Allow me to welcome you, Mr. Olner. It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair. I am delighted to introduce the debate, as this subject is of huge importance to thousands of people in this country—predominantly women—who carry out work on behalf of employers in their own homes either because they prefer to work at home, or, as in the majority of cases, because they have no option other than to work from home.

Almost 100 years ago, on 22 July 1908, the House of Commons Select Committee on Home Work published a report under the chairmanship of Sir Thomas Whittaker. It may be useful—it is certainly relevant to today’s debate—to quote some of the report’s recommendations and conclusions. The first recommendation was that

“there should be legislation with regard to the rates of payment made to Home Workers who are employed in the production or preparation of articles for sale by other persons.”

The fourth recommendation—I am sure that you will be grateful, Mr. Olner, for the fact that I shall not read the whole report, which is 286 pages long—was that

“it should be an offence to pay or offer lower rates of payment to Home Workers in those trades than the minimum rates which had been fixed for that district by the Wages Board.”

Recommendation 6 was that

“all Home Workers who are employed by other persons in producing or preparing articles for sale should be required to register their name, address and class of work at, and receive a certificate of such registration from, the offices of the Local Authority, and that the keeping of accurate outworkers’ lists by employers should be strictly enforced.”

Recommendation 7 was that

“it should be an offence for any person to employ any Home Worker to produce or prepare any articles for sale by another person unless the worker produce a certificate of registration.”

I thought that quoting from the 1908 Select Committee would give a context for today’s debate, 100 years later. The Committee spent a good deal of time and effort investigating the way in which workers were exploited by unscrupulous employers who used outworkers, working in their own homes, to lower wage costs and increase profits, usually at the expense of the home worker, who struggled to complete the piecework in the time allocated. For many home workers, little has changed in the past 100 years.

There remains, in 2008, a pressing need to bring home workers into line with other workers in our economy who, thanks to the Government, have seen their terms and conditions at work dramatically improve. Add to that the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, which was strongly opposed by the Opposition at the time, and it is clear that workers’ rights and wages for the majority who go to work in a workplace each day have been greatly enhanced. However, there remains a large group of workers who were clearly exploited in 1908 and remain in the same position today.

I wish not only to draw the Government’s attention to the plight of home workers, but to call for a further change in the law. Why does it matter? Thousands of workers in the United Kingdom are vulnerable to exploitation from unscrupulous employers. That continues either because they do not have full employee status, or because it is unclear whether they have employee status. Although uncertain employee status is a problem for all kinds of workers in the UK, it is a particular issue for home, agency and temporary workers. Home workers who have worked for a company for several years—often on low wages and taking on rushed orders at short notice at the company’s convenience—can discover, if they become pregnant or fall ill, or if their work simply stops, that they have no protection under the law, because they are not classed as employees.

There are three main types of employment status under current law: employees, workers and the self-employed. Qualifying hurdles and exclusions may apply, but in broad terms, employees are entitled to the full range of employment rights and protection in respect of unfair dismissal, redundancy, sick leave and pay, maternity leave and pay and the right to written terms and conditions. Workers, on the other hand, are entitled to a smaller range of basic protections, the most significant for home workers being the national minimum wage and holiday pay. The self-employed are free to negotiate their own terms with the people with whom they contract.

Many home workers do not receive full employment rights. If challenged, their employers can argue that they are workers and not technically employees. The only way in which that can be resolved is at an employment tribunal, which can be extremely stressful and highly unpredictable. Alternatively, home workers may be told by their employers that they are self-employed even when they do not have the independence or control over their work patterns that would enable them genuinely to negotiate terms. False self-employment is just another way for unscrupulous employers to avoid their obligations to employees.

In another life, as an accountant, I dealt with outworkers and self-employed people on some scale. Does my hon. Friend agree that the difficulties in defining the characteristics of self-employment that he describes need to be revisited by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and other Departments? Individual employees who are being coerced into self-employment feel very vulnerable and are unlikely to pursue their employers with any vigour. There is a pressing need for some kind of class action on behalf of a group of employees to get them designated as employees, so that they benefit from the protection that he describes.

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. As I shall describe, many of the more unscrupulous employers frequently force their workers to take on self-employed status, but their situation is clearly nothing like being self-employed. I have been self-employed and know that the self-employed have a lot of control over their lives. They may not have the benefits of being employees, or a lot of employment protection, but they have much more control over what they do, when they do it and how much they charge for their labour. The big difference for those who are really home workers but are designated as self-employed is that they have absolutely no control over what they charge, when they do their work, how quickly it must be done, or how or whether they advertise. I therefore think my hon. Friend’s proposal is very helpful.

If unscrupulous employers try to avoid their obligations to employees, they can be challenged only at tribunal. That uncertainty can make it difficult for home workers to assert even their most basic rights to the national minimum wage and holiday pay. Workers can be deterred from demanding those rights through the very real fear that they may lose their work as a consequence. Without employment contracts, they have little protection against that sort of victimisation.

In 2002, the Government conducted a consultation exercise, asking whether

“there are any categories of working people currently excluded from statutory employment rights who require the protection provided by some or all rights and how they would benefit.”

Amongst many others, the National Group on Homeworking responded. It argued for the extension of all existing employment rights to all workers, particularly home workers who are not genuinely self-employed. Unfortunately, although the consultation raised hopes that the Government were intending to take action, their response, which was delivered only on 30 March 2006, was extremely disappointing. In the “Success at Work” strategy paper, the Government rejected calls for a change in the law. Furthermore, that 58-page document, which was intended to protect so-called vulnerable workers, made no specific mention of home workers.

The current situation is hugely complex and confusing, and the unpredictability of tribunal rulings on status benefits no one. Home workers have to negotiate their way through a maze of legal arguments, tests and obstructions, simply for a chance to gain the rights to which other employees are automatically entitled. The Government need to take swift and decisive action to grant full employment status and rights to all UK home workers who are working for another person and not genuinely in business on their own account.

On 21 November last year, together with my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mrs. Cryer), I hosted in the House of Commons the launch of a report entitled, “Subject to Status”. It was written and researched by Nesta Holden and was published by the National Group on Homeworking, which is based in Leeds. It is the only national body that supports and helps home workers. Accompanying staff from the organisation and the author of the report were several home workers who came to Parliament to tell their stories in their own words to Members of both Houses.

One home worker’s story concerning her status amply illustrates the issues, which the report so ably highlights. Pamela James took her employer to a tribunal to establish that she is not self-employed nor does she have the rights and benefits of an employed worker—she falls between the two. But let her speak in her own words:

“I have nothing to advertise, I have no customers, I have no trade name, I am provided with work and I am told how to do it. I work as a courier by delivering parcels on behalf of a multinational company. The company tells me that I am self employed and that I need to use my own car and phone. Because of these costs I receive less than the minimum wage and I have never received an increase in my pay rates since I started with them, over five years ago.

I have tried looking for other work but being a lone parent I need some flexibility especially during school holidays. It’s not easy to find a job when you live some distance from the city, there are limitations, and I could never afford a childminder. Yet at present I feel that something is better than nothing.

According to an article in a national newspaper the company whom I work on behalf of made a one billion pound profit”—

£1 billion—

“in 2004. That year I earned comfortably less than £3 per hour, if not £2 per hour, yet the company kept telling me that I am self employed and it hurts because I am struggling and they won’t listen.

Recently I took the company to the Employment Tribunal. There was a preliminary hearing to discuss my status. This hearing lasted 5 hours. In the courtroom the clerk put the Bible in my hand, I became distressed. I thought, does this mean that everyone in my position has to go to court to seek something so basic as the minimum wage? Other people have an automatic right to this, why can’t I?

If I was genuinely self employed I would have my own control, I could negotiate rates, I could advertise, I would have my own customers and my own profit and loss account. Despite all of this I lost the court case. This was mainly because of a small clause in the contract. Presently I am making an appeal to the courts because accordingly the clause is not genuine. I feel that the clause was a false label with the intention to save the company costs. A clause to enable them to offload their obligations onto others.

Even though I felt shut out the NGH have been of much valued support to me throughout all of this and they are still doing everything they can to help. I truly can’t imagine how I could have otherwise coped on my own.

An email response from the DTI”—

the Department of Trade and Industry, as it was then called—

“with regards to the loophole in the law, states that a change to the legal framework could damage labour market flexibility and result in a reduction in overall employment. I am wondering if they mean that if everybody paid as much money as the minimum wage would there be no employment? It is not consoling for myself or others like me who are locked out because of this loophole. It is also not consoling when the company whom I work on behalf of wrote a letter to the Inland Revenue which stated, ‘We do not believe that the minimum wage is appropriate for this population of workers.’

I assume they mean this population of workers are the loyal homeworkers whom do work on their behalf. My children are important to me, I believe that it is unfair that the minimum wage is not considered appropriate for us, and I know there are thousands out there like me who feel the same as I do. If I do belong to this population of workers, then I wish them to know that we are real people and I ask you to please help us and support our campaign to close this loophole in the law. I believe that every single homeworker deserves at least the basic employment rights.”

That powerful plea was made before Pamela’s most recent tribunal hearing, which took place at the end of May last year. Eight months later, she is still waiting for a decision. It would be helpful if the Minister, who I know cannot interfere with tribunal decisions, used his influence to get that decision, whatever it may be, as soon as possible.

I put it to my hon. Friend that it would be a public service if he placed on the record the name of the firm that has benefited in that disgraceful way from exploitation on that scale. Is he able to do that?

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Unfortunately, I am unable to name the firm. We managed to get the testimony from Pamela James, but she does not want to reveal who the employer is, and I can understand the reasons for that. However, my hon. Friend is right: it would be helpful to know. There cannot be that many firms that do courier and delivery work and earn a £1 billion profit, so it might be easy to find out.

I am sure that the Minister will agree that eight months is far too long to wait to find out whether Pamela is a worker or not. It is two years since she started her campaign for a minimum wage, during which time she has lost her job and suffered real financial hardship.

I wish to illustrate one or two more cases through the words of home workers themselves. Gemma works from home sewing novelty items for retail to sports fans. She did various types of sewing work over the years in a factory before her son was born and now works from home. She is an experienced, multi-skilled machinist but has struggled to find decent work that uses her skills fully. Her problems include low pay—she is currently earning about £3 an hour—and the fact that the supply of work is irregular. She states:

“The times I have been out of work we do struggle with things like paying the bills and buying food. It is hard.”

When work is available, her boss expects it back very quickly. She says that it is

“sometimes impossible to get it done when they drop it off and expect it to be done yesterday. They (the suppliers) get it in the neck and it is always passed on to us even if the delay was at the printers or cutter before it reaches the homeworker, the buck always stops with us.”

Another home worker, Shazia, works from home sewing trousers. She is Pakistani and came to the UK more than 20 years ago. She speaks Punjabi and Urdu. Her main reason for working from home is that she looks after her children, but she also says that she does not like to work outside the home. She states:

“I feel we should get proper rates of pay with employment rights and regular work. We are contributing to the local economy and should be valued and recognised for it.”

Shazia is paid by piece rate and earns approximately £2.10 an hour. She has been working for the same employer for three years and has never had a pay rise. She says that, when she asked for an increase in the piece rate,

“he told me that it was up to me to work and if I was not happy with the work I could stop working.”

Zoe works at home packing small items, such as screws, into blister packs. She has two children—one below school age and one at school. She has been doing home work for four years. Although she received a pay increase when the minimum wage compliance unit visited the company that she works for, Zoe is still earning only £3.10 an hour. She receives no sick pay and has continued working throughout a serious health problem, because she could not afford to stop. She states:

“I had an eye infection which lasted for three months. Everything was blurry but I had to work through it because I could not get sick pay or income support. I did the work by feel, never any sympathy, I was always expected to get the work done.”

Of course, not all employers are exploitative and unscrupulous. Madison Hosiery of Leeds has shown that home workers can be treated ethically without the company going bankrupt. It made a conscious decision to treat its home workers as employees with the same rights and rates of pay as those who come to work at its premises in the city. As a packing company, home workers are key to its business, and it uses proper systems for calculating piece rates. That results in far greater loyalty and, of course, better quality, as well as a decent wage for the home workers. However, Madison is an exception and, sadly, faces unfair competition from companies that do not actually break the law but certainly exploit its ambiguities.

As I said, the Government have done a great deal to make the lot of workers in the United Kingdom considerably better, but there is growing concern about vulnerable workers. Many are being denied rights to which they are legally entitled, while others are vulnerable because the existing legal framework does not provide them with adequate protections. The Government have acknowledged that there is a need to address the problems faced by vulnerable workers and have established the vulnerable worker pilots and vulnerable worker enforcement forum. The Government define a vulnerable worker as

“someone working in an environment where the risk of being denied employment rights is high and who does not have the capacity or means to protect themselves from…abuse. Both factors have to be present.”

By that definition, home workers are clearly vulnerable workers. The Trades Union Congress is highlighting the plight of vulnerable workers through the establishment of the Commission on Vulnerable Employment, which defines vulnerable workers as

“workers whose participation in the labour market places them at risk of ongoing and often extreme suffering, uncertainty and injustice resulting from an imbalance of power in the employer/worker relationship.”

The commission specifically and explicitly identifies home workers as a vulnerable group.

As we have said, home workers are vulnerable in a number of ways. They may need to work from home because of their caring responsibilities—often child care—or their language, disability or long-term health problems. They are isolated. Very few home workers join trade unions, and trade unions rarely recruit them. By the very nature of their job and the way that they work, home workers do not enjoy the company of fellow workers. Work is irregular and they live in fear of losing their jobs. When there is a problem, home workers are frightened to complain because the employer will probably just take the work elsewhere. Home workers also have an uncertain employment status, and addressing that issue would tackle one of the core problems of vulnerability.

In the Minister’s reply to a letter from Nesta Holden, the author of the report “Subject to Status”, he stressed that the Government are keen to ensure that

“homeworkers have appropriate rights and protections.”

Yet on the wider question of employment status and distinctions between workers and employees, the Government’s position remains that the present legal framework should not be changed. However, I commend the Government for the fair piece rates legislation of 2005, which should ensure that home workers who do piece work receive the national minimum wage when paid by piece rates. That is a great leap forward, although, like all such legislation, it will succeed only if properly enforced—something that the Minister is working hard to achieve and that the Shipley office of the national minimum wage team of HMRC has been set up to do.

Since 1997, the Government have introduced and extended a number of rights to protect people at work, including employee rights, such as the right to request flexible working; maternity and paternity leave; and most recently, making age discrimination illegal. Other rights that also apply to workers include the national minimum wage, working time regulations, including those on holiday pay, and the part-time workers directive. Some of those rights, most notably the national minimum wage, have been introduced in the face of intense opposition from business and dramatic warnings of a devastating impact on employment. In practice, those warnings have been exposed as scaremongering. The Government’s economic record demonstrates that protections for workers do not have to come at the expense of jobs. Although the rights that workers and employees can benefit from may have increased under this Government, a growing grey area of atypical workers now find themselves with few protections.

Home workers miss out on employment rights, because they lack employee status or because their status is unclear. Home workers who have worked for a company for several years, often on low wages, find that they have no protection under the law, because they are not employees. Many of them are deemed by their employers to be self-employed, leaving them ineligible even for the minimum wage. The law is unclear: short of taking the employer to a tribunal, it is virtually impossible for home workers to be certain of their rights under the law. As the case of Pamela James shows, going to a tribunal can be extremely traumatic, as well as very expensive. It is deeply unjust that the home workers, who are among some of the lowest paid workers in the country, are also those with the fewest rights.

In a recent strategy paper, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, formerly the Department of Trade and Industry, rejected calls to extend employment rights to any group of workers who are not currently covered. It stated that

“changes to the legal framework would not prevent instances of abuse or lack of awareness. It could however damage labour market flexibility and result in a reduction in overall employment... The government believes that it meets the labour market’s current needs and there is no need for further legislation in this area.”

The Department’s argument against extending rights seems precisely the same as that used by the employers who opposed the national minimum wage. It is an argument that the Government have discredited through the success of their own national minimum wage policy. It is an anomaly that, while introducing much valued rights for employees, the Government are turning a blind eye to the exploitation of thousands of workers. The welcome extension of employment rights and protections under this Government needs to be accompanied by an extension of those rights to all home workers who are not in business on their own account.

Finally, I should like to thank Nesta Holden and Linda Devereux of the National Group on Homeworking who wrote and published the report “Subject to Status” and who organised the launch and reception in the House of Commons on 21 November. I should also like to thank some of my colleagues from Leeds, my hon. Friends the Members for Elmet (Colin Burgon) and for Leeds, East (Mr. Mudie), who have done far more than I have over the years to draw attention to the plight of home workers, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (John Battle) whose work over 30 years or more fighting poverty in this country and overseas is legendary. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), who asked me to co-sponsor his private Member’s Bill, the Outworking Bill, and who introduced me to the issues and problems facing home workers. I also thank Sharon Jandu who has done a great deal to publicise the NGH and helped to launch the report in Parliament on 21 November.

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. Going back to the Outworking Bill, he will remember that it focused very much on home working scams and proposed a prohibition on companies demanding money upfront from home workers before they supplied them with the goods that they would make, pass on, produce and so on. Does he agree that there is still a need for such a simple measure, as well as the employment rights, to tackle some of the injustices that home workers face?

I thank my hon. Friend for that. There is no doubt that the work that he did on the Outworking Bill drew national attention to those so-called scams. It is a disgrace that that kind of fraudulent activity, which is effectively what it is, should deprive some of the most vulnerable and poorest workers in the country of what little savings and money they have, to enrich people in a criminal way. Very simple legislation to outlaw that kind of upfront payment and the other so-called scams to which my hon. Friend drew attention in 2001 is still lacking and could be easily put in place.

Thank you very much, Mr. Olner, for the chance to illustrate the plight of home workers, and I hope that the Minister is listening and that the Government will finally close the loopholes that allow this most vulnerable group of workers to be exploited in the way that they have been.

May I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Hamilton) for raising this debate again? I also pay tribute to the National Group on Homeworking, which for years has championed home workers and insisted that they should not leave our agenda. I congratulate my hon. Friend on his research. He dug up reports that were compiled some 100 years ago. I am reminded again of how much unfinished business there is in the House that we have to return to again and again. In his first manifesto, Keir Hardie, the first Labour MP, said that his main aims were to tackle unemployment, introduce a minimum wage and do something about housing conditions. Those issues are still on our agenda.

We have made some great progress in the last 10 years on the first two issues. We have introduced a minimum wage and we are working very hard to ensure that we have high levels of employment in Britain. Keir Hardie also warned that if we do not understand the relationship between trade and international solidarity, all our efforts will be doomed—and that was before the new world of economic globalisation.

Eighteen years ago, I raised the issue in the House of home workers in my own constituency, in Bramley. Those home workers were mainly women who worked wrapping Christmas cards in cellophane and threading the little strings on to gift cards. How did it work? A company in Bradford employed an agent on the estate, who took the packages around in a van, dropped them off in the house and told the women to have them finished by Friday. The women worked and worked to finish them, but more work was always piled on them than they could actually complete. Wage rates at the time worked out at less than 50p an hour—well below the average in the low-paid market. Then, as usual, the van failed to turn up on Friday with the money to pay the women and their families who had helped to meet the deadline, so the boxes were left stacked in their hallways and front rooms for ages as we tried to sort out the problem. It was a mess. Eventually, we managed, through the supply chain, to track down the employer and we had a real go at them, saying that they had to act responsibly towards those people.

It must be remembered that that was the age when people thought that home working was a good thing. We should distinguish between types of home worker. People who worked in an office might be told, “Please go home and work from your computer there—that will be much more relaxed.” That was 10 years ago. Today, we read reports of people wanting to get back into the office and do hot desking because working at home is so stressful.

There are not only office workers. I like the expression that some of my hon. Friends have used: outreach workers. That refers to people who have work pushed out on to them, who are in a different position from those in the middle income brackets who are working at home on computers, because if they complain, they lose the work altogether and lose the vital income that is propping up their family budget. I was told, “Please, John, don’t take the issue up with the company, because it might just cut off the supply line.” It is true that the company in Bradford employed some of the people, but others lost their jobs altogether.

One million people in Britain are still doing home working. Some are packing Christmas cards and tags; some are knitting and sewing; some are doing inspections of industrial seals; and others are making souvenirs for sports shops. When I learned of that last one, I was tempted to wonder whether, in the supply chain of life, when we buy our products, we think about who in the chain is paying the highest price for those goods. Home workers are still right at the bottom of the pile.

I would like to add another dimension. In the search and struggle for what we now gloriously call joined-up government, which I believe is incredibly difficult, we must bridge across Departments. The global is now local, and the local is global. We are in an interdependent world writ large, particularly economically. In the past five years, people have thought that home working has gone offshore: it is done in China, India and the Philippines, where the footballs, football shirts and so on are made; it is not a British issue. Well, it is. Of course it is a two-thirds world issue, in the poor countries of the world, as a result of globalisation, but I say to the Minister that we need to tackle poverty worldwide as well.

I serve on the Select Committee on International Development, which is a great privilege. We all know of the millennium development goals. Which one is missing? We can work on health care, HIV/AIDS and education, but the issue that is missing is employment and wages. There is no MDG to ensure fuller employment or decent wages. That is a big lacuna in the international system. In Oxfam’s 2004 report on home working entitled “Trading away our rights”, for which it surveyed 12 countries, it demonstrated that if the poor are paying the highest price in one country and a campaign is started to do something about that, the company is shut down and people are out of work and the practice moves across the world to another country. We cannot do that; we have to join things up.

In this country, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East said, a million workers are without proper remuneration or employment rights, which has something to do with the fudge of the definitions of an employee, a worker and the self-employed. He spelled that out eloquently, so I need not repeat it. Our employment law provides different levels of protection for those different categories. Those who are classified as employees have a range of employment rights, which we have been strengthening: protection against unfair dismissal, sick pay, some maternity rights and the right to redundancy pay. We are even encouraging people to take up resources to get child care so they have some space to work. However, all those rights fall away from a person who is not an employee and works from home. They fall down the gap between the different categories. We have never properly resolved that issue.

The present Government introduced the national minimum wage. That was not my personal responsibility, although I was in the Department of Trade and Industry when it was introduced. At that time, we were saying, “Well, we can’t introduce it for home workers. That would be too complicated.” Why? Because we had not sorted out their employment status. We cannot give them the wage if we have not clarified their status. That is unfinished business.

One part of the problem is that many different Government agencies deal with the issue. There are agencies that deal with legal definitions of employment—that involves the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. There are rights that relate to health and safety at work that are not covered there. Even rights relating to child care come through a different Department. I simply suggest that, even with all our best intentions for the legislation in this place, home workers are falling between the frameworks of different Departments. I am making a plea to my hon. Friend the Minister: the sub-committee that draws together different Ministers in different Departments should take this small issue seriously, put together a working party on it and crack it. It should drive through a means of joining up the agendas.

I would like international and national law to be brought together with good practice. There is a home workers code. That has something to do with the whole business of checking sourcing. If we could regularise legislation and sort out where home workers fit in the piece so that they have protection, that would be a start.

In 2004, a report entitled “Made at Home” was published by, interestingly, the TUC, the National Group on Homeworking and Oxfam. At the ground floor level, people are joining together the agendas: the TUC for workers’ rights, Oxfam, which works internationally as well in Britain, and the NGH. That group could be a means of demonstrating how such joining up can be done. The general secretary of the TUC, Brendan Barber, said at the time:

“The main problem is that homeworkers are often isolated, without the support of workmates or a union to speak up for them. Many are not ‘employees’ and so lack even the most basic employment rights including protection against unfair dismissal and maternity leave. Legally all homeworkers should be getting the minimum wage and holiday pay, but the reality is that many employers prey upon and exploit their vulnerable position for their own ends.

The situation is made worse because the law covering homeworkers is unclear. If they complain, it’s likely that their supply of work will stop without notice, so many homeworkers stay silent and abuses go unreported. Homeworkers should get the same employment rights as all other employees—their status as third class workers cannot be allowed to continue.”

I absolutely agree. That is why it is unfinished business.

If that is the legal framework, we need to do more. How should I put this? It is in the light of the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) about the company referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East. We need to do much more as a society—by which I mean civil society, campaigning organisations, Members of Parliament and Departments—in tracking where company profits come from. We are not doing enough to track the sourcing. Who pays the highest price? I have been quite shocked. In the International Development Committee we have been considering the ethical trading initiative, but if people go through the reports, they will find that the companies in Britain that are signed up to the ETI are the very companies that, through the chain of supply, are employing home workers and hoping that no one notices. We need to track them and say, “You can’t sign up to ethical trading initiatives and claim the moral high ground when at the same time, four layers down, you are exploiting workers in the most atrocious way because you are exploiting gaps in the law.” Tracking supply chains is a job that still needs to be done.

We need to regularise and fuse together at national level legal protections such as the minimum wage, employment law and those relating to health and safety and child care. We need to track supply chains and to push for more international action with regard to the work of the International Labour Organisation to get the standards in place so that we are not simply saying, “Well, if you’re a home worker here and your job has moved elsewhere in the world, those workers will be exploited.” What are we doing about building this issue into the framework of the World Trade Organisation, for example, and fusing the ILO and WTO together to ensure that workers do not continue to be exploited anywhere?

My view in this saga of unfinished business is that, at the end of the day, as usual, it is the most vulnerable, the poorest, who subsidise the economy, the growth and the profits and prop up the rich and the better-off. Furthermore, the poor always pay the highest price, whether that relates to energy costs, borrowing money from loan sharks, or indeed doing the work at basic level. We owe them the responsibility of saying that they should not pay the highest personal and family price. We should take legislative and practical action as a society, locally, nationally and internationally, to ensure that they get the same employment rights and protection as everyone else. That is part of the campaign to make poverty history and the campaign for fairer trade; but it is also part of the campaign for treating human beings decently. Sadly, after 100 years, we still have quite a way to go.

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Olner, for this extremely important debate and I congratulate the hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Hamilton) on introducing this subject for discussion.

It is interesting to look at the wider perspective on home working. There is a spectrum, from home working that has the potential to be liberating, through to home working that is enslaving—we have heard descriptions of the sorry state of some home workers. There are a great number of people involved in home working. The Economic and Social Research Institute says that 8.4 per cent. of people regularly work from home; the Department of Trade and Industry says that 3.1 million people work at home; and the National Group on Homeworking talks about 1 million people who are home workers. The discrepancy in the figures is because the National Group on Homeworking focuses on women, and on the least powerful and the most exploited people. Their situation was eloquently described by both the hon. Member for Leeds, North-East and the right hon. Member for Leeds, West (John Battle).

On the happier end of the spectrum—the flexible working end—I introduced a private Member’s Bill last year to extend the age of the children for whom an employee can request flexible working to 18. I am delighted that the Government will introduce such a measure—I see it as greatly enlightening. At some stage, I should like everyone to have the opportunity to request flexible working. However, it is important that such a right is protected. For the vast majority of workers, greater working flexibility would greatly increase equality in our society. I would love to see the end of the culture of presentism, whereby when a child is born, one parent must make the economic sacrifice. It is usually the woman, which contributes to the economic inequality of the work unit and to women’s lack of ability to catch up when they return to work.

More flexible working would bring benefits to the environment. Savings in carbon emissions would come because people would no longer travel to work. People would have more time, so there would be an improvement in work-life balance. A growing number of mothers are turning to self-employment—true female entrepreneurship —because it fits in to their work-life balance. It has become a lifestyle choice. If as many women as men turned to an entrepreneurial lifestyle, 500,000 additional companies would be set up in this country. That would make a difference to our balance of payments and prosperity.

That is the good side of home working, which definitely has benefits: for the employer, it can mean a motivated work force, and reduced staff turnover, sick days and infrastructure costs. There is a social responsibility aspect: carers and people with disabilities have much more flexibility for their work. Although it can be liberating, it can also be enslaving—at least it can be where irresponsible companies are concerned.

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for expanding the debate. She is absolutely right on work for women: they could have what I believe is called a better work-life balance, and there would perhaps be a better gender balance. However, I am thinking particularly about people who are not self-employed, even those who are more mobile in the labour market, if I may put it that way, who have decent jobs and qualifications and who work in offices but who sometimes go home to work. In a sense, it is about the attitude of employers to home workers. They do not see home working as a way of helping people to be liberated; rather, they are looking at how to reduce their costs. There are now rows about who pays for the lighting and the electricity, and people are pleading to go back into a workplace because on-costs are being pushed on to them. More than a million people who are at the behest of an employer rather than self-employed are picking up hidden costs for the employer. That is the real exploitation. Such people are paying a high price. Not only do they not receive a wage, but by paying their lighting bill and other on-costs they are subsidising their employer.

I am grateful for that point—it gives another perspective on the matter. However, I have recently been through the trauma of completing my tax return. I have been advised that a proportion—one eighth for a Member of Parliament—of one’s lighting and heating costs can be claimed against one’s final tax Bill, so the Government try to make allowances for employees who work at home—[Laughter.] It was news to me too, but I am assured that that is the case—a House of Commons approved company told me. In answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s important and significant point, there are circumstances in which those costs can be offset.

Of course, thousands of people are missing out on basic employment rights because of the ambiguity of their employment status, as was admirably outlined by the hon. Member for Leeds, North-East and the right hon. Member for Leeds, West. The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, in a leaflet entitled “Contracts of Employment”, summarises the difference between employed and self-employed as follows:

“If the employer has a duty to provide work, controls when and how it is done, supplies the tools or other equipment needed to do it and pays tax and national insurance contributions on the worker’s behalf, then it is likely that the worker is an employee. If, on the other hand, the worker can decide whether or not to accept work and how to carry it out, makes his or her own arrangements for holidays or sickness absences, pays his or her own tax and national insurance contributions and is free to do the same type of work for more than one employer at the same time, this points towards the person being self-employed.”

The leaflet goes on to state:

“The important question is whether or not the worker is genuinely in business on his or her own account.”

That is the important distinction. The Government say that self-employed people can refuse work and work for more than one employer. How can home workers do that if they have only one major source of work? We have heard this morning how home workers are afraid to turn work down, because they are worried that if they do so, they will not be offered more work. They are isolated and powerless.

Does the hon. Lady agree that in addition to that clear description she gave—it was extremely helpful—sometimes, the home worker is expected to provide their own machinery, especially in the sewing industry? I cannot think of a better description of that than the one in Monica Ali’s book “Brick Lane”. The machinery is supplied, serviced and looked after by the home worker. The home work can only be done with the right equipment, but the employer pays nothing towards its costs. Does she agree that that is another abuse of home workers?

I totally agree that it is an abuse in such circumstances. There might be another perspective; I want to understand it from the other side. For instance, someone may want to start up in business for themselves, buying their own equipment to produce clothing—perhaps bespoke clothing. It is not simply that the person has to buy their own equipment, it is the relationship between that individual and the employer—the power balance between the two—that is so out of kilter in the examples that the hon. Gentleman cited.

The problems of home workers have been described; they include long hours, a lot of stress, repetitive strain injury, and the fear of complaining about the volume of work and pay rates. The National Group on Homeworking estimates that 48 per cent. of home workers are denied basic employment rates.

Wages are an important subject. The fair estimate agreements for output work were replaced in October 2004 by the four-fifths rule for rated output work. If employers do not pay an hourly rate, they have to pay 120 per cent. of the average work rate times the national minimum wage. For those employers who adhere to the Government’s guidelines, that represents good progress. However, the thread constantly running through this is the fact that unscrupulous employers do not adhere to those guidelines.

The Government have legislated to protect home workers, but should they go further? In our desire to protect one class of worker, we must not threaten another. People such as professional contractors, who work as outside consultants but often from home, have a completely different status, which must also be protected within the law. It is important that we do not throw the baby out with the proverbial bathwater; people who are genuinely self-employed should not be incorporated in the definition of employee, as they would lose their exclusive status and their earning ability.

I am open to suggestions on additional legislation, but I believe that it is not so much the legislation itself that is important as the enforcement of existing law. The chance of a company’s being inspected on its payment of the minimum wage is low; on average it happens only once in over 200 years. Enforcement is paramount here. Will the Minister say whether the Government have plans to strengthen the hand of the enforcement agencies, which can do only what they have the resources for? There is nothing better that the Government could do than putting resources into these areas of concern and looking at those companies at the low end of the market.

The right hon. Member for Leeds, West spoke about ethical trading through the supply chain. It occurs to me that we could encourage companies, and especially large companies—the company I am thinking of must be large, as it has made more than £1 billion—to include how they pay their workers and how they look after them in their corporate social responsibility reporting. We are developing such a culture in all sorts of areas. I have been talking to the Minister about supply side diversity, and companies can be encouraged to take that step.

The hon. Lady has been most generous in giving way. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East, who is an accountant, could clarify the rules of company accounting, but it would help if companies, including major household names, were not allowed to use corporate accounting methods to be what I would call absentee landlords, not being forced to reveal their suppliers further down the chain. If that was put into company and accounting law, it would make things much more transparent.

The right hon. Gentleman makes an interesting suggestion. I shall certainly consider it as a potential way forward. His earlier suggestion of putting together a policy group to consider the loophole in employment law would be extremely helpful, and I would be interested to hear the Minister’s comments on that.

In conclusion, I am interested to know why the Government are not prepared to legislate for this group of exploited workers, and to work out a way in which they can be specifically targeted—not only in employment legislation but, which is even more important, in its enforcement.

Before I call Eleanor Laing, I thank the previous speaker for enlightening us all on the tax rules.

I join in your thanks, Mr. Olner; we shall all check up on that point.

I heartily commend the hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Hamilton) for seeking to debate this extremely important aspect of employment law. It is an important subject, as we are dealing not with a few hundred or even a few thousand people but with a substantial number of some of the most vulnerable people. I shall return to that subject in a moment, but that is why I am so pleased to be debating the subject this morning. The debate is long overdue. I also commend the right hon. Member for Leeds, West (John Battle) for his passionate support. Both Members have been dealing with the subject for a long time, and it is through their hard work that people are now paying attention.

It is interesting to note the historical perspective: the subject was first raised in the House of Commons exactly 100 years ago. It is true that there is much unfinished business. The more we think that we are continuing to improve the way in which our society works—that we are becoming more equal, more fair, more reasonable, and reaching a better work-life balance—the more we uncover the fact that much is yet to be done.

It is somewhat ironic that the Prime Minister should now be in India and that he was previously in China—the more time he spends in India and China, the happier some of us will be. However, I commend him for undertaking the tour because our economy will depend enormously on the emerging economies of China and India in future. Although press commentators and many of those engaged in the political process are quick to recognise the importance of improving employment rights and human rights in China and India, low-paid workers in Britain are doing work in competition with work being outsourced—particularly to India and the subcontinent—and it is those back home in the United Kingdom who still need to be looked after. I do not blame the Prime Minister; I commend him for what he is doing on the international stage, but will the Government please recognise that there is still work to be done here at home?

While we are adopting the historical perspective, it is interesting that the hon. Member for Leeds, North-East said that, once upon a time, the Conservative party was opposed to the national minimum wage. That, too, is history. We are not opposed to the national minimum wage. Personally, I think that it is an extremely important rung of the ladder towards achieving equality and fairness in the labour market.

We have waited 10 years to hear that.

I think that some of my colleagues have also said what I said about the minimum wage. I certainly believe it.

I met the National Group on Homeworking some time ago, when they brought a large delegation of people to the House of Commons. In all truth, not only was I interested in the issues that arose from that meeting but I was genuinely shocked to discover the employment conditions under which large numbers of people work in Britain today. They are not the type of bad employment conditions that existed 100 years ago, or indeed those found in India and China at present—I am not being insulting to those countries, but we must recognise the reality and truth of the situation there. However, although the current employment conditions of large numbers of home workers are not as bad as low-paid workers once had to endure, they are still bad enough to require our attention and the Government’s attention as soon as possible.

The hon. Member for Leeds, North-East highlighted the heart-rending stories of some people who were brave enough to put their heads above the parapet and allow their circumstances to be used as important examples. It is quite unacceptable that a tribunal decision should take more than eight months to come out. That is simply unfair and I hope that somebody somewhere will take note of that fact this morning and deal with it.

In general, however, we must recognise that people do not usually work from home, or want to work part-time or need flexibility in their working environment because they choose to; nor is it because, as some employers and some other people would have us believe, they are housewives earning a bit of pin money. That view is an insult—an absolute insult. The reason why people work from home, or need flexibility in employment or to work part-time, is that they have other family duties, whether it be looking after children or looking after elderly or sick relatives.

Furthermore, we as a society not only recognise that that situation exists; we encourage it. We need people to do two jobs, especially women—let us not forget that more than 80 per cent. of home workers are women—but also men in some circumstances. We need them to bring up families and look after the elderly and sick but we also need them to be economically active, because we need their input in the economy. Our economy would not work without people doing those part-time jobs. Such work is not a luxury or an add-on, nor is it about pin money; it is absolutely essential. Given that we expect people, especially women, to organise their lives so that they can work, be economically active and pay taxes, and look after their children and elderly relatives at the same time, we ought to recognise their work and give them the respect they deserve for doing lots of different jobs at once.

Bringing up children is not an add-on luxury; it is an absolute necessity. Looking after the elderly is not an add-on luxury; it is the most difficult job there is. Where people are also trying to earn money at the same time, they ought to be given respect and support.

Flexibility is absolutely vital. I see from Hansard that I had an interesting exchange with the then Minister for Women, now the Secretary of State for Transport in the House of Commons on 8 June 2006, when I was shadow Minister for Women. We agreed with one another about the importance of encouraging flexibility. I was arguing that the right to request flexibility should be extended, a point to which the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) alluded a few moments ago in her excellent speech. At present, the right to request flexible working is extended only to some people in the working population; like the hon. Member for Solihull, I argue that it should be extended far more widely.

I say that because children do not stop being an enormous responsibility when they reach the age of six or seven; actually, they become more difficult then. Sometimes, people do not understand that. A baby can be put in a corner to sleep, but that is not possible with an eight-year-old child. Children of eight, nine or 10 and especially teenagers need their parents even more than small children do.

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady about the importance of flexibility in the household, in domestic circumstances and support work; we must move in that direction. However, ambivalence exists because employers interpret the word “flexibility” very differently and can see it as a means of avoiding health and safety regulations and employment law. Until they start to understand flexibility more positively and not as a negative way of just squeezing out more profit, we will have a problem with the concept.

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. I do not have time to go into that aspect in great detail right now, but I am sure that the Minister will be well aware that when one studies the effects of flexible working one finds that many of the best, most profitable and most employee-friendly companies in Britain have introduced flexible working or have experimented with it, and the vast majority of them have evidence that not only has flexibility improved the morale of their work force but, as a result, their profitability and the general well-being of the company, in economic as well as social terms, has improved, too.

Not so long ago, when people made an excuse to be away from the workplace it would be anything but, “I have had to go and pick up my child from school.” I have done it myself. I have not dared to say that I could not be at such and such a meeting because I had to go to school; I did not dare to say that because I thought that I would be looked down on. However, in the last few years, since we have brought the subject right to the front of the political agenda, I am no longer afraid to give that reason.

The important issue is that many men in the political world have come to respect the position of women who are looking after children. I honestly pay tribute to the men who dared to stand up for the employment rights of women who have to look after children. I do not know whether that means that there are lots of “new men” in the House of Commons. I do not really care what they are called; all I care about is that we are addressing the issue.

My son, who is aged six, saw me on television asking a question about the issue at one point; he had seen me say something about it. The following day, I explained to him that I could not be there at bedtime because I had to vote at 7 pm. He said, “Well, Mummy, I want David Cameron to become Prime Minister, because he said that mummies should spend more time with their boys.” I was very proud of my little son for having the political message so neatly wrapped up.

It is true that the Leader of the Opposition gave that message, but the real point to be made right now is that when we address the general issue of the gender pay gap the end of the market that we should concentrate on is not where we see glamorous, City executives earning hundreds of thousands of pounds per year; it is the other end of the market, where the gender pay gap between part-time workers is more than 40 per cent. It is the fact that most part-time workers and home workers are women that causes that enormous gender pay gap.

When we talk about the importance of bringing equality to the labour market, we must not ignore the position of home workers, because the gender pay gap would probably become much smaller if they were taken out of the statistics. I am not saying that they should be, but that somebody somewhere should examine what the gender pay gap would be if home workers were not in the picture. I do not have the resources to do so, but somebody somewhere has, and that would let us see how difficult the position of home workers is.

I shall conclude without saying all the other things that I could say about this important and wide subject because I want to give the Minister plenty of time to reply to the debate. Given that the Government have taken great steps forward on the minimum wage, equality and flexible working, I am genuinely surprised by their attitude to home workers. Of course, I recognise the difficulties in current employment law, which affect employers, employees and home workers alike, but I am genuinely surprised that the Government have not tackled the issue, so along with everyone else who has spoken, I want to hear what the Minister has to say.

I begin by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Hamilton) for introducing the debate. He spoke with great expertise and passion, particularly about the individual examples that he raised, some of which are summarised in the NGH report “Subject to Status”, to which he referred. He raised several issues relating to piece rates, the minimum wage and employment status, and I shall deal with those in more detail later.

I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (John Battle). I hope I will not embarrass him when I say that I have regarded him as something of an inspiration for many years because of the depth of his passion on issues relating to poverty, because of his belief in empowering people and because of the international reach of his thinking on these important issues, as we have seen today. The hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) raised important points, including questions about flexibility and enforcement, and I shall come to those later.

In a sense, the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) began where my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East began—100 years ago, which is when the report with which my hon. Friend began his speech was published. In a sense, 100 years ago is a good place to start because we are currently experiencing a great wave of globalisation. However, it is not the first, and there was another great wave of globalisation in the years before the first world war; indeed, the 1908 report would have been written in the middle of that phenomenon. The hon. Member for Epping Forest is therefore right to draw attention to the Prime Minister’s visits to India and China and the powerful international economic changes that we have seen. I appreciate that you will not want me to veer too far from the subject, Mr. Olner, but history shows that the first wave of globalisation did not continue and was brought to an end by world war and then cold war. It is only since the end of the cold war that we have experienced a second great wave of globalisation.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West raised some important questions about employment rights in an era of globalisation, which is a difficult issue, particularly for those of us in the richer west. It is sometimes argued that globalisation exploits people in newly developing countries and that we would not tolerate their working conditions and wages. Looked at from our end of the telescope, that might be true, but it might also be true that such conditions and wages are better than those offered by local employers. Indeed, if we look at the impact of globalisation, particularly in the two countries mentioned by the hon. Member for Epping Forest, we see that the number of people living on less than $1 a day has declined rapidly in recent years.

Lest I go too far down that road, however, Mr. Olner, I return to the issue of home workers in the UK labour market. I agree that it is an important subject, which raises important issues about the Government’s role in securing a flexible labour market that offers people decent rights—one that both contributes to the success of our economy and is good for people to work in. That is what we are trying to achieve, and I would not want people to think that home workers have not been part of our agenda or of the work that we have done in the little over a decade that we have been in power.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East referred to the national minimum wage, which is important, because it was designed to put a basic floor under the labour market, beneath which no one should fall. My hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West also mentioned the distinction between workers and employees, and we will come back to that. However, section 35 of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 ensures that those who fall outside the usual definition of a worker—for example, because they may not be obliged to do all their work personally—are still covered by the Act, and it is important that the legislation tried to reach out beyond employees to cover workers.

That was the first thing that was done to ensure that legislation reached home workers and those outside the normal definition of an employee. The second thing was to amend piece rates, to which the hon. Member for Solihull referred, and that was done through the fair piece rates legislation introduced in 2005, which addressed the fact that the bar was set at such a level that it seemed to justify payment beneath the national minimum wage. The way piece rates were calculated was changed to address that problem, and the fair piece rate was amended to ensure that people working at an average rate would get the national minimum wage. Those were important gains for home workers, and I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East acknowledged them.

The Government also supply guidance on fair piece rates by means of the national minimum wage helpline, which anyone who is in doubt about their rights under the legislation can phone in confidence. My hon. Friend also referred to the fact that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has a specific enforcement team dedicated to enforcing the minimum wage in that regard.

My hon. Friend rightly said that there is a difference between passing a law and enforcing it. Although passing a law may be the first necessary and important step, we must all be aware of the fact that the law must be properly enforced. I therefore want directly to address the question raised by the hon. Member for Solihull about action on enforcement, because we have been very active on the issue recently. In fact, only last week, I was with the national minimum wage bus, which is sponsored by my Department. It is visiting 30 towns and cities, distributing information to people in town centres and shopping centres. On Friday we were outside St. Andrews football ground in Birmingham. I also visited the bus in Newham, and it is going on to other areas. It is part of an effort to make sure of two things: first, that people are aware of national minimum wage rates. The bus’s route number is 552, and if one thinks about it that is the right name for it. People can go on the bus and find out directly whether they are being paid the minimum wage, as well as finding out about youth rates. They can also phone the helpline to report in confidence if they are not being paid the correct rate.

We have taken out advertising on local radio stations and in bus stops. There is an online campaign aimed at young people and I have written articles for newspapers—particularly those more likely to be read by migrant workers, who are often exploited and not paid the minimum wage.

Awareness is important to our work, and so are resources. The hon. Member for Solihull was quite right when she asked about resources. The Prime Minister, in his final Budget as Chancellor, announced a significant increase in resources for enforcement of the national minimum wage—an extra £3 million or so per year over the next few years. That will allow Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which does the work of enforcement, to hire more staff to ensure that that important legislation is properly enforced.

As well as awareness and enforcement, there is a third arm to the relevant work, and that is changing the law, which we are doing in two respects. The Employment Bill received its Second Reading in the other place recently, and will eventually find its way to the House for discussion. It will change the law in two important ways: first, by increasing the arrears of minimum wage payable to anyone who has been underpaid, to give people a better deal on arrears and, secondly, by increasing the penalties for employers who pay less than the minimum wage. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West talked about employers and unscrupulous practice. We want to change the law so that employers who underpay the minimum wage will receive stiffer penalties than they do now. I do not think that legitimate business has a problem in that regard. In fact, at the TUC a few months ago, the director general of the CBI said that employers who behave in such a way “should get clobbered.” He rightly sees that illegal exploitation of workers through not paying the minimum wage undercuts legitimate businesses, the vast majority of which want to treat their workers decently and fairly. On those fronts—awareness, enforcement through resources, and changes to the law—it is important to make the Act we passed seven or eight years ago even better suited to today’s circumstances.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East also raised the issue of employment status and the employment status review. It was an exhaustive review, which took about four years. The ship of state did not move particularly quickly in that respect, and did not come out with overnight, knee-jerk conclusions. I think that my hon. Friend said that the work lasted from 2002 until 2006. I know that he does not agree with the conclusions he read out, but on the basic distinction between employees, workers and the self-employed, the Government decided not to change the legal framework. I have referred already to new law affecting the minimum wage, which is on the way and will also cover other issues, such as those concerned with employment agencies. It will be debated fully in the House. However, I must be candid with my hon. Friend and tell him that I shall not today announce a shift away from the conclusion reached by the Government in the employment status review, which, as I have said, took four years and concluded just two years ago. Nevertheless I should not want right hon. and hon. Members to conclude that workers are without rights and protections. That is not the case. Workers are entitled to the minimum wage and paid leave and they have redress for the enforcement of those rights. We do not want a labour market in which some people enjoy the kind of progress that my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West spoke about, while others are abandoned.

If I remember rightly, the relevant response did not mention the expression “home workers” and I think that part of the point of the debate that my hon. Friend has initiated this morning is whether, when the Government consider the issue, home workers can be positively and explicitly included.

The review was concluded two years ago and there is no plan to start that piece of work again, now that it has been decided that there should not be a basic change in the legal status of the self-employed, workers and employees. That is not to say that suggestions that the National Group on Homeworking and hon. Members who support the campaigns may make with regard to home workers will be swept aside and not listened to. I do not mean that at all. Home workers deserve the protection of the law. They have it with respect to the national minimum wage and rights under working-time protections, as well as, for example, rights under discrimination legislation and entitlement to statutory maternity pay. They are not a group that should be without protection and it is important that their legal protections should be properly enforced, as the hon. Member for Solihull said.

We have made important advances in the labour market in recent years. The hon. Member for Epping Forest referred to the right to request flexible working, which is another change that we have made. It is intended to recognise the twin responsibilities of family and work, and to help employees and employers cope with them. We have worked step by step, through granting the right first to parents of younger children and to carers. Hon. Members will know that the Government recently announced a review of the arrangements, with a view to extending the right to the parents of older children. The review is being carried out by Imelda Walsh of Sainsbury’s, a senior and experienced business woman. We are trying to establish a labour market that helps families to cope with the twin responsibilities of family and work and supports them in a way that business can accommodate.

Today’s debate has raised important issues. We want a labour market with flexibility, but we also want it to have decency and dignity. That is the core philosophy behind the changes in the labour market that the Government have made in the past decade.

There can be no more important issue affecting the lives, and quality of life, of our constituents, than the regional planning strategy that is now set out in what is described as the regional spatial strategy. It has a big impact on every constituency in what I like to call the west country. The west country has a population of more than 5 million—on a par with Scotland, which demonstrates a substantial democratic deficit. Today’s debate should represent the beginning of detailed parliamentary scrutiny of the regional plan for the south-west before the Secretary of State takes any decision on its contents and proposed modifications.

Last Thursday, I asked the Leader of the House

“what role she envisages the Minister for the South West playing in”

today’s debate,

“and what other opportunities there will be for a debate in Government time”

on this highly contentious strategy.

The response by the Leader of the House bears repetition:

“The Minister for the South West is my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw). We are developing the role of the regional Ministers—[Laughter.] Regional Ministers are a new innovation. I think that they are doing a very good job on behalf of their regions and that we can build on that role. What we need to do next—we are looking at this in the Modernisation Committee—is to consider how to develop a system for regional accountability to the House. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will contribute to that inquiry.”—[Official Report, 17 January 2008; Vol. 470, c. 1090.]

I am happy to contribute to any inquiry, within reason, but I hope to hear from the Minister today how the regional spatial strategy will be held accountable, which is so important.

On 18 July 2007, in answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper) about

“what assessment the Minister for the South West has made of the regional strategy”,

the Minister for the South West replied:

“I will advise the relevant Secretary of State on the approval of regional strategies”.—[Official Report, 18 July 2008; Vol. 463, c. 360W.]

That is not a system of regional accountability to this House. Will his advice be based on the views of west country Members of Parliament? Will his advice to the Secretary of State be published? When will it be issued? What about the regional Select Committees, which were promoted by the Government to address the democratic accountability deficit, but which now seem to have been shelved? Have they been conveniently shelved until debate on the regional spatial strategy is over?

The strategy was put on deposit between June and August 2006 and generated 1,982 responses and 14,786 representations. However, fewer than one in 10 of those responding were invited to appear at the examination in public, and despite the plethora of objections and representations, nine key matters only were selected for debate. The process at the EIP was seriously flawed, as I spelled out in a letter that I sent to the panel chairman in December 2006. In that letter, I stated that

“if this Plan is introduced unamended, it will result in substantial detriment to the built and natural environment in my constituency and will damage the quality of life of large numbers of my constituents. That is why as an elected representative in Parliament, I wish to have the opportunity to give oral evidence during the Examination in Public.”

My request, and those of other Members in the west country, was turned down, on the basis—I suppose—that we were not sufficient stakeholders. Who could be a bigger stakeholder than somebody who needs electing to this Parliament? Instead of the elected representatives, we have a plethora of officialdom and quangodom.

Chapter 4.3.23 of the panel reports states that

“the Panel does not therefore accept the argument advanced by Gloucestershire County Council that draft RSS levels of housing provision should be adhered to or reduced.”

Even when very important bodies, such as a county council, make representations, the panel has the power to completely ignore them.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, which is why we need to bring the panel to account, and I hope that we will hear from the Minister exactly how we can do that.

I shall not regale colleagues with all the detailed representations that I made, but will mention one on policy reference number SR25. I wrote:

“The policy of providing sufficient housing to meet the needs of a growing population is one of predict and provide which is both unsustainable and wrong in principle. Only very modest increments should be allowed to the existing housing stock because demand, particularly from retirees from elsewhere, will always exceed supply.”

I suggested that the last sentence of SR25 should be replaced with the following words:

“Only a very modest increase in housing will be allowed in recognition of the environmental constraints. Increasing densities should not be permitted where this is to the detriment of existing character.”

It is almost 10 years since the Government announced a rejection of the predict and provide approach to housing targets. In February 1998, the then Deputy Prime Minister told the House that the Government were

“determined to get away from a simplistic "predict and provide" approach in housing, as we have done for road building. We shall treat the household projections as guidance, not house building requirements.”—[Official Report, 23 February 1998; Vol. 307, c. 21.]

Chapter 2.2 of the panel report provides the context for the whole of the strategy. It states:

“The RSS is founded on projections over a 20 year period… it is necessary to make estimates of economic and population change so that the best way of managing consequential development can be found.”

That is flowery language for predict and provide—the very policy that the Government said that they rejected 10 years ago. The Government have policies to try and restrain increases in traffic growth, but notwithstanding those policies traffic has increased by 13 per cent. in the south-west in the last 10 years. Why can they not have policies to try and constrain the increase in population growth, which is destroying our green and pleasant land?

Next year, England will have a higher population density than the Netherlands, and nearly four times the population density of France. The UK population is forecast to rise to 71 million by 2031; on the Government’s own figures, 69 per cent. of that growth will be as a result of immigration. Net immigration is now 190,000 per year—the highest ever, and unprecedented in our nation’s history. When the Government estimated the net immigration figure at only 145,000, a couple of years ago, they put the proportion of household formation caused by that immigration at 33 per cent., meaning a need for 200 houses every day just to accommodate immigrants. Those figures are now significantly higher and still rising, with the figure of 190,000.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there are still more homes than households in this country, although the closeness between those figures is adding pressure on housing, and that the key issue for the south-west is not immigration, but migration from other parts of the country, which is putting excessive pressure on areas such as my constituency?

I agree with the hon. Gentleman to an extent. A large number of people are coming into Christchurch because they are being displaced from other parts of the country where the quality of life is declining, largely as a result of the uncontrolled immigration.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the consequence of migration down to the south-west is affecting the quality of life there? Owing to the pressure to build houses without investment in infrastructure, we are building, in certain areas, the slums of the future, which will cause even more problems for whatever Government is in power.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; that point was made very well by Ed Perkins, the editor of the Bournemouth Echo, in an editorial earlier this month, when he argued that the discussion about the regional spatial strategy is one about the quality of life of our area for generations to come. If the high densities required by this strategy and the building on green belts is carried through, I am sure that my hon. Friend’s concerns will be proved right.

The very area to which the South West regional assembly spatial strategy pointed for building extra houses in Bournemouth was in fact completely under water last weekend.

That, I think, is a subject for another day. I cannot get into flooding and building on flood plains in this constrained debate.

Where does such mass migration—uncontrolled immigration—to the United Kingdom leave the west country? The Government tell us that we must sacrifice our own green belt, destroy our urban and suburban townscapes with high-density development built on back gardens, and spoil the very features of the west country that make it so attractive to tourists and retirees. West country traffic is up by 13 per cent. in 10 years, but we have not increased road space by 13 per cent.—or even by 1 per cent. Surely, the EIP should have examined household formation and unprecedented immigration, and developed around them a strategic policy that was not based on predict and provide.

My hon. Friend makes an eloquent case. I shall add to the evidence that he cites by explaining the situation in my constituency, where precisely the point that he has just made applies, too. There is appalling traffic congestion on junction 21 of the M5, and a variety of related problems with local infrastructure and services because of the failure to plan for a sustainable community rather than for a dormitory. Instead, the focus has been on predict-and-provide housing provision, with which local services have not kept up.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I hope to turn to infrastructure, because the panel’s report about infrastructure is one of the most critical issues in the whole matter.

I shall turn to another representation that I made to the panel. On policy reference SR29, I said:

“An urban extension can only be acceptable to local people if it does not encroach on greenbelt and is an alternative in whole or part to increasing densities unreasonably in the urban area.”

I suggested that in the relevant paragraph on development in south-east Dorset, all the words after “urban renewal” be deleted and the following words be added:

“Any urban extension must not encroach on greenbelt and can be chosen by the local planning authority as an alternative to increasing urban densities.”

A regional strategy should be a regional strategy; it should not involve the Government or unelected regional bodies imposing on small communities requirements about how they should manage their own affairs.

My hon. Friend touches on a signal point. Does he agree that there is all the difference in the world between targets that descend on smaller communities, forcing them either to fight against them or to accept the unwanted, and what might have been, which is an effort to encourage people locally in small communities to accept more housing in sensitive ways that relate to the community and fit its culture and life?

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It was the policy and philosophy that the previous Conservative Government tried to promote. I can remember when I was a Minister in the Department of the Environment, and the issue of Foxley wood came up, when the then Secretary of State and his officials tried to second-guess the wishes of people living in Hampshire and impose a new settlement there. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) will remember that an effigy of Nicholas Ridley was burned at Foxley wood, and it led to a complete change in policy. He said that policy should be bottom-up, with local people being able to decide what was best for their own communities and their own future.

Does my hon. Friend agree that in place of burning effigies of the Secretary of State, or of the Minister for Housing, we could have small statues to her if the plan were to do what it will signally fail to do, which is to encourage, for example, community land trusts? In my constituency, the villagers of Buckland Newton have clubbed together to support extra housing for local young people, precisely because those villagers are able to control it through the community land trust and its shared equity arrangements.

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right again. Other areas are trying to emulate the achievements regarding community land trusts in his constituency. They have struck a chord with local people, and they are an example of truly sustainable development.

I shall provide my own example of the way in which a small community is being imposed upon by the panel’s report and the strategy. There are 1,350 households in the parish of West Parley, and the parish and its residents association conducted a survey of all residents. They did not go door to door trying to get them to answer yes or no, they sent them survey forms and invited residents to return them. Some 65 per cent. of households did so, representing 1,755 people on the electoral register, and 97.78 per cent. of those residents said that they wanted to preserve their green belt in West Parley. They were also concerned about the lack of infrastructure, and about other issues relating to the proposal to build over the green belt there.

The EIP heard evidence from West Parley, but there is no reference to it in the report, save to say that the opposition to the development on the green belt arose because of a change of political control. That is, however, a completely wrong assertion. It was not a change of political control that caused people to become so angry about the removal of the green belt in that area. It was, however, material that if the local councillors did not go along with the wishes of the people, they certainly would have lost political control, and quite right, too, because surely that is what local democracy should be all about. Instead, the panel has chosen to re-impose through that process a requirement that West Parley should have its green belt taken away to provide 900 high-density houses right on the edge of the River Stour. West Parley parish council is seething, as indeed is East Dorset district council, which realises that the decision is completely at odds with local people’s wishes. The recommendations are totally undemocratic, and they fly in the face of localism. Almost everybody recognises that we need more houses in East Dorset, but surely locally elected representatives should be able to decide on their location.

The next point that I sought to raise with the panel, by giving written evidence, related to policy reference SR29. I said:

“The strategy presents the opportunity to incorporate a clear policy of rejecting garden land as being ‘brown’ and encouraging the retention of gardens in urban areas to help ‘play’; to protect amenity and encourage wildlife.”

That point has not been followed through in the spatial strategy. There is a desire to increase the densities in urban and suburban areas to as much as 50 habitable houses per hectare, which will be absolutely oppressive in the current East Dorset environment. It will mean that almost every tree has to be removed from any given site, that there will be no local recreational facilities for the people who are forced to live in those high-density dwellings, and that they will be forced to travel to other recreational hot spots at a time when Natural England says that it wants to reduce the amount of people using heathland in order to protect that valuable habitat.

My next representation, again on policy reference SR29, stated:

“The density of development should be compatible with the existing character of the area and within the discretion of the local planning authority.”

I sought to delete any expressions relating to “maximum densities”, but the Government still require an urban extension to be accompanied by a maximum density. That is an enormous threat to the future well-being of our countryside.

I then wrote:

“The ‘key infrastructure’ required is already known and usefully listed in paragraph 4.3.14. It should therefore be a formal policy recommendation”

that that key infrastructure be put in place before the development proposed can be implemented. I am horrified to say that not only was my recommendation rejected by the panel, but that it removed all reference to key infrastructure requirements on the basis that it did not know what that key infrastructure was. That is an absurd situation. I hope that, when the Minister examines the panel report, she will also examine a further recommendation that I made to the panel: that any development should depend on the required infrastructure being in place before it starts. A problem in our planning system in the past 10 or 15 years has been that developers, and sometimes public authorities, have promised to put in infrastructure after the event, but the developments have taken place and the infrastructure has never been put in place. The result has been the pressures that we see every day: increased congestion and pressure on sewerage, waste facilities and water. That is all because the Government refuse to recognise that there must be a link between infrastructure and development.

My hon. Friend touches on the crucial matter in the debate—the fact that infrastructure is so inadequate. We share the Wessex way, which is almost at gridlock, and Castle lane is completely inadequate. We also have an airport served by a country bumpkin road. That is not the backdrop to which 48,000 houses should be built.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I know that it is suggested that there should be development on the green belt in north Bournemouth, in the northern part of his constituency. To enable access to that land, an enormous amount needs to be spent on infrastructure improvement, but there is no way in which that money can ever be afforded. The proposal in the original report that there should be a proper infrastructure link between the A338 and the airport, to enable new employment, has been rejected in the panel report.

Probably the only good thing in the whole panel report is the suggestion that the A31 should be made a dual carriageway towards the west. The panel regards that road as an “urban road”, although it is currently a single carriageway through heathland. That is how it justifies the requirement that it should be a dual carriageway. There is not yet any suggestion as to whether the Highways Agency is in favour of that, and if so, how it will be afforded, but it is about the only crumb of comfort that I could find in the whole 500-plus-page report.

The report mentions the number of houses to be built. I was in the position that you are in today, Mr. Olner, chairing a debate here on the north-east regional strategy last June. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), who is now the Deputy Leader of the House, complained that the north-east was not being allowed to build enough houses. The north-east regional spatial strategy stated that there should be a net increase of 6,500 new properties a year, compared with the requirement of 28,500 in the south-west. She said that only 19,000 were proposed in Durham for the whole 15-year planning period, which compares with 48,000 in Dorset. She said that she knew of Members of the House who had complained about lack of infrastructure, congestion and declining quality of life because of development in the south, and that she wanted more of that in the north. If the Government were to say, “Our strategy is to spread the demand for housing and the provision of housing across the country,” we would be talking the same language. That would truly be a strategy led by the Government. Instead, we have the fall-back position of the predict and provide policy.

Serious matters were raised in the report, and the result of the loss of green belt in Christchurch and particularly East Dorset will be dramatic. East Dorset district council has described the panel’s proposals as

“the nightmare scenario…The proposal for 1,000 additional dwellings, apparently intended to be an urban extension, puts the whole inner boundary of the Green Belt, established through local plans and local plan inquiries, into question and review.”

In other words, every part of East Dorset that is not already developed will be a prime target for developers, and the district council is being deprived of the means of controlling the destiny of its area. I hope that the Minister will examine carefully the proposal to increase housing provision in East Dorset by 1,000 properties, with the implications spelled out succinctly by the council.

The report states:

“Regional stakeholders will work with the Highways Agency to manage demand in a way that minimises congestion on the trunk road network while meeting the requirements for development.”

That is a pretty meaningless statement. How will that ever be delivered? When I was the Roads Minister, the policy was to transfer as much traffic as possible on to the strategic trunk road network, rather than the reverse. Now it seems that we are not going to be doing that. There is a reference in the panel report to restricting the use of the motorway around the Bristol conurbation. What implications does that have for the alternative route into the west country, the A303? It should go via Stonehenge, but the Government have abandoned that project and the panel report states that we should have a gentle approach to developing a second thoroughfare into the west country. The matter has not been thought through, and even the Highways Agency’s proposals for investment to ensure that we have reduced congestion in the west country seem to have been rejected.

I hope that this will be the first of many debates on the subject. The Leader of the House ducked the second part of my question last Thursday about further opportunities for parliamentary scrutiny. I hope that the Minister will assure us of her willingness to receive deputations from our constituencies on the subject matter of this important report. I do not wish to give an autobiography, but I can remember, when I was a Planning Minister, receiving deputations from Members of Parliament who had concerns about proposed changes to county structure plans. Those plans were much closer to the people than these regional monstrosities that we have now, and the public examination of them was much more thorough, albeit long-winded, than that of the regional spatial strategy. In those days, Ministers recognised that the most important stakeholders in local communities were the Members of Parliament elected by them.

We must balance the interests of a parish threatened with losing some of its green belt, people saying that they want more affordable housing for young people and firms that say that they need to expand and want larger areas in which to do so. We must bring a balanced and rational approach to that, which is why it is unforgivable that until now we, the MPs representing the west country, have been excluded from the process.

Order. I have the names of only two Members who wish to participate in the debate, and I intend to call them first. I intend also that the Liberal Democrat spokesman will start the winding-up speeches at 11.55 am. I am delighted to see so many Back Benchers here to participate in the debate, but it will be down to your discipline as to how many of your colleagues are called.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) on securing this debate. For once, we have a great deal in common, and I shall reiterate some of the important points that he made. I shall be fairly brief because, having had the general introduction, it is appropriate that I refer to specific constituency points.

I begin with a basic point about the report’s lack of democratic accountability. Like many other MPs, I asked to attend the examination in public. In fact, I requested that three times. I tried to get beyond the secretariat to the examination in public, but that person seemed to have all the power at their elbow. I could not get beyond them.

What concerns me particularly is that we frequently have statements from the Government that the green belt is safe, that it is Government policy not to encroach on it, but that of course local authorities might make adjustments. So where does an unelected regional body that is proposing massive changes to the green belt, regardless of what local councils and elected representatives might say, come into the equation?

I notice, for example, that the Government office for the south-west indicated that an approved green belt should be altered only in exceptional circumstances. The examination in public panel concluded that the scale of demand and the application of the principles of sustainable locations provide the exceptional circumstances to justify alterations to the green belt in the region. At what point can locally elected representatives challenge that conclusion?

There is a further conclusion that I find unsatisfactory. The strategic authority suggested that greenfield development in my area needs to be phased in to ensure that it does not prejudice the rate of development within the area, particularly the Poole regeneration area. That is a large brownfield site on which people would support the building of 2,000 dwellings, if they could be secured—it is proving to be difficult—a high proportion of which would be affordable housing. Development on that old power station site is supported by all. Surely that should be attended to before this development comes forth, but the panel’s view was that no evidence had been provided to demonstrate that there was a need for phasing.

Without phasing, how will our existing infrastructure cope? Any Members who have visited Dorset or attempted to travel through it will be aware that it is beautiful but that there is not even a tiny bit of motorway within it, that it has incredibly poor public transport and that it is difficult to travel westward in general. The county lacks infrastructure, yet the thrust of the report is build, build, build, everything will follow. I do not have confidence in that strategy.

I would like to mention the situation in east Dorset, to which the hon. Member for Christchurch also referred. Corfe Mullen is a large village in my constituency. It was proposed that the authorities working together should undertake a large development in the green belt. An interest group was formed, and it produced a massive petition. The parish council did not just go along with the interest group; as in West Parley, it did a detailed house-to-house survey on the right balance between building and tackling the serious local problem of the lack of affordable local accommodation for our young people. As soon as the results were in—the survey was very well done—they were presented to East Dorset district council. There was hard evidence from local people, and it is absolute nonsense, as the report suggests, to say that East Dorset had a change of political control. That is just one example of the many flaws in the report, and a very obvious one.

I want to refer particularly to the western extension, which is a location around a village called Lytchett Minster. It is true that, originally, the concept of a new town was explored. Natural England objected to that, and, for all sorts of reasons, the whole thing was thrown out. The south-east Dorset joint study area group commissioned a study to consider a reduced scale of development from a transport perspective. The study concluded that substantial highway infrastructure costs would be associated with the development. As a consequence, in evidence to the examination in public, Dorset county council, Purbeck district council, and Lytchett Minster and Upton town council all objected to any development in the area. Lytchett Matravers parish council would have been included, if it had been invited. There was no local support for any development in that green belt and flood plain area.

However, evidence was submitted on behalf of the developer. It is interesting that such evidence could be submitted, whereas I as an MP was told that my viewpoint would not be strategic enough. The person who appeared on behalf of the developer challenged the finding of the study commissioned by our local authorities and said that a development of that scale could be accommodated without the need for additional lanes on the A35. In due course, the examination in public supported an extra 2,750 dwellings.

At the start, Purbeck was asked to provide 2,100 extra dwellings. That has gone up to 5,150, which is an increase of 3,050 and half the increase for the whole of the Bournemouth-Poole conurbation. That is absolutely phenomenal. Purbeck has a wonderful world heritage coastline, it is in an area of outstanding beauty and it has an enormous proportion of heathland. Highly concentrated housing would be quite alien to the nature of the place.

I understand how the statistics might look from the outside. Purbeck has one of the highest ratios of house prices to earnings. Well, perhaps one should just build houses to bring house prices down. That may be the view from outside, but if one also considers the proportion of second homes, one begins to realise that building more and more houses and trying to build a way out of the situation is not the way to tackle the problem.

What is needed is a proper approach to providing affordable housing for local young people. It will involve working with local councils and communities. The right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) gave some examples of how we should tackle the problem at local level. We need to protect the quality of life.

At present, my constituency has a rich diversity of rural and urban areas. It is fascinating to see how the two sectors come together. They are dependent on one another, and it is a delight to live in the area. The proposals will turn it into one large urban sprawl, apart from the land on which Natural England would object to any development whatsoever.

I am struck by the similarities between the opposition in Dorset and the opposition to urban extension around Cheltenham, where all elected and community representatives opposed the extension and only planners and developers supported it. Does my hon. Friend agree that a possible explanation for the way in which extensions are happening is that they are simply more profitable for developers than urban regeneration, development in counties such as Cornwall that need and want more housing, or smaller developments around villages with shops and schools that are dying for lack of smaller-scale development?

I agree entirely, and think that we should return to that issue.

Finally, if the Government really believe in localism, let us have a local response.

I shall be brief as at least two more hon. Members wish to speak. I hope that I can secure a separate debate to discuss the impact on Gloucestershire of the regional spatial strategy, because I have many detailed points that are not appropriate now that I should like to make in another debate while the Minister considers the report.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) on securing a debate on this important subject. He tackled the issue as I would have hoped to myself, covering the nonsense of the Government’s policy of being elected on the ending of the predict and provide approach to housing. We all applauded that at the time, because it was a necessary policy. I am sorry that it has been ditched. He could have gone on to say that when the regional government concept was rejected in the north-east, it would have been sensible to reject it throughout the country. Instead, we have regional government by stealth, and there is no worse example than this issue to show what an inappropriate way that is of carrying on government. When things are done regionally, there is no feel for the position locally, so inappropriate recommendations are inevitably made—no more so than in Gloucestershire.

I take us back to last July. My hon. Friend said that he would not discuss flooding, but with your permission, Mr. Olner, I shall. My hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) was kind enough to visit Tewkesbury at that time, when he saw some of the devastation that the floods caused. Indeed, the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and several other Ministers from DEFRA and the Department for Communities and Local Government have been kind and generous with their time in the past six months. They have visited the area several times and are giving some money. We could do with a lot more, but does not everyone say that?

All that time, energy and interest will be wasted if we ignore the central problem in my area, which includes not only Tewkesbury but a wider part of Gloucestershire. We understand that we live in a flood risk area—two rivers converge at Tewkesbury, so there are bound to be problems—but there are still hundreds of people living in caravans in my constituency. It is six months since the main event, and those people are months away from being settled back into their homes. The question that bothers them more than anything else is whether lessons will be learned from the flooding. The DEFRA inquiry is going on and Sir Michael Pitt is carrying out an inquiry—I am meeting him tomorrow morning—and the main thing that my constituents would want me to say is, “For goodness’ sake, we know that we live in a flood risk area, but let’s not make things worse than they need to be.”

It will rain heavily again in the future; indeed, the rain has been quite heavy in the past few weeks. People in other areas of the country have probably suffered a little more than we have this time. We know that it will rain again and that the water table is high in my area. We also know that the building of thousands of houses in the past few years has made the matter worse, but the RSS, which was, unbelievably, submitted to the Minister at a time when we were frightened that flooding would recur in Gloucestershire, proposes thousands more houses in my constituency, some of which will be on fields that have flooded. The RSS is not site-specific, but those of us with local knowledge can guess where the houses are going to go. Some will be close to areas that flood and some will take up green fields that would otherwise soak up water, preventing it from going elsewhere and causing flooding. It is important that the people who frame such documents understand that if houses are built on fields that previously soaked up flood water, there is a question not only of whether those houses will be flooded, although that is obviously important, but whether they will cause other houses in the area to flood. That concept seems to pass conveniently by people who want to find places to put thousands of houses.

I have a home, as does everyone present, I expect. Everyone is entitled to a home, but do we really want to build houses and homes for which the owners are unlikely to get insurance, certainly against flooding, or are likely to have large excesses on their insurance policies if they do get them? It is not unusual nowadays to have a £20,000 excess, which effectively means that those people are not insured against flooding. Should houses be in areas where they might flood or cause other homes to flood, or should we take a more sensible approach, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch suggested in his opening remarks?

Finally, the report starts by stating that its central guiding feature is sustainability. I am not quite sure what that word means, and I am not sure that the report’s authors know what it means. I should like them to give an example of what is not sustainable. Is a house flooding sustainable? Is failing to get insurance sustainable? Is a lack of infrastructure sustainable? The report talks about Ashchurch railway station, which has twice recently had train services cut. It talks about the possible Parkway station and says that it should be built between Cheltenham and Gloucester, but the Government recently turned down funding for it. However, I do not think that they were wrong to do that at this point, as there needs to be an awful lot more thought on it. We do not have the necessary infrastructure or land that is safe from flooding, so will the Minister give us her idea of what is sustainable? The proposals in the RSS to build in large parts of Gloucestershire certainly would not be sustainable on any understanding that I have of the word.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) on securing the debate. I asked for one on exactly the same topic last week, so I was delighted when it came up. I shall, inevitably, raise a few local points, but some of the issues I raise will be of general interest, and I hope that the Minister will respond to a few of my points about procedure and going forward to the next stages of the process.

My constituency falls under South Gloucestershire unitary authority. The original RSS proposed an extra 23,000 houses over a 20-year period, and the panel came back with 30,800—an increase of one third. That takes South Gloucestershire to a very unwelcome second place in the rather dubious league table of all the unitary authorities and district councils. We are second only to Swindon. Our area has already had phenomenal growth in housing numbers with very little infrastructure to go with it. We are worried that the growth is simply unsustainable.

I shall try to give people a feel for what 30,000 houses will look like. Just as newspapers enjoy talking about a country the size of Wales, we have a local unit called a Bradley Stoke. Bradley Stoke is a large new town in our area, and a Bradley Stoke unit is about 7,500 houses. To give my constituents a feel for what is planned, it is four Bradley Stokes, or an extra Bradley Stoke, compared with the last plan. We are worried that we cannot cope with development on that scale. I do not dispute that we need more houses, including affordable houses—indeed, I have twice led debates in this Chamber on affordable housing in South Gloucestershire. This is not nimbyism. It is not about saying no to development but about saying that we need sustainable, manageable development and more affordable housing for local people.

The biggest change affecting my constituency is the extra 5,000 houses north of Yate. Yate town council made representations to the panel, but was not allowed to make oral representations. Even the developers asked for only 2,000 houses north of Yate, but the panel said, almost out of the blue, “No, we think there should be 5,000.” It is a regional strategy, not a site-specific local proposal. If the proposal in the original plan had been for 5,000 houses, there would have been a huge response locally, but now it appears to be too late for that. I hope that the Minister will clarify, first of all, what happens inside the Department between now and the Secretary of State giving her response? In other words, is now the best time for the people of Yate to feed in what they think, or should they wait for the Secretary of State to give her response and comment in the consultation period? Clearly, the sooner we feed comments in, the better. The people of Yate want to reopen the process of giving evidence to the panel, because they were denied the opportunity to do that. They had no idea that this was coming and it was a complete bolt from the blue.

What are the problems? First, transport infrastructure is a problem. The situation is laughable. The document, at paragraph 4.1.61, says of Yate that

“The settlement is also well linked to other parts of the conurbation by public transport.”

We have a rather poor and expensive bus service, and a train service that is so poor and unreliable that people drive from Yate to the north fringe of Bristol, so the idea that that is the basis for 5,000 more homes seems absolutely incredible.

What about health care for these people? The local hospital is actually being closed, on the basis of population projections that are out of date. What will happen there?

What about drainage? Downstream from Yate, we are already getting substantial flooding. Where is the evidence that this number, which really feels as if it has been plucked from the air, will not make things worse? The document says:

“A Strategic Sustainability Assessment was submitted as a supporting document. This document was submitted in relation to a proposal for 2,000 dwellings…but in our view there is considerably more scope for development and we propose a total of 5,000 dwellings.”

That is it. Where does that number of 5,000 come from? It has just been plucked from the air and thrust upon us. What I fear is that, when we come to planning applications two or three years down the track and the people of Yate say, “We don’t want this,” I will have to say, “It’s too late. The die is cast. Some panel you have never heard of in some hearing that you were not allowed to go to has decided, and that is it.” Where is the local accountability in that?

The key question is this: why is what is supposed to be a strategic regional assessment giving these very detailed local proposals and how do local people now have their say?

It is a pleasure to contribute briefly to this debate. It is an important debate for the south-west, particularly for Dorset, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) on securing it.

Bournemouth, Christchurch and east Dorset is now one of the largest conurbations—perhaps it is the largest—in the south-west, challenging the Bristol and Bath area. For some reason, Bournemouth has been selected as one of 21 key towns and cities across the country for development. Can the Minister explain why Bournemouth has been targeted and why its citizens did not get an opportunity to have a say on whether they wanted to be on that list of 21 key strategic towns and cities?

We have heard that there will be an increase of 48,000 houses or dwellings in east Dorset. We should place on the record that Dorset has already contributed hugely to an increase in housing. We have already done a massive amount and it is important to continue that point about the not-in-my-backyard consideration. Of course, we need houses, but the massive contribution that Bournemouth has already made means that we are all the more astonished by these increases in the targets.

I touched on floodplains. The report specifies north Bournemouth. As I said, I stood in those fields last weekend and they were under water; I had to wear my large wellies to make the point. Now we are seeing these pictures on television—in fact, we see them today—of other areas of Britain where building on floodplains has caused serious problems. I would hate to be here in three or four years’ time saying, “I told you so. This is exactly the reason why we should not be building.” I also found it ironic that an organisation based in Exeter can pinpoint so specifically where the housing developments should be in Bournemouth.

Infrastructure has been mentioned. I am astonished to read that the report is saying that the Hurn road links to an international airport, but there is no extra funding or supported funding for that road. Any development of what I would call a country bumpkin road would have to come from local funds, but there simply is not the money available locally for that. If we were to do any decent development, that is exactly the first infrastructure that we would like improved, along with the continuation of the Wessex way and indeed Castle lane, which is close to gridlock.

We are challenging the quality of life and having a social impact on Bournemouth, Christchurch and east Dorset. It will only get worse if we build on this level of density. Bournemouth is already committing more than 640 dwellings every single year. We have now been told to up that number by another 200. That is an astonishing number, when we have also heard that the north-east of England actually wants more dwellings. It does seem to be a disparity in the logic of a unified strategy for the housing requirement for the country as a whole.

I ask for a meeting with the Minister. I would be grateful for the opportunity to talk with her about the challenges that Bournemouth specifically faces. Because it is such a small unitary authority, we are simply running out of space where we can build the new dwellings that are required of us, so I plead for a few minutes of her time to put the grave concerns that the people of Bournemouth, Christchurch and east Dorset have. That is the key issue beyond any other. As I have said, the character of Bournemouth is being challenged and I would be grateful for her assistance in ensuring that it is not completely wrecked.

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) on giving us all the opportunity to raise this issue. He could have spoken on a much more narrowly drawn title—just on his constituency—because clearly there are specific concerns there. However, the number of people in the Chamber demonstrates the strength of feeling about this issue, although I am surprised that no Members from the Minister’s side feel strongly on it.

It is important to remember—it is a recurring theme—that what we are talking about is the housing strategy in the south-west region for the next 20 to 25 years and that this is a decision that is being taken by the regional assembly, which is about to be dissolved. We are at the stage where the draft has gone out, there has been an examination in public and we are now expecting a further consultation before the document is finally signed off.

Does my hon. Friend take into account that the people of south-east Cornwall want to have nothing whatsoever to do with any regional strategy that involves the area with Plymouth? They find it offensive that the report says:

“From what we heard at the EiP”—

the examination in public—

“we are of the view that both Torpoint and Saltash are part of the wider urban area.”

They are not, they never have been and they never will be.

As my hon. Friend makes clear, people feel that large numbers of communities are being lumped together and treated the same, whether or not they are being lumped together as part of a wider urban area. The people of north Cornwall feel pretty much the same and object to being lumped in with north Devon. They feel that their towns have specific identities and different needs and that they should be allowed to be treated differently, if that is what they wish, or have some kind of say over their own future.

Will the hon. Lady agree to allow the Isle of Wight to have a similar view?

The hon. Gentleman adds to the list.

A series of problems need to be identified and underlined. It is clear is that growth is not necessarily going where people want it and it seems to be entirely centrally dictated; it is a region, not a local area, making a decision about where growth points should be. Again, I am just thinking of an area, Truro and Falmouth, in my own constituency. There is a golden triangle that is relatively urban and it has been identified as a growth point. Within that same area, there are villages that are crying out for more affordable housing but there will be no opportunity for that housing because everything is being focused and it is easier to lump together 7,000 houses in one place than to allow communities to say, “We would like to be able to begin a negotiation process to enable us to have the housing that we need.”

Another concern that I have is about how effective the liaison will be with the Department for Transport, because the examples that I have seen raise significant concerns. In my constituency, there are plans for a significant number of houses in the Camborne, Pool and Redruth area, which I support. However, the regeneration company itself has said that it is necessary to improve a road link, or build a new one, to support that development. The Department for Communities and Local Government do not have a problem with that, but the Department for Transport’s approved model only considers congestion, journey time and safety, not jobs, employment and housing, which is the remit that the regeneration company has been asked to consider. On that basis, the Department for Transport has turned down that improved road link. Basically, the Department for Transport is saying that the building can go ahead, but people will have to wait until they see the congestion before the issue can be resolved. I worry that there is not sufficient co-operation between the different Departments and that that will be a wider theme emerging from this document, if that situation is not improved.

I also wonder whether the demographic issues have really been taken into account. Unlike the constituency of the hon. Member for Christchurch, Cornwall relies on migrant workers to sustain our economy. I do not see that as the driving force, but the fact that many people move to Cornwall to retire, and are not economically active, is an issue. I am not convinced that such specific considerations are taken into account in this document.

Another concern is the capacity of the building trade. I am not sure that there is sufficient capacity at a sub-regional level. Although representations are made from very large developers, development in many regional areas might be on a smaller scale. In my experience, there have been times when local developers have lacked the capacity to build on the scales that are required. While I welcome the development of more houses, I worry about the capacity to deliver on the scale that this document outlines.

I, too, want to talk about the scale of the proposed developments and whether we will see huge homogeneous blocks of new development attached to towns such as Taunton, rather than a more bottom-up approach with development across a number of communities. I accept that we need more social housing in my area. We also need more housing for people who are trying to get on the property ladder. However, if we build on the scale envisaged in the regional spatial strategy, I fear that the character of towns such as Taunton will be severely diminished.

People are justified in feeling concerned about the effect on the character of their community. The strategy is driven entirely from the top down rather than from the bottom up.

I have one final concern about the document. In what kind of negotiating position does it leave the local authority? The hon. Member for Tewkesbury said that one does not need to be a specialist to work out what specific sites will be earmarked for development given the numbers specified in the regional spatial strategy. In what negotiating position does that leave the builder, or the people who own the property? They know that the local authority will be absolutely desperate. I am worried that such a measure will drive up prices even further. It is taking away from local areas the ability to negotiate. In St. Agnes, the local authority has successfully negotiated with a landowner over an exception site, which means that it is dramatically increasing the proportion of affordable housing. That kind of local negotiation will be lost if this strategy details the areas earmarked for development.

The fundamental question concerns the legitimacy of this decision. The decision has been led by the regional assembly, which is not directly elected and is to be abolished. The assembly is setting planning policy for decades and then disappearing. The nearest public examination of the decision took place in Exeter, 100 miles from my constituency and considerably further for those living further west.

My concern is that the matter reflects my experiences with other regional organisations. When the south-west regional strategic health authority was set up, we spoke to a delegation of MPs about some of the promises that had been made by the Devon and Cornwall SHA. They said, “We cannot be accountable for any decisions made by predecessor organisations. Sorry about that. Our job is to deliver national policy in the regions and not to take representations back up the line.” My concern is that that is exactly what we are seeing here.

There is another fundamental question: where is the scrutiny process? How many real people are engaged in it? We have heard of specific examples that were ignored. Even if one takes on board the 14,000 representations, that is only a fraction of the regional population. There is a really big difference between consultation and participation, and I feel that this is consultation rather than participation. One just has to see the number of acronyms in the document to know that it is double Dutch to anyone not well versed in such issues. What will the parliamentary scrutiny process be? Today’s debate is led by Back-Bench demand and not in Government time. The regional Minister is not here. Parliamentary answers show that all he plans to do is make representations to the Secretary of State. When the regional assembly was abolished, we were told that we would have an opportunity to make such representations through regional Select Committees. Those are being abolished. Yet, interestingly, in the Planning Bill, the issue of regional accountability is being raised. The Minister for Local Government wants to see a super-Committee established so that cross-cutting Committees can scrutinise these national policy statements. Why is there no counter-balance to that in the regional strategy process? Surely we should be considering processes that are led by local demand. That would place local authorities in a much stronger position to negotiate with land owners. Surely there must be proper liaison with other Departments. There is no explicit demonstration that these communities will be sustainable—economically, socially or environmentally. We need to support existing rural communities rather than picking out urban conurbations and saying, “Let’s make them bigger.” That is the easier thing to do when one is looking at a map of the south-west zone.

Finally, if the Government continue to insist on parallel scrutiny at parliamentary level, it smacks of something that has not been properly thought through. From the point of view of my constituents, this whole process is more likely to alienate than engage them.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy). This is the first time that we have spoken together in a debate. I congratulate her on her new appointment. I thought that her speech was passionate and impressive. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) on securing this debate. I have seen him in various ministerial guises and have always found him immensely courteous and keen to listen to what local people have to say. He never needed a stakeholder or a panel of experts to tell him what to do. He had a great deal of common sense and listened to what local people wanted. We could do with more people like him in Government.

I feel enormous sympathy for the Minister for Housing who has sat there in splendid isolation. She has had a Parliamentary Private Secretary for company—he no doubt wishes that he had something better to do with his time—but no regional Minister. I am not entirely sure what the Minister for the South West does. [Hon. Members: “Not a lot.”] That is not entirely fair. This grand panjandrum clearly has a role. He appears to be a highly decorated postman. If one sends a letter to him, he passes it on to someone else. If one expresses a view, he asks someone else for the answer. When the hon. Gentleman comes to write his extensive memoirs, his time as Regional Minister for the South West will not make more than a footnote. I hope, however, that he will pay some attention to the region.

I turn to the independent panel’s reluctance to listen to elected politicians. That is entirely understandable because those folks are entirely unrepresentative. They are not elected by anyone, and, therefore by the nature of things, will find elected politicians intimidating. To see an elected politician would symbolise to those good folks exactly how much democratic legitimacy they lack.

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch talked about the simplistic approach of predict and provide and said that it had been replaced by an even more simplistic policy. We have some indication of that in the fact that the Government seem hellbent on increasing housing targets. “Let us build 23,000 homes,” they say; “No, let us make it 28,000. Let us build 38,000. No, let us go even higher.” One can almost imagine the brickies standing by their hobs: “Comrades, let us put up some more. Off we go.” Actually, they probably would not say “Comrades” but “Tovarishchi” because they almost certainly will be Polish plumbers and brickies. Let us meet this Government’s target. We know what their response has been. Last week, we heard that there has been a 5 per cent. drop in new house buildings. Another projection for this year is that it is going to drop even further. The Minister, with the help of her Parliamentary Private Secretary, might as well take her chair outside, stand it on the piece of land on the other side of Black Rod’s garden and command the Thames not to rise, because although she may increase the figures, nothing will happen unless people are prepared to build houses. There is complete detachment from the reality on the ground.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) spoke about the country bumpkin lane that is close to his local airport. The hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne spoke about the lack of infrastructure. We have representatives from a more local level who are very close to the people. The Launceston mayor, Mr. Eric Chapman, says that schools are absolutely bursting and it is difficult now to get an appointment with a health centre. He says that we would welcome houses provided that the infrastructure is provided at the same time, but unfortunately that is never the case.

Will the hon. Gentleman touch on my constituents’ concerns about larger-scale infrastructure, including proposals to step back from the original commitment to dual the A303 and the A358 between the Ilminster bypass and the M5, which is important for commerce and other travel in the south-west?

The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable and local point. The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East was making was that unless the infrastructure—the schools, hospitals and roads—is there, buying a house in the south-west will be a form of internal exile, because once people are there, they will not be able to leave, certainly not in a timely fashion. Surely the point is this. It is not that local people are nimbies, but they want to get something out of new development. They want to see something on the human scale. They want to ensure that children can be educated—that development will not mean increased class sizes. They want to feel sure that dentistry services and hospitals will be there, that jobs will be there and that places are not being provided for people merely to sleep and commute elsewhere or for people who are looking towards second homes.

The point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) about community land trusts was important. Let us consider the conurbations in the south-west. Clearly, there is a world of difference between Swindon and some of the villages in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch. Things such as community land trusts offer a possibility of providing exactly what that area wants, which is reasonable, low-cost housing that will not act artificially to put up the price of houses but will be there for local people. If ever an area cried out for that, surely it is the one we are discussing. My hon. Friend also made a very reasonable point about the disappearance of back gardens. This weekend, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds will do its annual count, and back gardens and the habitat that they represent are an increasingly important part of our ecosystem.

During the period of summer when the flooding occurred, my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) showed enormous local leadership and was extremely persuasive in the House about the plight of the people affected. I remember visiting his constituency. I particularly remember looking at the plight of local businesses that had been flooded not once but twice and three times and were finding it increasingly difficult to get insurance. I am not entirely sure that the most significant part of people’s income should be—I was about to say “floated” but then I realised that that would be an appalling thing to say—put into a house where there is the risk, within the normal lifespan of a building, of it being flooded two or three times, with a catastrophic effect. As my hon. Friend knows, six months or nine months is nothing when it comes to drying a house out. A degree of sense is needed.

I think that it is timely that I conclude now, because a number of very important points have been made on which I think that hon. Members will want to intervene on the Minister. Given that there is nobody on the Labour Benches to defend the right hon. Lady, I think that she should speak for herself.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles), who made an uncharacteristically short speech today. I hope that that does not suggest that he and his party do not have much to say on housing issues from their Front Bench, although I fear that that may be the case.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) on securing this debate on the regional spatial strategy. I have listened carefully to the points that he and other hon. Members have made. I, too, welcome the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy) to her post. This is the first opportunity that she and I have had to debate together. I congratulate her on being, I think, the only hon. Member today speaking for a south-west constituency who took the opportunity to welcome and support considerable house building development in her constituency. With respect, I point out to all the hon. Members who protested with some earnestness that they were not nimbys, that they then took the opportunity to expound in great detail their opposition to increased housing in their constituencies.

rose—

I cannot resist. I shall take hon. Members’ interventions in turn.

As the Minister knows, because I have said this to her in Select Committee and in the House more generally, I have supported more than 8,000 new houses in the Cheltenham urban area, as is reflected in the regional spatial strategy. What we object to is the continued imposition of even greater numbers spilling over into valued green spaces without appropriate consultation and with no democratic accountability.

I shall let each hon. Member speak and then I shall respond.

Yes, we are nimbys in South-East Cornwall. Plymouth is already in our backyard; we do not want it to take over our house.

I am grateful to the Minister for this novel format. May I echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood)? I acknowledged earlier that we badly need extra social housing and extra properties for people who are trying to get on the housing ladder. People come to talk to me about those issues all the time. Those houses are being built and my community by and large welcomes them, but we do not want something that is totally inhuman in scale, swamps Taunton and completely changes the character of the town while at the same time putting unreasonable pressure on amenities and services such as schools and hospitals.

I welcome the slight shift in emphasis by at least two hon. Members who started talking about the need for more housing. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Browne)—I was already planning to do this—for being, I think, the first hon. Member in this debate to talk about the needs of first-time buyers. He recognised that much of what we need to do across the country is to recognise not simply the need for more social housing and more shared-ownership housing, but the needs of first-time buyers trying to get on the housing ladder.

Let me deal with some of the points about the regional spatial strategy. The hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb) asked in particular about the process of the strategy. The purpose of the strategy is to set out the broad development strategy for a 20-year period. It considers how much housing is needed, general location, priorities for new infrastructure and economic development, environmental protection and the policy for reducing carbon emissions.

The starting point is with local councils, which need to work through the regional assembly to put together initial proposals, which then are drawn together by the regional assembly. Such proposals were submitted in draft to the Government on 24 April 2006. We have had the 12-week public consultation, which provided opportunities to put comments to an independent panel. The independent panel then held an examination in public between April and July 2007 to discuss and test the draft regional spatial strategy, and to take a range of evidence before considering its report. It submitted its report to the Government on 10 December 2007; it was published for information on 10 January 2008, and it contains recommendations to the Secretary of State on all aspects of the draft strategy.

In the present phase, the Secretary of State is to consider the panel’s report, but no decisions have yet been taken on it. Because of the nature of the process, it is not appropriate for me to comment on the detail of the regional spatial strategy, nor indeed to respond to particular points raised by hon. Members about their constituencies—Gloucester, Christchurch, Tewkesbury or South-East Cornwall and others in the area. It would not be appropriate for me to comment on the content of the regional spatial strategy overall, or proposals from individual areas. Indeed, so seriously do officials take the injunction that I should not comment on it that the first brief that I received from the Department on the subject contained no information about the regional spatial strategy for the south-west, so I sought additional briefing notes. However, the process needs to be gone through, because Ministers sometimes take quasi-judicial decisions.

The hon. Member for Northavon asked whether his constituents should be making representations at this stage. During the next stage of the process, the Secretary of State does not take additional representations, but will publish proposed changes to the panel’s report. We expect that to happen in the spring, after which there will be a 12-week public consultation. During that time, those interested in the content of the regional spatial strategy will have the opportunity to make their comments known on the proposed changes.

rose—

I shall give way to as many hon. Members as I can. If I may, I shall give way to all three and then respond.

I have been making submissions on the regional spatial strategy—this wretched document—for three years, since before I was first elected as a Member. I have endured days of consultation, and it does not seem to make a blind bit of difference. Despite more or less local unanimity against particular policies, the representations of local community and elected representatives never seem to make a difference to the document. Will there be a process in which we are not only consulted but have the opportunity to make changes?

The hon. Gentleman will know that I cannot comment on particular proposals. Equally, simply because a panel inspector does not agree with him does not mean that the inspector has not considered his views.

We all know that when consultation happens it is much better to influence people before they have decided rather than causing them to lose face by changing their mind. If the Secretary of State is thinking about her response now, why cannot my constituents feed in now in order to shape what she says? Once something is published, we would be sceptical about her ability to change it.

We have a clearly defined and transparent process, in order to make clear what the opportunities are for everyone—not only for MPs or individual constituents, but for everyone who chooses to do so—to make representations at different stages. The first stage is obviously being involved in the Assembly’s discussions, then making representations to the panel, and then making representations once the Secretary of State has published changes, because the Secretary of State first takes advice from the panel that has considered the Assembly’s report. That is how the process works.

Will the Minister clarify whether the Government will be making parliamentary time available to discuss the matter, whether the regional Minister will be making an input, and whether the regional Select Committee structure, or any successor should it not go ahead, has the opportunity to engage in the debate? Our concern is that no scrutiny procedure has been put in place.

The hon. Lady will be aware that Parliament has decided that the planning process should effectively culminate in quasi-judicial rather than parliamentary decisions on plans and planning decisions. That is how the process works.

Some hon. Members spoke of their difficulty in giving evidence to the panel as elected MPs. That is a concern, and I shall consider it further. The process currently means that discretion on who can give oral evidence lies with the chairman of the panel, but we need to consider that further in order to ensure that properly representative views are put forward.

Will the Minister answer the question about the role of the Minister for the South West in this process? Will she confirm that when we come to the next formal consultation period of 12 weeks, it will be not only on the recommended changes to the panel report but on the whole of the panel report as currently published?

The process is first that the Secretary of State will publish proposed changes in the spring. That will give people an opportunity to make their views known overall.

The regional Minister will play an important role in considering those broader areas—where housing should link with transport, where different approaches to health should link with education, and the various things that link together in the region. Related to that, the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood), asked whether he could meet me on the matter. It would not be appropriate at this stage in the process for me to discuss the regional spatial strategy as it affects his constituency. However, I am happy to discuss the wider issues of housing, infrastructure and the nature of the decisions being taken on his constituency.

There are some flaws in the document. For it to pinpoint an area of Bournemouth that is currently under water does not make sense. I would welcome the opportunity to explain to the Minister that people in Westminster cannot make decisions based on a document that contains such massive errors.

If I may beg your indulgence on another point, Miss Begg, housing numbers have been proposed but with no reference to an increase in infrastructure spending. The latter is crucial. Many areas would not mind extra development if it was matched with an influx of investment in the infrastructure.

As I said, there are obviously issues around the propriety of the process, so it is important that we respect that. I am happy to discuss specific issues of housing with the hon. Gentleman, but we need to respect the wider process. I would be happy to discuss the matter with the hon. Gentleman after the debate.

I wish to make two final points on the question of infrastructure and the wider issues that have been raised. As I said, I cannot comment today on the content of the regional spatial strategy or the overarching housing proposals for the south-west, but I can respond to some of the wider points made about housing that will impact on the rest of the country—for example, the need for more investment in infrastructure.

I strongly agree that we need more investment; indeed, the Department for Communities and Local Government is investing £1.7 billion in housing infrastructure over the next three years, but we believe that more is needed. That is precisely why we are legislating through the Planning Bill for local councils to be able to raise a community infrastructure levy, better to link housing with infrastructure. I hope that hon. Members on all sides will support those proposals, as they are particularly important.

It is important that the Minister answers the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope). Will we be able to comment on the entire report during the consultation, or only the changes proposed to it?

The hon. Gentleman will be able to put forward views to the Secretary of State on the proposed changes and the document that she publishes. He will be able to respond to the document set out by the Secretary of State at that time.

Hon. Members on all sides have spoken about the importance of the quality of life. I agree; it is hugely important. However, we also need to consider the quality of life for a 30-year-old who cannot live with his partner and his little baby because they cannot afford to buy a home together—the boomerang kids who are back living with their parents again because they cannot afford a home. We must also consider quality of life for overcrowded families, who also need more housing.

The debate is part of a wider discussion about the country’s future and our need for more housing. We should all take responsibility for the next generation, to ensure that they have the quality of life that we currently enjoy.

Thank you, Miss Begg. I am pleased to have the opportunity to consider a very serious and troubling case from my constituency.

Let me start by outlining what happened. In 2005, three men were stabbed—one fatally—and the man found guilty of the murder subsequently committed suicide in custody. That was a complete waste, and the family of the stabbed man want to ensure that lessons have been learned, so that no other family must face the loss and heartache that they have faced. Specifically, family members want to see changes in the way in which the police handle situations of escalating violence and in the interface between the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. They believe, with good reason, that their relative would still be alive if both those bodies had operated differently.

Time constraints will not allow me to cover the inadequacies, as the family see it, of the Independent Police Complaints Commission inquiry or the way in which the judicial system treats victims; suffice it to say that the family believe that they have not been well served in either case. Let me spend five minutes, however, outlining the background to the murder.

My constituent, Mr. Darrell Burrows, set up a haulage business with his brother, Clive Hoyland, in 1974. The business, which was based in Ravensthorpe in the constituency of the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Malik), flourished, and other members of the extended Burrows family, including Darrell’s son, David, joined the work force.

The family remember few, if any, problems before 2001, when Mr. Gavin Hogg rented a work space near the business. Within two years, however, the situation had changed dramatically, as the family’s firm, along with several others on the industrial estate, started to be subjected to a campaign of intimidation, damage and antisocial behaviour by Gavin Hogg.

Matters came to a head in April 2005, when the company gained planning permission for an extension to its premises. The proposed development enraged Mr. Hogg, and there were several incidents involving threats and intimidation, which culminated on 9 May, when he blocked access to the site with a JCB and a car. The police were called for the second time in a matter of weeks to deal with the situation and they believed that they had resolved the problems.

Later that day, however, Mr. Hogg told another neighbour on the estate that he intended to kill Darrell Burrows the next day and make it look like an accident, and that is exactly what he attempted. As Mr. Burrows arrived for work on 10 May, he was greeted by Mr. Hogg, who punched him in the face and pulled him from his car before dragging him across a works yard and down a set of steps to a canal, where he intended to drown him. By pure chance, however, Mr. Hogg, not Mr. Burrows, fell into the water, which allowed Mr. Burrows to make his escape.

According to police records, Mr. Burrows was left with a bruised and swollen right eye with a cut above it, four grazes and cuts to his right forearm, cuts and grazes to three fingers on his right hand, grazes to both knees, cuts to fingers on his left hand, bleeding around a fingernail and both elbows grazed and bleeding. As one can imagine, he feared for his life. His trousers and sweater were also in tatters, his watch was damaged and his car, which had careered off when he was dragged out of it, sustained £13,000 of damage.

Obviously, the police were called again, but the neighbour to whom Mr. Hogg had outlined his intention to kill Mr. Burrows had himself been subject to two years of intimidation by Hogg and refused to sign a statement without police protection, but that was refused. The investigating officer heard his account, however, and it was included in information provided to the CPS later that day.

Despite two years of police involvement in the case, despite the fact that the police database showed Hogg to be a violent man and that at least one independent witness had said that the attack was a premeditated attempt at murder, and despite the injuries sustained by Mr. Burrows—a man in his 60s—Mr. Hogg, who was in his 30s, was later charged with a section 39 common assault and with criminal damage to the car.

As can be imagined, the family were distraught at that turn of events, not least because Mr. Hogg was bailed to continue his threats and intimidation. A month later, on 10 June, Mr. Clive Hoyland had a long conversation with the police to discuss the deteriorating situation. He is adamant that the police officer whom he spoke to agreed to visit the site to talk to the other factory owners, but that officer did not arrive and later claimed that no such appointment had been made.

On 13 September, Hogg was found guilty in the magistrates court of the charges of common assault and criminal damage and was bailed for sentencing the following day. Later that day, however, he again stalked and intimidated Mr. Burrows, who made two telephone calls to the police in the evening to request help, because he believed that Mr. Hogg was breaking the conditions of his bail. Nothing happened.

The following morning, on Wednesday 14 September, Mr. Burrows attended a local police station, accompanied by a work colleague and his solicitor, to outline the intimidation that had taken place on the previous evening and to ask the police to act. His request was refused on the officer’s mistaken belief that Hogg had not broken the terms of his bail.

At lunch time that day, Hogg crashed his car into that of Mr. Burrows, which was parked outside the family’s premises. When Mr. Burrows and colleagues went outside to investigate, Mr. Hogg stabbed him, Clive Hoyland and Darrell’s son, David. David, a father of two, died soon after, and Mr. Hoyland, having missed death by half an inch according to the hospital consultant, was hospitalised for two weeks, while Mr. Burrows senior was hospitalised for a lesser period.

In essence, therefore, the situation worsened greatly over two years, and the police were involved on at least seven and, by some accounts, many more occasions. None the less, a man lost his life, and several families have been devastated.

Perhaps we should just accept that that is the way things worked out and that bad things happen in life. Psychiatric reports that were produced on Mr. Hogg at his trial suggested that he suffered either from a mixed personality disorder of some severity or a schizotypal disorder, and he had had a psychiatric assessment as early as 1992. He was paranoid and apparently suffered depression for many years, and professional reports variously described him as suffering from social phobia and as being a

“bomb waiting to go off”.

Well, the bomb went off on 14 September 2005, with devastating results for the Burrows family.

Family members believe that the events could have been avoided if a different course of action had been taken on any one of the many occasions on which they contacted the police to seek help. Specifically, they believe that, if the attempted murder of Darrell Burrows had been seen for what it was and treated as such, Mr. Hogg would not have been at liberty to kill David Burrows.

The family also believe that, if the police had been more persistent in working with the witness to Hogg’s premeditated threat to kill Mr. Burrows, there would have been sufficient evidence for the charge of attempted murder, instead of the derisory charge of common assault. Even a section 47 assault might have made bail less likely. The judge at Hogg’s subsequent trial, however, was quite clear that there had been an attempt to kill.

The family specifically believe that an unseemly rush to clear up matters—no doubt with one eye on the expectations of the public and the media—meant that there was a consistent tendency on the part of the police to underplay the seriousness of what was a steadily worsening situation. Several times, the IPCC reports uses the phrase

“the police were called and the matter was resolved”.

Well, the matter was not resolved.

The family also specifically believe that finding a series of individual officers guilty of various failings in their duty, as the IPCC report does, misses the point. There appears to be a systemic problem with the way in which the police operate in such situations, with each incident apparently being treated as though there was no context. As a result, its seriousness and significance are missed.

I shall refer at this point to the Peter Woodhams murder of January 2006, in the constituency of the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick). Exactly the same series of events seems to have happened, with the same response from the police force in question. That two officers were required to resign as a result of the inquiry misses the point, which is the apparent inability of the police system to intervene in such situations before a fatality takes place, despite many warning signs about the danger to the victim and the oft-stated view of the victim and his family that his life was under threat. Darrell Burrows told the police officer in the police station on the morning of the 14th—the morning of the murder—that if action were not taken, there would be a fatality.

I now want to deal with the involvement of the Crown Prosecution Service, which directed the police on the appropriate charges after the attempted murder of Darrell Burrows in May 2005. As we know, and as I have said, its advice was to proceed with charges of common assault and criminal damage. What hon. Members might not know is the process by which that decision and other such decisions are arrived at.

First, there was no face-to-face meeting between the police and the CPS representative, who sat in a call centre in the midlands and had information faxed and e-mailed to him. That is CPS Direct. That was then followed up by a telephone conversation between the police officer who completed the paperwork and the solicitor who acted for the CPS. However, the police officer who conducted that conversation was not the officer who investigated the crime and had not visited the scene or spoken to any of the other parties involved.

The CPS representative accepted that the case was one of premeditated violence against Mr. Burrows—that is apparent from the record sheet—but suggested a charge of common assault, in the face of an apparent refusal by the one witness to sign a statement to attest to premeditated attempted murder. Why was Hogg, I wonder, not bailed for further investigations, rather than being charged with two minor offences?

The CPS officer made his decision, as is again apparent from his record sheet, without reference to the full police files in the case. It is unclear whether he had police files on Mr. Hogg at his disposal either, although that also appears unlikely. As I said at the outset, the view of the family is that, if an appropriate charge had been brought at that juncture, Mr. Hogg would not have been at liberty to kill David.

What cannot be denied is the flawed nature of a system of long-distance liaison between the CPS, in the person of a solicitor who apparently had not obtained access to the full background details of the case, and a police officer who had to relay third-hand information given to him by the colleagues who had conducted the investigation.

As a result of what I have described, I have four or five questions for the Minister. The family believe that it is reasonable, in situations that develop over a period of time—in this case two years—and in which the police have several involvements, to expect the police to act proactively and not just to react to each incident in an atomised fashion. First, if the Minister agrees with the family about that, what changes can be made to police operations to encourage and support that approach? Secondly, has the pressure for results and for crimes to be cleared up reached the point at which, for both the police and the CPS, there is a tendency to downplay offences?

Let us remember a police officer was told by a credible business man that he was told by Hogg that he was going to kill Darrell Burrows. All the evidence was that he attempted to carry out that threat, but because the witness refused to make a written statement without some support that was dismissed as no longer relevant. Thirdly, should more efforts be made to secure a statement in such cases, as was suggested, again, by the trial judge in Hogg’s case?

Fourthly, does the need to clear up cases get in the way of overseeing matters, which might have led to a more proactive approach in this case and in the saving of the life of a quiet family man, killed in his prime? Fifthly, what responsibility do the police have for liaison with mental health services? Both services had been dealing with Mr. Hogg since 1990. Finally, the family want to know what changes have taken place in police and CPS operations since the deaths of David and of Peter Woodhams, to ensure that such things never happen again.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Mike Wood) on securing the debate, albeit on a tragic subject. As he said, the tragic case of David Burrows, who was murdered by Gavin Hogg on 14 September 2005, is precisely that—a tragedy—and I offer condolences to his family, two members of which, his father and uncle, were also injured by Mr. Hogg. I shall try to address the spirit of my hon. Friend’s questions at the end of my remarks.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for describing the circumstances of the events that led to the sad death of David Burrows and for raising concerns about the way in which matters were handled by West Yorkshire police and the Independent Police Complaints Commission. The IPCC gave instructions on 6 December about disciplinary sanctions and words of advice to be passed on to police officers, but I will ensure that both CPS West Yorkshire and the chief constable of West Yorkshire get a copy of our deliberations today, and will ask them firmly what lessons they have learned from the events described by my hon. Friend. I shall seek assurances that those lessons have been learned.

I shall briefly outline my understanding of the circumstances of the case. My hon. Friend has set them out in some detail and is right to say that there were several disputes between Hogg and the Burrows family, which had on a number of occasions been brought to the attention of the police. As I am sure my hon. Friend will appreciate, decisions on how to respond to matters that are reported to the police are operational ones, and are ultimately the responsibility of the chief officer of the force, who must decide how best to use the available resources in the interest of the community that the force serves. However, I take on, and will feed back into my deliberations with the police more generally, the notion of context and oversight, when things are duly reported. I think that that does happen, but sadly things go wrong, as happened in this case. In defence of the police more broadly, they try to contextualise. I do not think that I accept the point that pressure for results and clear-up gets in the way of due process and the effort to contextualise and ensure that any history of a complaint is taken into account. However, I shall pass on my hon. Friend’s comments.

My hon. Friend knows that David’s father was assaulted in May 2005 and the family certainly think that that was a catalyst for what tragically ensued four months later. He has detailed how Hogg was charged just with common assault. The family believe that that charge did not reflect the seriousness of the attack, and that the police were responsible for that fact. However, as my hon. Friend is aware, the decision on the charge to be brought was made by the reviewing Crown Prosecution Service lawyer. The CPS is responsible for deciding whether criminal charges should be brought and what they should be. It would not be proper for me to comment on the decision that was taken, but I shall try to ensure, as I have said, that the lessons of the case will be learned.

It was following the magistrates court hearing for that offence, on 13 September 2005, that Mr. Hogg was released on bail with a condition that he must not contact or communicate, directly or indirectly, with the Burrows family. Mr. Burrows Snr. became concerned that Mr. Hogg was breaching those bail conditions and seeking him out, as my hon. Friend has so graphically outlined. As my hon. Friend is aware, he contacted the police. On the first occasion, Mr. Burrows Snr. telephoned the police and discussed his concern with an operator. I understand that the tape recording of that call shows that he simply wanted a record of the incident. On the second occasion, which was also on the evening of 13 September, Mr. Burrows contacted the police and asked to be seen at home. As my hon. Friend suggested, in the event, that did not happen.

Mr. Burrows went to Batley police station the next morning—14 September—to express his concern about the events of the previous night. The help desk officer made some checks and concluded—my hon. Friend suggests that he was wrong—that Mr. Hogg had not breached the terms of his bail. Advised of that, Mr. Burrows left the police station and expressed concern at the perceived lack of action. My hon. Friend knows about and has explained subsequent events. Mr. Hogg went to the Burrows family place of business, fatally stabbed David and injured both Darrell Burrows and Clive Hoyland.

In addition to the murder investigation, West Yorkshire police were required, under the Police Reform Act 2002, to refer the matter to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, because the death followed contact with the police—my hon. Friend said that contact was made seven times. It was referred on 16 September 2005. Mr. Hoyland made a complaint to West Yorkshire police on 19 October 2005 about the events that led to his nephew’s death. As my hon. Friend is aware, the IPCC decided that a managed investigation should take place. It might be helpful if I explain what that means. Managed investigations are conducted by the police under the direction and control of the IPCC when an incident, complaint or allegation of misconduct is of such significance, and if it will probably be of such public concern, that it needs to be under IPCC direction and control, but does not need a full independent investigation.

I am not asking the Minister to comment on specific cases, but does he think it appropriate that the supervising IPCC investigator was not only an ex-police officer, but that he had only recently been a senior officer in the police force that was under investigation?

I think that it can be appropriate, but I accept the thrust of my hon. Friend’s point. Clearly, the family would have seen a potential conflict of interest, and their sensitivities might have been better accounted for. I do not think that such an arrangement is inappropriate, but I understand that it might have been difficult for people given how they might have perceived the situation.

As my hon. Friend said, the investigation was carried out by a detective sergeant from West Yorkshire professional standards under the supervision of a detective chief inspector from the same department. The senior investigator, who managed the investigation, had previously served with West Yorkshire police, as my hon. Friend said. Decisions to assign IPCC investigators are made by a regional director in conjunction with the IPCC commissioner and are based on the seriousness of an incident and the level of expertise and resources that are required to investigate a matter fully, but I take my hon. Friend’s point. The incident was considered to be serious enough to be allocated to the most senior and experienced IPCC investigator available. That is part of the balance that must be struck when choosing an individual to conduct an investigation. I think that the person chosen was appropriate, despite his background as a serving West Yorkshire officer.

I understand that no concerns were raised about the senior investigator throughout the lengthy period of the investigation, and that the Burrows family and my hon. Friend have said that they have no reason to dispute his integrity or the quality of his investigation. One of the Burrows family is a former police officer and was aware from the outset of the career history of the senior investigator, for whom he had worked directly some years previously. I understand that he confirmed that he had every confidence in the senior investigator. Indeed, the Burrows family and my hon. Friend have met the senior investigator and the IPCC commissioner to discuss their concerns.

My hon. Friend is aware that the investigation did not find that the conduct of any officer led directly or indirectly to David’s tragic murder. However, it recommended that a number of officers should receive words of advice or disciplinary sanctions in relation to the matter. As I said, the IPCC instructed West Yorkshire police to implement those disciplinary sanctions on 6 December 2006. That brought the process that emerged after the appalling tragedy of David’s murder to an end.

I appreciate my hon. Friend’s comments—he is more concerned to learn lessons than about the individual circumstances of the case or the consequences for the police officers or anyone else who was involved. Like the Canning Town incident, we should ensure that such events are not repeated. That is why I will arrange to forward Hansard and any other materials that my hon. Friend wishes to pass to me not only to the CPS and chief constable of West Yorkshire for their consideration, but to the commissioner of the IPCC to seek its assurances, which I will pass on to my hon. Friend. We need to ensure that if there are lessons to learn from this tragedy—I am sure that there are—they are learnt and fed back in to the police, CPS and IPCC, not only in West Yorkshire but throughout the country. If we cannot learn lessons of substance from such tragedies, we would be in a sorry position, so I shall certainly do that and let my hon. Friend know of any outcome from West Yorkshire CPS, the IPCC or the West Yorkshire chief constable.

Again, in the strangest way, given the nature of the tragedy, I congratulate my hon. Friend on drawing the matter to the attention of both me and the House.

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this issue. I offer commiserations to the Minister, because I am aware that this is the second time in a fortnight that he has had to come to Westminster Hall to talk about slurry.

I am receiving more letters on this subject than on international climate change.

I am not surprised. I, for my part, have not received a great dearth of letters from constituents affected. I am glad that those are getting through to the Minister, and hopefully the points that they raise will be understood and acted upon. Many farmers, and others interested in agriculture, have concerns about the effect of the proposed regulations and the result for many farms.

It would be invidious to read out every letter that I have received on this matter. However, I should mention that I spent a very useful hour or so, on the weekend before last, discussing the matter with one of my constituents, Mr. Phippen, of Court farm in Buckland, and a few of his colleagues from other farms whom he brought with him. I have also received very helpful letters from people such as Mr. Wellstead of Withy farm in Charlton Mackrell, Mr. Churchouse of Manor farm in Castle Cary, and Mr. Howe from Pen Sellwood. They all raised various points about the regulations that need to be addressed.

Those points fall into a number of categories: first, the rationale behind the proposals; secondly, the practical consequences, and thirdly, the cost of complying for working farms. The Minister will be aware that, in my constituency, dairy farming is the primary agricultural sector. We like to think that Somerset has some of the best dairy land in the country. Despite the predations of recent years, I still have a large number of dairy farmers in my constituency, who are very concerned about the consequences of the regulations for their farm businesses. I must also mention the pig sector, even though it is not so prevalent, because I used to breed pigs. As he knows, the pig sector has regular economic ups and downs, which will not be helped by the regulations.

I am sure that the Minister is familiar with the formula, which has been widely circulated among dairy farmers, for working out the consequences for their own farms. I have some figures provided by Mr. Griffin of New Barn farm on Godminster lane in Bruton, who has worked out the consequences for his farm. He milks 150 cows on 100 hectares of prime Somerset grassland; he will require 22 weeks of slurry storage capacity and will have a whole-farm manure-loading limit of 170 kg of nitrogen per hectare. Those 150 dairy cows provide an average yield of 8,000 litres and produce 99 kg of nitrogen per animal per year. He also has 20 heifers less than 12-months-old producing 28 kg per animal per year. The total amount of nitrogen produced by those animals is 12,440 kg per hectare. However, when calculated against a loading limit of 170 kg, his 100 hectares of land available for spreading allows for a total permitted manure capacity for the farm of 10,200 kg per hectare, which means that he is 2,240 kg per hectare over his limit.

That is very useful information from Mr. Griffin. Will the hon. Gentleman repeat the figure on the cap?

The total capacity is 10,200 kg per hectare, which is why we are left with the excess total of 2,240 kg. I do not want to over-state those particular figures, but they do illustrate the problem. What options are open to Mr. Griffin if he is to comply with the regulations? He could reduce the size of his herd by about 25 cows, but that is an unappetising prospect for any dairy farmer, given the lost milk revenue, which he estimates at £55,000; he could buy more land, but again that would be expensive and possibly impractical, or he could export his manure to another farm, although I cannot imagine that neighbouring farms will be desperate for excess manure given the overall situation. If the proposals are passed, they will pose a real conundrum on the running costs of such businesses.

I would accept quite a lot of control if I felt that it was having a lasting and beneficial effect on the environment. However, it is extremely difficult to believe that the proposals will result in benefits in any way commensurate with the cost to the industry, and some would argue that they will result in little benefit at all. I have always felt that, in years gone by, the principal cause of nitrate leachate in our watercourses was the overuse of commercial nitrate fertiliser. However, it is no longer overused, and, arguably, as a consequence, levels of nitrate in our watercourses have reduced markedly in some areas of the country. I realise that those figures are disputed, and I do not have access to all those available, but certainly in some parts of the country it is clear that there is either stasis or a reduction in nitrate levels. Certainly there is nothing to suggest that this very expensive and overburdensome regulation will have a desirable effect in anyway commensurate with the cost.

It could be argued that the practical consequences of what farmers will be required to do in order to meet the regulations will have a detrimental effect on the environment. Slurry is a natural product that provides the nutrients that the soil needs for growth. If it is not available, substitutes, such as artificial fertiliser, will be used, which I believe to be of more concern for the environment than the spreading of slurry. I find it difficult to understand the justification for the regulations. Will the Minister expand on that? Furthermore, why is it not possible to undesignate nitrate vulnerable zones? That is completely illogical. If the risk has passed, owing to action taken, and there is no longer a problem, processes should be in place for undesignating particular areas.

The closed periods for spreading will present practical difficulties for many working farmers. What determines when it is appropriate to spread slurry? Rainfall is a major factor: one does not want to go out and spread slurry when it is pouring down with rain, as it is in Somerset at the moment—we are under monsoon conditions. Let that be an illustration, because when would have been the best time to spread slurry in the fields in Somerset? Back in November and December it was unseasonably dry and we had a real opportunity then, but under the proposals it would have been the closed season. The open season for spreading would have started in mid-January. Ever since the date from which spreading would have been allowed, it has been teeming down with rain. Any farmer that spreads under those conditions would be doing no good to their land, it would all run off into the rivers—exactly where we do not want it—and it would be rank bad husbandry. Any farmer left with a need to spread slurry on land would not be able to do so, sensibly and reasonably, during the current spreading season.

The difficulty is that if there is a long period of wet weather, which there tends to be nowadays at certain times of the year—not the same times as we used to have them, presumably because of climate change—as soon as there is a dry day, every farmer in the area will need to spread the maximum amount of slurry to meet requirements, without having any choice in the matter. Again, that will be bad farming practice, probably over-dressing the fields in that brief period, and there will be a synchronicity that has not been properly assessed in its environmental effects. Every farmer will be spreading slurry on the same day, and apart from creating the most awful smell across Somerset and a large part of the western counties of Britain, which will not do a great deal for our tourist industry, it will presumably have a cumulative effect of run-off into watercourses. Again, there will be an unlooked-for anti-environmental disbenefit rather than a benefit.

Another weather problem is temperature. The proposals make no reference to it, but farmers take note of it in deciding when to spread nitrate—slurry or artificial fertiliser. A difference in temperature results in a difference in take-up by the growing crop or grass. Unnecessarily reducing the days available for spreading to days when the temperature is not optimum will again produce an agronomical and environmental disbenefit. That cannot be the purpose of the proposals.

Mrs. Caroline Gent of Brottens Lodge in Doulting wrote to me about the matter. I do not think that she farms, but she is concerned about the matter. She raised the issue of organics. The proposals show no understanding of organic farming and the particular constraints of organic farmers, yet the Government say that they want to promote that sector. The proposals will have a hugely detrimental effect on it.

Tenant farmers must be considered. Where will the capital come from for slurry storage for tenant farmers, who do not own their farms? Why should their landlords put in the necessary capital investment for something that will be of no benefit whatever to them? If tenant farmers cannot get that capital investment, how will they survive?

I was not going to mention cover crops, as they were dealt with in the debate the other day. They are not a particularly strong problem in my area, but, as the Minister knows, they are elsewhere. There certainly seems to be an inconsistent approach, which brings us back to ground cover and the environmental benefits that we want.

We know that Ireland, Denmark, Austria and the Netherlands have sought derogations. I am not clear about the Government’s position on that; perhaps the Minister can explain it.

Capital grants will not be available for investment in slurry stores, yet they will require huge capital investment. It is paradoxical and unhelpful that that coincides with the abolition of the agricultural buildings allowance. Many farmers in my part of the world look across the Bristol channel and say, “Why is it different in Wales? Why is it different in Scotland? Why do they have different regimes, which will give farmers in those areas a competitive advantage over English farmers in Somerset?” I noticed that in the debate the other day, there was a reference in Hansard to the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) talking about “deferential rates”. I think that it was intended to be “differential rates”, but I like the idea that we are deferring to the Welsh and Scots in the provision of grants.

There is the general matter of red tape. The compliance regulations pile yet more bureaucracy on farmers who could do without it. I had a real cri de coeur from my constituent Mr. Walford, of Upton Bridge farm in Long Sutton. I shall send his letter on, as it refers mainly to a different matter—it appears that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is telling him that he cannot shoot pigeons, contrary to any law that I am aware of. He started his letter:

“I can no longer put up with the continuous flow of paperwork from DEFRA without protesting in the most vigorous manner”,

which he then does in the course of the letter. He is right to do so.

I wish to give the Minister ample time to respond. I examined carefully his response to the debate two weeks ago, and it seemed that he was not entirely closing the door to further discussion and progress on some matters. He indicated that he was not entirely committed to the date of 6 April, for instance, which we had assumed was the date intended for implementation. There are so many question marks about the proposals, and so many implications for working farmers in the cost of slurry storage and the changes to working practices, that we need at least a postponement for further consideration and for the Minister to take account of the representations that he will have received from not only the industry but colleagues in the House, who have raised the matter with him many times. I hope that that will give him the opportunity to make changes. My preference would be to take away the proposal and accept that it is not necessary for achieving the Government’s objectives, but if he does think that it is necessary, he can improve the design of the regulations and make them much more friendly to our farmers. They have had a difficult few years—he knows that, and I know that. I do not want to make it even worse and lose yet more of our dairy farmers in Somerset.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this important debate, Miss Begg. The traditional but heartfelt congratulations are due to the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) on raising this important issue again. He referred to the debate in this Chamber on 8 January, and this debate gives me the opportunity to give further reflections.

I recognise the great importance of the matter to the agricultural sector and thank his constituents Mr. Phippen, Mr. Wellstead, Mr. Churchouse, Mr. Howe, Mr. Griffin and Mrs. Gent. I apologise if I have missed out any of them. I often find Adjournment debates that are based on the experience of constituents the most enlightening.

In my defence, I wish to state firmly for the record that the directive in discussion is a 1991 directive. The hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) was the Minister at the time and signed up to it. I do not wish to hide behind that, just to point it out in the interests of fairness. I hope that the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome, having mentioned his constituents by name, will respond to them with that information—perhaps with a copy of the debate.

My time is limited and I always think it best to answer the questions that have been raised, so may I say that the Government are committed to seeking a derogation from the prescribed limit? We are working on the submission, and I confirm my remarks in the previous debate about the date for implementation. I thank the hon. Gentleman again, but emphasise that the proposals before us are part of a consultation. It has obviously closed, and his debate is timely, as it raises several important issues behind the situation.

The principle of the polluter pays is one to which the hon. Gentleman and I adhere, and we are considering the practical implementation of the policy. Without rehearsing all the arguments to justify the directive, I shall put on record the general policy that agriculture is a significant contributor to the pollutants nitrate, ammonium, ammonia, nitrous oxide, methane, phosphorus and pathogens, some of which are greenhouse gases. For example, agriculture contributes about 60 per cent. of the nitrates, 25 per cent. of the phosphorus and between 25 and 50 per cent. of the pathogens that enter rivers in England, so those pollutants are of widespread concern to those of us—the hon. Gentleman is one—who care about the environment.

Less prominent in the debate is the cost to the water industry, which is also in DEFRA’s remit, and indeed in my ministerial portfolio. The cost for treating water to meet the drinking water requirements on nitrates during the period 2005 to 2010 is estimated to be £288 million in capital expenditure and £6 million in operating expenditure. I make that point to demonstrate to the House that there is a cost equation. My attitude is to focus on how best to implement the directive, and to consider the arguments that are put forward.

The nitrates directive is subject to enforcement by the European Commission, which is the third side of the triangle. In recognition of the need to minimise the environmental impacts to which I referred, we have developed a range of policies that cover the on-farm management of slurries. Some of those policies involve advice and support, others regulatory controls. An example of an important regulatory measure controlling the on-farm use of slurry is the directive itself, which requires that we establish an action programme within areas that we have identified as nitrate-vulnerable zones. The hon. Gentleman asked whether it was possible to de-designate, a question on which we have consulted, and his views will be taken into account when the Government respond to the consultation.

The action programme includes measures that aim to control the on-farm use of nitrogen-containing materials, including slurries, and it suggests a minimum storage capacity, for example. We reviewed the effectiveness of the action programme and found that it was ineffective at improving farming practices. It reduced nitrate loss nationally by between just 2 and 7 per cent. overall. If we compare our action programme with those in other member states, it is clear that we lag behind on implementation and on achieving the beneficial environmental outcomes that we seek.

We therefore developed proposals for a revised action programme, and they are subject to consultation. The consultation document was published in August 2007. As I have said, the consultation was genuine and it involved a well-informed debate, so my point about the amount of correspondence that I have received from Members in all parts of the House and from farmers is important.

The proposals in the consultation reflect the best view available at the time. They would bring us into line with the action being taken in other members states, but as I said in the debate on 8 January and must put on the record again, in other countries more stringent measures have been put in place. Nevertheless, the consultation, having closed on 13 December 2007, is being carefully considered.

In the other debate, the Minister quoted Finland, but I hope that he will accept that it is not an area entirely comparable to south-west England.

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his research and on his astuteness in noticing that I have missed out that paragraph of my brief. There were other examples, but in the interests of fair comparison and time, I have missed out Finland. However, I am making a general point, and I am speaking to the Commission as well as to the hon. Gentleman, if he will forgive me.

We are working with the Environment Agency to develop an integrated approach to regulation enforcement, recognising the point that the hon. Gentleman has made on behalf of his farming constituents. Aside from regulations, we are seeking other ways of encouraging the best use and management of slurries. For example, we are keen to promote innovative technologies, such as anaerobic digestion—the production of power from slurry. It is a renewable energy technology that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by capturing methane from the decomposition of organic materials, such as manures, slurries and other matter.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the finances, and £98 million, known as voluntary modulation money under axis 1 of the rural development programme for England, is dedicated to the livestock sector. I also know his argument’s three criteria: the rationale, the practical consequences and the costs.

Finally, the long-standing codes of good agricultural practice for water, air and soil include advice on the management and application of slurry. They have been promoted by Governments since the early 1990s, and they form the basis of many policies and initiatives that I have mentioned. The hon. Gentleman will know that the Government recently launched a consultation on revisions to the codes, including their consolidation in a single code, which I should have thought his constituents would greatly welcome.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He has marshalled his arguments and he has clearly consulted his constituents on the measure’s practical impact. There is another side to the equation, with which I know he and his party agree: the need to clean our watercourses. I am trying to walk a delicate balancing act by considering the cost-benefit relationship in the context of the directive, which has been around since 1991, and by putting our arguments on behalf of him and his constituents to the European Commission about how best in this country we can move forward.

With that, and with the undertaking that I shall phone the producer of “Farming Today” this very afternoon to try to interest him or her in reporting this debate, I thank you, Miss Begg, for overseeing the debate, and the hon. Gentleman for raising this important subject.

This is the first time that you have presided over a debate in which I have taken apart, Miss Begg, so it is an honour and a pleasure to serve under you. May I put on record my gratitude to Mr. Speaker for granting me this debate? It is about a subject that is close to the hearts of my constituents in East Cleveland, especially those in Loftus.

I should like to discuss a set of archaeological finds that were uncovered in the countryside of Street Houses near to the market town of Loftus. I will stress the importance of keeping those treasures on Teesside for my constituents. That would be of great benefit to local people, particularly schoolchildren, as a reminder of the distant past of the area in which they live.

The find was an Anglo-Saxon cemetery near the coast, outside Loftus. The dig was conducted by local archaeologist Steve Sherlock with help from the Teesside Archaeology Society and local volunteers. The discovery is regarded by all the archaeologists who have seen it as one of the most important discoveries in the old kingdom of Northumbria. To set the find in its historical context, it dates from the era after the departure of the Romans from Britain, which left our shores and internal borders defenceless. By 450 AD, the Anglo-Saxons had begun their invasion of the north, colonising all the land north of the Humber in the area they called Deira, which was probably an adaptation of a Celtic tribal region or kingdom. The invasion was led by the Saxon warrior, King Ida the Flamebearer, and spread further north up to the valleys of Tyne, Wear and Tees. That was the early foundation of what was to become the great kingdom of Northumbria.

Spectacular gold jewellery, weapons and items of clothing found at 109 grave sites are believed to be from around the 7th century. The value of the artefacts suggests that they belonged to a member of the Northumbrian royal family. The team’s first clues to the site’s existence came from an aerial photograph showing evidence of iron age activity, but they did not expect to find a royal Anglo-Saxon site, as they are usually found only in the south of England. Steve Sherlock has long worked in the area, and realised the significance of the site from its size. Excavation began in 2005, when 30 graves were found. Another 13 were found in 2006, including the most northerly example in this country of a Saxon bed burial.

Excavations in the summer of 2007 revealed the full extent of this nationally significant royal cemetery. The team eventually uncovered an area the size of half a football pitch. No human remains were found because of the acidic soil, but a range of high-status jewellery survived, as well as glass beads, pottery, iron knives, chatelaines and belt buckles. Five of the graves contained gold and silver brooches, and one grave had a seax—a type of Anglo-Saxon sword. The site included a low burial mound, which is considered an indicator of high status, and an unparalleled arrangement of graves. The graves were laid out with measured accuracy in a square around the bed burial, which shows the planning and order involved in creating this marvellous cemetery. The cemetery also features a Saxon grubenhaus—a building with a sunken floor that is found rarely in cemeteries—which may have been used as a mortuary.

Among the finds are three spectacular gold brooches, one of which has red garnet settings and is believed to be an unparalleled example of Anglo-Saxon jewellery. Its workmanship has been compared with finds in the Sutton Hoo royal cemetery. Steve Sherlock, who has extensive experience, believes that such an item must have been commissioned from the best craftsman in Anglo-Saxon England, and he firmly believes that it would have belonged to an Anglo-Saxon princess.

In addition to those spectacular finds, other items of particular interest and value were discovered, including a triangular gold pendant and two silver coins that would have been worn as pendants. The coins were from the iron age, from a tribe that was known to live in what is now Lincolnshire. Mr. Sherlock believes that there may be a connection between the grave and St. Hilda, the abbess who founded the famous abbey at Whitby in 675. He has dated the jewellery back to around that time, when most of Anglo-Saxon Northumbria had converted to Christianity. He speculates that the owner of the jewellery, the princess, and St. Hilda could have known each other.

Amazingly, the site became a double top for Steve Sherlock and the Tees archaeology team, as it was found also to have been a site of habitation in the iron age. Evidence of houses and flooring materials has been found, and a number of iron age artefacts were unearthed and recorded. The fact that both sites survived intact for nearly two millennia is unprecedented. It is amazing to think how much time has elapsed since the princess and other members of Northumbrian communities were buried in those graves. Over the centuries, the graves have survived great upheavals in the world. They provide us with a link to our history and tell us about the order of society in the dark ages. They also show us that those people, far from being remote from us, felt some of the same emotions that we do and had the same sense of curiosity about the world around them and their place in it.

Those are the reasons why my constituents want the discoveries to stay on Teesside, as close as possible to East Cleveland, especially Loftus. The objects are being kept by an independent organisation until their ownership can be determined by a court—in this case, a coroner’s inquest. After the inquest, the coroner will have to ask an independent panel of experts to place a value on the relevant objects. The people who decide such matters are usually academics, museum curators and antique dealers who buy and sell similar objects. I understand that the process is overseen by the British Museum, as an agent for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. When a price is set, the purchasing museums service, in this case Redcar and Cleveland, will have a set period of time to raise the money—usually about three months. The owner of the land on which the dig took place has said that he will make no claim on the artefacts, and that he would like them to be kept locally and safely.

The Kirkleatham museum, the nearest museum to the site, is more than suitable to house the collection. It has a fairly eclectic collection of approximately 100,000 objects with key themes including industrial heritage, rural life and social history. The museums service has worked closely with the Teesside Archaeology Society for many years. Together, they have found and collected many objects ranging from second world war aircraft remains to dinosaur fossils, and have made a great contribution to many fine exhibitions. They have skilled and dedicated curatorial and display staff, and I have every confidence that the artefacts would be safe if they were placed there.

Redcar and Cleveland borough council, which owns the museum, the Teesside Archaeology Society, Steve Sherlock and the landowner all support the artefacts being kept at Kirkleatham museum. They want the objects to be displayed locally for everyone to see, free of charge within a designated, secure exhibition area. The find has been described by the museum’s curator, Alan Pearce as potentially containing the most iconic objects the museum would have. He is already receiving inquiries from Germany, France, New Zealand and America about the finds. Their monetary value is currently unknown, but their acquisition, conservation, restoration, interpretation and exhibition may cost around £150,000 to £200,000.

Funding for all those aspects is important. One way that local museums gather treasure is by local people finding it literally in the ground. Since Devon appointed a finds liaison officer, reporting of finds has increased by 248 per cent. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if the funding of such people were discontinued, treasure such as that that he is trying to keep in his community would be lost to the community?

I certainly agree that the treasure is valuable, but I am sure that the Minister could respond more eloquently than me on the situation in Devon. I am making the case for my own area.

The exhibition would make a marvellous contribution to the attractions of the area and to its regeneration. It would obviously have to be done in partnership but, given the enthusiasm of the borough council in particular, I feel that the ambition could be realised. I hope that the DCMS will be sympathetic to the case for the retention of these artefacts at a local museum.

The bond between a specific area and the historical treasures that originate from it is strong in this case. I am sure that the Minister is well aware of the controversy over what are called the Lindisfarne gospels. As she will know, there is currently a tussle between the British Museum and the people in Tyne and Wear over the siting of the manuscripts. I want to avoid such a tussle occurring on Teesside, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend would concur with me on that. With her backing and that of her colleagues in the DCMS, we can be confident that these mementoes of a bygone age, which are important to the people in the rural part of my constituency in East Cleveland and especially Loftus, remain in Teesside at least. That would allow a whole generation of local people from the area of Northumbria downwards to enjoy what we have. I hope that I have sympathetic support from my right hon. Friend, because this is an important issue for my patch.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Like him, I am excited by the excavations near Loftus in his constituency and what we are finding through them. I believe that it was somebody in his constituency who rightly described the objects as iconic, and those that have been discovered at the site are fascinating and beautiful. They certainly play a key role in helping us understand and link ourselves to our identity, history and culture.

The fact that this site is the first royal burial ground from the period to have been discovered in the north of England is particularly exciting, and, as my hon. Friend said, the excavations give us an unprecedented insight into the lives of the Anglo-Saxons who ruled that part of the country in the 7th and 8th centuries.

I congratulate Mr. Steve Sherlock, whom my hon. Friend mentioned in his contribution. Mr. Sherlock is the archaeologist leading the excavations at Loftus with the support of the Tees archaeology team and local volunteers. They are doing a superb job in helping us better to know and understand a key part of our history. Mr. Sherlock and his team have been digging at the Loftus site for the past three summers, and I look forward with great anticipation to what they will find when they start unearthing the next phase in excavations this year. Who knows what they will find?

My understanding is that the reports that the archaeologists have compiled about their finds at the site so far have been verified by experts at the British Museum and, as my hon. Friend said, are now with the local coroner. The coroner’s inquest will make the formal ruling on whether the objects from Loftus are treasure, although there seems to be little doubt as to what the ruling is likely to be. Assuming that the objects are determined to be treasure, they will then go to the Treasure Valuation Committee, which is an independent panel of experts who will recommend a value for them to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. Once a value has been determined, museums will be given the chance to acquire the objects.

Like my hon. Friend, I look forward to seeing the objects from this burial site in a museum. I am thrilled by the thought of members of the public, young and old, being able to enjoy the beauty of the objects and learn about their history from them. I believe we all agree that a museum is the best home for objects such as these. A museum with the necessary facilities and expertise is the right place to ensure that objects are appropriately displayed and interpreted for the enjoyment of the public and for the education of our children, that they are preserved for future generations and that they are made accessible for any future academic research.

When the Treasure Act code of practice was originally drafted in 1996, the usual practice was to offer treasure finds to the appropriate national museum for acquisition before offering them to regional and local museums. Today, a much more collaborative approach is taken, and the national museums always act in close consultation with relevant local museums over acquisitions of treasure. Indeed, the British Museum, which, as my hon. Friend suggested, would be the most appropriate national museum to acquire the objects in this case, makes its position on acquisition absolutely clear. If he would like to see it, it is available on its website. The policy states:

“the Museum normally expects Treasure finds from England to be acquired by regional museums and, in general, will acquire Treasure finds either when those museums are unable to proceed with the acquisition or, in the case of finds of major significance, only with the support of the appropriate regional museum.”

My hon. Friend will see that the British Museum has confirmed that it has always been its understanding that the objects from the Loftus excavations would be acquired by a local museum, so I can assure him that the path will be entirely clear for a museum in Cleveland to acquire the objects.

I agree with my hon. Friend that Kirkleatham museum, which has already had some involvement in the excavation project at Loftus, would make an excellent home for the objects. The artefacts would be a notable addition to its extensive and diverse collections. They will help to show the significant part that the Anglo-Saxons played in the area’s rich history. As he will remember, the Treasure Act code of practice states that ex gratia rewards for treasure finds are not payable to archaeologists. In the case of the Loftus treasures, therefore, the acquiring museum will have to pay only the landowner’s reward. I note what my hon. Friend said about the landowner not seeking a monetary financial reward for the finds on his land, but, even were he to do so, the code of practice means that the acquiring museum has to pay only half the market value of the objects.

There is further good news for my hon. Friend about the sources of potential funding available should local museums have to find money to acquire the objects. For smaller items of treasure, grants are available from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and Victoria and Albert purchase grant funds, and from the Headley Trust. For the purchase of larger items of treasure, both the Art Fund and the Heritage Lottery Fund will consider applications for funding.

I hope that all that illustrates how well the UK’s treasure system works. Indeed, it is a system that is highly regarded internationally, as my hon. Friend will know. Our approach of encouraging finders to report items of treasure, having them independently valued and then paying both the finder and the landowner an equal reward means that more and more items of treasure are being declared each year. If I may give my hon. Friend some statistics, in the period from 1988 to 1997, under the old treasure trove system, 256 items of treasure trove were reported in total. Since 1997, and probably thanks to some of the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mark Fisher) when he held my post, and with the introduction of the Treasure Act 1996, from 1997 to 2007 a total of 4,180 items of treasure have been reported. In crude statistical terms, that is an increase of 1,500 per cent., so there has been a massive improvement.

I am interested in what the Minister says and I think that she is absolutely right to say it. When she comes to consider the future of the portable antiquities scheme, which I have no doubt she will be doing in the next few weeks, will she bear in mind this very interesting and important find? Although it was not found under the PAS but by a professional archaeologist, her statistics prove the PAS has done an enormous amount, so to limit the scheme in any way would be a very sad blow and make finds such as this much more difficult and much rarer.

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, which was similar to that from the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross). I will refer to the PAS later, but I think that we would all concur that it has been an extremely successful scheme and wish to retain the best elements of it.

By giving museums and, in particular, local museums the first opportunity to purchase items of treasure for their collections, we are also helping to ensure that the best of what is found locally is available for study and enjoyment locally. This really is a win-win situation. The finder and the landowner get rewarded for their efforts in bringing the treasure into the public domain, and the public benefit by being able to see and inspect these important relics from their community’s past.

Some people are concerned, however, that our past is a finite resource and that allowing metal detecting to continue unlicensed and unregulated will result in the unsustainable removal of our heritage. Indeed, I know that Channel 4’s “Time Team” website contains a rather gloomy prognosis—I do not know whether hon. Members have seen it on the website—that

“there are likely to be no metal finds at all in the first foot of Britain’s soil within 20 years.”

However, that assertion is not borne out by the facts. In 2006-07, the last financial year for which we have figures, the number of reported treasure items was 744, which was the highest figure for a single year ever. Indeed, it was up from 673 in the previous year, which again was a record figure at the time. Therefore, the data shows that, year on year since 1997, the number of reported finds has grown steadily. That does not give a picture of a resource that would appear in any way to be in terminal decline.

There is a vast amount that the objects buried beneath us can reveal about our past. In fact, I describe it as modern day fishing—without the water—to see all the individuals using their metal detectors in that way. However, we think that people should carry out metal detecting responsibly. That is why we have a code of practice for responsible metal detecting, which has been endorsed by all the stakeholders, including the museums, English Heritage, landowners’ associations and metal detecting groups.

If I may, I would like to commend David and Andrew Whelan, the father and son pair of metal detectorists who discovered the Harrogate hoard early last year. Those of us who are aware of that Viking hoard of coins and other treasures will know that it is the most significant find of its type to have been made in more than 150 years.

I cannot conclude a speech on the treasure system without also paying tribute to the excellent role that is played by the PAS. This scheme runs parallel to the treasure system and provides a network, as hon. Members have suggested, through which non-treasure material discovered by amateur archaeologists and other enthusiasts can be identified and recorded. The finder gets to find out more about her or his discovery; a bank of information is built up for the benefit of everyone through the publicly accessible database, and the finds can be displayed and interpreted for the benefit of the public.

The database that we now have covers more than 300,000 objects. It is available for everybody to use, free of charge, and anyone who wants to research the archaeology of their local area—or anyone else’s local area—can do just that. It does not matter whether someone is doing a postgraduate research degree at one of our top universities or a new entrant to secondary school in year 7 struggling with their homework; everyone has access to the same information. That is a really wonderful thing and represents a marvellous step forward in the democratisation of the study of our past.

The Minister paints a very rosy picture of the PAS. However, the reality is that funding for the scheme is likely to be frozen, which, in effect, is a cut. Considering the success of the scheme, will she make a very strong case to the Treasury for funding to be continued to the scheme at the rate of inflation, so that it can continue its good work?

I am proud of the settlement that we achieved within the DCMS in a very tight fiscal environment, when many other Departments faced rather swingeing cuts. Within that tight settlement, we must give flexibility to the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council to dispense its money in the way that it wants. We have ring-fenced the money for the renaissance in the regions budget and I believe that all hon. Members here think that that programme has done a fantastic job in building the capacity of our regional museums. If one looks at the data, it is those regional museums that have really opened up access to museums for people who, in the past, would probably never have gone over the threshold of a museum. Conserving and building on that hugely successful programme is very important.

The PAS does a good job. However, in the current environment, I suggest to the hon. Member that to pick out growth for this particular area is a little naive. We have done very well to get where we are. As with all other parts of Government, the PAS has to seek its efficiency savings. There is no organisation in the public voluntary sector that is funded by Government that does not have to go through that task, particularly making backroom savings out of their administrative budgets.

As I said, the PAS is funded by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, which recognises its national significance and it is committed, as the Government are, to seeing it thrive and evolve. Indeed, the council has said that, for 2008-09, it will commit to maintaining the current levels of support for the PAS. Given the position that the MLA itself is in, that is a very powerful recognition of the importance of the PAS in the MLA’s view, as indeed it is in the view of all of us.

The MLA has now announced that it will review the PAS over the coming months to look at how best the programme’s objectives—they are what we are interested in—can be delivered in the future and explore whether there are any potential synergies with the renaissance in the regions programme. We need to see whether that process can save some money and ensure that we can keep the scheme, as it operates on the ground at the front level, going. I think that that is good. I support the review—we will see what it comes out with—and I am extremely pleased that the British Museum has agreed to carry out this review in partnership with the MLA.

I am sure that all hon. Members will agree that the treasure system and the PAS are in rude good health. The Government believe that our policies of encouraging the voluntary reporting of archaeological finds, encouraging responsible metal detecting through a mixture of advice and inducement in the form of rewards and sanctions and penalties for irresponsible or inappropriate metal detecting strike the right balance between protecting our national heritage and allowing people’s legitimate interest and passion for our past to continue to flourish.

I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, South and East Cleveland on what is happening in his constituency and I wish him and his constituents well in enjoying the fruits of that particular archaeological excavation.

It being Two o’clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the sitting lapsed, without Question put.