asked Her Majesty’s Government:

What assistance they are providing to the Government of Spain, both bilaterally and through the European Union, to reduce people smuggling through west Africa and Spain.

My Lords, in addition to bilateral operational co-operation, the UK and Spain contributed personnel to a European Border Agency operation last summer in the Canaries, working specifically to tackle illegal migration flows from west Africa. We have also worked closely with Spain in implementing the EU global approach to migration, which seeks to address the causes of illegal migration that lead migrants to approach people smugglers.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reference to “last summer”. This, however, is the beginning of this summer’s season for people smuggling from west Africa. Does she recall our departing Prime Minister saying two or three years ago that Britain’s frontier was in the Mediterranean? Cleary, it is also off west Africa. There are stories in the press about Punjabis being smuggled through west Africa and Chinese people-smuggling routes going through Africa carrying Eritreans and Somalis, many of whom we know will attempt to get to Britain. Is this not a clear case where closer co-operation with all of our European partners—Spain in particular—and a British contribution to strengthening Frontex, the border agency, are exactly what we need in our own national interest?

My Lords, we support the work of Frontex, and we want to strengthen it. However, we do not believe that it should have a permanent presence in the Canaries because we believe that it would be viewed as establishing a de facto European border guard. We do not agree that that is the right way forward at this moment.

My Lords, without pre-empting the Statement to be made later today, does the Minister recall that a recent Europe Select Committee report on Schengen information service II recommended that the Government should seek to gain access to SIS immigration data? Is the Minister satisfied that the outcome of the European Council has increased the chances of gaining such data?

My Lords, I regret that I do not have information on SIS data specifically, but I will seek that information and inform the noble Lord. However, I am delighted by the outcome of the recent summit. The results with regard to justice and home affairs are particularly important, because we have reached an agreement whereby we will continue to be very active players in JHA but we can have safeguards and opt-outs where we believe it to be in the national interest.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, rightly described what is, for better or worse, now our frontier. Of the estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants coming into the EU each year, it is thought that about one-quarter are coming by this route. Is the Minister aware that the Spanish have been trying to develop the integrated system of external vigilance, otherwise known, rather appropriately, as SIVE? That is their high-tech attempt to check the enormous number of immigrants coming across from Africa to various ports in southern Spain. Is there anything we can do to reinforce the efficiency of the SIVE system to make it a bit less sieve-like and ensure, with the Spanish, that some check is made on a line of entry into the EU that is now used not just by Africans but, as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, rightly said, by Chinese and other Asian groups as well? They are moving to, for example, Mauritania; from there, they are leaping off to the Canary Islands and from there into the European Union. Surely there is more we could do to stop that channel.

My Lords, I am sure that we are happy to work bilaterally with Spain in reinforcing its capacity to ensure that its illegal immigrants do not enter the European Union via the Canaries. I am sure that that is under discussion. Indeed, we worked last year with Spain on capacity and training to ensure that people entering through the Canaries were properly apprehended. If I have further information for the noble Lord, I will provide it in writing.

My Lords, have any new proposals emerged from the EU-Africa conference held in Spain last week at which I understand the FCO was represented? In particular, has any progress been made with the EU-Africa action plan on migration and development, which seeks to involve both the countries of origin and transit in solving this problem?

My Lords, I do not have the results of that very important meeting, which took place in Madrid between officials. However, we believe that this is an extremely important forum because we see the direct link between migration and development policies. We are seeking to improve the capacity of our partners in the Mediterranean to deal with migrants as well as alleviating poverty and improving education in the countries they are coming from so that people do not want to leave them.

My Lords, I declare an interest as patron of a new charity called Stop Trafficking of People in the UK. Does the noble Baroness accept that in terms of people trafficking and terrorism, smuggling in lorries into this country remains an extremely serious problem? Will the Government ensure that the road haulage industry is aware of the ever-increased vigilance being given to lorries, both curtain-sided and fixed-sided, coming into this country? Some contain smuggled people, some of whom are destined to slave labour in this country.

My Lords, the Government are fully aware of the terrible nature of trafficking and we are doing our utmost to stop that crime. Road haulage is beyond my brief today; however, what the noble Lord says is eminently sensible, and I am sure that the Government are working to improve the information for hauliers so that they are aware of the situation.

My Lords, we understand that people smuggling is now a more profitable form of transnational crime than drug smuggling. Clearly, it should be a very high priority for international police co-operation. Are we doing enough in promoting that co-operation with our European partners and, through them, the police in the countries through which these people are being trafficked?

My Lords, we are working with our police partners in the European Union. We now have agents from SOCA—the Serious Organised Crime Agency—in most of our embassies and high commissions. We have SOCA people in Madrid, and I am sure that they are working with the police in Spain to exchange best practice and work together so that we can stop the affliction of people smuggling.

asked Her Majesty’s Government:

What is their estimate of the number of people resident for many years in the United Kingdom who are not listed in any official statistics; and what will be their status when identity cards are introduced.

My Lords, no Government can be expected to produce an accurate figure for the number of people who are not included in official statistics. However, once identity cards are introduced, details of everyone issued with an ID card will be held on a national identity register which will provide us with much better information on who is resident in the United Kingdom.

My Lords, I thank the Minister. I ask this Question because I met a Latin-American woman who has been living in this country for 27 years. She got a job on arrival here; the employer gave her a national insurance card and deducted tax from her pay. When the business folded—I do not know whether it was because they ran away or because it just went broke—and she attempted to reclaim the tax, she was told that nothing had ever been paid and her national insurance number was a fake. She has been living in fear in this country—and living invisibly—ever since. There must be many thousands of people similarly invisible. What are the human rights of these people, and what will happen if they apply for an ID card when the time comes?

My Lords, obviously each individual case throws up different answers but, in general terms, the noble Baroness’s acquaintance should apply to the Home Office Border and Immigration Agency to regularise her position and apply for indefinite leave to remain; that is, to settle in the United Kingdom entirely legally. The Immigration Rules allow for that. The noble Baroness may like to look at the useful website provided by the Border and Immigration Agency. It bears consideration and may enable her to assist her friend.

My Lords, will the Minister confirm that identity cards will be introduced?

My Lords, it was a clear manifesto commitment and we have put legislation in place. Clearly, the public understand the benefits of identity cards.

My Lords, the cost report on ID cards produced by the Government last May indicated that the people taken into account were British or Irish citizens resident in this country. A large number of people are non-resident—people from other countries who have a legal right to settle here or who may be on indefinite leave to remain here. Have the Government quantified the number of those people involved and the costs relating to them?

My Lords, I am sure that we do make estimates of that sort, but such a group would be caught by the ID card implementation programme. If they have indefinite leave to remain here, they will benefit from an ID card which, in many respects, will be a passport to many of the services and benefits that they wish to enjoy while living in this country.

My Lords, the type of case raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, is not totally unknown to me. Does the Minister agree that one advantage of the introduction of identity cards is that it will be made more difficult, although not impossible, for employers to abuse individuals in that way, which is devastating for them?

My Lords, I entirely agree with my noble friend. The implementation of the ID card scheme will bring many benefits that we cannot currently foresee. That is why the Government are bringing it forward.

My Lords, what would be the position of the person given as an example by my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes if they were to apply for treatment under the National Health Service? Would they have to pay and, if so, is the National Health Service geared up to make proper demands for such payment?

My Lords, I am sure that there are rules governing people in that position. I do not have a precise answer for the noble Lord, but I will find one and communicate with him directly.

My Lords, we have heard from the Minister that one of the benefits of ID cards is that people in this country who are unknown to us will be found out. However, are the Government ready for the application of perhaps several hundred thousand of these people for leave to remain and identity cards? If they all apply, it will be in very large numbers.

My Lords, of course we are ready for that eventuality. It is part of our planning so that this programme is introduced in a sensible and phased way. That is why we have given ourselves a reasonable run-in period. First up, it will be for foreign nationals to register through the ID cards process. That will provide a lot of information to enable us to see how the process works best and to have a smooth implementation.

My Lords, will the Minister clarify his earlier comment that the ID card will be a passport to services? I understood that that had been categorically excluded from the legislation.

My Lords, the ID card scheme will enable us to prevent abuse of our system. In the same way, it will act as a passport so that people will know who is in front of them and whether or not they are entitled to a service.

My Lords, the Minister mentioned the “indefinite leave to remain” passport stamp, but all Australians renewing passports are being told that this stamp is no longer being issued. That contradicts his remark.

My Lords, I do not think that it does. I tried to explain to the noble Baroness that her acquaintance should seek indefinite leave to remain here to regularise her position. She will then be properly brought into the population, accounted for and issued with all the relevant documents. If she is fully entitled to services, that will be of immense benefit to her.

My Lords, has the Minister noticed that there is growing support for the Strangers into Citizens campaign? Have the Government formed a view on that?

My Lords, I am not aware that we have formed a view on it, but it seems to me that encouraging people to regularise their position if they have been long-term resident in the UK is a very sensible strategy.

asked Her Majesty’s Government:

What progress they are making in phasing out mixed-sex wards in National Health Service hospitals.

My Lords, single-sex accommodation should be the norm for elective care and remains the ideal for all admissions. We have made that clear in this year’s NHS operating framework. In emergencies, the need to admit has priority. Some 99 per cent of trusts provide single-sex sleeping accommodation in wards other than A&E admission units and critical care.

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. However, as he will be aware from the report by the NHS Chief Nursing Officer, although it is claimed that 99 per cent of people are in single-sex wards, the survey, when questioned, shows quite different figures. Many more people complain than is suggested by the figures. Is the Minister aware that the Chief Nursing Officer has also said that people give priority to clean hospitals rather than to single-sex wards? What a disgrace that it should be either/or.

My Lords, in fairness to the Chief Nursing Officer, the work she undertook was partly to get the views of patients, who made it clear that cleaning is a top priority. That does not mean that there is any complacency about the issue of mixed-sex accommodation. The noble Baroness refers in her Question to “mixed-sex wards”, but the target that was set in 1997 was on mixed-sex accommodation. That definition of mixed-sex accommodation was the same one used by the noble Baroness's own Government.

My Lords, the Minister will recall that I have been pursuing this matter since 1994. We still do not have a resolution of it. All the reports show that patients, particularly women, rate this problem as very important indeed. As we are presently spending £91 billion a year—equivalent to £1,500 per person each year—is it not appalling that we cannot solve this problem? Can he assure me that hospital staff have the idea that patients are top and should be treated properly as customers and not supplicants?

My Lords, I hope very much that the whole ethos and value of the NHS is to treat patients as people who deserve dignity and quality of care, and of course they should not be treated as supplicants. The noble Lord has been asking questions about single-sex accommodation for a number of years; and I have been answering questions about the same subject for what seems any number of years. The health service has made considerable progress. It did reach the target of 95 per cent of trusts eliminating mixed-sex accommodation except in areas such as emergency admissions where it is not always practical to do so. The problem arises because eliminating “mixed-sex accommodation” is taken to mean removing mixed-sex wards. In modern health service terms that is not possible because of the need for specialisation. That is why the emphasis is on segregation within wards. I agree that that has been the cause of some confusion for patients.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that failure to eliminate mixed-sex wards is due in large part to hospital managers trying to achieve unrealistically high bed occupancy rates? Does he also agree that, like the failure to control MRSA, this problem is due in great part to the obsession with targets, which militate against good patient care?

No, my Lords; I do not accept any of those comments. We have targets in order to reduce long waiting times for treatment. Time and again patients have made it clear that that is what they want. On the question of whether this is done by managerial diktat, the answer is no. Fifty years ago there were single-sex wards, but specialisation in today’s modern health service means that patients need to receive specialist care in the same area. That leads to the safest possible care. We have to ensure that in that context there is segregation in those ward areas, and this is being done.

My Lords, I note what the Minister said but there is still a certain lack of clarity. In 2004, NHS managers told the Secretary of State that mixed-sex accommodation had been eliminated in 99 per cent of trusts and yet she subsequently discovered through work done by journalists and many case studies—examples provided by patients themselves—that this clearly was not the case. Does the Minister put this anomaly down to inaccurate data collection or has the problem got worse over the past three years as trusts have found themselves under increasing financial pressure?

My Lords, that is not the position at all. It is clear that the original target can be met with men and women being nursed together in some circumstances—principally in emergency areas, including admission and assessment units. As regards some of the survey work that has been undertaken, the discrepancy between the number of trusts which are complying with the original target and the perception of patients in that regard concerns the distinction between mixed-sex wards and mixed-sex accommodation. Clearly, much more needs to be done. More also needs to be done to inform patients. However, I assure the noble Earl that we continue to see this as a priority. The Chief Nursing Officer will issue further guidance later this year. We are not at all complacent about this matter.

My Lords, I declare an interest having spent two nights last summer in a bay of an orthopaedic ward with two women and four men. I place on record my gratitude to the nurse who provided me with a pair of pyjama trousers in addition to my surgical gown. Does the noble Lord recognise that targets need to be changed to provide for a greater surplus of beds in hospitals in order to avoid the acute shortage of beds that left me in that position?

My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord looked most elegant in that outfit. Of course, it is important that individual hospitals have flexibility to ensure that targets can be delivered while ensuring that safety is a paramount concern. They have flexibility in the way in which wards are managed. However, central targets have ensured that waiting times for patients have been drastically reduced. The targets that we set in train from the centre dealt with mixed-sexed accommodation. Through those targets the health service understands the priority to be given to this important area. Of course, we want to reduce the number of targets, but there will always be a need for some central direction and guidance.

asked Her Majesty’s Government:

How they intend to proceed with the future aircraft carrier project.

My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will join me in offering sincere condolences to the families and friends of Corporal John Rigby, who was killed on Friday during operations in Iraq, and of Drummer Thomas Wright, who was killed yesterday during operations in Afghanistan.

We intend to start building the two new aircraft carriers once we have agreed a robust and affordable deal.

My Lords, we, too, send our condolences to the family of Drummer Thomas Wright, and our thoughts are with those who were injured in the same explosion in Afghanistan. We also send our condolences to the family of Corporal John Rigby, particularly his twin brother Will, who was serving in the same battalion of the Rifles in Basra and will accompany his brother’s coffin back to Britain.

Last year, the Minister told the House that industry consolidation was a precondition for signing the contract on the carriers, but the industry says that there can be no further consolidation unless the carriers are ordered. For how much longer are the Government content to play poker with the industry, with thousands of jobs and the future of the Royal Navy at stake? Do they still want the carriers?

My Lords, we absolutely want the carriers, and are prepared to play poker for as long as it takes to get them on the terms that we want.

My Lords, we, too, on these Benches send our condolences to the families of the latest casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq, particularly those from the old Royal Green Jackets—now the Rifles—who were based at a depot in my old constituency near Winchester.

Do the Government continue to support a planned and managed approach to the restructuring of the warship-building industry and the significant benefits that it provides, including substantial savings, the de-risking of projects, the achievement of the future carrier target price, and the optimisation of export opportunities? What impact would a decision not to go ahead with the future carrier programme have on Britain’s international obligations and strategic ability to project power?

My Lords, this Government have invested more in building up a modern surface and submarine fleet than any in decades. The decisions that we have taken to ensure that we have the ships for a modern Navy are being implemented. We are robustly implementing the combination of that investment with a clear strategy for industry, published at the end of 2005. That is leading to industry making the changes that we need to get to the point where this country has a competitive shipbuilding industry that can continue to build the ships that the Navy needs in future. We do not need to begin contemplating what we do about not going ahead with the carriers; we just need to get the deal in place such that we can begin manufacture.

My Lords, if the ships are eventually built, is it intended that they will form part of the rapid reaction force?

No, my Lords. The purpose of the ships is to provide the centrepiece of the carrier strike force which was set out in the Strategic Defence Review in 1998. It is a fundamental pillar of the Government’s defence strategy.

My Lords, what is the status of negotiations with France on the aircraft carriers?

My Lords, we agreed at the end of 2005 to work with France in licensing to it the design rights to the aircraft carriers. As it was able to use our work on its own aircraft carrier, it agreed to pay one-third of the costs through the development phase. That collaboration has gone well. We have been able to maintain the pace and cost of the British project without any negative impacts because of the structure of that collaboration with France.

My Lords, what is the earliest date when we might expect the carriers, assuming that the original date is now completely obsolete?

My Lords, it is not obsolete. Do not assume because we have not signed the contracts on the building of the carriers that we are prepared to see any slippage on their implementation and coming into service.

My Lords, is the Minister confident that there will be aircraft appropriate to fly off the carriers when they are delivered? I see that at the recent air show there was a cardboard, plywood and papier mâché model of the JSF on display. How is the JSF making progress, and are we confident that it will be ready when the aircraft carriers are ready?

My Lords, an aircraft carrier without aircraft would be useless. I am pleased that the noble Lord saw a papier mâché model. If he was prepared to travel to the United States, he could see the real thing flying. It is going through its test flights very successfully, and it is a very impressive aircraft.

My Lords, have the vessels that were lost to the Iranians from HMS “Cornwall” been replaced? Have replacements even been ordered?

My Lords, they have absolutely been replaced. No loss of capability has followed from the loss of those two small boats to the Iranians.

My Lords, how is the STOVL version of JSF going?

My Lords, it is going really well. The STOVL version has the British technology, and it is the follow-up to the Harrier. It is British technology not only in the lift fan, which powers the short take-off and vertical landing aircraft, but in the technology around the manufacture of the aircraft.

My Lords, with the leave of the House, a Statement will be repeated this afternoon on the European Union Council. It will be repeated by my noble friend the Leader of the House after the Statistics and Registration Service Bill, which is the first business.

rose to move, That the first report from the Liaison Committee be agreed to (HL Paper 118).

The report can be found at the following address: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200607/ldselect/ldliaisn/118/118.pdf

The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Liaison Committee met recently to consider bids for an ad hoc Select Committee in succession to the Committee on Regulators. As the report makes clear, we recommend the establishment of an ad hoc Select Committee for one Session on intergovernmental organisations, with effect from the beginning of the next Session. I beg to move.

Moved, That the first report from the Liaison Committee be agreed to (HL Paper 118).—(The Chairman of Committees.)

My Lords, in welcoming the report, I thank the members of the committee, and the Clerks for the enormous amount of help and advice that they have given, for the recommendation for an intergovernmental organisations Select Committee. It received enormous support and no opposition, and as that is such an extraordinary experience in my political career, I thought it worthy of comment.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

moved Amendment No. 1:

My Lords, the very few cognoscenti of this issue and those who have been following the debate know that we had an issue with what we called the muddle. On Report, we attempted to deal with it, but the Government clearly liked the concept and created another muddle around the nature of the code and the statistics to which it applies. I do not intend to repeat the arguments made by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, but I shall say that the Bill as amended on Report contains an ongoing muddle. On page 5, line 18 reads “National Statistics”; the heading of Clause 10 is,

“Code of Practice for National Statistics”;

but by the time we get to the next line it refers to,

“a Code of Practice for Statistics”.

The Bill is a muddle, and we hope that the Minister can sort it out in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, suggested; that is, by setting out that it applies to what everybody in the House understood it to apply to during the first part of the debate on Report.

My Lords, I added my name to my noble friend’s amendments. He introduced them in a masterly way, and there is little additional material for us to cover. My main concern is that what the Minister said on Report and the nature of the amendments that were accepted then have created uncertainty. Until that moment, the status of the code in relation to non-governmental preparers of statistics—those that are not preparing official statistics—was not unclear. The Bank of England, for example, produces a number of statistics. I understand that they are not official statistics. Does the Bank of England now have to regard the code of practice as useful guidance, or is it something entirely on a higher plane? That is very unhelpful.

The noble Lord, Lord Newby, spotted, as indeed I did, that the text of the Bill had not caught up. Of course we are not allowed to amend headings. I am told—my noble friend Lord Jenkin has raised this with the Public Bill Office—that the Bill will catch up as the headings do not yet reflect the amendments that were passed last time. So I do not think that we need worry on that score.

I have one further question for the Minister. Is the Statistics Board obliged to call this the code for statistics or may it use some more sensible title like the code for official statistics?

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for their contributions to the debate, although I do not think that the issue has been anything except clear from the Government’s point of view. If I have not expressed it with sufficient clarity, the fault certainly lies with me, and I will be as clear on it as I possibly can today. Far from there being a muddle, there has been a clear position on the code for statistics, which I want to emphasise today.

The title, “code of practice for statistics”, expresses succinctly exactly what the code is, and I do not see a case for change. I see a case for my clarifying and reassuring noble Lords about the anxieties to which they have given voice, and I will seek to do that. I do not think that the Bill needs amending because I do not think that there is anything between us in the arguments put forward on what is desirable in the legislation. I want to make it clear that the Government are bent on ensuring exactly the clear terms that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and the other noble Lords who have spoken in the debate have enjoined on me.

As we discussed on Report last week, the code will be applied across official statistics, but it will have a particular role for national statistics. That is the understood position about how the code will work. We discussed it at great length last week and of course that is the position in the legislation. The particular role for national statistics is that this is a code against which the board will assess statistics to determine their compliance and whether to award national statistics status. We all know that about 1,300 statistics would be likely to fall within this framework. When new statistics are produced or when it is desirable that current statistics are brought within the framework of national statistics, they must be in full compliance with the code and be judged by the board to be up to the standard of national statistics status.

Calling the code, as the amendment suggests, the “code for official statistics” may be confusing and could imply that it refers only to those official statistics and not to the subset of statistics that are national statistics—the ones for which we have a specific category. It was always the Government’s intention that the code should have application to both categories: national statistics with their particular appliance of the code—withdrawal of that status would be the ultimate sanction if statistics fell below standards—and official statistics.

Questions were addressed about whether the code would have application beyond government. Clearly, the board does not have any jurisdiction beyond the official statistics boundary and I do not think that I suggested that it did last week on Report. It does not apply to the commercial world, the world of charitable organisations, the universities or any other category. However, there is a proper expectation that a code produced by the United Kingdom’s pre-eminent statistical authority will have significance beyond government and the scope of official statistics. Others, such as those in local government or even commercial organisations, would be free to use the code as a guide for the production and publication of statistical outputs if they wished. For these reasons, the Government feel that the amendments would blunt the edge of the code’s clear, concise and appropriate title. Of course, the code applies to official statistics, especially national statistics, but others may aspire to it in the quality of work that they do.

My Lords, we found very confusing the argument that it would be difficult to understand that national statistics were within the code, national statistics being a subset of official statistics, if the code were called the “code for official statistics”. Unless I missed it, I do not think that the Minister answered my question: is it open to the board to call the code the “code for official statistics” or not?

My Lords, the board will operate within the framework of legislation, which will say the “code for statistics”. If the board finds that that is in any way, shape or form restrictive, in a way that I cannot anticipate—and I do not think that the noble Baroness has substantiated what may cause difficulty for the board’s operation—it would be for the board to make representation on that point and we would have to address our minds to it. We do not see that there is any problem for the board. Here is a code for statistics. The board will know its responsibility for all official statistics and its specific responsibilities with regard to national statistics. In so far as there has been confusion as to whether the board has any responsibility for statistics that are not official statistics, the answer is no. But what was sought and what is hoped for is that the board’s work—the definition of statistics and the quality and rigour of those statistics—will act as a guide to others who aspire to put statistics into the public realm; if such bodies hit the standards that the board has established for official statistics, they are much more likely to be credible in their work.

My Lords, would my noble friend help the House by reiterating that the code is permissive as far as non-governmental statistics are concerned and that it is not obligatory? After all, the board is called the Statistics Board, not the official statistics board, so we can easily have a code for statistics.

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. I hope that I have identified the reason why the code of practice for statistics in the legislation accurately defines the responsibilities of the board, which is why I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, has an enviable reputation for concealing his retreat under a remarkable torrent of verbiage. It is clear that he has answered my third question, which was that other bodies,

“would be free to use the code as a guide”.

That meets the substance of my point. I hope that that will be drawn to the attention of those who have expressed concerns. The words that he used last week had a very different purport. That may be what he intended to say, but it is not what any of us, or any of those with whom I have been in touch, understood him to say.

The noble Lord has now made it very clear that others are free to use the code as a guide and that the code might be, as he said, an exemplar to others. It was never intended to apply to others outside, which is why none of them was consulted. But that was not their reaction when they saw what he had said last week. I quoted some of the responses that I received.

My only other point takes up that made by my noble friend on the Front Bench. Surely national statistics are a subset of the wider range of official statistics; they are not something separate. As the Minister has explained, within the whole range of official statistics are those that qualify to be called national statistics. So I am not sure that I buy entirely his argument that the use of the term “official statistics” would be inappropriate. However, I do not want to prolong the debate. I think that the noble Lord has retreated and has given the undertaking that I was looking for: that the code is a code for the official statistics and that others may use it as a guide. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 11 [Assessment]:

[Amendment No. 2 not moved.]

Clause 12 [Duty to continue to comply with Code]:

[Amendment No. 3 not moved.]

Clause 13 [Re-assessment]:

[Amendment No. 4 not moved.]

Clause 15 [Requests for assessment: supplementary]:

[Amendment No. 5 not moved.]

Clause 30 [National Statistician: executive functions]:

[Amendment No. 6 not moved.]

Clause 35 [Delegation]:

[Amendment No. 7 not moved.]

moved Amendment No. 8:

My Lords, I put my name to the amendment, because there is an important point of principle behind it. I thank the Minister for his words at the previous stage of the Bill and I fully accept his good intentions. The real challenge, about which I entirely agree with the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, is that a matter has to be brought to the attention of the Information Commissioner before he can act on it. He cannot act proactively under his current powers. There must be a complaint—it does not have to be much of one. One of the protections is, of course, that the data controller can ask him about some laxity, but how likely is the person in charge to make such a request of someone who might point fingers at him? One would hope that that would happen, if only to get good advice and to obtain verification from a third party that best practice was being carried out, but it tends not to happen, particularly when there are budget cuts.

The problem on the other side is that you do not know what you do not know. You would not know that there had been a breach or whatever until after it had happened. You would not realise that wrong procedures were in place because no one would previously have known that, unless someone had general oversight. The data controller, or whoever was in charge at the agency, might be very good at their job, but keeping up with information security is a full-time job these days and is very time consuming. The situation is moving all the time. Only a couple of years ago, everyone thought that firewalls were brilliant and that you could create a fortress around an organisation. We now know that you cannot. Considering how things are moving, data leak out very quickly despite any fortress. Data sharing means that such information will move across such firewalls.

The trouble is that things can appear to be anonymous—they can be pseudo-anonymised, or whatever—but the way that we are now breaking down demographics to get better statistical information from which government can make properly informed decisions means that if I carry out cross-matching between people, profile and post code, I can end up with a good idea of who is who and what they are doing. If you are the only person with an income above a certain level or who satisfies certain criteria within a post-code block of, say, five, 20 or 30 houses, I can probably identify you from the statistics provided by the statistics service. We probably need to look at this issue from time to time, and the problem is that the Office for National Statistics will be under pressure to produce results—but at the end of the day they may not be in the best interests of the citizen.

We should give the Information Commissioner a little bit more power to keep an eye on this issue. After all, we have surveillance commissioners and people who look after all the other things that intrude into our lives when government bodies have similar powers. It would be a good idea to reinforce that a little more in this matter by giving the Information Commissioner more proactive power.

My Lords, I am mightily relieved that my noble friend Lord Northesk has returned to assist at Third Reading. I moved a similar amendment on Report, but withdrew it, because my understanding and the Minister’s understanding of the powers of the Information Commissioner under the Data Protection Act 1998 were at odds. On 18 June, the Minister said that,

“the Information Commissioner already has statutory powers to undertake the activities set out in this amendment”.—[Official Report, 18/6/07; col. 64.]

I believed that that was not the case and, clearly, that was important. I therefore withdrew the amendment in order that we could clarify the position. The Minister wrote to me quickly after the Report stage and I am grateful to him for the letter and for the speed of the reply. However, his letter has reinforced my view that the amendment remains necessary.

The Minister’s letter rested on the provisions relating to the serving of information notices in Section 43. As my noble friend Lord Northesk has pointed out, we do not get to the provisions of Section 43 unless there is a request under Section 42. It is not always the case that a person will be aware that his or her data have been incorrectly processed and hence will not be in a position to make a request, let alone to establish a substantive request. We therefore have to come back to the Information Commissioner’s powers contained in Section 51(7) of the 1998 Act—not Section 57 as I incorrectly informed the House on Report—which allow the commissioner to carry out an assessment only if the data controller consents. Obviously, in most cases consent will be given, but we cannot always assume it because we have seen that government departments disagree with the Information Commissioner in a number of areas and there is no reason to assume that the data controller of the Statistics Board would always agree with the Information Commissioner. The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, has pointed out that it sometimes works against the interests of the person whose data are going to be inspected to agree to that.

I hope the Government will agree to this relatively small additional power for the Information Commissioner.

My Lords, this is a straightforward, clear amendment. It deals with the issue with which we have grappled all the way through the Bill: how we can ensure that the Bill, to the maximum possible extent, enhances trust in official statistics. Giving the Information Commissioner the powers set out in subsection (1) of the amendment provides another piece of the framework in which individuals can have trust not only that the system is robust but that if there is a problem it can be dealt with. As previous speakers have said, in this area many people will be unaware that information about them is being misused. To give the commissioner the chance to go in on his own initiative makes a great deal of sense.

I, too, am grateful for the letter which the Minister circulated on 20 June. He said in the House that the Information Commissioner had been very positive about the Statistics and Registration Service Bill. However, there is a wonderful weasel word in the letter, which states:

“As I have said in the House, overall the Information Commissioner has been very positive”.

If “overall” is very positive, there must be some matters on which he has been negative and that has made me slightly suspicious. I am sure that is being unfair to the Minister but perhaps he can explain why it was an “on balance” enthusiasm by the Information Commissioner rather than the unalloyed joy that the Minister suggested he felt.

My Lords, it is rare for a Minister to feel that all the problems at Third Reading are a consequence of what he said on Report, but I am beginning to get that feeling today, certainly as far as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, is concerned. He is wrong when he says that on Report I referred to the Information Commissioner’s satisfaction with the Bill. It was not only at the Report stage: in Committee, on Second Reading and all the way through I have maintained, with confidence and without contradiction, that the Information Commissioner is broadly satisfied with the Bill.

How can I be specific and say that every single line and phrase in the Bill is endorsed by the Information Commissioner? Of course I cannot say that. But what I am indicating—and did so on those three separate occasions and I will do so again today—is that the Information Commissioner did not identify any part of the Bill with which he was dissatisfied or of which he was critical, otherwise we would not have prayed his name in support of the Bill. For obvious reasons, we were all too well aware that we could have been challenged at any stage where we took his name in vain. I reiterate, for the fourth time, the salient fact that the Information Commissioner is broadly satisfied with the Bill and is positive about it. He has welcomed the fact that it recognises the importance of ensuring personal information is used only where necessary and that confidentiality is respected.

It will be recognised in the House, particularly with the high levels of expertise we have here about the operation of statistics in this county, that the Office for National Statistics already has a good working relationship with the Information Commissioner, and it is in the interests of the board, when it is established, to continue that good relationship to help ensure that people trust the board to hold its information securely. Noble Lords will recognise that that is a cardinal obligation upon the board, as it has been upon the ONS up to now.

As I noted on Report and, as the noble Baroness indicated, spelt out in rather more detail in the letter I sent to noble Lords who participated in last week’s debate, the Government believe that the Information Commissioner already has similar powers in the Data Protection Act to carry out the activities set out in the amendment. In our debate on Report, there seemed to be some misunderstanding over the powers the commissioner already has. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, seemed to be under the impression that the commissioner required the consent of the board to assess the processing of personal data. The noble Baroness said that the commissioner,

“can assess the processing of personal data if, and only if, the data controller consents to the assessment, otherwise his powers are limited to cases where a request comes from the person affected by the processing of data”.—[Official Report, 18/6/07; col. 62.]

That is not so. Under the Data Protection Act, the Information Commissioner already has the power to request information from the board by issuing an information notice, if, as Section 43 of the Act says, he,

“reasonably requires any information for the purpose of determining whether the data controller has complied or is complying with the data protection principles”.

The noble Earl, Lord Northesk, took the argument one stage further. He said, “Ah, but Section 43 only comes into play if in fact there is a request for assessment made by someone under Section 42”. The commissioner can issue an information notice where he reasonably requires any information for the purposes of determining whether the data controller has complied. That is his right.

It should be recognised that when we stated that the Information Commissioner is broadly satisfied with the Bill and that sufficient powers exist for examination with regard to the board, what I attested to last week also obtains this week and renders the amendment unnecessary. The commissioner does not need the consent of the board to issue such an information notice. His powers to issue a notice are backed up by sanction, in that a person who fails to comply with an information notice or provides false information in response to one is guilty of an offence. Moreover, if, on the basis of the response to an information notice or for another reason, the Information Commissioner believes that the board has contravened any of the data protection principles, the commissioner may serve on the board an enforcement notice requiring it to take specified steps to comply with the principles or to stop processing personal data. Not to comply with the Information Commissioner’s notice is an offence.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. I am grateful for the support of my noble friend Lady Noakes, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and the noble Earl, Lord Erroll. Indeed, as the noble Earl said, an important point of principle is at work here. I agree.

I remain deeply dissatisfied with the Minister's response in respect of the powers of the Information Commissioner. In a way, the Minister is on something of a roll because, in terms, he proved my point for me. He indicated that the Information Commissioner has more than adequate powers to deal with breaches of the data protection principles. I have no dispute about that. However, I seriously dispute that the Information Commissioner is empowered on his own initiative to view the operation of the data-sharing regime at the Statistics Board in the round—not in respect of breaches but in the round. As far as I read the Data Protection Act 1998, the Information Commissioner simply does not have that power.

Viewed more widely, it is interesting to note that this Bill is, of necessity, a product of the Treasury. To a greater or lesser extent, it flows from the thinking of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In turn, the amendment quite deliberately engages matters of transparency, accountability and, crucially, public trust. Accordingly, the Minister’s rejection of the amendment today begs the question of how much confidence we can really have in Gordon Brown's avowed intent to reinvigorate virtues of accountability, transparency and public trust when he takes over from Mr Blair. That being so, I feel entirely justified in seeking the opinion of the House.

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons with amendments.

My Lords, I should like to repeat a Statement made in the other place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister. The Statement is as follows:

“With your permission, Mr Speaker, I shall make a Statement about the outcome of the European Council in Brussels on 21 and 22 June.

“I congratulate the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, on concluding successfully an exceptionally difficult negotiation; and on an outstanding presidency of the European Union.

“Before the European Council, I made it clear that the concept of a constitutional treaty for Europe had to be abandoned, and that we should agree instead a conventional amending treaty like the Nice, Amsterdam and Maastricht treaties and the Single European Act. I also made it clear that the UK had four central demands which had to be met.

“First, on the Charter of Fundamental Rights, we secured a legally binding protocol, specific to the United Kingdom, and applicable to both the British courts and the European Court of Justice. Let me read the terms. The protocol states that:

‘the Charter does not extend the ability of the Court of Justice, or any court or tribunal of the United Kingdom, to find that the laws, regulations or administrative provisions, practices or action of the United Kingdom are inconsistent with the fundamental rights, freedoms and principles that’,

the charter,

‘reaffirms.

‘In particular, and for the avoidance of doubt, nothing in the Charter creates justiciable rights applicable to the United Kingdom except in so far as the United Kingdom has provided for such rights in its national law’.

“In respect of our criminal law system and police and judicial processes, we obtained an extension of the opt-in rights that we secured in an earlier treaty on migration, asylum and immigration issues. This means that we have the sovereign right to opt in on individual measures where we consider that it would be in the British interest to do so, but also to stay out if we want to. It is precisely the pick-and-choose policy often advocated. It gives us complete freedom to protect our common law system, but also allows us to participate in areas where co-operation advances Britain's interests. In asylum and immigration, for example, we have opted in on measures dealing with illegal immigration, and in measures allowing us to return asylum seekers to other European countries—both unquestionably in Britain’s interests. But it will be within our exclusive power to decide on a case-by-case basis. This is exactly what we wanted.

“In respect of social security, we negotiated a provision which allows us to insist on unanimity in any case where we—Britain—declare that any proposal from the Commission would affect important aspects of our social security system, including its scope, cost or financial structure or balance. Our social security and benefits system is therefore completely protected.

“As for the common foreign and security policy, the basis of this will now remain unchanged in a separate treaty, and a separate pillar, from the first pillar Community method. The essential features of the CFSP remain as they were. Unanimity voting is the rule. There is no sole right of initiative for the Commission. There is no role for the European Parliament in decision-taking. There is no jurisdiction for the European Court of Justice, except in the particular case of safeguarding the rights of individuals subject to EU sanctions. The two jobs of Commissioner for External Relations and high representative, which of course exist already, will be amalgamated in a single job, but this reform does not extend the EU’s substantive powers to act in foreign policy. In particular, the Union representative, when working on common foreign and security policy issues, will operate within a policy framework set by the EU Foreign Ministers, by unanimity.

“All these guarantees not merely remain in the new treaty, but are reinforced in a new ‘overview’ article which reaffirms them and has full legal force. For the avoidance of doubt, we obtained also a declaration which sets out the unanimous view of all member states about the meaning of these guarantees. This declaration, which then informs the detailed negotiation of the IGC, states that the CFSP provisions of the treaty, including in respect of the office of Union representative and the external action service,

‘will not affect the existing legal basis, responsibilities, and powers of each Member State in relation to the formulation and conduct of its foreign policy, its national diplomatic service, relations with third countries, and participation in international organisations, including a Member State’s membership of the Security Council of the UN’.

“There was also a discussion at the Council about competition. The treaties have always made it clear that competition in the internal market should not be distorted. The now defunct constitutional treaty’s objectives would have included new wording about ‘free and undistorted competition’. When the treaty was set aside, that provision was lost, but we agreed on a new and legally binding protocol, to be annexed to the treaties, which reaffirms the commitment to ensuring that competition is not distorted. The other references to competition in the existing treaties will remain—for example, Articles 4, 27, 34, 81 to 89, 96, 98, 105 and 157 from the European Community treaty. The legal position in relation to competition therefore remains unchanged.

“Alongside meeting our four essential requirements, we secured a number of further improvements. The new treaty will confirm for the first time, explicitly, that national security is the sole responsibility of member states. The Union already signs international agreements, but the treaty formalises legal personality. However, we have now agreed a declaration by all countries for this IGC confirming that this fact of legal personality does not authorise the Union in any way to legislate or act beyond the powers conferred on it by the member states in the treaties. There are new powers for national Parliaments to object to Commission proposals on subsidiarity grounds.

“There are a number of extensions of qualified majority voting. In the most sensitive areas of QMV—justice and home affairs and social security—we obtained the right either not to participate or to insist on unanimity. In addition, a number of other measures of QMV—for example, those about rules within the euro-zone, or those in JHA—do not apply to us. As for the rest, we have agreed them because qualified majority voting is often in Britain’s interest. The biggest move to qualified majority voting in Europe’s history was the Single European Act, but this allowed the creation of one of Europe’s greatest achievements, the single European market. More recently, we have secured reforms such as the services directive and other liberalising measures through QMV, including the lifting of the beef ban, when they would certainly have been blocked under unanimity. Among the QMV provisions in this treaty is one which provides a new legal base and QMV for energy market liberalisation and another which provides QMV for decisions on emergency humanitarian aid to third countries, which are both manifestly in the UK’s interest.

“The other main reform is the fixed term, two-and-a-half year presidency of the European Council, replacing the current rotating six-monthly arrangements. This is necessary for the Union’s efficiency, but it does not involve any extension of the president’s powers. The president of the European Council will remain the servant of the leaders of the member states.

“The most important aspect of this new treaty is that it allows the European Union to move on to the issues which really matter. For too many years, we have been bogged down in a debate about the institutions. Change is essential, with the increase from 15 to 27 member states, but with this agreement we can now concentrate on the issues that really matter: energy security; organised crime and terrorism; globalisation; further enlargement; and making Europe’s voice more effective internationally.

“This agenda is quintessentially in Britain’s interests. Over the past 10 years, Britain has moved from the margins of European debate to its centre. This is absolutely right for Britain. Whether in defence, economic reform, energy policy, or the environment, and of course most particularly in enlargement and the appointment of the new Commission president, Britain has for a decade been in a leadership position in Europe. That is exactly where we should stay. I commend this agreement to the House”.

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

My Lords, this is clearly an historic occasion; it is the last Commons Statement by Mr Blair as Prime Minister and perhaps even—although I hope not—the last occasion on which the Leader of the House will, with her invariable courtesy, repeat a Statement. I wish her well in the course of the next few days.

In 2005, the Labour manifesto said of the treaty:

“We will put it to the British people in a referendum”.

Despite the sentence in the conclusions that the constitutional treaty has been abandoned, we still have a major EU constitutional amending treaty on the table which makes massive changes in the relationship between nation states and the EU as a whole. It is a treaty in which Monsieur Giscard d’Estaing, the author of the constitution, says that people are being led,

“to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly”.

Yet the Prime Minister says now, “We will not put the EU treaty to the British people in a referendum”. The whole Statement is designed to argue that it is a nothing and that a firm promise given to the public into 2005 can be broken.

Playing small-print word games to escape promises has discredited this Government. Let it not now discredit Europe. Winning the endorsement of the British people—if it is so insignificant, the Government must surely feel that they can—would strengthen Europe and, win or lose, lance a boil in our politics. We hear much talk about red lines—red herrings, as my right honourable friend Mr Hague rightly termed them—but beyond the spin, does the noble Baroness accept that the reality is this, in words every one of which has been taken from the presidency conclusions? There will be an IGC before the end of July. The incoming presidency is to draw up a draft treaty text and submit it to the IGC as soon as it opens. The reform treaty will introduce in the existing treaties the innovations resulting from the 2004 IGC that launched the constitutional process. The IGC will complete its work in any case before the end of 2007, so as to allow every country to ratify the resulting treaty before June 2009.

No one who has read the compendious description of the treaty provisions in the present communiqué can have any doubt that it is a huge programme of constitutional change, a major extension of EU competence and a further step towards the more integrated, harmonised, controlling Europe that no one outside the Cabinet makes any pretence of saying is not the overriding objective of the European Union. If the treaty is ratified, Britain will find itself locked into an enormous new entity with a transformed constitutional identity—something that directly affects our national interest. Any opt-out can be given away, as the Prime Minister demonstrated on the social chapter in Amsterdam in 1997, and any red line may not be driven across, but it can certainly be driven around, as Mr Frank Field acutely observed, reinforced by the experience of the history of the Community.

Does the noble Baroness not see this as a major integrationist treaty, a step in the wrong direction, in which many more areas of veto are given away and the aims of harmonisation and centralisation are relentlessly laid out in every line of the presidency conclusions?

Revering, as I do, the contribution of European nations in all their diversity and richness to the development of modern civilisation, I expressed deep sadness at the loss of opportunity that that represents. The summit should have been about free trade, climate change and the agony of Africa in places such as Darfur and, yes, Zimbabwe. It should have been about the modern EU network, which we want, and which the people of Europe want, not about the further centralisation of powers so beloved of bureaucrats and those who put efficiency before democracy.

Again, that opportunity was lost in the obsession with powers, centralisation and control. What happened to all our hopes, all the talk of a return of powers to national Parliaments and of making the EU institutions much more accountable and far closer to the people?

If the Prime Minister was doing anything other than spitting in the wind when he boasted that Europe was coming our way, he has his reality check now. Not even the all-important principle of undistorted competition has survived. Mr Sarkozy has boasted of his victory over the United Kingdom in enabling protectionism. Will the noble Baroness confirm that criminal justice is being moved from intergovernmental control to jurisdiction by the European Court, something that the Foreign Secretary has called a major change? Does she agree that an EU foreign minister by any other name is still an EU foreign minister? Can she not see that we should have been moving to a new, slimmer kind of treaty, a new kind of Europe that swept away elements of the acquis that have proved constricting, that preserved flexibility, diversity and localism while sustaining the enormous benefits of co-operation?

That would have been the right way for Europe. That is precisely what the treaty is not. It surely must have the endorsement of the British people, who will now find Europe changing around them.

For the first time in 10 years the Prime Minister and the Chancellor are united on something. How sad it is that it is to deny the British public a say. Next month our new Prime Minister will have to go to the IGC and fight for Britain and Europe. When he goes to negotiate he will find other EU leaders a lot less naïve and a lot more determined than many of the people with whom he has had discussions in recent weeks. He will need all the support and resolution he can muster. He has said that he would be a servant to the people. How much stronger would be his negotiating hand if he had the resolution of Parliament and people behind him before agreeing to any sea change of this kind? Other countries will have a referendum. Why not here?

My Lords, I thank the Lord President for repeating the Statement. I associate myself with the congratulations that were given at the beginning of it to Chancellor Merkel for her skilful leadership of the European Union over the past six months. I also associate myself with the comment at the very end by the Prime Minister that the most important aspect of the new treaty is that it allows the European Union to move on to the issues that really matter, something that was echoed in the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. The only problem with the noble Lord’s remarks is that—and this was emphasised even more at the other end of the Corridor—they totally ignored the wise advice contained in an article in the Sunday Times by Mr Michael Portillo two Sundays ago, when he said that, whatever else the Conservatives did in reaction to this summit, they should avoid tying themselves to their wild-eyed anti-European members. The danger is, as Mr Ken Clarke has also observed, that a reaction that would have demanded a referendum on the date at the top of the paper does not carry much credibility.

I am still trying to get my head round the idea of a Labour Prime Minister going to Brussels to argue for an opt-out on workers’ rights, but I understand the overall nature of his mission and we on these Benches welcome the reforms, which contribute to a more efficient and functioning EU. It is difficult to identify a single issue—from climate change to terrorism and from organised crime to energy security—that is not dealt with better in Britain’s interests within the EU. We welcome the fact that the European Council has reached agreement; it is critical that it has a proper rule book for 27 member states. It is interesting that a subset of the arguments about enlargement of the Community was that it would collapse for the lack of a good rule book. This Council has headed off that danger, so Europe can get on with the task of delivering on matters of supreme importance to the people of Europe.

Perhaps the Lord President will clarify the question of competition policy. A worry has been expressed by the CBI—and, I note, by the noble Lord, Lord Brittan, in an article in the Observer—that there was a danger over that. I was reminded by the Statement that, in dealing with the single market, we are preserving one of the most hard-fought and most successful achievements of the Administration of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher.

We also welcome the new powers for national parliaments and wonder whether the Government have any initiatives to look at our own structures on how we deal with European legislation.

One concern, which was echoed at Question Time, is the trumpeting about opting out of areas in home affairs. On counterterrorism, drugs, people trafficking and immigration, the logic is that we need more European co-operation, not less. It seems odd that we make a virtue of making things more difficult for ourselves in those areas.

We support the treaty because it allows Europe to get on with the real business, such as the initiative to get a successful conclusion of the Doha round, a special European initiative to help in Gaza and giving impetus to the Portuguese initiative on Africa. The problem is that this country has been stuck in an “in or out” debate that is over 30 years old. Everything we have heard from the Conservative Party seems to take us back to that “in or out” debate. Europe and the British people need to move on, on the basis of this constitution, to address the issues that are at the top of the people’s agenda, not those on the agenda of people who, as Mr Portillo quietly warned, have that wild-eyed commitment to anti-Europeanism that has done so much damage to their party in recent years.

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, for his good wishes for my future. I have noticed that as soon as people think that you might be moving elsewhere, they become terribly nice to you. I shall read the noble Lord’s comments in a positive, not negative, way. My noble friend Lord Grocott—who is not in his place—whispered to me, “What about the Chief Whip?”, so perhaps the noble Lord would like to send him his good wishes on another occasion.

I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that the outcome of these negotiations is a nothing. I would not dream of arguing that, nor would the Government. We wanted institutional change and we got it. The Prime Minister made it clear—not only in his Statement, but also in the run-up to these negotiations—that part of the reason why institutional change is so important is so that we can move on to Europe playing its rightful part in tackling some of the big issues, such as the environment, energy security, climate change and some of the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord McNally. It is important that the European Union grasps these issues and considers them. Institutional change is important because it allows us to move on. We also wanted to secure Britain’s interests and we did so. That is important, too.

The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, talked about the draft treaty and the timetable. The mandate annexed to the conclusions is clear. I shall read one sentence from it:

“The constitutional concept, which consisted in repealing all existing Treaties and replacing them by a single text called ‘Constitution’, is abandoned”.

That is the wording for the draft IGC mandate. We will publish a White Paper in advance of the IGC. There will be consultation, and Parliament will then have an opportunity to have a further say when it considers the legislation that will come before both Houses.

The call for a referendum on what is another amending treaty is interesting, given that we did not have a referendum with the Single European Act, Maastricht or subsequently with Amsterdam and Nice. It is also interesting that the majority of Members opposite who spoke in a recent debate on European issues argued against a referendum. Other members of that party have made interesting comments about referendums. The noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, said:

“I mean the big steps into Europe consolidating British position in Europe, far more important than this particular treaty, were all taken by Conservative governments, and none of them felt it was necessary to have a referendum”.

Kenneth Clarke said:

“I disapprove of a referendum. I do think it is a serious blow to the sovereignty of Parliament”.

Another Conservative, the noble Lord, Lord Patten, said:

“This Tory notes that the intellectually honest position of many of those in the forefront of the present campaign for a referendum is complete British withdrawal from the European Union”.

I can only suggest to the House that this is about political opportunism. This is about a Conservative Party that has nothing to offer in terms of a strong Britain in Europe and whose leader could not even be bothered to go to the meeting called by Angela Merkel for EPP colleagues in advance of the European Council because he was too busy. How will we ensure a strong Britain in Europe when we have an Opposition who are not even prepared to engage in the debate and on the issues?

It is not true that every other country within the European Union will have a referendum. The only country in the European Union that is constitutionally obliged to have a referendum is Ireland. No other country so far has indicated that it feels that it will have to have a referendum on these issues.

The noble Lord, Lord McNally, asked me questions on a number of areas. Perhaps I may clarify the competition policy. The treaty will provide legal certainty on EU powers to continue to regulate cartels, mergers and anti-trust violations. It includes specific language on the need to ensure that competition within the EU is not distorted. The individual articles of the treaty, which lay down the specific powers to ensure competition in the single market and to regulate state aid and mergers, are unaffected.

On the Charter of Fundamental Rights, I know that it looks as though the Government were seeking to opt out of issues. The charter ensures that the institutions, bodies and agencies of the Union will be bound to recognise rights in exercising any of their powers. The charter should help to ensure that citizens’ basic rights and liberties are protected at EU level, as they are in their own countries. However, we feel absolutely certain that, with our human rights legislation, employment protection legislation and other legislation, we have already secured those rights within current UK domestic law.

The important thing on justice and home affairs is that we have secured an opt-in. Therefore, we will opt into those areas where it is important that we work together, of which the noble Lord, Lord McNally, mentioned a number. We saw important successes relatively recently on counterterrorism and on drugs. The European arrest warrant, too, has been important to us in working constructively with our European Union colleagues. However, where we feel that these justice and home affairs issues are not in Britain’s best interests, we will not opt into them.

Yes, we have been debating these issues for a very long time. We will continue to have to raise the British people’s awareness not only of the importance of our membership of the European Union, but of the benefits. I am heartened by the new powers for national parliaments, which the noble Lord, Lord McNally, mentioned. We have no specific initiatives in mind yet, but any suggestions or proposals from this House or another place will be very welcome.

Finally, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that looking at issues that are at the top of people’s agendas is very important, and I hope that we can now move on from the European Union looking inwardly at institutional change to our looking outwardly at the global issues that affect our world.

My Lords, on any fair analysis, the treaty is very different from the constitutional treaty that was originally negotiated. It is in no sense integrationist. Does the Minister agree that the creation of the office of High Representative, in place of the two existing offices that exercise such functions, and the creation of a longer-serving President of the Council, confers no new powers on the holders of offices and so transfers no power at all from this country to the European institutions? On the other hand, on competition policy, even if the protocol that has been agreed reaffirms the legal position, does the Minister agree that the failure to include the reference to free and undistorted competition in the objectives of the European Union means that that does not have the primacy that it has had and that it should retain?

My Lords, first, I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Brittan, on his point about the High Representative and the President of the Council. No new powers are conferred on the holders of those offices; they will work at the direction of the Council of Ministers. Secondly, on competition, there is a protocol, which is legally binding and which makes it clear that the internal market includes,

“a system to ensure that competition is not distorted”,

and to empower the European Union to take the necessary steps to ensure this. Given the range of references to competition in the conclusions, it is clear that the primacy of competition is not being eroded. That is the Government’s very strong view.

My Lords, how could any Government be taken seriously and secure the essentials of agreement if, like the Opposition, we are seen to be moving inexorably towards the scuttling of any European deal, purely for opportunistic and somewhat unrealistic reasons? Do we not have to be positive and constructive to gain any influence whatever?

My Lords, we must not only be positive and constructive, but show leadership. I have to agree that the Conservative Party has shown no leadership on this issue.

My Lords, does the Minister accept that if—I stress if—the Members of this House conclude that the provisions of this treaty, regardless of their merits, come within the substance of a manifesto commitment to hold a referendum, it would be wholly within the powers of the House, and wholly proper, to reject a Bill that implemented the treaty until the manifesto was honoured and the referendum held? I emphasise that I am interested not in what past Governments did to past treaties, but in how this treaty ties up with what was said in the manifesto.

My Lords, we made it absolutely clear at the time that the constitutional treaty was published that we would go out and defend what was in that treaty. The landscape then changed. We are now in a different place and I do not accept the terms laid down by the noble Viscount.

My Lords, while not expecting the noble Baroness to agree with those who regard the signing of this treaty as a terrible betrayal, particularly when there is going to be denial of a referendum, does she acknowledge that the Irish Prime Minister has said that it contains 90 per cent of the constitution that was rejected by the electors of Holland and France? Does she further agree that it will certainly turn out to be a great betrayal if the opt-out from the charter and the political declaration regarding foreign and security policy are found to be valueless in the face of the determination of the European Court to further an ever-closer union? Is not the charter already being given effect to? Does not the Government realise that the European Union some time ago issued an edict, DOC COM(2005) 172, requiring the charter to be enshrined in all European legislation? Does the noble Baroness not realise that the British Government have agreed to the setting up of an agency to monitor the operations of this charter, which the Prime Minister says that he has managed to opt out of? Has not the Prime Minister signed up to supporting actively and unreservedly in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity the common foreign and security policy? How can a non-legally binding declaration exempt us from that obligation so far as foreign policy is concerned, to which the Prime Minister has signed up?

My Lords, I say to the House and to the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, that I have absolutely no problem with the guaranteeing of fundamental rights, freedoms and principles for the British people. We have done that through the Human Rights Act. I hope that the noble Lord will agree that, over many years, these rights are already enshrined in British law and we should be very proud of that. Fundamental rights, freedoms and principles are guaranteed by the Governments of the member states in accordance with national law. That is what we, the British Government, have done. Successive British Governments have felt that that is important. But there was no statement of rights binding the European Union. The charter is a statement for the Union. There is a UK-specific protocol which will clarify the application of the charter in relation to UK laws and measures. I am very proud of the rights already enshrined in British legislation. We have the UK-specific protocol because we already have those rights of which I am proud.

My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that one of the remarkable things about the Charter of Fundamental Rights is that it will now apply, as she has said, with reservations in the United Kingdom case, to all the countries of eastern and central Europe which have now joined the community and which have lived through a long period of dictatorship under communist control? Does she agree that their own fundamental rights and liberties will now, for the first time in a long time, be protected and that we in this country should be very proud of that? Does the noble Baroness also share with me a sense of an extraordinary inconsistency on the part of the Conservative Party, which never held a referendum over Maastricht or the much more significant Single European Act, and now claims that it needs a referendum on this much less significant change?

My Lords, I should clarify for the noble Baroness that the charter applies to European Union institutions rather than to individual countries. But I take the spirit of what she is referring to with respect to the issues around eastern and central Europe. I also agree entirely with the noble Baroness that there seems to be a kind of collective amnesia on the Conservative Benches this afternoon.

My Lords, will the noble Baroness clarify a couple of points? The first relates to the position on competition policy. Can she confirm that the legal force of the proposed amending treaty and the legal force of the protocol to that treaty on competition policy are identical? In the light of the somewhat alarming and misleading statements made about weakening competition policy and increasing protection, is it not extraordinarily important that the Government should make clear their continuing support for a rigorous and vigorous application by the Commission of its powers as the competition watchdog? Secondly, on the issue of the charter, can she confirm that the new provisions relating to the UK for the Charter of Fundamental Rights represent a legally more secure situation for us than that which has prevailed under the existing provisions of the Treaty of Nice?

My Lords, the important point about the charter is that it puts the position beyond doubt. That is absolutely right. Further, I can confirm that the legal force with respect to the amending treaty is identical. On the competition proposals, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is quite right to stress the importance of the competition watchdog exercising its powers.

My Lords, did not the Government describe the previous version of the treaty as a “tidying-up exercise” and, in common with the Liberals, promised a referendum for the British people? Can the Minister spell out for the likes of me what precisely has changed in this document that has made the Government renege on that promise? Does the Minister not realise that Governments have to carry consent? What will people conclude if Governments behave in this way? Will we not see more and more people refusing to turn out to cast their votes at elections and on other occasions if Governments treat their manifesto promises with such contempt?

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is right about the importance of Governments having to carry consent. I can well remember what happened not only in Parliament but also elsewhere when there were proposals for a poll tax in this country. At the same time, Governments also have to show leadership in the international arena, and that is precisely what we are doing. I accept that we have a responsibility to ensure that the British people appreciate and understand why our membership of the European Union remains important, as well as the benefits of that membership. They also need to appreciate and understand precisely why this amending treaty is so important: it allows us to move on to the territory where, working with our European Union partners, we will be able to deal with the issues which are at the front of people’s minds rather than focusing on institutional change.

My Lords, the noble Lord asked about the difference between this treaty and the constitution. Perhaps he should be invited to have a quiet word with the noble Lord sitting not two places from him, who is a considerable expert on this. Surely there is such a fundamental difference, and I imagine that he together with others voted strongly against a referendum both on the Single European Act and Maastricht. Together they amounted to a far greater transfer of qualified majority voting. If not then, why now? Surely we should all rejoice that there is now an opportunity for the Union to move forward to those areas which we consider to be of great importance, be it Darfur, economic security or Doha. On the parliamentary aspect, noble Lords will recall the substantial and detailed provisions in the constitution relating to greater accountability for national parliaments. How much of that has been retained in this new treaty?

My Lords, I could not agree more with my noble friend on the difference between the constitutional treaty and the amending treaty, and the importance of moving on to policy issues. On the question of national parliaments, for the first time, when over half the national parliaments object to a new measure on subsidiarity grounds, the measure has to be considered. That is a considerable strengthening of the role of national parliaments.

My Lords, as the southern Irish Prime Minister has confirmed that this treaty involves 90 per cent of the original European constitution—in which he was very much involved, and he certainly knows what he is talking about—can the Minister confirm that this treaty does not involve the transfer of any powers from the United Kingdom to any European Community institution?

My Lords, I am not entirely sure what the noble Lord is asking me, because he will know that there is a move to qualified majority voting in some areas, which is precisely why, in areas where the UK Government were concerned about UK interests, we either negotiated the opt-in, as we did in the area of justice and home affairs, or we strengthened the emergency brake procedure, as we did in the area of social security.

My Lords, first, in the spirit of reshuffle bonhomie, would the noble Baroness accept our best wishes and pass them on to her colleagues on the Front Bench? More seriously, I wish the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, well as he leaves the Government.

We have heard fragments of what Kenneth Clarke has said. If I may say so, he has had considerably more experience in government than some of those who have spoken for the Conservatives today. It is worth mentioning all his comments. He said that some of the Euro-sceptics would,

“have demanded a referendum just about the date on the top of the piece of paper, but they are flogging … a dead horse”.

He said:

“What we have now is far less important than Maastricht … I think the idea we have a referendum … is frankly absurd”.

Would the noble Baroness accept that many of us on these Benches believe that he is absolutely right?

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his best wishes and I will certainly pass them on to my colleagues who were not here to hear him. I entirely agree with the noble Lord regarding the comments on a referendum. We all know that this debate and argument are about going back over old ground and we have moved to a situation in which a group of people on the Benches opposite oppose even our membership of the European Union, will not acknowledge the benefits of it, and will not recognise that if you have a Union of 27, together with an enlargement agenda, you must look at practical ways of making that Union work effectively. We think we have done that and that we can now move on to talking about some of the big issues that face us in our ever-changing world.

My Lords, would my noble friend agree that the logical reason why the Conservative Party is demanding a referendum, as opposed to relying on parliamentary democracy, is that a referendum would open the door to an alarmist campaign to vote “no”, run by that notable John Bull, Mr Rupert Murdoch?

My Lords, there has always been a great deal of alarmism around issues relating to our membership of the European Union. We all have a responsibility to deal with the facts, rather than with the myths. Perhaps it is about time that we began to address these myths in a responsible way, rather than to feed that alarmist agenda.

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Brittan in deploring the removal of the words referring to,

“an internal market where competition is free and undistorted”.

Surely, the point embodied in those words has been of great importance to this country since we joined the Common Market. Am I right in thinking that they were removed on the urging of President Sarkozy of France, because they would oblige him to have a referendum? If they are so important, surely they oblige us to have a referendum.

My Lords, competition policy is a strength of the European Union. It ensures a level playing field for business and protection for consumers from price fixing and market rigging. We continue to support the rigorous application of competition policy in an independent manner. The treaty will provide legal certainty on EU powers to continue to regulate cartels, mergers and anti-trust violations, which I have mentioned before. There is language within the communiqué on the need to ensure that competition within the European Union is not distorted. Competition policy continues to be important.

My Lords—

My Lords, in exceeding—

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harrison. I am delighted that the Minister welcomes, as do the Government, the new powers conferred on national parliaments to check what the Commission is doing in relation to subsidiarity, but does she recall that the President of the Commission last year, with the full agreement of the Commission, conferred on the national parliaments the right to expect the Commission to respond to comments made by national parliaments on any document whether or not it referred to subsidiarity? That is a very important step forward. Does she agree that it would be a great pity if in the IGC that fact was lost and the assumption was made that national parliaments can only comment on matters relating to subsidiarity?

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell. I sincerely hope that that point will be made not only by this House but by other parliaments during the consultation process between now and the end of the IGC period in December.

My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons amendments be now considered.

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

rose to move, That this House do not insist on its Amendments Nos. 2, 3, 5, 6 and 10 and do agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 10C and 10D in lieu thereof.

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, we are now called upon to consider the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill for a third time and amendments to extend the new offence to deaths in custody in all circumstances. I again express my gratitude to noble Lords who have taken the time and care to spend some time with me to discuss the issues that remain of concern in your Lordships’ House. I am extremely grateful to all those who have done so and I hope that they will agree that I have reflected on their concerns with great care.

The other place has sent to us again an amendment tabled by the Government that proposes instead a power to extend the new offence to deaths in custody in due course. The difference between the two proposals represents the nub of the issue for this House: whether the Bill should be amended now, at this stage, or whether this is an issue for the future. The Government have come a considerable distance on the issue. The draft Bill and the consultation paper in 2005, as noble Lords who have been involved in the Bill from the beginning will be aware, proposed taking the significant step of applying the new offence to Crown bodies. But, in doing so, they pointed out that this step raised questions about the circumstances in which public authorities should be held to account under the criminal law for decisions of public policy or matters that are uniquely the responsibility of the state, such as holding prisoners in custody.

We have also rehearsed and discussed the other forms of accountability for functions of this kind. These recognise the special responsibility of the state in these cases but also the need to treat them in a manner suiting their importance, their sensitivity and their connection with public policy—hence the role of Parliament, other public forums and specific independent investigatory bodies. The draft Bill made it clear that those were matters where the offence should not apply. That is a position that the other place has supported, and so has this House, with the exception of custody. The Bill accordingly exempts death connected with the exercise of a number of public responsibilities. The Government believed, and believe, that it is appropriate for the management of prisoners in custody also to fall on that side of the line.

rose to move, as an amendment to the Motion, leave out from “House” to the end and insert “do insist on its Amendments Nos. 2, 3, 5, 6 and 10 and do disagree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 10C and 10D in lieu”.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, when we last debated these amendments, on 22 May, I argued, as I had done at Third Reading on 28 February, that my purpose in tabling them was to rectify a glaring deficiency in what was otherwise a generally welcome Bill by including a duty owed to anyone held in custody. As the Minister has told the House—and I am enormously grateful to her for the care that she has shown in explaining what has happened since we last debated this—the amendments were then debated again in another place and had been returned to us in the form of two new amendments, Amendments Nos. 10C and 10D, which starts the whole ping-pong process over again. I make that point now because I am aware that some noble Lords are understandably—but, on this occasion, unnecessarily—cautious that in proposing them again I am entering into dangerous constitutional waters. In taking this opportunity to propose them, I do not intend to repeat all that I have said on previous occasions, including my concern that public policy, exposure and expense should still be used as reasons when we are talking about management and the duty of care. Instead, I intend to rely on the words used by the Minister, Mr Gerry Sutcliffe, and other members of the other place during their most recent debate to make my case for me.

In separate interventions, the Minister said that deaths in custody were a “crucial” issue, a “key” issue, a “serious” issue and that the Government took them seriously. He said that the Government’s feeling was that the “existing routes” for examination of deaths in custody, including through the coroners’ courts or the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, were,

“sufficient to deal with the issues and to address … prevention”.

I find this statement interesting, to say the least. It confirms what I suggested to your Lordships on 22 May—that the concessions that the Government announced that they had made, following our first vote, were cosmetic and had nothing to do with the purpose of the Bill.

The Minister went on to say, as the noble Baroness has also done, that the Government now accepted the order-making power in the Bill and recognised that it was right in principle for the offence of corporate manslaughter to go,

“wider than the traditional remit of health and safety issues and encompass the management of custody”.

He explained that the Government were very clear that there was no reason why, as employers and occupiers, government departments and public authorities should not also be open to prosecution for the new offence. He said:

“The whole purpose of removing Crown immunity where the Crown acts as an employer and occupier was to put ourselves in the same position as many of the private sector companies that will be subject to the Bill”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/6/07; cols. 146-49.]

If the Minister had come to your Lordships’ House and used that logic to argue why the duty owed to anyone held in custody should be included in the Bill, he would not have needed to test its opinion, because few would have disagreed with him. Furthermore, by including those who are in effect their victims—the bereaved relatives of those who die while in their custody because of gross bad management or failure in the duty of care—the Government would be true to their frequently announced intention to rebalance the criminal justice system in favour of victims.

If the Minister had done that, he could have quoted support from Mr John Denham, chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee in the other place, who said that his committee, the Work and Pensions Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights had explicitly made recommendations on the issue and saw no reason in principle why custody should be excluded from the Bill. Mr Denham went on to say that, intellectually, it was hard to oppose the Lords amendments, which were entirely consistent with the line that he had taken throughout the Bill’s progress.

So what is the sticking point? Why are we arguing that the Government should seize an opportunity that they have created to enable them to better manage a duty of care for which they are responsible and accountable? Once again, it is a question of when and not if—a question that is not answered by the use of the word “may” in Amendment No. 10D. Here again, I must pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, who has met once more the noble Lords, Lord Hunt of Wirral, Lord Dholakia and Lord Lee of Trafford, and me to listen to our case, which is based on arguments used by her colleague, Mr Sutcliffe. Our case is very simple: now that the Government have agreed to the concept in detail, all that remains to ensure the passage of the Bill is that they should name a date for custody to be included on its face.

We realise that the Minister is limited in how much she can agree with us because she is in effect only the messenger for the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister, neither of whom will be in office in two days’ time. But because of the reputation that she enjoys in this House for always being at pains to listen and to respond to arguments, we are confident that she will present our case to and impress it on her political masters. I am at a loss to understand why the Government continue to refuse to name a day after which those of their employees whose management or duty of care results in the unnecessary death of someone whose health and safety—not to say right to life—is their responsibility should be liable to prosecution under a Bill that they themselves have designed to allow that course of action to be taken.

What is more, each time we have discussed these amendments, we have done so under the shadow of further incidents that qualify for consideration. On 5 February, I listed a number of cases, such as the murder of Christopher Edwards and Zahid Mubarek and the deaths of Sarah Campbell and Paul Day. On 22 May, I had to add the names of Shahid Aziz, murdered in Leeds in depressingly similar circumstances to Zahid Mubarek, and the suicide of Michael Bailey in Rye Hill, both of which had come in for detailed criticism by the coroner. Today, I have to add the attention drawn recently to the appalling circumstances leading to the suicide of 14 year-old Adam Rickwood in Hassockfield, and this week the coroner will give his verdict on the death of 16 year-old Gareth Myatt under restraint at Rainsbrook secure training centre.

How can any responsible Government continue to prevaricate over the obvious and pressing need, reinforced weekly if not daily by yet more examples, to take advantage of the means that they have created to take action against those whose gross bad management leads to unnecessary deaths for which they are ultimately responsible?

My Lords, today’s debate is about unfinished business and the stubbornness of government. As the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, just said, we want this Bill. All that remains in dispute is a definite date for implementation of deaths in custody, the Government having accepted the principle of it.

Throughout the course of this Bill there has been virtually no support from the Government’s own Benches in either House for the exclusion of deaths in custody. Indeed, many prominent Labour politicians have urged the Government to go firm on an implementation date. In the other place on 5 June, Chris Mullin said:

“There are those of us on the Labour Benches, too, who think that some hint of a timetable needs to be offered”.

John Denham said:

“I think that an indicative timetable would be useful—and might even be sensible from the Minister’s point of view”.

Andrew Dismore said:

“Now is the opportunity for my hon. Friend the Minister to put an end to this game of ping-pong. We have only a few weeks before the Bill runs out of time, so sooner or later concessions will have to be made … If we could work to a target date … that might be a way forward. Without a target, what pressure will there be on the Prison Service and other organisations to encourage them to mend their ways?”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/6/07; cols. 149-58.]

Those are the words of three prominent Labour Members of Parliament. Indeed, I suspect that, had she got her private way, the Minister would probably have wished to be associated with them. However, we have all had experience of defending unpopular positions from the Dispatch Box.

With the obvious pressure from the Government’s own side, support from Liberty and Justice, and two heavy defeats in your Lordships' House, one would have thought that the department would have reflected long and hard and treated the issue as a major concern. But the Lord Chancellor and Ministry of Justice officials were apparently focused on weightier matters. Last Friday’s Times carried the headline:

“Lord Chancellor’s men ‘morris dance while Rome burns’”.

A submission from one of the Lord Chancellor’s private secretaries, dated 7 June—two days after the corporate manslaughter debate in the other place—requested permission for the departmental team of morris dancers to name themselves the Lord Chancellor’s Men. The private secretary, himself a member of the dancers, tells the Lord Chancellor that they dance in the Cotswolds tradition and in the Bampton style, which involves the use of handkerchiefs and sticks. Clearly the private secretary had done his homework as the submission went on:

“As far as we can tell, no such request has been received by a previous Lord Chancellor”,

and added,

“Morris dancing is currently one of the Icons of England on the Department of Culture, Media and Sport site, alongside a cup of tea, a stiff upper lip and a bowler hat”.

With such submissions clearly dominating the Lord Chancellor’s Red Box, we can understand why little further progress has been made on the deaths in custody issue. But tonight we are debating a very serious issue. The Government’s reluctance is due, apparently, to the situation in prisons, particularly overcrowding, and their tender relationship with governors and the Prison Officers Association. But our contention is that the overcrowding issue is not a reason for non-inclusion of deaths in custody. Indeed, we believe that that very overcrowding is precisely the reason why they should be included in this Bill now.

Tonight the Government face a third heavy defeat. Let us hope that they use the opportunity of a new Prime Minister and new Administration to see sense and put this Bill on the statute book as soon as possible, which we all want, and to include within it deaths in custody.

My Lords, I certainly share the view that we cannot afford to kill the Bill, and think that we have more or less got as far as we are going to. Let me summarise where we are and its logic. I ask my noble friend not to contradict my interpretation; she might prefer to nod silently.

My noble friend has spoken on the need to engage the Prison Service. Side by side with the acceptance by Ministers in both Houses of the principle of the Bill covering prisons and police stations is that it is a matter of “when” rather than “whether”, to quote the noble Lord. We are talking about the timescale within which discussions can come to some fruition with the prison authorities and the police service. As the Minister has explained, on this territory it is not possible to accept the suggestion made in this place last time by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, because one cannot put a timescale on these indispensable discussions with the two services. One picks up the point already made that this is at a time of unprecedented stress in both services.

I shall hazard a scenario about the timescales for these discussions. Will they take 20 years? I do not think so. Will they take 10 years? I should not think that that is what is meant. Will they take five years? Surely not—that is longer than the lifetime of a Parliament. I assume that we are talking about a maximum of three to four years, if one leans over backwards to be reasonable about it. I know that my noble friend cannot change her brief one millimetre on this, but the interpretation that is reasonable for a reasonable person to put on where we are is that she does not need to say anything along the lines of how many years. We should be able to accept the logic of the situation.

We can settle the matter. The solution is for us to rest on the inference that that sort of timetable is not outside the bounds of the thinking going on in government, as I am sure that my noble friend can accept. Therefore, again, the commencement of the discussions cannot be in five, 10 or 15 years, but must be this year, alongside the other major management discussions going on with the two services. In so far as my noble friend says that they are inextricably connected, they should be on the agenda for the discussions already taking place.

I shall labour the point. I am not asking my noble friend to accept what I have said. I am only saying that we have got as far as we can today. People ought to think about that, accept that this is an important Bill and accept that the Government have gone some distance. As my noble friend will confirm, I have been in some of the discussions, and we ought to be able to live with the understanding that has been arrived at.

My Lords, I confess to being in some confusion. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said that we had until the end of the Session for the Bill. I see the noble Baroness shaking her head. Will she enlighten us on why we have only some shorter time, and on what it is?

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall do so. The rules on carry-over are set by the other place and require proceedings on the Bill to be completed within 12 months of introduction. The Bill was introduced on 20 July last year, which gives the Bill until 19 July this year.

My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister. That at least enlightens us. None the less, I must confess that I am wholeheartedly in favour of this amendment.

When the Bill came to this House, it did not include any protection for those in custody and the House amended that and made a fundamental change. I can see that the Government might have rejected that change, although they would have been wrong. It is extraordinary that someone should owe a duty of care and be prosecuted for manslaughter if they injure an employee, who, if he thinks working conditions are dangerous, can always leave, whereas it is not owed to a prisoner, who does not have that same option of leaving if he does not like conditions. None the less, that would have been a distinction on principle on which, perhaps, one might have said that the House of Commons was wrong but that it should have its way.

The Government have accepted that they must owe a duty of care to those in their custody and that it will be right in due course that those people shall come within the provisions of the Bill and that their death through gross neglect shall be the subject of the Bill and constitute manslaughter. But they say that while that position constitutes virtue, “Oh Lord, please don’t make us virtuous yet”. Frankly, that will not do. It might have done for St Augustine, but it will not do now.

The Minister gave us no explanation of any logical force as to why waiting will help. If there were specific exceptions that the Government wished to make to the duty of care to those in custody, they could have brought them forward by amendment. However, they have not proposed that the measure should not apply in certain circumstances or that the Prison Service must be judged only by the standards of what you can reasonably expect people to do who are coping with very difficult prisoners, which is the situation anyhow. They have not made any such proposal but merely said, “We might do this some time”—and the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, made it clear that that time might be any time or never. He seems in his wisdom to think that it will not be much more than three or four years, but we do not really know why he thinks that.

Perhaps more importantly, if the Government come forward with a provision to extend the duty of care to those in custody, they can do so by a statutory instrument that makes any form of exception or conditional provision and largely nullifies the duty. Because of the limitation on our powers over statutory instruments, we shall not be able to do anything about that. We can throw out the statutory instruments and leave prisoners wholly unprotected or grin and bear a statutory instrument that gives them only 10 per cent protection. If the Government get their way they will merely have pulled down a curtain, which they and only they can draw ever so slightly, subject to such limitations as they want, as and when they want. We will be powerless to do anything to bring these provisions into effect or make them more effective when brought in because the sole initiative will be with the Government. That just will not do.

My Lords, there is little need to add to what was an outstanding speech from the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who comprehensively covered the full range of what I would want to say, so I just say from these Benches that I completely agree with him.

However, it is important for me to add just three things. First, the vote today in no way kills the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has already made that clear, as has the noble Lord, Lord Lea. There is still time. The Minister sought to rely on the wording of the carry-over Motion but, as we all know from the Companion, it is perfectly possible for a further Motion to be proposed. If the Government require more time, then of course they must have that time, but in no circumstances should any noble Lord feel that what is happening today is decisive for the future of the Bill.

My second point is that the Government are moving—I pay tribute to the Minister for the way in which she has approached discussion on the subject. I sense that many on the Government Benches feel that it is wrong for us to exclude deaths in custody. All we are seeking is something more than ministerial assurances, because we have no guarantee that the Ministers who are saying that, in principle, they accept the points made will still be in office after Thursday. I am not one of those who has sent in their CVs; I do not know who will be the Ministers on Thursday—we wait to see—but there will be a new set of Ministers and there may well be a new set at the Ministry of Justice.

So the words that we have heard mean nothing at present unless we have something in the Bill. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, that my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern pointed out that under Clause 21, the provisions of the Act,

“come into force on such day as the Secretary of State may appoint by order”.

Provided that the Minister accepts that we can include deaths in custody in the Bill, the Government have, as the noble Lord, Lord Lea, pointed out, the power to decide when the provisions are brought into effect. We ought to have a discussion about the timing that the Prison Service is given to comply with the provisions.

Many on the government side—I pay tribute to them—feel that the Bill is inadequate without being extended in the way that the noble Lord suggested. I have had many discussions with them; they feel uncomfortable and we give them the opportunity today to settle this matter once and for all. I want the Bill on the statute book. I have the privilege of being president of the All-Party Group on Occupational Health and Safety. We have been pressing for a Bill such as this for years and members of the group will be delighted that we are now very close. It just requires the Government to include in the Bill that deaths in custody will apply on a date to be decided by the Government.

I say this in a tribute to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, who said last week:

“Where a serious crime is committed, even by a public body, it is right to mark that and bring some degree of accountability. It is also right to impose a penalty to deter not just that body but others from committing similar offences in the future”.—[Official Report, 20/6/07; col. 215.]

I agree.

My Lords, I come to this debate not just in the context of membership of your Lordships’ House, but as a long campaigner in another life as leader of my union. It could be said that I was there at the birth of the campaign regarding protection in respect of corporate responsibility, hence the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill.

As I have listened to the debate, I know that there are two groups of people who will be watching, waiting and listening to your Lordships’ final word on the matter: the relatives of those who have died through the negligence of employers; and the relatives and friends of those who have died in custody. I have seen the anguish on the faces of both groups. I have visited areas of our community where death in custody has imprinted itself on wide areas of the community.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has given your Lordships in this and previous debates a long list of those who have died in custody. I could add names that have not been mentioned, such as Joy Gardener and Roger Sylvester, and there are others.

The Bill is not about punishment; it is about change in responsibility and behaviour. If the Bill carries equal force to change employers’ behaviour, clearly it must also be right that the Bill acts as a stimulus to change the behaviour of those who speak and act in our name—those responsible for the people in their custody. It would be difficult to be face to face with the relatives of the two groups of people and feel that we have treated one group more favourably than the other. Negligence is negligence, wherever it applies. Justice and responsibility go to both. If the Government maintain their position, they will be undermining the Bill’s importance, and how they want it to apply. Therefore, it is with a heavy heart but a very clear head that I will not be joining my party in the Lobby tonight if the House divides on the amendment.

My Lords, in rising to support the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, I recognise that I shall repeat what I have said to your Lordships twice before—on Second Reading and in Committee. I was brief then and I intend to be just as brief this evening, if I may.

I remind noble Lords that, in my opinion, one of the best tests of the worth, status and weight of any democracy is the way in which prisoners are treated in state institutions, whether police cells, state prisons or any of the other catalogue that one finds in the Bill as it is presented today. How are prisoners treated; what recourse is there if something goes wrong—either recourse later in their hands or in the hands of relatives; and what about the duty of care? I say again that if we do not include this measure in the Bill, what sort of message does that send inside and outside the system? What sort of message does it send inside and outside this country, particularly to those nations that we are trying to impress for reasons that I need not parade this evening?

This is an exercise in procrastination and/or prevarication. Although the Minister has talked about a power in the Bill and has suggested it again this evening, a date would suffice as far as I am concerned—from the way in which noble Lords are nodding, I think that a date would suffice for them as well. Without a date, I cannot support what is suggested by the Government. Like other noble Lords, I am conscious of the depth of the constitutional water that we venture into if we return the Bill to another place, but I cannot vote with the Government and I cannot support such an omission from the list of requirements that go to the status and weight of a civilised society.

My Lords, I begin by noting that we are mindful that tragedy is the backdrop to this legislation, as many noble Lords have said. I pay tribute to all those who have spoken with enormous conviction. Whether I agree or disagree with them and whether they sit on my Benches or other Benches, I hold them in high regard, and I hope they know that. I know that noble Lords recognise that the principle that lies behind the passion with which they have spoken tonight and in earlier debates has been accepted. My honourable friend Gerry Sutcliffe made clear in another place that the principle has been conceded. Your Lordships’ House has done what it does best, which is to take issues of great concern and to ask the Government to rethink their position. I am extremely grateful that noble Lords understand how far the Government have moved. The principle is there. That is important because some speeches sounded a little as if we had not considered it, but we have.

The commitments made by my right honourable and honourable friends in another place, my noble and learned friend and other Ministers who before me had the privilege of taking this important legislation through are real. I hope that noble Lords accept that the commitments with which we stand before you today about the principle that we have conceded are real and genuine. Those commitments will stand whatever the job that anyone, including me, is in, or not in, in a few days from now, not least because I have been extremely impressed by the quality and diligence of the work of the officials in my department, who have done their very best to think carefully and consistently about the implications of what is proposed.

I do not want to get into whether the Bill will be killed. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, is right that it is possible, in exceptional circumstances, for extra time to be granted, but it is granted only when the Government can demonstrate that assistance would be helpful. At present, I can see no way that extra time would change the position. Noble Lords need to be aware that we are in a timetable, and that is an important factor in our deliberations, but I say no more than that because I have no intention of trying to twist anyone’s arm on that basis. Noble Lords will make their decision as they wish. I know that that will be one of the considerations that will be taken into account.

Expressions such as “disgracefully irresponsible” were used. I take collective responsibility for my Government’s actions and after six years as a Minister I am used to many things being said, but that is not what we are trying to be. It would be very easy for me to be very popular in your Lordships’ House—it is something I try to be, particularly when there is an election going on for Peer of the year—however, I have responsibly taken back the comments made by noble Lords in our discussions, and I have responsibly reported the concerns that have been raised. I have discussed this with my ministerial colleagues and with the officials in my department. They have raised two points that I obviously did not make clear to the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe. First, the changes in the Bill about the relationship between this legislation and Crown immunity are uncharted and potentially dramatic. There is no question but that it is important that the Government are able to see what those changes would mean. They are good changes and are fully supported in your Lordships’ House, but they take us in new directions. We need to consider issues in the context of public policy. These may sound like woolly words, but noble Lords will remember perfectly well legislation on, for example, health and safety, whose interpretation resulted in circumstances that were neither predicted nor, indeed, wanted in legislation. Those are important considerations in bringing forward legislation.

The second point is that because legislation covers Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England, it is important that the Prison Service is debated and discussed properly. This is not about delaying tactics but about taking with us the people who feel deeply the tragedies that happen in our prisons. Such people are charged with looking after, protecting and supporting those in prison to try to help them to come out of prison and not return. I believe these people take the tragedies very much to heart and worry about the consequences for them. I do not put them into the category where they necessarily take any responsibility for them—these tragedies happen, and they feel them extremely keenly.

We are a revising Chamber. We have revised the legislation. It has gone back to another place. Another place has considered it. Mr Denham and Mr Dismore have also considered it. They felt that the Government have moved sufficiently. We take these responsibilities properly and rightly to heart. I hope that the legislation can find its way on to the statute book as quickly as possible. It is not about avoidance; it is about doing this properly, and bearing in mind the responsibilities we have as a Government to make sure that what we do works well. On that basis, I hope that noble Lords will feel able to support the Government on this occasion, bearing in mind all I have said, and not to vote for the amendment.

My Lords, I am sure that I echo the opinion of everyone in the House when I thank the noble Baroness for the care, courtesy and humanity with which she has presented her case. As always one listens with great care because her words are not lightly chosen and I respect what she says. I am sure also that noble Lords will have been very moved by the contribution by the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Handsworth, to our debate this evening. It was outstanding in its clarity and courage and represented a case which I think is unassailable.

I declare a past interest as a former chief inspector of Prisons. During that time, I had the opportunity to see first hand the most marvellous work being done by people in prisons, to which the Minister has quite rightly paid tribute. It is marvellous work, and one admired them for all they did in the difficulties. I have to say that I also saw some of the most awful examples of bad work, which let them down and let down the name of their service. Frankly, I always found it extraordinary that that was not dealt with.

When I used a word such as “irresponsible”, I was referring to the fact that I do not think that people who do not exercise proper management of either the duty of care or their responsibility should be allowed to get away with it, in particular when they owe a duty of care to individuals who are in the care of the state.

This is an enormously serious issue. Nobody wants to kill this Bill; we all want to see it enacted. I have said, and I repeat, that I am more than happy to discuss the matter, and I will suggest a date which I know will be acceptable to many noble Lords because I have discussed it with them. We owe a duty, as the noble Lord, Lord Morris, said, to the relatives as much as anything else. We, as a House, need to express our views as clearly as we can. Therefore, I would like to test its opinion.

asked Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to promote the United Nations convention on disability.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I want to raise a number of issues about the UN convention on disability and the related optional protocol. But first I congratulate the Government on their outstanding leadership in establishing this potentially powerful instrument. The convention and, indeed, the protocol can dramatically affect the lives of the world’s 650 million disabled people. That is a gigantic aim, and a wonderful one. They reinforce the rights laid down in other treaties by interpretations relevant to disabled people who were hitherto excluded. It will be of enormous benefit to millions of disabled people seeking to establish their human rights.

So, the first question I want to raise is: now that we have commendably helped to establish the convention, and signed it, why do not the Government ratify it? I know that Ministers feel that our signing of the convention indicates our intention to ratify it, but every country can say that and it does not necessarily follow. It certainly does not for some of those countries which do not have Britain’s record of disability legislation. Twenty states need to both sign and ratify the convention before it enters into force. So far, only one state has ratified it—Jamaica.

I have seen far too much admirable legislation on disability become moribund because it was not ratified, implemented or monitored. There is a world of difference between a government intention and a Government’s signed commitment. Where there is just an intention, a Government can be knocked off course for a thousand reasons, but not if there is a written commitment. So I would welcome from my noble friend an explanation of the Government’s view on ratification, and perhaps he can tell us precisely where the Government stand on it. Personally, I think it is time for an unequivocal commitment, and I would welcome that today from the Government.

The next issue of concern is the optional protocol, which allows individuals and organisations to petition the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities about alleged breaches of the provisions of the convention. This protocol is important because without it disabled people are unable to challenge the deprivation of their rights. But the attitude of our Government is far from clear. One Minister has said that it is not their custom to sign protocols because there is not necessarily enough value as the petitioners petition a monitoring committee, not a court of law, and therefore cannot offer compensation or legal interpretation. That may be true, but the Minister went on to say that it was not necessarily the case that the Government would not sign protocols in the future and that the issue was under consideration. I really would like clarification. Does the term “under consideration” mean that the Government are kicking the issue into the long grass or is it being actively considered? This debate is an opportunity for the Government to give a categorical answer. Will they sign the protocol or not?

Another key issue is the full involvement of disabled people in the implementation and monitoring of the convention. The machinery for implementation and monitoring is now being constructed, but it will be built on shifting sands unless disabled people are actively involved. It is important that we utilise the rich fund of experience and expertise available for contributing to these vital decisions. I am heartened by the fact that Jane Campbell—the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell—is chairman of the disability committee of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights. She and her disabled colleagues in this House who have contributed so much to the disability movement, such as the noble Baronesses, Lady Darcy de Knayth, Lady Wilkins and Lady Masham, and Colin Low—the noble Lord, Lord Low—will no doubt play a major role. They will be massively supported and supplemented by my noble friend Lord Morris of Manchester, who plays an important role in these events.

However, in the vast area of the world to be affected, the authorities must bear in mind the paramount importance of the involvement and active participation of disabled people. Once the convention and the protocol become fully operational, they can resolve a whole range of injustices affecting disabled people. For example, on a disability of which I have personal experience, deafness, many people are denied their rights in Britain and elsewhere. The convention emphasises the need to provide access to communication support, including sign-language interpreters, and it places a duty on Governments to ensure that deaf people are no longer excluded from a wide range of activities. This will be a great boon to deaf people everywhere.

Another example is the need to rescue disabled people if they are being abused when local authorities place them in privately owned care homes. Judges, in their wisdom or otherwise, have ruled that private care homes contracted out by a local authority are not covered by the Human Rights Act, which is astonishing. Presumably, any kind of behaviour by the owners which flies in the face of the Human Rights Act provisions is permissible. This outrageous situation cannot be allowed to continue and the convention can play a vital role in ending it.

The establishment of this convention is, let us make no mistake, a major development crucial to many millions of disabled people throughout the world. But it can easily become a dead letter unless it is followed up by energetic, organised, determined and enthusiastic action. We need to tackle the evident lack of knowledge of disabled people’s rights and their failure to claim them; a major awareness campaign is a priority. We need to deal in specifics rather than generalities and our Government can make a start by accepting my Disabled Persons (Independent Living) Bill, which imposes specific duties on public authorities and confers specific rights on disabled people.

I hope that my noble friend can tell us where the Government stand on this and what other action they intend to take to mark this historic event of the United Nations convention.

My Lords, I warmly congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ashley of Stoke, on his comprehensive introduction to this short debate and applaud his robust and unremitting pursuit of full rights for disabled people. Equally relentless in pursuing this aim is the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Manchester, and I am delighted that he will speak today. He played a key role in chairing Rehabilitation International’s world planning group that drafted the Charter for the Third Millennium, which called for the United Nations convention. Both noble Lords have kept the matter in front of this House in Oral Questions.

I also congratulate the Government on their hard work—including Anne McGuire and, previously, Maria Eagle, as Ministers for disabled people—because the significance of the UN convention on disability is not to be underestimated. It is an outstanding achievement which would not have been possible without strong advocacy on the part of the UK Government. Doubtless the Office for Disability Issues is working hard to enable ratifications as soon as possible. Disabled people will then need a well co-ordinated and well resourced campaign to ensure that they can make full use of the convention in human rights cases and in securing a better deal for public services.

We must also ensure disability organisations are properly resourced to monitor compliance with the convention. I endorse all that the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, has said about the CEHR needing to play a strong role. The Disability Commission is led by my noble friend Lady Campbell of Surbiton, who will, I know, ensure that there is expert involvement. I urge the Government to ensure that the Disabled Persons (Independent Living) Bill passes swiftly to the statute book. Along with the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, I urge the Government to close the loophole whereby disabled people in private or voluntary sector care homes appear not to be covered by the Human Rights Act, contrary to the intention of Parliament.

I turn now to a subject close to my heart: education rights and closing the gaps in the light of the UN convention, which sets out strong standards for access to inclusive education for disabled people. Last week there was the launch of “Progression Through Partnerships”, which is a joint strategy between the DfES, the Department of Health and the DWP on the role of further education and training and supporting people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities. Under three Ministers—Bill Rammell, Ivan Lewis and Anne McGuire—this three-pronged attack is hugely welcome. We know that you need both care and education to progress through learning to meaningful work. This should pave the way for disabled learners to have a meaningful, productive life.

However, current equality legislation is failing disabled children, as the DRC points out. When schools were made subject to non-discrimination duties in 2001, the rights to auxiliary aids and services were excluded on the grounds that such provision would be made for pupils through the special educational needs framework. Yet the evidence shows that disabled pupils are losing out; increasing numbers either do not have a statement of SEN or do not fall within the definition of special educational needs. The exclusion of rights to auxiliary aids and services has led to a gap in provision for disabled children. This can mean that where this support is not delivered, disabled children can experience barriers to their participation in school life and difficulties in accessing teaching and learning. The lack of effective support can also mean that disabled children may have to be educated in specialist settings.

It is disappointing that these issues were not even mentioned in the Green Paper on a single equality Act. Perhaps the relevant government departments might like to consider this in the light of the steps they will wish to take to ensure full implementation of the convention. I hope the Minister will comment on that.

The National Autistic Society’s campaign, School Makes Sense, calls for every child to receive the education they deserve. The NAS comments that two of its demands are particularly relevant to the convention. First, “the right school for every child” is an inclusive education system called for by the convention in which a child receives the appropriate support for his or her needs. It should mean access to a range of provision and be flexible. Secondly, under “the right approach in every school”, the School Makes Sense campaign calls on schools to make adjustments to facilitate autism-friendly schools and to increase understanding across the whole school. The convention’s commitments to peer support and the,

“full development of human potential and sense of dignity and self-worth”,

are therefore very welcome.

The NAS also states that the disability equality duty requires public bodies, including schools and local authorities, to eliminate harassment, although it points out that the Government failed to mention the DED in its recent response to the Select Committee report on bullying. The convention is an opportunity to take that further and foster respect at an early age; for example, through citizenship classes to increase understanding of disability and more complex conditions such as autism. Bullying is a big problem with children on the autistic spectrum and with children with learning disabilities, as my noble friend Lord Rix has often told us so graphically.

I turn to the need for a European disability directive. The UK Government’s leadership on the UN disability convention has been widely praised, as the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, pointed out. Now more than ever, that kind of leadership is needed to secure a comprehensive EU directive outlawing discrimination against disabled people in education, access to goods and services and all other areas of life.

Four years ago the European Commission acknowledged the need for wider anti-discrimination legislation to complement the employment equality directive, but said that everything hinged on the willingness of member states to take that forward. A great opportunity exists to press forward with this. Please will the Minister assure us that the Government will do all they can to champion the urgent need for a European equivalent of the DDA?

Such a directive would be vital to effective implementation of the UN disability convention by and across the European communities. It would also have direct benefits for disabled people in the UK, because it would open up new opportunities for inclusive travel and living and for taking up employment opportunities in other EU countries. It also represents the best means of securing progress on inclusive design of manufactured goods, which are currently excluded from the DDA.

Seven years ago I opened a short debate asking the Government whether they had made any response to Rehabilitation International’s newly promulgated charter for disabled people worldwide. I referred to a Bill on the special educational needs and disabled rights in education that was coming soon. I hoped it would facilitate and ensure successful and inclusive education. We still have some way to go, at home as well as abroad. I continued:

“Many of your Lordships have spent hours—even years—discussing transport, accessible housing and access to work in this Chamber. By now I hope that we understand the problems and how to solve them, even if we have not yet wholly eliminated them”.—[Official Report, 14/7/2000; col. 555.]

We still have a little way to go.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, for introducing this debate, and look forward to the contribution of other noble Lords. I hope the Government, in promoting the UN convention, will pass the Disabled Persons (Independent Living) Bill, secure a comprehensive EU disability directive and really bring the day closer when people with disabilities throughout the world can experience the same life chances as the rest of the society they inhabit.

My Lords, I begin on a note of regret. Had it been possible, the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, would have been with us for this debate. I first met her in 1992 while preparing a speech to move, in another place, the Second Reading of my Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill, out of which the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 was filleted. Indeed, she contributed to that speech. Thus it was a joy for me, last Wednesday, to hear her make a parliamentary speech of her own. Like the noble Lord, Lord Low, whom it is good to see here this evening, she powerfully reinforces the representation of severely disabled people in this House.

One of the most endearing of all the charms of your Lordships’ House is the near certainty of knowing well ahead of an occasion like this who will be taking part. We operate as a fellowship, in debates opened by one or other of us, of all parties and of none, and I am naturally delighted both that it was my noble, and long-standing, friend Lord Ashley who opened the debate with all his customary skill and commitment, and that he was followed to such good effect by the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth. For it was the noble Baroness who on 14 July 2000 opened the first debate here on the case for a UN convention on the rights of disabled people. She urged the Government to back the compelling case by Rehabilitation International—RI—for one, in its Charter for the Third Millennium, as a key strategy for advancing the rights of disabled people worldwide. The noble Baroness explained my involvement, as chairman of the World Planning Group chosen by RI to draft its charter and recalled that I had unveiled it at a service in the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft in December 1999, attended supportively by the right honourable Michael Martin, the Speaker of the House of Commons, my noble and learned friend Lord Irvine of Lairg, then Lord Chancellor, and the late Sir Edward Heath, representing the Opposition.

Also present were members of the World Planning Group, including His Excellency Chief Emeka Anyaoku, then Secretary-General of the Commonwealth; Justin Dart, who chaired the United States President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities; Archbishop Tutu of South Africa; Anatole Ossadchikh, Minister of Social Affairs in the Russian Federation; Professor Stephen Hawking; His Royal Highness Prince Ra’ad bin Zeid of Jordan; Sir Harry Fang of Hong Kong, a former president of RI; Dr Arthur O’Reilly, then RI’s chairman; Shri DK Manavalan of India; and a representative of Deng Pufang, chairman of the China Disabled Persons Federation.

Speaking for the Government on 3 May, my noble friend Lady Morgan of Drefelin told the House that at a ceremony held at the UN to mark the opening for signature of the convention, His Royal Highness Prince Ra’ad bin Zeid had paid tribute to my “pioneering role”—having led the process of drafting RI’s charter—in originating the call for the UN convention he was there to sign for Jordan. While it was kind of my noble friend to relate this to the House, in fact nothing I did could have been done without the unwavering support of my colleagues in the World Planning Group, all of high distinction, and drawn from the north, south, east and west of the world to draft the charter. For they, too, operated as a fellowship, which I was privileged to serve. Moreover, the group itself could not have succeeded without the help and backing of national committees formed by disability organisations in most of RI’s 117 member countries to report their priorities to us, Bert—now Sir Bert—Massie having reported for the UK national committee.

Also crucial was the endorsement of our call for a UN convention by heads of Government all around the world; and in no country was that endorsement made more strikingly clear than in Britain when RI’s charter was presented to the Prime Minister in Downing Street on 5 July 2000.

Responding later to a Parliamentary Question from my right honourable friend, Sir Gerald Kaufman, on the Government’s support for the charter,

“and the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Charter’s call for a UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People”,

the Prime Minister told the House of Commons:

“I welcomed Rehabilitation International’s Charter for the Third Millennium in July 2000. In doing so, I said that I believed it would form the basis of a global consensus on priorities for at least the next decade. This absolutely remains the Government’s view”.[Official Report, Commons, 25/3/02; col. 618W.]

That stance has been maintained with faultless constancy ever since. In fact, the Government’s support for a convention went further than formal backing at the UN. They made a significant financial contribution to involving representative disabled people in the process of drafting the text ultimately agreed.

That text, like RI’s call for the convention, was founded on two straightforward propositions: first, that unjustified discrimination against disabled people is morally indefensible; and secondly, that what is morally indefensible ought no longer to be legally permissible. Yet millions of disabled people, children and adults alike, more especially among the poorest of the world’s poor, still have to live with disabilities that were easily preventable at minimal cost. And why? The answer is clearly stated in UNICEF’s exemplary report The State of the World’s Children:

“When so much could be done for so many and at so little cost, then one central, shameful fact becomes unavoidable: the reason that these problems are not being overcome is not because the task is too large or too difficult or too expensive. It’s that the job is not being given sufficient priority because those most severely affected are almost exclusively the poorest and least politically influential people on earth”.

Take the incidence of blindness in the world today. Four out of five blind people live in the third world and four out of five of them are preventably blind—this at a time when the cost of saving people from disability has been falling as dramatically as the incidence of preventable disability in many of the poorest countries has increased. That is but one example of the scale of the problems that the UN convention has to address and RI’s Charter for the Third Millennium provides as good a guide as now exists to the way forward. It is a statement not of generalisations, but of well argued recommendations that include many about the contribution that aid-giving countries can make to helping disabled people in the third world: for example, the recommendation to ensure that international assistance programmes require accessibility for disabled people in all infrastructure projects, including technology and communications, to vouchsafe their full inclusion in the economic and social life of their communities.

Yet inevitably disability organisations in the developed world also want to see progress in rooting out discriminatory practices in their own communities; and many of the Parliamentary Questions that I have asked since our signing of the convention have reflected concerns put to me by representative disabled people in the UK. They are anxious to know what progress Ministers have made in analysing the compatibility of the convention with British laws, their plans for ratification and whether we shall sign the Optional Protocol about which I asked a recent Starred Question. They also want to know how widely the Government will consult disabled people and their organisations in implementing the convention, monitoring its impact and promoting its purpose. I am asked in particular whether Ministers will consult the RNIB, the RNID, Leonard Cheshire and CEHR; and I know that my noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton will respond as fully and helpfully as he can to these questions.

The endeavours of disability organisations to make Britain the exemplar par excellence of full and rapid implementation of the convention richly deserve to succeed, because it was from here that the long, long trail towards achieving equal rights for disabled people began. It did so in 1978, when Sir Peter Large was appointed to head a government committee of inquiry—of which the noble Lord, Lord Low, was also a member—into unjustified discrimination against disabled people. Its landmark report in 1982 called for legislation to outlaw such discrimination.

The Americans with Disabilities Act was but one lineal descendant of that report, followed by legislation here and in many other countries and culminating now in the UN convention. That is why this debate should not end without due acknowledgement of Peter Large’s huge contribution to that outcome. Severely disabled himself, often having to rely on an iron lung to stay alive, he was a towering figure in the world of disability whose passing two years ago was an immense loss to disabled people everywhere. We owe it to them—not least, in UNICEF's words, the poorest and least politically influential people on earth—and to Peter's memory, to brook no delay in implementing the UN convention.

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, on having secured this timely debate. In following him, it is a pleasure to acknowledge the inspiration that he has given the rest of us, over many years, in the struggle for disabled people's rights. I pay tribute also to the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Manchester, whose work in this field is universally recognised and has been seminal. After all, his work on Rehabilitation International's Charter for the Third Millennium was, in many ways, the origin of the call for a UN convention. It is indeed a privilege to follow both those noble Lords in the debate.

I begin by declaring my interest. As an officer of the World Blind Union, I played a small part in the negotiations in New York back in 2002 towards the beginning of the process. Since then, both as chairman of RNIB and president of the European Blind Union, I have followed the process closely. Like other noble Lords, I welcome the adoption of this convention. I readily acknowledge the positive and constructive part that the UK Government, and in particular Anne McGuire MP, the Minister in another place, have played in the negotiations. By signing the convention on the first day it was open for signature, the Government have set a positive example to other countries to get a move on with the ratification process. Like other noble Lords, I hope the Government will be in a position to ratify the convention soon, with as few derogations and reservations as possible. I shall be interested to hear how long the pre-ratification review of UK legislation is likely to take and when the UK thinks it will be able to sign the optional protocol. However, it is about the rights themselves that I principally wish to speak this evening.

Her Majesty’s Government may conclude that the UK is ahead of most other countries in the matter of discrimination legislation, and they may be right to do so, but I would not want them to conclude from that that they can safely rest on their laurels and carry on as if it was business as usual. I believe that there are clear areas where the convention calls for Governments to provide services or take action over and above what is currently to be found in UK legislation or practice. It also seems that despite the increased emphasis on rights in UK legislation in recent years, in some areas there has actually been a deterioration in the level of support needed to ensure that these rights can be fully enjoyed, notably in the field of social care where 70 per cent of local councils have already indicated that they will be able to meet only the needs of those who fall into the critical or substantial category; and that figure of 70 per cent is set to rise to 80 per cent in the next year. I shall give three examples of where the convention requirements do not seem to me to be properly met at present for visually impaired people in the UK.

Article 26, on habilitation and rehabilitation, says:

“States Parties shall take effective and appropriate measures … to enable persons with disabilities to attain and maintain maximum independence, full physical, mental, social and vocational ability, and full inclusion and participation in all aspects of life”.

However, recent research by Guide Dogs found that 20 per cent of those surveyed had not received any form of needs assessment; only 56 per cent of those who had had their needs assessed were offered services based on that assessment; and only 37 per cent had received training in mobility.

Again, the Equipped for Living report produced last year by the Improving Lives Coalition, a consortium of voluntary sector bodies concerned with improving social services for visually impaired people, based on a survey of 500 people in England and Wales, found that blind and partially sighted people were receiving very little in the way of equipment to help with independent living. For example, computer equipment using large-text speech or Braille was available to only 14 per cent of people, and four out of five of them had to buy it for themselves. This small selection of data from these two surveys illustrates the extremely poor state of rehabilitation services for blind and partially sighted people in the UK today.

Article 21, on freedom of expression and opinion and access to information, says that states parties should provide,

“information intended for the general public to persons with disabilities in accessible formats and technologies appropriate to different kinds of disabilities in a timely manner and without additional cost”.

Yet in the area of health services alone a recent survey of blind and partially sighted people in the UK showed that 95 per cent of respondents had never received health advice leaflets or information from their local surgery in their preferred format; 96 per cent had never received letters from their GP, results of tests or other correspondence in their preferred format; and 95 per cent had never received medicine labelled in large print.

Article 9, on accessibility, says that states parties shall, among other things,

“take appropriate measures to ensure to persons with disabilities access, on an equal basis with others, to … transportation”.

Yet still almost no buses in the UK currently have onboard announcements on route destination or next stop, and according to the Guide Dog research mentioned earlier, only 39 per cent travelled by bus and 11 per cent by train.

In the light of the above and other areas I could mention, I should like to ask the Minister three questions. First, will the current exercise to review UK legislation in the light of the convention be used to identify areas where further action needs to be taken? Secondly, what steps will the Government take to ensure that statutory bodies such as local councils implement the requirements of the convention? Thirdly, will the Government ensure that they involve disabled people from all walks of life and their organisations, both large and small, when carrying out this work? If you go to the Directgov web page on international disability rights and the UN convention and look under:

“How to find out more and get involved”,

you will find links to just two disability organisation websites—that of the representative of disabled people on the UK’s delegation to the convention negotiations in New York and that of Disability Awareness in Action, a small pressure group concerned with monitoring infringements of disabled people’s rights and promoting action to address them. I am sure that the Minister will agree with me—as he did when answering my supplementary question of 16 January—about the importance of implementing the convention rights in a manner which takes account of the diversity of disabled people’s needs and ensures that in the implementation and monitoring process the Government consult with as wide a range of organisations as possible.

The UN convention will be the first human rights treaty to be ratified by the European Union. It therefore involves obligations not just for the UK but for the EU as well in areas where it has competence. The principles of non-discrimination and equality are among the underlying principles in the convention and are at the heart of many of its specific articles, for example those on accessibility. Given that the EU now has competence to address disability discrimination since Article 13 of the Amsterdam treaty, and has already used this competence with regard to discrimination in employment, following the UN convention it should now take the next step, as the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth, said, and adopt a general disability directive covering all the areas falling within its competence such as access to goods and services, transport and manufactured goods. The last of these is particularly important since under single market legislation it cannot be addressed by national legislation. Furthermore, the UK, as the EU member state with the longest experience of disability discrimination legislation, should take the lead in persuading the Commission to propose such legislation.

To conclude, I believe that the convention is to be welcomed but we should welcome it with our eyes open. Many of the rights in it are as long as a piece of string. Phrases such as “as far as possible”, “to the greatest extent possible” and “all appropriate measures” abound. I commend the initiative of the European Blind Union, of which, as I say, I am president, to spell out in detail what the various rights mean for blind and partially sighted people. I hope very much that the Government will want to enter into discussion with our UK affiliates on this.

My Lords, as is repeatedly the case, I add my thanks to my noble friend Lord Ashley of Stoke for securing this debate and for his relentless pressure on the Government to secure the human rights of all disabled people. I also add my thanks to the Minister, Anne McGuire, and her predecessor, Maria Eagle, together with their official, Liz Tillett, for their commitment in bringing the UN convention into existence. Most important, I pay tribute to Rachel Hurst of Disability Awareness in Action and Richard Light for their years and years of tireless work in producing the evidence, arguing the case and lobbying for the need for a UN convention to protect the rights of the 650 million disabled people throughout the world.

Our Government can be proud of their role in developing this UN convention and for being one of its earliest signatories. With this history, will my noble friend the Minister tell the House what justification there can possibly be why we should not be high on the list of the 20 nations needed to ratify the convention and so ensure that it becomes binding on all UN countries?

Other noble Lords have addressed the breadth of this debate, so I hope that they will understand if I concentrate on just one area, which I consider fundamental to meeting disabled people’s human rights. David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, said at this year’s EU seminar on housing as a human right:

“It cannot be possible to have a meaningful concept of human rights until it is accepted that having a warm, dry and secure home is a pre-requisite to ensuring civil, political, cultural, social and all other human rights. Indeed the right to a home is more basic to human dignity than any other rights we discuss”.

At the European level, there is growing acceptance that human rights must be the basis for social policy. Scotland was the first place in Europe to make the right to housing enforceable by law, and last Christmas France followed its example. The DRC has called on the Government to use their leverage to ensure that the newly formed fundamental rights agency conducts research and gathers data on the rights of disabled people across the European Union, which I totally endorse.

Public discussion of housing in the last few years is as likely to talk of “investment opportunity” as recognise that our home is the very foundation of our social and psychological well-being. It is the base that should enable us to take our place in the world around us, healthy, rested, clean and ready to use our talents. Yet home for many disabled people is neither liberating nor comforting. Too often it is the bare four walls, with a bed, table and cupboard, of a residential care home; or where your bed and commode are in the family sitting room, as the only accessible space. It can be the place that is impossible to leave because of the flights of stairs to the outside world, or where the damp walls provide a daily threat to your asthma and thus your life. A disabled person’s home conditions every aspect of their life—their health, ability to work and economic status, social opportunities, ability to contribute and whole well-being.

In Britain, we have a housing crisis which impacts disproportionately on disabled people due to their relative poverty and restricted opportunities. The facts are worth repeating. In 2003, the charity John Grooms conducted a survey of physically disabled people across England and Wales. It found that more than 20 per cent of respondents lived in houses that were either difficult to move around or to get in and out of, that 40 per cent of respondents felt that their housing situation made them unnecessarily dependent on other people, and that 24 per cent of wheelchair users were prisoners in their own home because of poor access and location.

What measures are the Government taking to meet Article 9 of the UN convention, which calls for measures to,

“enable persons with disabilities to live independently and participate fully in all aspects of life”?

It calls on states to take appropriate measures to ensure that disabled people have equal access to the physical environment, including accessible housing.

Yesterday’s statement by the incoming Prime Minister that,

“housing will be a priority”,

and that the Housing Minister will sit in Cabinet could not be more welcome. He went on to say that,

“we need to build homes not just to own but to rent .... we can make affordable housing for all one of the great causes of our time”.

I ask my noble friend to ensure that the new Housing Minister is aware that disabled people’s needs must be integral to that policy if our human rights are to be met and disabled people are to have any hope of taking an equal part in society.

It is not enough just to build more houses, although more are undoubtedly required. That new housing stock needs to be fully accessible and adaptable. The building industry will continue to ignore that need unless it is forced to act, and to date the Government have refused to require all new housing to meet the lifetime home standard. Merely making it a recommendation is not enough to get developers to act. Furthermore, the shortage of accessible housing is an issue that the Barker review completely ignored, and there is no coherent government strategy to tackle it.

The Government have cause to be immensely proud of their part in bringing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities into existence. As the DRC says, the fact that we were one of the first signatories sent a strong signal of support for making human rights a reality for disabled people. The right to a secure, warm, dry and accessible home is one of the most basic of those rights. I hope that my noble friend the Minister can assure the House that the Government will soon set out their policy to meet Article 9 and that they will ratify the convention at the earliest possible date, with—as the noble Lord, Lord Low, said—as few derogations or reservations as possible.

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ashley of Stoke, for asking Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to promote the United Nations convention on disability rights. I have the greatest admiration for the noble Lord for his continued dedication and campaigning on behalf of disabled people. This is a good debate, because so many faithful campaigners for disability in your Lordships’ House are taking part.

Until they become disabled, or a member of their family does, members of the general public have no idea what disability in so many different forms really means and how many obstacles there are when living in the community. Many countries throughout the world still look to the UK for leadership in many fields. If we promote this convention, I am sure that it will help many disabled people across the world. I remember visiting a church while on holiday with my husband in Italy. A young couple were sitting in the church; the young woman was disabled, and they asked us whether we were married. When we told them that we were, they were so pleased and said that meeting us had given them encouragement as they wanted to get married but faced opposition from family and officials.

Disabled people often have to battle for many things in life that non-disabled people take for granted. This is why we need this convention. There are many things that we must improve in our country, including building a human rights culture by rolling out human rights training for all public servants.

I shall relate an incident that could be typical in this country for disabled people. I declare an interest as a disabled driver. In Northallerton, which is the small county town of North Yorkshire, there are very few parking places for disabled people. On one recent occasion I had to go to Northallerton to collect some things, and I parked in the one and only parking space in Zetland Street. There was no message covering the disabled parking sign to say that parking for disabled people had been suspended. When I came back with my unfortunate helper, who was carrying packages and pushing me, we found a black bin liner over the sign and a taxi driver saying that they had been allocated the one and only disabled place. What is more, I had a parking ticket. No doubt the local taxi drivers and police had an amicable arrangement. My companion is from the Czech Republic and she was shocked that such blatant discrimination should happen in such a place as Northallerton.

As president of the Spinal Injuries Association, I can say that we have had several members of the police who have become paralysed in the course of their duty and are not aware of what the needs are until it happens to them. Their macho attitudes soon change when they become disabled. That is one section of public servants who definitely need training. Members of Parliament should also be aware of what happens in their constituencies. When that incident happened to me, most of the High Street was closed because of the Spring Fair, which made it even more difficult to park. It would be even more important if a disabled person had wanted to take children to the fair but had nowhere to park. That is typical of the cutting of services to the most needy.

How has there been a ruling in the House of Lords that the Human Rights Act does not apply to people who are in independent care homes when their care is paid for by the local authority or the NHS? I hope that the Minister will be able to explain that anomaly. I hope that the Government will act quickly to close that loophole, which leaves disabled people in private or voluntary sector care homes without the protection of the Human Rights Act. As has often been said in your Lordships’ House, those are very vulnerable people who need protection.

We have just voted to protect prisoners under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill. They should be protected. I voted for it. But so should all disabled people be protected. Sometimes, it has been found that frail, elderly and disabled people in care homes, as highlighted by a recent “Panorama” programme, have been less protected than people in prison. It is time that that was put right.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ashley of Stoke, again gathers together what I have referred to, slightly flippantly, as the usual suspects. He brings forward a group of people who, under his leadership and that of the noble Lord, Lord Morris, have been snapping away at the heels of the Government for a long time. That is probably a great reminder that if you want to achieve anything in politics, you have to be not only good but persistent, first and foremost. The Government have learnt that this group is persistent. It briefs well; it gets its message out there. So when we refer to the fact that we want the convention ratified, we are talking about a group that says to the Government, “Please continually bear us in mind, we will not go away”.

The importance of that is that, as was described in the previous speech, people are not taking on board the fact that the law has been changed. The patterns of behaviour, which we must get into first and foremost, have not been changed, no matter how much legislation we have passed. The Government may well be about to say that they have done more than any other Government. Congratulations, but you should have done more. The previous Government could have said the same with an equal degree of truthfulness. The Government before that could probably have said it.

We must have an ongoing process. For all the legislation that we have passed—for nearly two decades I have been helping to get some of that legislation through—we still have not got there yet. Our legal framework means that we must hit people in the courts to establish practice. That is what we have; it is not what I would want. We have to try to get inside behaviour patterns.

When we come to international law and international conventions, the Government have another challenge. I thought that I had a more original point than is normally made in these debates, but the noble Lord, Lord Low, managed to steal my thunder. That shows that he has arrived running.

In the EU, we should be doing more to ensure that there is more interaction with our closest political allies. In the full transfer of goods, services and labour, a disabled person should be able to transfer reasonably easily between different states. I hasten to add that equal rights do not mean special treatment. For example, if someone cannot speak French it may be difficult to work in France, but if you have a command of that language and require assistance to work there because of a disability, modern technology has the capacity to remove many of the problems, or at least make access much easier to and the Government should be there making sure that there is a seamless a transition as possible. This process is ongoing.

The noble Lord, Lord Ashley, and his Disabled Persons (Independent Living) Bill have been mentioned by others. I remember discussing that Bill with my colleagues in this House and in another place. The Bill is fundamentally a personification of best practice, which we should have taken on board from the amount of time and energy we have addressed to the issue over the years. Still we do not seem to have got into the structures at both national and local government levels on what is required. MPs come up to me asking about dyslexia, which is a world I know best. “Oh, is this how you do it? Is this what I say to my constituents? What is the guidance?” They do not seem to realise that certain people go from it being a problem in education to a problem in the workplace.

There are problems in Whitehall—those blocks that we try to punch through the whole time—but they seem to be ones where the information is not transferring quickly enough. Can the Government give me a little more encouragement that they are trying to make it easier for the Department of Health, the Department for Education and Skills and the Department for Work and Pensions to talk to each other? The communication of ideas between the blocks and between departments seems to have similarities. What can we do to make communication work across the spectrum? When will we get in touch with each other? It would help if the UN convention were ratified. That is basically the message; it would help us. We are not going to let the issue go; we shall come back to it again and again.

Will the Government make sure that no matter how far down the chain of command, everybody knows what they are supposed to do? If a case has to be brought or a complaint has to be lodged, you have failed. At every point when you put up a barrier, no matter how small, and somebody struggles to get the rights that have been given to him by various Acts of Parliament, you have failed. No matter how many laws you have passed, you have failed at that point. The failures may not be as big as they were; they may not be as consistent; but every time you have to go through the legal process to get your rights enforced there is a degree of failure.

Most of us involved would like to be able to say—we have all dreamed of this—“Job done. We can wash our hands and move on”. But it is unlikely that any of us will ever be able to truly say that. There is some sympathy for the Government, as only a relative degree of success and failure is possible in the medium or long-term, but how far and how fast can we go down this road?

Will the Minister say, first, how far international co-operation has gone, and secondly, what training programmes are going out from his department—I understand that not all of them are involved—to influence the actions of those who implement not only government policy but basic government services?

My Lords, I add my voice to those of all previous speakers who have in turn thanked the noble Lord, Lord Ashley of Stoke, for giving this House an opportunity to debate the convention. This House has the good fortune to have the chance to hear from so many noble Lords who bring such authority to this debate, and who have through their personal efforts significantly changed attitudes on disability issues. Their dedication serves as an inspiration to us all. I am sure that noble Lords are pleased that the UK was one of the first countries to sign this convention and look forward to it being ratified and coming into force. It is to be hoped that with so many countries signed up, the last of those steps will not be far away. How long do the Government expect it to take for the necessary 20 countries to ratify this convention?

Ratification will not be the end of it. Some concern has been raised in this House and by other organisations about what difference the convention will really make to the daily lives of disabled people. This question has already been raised by noble Lords, and I look forward to hearing the Minister explain how the Government intend to monitor and assess the implementation of the convention.

I am also curious to hear the thinking behind the decision not to sign up to the Optional Protocol at present. As we have already heard, it would allow disabled people to petition the treaty-monitoring body as a last resort, and would give the convention real teeth. Can the Minister explain how the provisions of the convention will be enforced without it? Is the Minister concerned that countries where disability rights are considerably weaker than those in the UK may follow the UK’s lead and not sign up to the Optional Protocol, thus greatly weakening the impact of the convention? Under what circumstances would the Government consider signing it? Will they consider signing it if it becomes clear in future that existing means of redress are not adequate?

As the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, and other noble Lords said, another question that the Government have still to answer concerns the current loophole the Disability Rights Commission has identified in the convention. Disabled people will not have legal rights under this convention if local authorities have placed them in private care homes. Contracting out public services has the potential to raise standards and cut costs, but only if done in a consistent and transparent way. What measures will the Government take to reassure this House that residents in private care homes who are supported by public funding will not find themselves at a disadvantage compared to those in state-run homes?

Of course, without widespread understanding of the convention and the rights it gives to disabled people, the convention will have no effect and bring no improvement to the lives of those it concerns. What do the Government intend to do to raise awareness of this convention and the methods of redress available? The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, showed us how frequently the disabled still experience ignorance and discrimination. The noble Lord, Lord Low, pointed out ways in which existing provision frequently lags behind and that there remains a lack of information about the support available to disabled people. The Public Accounts Committee, in its January report, was not complimentary about the support schemes for employers and disabled people seeking work. DRC figures show that three out of five employers are happy to admit that they would not employ someone with a history of mental illness; there is clearly much more that can and should be done here. Indeed, on these Benches, we have often expressed concern that the Government do not think hard enough about finding effective ways of supporting the many disabled people who are able to work to gain the skills, confidence and, most important of all, opportunities to rejoin the workforce. The Welfare Reform Act 2007 made a start on improving the resources available for disabled people seeking work, but failed entirely to improve on the inadequate support that is available for employers. I hope this convention will encourage the Government to look at this side of the equation as well.

The noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth, rightly drew attention to the ways in which the convention can be used to improve opportunities for children with disabilities. The noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, focused on the importance of housing policy.

Finally, I would like to explore the impact of the convention abroad. We are fortunate in this country to have the infrastructure and wealth to support the necessary steps to implement this convention. However, over 80 per cent of disabled people live in the developing world, where resources are hard to find to support programmes that are often not considered to be of high priority.

The noble Lord, Lord Morris of Manchester, was right to talk of what might be possible to improve the lives of disabled people in these countries. Do the Government have any intention of implementing Conservative recommendations to join bilateral agreements to strengthen developing countries' commitment to improving the rights of disabled people? Encouraging the president or the head of state of the country to take direct responsibility for a national strategy has been effective for tackling HIV/AIDS. Will the Government consider requesting that responsibility for enforcing the convention be taken at the highest levels, particularly in developing countries where we have the greatest influence? In many cases, we could have impressive results there too.

I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to my questions—I have phrased my speech in the interrogative—and those asked by your Lordships during this debate. This convention is an encouraging sign of progress for disabled people. I hope that it will translate to a real improvement in the opportunities open to them, both in this country and abroad. It has been good to have the occasion through debate to focus attention on the convention and the opportunities it gives the Government, which they have at their disposal.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Ashley for raising this question and for ensuring that time has been allocated to discuss this important area of human rights for disabled people. He, of course, has an outstanding and steadfast commitment to these issues. Indeed, it has been a valuable and informed debate, which will help inform our preparations and plans for ratification of the convention and eventual acceptance of its obligations.

Many questions have been raised with me tonight. On those that I cannot cover in my allotted 12 minutes, I undertake to write to noble Lords. Reference was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth, and my noble friend Lord Morris to the early work done by Rehabilitation International in its Charter for the Third Millennium. This charter asserts the imperative for disabled people to have their rights fully recognised and protected in a UN convention.

Reference has been made to the inspiring debate held in July 2000 that was led by the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth, which I have taken the opportunity to read. It was, indeed, the House at its best. It acknowledged the pivotal role played by my noble friend Lord Morris.

Those who campaigned so long have the right to feel pride in the convention and, as the Charter for the Third Millennium states:

“In the 21st century, we must insist on the same human and civil rights for people with disabilities as for everyone else”.

They are entitled now to press Governments in the UK and around the world to make the aspiration a reality.

I would like to take the opportunity to say that I will pass on the thanks that several noble Lords have expressed to my honourable friend Anne McGuire, the Minister. I am sure that she will take a keen interest in the debate.

I am sure that the House shares our delight that the UK signed the convention on 30 March on the first day on which it was open for signature. As of today, there are 98 signatures to it. Now comes the critical phase of preparing for ratification. Both in the UK and internationally, an estimated 650 million disabled people now have a clear statement that they enjoy the same fundamental human rights as everyone else, and on an equal basis with everyone else. The importance of this cannot be overestimated.

There should be no doubt about the UK’s continued commitment to human rights for disabled people at home and abroad. The convention sets international standards for human rights, and it will be incumbent on the UN member states that ratify it to act consistently with its obligations when it comes into force. The UK already has extensive legislation that outlaws discrimination against disabled people; yet it is undeniable that disabled people still face complex and diverse threats to their rights. Disabled people can too often be easily dismissed or undervalued. The Government’s pledge is that by 2025—within a generation—disabled people should have the same opportunities and choices as non-disabled people, and should be respected and included as equal members of society. Our strategy to realise this vision is built on a foundation of inalienable rights.

The new convention will ensure that disabled people have the comprehensive framework needed to protect them from violations of their human rights. It also recognises the social model of disability, and will help us to tackle the environmental and attitudinal barriers faced by people with impairments and long-term health conditions. It is increasingly becoming the means by which the discourse on disability is carried out in this country and throughout the world.

My noble friend Lord Ashley, the noble Baronesses, Lady Darcy de Knayth and Lady Wilkins, and the noble Lords, Lord Morris and Lord Taylor, asked when the UK will ratify the convention. Our intention, following signature of the convention, is to ratify it without undue delay. We will not ratify it, however, until we are satisfied that the UK’s law, policy, practice and procedures are compatible with its obligations. Noble Lords will be aware that the timetable for ratifying the convention is not entirely within the UK’s control, because we share competence in a number of areas with other members of the European Community that are also signatories to it. I stress that none of this should detract from our very real desire and commitment to ratify it as soon as we can.

As for signing the optional protocol—a point pressed by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, and others—our current policy is that we do not believe that there is a particular benefit in UK citizens having the right to make individual complaints to the UN committees that supervise human rights conventions. The opinions of these bodies are not judicial, and the bodies cannot award remedies against individual UN member states. There are also resource implications and costs for UN member states, which must be taken into account when allowing such access. However, as an experiment and in order to gain more empirical evidence on the merits of the right of individual petition under various UN conventions and treaties, the Government signed the optional protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women—CEDAW. We will review that experiment later this year. Noble Lords may be aware that the CEDAW committee has now issued decisions on both applications received that cover the UK, and the Ministry of Justice will now carry out a review of the experiment. We do not rule out acceding to the optional protocol for the disability convention, and we will consider this further during ratification.

Several Members made a point about consultation. We have worked, and will continue to work, closely with disabled people and disability organisations. Only last week, we discussed the convention with Equality 2025: the UK Advisory Network on Disability Equality. We asked the new body how we might best disseminate knowledge of the convention to disabled people so that we can ensure that they are aware of the convention and what it means to them in day-to-day terms. We also asked it how we might involve it in monitoring the convention. The convention puts obligations on member states for disabled people to be involved in its implementation and monitoring, and we intend to fulfil these obligations.

Around half the UN’s member states already have signed the convention. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for International Development and the DWP will work together to encourage the remaining UN member states to sign and to ratify the convention. However, noble Lords will understand that the UK Government must be reluctant to comment on the decisions taken by states on whether to sign. Article 32 highlights the important role of international co-operation, including international development programmes in supporting national efforts to realise the rights of disabled people. DfID is committed to mainstreaming disability issues across our development programme.

As was referred to, my noble friend Lady Morgan mentioned the last time this convention was discussed in this House that my honourable friend the Minister for Disabled People was to attend a conference on disability organised by Germany as part of its EU presidency on 11 and 12 June. The conference included expert academic speakers, representatives of UN organisations, politicians from Europe and the European disability NGOs, including the European Disability Forum. I am delighted to report that on 12 June in Berlin the Minister gave a well received closing address on continuing the European exchange on disability policy. She also met and discussed issues with her German and Portuguese opposite numbers. I understand that the presidency conclusions from that meeting will keep disability and the UN convention high on the European agenda for co-ordinated action among EU member states.

Good progress is being made on analysing the compatibility of the convention with UK legislation, policy, practices and procedure. As noble Lords will appreciate this is a big task for our departments and the devolved Administrations. At this time I can say that no changes are envisaged to the Disability Discrimination Act. Noble Lords will be aware that before ratification the convention will be laid as a Command Paper before both Houses for the opportunity for debate. The paper will also be forwarded to the Joint Committee on Human Rights for its consideration.

We now have reached the stage where we must plan carefully for the promotion of the convention by seeking views and considering the best way forward. This is in advance of any obligations placed on us by the convention, particularly under Article 33(2), which we must remember is not yet in force. The convention will not be in force until 30 days after 20 UN members have ratified it, but around half of all UN member states have signed it, which is a strong indication of a commitment to ratification which we welcome and share.

Our preparations include or have included ensuring a close working relationship at European level between member states. Noble Lords will wish to be aware of an independent website with UN convention information. We are updating our already existing “easy read” version of the convention, which we hope to share widely around the world via websites. We will continue to consult with Equality 2025 to get its views on how the UK can best approach the obligations of Article 33(2) in relation to the framework for promotion, protection and monitoring of the convention.

My noble friend Lord Ashley and the noble Baronesses, Lady Darcy de Knayth and Lady Masham, and the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, raised the recent House of Lords judgment in relation to care homes. The Government are obviously disappointed by the House of Lords decision. It is a difficult issue, but it is also an important issue, which affects many older and vulnerable people. We are considering their Lordships’ opinions. Colleagues in the Ministry of Justice will work with their colleagues in the Department of Health. Furthermore, my noble friend Lady Ashton will meet the other interveners in the case very soon to start discussing the way forward.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for giving way. He has given a number of categorical and progressive assurances tonight. I should just like to express my appreciation for those.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that, and along with other noble Lords I know that he will take a keen interest in how we take these matters forward.

A number of noble Lords, along with my noble friend Lord Ashley, raised the issue of the Disabled Persons (Independent Living) Bill. The Government are fully supportive of the principles underpinning the Bill introduced by my noble friend. Those principles are entirely consistent with our position and reflect what we wish to achieve in the future to improve the lives of disabled people. Nevertheless, there would be major cost implications in implementing all that is proposed in the Bill, especially at the pace required.

The noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth, raised several issues around education. Of course it is government policy to ensure that the right education is provided for each child—education that is focused on individual needs and interests. She also spoke of resource allocations. The interaction between the SEN framework and the DDA is complex and it is best if I write to the noble Baroness further on that matter. The noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Low, both raised issues about the European disability directive. We believe that the priority should be to implement the framework employment directive, and that it is not the right time for a further directive. We should also see how the UN convention beds down.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, raised issues about awareness and behaviour, and how we can generate culture change. We agree with those views. The Government legislated for this with the equality duty and major awareness work has been undertaken. The ODI and the Government are promoting disability awareness widely and continuously, but we acknowledge that changing behaviour and attitudes will take time.

The noble Lord, Lord Low, spoke about people who are blind or partially sighted. The Government’s policy is of course to improve the life chances of disabled people, including those with visual impairments, by promoting their inclusion and participation in community life and enabling them to have more control over their lives. Rehabilitation services for blind and partially sighted people are provided predominantly by local authorities, and to some extent NHS trusts. It is for those organisations to plan, develop and improve services for local people, and there has been a substantial increase in resources to enable them to do so.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, raised some significant issues around housing. In brief I can say that the independent living review will be a cross-government project led by the Office for Disability Issues. Initially it will take some 12 months and will bring together the views and experiences of officials from central and local government, disabled people and their organisations, to look at developing imaginative new solutions in the area not only of housing but also of health, social care, transport and employment. I acknowledge that these are all important issues which need to be addressed. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, pressed us on the cross-government approach and working together. The whole rationale of ODI is to get cross-government policy discussions and co-ordination to achieve substantial equality for disabled people within a generation.

I am sure there are other questions which I have not dealt with in detail, but I will read the record and write as I have promised. I am also conscious that this response is in some part a statement of work in progress, but I hope noble Lords will acknowledge our determination to ratify the convention as soon as possible. Should anyone doubt our determination to see this through, I would pray in aid the Government’s record on human and civil rights for disabled people, from the Disability Rights Task Force being established in 1997 through to setting up the Office for Disability Issues in 2005 and the launching of Equality 2025. We have made clear the need to challenge and defeat the ignorance, prejudice, superstition and fear which still govern much of society’s response to disability. This we will continue to do.

My Lords, I draw to the noble Lord’s attention the fact that the European Commission has moved on in its position and now recognises that the time has come to move beyond employment towards a general directive, covering not only disability but other strands of discrimination that are not currently covered—age, religion and so on. Indeed, the Commission will launch a consultation this summer on how it might be possible to move forward in that direction within the next year or so. I hope that when the consultation is launched the Government might be willing to take a slightly more positive attitude towards it than the Minister evinced in his wind-up.

My Lords, we would certainly engage with a process of that nature—and do so fully and enthusiastically.

House adjourned at 7.55 pm.