May I take this opportunity to say what a privilege it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Gale? We have always had interesting and open debate under your stewardship and I am sure that we shall have the same today.

I am delighted that I am lucky enough to have the opportunity to raise the important issue of armed forces veterans. Service in the armed forces, while providing a rewarding career for many, often involves risk and injury, in training and on active service. Current engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan have proved very demanding for our soldiers, who have been deployed much more regularly than was planned.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way so early in his speech. I declare an interest as a member of the Royal British Legion. Five hundred years ago today, Henry VIII acceded to the throne on the death of his father, and one of the many products of his reign was what eventually became known as the military covenant—a common bond of identity and loyalty between a nation and those who serve in its armed forces. We have an excellent Minister for veterans here this morning. Does the hon. Gentleman believe, as I do, that although we have made a fair amount of progress on areas such as housing and employment for veterans who have left the armed forces—he mentioned Iraq and Afghanistan—a good deal remains to be done on mental health support for those who have suffered post-traumatic stress disorder in those two conflicts especially? We—

Order. Before we proceed any further, let me make it clear that I expect interventions to be interventions, not speeches.

Thank you, Mr. Gale. I also thank the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) for his early intervention. He will know from his membership of the Royal British Legion that it has produced a report on the covenant, which focused on mental health issues. I hope to return to that matter later.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman; he has brought an important matter to the House. In Hadleigh and Canvey Island, there are two excellent Royal British Legion clubs but, like RBL clubs throughout the country, they are suffering a general demise with the fall-off of members. I wonder whether the Minister could enable the Ministry of Defence to send letters to all veterans in each constituency, so that they could be invited to constituency British Legion clubs to meet Members of Parliament to see whether we can find a way to boost the RBL clubs themselves.

The Royal British Legion plays a very important part in the voluntary sector on veterans issues. I hope to return to that matter, too. We want to encourage people to come to and join the Royal British Legion and to meet Members of Parliament. I had that opportunity in my constituency when there was a threat to the British Legion home at Crosfield House in Rhayader. We met members of the local British Legion, and luckily we have secured the continuance of that facility in Rhayader, for the time being at least. The hon. Gentleman makes a valuable point about the British Legion and the voluntary sector.

Death and injury have been regular occurrences in recent times. Far too often, Prime Minister’s questions have started with the roll call of our soldiers, sailors and airmen who have made the ultimate sacrifice. However, many young men and women who have been injured in battle have been brought back alive to this country due to the enhanced medical facilities that are now available on the front line. Many of them have suffered grievous injuries whose effects will remain with them for the rest of their lives. Many will have suffered mental damage. That will sometimes exhibit itself early on in their lives, but sometimes later on as well.

The duty of the Government is to support our soldiers not only during the acute phase, but in the long term. The voluntary sector does a wonderful job in that respect, but the Government should not rely on the generosity of the public to cover their responsibilities and duties. I am grateful that the Minister has made himself available to reply on these issues today. Although he has been in his post for only just over six months, he is developing a reputation for being a good Minister on veterans issues. However, Government thinking on these matters is not properly joined up. Some of his colleagues in other Departments appear not to recognise the importance of veterans in society and the Government’s duty to support them. I refer to an article in The Independent on Monday 13 April, which described this Minister’s concern about the lack of consideration of veterans’ needs in the recent Department of Health strategy for mental health, “New Horizons”.

Since November 2007, NHS priority treatment has in theory been extended to include all veterans with an injury or illness related to their service in the armed forces. The Department of Health’s assertion that a consultation is taking place later this year and that all issues raised will be considered is simply not good enough. Armed forces veterans should be automatically considered for priority treatment. The Department of Health should not need a time-consuming consultation to establish that. I am grateful to the Minister for raising the issue with his ministerial colleagues and will be interested to hear what response he has received from the relevant Minister and the Secretary of State for Health. He will, I hope, have some positive things to say on the issues that my colleagues and I are raising.

The armed forces play a key role in the life of our nation and in furthering our national interest. Even when the public are not in full support of a particular action or conflict, their support for the armed forces remains high, as witnessed during the ongoing Iraq conflict. It is a shame that the high regard in which armed forces personnel and veterans are held by the public is not always reflected in the Government’s action and support. All too often, armed forces veterans are forgotten about when they have finished active duty and left the services. Often, those brave men and women have problems in finding employment, obtaining training, finding housing or obtaining health care. The support network for them is too limited, often leaving those most in need to slip between Departments and be forgotten.

I apologise to hon. Members: I have to attend a Committee sitting and will not be able to stay for the whole debate. Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) about the large number of people from the services who are in prison? According to the most recent reports, the figure is 8,500—10 per cent. of the prison population. Does the hon. Gentleman think that more could be done to divert service personnel away from the courts and give them the proper support that they require?

I hope to come on to the point raised by the hon. Gentleman. I know that his hon. Friend the Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) wanted to be present, but is unable to be here. He has spoken to me about these issues as well. I have had reports that veterans who find themselves in prison often come out of prison no better equipped to have a life in society than when they went in. That is a great shame and the Government should address it.

Of course, veterans come in all shapes and sizes and can be young or old, but does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that, with the increasing reliance on the use of members of the Territorial Army on operational service, all too often when those personnel return, they do not receive the same support that their regular counterparts do and that although improvements have been made in recent months, much, much more needs to be done?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that issue. Figures show that certainly GPs are not aware that special measures should be put in place to deal with mental health issues raised by reservists returning from what has probably been prolonged action for which they were not really prepared when they enlisted.

When servicemen and women leave the armed forces as a result of injury or planned retirement, it is important that they are fully prepared for civilian life. Many very young men and women who leave the Army or other forces early in their careers may have no experience of running their own homes, paying their utility bills or providing for themselves. Furthermore, some of those below the age of 25 will not be fully eligible for housing benefits, and I ask the Minister to consider whether they could have more support with such benefits than other young people so that they can establish themselves in civilian life.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way for what will be a rather shorter intervention, Mr. Gale. On housing, does he, like me, find moderately often that former military personnel have no special priority on local authority housing lists and that they have not been able to establish a longish period of residence in the area concerned? Should there not be a way of recognising their service at home and abroad by means of the points that they receive on the local housing list when they return to their home area?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the issue. As I understand it, that has been a problem, and it remains a problem to a certain extent now. As a result of representations that I have made, I understand that it may now be slightly easier for those leaving the forces to get on the housing list and that they may now be able to establish a link with an area through their family or as a result of the time they were stationed there.

The Royal British Legion has run an excellent campaign called “Honour the Covenant”, which has drawn attention to the gaps in health and welfare support for armed forces personnel and their families. The Government have a duty to provide lifelong support for those who have risked their lives for their country, but they have failed to do so in many key areas. Mental health is one area that is too often ignored.

Some 11,500 war pensions are entirely or partially related to a mental health condition. Although the Government have launched a two-year pilot on community mental health schemes, they have been slow to advertise those and other services that are aimed at the personnel who are most in need. In fact, a recent Royal British Legion survey discovered that of 500 GPs in England and Wales, 85 per cent. knew nothing about the reservists mental health project and 71 per cent. knew nothing about the MOD’s medical assessment programme. There are just six community mental health pilots, and it is not clear how much funding will be available to set up additional centres once they have finished or what support will be provided if and when such centres are established.

Another positive step that the Government have taken is to double the maximum award under the armed forces compensation scheme to £570,000 for the most serious injuries. I welcome the recent decision to award full compensation for each injury, which is a great improvement on the previous system. I welcome the Government’s changes to the system, which have put about £7.5 million into the pockets of injured service personnel. However, there are still problems that need to be resolved. First, the burden of proof has been shifted to claimants, when it should lie with the Secretary of State. Secondly, claims must be made within a five-year time limit, although there may be some exceptions. Although the majority of claims will be for significant physical injuries, which can be readily identified, other claims may be for mental health issues, which may take years to become apparent. That time limit should surely be lifted in all cases, regardless of the injury. What action is the MOD taking to ensure that all injuries are covered in future, not just those identified within a certain time frame? What advice and support is it giving serving personnel on the scheme’s requirements?

On health care, there should be a greater commitment to supporting the physical and mental health of service people and their families. We need to improve the handover of injured service personnel from the MOD to the care of the NHS. We also need to address the provision of family accommodation, which is currently for seven to 10 days. I recently spoke to the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association, which told me that it had successfully established family accommodation in a number of the units to which service personnel go for medical attention.

On mental health, there is a desperate need to increase the monitoring of psychological problems among personnel who have been deployed for 13 months or more in a three-year period; to undertake in-depth health surveillance for all service personnel; to provide voluntary health surveillance for families; and, perhaps most importantly, given the age group involved, to ensure that there is priority care for war pensioners, which has supposedly been Government policy since 1953.

Unfortunately, the death toll in Afghanistan has increased substantially in recent months, and more than 150 UK troops have lost their lives. There should be more support for bereaved service families. In particular, legal advice, representation and advocacy should be provided at public expense whenever an inquest takes place.

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Does he, like me, meet bereaved families who are deeply concerned about the fact that when they attend an inquest, from which they want to find the truth, the MOD is represented by an array of barristers, while they have no legal representation? Does he agree that that situation cannot continue?

The hon. Lady makes an important point, although perhaps the Minister would like to reply to her—he is probably in a better position to do so. However, what she says certainly reflects my experience.

Pensions are another issue on which more could be done to assist veterans. Royal British Legion research shows that the oldest ex-service personnel are often the poorest, with 75 per cent. of those aged 75 or over receiving an annual income of less than £10,000. That 75 per cent. represents 384,000 people, of whom 16 per cent. receive less than £5,000. Some 38 per cent. of veterans, spouses and widows or widowers are reported to receive below the minimum income for healthy living, which is just over £7,000 for a single person and just over £11,000 for a couple. Furthermore, 15 per cent. go without full central heating and 10 per cent. lack enough money to buy the necessary food. Injured servicemen and women often need additional heating before they reach pension age because of the nature of their disabilities. Has the Minister considered providing a heating allowance for war pensioners before they reach state pension age?

In partnership with Help the Aged and Age Concern, the Royal British Legion has called on the Government to rebrand council tax benefit as a council tax rebate, because they believe, and I agree, that that would lead to greater take-up of that facility. A stigma may be attached to council tax benefit: many armed forces veterans will be proud of what they did for their country while in the service, and claiming a benefit in later life may be a blow to that pride. Indeed, in his report on local government, Sir Michael Lyons suggested that

“the Government should address the perception problem around CTB by explicitly recognising it as a rebate, and re-naming it ‘Council Tax Rebate’, to reflect its unique place within the tax and welfare system.”

If that was done, and there was an increase in take-up, nearly 20,000 ex-service personnel would benefit and be taken out of poverty.

A major problem regarding armed forces veterans is the complete lack of data on those who are homeless, those who are seeking employment and even the number of those who are in prison. The hon. Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams) mentioned the number of ex-service personnel in prison, but I am not sure where he got the figures from. I understand that the Ministry of Justice has no dedicated national identification system for ex-servicemen held in custody and that it has conducted no research on the factors that result in veterans going to prison.

Those estimates came from the National Association of Probation Officers. The association also estimated that 3,500 ex-servicemen are on parole or serving community sentences, so there is probably a large number of ex-servicemen in the criminal justice system.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that explanation, but the point is that if we are to address the issues strategically we need good data not only on the people in prison, but on those who are homeless.

I apologise for missing the first part of the hon. Gentleman’s speech. As to the National Association of Probation Officers figures—whether the figure we are dealing with is 8,500 or 3,500—there is an interesting sub-set: the Government have no idea how many prisoners suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, alcoholism or drug abuse. Surely at least the Prison Service can tell us how many of all the known ex-military people in prison suffer from those things.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point, which is well made. We need the data on the issues in question to be well set out before we begin to formulate policies that will deal with them and bring improvements for veterans.

Saturday 27 June is armed forces day. Would not it be most fitting for the Government to make a series of announcements about steps that they are taking for armed forces personnel, both in service and ex-service, in the run-up to that date? That might include expanding the community mental health scheme, undertaking proper research on the data, carrying out research on the financial situations of former serving personnel and monitoring how veterans cope with civilian life.

I declare an interest as a trustee of Help for Heroes. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one area in which the Government can help is the transition from service to civilian life? Many of us were offered a variety of courses when we left, and it is right that those should exist, but there is something much subtler involved, because people are going from a very tight-knit family, where they have full support, to a cold world where often they do not. Many of the people coming to Members’ surgeries would, if they were helped earlier, never have got into debt, become homeless or, in some cases, got involved in criminality. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if more could be done at that crucial transition stage, we would cut out a lot of the problems?

The hon. Gentleman speaks from experience, not because he had any problems when he came out of the armed forces—although he ended up in this place, I suppose—but rather from dealing with other people, and he makes a good point. Certainly the transfer from military to civilian life is difficult for a number of individuals. I know of the good work done by the welfare officers in the Army, and indeed, by those outside the Army, who exist to give assistance.

I want to move on to consider the voluntary sector, which has a role to play after people leave the armed forces. The sector plays a major role in ensuring that individual veterans are supported in times of need. Hon. Members will be aware of many instances of fine work being done in their constituencies. In mine, ex-service personnel such as retired Lieutenant-Colonel Mike Lewis and retired Major Nick Paravicini are active with SSAFA in raising money locally to support voluntary caseworkers and in finding funds to help veterans who have fallen on hard times. Retired Lieutenant-Colonel Charlie Nutting is a driving force in the Army Benevolent Fund, which raises substantial amounts of money. The British Legion is a major fundraiser, which can often supply the resources that are needed in the most difficult times, and retired Captain Jonathan Morgan has done sterling work with the Combat Stress organisation, which is particularly supportive of veterans with mental health difficulties. The hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Benyon) has already mentioned one of the newer organisations, Help for Heroes, which has raised a substantial amount of money as well.

Such people lead organisations, but they are well supported by other volunteers from both military and civilian backgrounds. The Government would do well to reflect on how much of their responsibility is shouldered by those voluntary bodies. However, I am told that locally the Government’s response is improving.

My purpose in securing the debate today is to encourage the Government to do even more for veterans of all the armed forces and give confidence that our veterans have the security of Government support in the times ahead.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams), who has outlined many of the concerns that veterans have, and that hon. Members have on their behalf.

Last year, after the successful national veterans day celebrations in Blackpool, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden) and I set up the all-party group on veterans, so that there would be a focus in this place for debating of veterans’ issues and for exploring how we can take forward such concerns as the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire outlined in his speech.

I shall begin by being positive: we set up the all-party group because of the success of veterans day, when we had a focus for celebration of the role of veterans. Because Blackpool won the privilege of hosting the national event, we had not just one day but several weeks of celebrations, including a week of concentrated celebrations in which we involved young people. Schoolchildren as well as veterans got involved, as did people from across the community. We all respect the work that our armed forces personnel do on our behalf: they risk their lives. We must remind people—young and old and in all sections of the community—of that essential work and of society’s responsibility to ensure that individuals who leave the armed forces, for whatever reason, are properly looked after in the community.

The veterans day celebrations in Blackpool were a huge success, and were attended by the Duchess of Cornwall and the Minister’s predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg), whom I congratulate on the work that he did as veterans Minister in raising the profile of veterans. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Minister who is present today is continuing that good work and is a champion of veterans.

I congratulate the hon. Lady on Blackpool’s national veterans day celebrations. In Castle Point more than 500 people attended the veterans day event, which was a great success. This year there will be a veterans day event on Canvey island, run by Canvey Island town council and me, which we expect will be attended by the Gurkhas, as well as Chelsea pensioners. Will the hon. Lady be mentioning residency rights for Gurkhas, and policy changes that the Government can make to help them?

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the Gurkhas. It is a great pleasure, in Blackpool, to attend various events organised by veterans and local associations, not least of which is the Burma Star Association, which has held its annual event in Blackpool for the past several years. Sadly, last year’s event was the last one, because of the age of veterans. Each year they invited Gurkha representatives to the celebrations, so I have had the immense privilege each year of speaking to those men and their wives and children. They have concerns about their pension rights and their right to settle in this country, and I shall be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about that. However, I know that the Government have made available rights for post-1999 Gurkhas, and we must acknowledge their good work on that.

I meet not only Burma Star veterans but representatives of other veterans groups in my constituency, including the King’s Own Royal Border Regiment. Retired members regularly contact me and they are a wonderful, lively bunch of people; their regiment has changed over the years and been amalgamated two or three times, but they still take an interest in what is happening to it now. A problem for the Minister is the one that was outlined by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire when he introduced the debate: how the Government keep track of veterans. There are organisations for retired members of certain regiments and organisations.

However, we should remember that not all veterans served in the second world war or—those few who are still alive—in the first world war. We have many younger veterans. The hon. Gentleman outlined some of the problems that they face when leaving the armed forces. They sometimes become involved in criminality, and they can suffer stress-related illnesses and have mental health problems. Indeed, a survey conducted by Manchester university, published last month, found that young men who had served in the armed forces were as much as three times more likely to take their own lives than their civilian counterparts. Clearly there are ongoing pressures on those who leave the armed forces. A balance is needed.

The House is constantly debating the surveillance society and how much the Government are keeping an eye on us—the big brother attitude. The Minister has a difficulty. He does not, I assume, want to be too overbearing in demanding to know where everybody is who has served in the armed forces, but if he wants to maintain a duty of care for those individuals he will need some sort of device to know where they are, or at least to know if they appear in prison or in hospital and then to deal with the problem.

The hon. Lady makes an extremely important point. Does she agree that it is also our responsibility—or our locality’s responsibility—to take control of some of that data? We should encourage organisations such as community mental health teams, citizens advice bureaux, social services and local authorities to ask whether people are veterans or have served in the armed forces in recent years, as that may bring a different dimension to the problem, their time serving on military operations possibly being its root cause. Does she agree that much could be done locally in encouraging organisations in our constituencies to be conscious of the needs of veterans when recording information, as they make their initial approach to people who may be in a vulnerable state?

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I see it as a way forward. The Government are introducing personalised health and social care; in the latter case, personalisation is about getting to know the individual for whom the care is provided, and discussing their needs and problems instead of saying, “We are going to provide X for you. You are going to fit into this round hole even though you would fit better in a square hole.”

Personalisation is the key. It involves social care staff, doctors, nurses and anyone within the health and social care continuum; they should find out much more about the individual and particularly whether the person is a veteran or a carer. People sometimes present a doctor with stress-related illnesses because they have caring responsibilities at home, but the doctor will not be able to cure the illness if he deals only with the immediate symptoms; he must look beyond the symptoms to the cause. That means asking the right questions. One of the questions should be, “Have you served in the armed forces? How does that affect you?” That could and should be a way forward.

I hope that the Minister, as a champion of the veteran, will consider that matter. People leaving the armed forces should be advised of the many organisations that are there to help, a point raised earlier by the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Benyon). We heard earlier about the Royal British Legion, which is an excellent organisation, but there are many others, especially the new ones that are there to help the younger men and women now leaving the armed forces. Those people need to be aware of the support and help that are available when they leave the forces, and we must ensure that that is followed up.

Before speaking about the military covenant, I turn to the local Royal British Legion. The Blackpool and the Thornton Cleveleys branches do amazingly good work for veterans, supporting them and offering advice on war pensions and benefits in general, and raising money each year in the poppy appeal. My hon. Friend the Minister may not be aware of the fact, but the Blackpool branch holds a poppython, a day of events in which individuals performing in the many shows in Blackpool are invited to put on free performances; they are always packed and they raise tens of thousands of pounds for the poppy appeal. A lot of really good work is taking place in towns throughout the country.

The Royal British Legion has made some comments on the military covenant. I shall not repeat the concerns already expressed about health, housing and social care. We are well aware of them, and improvements are being made, although more needs to be done. I pick up on the point made by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire about bereaved families. We must remember not only those who die when serving in our armed forces, but the families who have lost their loved ones. They, too, need to be in our thoughts. They, too, need our support.

Many members of our armed forces lose their lives in peacetime. It does not happen only in active conflict. They can lose their lives in road traffic accidents or in barracks, sometimes by committing suicide, but sometimes in more murky circumstances. I have met the families of the four young trainees who lost their lives at Deepcut barracks; those families still want answers about what happened to their loved ones and how they could have died in such circumstances.

We should ensure that boards of inquiry are thorough in their investigations. Coroners inquests should give the families the answers that they so desperately need. If the families are not legally represented at such hearings, they may feel that the Ministry of Defence will outweigh them in the argument. We all know that inquests are inquisitorial, not adversarial. Nevertheless, it would help the coroner if the families had legal representation; it would mean that the right questions were asked, and that the families got the answers they deserved. The military covenant addresses the question of how to deal with bereaved families. I have said this to the Minister on many occasions, and I am sure that he will think of a reply, but it is a serious question.

Is the hon. Lady aware that, during our recent consideration of the Coroners and Justice Bill, although the Government did not accept amendments to introduce automatic support for families at inquests, they said that it was an interesting idea and gave tacit encouragement to the other place to consider enabling the coroner to allow barristers for the families as well as for the Government on an automatic or possibly discretionary basis?

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. He and I both raised the issue of funding for bereaved families on the Second Reading of the Coroners and Justice Bill. I know that the Ministry of Justice was well aware of that. The Bill also introduced a charter for bereaved families, a welcome development. In some instances, bereaved families of service personnel can get legal aid and representation, but it is extremely difficult because of the usual financial tests. In exceptional circumstances, families can get legal aid and representation, but sadly too few manage it. We must not forget bereaved families when debating veterans and the military covenant, and I am pleased that many such families take part in Remembrance day processions. They come together so that local communities can see that they still care, even though their family members can no longer march in the processions themselves.

Finally, on a point that I have raised with the Minister before, the names of some individuals who died in non-combat circumstances are included in the roll of honour and national memorial, but others are not. The memorial is not managed directly by the Government, but nevertheless I hope that he will take into account the concerns of the families of some of the individuals whose names are not included.

Once more, I congratulate the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire on securing this debate and raising many important issues. We have taken steps forward, but sometimes the process seems achingly slow. However, we are moving in the right direction, and it is important that we, as Members of Parliament representing our constituents, continue to press the Government to keep moving forward.

I apologise, Mr. Gale, to you and the Chamber, for arriving slightly after the beginning of this extremely important debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) on securing it, and the hon. Member for Blackpool, South—

North!

I beg her pardon. I meant the hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble). Blackpool is such a wonderful place throughout, and I differentiate not between the two parts. However, she made some very good points.

Wiltshire is home to half the British Army, and I am very glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) will speak on behalf of the Conservative party. His constituency is home to a large part of the infantry, whereas North Wiltshire tends to have the RAF, logistics corps and a large number of retired officers and other ranks. We speak, therefore, with much local knowledge. I also speak as chairman of the all-party group on the Army and as a patron of Mutual Support, which is the multiple sclerosis support group for military veterans.

I hope that the Chamber will forgive me if I make two or three rather disparate points, some of them a little more technical than others. If the Minister cannot answer them today, perhaps he will kindly do so later. This debate gives us an opportunity to thank, celebrate and salute our armed services and veterans. The latter of course include those who have left only very recently and who have served in theatres of war. However, it also gives us the chance to consider welfare issues that have been raised very well already. The debate consists of those two halves. I hope that the Chamber will forgive me for congratulating in particular my own constituency and the good people of Wootton Bassett, who turn out in vast numbers—most recently, 5,000 of them—to pay tribute to the returning bodies brought back through RAF Lyneham. That little token of support has been taken up elsewhere and is a beacon for the rest of the nation.

On one small detail, however, a number of people have asked whether the high street in Wootton Bassett should be renamed. The awful title, “Highway for Heroes”, has been suggested. The people of Wootton Bassett, and members of the armed services to whom I have spoken, are totally and utterly opposed to any such tokenism. They turn up, from their homes and workplaces, to pay their respects to the bodies and then slip away again, and they simply do not want such tokenistic support for, or recognition of, what they do. The people of Wootton Basset, and, as I said, all the armed services, as far as I am aware, are wholly opposed to that suggestion. The editor of The Sun, who is campaigning for the change, might take note of the fact that it would not be the right thing to do.

There is talk of returning the magnificent and beautiful war memorial at Camp Bastion to the UK when the camp finally closes. The memorial is a stone picked up in the desert, topped with a cross made of spent cartridges from machine guns. It is a superb war memorial, and there has been some discussion about where it might go in the UK. Given that it carries the names of those whose bodies have been carried through Wootton Bassett, the high street might be a suitable location, in the long term. That might be a way of recognising the town’s mark of respect.

The all-party Army group has welcomed back brigades from Iraq, up till now, and Afghanistan from now onwards. That very visible thank you to our armed services does wonders for our veterans. Sometimes, I think that they sit at home wondering whether anyone recognises what they have done. The fact that Parliament is saying publicly that we thank and welcome back our troops from theatres of war sends an important message to veterans. All those things are extremely useful.

The hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood used the expression “champion for veterans”. I do not know whether the Minister, who will be speaking in a few moments, is that champion, but I hope so, because we need one. We must praise and thank those who have given so much of their lives to the defence of the nation.

I shall deal with the two or three detailed matters. The first touches on the very good point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. Benyon). The Territorial Army tends to draw people from around the nation into one TA centre, so when they come back from deployment and become veterans, they no longer have a tight-knit regimental family—they might have such a family with a regiment located in their geographical area. I hope that the announcement due later today on the review of the reserve forces will consider how TA veterans are looked after and how we can make good use of the TA.

Gurkhas have been mentioned. I have many Gurkhas in my constituency and I have some sympathy with those who have called for all Gurkhas who have served anywhere, any time, to be given rights of residence in the UK. However, I also have some doubts, because pre-1997, most Gurkhas were deployed in Hong Kong and so have no possible connection with the UK. I am not certain that it is right that any Gurkha who has ever served in the British Army should be allowed to come to the UK. A very good friend of mine, Mitra Pariyar, is researching at Oxford university—the first Dalit, or “untouchable”, from Nepal to study at Oxford—how Gurkha veterans survive in the UK. Veteran private soldiers’ pay does not go all that far in the UK, but it does go a very long way in Nepal. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Milton Keynes (Mr. Lancaster) and I observed during a recent visit to Nepal that to a significant degree those who run the country and its economy are ex-Gurkhas. I am not certain, therefore, that we want all Gurkhas who served in the British Army to come and live for all time here in the UK. I look forward to the outcome of the current research in Oxford.

I think that I am the only Member to have served in the Brigade of Gurkhas—I did so twice in fact—and my concerns run even deeper than those of my hon. Friend. He is right that there should be a degree of equality for service personnel, but I am more concerned about the future of the Brigade of Gurkhas. We face decisions about, for example, whether to cut the local regiment in the constituency of the hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble), and we will probably face cuts to the TA later today. I fear that the future of the Brigade of Gurkhas has been damaged by some recent decisions.

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point about the future of the Gurkhas. We need to be very careful about that.

I shall continue my slightly disparate list of things on which I would like the Government to do more. I recently became involved with the excellent Wiltshire branch of the Royal British Legion, which was campaigning very hard, standing outside supermarkets in my constituency collecting funds to enable D-day veterans to return to the beaches for the 65th anniversary. It was a sad sight in many ways, although in others quite an inspiring one: to see these great old boys standing outside Sainsbury’s saying, “We don’t care if the Government aren’t going to pay for our return on D-day. We will raise the money ourselves.” I salute them for doing so. I am glad that the Government—or at least the lottery—have listened to reason and are now funding the 65th anniversary of the D-day landings and paying for veterans to return to the site of one of their greatest triumphs, but it is disappointing that it took enormous television and media pressure before the Government gave in. Surely to goodness, if we are to respect and care for our veterans, one of the most basic fundamentals is to pay for them to return to the scenes of their triumph. I hope that the Government will listen more sympathetically to similar requests in the future.

In my own constituency, broken families from the armed services often land up in the outstandingly good Cotswold family centre, which is a little known organisation. It is a problem when a soldier abandons his family, because the family is living in military quarters. I am afraid that the MOD takes a hard-nosed attitude, and evicts the family quite quickly. Where does that family then go? It has no local connection. Many families end up in the Cotswold family centre in Corsham. Over the years, there has been talk of closing the centre. I very much hope that the Government will not cast their cutting eyes over it either now or in future, because it carries out outstanding work for families and veterans at some of the more difficult times in their lives.

Finally, I would like to touch on the question that was raised by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire about how our veterans—or some of our veterans—tend to end up in the lowest part of our society. The National Association of Probation Officers has come up with some figures, which the Government may call questionable. The association says that 8,500 ex-service personnel are in prison. I do not know if that is correct; the number may be lower. I am interested to know how many ex-servicemen are in prison. It would be fairly questionable if the Government were to turn round and say that they do not know. The armed services are the only ones who have the numbers. We know all about every single armed service person, so surely we can find out how many of them are in prison. If we cannot do so, it says an awful lot, both about our veterans system and about our prison system.

Having worked out how many ex-servicemen are in prison, we should then find out—again the Government say that they do not know this—how many of them have post-traumatic stress disorder. Having witnessed conditions in theatres of war, it is hardly surprising that some of those people have very severe mental disorders later in life. It may be 20 years after their service that these things come back to haunt them. Such experience may result in imprisonment. The Government should know how many people are in prison as a result of PTSD. At the moment, they do not.

Incidentally, the same applies to the question of alcoholism and drug abuse. The figures from the department of community mental health show that of the 2,500 military people who presented at the centres in 2007, some 217 are taking drugs, 150 are alcoholics, 400 have mood disorders, 314 are depressive, 1,188 have neurotic disorders, 145 have post-traumatic stress disorder and so on. The department has told us that some 2,500 people, or 1.9 per cent. of our armed services, are suffering from such conditions in prison and the Government, apparently, do not know it. It is important that we should at least begin to bottom that out.

Before we can cure the problem, we need to know how many people are suffering. It is astonishing that the Government say that they do not know. One strong message to be sent back from this debate is that we recognise that people suffer terrible consequences from the action that they take in the theatre of war on behalf of society. When they come back, they may suffer from drink, drug or mental disorders and they may end up in prison. It is the Government’s fundamental duty to know how many people are suffering in such a way and to put in place some means of finding a solution. I know that that is easier said than done, but it is important that we recognise the problem and start to work on it.

This issue is not just about saluting and thanking our veterans. That is easily done every year on Remembrance Sunday, and at the Cenotaph and all the time in Wootton Bassett and elsewhere. The tough bit is for the Government and society to say to the armed services, “We recognise that the things that we ask you to do sometimes result in appalling consequences for you in your private lives. We will recognise that you and the armed services are doing more than other categories of employee, and we will go out of our way to find out what has gone wrong with you and to put it right.”

I need to call Members making winding-up speeches from 10.30 am, so I invite the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mark Williams) to make a brief contribution.

It is a privilege to be called to speak in the debate initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams), who has given a very thorough account of the issue before us. His contribution will lessen my load in the next five minutes.

I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me when I say that although I pay tribute to him for initiating the debate, I was more struck in many ways by the contribution of the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Benyon). When he talked about the transition from a tight-knit community to civilian life, it reminded me of a constituent who came to see me a few weeks ago. He left the forces after a distinguished career and was attempting to readjust to civilian life. He enrolled on a university degree course, but found that the flexibility of student life created many problems for him. He abandoned his course and had persistent difficulties with the Department for Work and Pensions. I am sure that he would be the first to admit that he was floundering in civilian life. He said that he simply did not know where to turn. The repeated message today is about the lack of information for veterans as they leave the forces.

I agree with what the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) said about the celebration of the role of our forces being the easy bit. We will be doing that in my constituency on Saturday when the county of Ceredigion awards the freedom of Ceredigion to the Royal Welsh Regiment. That event is important to the veterans, the serving forces and the community. It should galvanise a great deal of support, and hundreds will be on the streets of Aberystwyth on Saturday. Nevertheless, there is a bigger picture, and we must consider day-to-day life for our ex-servicemen.

Last October in this Chamber, we had a debate on the state pension and benefits. I was able to raise the Royal British Legion’s return to rationing campaign. My hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire mentioned some figures, which I will repeat, because he was right to highlight the fact that 38 per cent. of veterans, their spouses, widows and widowers live on an income lower than that considered necessary for a healthy lifestyle. Some 75 per cent. of the ex-service community live on an income of less than £10,000. One important small measure would be to redesignate council tax benefit as a rebate. The Lyons report revealed that when take-up was labelled a rebate, the figure was up to 90 per cent.—as a benefit it is 55 to 60 per cent, which is a matter of acute concern.

I pay tribute to the Ministry of Defence for its six pilot schemes. We have a good one in Cardiff. The number of referrals has increased from a handful to something approaching 90 in the first nine months. None the less, will the Minister give us some sort of appraisal as to where he thinks those pilots are going and what the roll-out will be? The British Legion is concerned that there is an element of uncertainty about what happens next.

The hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) mentioned the availability of information for people using the voluntary sector. The Royal British Legion in my constituency undertakes a huge amount of valuable pastoral work, as do many other organisations. It has requested that lists of returning veterans be made available so that it can contribute to their readjustment in times of transition. There is concern about the lack of cohesion in government. We are all praising the Minister for what he said about the inadequacies of the “New Horizons” programme. However, his message has not got across to all parts of Government.

We heard about untreated mental illness causing problems for veterans. Those problems make it difficult for veterans to adjust to normal life and hold down a job, and can ultimately lead to homelessness. A 2007 report by the Sir Oswald Stoll Foundation estimated that up to one homeless person in 10 has a background in the forces. Again, the difficulty is that we do not know the extent of the problem. When we talk about the close-knit family and the transition, we should not always assume that everybody has the luxury of moving from one close-knit family to another. That is manifestly not the case. That is why we are here today and why my hon. Friend initiated this important debate.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) for securing this debate. He gave a powerful exposition of the case. I am sure that his constituents, many of whom are veterans, and many people throughout the UK will be grateful for his advocacy. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mark Williams) on his short speech. Sometimes the best speeches are made in the shortest possible time.

The hon. Gentleman is congratulating the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mark Williams), who made a point about the support and advice for families and veterans. The need for those is increasing, but one organisation that has not been mentioned is the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association, which is doing excellent work, particularly in my constituency in Essex.

A huge range of organisations do excellent work—the hon. Gentleman mentioned one of them. The Fife Veterans Association in my patch is a great group of people. It provides not only social contact, but support for people who are finding life outside the military a little difficult. The hon. Gentleman is right about that, but I am not sure whether I agree with his earlier point that Members of Parliament would be a great magnet to attract people to join the Royal British Legion. I am not sure that we are the best sales people in the world when it comes to membership of organisations. However, his sentiments are right.

The hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) made a very strong speech about the support groups that are available and the work that is being done in Blackpool. I am sure that it was an enjoyable few weeks in Blackpool—it seemed to be one big party from what I understand. It was good to hear about that.

The hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) also made a good speech. Perhaps I should read The Sun more often, because this is the first time I have heard of the idea of a “Highway for Heroes”. I, too, think that it would be completely inappropriate. It is not about names—what really matters is the encouragement and support that is given. The hon. Gentleman also referred to the TA.

I disagree with the hon. Gentleman on the Gurkhas. I know that there are difficulties with the continuation of support for the Gurkhas and I understand that the Minister has been to Nepal for discussions on the matter. I would like to hear more about those discussions, but we need to pay more respect to the work that the Gurkhas have done over the years, so I am pleased that we are making some progress.

Everyone praises the work of charities that support the veterans. A special bond is formed by those who have served in the forces over the years. The decreasing size of the armed forces since the second world war means that the number of veterans is decreasing significantly, but that makes the bond still stronger. Despite that, many veterans deeply resent having to rely on charity to deal with the issues that they face. They firmly believe that the state is responsible and should give greater assistance, and that they should not have to rely on charity for support.

I have a great deal of sympathy with that point of view but, actually, a lot of the veterans whom I meet do not want to become dependent on the state, and the charities with which I come into contact certainly do not want all their eggs in one basket—they do not want all their funding to come from the Government. However, we have not got the balance right. The Government need to provide greater support for veterans to deal with their difficulties.

The Minister is moving in the right direction. I served on the Defence Committee with him; he was outspoken then, and I am pleased that he has not changed tack since. He is doing a very good job as the Minister with responsibility for veterans. There is a lot to be delivered, but I am sure that he has the determination to see it through. We need to strike the right balance, which we have not done so far, and I would like more Government support for veterans.

When providing priority health care for veterans—this was mentioned in the debate—was announced 18 months or so ago, it was claimed that up to 4 million veterans could benefit, but when Ministers from the Department of Health and the Ministry of Defence appeared before the Defence Committee, they were unable to predict what the demand would be. I know that there have been some problems with identifying veterans and alerting the health service so that they receive priority care, but that initiative has been going for 18 months, so I would like the Minister to give examples of veterans receiving priority care. What difference has the policy has made? Has it cut the waiting time for receiving treatment, or is the difference marginal or insignificant? I hope that it works and that veterans get the priority care that they need. It is not about queue jumping, but ensuring that, if everything else is equal, veterans get support above others.

The identity card idea is a good one. It would mean that veterans may identify themselves as being from the military if they so wish—they do not have to, but they may use the card to get priority treatment. That is a good model. Rather than identifying every veteran on their health records, people who have served in the military could show the ID card to get the priority treatment if they wished to do so.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion mentioned mental health pilots. I was pleased that the six pilots were set up, because this is one of the biggest problems that we need to get a grip on. People with mental health problems are presenting themselves earlier to charities such as Combat Stress. The average age of people presenting used to be about 20 years older than it is now. There is significantly less of a stigma, which is a very good thing. I understand that the pilots will be completed at the end of this year and that there will be some evaluation off the back of them. I am interested in the next step. How and when will the pilots be rolled out, and what kind of funding will be available? Will the difficulties with the Government’s finances have any impact on any roll-out, or is the MOD determined to ensure that it is a priority in its plans for the coming years? Will the Minister tell us exactly what is happening in that regard?

Reference has been made to Help for Heroes. I understand that the charity has raised some £17 million in a very short time, £12 million of which has already been paid out. A man called George Connelly, who lives in the village of Culross in my constituency, is bringing bands from all three military services into the village for a special “Musical Spectacular” at the end of July. People such as him do a tremendous amount of work and we should pay tribute to them.

Credit should also be given to the Government for their armed forces day on 27 June. I am keen to support it in my part of the world and to get those flags flying from every flag pole—I am sure that the Scottish National party Administration would love the Union flag flying everywhere. The armed forces day is important, as are veterans medals. My aunt was delighted to receive her land army badge in Canada recently, so I thank the Minister for that.

As I said, the Minister has been to Nepal for discussions because of concerns about the continuation of the flow of people to serve in the Gurkhas. What impression was he given in Nepal and what agreements has he managed to come to? The Gurkhas are also eagerly awaiting an announcement from the Home Secretary at the end of this week. Is that still on schedule? We want a fair and honourable settlement for the Gurkhas. They have committed so much for us, and the new arrangements must reflect that.

My final point is more of a technical one and relates to devolution. One thing that the Minister and I discovered when we were on the Defence Committee was that in the devolved Administrations, military issues often fall between the stools. Because the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly assume that the MOD is dealing with veterans’ health or education for service families, they do not think that they should consider such issues.

A recent press announcement stated that injured war veterans will be given council house priority. The UK Minister for Housing and the Minister who is in his seat here made that announcement. Will similar schemes apply in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland? What discussions have been held? Is that an example of our having managed to break down the barriers and hold regular discussions with all the other Administrations to ensure that best practice spreads throughout the UK? Different parts of the UK will make their own decisions, but are we ensuring that what we decide within the MOD is transferred out to other parts of the United Kingdom? Our armed forces and veterans deserve the best possible support, and I am sure that the MOD and the Minister will be keen to deliver it.

I draw the House’s attention to my interests as a member of the reserve forces and a service veteran.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) on securing this timely and extremely important debate. We all have constituents who are veterans and, particularly at this time, it behoves us to look closely at their interests and the obligations that we as a society owe them.

The hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) talked about coroners, to pick out one item from her speech. That issue interests me, because the Wiltshire coroner is in my constituency, in Trowbridge. I visited his court when he was sitting on matters dealing with deceased servicemen, and he runs an exceptionally good service. It is questionable, however, whether the MOD should be using public funds to hire barristers in what are meant to be non-adversarial situations. The service families to whom I have spoken in that connection rather resent the resulting unequal playing field. I urge the Minister to minimise the use of barristers in that way, as it is regarded as unfair.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) rightly mentioned Wootton Bassett and the tribute that it pays to deceased veterans. We hear a lot of bad things about our society sometimes, but it is a tribute to people that they are prepared to turn up and pay their respects in that way. That is a lesson for others to learn. I echo his words about the Cotswold family centre, which I know from my previous professional life does an extremely good job. That service would be sorely missed if the Minister were tempted to remove it.

Among a number of points, the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie) mentioned ID cards for veterans. I support the idea, but with a couple of caveats: it must bring a tangible benefit, and the cost must be accommodated in some way. There has been a lot of tokenism, and we do not want an ID card that is simply a token. I do not think that veterans would welcome such a thing.

I am grateful to Frederick Forsyth, Simon Weston, Sir John Keegan and the other members of the Military Covenant Commission set up by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition to look into some of the issues that we have debated today. The commission has made a number of important recommendations that we are working through. I hope that the Government, in the spirit of consensuality that has characterised this debate, will consider some of those points as well, if they have not done so already.

It is important that we consider the definition of “veteran”. If we really mean it when we say that we want to give veterans something tangible to mark their service and recognise the debt that we owe them, we need to separate the men from the boys, if I may put it that way. There is a big difference between those who have served for only a day, which enables them to be defined as veterans, and those who have served in the second world war or more recent conflicts, have done their 22 years and are veterans in the truest sense of the word. I accept the expediency of the current inclusive definition, but I do not think that it is helpful if we want to make veterans special and mark them out as such. I see the Minister nodding; perhaps he might like to comment on that later. I appreciate the difficulty, but we need to get to grips with it.

During the Easter break, the Minister went head to head with the Minister for care services, the hon. Member for Corby (Phil Hope), about the “New Horizons” strategy, sans veterans. It is remarkable that such a document should include no reference to veterans, servicemen and their families. From the comments that I have read in the press, I know that the Minister feels strongly about it, and I have no doubt that he has had the meeting that he was reported to have demanded with his colleague. If he can share the contents of that meeting with us, it will be interesting to learn what it came up with. I congratulate him on taking that action.

Mental health is the tip of the iceberg. We have a particular obligation to people with post-traumatic stress disorder. To be ever so slightly critical of the Minister, he has been guilty in the past of saying that the number of people with combat stress is small. Although he is technically—numerically—correct, none the less, we owe a particular duty of care to people who experience the condition. Post-traumatic stress disorder is an occupational illness, and we have a duty to make it right for sufferers if we can. We also know from experience of the Falklands, Vietnam and so on that we are probably experiencing the tip of the iceberg. The issue will become more and more prominent, and we need to get to grips with it. We also need to discover cases proactively, and the official Opposition have made a number of proposals for doing so.

Homelessness is an issue for veterans. Last month, I visited Veterans Aid in Limehouse and Alabaré Christian Care in Plymouth, which is setting up a project for homeless veterans. However, the streets are not lined with homeless veterans. That is almost a cliché. Veterans Aid is quite clear that it is not a massive problem in our capital city and other centres, but that is not to underplay its importance. We owe a duty of care to those who have served, particularly when their service may have contributed to the state in which they find themselves.

There is, however, a sub-group within that population of which I hope the Minister will take particular note: non-UK nationals who have served in the armed forces. Service charities—particularly the estimable Veterans Aid, with which I know he has also been involved—say that there appears to be a particular problem with people who are not UK nationals but who have served in the armed forces, sometimes for very short periods, and have left or been slung out. The Army then considers its job done—at the gate, that is it, and they are on their own. Inevitably, they melt into society and contribute significantly to the homeless ex-service population. We need to be more imaginative in handling such people, for their good and the good of our general homelessness situation.

The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire mentioned the prison population. Once again, we must be careful about the numbers involved, but if we are serious about the rehabilitative elements of the criminal justice system, it behoves us to determine whether there are common factors specifically related to veterans in prisons, such as those itemised by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire, that could be amenable to more bespoke management to maximise such prisoners’ chances of making a proper return to society.

On employment after leaving the armed forces, there was a time when certain occupations were reserved for veterans—usually low-paid, low-skill jobs, such as lift attendant, when we had lift attendants. Today’s veterans expect rather more. They are often highly skilled or looking for skilled opportunities. We might consider ex-soldiers in schools and colleges, for example. It might be helpful if the Minister considered the Troops to Teachers proposals. The Centre for Policy Studies and the charity Skill Force have done important work on the issue, and the American T3 programme points the way. We are looking for role models these days, particularly in schools, and ex-servicemen might provide helpful role models in some school settings.

The Minister will have expected me to mention Normandy and D-day. I will say ever so gently that I do not think the Government have won many brownie points with their handling of the 65th anniversary D-day celebrations so far. The parsimony—rectified at the last minute—had all the hallmarks of a civil service briefing note untrammelled by the political savvy that is sometimes necessary to apply a human face to Government. Announcing that the Ministry does only 60th and 100th anniversaries is not helpful to octogenarians, because by 2044 not only they, but their grandchildren, are likely to have joined the choir celestial. The belated few thousand pounds from the lottery for its “Heroes Return 2” programme is nevertheless most welcome.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) on securing this debate. As the hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) said, the debate has been consensual and has highlighted the importance that we all attach to veterans.

In his opening remarks, the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire mentioned the newest veterans coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq ill or wounded. I join him in paying tribute to the men and women of our armed forces medical teams in theatre, whom I have met. Before Christmas, I met the aerial medevac team at Lyneham that has brought back people who, in other circumstances, would not have survived their horrific injuries. I pay tribute to the staff and supporters of Selly Oak and Headley Court. I thank the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association for the work that it is doing at those locations to find homes for visiting relatives.

The debate has covered a number of issues. I might not be able to cover them all in the time that I have, but I will try my best. Hon. Members know that I have taken a special interest in mental health since being appointed to this post. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Westbury that I downplay the issue. I think that I am on the record as saying that every case of a veteran with a mental illness is a personal tragedy for that individual and for their family. We must ensure that we provide all the support that it is possible to give.

There are six mental health pilots. The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mark Williams) mentioned the Cardiff pilot, which I was privileged to visit before Christmas. The fantastic team are showing that the process works. I will be in Scotland on Thursday when the Scottish mental health pilot is launched. It is important to get the language right. Emotive language about bow waves of people presenting with mental illness in the future has been used. The figures are small and there has been too much concentration on post-traumatic stress disorder. The studies done by the King’s college centre for defence studies show that the biggest issue is not PTSD but other mental health issues. We must ensure that we have the services in place to provide the assistance that individuals need. The mental health pilots and Dr. Ian Palmer’s medical assessment programme at St Thomas’s hospital are good first steps towards that.

A number of hon. Members have asked how we can ensure that local GPs know about these issues. One of my jobs in Government is to be an advocate for the armed forces. I am determined to get other Departments thinking about veterans when they come up with policies. On occasions they will forget, but I make no bones about the fact that it is my job to remind them forcefully that veterans should be at the centre of their policies. Last year’s Command Paper, which has 40 different work streams, was designed to get work done across Government. Some success has been achieved. It is my job to ensure that that continues. One issue is how we track veterans. With the Surgeon General, I am looking at how we can track people in the health service once they have left the service. There would have to be an opt-in system rather than a mandatory one. I hope to make an announcement on that later this year.

ID cards have been raised. I am determined to introduce them. The hon. Member for Westbury said that that would be tokenism. Obviously, he does not know me very well because I am not into tokenism. If it is tokenism, it will be a waste of time. It must have real benefit and meaning for veterans.

The transition of early service leavers was mentioned. A bigger piece of work that I will complete later this year is my welfare pathway. That will try to join up all the strands of work not only in the Ministry of Defence, but in other Departments, to ensure that when people leave the armed forces, the services are there to help them through the transition. We are working closely with the armed forces charities, which I have great respect for. Government cannot do everything and I am sitting down with charities to ensure that there is a joined-up and seamless service. A key point that was raised is that we must get the transition right.

The increase in armed forces compensation is welcome and it has been welcomed greatly by the service community. The burden of proof issue has been raised time and again. It was raised when I sat on the Public Bill Committee. I set a challenge to people to come back with a single case in which that has been an issue. I am still waiting. On date of knowledge, the five years is not a fixed date. If people present after that with conditions related to their service, they can still make a claim.

The issue of inquests was raised. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) for her work with bereaved families. Like the hon. Member for Westbury, I am not in favour of feeding lawyers. What we must do, as we are doing, is ensure that we have the greatest possible support for bereaved families at those inquests. We already provide support for three members to attend and for others to attend in exceptional circumstances. I do not want there to be a feeding frenzy for lawyers. I want the money to be spent directly on the bereaved families.

The Gurkhas have been raised by a number of hon. Members. I was in Nepal last week. The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie) mentioned a fair and honourable settlement. There has been a lot of ill-informed debate on this issue. The hon. Member for North-East Milton Keynes (Mr. Lancaster), who speaks with great authority on the matter, raised an important issue. If we are to make it so costly to recruit Gurkhas, there will be a question mark over whether we continue to do so. As I said last week in Nepal, I believe that we should continue to recruit Gurkhas.

I ask hon. Members to look at what we are doing in Nepal. Over £50 million a year is paid directly into Gurkha pensions. We pay another £1 million to the Gurkha Welfare Trust. I pay tribute to the work that that organisation does not just with Gurkhas but in the community projects that I saw last week. This year alone we have increased the Gurkha pension by 14 per cent., and by 20 per cent. for those over 80. Those in receipt of a service pension have a good standard of living in Nepal. That pension is equivalent to the pay of a GP or a chief of police. I ask people to think of the consequences of these decisions and what is happening in Nepal. I was impressed by the work of the Gurkha Welfare Trust.

My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood mentioned the all-party veterans group, which I addressed earlier this year. I thank her for the work that she does on that group and for the success of armed forces day. Many colleagues are taking part in it and I wish to enthuse them to encourage councils and others to take part. The veteran’s badge was mentioned. That has been a great success and more than 650,000 have been issued. Many people wear them with pride.

I agree with the hon. Member for Westbury on the issue of homelessness and pay tribute to Veterans Aid, which is a fantastic organisation that deals with the capital’s homeless veterans. Only about 6 per cent. of the homeless are veterans, but as the hon. Gentleman said, there are some sub-groups that need to be counted. Veterans Aid has raised with me the issue of Commonwealth veterans who have served in the armed forces. I will address that with the Home Office. There are some simple things that we could do to address the needs of that sub-group.

I thank the people of Wootton Bassett. I thank the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) for the support of the all-party Army group and for the parades that have been held. I agree with him on the changing of names. As a former chair of highways on Newcastle city council, I know that there is nothing more controversial than changing the names of streets.

On the issue of D-day veterans, the policy on the recognition of the anniversary was in place under the Conservative Government. The 60th anniversary was the last large event that the Normandy Veterans Association wanted to have. I am pleased that the lottery has been involved and that the MOD has supported events this year in Normandy, as it has in other years.

I am sorry that I have not been able to cover all the points that have been raised in the time available, Mr. Gale. I thank hon. Members for a well-informed debate. We have once again raised the importance of veterans. It is a privilege to have this job. One of the most interesting parts of it is meeting veterans both old and new.

First, I thank the House for allowing this important debate to take place. There is no greater or better region than the north-west, and the time is right to put the case for why we want more investment and better transport for the people whom we represent. It is good to see my colleagues turning out for that purpose.

I shall start by talking about free bus travel for pensioners, which started with local authority free travel, and has been extended to a nationwide local bus scheme. That important scheme has been a huge success, and has transformed pensioners’ lives. It allows them to get out and visit, to have healthier lifestyles and to spend the money that it saves them. It is good for the economy, and it is good for us. It has also been good for a local bus manufacturer, Optare, which is reaping the benefits of providing new buses because of the new way in which people are travelling. Public transport is being reinvigorated as people are getting back on to it. We ought to congratulate the Government on that, and I do. I also remind them that when I started the campaign, back in 1997, with a petition in Chorley saying, “We want free local bus travel,” the Government listened. It took them a long time, but they listened and delivered.

Following the success of the free bus travel scheme, I ask the Government to extend it to regional train travel, so that pensioners can also enjoy that. The village where I live, Adlington, has a railway station and trains that connect straight to Preston, Blackpool and Manchester, and people could benefit from free regional train travel.

Before the hon. Gentleman moves on to his next campaign, may I drag him back to his first? Although it is great that a lot of pensioners now have the opportunity to travel free around their areas, does he recognise that there are vast tracts in the north-west, particularly in my constituency, where there are no bus services in many villages? If we are to ensure that all pensioners can access what he has talked about, rural bus services in the north-west need to be enhanced.

I totally agree, and I back the hon. Gentleman’s plans to spend more money on local buses, because that is important. I represent an urban-rural area that could benefit from the extra buses that would connect those pensioners and people who wish to use public transport, so we are at one. We both congratulate the Government on what they have done, and we both want that to be expanded, so it is quite right that I should back the hon. Gentleman on what he has said.

Like me, the hon. Gentleman has railway stations in his constituency that would benefit from an extension of the scheme to allow people to use trains. It is good for older people to have such a choice. Believe it or not, Mr. Gale, some of our rural villages do not have bus transport, but they have a railway station. However, some pensioners cannot use that transport because they do not have the same free travel. The Government could take that idea on, and it would be welcomed by people across the country. Free regional train travel for pensioners would be a great initiative.

Given how successful the bus travel scheme has been in transforming pensioners’ lives, will the Minister consider extending free bus travel to young people? I do not know why we do not do that. It is a huge success in London. The Minister has seen the benefits that are brought by young people being able to travel in that way. In London, pensioners can use the underground, buses, overground trains and the docklands light railway. They have reaped all those benefits, and we want that to be replicated in other parts of the country. The same has been done for young people in London, and we want that to be extended to our young people as well. Why is there a postcode lottery for transport? If people are in London, they get the benefits, but if they live in the north-west, they do not. The Government should show us that they are listening.

Young people and families would benefit from the change because it would be free for them to travel to school. That would get young people interested in using public transport, and if they are brought up using it, that will ensure that they continue to use it in future. We talk about car congestion, but people have a real alternative to car travel, and they know how to use public transport. I can see the benefits: people at school and students would really like the benefits of that free travel and we ought to give it to them. I hope that all this will be taken on board.

Our north-west has been built on the three cities of Liverpool, Manchester and Preston, and we want our region to have an economy that is second to none. It houses the UK’s second city, or, at least, if that is stretching things, England’s second city.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. He is a great champion for transport in the north-west, and for his constituency. On the north-west as a whole, the three cities and the economy, does he agree that one of the key transport projects around at the moment, which is due to go to public inquiry shortly, is the new Mersey gateway bridge? The project is expected to create about 4,000 to 5,000 new jobs and to ease a lot of congestion. It will benefit not only the nearby Merseyside and Cheshire regions, and my constituency, but the north-west as a whole. Does my hon. Friend agree that the scheme is very important for the north-west as a whole?

I totally agree. When I have travelled to watch Widnes lose against Warrington at rugby, I have seen the benefit that a new bridge could bring to that area. We have waited too long for that scheme, for which my hon. Friend has rightly been a champion. We want to see that Ministers are listening, and we need that bridge sooner rather than later. The economic benefits that it would bring cannot be overestimated.

We are talking about an economy of £111 billion, which is the 12th-largest in Europe. The north-west has a population of nearly 7 million people and 230,000 successful businesses. North-west England truly operates on an international scale. It has two major airports, as well as Blackpool, so how on earth can we not now be planning a high-speed link into the north-west to serve the three cities? We are, without doubt, the powerhouse and the generator of the economy. People want to talk about the midlands, and there is nothing wrong with the midlands, but the high-speed link should not be diverting off there first—it should be coming straight to the north-west. We should be building from either end—from the north and the south—and meeting in the middle. That would eventually link in Birmingham as well. This is about linking the region, and we cannot afford to underestimate the value of that high-speed link coming into the north-west. We should not put England’s second city down.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is making a good and important case about the high-speed rail link. Does he agree that it makes even more sense if we ensure that there are adequate rail links from Manchester into cities such as Liverpool and Preston, as well as to places such as Leeds across the Pennines? That would give us the proper integration of the northern economy with the transport infrastructure that we do not have at the moment.

I totally agree; my hon. Friend is absolutely correct. We know that Manchester is the second city and that the north-west region is the powerhouse, but we cannot forget about the other side of the Pennines, as much as Lancastrians might wish to, because this is also about the north, and we need those east-west links. This is about having better access, whether by motorway or train. The high-speed link can bring the benefits of linking through to the south, as can a hub around Manchester that diverts across to Leeds. This is about linking the three cities of Liverpool, Preston and Manchester, and ensuring that we have other important links, but not forgetting the north as a whole.

Whatever way we look at this issue, the north-south divide still exists, as my hon. Friend knows, and we have to stand up for the north and make sure that it gets the investment that it rightfully deserves. I know that the Minister will take that on board, because, as a missionary who went from the north to the south, he recognises that we in the north have to stand up for ourselves, because no one is going to do it for us.

The high-speed link is important to our future, but we need to back it up by widening the M6, which is absolutely critical. It has four lanes around Preston, but then it suddenly goes down to three, and then goes up to four again at Warrington. There is a gap in the middle that should never have been allowed, because we need to keep the traffic flowing and the economy moving. Being in queued traffic is a great cost to business.

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that widening sections of motorways around the country has just led to more cars on those motorways?

No, I totally disagree because what we have got is a bottleneck. That situation is silly, is it not? If there were three lanes all the way, there would be an argument against widening, but when two four-lane sections have been widened and there is a three-lane bit in the middle, that does environmental damage. There is also a cost to business. We ought to stand by the people trying to get to work in the north-west. It is nonsense to go from four to three lanes, and then back to four. That transport problem should be looked at.

I recognise that we do not want to encourage cars, but I want to give people the choice. We want a good public transport infrastructure in the north-west. We want to have the high-speed links and to give people a real choice about how they travel. Of course, people want to be anti-car, but I recognise that people need cars. However, I also recognise the needs of business. I do not like trucks moving goods along the motorway and want to see more goods moved by freight, but I recognise that we must ease the problems where they occur.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman: something clearly needs to be done about the M6. A lot of business traffic travels on there. No matter what time in the morning it is—for example, some of us travel back in the early hours, perhaps 1 am or 2 am—we see heavy vehicles using that motorway. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one thing that has helped on the M6 is the toll road? At £4.50 a time, it is expensive, but it has made sure—

It is £4.70 now.

It is £4.70 now, is it? It is probably £4.90 by now—the cost has gone up while I am talking. That is an example of inflation.

Does the hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) agree that the toll road has, at least, taken some of the traffic off the old M6 and allowed people to pay a premium and get through the bottlenecks?

I cannot disagree with that. The toll road has eased the traffic problems around Birmingham. At one time people could not move. They could not guarantee how long a journey would be. When coming from the north, a journey could be anything from four to seven hours, depending on how bad the traffic around Birmingham was. Of course, we have seen the benefits of the toll road. We must remember that this country’s economy and business matter, and we have got to support business wherever we can.

We have mentioned the M6, the importance of the high-speed link and what the benefits are, but I now want to talk about a more parochial matter. We talked about ensuring that we have free regional travel for pensioners by providing free rail travel. To back that up, I would like to see more railway stations. We have the silly situation whereby a big chunk of money was given to the local authority to build a new railway station at Buckshaw Village near Euxton. Unfortunately, the money was not enough—it was part of a 106 agreement—and there is now a differential between the cost of building the station and the original estimate. We have a shortfall of between £2 million and £3 million in the funding to build the railway station. Yet, the money sits in the bank, and the railway station is not there.

The problem faced by me and the local authority is that we could not get the train operators to stop at a new railway station. We eventually met the train operators and got both operators to agree to use the station. That was a great success and we thought that we had ticked all the boxes only to find that Network Rail’s price was way above the 106 agreement money. The railway line closed for six weeks because of the flying arches at Chorley, during which time they could have built the railway station, but instead of building the station when the lines were closed, nothing happened and we are back in the situation in which we have to chase money.

I think that BAE Systems has a responsibility because it has made a huge amount of money out of the redevelopment of that brownfield site. It is probably the biggest redevelopment in Europe—we are talking about almost 1,000 acres for housing and businesses. Of course, as part of that, we expect an integrated transport system to be provided, and for the village to be sustainable, and rightly so. However, we have not had the railway station that we should have had. It should have been built and opened by now, and I look to the Minister to see what help he can give. We know that the local authority has bid for some money under the community investment fund programme. I am fully supportive of that, and I will do anything I can to ensure that it goes ahead, but there might be another way in which we can get the money. Will the Minister use his good offices in relation to that?

Network Rail has suggested that it will put money in as long as somebody underwrites it until we can get the rest of the 106 money. BAE Systems rightly wants to develop another couple of hundred acres and that will provide the shortfall money. However, we need somebody to underwrite the money in the meantime so that we can get this railway station up and running. The station will not only benefit the people who live in the new village, but will provide a park-and-ride facility for surrounding communities. Will the Minister consider that matter because it is important that we can move ahead with it?

The Northwest Regional Development Agency has also offered to help. In fact, it phoned me yesterday and said that it is fully behind my plans and that it backs the station, too. I want to thank Steve Broomhead from the RDA. That organisation might sometimes be unpopular with people, but it has been very helpful and, during this economic crisis, it has been supporting jobs in the north-west.

I agree very much with what the hon. Gentleman says about trying to find new opportunities whereby rail travel can benefit more of our community. However, before we consider building new stations, do we not also need to look at the state of current stations? That is particularly the case for those stations in the north-west that are at the pinch-point and are major category A stations, such as Crewe, which has lost out in the latest funding review by the Office of Rail Regulation. The funding that Network Rail wants will not be in place to ensure that Crewe station, which should be the gateway to the north-west, is in the state and category that it should be.

I do not disagree with that. We should always ensure that we are modernising and keeping our train stations up to the standards that people expect. If we want people to use public transport, we have to provide quality transport and railway stations. Of course, that does not take anything away from a railway station that has been provided by 106 money. We cannot build about 4,000 to 5,000 houses, put a load of businesses on a development and not provide the transport infrastructure. That is why we need the Buckshaw Village station.

I shall now turn to a village lower down the main line. A station called Coppull used to exist, but was unfortunately closed. Coppull is a mining village with a population of 6,000. It has been campaigning heavily for a new railway station that would connect the village to Wigan down the line and up to Preston the other way. Coppull station is crucial, and I say to the Minister that it is one of the top priorities for Lancashire county council. Rumours have been put out in the local media in relation to that, and I am pleased to see the Lancashire Evening Post is scribbling hard as we speak. An article in the Lancashire Evening Post stated that that station could not reopen because of the high-speed link. I do not see why that is the case because if the logic is that local stations cannot exist with a high-speed link and Coppull cannot be reopened, we would have to close all the other stations. Will the Minister clarify that matter and consider what support he can give to that railway station?

I shall now mention a very parochial matter: the train service at Adlington, which is in my constituency and is the village in which I live. We are talking about getting people back on to trains, which makes sense. The problem on the Blackpool to Manchester line is that when the train gets to Adlington there are very few seats, and by the time it gets to Bolton it is full. The logical decision is to put more trains on and have extra carriages. That seems logical—we know how to deal with the problem where there is great capacity and a great need for trains. What does Network Rail do? It stops trains calling at Adlington. That is the way that Network Rail has decided to get around the problem. That is absolutely silly. It has taken away the number of trains that stop there to try to create some extra carriage capacity lower down the line. That is ridiculous.

Who did Network Rail talk to? Did it talk to the people who get on the train at Adlington? Did it talk to the residents of Adlington? No. It talked to Greater Manchester passenger transport, which is not in Lancashire. Adlington is in Lancashire. Network Rail has not even talked to the right county and it then says to us, “We have consulted.” That is absolutely diabolical and ridiculous, and it tells us that Network Rail and the transport authorities need to get their act together and reconsider the matter. Instead of taking trains off, there should be better trains and more carriages. Will the Minister please consider reinstating the trains we have lost that go to Manchester and Preston? Adlington is a community village, and all we are doing is putting people back on to the roads. If the trains are not going to stop at the times when people need to go to work, what use are they?

I say to the Minister that that matter is an absolute disgrace and I hope that he will get Network Rail by the scuff of the neck, shake it strongly and get it to change its mind. I look forward to witnessing that sooner rather than later. What has happened means that people can no longer get to the airport without changing trains twice or get into Manchester without changing trains. It is a ridiculous position and I look forward to the Minister reconsidering the matter.

As I have said, the issue is about the three cities. We ought to be looking at the network that connects Preston, Manchester and Liverpool. Those three great cities create a triangle, and we ought to make sure that there is a rail network between them. Of course, lying in the middle is Chorley, which is central to those three cities. I would have thought that it makes sense to rejoin those cities by rail, making sure that we have quick rail links or even a light tram system. Of course, Chorley would benefit from that, and it would rightly be the hub that served the three cities.

We should have a fast, light train system to connect the cities and help businesses to work better, and we should ensure that we have the right road infrastructure between those cities which, of course, benefit from two major airports—there is none better than Manchester, and Liverpool grows in stature each year. We must not forget the airport at Blackpool as well.

We have the bones of a great transport system in Manchester, but we need the Minister to look favourably on what I have been saying and to look into the problems. We are going forward, and we want people to use public transport. Let us give pensioners in the north-west free regional train travel, and students free bus travel in their area. Let us reopen and reinvest in railway stations, widen the road system and look to the benefits that I have mentioned. I am sure that the Minister has taken all that on board, and we look forward to a favourable response and an early decision on some of those questions.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) on winning this debate. There are some debates in this Hall to which hardly anyone turns up, so the good representation of Members of Parliament from all over the north-west shows the interest in this one.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned several areas on which I, too, would like to comment. Perhaps we could all work together on further campaigns, because one thing that we all do is travel around our constituency. We use the networks and know about existing problems. I am sure that the Minister would agree that one of the problems as far as the railways are concerned is the cost of taking the train, which we all know about. An open return from London to Manchester now costs £247. To travel last minute from Euston to Preston costs £69.40 off-peak, £128 in economy and £195 one-way in first class. There is something wrong with a system when it is more economical to fly a route than to take the train first-class.

I hope that we will try again to get some common sense in the pricing of rail travel, as something is amiss. The system is okay for business men who are able to claim back the cost, but what about ordinary people who need to travel on the train, particularly last-minute? Not only is there a confusing plethora of train fares, but some are extremely expensive. I hope that we can have a look at that.

I want to pay tribute to my local line, Ribble Valley Rail, and Peter Moore in particular, who has lobbied me for almost all of my 17 years as MP for the area, and to the dedication of the many volunteers who ensure that the train station is kept spick and span, and who have lobbied to ensure that services exist and that old railway stations are reopened. The dedication of the volunteers means that the service along that line is much better than it would otherwise be. In addition, they propose an hourly service from Manchester Victoria to Carlisle, as they believe that there is a large demand for such a service.

The Secretary of State for Transport has been invited to Ribble Valley to meet representatives of Ribble Valley Rail and to go on a short journey on the line. I believe that he would enjoy it, because it is one of the most picturesque train journeys that one could wish to do, and that he would be seduced by the enthusiasm of the volunteers and those who support local railway lines.

Beeching did enormous damage in the 1960s, in the way he took out many railway lines, and I accept that some of them cannot be reintroduced because of building constraints. It is a great shame that people did not think long and hard about the unintended consequences of taking away so many local railway lines. Some areas are now more isolated than they otherwise would be, and pensioners—the hon. Member for Chorley is right to think about their transport needs—have lost out, as they do not have a local railway service. If a local bus service was not introduced to replace the rail service, they are even more isolated. They cannot all afford taxis.

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. The Rossendale valley in my constituency now has no train service at all, except for a heritage railway that operates only on weekends from a small station in Rawtenstall. I fully support what he says about Beeching.

Perhaps it is time for a review. I believe that that there is all-party consensus on seeing what we can do to invest money in new lines throughout the country and in looking again at some of the lines that were taken out. If they have not been built on, we could start to link up villages with larger towns, which clearly would be useful.

I hope that the Minister will look again at rural bus services, too. There have been loads of rural bus service initiatives in the past 17 years. Yes, the Government announce £500 million here and £300 million there for local authorities to invest, but the services are depleted drip by drip, and, in the end, some villages have no service at all.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. Money comes in and a bus service is provided, but as soon as the money runs out, the bus operators cut the service. Instead of building up the number of people who use it, all they do is look for a grant and get out as soon as the money is gone. I agree that we ought to ensure that bus companies sign up for longevity, not short-term gain.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Longevity is required, and predictability of service as well: it must not be the case that there is a bus in the morning, but the next one is late at night. Some people want to go to Clitheroe, for example, to do some shopping, then come out again in two hours’ time. They do not want to stay there for six hours, which makes things increasingly difficult for them. I hope that we will look at providing a network that would be a great boost to people who live in some of the smaller and more remote villages. If we want such villages to carry on and exist in the future, we must ensure that there is a transport lifeblood for them.

The hon. Member for Chorley spoke about free buses for students, which leads me to something that really irritates me. Lancashire county council has this thing about youngsters travelling to the nearest school. As many hon. Members know, Clitheroe Royal grammar school is in my constituency. The parents of youngsters who pass the 11-plus and go to that school are clobbered if it is further away than the nearest school. They have to pay up to £600 a year for their youngster to use the bus to go to Clitheroe Royal. I would have thought that we wanted to encourage youngsters to excel in their academic studies. We should not penalise parents. If they have a couple of youngsters going to Clitheroe Royal grammar school, they have to pay more than £1,000 a year out of taxed income, which is not right.

The suggestion was made to go halfway and allow parents to pay only the difference between the nearest school and Clitheroe, but the council will not even do that. It wants the parents to pay the whole amount for their youngsters to travel to school. I hope that the Minister will ensure that the parents of youngsters who go to school are not penalised, and that he will look at what the hon. Member for Chorley said about opening up the rail and transport network and allowing students as well as pensioners to enjoy the facilities.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned Manchester airport in passing. I know that other hon. Members want to contribute to the debate, so I shall conclude with this point. Manchester airport, which MPs in this Chamber all use or have used, is doing a good job, and there has been investment in it during the past 17 years. However, I am concerned about the number of airlines that are reducing and, indeed, withdrawing services from Manchester as a result of the recession. They are pointing to Heathrow and Gatwick and telling our constituents that they can go to London and fly from there to wherever their onward destination happens to be.

Being good environmentalists—certainly all of us in Westminster Hall today are good environmentalists—I would have thought that we would want to ensure that our constituents, millions of whom use Manchester airport from a catchment area stretching from north Wales right across to Leeds, are able to look at Manchester as a point that they can go to, then fly direct to their destination, whether that is the USA, the far east or Australia. It is wholly wrong to expect those people to get into cars and drive all the way down to Heathrow or Gatwick. Indeed, a lot of the people who use the shuttles between Manchester and London are doing so to get on another plane to fly to their final destination. We should not just put all our eggs in one basket, seeing Heathrow or Gatwick as hubs, or seeing both of them as semi-hubs.

I am quite sure that the hon. Gentleman would accept that these decisions are commercial decisions for airlines. If a route is sustainable, obviously the airlines will provide it. Indeed, Manchester has some excellent international routes, although perhaps not enough for his constituents.

I agree absolutely with the Minister that we cannot chain airlines to Manchester and say that they have to fly from there. However, we need to look at the reasons, commercial and otherwise, why they have decided to reduce the routes. Clearly, the recession is going to be part of that. However, it may be because of other reasons, such as landing costs, including the differential costs between one airport and another, or because having a base in a regional airport is very expensive for airlines to maintain some of their aircraft. Whatever the reasons, if we can have a look at them, so that we can perhaps make a difference by encouraging airlines to change their decisions and increase their capacity at regional airports, that would be good. We cannot keep pressing everything into Heathrow and Gatwick, which are already operating at congestion levels. It is quite unpleasant to travel through some of these major airports at the moment.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the decision by the Government to extend capacity at Heathrow by offering a third runway does not help when regional airports are trying to compete with London airports?

As I say, I think that Manchester could be a huge safety valve for airports such as Gatwick and Heathrow. Let us not try to drag ourselves back to the 14th century and think that people are going to stop flying, because that is not going to happen. These days, young people want to travel the world and I do not think that we, as politicians, have a right to turn to them and say that they cannot do that. I always enjoy Al Gore’s statement telling us not to fly, as he himself flies around the world.

Instead, we must look at the most environmentally friendly ways of flying and at the more efficient, leaner aircraft that are less polluting. Those aircraft include larger models, such as the A380. I was there with the Minister when we saw the Singapore Airlines A380 come to Heathrow. It is a fantastic aircraft, which allows more people to be transported on a single flight so that, proportionately, there is less damage to the environment.

Let us look at ways of ensuring that Manchester acts as that safety valve. We cannot close down Heathrow or Gatwick, which compete with Schiphol, Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt airports, where huge sums of money have been invested. Furthermore, I will not let anyone tell me that transit passengers are useless and do not spend money. One has only to go Dubai airport to see the huge sums of money that transit passengers are spending there, which creates the jobs in that airport for the people who live locally. Let us not be blind to that.

We have to use common sense to find ways of ensuring that capacity is built in our regional airports, so that the problems to which the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Leech) has alluded, about the investment that may now be needed in Heathrow, do not worsen and so that such investment may not need to be made. If we can reduce the number of people who are transiting and going through Heathrow, that will at least give Heathrow more of a breathing space before we can decide exactly how it will develop in the future.

Speaking as a Welsh boy—specifically a Swansea boy—doing missionary work in the north-west, the north-west is important. The Minister knows the area well, because he comes to my constituency where we have friends in common—not common friends, but friends in common—so he knows how beautiful the north-west is. The tourism potential for the north-west is absolutely amazing.

Blackpool has been mentioned time and time again. Regarding Blackpool, the one thing that I regret is that none of us now holds our party conferences there, which is a great shame, because it clearly hits the local economy. If only the right, common-sense decision had been made regarding the casino in Blackpool—there are airport facilities there—we might have been able to make some progress and achieve even more regeneration. To ensure that jobs still come into the north-west, that it is a centre for BAE Systems and all the aerospace and technological skills that are there, and that we see further expansion in future, we must ensure that we get the transport right.

I, too, want to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) on securing this debate, because every aspect of transport is, of course, fundamental to the success of the regional economy. The debate is particularly welcome at this time in the economic cycle.

I want to start by picking up where the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) just left off, by discussing Manchester airport. I say gently to my hon. Friend the Minister, “Please, let us get beyond this idea that market forces will decide everything about a national airport strategy”. Of course the market has an important role; nobody can dragoon the private airlines to Manchester or to anywhere else. Increasingly, however, the choice for people in the north of England is not going to be to interline through Heathrow and the overcrowded London airport system; it will be to interline through Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt or Schipol airports, unless there is an adequate system through Manchester.

I do not make this charge against my hon. Friend the Minister personally, but one of the criticisms of the Department for Transport’s planning over many years has been that national air policy has always been seen as being synonymous with British Airways as an airline and with BAA in terms of airports. In the world that we live in now, that view is fundamentally misguided. We need an airports policy that looks at the needs of other parts of the country.

The economy in the north is bigger than that of many European countries. Furthermore, the airport in Manchester is, I believe, the eighth biggest in Europe and much bigger than those in many national capitals. Manchester airport is a precious asset for the development of the regional economy. So there is an issue for the Government that goes way beyond the simple decisions made by an individual airline. I hope that that point can be established, because we need to see the development not just of Manchester airport but of other airports in the north-west; I accept the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley made: the north-west has another airport in Liverpool, which has become increasingly important in recent years, and, to a lesser extent, another airport in Blackpool. Development of Manchester airport is fundamentally important to provide real travel opportunities for the people and businesses of the north-west and the greater north, and I hope that that point can be taken on board.

I want to spend a few moments talking about the railway system. First, I want to endorse very strongly the impassioned case that my hon. Friend made about the need for the high-speed rail link and his plea for that link to be seen not simply as residual as it snakes its way up from the south-east. It is really important that a high-speed rail link is a national rail link, with ownership by all parts of that system. Obviously, from the point of view of the north and particularly the north-west—the biggest concentration of the population in the north lies in the belt coming through the north-west—that view is, as they say nowadays, a “no-brainer”. We hope that, even in the mechanics of transport planning, it is also seen as a no-brainer, so that we can see positive steps forward on this issue. I know that the Secretary of State for Transport is very forward in his own thinking on this issue and it matters that we have impetus from that political level. However, we need to see something tangible coming out of this debate. Otherwise, the high-speed rail link will simply be one of those transport projects that our grandchildren’s grandchildren will read documents about and wonder where it ever went to. It is important that we see something happening here and now.

Even if that high-speed rail link is established, it is important that we recognise that our existing northern rail system is inadequate. I think that it is now an accepted fact that the most crowded part of the railway system is not around London, although Londoners would never believe that to be the case, but in the run-in to Manchester. I do not say that simply as a Member of Parliament for the centre of Manchester, because this issue does not directly affect my constituents. However, it affects the ability of people from all over the north to access Manchester as the centre of the northern economy. That matters to the north’s economic progress and development, and it is vital to have some recognition of that with the necessary investment in rolling stock and the existing infrastructure.

I shall couple that with a brief aside. Network Rail inevitably comes in for criticism, and that is right because it is difficult to say that its forward planning and stewarding of work in progress have been spectacularly good. On almost every bank holiday, the railway system falls into a state of chaos, particularly in the north-west and for people travelling from there to London. It is astonishing that Network Rail pays itself large bonuses for what it believes is success but most people believe is an indifferent performance.

Having got that off my chest, I return to the importance of the planning structures and to the need to unblock points of congestion in the northern railway system. We need our railways every bit as much as those who live in the south-east. My hon. Friend the Member for Chorley was complimentary about the regional development agency and I do not want to be hostile to it, but the Minister may want to reflect—this is not a criticism of his Department—on how the RDA prioritises transport. Our RDA, unlike, for example, Yorkshire Forward, does not believe that its role is to intervene directly in transport investment. Yorkshire Forward has invested directly in rolling stock to produce a 6 per cent. increase in passenger capacity on the most congested routes. That was an important step, but Bryan Gray, chair of the Northwest Regional Development Agency, has put on record its reason for rejecting a proposal from Greater Manchester for direct investment in necessary rolling stock. He said:

“I am afraid that the Agency is unable to assist directly in purchasing rolling stock. The Agency’s Board have considered our priorities and in relation to transport infrastructure they have resolved that the Agency’s role should be restricted to influencing and shaping policy, rather than financial support.”

That is not good enough because the RDA should be part of the process of recognising what strategic investment is necessary to improve the functioning of the regional economy, and transport is part of that. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will engage with his colleagues in the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and elsewhere to exert a little judicious pressure in that direction.

I want to emphasise the importance of the debate initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley. The north-west has an inadequate but not hopeless transport infrastructure and it is easy to see the capacity for a significant leap forward. The Government have made a big difference, and they have invested in big changes in, for example, road and rail infrastructure. The number of people using rail passenger and freight services has increased enormously in recent years, and that is welcome. We now need a qualitative leap forward to transform the northern transport system from being barely adequate to being fit for purpose for the travelling public and the economy of the area in which we live. That is achievable, and I hope that the Minister will hear the plea from my hon. Friend and other hon. Members in the Chamber, where there is no party political divide on the matter, but a seriousness of purpose in wanting the improvements that can be achieved.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) on securing this debate. A bit of a theme, or even a campaign, is developing.

Over Easter, I sat in my back garden in Southport putting on suntan lotion and complaining about the heat while people in the south shivered under grey skies, belying the myth peddled by generations of BBC weathermen that the weather is grim up north. Another, economic myth is that the future of the UK lies almost entirely in the City and that the finance and banking sector is somewhere in London. The Labour Government have hitherto been spellbound by and prisoner to that myth, and presumed that wealth does not come from the north because that happened only long ago in the 19th century. We talk about economic development in the south and London, but about economic regeneration in the north.

That was crystallised in a recent think tank report when a young gentleman, presumably from the south, suggested that the future for Liverpudlians was to get out of Liverpool and to move down south if they wanted employment and prospects. That myth is looking substantially less convincing now. It promised London and the south-east an unsustainable future because housing, transport and infrastructure pressures could be met only by turning the leafy south into a concrete jungle, which people in the south are prone to complain about. However, there has been a clear legacy in transport planning. Hon. Members have talked about expansion at Heathrow rather than regional airports, but no one mentioned the £5 billion commitment to Crossrail, which looks like being the great folly of the 21st century, or the billions of pounds of infrastructure spend that has been allocated to the south and the south-east, particularly the London area.

I have complained about the Department for Transport’s colonial mindset, which is that all roads and certainly all railways should lead to London. Such an approach must be contested. It is still the case that if Tilbury wants a road, it gets it, but if Hull or Liverpool want something, they do not get it as quickly or on the same scale. Thameslink needs new carriages, and it will get them because it has been promised them with a secure allotment. That is hard luck for passengers of Northern Rail, which is the country’s biggest franchise.

Turning to funding levels, I have heard a good analysis in this Chamber by the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer). They differ massively if we consider everything in the round—the Minister may not want me to say that—when compared with funding for places such as Scotland and Wales under the Barnett formula. There does not seem to be a good reason for bridges in the north-west to receive less funding and support than those in Scotland. The hon. Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) is not now in his place, but I am sure that he would say “Hear, hear” if he were.

My point is not that that is unfair—life is not fair—but that it is no longer wise. Genuine, sustainable economic development in the north can be triggered by good transport infrastructure, whether through investment in road, rail or sea. Hull and Liverpool are hugely successful ports. With the right infrastructure, manufacturing in the north-west can compete worldwide. The tourist offer has been alluded to, and that could be uprated substantially with better communication. Light industry is prospering in many areas of the north-west. However, what we need locally in the north even more than fair funding is better judgment. So much of what has been attempted there has gone under the banner of regeneration rather than genuine economic development. It is seen in terms of sending out a lifeboat rather than backing winners.

Money for projects in the north-west has not always been as well spent as I would wish. An example from some years ago is the M58, which is the emptiest motorway in the UK, or at least in England. It was built in the expectation that linking Skelmersdale to the M6 would keep many unskilled people in work, but that did not work. Part of the reason why progress was not made on the Liverpool tram scheme and why there was not wholesale agreement across all local authorities, and so with the Government, was that to some extent the project was based on pious hopes rather than sure political and economic conviction. It was thought that running a tram line through highly deprived wards would encourage economic regeneration even though it paralleled an existing train line. Had the better alternative, which was to plan the tram line down to the airport, been chosen, there would have been a very sound economic case and vocal support throughout the region for that. What was proposed might have made some political sense, but it did not make the same economic sense as some of the alternatives on the table.

[Mr. Jim Hood in the Chair]

My fundamental point is that there are real winners in the north-west, but they need to be supported in the same emphatic way as they would be were they in the south or certainly in London. Merseyrail is a good example. That is a fantastically successful rail network at the moment, run by Serco and NedRailways. It needs help to expand. We could talk about the Burscough curves and the Halton curves, but we cannot question the fact that although they are awfully good at running a railway and awfully successful in economic and social terms, they need help to remodel Central station. The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr. Timpson) mentioned his local station, but Central station is a disaster area in Liverpool. It is an appalling communication network to have at the heart of a very good system. We need to get Network Rail properly engaged. Justifiable criticism has been made of Network Rail so far.

Exactly the same set of considerations applies in Manchester. There are things there that are working, and are economically beneficial and wholly desirable, but they do not receive the financial and strategic support that they ought to. We need to sort out the bottleneck in Manchester. I am talking about trains going through Manchester for the benefit of the whole north-west. We need to develop the tram where it is shown to be successful. We need to develop better links with central Lancashire, which is often left out. We need to link up Preston, Manchester and Liverpool in the way suggested.

In the north-west, we do not have a wish list of things that it would be nice to do—it would be lovely if we could turn the clock back to pre-Beeching days. We have a to-do list—a list of projects that require proper funding and need to be strategically planned and supported. Above all, we need to rethink how the funding is going and we need to prioritise the north-west as we prioritise London, the south-east, Wales and Scotland. However, I have the horrid feeling that given the current state of the public finances, the party and the Government who have relied so much and for so long on their north-west MPs to maintain their grip on power have to some extent, to use a transport metaphor, missed the boat.

I did not come to the Chamber intending to speak, but the previous contribution has brought me to my feet. I am a great supporter of the high-speed rail lines that my friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) mentioned. In November 2007, I happened to be in Taiwan with my friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Janet Anderson), who is sitting beside me, and we travelled on the high-speed rail link from the south of the island to the north. As you know, Mr. Hood, Taiwan is a small island; it is about 200 miles from north to south. We were able to travel that distance in next to no time. As a consequence, all commercial flying within the island of Taiwan has stopped. If we had a high-speed rail line from London up to the north-west and a second one to the north-east, that would dramatically reduce the incidence of domestic flying in the UK, which would be a good thing.

The Government were dragging their feet over this whole issue until the current Secretary of State took office. He has made some encouraging noises, but I want more than that. Rather than just uttering warm words and embracing the concept because it sounds green and like something that the environmentalists would embrace, let us just do it.

That brings me to my main point. The regional funding allocations are simply inadequate. I was going to intervene on my friend the Member for Chorley and say, “Would you like to tell us all how much this list will cost?” Of course it costs a lot of money, but transport has been the Cinderella and this is the moment when we should be spending money on transport schemes—as the economy enters a recession, which we hope will not be a deep recession. When Ministers are telling us that we should be spending money to keep people in employment, doing the things that need to be done, why hesitate now?

My friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd) talked about the Northwest Regional Development Agency. I have its principles and issues paper, which it released just a month or two ago, looking forward to the new regional strategy. On transport, it states that

“the quality of many local rail services and infrastructure is poor, so significant further development in the region’s light and heavy rail infrastructure would appear essential”—

not desirable but essential. The RDA should put its money where its mouth is. That is the point made by my friend the Member for Manchester, Central.

Of course that takes money. The Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) talked about the cost of walk-on fares from London to Manchester, Newcastle or wherever. It is scandalous how much people have to pay. We can fly the Atlantic more cheaply than we can walk on to a train in London and go to a destination in the north-west. However, we have to follow through the logic, which means more subsidy. We live, as I constantly remind people, in a big nasty capitalist world, where people are out to make profits. If they cannot make those profits, they withdraw the services. If we think that those services are desirable in their own right and fulfil a social function, somebody has to pay, which means subsidies. I do not balk at that. It is a good thing that people move from the road on to the railways. We should be spending more money on the railways.

In my own constituency, I have been banging on about this for as long as I can remember—we should reopen the old line from Colne to Skipton that was ripped up in 1970. The cost of reinstating that line on a single track would be about £35 million. That is de minimis when we hear about billions and trillions of pounds and about bail-outs. The Todmorden curve, which would allow people to travel from east Lancashire painlessly into Manchester, would cost about £5 million. Those are trivial sums. Through the years, I have read so many strategy reports and assessment reports—reports written by any number of organisations. I am fed up reading those reports; I want to see action on the ground. I am encouraged that the new Minister responsible for the railways, Lord Adonis, has agreed to meet me and a small delegation of people who want to see that railway reopened.

Let me finish on this point. In Lancashire, there are bids from seven organisations that want to see rail reopenings in the county. County councils and others are going through hoops unnecessarily to prioritise those schemes. What we should be doing is putting additional money into transport as a way of kick-starting the economy and rebuilding the infrastructure that needs to be replaced.

I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) on securing what has been a very important debate on transport in the north-west. The title of the debate is fairly broad and has given a number of MPs from across the north-west an opportunity to have their say and raise objections or state views on transport in the north-west, whether that is suggesting the reopening of Coppull station or talking about discussions on Ribble Valley Rail, travel to school or even high-speed rail in Taiwan.

Having looked through Hansard to find out what the hon. Member for Chorley might want to talk about, I concluded that he wanted to raise the issue of free concessionary travel, given that he had asked a number of parliamentary questions on the issue and had suggested a topical debate on the possible extension of the scheme to include schoolchildren and students and widening the scheme to encompass trains. Fortunately, I bumped into the hon. Gentleman on the Floor of the House yesterday and was tipped off about the other issues that he wanted to discuss.

The hon. Gentleman started by talking about the concessionary travel scheme, and although hon. Members on both sides of the House would support the principle of extending it—whether to young people or to other forms of public transport—the harsh reality is that we have not yet managed fully to fund the existing scheme. The expected shortfall in a number of local authorities in the north-west ranges from as little as £70,000 in Allerdale to more than £1,380,000 in Preston. Other north-west local authorities also have funding gaps and have been short-changed. The figure in Blackpool, for instance, is £1.25 million, while in South Lakeland it is £95,000. In the hon. Gentleman’s own area, Chorley, the figure is more than £400,000.

I am sorry, but that is not true. The local authority loves to put that figure about, but it is not true. What we do have a problem with is money coming back. The hon. Gentleman may not be aware that local authorities in Lancashire have divvied up the money. Some received more than they should have, and some received less, and we did not know how well it would be used. The figures that he gave are not correct, and he should have a rethink about that. It would be tragic if local authorities were allowed to cry foul when they do not have a case. Chorley has done very well over the years; in fact, it has had more money than it has spent. The fact that the other authorities are divvying up and sharing out the money is easing the pain for those that have suffered.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his clarification. Obviously, I am going on the figures produced by the local authority. It is fair to say, however, that some local authorities are winners and some losers, and that has been replicated around the country. The Government have argued that the money available covers the scheme, but setting aside the fact that there are winners and losers, there is a shortfall of about £60 million across the country.

I have to say that that shortfall is in no small part due to the success of the scheme. We would all agree that it has been a massive success, and people have made use of their free travel. However, estimates of how many extra journeys would be created and how much that would cost have perhaps been too low. I have no doubt that if we decided to extend the scheme to include other forms of public transport or schoolchildren and students, that would be equally successful and increase patronage.

The Government’s response, however, has been to draw back from the scheme. Hon. Members may not be aware of the change to the scheme that came into force on 1 April, banning the use of free bus passes on certain services unless local authorities foot the bill. That change, which was contained in a statutory instrument, was introduced without proper scrutiny or the opportunity to divide on it. The Liberal Democrats opposed the statutory instrument, and I hope that that will result in the matter being brought back to Parliament for discussion, because the change has meant that local bus services in some areas are no longer available free of charge to pensioners and disabled people. Although the statutory instrument is no doubt intended to exclude coach services, such services often provide the local bus service for pensioners. While I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman, I suggest that we ensure that the scheme is fully funded and covers all local bus services before we talk about extending it to include rail.

Of course it should be properly funded, and some would argue that it has been. As I said, however, some people have got more money than they should have done, and it should be shared out. The hon. Gentleman may not be aware of this, but the scheme should never have been operated by individual districts, which have negotiated with each transport operator in their area. The scheme should have gone to the county, which should then have provided the service and negotiated on behalf of the districts. That would have made sense. It is the fact that the districts wanted to make money out of the scheme that has created the biggest problem. What I should tell the hon. Gentleman, however, is that it is not right that there is a postcode transport lottery—people in London can use underground trains and the docklands light railway, but young people and pensioners in the north cannot use similar services. There should be no differentials between the benefits to the south and the benefits to the north. As local Members, we should all be on side, ensuring that we represent our people and that they have the same rights as people in London—and that should be paid for by the Government.

I would agree with the hon. Gentleman’s sentiments, but the reality is that it is difficult to come up with a scheme that can be fully funded when the north-west loses out to the south-east on funding.

I want briefly to move on to the issue of rail. The hon. Gentleman mentioned a high-speed line to the north-west, and he will be aware that the Liberal Democrats were the first party to pledge support for a high-speed rail link to the north and beyond. The Conservatives, as usual, have limped in with a half-hearted promise late in the day, although I am pleased that the Labour party has now shown itself to be more in favour of high-speed rail than it has been. That is in no small part due to the new Minister for rail, who is showing a real commitment to rail, and I am happy to go on record with that.

My party’s programme for high-speed rail would begin immediately and would be rolled out over 15 years. A high-speed line is vital not only to free up capacity on existing routes, but to encourage more cars off the roads and dissuade people from taking domestic flights, as well as helping to drive the north-west economy and bringing us as close to the south-east as necessary.

On top of that commitment, we would create a new future transport fund, which would more than double the Government’s planned investment for 2009-14, and provide an estimated additional £12 billion to improve rail services. We have already put together a list of potential rail improvements across the country that could be funded from the future transport fund. It is certainly not an exhaustive list, and there is plenty of opportunity for other small schemes to be included. One or two of the suggested options in the north-west include the electrification of the Wrexham-Bidston line and trans-Pennine routes, including Manchester, Liverpool via Chat Moss, and Blackpool via Preston. We also propose to reopen lines such as the Penrith to Keswick and the Galashiels to Carlisle lines. We will also look at new lines—the Todmorden curve has been mentioned, and there is also the Burscough curve—and at introducing a number of new stations, which several hon. Members have mentioned.

Such initiatives are vital if we are to expand capacity and deal with the major problem of overcrowding on our railways. Tinkering with the timetables has resulted in positive improvements for some local services, but that is tinkering at the edges, and for all the winners that it creates, it also creates losers. The hon. Gentleman talked about train services not stopping at Adlington, and although timetable alterations along the Styal line in my constituency have resulted in service improvements for some passengers, others are now unable to get on a particular service at a particular train station, while those who want to go through Manchester have to change trains instead of being able to take a through train, as they did previously.

In its policy paper, my party has set out in great detail the benefits of high-speed rail and other rail improvements, but we have also indicated how we would pay for them. There would be a £30 surcharge on domestic flights—we have been very open about that—and a lorry road user charge. We would also get more money out of the train operating companies by offering longer franchises in return for better investment. Currently there is little incentive for train operating companies to invest for the future, as they are uncertain whether they will be running services in two or three years’ time.

Finally, in a debate on transport in the north-west, and because I represent a Manchester constituency, it would be wrong not to mention the referendum in Greater Manchester on congestion charging.

I am intrigued by the £30 tax. Would those flying via Heathrow or Gatwick in transit be eligible for that tax?

The £30 tax would be for all domestic flights, with the exception of lifeline flights, so if someone took a plane from Manchester to London and then got on another flight to somewhere else, that would clearly incur the charge.

Could I just point out—

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman because I do not have much time left. [Interruption.]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is not giving way.

I do not wish to dwell on the rights and wrongs of the transport innovation bid, but the overwhelming rejection of the revenue-raising congestion charge to part-fund public transport improvements in Greater Manchester makes it increasingly unlikely that any local authority will press ahead with a different scheme, including congestion charging. It would be a brave local authority that was prepared to risk the political consequences of promoting a charging scheme, particularly at a time when people are struggling as a result of the economic downturn and businesses are facing an uncertain future.

That means that more than £1 billion could be left unspent and will probably find its way back to the Treasury. We believe that that money should be spent to improve transport now, on schemes that will either help to kick-start the local economy or promote greener and more sustainable transport. There are schemes in Greater Manchester that are ready to go now, and I am sure that there are other schemes across the country that local authorities would like to promote that could use that money, but it cannot be accessed because no one is prepared to put in a bid that includes congestion charging.

It is a great pleasure to take part in the debate, particularly following the contributions that have been made, including that from the hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle), who ably introduced the debate and spoke with passion. I was intrigued by his innovative use of geography, as he somehow managed to put Chorley at the centre not only of Lancashire and the north-west, but of England, and probably, had we let him continue, the universe as well. There were some key points in his contribution that the Minister will need to focus on in his response, such as the possible extension of concessionary travel arrangements for pensioners.

It is true that the Government have set up a system whereby local authorities receive funding, and that has caused all sorts of inadequacies. The hon. Member for Chorley will recognise, despite his correction of the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Leech), that the published figures in Lancashire show some big swings between local councils, and it is clear that that is happening in other parts of the country as well. The problem is about not only national underfunding, but council-to-council differentials.

By way of further clarification, we suggested that it should have gone to the county in the first place, and I think that the hon. Gentleman will agree that countries should have operated such a scheme instead of all the local districts trying to negotiate. The other point is that some of them have spent money on subsidising bus routes, but the money was never intended to do that. It was intended to support the pensioners, but it has been used for other purposes, which is part of the reason why they have a deficit.

That is undoubtedly true in other areas. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that in other parts of the country, informal, county-wide schemes are already operating, as in Lincolnshire and Surrey, as the only way to make the scheme in any way viable countrywide. The Minister will have to address how the Government intend, in the short period left to them, to rectify the funding of the scheme, because not only is it nationally underfunded, but the differentials between councils are causing major problems. I listened with great care to the case made for extending the scheme to rail and to young people and will be interested to hear whether the Minister will commit to funding that extra cost today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) talked about the cost of rail, and he will be aware that those high roll-on fares are partly a direct result of the franchise system put in place by the Government. He also mentioned Ribble Valley Rail and Beeching, so it will be interesting to hear whether the Minister would like to do what the four previous Secretaries of State to whom I have written have failed to do, which is join us in a moratorium on building on old railway lines. Being one of Parliament’s most experienced air travellers, my hon. Friend spoke eloquently about the need to keep Manchester airport going.

I was intrigued by the comments on high-speed rail, on which there is now consensus across the political spectrum. I am not quite sure that I recognise the Liberal Democrats as being the first to make that commitment or where that claim came from, but it is absolutely clear that high-speed rail has a part to play and I wish to touch on that in more detail. I was intrigued by the contribution made by the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh). I think that he said that he regarded the funding for Crossrail as a folly, and I wonder whether that is his party’s policy. I look forward to some official confirmation on that.

We had an amusing tract on socialist economics from the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) and on the need for greater subsidy. I wonder whether the Minister will want to talk about greater subsidy today in the light of what is likely to happen tomorrow, when the Government will admit that we are in the longest recession since the second world war and that the budget deficit will rise to around 12 per cent. of gross domestic product. All the contributions have called for extra funding from the Government, so I wonder whether the Minister will talk about that. I looked at the numbers for funding for the north-west, compared with other regions—one of the interesting points that is often made is the comparison between the north-west and London. However, the Government will know that, according to the Department for Transport’s current plans for 2010-11, the north-west will receive rather more per head than London. Do the Government intend to continue with those plans or do they intend to give rather less to the north-west?

There will be a general election next year, and the hon. Gentleman said a few moments ago, with a slight hint of hubris, that that will be the end of the Labour Government. Will a Conservative Government commit to maintaining those figures?

I am interested to know whether this Government will commit to those spending plans in the light of what we might hear tomorrow, and after that I will happily look at what plans might be available. As I have said, it is highly likely that tomorrow we will see the budget deficit skyrocket to 12 per cent. of GDP. The Department is already looking to cut substantial amounts of money from its budget proposals, as we have seen from the permanent secretary’s comments to a group of suppliers, and I am asking the Minister to say whether he intends to keep to the Department’s published plans.

We have heard several comments on the clear importance of high-speed rail to the north and to the whole country. The case for high-speed rail was made by my party over two years ago, and we are delighted that Lord Adonis has joined that case, which will produce significant economic and environmental benefits for the north. Will the Minster commit the Government to extend the high-speed rail beyond Rugby, which is where the Secretary of State currently intends to close it?

I am aware that the Minister will need time to answer all the questions raised today, but will he answer two others about the railways in the north? First, the northern franchise is due to be relet in 2012-13. The current franchise was on let on the assumption of there being no growth. Is the Minister prepared to say that that was wrong, and that growth assumptions should now be made? Will he confirm the Government’s proposals on the carriages to be used under that renegotiated high-level output specification franchise? Will they be new, or will they be cascaded carriages?

The hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd) said that the routes in and around Manchester are the most overcrowded. Clearly, there are a number of plans for the Manchester hub; it is one of the key schemes for ensuring the continued growth of the economy of the north. Will the Minister update us today on what conversations he has had with his colleagues in other Ministries on progressing those plans? Will he confirm that Network Rail is pushing ahead with those plans, and that we will see them on the due date in June?

It is a pleasure, Mr. Hood, to see you presiding over our debate this afternoon.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) on securing this important debate. He expressed concerns on a range of policies and projects in the north-west, as did other Members, and he set them out clearly. I assure my hon. Friend and the House that even if I do not respond to every point raised this morning, they will all be examined. I shall speak later on the specific issues raised. However, I shall start by highlighting some of the successes seen recently in the north-west.

I am responding on behalf of my ministerial colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Paul Clark). He sends his apologies for not being able to attend the debate. The Department is proud of the investment that it has made to improve transport in the north-west. Total public expenditure on transport there increased by 27 per cent. between 2002-03 and 2007-08; there was £672 million for local transport and maintenance for the period 2008-11; and there was £1.3 billion over 10 years for major projects. However, those numbers tell only part of the story.

The north-west benefits also from specifically targeted funding. A road safety grant of £41.5 million is helping local authorities to develop solutions specific to their needs; more than 20 per cent. of the recent national cycle training grant went to the north-west; and £7 million is going towards the north-west’s three new cycling demonstration towns of Blackpool, Chester and Southport. I shall return to the topic of cycling if I have time. Furthermore, more than £21 million in proposed investment from the community infrastructure fund has been progressed to a full business case for schemes in the north-west.

Having an effective transport system is about much more than money. It is also about seizing the opportunities offered and making the right decisions. We are devolving decision-making, putting local people and their leaders in the driving seat when deciding transport priorities. However, I hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley said; I understand that public consultation will soon take place in respect of improving those arrangements.

Central to this is the Local Transport Act 2008, which gives the new integrated transport authorities the opportunity to implement a more streamlined transport planning and decision-making process. We are providing the right framework and tools for local authorities and bus operators to work together to boost bus use. That is why we are urging our partners to make the most of the opportunities provided by the Act to promote bus travel, reduce congestion and improve services, information and infrastructure. As an example of that, my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham recently made a well received visit to the north-west to discuss the provisions of the Act with councillors and officers and to encourage its use.

Much can be achieved in transport through effective leadership and governance, as they will allow the right decisions to be made at the right level, whether local, regional or sub-regional. We have seen with the buses what local leadership can achieve. At the sub-regional level, the north-west has been at the forefront of taking advantage of the opportunities through the multi-area agreement system. There is also a strategic regional dimension to transport planning. The north-west, with other regions, recently resubmitted its priorities for major project funding through the regional funding allocation. We are now considering them, and will reply in due course.

Although I cannot comment now on the specifics of the north-west’s submission, I welcome the positive response from the area to its increasing role in making decisions. Going forward, the Department is providing funds to regions to study priorities under the strategic process set out in “Delivering a Sustainable Transport System”, which was published earlier this year.

These are challenging times. The north-west is, and always has been, a vital component in our national economy. Businesses and industries from the region are competing in global markets, but they do so against the backdrop of a global economic crisis. Keeping goods, raw materials and commuters moving is crucial to supporting the economy. We in Whitehall are making investment, and devolving decision-making to those who know best, but we are also developing a long-term vision for the nation’s transport network by exploring the possibilities of a north-south high-speed rail link, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley and many others. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and Lord Adonis, the rail Minister, will be gratified by the kind words expressed by so many Members this morning, both welcoming them to the Department and appreciating what they have done since their appointment.

As announced to the House on 15 January, a new company, High Speed 2, has been formed to develop the case for high-speed services between London and Scotland. It will report by the end of the year with a proposed route from London to the west midlands, setting out any necessary options. It will also consider the potential for new lines to serve the north of England and Scotland.

We have asked High Speed 2 to provide advice on the development of a high-speed line beyond the west midlands, at the level of broad corridors, including to the north-west. The Manchester hub study is now working to a similar time scale to the high speed study, and the conclusions of each will be shared. Network Rail will not develop options for Manchester and the surrounding area that would close off the option of high-speed trains to service a central Manchester terminal.

My hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) spoke about Taiwan, and said that if there were a high-speed rail link between the north-west and London it would eliminate all air travel. We have discussed the matter before. As my hon. Friend knows, the upgrade of the north-west line has reversed the polarity of travel; instead of 60 per cent. of travellers going by air and 40 per cent. by rail, 60 per cent. now go by rail and 40 per cent. by air. I am sure that my hon. Friend is right; an improved service will enable travellers to choose the most appropriate and suitable service, which will also be the most efficient and cost-effective.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chorley asked about community infrastructure fund and whether, if that was unsuccessful for Chorley, he could look for an alternative funding solution. The outcome of the CIF assessment process will be known by the summer, after which time we will be clearer about whether alternative funding solutions still need to be considered. He also spoke about the Mersey gateway bridge. It has been agreed that there will a joint public inquiry into all the orders necessary to build and toll both bridges. That inquiry begins on 19 May. That subject was first raised in an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg). However, I shall comment only on current proposals.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chorley asked about extending concessionary travel to young people, and he wanted to know whether it would be extended to regional train travel, too. As he said, the current scheme is popular. Local authorities have the power to put further extensions in place if they believe that it would be good for the area. However, I acknowledge my hon. Friend’s demand for additional funding for his area, so that services similar to those provided in other parts of the country can be provided in the north-west.

The hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) said that more needs to be done for rural bus services. Provisions in the Local Transport Act 2008 strengthen the powers available to local authorities to improve bus services; they include better provision for community transport, as well as making quality contracts more feasible. It is up to local authorities to use those powers in the best way for their areas.

I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd) that I am big fan and supporter of Manchester airport. In 2003, we published the White Paper on aviation, and in 2006 there was an update. We are committed to providing a national policy statement on aviation in due course. My hon. Friend spoke about commercial pressures, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle, and he also asked about identifying appropriate regulation to support regional airports. Those matters are being examined, and will be examined further. I was also asked about rail capacity—

Order. We now come to a debate on the capital programme at Canterbury college.

I welcome this opportunity to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Hood. I have served alongside you in Committee for many years, but never under you. I am grateful for this opportunity to debate the capital programme at Canterbury college. By happy accident, this debate falls just after the publication of Sir Andrew Foster’s report on the wider problems of capital funding, and I thank the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills for sending me a copy of the report.

Canterbury college is the further and higher education college at the heart of Canterbury and east Kent. It enjoys an enviable reputation as a great place to learn and changes lives by offering a wide range of full-time, part-time and workplace courses to approximately 9,000 students a year. It is pivotal to the local economy and is located near the boundary of Northgate ward, which has a national designation for deprivation. The college is at the forefront of new apprenticeship training, diplomas, adult basic skills and the reskilling of those who have lost their jobs. It also provides a range of pathways into higher education, mostly for the very categories of people whose participation in higher education nationally remains frustratingly low.

The college has succeeded in bringing NEETs—those not in education, employment or training—back into education, and in re-engaging and motivating students who have become disaffected with, and—in some cases—excluded from, the traditional educational system. It works with some 300 apprentices and their employers and encourages the take-up of apprenticeships and completion of courses in the face of a recession. The number of apprenticeships not being completed at the moment is an understated problem.

The college works with, and provides skilled training solutions for, more than 800 employers in the area and is working closely with schools to set up and deliver the new national diplomas that will form the basis of education in years to come. It is the best performing college in the south-east for Train to Gain.

indicated assent.

I am delighted to see the Minister nodding.

The college commenced a major three-phased redevelopment of its site in 2005. Phases 1 and 2 were completed bang on time and budget, at a cost of approximately £50 million. Phase 1 was completed in 2007 and included the new children’s, technology, land-based, motor vehicle and post-16 centres. They house modern classrooms, study rooms and science laboratories. Phase 2 was completed in February 2008 and gave the college a unique street-like layout. It includes a new library and facilities for arts, design, media and performing arts and provides front-of-house services open to the public, including a snack shop, travel shop and refectory. Those two phases have resulted in improved participation and a growth in learner numbers. Furthermore, learner success rates have improved year on year for the past three years, and continue to do so.

The college applied for the third and final phase of campus redevelopment in close consultation with the Learning and Skills Council. The council wrote to the college on 31 July 2008 granting approval in principle and agreeing that budgetary provision equivalent to 91 per cent. of the estimated total project cost— £53.8 million—should be made. However, it has recently emerged that the LSC has not got enough money to fund the 79 projects that it approved in principle. There is an estimated £2.7 billion national shortfall. Phase 3 will provide for the transformation of facilities for students with learning difficulties and disabilities, including new commercial catering facilities and a fully equipped flat to hone their work and life skills. It will include a new dedicated centre for students on higher education courses, superb specialist training facilities for catering and hair and beauty, and other facilities serving the community through restaurants, salons and a new spa. Phase 3 also includes a new sports hall with space for four tennis courts, changing facilities, a fitness suite and physiotherapy rooms. That will also be available to members of the public and community groups for hire.

Alison Clarke, the principal and executive director of Canterbury college, commented:

“The impressive completed campus buildings have modern industry standard facilities and first class student accommodation. However, one third of our estate’s accommodation remains dated and inadequate.”

The college has conducted and paid for enabling works to date for phase 3 that were included in the approved application in principle programme—indeed, it has even demolished a temporary building. The full design has been completed and full planning permission obtained, and the educational case for phase 3 has been commended and agreed. The final phase offers excellent value for money, as did the first two phases. It will provide new and state-of-the-art accommodation for high-priority areas such as skills development. Under the Better Regulation Executive’s environmental assessment method—BREEAM—the scheme achieves the “excellent” rating for sustainability. The buildings of phase 3 will complete the transformation of the campus at Canterbury and demonstrate the value that we all place on our learners.

In this time of economic uncertainty—to put it mildly—I need hardly say that wider issues apply. Any delay will impact on employment within the construction industry. The proposed design and build contractor, Wates, is committed to using local subcontractors—of its 19 key sub-contractors, 10 are local—and the majority of the smaller subcontractors and individual workers are also local. It would typically have 300 staff on site, helping to sustain the local economy. This will include family-run contractors, self-employed tradesmen and new apprentices. I need hardly add how important this is to a relatively deprived area in a recession.

Phase 3 will remove the imbalance of superb new facilities standing side by side with buildings that can barely support the education that our learners deserve. The new campus will serve to educate, train and raise the self-esteem of those young people and adults who have experienced disadvantage, whether through learning difficulties and disabilities, home circumstances or simply by not being able to engage with teaching in a school environment—a growing proportion, sadly, of young people. The whole campus will provide a high standard of education and training in a facility that is environmentally sustainable and will help us to meet our zero-carbon target by 2016. This in turn will help to produce a new generation of young people who put sustainability at the heart of what they do in the future.

The college itself is the main focus of this debate, but one or two wider points need making. Sir Andrew Foster’s report commented:

“There were warnings of overheating as early as February 2008 but there was delay and confusion in addressing them”,

and that

“opportunities to intervene were missed.”

He also exposes the sleight of hand involved in bringing forward by one year some £110 million of spending on college building. He writes:

“A decision to bring forward £110 million of capital funding did seem to disguise the underlying problem in-year but merely amplified it in 2009-10.”

He puts the blame for failing to warn FE colleges that were continuing to plan and spend implicitly at the door of Ministers. He said that

“when the impending storm was well and truly upon them there was a failure of communication with colleges. The Council wanted full communication but it did not happen.”

I sympathise with the Minister’s anxiety and I understand his desire to know the full picture and have a plan in place before revealing the problem to the public. In the meantime, however, Canterbury college was spending money and management time on phase 3. In the college’s case, the position was especially unfair: as late as April 2008—two months after the warning signs had emerged—the LSC intervened and asked the college to replace its modest phase 3 proposals for a mixture of rebuild and refurbishment with a more expensive full rebuild.

Andrew Foster also makes it clear that a preoccupation with yet another reorganisation of the LSC played a major role in diverting senior management from doing the job in hand. Three general questions arise for which I should be grateful for some answers. First, can we have an absolute assurance from the Minister, whom I am delighted to see in his place, that the reorganisation of the LSC will be put on hold until the problems have been solved? I know that there is a case for some restructuring—all parties agree on that but not necessarily on the shape—but let us deal with the crisis first. Secondly, will the Minister tell us how much money is left unallocated and what is the estimated aggregate cost to the outstanding projects for which approval in principle has been granted? Thirdly, on what criteria will priorities be set in choosing which of the outstanding projects get the remaining, relatively limited, pot of money?

Returning from the general to the particular, I know that the Minister is personally strongly committed to education and will want to do the best he can within the limited resources available. I ask him to bear it in mind that this is a college that serves 9,000 students, a large proportion of whom are from less advantaged backgrounds. It is a college with an excellent track record and one that has made an outstanding success of the two earlier development phases. All the activities delivered by the final phase would help to tackle pressing social and/or economic needs. Indeed, most of them directly address specific Government targets. I hope that the Minister will ensure that Canterbury college gets the remainder of the tools that it needs to get on with the job that it does so well.

It is a great pleasure to serve under you, Mr. Hood. I am glad to be able to congratulate the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) on securing this debate, which is of great concern to him and to many people in his constituency. The Government are committed to rebuilding the further education estate. As we speak, 250-odd building projects are on the go and unaffected by the current problems. Some £110 million of Government money, which was brought forward in the pre-Budget report to the current spending period, is in addition to the £2.3 billion that we have already spent in the past three years. I recognise that there are serious issues for colleges applying for new capital funding at the moment, and I understand their frustrations with the delay. They have significantly invested time, energy, money and commitment in developing such projects. I understand, too, that with uncertainty comes worry. I want to repeat the commitment made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills and me that we are working as quickly as possible to get a clear and coherent approach so that we can offer all colleges, whatever their position, the clarity and the certainty that they need.

Let me turn to the specific issues affecting the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and college. First, though, let me say how pleased I am to acknowledge the outstanding service provided by Canterbury college to the people of south Kent. The college is playing a vital role in the community through high-quality educational provision and increased support to local business through its outstanding performance in Train to Gain.

Investment has been crucial to the college’s success. Seeing the benefit that capital investment can have on a community such as Canterbury is exactly why this Government have invested so heavily in schemes across the country and are committed to continuing to do so. Canterbury college has already received more than £20 million in capital funding, which enabled it to complete phases 1and 2 of the college’s redevelopment. The hon. Gentleman talked about the new children’s centre, the technology centre, and the post-16 centre that houses modern classrooms, study rooms and science laboratories. He told us about the second phase. He also talked about the unique, street-like layout that includes a restaurant complex and training facilities, which I have not yet seen.

The Minister must come and visit. I think that he will be impressed.

I was going to say that over the past few months, I have seen more details of college capital building projects than I would otherwise have done as a new Minister, and rarely have I seen any that I have been more tempted to visit because of their and interest and excitement than those in Canterbury. Given that the third phase includes a spa and tennis courts, which are already well advanced, I might take up the hon. Gentleman’s offer.

Naturally, I will not comment in detail on Canterbury’s application, as individual funding decisions are the responsibility of the LSC and not of Ministers. However, what I can say is that I am listening to college principals and MPs. I genuinely understand their concerns and am urgently pressing the LSC to give everyone a clear way forward.

According to the Foster review, there are currently 79 projects. The hon. Gentleman asked me for the total outstanding cost of those that have received approval in principle. It is £2.7 billion and there are projects worth a further £3 billion that have applied for, but not yet received, approval in principle. It is quite clear that all such projects cannot be funded on the time scale envisaged in this funding round. That is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State asked Sir Andrew Foster to compile his review.

Sir Andrew’s report is very clear. He says:

“A good policy has been compromised by the manner of its implementation. The policy intent to transform the FE estate is clear and positive. But the implementation approach”—

this is the crucial part—

“did not include a robust financial strategy or a regional or national approach to prioritisation.”

Recognising the failures, the LSC’s former chief executive, Mark Haysom, resigned on 23 March and Geoff Russell, formerly of KPMG, was appointed as acting chief executive on the same day. He said that his first task was urgently to provide certainty and clarity about the college building programme. Geoff Russell has appointed property experts to support the LSC to undertake a comprehensive assessment of all colleges to get more robust and reliable information. Secondly, he has asked Grant Thornton to review the financial data held by the LSC to ensure, as Sir Andrew Foster recommends, that

“the process is grounded in fully accurate and detailed information about capital schemes in the pipeline.”

Thirdly, he has immediately appointed a director to be personally responsible for the capital programme, which was in response to Sir Andrew’s conclusion that there was no clear overall responsibility for the capital programme within the LSC.

While that work is going on—I have been told that it is going on very speedily and successfully—I have made it clear to all college principals that we will not allow any college to get into a situation in which it cannot meet its financial obligations as a result of decisions taken by the LSC on the capital programme. I should like to take this opportunity to say that if any principal is worried about their financial situation, they should get in touch with their local LSC, which will advise them on the best course of action.

Let me turn to some of the last questions raised by the hon. Gentleman. He asked for the machinery of Government changes to be stopped. I understand where he is coming from, but I have to disappoint him. Now, more than ever, is a time when employers and individuals need the skills that will help them not just to survive the economic downturn but to emerge more competitive when business picks up again. That is why we are creating the Skills Funding Agency, which will concentrate on results, not processes. It will help employers find the training that they need, and access Government funding in a much more direct and straightforward way. As this process is now so near to completion, it is the time not to slam on the brakes but to press ahead and deliver the changes as speedily and efficiently as we can, which we think that we are on track to do.

Capital projects are long-term schemes that are prepared, built and paid for over a number of years, which is why Geoff Russell, the new acting chief executive, has appointed external property experts, Grant Thornton, to verify the information and to ensure that Sir Andrew’s recommendation that the process is grounded in accurate and detailed information is met. Clearly, however, as Sir Andrew also recommends, the programme must move from a demand-led process to a needs-based approach. It is vital that, moving forward, we have a set of transparent criteria that the sector supports. That is why the LSC is consulting the sector. In co-operation with the Association of Colleges, it has established a group of college principals to help draw up the criteria for prioritisation to meet Sir Andrew’s recommendations.

I am listening carefully to the Minister. Clearly, the working group will come up with some recommendations on the crucial prioritisation factors to decide what can and cannot be afforded. However, presumably, Ministers will at least have an input to that. In fact, I imagine that they will have to sign off the list of criteria. Will the Minister give some indication what criteria he and his ministerial colleagues in the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills believe should be given importance?

Ministers will have some input in drawing up, at the very broadest level, the policy parameters of the criteria that may be taken forward, but they will not have an input in the process at any level of detail. Certainly, they will not have an input in deciding which colleges get what in future.

The Minister is making a serious attempt to answer all my points, for which I am grateful, but we are in danger of mixing two separate points. Everybody understands that the LSC and successor bodies will decide the allocation to individual projects, but the question of setting the criteria must surely be agreed between the LSC and the Government. Presumably, the Government of the day, who are answerable to Parliament, will not let the LSC make the criteria without Ministers taking a view on them.

The hon. Gentleman has given an accurate description of the situation. The Department and the Government are talking with LSC officials about the kind of criteria that will guide the process. Those talks are ongoing. The process of drawing up the criteria is making good progress and we expect to be able to report on it pretty soon. The Government remain committed to rebuilding the further education estate but, again, I understand the frustration caused by the delays.

As the hon. Gentleman eloquently said, colleges are an essential part of communities. Investment in further education has been doubled since 1997 and colleges now bring learning directly to the heart of communities in ways that were not previously imagined. That learning is practical and grass-roots. It gives people the basic skills to enable them to get sustainable employment, and business the skills to generate wealth and prosperity.

I can assure the House and the hon. Gentleman that my Department and the LSC fully understand the need for urgency. Well advanced projects such as Canterbury are crying out for clarity and certainty. We understand that, as does Geoff Russell in the new leadership of the LSC. My commitment to those colleges, the hon. Gentleman and the House is to identify quickly, and set in place, a clear and coherent approach to ensure that lessons are learned, not only by my Department and the LSC, but by the new SFA.

I am delighted to have secured this debate on responsible banking. It is an important issue in my constituency, where many jobs, provided mainly by Halifax Bank of Scotland, are reliant on the banking sector. It almost goes without saying that the debate is timely. Indeed, I should like to pay tribute to the thousands of people who work in the finance sector in Halifax and neighbouring constituencies such as Calder Valley. During these uncertain times, they have kept quiet, complained little and continued to do a superb job at work. They are loyal, dedicated and committed workers who deserve more information and reassurance about the future security of their jobs and the banking sector in Halifax than they are privy to at the moment.

Despite the irresponsibility of HBOS management over the last 12 years, the bank’s position in my constituency would be far worse without the hard work and diligence of its employees. Because of the reliability and devotion shown by employees in my town, I urge the Minister to place on record an assurance that the Government are doing all that they can to guarantee that there will be no compulsory redundancies in the banking sector in Halifax.

The events of the last 12 months have changed the banking sector for ever, not just in this country but around the globe. Many words have been spoken, pamphlets printed and hours of debate held in the House on why the problem arose, what is to be done to prevent it from happening again and how we can help change the direction of banking to take the industry down a more responsible road that embraces the values that many banking bosses failed to embrace during the age of irresponsibility.

During this debate I will outline from my constituency’s perspective how that lack of basic prudence and common sense has caused pain and uncertainty to the people who work in the banking sector and rely on it. Families are supported by it, businesses are dependent on it and the town is built on the Halifax building society. In short, not one voter in my constituency has not been and will not be affected by the poor choice and misdemeanours of a few.

To reflect on some of the events of the last decade, it is surprising only that the banking system did not fall earlier. I applaud the measures that the Government have taken in the past year to address the situation, intervene and save jobs and banks. The banks jumped off the cliffs; thankfully, our Government caught them. Without their swift action, regulatory policies and injections of finance, things would have been a lot worse. However, we now need to shift the agenda from the “spend today, worry tomorrow” attitude to which so many financial institutions have become accustomed to a “responsible lending, responsible borrowing” dialogue between banks, customers and the Government.

The Chancellor recently urged a much-needed change in the culture of our banks, yet that change cannot and will not happen unless we the customers, when we want to buy a house, take out a loan or deposit money, have the necessary and currently lacking confidence in the banking sector. That requires an industry accountable to its members and to customers, not to stock markets and speculators, in which responsibility is paramount and prudence is at the heart of its reformed corporate ethic.

I gained some reassurance from Lord Turner’s recent comments. He envisaged a future situation, once the current mess is cleared up, where the banking sector emerges from the rubble looking very different. I propose that that difference involves integrity, foresight and accountability. Unfortunately, there is a lot of debris to clear up before that can happen. Much more can be done to ensure that that transition is completed. I press the case for more responsible banking, not merely as a short-term fix to overcome the current problems but as a means of ensuring a sustainable, responsible banking system, not just for today or for the next couple of years but for generations to come.

The mistakes that helped bring about the current crisis and the irresponsible way that some banks were run and operated purely for short-term gain have been well documented. Those days may have gone for now, but they remain on record as a reminder of the absolute chaos that caused one of the most intense and unsustainable recessions that this world has ever seen. It is our job as legislators to ensure that they never return. When the Titanic sank, we ensured that no ship ever ran that risk again. When world war two finished, we made peace with our neighbours. However, when it comes to the great depression, it turns out that we were not so good at learning from history after all.

The performance of the former members of the HBOS board who let down so many of their staff and customers was formidable. Their refusal to apologise or grasp their monumental failures was breathtaking. Added to that, the fact that they are cashing in huge pensions while people in my constituency wonder if they will still have a job and be able to feed their families next week speaks volumes. The management team’s priority was banking for profit, profit and more profit. There was no onus on them regarding responsible business, customer care or building a solid banking model, the rock on which the Halifax building society was built. It is true that many of the banking sector’s problems were caused by the global recession, but I feel that many of the troubles in our banking sector occurred despite the global downturn, not because of it.

HBOS’s biggest mistake was to take its eye off the financial ball. Its slogan during its decade of decadence should have been “Greed is good”. It over-relied on money markets to raise funds to finance its business, short-sold and lent at six times people’s salaries. I could go on. The problems at HBOS can be traced back 12 years to when it demutualised. From that moment, all the things associated with the Halifax building society—reliability, dependability and security—disappeared. For 150 years, the Halifax building society was a safe place for investors and a dependable mortgage broker. Unfortunately, 150 years of reliability have been undone during the last 12 years of irresponsibility.

Will the Minister state the Government’s position on remutualisation? Have they pushed the case for remutualising the Halifax, for the benefit of my constituents who work at the bank and give it their custom? Will he also outline what further plans the Government have, in addition to the measures already taken, for encouraging models of socially responsible banking? There is no better time to act, as the Government have never owned so much of the sector and will never do so again. We need regulation to bring about responsibility. That means creating a banking sector that is accountable to its members and customers rather than stock markets and speculators and that does not rely on money markets. Banks should generate funds from the money that they hold. If more institutions had done so in the last decade, many of the current problems would not have occurred. Ethical policies should be decided by customers, so that they have a sense of ownership of products.

What work is being done to introduce such forward-thinking ideas into other parts of the banking sector? The ideas are not new—indeed, the Co-operative bank already uses such practices—so why are other financial institutions not following suit? During the last decade, when banks such as HBOS were short-changing their customers, the Co-op bank was quietly getting on with its job. Of course, its aim was still to make a profit, but by doing it in a socially responsible way, it has reaped rewards. Profits are up, its customer numbers have expanded and a new super-mutual could be created shortly as a result of the bank’s merger with the Britannia building society. It makes me proud to be a Labour/Co-operative Member of Parliament. Banks such as HSBC have managed to sustain their savings levels. That has contributed to the gratifying position it now finds itself in of being the only institution increasing its lending capacity in a responsible manner.

If one good thing comes from this mess, which was caused by a few poor-thinking individuals and which the Government are taking action to clear up, it will be a progressive, forward-looking and socially-accountable model for the banking system of the 21st century. Responsibility must be put before risk to ensure that the terrible mistakes that have caused so much worry, heartache and distress are never repeated. The Government must ensure that no ship ever sinks again.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Riordan) on securing this debate. As she said, there has been a fundamental breakdown of trust in the financial system not just in the UK, but around the world. Governments, regulators and the industry must work together to rebuild that trust, which was once a hallmark of the institution that takes its name from her constituency.

My hon. Friend has raised particular concerns about HBOS, and I pay tribute to the diligence and consistency with which she has pressed the case of her constituents who work for HBOS over the last few months. As she has reminded us, her constituents are right to be proud of the inheritance of the Halifax over many generations. I join her in paying tribute to the hard work of front-line Halifax employees. She asked about compulsory redundancies. I understand that Eric Daniels, the chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group, said that compulsory redundancies are not expected to be required for staffing reductions. I am grateful for the hard work of Yorkshire Forward. It is right that everybody should do what they can to help and Yorkshire Forward has played an important role.

As my hon. Friend said, HBOS expanded quickly and at an inopportune moment in the global markets, making it particularly vulnerable to the credit crunch. It had a large reliance on wholesale funding and large holdings of US asset-backed instruments, which left it vulnerable to a deterioration in market conditions. The House will recall the events that led to the merger between Lloyds TSB and HBOS. The collapse of Lehman Brothers had ramifications around the world. It followed a difficult period for HBOS, which had experienced poor take-up on a rights issue earlier in the year. The HBOS share price dropped over 80 per cent. between October 2007 and October 2008. In September, Lloyds Banking Group announced its interest in merging with HBOS. The Government agreed to amend competition law to allow the financial stability implications of such a merger to be considered alongside the potential effects on competition.

Recapitalisation by the Government in October, which included agreements with Lloyds TSB and HBOS, ensured that systemic failure was avoided. It is now clear that if HBOS had not merged with Lloyds, it would have required large financial support and may not have been able to continue as an independent financial institution. If HBOS had been allowed to fail, it would have been catastrophic for depositors, business, families, my hon. Friend’s constituents and for taxpayers. It was right and in the interests of the taxpayer that the Government allowed the financial stability implications of the merger to be considered.

As my hon. Friend has said, we must learn lessons from the financial turbulence of the autumn, including what happened to HBOS. There must be improvements to the regulatory framework and stronger governance arrangements for banks, while we continue to ensure that there is responsible lending to the economy. She said that we need a model for the future with responsibility at its heart. I agree completely. That nails on the head what is required.

I, too, welcome Lord Turner’s proposals. The Financial Services Authority has been consulting on new conduct of business rules that might be introduced before the end of the year. On prudential regulation, new capital adequacy standards are being negotiated internationally. That was a key element of the recent G20 discussions. The FSA is consulting on new liquidity requirements and new arrangements for corporate governance. The Government are committed to a review by David Walker. I will say more about that in a moment.

My hon. Friend knows that I cannot pre-empt announcements that will be made in tomorrow’s Budget. However, I can set out in general terms what the Government want in future from the banking system and therefore from the regulatory regime. The design of regulation must recognise the importance of the financial sector to the economy as a whole. It should reinforce good behaviour and act as a check against bad practices. Rebuilding trust in the financial system will take time; there are no instant remedies or overnight solutions. That will start with an acceptance that mistakes have been made and a willingness to learn from them.

We must be careful not to jettison what works and is effective. We need to walk a fine line between there being sufficient regulation to safeguard the public interest, but not so much that we stem the flow of credit and stifle the innovation that can benefit us all. My hon. Friend has drawn attention to the proud record of the Halifax. It would be wrong to give the impression that everything that was done in the past was wrong. By its nature, banking is about taking risks. We must manage that risk and ensure that the public interest is safeguarded. There is an unwritten compact between the banks and the public. Each needs the other. That relationship is important and it is important that we get it right.

Deregulation of global banking in the 1980s was followed by huge financial innovation in the 1990s. Combined with low interest rates around the world, particularly in the last 10 years, that set the scene for one of the biggest expansions of global credit ever seen. Banks everywhere took on too much risk and worse, they took on risk that many did not properly understand. The boards and shareholders of some banks believed it to be a one-way bet. Times were good and not enough questions were asked. There was no shortage of people who were happy to take advantage of the cheap credit on offer. At the same time, regulators around the world failed to keep up with the growing complexity in the system, which made it hard to spot the risks and harder still to deal with them.

Last autumn, following the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the realisation that some institutions could be allowed to fail, there was a complete breakdown in confidence in the global financial system. That had a big knock-on effect on many institutions, including HBOS. In response, some people have argued for a Glass-Steagall solution in the UK, which is named after the US legislation introduced in 1933 and repealed in 1999. That would divide investment banking from core deposit taking and lending. It would create a divide between what some have categorised as narrow and broad banks. Some have suggested limiting the scale and complexity of banks. I understand the arguments in favour of that approach, which focus on protecting the core banking system from risks to depositors, the taxpayer and wider financial stability.

The complexity of some institutions appears, in some cases, to have contributed to difficulties in the management of risk by banks and supervisors. Leaving aside concerns about competition, difficulties in smaller, simpler institutions can be tackled more easily than in larger, more complex ones, and the failure of a bigger firm is bound to be much more damaging. Those arguments, which have been marshalled by a number of people in recent months, are not without force.

In the past 18 months, we have seen that risks to the financial system no longer arise mainly through depositors. The channels of contagion are more varied and complex than they used to be. The failure of Lehman Brothers had a massive impact on markets even though it was not a significant deposit taker. The consequences of that collapse around the world were much more severe than was expected. Banks of all sizes have encountered difficulties, and it is not clear that larger banks are more likely to fail than small ones—or the other way around. Narrower banks have seen at least as many difficulties as broad ones, so dividing commercial and investment banks on the basis of ownership would not address counter-party risk exposures between banks, and therefore would not address the issues raised by the current disruption in the market. Neither would it insulate pure deposit-taking institutions from the failure of an investment bank.

I do not think that there is a simple solution. Resolving the tensions will, no doubt, be difficult, which is why there should be a new compact between people and banks, particularly between banks and their customers. People need to have confidence that their savings will be safe when they deposit them in a bank, just as people always had confidence in the Halifax building society, as my hon. Friend has said. When banks use those deposits for loans to home buyers and businesses, they must ensure that the original depositors can be paid back.

The compact must be built on responsibility, fairness and choice. There must be shared responsibility between the banks, the regulators and the customers, and I join my hon. Friend in placing a great deal of emphasis on that responsibility aspect. Secondly, there must be fairness, with banks and financial institutions that operate to benefit customers, businesses and the wider economy, and not just their shareholders or even just their shareholders and employees. There must also be choice, with properly regulated banking markets founded on competition, openness and efficiency. Banks are commercial organisations, but they also provide an essential service. No Government should try to remove risk taking from the system, and we certainly would not wish to do that, but Governments must act to protect people when excessive risk taking threatens us all.

Banks, and particularly their boards, need to recognise that their duty to shareholders is best fulfilled by acting in the interests of their customers and, not just some, but all of their employees. Bank boards need to focus not on short-term profits, but on long-term wealth creation, which is best served by meeting the needs of all their customers. To do that properly, boards need the right information, skills and experience, and an ability to take a broader view. That is why we have asked David Walker to review banks’ corporate governance and to make recommendations to strengthen the oversight of bank boards. His interim report is due this summer.

The Government have also been focused on maintaining the flow of credit to the economy during the financial crisis. That is one of the most important aspects of the economy’s operation that needs to be safeguarded. In the pre-Budget report, before Christmas, we announced the creation of a new lending panel to monitor lending to businesses and households and to drive up standards of industry practice in taking decisions on lending. As part of that new monitoring task, the Bank of England is publishing a monthly “Trends in Lending” report, the first issue of which was published this morning. The report draws on a new collection of data, covering all the major UK lenders, and sets out, in the public domain, data on the extent of lending being achieved.

Let me pick up on my hon. Friend’s points about mortgage lending before I finish. The Government put in place statutory regulation of first charge mortgages by the Financial Services Authority in 2004. The regime requires lenders to lend responsibly, treat their customers fairly and regard repossession as a last resort. To pick up on her point about a practice that developed in the industry before problems arose, the Government have asked the FSA to consider how new mortgages for more than 100 per cent. of house value should now be treated. The FSA has stated that it will publish, in September, a paper on mortgage regulation that will consider product regulation, including maximum loan-to-value and loan-to-income caps. However, the steps that we took to regulate the mortgage market have undoubtedly averted a still greater problem than would otherwise have arisen. That action has certainly been vindicated by events.

We must all work together to ensure that we learn lessons from what has become apparent over the past 18 months. We need to ensure that the regulatory framework protects taxpayers and others from excessive risk taking, while promoting growth and innovation that are in the interests of consumers. We also need to look at where improvements can be made to banks’ corporate governance—the Walker review will make recommendations on that. We need to do all that in a way that supports the flow of credit to consumers and businesses.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising these important issues in this debate. There is undoubtedly more work and more thinking to be done, but she is right to pay tribute to the work of those living in her constituency, and I hope that they will be able to serve not only their immediate area, but the whole country, in the years ahead, as they have done with such success in the past.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Hood. The purpose of the debate, which I have been fortunate to secure, is to raise ongoing concerns about the quality of health service provision for my constituents who live in Gloucestershire, in England—that is important—but who have general practitioners who are registered in Wales. The primary care trust has estimated that about 8,000 people in my constituency—a significant number—are affected by this issue. Devolution has created differences in the health care available in England and Wales. I shall not go into issues of devolution itself, but I shall argue that the Government have failed to think through how to implement devolution properly and the effect of that on constituents such as mine regarding health care.

As a result of devolution, there is no national health service any more. We have health services in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland that have different policies, which, in the English and Welsh services, are decided by English and Welsh Health Ministers. The 8,000 constituents whom I have mentioned are effectively forced to use health services over which they have no democratic control because they cannot influence the policies of the Welsh Assembly Government and they have no vote in Wales. I do not think it is right that they are forced to use some of those services, and that is primarily what I want to address.

The Department of Health—I think that the Minister himself has said this—has stated:

“The border between England and Wales does not represent a barrier to the provision of health care”.

That is true, but it went on to say:

“Patients will not be disadvantaged as a result of any of the differences in the two systems”.

My contention is that that is not true, and that there are disadvantages for my constituents, who do not have the sort of access that they should.

Let me give an example. A constituent recently wrote to me about his case. He had been in hospital, and had received excellent care, and the hospital had expected to discharge him into the care of community nurses working under the direction of his GP. He lives in Gloucestershire, but his local surgery is part of a practice that is registered in Wales, and there is no available funding. His GP could not get funding, so he is having to go all the way into Gloucester—25 miles from his home—two or three times a week to have some basic dressings changed and things done that should, frankly, be done by his GP. That is a direct result of the differences and the lack of a joined-up service health service in England and Wales.

Following devolution, the legislation did not make it entirely clear who was responsible for providing health care for people who live in England but who have a GP registered in Wales. A statutory instrument passed in 2003 made it clear that primary care trusts in England are responsible for delivering care for everyone who lives in England. However, that proved too complex to implement straight away in border areas, where lots of people live in one country but have GPs registered in another. I understand that that was complicated by the different funding arrangements in England, where there is a payment by results system, compared with Wales, where there is a block contract system.

In 2005, a supposedly temporary protocol was put in place to address the issue. The protocol slightly altered the residence-based criteria and meant that commissioning was based on GP registration, rather than residence. The protocol applies only to primary care trusts along the England-Wales border, which, in England, includes Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire and West Cheshire. As I said, the protocol was introduced in 2005 and was supposed to be temporary while the details were ironed out. Ministers have just announced that the protocol will be rolled forward to 2011, which is past the date of the next general election.

I have been raising this issue with Ministers since I was first elected. In 2006, the then Health Minister, Lord Warner, said that officials in the Department were working together with their colleagues in Wales to ensure that appropriate arrangements were in place when the interim protocol expired in March 2007. As recently as January this year, the Government said:

“It is anticipated that a more permanent and sustainable protocol will be agreed shortly”.

In a recent answer to a parliamentary question, the Minister stated that

“the Government expects to agree a protocol with the Welsh Assembly Government as part of the finalisation of NHS business plans for 2009-10”.—[Official Report, 23 February 2009; Vol. 488, c. 218W.]

Time and again the Government have promised to sort the issue out.

The recent report of the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs on cross-border services states:

“We are very disappointed that a permanent protocol on cross-border health services has not been agreed between the Department of Health and the Welsh Assembly Government.”

The Committee also states that it was

“disturbed by the fact that this has not even been published in draft for consultation”

and that its

“interim report concluded that this was a critical issue in need of urgent consideration. The lack of a permanent protocol leaves clinicians and administrators in a strained position and risks adversely affecting patients as a result of cross-border commissioning and funding problems.”

Given those commitments, I had expected that we would have a permanent solution in place by this financial year, which started a couple of weeks ago. I was disappointed to see the letter from the Welsh Assembly Government Health Minister that was sent to Welsh local boards on 1 April. The letter states that

“the principles set out in the revised protocol remain unchanged from the previous interim agreements.”

This morning, I received a timely answer to a parliamentary question, which stated that a “revised protocol” is now in effect to replace the interim one. I am at a loss to see any significant differences between the new protocol and the previous one. As far as I can tell, the revised protocol is the previous one rolled over, with the one difference that it is now a two-year interim temporary protocol that runs through to March 2011. That is not a permanent solution, but it does take us past the next general election. Only a Labour Government could think that “revised” and “unchanged” are the same things. The Government have flunked dealing with the issue again.

Will the Minister explain why the interim protocol has been rolled over yet again despite everyone, including the Government, agreeing that it is not sustainable? Why have the Government not put in place a permanent solution and why, in the words of the Select Committee, does the issue appear to be “too hard” for Ministers to tackle. The Government have effectively said that they will not tackle the issue until 2011, so it will be the next Government, which I hope will be Conservative, who will have to sort this out.

The real issue is that a significant number of my constituents are forced to use health services in a system that they have no ability to influence. Health policies are set by Ministers in the Welsh Assembly Government and Edwina Hart, the Welsh Assembly Government Minister, has said:

“The Welsh Assembly government is responsible for securing health services for the people of Wales…Responsibility for English patients sits with the Department of Health in London.”

If someone lives in England, they can vote on and influence only English health service policies, as my constituents can. However, a number of them are forced—they do not have any choice about it because they have no ability to use a GP registered in England—to use and are dependent on services provided by the Welsh Assembly Government.

A further twist to the problem is the issue of screening services, for example, in relation to bowel cancer. That is an appropriate example because April is bowel cancer awareness month. The issue was raised with me by a local GP, Dr. Alasdair Jacks of the Vauxhall practice, who is concerned about the risk to which his patients are exposed. Bowel cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer and it develops over a number of years but, if it is caught early, it can be cured.

In England, screening for bowel cancer is carried out according to someone’s GP registration, but in Wales, it is done by residence. So if someone is one of the 8,000 people who live in Gloucestershire but have a GP registered in Wales, they do not get screened in England and they do not get screened in Wales. That means such people fall through the system and that their lives are effectively put at risk because they are not called in for screening. In a recent letter to me, the Welsh Health Minister Edwina Hart said that my constituents were not entitled to the Welsh service, that the Government in England were aware of the problem and that she thought they were dealing with it. I would be grateful if the Minister could say what Ministers will do urgently to make sure that my constituents have access to that screening service.

I understand that the same problem occurs in relation to the cervical cancer screening service, which works in the same way. Hon. Members will have seen the publicity surrounding the tragic death of Jade Goody and her attempt to secure a review of cervical cancer screening in England. That will be of little comfort to the thousands of my constituents who do not get any cancer screening at all based on the current system because they fall between England and Wales. What do Ministers plan to do to resolve that problem?

Another specific example is provided by a local case. A local care home based close to the border requested an ambulance and was given a number by its GP. The care home ended up speaking to the Rhondda Cynon Taf booking centre via the Welsh local health board. The booking was passed to the Welsh ambulance service, but because the care home is in England, which is outside the contractual area, no booking number was created and no booking made. As a result, a number of my constituents from that care home missed hospital appointments and the care home had to book taxis at its own cost. Again, my constituents were put at a significant disadvantage.

A further issue is that performance management also fails because in Wales it is based on residency, but in England it is based on the commissioner. That means that the treatment of around 8,000 people will not be monitored by any of the organisations that monitor the quality and performance of health services. The obvious response to all this is to say to my constituents, “You can choose a GP registered in England if you want to.” Indeed, when the Minister wrote to me on 16 January, he told me:

“Patients are free to approach any GP practice and ask to join its list of patients.”

Of course, he knows that the matter is not that simple. First, many people have been with their GPs for years and do not see why they should have to leave their family GP, with whom they are familiar. The family GP knows their health care and their family, and people do not see why they should be forced to leave them just because of devolution.

Secondly—I have been in correspondence with Ministers about this—a number of my constituents have tried to change their GP and have been refused. In the southern part of my constituency, there are no GPs registered in England. If people try to register with the closest GP registered in England, they find that the GP refuses to take them because they say that they are unable to look after them due to the distance they are from their home. The PCT does not appear to have any responsibility to ensure that people can register with a GP based in England. That is wrong, and I would like the Minister to deal with it. Does he agree that if someone lives in England, they should have the right to register with a GP based and registered in England, and that the GP or the primary care trust should have the responsibility to make sure that people can be registered in that way?

I am coming to the end of my remarks. I am not raising a new issue; this has been going on for a number of years. It was supposedly a transitional matter that occurred after devolution while the administrative and operational details were being sorted out as we moved from one system to another. However, the problem has not been tackled, and each year, an interim protocol is rolled forward. The Welsh Assembly Government and the Department of Health agree that such protocols do not provide a permanent solution, but they do not seem able to agree a permanent solution. That is causing real, demonstrable difficulties for thousands of my constituents. That is not good enough. Will the Minister answer my questions and set out why dealing with the matter is so difficult?

If someone lives in England, the PCT should be responsible for their health care. It should ensure that they have the ability to register with a GP registered in England. The health service that they vote for, that they pay taxes to and that they have influence over should be the one that looks after their health care needs. It should not matter that they live close to an internal border in the United Kingdom, but, at the moment, it does matter, and that has a real and potentially damaging effect on the health of my constituents. What I really want to hear from the Minister is what the Government plan to do about the situation, preferably quite soon.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper) on securing this debate. Before I address in detail the concerns that he raised, I would like to recognise the good work that is being done in his local NHS. It is delivering a better-quality health service than ever before, on both sides of the border, thereby benefiting his constituents and those of other hon. Members.

As the hon. Gentleman acknowledged, the Government introduced devolution in 1999 to push power closer to the people of Britain. Prior to that, there was a single NHS across all the nations of Great Britain. Patients living along the border between England and Wales would register with their local GP practice and receive the health care they needed accordingly.

As the hon. Gentleman also acknowledged, the border between England and Wales has never been a barrier to health care. People resident in Wales have always accessed health services in England and those living in England have done the same in Wales. For many people in border areas, the GP practice nearest to their home might well be on the other side of the border. That is the case for a number of his constituents. There are 20,000 English residents who have a GP in Wales and 15,000 Welsh residents who have a GP in England. Some 8,000 people in the Gloucestershire primary care trust area, many of whom are represented by the hon. Gentleman, have a GP in Wales.

However, with devolution, the Welsh Assembly Government became responsible for health policy and the delivery of health services in Wales. This presented an administrative challenge for the NHS on both sides of the border. With responsibility for patients determined by residence, there was confusion among health care providers and commissioners when they were dealing with patients who were registered with GPs across the border. That inevitably led to tensions as health authorities tried to work out who should pay for a patient’s treatment. There was also the problem of members of the public registered with the same GP receiving a different quality of service based on their residence.

Therefore, in 2005, the Governments of England and Wales agreed an interim protocol whereby responsibility for a patient would be determined by GP registration rather than by residence. Therefore, if a person’s GP was in Wales, they would be the operational responsibility of the NHS in Wales, even if they lived in England, and vice versa. That arrangement was convenient for patients and more practical for both health services. It meant that, despite devolution, patients were still able to register with the GP who was closest to them.

Patients retain the ability to choose, which we believe is vital if they are to receive high-quality care. I will happily look into the examples that the hon. Gentleman gave, if he would like to furnish me with more details after the debate of people who have tried to register with a GP in England because that is their preference but have been told by the PCT that there is not the capacity or that places are not available.

It is a duty of PCTs in England to ensure that GP services are available to serve communities. If, as the hon. Gentleman suggested, many people in his constituency would rather be registered with a GP in England, that is something that he and I can help them to take up with the PCT.

Can the Minister clarify exactly what PCTs are responsible for doing? My understanding is that they think that they are responsible for making sure that there is a GP available to the patient, but not for making sure that a GP registered in England is available. That has been the issue. I will remind him of the details of a specific case about which I have been in correspondence with the Department—I forget whether it was with him or another Minister—but we did not come to a very satisfactory solution as far as the PCT was concerned.

I will happily look into that case and write to the hon. Gentleman with clarification, if I may. He says that he has constituents who live in Gloucestershire who want to be registered with a GP in Gloucestershire and do not mind making a long journey. There may be a problem, as he indicated, with the duty for GPs to do home visits, if the distance is very long. That is one of the reasons for geographical boundaries to GPs’ lists. That may be a problem, but I do not know the details of the local area well enough. However, I promise to look into the matter and get back to him with more detail on it.

The implication of what the hon. Gentleman suggests could mean people being forced to register with a GP in their own country. If we were to base the system on residence rather than on GP registration, I suspect that many of his constituents would object to having to register with a GP in England if it meant that they had to travel much further or, indeed, had to deregister from a GP who happens to be in Wales with whom they are very happy. The current system also works much better for GPs who have to serve only one health organisation—the local health board or the primary care trust where they are based—and not deal with two separate and increasingly different bodies.

As the hon. Gentleman acknowledged, as of April this year, the English and Welsh Governments agreed a new protocol that will run until the end of March 2011. It will then be renewed in line with the three-year planning cycle and the comprehensive spending review.

The hon. Gentleman asked why there is no permanent protocol. The reason is that health policy on both sides of the border is dynamic—it changes over time. Therefore, we do not believe that a permanent protocol set in stone is sensible. The principles in the protocol are clear—I have spelled out some of them and will spell out a few more in a moment—but, as the English and Welsh systems diverge, it will become increasingly important to clarify the implications for cross-border patients, and to ensure that funding reflects patient flows. It is more important to have a framework in place that allows both sides the flexibility to respond to each other’s policy changes rather than to have something rigid that would prevent us from making exactly the kind of changes that the hon. Gentleman would like us to make, to make life easier for his constituents.

The new protocol is much broader in scope than the original interim one. It provides greater clarity on commissioning and funding arrangements and will lead to further improvements for patients who live along the border. It allows both Governments to respond to changing health policies in the other country. It establishes a financial framework to take account of cross-border flows, which will continue to be negotiated annually.

The new protocol agrees the principles and the basis for the funding of secondary care. As there are more people living in England who have a Welsh GP than there are people living in Wales who have an English GP, my Department pays the net difference for secondary care to the Welsh Assembly Government. In 2008-09, it amounted to £5.8 million.

We have also agreed in the new protocol that my Department will provide Welsh commissioners with up to £12 million for 2009-10 to pay English providers’ tariff prices under payment by results. We believe that that will help to reduce some of the tensions that there have been between commissioners and providers across the border over that issue. For example, the Countess of Chester hospital estimated that 20 per cent. of its activity comes from Wales. It said that it had received insufficient funding from Wales for that treatment, thereby creating an additional financial burden on the hospital. The revised protocol will address that issue in line with the commitment that I gave to the Welsh Affairs Committee last year.

The new protocol also clarifies standards of access for patients. It sets out what patients are entitled to, depending on where their GP is located. Officials from my Department will work with colleagues in the Welsh Assembly Government and the NHS to improve patient awareness of the implications of their GP registration. In England, at least—I cannot speak for Wales on this—PCTs in the border areas will provide information directly to patients in their annual guide to local health care services.

The hon. Gentleman asked about screening for bowel cancer. As he said, a cancer screening programme is being rolled out. In Wales, the decision was to issue invitations for screening based on residence rather than GP registration. That means that Welsh residents with an English GP may, theoretically, be called twice for screening, whereas an English resident with a Welsh GP may not be invited at all. The NHS in England is well aware of the issue and assures me that, as it implements its screening programme, it will ensure that nobody falls through the gap, and that everyone who is eligible is invited for screening.

I do not have the answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question about cervical cancer screening, but I will happily write to him about it. That programme has been going for much longer, so I would be surprised if a solution had not been found to the problem, but I will clarify that in writing, if I may. I will also ensure that he gets a reply to the letter that he wrote to the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ann Keen), on bowel cancer screening.

The national health service in England, Wales and Scotland remains and will always remain true to the founding values of the NHS: a tax-funded system, free at the point of delivery. The Department of Health and the Welsh Assembly Government work closely together, and will continue to do so, to identify and resolve any issues that will inevitably arise in a changing policy environment as a result of devolution.

I was listening very carefully to what the Minister said about the revised protocol that now runs until 2011. Given what he said, am I right in understanding that effectively it is not the intention of the Government ever to move away from that type of protocol? I ask because when the system was first put in place in 2003, PCTs in England were responsible for everyone who lived in England and it is those few counties that I have highlighted that govern matters on different arrangements. Is it the Government’s policy that effectively that difference for those border areas will continue to exist indefinitely, or do the Government plan at some point to ensure that my constituents are treated in the same way as other people living in England?

As I have tried to indicate, it is very important that we maintain the flexibility to respond to concerns. However, it is also important that the hon. Gentleman is clear about what the consequences would be for his constituents if we went back to a system whereby health care was based on residency rather than on GP registration. Far be it from me to raise hypothetical problems for him, but if we were to go back to a system based on residency he might discover that many of his constituents who are registered with a Welsh GP would find themselves either under pressure to register with an English GP or receiving a different level of treatment. For example, they would have to pay for prescriptions, which they do not have to pay for if they are registered with a Welsh GP. If that happened, they might be a lot unhappier about that than they are about some of the inevitable anomalies that arise from having two systems across a border and from having people living in one area while being registered with a GP in another.

What we have tried to do in this new protocol is stick to the principles that ensure that people receive a standard of service that they can be clear about and that is based on where their GP is situated. At the same time, people on both sides of the border are benefiting from improvements in health care in both England and Wales.

However, if the hon. Gentleman thinks that he has a better system or that he can write a better protocol to address some of these issues, I would be very pleased to see such a system or protocol. We have done our best, both in England and in Wales, to try to devise a system that is fair and clear to people. However, we do not want to set things in stone for the very reason that, as policy changes and as the two health systems in England and Wales diverge even more, it would be a mistake to set the systems and processes in place. I believe that the principles that we have are right; he may disagree and he may prefer to see a system based on residency rather than on GP registration. However, I simply suggest to him that such a system would perhaps create more problems and unhappiness among some of his constituents than the current system of health care based on GP registration creates.

The one solution to that problem is the one that I referred to in my speech, which is to ensure that patients have a genuine choice about the GP that they are registered with. I think that that would solve the problem. I will raise with the Minister the specific case that I mentioned. However, I think that the key issue is the one that he himself highlighted. GPs are concerned about the geographical distance for home visits, and in the southern part of my constituency there are not any GPs registered in England. Consequently, if people try to register with the closest GP in England to them, those GPs refuse to register them. Effectively, those people have no choice, which means that they are forced to use a Welsh-registered GP. That is the nub of the matter. If people had a genuine choice, some of what he says would be reasonable.

One of the things that we are introducing in England, as opposed to Wales of course, is much greater choice for people in registering with GPs, and we are reforming the GP contract to deliver that greater choice for the public. However, I will happily look into the specific geographical problem that the hon. Gentleman has highlighted and discuss it with his PCT, to see whether there is any alternative solution that would satisfy both the principles of the protocol and, as he suggested was the case, the desire of some of his constituents to be registered with a GP in England.

Question put and agreed to.