, whereas in the south-west, 37 per cent. visit one of the regional museums and galleries once a year. We have the highest percentage of visits to or uses of museums per thousand of the population—four times the percentage of the population of London that do so, and nearly twice the percentage in the south-east.
There is no doubt that our museums play a crucial role in our society. All hon. Members who have spoken in the debate have rightly referred to their economic impact. The national museums employ some 10,000 people directly and a further 20,000 indirectly, so their economic impact cannot be doubted, but their impact is much greater than that. They have an impact on cultural life and help to develop creativity and enjoyment. As the

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hon. Member for South Staffordshire rightly said, they have developed a range of learning opportunities, and they provide tourist attractions, particularly to tourists from overseas, which brings further economic benefit.
It is increasingly clear that our museums and galleries, whether national or regional, play a far wider role than might at first be assumed. On Friday, I visited the excellent learning facilities at Bath's Roman Baths museum and saw youngsters from as far a field as Oxford doing innovative and exciting work. An increasing number of our museums and galleries are developing learning opportunities through the various virtual facilities that they offer. The statistics given in the reports referred to by the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea are fascinating: they show that while 3 million learners participate on site in learning activities in our national museums and galleries, some 5.6 million people— nearly double the number—participate in learning activities off site provided through a range of virtual facilities. Furthermore, the combined number of hits to national gallery and museum websites in one year is some 53 million—a staggering development.
The museums and galleries work effectively to achieve social inclusion. During the millennium year, for example, the Victoria art gallery in Bath ran a wonderful exhibition to which The Big Issue sellers from Bath made a major contribution. That gallery is currently developing exhibitions that directly involve young people from our foyer project in Bath. Museums are also involved in regeneration projects outside my constituency. In Radstock in the constituency of the hon. Member for Wansdyke (Dan Norris), there is an excellent mining museum, which has played a huge role in acting as a new focus for that community and in giving it back its pride.
The important benefits that museums bring have been emphasised. I have no doubt that we will hear much more during next week's National Museum Directors Conference launch. I hope that we will hear some exciting development proposals, and I would love to hear about proposals that involve our museums making better use of their reserve collections. There are wonderful exhibits in the cellars of many museums, and ways could be developed to make more effective use of them. Some museums already have imaginative schemes, but I hope that there will be progress in this area.
The immense contribution that our museums and galleries make to the life of the country has been highlighted, and I wish to raise three crucial issues regarding the funding of their work. Museums and art galleries do lots of innovative work, but the DCMS is keen that they do even more to broaden their outreach and civil society activities, particularly in the regions. I share that desire. However, there is compelling evidence that although they have the capacity and readiness to broaden those activities, they will not be able to do so without appropriate and secure funding. The benefits of the "Renaissance in the Regions" scheme could be spread nationwide, and I hope that we will hear more from the Minister about that.
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Secondly, we need to ensure that the DCMS works closely with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Funding from local authorities for our museums and galleries is under threat. One of many examples is Somerset, which has a Liberal Democrat council: because of funding difficulties there is now talk of the sad necessity of reintroducing admission fees to major museums. Those two Departments need to liaise much more closely.
Finally, although gift aid has been referred to, no specific mention has been made of the Treasury statement that

"It was not the intention of the exemption"—
referred to by the right hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith)
"to treat admission charges as donations which attract Gift Aid… The Government is determined to maintain the integrity of the Gift Aid scheme and will close this loophole in the legislation."
The Treasury claims that the scheme is a loophole, even though in 2000 the Inland Revenue produced a note that specifically informed museums and art galleries of the opportunity it offered. I have spoken with several of the affected organisations in the last 48 hours; several have categorically stated that they directly contacted the Inland Revenue to seek assurance that they could use the scheme in this way and they were given that assurance—indeed, some of them were encouraged to use the scheme. That is not a loophole; it is what was intended. Its removal by the Chancellor will do huge damage to the funding integrity of our museums and galleries. I hope that the Minister will assure us that when the Chancellor says he is going to consult on an alternative, there will be a scheme that reinstates that vital funding to our museums and galleries.
10.40 am
Mr. Malcolm Moss: I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo) on securing today's debate. It is both opportune and timely.
I start by addressing two issues that have been raised in the debate. The first is gift aid. As the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) has just said, it is true that many of the people involved in museums and visitor attractions were in communication with the Inland Revenue about the scheme; that is well documented. The Revenue encouraged them to make use of gift aid on admissions to museums, galleries and visitor attractions. London zoo, for example, has, an extremely sophisticated system, and has just spent a lot of money on computerisation to make it even more efficient, yet at a meeting that I had with ALVA—the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions—the other week, it emerged that London zoo is likely to lose £1 million in revenue as a result of the removal of gift aid on admissions. We realise that gift aid is an issue for the Treasury rather than the DCMS, but what has been said this morning shows how important it is that the Minister recognise what a blow its removal would be to many of our museums and galleries. She must take that argument to the Treasury. The institutions should at least be given plenty of time to readjust-the measure should not be introduced in one go, because that will cause great difficulties.
Secondly, let me pick up on what has been said about regional museums. Back in 2000–01, the DCMS "Renaissance in the Regions" report recommended a

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new integrated framework for museums in the regions based on a network of regional hubs. Significantly, it called for investment of public money from the Government the order of £170 million, with £100 million identified as the bare minimum. In his spending review in July 2002, the Chancellor vowed to end two decades of decline in the regions that had left many galleries and museums across the country in a parlous state. It was therefore disappointing indeed when the DCMS finally announced funding for the regions of a mere £70 million over four year consisting of £30 million of new money added to the previously agreed £10 million a year allocated to resources. Even the headline figure was £100 million short of the sum that the report estimated was necessary, and some £30 million short of the bare minimum identified. That is causing serious difficulties for the smaller regional and local museums, and it is something that I hope that the Minister will explain.
Today's debate has been called principally as a result of the anticipated launch next week by the National Museum Directors Conference of the three reports that it commissioned, which have been referred to at considerable length by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea. We know that many of our museums and galleries were formed between the mid-18th century and the early part of the 20th century. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) rightly pointed out, some of the museums—certainly the national ones—have been formed by Acts of Parliament, and various pieces of legislation passed over the years have charged them with preserving, exhibiting, researching and adding to the objects that make up their collections for current and successive generations. However, the collections are not only there to be viewed and catalogued; they are there to form an important base for education and research. We must not overlook the fact that museums perform those two significant functions, and it is important that those functions are covered in any consideration of their funding requirements. Because of those functions, museums attract some of the very brightest academics that this country produces.
Perhaps less well appreciated is the extent to which our museums and galleries make an important and often surprising contribution in many other areas. They are important to subject experts, educators and businesses, and—as has been mentioned more than once today—as mass tourist attractions. They enhance education and learning opportunities and cultural and economic life, and are a source of creativity and enjoyment for everyone in this country and beyond. The international importance—even pre-eminence— of our museums has already been mentioned.
The NMDC, by commissioning the three major independent reports, has brought together a great wealth of evidence that strongly makes the case for increased state funding of our national institutions. The reports describe a sector of unique international scale and standing that has an annual impact of some £2 billion, which is of great economic significance. The reports, as well as pointing out the obvious, reveal extensive and impressive achievements and demonstrate
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that the sector contributes to the whole spectrum of the Government's agenda across many Whitehall Departments. They also emphasise that that has been achieved against a background of the institutions having to broaden their skills to meet increasing demands—demands that have, for the most part, been accompanied by funding that rises only at the rate of retail price inflation.
The sector's capacity to raise additional resources is limited. No doubt the Minister will restate the evidence that shows that since free admission was reintroduced, the number of visitors has increased. However, that has put great pressure on some of our larger museums and institutions. At the other end of the scale, without some means of charging, many of our smaller museums will suffer quite seriously unless they get the resources they need through regional policy. We Conservative Members have had discussions with many people in the museum and gallery sector, and they have told us that they would prefer a flexible system, not a mandatory one. If they, at a local level, felt that charging was necessary, they should be free to charge. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister whether the DCMS and the Government have any intention of becoming a little more flexible on admissions.
As has been already been pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea, if our larger museums are not funded at the appropriate level, there is a great danger of losing expertise and our best academics to institutions abroad, particularly in the United States, France and Germany. I shall wind up by mentioning the level of additional resources that the reports suggest is needed. They call for an additional £50 million each year on top of inflation for the next five years. Some £10 million is required to continue extending access to the collections through the combination of digitisation projects. A further £10 million is required for modernisation, which includes the updating of permanent exhibitions, collection, care and conservation facilities. The remaining £30 million is required to address the backlog of property repair and maintenance work. That is currently estimated, across the sector, at £150 million.
10.50 am
The Minister for the Arts (Estelle Morris): I thank the right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed to this incredibly important debate. I also thank the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo) for securing it. He probably has a stronger constituency connection with museums than any other Member.
The debate is being held on the back of reports that will be published next week by the National Museum Directors Conference. I thank that group for bringing these long overdue reports to our attention. It is about time we told the story of the importance of museums to society, not only to our past, but to our present and future. The story has always been a strong one, but the sector has not always told it with the strength of voice that it is entitled to use. In that respect, I welcome the stronger voice of the NMDC, which is to launch next week, although I readily accept that politically it might mean my answering a few difficult questions.

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I shall add to what hon. Members have said about the importance of museums in one respect only. My right hon. Friend the Member for Islington. South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) referred to public reaction when the treasures of Iraq were looted. That is the only time in my life that I can remember an issue about a museum leading the BBC news throughout the day: day after day, it was featured in the important 8 to 8.10 slot on the "Today" programme. During that period, even those who did not readily have an interest in or love for museums understood essentially what museums do: they make us secure about our role in society and our place in the world. At a time when people move across the world and, thankfully, there are far more multiracial and multi-ethnic communities, we all have a need to know where we came from, how we got here and where we might be going, and museums tell that story of human beings. When we saw that that story had been lost to a nation that was in difficulties, we understood what life would be like if there were nobody telling the story of our sense of being in our community. If we learned that from Iraq, it might be the only good thing to have came from a particularly troubled time for the Iraqi people.
I pay tribute to the scholarship of museums and to the fact that for centuries they have looked after precious artefacts and treasures that we hold in trust for future generations. I pay tribute, too, to the fact that in recent years they have taken on the challenges of getting more people from different backgrounds through their doors and willingly taken on the new role of education. I have spent a lifetime in education and I know that too many people feel that they can do education, and that education is easily done. It is not easily done, and for museums to do education, and do it well, has meant considering what they do, reskilling, and the reorganisation of time, money and personnel. I have seen excellent practice and some not-so-good practice, but that is in the nature of education. I shall return to that later.
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury. I am conscious that much of what I am about to claim as Minister with responsibility for museums was brought about under his leadership of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. I want to ensure that Parliament knows it too. My right hon. Friend is no longer in that Department, but the results of his brave decisions are coming to fruition and I thank him for leaving me a legacy that is a joy to handle and that provides a springboard for future developments.
I shall talk first about money, to get it out of the way, and then go on to other challenges. I think I accept everyone's explanation of where we are financially; I certainly accept my right hon. Friend's explanation. I sort of accept the explanation of the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea. This is has not been a party political debate because museums are not party political matters, but as subjects of the allocation of resources they are party political and politicians have a role to play in their affairs. We do not run them and we do not tell them what their exhibitions should be, but we fund them.
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Although I accept what the right hon. Gentleman said, he must recognise that before the Labour Government took office, there had been real-terms cuts in museums. He was the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and he was responsible for the Conservative Government's public expenditure plans—he cannot get away from that. He cannot complain that the real-terms increase under the Labour Government has been only £47 million in cash terms£19 per cent£without saying that there was a 17 per cent. cut in the four years before Labour came into government. That has to be recognised. That was the legacy we inherited.
"Renaissance in the Regions" did not exist before my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury took it up—it was not fully funded. We decided, as was entirely proper, to have phase 1 and phase 2. Phase 1 is fully funded, and phase 2 is partially funded and more money is expected to come from the next spending review. I do not have a shadow of embarrassment or doubt about that. We live in the real world, and the day that any Department gets its entire bid will come only when Gordon Brown is no longer Chancellor of the Exchequer. Departments bid for what they need, not for what they think they are likely to get, so to put in £70 million over three years for "Renaissance in the Regions", thus becoming the first Government to fund regional museums, was a massive triumph for us. The scheme was not under funded. We could not do all that we had the vision and the ambition to do in the first term, but that is life.
I should like to mention the amount of money that has gone into capital. This is a personal point, as hon. Members will appreciate. One of the things that I am most proud of achieving in my time in Parliament is that for the first time, the Department for Education and Skills put money straight into the museums budget. I made that first decision to invest £20 million in museums education back in 1998. The partnership between the DFES and the DCMS is the best example of cross-departmental working. Had I known that I was going to the DCMS I would have put in more money from the DFES, but politics is like that—one can never foresee the future.
I take the point made by the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) about the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. We need to work harder to make links with that Department. We have not talked about the role of museums in regeneration. These days, no city regenerates unless it is on the back of an iconic building, creativity, or historical restoration. In the '60s, we built communities without creativity and without museums at their centre. We do not do that now, and I look forward to persuading the ODPM that we deserve some of its regeneration money.
We have made some investment in museums and galleries. The results are there to see and hon. Members have referred to them. The number of visitors has increased by 40 per cent. The right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea will be heartened when he sees the increased visitor numbers for the full year, which we shall announce shortly. I accept that the DCMS has spent extra money and that museums have not had the lion's share. It is now their turn, but that comes at a time when the Budget and the spending review will be more difficult than previous ones.

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I am campaigning on gift aid. It is not my sole comradely difference of opinion with the Treasury. All I can say to answer the comments of the right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed to a good debate is that I know where the priorities lie in my portfolio and in my Department's responsibilities. I will do my best, but more than that I cannot pledge I just hope that the power of our argument is heard in the corridors of the Treasury. I thank everyone, particularly the museum directors, for giving us the ammunition we need.

Fire Authority (Devon)
11 am
Richard Younger-Ross: It is appropriate to hold this debate on funding for the Devon fire authority today as it is running parallel with the debate in Committee Room 12 on the modernisation of the fire and rescue service.
Devon fire authority is a combined authority made up of three local authorities: the large rural authority of Devon, plus Plymouth and Torbay. Although there is also the urban centre of Exeter, there are only 11 whole-time stations, six of which have retained appliances, 46 retained stations and one volunteer station, at Kingston. That makes a total of 58 stations. The authority employs some 1,444 staff, of which 591 are whole-time firefighters and 728 are retained. That leaves 125 non-uniformed staff. They currently deal with up to 18,338 incidents a year. I shall make particular mention of one of the retained stations, Newton Abbott, which deals with a remarkable 459 incidents every year.
Our argument, put bluntly, has to do with the distribution of grant. Devon receives below the national average; funding at that average would provide an additional £2 million. However, the situation is worse than that, as the Home Office does not take account of the sparsity factor. With the underfunding and the failure to take account of sparsity, Devon is severely disadvantaged compared with other authorities.
I shall deal first with capital funding. The old system had a borrowing limit; the new system will have a prudential code. Under the old system, the allocation of credit approval was about £900,000. A new fire station, such as one in Teignmouth, where the present fire station is falling down, will cost £800,000 alone, but that is a small retained station. Devon also needs to replace other stations—such as that in Exeter, which has whole-time staff—which will cost over £2 million each. The capital allocation tends, therefore, to be rather short; in fact, it is so short that there is no capital funding for vehicles, which have to be funded out of revenue by leasing. I doubt that that is a cost-effective way for any authority to spend its money, but it is the only available option. Devon spends £1.5 million a year on leasing.
From April, the prudential code will remove the limit. That sounds good in theory: authorities will be able to borrow what they like. However, fire authorities must be prudent and justify their borrowing compared with revenue. That might be fine for a small area, but a large retained area with more stations has lower revenue, so capital borrowing involves a larger number of assets but less revenue, disadvantaging large authorities such as Devon. Devon has the same population as, say, Staffordshire, but twice the number of stations and vehicles. However, Devon's funding is approximately the same, because of its similar population. On capital funding, the Met, for example, is assets-based. Why are not other authorities assets-based? Why does Devon's borrowing have to be revenue-based?
The model for the fire cover element does not allow for sparsity. It allows for our having a coast, which is fairly logical. If one has a coastal area, clearly one cannot call in other authorities—they would be all at sea. There is no one to call on in a coastal area, so the provision makes sense. If we have a large rural area,

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however, why do we not take account of the fact that other fire stations and other authorities are a long way away? A very small number of people may live in the area. Lovely little villages in the Devon countryside and on Dartmoor are stunning, but they are a long way from the main cities and towns, and maintaining a fire service for such areas obviously costs more.
It is the Government who say what the response times should be. I agree with those response times, and it is entirely right that there should be response times, but if there is a response time for a large rural area, more vehicles and stations are needed and the costs of running and maintaining those are higher than the costs for metropolitan authorities. Other authorities, such as Shropshire, have similar problems.
Another issue that arises from Devon's having a retained fire crew is pay. In the past, a funding differential could be justified and retained fire crews received less funding but, as we have been debating in Committee and as the Minister is right in saying, we are now looking for pay parity. We totally support the idea that retained fire crews should have pay parity. If they are fighting fires side by side with whole-time firemen, they should have the same pay. However, with regard to the introduction of pay parity, the 16 per cent. pay increase that has been agreed nationally translates into a 23 per cent. increase in staffing costs in Devon. Again, no account appears to have been taken of the disproportionate costs of bringing retained fire stations up to the same level of funding. Those costs are not borne out in the grant that is given to Devon.
Devon, as an authority, has two unique features. First, it is a combined authority. There are other combined authorities, but in terms of funding and in relation to most of the country it is unique. This year, combined authorities have to establish reserves. The Minister has accepted in meetings that account must be taken of the need to find those reserves, and I believe that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has agreed to an increase in the notional funding level of 3 per cent. as a consequence. The percentage increase in the council tax bill that people receive will appear to be lower. However, the real figure will still be the same. The authority still has to raise the funding.
Mr. Adrian Sanders: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way on that point, because I think that this is where the solution lies. It is only because the authority has for the first time become a preceptive authority that reserves need to be established. Therefore, the pressure in the first year to build up those reserves means that there is an added pressure on the precept that it will levy on council tax payers. I do not understand why, if the Government have their own Contingencies Fund and reserve, they cannot act as the final reserve at least for the first year, when the Government want to keep pressure on the council tax down. If the money is drawn on, it can be repaid in future years. If it is not drawn on, that makes no odds to anyone.
Richard Younger-Ross: My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I hope that the Minister will respond to it and say why the Government's reserves cannot be
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used. Perhaps such use could be scaled down as fire authorities were able to build up their own reserves. However, he has said that there are no figures for the reserve and that fire authorities can keep very low reserves. The trouble for fire authorities is that they are subject to inspection by the Audit Commission, which will almost certainly disagree. Its report will criticise fire authorities if the reserves are not high enough.
Devon has 728 retained fire crew and 46 retained stations. The consequence of the sparsity in Devon is that for every 1,000 head of population its transport costs are £2,662 and its premises costs £944. That makes Devon appear to be a high-spending authority; those are the second highest transportation and premises costs of any fire authority in the country. The only authority that has higher costs is mid and west Wales. That should not be surprising because the geography of that area produces the same problems that we have in Devon.
The Government have partly recognised the consequences of the pay agreement; there is interim funding. However, I fear that they are not taking account of how long it will take to achieve the savings that come from the modernisation process—which Opposition Members also support. Devon has been given £500,000 to assist it, but I was surprised to hear that it has to pay that back. The extra costs to Devon are more than £2 million. I should like the Minister to enlighten us as to why there is that disparity. Why does Devon again appear, to be disadvantaged?
There is a further problem. I mentioned the number of call-outs at New on Abbott because it has the same amount as several whole-time fire stations. In the modernisation process, turnout fees and attendance fees are down but, to compensate, the retainer and the drill night fee are up, as is the hourly rate over the first hour. That is to the advantage of a large number of retained firefighters. However, the income of stations such as Newton Abbott that are reliant on turnout rather than retainer for their income will be down.
Subsequently, Devon has said that it will protect the salaries of firefighters in such stations. That is recommended under the agreement, but the fact that Devon has to do the does not appear to have been taken into account in the funding that is allocated to it. Last year, the authority set a budget of £39 million. It had an agreement with the composite local authorities that if more funding was required it could draw down a supplementary levy and £750,000 was drawn down. This year, the authority has set a budget of £44 million.
Revising the notional figure would add confusion. I want the Minister to tell us which set of figures the authority should use. Is it to base the percentage increase on £39 million? If that is the case, the percentage increase appears to be 12.08 per cent, although if we are allowed to take off the notional 3 per cent. that figure comes down to 8.8 per cent. However, can the authority say that the base figure is £39,750,000 including the supplementary levy, in which case the upper revised level would be 9.9 per cent—but, again, if we can increase the notional level by 3 per cent, that figure comes down to 6.76 per cent?
Given the anger in Devon about the increase in council tax levels, this is not just an arithmetical talking point. It is important that the authority show that it is doing its best to keep figures down—and I would argue that that is also important for the Government. I look forward to the Minister's response to that.
11.15 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secret try of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Phil Hope): I congratulate the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross) on securing the debate—we have both been sitting on the Committee upstairs this morning and are now both debating the question of Devon's funding for the fire and rescue authority. May I also say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Taylor? This is the first Adjournment debate in which I have been involved that you have chaired.
The fire and rescue service and the Government have made a lot of progress over the past year. We have set in train the most substantial pack age of reform to the fire and rescue service since the second world war. It is a package that will develop a more effective and efficient service, which will save more lives. Professor Sir George Bain's independent review of the fire and rescue service set out the challenge, and the White Paper, "Our Fire and Rescue Service" responded with the Government's vision. A draft national framework will clarify the Government's expectations for the service: what fire and rescue authorities must do and what support Government will provide.
The Fire and Rescue Services Bill, currently in Committee, confirms our commitment to driving through reform and improvement. It is the first substantial piece of legislation on fire services in the past 50 years, and will give statutory effect to the roles that fire and rescue authorities already undertake, for example, in road traffic accidents aid serious floods, and their new responsibilities in responding to terrorist threats. It will also give statutory force to a fire and rescue national framework that will allow the Government to set their strategic direction for the service.
We have also introduced integrated risk management plans, which are about targeting resources at locally identified risks in a cost-effective manner. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the question of response time and standards. It is important to recognise that the new system is based on risk assessment at a local level and how the service should respond to ensure that it saves more lives and prevents more fires. That is the purpose of the IRMPs— the fire and rescue services will formally adopt IRMPs, and they will come into effect on 1 April 2004. Together, we have made real progress but there is clearly much still to do. That applies to the fire and rescue service as a whole, so of course it applies to Devon.
In some respects, although the hon. Gentleman did not mention this, Devon is already ahead of the game, for instance through its partnership with other emergency services. Fifteen Devon fire stations participate in a co-responder scheme with the ambulance service. Under that scheme, Devon fire and rescue service has attended 2,841 incidents since 1997, including 932 last year. That has made a real contribution to reducing deaths in the area from coronary heart disease. Devon has also developed the rapid extraction and co-ordinated treatment— REACT—initiative, which is a common framework with other emergency services for dealing effectively with road traffic accidents.
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The fire authorities of Devon and Cornwall have established a joint arson taskforce, which has succeeded in arresting the sharp increase in deliberate fires. Indeed, I was in Devon to meet two of the leading figures in that taskforce and was impressed by both their professionalism and commitment, and the results achieved. The taskforce is staffed by a police officer, a fire officer and a dedicated analyst. It has received 178,000 from the Government-led arson control forum since 2002, and will receive a further £106,000 in 2004–05 and £112,000 in 2005–06. I know, because I met them, that those officers and brigades are happy with that extra funding.
Devon is to be congratulated on that good work hut, as its draft IRMP makes clear, there is much more to be reviewed over the coming months. I look forward to seeing how Devon, and the whole service, picks up the pace of progress to provide a more efficient and effective service that saves more lives, which we are all aiming for.
The importance of efficiency is reinforced by increasing public concern about large council tax increases, as the hon. Gentleman said in his conclusion. It is right that local authorities, not central Government, should take decisions and determine their budgets. However, it would be irresponsible of central Government to stand back and allow excessive increases, and it is right that we act in such circumstances.
I must tell the hon. Gentleman that the Government have delivered another good settlement for fire authorities. They have ensured that all authorities receive above-inflation increases, with fire authorities receiving grant increases of between 3.5 and 5 per cent. Since taking office this Government have increased local authority funding by 30 per cent. in real terms. Given above-inflation settlements in the last two years, the Government have now made it clear that they expect council tax increases to be in low single figures. They will, if necessary, use their capping powers to deal with unacceptable increases. To that extent we possibly share a concern about council tax increases.
The Government are not prejudging who would be capped, or what our capping principles would be. We will wait to see actual budgets and council tax rises before making decisions. I am pleased that the average increase, as announced by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy today in its survey, is around 6 per cent. We have dramatically decreased council tax increases. We are rapidly moving in the right direction and we are serious about capping. We do not want to cap, but we will use our powers to cap excessive increases, if that is necessary.
I understand that Devon fire and rescue authority has set a budget that equates to a notional council tax precept of 11.5 per cent. Although that is not the biggest increase among fire and rescue authorities, it is still larger than we hoped for.
Richard Younger-Ross: On what basis is that 11.5 per cent. figure calculated? As I have indicated, there are two budget figures that could be used and there is the matter of whether that allows for the 3 per cent. notional increase.
Phil Hope: I was about to come to some of the hon. Gentleman's detailed questions on the notional

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increases. I should like to emphasise that although that council tax precept of 11.5 per cent. is not the biggest increase, it is larger than we would have hoped for, given that we have been talking about low single figures, and given that the increase in formula grant of 3.9 per cent. is above inflation. I shall come to the analysis of that in a moment. Although the hon. Gentleman might say that that is below average, something has to be below average for something else to be above it; otherwise, everyone would get the same increase. The 3.9 per cent. figure is well above the rate of inflation.
Devon fire and rescue authority, and other authorities, have made the Government aware of some of the difficult issues and decisions that they have faced in setting their budgets, particularly pressures due to pay increases—which I will come to—the bulge in pensions and the combined authorities' need to build up reserves. Those are the three questions that the hon. Gentleman put to me.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned capital. He will be aware that the private finance initiative is another source of capital funding. Some £53 million of PFI credits is available each year for projects in England and Wales. I visited Cornwall, as I mentioned earlier, and saw how the hon. Gentleman's neighbouring authority-the Cornwall county fire brigade-has benefited from such support. I saw how it had taken some old, decrepit fire stations and successfully transformed them, using a PFI deal, into community fire stations. There is no reason why Devon should not be able to apply for private finance initiative money in future.
We have listened to some of these concerns and acted on them. In particular, we have addressed the issue of reserves. On 16 February my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government, Regional Governance and Fire wrote to all combined fire authorities declaring that he is minded to increase the combined fire authorities' alternative notional amounts by 3 per cent., subject to parliamentary approval. That change, which the hon. Member for Teignbridge mentioned, will help all combined fire authorities, including Devon, to limit their notional increases. The chairman of Devon fire authority has welcomed that publicly in the local press. As my right hon. Friend said in his letter, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister will issue a formal response to the wider consultation on alternative notional amounts, which will also address in due course the other points that authorities have raised during the consultation.
It is up to fire authorities to undertake their own risk assessments and determine their reserves on that basis. Government advice has always made that clear. I accept that the 3 per cent. increase in the notional amount— this uplift—makes no difference to council tax bills; it is a matter of making comparisons.
The Government have said that they will meet the additional revenue consequences of responding to new dimension incidents. The hon. Member for Teignbridge will know that we have put in a significant amount of resources throughout the country for handling them. I turn now to the affordability of the pay deal, which the hon. Gentleman said was a problem in Devon. The negotiations on the pay deal are between the local
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authority employers and the Fire Brigades Union. Any deal that is not affordable within existing public expenditure provision must be paid for by modernisation. The employers have assured us that the deal signed in June last year is affordable and will balance over the SR02 period.
Richard Younger Ross: It is reasonable for the Minister to make that point. However, Devon is one authority and it has a particular problem with retained fire crews. I want the hon. Gentleman to take account of that and to consider it in the formula grant that they give to Devon and the other authorities that have had that problem for a couple of years. Will he also deal with sparsity, which he has not mentioned?
Phil Hope: Yes, I understand that point. It was at the request of the employers and the Fire Brigades Union that the Deputy Prime Minister agreed to make £30 million of transitional funding available to fill a short-term gap. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the figure that affects Devon. Ay right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government, Regional Governance and Fire stated in his letter to all fire and rescue authorities in January that transitional funding will, subject to the conditions being met, he paid in 2004–05. That will ensure that the full benefit of the transitional funding can and should be reflected in all fire authorities' council tax bills or precepts in 2004–05.
The Local Government Association has agreed that fire authorities will pay that transitional funding back during the SR02 period, which, in practice, means 2005–06. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister currently proposes to recoup the transitional funding from authorities with responsibilities for fire and rescue services through the local government finance settlement for 2005–06. We are looking at the funding spending share and we understand the point made by the hon. Member for. Teignbridge. However, is it right that we should pay for any pay deal in our funding? There would not be al incentive to negotiate a good deal if we simply said, "Yes, we will meet those costs through the formula spending share". The hon. Gentleman must appreciate that a process of negotiation is being undertaken, but we will consider the funding formula spending shares in future.
A related issue that the hon. Gentleman did not raise is that of the potentially uneven distribution of costs and savings, which was implicit in his point about the nature of retained fire crews in his area and the sparsity factor. The Government recognise that revisiting the formula spending share could be an issue, given the changes to the fire and rescue service that we have announced. A working group of offs vials has been set up to examine the case for change and possible alternatives. The Government will consider any proposals for changes to the formula in the light of the working group's conclusions. However, it may also be worth pointing out that if there were an imbalance in the potential for savings between authorities, we would expect some authorities to have little or no budget increases in the next two years at least.
On pensions, we acknowledge that there may be a bulge in retirements over the next year or two. Of course, we would have expected that factor to be taken into account when calculating the affordability of the pay

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deal. We debated that Upstairs when we discussed the future of the pension scheme. However, we acknowledge that there are wider issues concerned with pensions funding. We are committed to reviewing pension arrangements for all firefighters. We propose to issue proposals for consultation in 2004 and, as I said in Committee, to be operational from 2005. We are also reviewing the financial arrangements for funding the existing firefighters' pension scheme.
I wish to make it clear that the Government remain absolutely committed to working in partnership with authorities to modernise the fire and rescue service and to save more lives. Limiting council tax increases, as the hon. Gentleman would like, to reasonable levels can and should be consistent with making real progress on modernisation.
11.29 am
Sitting suspended until Two o'clock

London Olympic Bid
2 pm
Mr. Clive Betts: I am sure that all of us present wish London's bid for the 2012 Olympics every success. It will have particular benefits for London, especially the east end of London, in terms of regeneration and economic boost, which are issues that I shall leave to others with a greater knowledge of the capital to address.
I shall talk about how the benefits of the bid and, I hope, of staging the Olympics can go wider than London, which is officially making the bid. Although, under Olympic rules, one city must make the bid, as far as I am concerned, this bid is not just London's, but Sheffield's—in fact, a bid from all cities throughout the United Kingdom. It is not just England's bid, but the bid of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as our competitors who take part in the 2012 London Olympic games will be from the whole United Kingdom.
Potentially, there are enormous benefits for the stimulation of our elite competitors in all Olympic sports. We should consider other nations that have held the event and the benefits that they have gained from Olympic success. In 1988, Spain had one gold medallist, but in the Barcelona games of 1992 it had 13. Even Australia, with its great tradition of Olympic success, had nine golds in 1996 but nearly doubled that to 16 in Sydney in 2000.
Clearly, hosting the games gives a great stimulus to the elite athletes who compete on behalf of the host nation. Those athletes benefit from the improved facilities provided for the Olympic games, and a list of such facilities is being worked up as part of our Olympic bid. That legacy will last not merely for the 2012 games; for many years afterwards, athletes will have access to the best facilities in the world. That will build on the many excellent facilities that exist in this country partly as a result of the Manchester Commonwealth games and partly because of the Sheffield World student games, of which my right hon. Friend the Minister is all too well aware.
Not only elite athletes will benefit: the Olympics, particularly if we succeed in getting beyond the bidding stage and secure the event, will raise enthusiasm for sport among people throughout the country at grassroots level. However good or successful they are, people will be inspired by the Olympics to go out and take part. Those of us who remember the 1966 World cup victory will know how it stimulated interest in football in this country. Only recently, the rugby union team succeeded in generating interest not only in rugby but in sport more widely. Such success stimulates people throughout the country to take part and in enjoy sport.
A successful bid will bring demands, however, such as demands for improved facilities. People who get involved in sport want to do better and want better facilities to achieve that. I am sure that that will stimulate more private involvement, such as private sponsorship and businesses promoting facilities for their employees. Private clubs, gyms, voluntary organisations and local authorities can contribute to the development of sporting facilities. Later, I shall talk about what the Government might do in that regard, as clearly there will be demands on them to meet the aspirations generated by a successful Olympic bid.

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That agenda will fit in appropriately with the Government's key targets on obesity. It is a major challenge for our country that obesity levels have tripled over the past 20 years. The Government's 70 per cent.target—or whatever it might be after the Wanless report—is clearly an important issue for the whole nation. The Olympic bid could be key to stimulating physical activity and sport of all kinds, and we would all welcome that.
The Olympic bid can be a force for social cohesion. Recently, the Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, of which I am a member, has been looking at social cohesion in this country. We have developed a multicultural country, but one in which the different cultures often exist apart. Sport can bring people from different backgrounds, ethnic groups and cultures together in a way that probably nothing else can. Again, I am sure that we will want to rise to that challenge as a nation.
The Olympic games are not only about people competing in the elite events, as 70,000 volunteers will be required. I remember that one of the enjoyable aspects of the 1991 student games in Sheffield was the number of people from the city who simply came along for two weeks and said that they wanted to help. They wanted to be involved in the games as citizens of Sheffield and to give their time voluntarily to make the event a success. There will be opportunities for 70,000 people up and down the country to assist in that process as volunteers at the 2012 Olympics.
Let me now consider the facilities. Of course, most events will be staged in London and most new facilities will be built in the capital, but the construction of those facilities will provide opportunities for construction companies and workers up and down the country to gain a benefit. There will also be opportunities for football events to be staged up and down the United Kingdom. Given the prospect of our bid winning, one thing that many cities will want to consider straight away and start planning for is hosting the holding camps for athletes from other nations. Those camps will be established up and down the UK once the games have been awarded to London and countries begin to think about how their competitors will acclimatise before the games.
I understand that the UK holding camp in Queensland, Australia, brought a benefit of 6 million Australian dollars to the local economy, so it need not be only the host city that benefits—there could be benefits for other parts of the UK. Already, centres such as Loughborough, Manchester, Newcastle, Bath, Cardiff and, of course, Sheffield should be eyeing up the possibilities of hosting holding camps and gaining economic and other benefits. It is up to cities and regions to start thinking now, as London prepares its bid, about how they can contribute and get a slice of the action.
Barbara Cassani spoke recently at the annual dinner of Sheffield's chamber of commerce. She made a point of asking local business people what they could gain from the games and telling them to start thinking about that now to ensure that Sheffield gets a piece of the action, as it will be too late if we leave it until 2010. Local strategic partnerships should have that on their agenda
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already and should be working out what their role can and should be. There will be certain trial events before the Olympics, which could be staged outside London to show that the country can manage to put on major international events. Again, areas or bases that already have facilities should be thinking about bidding to stage such events.
We know from the Sydney experience, and I know from figures that I have seen, that of the tourists who went to Sydney for the games, and indeed before the games, almost half went on to spend time in the rest of Australia. That presents a challenge to the United Kingdom. How can people who come to the country before the games and for the games be attracted to other tourist facilities and locations up and down the country? That will spread the economic benefits of the games far wider than the host city.
I understand from the bid team that thought is already being given to cultural, arts and other events that could be put together as part of a package to go with the games. Such events will take place up and down the country. The Olympic torch will be carried across the country and a series of events will take place along its route. That will mean not only that people throughout the UK can enjoy a flavour and an experience of the Olympic event, but that tourists from outside the UK can see the great delights of the rest of the country, along with the tremendous facilities and attractions that they see in London.
That said, I must raise one or two cautionary points with the Minister. I am sure he feels that I have been very much on track with Government policy on these matters so far—I certainly hope so—but I may now stray offside slightly on one or two points, which I would like him to respond to.
Richard Ottaway: Before the hon. Gentleman gets too deeply immersed in cautionary points, does he agree that, apart from the spin-off benefits in terms of tourism, visitors and enthusiasm for sport, there will also be benefits as a result of the number of sports events that will be held outside London? I have in mind the yachting at Weymouth and the football around the country. Does he agree that those events will be a tremendous stimulus in their own right for the regions in which they are located?
Mr. Betts: Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman is right. I mentioned the football, but not the yachting, and he is right to raise it. Some of those events will be seen by people who will not necessarily get to the Olympic events in London, particularly residents in other regions of the United Kingdom. That will bring the games to a far wider group of spectators, which will have enormous benefits in making the Olympics a truly national, as well as a London, event.
I want to raise with the Minister the concern that the money to fund the Olympics will result in some diversion of funding from other parts of the United Kingdom. I understand that it has been estimated that about £750 million will come from the special Olympic draw. That is welcome, but I understand that that could mean a 4 to 5 per cent. reduction in funding for good causes from other lottery sources. Is that money that other good causes should really have to find or should

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the Government somehow make up the deficit? The figure involved is relatively small, but it could rankle with one or two organisations that might not benefit as they would have done.
Some £340 million will come from the sports councils throughout the UK. We are told that some of that might be spent in the regions, but will some money that would have been spent in the regions now be diverted to the London Olympic bid? I understand that there may be a need for up to another £400 million after 2009, again probably coming from the sports councils. Will that be money diverted from the regions to London? We need answers on those points, because they are relevant and they could worry people engaged in sporting activities across the United Kingdom. Support from the rest of the UK could be undermined if it appears that the money will be drawn from major sporting facilities that might have been built in the regions or from grassroots sport.
What I am really saying is that the Olympics should be a springboard, not just for elite athletes and London, but for sporting activity throughout the United Kingdom. I shall put this as nicely as I can: the Government should be oiling those springs, not damping them down.
Pete Wishart: The hon. Gentleman is on to a good point, and we in Scotland stand to lose £41.8 million for our good causes and charities because of the new Olympic lottery game. That has worried Sport Scotland to the extent that it says that sport in Scotland could be set back for 20 years as a result. I do not know whether his experience from Sheffield is the same, and I would be interested to hear his views.
Mr. Betts: The point that I am making is that, at this stage, things are not set in concrete. I am trying to raise with the Minister the concern that what should, eventually, be a great national success if we manage to win the Olympic bid could have a downside in terms of the perceptions of the rest of the United Kingdom, if it feels that money is being diverted from projects that would otherwise have taken place in Scotland and the north of England, for example.
The Government contribution towards sporting infrastructure is about £2 per head per year. That does not compare terribly well with what our European neighbours spend or with spending on the arts in this country. I know that there is always a tug of war between the two, but some of us sometimes feel that sports take a back seat to the arts in terms of funding. There is perhaps also a feeling that there is lots of money in sport. There are some very well paid sports people, particularly footballers but also athletes and tennis players.
There is an argument that, as some sporting bodies have sums of money that eventually find their way into high wages for the people who complete in those sports, the bodies ought to give a bit of it up and fund grass-roots sport. I know that the Football Association, for example, will argue strongly when I talk to it that it already allocates more money to grass-roots sport from professional football than is the case in any other European country. It feels that it is in the forefront.
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It is fair that professional sports should ensure that some of their money trickles down to the grass-roots level. However, to draw a comparison with the arts, there is never the same argument that Hugh Grant should fund the local amateur dramatics society or that J.K. Bowling should stump up the money for a new local library. Things do not work in those terms. Sport is expected to make contributions that other activities are perhaps not expected to make.
The Government should think about these issues. We are not having a go at the Minister personally: he is a colleague from Sheffield and I want to restrict our rivalry to the professional football pitch and our two clubs. I hope that the arguments we raise today will strengthen his hand in discussions in other places about funding. When we consider the stimulus that the Olympic bid may give to grass-roots sport, we should take account of the recent Sport England analysis of the state of local authority sports centres, which shows that about £550 million would need to be spent to bring them up to a reasonable standard. There are concerns about those issues.
I support the Olympic bid because I want it to bring benefits to sports at the highest level and at grass-roots level. I want it to provide benefits for London and the rest of the United Kingdom, and I want it to be the centrepiece of the Government's drive on health problems, particularly obesity. The Government must grab this opportunity with both hands. In doing so, I want them to think through the financial support that they give not just to the Olympics, but to grass-roots sport more generally. I do not want arguments and concerns that might be raised about the diversion of existing sports funding away from the regions and grassroots sport throughout the UK to cloud the general support that I believe exists for the London Olympic bid.
I support the bid and there could be major benefits for many parts of the United Kingdom. I will also be looking at what Sheffield can do to benefit from a successful Olympic bid. I hope that the Government will deal with sports funding and see what more they can do to support the Olympic bid and sport in general.
2.17 pm
Mr. David Amess: I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) on securing this debate and on the manner in which he addressed the Chamber. I thought that I would speak in the debate because I was born in Plaistow in the east end of London and it is mainly the east end that will benefit if the UK is successful. Many members of my family, and friends still live in the east end. I have no doubt that one of the great achievements of my party, when it was in government, was the regeneration of docklands. That is an outstanding success, as is the channel tunnel rail link at Stratford and other matters. Sport is of great importance to the east end of London. If the UK is successful, there will be a tremendous beneficial effect on the region.
As people grow older, they become a bit cynical about events, so I ask the Minister, "Are we likely to be successful?" I suppose that as politicians we should not be naive and take everything at face value; we should question these matters. I was delighted that the

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Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport said last May that the Government would give total backing to the UK bid. Although I have not seen any evidence since then that the Government are not doing that, I would like to know whether a successful hid is a straightforward matter. Is it decided entirely according to the merits of the bidding countries' facilities, or might other slightly dark matters be operating?
Looking around the Chamber, I would say that there are not too many hon. Members here who saw the 1948 Olympic games. This country did the world a great service when, at very short notice, it agreed to hold the Olympic games in London. On that basis alone, London has a strong case. The fact that it coincides with the diamond jubilee of Her Majesty the Queen is a strong point, too, as is the fact that a lot of people in the United Kingdom speak English.
London is the greatest capital city in the world. People might cringe at such a statement because we do not have the weather. We might not have the transport. The British people are always moaning about everything under the sun. That aside, London is the greatest capital city in the world. So why should the Olympics not be held here? I accept that the countryside in Scotland is more beautiful and that Wales has other bonuses, as no doubt does Ireland, but the capital city is the right place for the hid. I hope that the Minister will share with the Chamber the precise elements of the plan to secure the majority vote when that takes place.
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe mentioned obesity. When I suggested to the Select Committee on Health, of which I am a member, that we have an inquiry into obesity, I had no idea at the time that it would have a huge impact on the United Kingdom. Indeed, the way in which the Government are trying to get ahead of the Health Committee report is rather amusing to its members. We are still taking evidence and we shall not be reporting for a couple of months. However, the fact that the Health Committee decided to examine obesity is encouraging everyone to talk about healthy lifestyles.
In 1985–86, only 20 per cent. of children were driven to school. That figure has now doubled. I could go on about the adverse impact of obesity on the lifestyle of the general public. There is no doubt that the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: if the United Kingdom is successful in its bid, that will have a good effect on people's health.
As for the various tables, I am sure that it did not escape the notice of hon. Members that, when a country hosts the Olympic games, it tends to be more successful at winning events. I welcome that. The hon. Gentleman is right. If we are successful, there will not be a region in the United Kingdom that will not benefit from that. Essex, in particular, has welcomed the bid. We consider that it would bring real economic and social benefits to that county, which, as we all know, is the largest in the country.
It is anticipated that an estimated 9,000 full-time jobs would be created by the games, together with tens of thousands of visitors and participants arriving from all over the world. That would be a huge boost to those
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counties on London's borders and Essex in particular. Stephen Castle, the councillor who is responsible for sports, said:
"This is an important step towards the prospect of the greatest sporting event in the world being staged in our area. We wholly support this move and will play every part we can to ensure the London bid is successful, and to bring the benefits of the Games to Essex. Although we are unsure at this stage whether Essex will be able to host any of the actual events"—
can the Minister comment on that?—
"we are still very positive to be able to host training camps and provide the training facilities."
Councillor Castle said that that could mean massive investment in sporting facilities in Essex and went on to say that we have some great young sporting talent in Essex
"many of whom are still at school. What better incentive could they have but to strive for the highest sporting achievement in the world? It is a thrilling prospect."
My constituency of Southend, West has a strong case for having a holding camp for the 200 visiting Olympic teams. Southend is also fortunate in sport. We have a very successful athletics club, which has produced top performing Olympic athletes for some years. Two locals took part in the Sydney Olympic games in 2000: Sarah Wilhelmy in the 100 metre sprint relay and Simon Hughes—not the Member of Parliament, I might add—in the pole vault. We hope that at least one of those athletes will be sent to this year's Olympic games.
It would be wonderful for the UK if we were successful with the bid. The whole UK would benefit. Thousands of UK construction, manufacturing, accommodation, catering and services companies would be directly involved in meeting the needs of the games. The football tournament would be played across the UK-in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Newcastle, Manchester, Aston Villa in Birmingham and London. The 2012 Olympic torch relay would visit almost every major town and city in the UK in the months leading up to the games. I am sure that every Member of Parliament would like to be photographed at the torch relay ceremony in their town. There would also be a UK-wide cultural festival, beginning at least a year before the games.
Up to 70,000 volunteers from across the UK would help to run the games. A London 2012 Olympic games could act as a catalyst to boost physical activity levels at all ages and help to combat rising obesity. I am sure that disabled people would stage a better games through the Paralympics than able-bodied people.
Any Member worth their weight as an MP will support the UK's bid for the Olympic games. I would like to hear how serious the Minister is about securing a successful bid and how he views Essex and Southend in that particular scheme of things. Given that London hosted the Olympic games in 1948, it would be right to be awarded the games to coincide with Her Majesty the Queen's diamond jubilee. I hope that we are successful and that we are serious about the bid. I hope to be at the London 2012 Olympic games with all hon. Members.
2.28 pm
Mr. Barry Gardiner: First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) on securing the debate, which is

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about an important topic. As he said, the potential benefits of bringing the Olympic games to London in 2012 are enormous, particularly for sport throughout the UK.
I want to focus on the relationship between the Olympic bid and grass-roots sport. A successful Olympic bid would involve a two-way relationship. A London Olympics, and the seven-year preparation period that would go before it, could make a huge difference to the profile of and participation in sport at all levels. However, the converse is also true. In the crucial period between now and 6 July next year, during which the success of our bid will be determined, the UK's commitment to sport at all levels may yet have that critical impact on the success of the bid.
We know that technically our bid is strong; I believe that it is a world beater. London can produce a compact, well run games. The money invested would result in lasting benefit for the local community and the UK as a whole. I have taken the opportunity to visit the area involved along with the London development Agency. I have seen it first hand, so I can say how much that redevelopment impetus is needed and how magnificent the regeneration plans are. The London Development Agency hopes to transform the area with or without the games, but with the games it believes it can make the changes up to seven years more quickly.
As we have already heard, the games will be the catalyst for the regeneration of 1,500 acres of east London, creating thousands of new homes and jobs, doubling the amount of green space in the area and restoring the River Lea's unique waterways. They will also help to tackle shocking inequality. It is disturbing to hear that, on average, people in Newham live five years less than those in Kensington and Chelsea. We need only look at the impact of the Commonwealth games on Manchester—with the direct and indirect creation of 2,400 jobs—to see the potential value that such an economic carrot can have for the area.
With such a strong technical bid, it is important that the country does not let itself down in another key respect. An Olympic host nation should be a sporting nation. We are a nation that is passionate about sport, certainly when it comes to watching it. Some 14.5 million people tuned in at 9 o'clock in the morning to see England defeat Australia in the rugby World cup final, and 5.4 million people tuned in at 1 am to see the Scottish curling team take gold in the 2003 Salt Lake City Olympics. When our teams are on TV, we watch them.
Unfortunately, we are not so strong on participation. According to "Game Plan", the Government document that sets out the future for sport, Australia—the last host of the summer games—has 48 per cent. of its population participating in sport in a serious way at least once a week. More recent surveys have found that 57 per cent. of Australians report doing at least two and a half hours of moderate and vigorous physical activity per week. Finland, where the figure is 70 per cent., is a world beater.
According to the latest figures, the UK comes in at 30.4 per cent. I also have the figure for France, arguably our main rival to host the games—48 per cent., the same as Australia. We do not have to go far to find out why there is such a discrepancy.
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According to Sport England, the French Government spend approximately £5 per person per year on sports and physical activity. That would buy a football, a rugby ball, a child's racquet or bat—or, in an off-licence, a bottle of French wine. What are we spending? In 2002–03, considering the Treasury spend in England, we find that Department for Culture, Media and Sport spent £2.09 per person per year. That would buy half a bottle of wine or a pint of beer.
At a conference last Wednesday, the Secretary of State said:
"We didn't decide to bid for the Olympics because it's the greatest sporting festival in the world-although that was part of it. We also decided to bid because the Olympics are an inspiration that can help us to change the culture of this country so that sport and physical activity is part of people's daily routine."
She is right. I am sure that the Government will acknowledge that we cannot expect the games to transform the culture of our nation on their own. They will be a tremendous catalyst, but for them to have a lasting effect the country must have an infrastructure that is adequate to facilitate and sustain that massive increase in sporting and physical activity. If we are serious about the Olympic games, and we are, we must show that we are also serious about sport. To show that we are serious, we have to be prepared to invest serious money.
It is no good crying out for the Government to spend, spend and spend again unless we can suggest a way to spend the money that will make a difference. Despite the millions of pounds that the Government have spent on sport over the past five years, participation has risen by only 0.3 per cent. We must spend effectively.
There are many areas in which the Government could invest more money: community sports club facilities, school facilities and school-based programmes. I am aware that the Government have invested in those areas, but I call for them to do more. Sport England estimates that £550 million is needed over the next five years to bring the condition of the £4.5 billion stock of local authority owned sports centres up to an acceptable standard. A commitment to meet those needs would be welcome.
Physical resources are just one side of the coin. Another area that I particularly want to discuss is human resources in coaching, which is key to the cultural shift to which the Secretary of State referred. One of the great opportunities of the Olympic bid is to inspire people to become active by emulating their heroes. Who did not want to go out and kick a rugby ball around the garden after seeing Jonny Wilkinson score that match-winning drop goal? I acknowledge that my colleague, the hon. Member for North Tayside (Pete Wishart), would demur on that, but it applies to English MPs and those who represent English constituencies.
We must nurture the desire to achieve, to better oneself and to fulfil the Olympic ideals of citius, altius, fortius—swifter, higher, stronger—to turn it into sustained activity. The emotional boost from the event will soon fade if we do not have an infrastructure in place to harness and sustain the enthusiasm. That infrastructure would require not only good physical resources, but first-rate human resources—good coaches.
Coaching is the thread that ties grass-roots participation to Olympic medals. A good coach will take youngsters from an early age and help them to develop

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the basic skills that are prerequisites for all sports. Preschool and early-years provision are especially vital to ensure that every child can kick, throw, strike, catch, run and jump. Only four in 10 children can do all those. What do we do for the 60 per cent. majority who cannot? Resolving the problem requires coaches who specialise in working with children of pre-school and primary school age rather than inexperienced coaches, or those trained to work with adults, imposing inappropriate adult training programmes on young people. We need level 4 coaches to work with young children as well as top athletes. We must develop coaching programmes and models that establish level 4 coaches for under-14s or under-sixes. We need top children's as well as adult's coaches.
To ensure that the Olympic bid and, I hope, the games have the impact on sport that we hope for, we must ensure that investment goes to grass-roots facilities and coaching, as well as to funding stadiums and elite sporting programmes. The Government have committed —28 million to community coaching and, this month, 22 sports were formally invited to be part of the first wave to implement the new national coaching certificate. However, whereas we were initially promised 3,000 full-time coaches through that scheme, there will now be 3,000 full-time and part-time coaches. When the feedback from the field made it clear that creating part-time coaching posts was more attractive to those wanting to move into the profession than creating full-time posts, the Government should have taken the opportunity—[Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Edward O'Hara): Order. We must suspend the sitting while a technical matter is sorted out, because it is difficult to report the proceedings.
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Sitting suspended.
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On resuming—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I should inform the Chamber that the time taken up by the interruption cannot be added on. However, it is still my intention to begin the winding-up speeches at 3 o'clock. I call Mr. Gardiner.
Mr. Gardiner: When it became clear that it was preferable to have full-time and part-time coaches, the Government should have taken the opportunity to create more coaches, rather than cut a corner and lower the investment. We will not make the changes in the culture of the nation that the Government have alluded to if we keep cutting corners like that. The Government must recognise that investing in coaches to inspire and guide young people will not only promote sport and good health—the problems of obesity have been mentioned—but contribute to the fulfilment of key policies involving social inclusion, education, crime diversion and community regeneration.
Money is invested in sport in this country in a complex way through the lottery and local authorities. The role of local authorities in particular must be
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recognised. Those in local government have the potential to link the games to other social inclusion strategies and to engage young people in and out of school. As the local authorities are responsible for so much of our investment in sport, greater guidance and support should b given to them on what their responsibilities are with regard to sport and physical activity.
For the Olympics to have the positive effect on sport throughout the UK that we would like, the mechanics must be right and the finances adequate. There is also a practical issue involved concerning the funding of the Olympics. The new Olympics lottery distributor, which is being created under the Horserace Betting and Olympic Lottery Bill, will inevitably take a share of the lottery pot away, not only from Sport England, but from Sport Scotland and other bodies as well. That must be addressed.
The existing lottery distributors have a wealth of experience. Sport England, for example, played a key role in the Manchester Commonwealth games, and with that in mind, I want to raise questions and seek a number of assurances from the Minister. Will he explain why a completely separate funding body must be created, rather than creating funding streams that work in the existing structures? Will he assure us that a new distributor will not create extra bureaucracy and duplication? Will he assure us that any new body that is created will be given a remit to consult existing funding bodies—in particular Sport England, UK Sport and Sport Scotland—on the legacy of the facilities that it will fund? Will he assure us that any new funding body will have explicitly in firs remit the authority to distribute funds that will be for the long-term good of British sport?
Will the Minister assure us that, rather than funds for grass-roots sport dropping as a result of the games, with the lottery pot being spread a little thinner and sales in decline over recent years, central Government will guarantee not only current funding, but an increase over the years of the bid And up to 2012, so that the physical and human resources will be in place to facilitate a cultural change in inspired by the games, just as the Secretary of State has said? In short, will the Government ensure that we match the French and offer the full bottle of wine rather than a pint of beer?
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Pete Wishart: In the time-honoured and traditional way, I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) on securing an important and worthy debate.
This is the third debate on the Olympic games that I have taken part in during the past year and all have been based on the assumption that these London games will be good for London and for the rest of the United Kingdom. I do not know on what basis that assumption has been made and I would question it, because I am not sure that a London games will be good for the rest of the United Kingdom. It is not as if we have never heard this before: every time that London secures a massive infrastructure project, an international games or an event, we are told that it is good for the rest of the country. We were told that by the Prime Minister when he opened his bid a few months ago, and we will no doubt be told that in future.

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I remember being told something similar in the 1990s when the millennium dome was being constructed. I saw glossy advertisements for it and was told that it was something of which I, as a Scot, should be proud as it was going to be an icon for the rest of the United Kingdom. We saw exactly what happened to the millennium dome.
Anybody who questions why London is always awarded such events and projects is labelled unreasonable or anti-London, but surely it is right occasionally to question why all the big infrastructure projects and events go to London. That is not making a case against London, but just questioning why such things always go there. No other city in the UK was considered for an Olympic bid even though the most successful Olympic games held in Europe in modern times were in devolved Catalonia. Why does it always have to be London?
There is no doubt that the games will be very good for London, but it is questionable whether they will be good for Scotland, the rest of England and other regions of the United Kingdom. We know that they will be good for London because the Government employed consultants, Arup, to consider how they would benefit London. The conclusion was that 1,000 jobs would be created in the regeneration of the east end of London. It was also said that there would be a further benefit of £70 million from the fiscal impacts of growth in the local economy and that a growth in tom ism would generate between £280 million and £507 million. Furthermore, it was concluded that once the games had been and gone, there would be further benefits to London, including legacies such as the future use of newly built sports facilities and more work in the regenerated east end of London.
There is no doubt that London would do well out of a London Olympics, but I have seen no such equivalent quantifiable study of how Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and other regions of England would fare if the games were secured. All that we have seen so far is Barbara Cassani running around our chambers of commerce having business breakfasts and telling us that we had better get our finger out or we will lose out if London succeeds with the 2012 games. She gives a spurious example of how Queensland did well out of the Sydney Olympics, but always fails to say that the other Australian states were pretty miffed that most of the tourist traffic was diverted to Sydney when the games were held there four years ago.
We do not know how good the games will be for London, but we know for certain that our grass-roots sports, charities and good causes will be dramatically affected by the new Olympic lottery game. I said in an intervention on the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe that we stand to lose £41.8 million from our good causes if the London Olympic bid is successful. That made Sport Scotland raise concerns with the Scottish Executive when we were putting its concerns to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
A spokesman for Sport Scotland said:
"If we lose over GBP 40 million from lottery funds because of the London Olympics we'll need to end whole programmes which provide support to grass root and elite sport in Scotland".
He went on:
"There is a terrible irony in the fact that bringing the greatest sporting show on Earth to the UK could devastate the regeneration of sport in Scotland and set is back 20 years".
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What will we get in return? We are told that we might get the odd football game at Hampden. That is fair enough, but one thing is certain: we will not get any of the semi-finals or quarter-finals or the final at Hampden. We might be lucky if we get Tonga versus Azerbaijan. Unless football somehow turns into a blue riband event in the next 10 to 12 years, I cannot see this amounting to much more than a hill of beans. We are also told that some international teams might come to Scotland to set up a base, but we have also been told clearly that we will have no new resources and no new facilities to host the teams.
I say those things not because I do not want the London bid to be successful; I do want it to be successful. It is a good bid and I think London will secure the games, but my second major point is that if London wants to secure and succeeds in securing the games, London should pay for them. I find it completely unacceptable that the rest of the United Kingdom should be paying for a London Olympic games out of our good causes, our charities and our grass-roots sporting facilities and events.
London is the most prosperous city in Europe. It can more than afford to pay for the games. It has a gross domestic product of some £180 billion—larger than that of Sweden, Austria or Belgium. Surely it can afford to pay for the games itself; it has more millionaires per square mile than any other city in Europe. It has prosperity beyond the dreams of us in the rest of the regions and the other nations of the United Kingdom. It is not as if London does not receive its fair share of public spending; it soaks up some 80 per cent. of all expenditure on transport alone. Extending the Jubilee line to docklands cost £3.5 billion and heaven knows how much the proposed Crossrail will cost. That does not take into account the non-identified spending of Whitehall Departments, the defence of the realm, the BBC and quangos.
Mrs. Jacqui Lait: I represent a London constituency. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware that London will contribute more than other parts of the UK towards the London Olympics, so I hope he corrects the impression that London is not contributing.
Pete Wishart: I gratefully take the hon. Lady's rebuke and I recognise that Londoners are paying more than their fair share for this proposal. I have received several e-mails from disgruntled Londoners about the prospect of paying increased council tax to subsidise the games. Further to the impression created in the debate, I do not think that there is unanimity in London on the Olympics, as there is not unanimity throughout the United Kingdom.
As well as discovering that the rest of the UK will be paying for a share of the London Olympics through the lottery, we now find that the UK taxpayer is to underwrite the London Olympic games. We are told that the cost of the London Olympics is not likely to exceed £2.735 billion, but I was told that the Scottish Parliament would not cost more than £40 million—it now stands at £430 million. It is a big risk for the UK taxpayer to finance and underwrite the London Olympic games.

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When Sydney hosted the games, the New South Wales Government paid for and underwrote the games. New South Wales is not nearly as prosperous as London. If New South Wales could underwrite a Sydney Olympics, surely London, with its devolved local authority and the office of the Mayor, should underwrite the cost if things go pear-shaped financially. If that happens, it is likely to be the UK taxpayer who once again has to bail London out.
I return to the central premise that the games will be good for the rest of the UK. For example, hon. Members have said that they will boost sport at grassroots and youth level, but the simple and obvious fact is that if money is diverted from grass-roots projects to large infrastructure projects in London, it is inevitable that grass-roots projects will suffer. In Scotland, there are massive health and lifestyle problems—including obesity, about which much has been said-notably and sadly among our young people and children. However, for years we have been selling off community and school recreational facilities the length and breadth of our country to bolster the public finances.
We must invest money in grass-roots projects, not in massive infrastructure in London. Our team sports are in decline: one need only mention Wales's performance over the last few weeks to recognise the difficulties that our national teams are experiencing. I remain convinced that money will drift out of local projects and be sucked up in the London Olympic bid.
I hope that London is successful, but I do not want the good causes of Scotland to pay for the London bid. I hope that the Minister will take these points on board and consider the funding of the London Olympic games. Other hon. Members have already mentioned the fact that a lot of money will be drawn from good causes and grass-roots sports events. I hope that the Minister will reconsider how the London games will he financed.
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Mr. Andy Reed: In view of the time, I shall try to be brief to allow the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) to speak. Many points that I wanted to make have already been made, so there is no need to repeat them.
I am grateful to follow the hon. Member for North Tayside (Pete Wishart), who challenges us to think about the issues. Every speaker has laid some of those questions before the Minister, and those of us who served on the Olympic lottery Bill Committee have already done so. I support the London bid, not because I am from London—I am from one of the regions—but because it will add to the enormous drive that we need to put into regenerating sport and replicating that across the country. The choice is either to have a bid or not to have a bid. Which would be better for sport? On balance, I think that a London bid would have an enormous impact on sport and regeneration throughout the country and would be worth while. However, we must answer fundamental questions, especially on funding and the possible impact on grass-roots sport throughout the country over a long period. I hope that the Minister will talk about that.
We will benefit in the regions, and my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) mentioned the role that Loughborough will play; the constituency
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is already geared up to host teams that will be based there. The hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) said that a couple of athletes at the last Olympics were from his constituency. There are about 140 international athlete s in Loughborough, many of whom are in training. I met an Olympic gold medal hope from my constituency only yesterday.
We have a great desire for Athens to be successful, and that also applies to the next generation. Children in schools who are starting to train now will be excited by this year's Olympics; and could compete in London in 2012. We must use and enhance the galvanised interest in sport that we saw at the rugby World cup and that we shall see this year in Athens and in Portugal at football's European championships. We need to translate that from watching on television to ensuring that up and down the country individuals are excited by sport. We must have the infrastructure so that they can move from school to local clubs and can participate at whatever level.
As most hon. Members here know, I play rugby every Saturday at grass-roots level. I have no ambition—perhaps I have a slight ambition to be Jonny Wilkinson and to have dropped that goal—but as one realises from the age of 22 that it is not going to happen, one can enjoy those glorious moments at whatever level. That is the beauty of sport: it brings so many of us together.
It is crucial that the regional impact is driven though and delivered on the ground, as has already been mentioned, and we must ensure that that is done not only for traditional sports. The hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait), who intervened earlier, was at a meeting yesterday with the Women's Sports Foundation. This is a golden opportunity for female sporting heroes—Paula Radcliffe is a constituent of mine—to be seen day in, day out, on our televisions throughout the Olympics. I hope that we can build on that and that women who are excited by the Olympics this year are galvanised for the 2012 games.
There are so many things that I want to say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I am conscious of the fact that others want to speak. I give the games my support, but account must be taken of those cautionary questions, many of which have been asked by other hon. Members.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: With less than half a minute available, I call Mr. Roger Williams.
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Mr. Roger Williams: I am tempted to try for a world record in getting the information out, but I am pleased that everybody here today supports the bid, albeit in their own manner. I would like to support it too, although I should also report the fact that there are some negative feelings in the regions and the devolved nations. The Minister would do well to address those, because we do not want any negative feedback to spoil the bid.
The Sports Council for Wales has already cut the third tranche of the community investment programme, which will mean a reduction in sporting facilities in my constituency. I have had letters from the local authority and from the sports council complaining about the Sports Council for Wales. I would like the Minister to

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assure us that more funding will be put in place, so that we have the athletes to compete successfully in the Olympic games should the bid succeed.
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Simon Hughes: I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) had to make such a brief contribution, but I am pleased to go into bat with others, not just for a London Olympics, but for a UK Olympics for 2012. Although I am a London MP and I have another London interest in the pipeline, I would still argue that London must put in the bid in a way that commands the support of the whole UK. I am convinced that we are going in that direction.
The tradition of Olympic and Commonwealth bids in the UK and elsewhere shows that successful bids benefit more than just the city hosting the games. I was brought up in south Wales and I remember when the Commonwealth games—the Empire games, in those days—took place in Cardiff. They left a legacy that was used not just by people who lived in Cardiff, but by those who came to Cardiff for many years after. The same was true after the Commonwealth games were held in Edinburgh and certainly the same, applied last year, after Manchester had hosted a hugely successful Commonwealth games. The event benefited more than just that part of the country.
The same has been true of Olympic games held in other countries. Of course, the Olympic games have been based in a city—Rome, Munich or Barcelona—but they have had a much wider impact on the country concerned and, if we succeed in the bid next year, that is what an Olympics in London would do.
I want to make three points, one of which addresses head on the concern that there will be a detriment to other parts of the UK. I understand the arguments from Scotland and Wales: we must meet those arguments head on and show how the interests of the rest of the country in promoting sport, participation, healthier living and aspiration to succeed can be met around the country.
First, I shall reiterate the point, although I shall not amplify it in any detail, that if we win the bid next year, many parts of the UK will have a role to play in the build-up to a 2012 Olympics, planning to bring people to the UK, training them and providing venues. That will extend beyond the use of a few football grounds, yachting in Weymouth, shooting in Bisley or rowing at Eton, as all sorts of other venues can and should be involved. Every region of England and every country in the UK must see their place in that
As a positive contribution, I suggest to the Minister that one of the ways in which all parts of London and all other parts of the UK could ensure that they gain something, and are seen to be gaining something, is for each local authority to carry out a consultation with the British Olympic Association. In that consultation the authority would specify the one facility—the one capital investment—that it would most like but which it does not have, such as a swimming pool, an athletics track or a football ground.
The authority would also specify what revenue project it would like, such as coaching in a particular sport. If such consultations could be included in the
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Olympic project, whether they took place in Brecon and Radnorshire, Tayside, Loughborough, Sheffield or anywhere else, people would start to own a project because they would say, "We are going to get something that will be our legacy." They would consider the project funding linked to the Olympic bid.
I would ask that such consultations also take place throughout Greater London. When the idea of the bid was mooted, I said to Barbara Cassani and her team that this must be seen as an all-London bid, not an east London bid. It is important that Wembley, Wimbledon and the centre of London are used, so that all parts of the capital—north, south, east, west and the middle—feel that they have part of the action. I hope that the Minister will be kind enough to consider that suggestion, and I will put it to the BOA that that is a way that we might lock people into the project.
Secondly—this is my contribution that relates specifically to London—there will be legacies from a successful bid that will benefit everyone in the capital, although they will originate in east London. It will be in everyone's interest for a part of London that has suffered from under-investment—where there is still great poverty and where the land is not used to the full—to receive investment. Just as the Thames is cleaner than it was, which is in everybody's interest, so the Lea valley can be cleaner, which is also in everybody's interest.
If we have a much better social and economic infrastructure, if there is a much better transport infrastructure—for example, if the East London line works, is extended and does really well—if more use is made of the river and if there is a Crossrail project, as I hope there will be, everybody who comes to do business in the UK, or comes through London on the way to somewhere else, will benefit. This is not just a London benefit.
Thirdly, our area has the greatest population in the UK. People from all over the country come here for a while as students, trainees or workers—they are Scots, Welsh, English, northerners, southerners, people from Cornwall and everywhere else. The reality is that if facilities are left after the games, people will be more likely to cycle, run, swim or participate when they come to the capital city, so we will be creating a healthier country.
I know that conversations are going on and, to raise an example, we in London are significantly short of major Olympic-size pools. I went on holiday to Tayside last year and visited the swimming pool in Dundee, which is brilliant. I took my nephew there—it was the most exciting thing in the whole of his holiday. He spent the entire day going down the flumes, even the ones that he was not meant to go down. Of course, children always go for the ones that are above their pay grade or age entitlement. The reality is that those activities are not elitist; they engage everybody, including people on holiday. I hope that there will be a project for a decent Olympic-size pool in Hillingdon—in Uxbridge—and another to expand the Crystal Palace pool to full length as well as one in north London to complement the proposal for east London.
It will be in everybody's interest if sustainable jobs are created. It may surprise some colleagues to know that London has the highest unemployment rate of any region in England. It is the wealthiest place, but as in any

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great metropolis or capital city the wealth is not shared equally. We must do something about that and the jobs ought to go to a part of the country where unemployment is particularly high.
The more tourists we bring in as a result of the anticipation of the games, the better—and not just to the London venues. People will come to watch football at Hampden Park or Old Trafford; they will add on a trip to the Olympics that keeps them here. I have friends who have worked in support of Olympic venues around the world. Working people such as them visit the country, but not just for the period of the games, as they stay before and after and visit the rest of the country. This is a great opportunity to bring people to UK plc and sell the whole country.
I want to deal with the financing of the bid. It is important that we deal with this issue head on. There are two stages: there is the bid finance, where we know the Government are making a contribution and when, as I understand it, the figures are simply put in ball park terms. If the bid is successful, it is expected that half the income will come from the private sector by way of revenue. It is proposed that the rest will be split, with two thirds coming from lottery contributions and one third from London. London is contributing; in fact, it is the only place where a public sector contribution is provided for. That contribution is provided by a council tax add-on and from money from the Greater London authority via the London Development Agency.
As I have said on behalf of my party and on my own behalf, if I am lucky enough to take over from the Mayor in June—I hope that that will be the case, because I assure this Chamber, the House, Parliament and the country that I will bat as well for London on the Olympics as anybody could, as I am a passionate sports supporter—it will be on the basis that Londoners make an extra, additional and significant contribution above the rest of the country.
We must ensure that the lottery contribution—the two thirds of the half, or the third of the total—does not suck money out of lottery contributions in the rest of the country. I say that in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire, the hon. Member for North Tayside (Pete Wishart) and others. This is about seeking an add-on, rather than a reduction; it is about ensuring that people contribute more; it is about making sure that we do not lose what we have got.
I am committed to making sure that this is a win-win Olympic bid for the UK and London. I know that all those who are involved in the London promotion take that view. It is important for the bid to be seen as "London for the UK", with all the UK benefiting.
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Mr. Nick Hawkins: I, too, warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) on obtaining this important debate, and I congratulate all those who have spoken so positively about the Olympics. The one person who was relentlessly negative was the hon. Member for North Tayside (Pete Wishart), but I shall come to him later.
I want to reinforce the point made by the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Reed) about the importance of grass-roots sport bringing people
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together. Having spent my 12 years in the House so far playing for various Lords and Commons parliamentary sports teams, I have made a huge number of cross-party friends. It is no surprise to see here the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe, with whom I have played a lot of football, and who introduced the debate, and the hon. Members for Brent, North (Mr. Gardiner) and for Loughborough, with whom I have played a lot of rugby. If it were not for our party differences, I would be tempted to call then, my hon. Friends, and I hope that they would not mind my describing them so.
Sport means the same for people from all walks of life. Through sport, it is r of just politicians who raise money for charity, enjoy themselves and keep fit—it is the same for everybody involved. As hon. Members know, I am delighted to have been made shadow sports spokesman, but I have been a passionate sports competitor and enthusiast all my life. My main sporting involvement as a teenager was in swimming. I was not quite good enough for the Olympic team, but I was lucky enough to be coached by the treat Britain Olympic coach who took our swimming I earn to the 1972 Munich Olympics, and I did swim for the midlands against Wales and Scotland.
The experience in my early life of being coached by a British Olympic coat h meant that I had the opportunity to swim for the same team as many of our Olympic swimmers. Brian Brinkley, the club captain of my swimming club, the Bedford Modernians, was the captain of the British Olympic swimming team at the 1972 games. Subsequently, he has become the coach to Northampton swimming club, and he is in the process of taking over from Charlie Wilson, who used to coach us both as teenagers— I am glad to say that Charlie is recovering from a stroke, and recently I was lucky enough to be able to entertain him for lunch at the House. Having inculcated in young people all the sporting ambitions of generations of swimmers, Charlie carried on coaching at the top level well into his 70s, and is only now handing over our old club to Brian Brinkley.
The Olympics encourage sporting achievement and the application and commitment of volunteers down the generations. I have seen that for myself, and I see it now in my constituency and throughout the country.
The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon, Hughes) mentioned shooting at Bisley. Many hon. Members will have heard me refer to the fact that my constituency is bound to be involved if the UK wins the bid for 2012, which we hope it will. Shooting can take place at only one venue in the UK, because of changes in our laws on shooting after the terrible tragedy at Dunblane. Bisley is the only place in the UK where shooting for the Olympics can take place, and it was where shooting took place for the Commonwealth games, despite their being held in Manchester. Bisley was the only southern venue, and my constituents were proud to play a part in the Manchester games—I was lucky enough to be invited to present some of the shooting; medals. To return to the theme of the debate, I know that areas away from London, such as my constituency will benefit from the Olympics, because we benefited from the Commonwealth games.
It is important to recognise that all our constituents, from throughout the UK, including Scotland and Wales, will benefit. People from the north of Scotland, the most rural parts of Wales and Northern Ireland and

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the furthest reaches of Cornwall will benefit. Constituents such as those of the hon. Member for North Tayside will also want to attend the Olympics. The crucial point, however, is that, as we found with two sadly unsuccessful Manchester bids, only a capital city will give the UK the chance of winning a bidding competition—nobody else has mentioned that this afternoon, but I see the hon. Member for Brent, North nodding. I very much agreed with everything that he said, because in the build-up to what we hope will be a successful bid, we must accentuate the positive. Perhaps the Scottish nationalists feel that filling their leaflets with relentlessly negative anti-London propaganda will strike a chord with some of the people who they hope will vote for them.
My reading of the economics of the UK as a whole is that it is the fantastically successful invisible earnings of the City of London that have helped to subsidise UK plc. Constituencies represented by SNP Members have benefited from a London-driven subsidy involving the contributions that all taxpayers make. That has been provided to Scotland by all taxpayers for generations. The Scottish nationalists say that only London will benefit. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) knows lot about matters north of the border, and has pointed out that Londoners are paying more than their fair share under the enhanced precept. London supports the bid, and I believe that the whole of the UK will do so. I hope that the Scottish nationalists will drop their relentlessly negative anti-London approach.
I want to put some points to the Minister in the same constructive spirit as that of the hon. Members for Brent, North, for Loughborough and for Sheffield, Attercliffe. Since I took on my shadow brief, I have had many discussions with lots of leading administrators in various sports. The same matter has been raised by many people and organisations. The Football Association is responsible for the pitches that soccer is played on at every level. People sometimes think that there must be plenty of money in football because the premiership clubs spend so much, but the vast majority of football is played by amateurs on local authority pitches. There is a shortfall of about £2 billion with regard to the need to upgrade local authority pitches.
The Government have said that they are committing money to sport. Much of that has riot got to the sharp end, but I want it to get there. Lots of that money is wrapped up and lost in departmental bureaucracy. That is not this Minister's fault. Three years ago, the Government promised that £750 million of new funding would go to school sport, but less than £9 million has been spent so far; that is less than 2 per cent. The Prime Minister announced that with a great fanfare, but little of the money has got to where it is needed.
The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey talked about the need for the private sector to be more involved in the Olympic bid. He is right. There are a number of things that could improve the Government's preparations for winning the bid. In recent deliberations on the Horserace Betting and Olympic Lottery Bill, we said that the Olympic lottery ought to start earlier to bring money in sooner. The Government have conceded that it would be possible to do that under International Olympic Committee rules. We also believe that the Government are wrong to
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concentrate so much on public sector involvement. A much bigger private sector element ought to be involved in all the Government's planning from now on. I hope that the Minister will respond to that point.
The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey came up with the idea that every local authority in the country ought to identify one new capital project. I think that part of the problem with funding for sport is that there has been far too much concentration on brand new, bright and shiny capital facilities and not enough on revenue funding. That has certainly been the case since this Government came to power.
On the concerns of the FA and other governing bodies about pitches, local authorities have found that although the Government keep claiming that they have put a little bit more money the local authorities' way, it has not been enough to compensate for all the extra statutory duties, which cost a lot of money, particularly for small local authorities such as mine in Surrey Heath. Some of the money for local authorities must be ring-fenced to be spent on upgrading sports pitches.
The competitors who are using the local authority pitches now are going to be the athletes who we hope will win medals in 2012. They are using substandard facilities such as badly drained pitches. We want them to have better facilities so that we can win the bid and ensure that they win gold, silver and bronze medals for us in 2012.
We must get the money out of the bureaucracy, where it is swallowed up. Leading figures in sport such as Trevor Brooking could tell the Minister how to get that money to the sharp end. He should get away from the shiny new capital schemes, spend it on revenue and ring-fence it. I see that the hon. Member for Brent, North agrees with me.
3.20 pm
The Minister for Sport and Tourism (Mr. Richard Caborn): I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) on securing the debate. He has represented his constituents very well. I am one of them. I disagree with his criticism at the end, but I will take issue with him about that later at the management committee.
There has been support from all sides—even slightly grudgingly from the Scot nats. The International Olympic Committee will know that there is unanimity of purpose in securing the bid in 2012. There is popular support for this bid right across the UK. Indeed, the opinion polls that we did before the bid showed support at around about 80 per cent., and it was higher in Scotland than in some parts of London. There is therefore support right across the nation. That is to be welcomed. As we go into the more difficult parts of this bid when the competition will get much fiercer internationally, it is important that that unanimity of purpose holds together. The English language newspapers are probably reported disproportionately around the world. What is said by leading spokespersons on this issue is reported.
I should like to put the timetable on the record. As everyone knows, on 15 January this year we submitted the big questionnaire to the IOC. The next date is 18 May when the candidate cities will be announced. On 15

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November submissions from the candidates will be filed to the IOC. The IOC valuation team will visit the candidate cities in February and March next year and the selection for the host city for 2012 will be made on 6 July 2005. The launch got off to an extremely good start. It was well reported and there was unanimity of purpose.
There are two areas that I shall focus on in the limited time available. One is the regions and the other is expenditure. I was a little bit disappointed by the comments of the hon. Member for North Tayside (Pete Wishart). Barbara Cassani is going around the whole of the UK. Her first port of call was rightly Scotland. She got an extremely good reception there. She stressed the opportunities that would be opening up over the period up to the bid and, we hope, beyond. Her work has been welcome. She has also been to Wales, Gateshead, Newcastle and Sheffield. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe and I were present when she gave a speech to Sheffield's powerful chamber of commerce. She was well received. It was not just about Sheffield. She brought in the whole of Yorkshire, the decision makers in local authorities, businesses, and the communities.
Barbara Cassani's next visit will be to the south-west. She is hoping to cover the whole of the United Kingdom within the foreseeable future. I hope that hon. Members will take the opportunity to make their points to her and her team as she goes around the UK. She is incredibly receptive to that. The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) asked whether we could focus on a particular project. That should be taken up with the members of the 2012 bid. Again, I have no doubt that when they read the record of this debate, they will respond.
Activities outside the capital include shooting at Bisley, sailing at Weymouth and rowing at Dorney. The development of Weymouth and the extension of the holiday season based on one sport have brought about quite a lot of regeneration in that area. The Olympic football competition can go round many cities in the United Kingdom. Holding camps are extremely important. If we do not look city by city, we must consider counties. For example, Yorkshire is already considering what it can do collectively as a region to attract teams and whether facilities can be shared in Sheffield, York, Leeds and so on. It is examining matters strategically.
Volunteers must not be underestimated. I hope that a lot of them will come from Scotland. Many say that the success of the Commonwealth games in Manchester was due to the volunteers. Manchester gave them a tremendously warm welcome. They helped to produce what many say now were the best Commonwealth games ever. In fact, 24,500 people applied for just over
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10,000 places. About 60,000 volunteers were employed at Sydney—47,000 at the Olympics and 15,000 at the Paralympics. Many people in north-west England now have jobs who would not have done were it not for their training and development at the Commonwealth games. That had a big impact on regeneration through sport.
The bid will leave a legacy that could be managed slightly more effectively than was the case in some other cities that hosted the Olympics, and we are carefully considering such matters. If the hon. Member for North Tayside was being honest about public financing, he could have mentioned the Barnett formula. That would have put public finance into real perspective, but I shall put that to one side.
Our bid has been unique. The first estimate from Ove Arup for holding the Olympic games was £3.6 billion. We considered that, and the income that would be raised. Television rights and ticketing would raise about £2.5 billion, and we calculated that we would be left with a deficit of £1.16 billion, to be found from public funding.
As the Secretary of State and I visited cities throughout the world that had hosted the Olympics, the single message that came across was, "Do not underestimate on the finance. Once you set the budget and you go below it at any stage, the bid will seem a failure." Sydney said loud and clear to us that, if there was one mistake that it made, it was not putting in the contingency that was necessary. It is about creating atmospheres, and that is exactly what happened at the Commonwealth games in Manchester. Those games became the best Commonwealth games ever, but during the first three months of preparation there were real financial problems. More time was spent on trying to manipulate budgets to meet the expenditure than on organising the games, as should have been happening.
We have rightly doubled the £1.16 billion estimate to £2.375 billion, which has put more than £1 billion of contingency into the figures. The criticisms about London not bearing the costs are unfair. The council tax will bear £625 the lottery will bear £1.56 billion and, as been said, the London Development Agency will bear £250 million. The public subsidy will come from such sources, but I believe that putting the other £1.1 billion into the equation will ensure that the games can be set up robustly.
There was a big debate with the official Opposition about whether we launch the lottery before or after the hid for the games in July 2005. We decided that it would be right to do so after that time because of the impact on good causes. We believe that once that comes on board, we will see an increase. There will be a displacement—of that there is no doubt—of around £64 million per year. We—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We must now turn our attention to acute hospital services.

Acute Hospital Services
3.30 pm
Mr. Kerry Pollard: I am delighted to have secured this debate on the most important topic of acute health service provision. I want to concentrate my remarks on the provision of acute services in the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire strategic health authority area, which of course includes my constituency, St. Albans.
A little time spent on the local health service history will help us to get the current situation into perspective. Some 25 years ago, a proposal to build a large new hospital between Hemel Hempstead and St. Albans serving both communities was thrown out, as neither community was prepared to close their respective local hospitals. The local services stared on a slow but inevitable decline. Five years ago there was a similar exercise, which was slightly wider in scope. It involved the prospect of a large new hospital—a centre of excellence—but again it would hi ye meant some re-alignment —of services at local hospitals. Once more the respective communities could not agree, and the issue was dropped. Once again it became more difficult to maintain good local services.
We come now to the latest exercise. This time, a full and comprehensive consultation exercise took place—infact, the most detailed and comprehensive that I have ever taken part in or witnessed. Finally, it appeared that a consensus was emerging, and that there was a proposal that the whole two-county community could support. However, when it came to making the decision, a single primary care trust, Dacorum, decided not to support the majority view on a purely parochial basis—that is, because Hemel Hempstead hospital would have to undergo a small realignment of it services.
All agree that the status quo is not an option. Our acute services are among the most stretched in the country. They operate from small, inefficient hospitals that are much in need of reinvestment in their superstructure, and that have difficulty recruiting and retaining high-quality staff. There are times—and this is one—when communities need to reflect on the long term, with the well-being of the whole community in view, and when all those involved in decision taking and leadership need to reflect properly on how our acute services should be developed in the next few years to give us all the services that we need and deserve. We must grasp this opportunity; it will not recur. The alternative is a deterioration of our services, a lack of morale among our clinicians, and people having to travel further and further to access decent services.
Option 2 received the support of 90 per cent. of the population. That was to include a new centre of excellence hospital, which was to be constructed on one of two sites, both adjacent to the university of Hertfordshire. In addition, a new diagnostic and treatment centre was to be built at Hemel Hempstead, and there were to be improvements to the estates of all the other hospital sites. Furthermore, it was hoped that a medical school could be opened at the university of Hertfordshire. That idea has the full and enthusiastic support of the university, which already has a very good medical training faculty in radiography and nursing. Indeed, my youngest daughter is a first-year
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undergraduate on a nursing diploma there. To the majority, that seems a good deal for our two counties, ensuring, as it would, high-quality health services able to recruit top-quality clinicians at all levels. That proposal would take us forward for the next 20 years with a service of which we could all be proud.
Some details of the consultation process will be helpful. More than 1,600 questionnaires were returned, and 130 members of the public responded directly in writing. Some 100 people were involved in focus group discussion, and about 6,800 people signed petitions. There were 5,000 attendees at public and staff events, and there were at least 16,000 contacts with the consultation in one way or another.
At the end of the process, Ian White, the chairman of the strategic health authority, said:
"Option two is not about winners and losers, it is about the benefit to whoever uses health services across the two counties".
There can be no one in the two counties who was not aware of what was proposed, and there were many opportunities for people to make their views known. The local press and media were full of the issue every single week.
I took part personally in the consultation exercise, attending many meetings that were attended by the public, health representatives, local authority elected members, primary care trust workers, nurses, midwives, community health councils and local charities. We discussed at length the options included in the consultation document. There were wide-ranging responses, all in support of the recommendation in the document. Scrutiny committees for health of all local councils, including Hertfordshire county council, supported it, as did primary care trust boards, elected representatives and the vast majority of the public who responded. The only group that was against the recommendation—Dacorum primary care trust—took a full and active part in the deliberations, was listened to and put forward its representations.
No group or individual that wanted to take part was prevented from joining in. The strategic health authority went out of its way to be as inclusive as possible. That was to its credit. I am satisfied that a full and proper consultation exercise was carried out.
I was therefore particularly disappointed when a group in Hemel Hempstead decided to call for a judicial review of the consultation process. As I said earlier, I have never experienced or taken part in a more detailed and comprehensive consultation exercise in all my years as a public representative. I commend Ian White and his team, who undertook all that hard work.
I believe that the judicial review will conclude that everything that should have been done, was done. The process was open, clear and fair, and the conclusion arrived at was supported by the overwhelming majority of the primary care trusts and their constituent public.
I also hope that once the review—which I believe will totally vindicate the strategic health authority-is complete, those who have brought that frivolous call for a review will be surcharged for the cost of the whole judicial review exercise. It has been estimated that £250,000 could be spent on legal representation alone. That money would pay for hundreds of much-needed operations, many on the elderly. It is outrageous that

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that amount of money should be wasted so flagrantly. I would be failing my constituents if I did not call for that money to be recouped from those who have brought the action.
I have sought advice from the Department for Constitutional Affairs on the prospect of recouping the money expended from those who brought the matter to court. The head of the civil initiatives branch tells me that it is normal practice for the loser to pay for both sides. That means that, when the court finds in favour of the strategic health authority—as I believe is inevitable—a judge can, and in my view should, order that those who brought the issue to court will have to pay the costs of both sides.
It is not just the money for legal representation that concerns me, but the amount of time that senior staff at the strategic health authority will have to spend on preparing their defence against the review. The action by the group in Hemel Hempstead is potentially damaging the whole acute service throughout both counties, and at its worst that could mean that there will be no new acute services there.
The people of Hemel Hempstead have not been told the full facts by those who are pursuing the judicial review. Their hospital will not close. A new diagnostic and treatment centre will be built, and apart from the most acute trauma, all cases will continue to be treated at their own accident and emergency unit. Recently, the Hemel Hospital action group has been orchestrating a personal attack against me. The latest incident was a letter to our local press attacking my honesty and integrity. Those are desperate measures from desperate people. Should they continue, I may resort to the courts on my own account.
In summary on this part of my speech, it is recognised that the Herts and Beds is now lagging behind in the provision of good hospital services. That needs to be addressed. Investment in a new hospital, in diagnostic and treatment centres and in upgrading minor injuries and day surgery units must proceed as soon as possible. There cannot be anyone in the two counties who has not heard of the proposals. All have had their opportunity to take part in the fullest and most comprehensive exercise that I have ever witnessed. The judicial review is under consideration and my hon. Friend the Minister will not be able to comment on that matter.
I should now like to outline some of the major improvements and new building at my local hospital in St. Albans. Since 1997, there have been many improvements at our city hospital. One of my first acts on being elected to Parliament was to turn the first sod on a new hydrotherapy facility. Two years later it was opened, providing much-needed hydrotherapy for those suffering from the effects of strokes and other conditions such as amputations. Shortly after that, a disused operating theatre, which had been used as a storeroom, was brought back into full use, and I had the privilege of formally opening it. In addition, a new orthopaedic ward was opened to support the work of the new theatre.
The day surgery unit has been upgraded and I visit it regularly. The last time was when I visited one of my sons, who was having an operation on his knee. The
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atmosphere is comforting: tea and toast on tap, with light background music. Senior sister Eileen Kent is the driving force behind this excellent service, a model for others to follow.
There have also been major improvements to the minor injuries unit, which is led by senior sister Rita Dunkerly, who has a first-class team of nurse practitioners helping her. One waits only minutes at the unit. Of particular note is the directly employed cleaner, who keeps the place spick and span and takes real pride in her work. It is recognised by one and all how vital cleanliness is to the well-being of the unit.
A few months ago we were fortunate enough to receive a visit from the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman), who has responsibility for regional health. He toured the whole hospital as part of a fact-finding tour. More recently, a further newly built operating theatre was opened by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health. That theatre will be used to reduce orthopaedic waiting lists. Its opening was followed by the expansion of the previously opened orthopaedic ward to enable more complex operations to be carried out.
In the immediate future, I am due to open formally a block of key-worker housing units on the hospital site, which will provide vital housing for some of our key staff. Only two years ago, our nearby special care baby unit was shut down because qualified staff could not be recruited. The overriding reason for the lack of applicants was the high cost of housing and the lack of affordable key-worker housing units. Under the chairmanship of Rosie Sanderson and with chief executive Val Harrison, the trust took the decision to construct the key-worker unit. That will help immensely with the recruitment of key staff.
I have mentioned a few key players at our local hospital, but I must commend all staff—medical, nursing and ancillary—who are dedicated to providing a first-class service on behalf of my constituents, the people of St. Albans. I offer them my sincere thanks for all their hard and dedicated work.
Our primary care trust is chaired by John Bennet and its chief executive is Steve Knighton. It is ready to take over responsibility for running our city hospital as soon as practically possible. I believe that our hospital could and should become a foundation hospital. I have every confidence in the ability of my fellow citizens to manage our hospital facility locally, and I give the proposal my full support. Local services managed by local people: a winning combination.
Finally, our acute services are on the verge of great things. We need to be bold and decisive and look to the long term and to the well-being and advantage of the whole community. If we do that, we can have a service that is the equal of any, and in which we can have confidence and pride.
3.44 pm
The Minister of state, Department of Health (Ms Rosie Winterton): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr. Pollard) on securing the debate. I know that it relates to a matter of great concern to him and his constituents. I am extremely impressed by the depth of his knowledge of local staff and services. He

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has done a lot to praise local people for their hard work in providing those services, but I am sure that they are proud to have an MP who works so hard on their behalf. I know that my hon. Friend wants to see provided locally the high-quality health services that his community expects and deserves. That vision of the health service is shared by the Department of Health and the local NHS in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire.
My hon. Friend has referred to many changes that have been made locally, and I want to draw attention to other changes, particularly in funding, that have come about since the Government came to power. My hon. Friend will know that since 1997, total funding for the NHS in England has increased by £34 billion. In his 2002 Budget, the Chancellor announced the largest sustained increase in funding of any five-year period in the history of the NHS, with a real-terms increase in resources of 7.4 per cent. each year between now and 2007–08.
What does that mean locally? St. Albans and Harpenden primary care trust will receive an increase of £28.35 million over the three years to 2006, which represents a cash increase of 29.43 percent, for the same period. Those allocations have been made directly to primary care trusts as part of the process of shifting the balance of power so that more resources and responsibilities are in the hands of front-line services. PCTs now control more than 75 per cent. of the NHS budget.
That substantial increase in investment has brought with it the need to review services within the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire area and ensure that they are modernised so that the best use is made of the new resources. As my hon. Friend s aid, the decision to review acute services for Hertfordshire and South Bedfordshire was taken in January 2002. That review was later widened to encompass all of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, with the aim of securing an holistic approach to managing health services and a stronger emphasis on the interface between specialist, acute, intermediate and primary care services. Indeed, the local strategic health authority has already invested heavily in the local health economy.
As my hon. Friend said, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire's preferred choice was option 2, but that has been subject to a legal challenge by the Dacorum health action group, which is seeking leave for judicial review. I am afraid that, as my hon. Friend recognised, I am unable to comment further on the proposed reconfiguration of services in the area in view of those legal proceedings, because the matter is clearly sub judice.
The reconfiguration of hospital services is often controversial, and my hon. Friend referred to the interest that local people were taking in it. However, within the "Shifting the Balance of Power" initiative we are trying to devolve funding decisions to a local level—to primary care trusts working in partnership with strategic health authorities and other local stakeholders. We believe that they can determine how best to use their funds to meet national and local priorities for improving health and tackling health inequalities while also modernising services. They are in the best position to do that because of their knowledge of the local community. The guidance "Keeping the NHS Local" was published by the Department of Health in February 2003. It is not
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a blueprint for hospital design, but it empowers local NHS services to work with local populations, helping them to decide together what pattern of local services will best meet everyone's needs.
The guidance sets out three core principles that should be followed when a major change to services is considered. Principle No. 1 is that options for change should be developed with—not for—patients, staff and local people. That means sitting down with the stakeholders at the outset and ensuring that everyone's priorities within an area are understood.
Principle No. 2 is that where possible services should be redesigned rather than relocated. In many cases, the redesign of services can provide new options for maintaining services locally. Principle No. 3 is about taking a view of the whole system; hospitals and other health and social care providers working in partnership can support each other with genuine integration and joint planning of services.
A legal framework underpins these principles for patient and public involvement in health. There is the statutory duty to involve and consult, which commenced on 1 January 2003. The Department's guidance, "Strengthening Accountability", which was issued in February 2003, sets out a range of suggestions for practical ways of involving the public in an accessible and rigorous way.
The Health and Social Care Act 2001 gave new powers to the overview and scrutiny committees of local authorities to review and scrutinise the planning operation and development of health services, so that democratically elected representatives of local people with responsibility for their well-being exercise proper influence over the NHS on their behalf. We have given the overview and scrutiny committees the right to refer proposals to the Secretary of State if they consider that public involvement has been inadequate or that the process itself is flawed. "Investing in Your Health" went through two local scrutiny processes and, as my hon. Friend knows, both confirmed that they were happy with the process and the outcome.
We have tried to put in train measures to ensure that in local areas where there is a reconfiguration of services there is proper patient and public involvement, and that those decisions are taken at local level, secure in the knowledge that local people will best be able to determine the priorities of their local communities.
My hon. Friend referred to Ministers' visits to his constituency. The Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman), and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State have taken a keen interest in the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire services. They have visited them in recent months and they were incredibly impressed by the enthusiasm and dedication of local staff working on the front line.
As my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans said, on 27 November, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State opened a modular theatre costing about £850,000 at St. Albans, which provides an additional day-surgery theatre; in total there are five such new facilities. By opening those facilities, the West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust will ensure that it meets the target of a maximum nine-month wait for surgery by March 2004 and a six-month wait by 2005.

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The West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust has also drawn up proposals for the centralisation of breast services and for the relocation of ophthalmology services. The centralisation of breast services will provide access to clinics for four days every week for women in West Hertfordshire. That will ensure a speedy response to referral and access to surgery on an elective site, reducing the anxiety that women experience once a breast lump has been found. The ophthalmology service will concentrate on the provision of cataract surgery in an environment that lends itself to such a service.
As I said, my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet visited the four acute trusts in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire and saw areas in which investment had already been delivered. For example, a state-of-the-art magnetic resonance imaging, fracture clinic and dermatology treatment centre opened its doors to patients at Hemel Hempstead general hospital in March. That investment means that patients and staff have a new treatment area. The final phases of the project to construct an X-ray reception opened at the end of July. The Hemel birth centre, which opened on 31 March 2003, is a self-contained unit run by midwives, which offers a supportive "home from home" environment in which mothers can give birth.
As I have said, new investment is being made in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans. He is obviously supportive of that and is working with the local primary care trusts, the strategic health authority, patients and the public in his constituency to ensure that the priorities that are decided reflect local needs. At national level, we provide extra investment. My hon. Friend will know that improving health services is a key priority of this Government. The success with which improvement is taking place in my hon. Friend's constituency has impressed my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet and the Secretary of State.
I know that the issue that my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans raised is a matter of great concern, and that he understands the difficulty that I have in further commenting on it. However, I hope that he would agree that the changes that we are making are delivering real improvements for patients and the public.

Peak Park Planning Board
3.58 pm
Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: I am grateful to have the opportunity to raise the issue of representation on national parks. I wish to discuss specifically the Peak District national park, which covers about 50 per cent. of my constituency. When I first entered the House of Commons, the issue of representation on the national parks was always controversial and lively. Indeed, there was a feeling that not enough local people were involved in administering national parks. I always accepted that there must be a proper balance between local and national representation, because the Peak District is a national park with a huge number of visitors.
Against that background, I introduced a ten-minute Bill on 4 July 1989, which would have greatly increased the number of local representatives on the national park. I was pleased to receive cross-party support for the measure; in fact, many distinguished hon. Members supported the Bill, not least the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Bennett), who is now the Chairman of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning and Local Government Committee. The Bill also received support from my right hon. Friends the Members for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) and for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry). From the Liberal Democrats, I was supported by the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith). That showed that at that time there was considerable concern about the way that the governance of the national parks was being distributed.
In 1995, my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), the then Secretary of State for the Environment, was very aware of those comments. In the Environment Act 1995 he did a great deal to address the balance of local representation on the national parks by including in that representation a proportion of parish representatives. It is worth noting that now throughout the major national parks there are 37 parish representatives out of a total of 183 members of the national parks. They have contributed valuably to the way in which the parks are administered and controlled.
I say to the Minister in all seriousness that from my point of view the parish representatives have managed to let people feel that there is an elected element in the national parks. A number of people argue that we should have a fully elected national park body. I have never been convinced by that argument because, as I said at the beginning of my comments, there are wider issues to consider in the way in which the national parks are managed and organised. Since the franchise was widened, I have been aware of fewer complaints about the way in which the national parks operate. Although at the time a number of people criticised the involvement of parish councillors; with the national parks, it has been valuable for the functioning of the national parks.
As any Member of Parliament knows, we have no authority over planning committees or national parks. Sometimes—no doubt like you, Mr. Deputy Speaker—I am grateful that we have no power over planning committees. Sometimes I think that I could do a better job than the planning committees, but perhaps we all

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feel that. The only real way for a Member of Parliament to get involved is to ask the Deputy Prime Minister to call in a planning application once a determination has been made.
I recently wrote to the Deputy Prime Minister on the matter of Stanton Lees and Endcliffe quarry, asking him to call that application in. It is slightly different with quarry applications because they are deemed to be quarries and therefore there is deemed to be permission. That is a controversial issue, which I shall not press the Minister on today because whether it should be called in does not fall directly within his remit. On Stanton Lees and Endcliffe, we have now had eco-warriors camping, squatting and living for the past four years. The people in surrounding villages want a determination and they feel that the situation has been going on for far too long. There are certain timetables in tile offing. This is a controversial matter. The Minister will be aware of that from wider experience. It is causing a great deal of concern in that area of the national parks.
There are 11 national parks in England and Wales. They are the most outstanding naturally beautiful parts of our country; that is how they were designated when first set up under the Bill that had its Second Reading in the House in March 1949. The Peak District national park was one of the first to be set up. Things have obviously moved on since then. The area covered by the Peak District is huge. The Environment Act 1995 established the park authorities as autonomous and understood that local people should have a say about their area and the planning decisions that affected them. That is where I want greater local representation.
However, the Secretary of State announced some time ago that there would be a review of the English national parks. Recommendation 22 of the Government's report, published in July 2002, suggested a cap on membership of 20 to 25, with three fifths being local and two fifths national. I think that the Minister has decided that, in the main, there should be a cap of 22 to 25 members. That may be right for other national parks, but I am not here to talk about them. I am here to say that that would be the wrong size for the Peak District national park.
Currently, the Peak District has 38 members, and I can accept the argument that that is a very large committee and that the number should be reduced. I have no argument with the Government when they say that they want to reduce the numbers that make up the national park. At the moment, 20 members represent the county, district, city or borough councils. All 12 local authorities have at least one representative. Derbyshire, as a county, has 31,250 residents, but Derbyshire Dales, the district that covers the vast part of my constituency, has a population of 24,711.
If we went down to 26 members, my concern would be that Derbyshire Dales district council would have only one representative on the national park. That is why I should like the Government to announce a membership of 30. That would enable Derbyshire Dales to have two representatives on the national park, which is important for local accountability. I want to discuss that later. Currently, the Secretary of State Erectly appoints 18 members: 10 to bring other matters, such as national interests, into the management of the park, and eight to represent parish councils.
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I believe that the national park is unique. I am always careful when I use that expression because I am always told off when I do so, but the park is so different from all the other national parks. It is the second most populous national park, with a population of more than 38,000. Only the Lake District national park has a larger population, of more than 42,000.
No other national park covers the area of so many local authorities or has so much local authority involvement as the Peak District. It covers part of six counties and 12 local authorities, including Cheshire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire county councils and Sheffield city council. Then there are the districts or metropolitan areas: Barnsley, High Peak, Kirklees, Macclesfield and Oldham borough councils, and Derbyshire Dales, North East Derbyshire and Staffordshire Moorlands district councils. The Lake District national park covers only four councils, so there is a great divergence with the Peak District national park. The Peak District is within an hour's drive of 60 per cent. of the United Kingdom's population—and some weekends, it feels like they are all going there.
I should like to see better local representation being maintained. One danger of moving to a smaller number of people on the national park would be less good local representation. As I mentioned, there are controversial planning applications to be dealt with. I have addressed the ones relating to quarrying, which are constant; they are always very controversial. I mentioned Stanton Lees and Endcliffe, and not so long ago there was the question of the future of Longstone Edge, which was also very controversial. The decisions that are taken by the Peak District national park authority have considerable effects on the local environment, road traffic and the very nature of the area.
As I said, I fully accept that 38 members may be considered too many, and that a reduction from the current size could well help to improve the efficiency of decision making, and that that is reasonable; but the number should not be less than 30. Even the Peak District national park authority has said,
"our membership cannot be less than 30 without having a severe and unreasonable impact on the representation of people who live within the National Park".
If one looks at the populations of the various districts inside the national park, it soon becomes obvious why Derbyshire Dales should have more representatives than the other authorities. Barnsley has 68 people living inside the national park; Oldham has 93; North East Derbyshire has 147; Kirklees has 202; Sheffield has 965; Macclesfield has 1,268; Staffordshire Moorlands has 3,875; and High Peak has 6,501. In Derbyshire Dales, however, the population living inside the national park is 24,711. To put it another way, 65 per cent. of the people living in the national park are in the area of Derbyshire Dales. That is one of the reasons why I would say to the Minister that taking the figure below 30, which would cut Derbyshire Dales representation down to one, is not acceptable. I urge the Minister not to take us back to a situation in which the whole question of the representation of the national park becomes an issue. That is not in the national park's interest, and is certainly not in the Government's interest. However, a worry has been going around that that could happen. As quickly as possible, we need to bring things to a conclusion so that people accept that there is greater representation.

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If the Minister accepts the number of 30, it is also the case that the parish council members, who are appointed by the Secretary of State but elected by the parish councils, will go from eight to six. That reduction is acceptable and would be understood. If the number went down to 26, we would be almost halving the parish council representation and that would be a disastrous decision.
This is not a huge issue, but it is important. The Peak District national park is important to the millions who visit it—I say millions because we get more than 20 million visitors each year. It is described as the lungs of the United Kingdom. People from Sheffield, Manchester, the west midlands, Nottingham and other large conurbations literally flood into the national park on weekends and bank holidays, and for their holidays. Maintaining the beauty of the area and ensuring that the planning authority has proper representation is therefore an important issue.
The Minister has earned the reputation within the national parks as somebody who cares about them. He has given a lot of time in his ministerial job to their development. I know that he recently visited the Youth Hostels Association in Matlock, which is outside, but close to the national park, and he no doubt visited parts of the Peak district; in fact, I think that he visited the Peak district one afternoon when I could not be there. I hope that he puts this matter to rest so that the questions that have been surrounding the issue of membership of the national park since the review was published on 2 July can be answered. People will then know where they stand.
4:14pm
The Minister for Rural Affairs and Local Environmental Quality(Alun Michael): I congratulate the hon. Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin) on obtaining this Adjournment debate and giving me a pleasant opportunity to deal with one of the most interesting and varied topics of my portfolio. As I respond to the debate, I am conscious that I do so not only under your watchful eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but under that of the chair of the Peak District national park authority, Mr. Tony Hams.
The hon. Gentleman has rightly raised this issue with me before, and I am grateful for his courtesy in spelling out his concerns in advance of the debate. The issue has also been raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Staffordshire, Moorlands (Charlotte Atkins) and for High Peak (Tom Levitt), by the leader of Derbyshire county council and, on behalf of the Derbyshire Dales district council, John Williams. I have also taken the opportunity to discuss the issue with the chair of the national park authority and, more generally, with members of the national park authority at the beginning of October. The hon. Gentleman rightly says that I spent some time in the Peak District national park looking at the authority's work, meeting its members and its chief executive, Jim Dixon, who was previously an excellent member of the team within the Department
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for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, and who has put his skills to good use in the service of the national park authority. He has a considerably more attractive office with a more attractive view as an officer of the national park authority than when he was part of DEFRA's team in London.
It is a particular privilege to have national parks in my portfolio. It builds on an earlier privilege because I grew up on the edge of the Snowdonia national park. I have appreciated in recent months the opportunity to make some comparison of the work of the different national park authorities and the incredible treasure that we have in the immense range of landscape, flora and fauna in the English national parks. It is a collection of landscapes that together form an immensely important national asset. Representation on national parks has been a sensitive issue the hon. Gentleman said, and I am glad that he referred to his earlier contributions to debate on the issue. I am particularly glad that he agrees with the idea of reducing numbers and I concur that we should not go too far: we must obtain the right balance in the end.
On 4 July 1989, the hon. Gentleman sought to strengthen local representation—as he said, the 1996 legislation subsequently dealt with that. However, it is worth reminding the House of objections to his views at that time. I see from the record that my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) said that the hon. Gentleman
"presented the Bill because of his experiences with the Peak park joint planning board",
and went on to say that his views were
"over the top"
because
"that provision is merely part of the hon. Gentleman's general vendetta against Derbyshire county council."—[Official Report, 4 July 1989; Vol. 156, c. 157.]
Obviously, these are historic documents which reflect contemporary disagreements, but I am happy to confirm that the idea of reducing numbers is not part of a vendetta against anybody. It is part of a purpose to make the national park authorities more efficient and effective, without losing proper representation of different interests.
Mr. McLoughlin: I do not want to spend too much time on the ten-minute Bill that I promoted in 1989, but I am sure that the Minister will realise that I had the House's permission to bring in the Bill, and obtained some very attractive sponsors, as I said earlier-not least Dale Campbell-Savours, who is no longer in the House, and the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Bennett), the current Chairman of the Select Committee. The "mere vendetta" was shared by others as well.
Alun Michael: I am glad to hear the case for the defence.
I should like to explain the background to the recommendations that I am making. My conclusion, on reading the recommendations of the national parks review, was that we should reduce the membership of national park authorities to 22, where possible, or 26. In

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view of the particular circumstances in the Peak District national park, where there is a large number of local authorities—and where representation is therefore a rather more complex issue than it is for the other national parks in England—and also in view of the opinions expressed by hon. Members of all parties and the chairman of the national park authority, I have concluded that 30 is the number to which we should move.
It is not just a question of my making that decision. I remind hon. Members of the process for altering the membership of a park authority, which is set out in statute in schedule 7 of the Environment Act 1995. The legislation has several important requirements. In summary, the size of the park authority can be altered only by statutory instrument. The statutory instrument changes the overall size; it does not alter the balance of membership in terms of the number of local authority and Secretary of State appointments or, within the Secretary of State element, the number of members that she appoints directly and the number that are nominated by the parish councils.
A consequence of that balance of elements in the membership is that only certain sizes are possible. That reduces the options available to us to 18, 22, 26, 30, 34 and so on. Also, any statutory instrument must be preceded by consultation with the principal councils—the counties, the districts and the unitaries—that have land in the park. No principal council can be excluded from membership of the park authority, except at its own request, so there is a good deal of protection for the representatives involved.
We have not started the process, but I am now prepared to do so. Clearly, those who disagree with the proposal will have the opportunity to object in the consultation, which will last for 12 weeks. Then there will be the opportunity to pray against the statutory instrument, should any hon. Members feel that that is necessary. I hope that it is not, as a result of the degree of consensus that is built up, and the fact that, as the hon. Gentleman reflected, there is a wish for a sensible outcome leading to an authority that is smaller, but not too small, and so can balance different interests.
The effect of my proposal to reduce the Peak District national park authority to 30 members would be to ensure that it continues to have more members than any other park authority in Great Britain. It also means that the authority will continue to offer at least one seat to each of the principal local authorities with land in the park, but will be better able to conduct its business effectively in accordance with its modernisation agenda. I would underline that the Peak District national park authority, like other national park authorities, is seeking to modernise, and to streamline the way in which it undertakes its work. That will give the members more scope to maximise their contribution.
Mr. McLoughlin: First, I should like to thank the Minister for giving us a final answer on that point, and for ending the uncertainty. Will he be a bit more specific about the timetable? He says that consultation will last for 12 weeks. If a statutory instrument is laid before the
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House and is not prayed against, and therefore comes into effect, when would he expect the new authority to take shape? When does he expect the implementation date to be? The parish representatives are usually elected for four years.
Alun Michael: I take the hon. Gentleman's point entirely. My approach is that the proposal should use the "least pain" method. We will set down the time scale, which will enable people to fulfil their terms of office. That means that it will take a bit longer to get to the end result, but it also means that people will not be ejected and that if any are able to serve part of a term, they will know from the beginning the period for which they will be involved. I undertake to spell that out in putting forward a proposal for the consultation, which will take place in a 12-week period before the statutory instrument is laid. I hope that that will satisfy the hon. Gentleman's concerns; he makes a perfectly fair point.
The current thinking is that the Peak District national park should be reduced to 30 seats, that Dartmoor, Exmoor, Lake District, North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales should be reduced to 22 seats, that Northumberland should remain at 22, and that the broads authority, whose legislation is different, should reduce to 21. The legislation on the broads authority addresses the planning requirements differently, so it is possible for that authority to deal with its local authority representation without encountering the complications that arise for the Peak District authority.
The Peak District national park covers more local authorities than any other park—12 as opposed to four or five authorities in the other cases. It also has an unevenly distributed population. The most populous three districts account for 92 per cent. of the resident population—Derbyshire Dales alone accounts for 65 per cent.—while at the other end of the spectrum, three districts each have less than I per cent. of the population. Having said that, those districts have a considerable interest in the national park and its success, so I do not want to suggest that they have only 1 per cent. of interest because they have only 1 per cent. of its resident population.
The park also stretches into four separate government regions. Although this is riot directly relevant to the debate, there is a lead region, and I am pleased that, for example, in our work with regional development agencies, the importance of landscape to the economy as well as communities that live in the national park has been recognised, as well as the main focus of national park responsibilities to protect the landscape and consider recreational opportunities. It is a large park in all senses of the word, and it has a particular place in the history of the development of national parks.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the national park authority should not be composed only of people who are resident in the park. The parks are national assets and, as the regional dimension becomes more important, one issue will have to be addressed, as they will remain a national asset while also being considerably important to their region or, in the case of the Peak District national park, most of the surrounding regions.

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When it comes to planning, everyone thinks that he or she can do better than the local planning authority. I had the privilege of chairing the planning committee of Cardiff city council for a time, and it was borne in on me that the world is populated by two groups of people. There are those who think that the planning committee should not have agreed something that it did and therefore think its members are irresponsible and mad, and there are others who think that it should have allowed something and that its members are therefore unduly restrictive. There is little ground in between.
In general, planning authorities do a good job, and the hon. Gentleman rightly referred to sensitive issues with Lees Cross and Endcliffe quarries, which are matters for consideration. I have been briefed by the Peak District national park authority, and he is right to say that it is for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to decide whether any issue should be called in. However, the authority seems to be taking a careful and responsible approach to the difficult issues that have to be resolved. I understand that the hon. Gentleman has
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constituency concerns—that is always the case—but I would not want anything to be construed as a criticism of how national park authorities deal with their planning responsibilities
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for initiating the debate, as it has given me the opportunity to confirm my views and proposals about the future membership of the Peak District national park authority. In view of the representations and the discussions that I have had with the hon. Gentleman, some of my hon. Friends and the national park authority members, I hope that my proposal will find favour with all. I hope also that we can continue with the constructive support of the national park authority and in agreement about the immense value of the contribution that the Peak District national park, as a historically important member of the family of national parks in England and more widely in the United Kingdom, will continue to play. It is a pleasure to have been able to respond positively to the hon. Gentleman's concerns
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Four o'clock.