asked Her Majesty’s Government:

What further consideration they are giving to the problems and needs of veterans of the 1990–91 Gulf War with still undiagnosed illnesses and of the dependants of those who have died since the conflict.

My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will join me in sending sincere condolences to the family and friends of Lance Corporal James Cartwright, who was killed in Basra, Iraq, on Saturday.

The needs of Gulf veterans remain a high priority for the Government. We are now writing to advise veterans on how they may have the umbrella term Gulf War syndrome applied to their disablements. Appropriate medical treatment and financial support are available, and we are working with the appropriate experts to develop a rehabilitation programme. We will consider reasonable proposals for further research on how the illnesses may have been caused.

My Lords, can my noble friend—and I am grateful for his reply—say whether it remains the Government’s view, taking into account all recently published research internationally, that low-level exposure to sarin without any immediate or acute effect has no adverse health consequences in the longer term?

Again, is he aware that Gulf War veteran Mr TE Walker, whose case I raised in a Question my noble friend answered on 19 March, has now died, having suffered a heart attack and then pneumonia after being told that his pension had been cut from the 100 per cent agreed by the Pensions Appeal Tribunal to only 40 per cent, leaving him, as he had told the MoD, “financially ruined”? What do we tell the two children left orphaned in this deeply disturbing case?

My Lords, as my noble friend said, we and other nations, including the United States, have carried out considerable research into exposure to a number of agents that are potential causes for Gulf War syndrome, such as sarin. Those studies have to date not shown any causal link. We continue to carry out that research. Both the United States and United Kingdom are carrying out research not only into potential causes of Gulf War syndrome but, increasingly importantly, into methods and measures for rehabilitation.

With regard to the case to which my noble friend refers, I do not think that it is appropriate in this forum to get into the details of individuals. However, as he knows, it is the policy of the Ministry of Defence regularly to reassess cases. That process can be instigated either by the recipient of a pension or by the Ministry of Defence itself.

My Lords, 16 years after the first Gulf War, the Ministry of Defence has still not achieved satisfactory closure for the many veterans suffering with serious medical conditions. Only the pressure from the Pensions Appeal Tribunal and the report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, has achieved any movement recently. Bearing in mind that many young men serving today will be tomorrow’s veterans, is not the Ministry of Defence’s failure to look after the Gulf War veterans a very poor message for the next generation of veterans?

My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend, the noble and gallant Lord and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, for their efforts on behalf of veterans. There is no doubt that their continued efforts have had an impact, which is recognised. However, I do not accept that the noble and gallant Lord’s characterisation of the way in which the MoD looks after veterans is correct. He is right that it has taken considerable time for us to reach closure, as he described it; we continue to make strenuous efforts to do so. We have recently begun to write to all the veterans affected by this issue. Approximately 450 out of the total of 1,500 veterans have been sent letters. Information is also on the MoD’s website. We continue to do research. We have comprehensive measures in place for financial support, and we will continue to explore avenues for the future support of Gulf War veterans, as we do for all our veterans.

My Lords, we join the Minister in sending condolences to the family and friends of Lance Corporal Cartwright after his sad death serving his country.

Was the Ministry of Defence represented at the presentation of the latest research into Gulf War illnesses among United States veterans, held at the Society of Chemical Industry in London on 5 June? If it was not represented, perhaps the Minister could tell us why not. If it was there, do the Government now accept all the findings of the research teams who gave the presentations at that meeting?

My Lords, I am afraid that I am not aware of the meeting to which the noble Lord refers. I will investigate and write to him. Whether or not the Ministry of Defence had a representative at that meeting, it has very close relationships with our counterparts in the United States. Coalition partners who were engaged in the Gulf War and who have carried out research to investigate causes of Gulf War syndrome share all their research with each other. It is important to recognise the global nature of peer-reviewed research in this area, and we are fully apprised of the information coming out of US research programmes.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that this is an issue of the duty of care? In 19 years, 7,000 of the 53,000 who went to the Gulf have suffered or died, and there have been repeated delays and repeated research that goes on for ever. There are many things of which both Governments are culpable, such as the loss of records and the general pace at which the thing has been addressed. Will the Government consider making ex gratia payments to those people who are still alive, whether or not they finally decide to hold a public inquiry and something much more solid?

My Lords, noble Lords will recognise the complexity and difficulty associated with identifying the causes of Gulf War syndrome and the time that research into this area necessarily takes. We still do not have a clear answer. So far as culpability is concerned, there has never been a question mark over veterans’ ability to be assessed and apply for pensions relating to their disability. Indeed, it is independent of the cause of the disability. A veteran is entitled to a pension based on a medical assessment, independent of the cause. Our internationally being unable to determine the cause of Gulf War syndrome has not led to a delay in veterans receiving support.

However, we realise the growing importance of the recognition of the umbrella term, which has taken us some time, for which I apologise. The fact that the department has recognised the umbrella term and has now informed the veterans of this is an important step forward.

asked Her Majesty’s Government:

What steps are taken to ensure that carbon offsets purchased on the open market provide the purchaser with real reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.

My Lords, offsetting only balances carbon dioxide emissions rather than reduces them. The Government acknowledge that carbon offsetting is not a cure for climate change, but it can help raise awareness and reduce the impact of our actions. In other words, it is a good thing after other measures have been exhausted. We are developing a code of best practice for carbon offsetting, which should be in place by the end of the year. A quality mark will also be created to provide consumers with clarity and certainty when offsetting.

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his response, particularly the information about a code of practice. At present, this part of the carbon trading market is effectively unregulated and some of the schemes promoted are of very dubious environmental value. Do the Government agree that it is right that a British business should be able to purchase certificates in this market to the point where it can claim carbon neutrality when it might not have reduced its carbon dioxide emissions at all?

My Lords, the noble Lord is justified to be sceptical, as have others in recent questions, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, to whom I apologise in his absence for being too dismissive of his last question to me about this. A degree of scepticism is justified on the current experience of this quite new operation. A lot of work is being done to ensure that the offsetting is additional—in other words, it would not have happened if it had not been for offsetting—to look at what is happening in the countries where it is taking place, and to look at the integrity of the schemes for offsetting. It is an unregulated market. Nevertheless, it is a growing market in which London is the centre.

My Lords, while there is a degree of scepticism about the use of trees in offsetting, most people who offset do so on a voluntary basis and their efforts are to be applauded. Is the Minister’s department looking at reflooding drained upland peat bogs and using them in a carbon sink which could be certified by the Government? That would reduce the amount of carbon being given off by dried-up bogs in this country and would incentivise farmers environmentally to manage the landscape.

My Lords, I am not sure whether we are planning to be as systematic as the noble Lord described. I have heard the practice discussed in Defra and in relation to other countries. Obviously, I will make it my business to find out, but I am not sure whether it is that precise. Nevertheless, it is an effective and sustainable way of offsetting.

My Lords, it has been suggested rather facetiously, I suspect, that carbon trading is a bit like the medieval practice of selling indulgences, the purpose of which was to release souls from purgatory. Can the minister assure us that selling our carbon assets will bring salvation?

My Lords, as from tomorrow, the right reverend Prelate and other noble Lords will be able to calculate their own CO₂ footprint because the CO₂ calculator will be launched. You will be able to check your household appliances and means of transport, whether heavenly or earthly, to measure your carbon footprint.

My Lords, the Minister may be aware that about three weeks ago the Financial Times said that international carbon offset trading was a scam. As the forthcoming climate change Bill is currently in draft, can the Minister assure us that it will give some persons or bodies the authority to check the authenticity of carbon exchange activities?

My Lords, the point of the noble Lord’s question is right and the broad answer is yes. There has to be clarity and transparency. The fact that people now raise questions about carbon trading and offsetting shows that there is a degree of transparency in the system. This is a booming business. In 2005, the voluntary market accounted for less than 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. The estimate is that it will be 400 million tonnes by 2010. Huge amounts of money and transfers will take place. It is right that people know they are getting value for money. The issues raised in the Financial Times and the Guardian in the past few days have to be addressed so that people can trade with confidence.

My Lords, I speak as a Euro-sceptic, but could not Europe, reasonably and rapidly, produce guidelines on what is or is not worth exchanging? Some of these schemes do not work; some do. Accurate information on whether they do or do not work should be publicly and widely available.

My Lords, the noble Earl is right: it ought to be clear. The reason behind the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, is that we want people to change their behaviour to start with. It is a hierarchy. Only when everything else has failed do you go for offsetting and purchasing offsets in this way; we want people to produce less carbon in the first place.

This goes beyond Europe—Europe is only a part of the planet—and the clean development mechanism, a UN arrangement arising out of Kyoto, has registered just fewer than 2,000 projects, of which 20 have been dismissed. So it has sorted through some that have not done what they claimed to have done. It is important that we should have some rigour in this matter.

asked Her Majesty’s Government:

Whether they intend to support a new treaty modernising European Union institutions and rules at the European Council in June.

My Lords, these issues were discussed at yesterday’s General Affairs and External Relations Council. We have made clear to partners our belief that the EU should return to the model of an amending treaty. The principles behind the Government’s approach remain those set out by my right honourable friend the Minister for Europe in his Written Ministerial Statement of 5 December 2006.

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that reply. I speak as a long-time believer in the importance of Britain being a leading member of the EU. The problem of this week’s reform treaty is that it must make the EU clearly more efficient and more comprehensible to the public, but at the same time cannot mark such a shift to deeper integration as to justify a call for a referendum. Does that not require some serious and difficult judgment for both the present and future Prime Ministers?

My Lords, I agree; it is a complex issue. We have to make the European Union more effective, and the policies that the Government are pursuing mean that that will be done in a way which does not require a referendum.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that while the Prime Minister has specified four areas where, at the coming summit, he will not accept qualified majority voting, France and Spain have put forward proposals to remove the veto in, I think, 51 areas? Is it seriously suggested that the veto could be removed in all those areas, that it could be made harder to block measures which are subject to majority voting and that we should accept an EU president and an EU Foreign Minister without the British people having any say in the matter in a referendum?

My Lords, many issues are still under discussion. These matters will be sorted out on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the European summit. Most people in this Chamber would agree that, to make the European Union work more effectively, it is important that rather than having a rotating presidency we have a presidency that can better order the working procedures of the European Union.

My Lords, does my noble friend accept that, even if you take the nightmare scenario put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, the proposals for change this weekend are much less significant than those that were put forward in the Maastricht treaty and that the impact on qualified majority voting is much less significant than in the Maastricht treaty? The noble Lord, Lord Waddington, was a member of a Government—or at least a supporter of a Government—who deemed no such referendum necessary in those circumstances.

My Lords, as ever, my noble friend is absolutely right.

My Lords, does the Minister have any idea at all what the Lord Chancellor thinks of this?

My Lords, the noble Lord said “the Lord Chancellor”. I imagine that he meant the Chancellor. I can say with certainty and confidence that the Prime Minister will go to Brussels on Thursday and negotiate on behalf of the whole Government of the United Kingdom.

My Lords, should not the Minister, encouraged by the words of the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, ask the Government, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor to be far more bold on this in putting forward the real picture for the British public, not the rubbish that the right-wing press and the Murdoch press, with its two ridiculous newspapers in this country, purvey about Europe? Is the Minister aware that these proposals for a short modernised treaty will increase the real sovereignty and power of this country, not the pretend sovereignty from the past that the old reactionary right-wing Tories nostalgically dream of? Does she not agree that 18 countries have already ratified the old text, and that five countries wanted to do so in the period of reflection? Now that France and Spain are working together and the Dutch have changed their minds, cannot the Government be more bold?

Speech!

My Lords, I am speaking on behalf of a very bold Government, but a Government who are rooted in the practicalities of the European Union. We want the EU to deliver for its citizens, but we must respect the red lines that have been put forward by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister.

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Renton of Mount Harry asked a very good question when he pointed out that whether there should be a referendum will be a difficult judgment. We were told a while ago that a referendum was off; now we have been told that a referendum may be on after all; now it is being denied somewhere else. What exactly is the Government’s view? It seems to be changing from hour to hour. We would like to know who is going to make this fundamental judgment. Will it be independent and genuine, or a fudge?

My Lords, the position is clear. When the Prime Minister spoke to the Liaison Committee in the other place, he set out the red lines and our clear policies. He then said:

“If we achieve those four objectives I defy people to say what it is that is supposed to be so fundamental that could require a referendum”.

If the amending treaty does not have the characteristics of a constitution—which it will not, if we are going to sign up to it—then it does not qualify on the grounds that we agreed in 2004 for a constitutional referendum.

My Lords, this morning’s press claimed that at yesterday’s meeting the Foreign Secretary dismayed and surprised two potential allies, President Sarkozy and Prime Minister Zapatero, by taking a very negative attitude to an increased role for the European Union in foreign affairs. Indeed, he added that as one of our own red lines to the spaghetti junction of red lines that now appear. Can the Minister confirm the position of our Government in respect of a merger of the responsibilities in foreign affairs of the Commission and Council of Representatives?

My Lords, we will insist, as my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said, on maintaining our ability to conduct our own independent foreign and defence policy, and we will retain our seat on the Security Council. However, we also want to ensure that the European Union has a more coherent foreign policy. We do not want a single foreign policy of the European Union; we want a common policy wherever that is appropriate.

My Lords—

My Lords, it is time to move on to the Topical Question.

asked Her Majesty’s Government:

What action they propose to take following the publication of the report UK Study of Abuse and Neglect of Older People 2007.

My Lords, the report was commissioned and co-funded by Comic Relief and the Department of Health. We will introduce a new monitoring system to report the extent of abuse. We will also review the No Secrets guidance on developing and implementing multi-agency policies and procedures to protect vulnerable adults from abuse.

My Lords, I thank the Minister and congratulate him on the Government’s part-sponsorship of this vital research. In demonstrating the prevalence of abuse and neglect of vulnerable elderly people, this is a great service to the majority of old people. Does the noble Lord agree that, following a clear indication that at least 4 per cent of people are abused or neglected in their own homes—not in institutions, care homes or hospitals, and not people suffering from any form of dementia—the actual prevalence is probably quite a bit higher, at least 6 per cent? The law must be reviewed urgently so that vulnerable adults have the same level of protection as abused children, such as the right of immediate access on suspicion of abuse. Older people must know about and have access to adult protection services, which is not happening at the moment. We still need to train staff much more in dealing with vulnerable older people. I look forward to meeting the Minister’s colleague in the other place to discuss that issue next week.

My Lords, I assure the noble Baroness that the legislation will be studied as part of the work that we take forward. I agree with her about making older people aware of the adult protection arrangements in each local authority area. As we take the work forward, we will encourage local authorities to do more to make sure that their services are accessible to older people.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that, despite my noble friend Lady Greengross’s comments about this very valuable and notable report, there is clear evidence that some of those abused are in fact demented patients? Is it not therefore a major scar on the reputation of this country that individuals—elderly, defenceless and vulnerable—are being abused in this way?

My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right. I also accept that the statistics in the report do not cover people with severe dementia or those in care homes. The report gives a snapshot of individuals living in their private homes or sheltered accommodation.

There can be no room for complacency. It is clear from the scale of the problem identified that this must be a major challenge for society; that is why we will look at the legislation and review the statutory guidance to local government. There is certainly no complacency on the Government’s part.

My Lords, given the lack of clarity about whether financial abuse counts as harm—some local authorities do not count it as such—can the Minister assure us that guidance will be sent to local authorities making it clear that the financial abuse of older people is indeed harm and should be treated as such?

My Lords, we will make sure that that will be considered in the review of the No Secrets guidance. The statistics in this report show that financial abuse was reported in 0.7 per cent of respondents; it is a serious matter.

My Lords, in view of the fact that a home is always considered a very private place, how does the Minister propose to monitor this abuse, which is clearly going on in private homes?

My Lords, the work just published is the result of a survey of more than 2,000 people. The Government’s intention is to establish a national monitoring system which will collate the reports made to local authorities under the local adult protection arrangements. It was also reported that 70 per cent of the older people concerned were able to report their concerns either to the authorities or a friend. That is encouraging, but we want to make sure that all older people subject to abuse are able to report it and that action will be taken where appropriate.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the sad conclusions of this report indicate that we must increase the value we place on family carers in particular, and the support we give them? Are the Government prepared to look at the volume of support for respite care, for example?

My Lords, I could not agree more with the noble Lord about the importance of carers. He will probably be aware that a strategic review on carers is being undertaken. We hope that it will be published in due course. There is no question that the support that can be given to carers will be a very important part of it.

My Lords, will the Minister look carefully at the training, supervision and continual professional development of those who go into people’s homes? Does he recognise that, where there is a high turnover of such people because of a lack of training and support, that also is abusive?

Yes, my Lords, that is an important point, but the statistics in the survey show that 51 per cent of reported cases of abuse involve the spouse or the partner, 49 per cent involve another family member and 13 per cent the care worker. Although I certainly accept that there is work to be done with care workers, it is clear that much of it needs to involve programmes of education and support for the family members of people affected by abuse.

My Lords, the Minister has been referring to older people, but what does he intend to do for younger disabled people, particularly those with communication difficulties, who are unlikely to be able to make themselves understood and their abuse heard?

My Lords, the principles behind tackling abuse of older people clearly apply to all parts of society, as much to vulnerable young people as to adults. The processes encompassed in No Secrets, while designed for adults, must apply to children as well.

My Lords, with the permission of the House, we shall have two Statements this afternoon. The first, on the prison population, will be delivered by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer immediately after this business Statement and will later be repeated in the Commons.

Oh!

My Lords, we are a listening Government. We shall then start the Report stage of the GLA Bill. Then a Statement will be repeated here by my noble friend Lord Drayson, the subject of which is naval personnel detention by Iran.

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now make a Statement on the prison population.

The Ministry of Justice has been in existence for five weeks. I announced on 9 May my department’s approach to penal policy. I announced that we would continue to protect the public by providing prison places for those whom the courts determined needed custody, and that this would include us asking the Sentencing Guidelines Council to review its guidance; that we should make best use of the best community sentences where evidence showed that they reduce reoffending and offer more effective punishment; and that we would continue to deliver in line with the recommendations of the 2003 review of my noble friend Lord Carter, including end-to-end offender management and public service reform.

Today, I shall provide details to your Lordships of how the Government will ensure that all those whom the courts send to prison can be accommodated. I will update the House on the detail of the inquiry of my noble friend Lord Carter into prisons, announce the building of further custodial places, and set out further measures to improve the functioning of our prisons and to reduce reoffending.

We have made the public’s protection from the most dangerous criminals a priority. We are bringing more offenders to justice than ever before—25 per cent more than when we came into office. Those who commit violent or sexual offences can now receive an indeterminate prison sentence. The length of time for which criminals are sent to prison has increased, with the average custodial sentence in Crown Courts rising by 25 per cent between 1995 and 2005. More people are being sent to prison than ever before. This means that, overall, there are 40 per cent more serious and violent offenders in prison than in 1997. Since 1997, the prison population has increased from 61,467 to 81,016 today, which is a record high.

Nationally, crime is falling. There are 5.8 million fewer offences than in 1997, but we know that we need to go further. We have been working intensively with 44 of our most deprived communities, where crime and disorder are highest, to reduce crime further. Early indications show that this work is making an impressive impact and that crime is falling in those areas at twice the rate of the national average. We are determined that the public be protected from dangerous offenders, and that court sentences and other orders be obeyed.

We have taken steps to increase resources spent on community punishments and interventions designed to address the causes of crime among offenders. The tough community sentences that we have developed have proved to be more successful in reducing reoffending. As I announced in May, we will therefore extend and expand such schemes.

We have built over 20,000 more prison places since 1997, with a commitment to 8,000 more by 2012. We have increased expenditure on probation by 70 per cent in real terms over the past 10 years and, as an example of our commitment to addressing the causes of crime, we have increased the expenditure on drug treatment programmes in prisons from £7.2 million in 1996-97 to £79 million in 2007-08.

To help accommodate the current pressures, I can announce today that Her Majesty's Treasury has made available new money to build an additional 1,500 places over and above the 8,000 already announced. We will be starting work immediately on 500 of those extra places. The first of these additional places will come on-stream in January 2008.

As I announced on 9 May, I have asked the noble Lord, Lord Carter, to look at the future of the prison estate and we will take decisions on the optimum timing and composition of the further 1,000 places announced today in the light of the noble Lord’s report. I am today publishing the terms of reference to his review; as they make clear, the noble Lord will look at the long-term future of the prison estate and the supply and demand of prison places.

These additional measures will bring on more prison places, which are much needed. The prison estate is near to full currently. To ensure that we can accommodate all those sent to prison by the court, as a temporary measure we will continue to rely on police cells and, when necessary, court cells. We are grateful to chief constables in England and Wales for making police cells available to us when necessary and to Her Majesty's Courts Service for over 100 court cells. The use of police cells may be necessary until the end of the year at the latest, pending the increase in capacity from some of the 8,000 coming on-stream, and then in the beginning of 2008 the additional prison places that I have announced today.

In addition to the increased prison capacity, I have today authorised the issuing of guidance to prison governors to allow them to make wider use of the prison rules provisions to authorise release on licence for offenders who are coming to the end of their sentence. The guidance will authorise the release on licence, in accordance with existing prison rules, up to 18 days before their release date to those who have been sentenced to a determinate prison sentence of four years or less. This is a temporary measure.

Release on licence is not the same as executive release. Releasing people on licence means their sentence continues and will be granted only to those who meet the eligibility criteria, set out in the guidance which I will place in the Library of the House. The criteria exclude offenders convicted of serious sexual or violent crimes, those who have broken the terms of temporary licence in the past and foreign national prisoners who would be subject to deportation at the end of their sentence. It will apply only to those who are not released on home detention curfew. While on licence, the offender will remain the subject of his sentence and will be liable to recall.

The guidance comes into effect on 29 June. I will keep the operation of the guidance under review.

In addition, yesterday saw the launch of a new bail accommodation and support service, which will enable the courts to make better use of bail in appropriate cases. The accommodation will also be available for prisoners who would be eligible for home detention curfew if they had suitable accommodation.

The measures that I have announced today are designed to ensure the Government will be able to accommodate all those the courts send to prison. We will respect and give effect to the orders made by the courts.

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

My Lords, in thanking the noble and learned Lord for making that Statement to this House, I thank him—as the whole House implied earlier—for making it here first rather than repeating a Statement made in another place. However, I should have liked to have had a copy of the Statement a little earlier. I received mine at 2.30 pm, which was fine, but I then received a revised copy at precisely 3.04 pm, which did not give me much time to have a look at it before responding.

I congratulate the noble and learned Lord on resisting the temptation to appear on the “Today” programme to pre-announce the Statement and on making it in this House, although that does not seem to have stopped either him or his department briefing the press, as we read all about it in today’s Times and later in the Evening Standard. He might have been rather loath to appear on the radio or television following his interview on Sky only some five weeks ago during which he categorically denied that there would be any early release and said that the allegations were simply untrue. I hope that that is correct but if that is not the case the noble and learned Lord will correct me. I believe that interview took place about five weeks ago.

This is the first time I have responded to a Statement made by the noble and learned Lord since the creation of the new Ministry of Justice and his acquiring such extensive responsibilities. We very much hope that he will continue in his exciting new role for a considerable time. He is the fifth prisons Minister, after four Home Secretaries, since 1997. I think that we all agree that we need a period of stability in relation to prisons policy. Since the noble and learned Lord has managed this matter for all of five weeks, I think that the whole House would appreciate his staying in office for considerably longer.

When the noble and learned Lord became the first Secretary of State for Justice he issued a manifesto entitled, Justice—A New Approach, in which he talked of the department’s objectives. The document states:

“We will reduce re-offending and protect the public … We will promote justice”.

I think that there are six objectives in all. He could have added a seventh—we will let out 2,000 prisoners early because we have so mismanaged the system that there are not enough prison places. I looked through that document, which has relatively little about prisons for the very good reason that the Ministry of Justice issued a second manifesto in June, Penal Policy—A Background Paper. The noble and learned Lord set out in that paper, as he has again today, exactly how many prisons places there are and how many new places we will get—8,000 by 2012. He announced another 1,200 today, following the receipt of more money from the Treasury. But at no point did he suggest that some 2,000 or more prisoners would be let out early. As I say, the noble and learned Lord became the new Secretary of State for Justice and took over responsibility for prisons policy only five weeks ago.

I have questions arising from the Statement. First, if the Government need to provide more temporary accommodation, why have they not—I appreciate that it was not the noble and learned Lord’s decision but that of his predecessor, the Home Secretary—found the prison ship which they sold at a loss not so very long ago? That could provide further accommodation. Why have they not looked to make use of redundant military camps—of which there is a large number, as the noble and learned Lord will know—former secure hospitals and other available accommodation? Why did they not do these things last year or even earlier? I appreciate that the noble and learned Lord was not in charge at that stage, it was his colleague the Home Secretary, but he must now get on with it.

The Government say that they will release prisoners early. They did that before with tragic consequences and there were far too many innocent victims. As they release inmates early from open prisons, will they not transfer unsuitable offenders from secure prisons to the open estate? Can the police and Prisons Service, already overstretched, keep their eyes on yet more offenders released on licence?

Lastly, the Statement was somewhat coy on the precise number who will be released early. The noble and learned Lord talks very firmly of this being release by licence not executive release and stresses how important that is. However, we need to know—the noble and learned Lord must tell us this—just how many will be released early. If he does not know that, he should.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the Statement. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Henley, I am not unduly bothered about what time I received it, although it was after 2.30 pm. Those of us who have spoken in debates in this House on prisons knew that sooner or later the Minister would make the type of Statement that he has made today.

I am sad that the Justice Minister, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, now finds himself in the middle of a crisis situation that is not of his making. We have been complaining about the unacceptably high prison population. This is the worst record that the Government have faced. The situation will continue because there are not enough spaces for all prisoners; and Operation Safeguard, under which prisoners can be kept in police or court cells, has been implemented and will be the task for some time to come. The population continues to rise faster than prisons can be built, but the more prisons you build the quicker they will be filled until we look at the causes underlying the trend. The Home Office’s estimates suggest that the prison population could top 100,000 by 2012 unless a long-term strategy is put in place to stabilise and then reduce the prison population.

The cost of housing prisoners will continue to soar. What is the estimated cost of housing prisoners in police and court cells? The Minister has still not answered some key questions that we have posed in previous debates. Should mentally ill people be in our prisons? Is such a high remand rate to custody acceptable? Should children and women be incarcerated to the extent that their population has doubled in the past 10 years? It would be helpful to know how the Minister intends to deal with prison governors who are in dispute with his department. It would be helpful to know what emergency plans there are for dealing with prison officers’ associations, which are expressing concerns about supervising inmates in courts and police cells. Will the Minister confirm whether there is any basis for the report by Alan Travis in the Guardian? It states that special arrangements have already been reached with the Courts Service for six centres to be used and that the Minister is trying to negotiate for two more Crown Court centres to be used for prisoners who are in effect queuing to go into jail.

Court cells are even less suitable than police cells. They are not designed to hold prisoners overnight. They are simply there for prisoners to sit in during the day while they wait to go into court. A typical court cell is little more than half the size of a Victorian-built prison cell, and when a mattress is placed on the floor the ends curl up against the wall. The cells are usually subterranean or on corridors with no natural light. Surely those inhuman standards cannot be tolerated. It is difficult to see why cramming more and more prisoners into police and court cells has previously been seen as a preferable option. The inescapable conclusion is that prisoners’ welfare and safety have been sacrificed to avoid critical headlines in tabloid newspapers.

Early release would be a sensible short-term response to the immediate crisis. In the longer term, we need to determine measures to reduce the use of imprisonment. Legislation should remove custody as an option for lower-level crime and require sentencing to take into account a prison’s capacity. That must be reinforced by sustained government efforts to persuade the courts and the public of the benefits of using prisons more sparingly. I note that governors will make wider use of prison rules on release on licence. Can the Minister indicate the number involved? Who will supervise the licensing condition? Who will monitor progress? Are we providing adequate resources to the Probation Service, which is now overstretched? The Statement, whichever way you dress it up, is a clear indictment of our criminal justice system, indicating that it has failed, and it will take a long time to restore public confidence in how we deal with prisoners in this country.

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, for not giving him the final version of the Statement before 2.50 pm. In the 6 May interview on Sky News I was denying that I was coming with a plan for early release. I thank him for wishing me the opposite of resignation.

Why are we not using prison ships? We have looked at them; they are more expensive and less effective than the measures that we are taking to build extra prison places. The same applies to redundant military camps and secure mental asylums. The number of people affected is 1,200, not 2,000. There was no briefing from my department yesterday. I welcome the support given by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, on the Statement.

We will use court cells as a temporary measure to get us through the current period, although I entirely accept that they are wholly unsatisfactory, as the noble Lord said. How many court cells will be used? The answer is 1,200, as I told the noble Lord, Lord Henley. Who will supervise them? If a person is released from a sentence of 12 months or less, there is no supervision, because sentences of less than 12 months are not supervised, although there could be recall for misbehaviour. For sentences of more than 12 months, supervision will be carried out by the Probation Service, and that will kick in when the person is released on the home licence.

We have debated the issues relating to children and people with mental illnesses on a number of occasions. I do not think that they are affected by the measures I have announced today.

My Lords, can my noble and learned friend confirm that releasing prisoners on licence 18 days before the expiry of sentences will pose no serious threat to the public? Can he confirm that there has been a reduction in the rate of reoffending and that he is committed to pushing this policy further forward?

My Lords, yes, there has been a reduction in the rate of reoffending. In 2005, the most recent period for which figures were recorded, 405,269 prisoners were released on temporary licence. Of those, 339 breached the terms of their licence by, among other things, committing offences. Although we are dealing with different circumstances, those figures indicate the level of risk that there may be and indicate the scale of the issue, although, obviously, I cannot give any guarantee as to what may happen regarding individual offenders.

My Lords, the change in the guidelines must be substantial to secure the release of so many extra prisoners. Can the noble and learned Lord say what the change in the guidelines actually is? Where will the 500 new places be built and what category will they be? Does he not recognise that successive Governments have been the equivalent of people in a boat, baling out faster and faster to keep the water level down, which continues to creep up? Surely, the answer is to stop the hole, as the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, said in a different metaphor—which means getting at offending before it starts. Is the noble and learned Lord comforted by the fact that his department now looks at reoffending and original offending? Please, will it go to schools to reach children before they are permanently excluded and obtain adult mentors for them? He will find that that affects the offending rate considerably.

My Lords, I completely agree with the noble Lord’s last remarks. We should intervene earlier with those identified as being at risk of committing criminal offences. I hope that the noble Lord read the Cabinet Office paper published yesterday or the day before that dealt specifically with that issue. Most of the 500 prison places that will start to come on stream in January will be within the curtilage of individual prisons. Perhaps I may write to the noble Lord and put in the Library the precise location of each of those 500 places, all of which will be secure, not open, prison places.

The noble Lord asked what was the change in the provisions allowing prisoners on temporary licence to go home. The essential change is that, instead of a licence to go home being granted before the end of a sentence, each prisoner within the categories specified in my Statement will have 18 days of licence to go home at the end of their sentence. As long as it happens at the end of the sentence, the prison place can be treated as having been given up.

My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor not agree that one of the effects of increased prison overcrowding in recent years has been to put further pressure on the already struggling education provision in prisons? The latest dossier from the Prison Reform Trust reminds us that there is a strong and positive correlation between the amount of training that prisoners receive and their propensity to reoffend afterwards. Will any scope provided by the early release of some non-violent prisoners be used to increase the strength of our education and training provision for medium-term to long-term prisoners? While I agree that it would be largely pointless for short-term prisoners, it is very important for medium-term to long-term prisoners.

My Lords, one of the problems with a full prison estate is that people have to be moved around a lot. That makes it difficult for them to persist with particular courses. I completely accept what the noble Lord said about the importance of education in prisons. The steps that I have indicated today will reduce the pressure to some extent. That will reduce, to some extent, the churn around the system, which will help to some extent, but I am not claiming that it will be perfect.

My Lords—

My Lords—

My Lords, with respect, I think it should probably be our side.

Is it not strange that at a time when the crime figures are coming down, the prison population is going up? One can arrive at one of only two conclusions about that: either that the crimes now being committed are more serious than crimes previously committed or that the judiciary is now sending to prison people whom it would not have sent previously. Listening to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, it occurred to me to ask my noble and learned friend whether the Opposition have at any stage suggested any sure and certain way in which the Government can accurately guess the number of people who will be sent to prison by judges. If you cannot do that, you are bound to have this sort of pressure from time to time.

My Lords, I am afraid that I do not know what the noble Lord, Lord Henley, would say in answer to that question. The Opposition have said nothing about what their positive proposals are. Why has the prison population gone up? The custody threshold has come down in the sense that more people are going to prison and they are going to prison for longer. Also, this Government have rightly been keen to ensure that the terms of prison sentences are complied with. If you breach your community sentence, if you breach your suspended sentence, if you breach the terms of your sentence or you breach the terms of bail, those orders are enforced. That is important.

My Lords, one of the problems with overcrowding is that it involves a shortage not just of cell space—we are obviously pleased that there is now money to buy more—but of all the other services: the staffing, the education, the work programmes and so on. Can the noble and learned Lord tell us whether the Treasury has granted more money for all the extra services required to accompany the cells?

I am interested that the noble Lord, Lord Carter, will be asked to conduct a review of imprisonment; that has long been needed. I hope that it will include a review of the structure of the Prison Service. Is there any intention of delaying further work on the Offender Management Bill until the noble Lord has reported? We need a review not just of probation but of prisons; they both need to be reviewed together. Is it not better to wait until he has reported and then do both together?

My Lords, the noble Lord’s point about infrastructure is important. It is not good enough to build just the extra cell places; one also has to build the kitchens to serve people, and the places in which they can work. Although our priority will be to get the new prison cells on stream, we will build those new places, where possible, where there is already some infrastructure. No, it is not our intention to ask the noble Lord, Lord Carter, to look at the structure of the Prison Service. No, it is not our intention to delay the Offender Management Bill.

My Lords, I agree entirely with the point that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, made about prevention. Will the noble and learned Lord confirm that rather more resources will be applied to the young offender who continues to reoffend and costs the state a huge sum of money? More attention and extra support will be given to those young offenders as they come out of prison.

My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot give any commitment today on resources. The report to which I referred the noble Lord, Lord Elton, indicated that all the agencies involved—local authorities, schools and the Department of Health—need to focus more resources and effort on those families in which there is a risk of offending in future.

My Lords, just now the noble and learned Lord took credit for the Government insisting on the terms of sentences being fulfilled. Is that not the exact opposite of what the Statement will achieve? On an ancillary aspect, surely the policy of executive release, which is what this is, is achieved only by an order of the Executive overriding an order of the judiciary. How is that compatible with the rule of law?

My Lords, today we are saying no to executive release but we are saying that the Prison Service, in accordance with rules that have been in existence for more than 50 years, can allow a temporary licence for someone to go out, as it did in the 400,000 cases identified in, for example, 2005. I see no conflict between that and the rule of law.

My Lords—

My Lords—

My Lords—

My Lords, perhaps we could hear from the Benches behind us and then from the Cross Benches.

My Lords, given the tone of comment in the media, will my noble and learned friend confirm that today is not a moment either for panic in the country or for glee on the opposition Benches? Was not the noble Lord, Lord Elton, right to note that successive Governments have faced periodic crises over the prison population and is it not the case that there is no more need now than there has proved to be on past occasions to anticipate a tidal wave of rapists and murderers sweeping across the country? Will not rational people conclude that my noble and learned friend has provided a common-sense answer to the prisons Minister’s dilemma, and is what really matters not that a small proportion of prisoners may be released somewhat earlier than would otherwise have been the case but that the judges continue to have scope to impose prison sentences where they consider that appropriate?

My Lords, I completely agree with the tone and content of what my noble friend said. This is a measured response. It permits the courts to continue to be confident that the people whom they sentence to custody in any shape or form will go there.

My Lords, without in any way criticising the measures announced by the noble and learned Lord, they are, as I think he candidly accepts, short-term and limited in their potential. Are the Government prepared to look at the situation in the light of two main factors? First, the prison population has, I believe, doubled in the past 16 years and the curve of the increase has sharpened. In the longer term, none of these measures can have any hope of answering that basic problem. Secondly, broadly speaking, we imprison more people than almost any other country in Europe. In the light of those two massive factors, is there not a strong and unanswerable case for setting up the most powerful authoritative inquiry into why we are at the top of that European league? Is it because our community is more evil than those of the Greeks, the Germans, the French, the Italians and others or, in our case, is the range of imprisonable offences too wide? Are there other factors? Surely that would be a wise way in which to begin tackling that basic question.

My Lords, the noble Lord is completely right when he says that none of the measures that I have indicated today will change what has been a fact for a considerable time: we send more people to prison per head of population than almost every other European country. I should make it clear that the number in prison has gone up considerably since 1997, when we came to power, because we have taken a number of measures—in particular, the introduction of indeterminate sentences—to ensure that dangerous offenders remain in custody until the Parole Board says that it is safe to release them. I do not think that this is the time to consider whether that is the right or wrong policy. It broadly reflects the decisions of Parliament over a considerable period. I think that, at this stage, the main function of the prisons Minister is to ensure that there are sufficient prison places to meet the demands of the courts.

My Lords, is it also true that, as a percentage of the population, more crimes are committed in this country than on the Continent? That is part of the answer to the noble Lord’s question. Is not half the answer to the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that, although crime overall has come down, the crimes that people fear the most have gone up drastically? Is it not the case that, since 1997, the rates of robbery and crimes of violence have doubled?

My Lords, some crimes have gone up, but overall the number of crimes has gone down. I completely accept what the noble Lord says about the number of crimes in this country by comparison with certain other countries where the imprisonment rate is low. I also completely accept the implication of the noble Lord’s question, that very serious offenders, violent offenders or sexual offenders—those who threaten people—need to be in custody until it is safe to release them.

My Lords, does not the prison population relate, at least in part, to the policy of drugs prohibition? Prohibition has not been very successful. Is there any possibility of having a policy to allow for the decriminalisation, proper control and taxation of drugs, which would reduce the prison population accordingly?

No, my Lords, I do not think that that would be the right policy. I accept the drug-driven aspect of very many crimes and very many offenders. In the Statement I referred to drug rehabilitation programmes in prisons, on which expenditure has risen from £2 million to £79 million since we came to power. I do not think the solution is to decriminalise a variety of drugs that are currently illegal. The right solution is to do as much as we can to rehabilitate those who are fuelled by drugs in the crimes that they commit.

My Lords, will the current pre-release procedures, which prepare prisoners for life in the outside world, be changing in any way? Will there be any reporting obligations for prisoners released under the proposals announced this afternoon?

My Lords, there are no proposals to change the pre-release procedures, apart from the fact that prisoners will be released on licence if they satisfy the eligibility conditions. On reporting, if you are one of those released on licence under the guidance that I have described and if you are sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 12 months or more, your probation officer will have to make arrangements for you to report to him.

My Lords, I welcome what the Lord Chancellor has said about the Government’s efforts to secure more mentors for young people and I acknowledge the work that the DIVERT Trust, founded by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, does to provide mentors for such young people. I ask the Lord Chancellor to pay careful attention to the ratio of young people to custody officers in young offender institutions. With 60 young people to two or three officers in a wing, it is hard for positive relationships to be established. Will he also kindly look at the supervision and development of officers in those situations? Secondly, will he consider how to keep parents near their families, siblings near each other and fathers near their children as much as possible in these difficult circumstances?

My Lords, I join the noble Earl in paying tribute to the work done by the DIVERT Trust, set up by the noble Lord, Lord Elton. Secondly, yes, I shall pay attention to the ratios of young people to the officers who look after them in young offender institutions, although I can give no assurance that there will be extra money for that. I also welcome what he said about trying to focus more resources on dealing with young people who are either already in the criminal justice system or are expected to be there.

My Lords, I thank my noble and learned friend for very helpful and speedy Statements since he assumed responsibility. Does he agree that too many people are in prison who should not be there at all because of their psychiatric conditions and illnesses? Another major challenge is to start thinking strategically about how we can provide secure accommodation of a completely different kind that is appropriate to people who suffer from such illness. Would he not also agree that, as has been my impression from recent visits to prisons, there are a lot of excellent prison staff who are themselves exasperated by being expected to do something which they know they and the prisons are not equipped to do: caring for people with psychiatric problems?

My Lords, all offenders who are sentenced to prison and qualify for transfer to a secure mental institution are transferred. However, I agree with the underlying implication of what the noble Lord, Lord Judd, says: there are people in prison who may well not qualify under any statute for transfer to a secure mental institution but plainly require psychiatric help. That is something that we need to look at, and which the policy reviews we have been looking at over the past four months raise as a specific concern. In the context of existing legislation, however, I assure the noble Lord that all the relevant transfers are made. Equally, I share his concern and experience that many working in the Prison Service, who do an excellent job, feel what he feels about it.

moved Amendment No. 1:

My Lords, the noble Baroness referred to the London family. Over the years, comments have been made about dysfunctional families, but I hope to be more than just friendly towards the London boroughs. That friendship and respect for their views relates to all the London boroughs and to the body that represents them. However, we all understand that a body representing 33 very different views cannot hope to represent them all. When the Mayor is considering his strategies, it is immensely important that he consults all the London boroughs, not just London Councils, the current representative body. I have made that point on a number of occasions and in a number of contexts.

However, new Section 42A in the 1999 Act is about more than consultation. It places on the Mayor a new statutory duty to respond to the consultation carried out under it. Without wishing to suggest that the views of London boroughs are not valid, important and at the head of the Mayor’s considerations, this clause provides a statutory requirement to respond to the Assembly that recognises its particular statutory role, which is different from that of the boroughs. One might say that the role of the boroughs is more important than that of the Assembly. However, it is a different role, and the Assembly has the positive duty to hold the Mayor to account. My point is about how we should be thinking of scrutiny if the boroughs are to be in exactly the same position over the strategies as the Assembly. It is a wider point than it appears. I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, regards that as a helpful rather than a hostile comment.

My Lords, we are entering an area where people have a vested interest. I say that in a benign way. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, made her point as a Member of the Assembly, and she is entitled to do so. She is concerned that, if the powers of consultation on strategy or other matters that are presently enjoyed are diffused, that may diminish the stature of her consultative powers. In the past, I was connected with the local council and at present the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and I are joint presidents of London Councils. I well understand the concern of local councils and their need to be consulted at every level because, at the level and in the field that we are talking about, there is a need to take the views of local councils fully into account. They know their local areas and their people best, and they know the solutions best. This is an area in the Bill that is worth raising, and I shall be interested to hear what the Minister and her advisers have to say about it. The case was made in Committee, but not pursued too strongly because it is a fine point. I should be interested to hear what the Minister has to say as guidance.

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate. I am bound to disappoint the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham. Obviously, we believe strongly in the importance of all public bodies engaging in consultation in the development and implementation of their strategies and policies, and we expect them to listen to the views of consultees and respond to them. That does not mean that public bodies have to act in accordance with the majority view of consultees, because a consultation response is one of many factors that public bodies need to take into account when deciding what action to take. The GLA is no exception to that.

The GLA Act requires the Mayor to consult the Assembly, the functional bodies and the London boroughs on, among other things, drafts of or revisions to his strategies. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, we are strengthening these requirements under Clause 2, requiring the Mayor explicitly to have regard and respond to views within the GLA group—from the Assembly and functional bodies—at an early stage in preparing his strategies, before he moves to stage 2.

Those two stages of consultation are very important. They are set out in the Act, which requires the Mayor first to consult the Assembly and functional bodies on drafts of or revisions to his strategies before consulting more widely in the second stage. There is a reason for that, as my noble friend said. That is to ensure that the views of the Assembly are formative. It is at the second stage that the interests of the boroughs are safeguarded, to use the term of the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham. He is specifically required to consult the London boroughs during that second stage. We believe that that has worked well. The voice of the boroughs is clearly heard, so I find myself unable to accept the amendment for two reasons.

First, it is unnecessary. There seems to be an implication that the Mayor does not listen to the voice of the boroughs. The evidence is that he has a good record of modifying his proposals in response to consultation, having listened to the boroughs. For example, when he gave the go-ahead to the western congestion-charging zone extension following public consultation, the exact nature of the zone and treatment of residents’ discounts was significantly modified in light of the consultation responses. Also, in revising his transport and air quality strategies, the Mayor made changes to the boundary of the proposed low emission zone in direct response to feedback.

Secondly, we would be in dangerous territory if we accepted the amendment. An explicit duty on the Mayor to have regard to boroughs’ views would set a precedent that other organisations might perfectly reasonably expect to apply to them. We might therefore find ourselves being harassed by other organisations that want the same powers. The Bill strikes the right balance in placing a duty on the Mayor to have regard to consultation responses from within the GLA group rather than from any external bodies, and only in the first stage of the two-stage consultation process.

I know that that is a disappointing response, but I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to accept it.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the first of many responses today. I hope that we will do better as we go along than we have on this one.

The question of how and when the Mayor consults on strategies is quite important. The amendment would make either the London boroughs or their representative, which is London Councils, a primary consultee rather than being a bit further down the line. The question of consultation on the congestion charge pops up from time to time. It is a bit of a red rag to a bull. Perhaps I should declare an interest here as a council member of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, as it was the prime consultee. It would be reasonably fair to say that it was quite a struggle to get the Mayor to accept that there were problems with the congestion charge on the boundary line. This was eventually changed, but not without a great deal of pressure. The Mayor will now implement many strategies—there are three in the Bill today—and it is a pity that the Government will not accept that the representatives of the local councils should be involved at this primary stage.

I hear that the Minister is not to be budged on this one, as they say, so I thank her for her reply, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

moved Amendment No. 2:

My Lords, I shall pick up points that were made in Grand Committee on the same amendment. Would the noble Lord consider it appropriate to view the strategy, as it is described in the amendment, as a statement of good practice? Might not different strategies or different consultation processes be appropriate for different situations? We spent some time in Grand Committee considering what was meant by consultation, and all noble Lords who spoke were concerned to distinguish between a consultation that was for information, a consultation that might be a referendum—although this country does not go in for referendums much—and a consultation that is genuinely asking, “I have some ideas. You tell me how you respond, and I will go away and think about them”. No doubt there are grades in between. When the noble Baroness replies, I will be interested to know whether she thinks that it should be a single strategy or a menu of good practice.

I make that point because we already may be in danger of doing what some of us have told ourselves out loud that we must not do during this Bill; that is, to personalise the office of Mayor to the current office-holder. Whatever our individual views about the decisions and actions of the current office-holder, we need to stand back. As one who has criticised the Mayor on his consultation, I will be the first to offer that point.

Perhaps I may also respond to what I think was possibly a nudge from the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, when he spoke to the previous amendment. He may have felt that I was simply representing the Assembly. I have declared my interest as chair of the Assembly and as a joint president of London Councils. One might say that my heart is still very much in a local base, having spent a long time as a local councillor. I shall do my best to make it clear to your Lordships when I am speaking on behalf of the Assembly. At this stage, noble Lords may assume that unless I say otherwise I am certainly speaking on behalf of these Benches. We are at a political point in the proceedings.

My Lords, I quite understand the desire to ensure that there is proper consultation and to have something spelt out in the Bill. With the greatest respect, I just question whether it is necessary to insert a chunk of verbiage. We already have a paragraph spelling out the way in which consultation should be undertaken. As the noble Baroness has said, it really should be a matter of good practice rather than something spelt out in the Bill. I would be interested to know whether the Minister feels the same way.

My Lords, I confess that I do. In Committee, we had a very interesting debate about consultation and the different forms it could take. I particularly remember the noble Lord, Lord Tope, making a distinction between consultation which was a form and consultation which produced a result. I suspect that I shall miss my noble friend Lord Harris today when we enter some of the choppier waters. The issues raised were not about semantics, because there are real distinctions about consulting properly, and they are not resolved by the amendment. I agree with my noble friend Lady Turner that the amendment would put in the Bill something which is unnecessary. It is worth stating at this stage that we would all want to make a distinction between the office of Mayor and the person holding the office. There is a suspicion in our debates on consultation that somehow the Mayor is less likely to take account of consultation processes.

As I explained on the previous amendment, the Government are very serious that when public bodies consult widely in the development and implementation of policy, they do so fully and properly. That certainly applies to the GLA, which is not an exception. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, that a statutory consultation process would bring any significant benefits. In terms of transparency, the Mayor gives clear advance notice of consultations that he intends to carry out on the GLA website, for example. As far as I am aware, he has never had any difficulty in encouraging Londoners to participate.

The point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, is important; namely, there are different types of consultation for different situations. Some consultations can be quick, deep, intensive, forensic and investigatory. Others can be more reflective, longer term and take a different form. To prescribe a single form for a process would not serve the investigative process at all. There are real disadvantages in requiring the Mayor to publish a consultation strategy. I would not want to suggest that it would be tokenism, but it certainly would not be a substitute. It just adds another layer of explanation and burden. It would be bureaucratic, it would not generate additional information, it could not guarantee that the consultation would produce a result and it would be costly to prepare. My main argument is that it risks setting in stone some procedures which, by definition, need to remain flexible and responsive.

Finally, it should not be up to the Government to impose this—

My Lords, would not the GLA’s ability to scrutinise properly be hampered without it? In a moment I shall explain what I have to do as the leader of Essex County Council. The Assembly should have something which enables it to scrutinise the Mayor’s consultation; we are suggesting that the strategy should be published and available. I do not see why it needs to be bureaucratic. Does not the noble Baroness consider that it would assist the GLA’s work if the Mayor did this?

My Lords, I believe that the Mayor has a strategy for consulting the GLA, which is probably well known to it, but we are talking about broader consultations. I do not agree and remain unmoved by the eloquence of the noble Lord opposite. On that basis, I ask him to consider withdrawing his amendment.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her answer. In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I say that there is a menu of different consultations, as did the Minister. As the leader of a large authority—not the Mayor of London—you have to publish a forward plan under the present local government legislation. I am sure we will discuss this tomorrow, because we are talking about governance arrangements. If one wants to change the forward plan—this happened only yesterday in Essex, when I wanted to go out to consultation—one has to publish a leader’s decision, which then can be called in by the opposition. It is less than satisfactory because, at the moment, various legal officers interpret the law in local government outside London in different ways. This may need to be clarified in our discussions tomorrow.

We are seeking clarity. The Mayor should publish his strategy, the GLA should have it and everyone should be aware of it. Obviously it might have to be amended at times when something crops up but it would give clarity and enable the Assembly to function better. I am very disappointed that the Minister cannot see any logic or sense in it. It need not be bureaucratic; it could be relatively simple. I note what the Minister has said but this is probably not the right time to divide the House. I hope the Government will reflect on the matter and we may come back to it at another stage. However, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

moved Amendment No. 3:

My Lords, I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 26 and 93, standing in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Hamwee. I declare again that I am a Member of the London Assembly, although I am not seeking re-election next year. Through my Assembly membership, I am a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority and, completely unrelated to that, I am a London borough councillor and intend to remain so at least until 2010.

We had an interesting debate on this in Committee. Our Amendment No. 26 has the same effect as Amendment No. 3, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, has just spoken. I concur with all that she said but I will not repeat it. I want to address some of the points made in Committee.

It was pointed out correctly that it has not been the practice in this country to have term limits. That is important. The Greater London Authority Act, establishing the office of Mayor of London, was the first time in this country that we moved from an essentially parliamentary system. Local government works on a parliamentary system—perhaps more in theory than in practice sometimes—where power is shared between a number of people, and the leader, however termed, is elected by the council and not directly by the people. We moved from that system to an essentially presidential system, where one person has all executive power vested in him or her. Rightly or wrongly, that was a very important shift in practice. It is certainly not unusual for other countries with a similar system to have term limits—France and the United States spring most immediately to mind as perhaps our closest allies. Although not universal, it is the norm, for the very good reasons that the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, has given. It has been seen as necessary and desirable to have such term limits.

That is why we should incorporate this system here. I was asked in Committee whether I would apply this elsewhere. That is not a matter for this Bill but, as it happens, the answer is yes. Where there is elected office and one person holds all the executive power, there should be term limits. That is irrelevant to the business before us; we are amending the original Greater London Authority Act, the first to establish a presidential-style elected executive Mayor, and I believe that the Act should be amended in the way proposed.

It was suggested in Committee that we were doing this only because of the difficulty of defeating the present incumbent. Not so; we moved amendments with exactly the same intention during the passage of the original Act. We have learnt, perhaps from experience, that the fact that we did not succeed in persuading the Government eight years ago does not mean that we are wrong to try again now.

A fairer point made in Committee was that it would not be right to introduce term limits only a matter of months before the election. That is fair comment; many of the candidates have already been chosen, presumably not on that basis. That is the purport of Amendment No. 93. It would be left for others to determine but it need not be implemented prior to next year’s elections. I think that that is fair. As I said in Committee, Mayor Livingstone will always have been the first Mayor of London; he may very well be the only Mayor of London ever to serve three terms. I am not pre-judging next year’s election result; I am merely saying that that may well be the case. There is a very well known precedent for that. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the only US president to serve three terms, after which, despite his successes as president, it was seen fit to introduce a limit of two terms.

I suggest that this is a proper and appropriate opportunity to do what I think we should have done in the first place: introduce the concept of term limits to an office which is, within its legislative limits, all-powerful. The executive power is held in the hands of one person, with relatively little check and balance. We will debate that point further later. I hope that today we will see fit to introduce those term limits, which are the norm in presidential systems and should be the norm in this country to the extent that we go down that road.

My Lords, my recollection is that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected for four terms: in 1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944. Sadly, he died—he was not removed from office—but I believe that, had he wished it, he could have gone on, because he was that kind of man. Whatever happens to Ken Livingstone is in the lap of the gods. Our system should not take away from the electorate the right to remove from office an incumbent leader. The people of London, rightly or wrongly, wish to see the Labour Party’s nominee, Ken Livingstone, lead London in all its many forms. When the GLA Act was first proposed, there was no restriction; attempts were made to impose a restriction but they were rejected democratically.

I am strongly of the view that the people who are affected, whatever the forum, should have the power to remove someone. Those opportunities come along regularly in parliamentary elections. In 1979, 1983, 1987 and 1992, the people of this country chose a Conservative Government. For the first three of those four election victories, the party which gained power and office was led by the same person. I cannot understand, unless I reflect on history, why the Conservative Party is moving this amendment. I see in the Chamber a number of noble Lords who served at a high level from 1983 to 1986. Colleagues may remember that this was the period in which the abolition of the Greater London Council was conceived, primarily because the council, led by the same Ken Livingstone, was proving unwilling to be as compliant as the Government wished. Instead of leaving it to the people to reject the Labour administration at County Hall, the Government made reference by an Act of Parliament, based on a manifesto—I do not dispute that—to the abolition not just of the GLC but also of the other regional authorities. A mandate was sought, and parliamentary arithmetic was such that it was a foregone conclusion that it would be achieved.

I am intrigued—perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, will help me—that when this matter was discussed in the other place, her party’s spokesman, Michael Gove, was strongly of the opinion that that which is proposed today should not be the vogue and that it should be left to the electorate to reject an incumbent mayor. Perhaps the noble Baroness will explain to me why the official line of the Conservative Party has been changed. I would be very interested to know. While I appreciate what the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, said about differentiating between the position and the person, I cannot do other than believe that the personality of the Mayor is somehow involved in what we are talking about. The noble Baroness is right in saying that she and the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in this House have been consistent in wanting to change the whole basis of the system. I wonder how the people elected as mayors of our cities would be affected. One would get caught up in arguments not only about length of service but about age.

I strongly believe in the intelligence and the political sagacity of the electorate, who are not fools, are very well served by the media and have it in their power to make a judgment. Very often colleagues in the other place who have been successful in carrying the banner for their parties time after time, after a good length of service suddenly find that not only their party but the electorate reject them. Some Members of this House, myself included, have had the experience of being rejected by the electorate. That is democracy; that is how it should work.

My Lords, I had not intended to speak, but I wanted to add to my noble friend’s comments. I urge rejection of this amendment on the basis that it is not good enough to slip through a provision with major constitutional complications while amending a Bill that does not directly concern that particular constitutional issue. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, is wrong to say that the issue is not relevant in the way I am suggesting; it is very relevant. It would be a major change with implications throughout the British democratic system, and now is not the time to have that discussion.

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Tope which is possibly not a surprise because I think that my name is on one of the amendments to which he referred.

The Minister, in responding to a similar amendment in Committee, challenged the notion that after two or three terms one might run out of steam and said that we had the example before us of a third-term Government boiling over with new ideas and energy. It struck me afterwards that a comparison to be made is between the Mayor and the Prime Minister, not between the Mayor and the whole of the Government. This is the particular point about the mayoralty of London: if one can compare it to anything in terms of profile and influence, it must be to the Prime Minister. But it has also been compared—and I have compared it—to the position of a president, because it feels very presidential.

The noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, talked about the same Ken Livingstone who, not able to be put back in his box by the Conservative Government in the 1980s, had the box abolished around him. I am not actually sure that he is the same Ken Livingstone, but that would be to personalise it more than I am telling myself that we should.

A clear distinction is to be made here. Does one leave it to the electorate to vote every four years or should there be some sort of constitutional structural limit on the number of terms that a Mayor can serve? This would be a constitutional limit on a single-person executive; a very particular and unique—that is not a term I use often—office. Local mayors have been mentioned. We shall discuss that tomorrow and thereafter. These Benches have similar concerns about the position of local single-person executives.

This Bill gives us our first opportunity to adjust the introduction of a new governmental institution. On that basis, I refute the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, that it would be inappropriate to deal with the matter on this occasion.

The electorate whom I have encountered during the past few years have expressed surprise that there is not such a constitutional bar. That was very much in our minds when tabling these amendments. As my noble friend said, we tabled similar amendments in 1999, but London voters have told me time and time again that as this is such an unusual position there must be this unusual constraint upon it.

Our amendments and that of the noble Baroness extend to Assembly Members, not so much because we feel that the same arguments apply to them but in order to pre-empt accusations that we are protecting our own position and just having a go at the Mayor.

In Committee, it was fairly said that it would not be appropriate, so close to the next election, to place a bar on mayoral and Assembly office holders standing for office again. If this amendment finds favour with the House, we should follow through on that. Amendment No. 93 to Clause 57 concerns the rather technical point of commencement dates. It seeks to make a distinction between current and future office holders to enable it to be brought into effect after the next election. We should not kid ourselves—the next election will reflect the advantages of incumbency. It will also reflect the disadvantages if those seeking election have offended the electorate. My noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market referred—with irony which was not shown very clearly in Hansard—to that magnificent paper, the Londoner, which is but one of the tools in the Mayor’s toolkit. As I say, there is considerable advantage in incumbency.

I hope that the House will understand that the amendment is not tabled on a whim to attack an individual but reflects a constitutional concern that the Liberal Democrat Benches have had from the start, and which they retain.

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for elucidating and developing the debate that we had in Committee. I am particularly grateful to my noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton, who made a very eloquent speech. His forensic analysis exposed the illogicality of the presidential parallel, the cracks in the political cohesion of the Conservative Party in its position on mayors and the weaknesses of the political argument in relation to scrutiny, which we have tried to strengthen. As I listened to the debate, I was extremely interested in the different arguments used to justify what I believe was a very strong argument for the democratic process and elections, and the fact that in this country we do not remove people other than by electing them out of office. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, spoke about a dictator and, on the other hand, about a leader who was worn out. She spoke about the need to end the monopoly and about the weakness of the present system of scrutiny. On the first three grounds—can you imagine a stronger argument than eviction by election? I cannot. On the last argument, we have strengthened the powers of scrutiny of the Assembly.

I am sure that the changes are not proposed on a whim; clearly the Liberal Democrat Party has pursued this issue for some time, but as my noble friend Lady Thornton said, they have serious constitutional implications for the established democratic process. They also create precedents for elected mayors around the country. It is not, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, a unique situation. As much as noble Lords argue that this is about principles—I take the integrity with which they make that argument and their determination to separate the office from the office holder—I put it to them that it is impossible to make that argument with any conviction, because it would be judged in any case to be seen to be a way of removing a strong Mayor without the bother of electing him out of office. It will be seen by Londoners as a pretty devious, back-door way of stopping Ken Livingstone from standing for a third term. I take the point that in Amendment No. 93 that is protected. It will certainly be seen as a way of denying the opportunity to decide whether he is the right Mayor, and it will be seen and judged to be the act of a party that finds it difficult to find a strong candidate and which is in something of a muddle about this.

The arguments that have been put forward have been rather bizarre. This goes right to the heart of the GLA constitution. It goes right to the heart of the key principle of a strong executive Mayor with a democratic mandate and it goes right to the heart of the fact that in this country we derive political legitimacy from direct elections, in the case of the GLA, involving all Londoners every four years. This is not something that has been invented; it went to the foundation of the GLA. There is no case for change on the basis of expediency and there is not much of a case for saying that we should take note of what happens in the United States. As we said in Committee, not every American city has a mayor with fixed terms. There are different practices in different cultures. We are looking at something that is very much of our culture. Fundamental changes should be made to the GLA’s constitution only when there is a clear and overwhelming case on the grounds of political expediency, and there is no argument for that kind of change.

In the White Paper, A Mayor and Assembly for London, published in 1998, we made it very clear that there should be no limit on the number of terms of office of either the Mayor or the Assembly, in common with other categories of elected office across the country. To remove the right of Londoners to vote out the Mayor is a fundamental change; it should not be contemplated lightly. It is what gives the Mayor his political legitimacy in the eyes of the electorate. If he is a dictator, the best way to remove him is by the democratic process. I am not convinced that the arguments put forward today about the need for term limits on any grounds that I have heard override this fundamental democratic principle which is a cornerstone of political life in this country.

In the recent prescription by the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, for local government change and for stronger mayors, there is no reference that there should be any term limits on the Mayor. That should cause the noble Baroness to think hard about whether she will press her amendment. I see no argument with the fact that the democratic process should continue, should be strengthened and should not be overturned by the amendment.

My Lords, I have been fascinated by the arguments put contrary to my amendment. I am bound to say that I am at a loss to understand how it can be suggested that the electorate would be taken out of the equation if there was a clear indication that the period of office should be limited to two terms. Some mayors may not survive two terms—they may be voted out in the middle. The electorate would have a right on two occasions—to elect them in and to re-elect them. The term of office would then be completed and the electorate would have the right to vote for someone else. I do not follow at all the suggestion that that would deny democratic procedures.

I and the noble Lord, Lord Tope, tried—and the Minister rather undermined that attempt—to ensure that this discussion was based around the principle of the term of the mayoralty. This was not and has never been tied up with the present Mayor. This has always been related to the constitutional implications for the GLA. It was not just my friends in the Liberal Democrat Party who attempted, during the passage of the GLA Bill, to impose this measure; as I recall, it was a joint venture to limit the period of office to two terms. The reason was then, and remains now, because the Mayor has a unique position in this country. If the amendment is passed, we may have other thoughts on the processes and discussions on the various elements that will be included in the local government Bill.

I heard what the Minister had to say and the arguments that have been made, but I wish to test the opinion of the House.

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Defence Secretary. The Statement is as follows:

“On 16 April, I announced that the Chief of the Defence Staff had appointed Lieutenant-General Sir Rob Fulton of the Royal Marines, currently the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Gibraltar, to lead an inquiry into the operational circumstances surrounding the seizure of 15 of our personnel on 23 March. I also announced an independent review of the media handling of the incident and its aftermath, and subsequently confirmed that this review would be led by Mr Tony Hall, chief executive of the Royal Opera House and formerly the BBC’s director of news and current affairs.

“I am grateful to General Fulton and Tony Hall, both of whom have completed their respective reports to tight deadlines with all the professionalism and candour that was expected of them. I am now informing the House of their findings, as I undertook to do.

“I begin by stressing that these two reports are very different in nature and therefore require different handling. Mr Hall’s review is a public document, which today is placed in the Library of the House and published on the MoD website. As I made clear in April, General Fulton’s report is classified because it addresses issues of operational and tactical significance which cannot be discussed in public without increasing the risks to our forces. Nevertheless, these events and the issues they raise are legitimate subjects of parliamentary and public concern. It was to balance these factors that I decided that I would give a broad outline of General Fulton's findings to this House, but that the full report would be given to the Defence Select Committee. This has been done; I leave it to the chairman and members of that committee to comment today as they see fit.

“General Fulton highlights the complex and dynamic nature of the northern Persian Gulf as an operating environment. We are there as part of a coalition maritime force carrying out a variety of demanding tasks against a backdrop of wider and rapidly evolving international issues. His report is impressively thorough. It has looked at every aspect of this incident, and others that may hold valuable lessons. In order to complete the report he has carried out lengthy interviews with all the people involved and at every level of the chain of command. Members of this House urged that specific areas be looked at, and I would like to address some of those points to the extent that I can, consistent with the constraints of operational security I mentioned earlier.

“General Fulton considered the events on the Shatt al-Arab waterway in June 2004. He concluded that while there were some broad similarities in the circumstances, the events themselves were different and the requisite lessons of the time were learnt and applied. He also considered the rules of engagement and confirmed that they were entirely appropriate for the task and remain so today.

“His report is clear that this event was not the result of equipment or resource issues including helicopter availability, the size and suitability of the ‘Cornwall’ or the size and armament of the boats available to the boarding party. The coalition force commander in the Gulf has reiterated that he is content with the capabilities deployed by the UK but, as ever, we keep this under review. He confirmed that the presence of the BBC on HMS ‘Cornwall’ was not a factor in any of the operational decisions taken on 23 March.

“But there were shortcomings, which General Fulton has identified in his report. This was a coalition operation—Members will not need me to spell out the merits of that—but clearly there is a cost in terms of added complexity. Despite that, it is vital that the procedures we all share can adapt rapidly to changes in this complex, strategic environment. General Fulton's report has identified some faults in that respect, and we are addressing them with our coalition partners.

“General Fulton has also identified some specific national shortcomings. The central lesson is that we must improve our ability to identify and assess the risks that this complex environment generates, and to train and posture our forces accordingly. He noted the need for improvements in a range of areas: in the handling of intelligence; in communications; in doctrine; and in training, both individual and collective.

“On training in particular he notes, and this is worth repeating, that the Royal Navy’s generic training for operations remains world class. By the time a Royal Navy ship deploys on operations, it is well prepared for a wide range of potential roles. But the report does identify a need to improve some training specific to particular tasks, including boarding. Furthermore, it recommends that in future we deploy specialist rather than composite teams for boarding operations, a recommendation we have already acted on. General Fulton also recommends that we ensure that we learn quickly from the experience of other nations operating in the area and get better at sharing information with them.

“Above all, General Fulton’s report concludes that the events of 23 March were the result not of a single gross failing or individual human error, but of the coming together of a series of vulnerabilities—many relatively small when viewed in isolation—which together placed our personnel in a position that could be exploited through a deliberate act by an unpredictable foreign power. His conclusions suggest that there is no case for disciplinary action against any of the individuals involved, but his report does emphasise that many of those individuals could have done more to prevent what happened. In that respect, it identifies some failings, both collective and individual, which the Royal Navy's chain of command will consider and deal with.

“General Fulton recommends a range of actions to address the shortcomings he has identified. An action plan has been drawn up. A number of measures have already been taken, allowing us to recommence boarding operations in April, and further measures are under way. The Defence Select Committee has been briefed on the action plan but, as I indicated at the start, there is a limit to how much I can say to the House. I can say that I, together with the Chiefs of Staff, am content that General Fulton’s report and the resulting action plan will ensure that our people are properly prepared for future operations.

“Let me now turn to the Hall review, and say at the outset that we accept all its recommendations. In my Statement to this House on 16 April, I made clear that the intention of this review was not to embark on a witch hunt focused on apportioning blame for the decision to allow media payments to the returning detainees. Like the Fulton report, the Hall review itself confirms that it would be wrong and counterproductive to focus on finding individuals to blame for these events. What was needed was a calm and dispassionate assessment of what happened in order to learn the lessons and to improve the ability of the MoD and the services to handle similar events in future.

“Tony Hall makes it plain that, on the question of whether payment should have been made for individual stories, there was a,

‘collective failure of judgment or an abstention of judgment’,

within the department. In my earlier Statement to Parliament I accepted this failing as my responsibility and apologised to the House.

“I welcome the report’s clear recommendation that media payments to serving military or civilian personnel for talking about their work should simply not be allowed. This confirms my announcement on 9 April of an interim ban on acceptance of media payments. Urgent work is now under way to make detailed amendments to service and MoD regulations and guidance to reflect this conclusion. The report also identifies that further work is needed to establish a clearer policy on the naming of individuals and their families in cases of this kind. This work is also already under way.

“But the report also identifies some broader themes. Perhaps most crucial is the huge change over the past 25 years in the context in which media coverage of operations takes place. Media access has increased significantly, and the issues they pursue have changed and that brings its own problems. The focus on the individual, for example, inevitably clashes with the service ethos of “group first”, and the desire to present instantaneous news from the heart of the action can conflict with the need for operational security. This means that while it is clearly in the interests of both the MoD and the media to co-operate, tensions exist. We need to manage those tensions better, and we need to rebuild confidence between the MoD and the media. But the report is also clear that we need to help the media develop a better understanding of defence issues so that they can be set in context.

“The report recommends that, for the future, the lead for the media handling of such episodes should lie clearly with the MoD rather than a front-line command or a single service. It also recommends some strengthening of what the report notes is a relatively small central press office.

“The report also makes a number of recommendations on the need for clearer decision-making processes. I accept them entirely. Unequivocal understanding of who should sanction what is essential. The recent capability review, published in March, also highlights this, and in response we have already been looking at how we can clarify responsibilities and improve accountability within the department.

“I hope it is clear that we have sought wherever possible to learn the lessons from this difficult episode, both operationally and in terms of the media handling, and to be open and accountable in doing so. We have had two reviews, one independently led and today put into the public domain, and the second of necessity classified but shared with the Defence Committee to ensure proper parliamentary accountability. Both are very thorough and professional. Both offer clear, detailed recommendations, all of which we accept, and many of which are already well in hand. Both are focused on the future, determined to help us ensure we do not make these mistakes again. The Chief of the Defence Staff and my Permanent Secretary will take the lead in implementing the reports and their recommendations, and I expect the great majority to be implemented by the end of this year, many of them sooner than that.

“I will end by saying that I know that we have the best Armed Forces in the world. They are respected everywhere for their bravery, professionalism and ability to deliver results. Some have argued that this incident has dented their hard won reputation; I do not believe this to be true. Their reputation is more durable than that. These reports will help us maintain and enhance that reputation. I intend to ensure we succeed”.

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I also thank him for organising, with the assistance of the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, an extensive briefing by General Fulton, with the CDS and the Permanent Secretary in attendance, for a small group from the House of Lords Defence Group. We were impressed by the thoroughness of the general’s inquiry and the robust and encouraging way that the CDS handled our questions. There is no doubt that lessons have been learnt. Will the Minister confirm that the recommendations of the Fulton report will be implemented and properly funded? How will he keep the House informed of the progress of the implementation and the funding of the recommendations?

We should not lose sight of the fact that 14 young men and one woman were put in a perilous situation. Their capture was hugely embarrassing for the Royal Navy, the Government and the whole country, and could have become a fatal and complex hostage situation. Unfortunately, the Government made a bad situation much worse by granting permission for service personnel to sell their stories to the tabloids. That reduced the Royal Navy to a laughing stock; and the subsequent rescinding of that decision made the Navy look even more ridiculous.

We must not allow the Royal Navy to take all the blame for the two issues under consideration in the Statement. We should not forget the excellence of the Royal Navy. As the Statement makes clear, its training is world-class. Many young women and men come from overseas to benefit from that training.

I have some questions, because we must ensure that such an incident can never happen again. I fully understand that operational security must be of prime concern in the way that the issue is handled. HMS “Cornwall” was part of the Op TELIC command chain reporting to PJHQ, not to C in C Fleet. This was not just a naval issue. Should that arrangement now be changed, given that Op TELIC is more land-focused than concerned with maritime matters?

The Royal Navy operates within a multinational context in the Gulf; our coalition partners will be essential to the successful implementation of the report’s recommendations. Can the Minister confirm what steps within the coalition the Ministry of Defence will take to address the report? Is the Iraqi Navy now carrying out its own board and search operations in its waters? We have been training it for several years.

Why did HMS “Cornwall” not have the second Lynx for which it was set up? Was this the result of too few helicopters chasing too many commitments? Helicopters on ships are used for a whole series of different tasks. The priority must always be for operational tasks. Is there some merit in the MoD considering a second helicopter just for administration tasks?

The Hall report makes clear that the media fiasco should never have occurred in the first place—not least because the MoD received a warning of a possible media circus from the Press Complaints Commission and an offer of assistance from that body. Poor media handling of any crisis must not be allowed to happen ever again. What on earth could the Secretary of State have been thinking when he approved the sale of those stories? What effect could he have expected it to have on the parents of service men and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan? What effect could he have expected it to have on service personnel recovering from serious injuries in hospital?

The Statement recommends strengthening the relatively small press office. Will the Government consider reinstating the single-service press officers? If a uniformed press officer had been in place, this sorry saga might have been prevented.

Finally, under normal circumstances, the noble Lord, Lord Garden, would be in his place to respond to the Statement. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, to pass on our best wishes to the noble Lord, Lord Garden, and hope that we will see him back in his place very soon.

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Astor, for his final remarks. I know that he does not mean that he wants to see the back of me—at least, I hope not—but we will pass on the good wishes of the noble Lord and, I think, of many Members of this House. My noble friend Lord Garden is a very special person who adds a great deal to the operation of this House by his knowledge and personality. I will make a special point of ensuring that he is aware of the feeling expressed in the Chamber today.

I agree with just about every point that the noble Lord, Lord Astor, made on the issue. I should like to say how valuable the briefing given by General Fulton was. The Minister will understand if, in attempting to address the Statement, I inadvertently stray into operational and tactical areas, in which I know that he will be restricted in his replies. I will understand if he says that he cannot answer that question because I have been unable to keep on the straight and narrow.

Nevertheless, the Statement gives rise to a number of questions, particularly about the risk assessment and training aspects of our operations. Were the Government aware of the information gained by the Foreign Affairs Committee in another place through evidence taken in Iran not so long ago, which showed quite clearly that smuggling is a major part of commercial activity and the black economy in Iran and is largely outside the control of the military and the organs of law enforcement? Can the Minister confirm that the risk assessment of the operations is that the Iranian navy’s links with organised crime, which we understand has discreet support at the highest level of the Iranian political establishment, has implications for the way in which we operate in that area, bearing in mind that the Royal Navy has, among other things, an anti-smuggling role that would bite very severely into the organised crime that operates within the Iranian system?

On the question of Royal Navy personnel and the media, can the Minister tell us whether the new regulations banning the media from making payments to service personnel also cover attempts to make discreet payments to family members? If so, how is it envisaged that they will do so? This could be a major stumbling block, as we saw when the issue first arose. Can the Minister also say whether, as part of the training review, any assessments have been made of the need for front-line service personnel to receive training for their contacts with the media? It is all very well having a press office back in London to deal expertly with these issues, but if there are embedded media on the front-line, personnel will be exposed to all manner of issues when they deal with those contacts.

Finally, can the Minister say what effect the deployment of specialist rather than composite teams has had on boarding operations? What effect has it had on personnel levels, manning levels and the demands on personnel generally? Has it put pressure on the ability to man the ships? Has it put pressure on the personnel establishment, or has it been encompassed readily within the existing manning arrangements?

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords opposite for their comments on the briefing that we gave yesterday. As noble Lords have said, this set a precedent for this House, which reflects the deep expertise in defence in this House, which the Ministry of Defence completely recognises. I join noble Lords in sending the noble Lord, Lord Garden, my best wishes for a speedy recovery. I very much look forward to seeing him back in this House.

Noble Lords will recognise that what I can say about the operational aspects is limited to what was said in the Statement on the Fulton report, but I will endeavour to go as far as I can. As I have said, we take parliamentary scrutiny extremely seriously, and we intend to learn all the lessons that we can from this incident. The noble Lord, Lord Astor, asked about the funding for what the recommendations propose and how we will keep the House informed. We will ensure that what the recommendations propose is fully funded. Last night, we discussed the possibility of the House of Lords Defence Group, which has met to review this, to meet again to review at some appropriate point towards the end of the year the progress that has been made towards implementing the recommendations. We in the Ministry of Defence welcome such scrutiny.

On the steps that we are taking with our coalition partners, one of the key points made by the Fulton report is the need to improve the way in which we learn from the experiences of other coalition partners in a complex and rapidly changing operational and tactical environment. We will share the Fulton report with our coalition partners, and we are working to improve the processes by which we ensure that such lessons are shared more effectively among coalition partners when operating in these circumstances.

The noble Lord asked me what exactly the Iraqis are doing in relation to security in the Gulf area. The Iraqi marines, who operate as part of the Iraqi Navy, already carry out some vessel boardings under training and mentoring from the Royal Navy, and carry out security checks. Alongside our overall strategy in Iraq, we anticipate developing the Iraqi security forces, in time, to hand over responsibility as their capability improves both in terms of equipment and know-how.

Fulton makes absolutely clear that issues of equipment were not material to this incident, whether related to the ship or the helicopters. In terms of why not two helicopters, it is correct that HMS “Cornwall” has the capacity to take on board two helicopters. However, the operating procedures for these boarding operations did not require a helicopter to be on guard throughout. The noble Lord made a point about the availability of a helicopter specifically tasked to do administration roles as the commanding officer was embedded on HMS “Cornwall”. We will look at that. As Fulton has shown, we do not believe that helicopter assets were material to this incident.

On the reinstatement of a single-service press officer, a key recommendation from the Hall review is the need for us to strengthen and to develop the Ministry of Defence press office. We accept that recommendation and we will do that. It is important to recognise that approximately half the personnel in the Director General and Media Communications are military personnel. We do not believe that reinstating the single-service press officers in the way in which they operated in the past is the answer. We believe that improving access to military expertise is key, but Hall makes a clear point that this needs to be done not as part of the front-line command but as part of the central MoD, which is how we will implement this.

The noble Lord asked whether we are aware of the evidence relating to smuggling. The coalition forces are operating under a United Nations Security Council resolution specifically addressing smuggling and links to organised crime in the northern Gulf. This is part of the context in which our forces are operating. So, yes, we are aware. As Fulton has said, we need to look at how we manage communications in response to a dynamically changing environment.

As we have said, our clear policy now is that it is not acceptable for serving personnel to receive payments. The noble Lord makes a good point on the complexity of this issue relating to family members of serving personnel. There are also complexities relating to, for example, serving personnel writing memoirs. These are complex areas, which is why we are now implementing a process of setting out regulations to cover all the complicated aspects raised by this policy. It stems from a central policy decision that serving personnel may not receive payments for selling stories.

As regards the training review and contacts with the media, for many years we have had media embedded with our personnel operations and our personnel do receive, and have received, training on how to interact with embedded media. However, there is a need to review our training overall for personnel, and media training is one aspect of that. We are undertaking an overall review of operationally specific training for personnel.

Our policy for the demands on personnel was to make up boarding parties from personnel from the ship’s company and not to have specialist boarding personnel. We now are changing that policy and will have specialist boarding teams. We do not think that there will be a problem in terms of personnel to do that. We believe that we can manage it in the way in which we train our personnel. We will do that and therefore will plan for it.

My Lords, I have repeatedly asked, in many ways, whether there was adequate ministerial cover during the important period after the release of the sailors—which has been referred to as the “fiasco period”—and I am always referred back to the terms of reference of the inquiries. Of course they do not cover it—unless “learning lessons” is sufficiently all-embracing. Will the Minister now tell the House whether there was a gap in ministerial cover and the availability of a Minister to be consulted by his staff at that time? Was there a duty Minister, or is what has been referred to in the Statement as the “abstention of judgment” the nearest we can get to an admission that no one was on duty?

My Lords, I can answer directly my noble and learned friend’s question. “Was there adequate ministerial cover?”. Yes, there was. “Was there a gap?”. No, there was not. “Was there a Minister on duty?”. Yes, there was.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I welcome the decision not to allow payments to serving personnel. For the avoidance of doubt, can the Minister make it clear that “payments” includes benefits in kind or any other form of kickback?

The Tony Hall report states:

“The relationship between MoD/Armed Forces and the media has, as a result of this and earlier incidents, suffered”.

The Minister said that the Government accept the recommendation that the overall relationship between the MoD and the media should be looked at afresh.

Elsewhere in the report, Tony Hall states:

“Many of those we have spoken to have advocated the restoration of single Service one star officers within the MoD’s central media and communications structure”.

That is a very important point. I was rather aghast to hear the Minister suggest that one-star single-service officers should not form part of the result of that review. Many people with great experience in this field think that it is time we had much better single-service expertise, not only in public relations but also in news management.

My Lords, I can confirm to the noble and gallant Lord that the policy will be that serving personnel cannot receive payments, whether they be benefits in kind or “kickbacks”, as he describes it. We need a clear definition of the term to ensure that it encompasses such matters.

The noble and gallant Lord highlights the Hall review’s conclusion that the relationship has suffered between the Ministry of Defence and the media. We recognise that and that much has to be done on both sides to improve the relationship in the context of the modern world and the nature of the operations that we have to undertake.

I note the point the noble and gallant Lord made about single-service one-star officers, but the conclusion of Tony Hall was that emphasising the front-line commands, the single services, rather than the central MoD press office was not the way to go or to best handle the modern media. It is vital that we have full military input on handling the media but, as regards having those people as part of the single services, the recommendation of the Hall review is that these personnel should be part of the central MoD press office, working with the civil servants and making sure that their military expertise is properly embedded within the central MoD press office.

My Lords, can the noble Lord explain why he says that the reputation of the Royal Navy has not suffered? That is universally disagreed with outside. Is he not aware that Admiral Cunningham, after the Battle of Crete, said that the Royal Navy’s reputation had been built up over 300 years and could be lost in an afternoon? How can he agree that the Royal Navy’s reputation has not suffered when the Chief of the Defence Staff goes to meet the crew of a surrendered Royal Navy vessel and says that he is proud of them? How can the Royal Navy’s reputation not have suffered when a sailor is blubbing over the fact that he has not got his i-Pod? How does that contrast with the performance of Midshipman Jack Cornwall on the “Iron Duke” at the Battle of Jutland, who saw that the turret was afire and ordered it to be flooded at the cost of his own life to save his ship? Those who love the Navy, who like the Navy, who think that it has been the foundation of our liberties, find it deeply offensive that the Government should have allowed it to have such a rotten reputation and to behave in such a pathetic way, and then say that they are not conscious of the fact that it has lost its reputation. Perhaps the noble Lord will arrange for a pardon for Admiral Bing.

My Lords, I do not accept the characterisation the noble Earl opposite has described of our Armed Forces today, the Navy in particular. I have seen for myself, on operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the bravery, the commitment and the sacrifice that our young people have made, and are making, for this country. To suggest that they are of a lesser quality than people in the past is completely untrue and unfair.

The reputation of the Royal Navy, whether you consider the Battle of Crete or go back to Trafalgar and our greatest naval hero, Nelson, is the result of learning lessons when things have gone wrong. I recommend to the noble Earl biographies of Nelson, in particular, on that point. Her Majesty’s Armed Forces have earned their reputation by being willing to look problems squarely in the face, recognise that they have occurred and rectify them. That has been done, and is being done, in this case.

The way in which the noble Earl described certain aspects of the reporting says more about our modern society and the way in which the media panders to certain aspects of it than it does about our Armed Forces, which I regard as being a true example to our young people of how they should behave.

My Lords—

My Lords—

My Lords, I think it is the turn of the Lib Dems.

My Lords, the Minister said that the report stated that the absence of a helicopter or “guard”, to use the Minister’s own expression, made no difference. I really do not understand that. I thought the whole point—and it was certainly the speculation at the time of the incident—of having those helicopters there was to intervene if such an incident took place.

My Lords, as I have said, I am limited in what I can go into. However, I can make the point to the noble Lord that military operations are undertaken under operating procedures, which describe how a particular task is to be carried out in certain circumstances. The focus of boarding operations and the support of helicopters within that did not require there to be a helicopter on station throughout the boarding operation. That was the standing operating procedure at the time and therefore the reason why the helicopter returned to the ship. As Lieutenant General Fulton, who has looked into the matter, said at the conclusion of his inquiry, issues of equipment and, included within that, issues relating to the availability or otherwise of helicopters, were not a material issue to this incident. He has made that clear.

My Lords, perhaps I may ask my noble friend the question that I asked him on the previous occasion: did this boarding incident take place in disputed waters; that is to say, waters that were claimed by both the Iraqi and Iranian Governments? If they did take place in disputed waters—and I am presuming the report will answer that question—are we to be told that further operations of a similar nature, which have been now resumed, are taking place still in disputed waters in this part of the Gulf?

No, my Lords, the incident did not take place in disputed waters. There is an area that can most clearly be described as a buffer zone. The incident took place in a position that was clearly within Iraqi territorial waters, however one defines that.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I find it hard to comment in any sensible way on General Fulton’s report, because I have not seen or heard the full briefing on it, but I would like to return to the issue of single-service directors of public relations. The Minister said earlier that one of the great things about the British Armed Forces is that they learn lessons as matters develop. I wish that Ministers and the civil servants in the Ministry of Defence would keep an open mind about the importance of single-service directors of public relations. Over the time that I have seen them, they have developed hugely important ways not only of educating the press about the challenges facing the Armed Forces but of learning how to handle the press. Just to reinforce the central bit will not give the single service the confidence it needs that the challenges it faces are being properly looked after.

My Lords, I take on board the noble and gallant Lord’s point. As he knows, we have discussions with a number of the ex-chiefs about the experiences the Ministry of Defence has had of different structures for handling the press and the existence in the past of one-star single-service press officers. The core review shows a real need to improve the strength and capacity of the MoD press office and, within that, to ensure that military experience and the services are properly and fully represented.

The point of difference, if I understand the noble and gallant Lord’s point correctly, is that these military personnel should be in the central MoD because that is where they need to be to handle the modern, 24-hours-a-day media, rather than in the front-line command. One point that comes out of the Hall review is that the way in which the issue went from the central MoD to the naval front-line command fleet was part of the problem. We need to ensure that the central MoD press capacity is integrated with the military component, that the military officers who are part of that are of sufficient seniority and that they are properly embedded to make sure that this does not happen again.

My Lords, who was the duty Minister, and why did they take no action to prevent the story being made available to the press for money?

My Lords, I commend the Hall review to the House, which goes into the detail of the process that took place. As the Secretary of State has said, he received the information to note relating to the decision on the Friday. He has said that he takes full responsibility for this matter.

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for repeating a Statement made in another place. I also thank him for putting in the organisation and applying the pressure that I know were needed to enable eight Members of the House of Lords last night to receive not just a briefing but copies of the full report and the full list of actions that will take place to rectify the criticisms that came out of the report. The CDS was present, as was the Minister, and we were there for over two hours. I believe our questions were answered in a very open way. I did not have the impression that any one of the eight of us came away from that briefing with the view that General Fulton’s report was a whitewash or less than thorough. I thank the Minister for that.

However, many areas needed attention. Training was one of them. If, like me, noble Lords have been close to the services and have always admired the high standard of their training, it will come as something of a disappointment that that was one of the areas of criticism. I welcome the intention to rectify that. Will the Minister confirm, as he did earlier, that there will be monitoring of this and reporting back not only to the House of Lords defence group—which is not a Select Committee, although a number of us feel that there should be a defence Select Committee in this House—but perhaps to this House as well?

The statements by the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, while good stuff to laugh at when they are made, in no way caricature the true image of our Armed Forces, particularly the Navy. Indeed, that kind of statement is both cheap talk and outrageous when the young men and women of our Armed Forces are out there as we are talking, risking their lives, day in and day out, in the Middle East.

My Lords, I could not agree more with what my noble friend has just said. I am happy to confirm that the House of Lords defence group, under my noble friend’s chairmanship, will have the opportunity to review the implementation of the action plan that comes out of both Hall and Fulton at an appropriate point later this year.

My Lords, was the Secretary of State the duty Minister? If not, who was?

My Lords, the Secretary of State—

Yes or no?

The Secretary of State was provided with the information to note on Friday. If the noble Lord is asking me who the duty Minister was on Friday, my understanding is that it was my right honourable friend Adam Ingram.

My Lords, I remind the House that I am a serving officer in the TA. Is it not clear that the Fulton report is a damning indictment of the Royal Navy’s current state? My noble friend Lord Onslow, I suspect, was referring not to the quality of the service men and women but to the stewardship of the Royal Navy. The report appears to be so bad that only a very few Peers with any relevant experience will be allowed to see it. Even the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, has apparently not seen it. As a result, we do not even know which servicemen received conduct-after-capture training.

The Statement makes it clear that we are not talking about one major error. Apparently there are many failings—a statement of the obvious, I would think. I remind the Minister that I can table six Written Questions every day. When the MoD stops being open with parliamentarians, even with appropriate precautions, we can be sure that the problems are serious and deep-rooted.

My Lords, I understand the noble Earl’s frustration in this area, which, as he knows, we have discussed. This was an initiative to provide the House with an opportunity to review the document in the same way that the House of Commons Select Committee had the opportunity to review it. The usual channels, not the Ministry of Defence, determined the composition of the group. The MoD made an offer for a group made up of representatives from all sides of the House to have an opportunity to review that secret “UK eyes only” document, and to do so under privy counsellor rules. That was an initiative to be welcomed by the House, and it reflects the openness of the MoD and our sincere intent to learn the lessons of this incident and implement them. In so far as I can answer any questions relating to this incident that do not prejudice the operational security of our forces, I will of course do so.

My Lords, the Minister deserves the gratitude of the whole House for arranging this briefing. It has set a precedent. Unfortunately, such possibilities were not in place beforehand. I disagree with my noble friend Lady Dean; I think there should be a defence Select Committee in this House. I hope the Minister will pass on to the authorities in this place that there should be a secure room in this House where classified documents can be studied at a convenient time by Members who are deemed entitled to see them.

On the substantive point covered by the Fulton report, which I was lucky to have read, my only question is whether my noble friend can assure us that training in behaviour after capture is more widely extended to personnel in the Royal Navy. It is quite scandalous to try to compare the behaviour of brave young men and women a generation or more ago under fire with that of people who are under acute psychological stress. It is grotesque to dare to suggest that our young men and women today are not as brave as those 20 years ago.

My Lords, I absolutely agree with my noble friend. He makes a very important point about the need for us to update our conduct-after-capture training to take into account the way in which personnel can be used as psychological pawns when there is 24-hour media coverage. We accept that we need to improve specific task training to complement generic training and the level and type of training for conduct after capture. We need to ensure that all personnel on operations have such training. We have already implemented steps in both regards.

On my noble friend’s other point, there is a deficiency in this House in that we do not have the ability to hold secure documents under a process which would enable noble Lords to have access to them in a controlled fashion. That exists in the other place. I learnt of this deficiency when trying to set up such facilities for this group, and suggest that the authorities of the House might like to attend to it.

My Lords—

My Lords—

My Lords, I am afraid that time is up.

moved Amendment No. 3A:

My Lords, I am opposed to this amendment and Amendment No. 24, with which it is grouped. We all agree that the position of the Mayor is very powerful and important. The amendments seem to be an attempt to chip away at that power and transfer some of it to the Assembly. The Assembly is not the GLC. I was in favour of the GLC but the party opposite was not. It was instrumental in getting the GLC dispensed with and now has to live with the consequences. We have a different sort of legislation altogether, with a powerful Mayor and an Assembly which does not have anywhere near the same kind of powers as the GLC.

Given his position, it seems quite reasonable that the Mayor should have the opportunity and ability to make visits abroad in an unfettered way, without being directly responsible for getting such visits approved in advance by a two-thirds majority of the Assembly, as Amendment No. 24 proposes. I hope that my noble friend will not feel disposed to accept the amendment.

My Lords, I am not disposed to accept the amendment. Amendments Nos. 3A and 24 offer a new angle on what emerged as a familiar theme in Committee from noble Lords opposite: how to prevent the Mayor travelling abroad and constrain him from travelling internationally to promote London and, by implication, maintain its pre-eminent position in an increasingly competitive global economy, in which it plays a vital role and of which the Mayor is the supreme advocate.

The noble Baroness said that the Mayor had travelled a fair amount. In fact, he has spent 3 per cent of his time—just 68 days—since he was elected in 2000 on foreign travel. That seems quite moderate for someone who occupies an international position.

Amendment No. 3A requires the Mayor to include any foreign travel he has undertaken and his reasons for undertaking it in his regular report to the Assembly. The focus of the Mayor’s report is to inform the Assembly about those of his activities and decisions he considers significant. That would surely include any significant foreign trips he has made, but requiring him to highlight his foreign travel is too heavy-handed; it would put this particular part of his responsibilities and activities in a very different category. I also argue that it is unnecessary; not only in this report but in the 10 meetings the Mayor has over the year with the Assembly, there are many opportunities for Members to interrogate him about his intentions and his foreign travel.

I defend wholeheartedly the principle of the Mayor being able to decide the visits he should undertake and the people he should meet without unnecessary limitation and bureaucracy. For example, he recently attended a summit in New York of the C40 Large Cities Climate Group, which he chairs, to discuss action at city level to combat climate change. I am certain that that was a key meeting from which we will benefit. Over the next five years I expect the Mayor, whoever that may be, to make a large number of foreign trips as the leader of the city hosting the 2012 Olympics.

As my noble friend Lady Turner said, Amendment No. 24 requires the Mayor to obtain the approval of the Assembly by a two-thirds majority to pay the expenses incurred. I cannot agree with that. It would be nothing short of absurd for him to go cap in hand to the Assembly for his foreign trips to be funded. That is a humiliation too far. It is also impracticable. I argue that Amendment No. 3A is unnecessary, while Amendment No. 24 is impracticable and not in keeping with the dignity of the Mayor’s office.

I am sorry once again to refuse to accept the amendments, but I hope that noble Lords will understand the case I have made.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply. While it was not unexpected, the matter needed airing, and we have aired it now on two occasions.

The Mayor’s representative role outside this country is a matter of importance not only to London and the country but also to Members of the Assembly. As I understand it, the only way in which Members can ascertain what he has done when he is abroad or where he is going is by putting down questions. This would be much better in the open. There was a tremendous scandal a little while ago about a visit to Havana. It caused a great deal of comment. Had it been possible to say that the visit would be reported to the Assembly in the normal way, it would probably have neutralised the controversy. The Mayor might in any event have wanted to do what is proposed in our amendment in his own interests. Since it was clear that that did not happen, we tabled the amendments. However, I have listened to what the Minister said. I have raised the matter and do not propose to return to it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 4 [Confirmation hearings etc for certain appointments by the Mayor]:

moved Amendment No. 4:

My Lords, we have Amendment No. 7 in this group. We support the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the amendments that she proposes. Clearly from the instances that she provided the whole situation is very unsatisfactory and there need to be better arrangements in this regard. I am sure that we will come back to this matter later on in the evening, as it is related to other amendments.

Amendment No. 7 relates to the health adviser and the deputy health adviser. We tabled these amendments in Committee, but I hope that we will get a more satisfactory response from the Minister this time round. My amendments extend confirmation hearings to the office of health adviser and deputy health adviser. The people who fill those positions, be they civil servants or not, will soon have a much larger role than at present. The health adviser is to be given a formal role in the consultation and preparation of a London-wide health inequality strategy. The extent of these positions means that they are no longer run-of-the-mill Civil Service appointments. The responsibility for the new strategy will have a significant impact on the London health service and the Londoners who use it. It is therefore necessary for the Assembly to have further powers of scrutiny over who will take this responsibility.

My Lords, I fear that I shall disappoint the noble Baroness and the noble Lord in responding to their amendments, but I hope that under the next group I may be less disappointing.

Confirmation hearings provide the Assembly with an important new power to scrutinise publicly key mayoral appointments. Assembly Members will recommend to the Mayor whether he should appoint his preferred candidate to one of the offices listed in new Section 60A(3), having assessed the candidate’s suitability for appointment, established his or her plans for their new roles, and if necessary challenged an appointment before the Mayor makes his final decision. The hearings provide Assembly Members with an exciting challenge in making a success of their new scrutiny role. However, I strongly resist the amendments tabled by the noble Lords opposite and I shall take a few minutes to explain the reasons why.

Amendments Nos. 4, 5, 6 and 7 extend the list of offices to which confirmation hearings may apply. Amendments Nos. 4 and 5 make all appointments to Transport for London and the London Development Agency subject to the confirmation hearing process. Amendment No. 6 extends the list to the two appointments made by the Mayor to the board of LFEPA under Clause 25. We shall discuss the LFEPA board later this evening, so I shall not get into the dispute about appointments now. Amendment No. 7 refers to the GLA’s health adviser and deputy health adviser. We shall make it clear later that the role of the health adviser is to advise the Mayor, and it is the Mayor who takes decisions.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that it is important to be clear about the difference between board members and advisers. It is right that she makes that point, and essential that advisers to boards have their roles clearly set out and that they are described and transparent, as I am sure that they are. As she said, all appointments are key; in singling out some appointments, the aim is not to detract from the importance of others. It is important that the Assembly initially concentrates on scrutinising the most important appointments that the Mayor makes. These are very significant appointments—those that have the greatest influence on delivery, particularly the chairs and deputy chairs of the functional bodies.

The effect of these amendments is to increase the number of posts subject to confirmation hearings to over 40—a fourfold increase, which risks extending too widely the scope of the Assembly’s confirmation hearings role before the Assembly has had a chance to make a real success of it. As I said in Committee, that is not to say that the list of offices subject to confirmation hearings can never be extended, and I know that the noble Baroness appreciates that. Noble Lords will know that the Bill provides for the Secretary of State by order to specify further offices should she wish to do so, following consultation with the Mayor and Assembly. This provides the flexibility to extend the list of offices in future, should the need arise, without the requirement for primary legislation.

I turn to the amendment exempting Assembly Members and councillors appointed to any of the offices listed in Clause 4 from being subject to confirmation hearings. Frankly, I am very surprised by this amendment and I resist it in the strongest terms. The purpose of the Assembly’s new role is to scrutinise candidates whom the Mayor proposes to appoint and recommend their suitability for office. It should not matter if the candidate is an Assembly Member or local councillor; the Assembly should still be able to request their attendance at a confirmation hearing in order to scrutinise their appointment. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that, in tabling the amendment, noble Lords are seeking to protect elected officers from such scrutiny—although I am sure that that is not their intention. Their amendment would certainly create an unfair process whereby some candidates would be exempt from confirmation hearings and others would not. That would risk bringing the Assembly’s new role into disrepute before it had even begun.

I take for example the current chairmen of both the MPA and LFEPA, who are both Assembly Members and would be exempt from confirmation hearings under this arrangement. Their appointments would not be subject to scrutiny even though both already attend Assembly scrutiny sessions to answer questions in their capacities as chairs of functional bodies.

I hope that the noble Baroness will consider withdrawing her amendment. I believe very strongly that the confirmation hearings will be a positive and important development for the Assembly. We are very much behind making them a success.

My Lords, the Minister said that the 40 confirmation hearings would be too many, but they would be over a period of time. I should have thought that with any reasonable local authority that would not be anything like the number of appointments that members make. I am not on the GLA but, if it did not have much to do, it would give it something to do. I think that 40 over four years is a reasonable number to scrutinise, so I am surprised that the Minister said that.

My Lords, I would not wish to be boring and never to surprise people, but I would also not want to suggest that the Assembly does not have enough to do. I am sure that it does. What is important about these confirmation hearings is that they are very public. From my perspective the very public nature of the scrutiny, not just with the Assembly but with the media, will help to make the accountability real. I do not want to mention a figure in relation to confirmation hearings. However, we are proposing a very practical start here, and we do so with good intentions. I hope that the Assembly will embrace this new opportunity and really make a go of it.

My Lords, I disabuse the noble Lord of any view that the Assembly does not have enough to do. Like the noble Baroness, I believe that this is a positive move. It is because it is a positive procedure, which allows the Assembly to draw out the views of appointees who might otherwise remain shadowy figures, that I am advocating an extension.

I agree with the noble Baroness that the dispute about LFEPA may be discussed later; I am not sure that I particularly want to cover it tonight. However, the principle needs to be addressed at this point in the Bill. I tabled this amendment before the dispute blew up.

It is for the Assembly to judge which are the important appointments. The measure is presented as if the Assembly has to pass some sort of test on how it conducts itself in confirmation hearings before it is allowed to apply the procedure more widely. I do not think that is appropriate. If confirmation hearings have been approved by the Government, they should not seek to put what I regard as an artificial limit on who can be subject to them. As I said, if the Mayor chose to chair Transport for London, the only hearings that might take place would concern the deputy chair or vice-chair—I am not sure what the relevant title is.

Amendment No. 8 was tabled in response to what the noble Baroness said in Committee about the oddity of the amendments then tabled applying to Members of the Assembly—of the Assembly holding hearings about the appointment of its own Members. As I had hoped I had explained, it is not a matter of protecting colleagues. Assembly Members and borough councillors have a qualification for appointment which is different from that of the board members of Transport for London and the LDA.

I said that I accepted that the measure was positive. Because I believe that it is positive, I should like to test the opinion of the House.

moved Amendment No. 9:

My Lords, I have in this group Amendments Nos. 10 and 11, which were tabled in Committee. I want to press the issues a bit further. The Government believe that the Assembly should have extended powers of scrutiny over certain of the mayoral appointments. We believe that increased scrutiny is an appropriate way of ensuring that the positions are filled with properly qualified, independent people who have the support of the Mayor and the Assembly. However, the Bill does not provide that. Instead, we have a rather toothless power for the Assembly to request a hearing and ask the appointees some questions; no more or less. Any decision that might flow from the hearing has no effect on whether a person is finally appointed, because it is left as a mere recommendation by the Assembly.

My amendments instead ensure that the Assembly will have a real power of scrutiny over the appointments, by a majority vote. Amendments Nos. 10 and 11 would achieve that by replacing the current provision for the Assembly to make recommendations to the Mayor with a requirement that the Assembly may make that recommendation with much more force by having a vote, and a simple majority of the Assembly could make the recommendation. Amendments Nos. 14 to 17 go hand in hand with Amendments Nos. 10 and 11. They are consequential and set out the procedure by which the Assembly would approve an appointment.

We believe that these are reasonable measures that would allow the Assembly to carry out confirmation hearings and set a time frame within which it would be required to respond to the Mayor. If three weeks passed with no response from the Assembly, the Mayor could go ahead without its approval. Our amendments are reasonable and allow for flexibility.

My Lords, this is another set of amendments from the parties opposite that seem designed to write into the Bill powers that the Assembly does not have at present but which were available when the GLC was in operation. As I have said previously, the Assembly is not the GLC. We now have a new set of legislative provisions before us that provide for a powerful Mayor—which everyone has accepted, apparently—which means that he is obliged to perform certain functions.

I really cannot see any point in writing into the Bill that a copy of the candidate’s application must be attached, when it is already written in the schedule that the Mayor must include,

“the reasons why the candidate is the person that the Mayor proposes to appoint to the office”.

I would have thought that that was the most important point. The amendment would add an enormous amount to what is written into the Bill and is not required at all. The Government have provided clarifications in their own amendments and I would have thought that they were sufficient. The amendments of the two parties opposite are quite unnecessary.

My Lords, I very much endorse and welcome my noble friend’s comments. Her memory perhaps goes back slightly further than mine, but I remember the GLC and appreciate that we are talking about a very different authority.

The three government amendments to Schedule 1 respond, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, pointed out, to concerns raised in Grand Committee about ensuring that the Assembly has sufficient time to make a recommendation to the Mayor on whether he should appoint a candidate to one of the offices listed in Clause 4. Schedule 1 sets out the procedure for conducting confirmation hearings. Paragraph 4(3) states that the Assembly has three weeks, from the day that it receives notification from the Mayor of his proposed candidate, to make its recommendation on the appointment.

The Government accept that the Assembly may find it difficult to make a recommendation within this timescale following an ordinary Assembly election. It takes time for any elected body to find its feet following an election, and the Assembly must focus initially on appointing its chair and deputy chair, which under Section 52 of the GLA Act it must do within 10 days of an ordinary election. Government Amendment No. 12, therefore, exempts the period from the day of an election until the day the Assembly meets to elect its chair and deputy chair from counting towards the three-week period within which the Assembly must make its recommendation to the Mayor. In practice, this means that if a newly elected Mayor notifies the Assembly of his preferred candidate for a relevant post shortly after being elected, the clock would start ticking on the three-week deadline only on the day after the Assembly elects its chair and deputy chair. As I said earlier, that must be within 10 days of an election.

Turning to government Amendments Nos. 18 and 20, paragraph 9 of Schedule 1 precludes the Assembly’s functions in relation to confirmation hearings from being exercised by anyone other than the Assembly itself or an ordinary committee. This means that in practice the Assembly or an ordinary committee would need to meet in order to take any decision required under Schedule 1, including whether to hold a confirmation hearing with the candidate before making a recommendation to the Mayor. The Government agree that it would be sensible to allow the Assembly to delegate this decision to the chair of the Assembly. Amendments Nos. 18 and 20 do that by providing more flexibility for the decision on whether or not to hold a hearing to be taken quickly and potentially allowing more time for the Assembly to focus on the hearing itself and making a recommendation to the Mayor.

My Lords, recently the press reported the case of someone who was about to be appointed to the main board of a major FTSE 100 company. It transpired that he possessed neither of the degrees to which he had laid claim. Is the Minister giving us a guarantee that anything of that sort will have been verified by the Mayor or his human resources advisers and is, therefore, irrelevant to those in the Assembly who might be cross-examining him?

My Lords, I am trying to make clear that the Assembly can request specific information from candidates, and the candidate then may or may not provide that information. If the candidate chooses not to provide it, I am sure that the Assembly will make its conclusions from that lack of information. The Assembly will receive the reasons from the Mayor as to why he would like to appoint a candidate; they may well include formal qualifications or experience on other boards—we are talking about chairs or deputy chairs. What the right information is for the right appointment will be a matter of horses for courses. We are talking about primary legislation. It would be a mistake to be too prescriptive about the inclusion of an application form. There is a wider opportunity in the Bill for the Assembly to request the information that the candidate has in their possession; if the candidate refuses, it can draw its conclusions.

My Lords—

My Lords, I am sorry; I had not quite finished. I got confused about where I was in my speech. I am sure that everyone is waiting with bated breath to hear my response to Amendments Nos. 10, 11, 14, 15 and 17, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham.

The overarching theme of those amendments, as the noble Baroness clearly explained, is whether it is the Mayor or the Assembly that decides whether an appointment is made. I want very much to resist those amendments because they would overturn the otherwise clear lines of accountability between the Mayor and the Assembly; they would compromise the Assembly’s clear focus on scrutiny by giving it the executive function of appointment. As we discussed in Committee, the difference between executive decision and scrutiny is very important if scrutiny is to be absolutely effective.

I resist Amendment No. 16, which was tabled by noble Lords opposite, but only because it is not necessary. The Assembly is clearly able to meet without the candidate being present. The Bill defines a confirmation hearing as being a meeting at which the candidate is invited to attend. It is perfectly within the Assembly’s rights to meet, without the candidate being present, as often and as frequently as it likes to discuss the appointment. Amendment No. 16 is not necessary.

To reiterate, I will consider further Amendment No. 19; I would very much like to discuss it further with the noble Baroness before Report. I hope that the amendment will be withdrawn.

My Lords, the Minister means before Third Reading.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her willingness to consider Amendment No. 19. The government amendment covers the points raised in my Amendment No. 13. The Minister said that she was incredulous at Amendment No. 12; I think that her incredulity-stat is set a bit too low. She said that application forms are not everything; indeed, they are not. The Mayor will give a full and robust rationale for his proposed appointments. Having the application form would allow the Assembly to test his rationale. Clearly, I am not going to persuade the Government on this point, which I have explained adequately and need not reiterate. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 10 and 11 not moved.]

moved Amendment No. 12:

moved Amendment No. 18:

moved Amendment No. 20:

moved Amendment No. 21:

My Lords, I strongly support the amendment and am delighted that it has been brought back. We discussed it at some length in Committee but it needs to be considered on the Floor of the House and with as much openness as possible. To be fair, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Tope, has been mild in putting it forward. In reality, the Assembly’s scrutiny of and ability to affect the Mayor’s budget are a nonsense. The Assembly cannot stop anything that the Mayor wants to be done. It can make any observations that it likes but the Mayor does not have to pay the slightest attention to them; nor, indeed, is there any realistic mechanism whereby the Mayor can be suborned into paying attention to what the Assembly says.

The Government set great store by the word “scrutiny”, but scrutiny is a completely toothless tool. It involves only the power of persuasion. Persuasion may be possible if you are dealing with policies, strategies or something else that can be discussed, but in this case a budget is put before you; it represents the Mayor’s controls and supports his policies, but London pays for it and London is becoming very brassed off with the amount that it is having to pay. The Mayor’s budget has burgeoned since the GLA was formed. In fact, the call on the council tax payer has risen by well over 50 per cent, and I think that the figure would be well in excess of that if calculations were made based on the sums since the mayoralty was introduced.

It seems to us that some mechanism for legitimate control needs to be advanced. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, is right when he says that there has to be a change in the balance between the Mayor knowing clearly that he will have no trouble at all in getting his budget through and his having a bit of a tangle over it and not being at all sure whether it will be accepted on the basis of what the Assembly believes to be appropriate and right for London’s electorate. We also have to remember that the Assembly, as well as the Mayor, is elected and is there to support the London electorate. We very much welcome the amendment and I strongly support it.

My Lords, we are in a familiar situation. Despite the political ability of the opposition parties, they have been unable to find a way forward in relation to the two-thirds majority. They are saying that it has not been possible to achieve what is almost enshrined in many other democratic institutions and procedures—that is, a two-thirds majority to carry a proposition—and, consequently, they want to reduce it to a bare majority. Let us examine what that means.

Noble Lords opposite are arguing that the Mayor has the votes of all the Labour Members in his pocket and, whenever he wishes—using what the noble Lord, Lord Tope, referred to as the shopping list but what is also known as pork-barrel politics—he is able to command the nine votes that he requires. I do not think that one should imagine or predicate that for all time the Mayor will be able to rely on every vote in the Labour group. We have our experiences and the Opposition have theirs. Whatever tendencies the opposition parties may have, in this House, the other place and almost every other democratic forum there is a good history of dissent within the Labour Party. If the Opposition believe that the Labour Members will support the Mayor willy-nilly, regardless of whether he carries out his remit in a heinous, objectionable and appalling manner, they are mistaken.

When we look at the implications for other forms of local government, we have to take on board a number of other factors. Let us examine what the budget, in totality, normally means. I give way to the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on this, because they are very much involved in these matters and I respect their knowledge but, from the papers that I have been sent from various places, it seems that the bulk of the money raised is for the police and neighbourhood policing. I do not know whether people are objecting because too much is being spent in that way or whether they are objecting simply because the Mayor is using his powers to do what he is entitled to do and is getting the budget passed.

When one looks at the budget spent on police matters and compares it with the amount of money spent by other policing authorities, give or take the odd point on either side of 5 per cent, that is the level of the increase in the precept for the Metropolitan Police Authority and policing matters in London. I think that the Opposition are fighting to cut the Mayor down to size, as they believe that that is the only means by which they can get their own way. If they have powerful arguments, they should be able to convince at least the two Green Party Members; even if they convince only one of them, they will have their majority. Again, as they have done on previous amendments, the Opposition are saying, “If we can’t beat ’em, we should change the rules”.

Of course, the rules were made some years ago but that is a very short period in local government. We are talking about less than 10 years. I honestly believe that, if the system were changed, it would become dangerous in democratic terms. In London, we know that politics are very volatile: there are no certainties. We are not even certain who will oppose the Mayor at the next election, never mind what the result will be. As I said, if the Mayor’s policies are unacceptable to the people of London, the Opposition should rest assured that he will be rejected. If he is not rejected but elected, that will be an endorsement for the policies that he and the Assembly have carried through.

We are all involved in arithmetic in politics. It is the art of the possible, involving deals being stitched together to outwit the opposition. The Opposition are saying that the Mayor of London is proving to be more capable than them in getting his own way, but he gets his own way only if the policies that he puts forward are broadly acceptable to the people of London. If they are not, he will be rejected. I hope that he is elected.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, says that the Mayor will not always command the support of the Labour group. If, or when, a Mayor from another party is elected, I suppose that he will not command the support of the Labour group. This is not personalised; this is a point of principle. The amendment was not tabled as an objection to the way in which the current Mayor has dealt with the budget over the past seven years. That has been used as an example to explain what can happen, but this is not a matter of opposing a single individual.

The noble Lord said that the bulk of the budget has been for the police. He may not be aware that that has commanded huge support—invariable support, although my noble friend may correct me—from the Assembly. However, I suggest to him that there could be a situation in which a Mayor put forward a budget that did not propose enough spending on the police in the eyes of Members of the Assembly. Let us consider all the “what ifs”.

The noble Lord also says that a two-thirds majority is widely accepted as the majority needed for change. That is normally the case when one is changing the basic constitution of an organisation, but I do not believe that a budget is a constitutional point in that sense. Budgets in local authorities are not dealt with on the basis of a two-thirds majority. Budgets made by the Government of this country are not dealt with on the basis of a two-thirds majority.

However, I agree with the noble Lord that this is about enabling the Assembly to bring the Mayor down to size—any Mayor, not necessarily this Mayor. I gently stress that a helpful way of considering amendments that might be seen as personalised and attacking could be to look at them as if the object of the attack—a future Mayor—was someone whose politics were the most odious. When considering how the amendment should be dealt with, as parliamentarians wishing to ensure that there is control of a Mayor, let us consider who might be elected to that position. I support my noble friend.

My Lords, in Committee we had a very interesting debate about a similar amendment in which it became obvious that some practices in relation to budgetary challenge need not be set in stone in the GLA. I want to return to those as a way of persuading noble Lords opposite that the amendment is unnecessary, because the Assembly has the power to have more purchase on the budget.

First, I will not go through the budget-setting process in detail. I shall reiterate key points of principle, as I resist this amendment strongly. I have to fulfil the expectation of the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and say that this amendment strikes at the strong Mayor model. Nothing is more important than the budget; I take the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, made on that. That is what London sees in terms of the services delivered by the GLA. The model is based on the simple principle of a strong executive Mayor and an Assembly holding the Mayor to account through effective scrutiny. It has been a successful model, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and my noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton said, for policing and for transport. Policing certainly has commanded great support.

The budget-setting process plays a pivotal role in this model, ensuring the right balance of powers between the Mayor and the Assembly. It provides the Assembly with the power to amend the Mayor’s final draft budget, when approving it, if it can secure a two-thirds majority in favour of change. The Assembly cannot reject the budget, but it provides important checks and balances. There has to be a broad cross-section of Assembly Members providing a clear consensus in favour of amending the Mayor’s final draft budget.

The noble Lord, Lord Tope, did not mention the fact that there is a previous stage, in which the Assembly can exert its influence powerfully. First, the Mayor must present the Assembly with a draft budget, which it may amend by a simple majority. I suggest that the Assembly can exert a great deal of influence at that stage. Then there is a final draft budget, which it can amend by a two-thirds majority. At that first stage, a simple majority is very important. The GLA’s website appears to show that reining in the Mayor’s budget has saved Londoners more than £125 million. I would say that that is fairly powerful.

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her helpful advice on how the Assembly should approach the budget. I hope that she will forgive me if I suggest that she has not actually sat through the budget process at the Assembly—nor, I suspect, have any of the people advising her—whereas the movers of the amendment have had the good fortune to sit through seven Assembly mayoral budget processes. With the greatest respect, I suggest that there is a difference between theory and practice. Maybe the theory is well understood by the Minister and her advisers, but perhaps the practice is better understood by my noble colleague—who has chaired the Assembly and the budget committee, one or the other, continuously throughout the past seven years—and, dare I say, even by me. For the benefit of the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, I declared my membership of the Metropolitan Police Authority, although I did not tell him that for the past seven years I have chaired the finance committee and so have a little understanding of that, too.

I know that my noble friend and I would be very pleased to debate at great length the budget process of the Greater London Authority, but we are not going to. We are talking about an important point of principle. We are all agreed that there is nothing more important than the budget. I am quite certain that the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the other place would love to be able to get his Budget through each year with only one-third of the votes in the House of Commons. My message to him would be, “Dream on”. We must live with the nightmare. This is an important principle. The Mayor’s budget should be agreed by a simple majority of the Assembly, and I wish to test the opinion of the House.

My Lords, I beg to move that further consideration on Report be now adjourned. In moving this Motion, I suggest that Report begins again not before 8.34 pm.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 14 May be approved.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this instrument is needed to enable provisions of a new, directly applicable, EU regulation on drivers’ hours, Regulation (EC) No. 561/2006, to be fully enforceable in Great Britain. The regulation came into force throughout Europe on 11 April 2007. We believe that the new rules strike a fair balance between improving road safety and working conditions for drivers and the economic needs of industry.

Two concerns have been raised about the new rules by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. He pursued them with his customary vigour and concern in this House on an earlier occasion. The first concerns members of the Territorial Army who are HGV or PSV drivers. The new weekly rest requirements make it difficult for a driver to complete a 36-hour period of Territorial Army training at the weekend and then resume work for his primary employer on a Monday morning. This is a legitimate concern, which we accept. We have written to the European Commission requesting a specific derogation on this issue. As noble Lords will be aware, that was announced in a Written Statement on 11 June. We are optimistic that the Commission will agree to this request. The noble Earl’s second concern relates to the definition of “historic” for the purposes of applying the new exemption for non-commercially operated historic vehicles. We have amended our proposals by defining a historic vehicle as one that was manufactured more than 25 years before the occasion on which it is being driven.

I also understand that the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, expressed concerns that private HGVs used to transport historic vehicles, often traction engines, to events are no longer exempt because of the new weight restriction of 7.5 tonnes on vehicles used for non-commercial carriage of goods. This restriction is directly applicable and cannot be disapplied.

All I can say in conclusion is that the regulations have already been considered and approved by the other place. I look forward to the issues that I have not covered being raised in debate. I beg to move.

Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 14 May be approved. 18th Report from the Statutory Instruments Committee.—(Lord Bassam of Brighton.)

My Lords, before calling the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, I have to inform the House that if it is agreed to, I cannot call the amendment in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, due to pre-emption.

rose to move, as an amendment to the above Motion, to leave out all the words after that and insert, “this House, having regard to the cost implications for rural bus services and the social exclusion that will result and the lack of response of Her Majesty’s Government to the facts put forward at consultation, declines to approve the Draft Community Drivers’ Hours and Recording Equipment Regulations 2007”.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, the speech I shall make is not political or anti-European. I find it fairly objectionable that a regulation is already in force by the time it reaches this place so that we are talking after the event. I hope that that does not mean that the Government cannot pursue some changes to the legislation or exploit the derogations that have been put in place by other people. I am aiming my remarks at the officials who negotiate.

The regulations we are debating impose a limit of 31.5 miles as the maximum distance over which a local bus route may operate unless it complies with the new rules introduced by this legislation. They impose onerous limits on drivers’ hours and rest periods. Although the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, referred to improved safety and improved conditions for drivers, there is little evidence that safety is at issue with rural bus services. It may well be in towns, but I am not talking about bus services in towns, which do not operate over such distances and are basically compliant.

I wish to concentrate on rural areas, where operations are long in time and distance. I am thinking of the rural transport needs of places such as Cornwall. Medical and educational services have increasingly been centralised. In Cornwall, they are basically provided only in Truro, which is a long way away from many places.

In that county, a small bus operator entered the market some time ago when the dominant operator gradually withdrew. He has provided services over a lot of the county that are applauded by many people. Among them, he introduced a service from Bude to Truro. That is where the hospital and education facilities are. He was hailed for so doing. That journey takes two and a half hours running through deep rural areas. Under the regulations—or rather, to avoid the costs associated with the regulations—the route has now been split into three parts, with changes necessary at Boscastle and St Columb Road.

Such changes gave rise to a letter written to the manager of the bus company that I would now like to read to the House. It states:

“Dear Sir

I am very concerned by your new bus time table.

I am nearly eighty, have cancer, and have to go to Treliske for fairly frequent out patient appointments.

Until recently I could go from Wadebridge to Treliske on one bus. Now (since 6^th April) I have to go to St Columb, change buses, go to Truro Victoria Sq., change buses, another bus to Treliske—a nightmare six buses for every appointment. Why?

Please restore the Wadebridge to Treliske bus in your summer time table”.

There is no evidence that the drivers of that company wanted the changes. In fact, the senior driver there went to the managing director and berated him for introducing the changes which cause a lot of inconvenience. The buses that are supposed to connect along the route do not always do so because of road works or holiday traffic and the quality of service has been badly undermined. So there is no pressure from drivers in rural areas and there is no evidence of safety being jeopardised.

Who negotiates these regulations? Who do they think will benefit? In June 2004, the small bus operators met the then Minister, Tony McNulty, who was sympathetic, but the issue was passed to officials who took no notice and added that the rural bus operators would have to pay out of their profits for the changes being made.

Rural bus operators do not make much profit. I know that the Minister knows that inflation in the bus industry is well in advance of that which we are told about by government. It is three times the inflation rate, because insurance costs, fuel costs and wages go up. It is beyond the resources of most county councils to afford the increases even to sustain existing bus services.

When you read the small print of the regulation, as was pointed out to me at a meeting that the Minister kindly arranged, the Finnish representatives had secured a derogation in Article 13.3 in respect of vehicles operating in predefined areas with a population density of less than five persons per square kilometre. I have two questions for the Minister. If the Finnish delegation was wise enough to support a derogation, why do not we not use the opportunity of negotiations to protect rural services? Are our negotiators so ignorant of rural affairs that they do not comprehend the issues involved?

If a county council in England were to certify a sparsely populated area as being served by a rural bus service, could it not be covered by that derogation, already won by the Finns, and a list of such services be furnished to the Commission?

The regulation worsens services for rural bus users, puts up the cost of services that remain, worsens the lot of the probably most socially deprived rural poor, makes life difficult for rural bus drivers, who have to explain the complicated regulations, and limits access to centralised facilities.

It is essential that those who go to Brussels understand and promote the interests of rural communities, not simply the issues pertinent to London and the Home Counties. Most small businesses in rural areas, be they involved in farming, retailing or buses, suffer from that lack of understanding and neglect by officials.

My Lords, I received the note that the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, sent to all Members this morning and read it with interest because this area of legislation is of interest to me. What I cannot understand from his contribution is why he did not define the costs that will be incurred by the operator. It may be that in the judgment of the House, that sum is too small to warrant the exemption, the effective opt-out, from the legislation that he has called for. We may be talking about 0.5 per cent, 0.25 per cent or 20 per cent of turnover. We have no idea. The noble Lord’s contribution has been very interesting, but he missed out that particularly significant area of debate which I am sure will be of interest to the whole House, including my noble friend.

My Lords, I support the amendment to the Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. I congratulate him on a rather unexpectedly robust speech from the Liberal Democrat Benches on the EU. He said that he was not against the EU. Of course, I have to declare an opposite view: I am against the EU. This very legislation is an example of why I am against the EU.

The Government were clearly caught on the hop by this, although I do not understand why; they have spent four years negotiating the regulation. Like the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, I wonder what on earth the Government and our UKREP people in Brussels were doing during those four years. They must have been aware of the problems of rural bus services and, indeed, of the Territorial Army, during those four years. I do not know why they did not do something about it before it came before us tonight. That is quite astonishing. If they did not know anything about it, why not? Our representatives there are paid to do these jobs, after all.

I ask that in particular because I tabled a Starred Question on this very subject on 22 March. I do not think that the Minister was then particularly well briefed. He acknowledged the important part played by the Territorial Army reservists in our forces, but did not appear to recognise the effects of the legislation on those reservists. When I asked him whether the Government had sought a derogation for the Armed Forces, he replied:

“I am not aware that we are approaching the matter in that way. If there are problems—

that is a big if—

“with the way in which the regulations work, I am sure that we will have further discussions to ensure that the necessary flexibility exists”.—[Official Report, 22/3/07; col. 1339.]

So on 22 March, we were not asking for a derogation. Cut to Monday 11 June and, lo and behold, the Minister issued a Written Statement, to which he has referred. I shall quote briefly from it:

“I am today announcing that I have written to the European Commission requesting an exemption from Regulation (EC) 561/2006 on drivers’ hours for professional drivers when undertaking military training with the volunteer Reserve Forces or acting as instructors in the cadet corps at the weekend”.

It referred later to the rest periods, which,

“would enable a driver who finishes his normal driving duties on a Friday to complete a 36 hour period of training as a volunteer reservist or as an instructor in the cadet corps during the weekend and then resume his normal driving duties again on a Monday morning”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/6/07; col. 38WS.]

Will the Minister clarify exactly what this means? Will drivers or instructors be able to start work for their regular employer on a Monday morning after their weekend duties with the Territorial Army? It is important to be clear about this.

This morning, I received a letter from a Territorial Army reservist, which I would like to share briefly with your Lordships. He has asked not to be named, but I can say that he serves with the 3rd Battalion the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment. He was working for the Post Office. He says that,

“the way things are now is that … I was given the following options. 1. Leave the TA 2. Leave the Post Office 3. Change duties so I don’t drive the lorries 4. Take unpaid leave to cover the rest time. I have taken option 3 as the other options are unacceptable but this means I have had to give up a £60 a week pay rise as all HGV drivers were given this to cover the new rules in the post office … So on the whole I think things have not gone … well”.

He finishes:

“So in the tradition of the TA I have had adapt and overcome but it has cost me £60 per week to serve my country”.

I, too, think that things have not gone so well.

This really will not do. Is it not shameful that what is still sometimes called the mother of Parliaments has to petition the unelected and unsackable European Commission to change the law affecting our Armed Forces? Is it not humiliating that neither the other place nor this House has any say at all in EU legislation? It is, I am afraid, a case of, “Swallow it whole and swallow it now”. Although I wholeheartedly support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, I point out to him that if he divides the House, which I am very happy to hear he will, and if we win the Division, the Government will be put in the tricky position of having to go cap in hand like a naughty schoolboy to the headmaster’s office in Brussels and explain that, “shock, horror”, the British Parliament—how dare it?—has voted down an EU regulation. That is simply not allowed, is it? Nervous breakdowns all round. I am really looking forward to the Minister explaining to Brussels that it is all a horrible mistake, and then explaining to this House that yes, Parliament is sovereign, but not that sovereign.

I end by reminding your Lordships of the unsavoury fact that most of our laws now come from Brussels. Thousands of regulations pass every year into UK law without Parliament ever seeing them. The Minister may look slightly perturbed, but it is absolutely true. Indeed, more than 2,000 of them were passed in 2006 alone. Those are the laws that we cannot touch; not one syllable, not one word, not one comma of them. They go straight into law. That gives rise to a serious question that is put not by any Minister in this Government or, I am afraid, by any Opposition spokesman, but by Roman Herzog, the former President of the German republic, when he learnt that 80 per cent of German law is actually made in Brussels. He said:

“By far the largest part of the current laws in Germany are agreed by the Council of Ministers and not the German parliament ... Therefore the question has to be asked whether Germany can still unreservedly call itself a parliamentary democracy”.

The time has come for our Parliament to ask itself the same question.

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to speak from the Conservative Front Benches on the regulations and the proposed amendment to it. I have some questions to put to the Minister, and some strong comments to make on which I would like him to comment. I have quite a lot of sympathy for the amendment, although I make it clear that we on these Benches will not vote for it. Although the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, made some very valuable comments, I do not support much of what he said.

Dr Ladyman, the Commons Minister responsible for negotiating this legislation on behalf of UK, said:

“I will not stand here and tell the Committee that the regulations are perfect in every way, shape or form … This is the best compromise that we could get and currently there is no prospect of sufficient support among the other member states for any further changes. That does not mean that we will not get them, but at the moment there is not much chance”.—[Official Report, Commons First Delegated Legislation Committee, 12/6/07; col. 13.]

That is pertinent to what the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said, and is not a particularly ringing endorsement of what we are being asked to consider in your Lordships’ House today. I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said about our competence in negotiation, particularly on rural issues. We should at least give Dr Ladyman credit for his honesty. However, if he is not particularly keen on the legislation, what hope do the industry and those affected, particularly in rural areas, have? One can tell by the sheer number of derogations applicable to the regulations that they are simply too blunt and arbitrary an instrument to achieve what they set out to do, however well meaning they may be. At this point, let me emphasise that we on these Benches take extremely seriously the whole issue of road safety and the measures designed to deter those who are unfit to drive safely on our roads.

I should be grateful if the Minister would comment on a number of points. The vast majority of UK operators intend to abide by the regulations. However, they are exasperated by hauliers from other countries who flout such regulations. During the passage of the Road Safety Bill, we discussed at some length allowing UK authorities the ability to enforce and prosecute foreign drivers for offences committed in this country. Will the Minister say where we are in achieving this objective? Will foreign drivers be subject to scrutiny and a subsequent penalty regime at the roadside that are at least as strong as those for UK drivers? We in this country seem to be extremely good at enforcing—or, as some have put it, gold-plating—EU legislation, to the detriment of UK interests, while the evidence in other countries is that they are much less rigorous about doing the same thing. In addition, effective enforcement depends on agencies having the capacity and equipment to do so. Will the Minister clarify what his plans are to improve enforcement by the relevant agencies? Will he say in particular whether VOSA has the resources to carry out such functions? If it does, will he tell us how many additional traffic examiners are being trained and the cost of that training? I shall also probe the Government on their definition of “journey”, as my colleague in the other place did.

In addition, weekly rest is still contentious. The Confederation of Passenger Transport is still campaigning in Brussels on the coach industry’s problems with weekly rest. Previously, the coach industry regulations stated that drivers could postpone taking weekly rest for 12 days, and then take two days’ rest together. Drivers in the goods industry are required to take weekly rest after a maximum of six days. The Confederation of Passenger Transport felt that the regulations on weekly rest were inflexible about when drivers should stop working and start taking their weekly or daily rest. I therefore wonder whether the Minister will clarify the matter further today.

Despite large sectors being exempt in the derogations, notable groups will still fall foul of the regulations. My noble friend Lord Attlee will comment on this in a moment. It is a pity that he has not had the chance to do so already. He has been heavily involved not least with the Reserve Forces, and I am sure that he will go into much more detail when he has a chance to speak. I simply ask the Minister what plans the Government have to include other notable groups in any future application for derogation, and whether he is entirely satisfied that no other groups, such as retained firefighters, coastguards, and community transport and mountain rescue volunteers, will be unfairly penalised as a result of being included in the regulations.

Finally, as in the other place, I ask the Minister whether the Government would consider a review of these regulations after a suitable period so that we may assess their impact, their cost and whether they have been effective in improving road safety.

My Lords, it might be a convenient moment to speak to my amendment, perhaps in a different tone from the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, and despite the fact that he has taken some of the wind out of my sails. Before speaking to my amendment I should remind the House of my interests: I am still a serving TA officer, patron of the Road Rescue Recovery Association and president of the Heavy Transport Association. I have quite a long speech, but the underlying EU directive is the equivalent of primary legislation, and the subject is complex and multi-faceted. I think that it would help your Lordships if I explained some of the problems facing the TA.

First, I have an observation on the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. Surely, it should be possible to split a route into two so that if a current route, say, route 9, with a length of 60 kilometres, is split into routes 9A and 9B, neither of which exceed 50 kilometres, the problem disappears. It seems to be rather loose drafting in the EU regulations.

I cannot deny that the new EU regulations are needed to further improve road safety. Among other things, drivers will be issued with a driver’s smartcard to put into the digital tachograph, but there will be only one card per driver, per licence holder, which will be invaluable in stopping drivers from working under two names. With the old style of analogue tachograph, drivers could easily work continuously for one employer during the week and for another agency at the weekend, which, obviously, is extremely dangerous and undesirable.

Unfortunately, these regulations and the underlying EU directive do not meet the needs of the voluntary Reserve Forces, which is why I have tabled my non-fatal amendment. The Minister refers to it as a difficult issue. The regulations define rest as,

“any uninterrupted period during which a driver may freely dispose of his time”.

But, once under military law on a weekend exercise, a vocational driver does not, by definition, have time at his free disposal. Being engaged on a weekend field exercise does not count as rest; it is classed as “other work”. All vocational drivers who are members of the volunteer Reserve Forces have to keep a record of all the work they do while on duty, irrespective of whether this involves driving duties.

As the Minister said, in a Written Answer the Minister of State for Defence Equipment and Support, the noble Lord, Lord Drayson, stated that under these regulations,

“a vocational driver must take a regular weekly rest period of at least 45 consecutive hours, which can be reduced down to 24 hours every other week, before recommencing work”.—[Official Report, 24/5/07; col. WA 139.]

Unless the driver is able to complete the required weekly rest period before commencing his weekend training—he will not have a problem if he takes Thursday and Friday off work, but he will if he works the full five days—he must take the required weekly rest period as soon as the training finishes. But that would mean that a driver who finishes training at 5 pm on Sunday would not be able to recommence work until 5 pm on Monday afternoon if taking a reduced rest period, which he can do only once every two weeks, or 2 pm on the following Tuesday if he is taking the full 45 hours. That is impractical for most employers. It is their legal duty to ensure that their drivers have sufficient rest, which they might not have had if they start driving first thing on Monday morning after weekend training. Of course, it is ironic that, should he drive a minibus of scouts 200, 300 or 400 miles for a holiday, that would not be a problem under the regulations. The problem is that military service is not time at one’s free disposal.

Arrangements between the employer and the reservist could be made. However, the driver cannot be certain when an exercise will finish. I have been very surprised sometimes to finish an exercise six hours later than I anticipated. But the driver will not be able to give his employer a precise time when he can start driving professionally again. If the driver is driving for a builders’ merchant, I do not think that the yard foreman will be very pleased when the driver leaves work on Friday saying, “I might be able to start at seven o’clock on Monday morning, but it might be Tuesday morning”.

If a driver completes a full week’s driving, he will not be able to commit to a full weekend’s training if he has no option but to start work again on Monday morning. This would have a severe impact on a small infantry unit, which may have only a few HGV drivers, many of whom will drive for a living. TA units could be confined to base at weekends because they do not have enough drivers to undertake their training. In addition, many large logistic units will be deprived of a significant proportion of their HGV drivers, many of whom are needed to support the Regular Army on operations.

I welcome the Written Statement by the Minister of State, Dr Stephen Ladyman, informing the House that a derogation had been sought by the Department for Transport for an exemption to the weekly rest requirements for professional drivers when training with the volunteer Reserve Forces. It is a tightly drafted derogation or request for derogation. However, the Minister admits that,

“it may take some time for the European Commission to respond to my request”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/6/07; col. 38WS.]

In the mean time, all reservists will need to comply with the regulation as it stands. It is the employer who is in difficulty, not the TA. There is no possibility of the TA turning a blind eye to the problem; it is in the hands of the employer. To be fair to Ministers, this problem has always existed; we have not recognised it. But does the Minister agree that waiting 18 months is impractical for the TA and vocational drivers?

The EU regulations also apply to recovery vehicles, which are used to rescue lorries and cars that break down. Unfortunately, I have not given any notice to the Minister, so he may have difficulty in answering me fully. I do not have any difficulty with the regulations being made to apply to recovery vehicles. In any case, there is a 100-kilometre radius of exemption. In fact, I had some anxiety when the regulations did not apply to recovery vehicles. However, what happens if a recovery vehicle is despatched 80 kilometres from the operating centre, which is comfortably within the exempt area, and then the customer requests that the casualty vehicle is moved to another location 120 kilometres from the operating centre, outside the radius? Clearly, the recovery vehicle and the driver fall within the scope. The problem is whether the driver should insert a disc into the tachograph when he leaves base, even though he could not know that he would be leaving the exempt radius. Should he comply with the rules as soon as he knows that he is leaving the exempt radius? But how does he remember all the other work he did during the past 15 days? Does the driving done beforehand count as driving hours and, if so, how? How is the driving undertaken in the previous 15 days to be treated for the purposes of the legislation?

Let us make no mistake: industry is content to implement the regulations. I have not been asked to resist them. However, how the regulations will work in practice is very important. At the moment there is uncertainty, and industry does not understand how these regulations are to be implemented in the circumstances I described. An interesting point is that, if the EU regulations were primary legislation, I am sure that they would not pass scrutiny because they are too vague. I understand that I may not get a full answer to my points about recovery vehicles this evening. Perhaps if I draft some suitable Questions for Written Answer, the Minister could give me some detailed answers that would explain to industry what it is supposed to be doing.

Another concern with the regulations, to which the Minister referred, is that they will have an impact on genuine users of heavy-goods vehicles weighing over 7.5 tonnes. The people at whom the regulations were aimed were those pretending they were private users when they were actually commercial. As the Minister said, these vehicles are often used privately in connection with steam rallies to move exhibits. There might be a perverse incentive for someone facing these difficulties to use a historic vehicle that is exempt because it is over 25 years old; but such an older vehicle will not have all the safety and environmental features of a newer one, and its harmful emissions would be significant, especially when it is used loaded.

Considerable effort will have to be put into these vehicles to meet a new requirement to keep the tachograph sealed and calibrated. A number of enthusiasts were caught out last month when their vehicles unexpectedly failed the goods vehicle MoT test because the tachograph was not sealed and calibrated. It worked perfectly but it was not calibrated. The regulation will also present maintenance problems. If the gearbox has to be removed, unless it has an electronic tachograph with an umbilical cord, you will lose the sealing on the tachograph. This will cause more expense and labour.

The cost will be disproportionate compared to the safety benefit of the regulation as it applies to historic vehicles, as the cost of calibrating and sealing a tachograph will be comparable to the annual insurance bill. It costs around £50 to pay for the calibration and sealing but only about £100 for the insurance. I argue that the cost of calibrating is disproportionate. An owner will usually have to take time off from his day job to take the vehicle to be calibrated, thereby losing either a day’s pay or a day’s holiday. Younger vehicles will be less attractive to preserved vehicles enthusiasts, as they will need to comply with the regulations. In that way we could lose some of our heritage.

When moving his Motion the Minister was very unhelpful in regard to the private use of heavy-goods vehicles. If I was in his position, I would probably have to do the