Before I call the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Alun Michael), I welcome all hon. Members to this sitting in Westminster Hall. In order that Members should be comfortable, I am prepared to use an element of discretion and allow them to remove their jackets. I am showing some progressiveness that perhaps is not associated with me in normal circumstances.

I am grateful to you, Sir Nicholas, first for calling me to speak and secondly for your kindness in allowing us not to treat this Room as a free sauna, given the warmth of the day.

I sought to initiate this debate to consider the contribution of wind energy to the national interest in the broadest sense. The debate is about power and energy, and about the power of the people linked to the power of the wind. It is about the empowerment of people and sustainable development, and how wind power can benefit the environment, the economy and the community. I am delighted to be joined in the debate by someone who knows a great deal about these topics, the former environment Minister my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley). I am particularly pleased that my good friend the Minister for Energy will reply to the debate.

This debate comes a day after the statement on the energy review, and it is easy to despair at the facile way in which energy issues are often discussed and reported. The complex issues of supply that my hon. Friend the Minister has been grappling with in the review, which are crucial to our future and our economy, are reduced to the simplistic question, “Are you for or against nuclear?” I sometimes despair of the profession in which I started my working life, before I earned remission for good behaviour as a youth worker. Another issue that is reduced to a knee-jerk reaction is the question, “Are you in favour of wind farms?” That often gets two distinct answers from the same people at the same time. They say yes in general, but, “No, if it’s in my back yard”—or perhaps that should be “No, if it’s on my hill”.

The picture of protestors opposing wind generation is all too familiar to us all. They tell councillors to reject the planning application, as a community united in opposition. We often do not even bother to read the caption. I want to test that. I have with me a photograph of a crowd of protestors outside the council offices in Neath Port Talbot. They are against the planning application, are they not, and telling the council to turn it down? No. They are the supporters of Awel Aman Tawe, based in Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen in the constituency of the Secretary of State for Wales, my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr. Hain). They are protesting against the proposal that the council should turn down their application for a four turbine, 11 MW community wind farm on Mynydd y Gwrhyd, 20 miles north of Swansea—Awel Aman Tawe. I also have statements of support from a wide range of local people, many clearly excited and inspired by the project.

I shall not go into the planning issues because there is an appeal under way to resolve the issue. I know from my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr. Francis) that local opinion is coloured by at least one local application, I think in the upper Amman valley, which has sparked opposition in the community as it is believed that it is being imposed on them from outside with big business deciding the future for the local community. That is not the case with Awel Aman Tawe, and that is at the heart of this debate.

It is clear that Awel Aman Tawe demonstrates well the three strands of sustainable development—the environmental, the economic and the social. The benefits for the local community include more than £4 million over the life of the project for community projects, such as micro-renewables and energy efficiency, 32 new jobs, and construction contracts for local suppliers worth an estimated £1.5 million. It will generate enough clean energy to supply the equivalent of almost 7,000 homes, and last but not least it will help to combat global warming.

Although the planning system is dealing with the appeal, the message of community involvement is very clear. Indeed, perhaps the planning system should be able to take much greater notice of factors such as community ownership into account instead of being neutral on issues of ownership. The independent body Electoral Reform Services carried out a referendum on behalf of Awel Aman Tawe and found that almost 60 per cent. of local residents supported the development of a community wind farm. Compared with a so-called commercial initiative, the technology, the benefit, the price per kilowatt and the financial reward are the same, but for the local community it is not someone from outside coming in to do something to that community. The community owns it and controls it, and it is in its hands.

The situation is the same with the Baywind energy co-operative, which has grown from a community base in Cumbria to win the social enterprise award for the environment, which I was delighted to present to the group. It is the same for the communities that have worked with Energy4All, which is a spin-off from Baywind, to enable communities throughout the land to learn from the Baywind experience and take control of the energy supply from renewables in their area.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Co-operative Group may be the UK’s biggest farmer but it has shown a sense of community interest. As a Co-operative MP, I am pleased to see the link between the activities of the big beast of the co-operative movement and the approach of organisations such as Awel Aman Tawe and Baywind. The Co-operative Group is the UK’s largest consumer-owned co-operative business and it aims to drive commercial success through true environmental and social responsibility. In other words, it seeks to live up to the ideals of the Rochdale pioneers all those years ago.

In 2004, the group switched its power supply across 3,000 sites throughout the mainland UK to renewable energy generated from wind farms or hydropower. Co-operative Financial Services and the Co-operative Group together now account for 790 GWh of renewable purchase each year, which is equivalent to nearly half of the UK’s onshore wind output. The CIS—Co-operative Insurance—solar tower is the largest ever application of photovoltaic panels in the UK. In Manchester earlier this year, my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe opened the UK’s biggest inner-city micro-wind farm, involving 19 micro-wind turbines, on the CFS Portland street building.

The link to Awel Aman Tawe is that last Thursday, 6 July, saw the official switch-on of the Coldham wind farm in Cambridgeshire as a joint venture between the Co-operative Group and ScottishPower, engaging the local community. It is a £17 million, eight turbine wind farm that will realise enough green energy to power 9,000 homes and to save 36,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year. That is because the group

“recognises the importance of involving local people at the outset and giving them direct input into all aspects of wind farm schemes”.

Those are not my words, but those of the group’s chief executive, Martin Beaumont.

The significance of that development could increase, because there are plans to develop wind turbine schemes that could lead to the supply of 100 GW of electricity to the national grid within three years, which is enough to power more than 20,000 homes. That includes plans for a second, larger wind farm with 14 turbines at Goole in Humberside, also on Co-op farm land. That is also why Co-operative Action is supporting the Baywind energy co-operative. Baywind was formed in 1996, and today, with more than 1,300 members, owns five wind turbines near Ulverston and one in Cumbria.

I am also pleased to learn that in Wales Energy4All’s manager, Steve Cranston, is contacting all the developers involved in bidding on Forestry Commission land to request some aspect of community ownership as part of technical advice note 8, which is known as TAN 8. Energy4All is working with Nuon in Wales and hopes to progress an agreement with Airtricity through Dulas.

The potential of the development is huge and growing. I am told that for every community project that Energy4All is involved in, it receives another 100 inquiries. Yet that sector receives no Government support. I want to make it clear that I am arguing not for subsidy, but for cash and support to nurture and help the capacity building that is vital in community ownership and co-operative developments and for the Government to get stuck into the nitty-gritty of the work that is necessary to enable the sector to take off at an even faster rate.

Let us consider some of the projects, such as Westmill wind farm co-operative in Oxfordshire. Energy4All took over full development of the five turbine site in August 2005 and raised £4.4 million over Christmas to build the first onshore wind farm in the south-east, which is 100 per cent. community owned. The development of the project is of significant strategic importance for social enterprises as well as for onshore wind use.

There is also the case of Beech farm in Tavistock, where a public inquiry is due to be held in October. The appeal, for two 850 kW turbines, was brought by the landowners, Mr. and Mrs. Bradford, against West Devon council. The inspector has requested a section 106 agreement to confirm that the site will develop as a co-operative if successful.

If anyone is in doubt, let me spell out the benefits of community involvement and ownership. It encourages proactive rather than reactive community engagement and accountability—the community is not simply being consulted about something that is done to it; it is involved. It responds to the concerns and needs of local people, and it ensures the efficient targeting of investment.

Community involvement and ownership raises awareness of the need for action on climate change. We need to engage the whole of the population in dealing with that issue; acting alone, the Government will make slow progress. It delivers key public services in partnership with local authorities. It delivers also direct accountability for stakeholders and energy consumers. It develops the capacity for smaller projects, which depend on investors accepting a lower return. Sites that are closer to demand may therefore be on less sensitive sites, and the community will support the development.

Such involvement also delivers direct economic benefits and revenue streams for members. It brings together and co-ordinates complex relationships between key stakeholders for biomass and district heating schemes. Such schemes often fail because of a lack of engagement and support, again because people feel that something is being done to them. Investment is mobilised from members and the wider community, which is significant in meeting the Government’s objectives. It supports longer-term infrastructure investment.

Embedded energy is, of its nature, more efficient. It develops tailored local solutions to project delivery. It attracts new skills and jobs into the social enterprise sector at local level. I believe that those advantages are enormously important. It is wonderful stuff. The country that invented co-operation and social enterprise should be proud of it, yet community renewables have made slower progress in the United Kingdom than in other north European countries.

The three key reasons for that have been identified as finance, time and knowledge. The key is not massive grants or Government schemes but access to finance and a better understanding by national and local bureaucracies of how to nurture the sector’s potential. It is not just a question of looking for the quantum of wind energy; we need to recognise that engaging people can release existing potential.

Energy4All has called on the Government to give direct funding to the social enterprise sector, to pay for staff time and to provide risk funding through the revolving loan fund, which will allow communities to take appropriate schemes forward. The House should mark my words: I underline and support that approach. A revolving loan fund does not have to be a drag on the Exchequer, but it will not happen without some Government help to facilitate and accelerate the process.

There is also a huge demand for the Government to provide access to renewable energy information and expertise to ensure that good quality schemes in all technologies can move forward; thus, we can gain the multiple benefits of rural and urban sustainable heat and power.

In summary, community involvement, accountability and ownership is the key to achieving the successful integration of distributed renewable generation schemes, which will largely be below 10 MW. Current support is dispersed and inefficient, so it cannot deal with the current barriers or meet public demand.

Support and facilitation for community, individual and business-owned renewable energy schemes has the potential to play a key role in unblocking the economically viable potential of all technologies. If structured appropriately, the cost of assistance through information and financial support will represent considerable value for money, given the anticipated social, economic and environmental returns.

We know the environmental benefits of maximising the use of wind energy; it will cut emissions and reduce dependence on nuclear power. However, some people still think that its impact on the rural environment is negative. For example, the briefing provided for today’s debate by the Campaign to Protect Rural England was not wholly negative about wind energy, but it was disappointing and lacking in vision. It damned wind energy with faint praise, so I shall take its argument head on.

I was brought up on the edge of Snowdonia. I spent years introducing young people to its finest landscapes. I have had ministerial responsibility for national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty in Wales and England. The last thing that I want to see is a wind farm on Moel Siabod or Striding Edge. However, I am amazed that people who can ignore the ugly intrusion of electricity pylons striding across our countryside—are they invisible, perhaps because they have been there for decades?—are opposed to wind farms, which can be a calming and even an inspirational sight as one comes over the brow of a hill.

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on initiating such a timely debate. He spoke of pylons striding across our countryside, and I share his concern about that. Would he not concede that if we continue with the current policy of developing large-scale wind farms of above 50 MW, for example, in areas on the edge of Snowdonia, even more pylons will be striding across our countryside?

No, I do not.

I have stood at the roadside looking at a small number of wind turbines on one side of the valley and seeing pylons further up—pylons not associated with the wind farm—yet people say that the turbines are ugly, and that they do not like them. I ask them to compare the two. When one walks over the brow of a hill and sees the turbines of a wind farm one can see that, in the right place, they are attractive. They generate energy in a way that is socially and visually attractive.

What is the reason for that knee-jerk reaction? Many people have become used not only to pylons but to the extraction of minerals in some of our most beautiful landscapes; it does not arouse their anger, yet they have a knee-jerk opposition to wind farms, even those sited in appropriate locations in the countryside. I do not understand it. It does not make sense. The answer is that it depends on who is establishing the wind farms and for whom. If wind turbines are imposed by big business to make a quick buck—or even, as some perceive it, imposed by the Government—then resentment will kick in. Judgments are made, but not always by those who have to live with the consequences.

I want my hon. Friend the Minister to promise two things. First, I ask him to make it clear that wind energy will be owned by the community and that if big companies or bodies such as the Co-operative Group want to come in, they will have to show the community benefit, community support and genuine engagement. I ask him also to set requirements that will test objectively whether schemes are community led.

Secondly, I ask my hon. Friend to support and promote the practice of community wind farm ownership that I have outlined. We all know that the principles of community ownership—co-operation and mutuality—have great power. They bring long-term benefits. They have the power to move mountains. However, that approach needs to be nurtured and, as I said earlier, that involves cash, time and knowledge.

My hon. Friend will recall that I supplied him with a copy of a publication commissioned by Peter Hunt of Mutuo entitled “Community engagement in energy through energy mutuals”. It was researched by Dr. Gill Owen, and I provided an introduction. It made two clear recommendations about how to remove the barriers for community engagement though energy mutuals.

The first recommendation was that the Government should take the lead, perhaps through a community energy unit, in maximising and harvesting the benefits that have been demonstrated—for instance, by Highlands and Islands Enterprise. I do not want to suggest a specific solution to my hon. Friend; I ask him to accept the principle and seek the best way to ensure that the Government are proactive in nurturing such an approach.

The second recommendation was that a renewable heat obligation should be put in place. I am encouraged by the interest shown yesterday in expressing the output of the energy industry in terms of heat and light rather than in specific forms of energy. The Mutuo booklet was ahead of its time in that respect; I hope that my hon. Friend will confirm that it is now part of mainstream thinking.

I have tried to show that wind energy can provide the classic benefits of democracy, especially when linked to the key Government principle of sustainable development—the principle that, in all we do, we should balance and integrate economic, social and environmental considerations. The problem is that those factors are dealt with in separate silos of Government. The publication of the energy review report and yesterday’s statement give my hon. Friend a unique opportunity to take the leadership in bringing those three aspects together. What better example than community-owned wind generation? If Whitehall takes it seriously, the Government could have a win-win-win situation.

It is obvious that maximising renewable energy is key to our future. We would be mad not to support it; it helps feed the energy needs of our national economy. It is also obvious, is it not, that wind energy benefits the environment, whether the countryside or our global future?

Clearly, a community empowered to make its own decisions is likely to choose the wind turbine option, which helps the national and international interest. Above all, that option would help it meet its own energy needs, become at best a new contributor instead of a net consumer and learn to be empowered to make its own decisions in a national and international context.

The issue is urgent; we are trailing in seventh place on installed wind capacity. Germany leads the way with 18,400 MW, followed by Spain with 10,000 MW and the USA with 9,100 MW. Capacity is hardly proportionate to size. The UK has the greatest wind resource in Europe, yet we are not using it. I want to help the Minister change that picture. Wind power’s time has come, and I urge the Minister to be brave and help Whitehall understand the creative opportunity before it. My plea is that we should enable community wind energy to support the Government in what they and my hon. Friend the Minister are trying to do.

I understand the Minister’s challenges; he has to balance costs and needs, the national interest, the protection of supplies and the energy mix necessary for this country to have a productive future. Will he acknowledge that the power of the people and the community, linked to the production of wind energy, has a part to play in his strategy? With his support and encouragement, people are far more likely to face the big challenges set out in yesterday’s statement. Let the people be part of the solution, rather than being perceived as part of the problem.

Again, I congratulate the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Alun Michael) on securing this debate, which is extremely timely. He may be surprised to hear that I agree with a great deal of what he said. Clearly, the thrust of his argument is that communities should be empowered, in the sense of coming to wind as a source of energy that they wish to embrace, rather than as one imposed on them.

Wind energy certainly has a large part to play in addressing this country’s energy needs. Once in operation, it is a relatively non-polluting source of generation. However, it has serious drawbacks. First, it is self-evidently inefficient because when the wind does not blow, or when it blows too hard, no energy is generated. That means that conventional fossil fuel power stations must operate in the background, ready to kick in when the wind drops.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the installation of a number of community-owned or non-community-owned wind farms throughout the country would substantially reduce and probably remove the element of variability that he talks about? The wind always blows somewhere in the country, and if the wind energy produced fed into the grid, the variability, aggregated out, would hardly be different from that provided by the base load of conventional power.

That argument is correct, but it presupposes that we are willing to have wind farms on an industrial scale throughout the country; I imagine that most people would be extremely reluctant to see that.

The hon. Gentleman suggests that fossil fuels are more efficient than wind power. The right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Alun Michael) talked about microgeneration and community-based generation and power, which are inherently enormously more efficient because they avoid the more than 50 per cent. conversion losses inherent in large-scale fossil fuel power stations.

My point was that wind power is inefficient to the extent of being unreliable. Clearly, the wind does not always blow; sometimes, it blows too strongly. Certain Members would be happy to see the country littered with wind farms, but many people would not.

I ask the hon. Gentleman not to join the knee-jerk brigade and talk down wind farms and wind energy as he has done. What he says is inaccurate. He needs to take a more balanced approach.

With respect to the right hon. Gentleman, I listened carefully to what he said in almost complete silence. I agreed with much of it. If he let me develop my argument, he might agree with something that I have to say. I want to talk about empowering people, and I understand that the right hon. Gentleman is also interested in doing that.

The fact is that exaggerated, sometimes—dare I say it—overblown claims are made about the effectiveness of wind farms. Cefn Croes, for example, is the largest onshore wind farm in Wales; until recently, it was the largest wind farm in the country. We were constantly told that it had an installed capacity of 58.5 MW, which in itself is true. However, its operational load factor is about 32 to 35 per cent.—about one third—of its capacity.

Wind is also an extraordinarily environmentally intrusive source of generation. Although it cannot be pretended that conventional or nuclear power stations are attractive structures, they are usually confined to small geographical areas, frequently in already industrialised parts of the country. By contrast, wind farms are far more visually intrusive, often covering tens of square miles located in areas of attractive countryside.

Wind turbines are becoming progressively larger. Modern turbines, such as that proposed for the Gwynt y Môr wind farm off the coast of north Wales, are more than 500 ft high, taller than the Blackpool tower. Turbine blades now have a span greater than the wing span of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. Wind farms have a significant and often adverse effect on open seascapes and landscapes and often attract a large degree of local opposition. That should not be dismissed as mere nimbyism, as the right hon. Gentleman (Alun Michael) suggests. Seascapes and landscapes are valuable national resources and ought not to be spoiled unless there is a compelling reason for doing so.

The hon. Gentleman uses the pejorative term “spoiled” and says that such things should not be done without compelling reason. Does he not think that the threat of global climate change is compelling?

My point is that there is a balance to be struck. The wind farm lobby seems to think that wind farms should be stuck on any available stretch of countryside, but clearly they should not. This country has unique and beautiful visual resources, and we must be careful about where we site wind farms.

I wish to concentrate on two matters, which the Government should consider seriously. First, they should consider the operation of the renewables obligation, which I have taken up with the Minister on previous occasions. He has acknowledged to me that the obligation is a blunt instrument. Its problem is that it makes no distinction between the intrinsic merits of various renewable technologies. Consequently, it rewards the least capital-intensive source of generation, which at the moment is wind. That means that wind farms are virtually certain to continue to proliferate for as long as the obligation remains unreformed.

That is a pity, because other sources of renewable power such as tidal, wave and biomass power, are far less visually intrusive and potentially much more beneficial. For example, tidal power is infinitely more reliable than wind power; it is difficult to think of anything more predictable than the ebb and flow of the tide. Yet because tidal power is less developed, there is little incentive under the renewables obligation to pursue tidal schemes. That is a huge pity, and I hope that, in the wake of the energy review, the Government will consider refining the obligation to consider other, less intrusive forms of renewable energy.

Secondly, I should like the Minister to address the question of the planning and consent process. At present, the principal consent route for wind farms of more than 50 MW is section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989. Infrastructure development is governed by the normal town and country planning processes, as are wind farms of less than 50 MW. The difficulty with the two processes is that they have been constructed so as to reduce considerably the right of local objectors to make meaningful representations. There is no appeals procedure under section 36 of the 1989 Act, and through technical advice note 8 in Wales and planning policy statement 22 in England, the town and country planning process imposes a presumption in favour of the development of wind farms.

An extreme example of the consequences was the Scarweather sands development in south Wales. An inspector decided that the objectors were right, that the farm should not proceed and that the application should be refused. The decision was overruled by the Welsh Assembly Committee that considered the inspector’s report. It decided that the scheme should proceed, notwithstanding the fact that the inspector had recommended that it should not, as it accorded with the principles set out in the Assembly’s planning policy.

It cannot be right that a swathe of local residents supported by technical and scientific advice and, most importantly, by the planning inspector who considered the application, were rendered virtually voiceless. Such decisions give rise to huge resentment on the part of local communities.

First, I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman seems to have such disregard for the democratic processes that put elected representatives in the Assembly. He would rather have an appointed inspector as the final arbiter on an appeal of that sort. Secondly, does he realise that he is making my case very well by demonstrating that if the structures are left to the antagonism between a local community and a proposal, rather than starting off with the full engagement of the local community, the events that he is describing are almost inevitable?

Of course I am making that case. That was the whole point of giving the example.

The fact is that local people were disempowered by the planning procedure. My point is that it is necessary for the Government to be far more sensitive to the concerns of local people, and to that extent I agree entirely with what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. If local communities want small-scale wind farms that are appropriate to their needs, they should have them.

The problem is that the thrust of Government policy at present is to impose schemes on local communities in complete disregard of often quite proper objections. If more and more wind farms are to be developed, it is necessary for the Government to be more and more sensitive to the concerns of local people. I hope that in the wake of the energy review, the Government will develop procedures that will allow them to be far more responsive to the concerns of local people.

The notice process has caused extreme concern in my constituency. An application was made some years ago by Celtic Offshore Wind for the development of a wind farm at a location that was described as being on the Rhyl flats. The Rhyl flats is an area that is identified on Admiralty charts. As one might imagine, it is off the coast at the town of Rhyl. [Interruption.] Yes, the right hon. Gentleman for Cardiff, South and Penarth may laugh, but the point of the story is that consent was granted, and when local residents carried out further investigations it turned out that the wind farm was not cited on the Rhyl flats at all but on another area of sea called the Constable bank, which is about 10 miles to the west of the town of Rhos-on-Sea. One wonders why the developers applied the description of Rhyl flats to the wind farm when it was not on the Rhyl flats but on a totally different maritime feature. Those of a less charitable disposition might suggest that they did that because they anticipated far less opposition from the townspeople of Rhyl than from the extremely articulate people of Rhos-on-Sea.

The Government should take steps to ensure that the planning and consent process is as transparent as possible, that a clear indication is given in statutory notices of the proposed location of wind farms and that pain is not caused to people such as those in Rhos-on-Sea in my constituency, who woke up one morning to be told that a wind farm was to be placed there and not, as they thought, on the area of seabed known as the Rhyl flats. One can imagine their concern. I invite the Minister to address that matter. I have raised it with him previously, but it is important to raise it again.

To summarise, I support the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth and believe that communities should be empowered and should have a voice. I believe that they should have a wind farm if they want one, but the Government have a positive duty to ensure that their voices are heard and not ignored when large-scale industrial wind farms are to be imposed on communities.

It is a great pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Alun Michael). We have been co-operating on a range of issues for 19 years in this House, both in and out of Government. He has always been a great campaigner for the co-operative movement, and he made a powerful and articulate case for how co-operative principles can be used to empower communities and give them real involvement in sustainable development, recognising the three key strands of social, economic and environmental development.

This is an urgent issue. We hear of opposition to wind farms and, as discussed in the contribution of the hon. Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones), the need for more support for tidal energy. Indeed, there ought to be more support for all forms of renewables. That was made clear in the very good statement that we heard yesterday on the energy review in which my hon. Friend the Minister was involved.

However, the fact remains that wind is one of this country’s most important resources. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth stated, we have the best wind resources in the whole of Europe, and it would not make any sense not to utilise and benefit from them. That means that it is inevitable that there will be many applications for wind farms and wind turbines.

We must harness that resource. Of course, it needs to be done appropriately, and we must take into account the legitimate concerns of communities, but the hon. Member for Clwyd, West was wrong when he said that wind farms are inefficient. This debate is not particularly about advocating the benefits or otherwise of wind farms but about co-operative ownership and how we take issues forward.

The Sustainable Development Commission produced an excellent report on renewables. It exploded some of the myths and made it clear that wind generation is, in fact, one of the cheapest and most efficient forms of energy in this country. The hon. Gentleman said that wind farms are about 35 per cent. efficient. The fact is that a coal-burning station is only 30 per cent. efficient—there is a lack of efficiency in these things—and wind comes out very well when one takes into account that it is part of the national grid, as my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) rightly pointed out.

Will the hon. Gentleman concede that nuclear power stations are approximately 95 per cent. efficient?

No, I would not concede that. I would ask the hon. Gentleman to review the record of output of nuclear power stations, which is nothing like 90 per cent. They spend a lot of time down for maintenance, repair and sometimes because of breakdown. It is not the case that they achieve 90 per cent. efficiency—the figure does not exist. I strongly recommend that the hon. Gentleman reads the SDC report, as it evaluates all forms of energy and considers efficiency ratings and such issues.

Onshore and offshore wind energy can make a substantial contribution to this country’s energy needs. In fact, the proposed London Array in itself—just one offshore wind farm—will account for about 1 per cent. of the electricity supply in this country and will meet the whole of London’s needs. Such significant investments can make a significant contribution.

The hon. Gentleman also missed what was said in the energy review and the comments yesterday, in that the Government have already said that they are willing to review the concept of banding for renewables obligation certificates. I very much welcome that, and there might well be an argument for a higher rate for offshore wind, as opposed to onshore wind, because it is more expensive to develop offshore. There might well also be an argument for a higher rate for tidal energy, which, like wind and other forms of energy, is on the threshold of commercialisation. I very much welcome the Government’s announcement in that regard, because that is absolutely the right way forward.

There has been a lot of debate recently about political consensus, and that is particularly true of climate change, which is the overriding environmental threat that we face this century. There is a real urgency about the need to combat climate change, because the latest science that we have available—much of it has come from UK scientific institutions—suggests that the effects of climate change are worse, and are being seen faster, than was originally envisaged. Several eminent scientists argue that we are in danger of reaching a tipping point and that if the concentration of greenhouse gases goes beyond a certain level, the problem may take a century to rectify. The longer that process goes on, the higher the concentrations will be and the more difficult and expensive it will be to rectify the problem. The consensus is that it will take about a decade to make a real difference to global warming and climate change globally. I certainly accept that and very much worry about it.

There are also planning issues, as my right hon. Friend mentioned. As all Members of Parliament and elected councillors know, planning issues and arguments are complex. The nimby syndrome is well understood, but we have moved on from it and towards the banana syndrome, with people saying that we should build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything. That has become an established principle, which applies whether we are talking about a bus stop or a nuclear power station. That is a problem, and we cannot ignore people’s concerns, but there is an argument for looking at the planning system and making it more streamlined, responsive and relevant to today’s needs. I welcome the Government’s announcement that they will do that. It is not only that there is an issue about nuclear power stations, which are a completely separate matter; it is that the planning system and the planning process need examining.

I am not saying that people do not occasionally have valid reasons for objecting to wind farms, for example. Indeed, several high-profile applications have been turned down at the planning stage, because the case that local people have made has been accepted. I do not know the details of the case in Wales, although I do know that the Welsh Assembly Committee, to which the hon. Member for Clwyd, West referred, is an all-party committee. It is part of the democratic process, and I assume that, on balance, it thought that the arguments, including the inspector’s input, showed that there was still a case for the wind farm in question. That is the nature of democracy and the planning system. To be blunt, many people object to any sort of change because they worry about the impact that it might have on the price of their houses—that is the big motivator for many of the objections. However, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors found that although wind farms might have a short-term impact, they have no impact in the longer term, and people should understand that.

The hon. Gentleman is wrong about public opinion. When people are asked whether they support wind farms, the polling evidence shows that there is about 70 to 80 per cent. approval for them, so support is actually quite high. That brings me back to the idea of political consensus. Whenever there is an application, it is very depressing to see pressure being put on Members of Parliament of all parties, who feel an obligation to campaign on behalf of local residents, although that is, of course, part of the democratic process. During the general election, however, I noticed that the Conservative candidate in a neighbouring constituency, where there are quite a number of applications, spent nearly his whole time campaigning against wind farms—not that it did him much good. That suggests that although people close to the sites of proposed wind farms might be concerned, people overall have a much more mature and balanced outlook on the role of wind in our energy mix.

I strongly support the thrust of the argument of my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth because giving people a stake in wind farms will empower and involve them, and it is part of allowing them to make a practical contribution to combating climate change. I welcome the work that Energy4All has done on the issue. As my right hon. Friend said, I opened the wind turbine on the roof of the Co-operative Insurance Society building in Manchester, and I should like to see many more tower blocks and office blocks using microgeneration, which lends itself well to such developments and is not at all obtrusive—indeed, it looks quite good. Even factories in industrial areas have undertaken such developments, and Nissan, for example, has a wind farm on its factory site in Sunderland. I am keen to see more of that, and Corus has been talking about undertaking such a development at its site on Teesside. Urban and industrial environments are good places for on-site wind turbines that contribute to the factory’s electricity demands.

The issue on which I want to concentrate, however, is how the Government can assist the development of co-operative wind farms. I strongly endorse my right hon. Friend’s comment that it is not a question of asking for more subsidies or additional funding for developments. People need information about how they can become involved in developments. they need empowering so that they can get involved and they need the technical support and finance. The idea of a revolving fund is a good one, which the Treasury and the Department of Trade and Industry well recognise, and there is a strong argument for having such a fund.

To return to my original point, the great beauty of co-operative wind farms is that they address the core of sustainability. There is the social strand of sustainability, because people are brought together and empowered. There is community involvement and there has been great enthusiasm for such schemes where they have been implemented. There is also the economic strand, because people gain some economic benefit from such developments in their own communities. Of course, there has always been a benefit to landowners. Wind farms have always been quite a good deal for landowners and have been very popular with them, but it is nice that communities should be involved, too, and I am strongly in favour of that. Of course, there is also the environmental strand, because wind farms are zero-emission forms of renewable energy. We must have more of those forms of energy because we must reduce emissions in our own country.

We must demonstrate that, as the fourth richest country in the world and an advanced industrial economy, we can move to a low-carbon economy without damaging our economic growth, our gross domestic product or our communities. Indeed, I think that we are demonstrating that. We have always been a leader in many aspects of technology and science, and there is no reason why we cannot be a leader in renewable energy and catch up with countries such as Germany, Denmark, Spain and even the United States, which has invested significantly in renewables. We have an advantage because of our wind resources and our science and technology, and because many communities are well organised and have strong community leadership. All we need is a little extra help from the Government on how to tap into the benefits and take forward this form of co-operative development. That will bring about the benefits that my right hon. Friend so powerfully outlined—the benefits to our communities and our economy in terms of the overall issue of combating climate change.

I should like briefly to add one dimension to the excellent debate that we have had about the merits of community wind farms and community energy in general. The Government’s energy review, which came out yesterday, and the provisional results of the energy review conducted by the Opposition both mention the future merits of distributive generation at considerable length.

Distributed generation is not just about introducing into our energy mix a substantial element of generation within homes, in addition to generation from big power sources. Certainly, the discussion about distributed generation has been concentrated on wind turbines on houses. I was delighted to hear about the progress of the wind turbine on the house of my hon. Friend the Minister, tiles permitting. Discussion has tended to concentrate on the fact that distributed generation is based on the idea that wind turbines on houses, combined heat and power boilers in houses, solar thermal equipment and solar photovoltaics on roofs can override the energy requirement in a house and produce distributed energy for use in the home—and perhaps export some energy from the home to the grid, if it is not immediately used.

A substantial element, as I am sure my right hon. Friend will agree, is the contribution that will be possible in the future from generating programmes that are neither large energy nor domestically-based sources, but community-sized energy plants. The great advantage of community-sized energy plants, both in relation to wind farms and other forms of generation, is that, as my right hon. Friend says, they are owned, promoted and progressed by local communities, and those communities, ideally, receive the benefit not only of ownership of the community energy plant but of its output. Where possible, those community energy plants can be based on what might be called a private wire system, whereby on a community basis the output of the plant overrides national grid input and provides the community with power at local level. The advantage of that, as has been mentioned in the debate, relates to the losses that occur with big power. I see that the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) has the very informative Department of Trade and Industry multicoloured chart before him, which sets out exactly the losses that occur in conventional power stations between fuel in and power out. I believe that the figure is something like 63 or 64 per cent. in conventional power stations, and that a further 6 to 7 per cent. is lost in transmission from those power stations to the home.

A very large percentage of the fuel going in to what might be called traditional big power is lost even before it has reached the transmission cables; there is certainly also a loss in the transmission cables. That is not so for community energy. The power is produced locally. In the case of wind farms, 100 per cent. of the fuel in is converted to power out. Other forms of local generation are not quite as efficient, but local combined heat and power generation can be 70 to 80 per cent. effective with respect to those inputs and outputs. The distribution losses are also avoided.

I have an interest to declare, because I am an unpaid director of a community energy company in Southampton, Solent Sustainable Energy Ltd., which will be providing combined heat and power. It will serve more than 3,000 homes, as far as heating is concerned, and will provide electricity output, based on a community power station. There are different forms of community energy plant, including wind farms, power stations and other forms of community energy management. It is interesting to see that where such principles have been applied on a widespread basis, through the use of plants of the type I have mentioned in public and buildings and elsewhere, in the borough of Woking, a reduction of about 77 per cent. in carbon dioxide emissions has been achieved.

Simply out of curiosity, I wonder whether the combined heat and power project that the hon. Gentleman is involved in is powered by gas. What does he estimate to be the improvements in efficiency and lower carbon emissions?

The proposal is that the plant will be renewable oil-fired, using either rapeseed oil or sustainable palm oil—bio-oil—and will therefore be effectively carbon neutral. That underlines the point that I want to make, which is that some community energy plants, whether they use wind, biomass or biofuel, have two advantages. First, they are effectively carbon neutral, and, secondly, they offset all the losses that are well documented from the way in which big power transmits the fuel that it uses into the homes that it powers.

There is a substantial future for community-level energy plants. I take note of the proposals in the energy review about the renewables obligation. I hope that the banding arrangements suggested in the review will take into account the banding that would be advantageous to the development of such community energy plants. In the Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Act 2006 there is a substantial element of additional encouragement for the development of community energy plants, and the future therefore seems bright for community ownership and development of such plants. I take the point made by the hon. Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) that that should, of course, be done on the basis of proper consultation and planning arrangements, and that certain forms of energy are not always appropriate in all circumstances or in all locations. However, the fundamental point is right: given that caveat, community energy can play a substantial role in the energy mix and, indeed, in making the energy future as close to carbon neutral as we can.

Before I call the Liberal Democrat spokesman may I give Members some guidance? It is an important debate and I should like the Minister to have adequate time to reply at length and in detail to the points raised on both sides of the Chamber. Her Majesty’s Opposition spokesman has told me that he does not intend to take the full time allocated to him, and I hope that the Liberal Democrat spokesman will similarly use his discretion so that we can have a full response.

I shall endeavour to use fewer than my 10 minutes, Sir Nicholas, but I have important questions for the Minister. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Alun Michael), not only on securing the debate but on his eloquent and passionate advocacy of wind power and on the community and co-operative principle of involvement in wind-powered generation in particular. I also congratulate his hon. Friends on their equally eloquent and passionate speeches. I particularly pay tribute to the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) for the formidable example that he sets to the new Minister, by his record and his commitment to renewable energy.

One of the most important points made by the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth was that wind energy is not always equivalent to large-scale wind farms, and that household microgeneration and small-scale community generation are enormously important. He paid tribute in particular to community and co-operatively owned initiatives. I join him in celebrating them; the potential of the co-operative principle is generally neglected in our society, but its application is valuable in wind energy, and also in biofuels and solar power. I know of examples of a community-based approach delivering small-scale energy generation, which, as has been mentioned, is enormously more efficient than energy generation based in large-scale power stations.

The hon. Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) is, I think, in something of a minority in his approach, which seemed not so much nimbyist as showing a psychological aversion to wind power. The Tyndall centre recently quoted a poll as showing strong public support for wind power running at 81 per cent. Of the remaining 19 per cent., 14 per cent. still slightly support wind power. I suspect that the hon. Gentleman falls into the “strongly against” category, which is 1 per cent. of the population, so he is in a small minority.

I also disagree with the hon. Gentleman about the aesthetics of wind turbines. Last year I was the guest of my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) in his constituency, where we admired the beautiful offshore wind turbines. Going to the lengths of criticising wind turbines on—to use the hon. Gentleman’s phrase—open seascape is taking nimbyism to the extreme.

Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that there are no seascapes in this country that ought to be protected?

Of course not.

The right hon. Gentleman took the words right out of my mouth. However, where appropriate wind turbines can be an attractive addition to the landscape. I would happily see more of them in Gloucestershire and am happy to go on the record as saying that. The hon. Member for Clwyd, West said that tidal power was less intrusive. It is true that all renewable energy must be approached sensitively, but I suspect that a tidal barrage across the Severn estuary might be a lot more intrusive than wind turbines in the local area.

There are issues with wind power. On a large scale, community consent is overwhelmingly the most important issue. The onus is on companies that are developing wind power and large-scale wind farms not to attempt to ride roughshod over local feelings, but to consult and involve local people wherever possible. As the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth said, however, we now have an opportunity to move beyond consultation and into involvement, and to see a policy shift that supports and empowers community ownership and involvement in smaller-scale generation. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s comments on that. The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) mentioned the good example of Woking district council, where a partly community-owned company has been instrumental in achieving a radical shift in the reduction of CO₂ emissions.

There are concerns about small-scale generation too. I note that even the Energy Saving Trust has sounded a few alarm bells, particularly about the performance and reliability of some of the products that are being rushed to market. Kirk Archibald of the trust is quoted in The Observer on 25 June as saying:

“'There’s a lack of independent, verifiable evidence to support the performance claims of turbines attached to buildings…There’s been a lot of hype and a lot of interest”.

The right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) has rightly contributed to that a little bit, but we could face a situation in which wind turbines are rolled out but do not work. One consultant is quoted in the same article as saying:

“'We found the performance of them is on average between 10 and 25 per cent. of what the manufacturers are claiming.”

That is a cause for concern, because we want microgeneration but we want it to be as efficient as the manufacturers claim. We want the same regulation that applies to solar panels to be as tough on wind turbine manufacturers, so that they do not exploit people’s good intentions.

More worrying is a warning about the lateral thrust of turbines, which, as I am sure hon. Members know, threatens any large chimney. Indeed, it is said that a Victorian chimney stack in a high wind would be more than sufficient to topple a turbine. The right hon. Gentleman might want to check that the lateral thrust on his wind turbine is not going to topple his Victorian chimney. If his neighbours are upset now, they will be even more upset if that happens.

There are obstacles to be tackled and overcome, but climate change is on a wholly different scale. It fundamentally threatens our way of life and our economy, and the welfare and well-being not only of ourselves but of people in many parts of the world. It is important that the Government continue their commitment to renewable energy.

I welcomed many of the things in the Government’s energy review yesterday, such as the increase in the renewable obligations certificates, although there are questions. I probably do not have time to discuss the matter fully now, bearing in mind your remarks, Sir Nicholas, but the British Wind Energy Association and others have expressed concern that in supporting other renewables through the renewable obligation we should not undermine support for onshore wind, simply because the others become more economic in the process.

Other areas of policy that can support wind energy also need to be addressed, but as far as I can see they have not been addressed in the energy review. One is the code for sustainable buildings, which currently does not support microgeneration explicitly and which is not even compulsory in the energy efficiency measures that it supports. I would like the code to become compulsory for new buildings and for an element of compulsion to be included in microgeneration, so that perhaps all new buildings could contribute to it.

Last October, the Government’s chief scientist called for support to be given for hydrogen fuel cell technology, which is one way in which wind power might contribute to the energy of the country without the problems of intermittence to which the hon. Member for Clwyd, West referred. The Government’s chief scientist was quoted as saying that Government bodies, industry, academia and other interests must work much closer together to push the technology into the mass market. I would be grateful to hear the Minister’s comments on the progress that is being made with that.

There is the issue of grants for microgeneration. In parliamentary answers to me, the Minister said that the “Clear skies” programme ran for more than three years and had a budget of £13.25 million for household microgeneration. Unfortunately, however, the household element of the new low-carbon buildings fund—which covers more than households—amounts to only £6.5 million over three years. That sounds like a halving of the budget for grants for household microgeneration, but I would be grateful for the Minister’s clarification on that.

There is also the issue of nuclear power. As the hon. Member for Southampton, Test implied—but perhaps did not spell out—the mere idea of supporting the large-scale new development of nuclear power runs counter to the idea of a decentralised and more efficient energy generation system. More localised and distributed generation will be more efficient, but the Government’s policy towards nuclear might undermine support for community generation.

There are many positives to be taken, however. I absolutely applaud the remarks that the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth made about community and co-operatively-owned wind generation. I hope that the Minister will take those remarks on board, but there are other policy questions to be asked as well.

All of us offer our thanks to the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Alun Michael) for initiating this debate, in which I hope there can be a lot of cross-party agreement about what we are trying to achieve for our country and for our planet.

Renewable energy technology is vital to the low-carbon energy future that we must achieve. Onshore wind is currently the most economically viable renewable in the UK market and provides more than 2 per cent. of our national electricity demand—the most of any single renewable technology—yet many other technologies and carbon-neutral approaches are being neglected in comparison. Wave technology has shown great potential, growth in photovoltaic cells is faster than ever before, geothermal boreholes have the potential to decrease household energy consumption by up to 60 per cent. and we all know the list of other options, such as biomass, tidal and offshore wind.

Yesterday the Government launched their energy review. I take this opportunity to congratulate the Minister on having behind him a worthy and hard-working civil service team, without which I imagine that his efforts would perhaps have been as desperate as ours—I have had to manage with one person and the office cat. We all need to reflect on the stalwart qualities of the British Governmental apparatus in doing all that hard work.

We are delighted that the Government have agreed with us and appreciated the need to reform the renewables obligation, because that instrument is important in promoting a wide range of renewable sources. We welcome political consensus on this proposal.

In 1997, the Prime Minister promised to put the environment at the top of the agenda, but since then we have had nine years, six energy Ministers, three energy reviews and our carbon emissions have increased. I am told—it is worth checking—that we have the lowest level of renewable power in Europe, except for Malta. Britain cannot be proud of that track record.

We want action across the political divide. Our policy is to try to spark a green revolution, but we need to consider the regime of incentives governing this sector. We want a long-term carbon-pricing regime, which will give incentives for all forms of renewable technology so they can compete against traditional fossil fuels and thereby flourish. We need reform of the renewables obligation to create the required incentives for renewable energy generally.

Wind is only one of a number of technologies that we need to help us target carbon. The Carbon Trust published a report on Monday that damned the current renewables obligation; it said:

“Without additional support for offshore wind (and other renewable technology), the development of offshore wind (and other renewable technology) installations at scale in the UK will be held back; the UK renewable energy targets will be missed by a wide margin, carbon reduction targets will be harder to meet and an opportunity for renewable energy to become a meaningful component of the UK's energy mix may pass”.

The problem is that the renewables obligation in its present form—in respect of which the Government said yesterday that there would be no changes before 2009-10—provides a significant incentive for building wind farms at the expense of other renewable technologies. The renewables obligation does not do enough to incentivise photovoltaic, geothermal, wave and tidal technologies, and it does not do very much to stimulate research into technologies that are still at the experimental or prototype stage. Put simply, the renewables obligation is the reason why there are so many applications to build wind farms throughout the country. In some senses, that is a good thing, but it is a bit of a one-card trick. Given the proliferation of applications for ever-larger wind farms—illustrated by my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones)—a level of local opposition is understandable.

The thrust of the debate has been that local opposition is not inevitable if the local community is empowered and does not see it as something that is done to them.

It is inevitable and recurrent, but it may be overcome. At the moment there is a stand-off between the renewables obligation pushing for these things and much popular opinion that is wary of them arriving on their doorstep, but there is no proper mechanism for marrying the two positions in a way that can engage people in a proper, effective democratic process. That situation is illustrated by the difference of opinion in the Chamber today. If the issue were considered and people were taken to see the sites, there might be far less disagreement, but the trouble is that that is not happening.

Once people think that a wind farm might be located on a beauty spot, they immediately resile from ever thinking that it might be all right. That is what this debate is all about. It is not a simple them and us, nimby/banana debate. People have fixed views and are either fervently for or against wind farms. There is a lot of misunderstanding, as is the case in so many areas of politics, life and everything on this planet. Wind farms are a classic case of people wanting to protect beauty spots and thinking that they cannot contribute, but not knowing how to overcome their suspicions. We have further steps to take if we are to address this matter properly. Wind has a part to play in a low-carbon energy future, but over-reliance on it is the wrong way forward and it may not be letting other technologies get a fair look-in.

Changes to the renewables obligation are long overdue; we have been calling for them since the last election. Although we have often been criticised by the Government, they are now going to change things, which is good. Their suggestion yesterday about creating bands within the renewables obligation could be a part of the answer, but we should like to see those implemented before 2009-10, unless there is clear evidence that they will damage investment risk and decisions that are currently being undertaken or are in the planning stage. The Government have to be careful not to introduce new distortions when creating bands. It is not easy, but we should always fly a warning flag on Government intervention of this sort, because their action often has unforeseen consequences. It should be the responsibility of the Government not to pick the mix, but to create the right framework and the right incentives.

I do not share Sir Bernard Ingham’s view that windmills are all spin and no substance; that jibe may be mythological, but it sounds like him. They are good in the right place and are emissions-benign, but, depending on people’s views, they are either visually intrusive or attractive. Divided opinion on this matter rests on an aesthetic argument and a subjective judgment. I used not to like the things, but quite near my constituency there is a 10 turbine farm near Kettering, which, with better technology, is rotating more slowly and is very elegant and beautiful because it is in the right place. Ultimately, it is a matter of where these things are and whether the people who live near or around them find them palatable or unpalatable.

Whether it is a matter of love or hate, nimby or banana, or whatever, the argument is about scale and place, in trying to get the balance right, we face a social and political challenge. I hope that, in terms of financial incentives and the planning process, we can in the decades ahead ensure that we get it right and let such sources play a part in a low-carbon energy future.

This has been an important and timely debate, following the publication of the energy review yesterday. We have to thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Alun Michael) for securing the debate.

My starting point is that wind is a renewable, clean source of energy that is in plentiful supply in this country. The idea of harnessing the power of the wind is hardly new; in fact, it is pre-industrial. The presence of windmills throughout the UK, some hundreds of years old, is testament to that. I have no idea whether in those far-away days Conservative Members of Parliament were tilting at windmills. With the occasional exception today, we have heard a number of powerful speeches in favour not just of the principle of wind energy, but of the practice. I do not know whether that is a widespread view.

We are talking not only about windmills, but the cutting edge of electricity generation technology. The Government recognise that wind farm developments have an important part to play in our energy mix, both in the wider context of maintaining the security of our energy supplies—which is important as a form of home-grown energy at a time of potentially large energy imports to this country over the coming decades—and in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Wales is already making a welcome contribution to renewable energy targets: almost 25 per cent. of total UK onshore wind farm generating capacity is located there. North Hoyle, our first large-scale wind farm to generate electricity offshore, has been operating successfully for more than two years.

We need to put this debate in the context of climate change, as several hon. Members have done, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley), whose expertise in this area we value. A report published earlier this year, “Avoiding dangerous climate change”, concluded that the risk of climate change is probably even greater than we thought, but it also showed that much can be done to avoid the worst effects of climate change. The report suggests that a rise of just 2° C will be enough to cause a tripling of poor harvests in Europe and Russia, large-scale displacement of people in north Africa due to desertification and could leave up to 2.8 billion people at risk of water shortage.

Other evidence shows that this is not just theory. Global warming is having a debilitating impact on many people at the moment in the form of rising levels of children dying from malaria and diarrhoea, as a recent World Health Organisation report showed. The effects could also include the total loss of summer arctic sea ice, causing the potential extinction of the polar bear and the walrus in future.

Action now could help to avert the worst effects of climate change, but we should not underestimate the scale of the task. Since 1990, global emissions of carbon dioxide alone have risen by 20 per cent. The UK, however, is making progress. We are ahead of our Kyoto target, with estimates showing that carbon dioxide emissions will be between 15 and 18 per cent. below 1990 levels by 2010. At the same time, our economy has seen a 24 per cent. increase in gross domestic product since 1997. Our experience shows that decarbonisation need not damage economic growth, although we obviously need to go further, improving that important hypothesis. We have set an aim of a 60 per cent. reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. Nothing less than a radical change in how we generate and use energy will be needed, and renewable energy can help to deliver that.

Let me comment more specifically on wind energy. We have set a target to supply 10 per cent. of our electricity from renewable sources by 2010, and we expect the largest contribution up to 2010 to come from wind, both onshore and offshore. Currently, wind is one of the most economic renewable technologies, which is why it is doing so well. Last year, we saw more than 440 MW of new wind capacity built—356 MW onshore and 90 MW offshore—which is a record so far. A further 479 MW is under construction, including the 90 MW Barrow offshore wind farm, which is due to be commissioned next month. If we meet our 10 per cent. target, we will save 2.5 million tonnes of carbon a year by 2010, based on 1990 levels if the equivalent had been generated from gas. That is why it is important that we take action now and why wind is key in tackling the problem of climate change.

Yesterday, the energy review was published and the Government announced that we were making changes to the way in which we support renewable energy, to help us to go further and faster. The renewables obligation has been very successful so far in driving renewable generation. That has more than doubled in the four years since the introduction of the obligation. The cheapest renewable technologies, such as onshore wind and landfill gas, have done well under the obligation, but there is still a lot of potential in that respect that we want to tap. However, those technologies can take us only so far. There are only so many landfill sites and suitably windy sites for wind farms onshore.

To achieve the step change, we will need to go beyond 10 per cent. renewables and get towards our 20 per cent. aspiration. We will also need emerging technologies, especially offshore wind, to do more, but those emerging technologies are not yet really taking off, because of their cost. As a result, the Government announced yesterday two major changes to strengthen and widen the impact of the renewables obligation. First, we shall extend the obligation up to 20 per cent. renewables. We shall not do that in fixed steps, as we do up to 15 per cent. Instead, we shall raise the obligation only when that is justified by growth in renewables.

Secondly, we shall consult on banding the renewables obligation—that is, providing greater support for emerging technologies and less for established ones. The hon. Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) called for that, and we responded yesterday to that request. In doing that, we will protect existing investments where possible, to maintain investor confidence in the renewables obligation.

Does the Minister share the concerns of the British Wind Energy Association expressed in response to the review? It said yesterday:

“It is in no one’s interest for development of the most cost effective renewable energy technology to be hindered by policy changes.”

I am sure that we shall hear a range of views from those with an interest. All I will say is that we will consult. We have set out the principles of where we want to move to. That will require primary and secondary legislation and will take several years. That is the answer to the question about why we cannot move quicker.

We need also to ensure that we manage the burden on electricity consumers. Prices have increased significantly in the past year. We need to ensure that our package does not hit consumers even harder. That is why we are freezing the buy-out price in 2015.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I will briefly, but I want to answer the points that have been made.

I am very interested in the wider aspects that the Minister is covering and they are very important, but the central thrust of the debate is about the potential for community empowerment also to make a contribution to the objectives. I hope that he will come to that in the final five minutes.

I had better not say that that intervention has delayed me by 20 seconds in getting there, because that would be ungracious, but I do want to make that point. Indeed, I was about to say that my right hon. Friend, through his commitment to co-operation, has brought the spirit of Robert Owen to the debate. I share his analysis and values: if communities feel that outsiders are coming in and wanting to do things to the community, it is more likely that the community will be hostile. If the community can be involved in a range of ways, it is more likely that projects will be encouraged.

The Renewables Advisory Board commissioned a study in 2005 entitled “Community Benefits from Wind Power: A study of UK practice and comparison with leading European Countries”. It concluded that

“overseas evidence points to a need to make meaningful community benefits more routine and systematic in UK wind power projects if future rates of deployment are to grow.”

Following that report’s recommendations, a further three pieces of work have been commissioned by the Renewables Advisory Board. The first piece of work is on community benefits from wind power development. The second is on public engagement protocols for wind power projects, and the third is on bankable models for community ownership of wind farms. I am pleased that that work is being undertaken. I want to see what developments we can help to encourage and facilitate in the months to come. I am happy to talk to my right hon. Friend about that more informally.

We also have a community renewables initiative, and although that applies only to England, it is for the National Assembly to consider similar support in Wales. I am pleased that the initiative has been sustained; indeed, in March the Government announced more than £400,000 of additional funding for the initiative. My hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe was instrumental in helping to deliver that. So far, the initiative has helped 91 community renewable energy projects, and 294 projects are also nearing completion, so it is an important initiative.

I should also mention the low carbon buildings programme, because we now have some £80 million to spend on microgeneration. That will enable us, in different community buildings, not least schools, to bring some of the ideas about co-operation and community to life. Only yesterday, I was at the Ashburton learning village, which involves a community school in my borough of Croydon. There is the most fantastic array of photovoltaics on the new building. It was a delight to hear the young students and teachers telling me how they are learning about energy and the environment through using renewables in their school.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth and other colleagues will see that in the energy review we talk about the importance of distributed energy. We say that we will investigate

“the potential of distributed energy as a long-term alternative or supplement”

to our current highly centralised system. There is much in the review to encourage my right hon. Friend. I am interested in the themes that he introduces. It is important, when developments affect communities, that the communities are on board in one or different ways. Where there can be community ownership, I would welcome that.

I again congratulate my right hon. Friend and all other contributors to what has been a useful debate. I am interested in the themes of co-operation and community involvement and I hope that we can discuss that in the future both formally, in the Chamber, and more informally with colleagues.

I am grateful for the opportunity to bring up the case of my constituent, Mr. Allan Bennett. He is a 67-year-old former social worker who was convicted in 2003 of offences against children in his care that were alleged to have occurred between 1978 and 1981. I believe that my constituent did not receive a fair trial and that his treatment since he has been incarcerated in Frankland prison amounts to nothing short of harassment. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will consider some of the points that I make and look at how my constituent is being treated in prison. I realise that my hon. Friend has no responsibility for the courts and the legal service, but by way of background I would like to say a few words about how my constituent came to be in this predicament.

Mr. Bennett was convicted on the evidence of two individuals who have both since claimed and been paid compensation, so there was a financial incentive for them to make the allegations. He was convicted on evidence that was obtained under the police trawling system that was prevalent at that time, whereby individuals were offered compensation in return for making allegations against people in care homes. I do not condone any sort of criminal activity in care homes, but I feel that my constituent has had a poor deal.

My constituent’s first barrister committed suicide. His second barrister, in whom he had great confidence, decided two weeks before the trial that he could not take the case further, because he was involved in another case which he thought might overrun. His third barrister took on the case at two weeks’ notice, and was refused an adjournment by the trial judge, despite the fact that evidence was introduced one and a half hours before the trial began. Needless to say, Mr. Bennett was convicted. He has since been imprisoned at Frankland prison as a category B prisoner. He is a 67-year-old pensioner, and he is incarcerated in a high-security prison.

Mr. Bennett received a sentence of 11 years for offences that were alleged to have occurred 20 years ago, for which there was no corroborative evidence. He was convicted on the word of his two accusers. In those circumstances, such a sentence beggars belief. It was reduced to eight years on appeal, but when one considers sentencing policy today, which as my hon. Friend knows is the subject of huge debate, especially in relation to foreign prisoners, asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, one must question why a British citizen—even if he did commit those crimes; he will contest his convictions to his dying day—should be sentenced to 11 years by a judge after a trial in which he was legally represented by a barrister for only two weeks. That seems rather strange.

During his time in prison, my constituent has been subjected to—shall we say—unusual treatment. My hon. Friend knows that I have raised the issue of the search and visitors regimes at Frankland prison, because I have written to him about them. I have received letters from both the head of resettlement at the prison and my hon. Friend about the matter.

I asked the prison governor whether my constituent should be kept in high-security conditions as a category B prisoner at the age of 67. The letter of reply of 21 June from the head of resettlement states:

“Although this sentence was reduced to 8 years on appeal, the offences were considered extremely serious and a serious breach of trust because the victims were both known to him as a result of his employment in residential social work. One offence of buggery was against a boy in his care as Assistant Principal of an Assessment Centre. The other offence of buggery and indecent assault was brought by a man who had been in the Children’s Home of which Mr Bennett was Deputy Officer in Charge in the mid 1970s and with whom he had remained in contact throughout his life.”

In fact, the reverse is the case. Mr. Bennett had not remained in contact with that man throughout his life; the man had remained in contact with Mr. Bennett. Mr. Bennett and his wife were guests at the man’s first wedding. When that marriage collapsed, the man formed another relationship and married again, in Suffolk. At that wedding, Mr. Bennett was introduced as his surrogate father. When that marriage collapsed, the man came to Mr. Bennett time and again to seek advice and assistance.

When the first allegations against Mr. Bennett were made by the first individual, he went to the man with whom he had remained in contact throughout his life to ask for a character reference to put before the court. He sought that man out to stand as a witness at his trial. When Mr. Bennett refused to pay him the £5,000 loan for which he asked and to provide him with a character reference to persuade the immigration authorities to allow his new girlfriend to enter the country, he refused to be a character witness for Mr. Bennett and then made allegations against him. That shows how big a travesty of justice this case has been, and it is one example of how people in this country are treated by our legal system.

Compared with some of the sentences that are given out these days, it is incredible that a man of 67 can be sentenced to 11 years in a high-security prison. Murderers do not get 11 years these days; anyone committing murder these days will be out on the streets well before 11 years is up. My constituent refuses to admit his guilt—his religious convictions preclude him from admitting to offences that he did not commit—so he will not qualify for parole and will have to serve the full length of his sentence. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister why is my constituent in high-security conditions? Why is he—a 67-year-old who poses no threat to anybody—in HMP Frankland as a category B prisoner?

Since my constituent has been incarcerated, he has not been entitled to receive his pension. Therefore, not only is he being punished for his crimes, but his wife does not receive the retirement pension that she was receiving before his conviction. Not only has a financial penalty been imposed on her, but she has to find the wherewithal to visit her husband in Frankland prison.

On occasion, Mrs. Bennett has complained about the way in which she and her relatives have been treated when they have visited her husband. Last year, Mr. Bennett’s daughter travelled from Australia to visit him in Frankland. On her arrival at the prison, she was told that because the sniffer dog had become a little agitated as she passed it, she would not be entitled to an open visit, and that she could either have a closed visit or re-book. As she had come from Australia, the idea of re-booking was a bit of a no-no. She offered to be strip searched so that the prison authorities could check whether she had anything about her person that could be regarded as contraband, but that offer was refused.

After travelling all the way from Australia, that situation might be regarded as unfortunate; it could just be a sad case of having travelled all that way but that, under the rules, that was the daughter’s lot. However, it happened again. When Mr. Bennett’s brother-in-law travelled from Canada to the same prison to visit Mr. Bennett, he, too, was refused an open visit and told that he could have only a closed visit or re-book. Why on two occasions have visitors travelling huge distances been refused visits to a 67-year-old pensioner in Frankland high-security prison? It beggars belief.

My constituent is required to undergo a strip search every time he moves in and out of the visiting area. We are talking about a 67-year-old man who is made to strip and to “pirouette”, as he described it in his complaint to the prison governor. In other words, he must turn around so that his genitals and buttocks can be examined by a prison officer. That is degrading and humiliating. The next time that Mr. Bennett was strip searched after he had complained to the governor, the prison officer said to him, “Ah, Mr. Bennett, pirouette please.” His complaint form had been passed to the staff, and they began to deride him and humiliate him even further by using his exact words. That is humiliation and harassment of a 67-year-old pensioner who maintains his innocence.

Mr. Bennett also complained that his post had been opened and interfered with; his airmail letters from his daughter in Australia had been opened, read and returned to him. When he complained about that, he was told, “Yes, your letters have been opened. It was a mistake and we will ensure that it does not happen again.” That is not the case; this man is being targeted, his post is being opened and interfered with, and he is being humiliated.

Mr. Bennett’s family is also suffering that humiliation; not just Mr. Bennett but his wife and children are being punished. Even if he is guilty of the offences of which he has been convicted, surely his family should not be treated as criminals in the same way. Surely they should be able to visit him without having to be harassed; surely when his children travel large distances they should be able to visit their father without receiving such treatment.

I have made it plain that I feel that this man has been unfairly treated by the Prison Service, even if he is guilty. I had to telephone him yesterday, because I was worried that my raising this debate would mean that the treatment would worsen. A letter that he sent to me on Monday contained a form that he had been asked to sign by a prison officer agreeing to the release of information from his file. It occurred to me that the Frankland authorities were trying to frighten him into not allowing this debate to go ahead by indicating that their making him sign that form would mean that information would be made public during the debate that might embarrass or humiliate him even further. I know that the Minister will dispute that, and I hope he will tell me that the procedure is normal. The way that this man has been treated tends to suggest that if he complains any further the treatment will worsen.

In conclusion, I must ask the Minister whether the Government really feel that a 67-year-old pensioner who was convicted on uncorroborated evidence of offences dating back 20 years should be regarded as a high-security prisoner. Mr. Bennett has indicated that he will serve the full sentence, because he refuses to admit his guilt. Could the sentence be carried out in less extreme circumstances than those in which he finds himself today?

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, Central (Mr. Illsley) on securing this debate, which, as he says, concerns one of his constituents. I fully recognise and understand the passion and strength of feeling that he has shown towards his constituent in this case. He knows that in my ministerial career I look closely at the detail of issues that hon. Members from all parts of the House raise with me. I hope that he will understand the limitations placed on what I am able to say about the sentencing policy. He wants me to go down a particular route that is not my area of responsibility, and he will know that there has been a great deal of media awareness about Home Office Ministers talking about sentencing policy involving the judiciary.

As my hon. Friend said, Mr. Bennett’s case has already been the subject of correspondence between my hon. Friend and myself, and he has also corresponded directly with Her Majesty’s prison Frankland. The permission that was sought from and granted by Mr. Bennett to discuss his case today is normal procedure. If we had not got that permission, I would not have been able to put lots of things on the record today. In addition, the fact that Mr. Bennett has no outstanding appeal is relevant to the remarks that I can make. Had an appeal been ongoing, I would not have been able to make the comments that I am going to make today. I thank Mr. Bennett for giving us the permission to enable me to say the things that I will say today.

As my hon. Friend said, Allan Bennett is a 67-year-old prisoner currently located at HMP Frankland, a high-security prison near Durham. He was convicted and sentenced on 16 December 2003 at Sheffield Crown court to 11 years’ imprisonment. He appealed against his conviction and sentence, and was refused leave to appeal against conviction but had his sentence reduced to eight years. His offences, which he continues to deny, took place more than 20 years ago, while he was working as a residential social worker, as my hon. Friend said. I do not intend to go into detail about the offences. However, as a result of Mr. Bennett’s conviction, he will remain on the sex offenders register for life and is also subject to safeguarding children measures.

On the subject of Mr. Bennett’s denial of guilt, as I explained to my hon. Friend in a letter of 27 June, at the time of his trial the courts would have had the opportunity to hear and consider all the evidence presented to them. The Prison Service has to deal with Mr. Bennett on the basis of his being guilty of the serious offences of which he was convicted.

Perhaps it would be appropriate at this stage to say something about the conditions in which Mr. Bennett is held. Frankland is a high-performing prison, rated at level 4, which is the highest rating available. It has been so since the ratings were introduced in 2002. Prisons operating at that level are assessed to be:

“Exceptionally high performing, consistently meeting or exceeding targets…no significant operating problems, achieving significantly more than similar establishments with similar resources”.

That does not mean that every decision made in every level 4 prison is correct, that every procedure is carried out 100 per cent. correctly or that every prisoner’s experience of custody is exactly as he or she would want it to be, but it does set Frankland in context: as a prison which is performing very well across the piece.

Mr. Bennett is a category B vulnerable prisoner located on B wing, the specific needs wing, which holds and has a regime more suited to elderly prisoners. B wing has a special needs landing which holds older prisoners who do not warrant 24-hour health care, although there is a nurse assigned to the landing. Mr. Bennett is not in employment because he is retired, but I understand that he attends the gym and undertakes part-time education three times a week, studying IT.

Mr. Bennett denies his offence, so no offence-related work has been carried out. He was last asked about his offence in 2004, when he continued to deny it and stated that he would not take part in the sex offender treatment programme or the enhanced thinking skills programme because he was appealing against conviction. Mr. Bennett is on the sex offender treatment programme database as a denier/refuser. He will be revisited by a member of the psychology department later this month to gauge his level of involvement with the SOTP and an assessment will be made by the end of the month.

Mr. Bennett’s most recent sentence plan was completed on 2 March 2004 at Doncaster. Frankland has a backlog of sentence plans, so Mr. Bennett has not had one since arriving in 2004, but the prison has undertaken to commence one in the next couple of weeks. I am sure that both my hon. Friend and Mr. Bennett will be pleased with that news.

In his letter to me of 10 June, my hon. Friend questioned the suitability of Frankland as a location for his constituent, as he did again today. In my response to him, I pointed out that, after his conviction, Mr. Bennett was classified as a category B prisoner and was eventually transferred to Frankland so that he might participate in offending behaviour work. Although Frankland is in the high-security estate, it holds a number of category B prisoners. Indeed, they make up about 75 per cent. of its population.

A prisoner must demonstrate a reduction in risk if he is to move forward by achieving a lower security category. By declining to undertake any offending behaviour work, Mr. Bennett has been unable to demonstrate a reduction to justify a lower security category. Perhaps significantly, given the comments of my hon. Friend, in the two and a half years that Mr. Bennett has been at Frankland he has not requested a transfer. There is no real reason why he could not be transferred to a non-high-security prison, but because he has never applied for a transfer or had a sentence plan, that has not been considered since his arrival at Frankland. Mr. Bennett would require category B conditions unless his sentence planning board advocated a change of category. Prisons closer to his home area of Barnsley in which SOTP is available are Full Sutton, Wakefield, Hull and Manchester.

Mr. Bennett is described, both by staff on his wing and by others, as polite, courteous and compliant with the regime. He is reported as saying that he gets on well with the staff. His level on the incentives and earned privileges scheme is enhanced. Mr. Bennett has had no disciplinary adjudications since he arrived at Frankland, and his behaviour while at Frankland is very much to his credit. Mr. Bennett is subject to Prison Service order 4400, and as such is not allowed children visitors. He has received visits from a number of adult members of his family, who remain supportive.

My hon. Friend raised the issue of Mr. Bennett being strip searched in a manner that the latter found demeaning and humiliating. My hon. Friend wrote to me on 16 May, enclosing two letters from Mr. Bennett; he has already gone into how Mr. Bennett is searched before and after visits, so I do not intend to repeat the detail, but it might help my hon. Friend if I set out the context of the searching of Mr. Bennett. The Prison Service has a well established policy for the full searching, previously known as strip searching, of prisoners. It is set out in function 3 of the national security framework.

All prisons are required to have a searching strategy, setting out the frequency of searching across the establishment. It is recognised that a good searching strategy is not just intended to uncover unauthorised items but to act as a deterrent to prisoners and others. The techniques need to be thorough if illicit items are to be discovered, otherwise there would be no point in searching anyone. However, due attention should be paid to the privacy of the person being searched. The searching strategy must be proportionate to the potential threat to security or to the control of establishments. That is why prisoners held in high-security establishments are subject to more searching than those in lower category prisons. The full searching of such prisoners is necessary in the interests of security, to protect the public, and to provide a safer environment for prisoners, staff and visitors.

The full searching of all prisoners in reception and on leaving a prison are mandatory requirements of the national security framework. So, too, are cell searches, which must always be accompanied by a full search of prisoners. Prisoners held in higher category establishments are subject to more routine searching. The method used for full searching is the same irrespective of the security level of the prison. The national security framework includes step-by-step instructions on how full searches must be conducted for both male and female prisoners. I know that when the security manager at Frankland wrote to my hon. Friend on 18 May he enclosed a number of documents that set out the procedure.

Essentially, a full search constitutes a detailed visual search of the body, including ears, nose, mouth and hair. It must be carried out by two officers of the same sex as the subject and must be done out of sight of members of the opposite sex. The top and lower halves of prisoners’ clothing must be removed separately so that the person being searched is not totally naked at any time. That is the point that I would like to emphasise, as that was the focus of Mr. Bennett’s complaint. He was treated no differently from any other prisoner in that respect.

All searching staff must adhere to the procedures and are given appropriate training to equip them with the skills to undertake the task in a sensitive manner. The manner and purposes for which full searches are conducted are consistent with the European convention on human rights and prison rule 41(2), which requires that searches be carried out in as “seemly” a manner as is consistent with finding anything concealed. Our methods are still the most effective and least intrusive known to achieve the ends. My hon. Friend also mentioned the claim that, at a search, staff used the term “pirouette” to describe the physical movement of turning around, in order to humiliate Mr. Bennett. The prison told me that it can find no evidence that the term, if it was indeed used, was used maliciously.

As I said at the outset, I do not doubt the sincerity of my hon. Friend’s compassion about Mr. Bennett’s case, and I know that my hon. Friend is concerned about the sentence and what has happened to Mr. Bennett. He continues to champion Mr. Bennett’s case. My hon. Friend will know that he needs to speak to other colleagues, perhaps in the Department for Constitutional Affairs, about the case. On Mr. Bennett’s treatment in prison, I undertake to look further into what my hon. Friend has said in light of today’s debate, to see what can be done.

There is a good relationship between Mr. Bennett and the prison staff at Frankland. We believe that he has not been treated any differently from any other prisoner. The respect and dignity agenda in prisons has improved the situation dramatically; it is very different from what it was in years gone by. I undertake to look again at the circumstances relating to Mr. Bennett. I know that my hon. Friend will continue to be an advocate for him, not only in terms of his life in prison, but in terms of the details of the case.

I wholeheartedly agree with what my hon. Friend said about the family. The family should not in any way be held responsible for the actions of Mr. Bennett. We should be as sympathetic as possible, but we have to measure that sympathetic approach against the security conditions in our prisons. My hon. Friend will know that the prison population, security in prisons and prison capacity are high on the political agenda. I shall not be tempted to go down that route of commenting on sentencing guidelines, but I know that my hon. Friend will have the opportunity to speak to the Home Secretary, the Lord Chancellor and the Attorney-General about the case. I look forward to hearing what progress he makes. I end by saying that I do not doubt my hon. Friend’s sincerity on this matter, and I am sure that we will discuss the case further.

Hon. Members may take their jackets off, if they so desire. We have an interesting debate this afternoon and a lot of hon. Members want to take part, but everyone will get in if we all play fair by one another.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak this afternoon on changes to NHS services in Hertfordshire. Before I do so, I want to pay tribute to the many thousands of people who work for the NHS in Hertfordshire and do a difficult job very well. Although I shall highlight some of the difficulties that we face with the NHS in Hertfordshire, I do not want to detract from the great efforts made by those staff.

The debate this afternoon is about changes to NHS services in Hertfordshire, but to be honest we face something that could easily be described as a crisis. I shall outline some of the difficulties that we face. I shall start with the primary care trusts, of which there are eight. All eight are in deficit and under special financial measures, with a cumulative deficit of £37 million in 2005-06.

We must bear in mind when considering such deficits the average per capita allocation to Hertfordshire. In 2005-06, the average per capita allocation was £986, which is £109 less than the average in England. If we had £34 more per head—still £75 less than the English average—the deficits in Hertfordshire’s PCTs would be wiped out. There is another way of looking at it, which is quite constructive when we consider the whole issue. We receive approximately 90 per cent. of the English average, and if we were to receive 93 per cent. there would be no deficits in our PCTs and we would not face the current crisis.

Would not another way of putting it be to say that if we had roughly the same amount as the Minister’s constituency we would be fine?

That is absolutely right. There is a broader issue. To open out the debate for a moment, Hertfordshire is just one example of a county in south-east England that is facing great difficulties. We could consider Surrey, Sussex, Norfolk, Suffolk and parts of London and we would find that the difficulties are concentrated in the south-east in the areas that receive below average per capita funding. There must be a question about the formula. I gave advance notice to the Minister and hope that she will be able to address the issue of the formula that is used in Hertfordshire and whether there are any plans to change it, as it seems to me that there is something wrong with the balance. I can see the argument that deprivation might be a factor, but the balance does not seem to be right when there is such a concentration of deficits in counties such as Hertfordshire.

I come now to the changes that we are debating. PCTs are having to undertake substantial cuts. A front page story in the Hemel Gazette today concerns a letter leaked from a GP in my constituency highlighting that there might well be cuts in district nurses and health visitors in Dacorum PCT. Mental health, too, is an area of enormous concern. I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker), who cannot be in the Chamber today because he is in Scotland on Select Committee business, because he has undertaken two Adjournment debates and worked tirelessly to raise the profile of the matter. Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Trust must reduce its spending by 5 per cent.—£5.6 million—despite never having been in deficit because the PCTs require it. We are seeing substantial cuts and both in-patient and out-patient services are suffering as a consequence. Another area that has been particularly affected is that of sexual health services. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Anne Main) will catch your eye, Mr. Hancock. She has worked tirelessly in this field and highlighted the many difficulties we face.

The issue of hospitals is perhaps the most emotive and the one that concerns my constituents maybe more than any other. Both of our hospital trusts are in deficit: East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust has a deficit of £22.38 million and has announced 500 job losses, while my hospital trust, West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust, has a deficit that is even greater at £28.38 million and has already incurred about 250 job losses, with another 500 or so to go. In total, Hertfordshire hospital trusts will lose 1,250 jobs, and we are talking about not only administrators but health care professionals—doctors and nurses—whose jobs will be going as a consequence of the cuts.

I want briefly to give some history of the development of hospital services in west Hertfordshire. A few years ago, there was a process called “Investing in Your Health”, which considered the reconfiguration of hospital services in west Hertfordshire. It concluded that the way forward was to downgrade Hemel Hempstead general hospital to a non-acute site. That caused enormous concern to people in Hemel Hempstead and beyond, in my constituency and places such as Berkhamsted and Tring. My hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning) has worked tirelessly to defend Hemel Hempstead hospital and has been a champion of the people of Hemel Hempstead on that point.

The conclusion was reached that Watford general hospital would be redeveloped and that acute services would be moved from Hemel Hempstead. I do not intend to re-open that debate, but I can fully understand why people who use Hemel Hempstead are worried about services being more distant. There was one consolation at the time of “Investing in Your Health”, which was that there would be a fantastic new hospital at Watford, and that services would not be moved until that hospital was built. The reality, however, will be somewhat different.

Services are on the move already. The birthing centre in Hemel Hempstead has closed, as has a ward for elderly patients, and there is more to come. Services have already been transferred to Watford, a hospital that I know well as I have had two children born there. Nobody, however big a fan they were of Watford, could say anything other than that it is a poorly designed site with outdated buildings, which is cramped and has little capacity. It is right next to Vicarage Road football ground, which I am pleased to say will be a premiership ground next season and is also used by Saracens. To get to the hospital on a match day is almost impossible, and even not on a match day it is difficult because transport links are not good. However, it is proposed that more services should be moved to Watford now.

I know, having asked the chief executive of the hospital trust, that during the course of the winter there were a number of occasions when notes were sent out to doctors, GPs and primary health care providers that Watford hospital was, effectively, full. That was in the winter and came before the closure of many of the acute services at Hemel Hempstead and their transferral to Watford.

How on earth will Watford cope in the interim period? By spring 2007, virtually all Hemel’s services will be gone. One might say that it is only an interim period of six years, but there is now severe doubt that we will get the new Watford hospital at all. It is supposed to be there by 2013. I will be grateful if the Minister can throw some light on the process. I know that one of her colleagues answered a parliamentary question on the subject in June, but it seems that we may have to wait some time before finding out whether the private finance initiative for Watford is to proceed. I sincerely hope that it will, because without it we will have the worst of both worlds, with Hemel losing its services but with no new facilities being made available for anyone in west Hertfordshire. I am greatly concerned about the matter, and I must ask how it has progressed.

Not long after being elected to this place last year, my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead and I met the chief executive of West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust and its then chairman. At that point they were already talking about bringing forward the reconfiguration of hospital services from 2013, because word had come from the strategic health authority that deficits had to be reduced; there had been a change of focus. Indeed, the same would have been said by the primary care trusts—that there had been a change of focus last year.

I have given the Minister advance warning about my question, but when precisely did that change happen? I have been here only a year and I hope that I am not becoming a cynical politician, but we heard little from the Government before the last general election about the need to balance the books and to reduce the deficits. That change of focus seemed to occur, almost to the day, immediately after the general election. That is something that the Government must answer. Before the last general election, Labour had five marginal seats in Hertfordshire; it now has only two—and I hope the number will fall. None the less, the Government seem to have changed their focus. I should be grateful if the Minister answered that point.

Has my hon. Friend had the chance to reflect on the fact that only two areas are now promised investment—Watford and Stevenage. Is there is any correlation between that and the occupancy of those seats?

My hon. Friend makes a characteristically astute point. He has been a tireless campaigner for the new site at Hatfield. I hope that he has the opportunity to raise the subject later today. It was a PFI site, but it has already been downgraded and it may not proceed. Again, I hope that the Minister will be able to speak about that.

Hertfordshire is being treated poorly. Its funding formula is working against it, and it has crumbling and out-of-date facilities that may not be replaced. We have seen substantial staff reductions and plummeting staff morale, and services are being cut. The Government have not listened to the people of Hertfordshire for many years. I hope that they will listen today to what is happening there, because we are seeing the appalling running down of our services. As can be seen by the strong showing of Hertfordshire Members, the people of Hertfordshire will not tolerate it for much longer.

I echo the tribute paid by my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke) to NHS staff, who are dedicated, devoted and hard-working.

I have represented a Hertfordshire constituency for nearly a quarter of a century, and this is the worst crisis that the NHS has ever faced during that time. The words “cuts” and “crisis” have been used fairly frequently over the past 20 years, but throughout that time they meant a reduction in the anticipated growth in spending or employment. This is the first time that we have known a real crisis.

It is a crisis of jobs. The two hospital trusts that serve my constituency each plan to shed 500 jobs—a total of 1,000. That is clearly only the start, because those cuts meet only a portion of the savings that the trusts have been told to make. Those cuts include nurses and doctors as well as the vital staff who back them up.

It is a crisis of hospitals. Harpenden memorial hospital in my constituency is to lose all its hospital beds; effectively, it is to be closed as an in-patient hospital. It is clear that of the two hospitals that serve the East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust, one is likely to be downgraded to little more than a cottage hospital. The promise of a new super-hospital at Hatfield that was floated and talked about assiduously before the election has now been downgraded from one costing £500 million that would have included a new cancer unit to one that will cost at most £300 million or £400 million; and within that envelope it will be impossible to include a new cancer unit—if it ever goes ahead.

It is a crisis of trust. At a public meeting that I chaired last September, my constituents expressed concern about rumours that the Harpenden memorial hospital might be closed. The PCT said at that meeting that it had considered all the options and that it had decided that it was an economic, efficient and caring way of providing health care for local people and that it wanted to build on that provision. Eight months later, it announced that every bed was to go. It is a crisis of trust in the management of the PCT.

It is also a crisis of trust in the Secretary of State. I asked her the other day why the East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust will have to cut a quarter of its spending—£66 million of a total of £267 million over the next three years. She said that the Department did not require any cuts in its budget, just that it should live within its budget. However, the figures that I cite are from the press release of the national health service, so someone is not to be trusted. I fear that the Secretary of State must have been ill-informed. We therefore cannot trust what she says about our local health service.

It is a crisis of care. The new model of care is designed to discourage and if possible prevent GPs referring patients to hospitals. A target has been set for the number of such referrals to be reduced by 50 per cent. In six areas, the target is a reduction of 80 per cent. in the number of patients being referred to hospitals. I have no objection to people being treated at home or elsewhere better than or as well as in hospital, or even more efficiently. However, setting a target rather than saying that the Department would provide the best form of care, whatever the outcome may be, is dangerous. It makes it clear that this reduction in care is being imposed as a result of budget stringency.

At a street meeting last Friday, my constituents asked one question—why is this happening? If there has been such an increase in NHS expenditure, why for the first time in their recollection are 1,000 jobs to go? Why are hospitals to be closed? Why is care being rationed? They want to know. I cannot tell them. Will the Minister give us an explanation that we can give to our constituents?

I almost do not know where to begin. Many of us share services; we do not all have our own hospitals or clinics. As a result, many of the cuts to services in other constituencies will affect my constituents. I was particularly touched by the tale of a nurse who lives in my constituency. She works in a thrombolysis unit in Hemel Hempstead. She told me that if that unit is relocated to Watford, nobody, including the staff, will have any confidence that the target of getting treatment within the target time of half an hour will be met. People who need to get there on a match day will not have that life-saving injection into the heart, whereas the system works in Hemel Hempstead.

Other shared services include podiatry and sexual health services. I have a number of letters from my constituents listing the cuts that they have been asked to face, some in my constituency and some just outside it. For example, there are the cuts in mental health services. I am sure that the Minister is only too aware that Hertfordshire has one of the highest incidences of mental health problems. We read about the amount of cuts for the adult care services—learning disability services, drug and alcohol services—and it beggars belief that that could be care in the community. Drug care services do not even bother tendering any more; they were being asked to provide so much that backed up the Government, even though they involve charities.

People with mental health problems often use homelessness services, and they have been cut back—for example, funding has been cut for the Open Door project in Bricket Wood. Funding has been cut to Grove House, the hospice in my constituency. Budgets for the elderly and mentally ill have been cut—£7.55 million. I have letters about the cuts from all the different services. Those are genuine cuts for my constituents, who do not understand how there can be extra care in the community and investment in health. As far as they are concerned, there is no investment in their health, just a hope that they will go away into a corner and not create a fuss about what are seen as some of the Cinderella services of our health service.

I have a letter about staff shortages in the foot health service that states:

“Dear Colleague…I am writing to let you know about the staffing problems the Foot Health Service is currently experiencing…In addition, our current financial position has also exacerbated the problems and has necessitated the taking of other remedial action…This equates to a 35 per cent. reduction in the department’s staffing.”—

that is, not caring in the community, but an actual reduction in department staffing. It continues:

“The net result of the staff shortages is that all podiatrists are now having to accept an increase in their workload and therefore are having to be more rigorous in prioritising their workload”—

that is, rationing health care.

I have written to the Minister about the issue of county sexual health promotion advisers. There used to be five in Hertfordshire; they went into schools, dealing with the issues at the sharp end, talking to pupils before they became sexually active. Such pupils may have had queries about sex or their relationships. We were then down to one last sexual health adviser post. Unfortunately, it seems that if we try to convince people that they can access services elsewhere, everybody says that somebody else is providing them and the post can be cut. The last post holder lost his job, despite active lobbying by his union and my writing on his behalf.

The gentleman in question met the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), at a chlamydia screening conference. She said that sexual health promotion was a core part of the Government’s choosing health initiative. We do not see that in Hertfordshire, where there is no longer a single sexual health promotion adviser.

People might say, “Well, go to your local sexual health clinic.” That would be interesting in St. Albans; people queue outside the door and into the car park. As I am sure the Minister is aware, sexual health clinics do not see only immediate constituents; people, for whatever reason—privacy, embarrassment or anonymity—will often travel across borders to go to clinics. My clinic in St. Albans and the clinic in Watford will serve the majority of people in Hertfordshire.

I have raised our belief that sexual health services in Hertfordshire are severely underfunded, despite a 1,500 per cent. increase in HIV infections, as well as other sexually transmitted diseases. As a result, a MedFash—Medical Foundation for AIDS and Sexual Health—review was undertaken; reluctantly, it seemed, but paid for by the Government. We were all terribly hopeful that it would deliver what we wanted to happen, but it was not to be. In fact anyone who knows the well respected Dr. Pat Mundy should be aware that she resigned because she was being asked to ration patient care and preside professionally over a service that was unsafe and subject to cuts.

Is sexual health one of the Government’s top six priorities in my constituency? I do not believe so. The trouble is that people wanting to use the services will not understand when they turn up and doors are locked against them. Are we really condemning people to an expensive, long illness of HIV/AIDS, for which we will eventually have to pick up the tab? Are we saying that young women may end up infertile and perhaps should seek the services later in life? Are we saying that we do not really care?

Today I was pleased to read in a letter from Dr. Mundy that the 48 per cent. rationing that was to have been asked for in Watford has been put on hold. I am sure that the Minister has seen the MedFash report; I urge her to stress that that is not a temporary political hold for political expediency and that it is a recognition of the cuts and shortages that have been going on year on year in health service provision in Hertfordshire.

As I said, we all share many of the services, so when a birthing unit closes at Hemel Hempstead or a thrombolysis service moves from somewhere else, or when the cancer services at the QEII hospital go, I care.

I shall not take up too much time, because I know that my right hon. and hon. Friends feel passionately about the issues, but there is one thing I really care about. Unfortunately, my constituency, along with that of Hemel Hempstead, seems to have a cash cow. I regarded it as an excellent local hospital, but unfortunately it is seen as a wonderful building site, which may well be used to pay off deficits. I am not talking about people being put in other areas to make best use of the system. We have just opened—I know it was not long ago, because I opened it—a brand new breast cancer unit in St. Albans, but we do not know whether we are going to keep it. During a hearing for a report of the Select Committee on Health, David Law was closely questioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning). He was asked about where he was going to find his money and replied:

“We shall have some redundant estate”—

he was talking about my hospital.

“We have a good facility in St. Albans with five theatres and beds and that will become redundant.”

That facility is going to pay off someone’s debts. I do not want some bean counter, who has been told to live within his budget, to ration health care. We are being asked to operate at 90 per cent. below national average, and we cannot do it.

St. Albans may be seen as a wealthy area, because it has high house prices, but I can point to areas of recognised deprivation, such as London Colney, in my constituency. They are on my council website. They have high immigrant populations and poor outcomes on health and cancer—many of the factors that this Government would accept indicate poverty. However, because they are in small localised pockets, St. Albans does not attract the funding as a whole, although the people need the services just as much.

I shall hand over to my hon. Friends now, but we are suffering huge cuts in our local services. People are not going elsewhere in the constituency, nor being cared for nicely at home. In St. Albans, we do not have a single NHS nursing care bed within our age care system—not a single one. I urge the Minister, please, to renegotiate the funding formula to take into account the fact that if we in St. Albans tried to meet our deficits, we would have no services. That is how it looks in my constituency.

I was elected to the House after defeating a previous Health Minister, Melanie Johnson, on the subject of hospital health care in my constituency of Welwyn Hatfield. That happened despite the fact that the then Secretary of State for Health, now the Home Secretary, had come to my constituency and announced a huge, £550 million project to build a new Hatfield hospital, which was to have been the answer to many of the concerns of my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Hertfordshire area.

We now learn that that project will involve at best investment of only £250 million or £300 million, and that it will not include cancer care. In fact, nine years after the Prime Minister told us that there were 24 hours to save the NHS, we are sceptical about whether it will ever be built.

Does my hon. Friend recollect that when the hospital was originally announced, amid the claims that he has described, the fact that it would include cancer care to reduce the long journey that my and his constituents would otherwise have to make was put forward as one of its principal benefits?

Absolutely—I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. I have been through cancer; I went through the trauma of chemotherapy and radiotherapy for a year, and can say that the last thing a person in such a situation wants to do is travel. That point comes on to exactly what I was about to say: that we have recently lost our chemotherapy service at the QEII hospital. That means that my constituents and others are having to travel 14 miles to the Lister hospital in Stevenage—a journey that no one wants to make when they are feeling sick after chemotherapy.

The issue is not only about the chemotherapy unit, but the maternity unit where my kids were born just two years ago, that is set to be closed, and the ward of elderly care beds that has already gone; another is set to be closed. The issue is about the accident and emergency service, the core of any acute hospital, that is set to be closed.

I defeated the former Health Minister because the paediatric service was to have been closed at night. She said that I was scaremongering, but it is now being closed in the daytime and stripped out entirely. It is difficult to comprehend, but all surgery is to be lost from the hospital. I ask the Minister: if we lose our surgery, our cancer care, our maternity services, our paediatrics and our A and E, what is left of our hospital? The Government have talked recently about their intention to create more community hospitals. Is this the route to creating more community hospitals? The hospital does not offer fundamental core services. Of course, that would all be okay if there were to be a shiny, new £500 million hospital 2 miles down the road in Hatfield.

As my hon. Friend knows, I defeated the former MP for St. Albans. During the election, we repeatedly sought assurances from Ministers that the hospital would be built. The Minister may be aware that I asked for minutes of the meeting. There have been no assurances from Ministers, and I believe that the public have been sorely misled over the status of the hospital.

My hon. Friend is right, and we look today for an assurance about the super-hospital at Hatfield that was promised by the then Secretary of State for Health in a blaze of publicity. There has been no publicity around an announcement to reverse the decision, so we would like to hear that assurance. I invite the Minister to come to Welwyn Hatfield to explain to the people in my locality when and where the hospital will be built, and whether, as was originally planned, it will include the cancer care unit moved from Mount Vernon hospital. Or has that plan been dropped? Will there be a brand-new teaching hospital in Hatfield this decade, the next decade or the one after? All the things that were promised have been quietly dropped now that the attention and focus are off and there is no general election—indeed, now that the seat is no longer in Labour’s hands.

It is understandable that people are looking to their MPs and asking what is going on. The truth is that, as things stand, we will be left with so little hospital health care in constituencies such as mine and those of my hon. Friends that the Government will be putting lives at risk. It is inconceivable what a constituent who falls over from a heart attack in Hatfield is supposed to do in a busy rush hour to get themselves to the Lister hospital in Stevenage, given that the motorway narrows to two lanes. It is unimaginable how ambulance services, which are being regionalised and cut, will pick up patient or victims of car accidents and get them to the health service that they require.

It is extraordinary to my hon. Friends and to our constituents to hear the Prime Minister and others stand up at the Dispatch Box week in and week out to reel off numbers that bear no relation at all to the situation on the ground. What should be discussed are the 500 job losses—such figures should be stated—the closure of departments and the broken promises about new hospitals that, when it comes to it, simply will not be built. I ask the Minister to accept my invitation to come and explain in person.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke) on obtaining this debate and on setting the scene so well. It is no exaggeration to speak of a crisis in health care in Hertfordshire for all the reasons that he and my colleagues have given. I shall deal with just one outcome of the crisis, but that does not mean that I overlook all the other cutbacks that are taking place in sexual health services, mental health services and hospital care. There are serious cutbacks in clinical care and in the numbers of doctors and nurses, and there is also the matter of targets for the use of hospitals by patients, including patients who have already been seen by their general practitioner. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) was right to raise that subject, about which many questions could be asked.

The one aspect that I wish to deal with in many ways epitomises the crisis in Hertfordshire at present. The Potters Bar community hospital is the responsibility of the Hertsmere primary care trust, which has a serious financial deficit. I have asked Ministers about it, and they say that the PCT must live within its means. However, if that is the case, some serious cutbacks at the Potters Bar community hospital will be required.

The PCT is consulting on a significant reduction in the capacity of Potters Bar community hospital, which is a 45-bed community hospital that is barely 10 years old. It replaced an older hospital that was built in the 1930s and had become dilapidated. The hospital is in a new location. It is a purpose-built community hospital that provides services for all the residents of Hertsmere, including, of course, those of Potters Bar. Although the hospital now serves the whole of Hertsmere as opposed to just Potters Bar, which it used to do in the past, the PCT proposes closing 15 of its 45 beds and using the space that is freed up to relocate services already provided at other premises in Potters Bar. We must be clear about this: there is no question of providing new or additional services at Potters Bar community hospital. It is a case of merging two sites into one to provide both sets of services from the same premises. The premises that are “freed up,” in the words of the PCT, will be closed and sold, and the proceeds of the sale presumably used to address the financial position of the PCT.

However, Potters Bar community hospital will lose one third of its beds for good under the plans. The PCT has introduced consultation and said what it proposes to do about community health care to make up for the losses, but the proposals are being driven by financial cutbacks in response to a financial crisis. Nobody can say that if the PCT or any other health service provider were planning the best way to provide health care for the residents of Hertsmere they would begin by closing a substantial number of the beds at Potters Bar community hospital.

I can do no better than quote what the Government said about precisely such a situation. Their White Paper stated:

“Some community hospitals are currently under threat of closure, as PCTs consider the best configuration of services in their area. Where these closures are due to facilities that are clinically not viable or which local people do not want to use, then local reconfiguration is right. However, we are clear that community facilities should not be lost in response to short-term budgetary pressures that are not related to the viability of the community facility itself.”

That is precisely the situation with the Potters Bar hospital. Local people certainly want to use it. They value it for all the reasons that community hospitals are valued. It is particularly valued by elderly residents of Potters Bar and Hertsmere and those with chronic conditions.

There is no question about the hospital’s clinical viability. It is a modern facility. I have to confess that I attended its opening, which might suggest that I have been here too long. In fact, I have not been here too long. It is a modern facility—it is almost brand-new— and the only reason that its position is under threat is because of the financial predicament of Hertsmere PCT.

My right hon. Friend was right to say that there is a question of trust, given what the Government have said about community hospitals. I put it to the Minister directly that if those words mean anything at all, and if the Government are to be trusted, Ministers must step in and do something about the situation at Potters Bar, which corresponds precisely with what they said. My simple plea is that the Minister will step in and assume responsibility for the Potters Bar community hospital to avoid a permanent loss of beds and a permanent loss of a significant part of the health care that is afforded to my constituents, which will come on top of all the other problems that have been outlined. Such a permanent loss to the residents of Potters Bar and Hertsmere will do serious, irreversible damage to the fabric of the health service in my constituency. I ask the Minister to step in and do something about it.

I join the general congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke) on obtaining this debate on the crisis in Hertfordshire’s health service. I wish to pick up on the point about trust that my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) made a moment ago. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) also spoke about it.

There are various categories of trust; for example, there is trusting the Government’s word in respect of their policies. The Government spend a great deal of time telling people in the mental health field that modern mental health provision is about early intervention, respite for carers, modern therapies and catching problems early—getting in there to help children and adolescents when they are pre-onset or at the onset of severe mental illness. I have taken a particular interest in that issue. In Hertfordshire, however, the Government are scrapping the early intervention service, the respite care and the in-patient therapies that are so valued, and they are cutting the child and adolescent health services.

The Government say that community hospitals can be valuable centres in which general practitioners can do things such as minor surgery. We have a community hospital in Royston, and there was a plan to develop it in the same way, but it is now on hold and has been for a long time. I have asked the Minister about the future of Royston hospital, but she says, “Ask the PCT.” However, the PCT is being scrapped and is becoming part of a larger PCT. If one asks the PCT, therefore, it says, “We don’t know if we’ll even be here.” The truth is that we cannot trust what the Government say.

At the local level, we were promised a brand new, spanking great hospital in Hatfield, which was going to cost £550 million, as has been said. We were told that it would have cancer care facilities, which are a crucial issue in Hertfordshire. Now, however, we are told, “Oh no, you can’t spend more than £250 million.” The whole thing is in limbo.

It is well known that we have had a structural funding problem in Hertfordshire over the past few years. Before the 2001 general election, the then Health Minister, the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), put an extra one-off payment into our local health system and said, “It’s a structural problem, and we’ll have to look at it.” However, nothing happened. Of course, he paid the money, but the Labour party won the election again, and no permanent review was done of the funding for our local health system. Every year for the past few years, therefore, a non-recurrent payment of £10 million has been made to our local health system. Now, we are suddenly being told, “Oh no, you can’t have any more money. You’ve got to manage within your budget.”

The Government know that there is a structural problem in Hertfordshire and in the East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust—they made the non-recurrent payments. Now, however, they have the cheek to turn round and say, “Oh no, you can’t have any more money. You’ve got to manage.” That means that £66 million has to be taken out of our small East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust over three years. Five hundred staff—or 10 per cent.—will go, including 150 doctors and nurses, and we will lose three wards at our two hospitals. Those are major problems, which the Government knew about.

My hon. Friend mentions the £66 million, but does he agree that the number seems to go up by £1.5 million a week? The chief executive briefed my hon. Friend on the issue just before me, but when I had my briefing last week, the figure had risen to £69 million. Does my hon. Friend have a projection for the end of the year?

Well, it will clearly be higher still. We really are in an appalling situation, and my hon. Friend makes an excellent point.

I come to my last point, because I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us, although I doubt it. We are asking for nothing more than common fairness in Hertfordshire. It is true that the county is better off than some others, but we pay twice as much tax per head as people in the Minister’s constituency.

indicated dissent.

Yes we do. In our area, the average is £5,820; in the Minister’s constituency, it is £2,710. We are therefore paying a lot of tax in Hertfordshire, but we are not asking for any more than anybody else. We are perfectly willing to accept that we should have a level playing field and a fair allocation of resources. However, while the Minister’s constituency gets £1,362 per head, we get £1,057, which is £300, or 30 per cent., less per head. In Hertfordshire, there are many people who are disadvantaged and there are also pockets of deprivation, as my hon. Friends mentioned.

And learning disabilities.

Yes, there are also very high figures for learning disabilities and mental health problems. We therefore have real problems, and it is just unacceptable to say that we will be treated in such a mean and unfair way. Will the Minister look at the issue again?

May I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke). This debate is very timely, and Opposition Members feel very passionately about the issues involved.

As the Minister will recall only too well, the Secretary of State told the Royal College of Nursing in Bournemouth in April that the NHS was enjoying “its best year ever”. That brought howls of derision from her audience, and rightly so, but it also generated real anger in my constituency. Over the past year in east Hertfordshire, we have had job losses, which my colleagues have described. We also face possible ward closures and longer queues for dentistry and cancer screenings, and there are real concerns about mental health services. To echo the points made by my right hon. and hon. Friends, let me tell the Minister quite genuinely that people in Hertfordshire no longer trust the Government with our health service—that is the reality.

In the district of east Hertfordshire that I try to represent, we face real problems with preventive services, such as those provided by NHS dentists. The PCTs tell us that they have tried to address the issue, but the combination of new contracts and uncertain funding has seriously undermined confidence among dentists and their ability to do their job. Some of my constituents travel 20, 25 and, in some cases, 30 miles just for a basic dental appointment. As a result, many people are being left behind, and that is particularly true of the elderly, who cannot make such a journey or afford to do so. I could go into that in greater detail, but I am aware that my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning) will want to make a contribution, so I shall be brief.

Mental health services are also under threat. We have heard that the Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Trust faces a £5 million cut, which is 5 per cent. of its budget. When we are told the reason for it, we find that the irony is that it is because of a general overspend. However, the trust has always lived within its budget and has never strayed beyond it in the five years since its inception. The attempt to cut its budget has seen the trust—

Punished.

As my hon. Friend rightly highlights, the trust has been punished. Genuine concern has also been caused among what are probably the most vulnerable parts of our community. Clouds are hanging over good services, such as Signet house, Oxford house and the Seward Lodge day care unit, which are invaluable to our constituents.

As hon. Members have said, the worst news was probably when we were told about the 500 jobs that would be lost from the East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust. As my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) said, 150 of those affected will not simply be managers, but doctors and nurses. Up to three wards could well be lost at the two hospitals in Stevenage and Welwyn Garden City. The best way of describing how people feel about that is a quotation that I recently read from a local nurse, who said:

“Nurses are scared, upset and demoralised—they feel like they’ve worked flat out to deliver Government targets and this is their reward.”

With all those developments affecting the NHS in east Hertfordshire, hon. Members will see immediately how hollow the Secretary of State’s words sound to my constituents.

Part of the problem is the Government’s obsession with reorganisation. I have been a Member of Parliament for five years, and in that time the Government have restructured, de-merged, re-merged and reorganised the ambulance trust at least once and the PCTs twice. The new strategic health authority will be in its third incarnation—I thought that only Dr. Who could change his form so often. The whole structure of health care in Hertfordshire seems to be up for grabs. Chairs are delicately moved around, but nothing is done about the service. Reorganising and restructuring will make no difference if the fundamentals are not dealt with.

That leads me to my principal point. In Hertfordshire, the truth is that patients are not getting their fair share. NHS spending per person in Hertfordshire is just 90 per cent. of the average for England. On last year’s figures, the shortfall is £69 per person, which means that my constituency lost out by £5.2 million last year. For the county, it is £69 million in one year. Of course, it does not stop there. England itself is a poor relation when compared, for example, with Scotland. On last year’s figures, patients in Hertfordshire got only £614 per person, but Scottish patients received £855 per person. That is a gap of £241 per person or, in my constituency alone, £18 million in one year. It is an iniquity, which will appal many people, and to which I hope the Minister will respond.

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is also odd that people in the Secretary of State’s constituency get £1,306 per head, whereas people covered by the PCT that we share get £1,057 per head? Again, the first figure is 30 per cent. higher.

I think that that leads quite accurately to the central point that concerns us all. We simply seek our fair share. We do not want better treatment, but we certainly do not want worse. Whatever the apparent wealth of our areas, whether that is measured by house prices or incomes, the truth is that an elderly person’s worry in Hertfordshire about whether they have cancer is as important as it would be if they lived in any other part of the country. That is the iniquity that we are dealing with today. I hope that the Minister will have the courage not to hide behind the usual platitudes that we hear from her boss, but to tell us the truth, and give us the assurances, that our constituents seek.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke) on obtaining the debate, and my right hon. and hon. Friends who represent Hertfordshire constituencies on showing the House and our constituents how much we care about their health care.

The national health service was created as a level playing field. It was there for all those who needed health care and could not afford to pay for it. On the estates where I grew up in north London, the hospital was the focal point of the community, because that was where people could go when they needed help. Many people in the areas of north London where I was brought up moved out to Hemel Hempstead in the 1950s, to the wonderful new town with its gardens, hospital and college, and all the facilities that they perhaps struggled to get before.

A wonderful acute general hospital was built in Hemel Hempstead in the 1950s. Smaller hospitals were closed and the full acute hospital was created. It fought for 30 years, under different Governments, to find out whether it was safe and would remain. Eventually, 10 or 12 years ago, it was concluded that it should be left alone, and investment was put into it, which meant huge amounts of money, under Conservative and Labour Administrations. A brand new stroke unit was built; huge investments were made in the cardiac unit; and a maternity unit was built up, which then closed, after which a new birthing unit opened—no one quite understood why, but there was an election in the middle, so perhaps we may assume that that had something to do with it. That hospital is a facility that is there to be used.

Great Ormond Street hospital was there to deal with the need for specialist care for children, and people who needed specialist cancer care could go elsewhere. My wife is presently visiting the Royal London hospital, because it has the best haematology department, whose services she needs. That is not what we are asking for in Hemel Hempstead. What we wanted, and what we have, is an acute hospital.

I shall probably be the last hon. Member to speak in the debate before the Front-Bench spokesmen make their speeches, and that is right, because what is happening is terminal for Hemel Hempstead. The acute hospital will go. If the trust gets its way, next spring it will send the bulldozers in to Hemel Hempstead hospital. It will become a housing estate. If we are lucky, I am told, we shall have an independent sector treatment centre—a surgery centre for elective surgery. I have plainly said that I do not want an ISTC. We have three theatres and an elective surgery unit. We have five theatres at St. Albans, doing the job now.

As I understand it from the evidence given to the Select Committee on Health, on which I have the honour and privilege to sit, the rules for ISTCs are that they are not permitted to create a demand; an ISTC is supposed only to replace something that is missing. What is happening in our part of Hertfordshire is that a demand for an ISTC is being created by knocking down a hospital and five theatres, an out-patient department and an elective surgery department at St. Albans. We must ask why.

Several of my hon. Friends have discussed the fairness of the funding formula. I think that it is unfair that the Minister has been picked on for the fact that her constituents receive more than mine, because there are some constituencies, such as Sedgefield, where people get £300 to £400 more per head than my constituents. I do not know why. Evidence was given to the Health Committee about that last week—by the way, we in my constituency got about £960 per head of population last year, rising to about £983 this year; some constituencies get as much as £1,600 per head. That is shameful when it is to be hoped that patients will, in the end, be treated similarly for the same ailments and problems.

I have a problem in Hemel Hempstead because, as a London overspill town, it has areas of serious social and economic deprivation. That is not just because of the Buncefield disaster—after which the hospital’s emergency services did fantastically well in treating the injured; God forbid that the hospital should not have been there, which would have meant going to the emergency centre at Watford. Perhaps some of those people would not be alive now, because two people were very seriously ill after the explosion.

What would it take to clear the deficit and to decide, “We do not need to do this”? The chief executive, in the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire, said that the closures would not take place if there was no financial problem. What is happening is not reconfiguration; it is cuts. We are trying to get more out of less. It is that simple. We will move all acute services to Watford; we will not go ahead with the promised private finance initiative building; we shall put in portable buildings. Eventually we dragged from the chief executive the truth about the life expectancy of those buildings. It was 40 years—instead of the promised new hospital.

The residents of Watford, Welwyn and Hatfield, St. Albans and other parts of the country were duped. They were made promises that there was no intention of keeping. The funding formula problem—the deficit—has existed for years. Ministers in Select Committee and chief executives of other trusts have argued that the problem is one of management. The managers are not doing their jobs properly. How can that be, when the trust has been changed three times, the PCTs have been changed and the whole of the strategic health authority has been changed? They cannot all be bad, surely. Surely there must be one good manager somewhere in the NHS, because, clearly, they do not have such a problem in other areas. There is clear evidence, however, that areas without so many problems get a lot more money.

I want to close by explaining exactly what will happen to the Hemel Hempstead hospital. We have a full acute hospital with out-patients, elective surgery and, most importantly, as was explained earlier, the acute blue-light facilities, for those who need them. There are 250,000 people relying on the accident and emergency unit at that hospital. It is proposed that all of that should go by next Easter. The whole site will be up for redevelopment. I know that, because I was lucky enough to find out that the trust had had meetings with my local council asking what it could build on the site; I know, because eventually at the Select Committee I dragged from the chief executive the information that the land and facilities will be surplus to requirements. Surplus to requirements? It is a general hospital, which people rely on!

Lives are at risk. I am conscious of the need to leave time for the Minister’s response, but we are not playing a numbers game. We are not saying that some people are nasty and some are good. We are talking about ordinary people, who deserve the NHS that was created many years ago as a level playing field. Watford is in the premier league; it is a fantastic result. The Saracens are doing very well. Hon. Members might like to try going down the A41 from Hemel Hempstead at any time without a blue light. I drove blue-light emergency vehicles and I know how difficult it is. They will not get there. The Government are putting lives at risk.

My hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) invited the Minister to visit the hospital in his constituency. I shall not do that, because thousands of my constituents have invited the Secretary of State, but she is too busy. I asked to see her diary and she was too busy to show me that, too. It is a disgrace, and lives will be lost.

I congratulate not only the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke) but all hon. Members who have spoken so emphatically about their fears for their services. I shall not comment in detail on the local circumstances—I defer to their greater knowledge on that subject—but I shall make some general remarks, as the issues affecting Hertfordshire emphasise some familiar themes and common problems that occur elsewhere.

The hon. Gentleman originally drew to our attention two problems. One was the problem of underfunding, which seems to affect all services across the piece, and the other was the problem of hospital reconfiguration, with the hospital trusts having substantial deficits, in excess of £20 million. The Government’s response to deficits is usually that trusts should get a grip and balance the books, which of course always travels with a presupposition that we already have a fair formula across areas and even within areas, between institutions. However, I see no evidence that we have yet arrived at that state.

There is also another common phenomenon in Hertfordshire, which is that of a number of smallish hospitals in clusters, with pressures on all services.

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman has been to my part of Hertfordshire, but we do not have a small hospital. The Watford general hospital is not a small hospital and neither is the QEII hospital. They are massive acute hospitals, not little community hospitals, as he is describing them.

I was not suggesting that they were community hospitals, but the descriptions are relative, and we could compare them with St. Thomas’ hospital over the river from here.

I am familiar with the scenario, because I come from an area where there are two hospitals that I would describe as relatively small in NHS terms and that are separated by the sort of distance that separates some of the Hertfordshire hospitals. I am fairly familiar with the problem—I know that hospitals belong to distinct communities, I know that travel between them is rarely ideal and I know that there is strong community resistance to changes in local hospitals. I also know that when change takes place, there is an unconvincing process of local consultation that satisfies nobody and buys nobody off.

There are usually two drivers for reconfiguration. A clinical driver to do with the concentration of expertise is usually cited in evidence, and there is usually a financial driver. The financial drivers on hospitals involve not only deficits but other things, such as the working time directive and the junior doctors’ contract, which put additional pressures on hospitals in all areas. None the less, people in Hertfordshire are quite justified in fearing reconfiguration, because reconfiguration and all that it evokes has a pretty poor reputation across the NHS.

Looking at the SHA consultation on reconfiguration in 2003 from an external point of view, I thought that an attempt was being made—although probably not a successful one—to give everybody a little piece of the action or to satisfy everybody, if I may put it like that. Clearly that effort failed and was replaced by something much more unacceptable. In my neck of the woods, with two hospitals separated by the same sort of distance as between Watford and Hemel Hempstead, we have already lost obstetrics and paediatrics in Southport.

The hon. Gentleman talks about the same distance as between Watford and Hemel Hempstead, but would he agree that the Minister should ensure that if any service is to be moved to Watford, the road configuration should be altered—which is exactly what we were promised—before any development of the hospital takes place? Perhaps the Minister knows better than I do, but I have yet to see any details of that road configuration or that road investment.

Order. That sounds like another speech.

That is absolutely the point that I would re-emphasise, as similar problems are faced in many areas. In my neck of the woods, where two hospitals are owned by the same trust, the road is an issue and travel is the one thing that is most ignored.

I was not surprised to find, on looking into the matter, that the offer that was originally made in the 2003 consultation has been further downgraded. At one stage there was talk of having a birthing unit in Hemel Hempstead and using it to spread good practice elsewhere, but I understand that that is now unlikely to happen. As the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning) said, the best that will happen is that an ISTC will emerge. That is a common pattern in different places, with the same meaningless consultation forming a backdrop. Scrutiny and review sections of councils debate things, but the financial position continues to deteriorate.

We can anticipate the Government’s response, which is also fairly familiar. In most such debates, the Government will say that people ought not to be wedded to bricks and mortar, that services can be delivered in the community and—to a lesser extent—in secondary care, that institutions have to co-operate, that clinical networks have to be delivered and that people will travel for the best possible service.

However, that aspect of Government policy does not hang together with something that was cited several times in the consultation, which is the Government’s own policy of keeping the NHS local, which produced a well-known pamphlet that is much cited but rarely acted upon. That policy recognises that although people are ready to travel for specialist care, they expect to find many services locally, particularly A and E services and those that look after people with chronic conditions that involve repeated journeys to hospital. Additional travel in such cases means extra trauma. Someone who has to go further to an A and E department might not arrive with a long-lasting problem or even with a major trauma, but for someone travelling with a child to A and E who is not sure what is wrong, every extra mile is a very unpleasant experience.

People do not mind clinical networks, if that is what the Government want, but they want the clinical networks that suit them and their clinical needs. As it is, reconfiguration across the piece normally results in health authorities presenting a menu, a rather bogus form of consultation taking place and, when it is completed, people often choosing to go in unexpected directions, rather than to the hospitals to which they were expected to travel in the first place. As many hon. Members have said, the backdrop is often the need for a quick financial fix, which discredits any reconfiguration proposal whatever.

On a point of order, Mr. Hancock. Is the hon. Gentleman’s speech in order, as it is not about Hertfordshire?

The hon. Member is entitled to put a view about the consultation, but I remind hon. Members that we are about to have a Division and it would be appropriate to give everyone a fair chance to speak in this debate.

I shall finish shortly, as I said I would, although I also said that I would make some general remarks that would probably apply to Hertfordshire, as well as to other places.

If there is a mistake—as there must be—it is not beginning with community needs. The public are not stupid; they know that they cannot have everything everywhere. However, they want good quality, timely and accessible services but, as hon. Members who have voiced their opinions so far have made clear, Hertfordshire is not getting them.

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke) on securing this important and timely debate.

Having congratulated my hon. Friend on securing the debate, I also pay tribute to the measured, serious way in which he presented his overwhelming and unquestionably cogent case on behalf of his constituents, demonstrating his concern for their health and well-being.

We have heard from the massed ranks of Conservative Members of Parliament representing Hertfordshire this afternoon; eight out of nine have contributed to this debate and the ninth would have attended, but for being away necessarily on Select Committee business. It is notable that the two Labour MPs who represent Hertfordshire are absent. The Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh), concentrated on general points because, thankfully, Hertfordshire, like Cheshire, is a Liberal Democrat-free zone.

I make no apology for focusing on the financial issues, because those lie at the heart of so many of the points that have been raised and have real effects on patients and the constituents of my right hon. and hon. Friends, as we have heard. It is right for us to debate financial issues today, because those are in the power, remit, gift, discretion, authority, responsibility, duty—whatever people want to call it—of the Minister and the Secretary of State; there is no escaping that.

Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire strategic health authority, which is now subsumed into the East of England SHA, has had to make significant savings in an attempt by the Secretary of State to mitigate the NHS deficits. In month six of 2005-06, the SHA was predicting a surplus of £18,000, which was 0.2 per cent. of its turnover. In month 12 it delivered a surplus of more than £19 million—20.7 per cent. of its turnover—which was generated by a mere £200,000 underspend on administrative budgets and enhanced by underspends on training at £3.5 million, the national programme for IT in the NHS at £3.9 million, central budgets of £6 million, a carry-over of £2.6 million from the 2004-05 underspends and an allocation from the national health service bank of £3 million.

As a total health economy across all the NHS organisations in this area, the SHA had a total deficit of £107.9 million in 2005-06. I found that figure, which breaches the SHA’s control total by £33 million, in the financial report of 20th June 2006, presented at the final board meeting of the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire SHA before it was subsumed into the East of England SHA. The SHA has been given a control total deficit of £80 million for 2006-07, necessitating savings of £150 million, which is enough money to employ just over 8,000 nurses a year and is eye-watering by any standards.

My hon. Friend rightly highlighted many of the financial issues, but is he concerned about the constantly changing figures coming from the Government? People working in health care keep being asked to do new things and change, which is debilitating for many of them.

My hon. Friend is correct. Anybody with any management experience would know that that is precisely the case.

I am delighted to inform hon. Members that the hon. Member for Watford (Claire Ward) has had a baby. I congratulate her on behalf of the Conservatives. That is the best excuse for not attending a debate. However, there is no excuse for the hon. Member for Stevenage (Barbara Follett), who has not had a baby.

The savings that I have mentioned, which are equivalent to 8,000 nurses a year, are so high risk that the SHA has told the Department of Health that it requires a control total of £99 million, but expects that downward pressure will be applied to the control total requested by the SHA. With that cash squeeze, it is unsurprising that the SHA area is resorting to drastic measures. In 2006-07, the SHA is reducing education places by 12 per cent. on the previous year—a total of 122 places—and is looking to shed 1,100 whole-time equivalents. In addition, underspends are not being returned and the primary care trusts are required to deliver 3.5 per cent. in cash-releasing efficiency savings. Cuts to mental health services were ably described with deep concern by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald). We are also talking about cuts in podiatry, a transfer of thrombolysis services and cuts to sexual health services. My hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Anne Main) also cited a long list of services knowledgeably, robustly and compassionately.

The situation is so bad in the west Hertfordshire quadrant that the auditor issued a public interest report in April 2006, which highlighted the apparent weaknesses in the arrangements established by the PCTs to ensure effective financial governance and the poor financial information being presented to the board. The auditors also highlighted the adverse impact of the considerable uncertainty caused by NHS restructuring. Most of all, the auditor’s report shows that Ministers have failed in their duty to oversee our NHS, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) ably illustrated in his contribution.

This crisis did not happen overnight. For example, the West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust’s deficit grew from £4.6 million in 2003-04 to £14.6 million in 2004-05 and £43.2 million in 2005-06. In both 2003-04 and 2004-05, the Audit Commission’s relationship manager for the SHA reported on the weaknesses in financial management and the structural issues contributing to the poor financial standing of all bodies in the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire SHA area.

Furthermore, the public interest report constitutes one of the 20 referrals in 2006 of NHS bodies to the Secretary of State under section 19 of the Audit Commission Act 1998. There were seven referrals in 2005, two in 2004 and none in 2003. This is a worsening picture. In addition, auditors posted 93 qualifications on the accounts last year—accounting for the doubling in the forecast NHS deficit for 2004-05—53 in the previous year and none in any year before that.

The problem of NHS deficits has not suddenly appeared; it has been allowed to worsen because of the failings in the Department of Health and among its Ministers. My hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk) quoted the Secretary of State talking about the best year ever. He also observed rightly that reorganisations are often the Government’s only retreat to try to escape accountability and blame others. Above all, failed managers are being recycled, thereby demoralising the best, who move on and out. We have a downward spiral of morale and performance.

Despite the financial difficulties, it is unacceptable that the former SHA area should be forced to make cuts to front-line patient services to find cash, especially where such cuts are driven by financial rather than clinical needs.

Regarding the West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust, we have heard about the scaling down of services at Hemel Hempstead and the building of an independent sector treatment centre there. My hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning) eloquently described how the argument for the introduction of the treatment centre puts the cart before the horse. That is no way to manage our NHS.

Does the Minister find it acceptable that most of a relatively new hospital should be demolished and turned into a housing estate because it is “surplus to requirements”? Acute and emergency services are to be centralised at Watford general. Can the Minister guarantee that that will in no way affect patient care? The trust has announced upwards of 700 job losses and 878 bed cuts. East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust, which has to save £69 million over three years, is set to lose 100 jobs and 1,055 beds, as described in a passionate and sincere speech by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire. In addition, services are being decimated at the QEII hospital in Welwyn.

Part of the difficulty for hospitals has been the financial pressure put on them by primary care trusts, although it is the organisations that do not have payment by results, such as the mental health trusts, that are most at risk from cuts in front-line services by the eight Hertfordshire PCTs, all of which are in deficit. The effect on, for instance, Potters Bar community hospital was rightly and graphically described by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison). Two sites are being forced into one as a “solution”.

Above all, as my hon. Friend and others rightly highlighted, this leads to a serious collapse in trust in the Minister and the ministerial team, because of what they have said about community hospitals. There was, rightly, a huge outcry when confidence was undermined by the various messages that appeared to be coming out of the Government, but then the Secretary of State corrected that impression at the Dispatch Box. As my hon. Friend said, surely this is the time to step in and stop the permanent loss of services to his constituency.

Most worrying is the fact that the services are being closed down without hope of substitutes. Both the private finance initiative rebuild at Watford and the PFI super-hospital at Hatfield seem to be frozen. The latter has already been downgraded and there is no indication that either will ever arrive.

Auditors have highlighted problems with financial management in the Hertfordshire area, but the struggle in that area is symptomatic of an NHS that has been centrally mismanaged. The fact that deficits are arising in places such as Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, Thames Valley and Surrey and Sussex—the areas that are hardest done by in the resource allocation—reflects the fact that those areas are becoming too underfunded. Constant central restructuring has contributed to the difficulties, as has the scandalous political meddling in the PFI programmes, such as the one at Hatfield, laid bare in the powerful speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps).

However much the Secretary of State and her Ministers may dislike the south-east and middle-income Britain, is there any credible effort that the Minister can make in her speech now to start rebuilding the trust between them and the people of Hertfordshire, represented so passionately and ably by my right hon. and hon. Friends? Do this Government govern for all or just for the reducing number of Labour voters in this country? Will the Minister now commit to a simple ministerial duty—fairness to all—and correct here today the deep, damaging unfairness that has been done to the people of Hertfordshire’s health under Labour?

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke) on securing the debate. It will not be possible for me to address every point that has been made. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members understand that. I should also say that I am meeting the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker) next week to discuss specific issues relating to mental health, and, as I understand it, the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning) as well. On behalf of the Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Claire Ward), I thank all hon. Members for their congratulations on the birth of her baby. I will pass those congratulations on to her.

I should like to deal with some of the issues by making general comments about the situation in Hertfordshire and the approach that the Government believe needs to be taken to sort out what is a very difficult situation. I am grateful to all right hon. and hon. Members who have paid tribute to the hard work of the staff in the local NHS, who have contributed to the real improvements that have taken place in recent years, such as the cuts in waiting lists and the improvements in general health outcomes. Those are real changes, of which the staff are proud. I am proud to be part of a Government who have helped to bring about those changes, but there is no doubt that they could not have taken place without, first, the hard work and dedication of NHS staff.

Secondly, the changes could not have taken place without the increased investment that has gone into the NHS. I believe that there is actually quite a lot of political consensus on the fact that investment in the NHS has increased from some £33 billion in 1997 and will increase to some £92 billion in 2007-08. The combination of increased investment and the changes that have been made because of the work of NHS staff has led to real improvements in health care.

Hertfordshire has been a beneficiary. Whatever is said at the moment, there is no doubt that there have been increases in resources. A number of hon. Members mentioned the funding formula. It is true that PCTs in Hertfordshire receive less funding per person than the national average, but that is because a formula has been put together to address the health needs of an area. That means that in some of the more deprived areas there are higher levels of funding. I would be amazed if the Conservative party was saying that it wanted to adopt a policy whereby it ignored the fact that some areas have greater health needs than others and that therefore it would reverse the efforts made to tackle health inequalities.

The hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead talked about the establishment of the NHS, which was about providing equal access to health care throughout the country. Inevitably, that means that in some areas there are higher levels of funding, but that does not mean that PCTs cannot target funding within their overall area to tackle health inequalities. That is why the Government have put a lot of emphasis on tackling health inequalities. No matter what we say, right hon. and hon. Members in this room know that a boy born in Manchester, for example, is likely to die eight years earlier than someone born in, I think, Dorset.

I appreciate what the Minister is saying about health inequalities, but surely the way to tackle inequalities is not to drag down an area where, in the past, the position may have been better, by closing down important services such as cancer care, maternity and accident and emergency services. That seems to be the approach that the Minister is taking.

No, that is not the approach that I am taking. The approach that I am taking is to challenge the assertion that has been made by the Conservative party that it is wrong to channel funding into areas where there are greater health inequalities. I am challenging that belief because it would be completely the wrong approach to the NHS. The new formula takes account of the impact of deprivation on health need in ways that were not possible before. It also considers unmet need. In certain areas, there may be people—for example, people from ethnic minorities and socio-economically deprived groups—who are not receiving health care services to the same level as others. If the Conservative party decides to reverse that approach, it will reverse everything that we have been doing to tackle health inequalities.

I do not think that anyone here is saying that everyone in every area should get identical funding. We want a level playing field in relation to the areas that the Minister has described, such as Manchester, where people die earlier. In our part of the world—the debate is about Hertfordshire—more people are living longer, and that costs the NHS more. When people get old, they get ill and need health care, no matter where in the country they live.

But the hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. He talks about a level playing field, but there will always have to be some way of allocating funding. It has long been proved that in areas of deprivation where health needs are higher and there are inequalities, there is a need for greater funding.

rose—

rose—

I need to move on, because I have only five minutes left, and I want to address some of the other points that were made. If there is time, I will come back to this point.

Overall, no matter what is said, the amount being received in Hertfordshire has grown enormously in recent years. It received £135 million in 2002-03, £151 million in 2003-04, and £165 million the year after—and that is just the Watford and Three Rivers primary care trust. Those are enormous increases in the allocated funds.

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. She is very generous. She says that it is not possible to adjust the figures so that they could be, broadly speaking, at 100 per cent., yet, according to a written answer that she gave to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison), that is exactly what the Government did in the financial year 2001-02, when the figure was 103 per cent. Why has that not been possible in subsequent years?

The hon. Gentleman well knows that the point that I was making was that if the Conservatives are saying that they want to reverse the idea of targeting funding into certain areas—[Interruption.] The figures were given. It was said that in Doncaster, Central, the figures are something like £1,300 per head, whereas in other constituencies it may be lower. That is to reflect the deprivation.

That is the point. Will the Minister give way on that?

I will not.

Order. Let the Minister have some time to speak.

I need to move on, because the point that I want to come to—

They are all Labour constituencies.

Actually, it is about where there is deprivation. It is quite wrong to suggest that the way to deal with health inequalities is to remove the ability to target areas with high levels of deprivation. [Interruption.]

Order. Everyone listened with great tolerance and understanding when others were speaking. Let the Minister be heard in the same way.

I do not think that they like it, Mr. Hancock.

It is true that deficits have built up in Hertfordshire over several years, but Opposition Members are, in a sense, suggesting that we should ignore that position and that it will somehow go away. That would be quite the wrong approach. We need to look at how services are delivered. The worst thing for staff, patients and services such as mental health services would be to continue such a process. If the Conservatives were to adopt a policy of ignoring those deficits and making no effort to deal with them, that would not do patients or staff any good. We need to say, “This is the problem that we are facing; we should look at this in the light of the extra resources that have gone in.” The Department can give help through sending specialist teams in to work with local trusts.

I have visited a number of hospitals in the area—unfortunately, I am no longer the Minister with responsibility for Hertfordshire, but I would be more than happy to go back there to look at the mental health services—and people have told me that there have been difficulties with managing the finances over a number of years. We need to consider that. There are ways in which the strategic health authority and the Department can work with areas such as Hertfordshire to ensure that some of the changes that need to be made are made with the minimum of disruption to staff and patient services—

Order. I must bring the debate to an end. I thank all those Members who worked wondrously well to allow everybody to speak, and I thank Members for the courteous way in which they listened to the Minister, most of the time.

Let me start by saying what a pleasure it is to have you in the Chair, Mr. Hancock. There was a slight diary confusion in my office about the start time of the debate, and I probably broke the record for getting here from Norman Shaw South. Perhaps we can look into having a record for that run: I did it in about two and a half minutes. [Interruption.]

Order. Members of the public are not permitted to walk through the Chamber.

I am very pleased to have secured the debate, and to have this opportunity to raise this increasingly important issue in the Chamber. As I have already made clear to the Minister, I wish to focus specifically on the practice in which a number of disreputable companies and individuals around the country are engaged: the misrepresentation and mis-selling of greenfield land, which is becoming a critical issue in many rural and semi-rural areas. Before I expand on that, I want to make it clear that my purpose today is to ensure that after the debate the Minister and the Government will agree to work with me and MPs from all parties who are also concerned to address this issue. I shall make some suggestions later as to how that could be achieved.

Let me define precisely the relevant issues. In broad terms, land banking is simply the practice of purchasing undeveloped land for future developments or resale. That investment often comes in the form of land investment companies or partnerships buying land, subdividing it and then encouraging secondary investors to buy individual plots. If the land value increases, the investment companies gain a high return, and the secondary investors also benefit. In the vast majority of cases, for the value of the land to increase substantially a “change of use” must be accorded to the land, which means that local councils must grant permission for it to be developed. If it is green belt land, there needs to be a change in status.

For those of us with rural and semi-rural land in our areas, this is a highly contentious issue. It is particularly worrying that there appear still to be individuals and partnerships buying up large areas of undeveloped green belt land and deliberately suggesting, or at least giving the impression, that permission for that land to be developed is likely—often, they give the impression that it is very likely, or a done deal—when that is far from the truth. I have an example from my own constituency which illustrates how that practice works. It is how I came across the issue in the first place.

As I stated in the House when I introduced my ten-minute Bill in November last year, a company called English Land Partnership bought and owns a piece of undeveloped greenfield land, Cookridge pastures, on the edge of an area of housing. The land is designated green belt land, and Leeds city council has categorically stated that permission for the development of Cookridge pastures is extremely unlikely to be given for the foreseeable future. Yet I have seen copies of a video and its accompanying letter and a website that give a very different impression.

I was pleased that the BBC in Yorkshire did a special report on the Cookridge pastures development on its “Inside Out” programme. I will share some of that with the Chamber to show that English Land Partnership explicitly claimed to investors, in private, that the local council would award permission for development. I shall quote an English Land Partnership employee, Paul Hudson, who was secretly filmed as part of the BBC investigation. He said:

“We would submit the application by the end of next year, within 12 months, then it would take another year, 14 months for them to say yes, so we are talking about 2, 2 and ½ years tops!”

He went on to say that those who invested would be getting

“one of the best deals on the market”.

Just to leave no ambiguity about how ELP views Cookridge pastures, I must point out that Hudson said:

“you are going to be making £100,000, you are going to be asking me, ‘where is the next project?’”

That claim is clearly outrageous given the advice that we have had from the council and the Government; it is incorrect and misleading. Companies are doing that sort of thing up and down the country. Even after the airing of “Inside Out”, English Land Partnership continues to market the development potential of Cookridge pastures. Its website proclaimed that it is a wonderful “potential future development opportunity” at the heart of the

“fastest growing city in Europe”.

Such an approach has caused great dismay to local residents and to those who have been duped into investing in the schemes. It is not an isolated case. Since introducing my ten-minute Bill last year, I have been inundated with correspondence from people up and down the country. They told me of similar schemes, of communities worried about the effect that the practice will have on their locality, and of investors who feel that they have been ripped off.

I shall give an example from another part of the country, as I am sure my hon. Friend is about to do. It relates to a brownfield site in my constituency. The site of Sedbergh livestock auction mart, which has planning permission for that very purpose, is on the market having been temporarily closed. The excellent farmers’ co-operative is hoping to buy the site but, of course, the site is on the open market. There is every chance that a company such as the one that he mentioned could purchase the site, sit on it entirely legally for years with the intent to use it for something other than what it has planning permission for, and blackmail—or rather, browbeat—the local authority to change the permission in years to come. That would cost the community its local auction mart and would be a blow to it. Does my hon. Friend agree that that example adds to his case?

I thank my hon. Friend for another useful example. I am also working closely with the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), who alerted me to the practices of Gladwish Land Sales Ltd in his constituency. In the past few weeks, The Observer has exposed land banking scams right across the country and is also calling for urgent action to stop innocent investors being exploited and local communities being damaged by the swindles. I am calling for the situation to be addressed by the Government.

I acknowledge that, at this stage, local councils are taking action. Indeed, the Local Government Association has urged them to make use of all existing available legislation, including article 4 notices, to respond to the schemes. However, those notices, which are one of the few weapons that councils have, only restrict the erection of posts or fences on undeveloped land. They do not restrict the sale of the land or its mis-selling, which is what I am focusing on today.

The LGA also urges councils to contact trading standards and the Department of Trade and Industry to inform them of misleading and illegal trading practices. However, there is confusion over the issue. I contacted the DTI last year and was informed that because land banking firms such as English Land Partnership are partnerships and not companies, the DTI does not have the jurisdiction to investigate the mis-selling practices of such firms.

I come to the specific proposals, for which there are precedents in other parts of the world. As the Campaign to Protect Rural England has highlighted, in Australia in December 2005 the European Land Partnership stood accused of grossly misleading potential investors over its ability to obtain planning permission and the likelihood of planning permission being granted on the tracts of land that it owned. The key difference in that case was that the state government of Victoria was able to act quickly and decisively to bring a halt to the mis-selling. The state legislature obtained an interim injunction order against ELP, which prevents it from engaging in a range of promotional and marketing activities until there has been a full hearing into its activities, which is due to take place in the Victoria Supreme Court this year. So far, no such decisive action has taken place in the UK. The only course of action for investors who feel that they have been sold land on a false premise or been the subject of misrepresentation would appear to be to pursue cases individually through the courts.

There is a strong coalition working on this matter. As I mentioned, I am working with the CPRE. I am also working with several MPs from all parts of the House, and I have been contacted by reputable land investment companies, including possibly the largest such company in the United Kingdom, UK Land Investments Group. Firms of that nature are concerned, because they invest large sums to ensure that land is bought and sold legally and without misrepresentation. They wish to see fly-by-night organisations brought to book for their scandalous practices and the damage that they do to the industry.

We may need new legislation for that to take place or we might simply need the extension or clarification of existing legislation. Sufficient powers might already exist but they might not be being used. What is clear is that, because of loopholes in the law, a lack of law, or a lack of action on the part of the Government, firms are being allowed to escape unpunished, despite engaging in practices that are misleading and misrepresentative. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that.

In addition to challenging the Government to consider legislation, I propose the setting up of an independent, self-regulating body to monitor the actions of land investment firms to ensure that they are not engaging in the kind of practices that I have mentioned. Such a move could include the establishment of an accreditation scheme to ensure that firms act responsibly and correctly. Only where organisations are found to be acting in accordance with agreed guidelines would they receive accreditation and thus be allowed to persist in investing in, and selling on, tracts of land.

It might also be useful to have professional advisers, either directly employed by the regulatory body or employed on a consultancy basis. They would review the submission from any company registered to the accreditation organisation to ensure that any sales and marketing claims are credible. To ensure that that is accurate, independent assessment could be carried out on an accredited company’s sites in line with a planning and technical analysis provided by the accredited company to the professional advisers. That could include a statement of forecast detailing the type and time scale of promoting a site for re-allocation and an assessment of the financial viability and potential customer returns of the site.

Another suggestion would be for all accredited companies to pay a bond of, for example, £100,000. Should problems occur and a land banking company be unable to fulfil its obligations on promoting a site or gaining outline planning permission, the bond would be released to the accrediting board or organisation, to ensure that a credible planning application is submitted for the benefits of clients. Furthermore, each accredited company could be forced to submit, possibly on a semi-annual basis, an action plan—detailing actions that had been taken on its obligation to investors and those that it would be taking to do with the site over the following six or 12 months. If those were unacceptable, at the board’s discretion accreditation could be removed and the value of the bond released in order to proceed with a planning application.

I hope that those suggestions will push the debate forward, because the simple fact is that there is currently little or nothing to stop dishonest and unscrupulous organisations, partnerships and individuals swallowing up huge tracts of greenfield land in the middle of local communities and selling it on to unsuspecting investors on the basis of unsubstantiated and false promises, with little or no regard to the effect that those practices have on those involved.

Today, I am tabling an early-day motion, which is co-sponsored by the hon. Members for Stroud and for North-East Milton Keynes (Mr. Lancaster), which I hope many hon. Members will sign. I ask the Minister and the Government to take the issue seriously and to acknowledge that there is a problem that needs to be tackled. The situation has been allowed to persist for far too long, and urgent action is needed to stop companies, partnerships and individuals ripping off their investors and damaging our communities. I hope that the Minister and the Government will work with me, my parliamentary colleagues and the organisations involved to stop the unacceptable mis-selling of greenfield land.

Before I call the Minister, I should inform Members who have just come into the Chamber that the final Adjournment debate will start at 4.45 pm, or at the end of this debate. Fifteen minutes have been added on for the Division.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Greg Mulholland) on securing the debate and on raising an issue that is clearly important in his constituency and that affects his constituents. I am grateful to him for providing this opportunity to debate the practice of land banking.

The hon. Gentleman rightly drew attention to the sensitive nature of rural land and expressed his concern about the selling, usually on the internet, of small plots of land on which, in most cases, there is no realistic chance of development being allowed. The Government share the hon. Gentleman’s strong disapproval of plot sale enterprises that exploit people’s eagerness to build homes in open countryside, often at the expense of their limited knowledge of planning laws and policies.

The Government recognise the harm and adverse consequences of the subdivision of land in the countryside. Some of those consequences arise from open land being divided up with pegs, stakes or fences, creating an eyesore that detracts from the appearance of the countryside. When plots are sold and are no longer in agricultural use, it can lead to neglect. That is especially difficult to put right if plot owners cannot be traced.

The mis-selling of land can be tackled in a variety of ways. Depending on the nature of the deceit, instances of mis-selling might be dealt with by the police, the Office of Fair Trading, local authority trading standards departments or the Department of Trade and Industry. The latter has powers under the Companies Act 1985, and can investigate companies if there is reason to suspect fraud, dishonesty or any other objectionable conduct, and can, in the public interest, take proceedings to wind up a company and/or disqualify its directors.

Will the Minister comment on my point about the fact that the DTI does not have powers to deal with partnerships and individuals? People know that, and set themselves up as partnerships to ensure that they fall outside the framework. That is one of the loopholes that I identified.

I did hear the hon. Gentleman refer to that. Obviously, I am a Minister for the Department for Communities and Local Government, and therefore cannot reply on behalf of the DTI. I urge the hon. Gentleman to talk to Ministers in that Department and to take the issues up with them. As I said, there is more than one way of dealing with the problems, and the provision relating to companies is only one way. If the hon. Gentleman looks back at the Hansard record of this debate, he will see that there are a number of other ways, too.

It may be helpful if I set out the parts of planning law that govern the use of land in the countryside. The key concept—the trigger for planning control—is whether something is “development”, which is defined in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 as

“the carrying out of building, engineering, mining or other operations in, on, over or under land, or the making of any material change in the use of any buildings or other land.”

Some rural land is designated green belt, and there is generally a presumption against inappropriate development on such land. National planning policy on green belt is set out in planning policy guidance note 2. It states that acceptable uses of green belt land are those that help to fulfil the following objectives: providing access to the open countryside; providing access to outdoor sport and recreation near urban areas; retaining attractive landscapes and enhancing landscapes near to where people live; improving damaged and derelict land around towns; securing nature conservation interests; and retaining land in agricultural, forestry and related uses. However, the most important attribute of green belt is openness, and that has to be the primary consideration when any different land use is proposed.

The planning system is not designed to supervise land ownership or to protect the unaware from ill-advised purchases. A primary concern of the planning system is the impact of development on amenity. It would be impractical to place an added burden on local government in respect of the oversight of the sale of rural land. However, planning has an important part to play in limiting harm to rural land.

In a written statement to the House on 19 April 2004, the then Minister of State for Housing and Planning, the right hon. Member for Streatham (Keith Hill), addressed the concern—expressed here and elsewhere—that farmland was being subdivided into small plots for sale over the internet. The statement referred to measures that the Government could bring forward to enable local planning authorities to take more immediate action as soon as evidence of abuse was suspected or emerged. At the same time, we issued a letter to remind local authorities of the powers already available to tackle planning problems associated with plot sales. That letter encouraged local planning authorities to advertise, or to use the internet, to give prospective plot purchasers a realistic idea of the likely development potential of their plots. The letter also listed enforcement powers available to local planning authorities to control unwanted development on rural land.

Some development is given a permitted development right—that is, a general planning permission—that removes the need to put in a planning application. Any permitted development right can be withdrawn if there are strong planning grounds, using powers in article 4 of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995. Such directions may be used if there is a significant, specific and credible threat to an important amenity. On farms and green belt, a direction would be subject to confirmation by the Secretary of State. Article 4 directions do not forbid development; they merely require the submission of a planning application for works or uses otherwise allowed by the order.

We are working on proposals to amend the procedures for making article 4 directions, in order to enable local authorities to bring into effect more quickly and efficiently a direction to prevent subdivision of rural land. We propose to increase the scope of local authorities’ powers to remove permitted development rights without having to wait for the Secretary of State’s approval. We also plan to allow local authorities to bring article 4 directions into force more quickly by serving the relevant notice on the land by site display in cases where one or more owners cannot be identified or located, or where the numbers of owners or occupiers makes it impractical to serve a notice on every individual. The planning system is concerned with land use and the impacts of development; it does not deal with how land is sold, the ethics of the vendor or even who owns the land and how they might behave. If there is no development involved, there are no controls to invoke.

In conclusion, we are committed to the protection of the countryside against inappropriate development and, in particular, to the protection of green belt.

I thank Mr. Mulholland and the Minister for their contributions.

As both the Minister and the Member involved in the next debate are here, we shall proceed straight away.

We move from Leeds, North-West, to North-West Leicestershire, Mr. Hancock. On a point of information, I understand that the debate may now last for 36 minutes; is that correct?

Yes.

I am pleased and relieved to have secured a debate on the future of open-cast mining in Leicestershire, having requested it for some time. Tenacity is a much underrated virtue in this place.

Rather like the ghost in Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol”, I shall look at open-cast coal mining past and present, before considering its future. In my part of Leicestershire, 25 May 2006 dawned as a cool, damp morning but rapidly turned into a bleak, black day for the north-west Leicestershire villages of Ravenstone, Packington, Normanton le Heath and my lifetime home, Heather. On that day, the Government announced that they were accepting the planning inquiry inspector’s recommendation to overturn a Leicestershire county council refusal of the Long Moor open-cast application to extract around 750,000 tonnes of coal from an attractive, greenfield site surrounded by the four places I mentioned.

The first such planning decision taken in the newly created Department for Communities and Local Government perversely blighted the lives of numerous communities and flew directly in the face of all three tiers of local government, which are totally and vigorously united in their opposition to the plan. I shall try to explain why so many people in the locality are astonished and dismayed.

This is not a case of nimbyism. Our backyard has been actively worked for generations and north-west Leicestershire has been quarried and mined for minerals for centuries. The nation has looked to us for coal, road stone and clay. Mining gave us jobs, shaped our landscape, and produced and named tight-knit communities such as Coalville, but it also created vistas as bleak and desolate as that encountered by Neil Armstrong on 21 July 1969. The American astronauts saw a lunar landscape of the sort that we had endured for many decades prior to their historic flight.

The worst environmental offender in the family of industries linked to the extraction of minerals is open-cast mining. In essence, it is quarrying relatively shallow seams of coal at depths such that colliers of the past had to use deep-mine techniques or leave them unworked. In the 1940s, a great deal of outcrop coal was removed from land in the vicinity of the four villages to which I referred. The impact of those workings is still visible today despite attempts at restoration.

In the early 1970s, the open-casters returned for two huge schemes which removed many million tonnes of coal from the Coalville farm site between Ravenstone and Heather and operating within 120 yd of my home for much of that time. The latter site was ultimately restored as the Sence valley forest park and locals were beginning to hope that the days of open-casting were over at long last. However, like a half-forgotten comet on a 30-year orbit, the shadow of planet open-cast returned in the new millennium. Its gloom engulfed the mosaic of fields, hedges and trees running up to Normanton wood, under which lie 8 million tonnes of coal.

We tolerated such strip mining 60 years ago because our nation needed energy to rebuild an economy and a society stricken by war. We endured it under duress and with protest in the 1970s as a life support for a declining deep-mine industry which has, I am sad to say, virtually expired. However, enough was enough. The case against Long Moor was irrefutable and we thought that in our fight we had the support of the newly elected Labour Government, because in the long run-up to the 1997 general election my party—our party—had rightly identified open-casting as a key issue in numerous marginal constituencies in the English midlands and Yorkshire.

Our then environment spokesman, my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson), produced a new policy paper entitled “Open Cast Coal Mining—Too High a Price” in late 1996, which contained a bleak but accurate description of the effect of open-casting on the environment and local communities. That welcome document promised that, if elected, a Labour Government would revise the relevant planning framework for such applications—minerals planning guidance 3. That overdue manifesto on open-cast mining incorporated a 10-point plan for reducing its impact and promised that an incoming Labour Government would, inter alia, prohibit open-cast working, except when it was of benefit to the local community and local environment, allow rejection of open-cast applications which prejudiced efforts to attract local investment, restrict repeated applications for development of broadly similar sites or extensions of existing workings, require any future consents to set strict and more enforceable environmental standards and, finally and centrally, reduce the national reliance on open-cast as part of our overall energy policy. So far so good, although a few problems did start to emerge.

There was predictable hostility from sections of the now privatised mining industry. Some minerals planning authorities predicted difficulties with fashioning a new MPG3. Even the Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair), began to soft pedal on open-cast controversies in his own patch. Nevertheless, there was optimism in the heady early days after 1 May 1997 that the Dobson plan could be made to work. The newly fashioned Department of the Environment, Transport and Regions published its consultation paper on planning guidance for open-cast coal applications in late July. I shall fast forward over a long period of intense lobbying.

The revised version of MPG3 for England was eventually published in March 1999. It was a dilution of the 10-point programme promised to communities threatened by open-cast proposals in Leicestershire, Derbyshire and elsewhere, but it tightened controls and made concessions to long-term opponents of open-cast, such as me. The key changes, to which I shall return shortly, were that the need for sustainable development was stressed, as was a presumption against development unless the application satisfied a number of tests, the key one being: is the proposal environmentally acceptable or can it be made so by planning conditions or obligations and, if not, does it provide local or community benefits that clearly outweigh the likely impacts?

It seemed to me then, as it does now, that the changes were adequate to allow local planning authorities, without fear of lost appeals, to refuse open-cast coal applications on greenfield sites, especially as decisions can reflect the cumulative effects of adverse consequences in areas like north-west Leicestershire, which has long endured surface coal extraction.

Let me summarise the history of the application that I plan to describe in a moment. British Coal had sought permission in 1990 for the whole of the enormous Coalville West site with 8 million tonnes of open-cast coal lying between the post-war excavations near Packington and 1970s, 1980s and 1990s workings in Heather and Ravenstone, all of which were eventually restored in 1995. That proposal was seen off by a huge tidal wave of opposition, led magnificently by a local protest group, Fight Open Cast in Leicestershire—FOIL—to whose work I regularly and sincerely pay admiring tribute.

A later, smaller Thorntree application in the same area by RJB Mining for 5 million tonnes of coal over six years from 500 acres was also rejected after a long community campaign in 1998. In late 2003, along came UK Coal with an even smaller proposal, seductively entitled Long Moor. This was an application to take out in just three years a small amount of coal, 725,000 tonnes, from a site of only 175 acres. I am, of course, speaking ironically. It gave a commitment that when the site was finished and restored with extra woodland, wetland and grassland—who would not want to visit that?—UK Coal would go away and never return.

The county council refused the application in July 2004 as it said that it would have

“an unacceptable cumulative environmental impact which would adversely affect those who live, work and pursue leisure activities in the area”

which

“would not be outweighed by the benefits the proposals would bring”.

The final phrase was crucial. UK Coal appealed in that November and a public inquiry was held at Snibston discovery park, Coalville last autumn. Time is not available this afternoon, nor is this the appropriate place, to cover in any detail the powerful case against Long Moor made by FOIL, Ravenstone open-cast opposition group, parish councils, villagers like myself and Leicestershire county council. However, I shall give a brief outline in an attempt to demonstrate that our Government's new criteria for refusal of open-cast coal applications were amply met.

Our four villages lie within the 200 square miles of the National forest, which has for 10 years been a major driver for environmental restoration and economic regeneration in a large part of the east and west midlands. Much of the land in and around the site is in active agricultural use and is overlaid by a network of mature hedgerows, copses and dense woodland. No wonder so many local people value their recreation on those quiet rural byways. This is not brownfield land crying out for restoration; it is an area of green fields crying out to be left alone.

There is a real fear that Long Moor will accelerate the return of the stigma linked to a century and more of mining and minerals working, which would slow and probably put into reverse the positive changes and improvements that we have recently experienced. There is anxiety about the health risks associated with the extra noise, dust and traffic. They will have a major impact on Ravenstone, and especially nearby Woodstone primary school, which opened just a few days ago and lies downwind of Long Moor. There is concern that the site will threaten important local businesses involved in horticultural production, as they are vulnerable to the dust cocktail that open-casting tends to generate. The headline in the Leicester Mercury just a day or two ago said “Opencast mine will ruin our businesses”.

There is no special need for such coal, which the inquiry heard was of a poor quality. It is clear that the tonnage projected is too small to be an important national benefit, significant to the coal-trade balance or essential to industry. A coal-fired power station would burn the four years’ production of that site in as many weeks. The site would be loss-making, and it would weaken the already imperilled UK Coal with major implications for operational performance, completion and final restoration.

I have thought about this issue a lot, and the only commercial motive for the site must be a covert expectation that planning attrition in 2010 or beyond will lead to successive phases of work, so that salami-slicing of the adjacent Coalfield West reserves to the south will generate profits to justify the substantial infrastructure costs that Long Moor cannot in any way fund. The site will not generate profits, and it will certainly not pay for overheads.

I am concerned about news that I received today. The July issue of Coal UK refers to a round table meeting organised by the Department for Trade and Industry for representatives of the open-cast coal industry. I hope that it is not part of a process to soften up the Government, especially in relation to MPG3. The journal seemed to take the line that the industry will have a chance to encourage local councils to be grown up about open-casting. Grown up about open-casting? I have grown up surrounded by open-casting. All my life there has been open-casting in my area, so I do not need any encouragement from the coal producers to be grown up about it.

As we heard in the Chamber from the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry yesterday, we need secure, sustainable and clean energy in this country. Moreover, with the vast majority of dirty power generators being coal-fired power stations, local authorities and, by extension, planning inspectors and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, ought to have particular regard for policy planning statement 1, 2005, which, in paragraph 13(ii) of its key principles, states:

“Regional planning bodies and local planning authorities should ensure that development plans contribute to global sustainability by addressing the causes and potential impacts of climate change”.

I look forward to hearing the Minister reply to that.

PPS1 should lead inexorably to the rejection of the vast majority of open-cast applications, as the democratic means of processing applications will ensure that any open-cast application offering immense economic and other benefits to the local community—that community being supportive—could still be given the green light. Paragraph 41 of PPS1 makes it abundantly clear that a key principle of sustainable development is to

“involve the community in developing the vision for its area.”

Returning to Long Moor, in the two years between published application and public inquiry, there was as remarkable a cross-party and cross-community display of unity, energy and determination to defeat the application as I have seen in more than 35 years of public life. Our collective vision for the area did not and could not embrace the reintroduction of such a damaging activity as open-cast coal mining, the effects of whose impacts are being overcome only now, many years later. If that is not cumulative and unacceptable adverse impacts, what on earth is?

I understand my hon. Friend’s despair at the decision, which I shared, having heard about it just a week before the summing up of a similar application by UK Coal for the Lodge House site in my constituency. We still await the decision, and as nobody but UK Coal thinks it should go ahead, I still have hope.

Did my hon. Friend make the argument about the cumulative impacts on his area, and the despair and horror felt by people who have experienced them time and again? In one case in my area, they have been experienced for 50 years, on and off. Does he share my concern at what seems to be a misinterpretation by the inspector of paragraph 18 of MPG3 about the way in which cumulative impacts should be taken into account?

I certainly share my hon. Friend’s concerns. I regret to say that I reach my 60th birthday on 22 August. I have lived in the same village all my life, and in all that time, my village has had contact with active or fairly recent open-casting. We know what open-casting is about, and it is cumulative and unacceptable in every sense.

In light of the Long Moor effects that I have described, UK Coal’s proposal would have had to offer some extraordinary incentives to the local area to receive planning approval from the minerals planning authority or the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on appeal. It manifestly did not, so within the revised guidelines, it had to be rejected. Incredibly, it was not, which brings me full circle to my opening remarks.

It is now 48 days since the recommendations of the inquiry inspector and the Government’s tame acceptance of them dropped on to local doormats and into e-mail inboxes. I am still as baffled now as I was then how the chief inspector should have so readily bought UK Coal’s specious arguments, swallowed its flimsy case whole and so lightly set aside the tightened framework for dealing with such applications which, as I have tried to describe, was assembled with such care in the run up to and after 1997. She set at naught local concerns. There was no rhyme, reason or rationale in the inspector’s astonishing decision. It was sloppy and it verged on the incompetent. It was utterly detached from the clear environmental manifesto on which our Labour Government were elected in 1997, and from the subsequent planning and regulatory regimes that we have put in place to implement those commitments and policies.

It is now 48 hours since I started to research this speech, and in that time I have reflected a great deal on the role of Ministers, who must of course take the final responsibility for what has happened. I hope that whoever lifted the application out of their red box fully understood the policy background to that complex and crucial planning decision and knew about the precedent being set. I hope that it does not influence the decision in Amber Valley, just a few miles to the north of my constituency. I hope also that the Minister concerned appreciated the importance of the matter to communities in English coal mining areas. In Wales and Scotland, it is a devolved matter.

If the decision was signed off in haste or without proper consideration, the Department for Communities and Local Government must be held to account for a deeply depressing rejection of the views of rural communities and the apparently casual disregard of the local government system that represents them and exists to protect them. Communities and local government are the raison d’être of the new Department, and it seems as if that raison d’être has been forgotten.

I shall finally say a word or two about the performance of Leicestershire county council. I should state that I am a former employee of the authority pre-1997, although not in planning. For the care with which it consulted the community, the professionalism of its assessment of a lengthy and complicated proposal and the robustness of its submission at the inquiry, it deserves the highest commendation. At the inquiry, the concept of cumulative impact was at the core of every day’s evidence from every witness. I am glad that the council has taken the Department to judicial review. If the council is successful, the Department must take note, so that future greenfield open-casting in Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire and elsewhere will finally be laid to rest.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) on securing the debate. I should like to take this opportunity to assure colleagues once again that the Government firmly believe that access to a range of energy sources is essential to ensure security of supply. There will be a continuing role for coal in meeting our energy needs for years to come, provided that its potential environmental impacts can be managed satisfactorily.

We also believe that there is a future role for UK-produced coal in meeting our total coal needs. This country still has substantial coal reserves, and they represent an important national asset that we must put to optimum use. However, we have to face facts: coal, like every other mineral, can be exploited only where it is found. For that reason, we must strike the right balance between the legitimate interests of the coal producers, the potential environmental impacts of development and the needs of the community in the immediate area and at national level. That is not always an easy balance to strike, of course. It is true both of coal at depth, suitable for underground mining or coal gasification, and of shallow reserves suitable only for surface working.

That is not to say that all coal must be worked at all costs or regardless of the impact on local communities. The planning guidance for England clearly states that unless development proposals are environmentally acceptable, can be made so through conditions or offer compensatory benefits there should be a presumption against approval being granted. Similar guidance is in place in Scotland and is expected shortly, I am advised, in Wales.

All applications for new underground or surface mines must be assessed against those guidelines and those that meet them should be approved. I am unable to comment on the specific application that affects my hon. Friend’s constituents, but I understand—and it has been confirmed today—that it has been considered through the full planning process, including a public inquiry and an inspector’s report, which the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government accepted, and that it is now the subject of a challenge in the High Court through judicial review.

I understand that the application is for permission to work some 725,000 tonnes of coal from the site. [Interruption.] Coaling is expected to take about two and a half years out of a total site life of about four years, to be followed by a further period of management of the restored site. Previous unsuccessful applications, which related to areas that include the smaller site that has now been approved, were made in 1990, 1992 and 1997. [Interruption.] The last two were permissions to work 4.8 million and 5.3 million tonnes of coal respectively over a site life of six years. There are other unworked coal reserves in the county.

Will the Minister give way?

I get the impression that my hon. Friend does not agree with all my facts, and so I shall give him the opportunity to speak.

I said all that in my speech. It would be useful to all present if the Minister could focus on the Government’s attitude rather than facts that I have already mentioned.

My hon. Friend gave his speech, and I hope that he will allow me to give mine.

The Government have demonstrated their support for the coal industry by making more than £200,000 available in coal aid since 2000. Some £18 million of that was paid to surface mine operators under the UK coal operating aid scheme to cover production losses during 2001 and 2002. No surface mine has benefited from coal investment aid. Despite that support, the total UK output fell by 18 per cent. in 2005 to 20 million tonnes of coal. That included deep mine production of 9.5 million tonnes, of which 9 million tonnes were produced at English mines, and surface mine production of 10.4 million tonnes, of which only 1.5 million tonnes were produced in England. Leicestershire’s contribution was a little under 95,000 tonnes of surface-mined coal, down from 412,000 tonnes in 2004 and almost 600,000 tonnes in 2003. Some 50 direct mining jobs have already been lost in the county as a result of that decline. The 2005 output was from a site which is due to close in October this year with the potential loss of a further 22 jobs.

The main customers for all UK coal production are the coal-fired generators. They consistently stress the importance of reliability of supplies in contract negotiations, but deep mining is inherently higher risk, because of the potential geological and technological problems, and the assurance of steady production from surface sites is vital to give the generators confidence that UK production can continue to help to meet their needs. That is why it is important for everyone with the best interests of the UK coal industry at heart to recognise that the deep and surface mine sectors are not in competition and that they need each other to maintain the critical mass of the industry and to secure its future.

Will the Minister give way?

I will let my hon. Friend tell me in a moment why I have it wrong, if he will let me continue for a while.

I have already reiterated the Government’s belief that there will be a continuing role for coal in meeting our energy needs, particularly as cleaner generating technologies come on stream, and that UK-produced coal—deep and surface mined—can continue to play a part in meeting national coal demand, provided that it can be worked in an acceptable manner.

I understand my hon. Friend’s frustration, but I have been trying to set out something of a national context to balance the arguments and to try to reflect the views of those who hope for a future for British indigenous coal, as the energy review reiterated yesterday. I can understand, too, why he would be frustrated, but given that the planning controversy is now subject to judicial review in the High Court it would not be right for me to comment on the rights or wrongs of the case or of any other planning controversy. I hope that my hon. Friend will understand that.

I understand perfectly well that the Minister will not be able to comment on the planning merits or otherwise of the Long Moor application. However, when he says that open-casting is an important economic contributor to employment, does he recognise that the presence of an open-cast site in the vicinity of an area that is being restored environmentally and rebuilt economically can be a hurdle and a weight around the neck when it comes to trying to attract new firms with high-tech, highly skilled and highly waged jobs? They will look at a despoiled area that has been wasted by minerals working. Open-cast mining has a net negative effect on the local economy.

I recognise that there have been job losses in the county as a result of closures, which will be of concern to my hon. Friend. I also recognise, of course—it is plain common sense—that with any plans for any community or area, the pros and cons of different industries can be argued in terms of the impact on the labour market and job opportunities. I hear what he has said, and it is his constituency and not mine. There can be different uses for any area, and one use might help or hinder other job opportunities and economic development. I understand that.

I reiterate the point that it would not be right for me to comment on the particular proposal. It is actually a matter for the Department for Communities and Local Government and not my Department, the Department of Trade and Industry—I think that I am answering this debate because of the coal mining issues. I am at pains to say that if we are serious about British indigenous coal having a future, there has to be some balance between deep mining and surface mining, but that it is not for me to make a judgment about whether it is appropriate in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency or not.

I am aware after reading Coal UK that the Department has scheduled a meeting with open-cast coaling companies later this month. Will the Minister assure us, as this might cause wider reverberation on the Labour Benches, that there will be no slipping away of support from MPG3? Many of us are engaged in a struggle to implement it and if we see any backsliding by our Government on the issue, we will be—how shall I put this?—severely disappointed.

I assure my hon. Friend that we are trying to strike the proper balances. I am not quite sure exactly what that meeting will entail, but we meet a wide variety of energy interests and hear a variety of views about surface mining, its future and its non-future. That is as far as I can go. There are no plans to change the policy and the practice.

The Minister is being most generous in giving way, and he knows that I genuinely hold him in the highest regard in his departmental role. On the Floor of the House yesterday, I acknowledged the welcome role for coal that the Secretary of State spelled out in his statement, but I said that, in the long time frame for the investment needed for carbon-capturing clean coal, a greater role for coal in generation is likely to be dealt with only through the expansion of imports and of open-cast mining, the second of which is unacceptable to local communities.

That, of course, has been the burden of my hon. Friend’s remarks. The question is whether it is unacceptable in the wider economy and among all local communities. The figures that I have given, not least for Scotland, show that surface mining now plays a significant part. We have to get the balance right. I am not talking about Leicestershire, as I have been at pains to stress, but we have to get the balance right if we are serious—I think we want to be serious—about British indigenous coal having a future.

The other challenge with the energy infrastructure, whether it is onshore or offshore wind farms, future power stations, or even the infrastructure that we might need for carbon capture and storage, is to have a body of Members of Parliament who will agree to things and not simply object to them. My role in such debates is often to hear objections to wind farms or whatever it might be, but if we are to have the necessary energy supplies we must think through the investment needed in Great Britain as a whole. That is not a comment about surface mining or about Leicestershire, it is a general comment.

rose—

Does my hon. Friend want to have another go?

Order. I take it that this is an intervention and not another go.

It is an intervention.

I said earlier that this is not a matter of nimbyism. North-West Leicestershire has produced hundreds of millions of tonnes of coal over a lengthy period. In north-east Leicestershire, there remain 800 million tonnes of coal, which I hope will be extracted by a technology that we do not yet fully comprehend. No one is trying to avoid making a contribution towards the national need for energy, but open-cast mining in greenfield locations, unless it is to do with the restoration of previously despoiled sites, is unacceptable, particularly for places such as Long Moor.

I do not know why I should have confused an intervention with having a go.

You invited him to do so.

Quite so. It was a mistake, Mr. Hancock, and I apologise.

We have had a reasonable debate. I understand my hon. Friend’s strength of feeling and that of his colleagues. I hope that they appreciate my difficulty, but I cannot comment directly on the case.

Do I take it from what the Minister said earlier that at the meeting that he is to have with the open-cast companies he will reassert that MPG3 remains the Government’s policy?

I do not quite know what that meeting is about. I shall probably attend. Perhaps I can write to colleagues about that meeting. As for the matter before the House, no changes have been planned. I hope that with that reassurance we can draw the debate to a conclusion.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at thirteen minutes past Five o’clock.