The chief scientific adviser and his Foresight team have today published the report, “Tackling Obesities: Future Choices”, which pulls together the latest evidence and expertise on this vital issue and seeks to answer the question: how can we deliver a sustainable response to obesity over the next 40 years? Foresight exists to challenge existing policy, and the report is nothing if not challenging.

The report predicts that, on current trends, by 2050, 60 per cent. of men, 50 per cent. of women and 26 per cent. of children and young people will be obese. Incidents of type 2 diabetes are set to rise by 70 per cent.; attacks of stroke by 30 per cent.; and cases of coronary heart disease by 20 per cent. Obesity-related diseases will cost the nation an extra £45.5 billion a year.

The implications for those individuals who are directly affected are profound. An obese young man who remains obese, as most are likely to do, will die, on average, 13 years younger than his peer group. However, the report is based on current trends. Our destiny need not be pre-ordained, and we can buck those trends, provided that we are all prepared to take the necessary steps. Indeed, the work assembled for this project gives the UK a platform to become a global leader in tackling a problem that is challenging policy makers across the world.

In recent years, we have focused more closely on child obesity. Sure Start children’s centres provide parents with high-quality health advice in the crucial pre-school years. We now intend to start earlier still with the proposed nutritional grants for pregnant mothers. Over the past three years, the share of children on the school fruit and vegetable scheme who are eating five a day has increased from just over a quarter to just under a half. We have introduced tough new nutritional standards; we are investing almost £100 million a year to improve school food; and we have added an entitlement to cooking lessons on the national curriculum. We have established the national child measurement programme, which will provide the largest database of its kind in the world on children’s weight. In 2004, only half of all pupils did two hours of high-quality PE and sport every week; today the figure is 86 per cent. We are now raising our sights so that every child has the chance of five hours sport every week, backed by a further £100 million of additional investment.

Working with the Food Standards Agency and the food industry, we have introduced front-of-pack labelling, and we have worked with Ofcom to prohibit television advertising of foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar during children’s programmes. This was a bold measure, but we are determined to go further if the evidence supports the need to do so. We will therefore be reviewing the impact of the restrictions on the nature and balance of food promotion to all children, across all media.

The Foresight report endorses interventions such as these, but argues for an even bolder approach. The report says that although personal responsibility is a crucial determinant of our body weight, our environment also plays a vital role. The chilling reality is that modern life makes us overweight. As Sir David King puts it:

“We evolved in a world of relative food scarcity and hard physical work—now energy dense food is abundant and labour saving technologies abound”.

Modern transport systems, sedentary jobs and convenience food make life more comfortable, but also lie at the heart of this dilemma. In a sense, we are victims of our economic success. The pace of technological revolution outstrips human evolution.

Tackling this problem calls for a fundamental shift in approach. Although the report projects us forward 50 years, it does of course require action today, and many of the areas identified in the report cannot be tackled successfully by Government alone. I hope this report will trigger the national debate that is essential if we are to rise to the challenge.

The report highlights the responsibilities of employers to look after their employees’ health, which is in the interests not just of their staff, but of the business: enhancing performance and improving productivity. The report also shows how small changes to everyday routines can make a real difference. For instance, employers might look at providing loans for bikes, not just season tickets; subsidising gym membership, not just canteens; and even putting out fruit at meetings, rather than biscuits. But the report also points to more substantial measures—for instance, with the built environment. Local authorities must ensure that healthy living is built into the infrastructure of our towns and cities so that planning systems improve our health and well-being.

The report examines the availability of, and exposure to, obesogenic food and drinks. Front-of-pack labelling is now increasingly prevalent, but industry has yet fully to embrace the colour coding system. There is emerging evidence that the FSA's labelling system is more effective at informing consumers and I want to work with the industry to see this adopted, but the report underlines the expectation for change. I have also asked the FSA to conduct an immediate investigation into the use of trans fats, to examine whether there is more we should ask the food industry to do in this area.

The report talks about the importance of targeted public health interventions. There are regional disparities in the prevalence of obesity and I hope that primary care trusts will look at what more can be done through advice and training in health consumption and activity to help obese people to achieve sustainable reductions in their weight. Underpinning all this is an acknowledgment that Government must do more. We will develop a comprehensive cross-government strategy on obesity to respond to the evidence in this report. Because of the need for concerted action on a number of fronts, I will convene a cross-governmental ministerial group to guide our approach.

We will continue to focus particularly on children. More than 80 per cent. of obese 10 to 14-year-olds remain obese into adulthood. As part of the spending review, we have already set our ambition to reverse the growth in obesity so that, by 2020, we reduce the proportion of overweight and obese children to the levels in 2000. Ensuring that our health service is as focused on prevention as it is on treatment is already a priority, and obesity epitomises the need for that change.

In the past, tackling obesity has always been regarded as a matter of personal will-power, but as the report starkly demonstrates, people in the UK are not more gluttonous than previous generations and individual action alone will not be sufficient. Obesity is a consequence of abundance, convenience and underlying biology. Solutions will not be found in exhortations for greater individual responsibility, or in what the report calls the futility of isolated initiatives.

Let us begin the national debate here in Parliament today, and let us use the report to forge the consensus that will allow the UK to pioneer the new long-term integrated approach that the issue desperately requires. I commend the statement to the House.

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. Indeed, I am grateful—I hope that the House is grateful—to all those who worked on the Foresight programme and for their report.

The Foresight programme makes a clear argument: our human biology has not much changed, but our environment and our society have. We lead less active lives; we enjoy plentiful energy-dense foods. It has become normal to be overweight. It will become normal to be obese if we do not act now. Our response to this needs to change or the slide into obesity will create an epidemic of disease and the national health service will not cope.

The public health Minister, the right hon. Member for Bristol, South (Dawn Primarolo), called this a “wake up call”. If it is, the Government have been asleep for the past decade while the alarm bells have been ringing. When the Labour Government came to office, they abolished the target on obesity that was set in the 1992 “Health of the Nation” White Paper. In 2004, the Health Committee’s report on obesity said:

“On present trends, obesity will soon surpass smoking as the greatest cause of premature loss of life.”

In 2004, the Government abandoned their previous stance and set a target to halt the rise in childhood obesity by 2010. Since then, the rates have continued to go up, and what has been the Government’s response to that? It had been to push the target back from 2010 to 2020. Frankly, we can see why they have failed. The Secretary of State talked about the child measurement programme, but what is the point of a programme that does not lead to any action? Children are measured so that there is an ability to take subsequent action. This is the way in which the Government work: targets as a substitute for achievement when what we really need is action—not gimmicks or one-off initiatives, but a sustained plan. As the Foresight programme makes clear, that plan has to tackle the whole map of factors that contribute to rising levels of obesity.

The plan must start with nutrition in pregnancy and early years. There is no evidence that the Secretary of State’s voucher scheme alone will work. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has proposed guidelines for early years nutrition and all those proposals need to be supported. The plan must include the reformulation of foods. My colleague in the European Parliament, John Bowis, earlier this year led a parliamentary initiative to ban synthetic trans fats in Europe.

As the Government said earlier this year, saturated fats are the greater public health hazard. We need a supply chain initiative that will reduce fats, sugar and salt progressively and substantially. We must also promote good diet, targeting certain junk foods—today the Prime Minister called them “unacceptable foods”. Nutrient profiling that stigmatises all cheese as a junk food just forfeits credibility.

Three years ago, when the Government published their public health White Paper, I argued for a combined traffic light and guideline daily amount system of front-pack food labelling. The Government got it wrong then, and now we have several confusing labelling systems. Will the Secretary of State today agree that the Government will back a combined traffic light and GDA labelling scheme?

Will the Secretary of State commit today to a national research centre on obesity? Will he commit to a nationwide programme to identify cardiovascular risk? Will he commit to supporting proven exercise referral schemes? Will he commit to ring-fenced public health budgets so that we cannot carry on seeing such budgets being raided to meet national health service deficits? Will he explain to the House why the number of public health staff has halved? Will he explain why primary care trusts are not on track to have trained school nurses in place by 2010, as was promised? Will he tell the House why the lottery funding for community sport has been halved, when half the population do no sport and take no active recreation?

Today, the Secretary of State said that he will develop a comprehensive cross-Government strategy on obesity. Three years ago his predecessor said at the Dispatch Box that he would develop a cross-Government campaign on obesity. The words do not change, but delivery never takes place. For a decade, the Government have presided over an escalating public health crisis. A succession of gimmicks has had little impact. There has never been the comprehensive action that is required. The issue is not just about individual choices; it is about social responsibility—our responsibility for our health. It is about stronger families that give young people the guidance and self-esteem necessary to make healthy choices and lead healthy lives, stronger communities that promote activity and sport, and corporate social responsibility to promote good diet and cuts to fats, sugar and salt, and to ensure that affordable diets are on offer in the most deprived areas.

There is an analogy to climate change. In both cases, we need a cultural shift, technological innovation, a framework of legislation, and Government action, and we need individuals to respond. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and the Conservative party have led the argument for a greener Britain through social responsibility. I can today commit the next Conservative Government to meeting our obesity and public health challenges, through social responsibility, to ensure a safer, greener and healthier Britain.

I echo the hon. Gentleman’s words about the work of the Foresight team. The review is a comprehensive piece of work. A group of experts spent two years formulating the evidence, and the review gives us an opportunity to become world leaders in tackling the problem. I really do not want to look back—

I bet you don’t.

Well, I just think that the report deserves discussion in Parliament, rather than a simple Punch and Judy show. [Interruption.] Well, I do believe that. I believe that obesity is one of the long-term issues on which politicians have an obligation to forge a consensus. I do not expect the Opposition to be in power for at least another 20 or 30 years, but undoubtedly Governments will change. Undoubtedly the Opposition will be in power at some stage over the coming years—I leave aside the Liberal Democrats. We must forge a consensus on the issue that allows the British people to believe that whatever Government come along, there is a comprehensive, integrated strategy to deal with what the Foresight report says is one of the most profound dangers and threats that the world faces.

Having said that, I will go through the points made by the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) before I end my response by saying that I agree with much of what he said about the need to tackle the issue of good diet and the need to involve Ofcom more closely. Any objective look at what has happened in the past few years would suggest that, as the Foresight report recognises, the Government have taken a number of measures that are crucial to tackling the issues, and child obesity in particular. The first thing to say is that we commissioned the report. We set up the Foresight unit specifically to look at the issues long-term.

Secondly, we introduced the tough new nutritional standards that have been in place since September as regards the rubbish that was in vending machines in our schools. Over the past three years, the share of children on the school fruit and vegetable scheme who eat five a day has gone up from a quarter to just under half. Some 86 per cent. of school children now do at least two hours of high-quality sport or physical education. The Department for Transport is investing £15 million in the national cycling network, and 450 schools are due to benefit from that. We put £1 billion more into sport in this country. All of those measures and more are important, but that brings us back to the Foresight group’s comment about the futility of isolated initiatives. What we need is much greater integration, and the Government need to do more in that regard as well, but we need to forge a political consensus on the matter across the House.

The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) says that we have abandoned the target for 2010. We had a fairly modest target of stopping the rise in childhood obesity by 2010. As part of a discussion of the latest round of public service agreements, and educated by the early draft of the Foresight report, we decided to be far more ambitious and say that rather than halting the rise, we should reverse it to 2000 levels. That will take longer than 2010, which is why the aim is to achieve the target by 2020.

The point that the hon. Gentleman makes about the national weighing and measuring programme is right. I agree that we need to give that a legislative push. From the early results, it looks as though we are getting about 90 per cent. compliance, but that must be properly tested.

I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman about ring-fenced budgets. I am surprised by his remarks. Opposition Members have been speaking about the need for the NHS to be separated from politicians, with no targets and with the money being handed down and local trusts allowed to get on with it. The right approach is for us to give the money out to health trusts and to make them responsible for dealing with the issue, ensuring that there are indicative measures. The proper place to put the emphasis on public health is through the operating framework. We will do that at the end of the year.

The hon. Gentleman’s other point—on public health staff—is a hardy perennial, and I was disappointed that he raised it in this debate. The number of nurses working in primary and community care settings has increased by 31,500 or 40 per cent. since 1997. That includes a 35 per cent. increase in the number of school nurses, so the number of people working on health in communities has increased enormously, as has the budget for public health and throughout the health service. All our aims are predicated on the massive increase in investment that we have put into the health service since 1997.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman about where the focus needs to be now. Indeed, I dealt with that in the statement. We need to ensure that we go further on colour coding and that we talk to the industry. We do not want to be attacked for unnecessary regulation. We want to persuade the industry, with the benefit of the report, that we all have a responsibility. Of course the Government have a huge responsibility, but so do others. If the Foresight report does not point us in the right direction, nothing will.

Another day, another health statement. It is good to be back.

Another day, another Lib Dem leader. [Laughter.]

The humour from the Conservative Benches is wonderful, but the guffaws are slightly forced.

I thank the Secretary of State for early sight of the statement. He is right that the report must be taken seriously. Unless we take decisive action, the consequences for people’s health of obesity, such as diabetes and heart conditions, could be devastating and will bankrupt the NHS. It is important to stress that we should all take personal responsibility as individuals and as parents. Perhaps the three of us Front-Bench spokesmen should take part in the Great London run next year. I invite the Secretary of State to join me. I did it this year, and the Lib Dem health team is in pretty live condition—[Interruption]. Mr. Speaker, come to my aid. There is an awful lot of noise in the background.

Order. In order to help the hon. Gentleman out, we must let him speak and ask questions.

It is also right that we should hold the Government to account for their action or inaction. Is this not a case of “here we go again”? In 2004 the White Paper promised a long-term strategy to tackle obesity, and Wanless urged joined-up thinking. In a high-profile announcement the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform, the hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), who was a Health Minister at the time, was put in charge of tackling obesity. Now, after three years of inaction, what do the Government propose? They propose a three-year comprehensive strategy on obesity. I know that the Government are famous for repeating announcements, but to take three years to repeat the announcement seems to take the biscuit.

Not the biscuit!

The fruit.

Indeed, take the fruit.

We also have the inevitable, rather vacuous claims that the UK can be a world leader on the subject, yet in the real world the problem is getting massively worse and the UK compares badly with most other countries. Why did Derek Wanless conclude that his 2004 recommendations had effectively been ignored? Why have the public health budgets been raided to stave off financial crisis in many parts of the health service? Why have we no idea about how much we are spending on public health? How on earth can we monitor it if we do not measure how much we are spending on it in a given year? Why has the number of public health consultants and registrars declined?

Why has the take-up of school meals declined by almost 500,000 in the past two years? Schools now have to weigh their children, but why is there no follow-up action to give the schools the opportunity to do anything to tackle the problem that they uncover? Is it not right that the top priority must be to tackle child obesity, both through more exercise and through better diet?

The report highlights the risk of polarisation of society between

“the junk-food eating, less-educated poor and functional food eating, better-informed higher classes”.

It highlights the importance of education, yet the statement is silent on the horrifying potential inequality in health outcomes between rich and poor. What is the Government’s strategy to tackle that? Overall, is this not one of the worst examples of great rhetoric not being matched by action?

I do not think the report is an example of that at all. The hon. Gentleman welcomes the report, so I assume he has read it. It was not I who said that it gives us the opportunity to lead the world on the issue. The report itself states that the work assembled for the project gives the UK a platform to become a global leader in tackling a problem that is challenging policy makers across the world. It points out that nowhere across the world is there a comprehensive strategy to tackle the problem. It identifies some important community initiatives, such as the North Karelia project in Finland, which had remarkable success. The report suggests that we consider setting up a similar project in a couple of regions or cities in the UK.

The report makes it clear that no one has a magic bullet and that there is no single answer. There is no use waiting for some kind of medical technology to produce a magic pill or tackle the issue. That is not going to happen. The report concentrates our attention on the need to rise above the political fray and to accept that mistakes have been made, although I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s point. The science has moved on and our approach has moved on. One of the reasons why we commissioned the report and sponsored it is that we recognised that we were running to catch up on the evidence that the scientists were producing on the need to tackle obesity.

We can consider various initiatives. The hon. Gentleman mentioned health inequalities. The report states that the Government’s action in tackling health inequalities and climate change could help, because energy saving could help to encourage people to exercise more. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman says from a sedentary position—you two are such chums, Mr. Speaker, on unhelpful comments from the back—that the statement was silent on that. In my statement to Parliament, I set out what is in the report, picking out some of the issues. The statement the day before yesterday—there does seem to be one almost daily—pointed out that we will introduce 100 GP practices into the 25 per cent. most deprived areas to try to deal with the problem of under-doctored areas. The report points to a series of measures that need to be taken, and tackling health inequalities is crucial. The hon. Gentleman talks about the day-to-day banter that we sometimes have, but the report will have an important role in tackling these problems in the longer term.

The reduction in the take-up of school meals has also been mentioned, so let me point out yet again that the city I represent followed Finland’s lead and became the first to try to tackle health inequalities and problems with educational attainment by saying that every primary school pupil should be able to have a free breakfast, free fruit and free lunch. What is more, we did that before Jamie Oliver, and it had a remarkable impact. The programme is due to be assessed by Hull university, yet the incoming Lib Dem authority cancelled the scheme this year—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] Yes, they abolished it. So much for free school meals as a means of tackling deprivation. The Lib Dems in Hull say that we have to introduce this nationally, but it is not a problem for Kingston upon Thames; it is problem for Kingston upon Hull, so the local authority should be involved in tackling it. It is a disgrace that the programme has been abandoned.

Putting all that aside, I hope that the Liberal Democrats—whichever leader is in charge of them this week, next week or the week after—will engage fully in the debate. I believe that the Liberal Democrats have a huge contribution to make to tackling some of these long-term problems—and the Conservative party does as well. As for the Great London run, I will consult shadow spokespersons to ensure that we all give the same answer!

May I congratulate the Foresight team on its excellent report and pay particular tribute to the work of the Minister for public health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Dawn Primarolo), who made an excellent speech at the launch this morning? I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State understands the frustration of people like me, who know how difficult it is to tackle this enormously complex problem of obesity, and that, like me, he recognises that the Government cannot solve the problem on their own. A whole societal approach is necessary, involving literally everyone in the country. Will he consider my wish list of the day? First, will he consider introducing a mandatory labelling scheme that could be agreed across the board—irrespective of whether individual supermarkets like it or not? Next, will he commit to having a school nurse in every single school, which would make a huge difference to the public health of the nation? Also, can I ask him to be even tougher on food advertising to children, particularly in respect of foods high in fat, salt and sugar, as that alone could make a considerable difference?

I thank my hon. Friend for his customary constructive comments and for giving us a good lead-in during Prime Minister’s questions. I join him in congratulating our right hon. Friend the Minister for public health and, indeed, the Minister for sport and the Minister for Children, Young People and Families, all of whom were signatories to the report’s foreword. My hon. Friend makes a very important point about the inability of Governments alone to tackle the problem. The report makes that point repeatedly and eloquently, which will provide a huge boost to my hon. Friend’s other point about the need to convince those involved of the need to produce a better food labelling scheme. I am not saying that I am going to push anyone into anything, but as Bob Dylan once said,

“You don’t need a weather man to know which way the wind blows.”

As far as school nurses are concerned, we cannot commit to one for every school, but our plans relate to clusters of schools and we intend to follow our successful approach to school sport. We want the expertise to be present in order to benefit a number of schools in an area.

May I advise the Secretary of State that I believe that there is an obesity pill, so his earlier comment was perhaps ill informed? In connection with the increased hours for sport and exercise in schools, will the Secretary of State ensure that team games—not just any exercise—are provided in school? We need team games, which I believe are the best for keeping young people fit, and to have team games, we need sports fields. Will he therefore remonstrate with local authorities because, under the learning communities programme, schools are merging and selling off the sports fields? That is happening in my village of Poynton, where the Vernon infants and junior schools are combining. I am in favour of the merger, but not of selling off the sports field, which is currently part of the infants school and adjacent to the junior school. Will he contact the authority to make it clear that this must not happen? We need playing fields if we are to provide more recreation, exercise and sport in schools.

The hon. Gentleman is right that there are various pills around, but they have not proved to be particularly successful. The report points out that they have had varying degrees of success, but that no single medical solution is likely to come along and solve all the problems.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the need for team games and sports. There was a period in which it was felt in the education world that competitive sports were somehow bad for children. That is ludicrous and it should go back to whichever strange opinion former it stemmed from. It is essential to have sports, including team sports.

School sports field are important. This year, for the first time in many years, there was a net increase in the number of sports fields opened rather than closed. The policy that we introduced insists that no school can get rid of a sports field without the express permission of the Secretary of State, and only then if the money received for it is going to be reinvested into sport, fitness and education. I believe that the hon. Gentleman will welcome that policy, as he will welcome our extra £1 billion investment in sport.

As my right hon. Friend knows, I take a great interest in increasing the level of physical activity in response to obesity. Building on what the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) has just said, will my right hon. Friend commit to ensuring that the single delivery system for sport, physical education and activity across the country—the county sport partnerships and others—becomes more heavily involved with primary care trusts? I offer the Secretary of State the opportunity to visit Leicestershire county sports partnership, which I chair, as one example where the local PCT is heavily involved in our activity.

Will my right hon. Friend also work with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to define clearly the roles of Sport England and the Department of Health? There are some difficulties, of which the attitude to walking is a good example. It is a great way of getting people to start to take up physical activity and then move into sport. That was demonstrated last week when it was found that 40 per cent. of people taking up sport in north-west Leicestershire did so as a consequence of walking. Will the Secretary of State try to bring those two elements together and clearly define who takes responsibility for which part of the governmental programme? That is crucial to delivering the first steps in tackling adult obesity. We can tackle child obesity if we get school sport right.

The answer to my hon. Friend is a very simple yes. What he says is crucial and the talks with the DCMS have already started. My hon. Friend has made an enormous contribution to sport in this country and I believe that he can make an important contribution to the work that is now under way. As I mentioned earlier, the Minister for sport, the Minister for Children, Young People and Families and the Minister for public health are working closely together. The new cross-Government initiative will involve everyone in government. I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Reed) has a very important role to play, and we will be in touch.

I find it a bit odd that the shadow Secretary of State criticised the Government for abandoning and relaxing targets when, only an hour ago, that is exactly what the Leader of the Opposition called on the Prime Minister to do. On the question of the futility of isolated initiatives, my right hon. Friend has accepted the need for an integrated approach in central Government, but does he also accept that, in reality, it is at local authority level that the integration will have to take place? Only the local authority and the children’s trusts can seriously integrate and influence health, schools, leisure, youth services, land use planning and transport planning. Does he agree that this will be a real test of the Government’s commitment to ending simple top-down government and to decentralising more? Will it not also be a real test of the ability of children’s trusts to deliver and, indeed, of the commitment to achieving all five outcomes in the “Every Child Matters” agenda?

I do agree with my hon. Friend. I do not know whether he has had an opportunity to read the report yet, but the Foresight group says precisely what he has said—that it is at local government level, where initiatives in Finland and other parts of the world have been hugely successful, that we can establish what could be described as an embryonic facility to test measures that may well be necessary throughout the country.

The group also makes the point that planning is central, especially local authority planning. Cities must be planned on a particular basis. They should not be like Los Angeles, where people take the car to buy a pint of milk. We should look towards 2050 and the world beyond, and plan for that world now. That is why my right hon. Friend the Minister for public health and others are in touch with the Local Government Association to talk through the issue and try to identify areas—Bury might be one of them—where we can try out some of this integrated work at local level.

Is not the dismal truth that the problem has occurred on this Government’s 10-year watch? As much as anything, it is about a failure to inform effectively.

Does the Secretary of State agree with Peter Hollins, chief executive of the British Heart Foundation? He says that the report

“is hardly a wake-up call. Repeated reports like this… should have had alarm bells ringing in Whitehall long ago”.

Is it not clear that we must now consider not just the level of calories, but the degree to which food is processed? Will the Secretary of State take that into account when he considers labelling?

Finally, what advice is the Secretary of State taking from the United States, which has an even larger problem than we have? Will he examine that problem very carefully?

I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman says. I do not blame earlier Governments. The Foresight report looks back at many, many years. A useful section considers the approach to smoking over the years and notes that although there has been a big public health success in that regard under Governments of different persuasions, it was preceded by a long route that began in the early 1960s with information, proceeded to more intervention, and concluded with regulation providing for smoke-free areas. It would not have been possible to implement such regulation back in the 1960s: there would have been public outrage. The Foresight group’s point is that obesity is a long-term issue which has not arisen under any particular Government’s watch. Indeed, it is a global problem.

I was disappointed by the hon. Gentleman’s quotation from the British Heart Foundation—it may have been taken out of context—because the report adopts the most comprehensive approach possible. Scientists have examined the matter scientifically. I did not have a chance to reply to a question from the shadow Secretary of State, who asked whether we would put together a team of experts or something of the kind—

A research centre.

We plan to keep the same team together to work on the project, although I do not know whether the building in which they are housed will be called a research centre.

The way in which food is processed is central. We can learn lessons from the United States, which does indeed have a far greater problem, although we will soon have as great a problem here if we do not do something about it. My right hon. Friend the Minister will talk to her opposite numbers in the United States during her visit, which will take place shortly.

Will the Secretary of State stress the importance of personal responsibility to the campaign? Information about diet, nutrition and the importance of exercise is available wherever we turn, and it is difficult to understand how the message has not already reached everyone in the country. No adult in this country is force-fed, and adults must take responsibility for what they choose to eat, but parents must take responsibility for what their children eat. They cannot transfer the responsibility to schools. Our schools are doing a very good job with the meals and exercise that they provide, but parents can give their children exercise in the form of sporting activities at the weekend, and they must take responsibility for that.

If the campaign is to succeed, we cannot constantly provide excuses for people. Obesity is not the fault of Government, the advertising industry, the food industry, schools or the health service. People must take personal responsibility.

I could not agree more with the hon. Lady on one very important point. The Foresight report says that this is not just a question of individual responsibility, although it does not suggest that it is not an element. What the authors want to tackle is the view that the problem is merely about people who eat too much, and has nothing to do with the way in which society is organised. They point out that because our biology has not kept pace with technological advances, the amount of energy that we take in is not matched by the amount that we expend. That is an important point, particularly because obesity gives rise to bullying, which affects youngsters in this position.

The hon. Lady is, however, absolutely right about the amount of information that is available. What we must ask is why, if all that information is there, people are not acting on it. She is also right about the need for parental responsibility. The fact that mothers were passing fish and chips through the railings at that school in Yorkshire is thoroughly depressing. Ensuring that youngsters become used to a healthy diet from a young age depends on their having that healthy diet at home as well. There is a two-way education process, involving parents as well as others. I think that the hon. Lady’s question, which will be encapsulated in Hansard, is the very first important contribution to the debate.

May I pursue what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson)? Does the Secretary of State accept that one reason why children eat more fast food and ready meals than they should is the increasing time pressure on ever busier parents? If he does accept that, what steps will the Government take to implement flexible working and other family-friendly policies so that parents can go home and cook more wholesome food for their children?

That is precisely why I personally took legislation through the House introducing the right to request flexible working, which at the time was attacked by the trade unions because it did not give a right to demand flexible working, and by some, although not all, sectors of business on the grounds that it imposed a burden on business. In fact, it has been remarkably successful: 80 per cent. of requests are accepted without the need for any process, while a further 10 per cent. are accepted following discussion about how more flexible working can be accommodated.

The first six months of a child’s life are crucial. The report mentions breastfeeding in that context. Paid maternity leave has been increased to 26 weeks and more recently to nine months, and eventually it will be increased to a year. Men now have paid paternity leave. All that is essential to the debate. The hon. Gentleman ought to look at the record. I do not want to make a political point, but I will in the sense of reminding him that the Conservative party opposed those proposals.

We need to expand that flexibility. We have already extended it to carers, but I believe that we should now extend the right to request flexible working much more widely, perhaps as part of the debate on obesity.

I was heartened by the Secretary of State’s answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson). He appeared to downgrade the role of personal responsibility in his statement when he said, “In the past, tackling obesity has always been regarded as a matter of personal will-power”. Is it not clear that we all learn and that we do not need a red light on a packet of crisps to tell us that they are fattening? There is no reason why we should not have the occasional packet of crisps, but if a parent gives a child a packet of crisps at breakfast, morning break, lunch, tea and supper, the child will clearly have an obesity problem. Is the Secretary of State perhaps a little nervous of making it clearer to the public that it is first and foremost up to them, not Governments, to change their personal behaviour?

We are trying to make clear the role of personal responsibility. The report speaks of an obesogenic environment, suggesting that modern life and the way in which the world now works make people fat, and that that must be tackled on a much wider basis than individual personal responsibility.

I am sorry if I downplayed personal responsibility. I am merely drawing attention to the report’s observation that in the past, when Governments wanted to tread on this territory, the first response was always “nanny state” and the second was that it was up to individuals to deal with the problem. According to the report, if Governments proceed along those lines, the issue will never be tackled successfully. Personal and parental responsibility are an essential part of tackling it, but there is a much wider issue that must be addressed by all elements of society, with Government taking the lead.

As someone who used to work in marketing for a supermarket chain, may I tell the Secretary of State that proposals to ban so-called junk food advertising on television and to introduce a state labelling system will not make any difference to childhood obesity? They will simply be another triumph for the nanny state. May I suggest that he stops those measures that make it sound as though the Government are doing something but that will make no difference whatever, and instead promote the individual responsibility line outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson)?

It is not either/or, and individual responsibility alone will not work. If the hon. Gentleman has a chance to read the report, which was written by eminent scientists, he will see that it makes it clear that food labelling and advertising form a crucial part of tackling the problem. In my view, the reason why advertising restrictions should go much further is that about 70 per cent. of children watch television programmes outside the traditional children’s viewing times. I think that that is making a big contribution and will make a bigger contribution, but it is just part of the answer. The hon. Gentleman says that it is either/or, but that does not take us any further forward in the debate.

Is the Secretary of State aware that many hard-working local general practitioners have been trying to run programmes to tackle obesity in their local areas for many years? In fact, my local GP, Dr. Andrew Brewster, who is an excellent GP, recognised the problem some years ago and developed an innovative and successful programme in my area. However, the big problem was that he could not get the funding from the NHS or the primary care trusts to run the programme, so he had to get the money from drugs companies. Does the Secretary of State agree that, for real change to happen, local GPs must be properly funded and supported to tackle obesity?

The GP the hon. Gentleman mentions could make a contribution to the debate. Of course primary care is essential to tackling the problem. I am not sure when the GP had problems with funding. An enormous amount of funding is going to GPs—indeed, we are often criticised for too much funding going to GPs, so I will be surprised if there is a problem at the moment in accessing money.

The hon. Gentleman is right, however, that GPs and primary care have as big a responsibility for prevention of disease as they do for tackling it. That is why we announced that there would be 100 new GP practices in the 25 per cent. poorest areas and 150 GP-led health centres around the country. As well as providing greater access, they will all have a responsibility on prevention as well as cure. I am sure that the GP the hon. Gentleman mentions would welcome that. It seems that he has been doing that work for many years. We want to see that replicated throughout the country.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will be aware that at 9.30 this morning there was a very important Westminster Hall debate on a subject close to the heart of the Labour left wing and the Liberal Democrat party in particular, namely, arms exports. For the first time in such a debate that I can recall, there was no Front-Bench spokesman present from the Liberal Democrat party and, needless to say, there was no Back Bencher either. Given that the Liberal Democrats persistently like to style their Front-Bench spokesmen as shadow Secretaries of State, will you clarify once and for all that they are no such thing and that, therefore, if they wish to continue absenting themselves from debates, it will be welcomed by Government and Opposition alike?

I am certainly not going to get drawn into that one.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is only a gentle point of order, but I wonder whether you have had a chance to look at the packaging material involved in the announcement that the Secretary of State for Health has just made. At a time when we are all trying to cut down on wasteful packaging, is it sensible to have the document in a half-empty box, in which a lot of junk food could probably be accommodated? Is not obese packaging the last thing we need?

Once again, those matters have nothing to do with the Chair.

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for the accessing of Pension Protection Fund benefits by people under the age of 50 who are suffering from a terminal illness; and for connected purposes.

For nearly all of us, contributing to a pension will be the most significant financial decision we ever make. Throughout our working life until the day we die, we will either be building or receiving a pension. Contributing to a scheme provides us with security for the future. It enables us to provide essential items such as food, warmth and housing, as well as allowing us fully to participate in society, economically and socially.

It is therefore distressing that, earlier this decade, thousands of people saw their savings vanish after their pension schemes went bust and were unable to meet their commitments. To avoid a repetition of that, the Government in April 2005 established the Pension Protection Fund under the Pensions Act 2004. Funded by an annual levy on defined-benefit and hybrid pension schemes, the PPF provides compensation to those whose pension schemes have become insolvent.

The fund has proved to be an invaluable safety net to thousands of workers who would otherwise have lost substantial pension savings. However, as a compensation scheme, the PPF has its own set of rules, which are set out in part 2 and schedule 7 to the Pensions Act and in the numerous statutory instruments made under it. Legislation specifies the level of compensation to be provided, and that is not necessarily the same as the person would have received had the pension scheme not wound up. In short, the PPF does not mirror the rules of individual pension schemes, and it is for that reason that I am proposing the Bill.

Significantly, the fund contrasts with final salary pension schemes and does not allow early payment of pension savings, for whatever reason, to anyone under the age of 50. For a specific set of people under 50 years of age—those diagnosed with a terminal illness—those rules are simply unreasonable. It is my belief that legislation should be amended so as to lift the current bar on payments to those aged under 50, if they are terminally ill.

As the Incomes Data Services pensions service explains, many pension schemes will allow unreduced early payment of a pension on ill health grounds. It states:

“In a final salary scheme, members who retire early often find that their pension is reduced to take account of the fact that it will be paid for longer. But if early retirement is due to ill health or incapacity an immediate pension is usually payable and this is unlikely to be reduced for early payment.”

A parliamentary written answer confirmed PPF rules regarding ill health pensions. It stated:

“compensation to scheme members who have been awarded an ill health pension is calculated in the same way as compensation to any other scheme member of the same age.

There are no provisions to enable scheme members to claim ill health pensions from the Pension Protection Fund once the PPF has assumed responsibility for a scheme.

However, any scheme member may take early payment of their compensation at a capped level of 90 per cent. from age 50, subject to actuarial reduction.”—[Official Report, 21 November 2005; Vol. 439, c. 1679W.]

As well as provoking inevitable feelings of grief, anger and loss, having a terminal illness can be expensive, often in ways that may not have been expected. That includes the cost of prescriptions, a special diet, child care or travel to hospital. In addition, money may be needed to make adjustments to an individual’s home or to pay for making out or amending a will.

It might easily be the case that people in their 30s and 40s could have made anything between 15 and 30 years of payments into a scheme but do not qualify to receive benefits under the PPF rules, even though their original scheme would have paid out. For anyone aged under 50 and terminally ill, savings taken on by the PPF simply disappear. Only when an individual dies will payment be made to their spouse or civil partner. That situation is set to get worse in the next few years. In a fact sheet on early payment of compensation, the PPF confirms that before April 2010 the earliest age at which payment can be made will rise from 50 to 55, to comply with the Finance Act 2004.

The PPF covers 10 former pension schemes, but many more schemes are undergoing assessment. It is estimated that by the end of 2007-08, the PPF is likely to be responsible for an additional 65 schemes. Some 100,000 employees are members of schemes currently being assessed to see if they qualify to be rescued. Among them are 38,000 former Turner and Newall employees, whose scheme failed after the engineering company went into administration in 2007.

The Turner and Newall case provides a good example of why change to existing legislation is so necessary. That company, once the world’s largest manufacturer of asbestos, ran factories in Rochdale, Washington, Widnes and Trafford Park, where many employees worked with asbestos every day. Working with asbestos can lead to asbestosis, lung cancer or mesothelioma. Employees were never told of the dangers to their health, and hundreds have been badly affected by working with asbestos products. Sadly, it is not difficult to imagine that some might well develop a terminal illness before they reach the age of 50. If that is the case and if the PPF covers Turner and Newall’s pension scheme, terminally ill employees under 50 would not be entitled to a penny of compensation. When Lord Whitty recently raised this issue in the other place—I refer Members to column 121 of the record of the House of Lords debates of 6 June 2007—the Government argued that existing legislation ensures the PPF is uncomplicated and provides greater certainty about both payment levels and the affordability of the fund.

The financial assistance scheme makes payments to individuals diagnosed as terminally ill on provision of evidence that they are unlikely to live longer than six months. The six-months criterion is very harsh and it is extremely difficult for doctors to give any indication of precisely how long a patient might live. That period should therefore be extended to 12 months.

It might be useful to look at the cost incurred by the FAS in paying compensation to terminally ill individuals. When I contacted the FAS recently, I was told that that information was not recorded. Similarly, the Office for National Statistics advised me that pension schemes rarely document payments to terminally ill members, as that occurs so rarely. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the cost of paying out to terminally ill claimants is somewhat modest, if it is not currently recorded for the FAS. Basic logic supports that assumption when one considers that pensions for the terminally ill are paid for a shorter period due to their reduced life expectancy. The FAS might also provide a useful model with regard to administration and process.

In respect of eligibility, a definition of terminal illness could be based on that used by other appropriate organisations. The Association of British Insurers uses the following definition in their best practice guide to critical illness:

“Advanced or rapidly progressing incurable illness where, in the opinion of an attending Consultant and our Chief Medical Officer, the life expectancy is no greater than 12 months.”

Appeals against decisions could be referred to the PPF ombudsman, as is currently the practice for eligibility appeals. Of course, the precise definition of eligibility can be discussed and drawn up with the PPF board. The important point is that ill health benefits are allowed to be paid, which can only be enabled once existing legislation is amended.

The experience of the FAS and the lack of data held regarding terminal illness and pension schemes suggest that the PPF will not be inundated with requests for early payment based on ill health. That, together with the relative ease of determining an individual’s state of health via medical certification, suggests that the task of assessing and processing the extra applications would not be excessively burdensome.

The proposed change is relatively modest. The Pensions Act 2004 should be amended, and individuals who are certified as terminally ill and aged under 50 should be allowed to access their savings as they would have done had their scheme not gone bust. In order not to provide too broad a provision, it could be restricted by reference to the discretion of the PPF board. This modest amendment would be of enormous significance to individuals in their last precious days. I ask the Government to consider extending the safety net to those who would draw immense comfort from it.

I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Mark Hendrick, Mrs. Janet Dean, Barbara Keeley, Mr. Doug Henderson, Mr. Elliot Morley, Jim Dowd, Lynda Waltho, Mr. John Heppell, Tom Levitt, Mr. Ian Cawsey, Mr. Neil Gerrard and John Mann.

Access to Pension Protection Fund Benefits

Mr. Mark Hendrick accordingly presented a Bill to make provision for the accessing of Pension Protection Fund benefits by people under the age of 50 who are suffering from a terminal illness; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 19 October, and to be printed [Bill 162].

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This morning I secured a debate in Westminster Hall on defence exports, and many of my hon. Friends joined me in attending it in order to try to hold the Government to account on an important decision that has been taken and which concerns the Ministry of Defence. The Government sent along, however, a Minister from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, who did not appear to know anything about the subject. Can you advise me, Madam Deputy Speaker, how Members are to hold this Government to account on such an important issue when they send along a Minister from a different Department?

Order. It is, of course, entirely up to the Government to decide which Minister attends any debate in this House. At the end of day, any Minister is still a Minister within the Government and has responsibility.

We now come to the main business: the Opposition day. Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

I beg to move,

That this House notes the swift action taken by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to impose movement controls when foot and mouth was first confirmed on 3rd August, in contrast to the Government’s failures in 2001; is alarmed that the outbreak originated from a laboratory site financed, licensed and inspected by the Government; notes that warnings about the inadequacies of the facilities at Pirbright were ignored; condemns this negligent approach to biosecurity; urges the Government to accept its responsibility for the situation facing farmers caused by the subsequent controls which for many has been compounded by the outbreak of bluetongue disease; and demands that the regulatory body for facilities using dangerous pathogens should be fully independent of the facilities’ major customers.

I remind the House of my interest declared in the register.

For those of us who were involved in the catastrophe of 2001, the news on 3 August of another foot and mouth outbreak was a body blow. To be fair to the Secretary of State, he was open and helpful to my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth), myself and affected colleagues. He gave us access to his vets, and he and the Minister for the South East kept us informed. We are genuinely grateful for that collaboration. One should also point out that much of what happened predated the Secretary of State’s appointment, but as is so often the case on such occasions, he was the unfortunate person left holding the parcel when the music stopped. I also acknowledge the swift action that was taken to clamp down on the disease by banning animal movements—a welcome contrast to the costly delays of 2001.

Early on Saturday 4 August, a farmer telephoned me and pointed out that the outbreak was near Pirbright. My immediate reaction was, “So what? That’s just a coincidence.” How wrong I was. Nobody realised then that this had been a disaster waiting to happen for five years and that the trail of incompetence led all the way to Downing street. As far back as 2002, an Institute for Animal Health review, commissioned by its owners the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, stated:

“Some of the laboratories are not close to the standard that would be expected in a modern biomedical facility.”

We also know from the Spratt report that from 2003 there had been concern

“that pipes were old and needed replacing, but after much discussion between the Institute, Merial and DEFRA, money had not been made available.”

The report also contains a letter from Merial dated 20 July 2004 setting out specifications for improvements to the drainage and referring to an unspecified quote for the work. The reply from DEFRA simply stated that the proposals would appear to meet DEFRA standards for the safe transfer of the waste. That letter was dated 2 August 2004. Yet last week the Secretary of State told the House that

“until the state of the drains was drawn to our attention, and everybody else’s, as a result of the HSE investigation, nobody thought that they were in such a condition. That happens to be the truth.”—[Official Report, 8 October 2007; Vol. 464, c. 44.]

As there is now incontrovertible evidence that DEFRA knew about the state of the drains as far back as 2004, will the Secretary of State explain how he can claim that it did not know until September 2007?

In Spratt’s final remarks, he says:

“There was evidence of a lack of urgency and ownership of risk at all levels, resulting in the failure to take appropriate decisions on the funding for essential improvements in safety critical infrastructure. This was particularly documented in the series of letters and reports from the biological safety officer of the Institute in his attempts over four years to get agreement on funding for the replacement of the effluent pipes.”

Spratt also made it clear that DEFRA inspectors had confirmed that the drainage system was part of the category 4 containment system. He said that the pipes were old and appeared not to have been subject to regular, thorough inspection. Even during the past 18 months, there had been two incidents—both reported to DEFRA—where virus was released into the public sewer. So we have a catalogue of reports, recommendations and pleas for help regarding the drainage system. The Secretary of State cannot claim that DEFRA did not know. Some people certainly did, and the House should be told who they are.

However, it does not stop there. We find that in the years following 2002—with just one exception—DEFRA cut funding to the institute. As Spratt said, money had not been available. In January this year, the director of the institute told Radio 4:

“We are trying to deliver a Rolls-Royce service for surveillance in the UK but really we’re being funded more and more at the level of a Ford Cortina. Essentially, we are flying by the seat of our pants.”

Last week, the Secretary of State claimed that the vehicles were on the site

“because work is under way to spend the money on renewing the facilities at Pirbright. Some £31 million of that money has already been spent”.—[Official Report, 8 October 2007; Vol. 464, c. 44.]

Yes, £31 million, out of a Pirbright redevelopment scheme fund totalling £121 million, is indeed a lot of money, but it is not actually relevant. In a written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey, the Minister for Science and Innovation said:

“Tenders for the drainage scheme of around £220,000 were received in October 2006.”—[Official Report, 1 October 2007; Vol. 463, c. 2346W.]

That work was approved in March and commenced in July. On 5 September, inspectors confirmed that the work had been completed. I quote:

“The institute has already completed relining of the effluent pipes with a polyester lining, blocked off disused drains and sealed the manholes.”

So for £220,000 and six weeks’ work, the disaster to the British farming industry could have been avoided.

However, DEFRA has another role. Under the specified animal pathogens order, it has to license such facilities. That includes meeting its own containment requirements, which the health and safety report clearly states were not met. Yet in December 2006, DEFRA inspected Pirbright, and according to Spratt,

“some issues relating to bio security were identified”.

I remind the Secretary of State of Spratt’s statement that the pipes did not appear to have been subject to regular, thorough inspection.

So why will the Government not publish that report? Is it because it is clear that the licence should not have been renewed? It seems odd that, despite the drains having been repaired, the licence is now suspended. Talk about closing the stable door after the cow has been shot! Are we really facing a foot and mouth outbreak for the second time in seven years because a facility had been licensed by DEFRA that should not have been? What is really hypocritical is that, if this had been a dairy farm or a shop selling food, it would have been prevented immediately from continuing in business until the problems were put right.

We know that DEFRA knew about the state of the drains four or five years ago. We know that it failed to fund the improvements—indeed, it cut the funding. Despite that, it went ahead and continued to license facilities that were rotten. It has cost the taxpayer well over £20 million, and rising. It has cost the English farming industry at least £100 million, and rising, and for Scottish and Welsh farmers the situation is just as serious. The potential damage, especially to our uplands, could be devastating.

What farmers need to know is, who is going to pay the price. When will somebody in DEFRA be accountable for this latest fiasco? Who will ultimately carry the can? Will it be the Prime Minister who, as Chancellor, cut the funding? Will it be the various Secretaries of State who ignored the warnings? Will it be the institute, or some inspector? No, we know that, as always with this Government, it will never be their fault. It is never their responsibility. Never resign, blame somebody else—that is the culture. The can, of course, is being carried—by the poor farmers up and down the country who cannot sell their stock, buy new stock, pay their bills or see a positive future. Already, farmers are deciding to quit the industry. They can take the weather; they can take decoupling; they can even take the vagaries of the marketplace, but they cannot—and nor should they—take the negligence of an incompetent Government.

We all know that this is a dreadful situation—as, indeed, a number of other animal disease outbreaks have been. However, will the hon. Gentleman, to be fair, acknowledge that this Government have spent a great deal of money on research into vaccination? Let us consider the example of tuberculosis, into which we had a number of inquiries. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but is he aware that the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee is looking into the money that this Government are spending internationally on this issue? Of course the Tories do not want to know—they do not spend any money.

I am very willing to engage the hon. Gentleman and anybody else on the subject of the incompetent way in which this Government have handled the tuberculosis business, as well, but that is not the issue facing us today.

Perhaps I might return the hon. Gentleman to foot and mouth, which is the worry for most of my farmers. Does he share my concern and that of many people in Somerset that infected carcases are being taken from the area of the foot and mouth outbreak and into my constituency—into the heart of dairying country—for disposal? Does he agree with me that that is an unnecessary and avoidable risk?

Any risk is worrying, and I can well understand the hon. Gentleman’s concern, which has been expressed by many others. I hope that the Secretary of State will address that issue when he responds.

I listened to the Secretary of State address the House last Monday on the issue of the pipes in Pirbright. I remember that he said categorically that, although it was possible that pipes were faulty, it could not be guaranteed that that was the cause. Given the evidence that my hon. Friend has presented to the House today, does he agree that the Secretary of State must acknowledge that fact today, for the record?

Read the reports.

Anybody who has read the Spratt and the Health and Safety Executive reports will have come to the conclusion that my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) has reached. It is stated clearly that that is by far the most likely cause; no other substantive alternative cause of infection is ventured. I can well understand why the Secretary of State does not want to admit that. I am sure that thousands of lawyers are on his shoulder, pressing him not to do or say anything that could be construed as accepting responsibility. However, I do not think that there is any doubt about how the situation was caused.

As a dairy farmer close to the exclusion zone, I must refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Interests. The Institute for Animal Health, at Compton, is in my constituency, so a lot of scientists—past and present—live there. There is great anger among them at the fact that the Government are ignoring the way in which they go about their business, which is world renowned. They believe that the Government just want to dip in and out of the science and get a quick-fix solution. The actual solution is to look at the whole biology of these pathogens, but the scientists are prevented from doing so by the manner of their funding.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that. As I pointed out earlier, the director of the institute said that he is funded to run a Ford Cortina, when in fact, he is trying to run a Rolls-Royce service. That entirely sums up and fits with what my hon. Friend has just said.

So far, I have addressed the causes of this outbreak; let me turn now to the handling of it. The initial decisions were right, but there have been a number of problems in the detail. There was a desperate lack of communication. Farmers near the initial outbreak were wondering what was happening for days and days before they were contacted.

Does my hon. Friend agree that one problem that DEFRA has, and which Whitehall has more generally, is assuming that everybody is connected to the internet? We may have to be, but a lot of my farming friends are not and are simply left in the dark.

My next sentence was going to be, and will be, that DEFRA appeared to assume that every farmer spent their whole time studying the internet; I have obviously known my hon. Friend too long, or he has known me too long.

There was also confusion about footpath closures: whether to close them, and whether or not they were closed. There was no contingency plan to deal with casualty and dead animals at the hottest time of the year. Later, during the second cluster, we heard of different policies in different places: cattle killed on one farm, but not the sheep; goats being missed between adjoining slaughtered flocks; and, worst of all, the shooting of cattle from helicopters because they had broken out of a pen in the evening.

That raises the issue of why the country was declared free of foot and mouth only for further outbreaks to occur just days later. Last week, the Secretary of State said that infected premises 5 had had the disease for

“three or possibly four weeks”.—[Official Report, 8 October 2007; Vol. 464, c. 48.]

However, he said that he was not pointing the finger at anyone. Is that because of statements by the owner of premises 5 that DEFRA inspectors had been on the farm and missed the disease? Is it because by 20 September it was clear that this was linked to outbreak 1 and that it should have been followed up, but was not?

The Secretary of State cannot say that DEFRA emerges with credit from the handling of this outbreak. There is no getting away from the fact that it was handled better than last time, but it would have taken a superhuman effort to have done worse. The Prime Minister says that the public will judge him on what he did on foot and mouth disease. He is right that he will be judged, but it will not happen in the way that he imagines.

My hon. Friend has been generous in taking interventions. On Saturday, I had a meeting with farmers in east Berkshire who have been affected by foot and mouth, some of whom have had their cattle slaughtered. My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) has also met them. In addition to the issues of lack of communication and lack of consistency, they raised a biosecurity issue to do with DEFRA’s Pirbright establishment: that topsoil was being removed from around the broken drain, which was the source of the first outbreak, but DEFRA apparently has no records of where that topsoil was taken.

As my right hon. Friend knows, I am aware of that meeting and those allegations. Many more exist, and I suspect that other colleagues will make them during this debate. To be fair, the Secretary of State has set up the Anderson committee to examine the matter. It is essential that all those issues are considered by that Committee, and that Dr. Anderson is rightly given the information to make a proper examination to see whether there was even more incompetence than we imagined.

I have two questions for the hon. Gentleman. Would the Opposition have vaccinated in this situation? Why is the handling of bluetongue mentioned in the motion, because the Government have done nothing wrong in that instance?

I am coming to bluetongue. On vaccination, we would have taken more notice of the scientist who told us that the pipes were damaged in the first place. We have made it clear that in the circumstances that have arisen, we would not have vaccinated, but that option would have been in the locker had the disease got further out of control.

Even though the export ban has been lifted, at least notionally, and markets and movements have resumed in much of the country, the crisis in British farming is horrendous. The Secretary of State has said that returning to normal is the best solution—nobody would dissent from that—but does he believe that that is what has happened? Merely switching on exports or movement does not solve the problem. The market overhang from weeks of movement restrictions is dire. Millions of animals should have gone by now—hundreds of thousands of sheep in our hills that are eating precious forage reserved for the winter, cull ewes, light lambs and fat pigs—and all that means a calamitous fall in prices. With no live exports, bull calves are again being shot at birth. Lamb prices are up to 50 per cent. lower and those of finished pigs are also well down, while massive rises in the price of feed are having to be contended with.

I point out to the Secretary of State that the bulk of the UK pig industry is within the zone that cannot yet export. Probably 40,000 cull sows are now on farms. They are blocking up pens, costing money and are effectively worthless. Even if they could be exported, it would take many weeks to clear the backlog. The welfare disposal scheme via the fallen stock scheme that he announced last week, should be extended to cover sows within the whole zone from which exports are banned. That could be done, and I suggest using £1 million of the £2 million that he has allocated for promoting meat consumption. Important as that is, it is no use promoting something that is wasting away.

On pigs, has the hon. Gentleman noticed something that was brought to my attention by a small farmer from Muchelney in my constituency: the limited movement orders for pigs were available only to those producers who were in established pyramid schemes? That means that small farmers, who perhaps bought from weaner stocks in order to fatten and sell on their premises, were not able to move their pigs. Why should there be that distinction between small producers and large producers?

As the hon. Gentleman probably realises, I am not in a position to give the answer to that question. I suspect that it might have something to do with traceability. I hope that the Secretary of State will tell us about that.

Will the Secretary of State also tell us what discussions he is having about relaxing the export controls? The huge area of the country from which exports are banned includes the abattoir that slaughters 70 per cent. of cull sows in this country. What is he doing about the 21-day rule? It is tying up farms, which, at this time of the year, are selling finished stock and normally buying new stock. That measure is in addition to the separate 20-day rule about general movements.

Will the Secretary of State speak to the Commission about one other aspect of foot and mouth control? Will he draw the contrast between the strict rules that it has imposed in this regard and its far more lackadaisical attitude to imports from Brazil? Both measures are designed to prevent the spread of foot and mouth, yet, despite a damning report from the Irish Farmers Association about the lack of traceability, the lack of vaccines and the non-use of ear tags, the Commission equivocates about Brazilian imports. In short, the regime, be it for Britain or Brazil, should be equally tough against foot and mouth.

I always listen carefully to the hon. Gentleman, because he commands great respect in the House on farming issues. He has talked about the Government paying the price and about the compensation that they have announced. In fairness, he has suggested that it should be used in alternative ways. Is he suggesting that there should be a greater compensation scheme, and, if so, to what amount and paid to whom?

If the hon. Gentleman holds fire, I shall come to that.

I turn to bluetongue, which hit us in September. Again, the initial actions taken were correct, but it rapidly became obvious that the consequences were going to be horrendous. We were told that stock could be moved to slaughter in the control and protection zones, yet nobody in DEFRA seemed to have realised that there were not enough slaughter places to slaughter the stock. I was told by a senior civil servant, in front of Lord Rooker, that licences would not be issued to allow stock from the control zone to go to the abattoirs because of European rules, yet that is now what is happening. Countless pedigree stock—cattle and sheep for which this is the peak sale time—cannot be moved, yet in France, a combination of an insecticidal regime and blood testing is being used to allow that to happen.

I know that bluetongue is a changing picture and that as new cases occur, problems of movement controls perversely become less of an issue. Bluetongue could be even more devastating economically to our livestock industry than foot and mouth. That is why vaccines are so crucial. Will the Secretary of State tell us what discussions he has had with the developers of vaccines about future supplies? Why has Merial been stopped from further development, despite the drains at Pirbright having been repaired? If he is to have any chance of preventing the spread of bluetongue across central and southern England and Wales next summer, he must ensure that enough vaccine doses are available as soon as possible. If stock is not protected before next year’s midge season, there is no chance of containing this disease.

Finally, let me turn to the issue of support for the industry. Last week, the Secretary of State announced a 30 per cent. supplement for the hill farm allowance. We had already said the previous week that we would have made it 50 per cent., but the gesture is right. He spent £4 million on other measures. He then announced, as if to a fanfare, the lifting of regulatory burdens. He wanted to increase the public procurement of British meat. We agree, but by my reckoning he is at least the fourth Secretary of State to say so and still only 3 per cent. of the lamb sold to our armed forces is British.

The Secretary of State announced a four-month delay in the requirement for hauliers to have a certificate of competence. It is a ludicrous requirement anyway and should be abolished. He announced a derogation for the amount of nitrogen to be spread on nitrate-vulnerable zones, but the crisis is now and no amount of nitrogen will make grass grow in the winter.

Finally—and I can hardly believe this one—the Secretary of State announced a one-month extension to a consultation. I can hear the sighs of relief as the red tape burden is lifted from farmers’ shoulders—I think not. That last cynical point is at the heart of the matter. For all its sins, the old Ministry of Agriculture knew that its role was to support and promote British farming. DEFRA’s role is to control and regulate. There is no natural empathy with or understanding of the farming industry, and no knowledge of the structures of the industry that realises that a restriction here has a knock-on consequence there. Where are the men and women who understood those things and who realised that animals keep growing; that grass is finite; and that if one cannot export pig shoulders, the price of the whole pig collapses?

Most importantly, where are the people who know that disease will wait for no man? It will not wait for a committee. It will not wait for the resolution of a turf war. Four years was too long to fix a drain. How many more times must this once proud and valued industry be ripped apart by an incompetent Government?

I beg to move, To leave out from “House” to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:

“expresses great sympathy with farmers and the farming industry and acknowledges the difficulties they are facing as a result of the outbreaks of foot and mouth disease and bluetongue; recognises the work that has already been done by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Animal Health, farmers and their representative bodies and others in containing foot and mouth; agrees that the priority for the Government must be to work with the farming industry and others to support the resumption of market activity as quickly as possible; and notes the steps the Government has taken to deal with what happened at the Pirbright laboratory site.”

I welcome this opportunity for the House to debate foot and mouth and bluetongue, further to the statement that I made on Monday last week. I recognise the very real interest and concern on the part of many right hon. and hon. Members. We know that this could not have happened at a worse time of the year for the livestock industry. All livestock farmers have been affected and for many, things are very hard. I have met farmers and their representatives and they have left me in no doubt about the difficulties that the industry is facing. That is why, in responding to what the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) said, I want to set out before the House the action that we have taken to try to deal with the two outbreaks and to assist the farmers who have been so badly affected.

Why is it that the Secretary of State’s speech on Friday 5 October contained details of compensation for Scotland and Wales, but on the following Monday there was no mention of compensation for anyone other than English farmers?

Well, I heard someone mutter the words “the election”, but I take this opportunity to put it on the record in the House, as I have outside, that there is not a shred of truth in the allegation that any possible election had anything to do with any decisions relating to funding for foot and mouth. Colleagues have discussions and options are considered, and in the end the Government decided as I told the House in my statement on 8 October. I will return to that issue if the hon. Gentleman will bear with me.

I wish to begin by addressing the comments that have been made about the Pirbright site, because that is where the foot and mouth outbreak began. As I have said before, it should not have happened, I am sorry about the great effect that it has had, and I am determined that it does not happen again.

Following the initial confirmed case on 3 August, it became apparent—

Before the Secretary of State moves on to the causes, could he return to the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) on the response to my question about the drains after the statement last week? The Secretary of State said that

“nobody thought that they were in such a condition. That happens to be the truth.”—[Official Report, 8 October 2007; Vol. 464, c. 44.]

I am struggling with that definition of the truth. We know that Merial wrote to DEFRA about the drains in 2004. We know that the then Department of Trade and Industry had commissioned tenders to repair the drains a year before. How can the Secretary of State honestly maintain that the truth is that nobody knew?

I will respond directly to that point, if the hon. Gentleman will bear with me.

It became apparent the day after 3 August that the Pirbright site was the potential source of the outbreak because of the type of virus identified—01-BFS-67. That is why we commissioned the Health and Safety Executive and Professor Spratt to lead a team of experts in reviewing biosecurity. We also took steps as the regulator to require the Institute for Animal Health and Merial to take action as concerns were raised with us by the HSE during the course of its inspection, including remedial action on the drainage system. I published both of those reports on 7 September.

However, as the HSE report, the Spratt report and the DEFRA epidemiology reports made clear, we may never be absolutely certain as to exactly how the foot and mouth virus escaped from the Pirbright site. But the drains, the flooding and the construction work—ironically, there was construction work on the site precisely because the Government are investing a considerable amount of money in improving the facilities at Pirbright—do seem to be the most probable chain of events, and I have been clear on that from the beginning.

The Secretary of State is a decent man, but I fear that he is avoiding answering the question that I asked—

I haven’t got to it yet.

In that case, when he answers he might like also to deal with the point that DEFRA inspected the site in November 2003, August 2004, September 2005 and December 2006, after the work on the drains had been commissioned, and found—according to the Minister involved—no major biosecurity issues. What does that say about the competence of DEFRA’s inspections?

In the Government’s response to all of these reports, I accepted the recommendations that were made. They are being implemented and an improvement is planned. Since 7 September, the HSE and DEFRA have carried out further joint inspections. All of the essential work will need to be completed before IAH and Merial can resume full operations.

I shall return to the issue of bluetongue and a potential vaccine from Merial a little later.

We are now requiring of Merial that all the virus that it produces should be inactivated before it reaches even the first part of the drainage system. That will require a heat treatment facility and it needs to put that in place—[Interruption.] Well, that is a factual description of what is happening in response to the question about when Merial will be in a position to resume work to try to find a virus to deal with bluetongue. We need to be satisfied that that has been done before it can resume its full operations.

I shall deal directly with the charge by the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) that warnings about conditions at the facility had been ignored. The first point that I want to make is that the IAH has been inspected, as part of its Specified Animal Pathogens Order—SAPO—licence, on a regular basis under the arrangements that were set up in the early 1990s. The institute was required to take action as a result of those inspections and submit reports on progress. However, at no point was it the view of the inspectors that the IAH was unsafe in its operations.

On the issue of the drains, DEFRA—as the regulator—was indeed consulted about plans for their replacement, but we were not aware that they were leaking. That is a very important point. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, was anyone else. No scientist who I know of has said that the drains were damaged. If the hon. Gentleman can draw my attention to any scientist who did say that, I would be very interested, because that is what he claimed. As soon as we became aware of the damage—in August, as a result of the HSE’s work—action was taken.

It is not the case that live virus was released into the public drainage system, as the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire suggested in his remarks. There is no evidence of that at all. So that the House understands, let me say that the Pirbright site has a two-stage process to ensure that all virus is completely inactivated before it goes into the public drainage system. The IAH and Merial had their own separate arrangements, which then fed into a shared pipe, and a second-stage belt-and-braces treatment process took place to deal with any effluent before it went into the public drainage system.

Why had a discussion taken place about the replacement of the drains? It had occurred because they were old, and because of concern about their capacity and about surface water potentially coming into the system, but not because of concern that the drains were leaking. As Professor Spratt makes clear in his report, safety depends not on the age of the facility but on the procedures carried out.

As regulator, DEFRA was consulted about the specification for the replacement of the drains; we were not asked for funding to replace the drains, and nor would we have been. As I said to the House last week, one would not ask the regulator for money to improve or replace one’s facilities, any more than a factory that was inspected and found not to be up to scratch would ask the HSE to give it some money to improve its facilities.

The Government accepted the findings of the reports of Professor Gull in 2002 and Dr. Cawthorne in 2003 about the need to upgrade the facilities at Pirbright. Following the development of a costed proposal, the Government decided in 2005 to invest £121 million in new facilities at Pirbright, which, it should be acknowledged, is fundamentally important to our fight against animal diseases throughout the United Kingdom—in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Of that money, £31 million has already been spent on the site. With respect, therefore, nobody can credibly argue that a lack of funding to be spent in Pirbright was the problem.

Had the drains been thought to be the overwhelming priority for action on the site, no doubt some of that £31 million would have been used to replace them, but that was not the case. I accept that that raises a question about prioritisation: if people felt that that was the priority, why was that not a factor in decisions about the £31 million expenditure? I agree that the issue needs to be examined. That is the reason why the second review that I have set up—I shall come to the other one in a moment—which the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council will carry out into IAH, will look at funding, governance and risk management.

The Secretary of State is putting a robust case, but is he telling the House that there will be no resignations at all in his Department as a result of this fiasco, which could have cost our country billions of pounds? [Interruption.] It is a shame that the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) is shouting across the Chamber. This has been a disaster for our country, and the Opposition expect some resignations over the matter.

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. There have been no resignations, and there will be none. I will tell him who takes responsibility: I take responsibility. As the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire said, I happen to be the current Secretary of State. As I have done throughout, I am trying to set out for the House the steps that I have taken, accepting that responsibility, to put right what has gone wrong. I am sure that the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), who is a reasonable man, will accept that the whole system of regulation for protecting against risk—whatever we are discussing—has evolved over time, and that one of the most important factors in determining how systems are changed and improved is learning from mistakes. Things did not go right, and I am determined that we learn from the mistake.

Unfortunately, some of us have acquired a lot of expertise in drains over the past couple of months. Following the episodes in the summer, does my right hon. Friend agree that we need to consider new arrangements at a range of different sites, including establishments such as Berkeley in my constituency—a former nuclear station—given the likely threat of floods hitting us again in future? Will he assure me that not only biosecurity but structural measures will be increased to ensure that such episodes do not threaten us time after time?

I am happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance. In accepting the recommendations of the HSE and Spratt reports, we have issued an advice note to all the institutions handling both animal and human category 3 and 4 pathogens, which will be followed up by a series of inspections. In relation to flooding, a lessons-learned review is being undertaken by Sir Michael Pitt. When such things happen, what do most people want? I accept that some people want a head on a stick, but the most useful and important response is to learn the lessons, make sure that there is not a recurrence and put a better system in place. I am determined to do that.

In the light of the Secretary of State’s comments, will he take a serious look at the arrangements in this country for meat composting, which open up a risk of not only foot and mouth but swine fever, avian flu and a range of diseases? Will he consider in particular the fact that the process is allowed on livestock premises, because farmers in my constituency are asking that it be confined only to industrial premises?

I am happy to consider the issue raised by the hon. Lady. If I may, I shall respond directly to her, if that would be helpful.

The right hon. Gentleman is an honourable and decent man and comes to the problem with fresh hands as a new Secretary of State. Hypothetically, if he had been Secretary of State presiding over such matters for the past five years, would he have resigned?

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for putting that hypothetical question to me. All that I can say is that I was otherwise engaged during those five years, as I am now engaged in the task that has fallen to me. I shall exercise my responsibilities to the best of my ability.

rose—

I shall give way to the hon. Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) and then to the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire, and then I would like to make progress, as I know that many Members wish to speak.

The Secretary of State has dealt at length with the question of the degree of knowledge or otherwise of those managing and regulating the Pirbright establishment of the defects in the drains. But does he not accept that, irrespective of the degree of knowledge, those who manage and regulate any establishment that is built to contain, and does contain, a substance that is inherently dangerous—and that will cause great damage if it is allowed to escape into the environment—must per se be liable for whatever damage is caused?

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that those who regulate and license, and those who have the responsibility, in this case the IAH, of ensuring that the terms of the licence are adhered to—that is an important distinction, and together those provide the appropriate safeguard—have a responsibility. But I have seen no evidence that anybody acted negligently, and that is why I responded to the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire as I did previously. It is clear, however, that things did not go right, and that is why we have taken steps to put them right. I shall deal with another part of that action in a moment.

The Secretary of State has repeatedly said that, despite what I have stated, there is no evidence that DEFRA knew that the drains were in such a bad state of repair. Contrary to what he said, I am sure that I did not use the word “damaged”, and never meant to suggest that—[Interruption.] Actually, if one reads the full Spratt report, the drains were damaged by tree roots. But given that the Spratt and HSE reports both indicate the dire state of those drains and prior flooding incidents, does not the Secretary of State find it odd, as an objective and sensible man, that at no stage during all the exchanges of correspondence—taking into account Spratt’s comment that the drains did not look as if they had been thoroughly inspected—did anybody in DEFRA ask what the drains were like, why there was a desire to replace them, whether it was urgent, whether it should be done quickly or why an inspector had not opened a manhole and stuck his head down? It defies belief that that could have gone on without anyone asking those fundamental questions.

We will both be able to check Hansard to find out whether the hon. Gentleman used the word “damage”. However, the point is important because the description of what went on that I am putting before the House rests importantly on the fact that, because of the combination of events that had taken place, nobody knew that the drains were in the condition that it turned out they were in by the time the HSE investigated them in April. [Interruption.] The letter from 2004 was about replacing the drains because people recognised that they were old. However, the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues will not find in that correspondence people saying, “And by the way, we think the drains are leaking.”

The hon. Gentleman raises a fair point, which I want to come to, about the nature of the inspection regime. I grant him his point about what kind of inspection of category 3 and 4 containment systems should take place. The steps that we have now taken, and the requirement that we are putting on Merial to ensure that all the virus that it puts into the system is inactivated before it gets to that bit of now-lined drainage, raise the question of what the arrangements for inspecting category 3 and 4 pathogen handling laboratories should be.

For that reason, there is an issue about the respective roles of the regulator, the funder and the customer; Professor Spratt made a recommendation on that. That is why on 7 September I announced that Sir Bill Callaghan was to carry out a review of the regulatory framework governing the handling of category 3 and category 4 animal pathogens. He has now started, and he will report before the end of the year.

DEFRA is both the regulator for the 1998 order and a customer for the important services, including diagnostics and research on foot and mouth and bluetongue, provided by the Institute for Animal Health at Pirbright. As I have already said, with hindsight my view is that that arrangement is not satisfactory. The Callaghan review will consider what the right arrangement to replace it should be. That is another instance of the Government’s determination to learn from what has happened.

rose—