I beg to move, That the House sit in private.

Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 163).

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. On Wednesday, Mr. Speaker said that

“when Ministers have key policy statements to make, the House must be the first to hear them”.—[Official Report, 24 June 2009; Vol. 494, c. 797.]

Today, in clear breach of that ruling, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families has announced, through The Guardian and the BBC, that the Government have abandoned their literacy and numeracy strategy. The Secretary of State is either illiterate or contemptuous of Mr. Speaker’s ruling, or both. What power do you have, Madam Deputy Speaker, to require the Secretary of State to attend the House today to apologise?

I will bring to Mr. Speaker’s attention the hon. Gentleman’s remarks, which will of course now be on the record.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I am grateful for the support that the Bill has received from both sides of the House. At the outset, I would like to thank the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Barbara Follett), her predecessor and her officials—especially Hillary Bauer—for their help in bringing the Bill to this stage. I also pay tribute to those who have campaigned for it, especially Anne Webber of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, Jon Benjamin of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and my noble Friend Lord Janner, who has been a stalwart on the whole issue of holocaust restitution and who has agreed to take up the Bill in the other place if it receives a Third Reading today.

The Bill has changed its appearance somewhat since its Second Reading, through amendments made in Committee, but its effect and the policy behind it remain the same. It is now supplemented by explanatory notes and an impact assessment produced by my hon. Friend the Minister’s officials. Its new title—the Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) Bill—better describes its purpose, which is straightforward: it is to meet our moral, if not legal, obligation to provide a mechanism for the return to their rightful owners of cultural objects held in national collections that were looted during the Nazi period.

I have taken a particular interest in this issue since first being elected to the House in 1997. On 17 February 2000, in response to a parliamentary question from me, the then Arts Minister—now my noble Friend Lord Howarth—announced the setting up of the Spoliation Advisory Panel under the chairmanship of Sir David Hirst. He said that the panel would consider and advise on claims from anyone who had lost possession of a cultural object during the Nazi era, when such an object was now in the possession of a UK national collection or gallery. Since then, the panel has adjudicated on a number of claims. It does so in detail, and shows fairness to both sides. Its most recent report, published only on Wednesday this week, concerned eight drawings in the Courtauld collection. It did not uphold that particular claim, although it dealt with the case extremely sympathetically.

The system provides an alternative to expensive and long-drawn-out legal proceedings, but it does not preclude that remedy if someone wishes to use it. The panel makes recommendations, including for compensation or for restitution, to the Secretary of State. So far, so good. The problem is that the law does not allow restitution for works held in some collections, as there is no power to de-acquire—the current term—items. In other museums, the situation is different, leading to unjust, unfair and sometimes downright ludicrous outcomes where one of a pair of objects held in different collections can be restituted while the other cannot. The Bill seeks to remedy that problem.

The best estimate is that there are about 20 looted items in UK museums, but there could be more. The process of research by families is ongoing, and it can take quite a while to locate an item and document a claim, but not every rightful owner may want restitution. Some might, but others might settle for an ex gratia compensation payment or might simply want a public acknowledgement of rightful ownership by the gallery or museum concerned. It should be possible for the rightful owners to have the object back, once the matter has been decided to the satisfaction of Spoliation Advisory Panel, on its recommendation to the Minister; and that should not be prevented by the unintended consequences of the current law.

My Bill will provide a process, with appropriate safeguards, to achieve that outcome. It aims to work by agreement and by consensus. If there were a huge dispute, it would not work and the item would not be returned. The process is straightforward. The item claimed is referred to the panel; if the panel finds the object to be spoliated, it makes a recommendation for restitution to the Secretary of State if it thinks that is the proper remedy. If the Secretary of State accepts the recommendation that restitution is appropriate, he or she can trigger a power, not a duty, of de-accession to the museum concerned, which can then transfer the object to its rightful owner.

The Bill contains a series of safeguards. It does not override any special conditions or trust under which an object may be held. That would require complex legislation, and I baulked at even attempting that, as it would not be appropriate for a private Member’s Bill. It is limited to a finite and definitive list of institutions that are set out in clause 1. It also has a 10-year sunset clause to provide, on the one hand, sufficient time to facilitate claims and identify objects, and, on the other, some long-term certainty for the public collections concerned. The Bill will apply to Scotland, at the request of the Scottish Executive; it is not required for Northern Ireland, which does not have this problem.

Above all, the Bill is strictly limited as to time, place and perpetrator with respect to the original deprivation of the object from its lawful owner. The object must have been taken during the Nazi era, as part of that appalling regime. It is not a Trojan horse for any other art works or cultural items. It is a discrete modest measure, limited in scope and time to rectify decades of injustice. I commend the Bill to the House.

I congratulate once again the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) on introducing the Bill and on having a good chance of getting it on to the statute book. It is a great achievement to get a private Member’s Bill passed into law. He has been extraordinarily successful in managing to get a large number of other such Bills on the Order Paper, some of which I suspect have rather less chance of being passed. I think he had to get up early in the morning to get this opportunity; it was time well spent.

The best way of getting a private Member’s Bill passed is to pick up a subject that the Government are committed to advancing, but have failed to do so. The Government can then breathe a sigh of relief and use the vehicle provided by the private Member’s Bill. That is exactly what the hon. Gentleman’s Bill does. This country has long been committed to amending the law to allow the restitution of artefacts and artistic objects that were plainly looted. It has been an embarrassment that we have not done so.

The Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, which I chair, considered this issue a couple of years ago and called on the Government to make the necessary change. We were just one of a long list of bodies to have done so. I thoroughly support the Bill and I am delighted that it is likely to succeed.

One has to accept that the Bill is largely symbolic. We amended provisions in Committee to cover Wales, although there are no national institutions in Wales that would benefit from the Bill. It is nevertheless plainly right that we should extend it across the country. Equally, the one object—the Beneventan missal, where there is clear evidence that it should be returned—will not be covered by the Bill, unless another application is made, because it has already been considered. It may well be that the Bill’s provisions are never used. The Spoliation Advisory Panel has met very few times and the Bill may well pass on to the statute book and lie there. In my view, however, that does not matter. It is the fact that we have made the change that matters.

Many terrible atrocities were committed during the holocaust, and the looting of art is very minor in comparison with some of the horrific events that took place. The difference is that this issue is one that we can do something about and put right. By doing so, we send out a very important signal this morning. On that basis, I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his Bill.

I very much agree with the comments of the Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. The Bill is indeed largely symbolic, but it is a very important symbol at a time when we have to challenge people who absurdly and for evil reasons of their own seek to deny that the holocaust ever happened. In that light, it is an important symbol that one manifestation of the holocaust—the looting of art treasures—is dealt with in a piece of legislation.

As the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale) has just said, this Bill may be used, if at all, in very few cases—and even in those, as the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) suggested, some owners might be happy to see their rightful ownership acknowledged alongside the object in the museum or gallery in which it is housed. That in itself amounts to recognition of the circumstances of the holocaust and the Nazi looting of art property.

The symbol is important and I very much welcome the effort that has gone into the Bill, which has made it something that we can put on to the statute book with confidence. In doing so, I believe we take another small step towards asserting that it is our will and that of humanity that these things should not happen again.

From the Liberal Front Bench and on behalf of all my colleagues, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) who usually speaks on cultural matters, I congratulate the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) on his Bill. It deals with an issue that I have followed for some years.

I believe that this is a model of a private Member’s Bill. The title is now clearer and the Bill is extremely clear. There is no room for doubt about who the Bill applies to, what it applies to, which countries it applies to or the period to which it applies. The process that has to be gone through is also clear.

One of the institutions mentioned in the Bill—the Imperial War museum—is based in my constituency. It is a wonderful and prize-winning museum. Other institutions will also benefit from knowing that, as a result of the Bill, they can fulfil their cultural obligations to their users as well as their moral and historical obligations when they apply. The Nazi period, defined in the Bill as from the mid-1930s to 1945, left many scars on Europe—scars on individuals and families on our continent. One scar was that property was looted and never returned. The Bill provides the opportunity to correct that. The House is united on this Bill—a very good discrete piece of work that will put right something that has been sadly neglected for too long in spite of the many efforts to put it right in the past.

It falls to me to put on record from the Opposition Front Bench our congratulations to the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) on introducing this private Member’s Bill. I also congratulate those he mentioned in his opening remarks, particularly Anne Webber, who has campaigned so assiduously for this measure, and David Lewis who worked with her and has been instrumental in keeping the Bill and the campaign at the front of my mind. The campaign has been long running. The Spoliation Advisory Panel was set up in 2000 and I think that my mother is a member of it, making the issue close to my heart. She is also a former trustee of the Imperial War museum, which she thinks is one of the finest museums in the country.

It is clear that every Member who has taken an interest in this issue supports the Bill as long overdue. It may well be the case that the Bill is nothing more than symbolic, but it is no less important for that as it puts on to the statute book a clear commitment from our national museums to return any object that has been found to have been looted during the Nazi period.

I welcome the Bill and assure the House that it has Conservative support. I hope it will proceed to the other place this morning with the minimum of fuss.

The Government have been pleased to support this Bill, which, I am glad to say, has enjoyed a quick and smooth passage through the House. This is due in no small part to the expert handling of it by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), and to what he has rightly described as a friendly consensus between the parties. Like him, I welcome that.

The Bill is a short and carefully balanced measure that will rectify an anomaly in the way that national museums are able to deal with claims for the return of items lost during the Nazi era. Most importantly, it does not override the fundamental principle, supported by successive Governments, that the trustees of museums and galleries are the rightful guardians of our national collections and that they should be responsible for taking decisions about items in their care. The final decision on whether to transfer an item from a museum’s collection will continue to be taken by museum trustees where the two conditions that trigger the power to de-accession are met: that the Spoliation Advisory Panel has recommended the return of the item and that Ministers have agreed.

Museum trustees should not have an unfettered power of disposal, however. The Government remain absolutely committed to protecting our national collections and will resist all attempts to see them broken up. The power to de-accession human remains that was given to museums in 2005, and the measures we are discussing here in the Bill, recognise that these are very special cases that warrant particular attention. Members have thus rightly stated that it is important that the matter is approached in a balanced way, and I think we have managed to achieve that. We have worked closely with my hon. Friend to get the Bill to this stage and, as part of that work, we have considered its compatibility with the Human Rights Act 1998. I am glad to say that we are satisfied that it is fully compatible.

Although this is a small and simple measure, we should not underestimate its importance. Throughout the second world war, the lives of millions of people were affected by the systematic campaign by the Nazis to wipe out whole peoples and their cultures. Part of that campaign was the looting of cultural treasures from both public and private collections, with many families being forced to give up prized possessions and heirlooms with little or no compensation. A tremendous effort to recover this looted art was made in the immediate aftermath of the second world war through the dedicated work of the “Monuments Men”, a tiny band of 350 art historians, museum curators and professors. In May 1945, they began the work of finding, securing and returning the millions of pieces of art, sculpture, books, jewellery, furniture, tapestries and other cultural treasures looted, lost or displaced in the years of upheaval.

In 2000, the United Kingdom set up the Spoliation Advisory Panel. This has gone on to become a widely recognised and respected source of advice around the world. I should pause here to correct a statement I made in Committee. My hon. Friend was indeed right in saying that the Dutch restitution committee, which was modelled on the UK panel, is still accepting claims. While on the subject of international relations, I would also like to mention that the UK is represented at the conference on holocaust era assets, which is currently taking place in the Czech Republic. I am very glad that Lord Janner, who has done so much to bring this issue to the fore, is part of the UK delegation. The conference will be looking at a number of issues concerning the fate of holocaust survivors and of Jewish property confiscated during the war, and it will be seeking to increase international efforts in this area.

In Committee, my hon. Friend said that he had discussed the case of the Beneventan missal with the British Library and the effect of the Bill on earlier cases considered by the Spoliation Advisory Panel where return was recommended but was not possible because of statutory restrictions on disposal. Let me make it clear that the power in the Bill will not be retrospective. If, after the Bill comes into force, a further claim is made for an item that the panel has already considered, it will be up to trustees of the institution concerned to decide whether once again to refer the claim to the panel. The panel would then decide whether to look at the claim again. If, after considering the new claim, the panel recommended the return of the item, the trustees would have the power to return the object. Where an ex-gratia payment had been made to the claimant on the first referral, this would need to be returned.

Let us review what the Bill will achieve. It will give the trustees of the bodies named in the Bill an additional power to transfer objects from their collection where the transfer is recommended by the designated panel and where that recommendation is approved by the Secretary of State, and Scottish Ministers in the case of an item in the Scottish national collections. As I said in Committee, the intention is to designate the Spoliation Advisory Panel.

The Act will expire 10 years after the day on which it is passed. Questions were raised on Second Reading about the tax implications of the Bill. The Treasury is looking into this and will consider whether any tax rules need changing as a result of these measures. I am pleased to be able to announce that the Scottish Parliament yesterday passed the legislative consent motion in order that the Bill might apply to Scotland.

A number of amendments to the Bill were also made in Committee and it may be helpful if I summarise the main changes. The bodies to which the Bill applies are now found in clause 1. The power to return victims’ property is set out in a new clause 2. This might be an appropriate moment to provide further clarification on the point raised by the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Vaizey) about whether the term “cultural object” needs to be defined in the Bill. Although the Bill as introduced included such a definition, it has been substantially amended, with the able assistance of parliamentary counsel, and I can now say that the Bill as amended does not need to define a “cultural object”. The Bill gives trustees a power to return any object which is in the collection for which the trustees are responsible where the two conditions are met, and we believe this is sufficient.

The new clause 3 defines the advisory panel for the purposes of the Act. The panel is to be designated by the Secretary of State and he may designate only a panel whose functions consist of considering claims relating to events occurring during the Nazi era of 1933 to 1945. Clause 4 deals with the short title, extent, commencement and sunset clause. Provision was also made for the Bill to extend to England and Wales and Scotland, although the power is not needed for museums in Wales. The short and long title of the Bill have been amended. The original reference to “stolen art” was too restrictive and does not reflect the many ways in which people were deprived of their property. The Spoliation Advisory Panel’s terms of reference do not define the circumstances of loss and do not therefore limit its consideration to items that were stolen. The new long title better describes the Bill’s purpose, which is to give the trustees of named bodies an additional power to transfer cultural objects in their collections.

This concludes the consideration of amendments made in Committee, and I should like to end by thanking my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), for the work she did on the Bill, by thanking the officials who have worked very hard with my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, and by once again congratulating him. This is a real achievement, and the Bill is in excellent shape going forward. I hope that it receives wide support in the other place.

I am grateful to all hon. Members for their comments this morning. This is an important measure. It might not be used—on the other hand, we cannot say that for sure: there may be other such cases. As I said earlier, up to 20 such items are in dispute. However, what is important is that we be seen to do justice to the victims of the holocaust and their families, and this Bill will do that. It closes, I hope, a chapter that we opened with the setting up of the Spoliation Advisory Panel nine years ago. I hope that now, we have finally produced the mechanism that will allow people to have back the objects taken from their families by that evil regime, the Nazis, between 1933 and 1945, and that the Bill will now receive its Third Reading.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I am grateful for the opportunity to give this Bill its Third Reading. For a child eager to prove their maturity, the driving licence is often a symbol of adulthood. I am not quite sure what my driving licence says about me—whether its ink-splatters and holes indicate maturity, or a now slightly tattered politician—but the learner’s first lesson is filled with excitement and anticipation, and as the seat belt clicks into place and “kangaroo” petrol is put in the tank, there is a great sense of pride and excitement. For parents, there is only a feeling of dread at the number of hours they will spend on country lanes, never quite being sure whether this will be their last lesson—ever in this world.

I recall driving round the country roads of Fife on a dark, wet and windy night with my mother constantly reaching for a brake pedal on the passenger’s side and never quite finding it. There is still a hole in the carpet on that side of the car. However, the thrill when I passed my driving test was unimaginable. I suddenly felt like a man, even though I was still a teenager. That is an important point, because many of those who pass their test are still children, and we entrust those who teach them with a duty of care and responsibility. I want to know that when my son reaches for the car keys, the person who will teach him to drive has been through the system, has been properly tested and audited and has the right qualifications.

That is why the case of Lesley Anne Steele, which had the potential to crush confidence in the whole driving instruction authorisation process, was horrifying. In 2005, Lesley Anne, a constituent of mine, was enthusiastically learning to drive. She was progressing well and gaining confidence with every lesson. She was looking forward to passing her test and enjoying the freedom that that brings. After one particular lesson, her instructor, James McNair Bennett, asked whether he could use the convenience in her house. Being obliging, Lesley Anne agreed, but Mr. Bennett had something else in mind. He sexually assaulted her in her own home. He was charged by police, and apparently admitted the offence immediately.

This is what Lesley Anne later told me in a letter:

“On the day of the trial Mr. Bennett was found guilty of assaulting me and with immediate effect was placed on the sex offenders’ register. I was relieved that this was finally over and thought that Mr. Bennett wouldn’t be allowed to continue to teach. The following day I received a call from a friend who had just seen Mr. Bennett out teaching. Then my partner spotted Mr. Bennett on the Monday, picking up a pupil close to our house”,

just round the corner. Not surprisingly, Lesley Anne was angry—furious, in fact. She was disgusted not only by the original assault, but by the fact that Mr. Bennett was allowed to continue to operate as a driving instructor. The fact that he was out teaching the very next day was rubbing her nose in it. She was raging with anger and rightly so.

However, what made Lesley Anne explode was the response from the authorities. She made numerous calls to the Driving Standards Agency, which were never returned. On one occasion she did get through to the appropriate person, but was told that nothing could be done to help her. Because she was so furious, Lesley Anne subsequently waived her right to anonymity. She secured coverage in the national media to highlight her case, so that she could campaign for changes in order that others would not have to go through what she went through. At that point, she asked me for my help.

How could a sexual predator be allowed to continue to teach vulnerable young people in such a closed environment, when the judicial process had already determined he was a sex offender? I find it unbelievable that that situation was ever allowed to happen. However, Lesley Anne and I worked together to overhaul the process, and, along with the Government’s hard work, we secured a number of achievements, such as criminal record checks for all approved driving instructors. The first trawl weeded out eight people who would still be teaching to this day if Lesley Anne had not fought that case. Secondly, the profession of driving instructor is now included in the notifiable occupations scheme and its Scottish equivalent, so that the DSA’s registrar is informed immediately of any convictions. In fact, Mr. Bennett could still be teaching today if that scheme were not in place, because the courts were not obliged to tell the DSA that he had been convicted. Thirdly, customer care at the DSA was overhauled following the dreadful response to the case.

Most importantly, Lesley Anne got an apology from the then Minister and the officials. We were very grateful for that, because it made such a difference to her. Having to expose herself to media coverage was, like the event itself, a traumatic experience, so that apology was very important. However, there is still unfinished business, hence the Bill before us.

Because the appropriate process has to be gone through, there is a 45-day period between a driving instructor being convicted or removal from the register being indicated, and actual removal. In fact, it can take months—45 days is the minimum period. The registrar must first write to the instructor advising them that he is minded to remove their name from the register. The instructor then has 28 days to make representations against removal before the registrar can make a decision. The registrar must then notify the instructor of the decision and wait at least a further 14 days before removal can take effect. There is then a right of appeal.

It is right that all those measures be in place—it is important to have the right safeguards, so that representations and appropriate appeals can be made—but it is unacceptable to have a period of 45 days during which sexual predators could be out there teaching young people to drive. That is why I want the power of suspension to be introduced—so that young people cannot be preyed on by those such as James McNair Bennett, and so that such people are not allowed to exploit that loophole ever again.

The Bill’s purpose is therefore to give the registrar the power to suspend driving instructors. It aims to close the 45-day-plus loophole, and it introduces the power to suspend when the registrar is already considering removal from the register. The registrar would be permitted to impose a suspension only when he believes that the instructor concerned would, if they were not suspended, pose a significant threat to the safety of members of the public. The Bill rightly also includes a package to compensate for loss of reputation and earnings when the process goes wrong. This covers only the period of suspension—between the point at which notice of intent to suspend is given and the decision on removal—and the estimated cost is likely to be a maximum of between £50,000 and £60,000 per year. It is not likely to be anywhere near that. The estimate is that it may affect five people every year, but that is probably the upper end, because the trawl of the criminal records picked up only eight people—and covered a longer period of time.

The Bill applies not only to approved driving instructors but to large trainee instructors. It is important that the mass army of trainee instructors is also covered, so that no one slips through the net. An amendment in Committee blocked a potential loophole connected to trainee instructors’ right to extend their certification. They will still have the ability to extend it, but not for the purpose of avoiding a suspension.

The DSA does not have an unlimited period to consider the removal from the register. It is limited to 75 days after which the suspension is withdrawn. That is an important safeguard. The instructors, of course, still have the right to appeal that natural justice requires. This is a simple, but essential, Bill, and I am grateful to the three Front-Bench teams for their support and indeed encouragement throughout this process.

Can my hon. Friend remind the House why the Bill does not and cannot apply to Northern Ireland?

That is a very good question, and I hope that the Minister will be able to assist me with it. My hon. Friend has been very helpful in asking a question to which I do not know the answer. I am grateful for that intervention although I hope that he does not make another.

I do not wish to give the impression that the driving instruction profession is riddled with sex offenders as almost every one of the 40,000 driving instructors is of good character and ability and has adopted the highest professional standards. I have been determined throughout the three years of this battle to protect not only learner drivers from sexual predators, but the reputation of driving instructors. This Bill will help to enhance that reputation, because people will be able to have confidence in the process and the system.

This has been a long battle. It has been more than three years since Lesley Anne knocked on my door and during that time I have been grateful for the support of so many hon. Members. They include the hon. Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) who was the Minister responsible at the time. He immediately recognised the problem, apologised personally to Lesley Anne and set in train many of the changes that I have set out this morning. I am also grateful to his successor, now the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who committed considerable time and effort to the Bill, overcoming many hurdles in the process.

The Bill would have fallen at Second Reading if it were not for two Members. The first is the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), who used considerable political capital to ensure the Bill progressed. He overcame the process to ensure that the Bill secured a Second Reading. The second—and some may be surprised at this—was the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope), who was in his place earlier. His wise advice and support were gratefully received, and I hope that that is not a reason for others to change their mind about supporting the Bill. I am genuinely grateful for his wise counsel.

I also thank the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Goodwill) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mark Hunter) who served on the Front Benches in Committee and were very supportive. I also thank the Minister today. He is new to this Bill, but he caught on to it quickly in Committee and understood the details.

This issue has had an extensive hearing in Parliament—in Westminster Hall, as a ten-minute Bill and now this Bill. I am grateful for the support of the sponsors of my ten-minute Bill and of this Bill, and to the Committee members last week who tested the Bill in an extremely professional and fair manner. As they have been trained to do, the Whips have been lurking in the shadows, but have been benign on this occasion. They did inquire how long I intended to speak today—perhaps they had an ulterior motive.

I am also grateful to the Clerks and the departmental and DSA officials, who are impressive for two reasons. First, they are good at their job, and secondly they can explain it to me, and that is no mean feat. I have also been fortunate to have excellent members of staff, both in my constituency and in the House. I thank them for their work on this Bill, especially David Hall—who has since moved on—and Caron Lindsay who did the initial spadework in digging out the loophole. John Foster and my other members of staff in Dunfermline have also been fantastic.

John Myers devoted his life to teaching the art of safe and responsible driving. He built the Myers school of driving in Dunfermline into a thriving business that is respected and trusted in the community, and he was very supportive of my efforts. Unfortunately, John passed away recently so I am not able to thank him in person, but I am grateful for his support and for giving me the confidence that the driving instruction profession were behind my efforts.

Finally, and most importantly, I thank Lesley Anne Steele, my courageous constituent who stood up, braved the media and insisted that a wrong be put right so that others need not suffer as she clearly did. Lesley Anne has now passed her driving test and is a proficient driver. She is also now happily married and enjoying life. Let us pass this Bill for her, for her sake and for the thousands of people who learn to drive every year. I commend the Bill to the House.

First, I must apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie) for asking what was probably the one question on the Bill to which he did not know the answer. It was not meant to be a trick question. He was so competent and omniscient on the Bill that I assumed that everything would be within his remit. I apologise profusely and I will make it up to him later.

I thank my hon. Friend for reinforcing the point that I was unable to answer his question.

My hon. Friend is giving me a hard time, but it is not justified.

My hon. Friend has done himself, his constituents, the country and, above all, his constituent, Lesley Anne Steele a great service by ensuring that this gap in the legislation has been filled. Everyone under the age of 80 or so has had to pass a driving test to be able to drive in this country—none of us is of that older generation. My dad certainly never had to pass a test, although he was a very good driver and a member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists. To pass a test, almost everybody has some formal lessons, usually at least eight or so. They are not cheap, so young and enthusiastic learners—although some people learn later in life—commit themselves to someone, trusting in their competence and in their integrity. My hon. Friend has exposed the loophole in the legislation that meant that we could not guarantee the integrity of the people doing that instruction.

It is almost invariably the practice, for good reasons of safety, that the person who is learning to drive is on their own with the instructor—many people, when they do their driving practice with family members, also do not have anyone else in the car—and that is another obvious reason why offenders should not be able to continue in that profession, and why those under suspicion should also be suspended for as long as the matter is being investigated. In the case that my hon. Friend has mentioned, the abuse was not committed in the car, but sometimes that does happen, so the powers in the Bill are very important.

My hon. Friend has also made sure, with the help of civil servants, no doubt, and of the people to whom he has paid tribute, that the Bill also provides the guarantee of natural justice—it ensures that compensation is available to anybody who is improperly suspected or suspended. However, the precautionary principle must apply in these circumstances—I am very clear about that. It is much better to err on the side of being careful than on the side of taking a risk. That is why the power to suspend and then, if something is unfairly alleged, to compensate, is much better than a power only to defer suspension until the facts are established. I am sure that that is the right way round.

My hon. Friend is the second example this morning of a colleague realising that a wrong needed to be righted, pursuing it through all the proper channels and being absolutely determined about it. We owe thanks to the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) for his Bill and to my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife for this one.

My hon. Friend paid tribute at the beginning and the end of his speech to the courage of his constituent, and we need to remind ourselves of that. Many people in her circumstances, understandably, would not want to go public about such an issue. But for her bravery in being willing to put the general public interest above her own traumatic experience, we would not have had the opportunity to use her enthusiasm, understanding and commitment as the motivation behind this legislation. I hope that we will all join in paying tribute to her and wishing her and her family all the best. We should thank them, because they have done a public service that my hon. Friend has replicated this morning.

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie) on introducing this Bill. It does what private Members’ Bills do best—it addresses a specific, narrowly defined wrong with a clearly defined remedy. I also want to pay tribute to his brave constituent, Lesley Anne. I should perhaps declare an interest in that I have a son who is going through his driving lessons. As he is a large, rugby playing medical student, I do not think that he is especially vulnerable, but I have another son who has just passed his test and another who will come up for it very shortly, so I am heavily focused on driving tests.

It was quite right for the hon. Gentleman to remind us what an important profession driving instruction is. The 40,000 driving instructors in this country have played a large role in the way in which successive Governments have pushed down the accident rate. Having been responsible for a fatal accident on the roads, I take a close interest in these matters. The way in which the death toll on the roads in this country goes steadily down and down, year on year, is very encouraging. Indeed, it compares favourably with that in many comparable countries.

The hon. Gentleman has produced a very sensible, balanced little measure. He has sensibly built in a 75-day time limit, so that an unfortunate driver against whom a malicious or unfair allegation has been made is clear about the period involved. He has also, quite rightly, included the appeal and compensation mechanisms.

Clearly, this is too small an issue for long-term statistics to be collected, but it would be interesting if, after the first couple of years of the Bill’s operation, a small written statement was issued to say how often its terms had been applied and whether there had been any successful appeals. There is a slight danger, thinking back to what the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) said about the fact that driving lessons are almost always one-on-one, that if word got around, a disgruntled pupil, for example, might use the measure in completely the wrong way against a driving instructor. I hope that that will not happen but it will be interesting to see, after the first year or two, what the statistics show and whether there have been a number of successful appeals, because we might need to fine-tune the legislation.

The Bill was designed to ensure that we do not establish a separate sphere of prosecution. Only if the registrar is already considering removing an instructor from the register can they suspend, and only when the case is serious. Nobody has free range to complain about the instructors. The Bill is quite tightly defined, so there is no extra sphere of discipline.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and I take his point. That was what I meant when I said that the Bill looks extremely watertight and well balanced. It would be interesting, none the less, to see the figures after the first or second year of its operation. If we found that there had been several successful appeals, we might wonder whether the provisions needed a bit more fine-tuning.

The bottom line is that thanks to a courageous young lady—it takes a lot of courage to come forward and talk about such a deeply unpleasant episode in public—and to the energies of her Member of Parliament, we have this good piece of legislation before us. I am delighted, on behalf of the official Opposition, to support it.

I am delighted to be here in support of the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie). I thank him for introducing the Bill and congratulate him on his considerable efforts over recent years in pursuing the underlying issue that the Bill seeks to address. He has certainly shown a commendable tenacity.

I shall pick up on one or two comments that have been made. The hon. Gentleman talked about the responsibility of a parent when children are taking their driving lessons and working towards a test to give them the independence held by some 34 million people in our country who have full driving licences. We want to know that our children are in safe hands and the hands of people whom we trust.

The vast majority of our driving instructors who are fully approved, and those who are training, are doing an excellent job in accordance with all the right codes of practice. Each and every year we ask our driving instructors to undertake that training. Some 800,000 people passed their driving test in 2007-08, which is about 44 per cent. of those who took it.

The hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) recognised the great achievement in this country of the reduction in the number of road casualties. I am delighted to say that the figures published yesterday show that Britain and Sweden are joint first place among the major nations for having the safest roads. However, some 2,500 people are still killed on our roads every year. We need that figure to fall still further. It has already come down by 14 per cent. since last year and by 40 per cent. over the past 10 years, but we need to go much further. Our driving instructors are part of ensuring that we have the highest standards for training new drivers-to-be.

It is quite ironic that today I have the privilege of supporting this Bill about driving instructors and ensuring that people like Lesley Anne Steele are protected, and yesterday I was announcing road safety statistics. I want to put on the record my thanks to Steve, the driving instructor from Gillingham, for his forthcoming patience with my daughter, who took her first driving lesson yesterday. I congratulate him on his nerves of steel, and apologise to my daughter for that comment. That brings home—I probably should not go home tonight; I suspect that I will be in trouble, and Rachel will kill me—the fact that we put trust in people in such professions, and in many other walks of life. I am grateful for the work that they do.

I do not want to add to the Minister’s woes, but out of interest, can he tell us whether it is his and the Department’s assessment that we have enough driving instructors across the UK? Do we have fewer than we need? What has been the trend in the number of people coming into that registered occupation?

There about 45,000 driving instructors. The Driving Standards Agency monitors numbers and requirements. The average learner takes 52 hours of formal lessons in training; that is 50 per cent. more than 15 years ago. There has been an increase in the number of driving instructors. Of course, part of the role of the DSA is to monitor whether there is enough provision in parts of the country where there is demand. The average spent by individuals on learning to drive is about £1,500.

I know that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife would want me to put on record that we are delighted to be joined by the former Minister with responsibility for driving standards, my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who assisted the hon. Gentleman a great deal with the Bill and the process of introducing it.

The Minister was kind enough to answer my question generally, but perhaps by the end of the debate he could give specific figures. If there are vacancies—that is, if more driving instructors would be useful, and would speed things up and increase the chance for people to get into the system and have lessons—I am keen that the public should know about it, because lots of people are looking for jobs. It is a good job to do and, for people with the relevant skill, it is a very suitable profession.

I certainly take those comments on board. If I can give the hon. Gentleman any specific figures before the end of the debate, I will. Undoubtedly, in times of difficulty in other areas of employment, and in a recession, the number of people considering such a route increases, so he is absolutely right.

I think that I am right to say that without the change in law that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife has resolutely pursued for several years, there would be a continuing risk to learner drivers from the very people in whom they put their trust; we have put that on the record. We have an opportunity to amend current legislation to provide further protection for the public, and learner drivers in particular. We must take that opportunity to ensure that others do not have to endure the emotional distress experienced by his constituent, Lesley Anne Steele. In Committee, and in proceedings on the Floor of the House on the money resolution, I put on record my thanks to the hon. Gentleman’s constituent for making her complaint and taking it forward, and for raising and highlighting the issues, no doubt at great personal expense. I do so again now.

The issue is not just theoretical, as we have said. It arises from the clear case that the hon. Gentleman outlined, and his constituent’s resolve to ensure that we close the loophole in legislation. The problem that the Bill seeks to address centres on the inability of the registrar of approved driving instructors—the profession’s regulator, and an official of the Driving Standards Agency—to prevent registered or licensed driving instructors from providing paid tuition with immediate effect, when that instructor represents a significant threat to the safety of the public. I will talk about “significant threat” later, because that will help to clarify one or two of the points raised about whether the provision could be used maliciously, as can happen in the teaching profession, where complaints are often made. That was raised in Committee.

The issue is not new, as the legislation dealing with the registration of driving instructors and their removal from the register has been on the statute book for many years. Part V of the Road Traffic Act 1988 contains the key provisions relating to the registration of persons who wish to provide paid instruction in the driving of motor vehicles. To provide such instruction lawfully, a person’s name must be on the register maintained by the registrar, or that person must be a trainee instructor to whom the registrar has issued a licence.

It might help if I briefly remind the House of the legislative framework covering the approval and registration of those who wish to give driving instruction for payment. As I mentioned, part V of the 1988 Act is the main primary legislation. It was amended in part by the Transport Act 2000 and will be further amended by as yet uncommenced provisions in the Road Safety Act 2006, to which I will return shortly. The relevant secondary legislation made under the 1988 Act is the Motor Cars (Driving Instruction) Regulations 2005. As hon. Members would expect, those regulations specify the detailed requirements applying to trainee driving instructors and approved driving instructors.

For trainee instructors, the regulations specify the process that must be completed in order to join the register, the fees for the tests taken and other important matters, such as the time limits that apply. However, as I will explain, simply passing the qualifying tests does not guarantee trainee instructors admission to the register. For approved driving instructors, the regulations clearly identify the requirements that apply to them on joining the register and thereafter.

As the House would expect, gaining entry to the register is not a trivial achievement. The standards are deliberately set high to reflect the responsibility that driving instructors will have. Approved driving instructors instil into learner drivers life-saving skills, principally the skill of how to drive safely on our increasingly busy roads. Total annual road mileage is 10 times greater than it was in 1950. Indeed, it has increased by 14 per cent. since 1997, so we recognise the even greater demands on our driving instructors these days.

The exams are in three parts: there is a theory test, a practical test of ability and fitness to drive, and a practical test of ability and fitness to instruct. The subject matter of the first two parts—the theory and practical driving tests—is similar to that covered in the test taken by learner drivers, but the standards expected of those taking those two parts are significantly higher than those that apply to learner drivers. The part 1 examination—the theory test—consists of two sections. There is a set of multiple choice questions and a hazard perception test. The multiple choice part of the driving instructor test consists of 100 questions, of which a candidate must pass 85. That compares to the multiple choice element of the test taken by learners, which consists of 50 questions, of which 43 must be passed.

The hazard perception test has a maximum possible mark of 75. For the driving instructor test, the pass mark is 57; that compares with 44 for learner drivers. The ability and fitness to drive test for driving instructors—the part 2 test—lasts an hour, whereas for learner drivers there is about half an hour of on-road driving. Potential driving instructors are allowed only six driving faults, whereas learners are allowed 15. To add further rigour to the process, there are restrictions on the number of attempts that can be made in some of the tests, and time limits also apply. For example, the application for the test assessing ability and fitness to instruct must be made within two years of passing the theory test. Also, no more than three attempts may be made at the test assessing ability and fitness to instruct.

The pass rate for the instructors theory test is 51 per cent. For the instructors practical driving test it is 50 per cent., and for the final part it is only 30 per cent. The overall effect is a rigorous selection process that ensures that only competent instructors gain admission to the register. The fees are £111 for the instructors theory test, and £111 each for the instructors practical driving test and the test of ability to give instruction.

Some trainee instructors will never have been in a situation where they have had to provide formal tuition of any kind. For them, the test of ability and fitness to instruct can be quite daunting. Not only do they have to demonstrate knowledge of driving theory and practice, but they have to satisfy the Driving Standards Agency examiner that they are competent in giving instruction. Knowing the subject is one thing, but being able to impart it to pupils is at least equally important. Many of us know that someone may be expert in a given subject, but being able to impart that knowledge to others, possibly as a teacher, is not second nature. Imparting knowledge and high standards of driving to others is a skill in itself.

The trainee licence scheme helps trainee instructors to prepare for the test of ability and fitness to instruct. Provided that trainees have passed the first two parts of the qualifying examination—the instructors theory and practical driving tests—they can apply to the registrar for a licence that permits them to give paid driving instruction without being on the register. Effectively, they are exempted from the requirement to be registered in order to give paid instruction. If granted, the licence lasts for six months but can be renewed in certain circumstances, such as where illness has prevented the trainee from taking the test of instructional ability during the period of validity of the licence. A condition of the trainee licence is that the holder must be supervised by an approved driving instructor during the currency of the licence. The cost of the trainee licence is currently £140.

The hon. Gentleman indicated that the Bill was not originally intended to cover trainee instructors. Uncommenced provisions in the Road Safety Act 2006 will repeal the trainee licence provisions in the Road Traffic Act 1988 and replace them with an exemption arrangement, to be made by statutory instrument. That will enable the DSA to introduce greater flexibility into the qualifying process for entry to the register, which will benefit trainee instructors while retaining the ability of the registrar to permit trainee instructors to undertake paid instruction and so gain experience in preparation for taking the test of instructional ability.

I have outlined the technical requirements, but there is another important requirement. Both approved driving instructors and trainee instructors must be “fit and proper” persons either for their names to be entered in the register or for them to be granted a trainee licence. The phrase “fit and proper” is not defined in the legislation, and the legislation is probably the better as a consequence. It allows the registrar to make a judgment as to an individual’s suitability to be an approved driving instructor or trainee instructor, based on their character and conduct. That is vital when we consider that approved driving instructors and licensed trainee instructors give instruction, often to young people under the age of 18, on a one-to- one basis, in an enclosed environment, and possibly in a remote location. For that reason, the conduct expected of driving instructors must be exemplary.

The checking process was discussed in Committee, and the hon. Gentleman today mentioned criminal records. It is the applicant’s criminal record in which the registrar takes most interest. Where a potential instructor has been found guilty of a serious offence, particularly one of a sexual or violent nature, it is most unlikely that they will be considered suitable to be admitted to the register or to be granted a trainee licence.

The registrar considers each application on its merits, taking account of the individual circumstances. An applicant, for example, who was found guilty 30 years ago of committing an assault at the age of 18, and who has a clean record since, may be considered more suitable than someone who committed a sexual assault in the past two years. It will depend on the situation and the person in each case. The registrar must take account of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. It would be wrong to prevent people from becoming an instructor simply because they had a criminal conviction, but where he has a significant concern about the suitability of an individual to become an instructor, the registrar will refuse the application.

The hon. Member for Canterbury requested a review of the way in which that discretion had been used. I am sure we can take that on board, as part of the DSA reporting process. All hon. Members want to ensure that we have the highest standards and catch individuals likely to offend as instructors. We all want the legislation to deliver what we expect from it.

In relation to the other point made by the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), will my hon. Friend confirm that suspension will occur only after conviction, not on the basis of an accusation by a member of the public? To state that would clarify matters.

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. As has been said, the provision can be used only in conjunction with the steps that will be taken to revoke a licence and along the lines indicated. We want to avoid a repetition of the effects of malicious rumours or gossip on members of other professions, and we have ensured that the provision can be used only in conjunction with a process that was already going to be undertaken by the registrar.

The Minister will be aware of the conviction not long ago of a black cab driver, John Worboys, a constituent of mine, who had committed a series of very serious offences and asked for many offences to be taken into consideration. Will the Minister have a conversation with colleagues in the Home Office or the police, so that information about people who have never been convicted but who have come up on the radar for serious offences is at least shared, so that that can be part of the consideration?

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s point. I shall come to the processes that we have undertaken in conjunction with the Home Office to ensure that such cases are flagged up. It would be wrong for us not to discuss with colleagues in other Departments any lessons to be learned from cases that come up. We will develop guidance from the knowledge that we have so far, including learning from cases such as the one that he mentioned, and that guidance will be issued by the registrar.

It may help if I speak about administering the character and conduct assessment when someone is applying to join the register. We must ensure that there is provision to deal with those who are already registered, but then commit a serious offence. The 1988 Act contains provisions enabling the registrar to remove instructors from the register or revoke their licences where they cease to be “fit and proper” persons, but it is not a quick process. The registrar must inform the individual that he is minded to remove him from the register, allowing 28 days for representations to be made to the registrar.

The registrar is not permitted to reach a decision until those 28 days have expired and, before deciding whether to remove the instructor, must take into consideration any representations that have been made. That is a fair process. We understand why the approved driving instructor should be given a reasonable opportunity to compile and submit evidence to support the retention of their registration.

Before the Minister leaves the significant point made by the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), will he read across to other areas of Government thinking? It seems odd that the concept of a fit and proper person, which is rightly central and which can take account of representations that go beyond convictions, has been taken out of so many other areas, such as that on licensees.

I will not speculate on the detailed provisions of other areas. It is always right that there should be fairness and openness in our systems when we seek to take away someone’s livelihood. We must have that balance. That is why it is good that the Bill provides for a compensation scheme. However, it is equally important, as I know the hon. Gentleman agrees, that we protect people such as Lesley Anne Steele.

The time issue is important, because once the registrar decides to remove the instructor's name from the register after those 28 days, having considered the representations that have been made, there is a further period of at least 14 days before the notice can take effect. The instructor also has the right of appeal against the registrar's decision. Currently, the appeal is to the transport tribunal, but in future it will be heard by the new first-tier tribunal.

The statutory time scales mean that, taking everything into account, it takes a minimum of 45 days for an approved driving instructor's name to be removed from the register. So even where an instructor is found guilty of a serious offence but is bailed pending sentencing or receives a non-custodial sentence, the registrar has no means by which he can quickly prevent him from continuing to give paid instruction. Therefore it is essential that that loophole is closed.

I want to put on record the work and commitment of my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman), and acknowledge his immediate recognition of the issue on meeting the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife and his constituent, and the apology that he gave at that time. In November 2006, the hon. Gentleman secured a Westminster Hall debate to discuss the laws regarding driving instructors who commit sexual offences and obtained a commitment from my hon. Friend to look at whether the removal process could be shortened. That was followed by a series of parliamentary questions on the same issue.

In October 2008, the hon. Gentleman introduced the Driving Instruction (Sexual Offences) Bill under the ten-minute rule, which unfortunately did not get beyond First Reading. At the same, the Department for Transport and the DSA were actively considering options. They proposed a handout Bill in late 2008, the Driving Instruction (Suspension and Exemption Powers) Bill, the title of which may sound familiar. That was not taken up by those successful in the ballot, but the hon. Gentleman approached my immediate predecessor, who I am delighted is present—my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick), who has now flown to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and we congratulate him on that—requesting details of the long and short titles of the handout Bill. Having been given the information he had requested, the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife introduced this Bill on 25 February 2009. Since then, as he has recognised, he has been supported by the Government and their officials through its Second Reading and its Committee stage on 17 June.

It is also right that I should place on record the support that the hon. Gentleman has received from my predecessors, my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet and my right hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Canning Town. Both of them identified the need to amend the legislation so that cases such as those of Lesley Anne Steele should not happen in the future, and committed to doing so at the earliest opportunity.

The DSA had also been busy exploring non-legislative options for further improving the robustness of its procedures for ensuring that approved driving instructors are fit and proper persons on admission to the register and remain so. In February 2007, the agency succeeded in persuading the Home Office that the profession of driving instructor should be included within the notifiable occupation scheme. That was followed in July 2007 by its inclusion in the equivalent scheme in Scotland. Under the scheme and its Scottish equivalent, the registrar is notified of criminal convictions received by approved driving instructors. The registrar receives, on average, about five notifications a month, but the majority relate to minor crimes. The scheme is not perfect. For example, a court may be unaware that the defendant is an approved driving instructor, particularly where the charge is not driving-related and where the approved driving instructor has more than one occupation.

Such a limitation does not significantly undermine the inclusion of driving instruction within the notifiable occupation scheme. However, it does mean that the volume of notifications received by the registrar may be an underestimate of the numbers of convicted instructors. It underlines the need for further information, such as that arising from criminal record disclosures, and that picks up the point made by the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) about learning the lessons from other cases.

In March 2007, the DSA introduced enhanced criminal record disclosures for new applicants starting the approved driving instructor qualifying process. That means that the registrar receives information for all applicants on past convictions—even those covered by the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. By the end of May 2009, more than 41,200 trainee instructors had been checked and 319 refused entry to the register on the basis of the information obtained via the disclosure.

Since April 2008, all approved driving instructors applying to renew their registration, which expires and must be renewed at least once every four years, have also been required to provide an enhanced criminal record disclosure. That is intended, in part, to verify that approved driving instructors are complying with the condition of their registration that requires them to notify the registrar of any convictions they receive during their period of registration.

Those approved driving instructors who joined the register prior to March 2007, and whose registrations have yet to come up for renewal, have been encouraged to supply voluntary enhanced criminal record disclosures for which the DSA has met the cost. As a result, almost 40,500 approved driving instructors, out of about 45,000 on the register, had been checked by the end of May 2009, and 42 have been removed from the register on the basis of information obtained through the disclosure.

The House may be wondering how the system of disclosures is funded. I can advise that the cost is met by the registration fee paid by approved driving instructors, which is £300 for four years. It increased from £200 in April 2008. Disclosures have become an essential part of the process conducted by the registrar to satisfy himself that an approved driving instructor, or someone seeking to join the register, is a fit and proper person. The DSA has publicised those changes, so instructors are aware of them. In 2008-09, 865 approved driving instructors resigned from the register, although that was for a variety of reasons, including ill health. Some approved driving instructors with serious criminal records may decide to leave the profession rather than supply a criminal record disclosure. However, as I indicated earlier, the discovery of a criminal conviction would not automatically mean that the registrar would commence removal proceedings.

Although those non-legislative measures have helped to give us greater confidence that only the most suitable instructors are able to gain access to the register of approved driving instructors and to remain on it, they do not address the problem of the registrar’s inability to take immediate and effective action as soon as a major risk to the general public is identified. As the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife has identified, the 45-day removal process, during which the approved driving instructor can continue to instruct, is a significant problem. If the Bill is successful, it will address that issue by allowing the registrar, while the statutory removal process is under way, to suspend an approved driving instructor immediately he presents a significant risk to the public.

Although the main focus of the Bill is, by necessity, on those convicted of serious sexual or violent offences, we do not wish to preclude other circumstances in which an instructor poses a significant risk to the general public and suspension is appropriate. For that reason, I should expect the suspension power to be used in cases where the approved driving instructor is found in a periodic-check test to have given woefully inadequate instruction to learner drivers—that is, when the instruction is so poor as to create a serious road safety risk to his pupils and other road users. I remind the House that suspension can be imposed only alongside other statutory processes. Suspension cannot be used in isolation; its purpose is to prevent an instructor from continuing to give paid instruction pending the completion of a separate but linked process.

I should also like to reassure the House that the suspension power would be used only infrequently. The Driving Standards Agency estimates that, in an average year, the power would be used on no more than five occasions, and Members should note that there are about 45,000 approved driving instructors on the register. On that point, I also remind the House that the overwhelming majority of approved driving instructors remain fit and proper persons throughout their careers and perform a valuable role in preparing our young people for driving safely.

Hon. Members may have concerns about granting the registrar the power effectively to deprive an approved driving instructor of his livelihood. The hon. Member for Canterbury made that point, and I regard such concerns as reasonable. We would not wish to support a Bill that resulted in approved driving instructors being suspended solely on the basis of allegations or rumours, which sometimes happens in other professions. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) raised that concern in Committee. There needs to be a balance to the suspension power, so that an instructor is suspended only when a clear need has been identified. In connection with that, I agreed in Committee that the registrar will publish details of the circumstances in which he will consider using the suspension power. That should provide further reassurance to the House that the power will be used sparingly and judiciously.

The balance is achieved by including a compensation scheme in the Bill. The scheme will cover an instructor who is suspended but not subsequently removed from the register, or whose removal is reversed on appeal. It will also apply in circumstances when a trainee is suspended but his licence is not subsequently revoked, or whose licence revocation is overturned on appeal. The compensation scheme will be introduced by regulation. It is important to do that by regulation, rather than in the Bill, because the regulation-making power will allow the Secretary of State to tailor the precise nature of the compensation scheme to the circumstances applicable at the time. However, the Bill explicitly states that the Secretary of State “must” introduce a compensation scheme, and it is important that the provision of a compensation scheme be a mandatory requirement, rather than a discretionary provision, as it provides balance—to which hon. Members have referred—for the suspension power. It will not be possible for the registrar to use the suspension power unless there is a compensation scheme in place.

The compensation scheme will extend to all the circumstances in which an approved driving instructor may be suspended and in which a trainee licence may be revoked or suspended. Eligible applicants for compensation will be able to claim for two distinct categories of loss, and the likelihood is that a suspended person will have suffered income loss. Let us assume that he has been suspended for two months. He will not have received two months’ income and, if driving instruction is his main source of income, he may be significantly out of pocket.

There are also non-income losses, such as damage to the goodwill of the instructor’s business, as many driving instructors are self-employed. The circumstances resulting in the use of the suspension power may seriously affect an individual’s business, and in those cases it is right that compensation be payable for such damage. The suspended person may also have incurred additional costs as a result of having had to take out a loan to purchase essential items during the suspension period.

In addition, the Bill allows for the inclusion of

“any other matters which relate to such a suspension and are provided for in the scheme”.

That provides for the flexibility to adapt the compensation arrangements in the light of experience, but I remind the House that we will be dealing with a very small number of cases of suspension and potential compensation each year.

Inevitably, there might be disputes about the amount of compensation granted or whether any compensation should have been granted at all. In those circumstances it is important that there is an appeals mechanism and, indeed, that an independent third party be the arbiter. That role will be filled by the first-tier tribunal. There is a right of appeal in respect of most of the registrar’s decisions on whether someone should be admitted to the approved driving instructor register, or on whether an application for re-registration should be granted.

However, there is no such provision in respect of the registrar’s decision to suspend someone. Should an instructor who is suspended be able to appeal that decision of the registrar? We have considered the matter carefully and concluded that the answer must be no, as such a provision would be counter-productive. The registrar’s intent when suspending someone is to prevent them immediately from being able to continue to give paid tuition, because they present a significant risk to the general public. Introducing an appeal arrangement would simply negate that purpose.

However, the instructor would retain the right of appeal to the first-tier tribunal in respect of the registrar’s decision to which the suspension was linked—for example, the removal of the approved driving instructor’s name from the register or the revocation of their licence. We must not lose sight of the main purpose of the Bill: to protect the victims, whom we all recognise from the case of Lesley Anne Steele.

I said at the outset that I would need to return to the Road Safety Act 2006, as we need to amend some of its provisions if the suspension power is to be fully effective. As I have explained, under provisions in the Road Traffic Act 1988, partially qualified instructors may apply for a trainee licence issued by the registrar of approved driving instructors, but the provisions underpinning those arrangements will be repealed once the 2006 Act is fully commenced.

One significant change relates to trainee instructors. The 2006 Act replaces the trainee licence scheme provisions with those that support a system of exemptions from the requirement to be registered. That could be used to exempt particular groups of instructors from the requirement to be registered—for example, the police, who already enjoy a class exemption so that they can give instruction within the police force. Unfortunately, it would be very difficult to introduce an effective suspension scheme unless individuals were required to identify themselves before accessing an exemption and the registrar were able to make a judgment about whether they were fit and proper. Without that, the effectiveness of any suspension provision would be severely constrained.

To address that problem, the Bill amends the 1988 Act to retain a role for the registrar in supervising access to any exemptions once the 2006 Act is fully commenced. In addition, the Bill makes amendments so that the registrar may charge a fee in connection with applications for the granting of exemptions. That goes some way to replacing the 1988 Act’s trainee licence fee-charging provision, which the 2006 Act will repeal. That in turn is why we debated the Ways and Means motion on Monday evening, and I am grateful to the House for having approved it so that the Bill could be properly considered in Committee. The Bill is important and goes a long way towards making sure that a loophole in the current legislation is closed. It has come about thanks to the hard work and tenacity of the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife.

The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey raised the issue of numbers. I say to him that there is no power to restrict the numbers on the register. There is no artificial level at which we cap; basically, commercial decisions drive the number of instructors. The evidence that we have is that there is no current shortage of approved driving instructors.

What about Northern Ireland?

I will come to Northern Ireland, although I wanted to leave it to the very end. Since the hon. Gentleman has pressed me, I shall tell him now that the Bill does not cover Northern Ireland because it involves a devolved matter. It is as simple as that.

The Bill strikes the right balance between the need to protect the public and the rights of individuals to go about their business and earn a living. It allows the registrar of approved driving instructors immediately to suspend those who pose a danger to the public and thereby prevents them from continuing to give paid instruction, but it also contains provisions that will safeguard instructors, and those seeking to become instructors, from improper use of the suspension powers.

The Bill has received generous cross-party support and I hope that that will continue to be the case; I have no doubt that it will be. It addresses a genuine public concern in a proportionate and effective manner, and my congratulations go to the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife. I look forward to monitoring the Bill’s progress and to seeing it become an Act.

I thank Members across the Chamber for their supportive comments. My hon. Friend the Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) was very supportive, as were the hon. Members for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) and for Brent, North (Barry Gardiner). I also thank the Minister. He was effusive in his support and praise of the Bill for a whole 45 minutes; I did not know that he liked it that much. I am grateful for that extensive support, as are the other Members in the Chamber.

I should like to summarise the Bill again. It gives the power to suspend and closes the 45-day loophole. It stipulates a limit of 75 days’ suspension, beyond which the Driving Standards Agency cannot go. It covers trainees and approved driving instructors, so it is comprehensive. Furthermore, it covers only the most serious cases: only those instructors who are already on the path to removal. It has not gone beyond that, so any scurrilous allegations about the character of individuals can be avoided. There is a defined process that has already been tried and tested, and we will not go beyond that.

If the House gives its support this morning, I shall entrust the Bill to my old boss, Lord Tyler of Linkinhorne, in another place. I am sure that Members there will see the merits of the Bill, but if they do not I am sure that they will succumb to Lord Tyler’s charm. I hope that the Bill will go through all the stages in the Lords. It is a good Bill, not only for the House but for approved driving instructors and trainees. It is also good for those, young and old, who are learning to drive.

I see that the Minister at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick), is in his place. He gave me great advice and support at a time when I had almost given up. I had almost succumbed to the drudgery of the private Member’s Bill process but he teed me up and got me going again. I am grateful to him for his wise counsel and support in making sure that the Bill has progressed to this stage.

Finally, I pay tribute to Lesley Anne Steele. She has provided a great service. It was tough for her to put her name into the public domain and to be talked about so extensively this morning; I am sure that she wishes to forget about it all now. She has put her name out and campaigned for change. She saw the injustice and was determined that nobody else would be subjected to what she was subjected to. I am grateful to Lesley Anne; this should be called “Lesley Anne’s Bill”. She is a great person, and pretty steely—Steele by name and steely by nature. I am grateful for her support and I hope that her Bill receives the support of the House this morning.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I start by declaring an interest. I am a private sector leaseholder and a director of the management company of the block of flats in which I live. I used to be chairman, but resigned because of a potential conflict of interest due to a planning application from the block next door.

I congratulate the two Members who have got their Bills through to Third Reading today; I hope that they will see their names in lights. After 17 years in this place, this is my second private Member’s Bill, and it stands about as much chance of getting through as the first one did. That first one was about a similar subject; it was about commonhold and leasehold issues before 1997. This Bill, however, is much more concentrated on public sector leaseholders. I say here and now that I am conscious that the Bill is defective; should a miracle happen and it get into Committee, I will be only too happy to correct it. There is an implication that the Bill applies to private sector leaseholders. My concentration and interest today is on public sector leaseholders, and I would seek to correct the mistake, to which I freely admit, in Committee.

I thank those who have helped with the Bill. I start with the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes). Frankly, I lifted most of my Bill from his Bill of last year. At that time, I pointed out from the Front Bench the same defects in his Bill for which I have just apologised in mine. He and I have long had a concern about the rights of public sector leaseholders and the unfairnesses that they face. I hope that, for once, we are in step together because we have to right the wrong that public sector leaseholders face.

I thank the many groups of public sector leaseholders that have briefed me extensively on their difficulties. I am thinking of leaseholders from Westminster, Camden, Islington and Orbit South, which has been transferred out of Bexley housing department. Part of the reason why I am interested in this subject is that I, too, have public sector leaseholders in my constituency of Beckenham. I have long sung the praises of the housing association, Broomleigh. However, the association and I have crossed swords over many years on the issue of public sector leaseholders. I think that it is beginning to get things right; it is certainly not as backward as some of the other registered social landlords that we are having to deal with. I also thank the Clerks and the Library for their help in preparing the Bill. I am grateful to everybody who has contributed to the Bill.

I want to put on the record how supportive the hon. Lady was last year when my private Member’s Bill was trying to make progress. I fully support this Bill and want it to make progress, because it is hugely important to thousands of people. Depending on how long the debate goes on, I may have to disappear for a little while to carry out constituency duties, as I hope the hon. Lady will understand. However, I will be back. She has my commitment that I will be there today and any other day before the end of this Session when she needs me.

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I promise that I am not planning to speak until he gets back—that would be totally unfair and would certainly take credit away from the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Gillingham (Paul Clark), for his marathon. I hope that we will still be discussing the matter, because I know that the hon. Gentleman has serious experience and expertise to contribute to the debate.

As I said, I have been aware of leaseholders’ problems for many years. In my original constituency of Hastings and Rye, we dealt with the difficulties that private sector leaseholders had. Over the years, we have managed to give them the right to consultation and to get their own quotes for works. Although the system is by no means perfect, private sector leaseholders, if they have the will to do so, can manage their own blocks and properties properly and to their benefit. However, that is not true in the public sector.

When I talked to my predecessor as MP for Beckenham, he briefed me about the difficulties of his public sector leaseholders, who have become my public sector leaseholders. As I have said, Broomleigh, the local large registered social landlord that took over Bromley’s council housing, took over some public sector leaseholders with it. Practically the first thing that I had to do as the MP for Beckenham was try to sort out the difficulties that those leaseholders were having, such as enforced contractors, a lack of consultation on the repairs that had to be done and very little option in the repayment of substantial sums. Many people felt that they had no input into their contracts and that they were badly managed.

Broomleigh is a very good housing association and picked up on those problems. It created a leaseholder unit and started to put in place the procedures that I wish to introduce under the Bill. The issue then died away, however, and the leaseholder unit was disbanded. There was then another problem, about bay windows in blocks of flats. It reignited all the problems about the lack of consultation, the lack of the right to bring forward other contracts, and leaseholders having no control over costs and little control over payment, with huge bills and demands for instant payment. I am glad to say that Broomleigh then resuscitated the leaseholder unit. Although people were still unhappy and there were flaws in the process, we are beginning to see a much more sophisticated understanding from Broomleigh of how to manage a block of mixed tenure, where there are public sector leaseholders who react differently from tenants when faced with repairs.

However, that best practice—at least, it is getting towards best practice—has not been copied by many councils or by other RSLs. My Bill would give public sector leaseholders the right to consultation, to get quotes from other contractors for work that needs to be done and to have a wide variety of repayment methods to ensure that bills are paid. Public sector leaseholders recognise that their properties have to be maintained, so there is the will to contribute to maintenance and repairs. What particularly irritates them is that they are unable to contribute to the process by which those repairs are carried out. They have no right to monitor whether they are carried out well, and demands for money come without a by-your-leave. They can see how inefficiently many contracts are managed.

Over the years, because of my interest in the matter, I have had contact with a wide variety of public sector leaseholder organisations. There was one meeting, probably the largest public meeting that I can remember, with public sector leaseholders in Tower Hamlets. They were incandescent with rage about how the council was dealing with their leases. Since I published the Bill, I have been contacted by leaseholders in Camden, Westminster and Islington. I have notified the hon. Members for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) and for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) about the Bill and the fact that I would be mentioning leaseholders in their constituencies. I know that both have worked hard on behalf of public sector leaseholders.

What has caused more difficulties than anything else is the sheer size of the bills that public sector leaseholders are asked to contribute to. Not all, but a lot, of the work has been driven by the decent homes standard. None of us would say that it was wrong to bring that in, but the problem is that most RSLs—I use that term to include both councils and housing associations, because we will be here even longer if I have to explain that each time—treat public sector leaseholders as though they were tenants. They also overload bills with management costs and a whole variety of other expenses that they think they can get away with.

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady not simply for introducing the Bill but for her work over many years. I remember working with her on the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002—we have been round these houses many times before.

I wish to highlight the point that the hon. Lady has just made. The problem is not simply that RSLs often treat leaseholders in the same way as tenants. In one particular way, they treat them very differently. As she said, that is in loading their service charges while providing no explanation of how those charges are broken down between the rental and leasehold income that they receive. I am sure that she could adumbrate that point with many cases, but it is an important one to make.

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I agree entirely. In fact, in due course I shall mention a letter that I have received from somebody who not only found themselves in that position but has been told how much they are paying compared with other tenants, which is way out of kilter. The hon. Gentleman and I are at one on this issue, and anyone who understands the problem knows that this is a cross-party issue, because it is the same wherever it happens.

Some people may remember that earlier this year, an elderly lady from Ramsgate aged 91 received just before she died a £16,000 bill for work on her flat to meet carbon dioxide emissions standards, and she had to take out a mortgage. That was, to say the least, insensitive. Leaseholders are simply told how much they have to pay. We have all worked very hard for people in the private sector, who in contrast are consulted and have the right to get their own quotes and pay in different ways, and whose management charges relate only to works to be done.

As a slight digression, I add that most of the problems arise from the original legislation that we passed in the ’80s giving people the right to buy. At the time I was not in the House, but I suspect that the thought was that the public sector would behave in the same way as the private sector. Sadly, all these years later that is not what has happened.

I was around at the time, just about, and I remember that people were given bad advice. The mood was in favour of buying. Children told their parents “Go on, buy your flat, it would be good.” However, no one looked at the small print, which said that people would have to pay not just for things connected directly with their flats, but for the district heating system and the gardens. Suddenly they were facing bills that were much bigger than they had ever contemplated.

The hon. Gentleman is quite right. I suspect that when the legislation was written, there was no conspiracy, but this was simply one of its unintended consequences. I could wax large about the problem, and indeed would be happy to introduce another Bill in an attempt to deal with it, but I thought that if I kept it short and sweet, we might be able to get somewhere with this particular issue. If we can give public sector leaseholders the right to consultation, we shall be able to dig down into what the charges are and how they relate to their properties.

One of the groups that contacted me is the Islington Leaseholders Association. I received 40-odd letters from its members. Vicki Leonard, who lives in N1, wrote:

“Leaseholders do not have to be consulted on any works…That was annoying enough in itself but more annoying is the astronomical cost of everything they do”.

That basically constitutes inefficiency. I received a long and detailed letter from a gentleman called Douglas Cape, who wrote:

“At the first public meeting…the Project Officer…said he was only there to talk about the new window design. When it was pointed out to him that his own invite to the meeting…said ‘You will have the opportunity of asking any questions regarding the contract’ he refused to acknowledge his own letter and said he still could not answer any questions.”

It is disingenuous, to say the least, of RSLs to say that they are consulting in such circumstances.

What was said in those letters was echoed in many others from, for instance, members of the Association of Camden Council Leaseholders and the Churchill Gardens lessees association. I am hugely grateful for the time that they spent briefing me on their problems. Another member of the Islington association raised the issue of the sums that are charged, and the fact that it is not possible to obtain alternative quotes. Geoff Shirley wrote:

“I and other leaseholders…have been informed by HFI that to replace our windows, 2 bedroom units will be charged £8K-£9K.

Considering the fact that only one main contractor has tendered for this work is outrageous. How does HFI justify that sole price when they have no other comparison price.”

Public sector leaseholders should not be faced with such sums when they are unable to wield any influence.

The position is made worse by the current agreements between RSLs and single suppliers of maintenance. The Government have been pushing that arrangement for understandable reasons: it is often more efficient for a contract to be let over the long term and for a single contractor to do maintenance work on an estate. However, in the event of a large replacement programme, the contracts with the sole suppliers do not allow competitive tendering. It is not beyond the wit of man, or the lawyers, to write a contract making it clear that it relates entirely to routine maintenance, and to specify that when there are larger contracts to be let, competitive tenders will be required. That would allow public sector leaseholders to bring their own contractors in.

Another problem is that large public sector organisations often have a list of preferred suppliers. While that reassures such organisations that the standards on which they insist will be met, it also constitutes a closed shop, and does not allow public sector leaseholders to bring in new contractors who might do the job as well as, if not better than, those on the public sector list. I want public sector leaseholders to have that option. I do not want to become involved in a great political debate about whether it is a good idea—

rose—

But I am happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman, who is about to turn this into a political debate.

Absolutely not. I entirely agree with the hon. Lady that both private and public sector leaseholders should have the right to consultation and the opportunity to propose alternative contractors. That has been common ground between us for many years. However, I should like to know why she believes that section 151 of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, which amends section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, does not provide adequate remedies for public sector leaseholders.

One of the problems of discussing leasehold is that we become involved in hugely complex and technical detail. My understanding, however, is that the Government have their own problems with the 2002 Act. Implementing it has not been as easy as writing it. I am merely trying to encourage the Government to do what they wanted to do in that Act. It must be plain that I am in consensual rather than opposition mode today. The hon. Member for Brent, North (Barry Gardiner) and I are in agreement: we both want to improve the position of public sector leaseholders.

Another problem that causes many people grief is the inefficiency of the contracts when they are let. I referred earlier to a very sweet and sad letter that I had received. Jean Harwood wrote:

“My big immediate problem is time. Originally HFI… told us all work had to be completed by 2008. I cut my holiday short as a result but nothing happened. Then January 2009 was given to start erecting scaffolding. Still nothing. However, they did start on the first block on March 2nd. It took 5 weeks to completely erect that. Incidentally, we were told they would erect two blocks at a time. The second block was started April 27th and the third block May 5th. I’m also informed that when this block is finished the fourth block will be done (that is where I live). To date NO windows have been replaced. I was assured by HFI that they would start work as soon as the scaffolding went up and would be down within 2 weeks on completion.”

That is not an unusual tale for such contracts.

Martin Kneidinger wrote to me about

“Very expensive charges compared to the work delivered and the time it took to finish. (More than a year!) Finished work is very poor quality and would not be acceptable on any private site in London I have been working on as an architect

We chose the 2 year interest free payment plan and to do that we had to start paying our bills before work was finished. Nowhere near finished to be more specific.”

Those issues come up time and again. Here is a quick example from Karen Neale, who writes about

“these grossly inflated…piecemeal and inaccurate estimates”.

I could go on endlessly, but hon. Members will be grateful that I shall not.

Something else that has emerged—this has happened more recently—is that management costs on such contracts have escalated dramatically. Again, however, leaseholders have no control over them. I am grateful to Dr. Peter Wright of Camden for a couple of examples. For one contract for lighting maintenance, he has worked out that

“40.24 per cent. of the costs are due to management costs; leaseholders will pay 10 per cent. administration…on top”.

Therefore, 50 per cent. of the costs of that contract went on administration and management. It is beyond belief. Nobody in the private sector would dream of charging that.

In response to another contract, the Churchill Gardens Lessees Association wrote:

“We do not consider the costs of the bids to be excessive. However, we do have concerns about add-ons of 40 per cent. totalling £460,000 on the contract price.”

The association continued:

“What is the 3.8 per cent. contractor’s overhead contingency for? If the tender preparation is outsourced, where is the corresponding saving in fees? Why is the contractor not responsible for his own safety audit? Where is the £24,700 fee for plans—

£24,700 for plans?—

“going? Why is a separate asbestos survey needed? The Estate has been so surveyed many times previously.”

I could go on. Some of the costs being dumped on public sector leaseholders are outrageous.

Then there are the experiences of the leaseholders of Orbit South, who have recently been transferred from Bexley. My hon. Friend on the Front Bench, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), who used to be the member of the Greater London authority for Bexley and Bromley, will be well aware of the problems of the leaseholders of Orbit South. They have been in touch with me because Orbit South has taken exactly the same approach to them. Those leaseholders are challenging their monthly management costs, which increased from £75 a month in 2003-04 to £116 a month this financial year, and will potentially be £140 a month next year. Even in the private sector, the management charges in my block—it is a rather pleasant block, as everybody will have seen recently in The Daily Telegraph—are not that size. It is unbelievable that management costs should be so much and that the leaseholders should have no redress or ability to negotiate.

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for her plug for my past existence. I, too, have Broomleigh leaseholders in my constituency, although we tend to pronounce it “Bromley” at our end of the borough. In any event, does she agree that one of the issues that people feel strongly about is the fact that tenants and leaseholders in the situation that she has described are at a significant disadvantage? When we are seeking to encourage, for example, the growth of mixed communities, it seems strange that, as things stand, private sector tenants have at least some leverage against their management companies, whereas public sector tenants do not have the same leverage when they are confronted with bills from what can sometimes be monopoly suppliers, even in the case of fairly enlightened housing associations and registered social landlords such as Broomleigh.

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. He draws a clear contrast between the treatment of people in the public sector and the treatment of those in the private sector, however enlightened a housing association or council is. While acknowledging the defects of the Bill, I hope very much that he will support the principle, so that we can move forward in finding a remedy to the injustice that has emerged. That injustice is an example of the law of unintended consequences, but we need to deal with it.

The difficulty is that councils and RSLs are used to telling tenants what to do. They have difficulty in getting into the mindset of people who have bought, and that comes from a different way of thinking. I am lauding neither one nor the other, but we have to recognise that the difference exists and that RSLs need to work much harder to deal with their leaseholders to provide the kind of service that they are giving to their tenants. That is all that we are asking: that leaseholders should have the same ability to manage their environment as RSLs think that they are giving to their tenants.

Does it surprise the hon. Lady to hear of a situation concerning the Stadium housing association in my constituency? It relates to the leaseholders in Airco close, who were billed for an equal sum for their water bills despite the fact that each of the flats had a water meter. When the housing association was challenged about this, it simply informed the leaseholders that, because there was a common tank, they would each have to pay the same amount. I have taken the trouble to point out to it that, under Ofwat regulations, if a meter is fitted, it is illegal to charge on any basis other than that of metered usage. This exemplifies the way in which RSLs tend to treat leaseholders by telling them what to do, with the implication that if they do not like it, they can lump it.

I sometimes wish that the ingenuity that goes into dreaming up these spurious charges was applied to working with leaseholders to ensure that they got a better service. I share the hon. Gentleman’s horror and disgust at such behaviour. If this debate—let alone the Bill—does nothing else but draw RSLs’ attention to the bad behaviour that they show to the people who live on their estates, we will at least have achieved something, if not much else.

I recognise that it can be difficult, particularly when there is mixed tenure, for RSLs to bring in the kind of thinking and techniques required to work with public sector leaseholders. However, given my illustrations of how badly managed so many contracts are, the RSLs could probably save themselves a huge amount of money by employing properly managed contractors and taking on board the arguments and points put to them by their leaseholders.

I have spent half an hour talking about clause 1. Clause 2 is much shorter, and it basically encourages the Government to consult on policies that affect leaseholders before they promulgate them. After all, this Government have said that they wish to consult, and they produce endless consultation documents. Many of their policies affect leaseholders, yet the basic rules of consultation do not appear to have been observed for them.

A document called the Sedley rules—which I confess I had not come across before—sets out four requirements for lawful consultation. The first is that

“consultation must be at a time when proposals are still at a formative stage.”

This means that a decision maker cannot wait until they have identified a definite solution. They must embark on the consultation process while being prepared to change course if persuaded to do so. They cannot make a decision in principle and then consult. Nor can they start by excluding an option and then denying any real opportunity to present a case on it.

The second is that

“the proposer must give sufficient reasons for any proposal to permit of intelligent consideration and response.”

The reasons given should be the true reasons. Consultees should be told the criteria that are intended to be adopted. The third is that

“adequate time must be given for consideration and response.”

The fourth is that

“the product of the consultation must be conscientiously taken into account in finalising any statutory proposals.”

I was interested to find out what had happened to the Tenant Services Authority, because I was pointed towards the issue by my very good consultees, who asked me to table a parliamentary question. I did so, and I do not declare any interest whatever; I did it because I am interested in the subject. My concern was that the Tenant Services Authority had no responsibility whatever toward public sector leaseholders, so I tabled a question and the reply was:

“The Tenant Services Authority has no responsibilities in respect of leaseholders who own 100 per cent. of the interest in their homes. Leaseholders already have access to a wide range of protections and rights.”

We wish! It continued:

“The Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 limits the Tenant Services Authority’s future regulatory remit to ‘social housing’, which includes low cost rental and low cost home ownership accommodation”—[Official Report, 25 March 2009; Vol. 490, c. 492W.]

under the Act. Quite apart from anything else, that clearly means that public sector leaseholders were not consulted on that legislation. Their rights are not only ignored by the RSLs; they are being overridden by Government—not, I am sure, in any way malignly, but through just not thinking.

That is why clause 2, which I also took from the earlier Bill of the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey, is an important part of the Bill. If we are dealing with a group of people who find themselves in a position of almost exclusion, the best thing we can do to help them become part of the wider community is to ensure that they are consulted and involved at all levels.

Public sector leaseholders, as I hope I have made very clear over the last half hour, have huge disadvantages in their dealings with their landlords. My Bill does not sort the whole problem out; I make no claim for that, as a much bigger legislative job would be necessary. Nevertheless, by giving those leaseholders the right to consultation, the right to receive quotes and the right to a variety of forms of paying back their bills, the Bill will take a small step to mitigate the anger and alienation they feel and their regret at becoming public sector leaseholders. I very much hope that the Government will give the Bill as fair a wind as possible at this stage of the legislative cycle—at the very least by indicating that they understand the problem and plan to do something about it.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) on securing a place in the ballot and on introducing the Bill. The regularity with which Bills on leasehold reform turn up—whether it be from the hon. Lady or from my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Barry Gardiner), who is a regular on this issue, or from others—shows the importance of the issue and demonstrates that something must be done. I declare an interest in that I am a leaseholder and I am facing the possibility of a rather large bill coming up in the not-too-distant future, although we will not be particularly affected because proper consultation is taking place.

I am minded to support the hon. Lady’s Bill, subject to what my right hon. Friend the Minister might say. I hope to speak at less length than the promoter did, which would probably be a record for me on a Friday, but there are a few points that I would like to raise.

My initial impression on reading the Bill through was that it was entirely about the private sector, not the social sector. I thought of intervening to ask how the hon. Lady envisaged her Bill applying to registered social landlords, as it appeared to me that the Bill did not deal with them. It seems to deal almost perfectly with the private sector and existing protections, but it is difficult to see how it fits together with problems experienced in the public sector.

The hon. Lady’s point about mixed tenure is particularly important. In my constituency, problems have arisen primarily in housing estates where some people have bought their homes while others are still tenants. We need to think about how to deal with the difference between the two. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North said in an intervention, problems occur when leaseholders feel that they are being loaded with bills that really belong to the housing revenue account and tenancy side. Sometimes it can be the other way round. That issue must be dealt with at some stage.

There is a further problem where the landlord—in this case, the council, or in my area, the arm’s length management organisation—has entered into a long-term agreement with one contractor. At present, we are in the middle of an £88.5 million decent homes initiative improvement project, the contract for which has been awarded to Balfour Beatty. A lot of problems have arisen as a result of that. One of the key questions leaseholders will always ask is whether they will get value for money from cosy arrangements—the term “sweetheart deals” crossed my mind, but that might be going too far—between the contractor and the arm’s length management organisation.

The Bill also fails to deal with major works contracts that may be sufficiently large to require a public notice under the EU procurement rules and advertising in the EU journal. In such instances, a problem arises about how people can get involved in the consultation process and, more importantly, how leaseholders might be allowed to put forward alternative proposals when it is necessary to go through that tendering process required under EU regulations. That issue must be addressed in this process.

The Department for Communities and Local Government has done some research on this issue. In 2006, it was recommended that the Department should provide

“further guidance on the standards of works to be carried out in flatted accommodation and…clarify the position in relation to the decent homes standard”.

I shall cite an example of that important point shortly. It was also recommended that the Department should

“provide further guidance in relation to defining hardship”.

One issue that confronts leaseholders in social housing arrangements is that they can face big bills that they did not expect to have to pay when they originally bought the property, whether under the right to buy or otherwise. I was a councillor in Westminster in the 1980s when right to buy was introduced, and I remember warning people who bought flats in badly neglected blocks that they would face enormous bills in the future. Many people did not think that that would happen to them; they believed that Lady Porter would look after them, but she looked after them in a rather different way, as we all know. I shall not go into the details of that, other than to mention the “homes for votes” scandal. Part of that scandal was the fact that leaseholders were asked to buy flats—including in my ward—in tower blocks, and were then faced with enormous bills.

One problem was that purchasers went ahead without having their eyes open to the possibility of bills. Matters have improved somewhat, and I understand that leaseholders purchasing under the right to buy now have to be given a five-year estimate of possible future costs, but what happens beyond that five-year period? Unfortunately, many elderly tenants thought the right to buy was their way of providing a little nest egg for their children, but they then found that the circumstances were rather different when, as pensioners, they were faced with bills for many thousands of pounds.

I have cases where people have bought a property after having done all the searches and were then told that they have a five-year bill to pay.

That clearly should not happen.

The social sector leaseholders working party was reconstituted by the Government in 2005 and reported two years ago. It recommended the introduction of separate legislation for social sector leaseholders because of the increasing complexity of social sector leasehold management as a result of the various rules and regulations relating to the arrangements. The statutory consultation process under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 did not really suit the arrangements often found in respect of social landlords, particularly the way that ALMOs, local authorities or housing associations have to go through particular arrangements laid down by the Government.

I wish to refer to a couple of cases from my constituency in order to illustrate the problem. One of them concerns Woodburn close, whose tenants wrote to me in April saying that for several months they had heard nothing from their ALMO, Barnet Homes, but that then in a short space of time they received letters informing them of a planning application that was being submitted. Those letters did not, however, detail the estimates and so forth for the work. The Woodburn close tenants go on to say:

“Despite previous requests none of the lessees have received quotes as to the cost of the works…It appears as if Barnet Homes have made a decision and are steam rolling it through, without due consideration to the lessees who have to pay.”

Then there was a public meeting. The letter continues:

“the initial letters were in respect of the windows, and it was not until the public meeting that Barnet Homes declared their intention to replace the aerial system at this time, and clean out the gutters”.

The tenants make the point that digital switchover was not for another three years, and that estimates of the cost of the work had not been received. The letter continues:

“we have to question the necessity of doing”

this work

“as there is a Sky system which does not require scaffolding.”

That system could have been installed at a cost of between £150 to £200 per home. The tenants complain that

“Barnet Homes have carried out this exercise without due consideration of the lessees issues”.

Barnet Homes wrote back to me saying that the

“design and details of the scheme have now been finalised”,

and it anticipated consulting tenants within the next two to three weeks by letter, with a breakdown of the proposed costs. That was on 11 May. It has not happened yet, so far as I can see. Again, Barnet Homes completely ignored the leaseholders’ alternative suggestion regarding the TV aerial. It simply bulldozed through, saying, “This is what we’re going to do.”

I received a letter from the tenants expressing continuing concern,

“as it appears they”

—Barnet Homes—

“are likely to provide the lessees with a range of quotes and that everything has already been decided. This includes the comment in respect of the digital switchover, which does not acknowledge there may be cheaper alternative systems that provide the same service.”

The windows replacement is being done under the decent homes initiative. The letter continues:

“It appears that they are wedded to single suppliers and are not giving the lessees full opportunity to comment as part of this consultation.”

Barnet Homes wrote back to me saying that the scheme is part of the decent homes initiative,

“which is being carried out under a five year Partnering Agreement with Balfour Beatty…The framework is not a traditional tender contract”

and Balfour Beatty had obtained different quotes, but as far as the leaseholders are concerned, that does not make a great deal of difference. The ALMO says it is not

“wedded to a single supplier”,

but in effect, it is.

We should also consider the quality of work—a point made by the hon. Member for Beckenham. There seems to be a general feeling among contractors—big and small—that anyone who lives on a council estate is entitled to second-class service and second-class quality of work. The contractors think they can get away with blue murder, charging top-dollar prices for substandard work. Time and again, I receive complaints about that. Such work might be treated as “snagging”, but a lot of it is not. Some of it is quite serious, and whether snagging or serious, this issue is a major irritation to leaseholders—and, indeed, tenants—who have paid through the nose for work that has not been done properly.

A case was brought to me last year concerning major works in Frith court. The lessees told me:

“The rewiring was supposed to be being done, and the trunking has been installed but has not been wired. It is…not clear how it can be wired up and the trunking looks extremely ugly, too.”

I saw that for myself. The lessees said that apparently, the windows are being replaced, but that that was not necessary for the flat in question because they had already been replaced before they bought the property. They have been charged £4,500 for renewing the guttering, which has not been done to a decent standard in several of the blocks. The soffit boards have been replaced, as have the common parts windows. The front and rear doors have been painted, but to very poor workmanship, as I again saw for myself. They are expecting a further charge of another £2,000 for rewiring.

Barnet Homes wrote to me saying that it gave section 20 notices the year before, giving a “brief description” of and reasons for the works, with estimated block costs and contributions. If it is admitting to a brief description, that is probably bad enough. It also said that the electricity trunking had been painted to blend in with the wall. Well, it did not look that way to me. It looked appalling, with great chunks of steel-work inside the common parts. I certainly would not put up with that, and I do not see why the tenants should have to. Barnet Homes also said that remedial work had been done to the gutters and snagging items that it had been agreed were to be rectified. It gives the costs involved for the work, which are astronomical. It could be done more cheaply.

The hon. Member for Beckenham has made a really important point about the social sector. Contractors tend to think that they can milk the council and do not realise that it is not the council or the ALMO that pays. They think, “It is public money—we can load up the contract.” They do not realise that the money actually comes from the leaseholders and tenants. That is part of the problem. I have given two examples that have recently come to my attention, but time and again tenants and lessees have raised with me their concerns about some of the charges being imposed. Sometimes, the people involved are in the building trade themselves and they say that they could contract for the work far more cheaply, but they are not allowed to do so.

The hon. Lady has hit on an important issue. As she says, the Bill is not perfect and requires considerable amendment, but I am certainly minded to vote for it on Second Reading in the hope that changes can be made in Committee.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) was keen to participate in this debate, but he has had to leave to attend an important constituency engagement. He was a sponsor of the Bill, and was pleased to be here this morning when the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) introduced the Bill. He is a keen supporter of the Bill mainly because it would shift the balance between overbearing councils or housing associations and leaseholders, who are often left out of the process. It would empower them to have more of a say, and that cannot be a bad thing.

The Bill is not a threat or a challenge: it would just give leaseholders the right to be involved and put forward alternatives. For example, it would give them the right to prepare an alternative proposal, which is innocuous enough. In fact, it could be advantageous by allowing the council to see other options. The Bill would also give leaseholders the right to a ballot on the decision. The right to transparency on the details would not be threatening either, and councils and housing associations should be prepared to be challenged about past work so that they can be sure that they have got value for money. The Bill also proposes a budget to ensure that the bill for works in any one year is not unaffordable.

When we set out national programmes, we often fail to consider leaseholders—the many thousands of people who have bought a house and who should be consulted. It is not threatening to have to engage them in deciding on best practice. Indeed, it could be very constructive. The Bill also includes a low-cost arbitration process.

The pressure from tenants to improve and upgrade houses is immense. I have people coming to my surgeries every week to demand more and more for their houses—rightly, because some of the houses are in poor condition. But that pressure is different for leaseholders, who want to weigh the balance between the effect of spending that money and the cost of it to their own purse. In the narrow sense, tenants do not have that consideration—although of course in the global sense they do. That is why leaseholders need to be fully engaged in the process.

The councils and housing associations are under great pressure to deliver. We politicians hold them to account for what they do on a day-to-day basis, and if they fail to live up to the mark, they can be kicked out in the elections. That pressure to perform often means that leaseholders are overridden—seen as a minor irritant in the way of progress. That is why we need this sensible and reasonable Bill. As I have said, it includes provisions on ballots; transparency; budget limits for one year; low-cost arbitration; and the right to be consulted. It may not deal with every point, but it is not a threat to the Government, councils or housing associations. Rather, they should welcome this contribution and engagement with the process. They should see leaseholders as valued partners, not as threats or irritants. That is why the Liberal Democrats support the Bill.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) for promoting the Bill, and I congratulate her on doing so. It has enabled us to refer to the work of our local registered social landlord, Broomleigh Housing, and issues that are common to Members with constituencies across the country.

I was also grateful that my hon. Friend accepted at the outset that the Bill, if it progresses, will need changing in Committee. On the basis that the intention is to limit its application to public sector leaseholders—

indicated assent.

I see that my hon. Friend nods to confirm that, and so I think we can give it our “in principle” support, in the expectation that in Committee improvements and refinements can be made to ensure that we address precisely the issues that are at hand.

My hon. Friend struck a very important note about basic justice, which is something that I have come across with my constituents. There is an imbalance of treatment between leaseholders in the private sector and leaseholders in the public sector. I hope that that will weigh compellingly with the Government as they decide their stance on the Bill, given the concessions made by my hon. Friend about amendment in Committee. I cannot believe that the Government, any more than the Opposition, would wish to see leaseholders who happen to be in the public sector being disadvantaged in comparison with those in the private sector. Ironically, they are sometimes disadvantaged in comparison with tenants in the private sector, depending on the attitude of the council and the RSL.

There has been a long history of monopolies sometimes being unresponsive to their tenants, either deliberately or because of a culture that seeps into an organisation. I can remember that attitude from when I was a London borough councillor, back as long ago as when the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) recalled his experiences in Westminster. When I was a parliamentary candidate in Dagenham, the local authority was monolithic in dealing with its tenants. Since then, things have improved there, as they have in many local authorities, but an underlying problem remains. Under the current legislation, the local authority leaseholder, for the reasons set out by my hon. Friend, is at a disadvantage in comparison with others. I think it right that that disadvantage should be addressed.

I agree with the hon. Member for Hendon about the risk posed by contractors sometimes taking advantage of that monopolistic position. That is made worse when the leaseholders are unable to apply the same basic leverage as other tenants would. I hope that for that reason, if for nothing else, the Bill will commend itself to the Government.

I was interested, too, to note the lacuna that seems to exist in relation to the Tenant Services Authority, which I was very interested to find out about. I am not seeking to be unduly party political, but it seems strange that the Government, having created two quangos in place of one to deal with housing, have reached a situation where there seems to be a gap in the available protection. Some people—the public sector leaseholders—fall through the system and are covered by neither quango. I hope that, although that does not come within the scope of this Bill, we could sensibly address that failing. I have great respect for the Tenant Services Authority, its excellent chairman, Anthony Mayer, who I have known for a number of years, and its team. Clearly, somebody needs to act as a champion for public sector leaseholders and I hope that the Government will look beyond the scope of the Bill and redress that imbalance as a matter of justice.

Let us consider the question of contracts, repairs and so on, and the inevitable pressures, to which my hon. Friend rightly referred, on RSLs, in particular, to seek larger contracts and to bundle them together to seek efficiencies. It is important to try to strike a balance between that and the risk of unfair treatment from a largely monopolistic supplier. Again, that seems to me to be a compelling reason for bringing forward this Bill.

It is surprising that the Government have not so far been willing to move on this matter. I hope the when the Minister for Regional Economic Development and Co-ordination responds, she will take that on board. I was a little disappointed last year to receive an answer to a written question to the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Salford (Hazel Blears), which stated that

“it will not always be appropriate or helpful to make identical provisions for social sector and private sector leaseholders in order to provide them with similar rights and protections.”—[Official Report, 13 May 2008; Vol. 473, c. 586W.]

I was surprised to hear that, and even more surprised to hear it at a time when the right hon. Member for Salford was Secretary of State. I would be surprised to hear it from anyone of her party. The wording may have been unfortunate. It is not language that I would like to adopt on behalf of my party, because where we can do so in a proportionate and sensible manner, we ought to try to ensure as level a playing field as we can.

As I say, I hope that we can move to a situation in which one group does not fall through the gaps in the system, particularly given that all parties seem to desire to encourage mixed communities; that is certainly the Government’s stance. They want people of different tenure to live side by side. I would not disagree with that. That makes it all the more unfair if, probably not through a deliberate policy, but just as one of those perverse consequences that arise from an omission somewhere in the drafting of legislation, one group of occupiers is in a less advantaged situation than the others. I hope that that, too, is a compelling reason why the Government should at least let the Bill make progress, with a view to seeing what refinements can be made in Committee.

The other points were compellingly made by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham, so I do not intend to keep the debate going at any great length. When she responds, I am sure that she will make it clear that the provision on the £12,000 payment is intended to relate to the public-sector leaseholder. In the private sector, there is more negotiating power—power that those in the public sector do not have. With those observations, and the assurance from the promoter of the Bill that she would amend it in Committee, I hope that the House feels that the Bill raises important issues. It is not perfect in its current form, but its proposer does not pretend that it is. It raises issues that need to be addressed, and if it did go forward to Committee, hopefully we could come up with a solution that deals with issues that, on the face of it, potentially lead to injustice and unfairness in the treatment of people. It ought to be possible, with good will, to find a sensible and proportionate means of addressing that.

In many senses, the Bill is a result of the failure of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002. That was flawed in many ways, and I say that as someone who campaigned for five years to get it on the statute book. It was a great day when that was achieved. It was only the third leasehold reform Act since 1887, and it was substantially flawed. That was partly because civil servants had done their usual thing of giving their Minister a “Blue Peter” Bill—one that they had prepared earlier. It had substantially been prepared for the Conservative Government and had not taken account of all the work done in subsequent years by my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) on the subject.

Of course, civil servants were fearful that the 2002 Act would not get through the Lords. In those days, the landed interests of those there were still substantial; civil servants were very fearful that they would fight the Bill for a long period and delay the Government’s legislative programme accordingly. For that reason, key elements of the 2002 Act did not work properly. However, it introduced consultation, which was not obligatory before. Critically, it introduced an obligation on landlords to hold moneys in trust. Extraordinarily, that had not previously been a requirement. Of course, it also supposedly made commonhold and enfranchisement easier.

I remember that in my speech on Second Reading of that Bill, I said that even if 5 per cent. of new properties were designated commonhold, I would consider it a tremendous success if that were achieved within 10 years. Sadly, I have been proven right. Nowhere near 5 per cent. of new build is commonhold. I gave a target of 10 per cent. for enfranchisement, and that target, too, has not been met. That shows the fundamental inadequacies of the 2002 Act. I concluded my speech by saying that we would have to revisit the issue in seven or eight years, but what is seven or eight years when leaseholders have been waiting 130?

It is essential that the inadequacies of the original Bill are widely addressed, which would encompass some of the points made by the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait). I always advise people not to buy leasehold unless they also have a share of freehold. It is only with a share of freehold that people get control. The issue of control is precisely what she raised in the Chamber today. People buy their house, thinking that they have finally become homeowners. They therefore think that they have control over their property. The tragedy of leasehold is that they do not. Their landlord has control over the property, all the more so, as she pointed out, in the public sector or with registered social landlords.

I believe the Minister will refer the hon. Lady to section 151 of the 2002 Act, which amended section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, and will say, “You don’t understand. Provision for consultation is already made there.” If I were the hon. Lady, I would make this response: “To have a right but no means of enforcing that right is to have no right at all.”

That goes to the heart of the issues that the hon. Lady raised, which all of us across the Chamber recognise from our casework experience. The rights may exist, but either the RSL does not know that it has those obligations, or the leaseholders do not know that they have those rights. Where they do know and try to enforce their rights, they find that there is no mechanism for them to do so.

To have a right but no means of enforcement is to have no right at all. That is why the matter needs to be addressed. My own view is that it probably cannot be addressed by the mechanism of the Bill. The hon. Lady is sufficiently experienced in the House, and I know from her indications to me that she understands that, but today she has provided a very valuable service not only to the House and to the Government, but to leaseholders across the country. The issues must be revisited and addressed. Those rights and the remedies for breaches of those rights must be put firmly back into the hands of leaseholders.

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) on her success in bringing the Bill before the House. It is obviously an important subject. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) and for Brent, North (Barry Gardiner), and the hon. Members for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie) and for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) for their contributions.

I understand why hon. Members on both sides of House think that the subject is important. We all want to ensure that people live in decent homes, where they can have input into issues that affect them and their communities, particularly when they are asked to contribute directly by paying service charges, as in the case of leaseholders.

I assure the hon. Lady and everyone else who has contributed to the debate that I will look carefully at the points made and discuss them with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing. I know that hon. Members feel strongly about this and I hope that I will be able to give them some reassurances. The hon. Lady made it clear that she understood that parts of her Bill were defective.

The Bill’s underlying principle is to help leaseholders who are being asked to pay high service charges. In some of my remarks there will obviously be a crossover between private sector and public sector leaseholders although, as I acknowledged, I know that in this Bill the hon. Lady feels most strongly about public sector leaseholders. The Bill seeks to give secure tenants more input with their landlords where national consultations are concerned. As I have said, those are all worthy aims, and I will deal with some of the specifics in more detail later.

All of us recognise and have sympathy with what in some cases are, as many hon. Members have outlined, long-standing and difficult problems that leaseholders face with high service charges. That is clearly a particular difficulty in London, as was obvious from the contributions from London Members. I also agree that there needs to be sufficient and appropriate consultation between landlords and their leaseholders on service charges. I will come on to describe the existing consultation requirements a little later.

We all want to ensure that leaseholders have a fair deal on service charges, and I am aware of the effect that high bills can have on those receiving them. That is why we have tried to put in place a system of safeguards and measures that make people aware of what they are taking on when they buy a property. Both my hon. Friends the Members for Hendon and for Brent, North referred to certain advice that they were always keen to pass on to people entering into leasehold arrangements.

Service charges should be transparent and reasonable, and my Department is working on ways to improve that. We are all aware of leaseholders’ important role in, and responsibility for, contributing to the upkeep and maintenance of the common parts of the buildings and communities in which they and other tenants live. That responsibility should be spelt out in the terms of their lease.

It is also important to recognise that local authorities, in particular, are charged with bringing their housing stock up to a decent standard by 2010 and already have wide powers to assist those leaseholders who face difficulties paying their service charges. That assistance can take a number of forms and be tailored to suit individuals’ circumstances, which of course can vary considerably.

Leaseholders who pay service charges also have statutory rights that they can exercise where service charges and their property’s management are concerned. It would help if I put on the record those rights, the assistance that is available to support leaseholders when they find themselves in difficulties and the improvements that the Government have tried to make so far.

I hope that I shall be able to illustrate that, since the Government came to office, we have shown a commitment to develop the rights and protections that are available to leaseholders, and that we have delivered on that commitment. However, we are of course looking at what more can be done, particularly to reflect some of the points that have been made.

We published a Bill, to which hon. Members have referred, setting out a wide range of proposals for improved leaseholder rights. We consulted widely on the proposals, and the result was the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, which significantly improved on the previous position of leaseholders—although I note hon. Members’ reservations today about the Act. The improvements do demonstrate, however, that leaseholder rights have been and remain important to the Government.

As the right hon. Lady moves through her speech, will she differentiate between the rights that are given to private sector leaseholders and public sector leaseholders? The problems that I have raised occurred well before the 2002 Act and have continued since its introduction. The legislation certainly helped with the problems of the private sector leaseholder. If she would differentiate, I would be grateful.

I shall certainly make every effort to do so.

On the question that the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst raised, the legislation applies to both public and private sectors, and amendments in the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 also provide for some flexibility. In particular, it ensures that all leaseholders receive useful and relevant accounting information about the service charges, taking into account the other financial rules to which landlords, such as local authorities, are subject. It is important to state that clarification.

I am grateful to the Minister for her reference to the concerns about the 2002 Act, and I acknowledge what she says about some of the amendments and the issues that have arisen. Does she also concede that, whatever the good intentions, there is a concern among many within the public leasehold sector that the systems under the 2002 Act have proved bureaucratic and complex? There is a specific concern that the statutory consultation procedures are essentially incompatible with the public sector procurement of services. They do not fit in with some of the requirements in respect of the volatility of the market, the bulk buying of materials and the need to meet European Community requirements, as reflected in the consultation procedures. I hope to be provided with more detail in due course. Whatever the intention, there seems to be a mismatch in practice. That needs to be considered.

I would certainly be grateful for any further information that the hon. Gentleman can supply.

I should mention two things. The hon. Member for Beckenham asked about the Tenant Services Authority, and I assure her that we intend to extend its remit. We hope to start consultation on that in July this year and to have regulations in place in April 2010, subject to that consultation. We intend to extend the authority’s remit so that local authority social housing is included within its regulatory scope. I could write to her with further details when we start the consultation process.

What the Minister just said was carefully worded. Did she mean that the Tenant Services Authority will also be invited to take into consideration the interests of public sector leaseholders in both council housing and the housing associations?

Our proposal is that the Tenant Services Authority should regulate property within the definition of social housing under the 2008 Act. I hope that that clarifies the issue for the hon. Lady. However, I shall certainly write to her with more details about the consultation as it develops.

I am hugely grateful to the Minister for giving way, and obviously I do not want to turn this debate into a dialogue, but a public sector leaseholder who bought their home would not regard themselves as living in social housing. That is the crux of my point.

I understand the hon. Lady’s point, and I shall write to her with further details. Obviously, there are issues about the overall regulatory burden, and we want to aim the consultation and the new regulations at the most appropriate sector to provide the maximum help. I take into account what she has said and will write to her with further clarification.

The 2002 Act gave leaseholders a far greater say in how the money that they pay in service charges is spent and it improved their right to challenge the amount that they are asked to pay in addition to any rent. Since the introduction in October 2003 of the consultation provisions in the Act, and in regulations made under powers conferred in it, far greater consultation with leaseholders must take place before a landlord can spend service charge monies. That consultation is required before a landlord commits to contracts for works that will require any leaseholder to pay more than £250. Meaningful consultation must also take place before a landlord enters into an agreement for works, or for services of more than 12 months, where the costs to any leaseholder would exceed £100 in any relevant accounting period.

I shall briefly set out what that consultation consists of. The landlord must give notice of their intention to carry out qualifying works. Those are works costing more than £250, or £100 in respect of long-term agreements, in any accounting period. That must be done in writing to leaseholders and to any recognised tenants association. The notice must summarise the proposals, including the reasons why the work is necessary, and seek the views of the leaseholders and associations. The landlord must have regard to any observations that he receives and invite the leaseholder and any associations to nominate suitable contractors.

Can my right hon. Friend elaborate, not for the benefit of the House but for the benefit of leaseholders, on what precisely “must have regard to” means?

As I understand it, if there were a challenge the landlord would have to show that he had taken the views of leaseholders into account before proceeding in a way that went against those views. If that is not correct, I will write to my hon. Friend, but I understand that that is usually what happens when the words “have regard to” are inserted in legislation. It is so that in any subsequent challenge, including a judicial review, the onus is on the landlord to show that regard has been taken of the points made by individuals who objected to a proposal.

My right hon. Friend is most courteous in giving way again. I do not wish to press the matter, but it needs to be emphasised that it is easy for a landlord to say, “Yes, we took the objection into account, but we dismissed it. We read it and took on board the fact that the leaseholders wanted a different contractor or a different method of doing something, but it was not the method that we favoured and we thought it better to press ahead.” The fundamental question is whose home it is. It is the leaseholder’s home, and the problem is that leaseholders who have paid for a property feel that they have rights over it, yet someone else can impose their will on them.

I certainly hear what my hon. Friend says, and I understand that there can sometimes be that difficulty of interpretation.

The hon. Member for Beckenham mentioned regulation by the Tenant Services Authority. I am assured that the TSA already regulates RSLs, and that the consultation will be on the extension of regulation to local authorities. In assessing the performance of a local authority or RSL, we would take account of the way in which it managed the relationship with its leaseholders, but we would not seek to regulate the legal relationship between the leaseholder and the freeholder—the local authority or RSL—which is covered by existing statute.

Although in general a landlord must invite the leaseholder and any associations to nominate suitable contractors, there are exceptions. For instance, that does not apply when the works are to be carried out under a long-term agreement that has been subject to full consultation in the past. Leaseholders and any recognised tenants associations have 30 days in which to nominate as many contractors as they wish.

My right hon. Friend has referred to big contracts, which I mentioned earlier. Barnet Homes has an enormous contract across the borough, worth £88.5 million, with Balfour Beatty in connection with the decent homes initiative. As far as I can see there was no consultation, but how on earth could any consultation on a major contract be of any relevance to the people on the receiving end of the small contracts for their block?

I understand my hon. Friend’s point, and, as I have said, I will consider it. I presume that when a specific project is involved, it may be possible for leaseholders to say that they do not believe that full consultation has taken place in the past, and that they wish to nominate a different contractor. That would lead to consideration of whether the landlord had had regard to the points that had been made, and perhaps to future consultation and regulations. More generally, there is a move to ensure that local government takes account of the way in which contracts are delivered and of procurement practices, and to ensure that smaller local companies—I know that this interests my hon. Friend—can benefit from those practices.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way to me again. She will appreciate that in the case of a very large contract such as the one cited by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) the contract that specifically affects the leaseholder’s block is often a sub-contract, but the main contractor does not have the same obligation as the registered social landlord to consult the leaseholder. That is a real problem, and it needs to be addressed.

My hon. Friend’s point follows on from the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, which relates to the procurement practices of local authorities, as well as some of the rights in existing legislation.

It is not just a question of local authorities. We could consider the matter in the context of the warm homes initiative, for example, under which the Government have given an enormous national contract to the eaga partnership, which relates to the point that my right hon. Friend made about using local contractors. The costs of installing a new boiler are astronomically inflated under the eaga arrangement, yet the work could be done far more cheaply if individuals paid for it themselves and then charged the scheme. That is not just a local authority problem, however; it is a general problem, and we have to get away from it. In part, I accept her earlier point, but we need to find a way of allowing people more control over the work done in their own homes.

I am sure that my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department of Energy and Climate Change will listen carefully to the points that have been made about how we proceed with the Warm Front contracts.

The leaseholders and any recognised tenants associations have 30 days within which to nominate as many contractors as they wish. The landlord must then try to obtain an estimate from at least one person nominated by a leaseholder and at least one nominated by a residents association. The landlord must then supply a statement, free of charge, to every leaseholder and any recognised tenants association setting out the amount specified in at least two of the estimates as the estimated cost of the proposed works, as well as a summary of any observations that the landlord has received in relation to the proposed works or the estimated expenditure from any tenant or recognised tenants association, along with the tenant’s response to those observations. If the landlord selects neither the lowest estimate nor a contractor who has been nominated, he must explain his decision in writing. If the landlord fails to consult properly or does not acquire a dispensation from the need to consult from a leasehold valuation tribunal, he cannot recover any more than the amounts that I have already mentioned: £250 or £100.

Can the right hon. Lady explain how the leaseholder’s right to obtain other quotations or other contractors’ names, which she has described, sits with the five-year contract for whole of the works, and whether the contractor would have a legal right to compensation should one of the leaseholder’s contractors be given the job? Also, as I said, one of the gateways used by RSLs and local authorities is to say that contractors have to be on their approved list or meet their system of approval. That instantly brings delay into the system, so can she explain how that would work?

I will attempt to. I know that there are, for example, exceptions for large-scale contracts that are already subject to competitive tendering under EU requirements. Therefore, as the hon. Lady says, some of the bigger contracts would fall under those arrangements.

I want to clarify a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North about the meaning of “must have regard to”. It means that landlords must consider the responses and take what they say into account, and that they should be able to give a reason if they are not going to follow them. Magnificently, I think that that is what I said before.

The Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 built on the rights of leaseholders to challenge service charges. Those rights enable them to challenge the reasonableness of service charges through an independent leasehold valuation tribunal. LVTs offer leaseholders a relatively informal and inexpensive way of challenging the service charges that they are asked to pay. Previously, such disputes had to be determined by a court. Service charges were, and continue to be, payable only to the extent that they are reasonably incurred. When they are incurred for the provision of services or the carrying out of work, they are payable only if those services or works are of a reasonable standard.

Leaseholders can now challenge before an LVT service charges payable for the costs of services, repairs, maintenance, improvements or insurance, or for the landlord’s costs, including overheads of management. The fact that they can also now challenge the service charges that they are asked to pay in relation to improvements has benefited local authority leaseholders in particular. Leaseholders can now ask an LVT to determine whether service charges are payable, as well as to determine their reasonableness. They no longer need to go to court to determine such matters.

The Minister might remember my reading out the experience of the leaseholders of Orbit South, whose management charges have increased by 100 per cent. over recent years. She really needs to consider what is happening in the real world, as opposed to what is happening in the legislative world. Many public sector leaseholders experience a total disregard for any of the rights that she is reading out; she must bear in mind that what she is reading out is not what happens to public sector leaseholders.

I hope that some of the changes that I have outlined will help to improve the position.

My right hon. Friend has been most generous in engaging in debate, and I hope that our interventions will be constructive. All that she has said is absolutely right, and I know that the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) and I accept that these provisions exist in the legislation. However, let me cite a case as an example.

There is a block of flats in my constituency whose windows had needed doing for many years. Eventually, one leaseholder got so fed up with their not being done that he paid a private contractor to do the work. A year later, the landlord decided to do all the work, but then billed that leaseholder for fitting new windows even though he had already paid to have the work done the year before. The leaseholder took the landlord to a leasehold valuation tribunal. The Minister is right to say that LVTs are supposed to be a quick and effective means of getting justice without having to go to court, but the landlord turned up with five QCs. The leaseholder was blown out of the water—in legal terms—and ended up with a bill for the landlord’s legal costs for the five QCs on top of the bill for the windows. The LVTs, which were supposed to provide a quick and easy means of redress, are not working, and we need to address that.

As my hon. Friend knows, the tribunal system is obviously meant to provide people with a form of redress where they can make their own case, so it should not involve five QCs. One hopes that tribunal chairmen would be able to acknowledge points made by the individual taking the case and would not be intimidated by five QCs. I am not sure how the individual taking the case to the tribunal ended up paying the costs for five QCs. I am surprised to hear that, so perhaps my hon. Friend will write to me with further details. My recollection of the tribunal system is that the person opposing the individual can have legal representation while the individual does not, so I am not quite sure how the system led to costs being awarded in that way.

There were complaints under the previous system that leaseholders were insufficiently protected from being coerced into paying sums claimed by landlords through the threat of forfeiture. Landlords would begin or threaten to commence repossession proceedings to recover disputed sums. In such circumstances, the leaseholder’s mortgagee would often pay up to avoid losing the leaseholder’s property, which formed the security for the loan. The Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 stopped such action being taken when service charge moneys were still in dispute. It also prevented forfeiture action from being used as a means of recovering relatively insignificant amounts of money—where service charges, administration charges and ground rent or a combination of those charges did not exceed £350 and where no part had been outstanding for more than three years.

The 2002 Act also significantly improved the ability of most leaseholders to take over the management of the building containing their flats and introduced a no-fault right to manage. This gave leaseholders the right to take a greater stake in their homes: they could get together and take over the management of the building containing their flats. I should say that this is one particular area where the rights introduced in the 2002 Act distinguish between the public and private sector, because the right to manage is obviously not applicable to the public sector. I view that as an understandable exception within the legislation.

The right hon. Lady might like to know that Broomleigh had one or two blocks that were full of public sector leaseholders and it sold the flats as freehold. There are some enlightened RSLs, but not very many of them.

I acknowledge the hon. Lady’s point, but as I say, there is that distinction in the 2002 Act between the private and public sector. Leaseholders no longer have to undertake potentially lengthy proceedings to satisfy a leasehold valuation tribunal that one of a number of grounds had been met to justify removing the current manager. Rather, they could join together and take away the management. This was a substantial increase in their rights.

As hon. Members are no doubt aware, collective enfranchisement is also an important right that allows leaseholders to buy the freehold of the building containing their flats. This gives leaseholders an even more significant stake in their homes. They can step into the shoes of their landlord completely. Exercising collective enfranchisement was also made substantially easier by the 2002 Act. It removed some obstacles to enfranchisement and opened up the right for many more leaseholders. The 2002 Act also made it easier for leaseholders who wanted to maintain the value of their properties to extend their leases. In both cases, changes were made to the valuation principles. These changes reduced the opportunity for disputes about the price payable for either enfranchisement or lease extensions.

I rise simply to lay down a marker. Following the Custins v. Hearts of Oak court case, in 1967 a Labour Government introduced legislation establishing the principle that there should not be marriage value. That principle was given away in the 2002 Act, and that has been a significant financial impediment to many leaseholders exercising their right to enfranchisement. We will need to consider that at a future point.

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, and I assure him that we would look into it—and, no doubt, discuss it with him—if we were to introduce further consultation on this matter.[Official Report, 14 July 2009, Vol. 496, c. 3MC.]

For the first time, all leaseholders are entitled to receive a prescribed ground rent demand at a certain time before such sums became payable. This provided important protection against a leaseholder inadvertently forgetting about his obligation to pay a ground rent and then facing claims for additional costs alleged to have been incurred by a landlord in recovering these sums.

In the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008, we amended the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 to enable us to introduce measures to ensure that leaseholders will automatically receive a regular statement containing information about their service charges, with the same right to see supporting documentation. Landlords who do not provide the statement or make the supporting documents available will be open to challenge at a leasehold valuation tribunal. We are currently drafting regulations to give effect to this measure, along with other measures to provide protection in respect of service charge moneys held by landlords. Leaseholders will have sanctions if this is not complied with, including the right to withhold service charges. Also, when leaseholders receive demands for service charges and administration charges, they must be given a summary of their rights and obligations in relation to such charges. That means that when they need to know, they are made aware of their important rights where such sums are concerned. Leaseholders can now challenge demands for administration charges covering matters such as payments for consent, which they are required to pay under the terms of their lease. Leaseholders of houses can now also take over the responsibility for insuring their properties from their landlords.

I turn to an issue that will be of particular interest to the hon. Member for Beckenham. We have looked at the issue of local authority leaseholders who find it difficult to pay service charges. The Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 increased the options available to local authority landlords to help leaseholders in this position. Since April 2009, landlords have been able to offer interest-free equity loans and to buy equity shares in properties. This is in addition to their long-standing ability to offer loans on varying terms, to spread payment over a longer period, to agree to delay payment until the property is sold, or to buy properties back outright from owners who are in arrears with service charges or cannot cope with the costs of looking after their home. The Government fund part of the cost of such buy-backs by letting the authority retain more of the receipts from property sales.

Under the Social Landlords Discretionary Reduction of Service Charges (England) Directions 1997, landlords can also cap service charges if certain conditions are met, including if a leaseholder will suffer exceptional hardship. In 2002, we undertook a review of issues relating to major works service charges paid by local authority leaseholders. That was done because of concerns raised over high service charges that were being levied on local authority leaseholders, principally arising out of work being carried out to bring homes up to an acceptable standard under the decent homes programme. We learned that many local authorities, particularly in London, already offer a range of forms of assistance to their leaseholders. They offer a range of payment by instalment options; some agree to delay payment until the property is sold; others even offer a discount if the bill is paid in full promptly.

A written ministerial statement on 29 March 2007 outlined the Government’s position and the options on offer to leaseholders at that time—support which, as I have already mentioned, has been improved by legislation. However, I can assure the hon. Lady and other Members present that we are keeping the position under review in the light of current financial and housing market conditions. I therefore hope that Members will agree—although I completely take on board the points made today—that the Government have improved the rights and protections available to leaseholders in many significant respects. They have been empowered by rights that were not available until we took this action.

Let me deal with the Bill’s proposals in more detail, and begin with the proposal for involving tenants in works. As I outlined earlier, the consultation provisions in the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 which were amended by the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act of 2002, already cover most of what is proposed here. There is a statutory requirement that all landlords must consult their leaseholders before carrying out works to their buildings and estates. These existing consultation requirements, which are contained in regulations made under the 1985 Act, cover most of what is proposed in the Bill.

I have already mentioned how the existing consultation rights give leaseholders an input into the procurement process. We have to ask whether the additional requirements proposed in the Bill—to consult on specifications for tenders, to put forward counter proposals and to hold ballots—would add to the consultation process. It would not be helpful to tenant or landlord if we were to replicate or replace rather than add to the process. We need to be cautious not to increase the complexity, time scales, costs and burdens of consultation, given that in some cases those would be passed on to leaseholders.

We also want to be clear that there is no risk that leaseholders could also force landlords to accept counter-proposals that could put them in a position where they are not able fully to meet their contractual obligations to all leaseholders—and to their tenants—to maintain and repair a building or estate. I am sure that those are consequences that the hon. Lady would want to ensure were avoided in her Bill.

Proposed new section 20ZA(1)(g) would require the landlord to make certain documents available for 10 years. Retaining documents relating to service charges, works and agreements should, at the very least, be a matter of common sense where it is not already enshrined in best practice or as a statutory requirement. But it is sensible for both leaseholders and landlords to retain those documents. Because leaseholders can challenge the reasonableness of service charges through a leasehold valuation tribunal, even when they have paid the charges, landlords need to be able to justify those charges with documentary evidence. Without such evidence, they are likely to have a weak case that will not impress a leasehold valuation tribunal. However, it seems unlikely in practice that a leaseholder will need to see information relating to service charges that goes back some 10 years.

Further, leaseholders can currently request a summary of service charges, representing the last 12 months, and can ask to see documents supporting the summary.

Also, as I have previously mentioned, we will be proposing changes to the legislation so that leaseholders will automatically receive a regular statement containing information about their service charges, with the same right to see supporting documentation. We are drafting the regulations that will give effect to this measure. There will also be sanctions if this requirement is not complied with, including a right for leaseholders to withhold service charges. Landlords would also be vulnerable and open to challenge at a leasehold valuation tribunal if the supporting documents were not available. We need, therefore, to reflect on the need specifically to legislate to compel landlords to retain information for an arbitrary period of time, particularly as it is already in a landlord’s interest to do so.

Proposed new subsection (5)(g)(iii), which can be found in clause 1(2), would place a requirement on landlords to make publicly available requests to the residential property tribunal service as well as the decisions. We think that that is unnecessary, because determinations made by those tribunals that determine matters under the residential property tribunal service are already publicly available through the residential property tribunal service website. Of course, tribunals make all relevant information available to the parties involved in the dispute. We therefore do not need to add additional burdens and costs to the process by asking landlords to make public all requests to the tribunal.

The final element of clause 1 relates to payment arrangements that must be made by landlords when service charges exceed £12,000 in any 12-month period. I recognise the driver behind the clause. I know that quite a number of local authority leaseholders have received high major works service charge bills that reflect the work being carried out through the decent homes programme to overcome years of neglect. The intention of the clause appears to be to allow leaseholders to spread out their contributions to costs over a longer period. However, we need to ensure there is no ambiguity and to ensure clarity in what is proposed.

There is a risk that the clause is unlikely to achieve what is intended. In addition, it would also affect all landlords and not just local authority landlords. It would require landlords to make index-linked arrangements for leaseholders to pay in reasonable instalments when contributions exceed £12,000 in any 12-month period. As I said, the clause raises a number of questions that I think would need to be considered. For example, what does it actually mean? Over what period should the instalments be paid? What would be regarded as reasonable instalments? Those matters appear to be left solely to the discretion of the landlord.

Clause 2 proposes to amend section 105 of the Housing Act 1985. Section 105 deals with the duty on landlord authorities to engage with their secure tenants on housing management matters that are likely substantially to affect them—for example, if there is a new programme of maintenance, improvement or demolition of dwelling houses let by the authority, or a change in policy or practice. Landlord authorities for that purpose mean local authorities, registered housing associations, charitable housing trusts and development corporations. That means that secure tenants of these authorities must be kept informed about the authority’s proposals and given the opportunity to comment.

The Bill would require those landlords similarly to consult their secure tenants on all national Government consultations that substantially affect them and where the landlord intends to respond. As proposed, it would appear that that would be a significant additional burden for any authority to carry, without obvious benefits to the tenants. As drafted, the proposal would also appear not to relate to leaseholders, whereas I believe that the Bill’s main aim is to help them.

Overall, there is a balance to be struck. We all need to satisfy ourselves that what is proposed would provide a greater opportunity for tenants to make their views known to Government, rather than duplicate how the Government received responses. We also need to consider the burden on local authorities and other landlord authorities, which may be forced to consult on issues on which tenants do not wish to engage.

To recap and conclude, the proposals in the Bill put forward by the hon. Member for Beckenham, while very well intentioned, are already available under existing legislation. I do not think that the changes proposed would deliver real benefits to leaseholders, and there is a danger that they would add significantly to the procedures with which landlords would need to comply. Again, that would create unnecessary burdens and costs—costs that would, in many cases, be passed on to the leaseholders whom the measures are intended to benefit.

The current position strikes a fair balance between the rights and responsibilities of leaseholders, having taken into consideration the sometimes polarised views of those affected, so the Government cannot support the Bill. However, as I have said, I will certainly look at all the issues closely, and will discuss them with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing. I ask the House not to support the Bill on Second Reading.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, I apologised to your predecessor in the Chair for having left the Chamber to attend to constituency duties. I was here for the beginning of the debate, and for all the earlier debates today. I just want to make a brief comment. It is disappointing for us sponsors of the Bill, and those of us who have piloted similar Bills through the House, that the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) is not getting a more positive response. When I left, she was making a very good case; when I came back, the Minister was making a response that was clearly not very helpful.

You didn’t hear it!

The part that I heard was not very helpful; I can say that without having heard the other part. [Interruption.] Yes, I caught the mood music. We will obviously study what the Minister said carefully, but for the tens of thousands of people in boroughs such as mine, which is where the Minister lives when she is in London, there will be considerable disappointment that the Bill is not getting Government support. The Minister has undertaken to speak to her colleague, the new Minister for Housing. I hope that Ministers will at least work out what changes the Government would be willing to make to reflect the consistent concerns. I am sure that those concerns are not unique to outer south-east London, or inner south-east London, but are shared, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie) said, by people all over the country. I hope that the Minister will take away the message that the present legislation is not sufficient.

With the leave of the House, may I congratulate the Minister on her mammoth speech, even though it was deeply unhelpful? The people affected by the problems that we have discussed are public sector leaseholders, who have come to me, to the hon. Members for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), for Brent, North (Barry Gardiner), and for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), and, interestingly, to the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie)—[Interruption.] Not Renfrewshire; I know about Renfrewshire. It is on the other side of the country. Of course, unless the law has changed in Scotland, there is no leaseholding law there. However, I congratulate the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife on doing a noble job with regard to a very unfamiliar situation.

I thank my hon. Friend and colleague the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). All of us have public sector leaseholders in our constituency who have consistently complained for years, after the 2002 Act just as much as before it, about the deficiencies in their input into the homes in which they live.

The right hon. Lady tried nobly to defend the current system. Although I appreciate enormously her offer to brief the Minister for Housing and to write to me about various matters, she and the Department must understand that the situation for public sector leaseholders is deeply unsatisfactory. At some point legislation will have to be introduced, possibly much more extensive than my Bill, which I readily acknowledge is defective, to give those leaseholders a fair crack of the whip in the management of their own homes.

Those who read the debate or may have been listening to it will be desperately concerned that the right hon. Lady thinks there is a fair balance at present. They know well that that is not the case. As there is a certain eagerness to get on to other private Members’ Bills, I shall not seek to divide the House. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The Bill is interesting. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Barry Gardiner), who has done sterling work on the topic. Indeed, the Bill is a carbon copy of the Bill that he promoted.

Every year the world cuts down enough trees to cover an area the size of Portugal. In 25 countries, forests have effectively disappeared. In a further 29, less than a tenth of their forest cover remains. Such deforestation exacts a terrible toll on the natural environment and accounts for around 18 per cent. of all greenhouse gas emissions globally—more than trains, cars and planes combined. Illegal logging costs timber-producing economies worldwide $10 billion a year. It causes untold environmental damage, promotes corruption, undermines the rule of law, funds armed conflict, harms sustainable development and threatens wildlife. All this happens in some of the world’s poorest countries.

The UK is the world’s fourth largest net importer of wood products. Central Government Departments are estimated to purchase some 20 per cent. of all timber bought in the UK. This figure rises to 40 per cent. when local authorities and other Government bodies are included. We can raise the standards of public sector procurement, and by doing so play a significant role in raising standards generally. I am pleased that the Government have decided that from 1 April 2009, only timber from independently verified legal and sustainable sources or from a licensed forest law enforcement, governance and trade—FLEGT—partner will be used on the Government estate, but we must do more.

In October last year the European Commission presented a proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and the Council laying down obligations on operators who place timber and timber products on the market. There are significant problems with the proposal. It focuses on the first time that timber and timber products are made available on the Community market, regardless of their origin, by determining the obligations of those operators who place timber and timber products on the Community market.

The proposal is based on the due diligence principle and requires the operators covered by it to apply a system, due diligence, to minimise the risk of placing illegally harvested timber and timber products on the Community market. The proposed measures aim to contribute to global efforts to fight illegal logging by deterring operators from placing on the Community market timber and timber products without a reasonable assurance of their legality. They also provide consumers with the certainty that by buying timber and timber products they do not contribute to the problem of illegal logging and associated trade. Legality is defined on the basis of the legislation of the country of harvest, applicable to forest management, timber harvesting and timber trade. Timber and timber projects covered by a FLEGT licence or a convention on international trade in endangered species permit are considered to have been legally harvested.

Chatham House produced an impact assessment of three scenarios based on proposals of the EU Commission. The first scenario was on the basis of an operator’s self-declaration, which seems to be where it is going, without third-party audit. That is obviously the least robust scenario. The second scenario is an elevated version of the systems used by trade associations that have responsible purchasing policies, combined with the mode of operation of the UK central point of expertise on timber. The third scenario is the strongest one. It includes third-party auditing, and verified third-party legal material is the minimum requirement, whether domestically grown or not. That is the most robust scenario when it comes to due diligence.

Is due diligence enough? My Bill will go further than that by introducing new criminal offences. I believe that I am in line with the wider view, particularly expressed by non-governmental organisations, in this respect.

EU timber traders will have to set up a due diligence system to minimise the risk of illegally harvested timber being placed on the European market under the proposals, but those fall short of making it a criminal offence to market illegal timber, and green groups have criticised the draft EU proposals as too weak to stop the material sold on the European market. The proposals published by the Commission do not ban illegally sourced timber from entering the EU market. Instead, the proposed regulation intends to minimise the risk of illegally harvested timber being sold in Europe.

About 27 million cu m of illegal timber enter the EU each year, according to the WWF. The Commission puts the figure at 16 million cu m, but both agree with estimates that just under a fifth of timber imported into the EU is harvested illegally. The EU says that almost half of logging is in vulnerable regions—the Amazon basin, central Africa, south-east Asia, the Russian Federation, and some of the Baltic states. That causes enormous environmental damage and loss of biodiversity, and distorts the market.

We have also seen a very slow pace in the FLEGT licensing system, where licensed countries can attest that timber exports have been harvested according to national rules. Up to October 2008, just five countries—Malaysia, Indonesia, Cameroon, Congo and Ghana—had begun negotiating such an agreement with the EU. Ghana was the only one licensed under the scheme in September 2008. The pace of negotiations were such that the Council, the European Parliament and the then French presidency repeatedly asked the Commission to put forward further proposals without delay.

The proposals are disappointing and the green groups have been lobbying for a proposal that would effectively close the EU market to illegally harvested timber.

My hon. Friend makes a valid point on the use of the FLEGT arrangements, but does he agree that while it is frustrating that only three countries have joined up, the process whereby 10 or 11 additional countries are engaged in coming on board with FLEGT, tortuous and difficult though it is, means that we are starting to get something of a cultural change? Secondly, it is not only a matter of achieving the legality of timber sources through FLEGT, we then need to create genuine sustainability within those communities, for the good of their indigenous peoples.

I would not disagree with any of my hon. Friend’s comments, but it is a matter not of either/or, but both. There is nothing wrong with the due diligence process based on FLEGT or otherwise, but we need to go further. It has been suggested that it would be impossible to make criminal sanctions work, yet a prohibition on trade in illegally logged wood products was passed in the United States in May 2009 in an amendment to the Lacey Act.

My hon. Friend is coming on to the Lacey Act and the way of stopping the circumvention. The essential point is that FLEGT is a good bilateral licensing scheme to ensure that any timber coming from a FLEGT voluntary partnership agreement country will be accepted as legal within the EU, but that does not stop circumvention—leakage—to other countries. They can then turn that timber into tables, and it enters the EU in another manner. We need a Lacey-style Act, as my hon. Friend said, precisely to stop that circumvention.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his helpful intervention.

In October last year, United States officials outlined how their new scheme was to be implemented, and since April there has been a requirement to declare the origin of species for plants, timber and solid wood products, such as tables, to coincide with a web-based declaration system. Regulations governing furniture and paper will be phased in over a two-year period. The Environmental Investigation Agency, a non-governmental organisation, described the move as

“a historic breakthrough for international efforts to control deforestation”.

Wearing my human rights hat, I should say that there is an important human rights dimension to the issue, too. I shall not go into it in detail, but the Committee that I chair, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, is conducting an inquiry into business and human rights. We have looked at issues, for example, relating to the operation of the extractive industries in the developing world, and forestry is one example of how such industries can have a significant impact on the developing world and, as my hon. Friend the Minister said, on indigenous people in particular. Human rights must be protected, and one means of doing so is by overcoming the problem of illegal logging.

Illegal logging is a criminal activity that undermines Government systems worldwide, destroys ecosystems, contributes to carbon emissions, harms poor and rural economies and forces UK businesses and workers to compete with inappropriately low-cost forest products made from illegally sourced timber. It directly costs the UK economy millions of pounds per year in depressed prices and unfair competition in the timber industry. By introducing simple yet effective legislation, the Government would be taking a major step towards fulfilling their long-standing commitment to tackle illegal logging; and, by supporting the Bill, they would send to world markets a strong signal that wood products harvested illegally will no longer be acceptable in Britain.

My Bill is straightforward: it simply makes it a criminal offence if anyone

“sells, or offers for sale, any wood that has been harvested, sold, taken or possessed illegally in the country from which the wood was originally harvested, or…attempts to commit”

such an act.

I do not propose to go through the Bill in detail, because we are short of time and other Members wish to contribute to the debate. Clearly, we also want to leave plenty of time for my hon. Friend to reply, so that, if necessary, there will be time to vote before 2.30 pm.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) on successfully introducing this private Member’s Bill, which I understand originated with the hon. Member for Brent, North (Barry Gardiner) as a ten-minute Bill last year. We are all aware of the difficulties in introducing such legislation, and all successful attempts are to be commended. However, I note that, according to today’s Order Paper, the hon. Member for Hendon has been successful four times in introducing private Member’s Bills. Perhaps he will let me know how he manages it.

Although this is a new area of interest to me, the hon. Member for Brent, North has long taken an interest in it, and he has an impressive back catalogue of achievements: he was the Prime Minister’s special envoy for forestry; he previously had responsibility at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for biodiversity, landscape and rural affairs; and, as I have said, he last year introduced a ten-minute Bill, which Opposition Members supported and sponsored. The Bill aimed to make it an offence for any importer or distributor to sell or distribute in the United Kingdom any wood harvested, manufactured or otherwise dealt with illegally in the country from which the wood originated.

Introducing the Bill, the hon. Gentleman made a number of important points that are worth recalling. He said that 18 per cent. of all the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change come from deforestation; that figure was recently repeated by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Only if we put together all the power stations in the world—coal fired, nuclear and those using all the other electricity-producing technologies—would we have a sector that contributed more to global warming than does the loss of trees.

The hon. Gentleman also said that the World Bank estimates that the trade in illegal timber amounts to $15 billion each year. The UK is the fourth largest consumer market of imported tropical timber, yet only a fraction of the timber that we import can be said with any certainty to have been legally sourced and harvested in its country of origin. Illegal logging not only destroys forest ecosystems and contributes to carbon emissions, but directly harms some of the poorest people on the planet—those in the indigenous forest-dwelling communities whose very livelihoods depend on the forest.

In this country, we declare our support for the millennium development goals, yet in the UK it is not an offence to trade for commercial gain timber that we know to have been harvested illegally in its country of origin. If we were dealing with private property, such as stolen antiques or works of art, there would be no question but that those importing or selling such artefacts would be regarded as criminals and dealt with according to the full force of the law. However, in the UK, companies that habitually trade in stolen timber have committed no crime and broken no law.

It is worth mentioning that not only was there cross-party support for the hon. Gentleman’s ten-minute Bill; it was also supported by the Timber Trade Federation, the Environmental Investigation Agency, James Latham Ltd, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Global Witness and the Born Free Foundation. That shows why today’s private Member’s Bill is so important.

The European Commission recently decided not to make it illegal to import illegally harvested timber into Europe. That distinguishes the EU from the USA, which recently passed amendments to the Lacey Act making it illegal for a person or company to import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire or purchase timber or timber products illegally taken, harvested, possessed, transported, sold or exported.

The hon. Gentleman is making a very good contribution to this welcome debate. The Lacey Act takes a principled approach of complete prohibition. However, what is important is not only the symbolic value of what is put on the statute book in the UK, the European Union or elsewhere; provisions also have to be workable and enforceable, and they have to be able to be monitored and delivered. Far be it from me as a legislator to say that we should ever introduce legislation that could not satisfy those requirements, regardless of any symbolic value. We must watch what happens with the Lacey Act and see whether it delivers on a big promise.

The Minister makes a telling point; it is important that legislation should be workable and enforceable.

The hon. Gentleman may be aware that last year a representative of the US customs appeared before Chatham House. He said that the amendments to the Lacey Act, introduced at the beginning of that year, were already working effectively and that prosecutions under it had already been secured.

That helps to answer the Minister’s point. From the information that I have received, it seems that the Lacey Act is workable and enforceable. I shall say a bit more about that in a few moments.

Instead of prohibition, the EU has introduced a proposed regulation under which operators have to exercise

“due diligence to minimise the risk of placing illegally harvested timber and timber products on the market.”

That has been rightly and widely attacked as lacking teeth. The EU has given two reasons why it believes that prohibiting the placement of illegal timber on the market is not feasible, and both are pertinent to proving illegality in a third country. The first is:

“The enforcement authorities in Member States would need to establish the offence on the basis of foreign laws through investigations beyond their jurisdiction and European courts would be compelled to rule on the legality of timber products harvested elsewhere. Europe is generally reluctant to act beyond its jurisdiction or to pass judgement on other countries’ legal frameworks unless there is an immediate threat to the well-being of its population, such as in the case of food safety or terrorism.”

The second is:

“Obtaining the necessary proof that a specific batch of timber was harvested at a certain time and place in contravention of applicable legislation in the country of harvest is deemed to be a difficult if not, in many cases, impossible task. It is not always possible for traders to know how to avoid being implicated in illegal activities and this would create uncertainty and would not bring meaningful changes in the timber sector. Practical difficulties and political implications would limit its application to very few high profile cases, thereby undermining its effectiveness in meeting its objectives.”

This is a very good debate. Does the hon. Gentleman think that it is right to have a system that does the job, can be shown to be workable and does not place undue or disproportionate burdens on sectors of industry in the UK and elsewhere, but that can be enforced and sends the right signal? What are his thoughts on the EU approach and where the right balance lies?

If the Minister will be patient, I shall come to that. I certainly agree that the system should do the job but not place unworkable burdens on the sector.

Assessing whether a timber trader has exercised due diligence is inherently subjective and requires a burden of proof. According to Global Witness:

“Unless being caught in possession of illegal timber is treated as de facto proof of a failure to comply, this legislation is very unlikely to provide a deterrent to the determined illegal operator”.

Moreover, if the USA is capable of establishing an offence, there seems no reason why member states should not be able to do so.

The Government’s response to the EU proposal was contained in a recent written statement. They said:

“The Agriculture Commissioner introduced a proposed regulation requiring those placing timber on the market to ensure that the timber has been legally logged. The UK welcomed the regulation but said that effective enforcement was very important. In particular, the UK and the Netherlands urged quick progress to be made in negotiating the proposal before the European Parliament was dissolved.”—[Official Report, 13 November 2008; Vol. 482, c. 65WS.]

In March this year, the Secretary of State called for tougher European laws to tackle illegal logging. He would like to make it an offence to import illegally produced timber into the EU, and he stated:

“Illegal logging causes untold environmental damage, it harms communities and it threatens wildlife. If we import timber without ensuring that it is legally sourced, then we are contributing to these problems.

We in the UK have a responsibility to act. Government departments are estimated to account for one fifth of all timber bought in the UK—and this rises to two fifths if you include local authorities and other government bodies.

So from 1 April we’re changing the way we buy timber. It is a message to the rest of Europe that we are ready to lead on this issue—and we want to do more.

We want to strengthen the welcome steps that the EU is taking to exclude illegal timber from our markets. Making it an offence to import it would send a clear message to the market that such activity was no longer acceptable.

We need to bring an end to this pernicious trade. Illegal timber should be just that—illegal.”

That is very welcome, but it is important to note that the Secretary of State is calling for EU action rather than domestic UK action.

In an answer to a parliamentary question from my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth), the current Minister indicated that creating a new offence would not be possible under UK law. He stated:

“The UK Government cannot institute legal proceedings in the UK relating to a breach or breaches of sovereign laws in another country”.—[Official Report, 24 November 2008; Vol. 483, c. 858W.]

However, my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice), the shadow Minister for agriculture and rural affairs, has sought legal advice, which states:

“There is certainly no reason I can see why it should not be possible to create an offence of selling or distributing imported wood illegally harvested in its country of origin (or, indeed, of importing such wood into the UK).”

Crucially, and contrary to the Minister’s previous statement, it may therefore be possible to create a new offence under UK law. We should examine that possibility.

If we wished to do so, we could certainly produce legislation imposing legal requirements on UK businesses in relation to the way in which they deal with processing and importing timber. However, I return to my earlier comment about what would be workable and proportionate. Should we expect UK producers, suppliers and processors to accept a burden that is not commensurate with the burden placed on those in other European Union countries?

I am pleased to hear the Minister say that the UK could produce that legislation, because I had not heard of such an agreement before, but I repeat that the Secretary of State said:

“We need to bring an end to this pernicious trade. Illegal timber should be just that—illegal.”

We have the opportunity to do that, under UK law. I understand what the Minister says about burdens on business, but action to deal with illegal logging is very important to the future of not just this country but the whole world.

The burden on UK businesses will not be increased at all. The primary burden that they already bear is compliance with the law in the timber-harvesting country. If they comply with that law—as they will say that they do—there will be no additional burden vis-à-vis other European suppliers.

That is an interesting point. I bow to the hon. Gentleman’s enormous knowledge of these matters. Personally, I am not sure that there would be a massive increase in the regulations with which companies in this country would have to comply.

Tackling illegal logging would go a long way towards saving lost revenue and preventing the widespread environmental damage, loss of biodiversity and increases in carbon emissions to which illegal logging contributes. In 2007 we published a paper called “Forests for Life”, which outlined a number of potential directions worthy of consideration. It followed wide consultation on a range of measures aimed at reducing deforestation and the trade in illegal timber, including making the possession of illegal timber an offence.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) on introducing the Bill. I shall speak only briefly, because I want to hear what the Minister has to say.

Before I tackle a few central issues, let me set out the context. My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon rightly referred to the FLEGT agreements. FLEGT is the process of bilateral licensing between the European Union and partner countries under which timber licensed from those countries can be imported into the EU and accepted as legal.

It would be wonderful to have a global FLEGT system, which would largely put an end to illegal logging in international trade, although not necessarily internal trade within countries. However, we do not have such a universal system, and until we do, leakage will always be possible. Leakage simply means that timber that does not come into the EU can be sold to other countries—I will not name them, although many people will know the key candidates—which produce artefacts and goods, such as tables and chairs, that then come into the European Union apparently legally and from a legal source. It is precisely because the current licensing, even if expanded, would still allow that leakage—that circumvention—that it is important that the EU and, I would add, the UK should act to block it.

A number of years ago, the European Commission came up with a series of proposals, which it consulted on, for additional options to the FLEGT arrangements. For years Ministers had said, “We’ve got to wait and see what happens in Europe.” We also had non-governmental organisations saying, “Won’t it be better if we can get a Europe-wide scheme? If 27 countries can act together, we can really get to grips with the problem and stop illegal logs from coming into the European Community.” That was a counsel of perfection that nobody disputed; however, I never believed that that would happen. Indeed, in May last year the European Commission abandoned its additional options proposals. On 17 October last year, it then came up with a system of due diligence, which my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon and others have outlined.

It is by looking to that system that the Government can say that no UK legislation is required, so let me be clear why it is inadequate. Under the EU proposal, an importer who has never imported illegal timber and does not attempt to do so can be prosecuted for failing to follow the due diligence system. However, an importer who deliberately imports illegal timber cannot be prosecuted as long as they can show that they have followed the due diligence system. The EU’s proposals are procedural. They are not substantive and they do not go to the heart of the issue, which is this: is illegal timber coming into the EU and into this country? The answer is yes. That is what we need to stop.

The EU proposals are for a tick-box process, which means that as long as someone can show that they have asked a supplier whether something was legally sourced and they say yes, that person gets off scot-free. It does not matter whether they believed the supplier or even whether they knew that he was lying through his teeth; as long as that person can tick the box, the EU’s process would allow them to import illegal timber and yet evade prosecution. That is why the EU process is fundamentally flawed. It is a process; it is not a way of tackling the substantive problem.

The reason why the amended Lacey Act, as introduced by the Americans, is a good method and why it precisely counters the Minister’s earlier remarks about ensuring that the system is workable and does not impose undue burdens is that it is a very elegant piece of legislation. It shifts the balance of risk, by providing a clear incentive for companies to drive the burden of due diligence back down their supply chains. The Lacey Act ensures that the trappings of legality, such as the certificates of legality that can be bought for $5 in Douala market, do not hold weight. It is better that the importers and distributors should be put on notice that they can be opened up to challenge at any point and that they will face substantial penalties if they are found guilty.

Importers can continue to import timber into this country through their supply chain as long as they have confidence in their procedures. They will not be stopped at the border. There will be no requirement to show certificates or anything of that nature. If they are challenged, however, and if the timber is shown to be illegal, they will have committed an offence. The burden will have been shifted on to them to ensure that their supply chain is right. They will not be able simply to say, “I did this, I did that and I did the next thing, therefore I’m all right.” They will actually have to get it right. Many of them say that they are already doing so.

The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) will know that I am thoroughly in favour of the new regulations on Government procurement that came in earlier this year. Indeed, I was the Minister in the Department who proposed them at the time. Government procurement accounts for 40 per cent. of procurement in this country, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon said, so most of the suppliers will now have to comply with those much more onerous regulations.

It is important that the UK should give a lead on this matter, because Europe has shown that it is incapable of doing so. There are no penalties in the proposals from the European Commission. The penalties regime is left to each of the 27 member states. My hon. Friend the Minister knows well that perhaps 21 or 22 of those countries will do nothing whatever on this issue. It is only by our giving a strong lead through independent regulation in the UK that we will bring the European Commission to the point of introducing strong European legislation that can achieve the goal of universally tackling the problem.

I shall be brief. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore). He is scoring well this afternoon, and we want him to score well on this Bill. I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Brent, North (Barry Gardiner) for the work that he has done, and for his continuing interest. I join the hon. Member for Reading, East (Mr. Wilson) in saying to the Government that I hope they will be very positive about this Bill.

We support the Bill, and I shall briefly summarise our reasons for doing so. First, as the hon. Member for Brent, North has just said, the UK has to lead if we are to deal with global warming and deforestation and take our international responsibilities seriously. The Prime Minister has made an announcement today about the responsibility of the UK in taking the lead, so that the developing world is not asked to take an unreasonable share of the contribution in dealing with climate change. This is an example of how we can lead.

Secondly, we have a particular responsibility because of the failure of the Europe-wide process. Thirdly, this is a live, practical issue on the doorstep and among the traders, be they in Ogmore, in south London or in Berwick-upon-Tweed. This is about ensuring that everyone understands their international and global responsibility. People who are in the import and export business, the timber trade and the construction industry will need to be on notice that they have a responsibility to ensure that the products that they deal with are properly and legally acquired, and that they do not contribute to problems in other parts of the world, further up the supply chain. This is about giving them that responsibility. Sometimes we need to have sticks as well as carrots, and sometimes we have to say, “This is a criminal offence, guys, if you don’t get it right.” I hope that the Minister will be positive about the Bill, and that we have allowed enough time for him to say yes, to allow the Bill to go into Committee.

I am pleased to respond to this very good debate. It has been noted that it is also a very live debate, as we are in the midst of European negotiations on this subject. We are engaging in live time, not only with my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), who has introduced the Bill, but with a wide range of stakeholders, including various non-governmental organisations, the Timber Trade Federation, and small and large businesses, all of which are trying to push in the right direction. The question is how we achieve what we are all signed up to and stop illegally sourced timber from entering not just the UK but anywhere in the EU. How can we do that in a way that delivers what we all want to achieve? That is the nub of our debate. I welcome this genuine debate on the issue, on whether the Bill provides the right way forward and on whether there are alternative ways of achieving what we want. The Bill is set against the background of real-time discussions and negotiations in Europe.

Will the Minister address this point? Why is it sensible for the European Union to construct a new and different regime for tackling the problem when, for once, the US has been in the lead on an environmental issue and has put in place an effective regulatory regime that is already dealing with the problem? The EU could simply go with that regime.

My hon. Friend raises an important question, which I will come to. The Lacey Act is often referred to as a gold standard, in putting forward a complete ban or prohibition. It sends a very strong signal and works all the way down the supply chain. I cannot remember the exact date but the Act was introduced in the early 1900s, originally to deal with fishing and related issues. It has subsequently been used to bring forward legal sanctions. It was amended in 2008, but it has not yet been used to bring prosecutions for timber violations. We are hopeful that such prosecutions will go ahead, but to the best of my knowledge there are none as yet; there may be some pending. We are hopeful and watch with interest.

I recollect from the American man who was representing the American customs agency at Chatham House last year that a prosecution has already been pursued against an illegal importer of timber. I am going on what he said at that Chatham House meeting.

Perhaps we can clarify that further after this debate. As I said, we are hopeful that there will be some prosecutions, but to the best of our knowledge, they have not yet been brought. The Lacey Act has been used to bring successful prosecutions in other areas, but not in respect of timber. We watch with interest because if, as my hon. Friend says, the Act can be shown to work and deliver, we should not discount it out of hand. Let me go on to deal with other points.

I acknowledge the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon as Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and that of my predecessor in my current role, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Barry Gardiner). He brought forward an earlier Bill, with the WWF and others, which was also well supported. In his former role as special representative on forestry, appointed by the Prime Minister, and in his current role as co-chair of GLOBE International, my hon. Friend has never resiled from his commitment to this issue at any level.

As others have said, this issue goes to the heart of where we are on climate change, criminality, corruption, the rule of law, good governance in countries, economic development, impacts on indigenous communities and forest ecosystems, and so forth. If we get this right, the impact will be significant. It is how we get it right that lies at the core of the debate. We genuinely support the motivation behind the attempt of my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon to deliver legislation to tackle what has become a quite pernicious trade in illegal timber. It is a global problem not just a UK problem or an EU problem, and it has far-reaching environmental and development impacts.

We in the UK, as my hon. Friends will recognise, have long called for legislation at EU level on a multilateral basis—with all the frustrations that that involves. Various Committees of this House have said that they recognise the frustrations of a multilateral approach, but they have said at the same time that that has to be the way to deliver on this issue, because taking action on a unilateral basis will not deliver the sort of effects that my hon. Friends are looking for.

Would my hon. Friend like to give an estimate of the number of square miles of illegally logged timber that have been cut down since the EU discussions started?

I cannot give that estimate off the top of my head, but I acknowledge that, as we speak here today, acres and acres of illegally logged timber is being cut down around the world.

I rise simply to make the point that these things must not be placed against one another; it is not about this Bill or a European Bill. We have proposed this Bill precisely because we believe that it is necessary for one country or another to put spine and backbone into the European Commission in order to get decent legislation Europe-wide.

Yes, I appreciate what my hon. Friend says.

Let me turn to the nub of the Bill and deal with a few issues that address the points that have been raised. We are currently right in the middle of European negotiations on a due diligence regulation, which was released by the Commission in October 2008. The regulation aims to tackle this very problem with the timber trade; there are discussions over which is the best way to do it, but that is what we are trying to do. The UK Government are working with EU and other stakeholders, some of whom want to push harder and go faster. Our position has been that action to address the problem with the timber trade must be taken at the EU level, otherwise we risk simply diverting the trade elsewhere within the EU. Strengthening our measures would send a strong unilateral signal, but if we do not tackle this problem at the EU level as well, leakage will take place elsewhere.

As I said in my opening remarks, we are the fourth largest timber importer in the world. If we take the decision to make this illegal and a criminal offence, about 40 per cent. of the timber will not be coming in illegally.

Let me go straight to the heart of why we think the EU approach is right, and why to do this on a UK basis would not only be difficult, but might be the wrong approach to take.

The hon. Member for Reading, East (Mr. Wilson) raised the issue of my previous statements and whether we can bring forward UK legislation. I have just tried to clarify that we cannot set up a separate UK legislative process that is different from our EU commitments, because if we were to do so, we might well open ourselves up to infraction procedures. We must be aware of that.

Let me now turn to the issue of administrative costs. It has been said that they might not exist or they might be minimal, but administrative costs would be incurred in proving that timber has come from good sources. That would not only involve the B&Qs of this world; every single supplier down the line would need to prove that they had taken their responsibilities seriously and had proved the source of the timber.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon that the UK should provide leadership. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is advocating the idea of putting a prohibition on the import of illegal timber—not a prohibition right down the chain, but a prohibition at the point of source, so that the company or individual who imports illegally into the UK will be subject to the prohibition and it is against them that action will be taken. That would be a strong signal. It is stronger than many of our European members want us to give, but we are pushing very hard indeed for it.

I am committed to agreeing strong regulation for ourselves and the European Union. Some of the proposals in the regulation have led us to reflect carefully on possible impacts on the timber industry, not least on small forest owners in the UK. I understand that the Commission discounted a prohibition in its earlier deliberations after difficult internal discussions on the right way forward, but we have been talking to Commission lawyers about how we might best reflect our—

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I am delighted to have this fifth Adjournment debate on the subject of water. I make no apology for that, or for the fact that I intend to focus specifically on aspects of the forthcoming Walker review of water metering and charging and their effects in the hard-pressed south-west. I welcome the engagement of the Minister and his predecessors with these debates and other opportunities too numerous to mention.

The Prime Minister has also taken a personal interest in this issue. When he was Chancellor, he met my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw), my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Alison Seabeck)—whom I am pleased to see in her place— and me to discuss the water affordability pilot, and in Prime Minister’s questions on Wednesday he again agreed to meet us, this time to discuss the findings and implementation of the Walker review.

Absent over the years from these occasions has been much in the way of any contribution from the Conservatives. To the detriment of my constituents as well as their own, that party has had minimum engagement with these important issues, as any search of the internet will reveal. Scarcely a single mention of them can be found, let alone evidence of a substantial and consistent campaign. It was therefore welcome to see one of their number initiate a debate in this House last month. There was no apology for the botched privatisation in 1989 but there was at least realisation that “something must be done”. Of course as, in many other areas, they are jumping on the bandwagon of an idea on which others have campaigned relentlessly, including many Liberal Democrats and colleagues of mine.

The Walker review is very welcome and comes at an opportune time. Plymouth and the south-west have certainly experienced their fair share of difficulties in the current economic climate. I hope and anticipate that the Walker review interim report, which is due to be published shortly, will offer us light at the end of the tunnel and ultimately, if we get it right, the chance to make a real difference to thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of hard-working families and individuals who face bills that are after all for one of the basic essentials of daily living.

Anyone who doubts the effect of these high bills should take a look at the Consumer Council for Water’s recent report on living with water poverty. Its research shows that out of 14 items of household expenditure, the one for which respondents are most likely to be “sometimes or always” in debt is water. It is easy for arrears to build up so that people are no longer just struggling to meet bills, but are unable to do so, resulting in feelings of powerless, hopelessness, anger, guilt and of being worn down. It is vulnerable groups and individuals, such as lone parents, who are most likely to end up in debt. Some of the most telling evidence presented in the report is the responses from those on low incomes. They tell of how they are reluctant to flush the toilet every time, can afford to have a shower only every other day or cannot wash their clothes as frequently as they would wish.

In getting to grips with this issue, we are not only addressing water poverty, but meeting the Labour party’s historic mission to tackle poverty in general and this Government’s particular commitment to tackle child poverty. Earlier this year, I was pleased to host a workshop in my constituency with Anna Walker, the person charged with this important review. It was a chance for her to establish a dialogue with some of the key stakeholders in our region, including South West Water, which in recent years has become much more willing to engage on the issue. After the workshop we visited the home of a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport to see first hand some of the innovative water-saving measures that have be introduced to save water and save bills under South West Water’s water care scheme—a video of which the Minister can see, should he wish, on YouTube, with a link on my website www.lindagilroy.org.uk. We saw how this could be combined with advice about benefits to make a difference to that particular household, which if I remember correctly actually exceeded in value the cost of the bills that had been so troubling. That was an example of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’s pilot scheme on water affordability, carried out by eaga plc. Those contacted during the pilot reported significant results arising from the combination of benefit checks and water efficiency devices. Such measures can help to reduce the impact of high bills, but they do not make them any fairer. Like-for-like bills for use are still much higher in our region than in others.

There are a number of things I hope that the Walker review will propose in its interim report. First, sewerage works, such as those that cleaned up the south-west’s beaches and cost the South West Water charge payers millions, should be seen as a public good and the costs should be shared by all regions. That should include the costs of the debts incurred to do past work. As the costs arise from servicing the huge debt that has been taken out to pay for that work, those costs should be shared in a way that recognised that.

The Minister knows that as pressures arise in other regions there is a real concern that some fix might be found for future such investments that could compound the unfairness we already experience, so I hope there will be an equalisation proposal in the Walker report. However, it ought to address the legacy costs, such as the accumulated debts. Since that is the root cause of our high bills, there is real hope that if the review makes such a recommendation—and if it is accepted by the Government—we could see some relief in our bills. I know this is a big ask, because someone—either the taxpayer or water charge payers—will need to pay the difference.

It is worth reflecting on the scale of what that could mean. The South West Water clean sweep programme cost a total of £1.5 billion in extra capital expenditure. That is £5 million each year of additional operating costs, which adds about £90 to the South West Water average bill of £454. The draft business plan published in April for the current periodic review proposes to raise the average water price by 6 per cent. above inflation by 2015. That would take the average annual south-west water and sewerage bill up to £481 by 2015.

Other companies have of course also invested in coastal works, but proportionately at a much lower level. South West Water has had to spend about 16 per cent. of the national total in coastal improvements, but the cost is borne by 3 per cent. of the population. The extra burden for South West Water customers is about £75. If the clean sweep burden were shared equally with all English customers, the South West Water average bill could be reduced by around £75 to £379 at present prices.

Although such a move might have been out of the question a few years ago, I think that similar investments that might be construed as being a national public good are being considered in other areas of service provision. It has not gone unnoticed, for instance, that the “Digital Britain” announcement last week envisages a 50p per quarter addition to our phone bills to ensure that everyone can be part of the new digital superhighways. I support that on the grounds of social inclusion, but as one of my constituents said to me earlier this week:

“Water charges in the South West are high because of the cost of sorting out the coastline sewage. This problem, which we had because of our geographic position, received no assistance from the rest of the country who rejoiced in having little or no coastline”—

I am not sure that that is something in which to rejoice, but never mind. He went on:

“Now we have a parallel situation in which people in rural areas, because of their geographic position, face high costs for broadband. But it seems that for them the problem is to be sorted out by a tax/levy on phone lines throughout the country. If we are to have this broadband levy to help the rural people should there not be a levy on all drainage users to help us pay off our exorbitant sewage charges? Alternatively, this shows that the precedent is against the broadband levy which therefore should be opposed”.

I do not think that any of us want to oppose the broadband levy, because it is of such importance to future social cohesion. Digital access is vital, just as water is. Some would even say it is a human right to have such a basic commodity as water supplied for the same price in Plymouth, Cornwall and Devon as in Peterborough, Cumbria and Dulwich. There are various ways of bringing about equalisation, and I hope that the Walker report will have considered the costs of that so that we can understand them and base our arguments for social inclusion on facts.

When my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter, and I went to see the Prime Minster in 2006, he said that he would work with the south-west Labour MPs to develop proposals that would help to reduce water bills for low-income households. I know that he asked his officials to consult with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which is, of course, responsible for implementing the water affordability pilot that was then in prospect, to ensure that it gathered information in a way that could help us to develop practical solutions. The affordability pilot gathered some evidence, and I hope that the Walker review will use it to develop some idea of what it would cost to bring real help to our constituents. That way, when we go back to see the Prime Minister, we will know exactly what we are talking about.

The Minister will know that when the all-party water group, of which I have the honour to be secretary, called for the introduction of universal water metering, Members suggested that a rising block tariff could be the basis for some socially beneficial tariffs, which could also serve environmental purposes. Of course, we recognised that there would be households that would not benefit from such a move, and that they would need to be protected. Since we wrote that report, Wessex Water has been experimenting with a social tariff. Now United Utilities Water is doing something similar. South West Water is also looking at whether a variation of the tariff could be employed in our area. I shall look with interest at what the Walker review has to say about such tariffs and the role that they might play.

I should like to see changes to WaterSure, formerly the vulnerable household scheme. It gives assistance with high water bills from a meter where the household, because of its size or because of health needs, cannot now benefit to any great extent from a water meter and would not do so in future, even with a rising block tariff. At the moment, our capped charges are £100 more than the average capped charge in other regions, which is simply not fair to the poorest households.

I would also like the regulator, Ofwat, to be required by law to be more geared up and ready to tackle the issue of affordability. It should step in more quickly and more often to help individuals, and groups such as pensioners, who find the bills too high. Along with others, I argued strongly for that when the all-party water group drew up a report on the future of the UK water sector—a report with which the Minister will no doubt be familiar. At the moment, such action depends on the Secretary of State requiring it in his guidance to the regulator at the beginning of a price setting review. That is simply not good enough; there should be a year-round duty on the regulator, year in and year out.

The all-party group suggested that the definition of “customer service” should be extended to include the most vulnerable customers, and that it should become part of the price review as a performance target, as well as a means of proactive assessment of the WaterSure tariff. That is very important, and integral to ensuring that measures designed to help the majority do not disadvantage people who are vulnerable but who use larger quantities of water out of necessity.

WaterCare, which provides benefit entitlement checks and efficiency advice, developed from the affordability pilot. It should be extended, and its services should be accompanied by help in the benefit system. The numbers of people reached by both systems, WaterSure and WaterCare, are far too small for the systems to be effective. If there was a link to a benefit, such as housing benefit—that is relevant, as water is supplied to households, of course—they could, in a targeted way, reach far more people who need help. Who should pay for that is, of course, an important question. To some extent, the costs must depend on other measures that I mentioned, such as changes to the tariff system. In the end, I am sure that the taxpayer or the water charge payer would have to pick up some of the bill. Perhaps it could, or should, be a mixture of both.

I believe that I am right in saying that the timetable for PR09, the current price review, will not prevent the Walker review recommendations from being implemented. On Wednesday, the Prime Minister indicated, in reply to my question during Question Time, that the interim report is likely to be available next week. Can the Minister confirm when the final report and recommendations will be available? Finally, before I end my remarks and allow my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport, to say a few words, may I ask the Minister to confirm in his response that he will meet me and a cross-party group of south-west MPs before the summer recess to discuss the interim findings?

I put on the record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) for calling for the debate, and acknowledge what a champion she has been on the issue of water poverty and water efficiency on behalf of our constituents in Plymouth. Her role cannot be overstated.

The Minister will know, from the importance that my hon. Friend and I place on debates and meetings on the subject, that people living in the south-west have major problems with water affordability. My postbag, weekly and sometimes daily, includes casework relating to the high cost of water. Last week I was contacted by a Mr. Carpenter, whose comments reflect the concerns held. He is the owner of a modest flat but finds the charges too high. He cannot understand why we are still paying for the clean-up of the coastline, which is a national asset and which should, in his view, have been paid for nationally. He is not unique in having that view.

That is why I, too, welcome the Walker review and know that the meeting in Plymouth, which I also attended, enabled local people to make very clear to Ms Walker and her team just how damaging the high charges are in keeping families and older people in poverty, rather than getting them out of it.

In the interests of fairness, a cap on bills at the national average would be a starting point in an equalisation process. This, along with help for the most vulnerable families and a move towards universal metering, plus the beefing-up of Ofwat, would dramatically improve the way in which water costs are spread across our community. I look forward to the publication of the Walker review and would welcome a meeting before the summer recess. I have great expectations of the Government’s response to the review.

I welcome the debate and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) on securing it. As she points out, it is—rightly—the fifth debate on an issue of major concern to her constituents and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Alison Seabeck). I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton in no small measure. Over the seven months that I have been in post, she has led delegations of some MPs from the south-west to meet me and advocate on the issues of poverty and affordability for all their constituents.

Let me deal with the points that were raised. I have made it clear to both my hon. Friends on numerous occasions that we understand their frustration about the fact that we have not yet seen Anna Walker’s review. We are all keen to see Anna’s ideas. She has done a very good job, from what I have heard. She has indeed been down to the south-west and, I think, intends to go back there. The interim report is due to be published on Monday, so the waiting is almost over.

My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton referred to last month’s Adjournment debate on water charges in the south-west, secured by the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire), who has been part of the delegations that have come to see me. As I said then and reiterate now, I cannot pre-empt the recommendations that Anna might make in her independent review.

I am not an unfair person and I would not normally remark on this, but on an issue of such vital importance, on which delegations have repeatedly come to see me, and following Anna Walker’s visit to the south-west, cross-party support for a way forward is needed. It is a Friday afternoon and there are important things to be done in constituencies, but it is disappointing, with the interim findings due to be published on Monday, that there are no Opposition Members to engage in such a critical debate. The subject is one of the most highly pressured in the UK, and we want everybody to engage and tell us how they see the way forward.

Order. I should correct the Minister. The half-hour Adjournment debate at the end of the day is essentially the property of the Member who moves it, with the guarantee of a ministerial reply. It is not intended for widespread participation.

I accept entirely what you say, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I still have much to learn, as the years go by, in this place.

There is a good reason why the Walker review’s interim findings have not yet been published. The time needed by the review team reflects the wide-ranging nature and the complexity of the issues that the review has been considering. Those include the fairest way to charge for water, the question of affordability, how water efficiency can be improved, and how the problem of bad debt in the industry can be solved.

As my hon. Friends will recognise, there are no easy solutions or quick fixes, and almost every proposed method of charging creates both winners and losers. That underlines the importance of a thorough review, underpinned by robust evidence, which I think Anna will produce. Inevitably, it has taken time to collect the evidence and to listen to the views of different stakeholders, including my hon. Friends.

My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton referred to the workshop that she hosted in her constituency, which I understand was very productive. I am sure that she will agree that Anna has worked hard to engage stakeholders and to collect that evidence throughout the country, including in the south-west. Despite the delay in publishing the interim report, I can assure the House that the Walker review remains a vital part of the Government’s future water strategy.

A key issue that the review is considering is the fairness of different methods of charging for water. In “Future Water”, we said that we believe that near universal metering will be needed in areas of water stress by 2030. The Walker review will also advise on the appropriate pace of progress with metering. Outside areas of extreme water stress, the case for metering is less clear cut, but within those areas of high water stress there are compelling reasons for it.

I hear what my hon. Friend says, and the south-west is not an area of high stress in the way that the south-east is. Does he agree that once one reaches a certain proportion of meters—it is now about 66 per cent. in the south-west—it makes sense to consider how to move further in order to have a sensible tariff structure?

My hon. Friend makes a valid point, and I understand that one of the things that Anna Walker is considering is whether increasing the pace of universal metering in areas where companies have already 60, 65 or 70 per cent. would make a lot more sense. As she knows, some companies have either not started at all or are very far behind the curve on this, but she makes a good point.

We believe that metering can deliver real benefits. It provides a financial incentive to use water wisely and encourages home owners to install water efficiency devices to save money. There are many wins with that approach. There is no better incentive to be water efficient. It also enables companies to design tariffs that encourage the efficient use of water and protect vulnerable customers. My hon. Friend mentioned some examples of tariff trials that are under way. The Walker review is specifically considering the effectiveness of different types of tariff, such as innovative social tariffs, rising block tariffs and seasonal tariffs.

Let us see what Anna Walker suggests in her interim review. She is also considering the costs and benefits of smart metering for water customers, and smart metering provides the opportunity to develop smart tariffs, so they go hand in hand. However, metering can incur costs. It costs money to install and read a meter, and meters need to be replaced when they wear out. Over 30 years, the cost of metering is estimated at about £30 per household per year over and above the cost of unmetered charging, although there is much variability around that figure.

I recently had a visit from some people in connection with smart metering for electricity, and they pointed out that some of the figures have been grossly inflated because some people do not want meters to be installed. I would view that figure with particular caution and urge the Minister to do so too.

As I was careful to qualify, there is great variation in the figures that are quoted. I am not saying that that is the only figure that we should go by.

The costs are met not by individual households, but by a company’s customer base as a whole. The Walker review is carefully assessing the benefits and costs of metering, and the cost-effectiveness of different approaches to metering. For example—my hon. Friend and I have discussed this—a targeted street-by-street roll-out of metering could lower the cost significantly.

The metering rate is increasing by about 2 per cent. per annum, mainly because customers are opting for meters to cut their bills. That incentive is apparent. Meters can help some customers to save money, but the Government are very aware that some customers—whether metered or unmetered—are struggling with their bills now. They include households that are on a low income but have a high, essential use of water—households that cannot resile from their high use of water—and households in areas with high water bills, notably the south-west.

Water affordability is a key issue for the Walker review. As I said in last month’s debate, households in the south-west do pay more—we cannot get away from the fact—for their water and sewerage services than any other customers in the UK. That reflects the substantial investment that South West Water has made, and has had to make, since privatisation. The cost of such work has fallen on the company’s customers. I am aware that 30 per cent. of our nation’s beaches are in the south-west, and that South West Water customers meet the costs of cleaning up those beaches that everybody makes use of—myself included. I have to declare an interest, as I have regularly camped in the area. I do not stay in luxurious, five-star hotels; I like the outdoor thrill of camping there with my family and making use of the wonderful beaches.

Anna Walker is considering the pros and cons of paying for environmental costs nationally—the “equalisation” to which my hon. Friend referred—and I look forward to seeing Anna’s interim conclusions on the issue. I also referred in last month’s debate to the assistance that is available now—right now—to vulnerable customers through the Government’s vulnerable groups tariff, which is also known as WaterSure. The Walker review is looking at whether that tariff should be widened and capped at the national average bill in high-cost areas. The review is also looking at whether the water care package, which has been piloted in the south-west, should be expanded, and at the role that Ofwat might have on affordability. I look forward to seeing Anna’s thoughts on all those issues. The good thing about Anna Walker’s review is that it is looking at those issues comprehensively, not at one or two in isolation, because it knows that they join up and that the solution will be joined-up.

My hon. Friend asked whether the timetable for the periodic review, PR09, will prevent Anna Walker’s recommendations from being implemented, and whether we will therefore have to wait for the long term. I absolutely assure her that there are procedures for implementing new legislative requirements if they emerge after Ofwat PR09 water price limits. It would not be necessary to wait until the next price review in 2014.

In conclusion, I am confident that Anna Walker’s review can help to achieve the Government’s “Future Water” goals, which my hon. Friends share.

How long will the consultation period be? An interim report is due out, but how long will we have to make any further views known?

I do not have a definitive date, but our initial discussions with Anna Walker indicate that we are looking for her to consult throughout the summer on her interim findings. They have a lot of meat on them and need proper consultation. She also wants to return to the issue after the summer and in the early autumn. We do not have a definitive date, but, if I seek inspiration, it will be October-ish, probably. That is not a ministerial October-ish but October as in the calendar. I shall have to be held to that now, I realise, but I think that Anna would like to work towards that.

My hon. Friends’ proposals tie in with the Government’s “Future Water” agenda, and I know that we are all intensely looking forward to seeing Anna’s interim proposals after the weekend. There is only one thing that I am looking forward to as much, and that is seeing the result of the British Lions match on Saturday at 1 o’clock.

I shall of course be happy to discuss the proposals further with my hon. Friends, and with any other south-west Members who have been members of the delegation that my hon. Friends have brought to see me as part of the engagement process; and I shall be happy to do so before the summer recess. That would be in addition to, not instead of, the meeting that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has promised. He has, as it was pointed out, taken a personal interest in the issue, too.

I also understand that Anna will return to Plymouth on 17 July to discuss the emerging recommendations. I know that my hon. Friends will be there for that, and I thank them for keeping up—if I can use only one pun—the water pressure, politically, for their constituents in the south-west.

Question put and agreed to.