My Lords, with the leave of the House I will make a Business Statement about the Terrorist Asset Freezing (Temporary Provisions) Bill. On 27 January, the Supreme Court gave a judgment on the legality of the Orders in Council that the Treasury uses to freeze terrorist assets. Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that it will not grant a stay of its 27 January judgment. The effect of these rulings is to quash with immediate effect the Terrorism Order 2006 and all designations made under it. As a result, the Government are today introducing a short Bill in the other place, designed to prevent these assets being unfrozen and returned to terror suspects.

The intention is to fast-track the Bill to ensure Royal Assent before the House rises for the half-term break. In line with Constitution Committee recommendations on fast-track legislation, the Explanatory Notes to the Bill will contain a full explanation of the case for fast-tracking, and will address the key questions set by the committee. The provisions of the fast-track Bill, if enacted, would expire on 31 December 2010; so today the Government are also publishing a draft Bill modelled closely on existing powers under the Terrorism Order 2009. This is intended to provide a durable legal basis for the UK to freeze the assets of suspected terrorists and maintain an effective, proportionate and fair terrorist asset-freezing regime that meets our United Nations obligations, protects national security and safeguards human rights. The draft Bill has been published to ensure that the substantive piece of proposed legislation can be subject to rigorous pre-legislative scrutiny and consultation before being introduced to Parliament.

I return to the fast-track Bill being introduced in the other place today. The intention is for this House to take all stages of the Bill on Tuesday 9 February. This will mean making changes to other business next week. The Third Reading of the Bribery Bill and the remaining Committee stage of the Digital Economy Bill will be brought forward to Monday; the Second Reading of the Financial Services Bill will be postponed until Tuesday 23 February; and the Financial Services order scheduled in Grand Committee on Tuesday will be taken in the Chamber on Wednesday.

My noble friend the Leader of the House will shortly move three Business of the House Motions to allow business to be rescheduled, and I hope that the House will give its approval. If the arrangements are approved, the list of speakers for Second Reading of the fast-track Bill will be opened in the Government Whips’ Office, and the Public Bill Office has agreed to accept amendments in advance of Second Reading. All the changes are published in an updated edition of Forthcoming Business, a document that is now available in the Government Whips’ Office and the Printed Paper Office. This approach has the agreement of the usual channels and I hope that the whole House will support it.

As a former member of the Constitution Committee, I express my thanks to the Government for the statement that we have heard on fast-tracking. It is precisely the kind of case that the committee discussed, and the justification is obvious and paramount.

My Lords, for some time, we have been looking at other legislation that could be fast-tracked in view of the coming general election. In 1997, there were fewer than 1 million postal votes; this time, there will be 8 million, yet the timescale remains the same: 11 days. I have been told time and again that it is too late to ask the House to agree to a Bill to fast-track legislation in order to extend the timetable for postal voting so that, for example, the military in Afghanistan and others can cast a vote. Why is it not possible to bring forward such a Bill?

My Lords, this morning I have made a statement that refers to very urgent and serious matters relating to national security and terrorism. I think that the point that the noble Lord is making relates to what one might ordinarily describe as Business of the House. If the noble Lord has some concerns about that, he will be quite right to raise them through the usual channels, and I am sure that it is a matter that we can discuss off the Floor of the Chamber.

That, in the event of any Terrorist Asset Freezing (Temporary Provisions) Bill being brought from the Commons, Standing Order 47 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be dispensed with on Tuesday 9 February to allow any such Bill to be taken through all its stages that day; and that Standing Order 49 (Amendments on Third Reading) be dispensed with to allow amendments for Third Reading to be tabled that day.

That leave be given to advance the Third Reading of the Bribery Bill [HL] and the Committee stage of the Digital Economy Bill [HL] from Tuesday 9 February to Monday 8 February.

That Standing Order 49 (Amendments on Third Reading) be dispensed with on Monday 8 February to allow amendments to the Third Reading of the Bribery Bill [HL] to be tabled that day.

That the order of 4 February referring the order to a Grand Committee be discharged.

Motion agreed.

That this Bill be read a second time.

My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Constitutional Reform Bill, has consented to place her prerogative and interest so far as they are affected by the Bill at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.

My Lords, I am grateful to the Government for giving me the chance to present this Bill to the House. I remember that when the Bill had its First Reading on 19 November and I read out its first provision to repeal the European Communities Act 1972, there was a rather tolerant gust of laughter around the House. I was slightly surprised but did not mind at all; I have got used to the fact that certain noble Lords in this House find it difficult to understand that there can be any suggestion of life outside the EU. My reason for including this apparently laughable measure—the repeal of the 1972 Act—is that it is fundamental to the Bill. Without it, I submit that there is little point in talking about constitutional reform. Successive Governments and successive Parliaments have, through successive treaties, given ever more of their rightful powers to the EU. There can be no meaningful reform without claiming back those powers for Parliament and for the voters who elect that Parliament.

Clause 2 of my Bill repeals the Human Rights Act 1998. This Act has undermined the Government’s ability to deal effectively with terrorism, crime and illegal immigration. The Government have repeatedly found themselves in some difficulties over this Act. For example, the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 was found by the courts to be in breach of the Act, and the Government were forced to repeal part of this, their own Act, which had been passed only a few months earlier. Equally, the Human Rights Act has given them difficulty over control orders; because of that Act, they were unable to deport the nine Afghanis who hijacked a plane at Stansted in 2006. These difficulties led the then Secretary of State for Justice, Jack Straw, to call for a rebalancing of this legislation. I am not quite sure what “rebalancing” means; I think that “repeal” is probably the right word. I do not think that my erstwhile friends on the Conservative Benches should have any problems with this clause, as their policy, as I understand it, is to replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights. No doubt the noble Lord, Lord Henley, will be able to clarify that.

Clauses 3 and 4 make it a requirement that no international treaties or military action may be entered into without prior parliamentary approval. This puts the elected Parliament in the driving seat and is similar to arrangements in the United States, where the President needs Senate approval to sign any treaty and Congress has to vote approval for the money for any military engagement.

In Part 2, we come to the rebalancing—to borrow Jack Straw’s word—of Parliament. The main points here are, first, that the number of constituencies should be greatly reduced—the Bill suggests about 250. This Bill was trailed in a debate on constitutional reform in July last year, and the noble Lords, Lord Grocott and Lord Stoddart, who had both been elected MPs, objected to this number of MPs on the grounds that that would make constituencies too large and unwieldy. I see the force of that argument but I point out that MPs now do quite a lot of work that perhaps could be properly and better done by parish councillors, district councillors or county councillors. The proposals later in the Bill give real power to all those councillors through direct elections and powers given to them in the Bill. However, this is only Second Reading and we can probably revisit in Committee the question of the size of Parliament.

Clause 6 proposes a fixed parliamentary term of five years. That would give certainty to the electorate and remove power from the Prime Minister to call an election when it suited his rather than the country’s interests. I should point out that in Committee I intend to put in a provision that, should a Government lose a vote of no confidence during this five-year period, Parliament would have to be prorogued. Noble Lords will also note that under Clause 11(2) there is a power for voters to call for a general election under the referendum powers granted to them.

While I am on this point, noble Lords will see that Clause 6(1) says:

“The next parliamentary general election is to take place on 6th May 2010”.

This Bill was printed on 19 November last year but of course a lot of work went on before then, so at least, if nothing else, perhaps I can claim some clairvoyance there.

Clause 7 reduces the number of sitting days of Parliament to 100. The legislative sausage machine has to be slowed down or stopped. There is simply too much legislation. In the past 10 years, we have passed nearly 500 Acts of Parliament, added to the almost uncountable tens of thousands of regulations and statutory instruments—more than 10,000 in the past three years alone. When preparing for this Bill, I was astonished to find that 200 statutory instruments had been passed since 1 January this year alone—the Poultry Compartments (England) Order 2010, the Video Recordings (Labelling) Regulations and the Infrastructure Planning (Interested Parties) Regulations, to name but three.

These tens of thousands of SIs do not have a hope of being properly scrutinised. Indeed, many of them—particularly those coming to us from Brussels and directly applicable—are not even laid before Parliament. According to information supplied to me by the Library, the last time that an affirmative statutory instrument was defeated in the other place was in 1978. Fewer sitting days should lead to less but better regulation.

Clause 8 covers the payment of Members of the House of Commons, which is a delicate subject at the moment. My Bill proposes that Members should receive a generous but transparent expenses allowance to allow them to operate efficiently. The proposed salary is pitched to encourage Members of Parliament to have jobs outside Parliament and discourage the idea of career MPs.

On the reform of this House, I propose something different from the already large menus which we have been invited to scrutinise over the past few years. I suggest that there should be four options proposed by the House of Commons, two of them being no change and total abolition, which will be put within seven years to the electorate to vote on. They would vote on that in a referendum. That brings me to the central point in my Bill, which is to give power back to the people through binding national and local referendums. It is hard to deny that people now feel some contempt for Parliament. They feel powerless; they feel that their voice is not heard, that it goes unnoticed. They must be right. A million people marched in London against the Iraq war. Half a million people marched to protest against the criminalisation of hunting. Were their voices heard or taken any notice of? No, they were not.

I believe that the most profound change in the past 100 years to the way that this country is governed has been the incremental handover of legislative powers to Brussels from Westminster in a succession of EU treaties. No one in this country under the age of 55 has ever had a chance to say whether they agreed with that or not. My Bill would give people a meaningful say in decisions that affect their lives and which they pay for with their taxes.

Clauses 11 and 16 give governments, national and local, the right to hold referendums, and give voters the right to do the same through qualifying petitions. I do not accept for a moment the patronising arguments advanced in this House during our debate on the Lisbon treaty that voters are either too ignorant or too irresponsible to be granted such a right. That is an argument against democracy itself. Referendums work very well indeed in Switzerland, arguably the most democratic country in the world. I would expect the Government, at least, to accept my argument, as the Prime Minister has announced that he will propose that a decision be taken on whether to have first-past-the-post or alternative vote elections, to be decided by a referendum.

Clause 10 defines those areas that are reserved to Parliament and beyond the scope of local authorities. Clause 17 calls for a review of public bodies to ensure that they are necessary, accountable and cost-effective. This review will cover, for example, regional development agencies, regional assemblies and the forest of more than 1,100 quangos—or non-departmental public bodies, as they are also known—that have sprung up in the past 15 years, from the Advisory Committee on Advertising to the Youth Justice Board, via the Drainage Council for Northern Ireland and the Potato Council. A royal commission will decide where the axe should fall, in the public interest. Only this morning I read in the papers that the cost of quangos has now mushroomed to £46 billion a year. There must be some savings to be made there.

Finally, Clauses 12 to 15 give local authorities powers to determine local policies, make local laws and have local tax-raising powers. Again, the local electorate will be able to call a local election following a referendum, which will help to concentrate local authorities’ minds.

The thrust of my Bill is the rebalancing of powers away from the Executive and a whipped Parliament to the people. Sir Francis Bacon wrote:

“A country is less free if it is all in the hands of the state”.

This Bill will go some way to loosening the state’s grasp, and I commend it to your Lordships. I beg to move.

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, on bringing this Bill forward and giving us the chance to debate it. The Bill before us may be modest in length, but it is anything but in terms of content. The Bill is clearly contentious in terms of its provisions. However, my purpose is not to go through the specific proposals embodied in the Bill but rather to address it in the context of constitutional change.

The Bill may be accused of comprising a set of constitutional reforms which have been put together in haste, have not been subject to widespread consultation, and derive from no clear, coherent approach to constitutional change. The Minister, in replying to the debate, may have in mind making these very points. He would be most unwise to do so because the description I have just supplied applies just as well to the Government's proposals for constitutional change. The Prime Minister has announced a set of reform proposals that appear detached from any process of extended deliberation within government and which relate to no discernible coherent approach to constitutional change. This Bill, like the Prime Minister's proposals, comes at the end of a Parliament when there is no time for either House to consider it in detail.

One can argue, justifiably, that major constitutional change should not be brought about through the medium of a Private Member’s Bill. In practice, of course, any such Bill cannot achieve passage without the support or acquiescence of the Government and, in principle, should not do so without the support of all the principal parties. If it is not to be brought about through a Private Member’s Bill, how then is it to be achieved? I believe that there are two basic procedures that should be adopted, one within government and the other external to it.

First, there needs to be a clear, deliberative process within government for considering Bills of constitutional importance. When the then Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, whom I am delighted to see in his place, appeared before the Constitution Committee in its inquiry into the process of constitutional change, he outlined such a process. He even produced a flow chart to illustrate how the process operated. He took pride in the extensive deliberations that took place on the reforms for which he was responsible. He told us that the Devolution Committee, which he chaired, met on 14 separate occasions in the first 11 weeks after the 1997 general election for meetings of at least two hours’ duration each, and considered a total of 43 papers. The Sub-Committee on House of Lords Reform, which he also chaired, met on 13 occasions in 1998 and considered a total of 32 papers. There was then a process of publishing Green or White Papers and drawing up legislation.

That deliberative process has clearly gone. It needs to be resuscitated. As parliamentarians, we need to be vigilant in monitoring legislation of constitutional significance to ensure that it has been subject to such a process. As the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, will doubtless concede, his Bill is not the product of such a process. Indeed, it would be interesting to know what consultations he has had on the Bill.

Secondly, there needs to be some means of examining proposals for constitutional change to see how they fit with our existing constitutional arrangements and with other changes proposed. I have variously advocated a constitutional commission or a committee, not so much to propose a new constitution for the United Kingdom, but rather to make sense of where we are at the moment. It should seek to relate change, including proposals for change, to the basic principles underpinning our constitution. To some extent, that is a task fulfilled by the Constitution Committee of your Lordships' House, but what I have in mind is a body that would have the time and resources to look at the constitution holistically and engage in a major exercise in cartography.

The Government have implemented a number of constitutional reforms, but they have essentially promoted each on its individual merits. The reforms have not derived from any intellectually coherent approach to constitutional change. There has been no holistic view of the consultation, no clear adumbration of the type of constitution that the Government consider best suited to the United Kingdom.

When I initiated a debate in your Lordships’ House at the end of 2002 on constitutional change, the Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, conceded that the Government had no overarching theory. Instead, he said that the Government proceeded,

“by way of pragmatism based on principle”.

Unfortunately, the three principles that he enunciated were not necessarily compatible with one another and the third—

“to devise a solution to each problem on its own terms”—[Official Report, 18/12/02; cols. 691-692.]—

was essentially a get-out clause, destroying any scope for identifying where we were going in terms of constitutional change.

The Government’s approach bears no relation to various coherent views of constitutional change that have emerged in recent decades. Neither, I have to say, does the Bill before us. There is a case to be made that it is, in part, somewhat more coherent than the Government’s approach, but only in part. The Bill clearly rejects the high Tory approach—to maintain the status quo admitting no case for any change—and instead adopts, in part, a reactionary approach in Part 1, embracing the status quo ante, and in part a radical approach essentially in the remaining parts. I do not see the overall coherence. There is to be a referendum on Lords reform but not on any of the constitutional changes embodied in the Bill. The provisions for the referendum on Lords reform in Clause 9(2) appear to be a recipe for confusion. There are problems, practical as well as in principle, with other specific provisions, but these I shall keep for Committee.

My final point relates to timing. As I mentioned, the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, has brought his proposals forward, as has the Prime Minister with his, at the end of a Parliament. There is no time for considering them in detail before the general election and no grounds for seeking to enact them at short notice. That would be wholly inappropriate. I believe that both Houses have a responsibility to be vigilant in ensuring that nothing is slipped through, in whatever form, that brings about constitutional change without having undergone the scrutiny that I have outlined as well as being subject to thorough examination in both Houses of Parliament.

In conclusion, I invite the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, to say how he thinks his Bill fits with any coherent approach to constitutional change. Before the Minister takes any comfort from such an invitation, perhaps he, too, would like to take the opportunity to explain how the Government’s proposals—I presume the Prime Minister’s proposals constitute government policy—fit with any extant approach to constitutional change. I am sure that neither he nor the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, wishes to be accused of bringing forward an incoherent wish-list of reforms.

My Lords, it will come as no surprise to noble Lords to learn that I support my noble friend’s Bill. Its two most radical proposals are that the United Kingdom should leave the European Union and that the British people should be granted the power to hold binding referendums at national and local level. I submit that without these two essential proposals becoming a reality, the future of this country is beginning to look very worrying indeed. Of course, the political class will not welcome the Bill, as no doubt we will now hear, but the British people are not infinitely patient and they are getting very frustrated and angry with our present political system and those who run it and live off it. For years now they have resented the quantity of interfering legislation which has been forced on them and have seen their politicians as “in it for themselves”. I submit that their disdain has been turned into anger by the recent revelations about parliamentary expenses and into fear by our disastrous financial situation, for which they are of course right to blame their leaders.

I also submit, not for the first time, that the cause of much of the people’s frustration is that they have come to see that whatever they do, whatever letters they write to their Members of Parliament, however many of them march our streets in protest against one or other folly visited upon them by Brussels or Westminster, or for whichever party they cast their votes, it makes no difference. They cannot change anything. The tide of unwanted legislation flows on. Their post offices and pubs close, their waste is not collected and their hospitals are too often dirty and incompetent. Too many of their children fail in life because they have not been taught to read. Their police are weighed down with bureaucracy while the crime rate remains at unacceptable levels. Their prisons are overflowing with the mentally ill and the illiterate. The morale of their Armed Forces, which quite simply are the finest in the world, is starting to sap and, perhaps most pernicious of all, their borders have been deliberately dismantled by politicians who loathe their proud history and culture, so their inner cities have been turned into very dangerous places indeed.

It is not just that people feel that they cannot make a difference or change anything; they cannot. Modern Governments, under our absurd first past the post system, are elected by about 24 per cent of the electorate, or 40 per cent of the 60 per cent who still bother to vote. Now, thanks to our imprisonment in the European Union, those Governments make only a minority of our national law—perhaps as little as 16 per cent of it, if the German Government are to be believed. The majority of our national law is now made in Brussels, with your Lordships’ House and Members of the House of Commons, for whom the people are allowed to vote, irrelevant in the process.

The people have not yet understood that process, by which most of their national law is now made in Brussels and imposed on them here. Their political class, which includes the BBC of course, has done a brilliant job by simply refusing to reveal how the EU’s legislative process makes our law. I have said it before in your Lordships’ House, and I will go on saying it until the frightening truth reaches our people. EU laws are proposed in secret by the unelected bureaucracy, the European Commission. Those laws are then negotiated, still in secret, in a shadowy body called COREPER, the Committee of Permanent Representatives, consisting of bureaucrats from the nation states. They then go to the Council of Ministers from the nation states, where the UK has some 8 per cent of the votes, and to the European Parliament for final decision. The European Parliament, to which we elect MEPs, cannot propose EU legislation; it can only delay it. Of course, it does not do much of that because it does not want to derail its famous gravy train. Again, all our UK MEPs put together have only some 8 per cent of the votes in a process that now makes most of our law. So the European Parliament is a democratic sham, and was designed to be so by the founders of the project of European integration.

It is safe to say yet again that our membership of the European Union has removed our democracy; it has taken away the right of the British people to elect and dismiss those who make their laws. Our system of representative parliamentary democracy, for which millions have died over hundreds of years, has been frittered away. It no longer serves the people. That is why the time has come to give power back to the people. They deserve it anyway; it is their power and it belongs to them. Before long their anger will overflow if they do not get it back.

The only adequate safety valve in these circumstances is the system of binding national and local referendums envisaged in my noble friend’s Bill, or something very like it. But I suppose we now have to listen to the Front Bench speeches telling me that I am wrong and why it is perfectly okay to have more of the same from them and the rest of the political class. Let us not trust the people, whatever we do. I hope that I am proved wrong.

The Bill’s proposal for referendums is very like the Swiss system which works so well there. When I mention Switzerland, I should be grateful not to be told “cuckoo clocks”. The cuckoo clock actually comes from Bavaria. Switzerland is a wonderful country with a very similar, if smaller, economy to our own. Its system of referendums and its free trade with the EU are pretty much exactly what we now need here. Compared with us, Switzerland is also a happy country and its referendums will keep it that way.

Our EU membership is also colossally expensive. According to the much respected TaxPayers’ Alliance, our EU membership may be costing us some 8 per cent of GDP, or £120 billion per annum. Our main political parties are vying with each other to cut some £7 billion or £8 billion from public expenditure; yet what is the sum of cash that we send every year to Brussels? It is £16 billion. Our EU membership is the elephant in the room when our political class talks of our dreadful economic position and wonders what we can do about it. It is a no-brainer: get out of the EU, as the UK Independence Party will no doubt explain during the forthcoming election campaign.

Let us not forget that getting out of the EU and continuing in free trade with our friends in Europe would lose no jobs here at all. In fact, it would create them, as we throw off the shackles of Brussels’ overregulation at home and take our rightful free-trading place with the rest of the world, outside the decaying economies of Europe. That is where the action is, and we are mad to stay on the “Titanic” when we can see what will happen to it.

Clause 17 of my noble friend’s Bill deals with another area of colossal waste, which it politely calls a “review of public bodies”. Again, I quote the TaxPayers’ Alliance, which recently teamed up with the Institute of Directors to produce an analysis called, How to Save £50 Billion. As one looks down the little list of savings which they recommend, one can hear the squeals of indignation from Whitehall, local government and the quangocracy, but most real people would welcome them, and the life of the nation would be quite a bit cleansed if they were made. I say “quite a bit” because I understand that the TPA has just about identified a further £50 billion of similar cuts that could also be made without losing any of our vital services, but I suppose that I had better not frighten your Lordships too much just now.

I confess that I get slightly lost among all the statistics on our squandered squillions and the dire financial straits into which our political class has allowed us to fall, although I have just mentioned £170 billion a year to be saved, and perhaps another £50 billion on top of that. With the annual deficit standing at £176 billion and public sector debt at 56 per cent of GDP, or £793 billion, I would have thought that those were useful figures.

My noble friend’s Bill makes most of these savings possible and restores power to the people. It leaves the House of Commons to deal only with genuinely national issues—everything else goes local—and it requires the House of Commons to be inhabited by real people who do real jobs in the real world, just as Swiss parliamentarians do. I fear that this Bill will be hated by our political class, but it is the Bill that the people need, want and deserve, and that is why I support it.

My Lords, whenever I listen to the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, I recall a character on “ITMA” who always used to finish his litany of woes by saying, “It’s being so cheerful that keeps me going”. I am sure that there is a lot wrong with our country, but I can tell him that, for the folks from whom I came, the past 60 years have not been an unmitigated disaster or decline, which should put some of what he said in proportion.

I entirely support the idea of the noble Lord, Lord Norton, of a holistic, deliberative and coherent approach to this Bill. The only thing I note as a student of these issues is that the great constitutional advances have been made not by committees sitting endlessly around tables—we have been doing that for the past decade and made very little progress—but by people who believed in certain changes and fought for them. We fought a civil war, a king lost his head, another king lost his throne, we frightened the establishment by revolution to get an 1832 Act, and women chained themselves to railings—one woman spectacularly died—to get votes for women. The idea of constitutional reform being a matter for gradualism and rational debate is true up to a point, but constitutional reform is also made by people who believe in it.

I draw the noble Lord’s attention to a point that is well made by Robert Stevens in his book on English judges. The reforms about which the noble Lord is talking have been won from things that have indeed been fought for, but in recent years we have dealt with several reforms that, in combination, have fundamentally affected the nature of our constitution. That is why we need to look at them holistically; they are distinguishable from the early atomistic changes that we have seen, vital though each one has been.

Indeed—and whenever you challenge an academic, he immediately gives you a reading list. Interestingly enough, I sat on the Cook-Maclennan committee, which looked at reform. At one stage, we looked at a coherent great reform Act to deal with these matters, but we did not anticipate in 1996 the deep-rooted, almost immovable, conservatism that was to be found in what became the Labour Cabinet and that has resulted in constitutional reform being left dead in the water for the past decade.

There are signs of progress with regard to the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke. Debates on the 1910 reform of this House show that one of the last-ditchers who fought to the very end against that reform was Lord Willoughby de Broke: not our present incumbent but, I suspect, a great-grandfather—perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby, will elucidate. The de Brokes fought Lords reform until, as I have pointed out before, they gave up on 10 August 1910, and noble Lords can judge for themselves why the de Brokes had to leave this House on that date to get back to their estates. Anyway, this is certainly progress in the Willoughby de Broke family.

We on these Benches have made it clear that if we ever come to the point at which this country wants an “in or out” referendum, we will be there to contest it and to argue for our continuing membership. In that respect, there is a certain respect for the UKIP position. What I find contemptible is the attitude of the Conservative Party, which longs to wound but fears to strike. In constituency after constituency, it presents its candidates as being as close to the UKIP position as it dares to get.

Will the noble Lord clarify the position of his own party on a referendum on whether this country should be in or out of the European Union? Did not his leader, Mr Clegg, flounce out of the House of Commons because he was not going to get an “in or out” referendum on our membership? When I moved a suitable amendment here, the noble Lord’s party failed to support it, so it would be very helpful to your Lordships to know whether the Liberal Democrats now support an “in or out” referendum on the European Union. If they do, they would be with us, of course.

First of all, Mr Clegg has never flounced anywhere in his life. We have said time and again that the Lisbon treaty, as the Conservative Party knows well, was a series of adjustments to EU arrangements to take account of the increasing membership of the EU. It was not the new constitution on which we had pledged a referendum. We have said consistently that if the EU comes forward with major constitutional changes, we will support an “in or out” referendum. It would be dishonest to keep suggesting referenda on changes, which, if they were carried, would cripple the EU, without having the courage to argue the “in or out” case.

As for the Bill’s other provisions, we vigorously oppose the clause on human rights and at a suitable time would seek to delete it. We on these Benches are proud that we played our part in passing the Human Rights Act into law. It has set a high bar for civil liberties and human rights of which we should be justly proud. As for the provision on international treaties, we agree: like the provision on military action, these are important powers that should go to Parliament.

We think that 250 parliamentary constituencies would be too few. However, 650 is too many, just as 740 for this House—or perhaps the figure will be 800 or 900—is absurdly large. Both Houses should get down to the figure suggested by Cook-Maclennan: about 450 in each. We agree about fixed parliamentary terms. If the number of sitting days was limited to 100, the Daily Mail would have editorials about lazy MPs taking long holidays. So you will not win on that one.

I assume that the salary of £30,000 was set at about the rate that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, pays his valet.

It was set to ensure that real people doing real jobs could go up to Parliament to talk about truly national interests and nothing else.

I agree that it is better to listen to real people doing real jobs than to some of the bankers who pay themselves amounts that look like telephone numbers. Perhaps we agree on that.

On reform of the House of Lords, given the current impasse in which we have a House of Commons that wants a directly elected House and a House of Lords that has voted consistently against such a House, I am rather attracted to the idea of putting a multi-choice proposal to the electorate. Such a decision from the electorate would, one hopes, finally end the resistance of the refuseniks in this House. I am confident that in such a referendum we would get an overwhelming vote for a directly elected House of Lords.

We are at one on local authority powers. We are a party of subsidiarity and want to see powers moved to the right level. As we believe that the right level in some cases is Europe, we would perhaps part at that point. As for getting powers out of Whitehall and Westminster and back to local authorities, we agree. We also agree on local authority funding. Indeed, in the provision on local taxation I thought we might even be seeing something on local income tax—but perhaps not. On quangos, £43 billion is a worrying figure which requires eternal vigilance.

Does the noble Lord agree that the EU currently has 29 meteorological services? If the EU was properly united then we might, like America, have one meteorological service. The EU can reduce quangos but all these tiddly little states across Europe can duplicate them. I therefore support the noble Lord’s view.

I have run a little over the amount of time taken by other speakers but I have been interrupted by perhaps provoking the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, which was thoroughly intentional. That example is very good. Perhaps a united European meteorological office might even get the weather forecast right.

However, I put one warning. Although I have said that I support a referendum on this place, I belong to a generation who perhaps believes that the retreat to referendums is a weakening and diminishing of our parliamentary democracy. I still believe that the liberties talked about by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, are best guarded by an efficient and functioning parliamentary democracy. I hope that when the new Parliament is elected, Parliament in both Houses will recover its confidence and ability to speak for the people.

My Lords, I intend to be fairly brief because I think that the House is itching—if I may put it that way—to hear the Government’s response to this major Constitutional Reform Bill. I also admire the noble Lord, Lord McNally, in taking the trouble to go through this Private Member’s Bill clause by clause and give his party’s views on various parts of it. Since we heard references to the fact that there might be a Committee stage, he will have further opportunities to put forward amendments to the Bill when it comes before the House.

I accept that every private Member has a right to bring forward a Bill in this House or in another place. I would not want to restrict that in any way. But occasionally, possibly, there is a small element of abuse in bringing forward a Bill, right at the end of a Parliament, which has no prospect whatever of coming into law. It will waste our time on a number of Fridays or whenever when we have to deal with its Committee stage. Its sole purpose seems to be UKIP’s general election manifesto.

Will the noble Lord make the same strictures about the Government’s Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill?

I would make the same strictures about quite a number of the Government’s Bills that are coming before us; for example, the Fiscal Responsibility Bill and the constitutional renewal Bill—or whatever it is called. There are a number that the noble Lord knows have no chance of getting on the statute book. They were brought forward at the Queen’s Speech purely as an early edition of the Labour Party’s election manifesto. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for reminding me of that. But no doubt we will have to deal with those Bills and this Bill in due course. Again, I am amazed at the tolerance of all Members of the House who have listened with avid interest to the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, and his noble friend Lord Pearson of Rannoch as they have argued the case for this.

All we can say is that we are very grateful that my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth added his name to those speaking today. We were able to hear from him his profound thoughts on how constitutional reform should take place and be managed. For that, I think that we are all grateful. I will now sit down and leave the Floor to the Minister. I do not exactly look forward to Committee stage, but no doubt there will be one when we will have further opportunities to discuss this Bill.

My Lords, we are without doubt living in a time of great enthusiasm for constitutional reform. All the major parties have brought forward proposals for how our constitutional systems, conventions and laws should be changed to bring about what is, in their view, the proper constitutional balance. The Prime Minister set out on 2 February his vision of the new politics that is necessary to take our country forward in the new decade.

We have this Bill, put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, to add to the mix. The Government, however, are taking steps to rebuild confidence in our political and constitutional arrangements through measures in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, setting up the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, and our ongoing programme of constitutional reforms, including our proposal to offer the people an opportunity to vote on whether we should replace our present electoral system with the alternative vote.

The noble Lord’s Bill is, in all but one minor detail, identical to his Bill of the last parliamentary Session. As some will recall, on that occasion the Bill did not make it to Second Reading. However, we debated it under the cover of a Question for Short Debate tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson. In that debate, the Government expressed considerable concerns about many of the measures in the Bill. Noble Lords will not be surprised to learn that the Government’s position has not changed.

Let us consider what each element of the Bill does. First, and perhaps least surprisingly given the noble Lord’s membership of the United Kingdom Independence Party, Clause 1 would withdraw the United Kingdom from the European Union. The Government believe that our membership of the European Union has brought real benefits to the United Kingdom through jobs, peace and security. Through our membership, we belong to the world’s biggest trading bloc. Over half of the United Kingdom’s trade is within the EU, with an estimated 3.5 million British jobs linked to it. Our membership allows us to live, work and travel across Europe.

I wonder if the noble Lord could explain how leaving the political construct of the European Union and continuing in free trade with our friends in Europe would have any effect on jobs whatsoever.

My Lords, I do not think that it would be sensible to stray into an answer that would last for several hours. The realities of living within the European Union and the value it brings to the citizens of this country are self-evident to most of us, as are the mechanisms. This Government are proud to continue their support for the European Union and grateful for the widespread support we have in that continued membership.

The European Union also allows member states to co-operate effectively in tackling issues like organised crime and climate change, which do not stop at national borders.

Clause 2 would repeal the Human Rights Act. Again, it will come as no surprise that the Government take a strong and contrary view on this matter. The Government are proud to have introduced the Human Rights Act. I am sure that the noble Lord will not mind me reminding him that those who inspired and drafted the European Convention on Human Rights, to which the Human Rights Act gives further effect, were British lawyers. We are clear that any attempt to reverse the incorporation of the European convention would prevent our judges applying the convention in a way that is specific to the United Kingdom. It would also stop us contributing to the development of the interpretation of the European convention in the international arena. We on these Benches are crystal clear that we have no intention of resiling from the protections afforded by the European convention or from the way in which they are given effect in the UK by the Human Rights Act.

Interestingly, we come next to two areas of the noble Lord’s Bill which have some commonality, of general intention at least, with government policy: Clause 3 on international treaties and Clause 4 on military action. Clause 3 is very straightforward. It states that,

“neither Her Majesty, not any Minister of the Crown on Her behalf, may enter into treaties, agreements or other binding international instruments without the prior authorisation of Parliament”.

The intention is very direct, but I think the drafting may need a little further thought if it were to achieve its aim. For example, the clause makes no mention of the process for how Parliament’s authorisation would be sought. Would the process, whatever it might be, apply equally to all treaties however significant or minor and technical, or would the process vary from case to case? Would all treaties have to be debated, for example, or would they be subject to some form of negative or affirmative procedure? Most treaties, after all, are essentially routine or specialist and do not attract much interest in Parliament.

There are around 30 treaties each year. Under the Government’s detailed proposals in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, it would be for Parliament to indicate where and when it would be effective to debate a treaty. Our reforms not only formalise the arrangements for giving Parliament the opportunity to scrutinise treaties, but allow Parliament to prioritise certain treaties for debate and voting. Rather than press ahead with the approach set out in the noble Lord’s Bill, I would urge him to support the Government’s proposals when they come before this House.

Next we come to Clause 4 on military action. The Bill proposes the prior authorisation of Parliament for declarations of war or the engagement in hostile military action by the United Kingdom. The Government too believe that, in a modern representative democracy, Parliament should be allowed a substantive vote before our Armed Forces are deployed into military action. Indeed, the Government believe that the current position, whereby the prerogative power can be exercised to deploy the Armed Forces without requiring any formal parliamentary agreement, is an outdated state of affairs in a modern democracy. While the Government do not rule out legislation in this area, we prefer the approach of taking this forward through a parliamentary resolution rather than in statute. Indeed, we were pleased that the Joint Committee on the draft Constitutional Renewal Bill supported the draft resolution as a well balanced and effective way of proceeding.

Clauses 5 to 7 deal with reform of the House of Commons, reducing the number of constituencies and sitting days, fixing the term of Parliaments and setting MPs’ salaries and system of expenses. While the Government are not against keeping the size of the Commons under review, we should remember that it has already been reduced in size since 1997; and that since 1950 the average number of electors that individual MPs represent has increased by over 25 per cent. We believe it is important to maintain the link between people and Parliament. Similarly, we welcome the discussion of wider parliamentary reforms such as the idea of a fixed parliamentary term. Such a move would, however, mark a significant shift in our constitutional and political arrangements and the consequences would need to be examined very closely. Again, the relevant clause is drafted very simply and does not allow for any number of unusual circumstances whereby it may be necessary to dissolve a Parliament before a five-year term has been completed. The Government have no plans to reduce the number of days on which the House of Commons sits, however. Indeed, public criticism is generally that Parliament should sit for more days, not fewer.

On setting salaries and allowances for Members of the House of Commons, only this week the Government took steps in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill to implement recommendations made by the Committee on Standards in Public Life. This builds on the decisive action that the Government took to tackle concerns over MPs’ expenses by introducing the Parliamentary Standards Bill in the last Session.

Clause 9 requires a referendum on House of Lords reform within seven years of its passing into an Act. The Prime Minister announced on 2 February the Government’s intention to reform this House into a democratically accountable second Chamber. We published a White Paper on reform of your Lordships’ House in July 2008, which was informed by cross-party talks. There followed almost a year of wider debate and discussion of the proposals contained in it. In developing more detailed plans for reform, the Government have listened to and reflected on this debate and discussion. This fully considered and comprehensive approach to the issue is one way in which the Government are working to promote and restore trust in politics and our political institutions. The Government intend to publish draft legislation setting out the framework for a fully reformed House of Lords soon.

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He is talking about the 2008 White Paper being widely debated. It has not even been debated in your Lordships’ House.

I note that statement. As everyone knows, it is the usual channels who determine what is debated and when. I defer to their wisdom on this matter.

My Lords, is it not true, however, that the principles set out in the White Paper have been debated ad nauseam in the House?

I am going to avoid any comments about nausea.

Much of what remains of the Bill is concerned with what it defines as local matters and the redistribution of power to local authorities. On the government Benches, however, we are proud of our achievements in devolving power to legislatures and assemblies in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London. The Government believe that devolution has delivered real benefits to people across the United Kingdom, providing the right balance between responsibility, accountability and representation. Devolution in England has been significantly advanced by the introduction of the local performance framework, including local area agreements agreed between local authorities and their partners and central government. The Smarter Government White Paper has set out how we will go even further to help citizens to drive further improvement and ensure that they have the necessary tools to hold government to account.

Within England, the Government believe that a regional approach is necessary to analyse and address the causes of economic disparity, to ensure that planning and investment decisions are properly integrated and to co-ordinate issues which extend beyond the boundaries of even the largest local authority. The Government do not, however, believe in the prescriptive one-size-fits-all approach. Respecting the outcome of the November 2004 north-east referendum, they have no further plans for directly elected regional bodies. Our Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 includes provisions that set out the next stage in devolution, from all layers of government to local bodies such as neighbourhood and community groups and to individuals.

To return to the overall theme of the Bill—constitutional reform—earlier this week the Prime Minister gave a speech in which he observed that the current movement for constitutional change and new politics is of historic importance. He said:

“If we the people want a politics that is more open, more plural, more local, more democratic, and more responsive to our underlying British liberty, then we will need to have the strength to make these changes because the only way to ensure that politics serves the people’s values is to make all those who wield political power genuinely accountable to the people”.

I do not believe that the measures in this Bill would do that.

The Government wish to express their strong reservations about the noble Lord’s Constitutional Reform Bill. I urge him and all those in the House today to favour instead the reforms proposed by the Government and support the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill when it arrives shortly for consideration in this House.

My Lords, I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate and I am pleased to have given the noble Lord, Lord Norton, the opportunity to rehearse his own constitutional reform Bill and to dig a few barbs into the Government’s side.

I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who obviously spent time looking at the Bill and researching the Parliament Act 1911. It was my grandfather who led the last ditches in opposing the introduction of the first Parliament Act. In fact, it was not a given that he was going to lose at that time. I have looked at the reports of those debates in some detail; and he lost in the end by 17 votes on 10 August. The reason he lost—I am pleased that there are no Bishops on their Benches at the moment—is because the Bishops, who had undertaken to abstain, in the end voted with the Liberal Government and the Bill was duly passed by 17 votes. So that was down to the Church.

I was grateful for the thoughtfulness with which the noble Lord, Lord McNally, went through my Bill. I am glad he agreed that Parliament is probably too large, both in the Commons and the Lords. I can tell him that the Lords is twice the size of the next biggest Chamber in Europe, which is the French Sénat. If we have even more Peers here, people will start asking what on earth we are going to do. However, I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, for taking such a thoughtful and sometimes—not always, I understand that—supportive approach to what is contained in the Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Henley, seems to think that everything is hunky dory as it is and that there is no point in talking about constitutional reforms and referenda. He did not answer the point about the Human Rights Act, on which I asked him to enlarge, and say whether or not the Conservatives support its abolition or repeal. But there we are; we can live with his remarks quite comfortably.

I am grateful to the Minister for his thoroughness in going through the Bill. I want to remind him about one point. He said that in the provisions for a fixed five-year Parliament there was no provision for changing it. However, there are two. One, which is not yet in the Bill, it is true, would allow for prorogation during those five years should a Government lose a vote of confidence in the Chamber. Secondly, if people felt that the Government were doing so badly at any point in the five years they could, through a referendum, demand a general election.

I understand that the Bill does not meet everyone’s desires but it is useful to talk about ways in which constitutional reform can be brought forward. There is no doubt that people are dissatisfied about the way in which we are governed at the moment. As the Minister said, a large constitutional Bill is coming through. On the points he made about declarations of war and signing treaties, I shall certainly look at the measures the Government are proposing before we move to Committee stage. I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

That the Bill be read a second time.

My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to acquaint the House that they, having been informed of the purport of the Marine Navigation Aids Bill, have consented to place their prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.

My Lords, I declare an interest as a harbour commissioner at the port of Fowey in Cornwall and as president of the UK Maritime Pilots’ Association. Neither organisation is affected by the Bill.

My interest in introducing the Bill is to support the competitiveness of shipping, our ports and the marine industry generally. Aids to navigation, lighthouses, buoys and beacons around the UK are funded by a levy, known as light dues, on merchant ships calling at British and Irish ports. This is a tonnage-based levy subject to a cap on the maximum chargeable tonnage and on the chargeable number of port calls in any one year. In nearly all other countries, the maintenance and renewal of navigation aids are funded by government, but I am not proposing that we go down that road now. Dues here are paid into a central fund—the General Lighthouse Fund—from which they are disbursed by the Department for Transport to the three general lighthouse authorities in England, Scotland and Ireland.

Faced with a projected shortfall of £21 million, significant increases in light dues this year and next were announced by the Department for Transport in June last year. The increased light dues amounted to an initial 67 per cent, followed by an outrageous second increase of 26 per cent, making a total for the year as a whole of around 80 per cent at the worst possible economic time. A number of reasons for these increases were given by Ministers, including additional costs, dealing with the GLAs’ pension problems and a continuing contribution of £15 million to maintaining lights around the coast of the Republic of Ireland. It is therefore essential that a lasting solution is sought to restore industry confidence after a succession of clumsy mistakes, wasteful use of resources, poor consultation by the Government and these huge increases in the light dues. The Bill aims to address all these mistakes.

These increases are, frankly, unaffordable in the current economic conditions and risk deterring some vessels from calling at UK ports, particularly direct calls by large container ships and discretionary visits by cruise ships.

I start with what I shall call, to use shorthand, the Irish question. The subsidy to fund navigation aids in another member state is unique in Europe. Successive Ministers have argued that we have a common sea area with the UK and the Republic of Ireland, and that we need to make sure that the lights work for the benefit of ships coming into our ports. However, we do not fund the lights in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark or Norway, which are on a shipping lane that is much more heavily used than the one between the UK and Ireland, so why do we continue to help fund the lights in the Republic? I know that it is a relic of the time before the Republic gained independence, but that was more than 80 years ago. Again, Ministers have argued otherwise, but as was established through a Parliamentary Answer on 12 January last year, there are no legal or constitutional reasons why the Government could not withdraw immediately from the 1985 agreement and the funding of the Commissioners of the Irish Lights. Furthermore, in November 2004, which is more than five years ago, the then Secretary of State for Transport, Alistair Darling MP, in a response to the Transport Select Committee, committed HMG to cease the funding of Irish lights.

There is a precedent for the changes to funding of matters Irish in health. The funding of the Irish lights from the General Lighthouse Fund could be stopped in the same manner as the Department of Health ceased funding for healthcare for Irish pensioners under an agreement made between the two Governments in 1971. This move, which happened last year, saved a much larger figure of around €600 million. It was done with minimal political bargaining and, most importantly, had scant regard for what Ministers have claimed as a problem of “diplomatic relations”.

Support for ending this payment to fund the lights in another member state has come also from Julian Brazier MP, the shadow Shipping Minister, who was quoted on the Daily Telegraph’s website on 24 March last year as saying,

“80 years since the Irish Free State received its independence, we are still subsidising their lighthouses and navigational aids”,

effectively paying 65 per cent of the total costs. He continued:

“I would remind you that your Government has been promising to tackle this issue since January 2004 … the shipping industry has been particularly hard hit by the current economic turmoil”,

which is very supportive. He went on:

“Any additional cost pressures at this time could lead to lines missing out stops at UK ports altogether. The City of London, as the global centre for shipping, could also ultimately be affected”.

Ministers here have been rather more cautious, saying that the Irish Government are not keen to negotiate. I suggest that they wouldn’t be, would they? That is not a reason for not doing it. I therefore repeat what I have said a number of times in this House: we really are past the time for talking; it is time for the Government to act decisively. They should give the Irish Government a year’s notice and then switch off the £15 million subsidy.

However, £15 million, I am afraid, is not enough of a saving. There must be much more that could be saved if the provision of navigational aids was rationalised and subject to independent regulation. At the moment, the three GLAs responsible submit their budgets to the department for some light-touch scrutiny. Then, once the process is completed, the charges are just passed on as light dues to the ship owners entering the UK. There is no independent regulation of the charges or the related costs. I am afraid that the department has shown itself to be rather a poor regulator. Even this year, when all the other DfT agencies, including the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the Highways Agency, are being required to plan for at least a 5 per cent reduction in their budgets for 2010-11, some GLAs seem to think that they can continue to do what they like. In the first draft of its budget for 2010-11, Trinity House proposed an increase of 3.4 per cent.

The Government appear incapable of taking an independent view of GLA costs or charges. They commissioned a study through Trinity House to justify two years’ worth of cost increases. It was carried out by Raven Trading, which subcontracted to a company whose partner is also a Commissioner of the Irish Lights, and consulted only one shipping line. The whole thing was shrouded in secrecy. Predictably, Raven Trading incorrectly concluded that the threat of ships reducing their calls to the UK was not real and that the GLAs needed more money to pay their board members and hopefully get some repeat orders for consultancy work. However, according to a Written Answer I received on 13 January, HL1160, the department sees “no conflict of interest” here.

According to Stephen Bracewell, the chief executive of the Harwich Haven Port Authority, ships are already avoiding the UK. He has said that,

“in the last eight years of 2009 no less than four major container services have ceased calling at the Haven Ports, with cargo being consolidated not on feeders through north European ports but on other vessels continuing to call at the Haven. This action by four major carriers has already deprived the General Lighthouse Fund of £2.4M in annual light dues revenue, for which the GLF would need to find the equivalent cuts in expenditure to stay balance-sheet neutral … I regret that I and many other local Haven businesses cannot share the view of Raven Trading … that this action of ships no longer calling in the UK being an ‘empty threat’. The loss of those same services has also had an inevitable effect on local employment aimed at providing vessel rather than cargo-related services: towage; pilotage; conservancy; mooring; agency; taxis and chandlery”.

This is quite important. This stark warning has been issued first hand to the department. I can only hope that it takes some notice of the industry at the front line.

Now the Government have commissioned a more far-reaching study by Atkins, which is due to report next month. Again, it very helpfully has a steering group comprising the three GLAs. As Mark Bookham, chair of the Independent Light Dues Forum, said in October last year:

“It’s like turkeys voting for Christmas”.

Effectively, the GLAs are on a steering group set up to determine the future of their own structures. We therefore have two studies where those organisations being investigated have representatives involved in the study. There is serious concern in the shipping industry that a small, independent regulator is needed, as I propose in the Bill.

I am sure that forthcoming speakers will bombard me with figures about the set-up and the running costs but, in preparation for that, I point to Chris Bolt, the PPP arbiter for London Underground—I am sorry about the title, but it is not my doing—as a model that could work. As established in a parliamentary Answer of 26 October, the General Lighthouse Fund already provides £98,000 for the activities of Department for Transport staff in the Lights, Navigation and Ports Safety Branch. That could be quite sufficient to fund a small regulator.

Some noble Lords may wonder why I am bringing this Bill forward today rather than waiting for the outcome of the study, but there are many urgent issues in the Bill, and the outcome of the study will be useful input to it. The inability or unwillingness of the Government to grasp this issue is why I propose the amalgamation of the three GLAs and introduction of a small, independent regulator to oversee cost reductions while providing a safe service.

I am encouraged that the Conservative Party supports the amalgamation of the three GLAs. Julian Brazier is quoted as saying on 24 March:

“Many in the industry are wondering why it is that we require three separate lighthouse bodies, when they could be brought together and efficiency savings made”.

In a debate last month in another place, he confirmed this position, asking whether,

“the Government considered whether any overhead savings could be achieved by amalgamating, for example, Trinity House and the Northern Lighthouse Board … I wonder whether there could be a further reduction in overheads”.—[Official Report, Commons, Sixth Delegated Legislation Committee, 15/12/09; col. 6.]

The present GLAs argue that they are doing a great job and have made many savings, but are they or their “sponsoring” department really the best people to make that judgment? This Bill is therefore designed to create a structure to remedy the situation, to merge the GLAs into a Marine Navigational Aids Commission and introduce a regulator—the Office of Marine Navigation Aids Regulation. It would allow the MNAC to undertake more commercial functions and includes the pension clauses, taken verbatim from the Government’s Marine Navigation Bill, which underwent parliamentary scrutiny by the Transport Select Committee. It is important for me to acknowledge that the charitable work of Trinity House has been really good. It is not included in this Bill but needs to come under a separate debate. The Bill does not affect that element and should be kept distinct. Although I know that a number of noble Lords due to speak today are brethren, elder or younger, of Trinity House, and the charitable organisation does a lot of good works on many fronts, that is not a reason for preventing a restructure which would save a lot of money for ships coming into the UK. Independent regulation is the only way in which to restore confidence to those who pay light dues to ensure that their money is being spent wisely.

In setting the light dues, the regulator would undertake its own studies into what costs of this super-GLA, as we might call it, were reasonable, as well as consulting interested stakeholders, governed by the overriding principle that safety is paramount. Independent regulation must be seen as a sensible and effective way in which to reduce costs and improve efficiencies in organisations that are effective monopolies. It works well in water, energy, telecom, air and the rail industry. In rail, independent regulation can claim most of the credit for Network Rail being required to reduce its costs by 50 per cent in 10 years while improving performance. This is in stark contrast to when the Department for Transport was the regulator of the High Speed 1 line and awarded a cost-plus contract to Network Rail to operate and maintain the line for 80 years. I do not think that Governments are good regulators.

Self-regulated organisations will always claim that they are very efficient and that no further savings can be made but, following regulatory intervention, they generally manage to achieve substantial savings that they previously said were unachievable. They inevitably lobby Governments hard to control the regulator, but most of the time the regulator process works itself through, and results are generally positive, with better service and quality, lower costs and more money for investments.

Much of the Bill involves changes to the Merchant Shipping Act 1995, but creating the MNAC or super-GLA would bring significant cost savings by eliminating the triplication of functions. The three GLAs could share a handful of back-office functions. The Bill aims to correct the nonsense of triplication with rationalisation of the corporate centre into a prudent, logical and sensible organisation, as Julian Brazier suggested. On the cost of senior managers and board members, according to the GLF annual report and accounts for 2007-08, Trinity House has four board members paid more than £70,000 and one paid more than £100,000. On the Commissioners of the Irish Lights, one board member is paid more than £70,000 and four more are paid £100,000. In total, the three boards cost more than £1 million a year, and a lot of savings could be made instantly with one super-GLA, seven to nine board members and a lesser remuneration package.

Some GLAs have argued that the regional knowledge will be lost, but the reform that I propose aims to tackle the back-office functions fully by completely rationalising the three corporate centres to make the savings. Regional stations should be in place under the proposed unified centre, but they would be ready for any further devolution of responsibilities to the Governments of Scotland, Northern Ireland or anywhere else, so I do not think that there is a real concern there.

There is a need for stronger regulation, and a smaller, independent regulator would restore badly damaged industry confidence. The regulator would be cheap to run, as I have said before, and would have a small office of one or two nominated senior people with back-office support, when required, from organisations that could be the Office of Rail Regulation or the CAA, both of which I have talked to—or, more logically, the MCA.

Having consulted the GLAs and the shipping industry, I amended Clause 2 from the draft Bill, which was on reducing the number of board members and their prescribed attributes. The Bill makes provision for charges to be levied on the MoD vessels as well as pleasure craft, although no details are contained in the Bill because it will be a matter for the regulator, which would consult widely. That is not, as the GLAs have said, to increase the revenue from shipping or other sources, but to reduce the costs of providing these services, which is what the Bill aims to achieve. I hope that the Atkins report will help that.

In conclusion, it is time for decisive and bold action to restore the reputation of the UK as an attractive place to do maritime business. I acknowledge that the Bill may not make much further progress before Parliament dissolves, but I intend to keep up pressure on government to make these changes. I hope that a future Government would support this move to increased efficiency and reduced costs and could introduce the necessary legislation themselves—I hope while taking into account the contents of the Bill. Failing that, I shall bring it back at a suitable time in the next Session.

The department followed the huge increase in light dues with a second increase on 1 April. I know that my Conservative colleagues are with me when I urgently call on the Government to withdraw that second, harsh increase. As Jesper Kjaedegaard, the chairman of Maritime UK, said this week,

“for those who think that light dues are an insignificant part of the total operating costs—let me just remind you that for a typical Panamax container ship, this tax amounts to £13,650 per call increasing to £17,200 per call … If this joke goes ahead, this won’t be an April Fool joke, but a significant misjudgment”.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for bringing this Bill forward again, giving us another chance to discuss it. He has given us a very detailed description of what it entails and all the bits and pieces associated with it. I shall address only certain items.

Together with other noble Lords, some of whom are here today, I spoke on this subject on 7 July last year and declared, as I do again, that I am a Younger Brother of Trinity House and a Master Mariner who, from time to time in years gone by, used the signals from lighthouses and buoys.

The Bill seeks to replace the GLAs and establish the MNAC in their place, with an Office of Marine Navigation Aids Regulation—OMNAR—to replace, in large part, the role of the Secretary of State in his responsibilities for the GLF and GLAs. As far as the GLAs are aware, there was no consultation with the Republic in terms of the proposed removal of the fading mechanism for its aids to navigation. Furthermore, the Bill fails to grapple properly with the constitutional issues associated with the Republic's position under existing legislation.

In terms of the Bill itself, it is unclear who is ultimately responsible for the provision of aids to navigation, following the creation of the MNAC and the establishment of the OMNAR. This concerns me and, I suspect, many others. A failure in terms of aids to navigation provision could be extremely costly in terms of human life, property and the marine environment. The “Tricolor” wreck, which sank in French waters in 2004, has cost something approaching $200 million. Furthermore, the Bill is unclear on the question of the transfer of existing assets and liabilities and how any transitional measures would operate. Nor does it mention the responsibility for wrecks, as Sections 252 and 253 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 place responsibility for wrecks outside harbour areas with the GLAs.

The Department for Transport has commissioned WS Atkins to conduct a review of GLAs and the management of GLF. Among its aims, it will address the funding regime—in other words, more light dues raised in Ireland resulting in less reliance on dues raised in England. It will also look at where future efficiencies can be made in GLA operation and support. The review will report in March, and its recommendations are unlikely to require major primary legislation. Devoting parliamentary time now to an issue that would largely be resolved looks somewhat inappropriate. However, the Bill presents an opportunity for ship owners to keep in the public domain their grievances about light dues and the GLA structure.

It has been estimated that significant costs would be incurred in setting up the new structure, particularly with regard to operating costs, redundancy, relocation, retraining and new infrastructure. These have been estimated at between £25 million and £70 million, or, to put it another way, between 12.5p to 35p on light dues, which the ship owner would have to bear. Would any ship owner approve of this potential increase to the running costs? I suspect not.

My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Northern Lighthouse Heritage Trust, a body set up by the Northern Lighthouse Board to look after property that is no longer part of the General Lighthouse Fund. I was also a commissioner of the Northern Lighthouse Board for nearly 10 years.

In 1998 I was present at the ceremony of the automation of the last manned lighthouse in the northern lighthouse area, Fair Isle South. That was a sad and poignant moment because it marked the end of manned lighthouses and the fine tradition that went along with them. We owe a significant debt of gratitude to those who served in the past to keep our seas safe and those who now do so.

If the ceremony for the automation of Fair Isle was sad and poignant, I submit that it also marked a new beginning for the lighthouse service. Under successive chief executives, James Taylor and now Roger Lockwood, the NLB has reformed, modernised and gone from strength to strength, and I know that that is true of other general lighthouse authorities. In Scotland the operation has been slimmed down: the Granton base has long since gone, Stromness was closed during my time as a commissioner and operations are now based solely in Oban. The Pharos was replaced after only 13 years in service; it was deemed no longer fit for purpose, which showed both the pace of change that the lighthouse service had to match and the ability of the lighthouse authorities to invest in new ships. The tender for the new Pharos was submitted along with the new ship for Trinity House.

Costs have gone down. It is now a highly proficient, competent and efficient organisation. What my noble friend did not recognise is that with other general lighthouse authorities, the NLB kept the light dues at a level pace for 13 years, from 1993 to 2006. In 2006 light dues went down by 13 per cent, a decrease that was forced upon the general lighthouse authorities at the behest of the industry. That now looks like short-termism on its part.

The GLAs do not operate independently but, increasingly, in partnership. The ship agreement is one aspect of that but they also have set out a collective vision, first in 2020 The Vision and updated recently in 2025 and Beyond. Those documents have set a course for the general lighthouse authorities for the future.

My noble friend has raised the Irish question. There is one part of me that never quite understands the logic of this. Lighthouse dues are paid on the basis of visitations to ports, not on actual use of the lighthouse. Those who pass Fastnet or Tuskar Rock do not close their eyes on the basis that they are passing a lighthouse in a foreign jurisdiction and they ought not to be paying for it; I am sure that they often welcome them and in some cases have been relieved to see them. My noble friend says, rightly, that it is a foreign country and we do not pay for any lighthouses in any other foreign jurisdictions. That is true, I grant him that, but that attitude still seems somewhat counterintuitive on a day when we have had an announcement of further devolution to Northern Ireland, and the example of British-Irish co-operation over lighthouses was specifically acknowledged in the Good Friday agreement in 1998. In any event, the Irish Government are now separately subsidising the lighthouse authorities, and negotiations will no doubt continue on that matter.

I have studied the Bill with some care. It may be my fault but I am unclear on whether the existing GLAs, after the introduction of the super-GLA that my noble friend has described, will have any continuing function. I have looked in vain, for example, for any clauses that relate to the transfer of assets and liabilities or the winding-up of the GLAs. They are not there. There is mention of the board of the Northern Lighthouse Board coming out of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995, but there is no mention of what exactly would happen to the existing lighthouse authorities. Would they continue in any shape or form? No doubt my noble friend will address that when he comes to reply.

In any event, what exactly would be the solution to this problem? As far as I can see, it would be the creation of two new quangos, whether in addition to or instead of the existing one. We would have a Marine Navigation Aids Commission, no doubt replete with a new headquarters, chairman, chief executive, expenses, pension, corporate strategy, HR, disability information strategies—the lot. If that were not good enough, we would then have a separate body to oversee the first: a marine navigation aids regulator. One is reminded of the old woman who swallowed the spider to catch the fly.

If ship owners have been pressing for this, one has to question whether they have really thought it through. My noble friend says that it is to support competitiveness, but in fact—with the greatest of respect for him—he would be increasing the amount of bureaucracy involved and therefore, as my noble friend Lord Simon said, increasing the costs. I would be grateful if he explained to us in more detail what the relationship would be between the new bodies and the existing general lighthouse authorities.

I come back to the Scottish issue. Has my noble friend consulted Scottish Ministers? He will say, rightly, that the issue of lighthouses is a reserved matter, but the fact is that there is a close relationship between the Northern Lighthouse Board and the Scottish Government, there is a concordat between the Department for Transport and the Scottish Government that inter alia covers lighthouses, and the Northern Lighthouse Board is regarded as a significant part of Scottish life. I have not mentioned the Isle of Man, but that is true there is well. He will find, if he presses this, that there is considerable opposition in Scotland, not just from an SNP Administration but from any other Administration that is likely to come in, as well as from the public; the NLB is regarded as part of the fabric of Scottish life, and they will not look favourably on the downgrading or abolition of the Northern Lighthouse Board with some centralised quango in its place.

I hope that my noble friend will in time go away and reflect on exactly what he is attempting to achieve by this. There are legitimate questions to be asked about the operations of the general lighthouse authorities, but the answer is not to tear up the existing structure; rather, it is to ensure that it works better and more efficiently in the future.

My Lords, I will make a few brief comments if only because I am recovering from a heavy cold and I am not certain how long my voice will last. I declare a non-financial interest as an Elder Brother of Trinity House.

One has to admire the tenacity of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, who continues to bring his question before us at every opportunity. He mentioned that his timing might be a little awry at the moment. Obviously, it was the usual channels’ decision as to when his Bill would get a Second Reading, but the timing is unfortunate. As has been mentioned, there is yet another review going on into the General Lighthouse Authorities—the Atkins review—one of a number over the past few years, and that is due to report next month. Although this gives us an opportunity to discuss the whole question of light dues once again, we might be wasting our time because nothing will happen until the Government have seen the results of that review. The noble Lord admits that he does not expect his Bill to make much further progress and we will have to see. But it is probably unlikely.

The Irish question has been referred to several times. It is really the fly in the ointment and the one thing that really annoys the ship owners. As has already been hinted at by the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, this new arrangement is under an international treaty. It is not as easy as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, suggests to walk away from international treaties. These things require careful consideration. The other problem, as we all know, is that the majority of light dues are paid by ships visiting English ports—something like 87 per cent. Scotland and Ireland would find great difficulty if they had to pay for their own navigation aids. Ireland gets comparatively few ships these days and if it was forced to charge realistic light dues, the dues would be extremely high and probably no ship would go to Ireland anyway.

There have been several misconceptions with regard to figures—the noble Lord who preceded me mentioned this. This is something that does not come out very often, but ship owners always scream about this huge increase in light dues. Admittedly it is large, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Boyd, said, light dues have not risen since 1993 and were reduced on several occasions since then resulting in a 50 per cent decrease. As has been said, in 2006, there was an opportunity to raise light dues, but it was resisted. That was unfortunate because ship owners at that time were enjoying successful markets and most of them were making large sums of money. An increase then would have been easily absorbed and nobody would even have considered it. However, the shipping industry has taken a huge downturn during the recession and these rises coming through now—one recently and another one due later this year—will hit it harder because it has been going through such lean times.

The recovery is starting, if slowly. Certainly, I was looking at figures only yesterday for a large French shipping company. Its revenues on the Asia-Europe run, which is the main trade lane, are certainly beginning to rise and rise more quickly. We hope that difficult times are past and that ship owners soon start making reasonable money again. The noble Lord mentioned charges of thousands of pounds per ship, but within the overall costs of running a ship, they are still remarkably small.

There is some conception that these services are provided free in a lot of other places around the world. That is not true. Ours are up front and visible. It is the user-pays principle, which the Government and the EU champion. In other countries it may be paid by direct taxation or included in general port charges. There is no evidence to suggest that ships are charged more in this country—there is no direct figure available—but it seems that the costs of provision of navigational aids is roughly the same wherever you are. Ship owners are paying wherever they go: it is only because they have a huge bill put in front of them every year that they complain.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, also mentioned ships turning away from this country due to the charges, but I question those figures. Maersk Line, the largest container line in the world, has only recently brought its largest container ships into Felixstowe. Only four or five tankers ever built have been larger than these ships. They are extremely large and carry up to 15,000 20-foot containers. When they were introduced a few years ago, they made two initial visits for promotional purposes into Felixstowe and then the service was run from the north continental ports. The fact that Maersk has now decided to bring the ships into Felixstowe tells me that this great worry about light dues is perhaps not as great as one might imagine.

There seems to be an almost insatiable appetite to modernise or, in other words, tear down or destroy institutions that have been around for many hundreds of years and replace them with a new set-up that may well prove to be less efficient, could well cost a great deal more—there was mention from other speakers of possibly up to £50 million more under this Bill—and which could have all sorts of unintended consequences. The three general lighthouse authorities have worked efficiently together to provide seamless provision of aids to navigation in what amounts to 20,000 miles of some of the most dangerous waters in the world. Anything that upsets that balance should sound a warning note.

Another example of how these cross-border organisations work is the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. It has worked perfectly satisfactorily in Ireland as well as the rest of the UK for many years. I know that it is a charity funded entirely from donations, but it shows how these organisations can work—as indeed the lighthouse authorities work together well with their Irish partners.

I cannot say that I wish this Bill well in any way at all. In fact, I sincerely hope that it has a quiet death, but I have no doubt that the noble Lord will persist. Perhaps we shall look forward to debating this again in a new Parliament. But I have a feeling that the new Government of whatever colour will have their time taken up by far more pressing matters than light dues.

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity that the Second Reading of my noble friend’s Bill gives us to discuss this important issue. Aids to navigation may seem rather esoteric to many people, but that belies their importance to the safety of the mariner and the security of the marine environment. I have an interest in this issue: I was born and brought up in the lighthouse service in Scotland, and I served as a lighthouse keeper for a few years in my younger days.

My noble friend’s Bill seeks to abolish the Trinity House lighthouse service and the Northern Lighthouse Board and to replace them with a two-tier structure: a new commission and a new regulator. The Bill will also cut the Republic of Ireland out of the present structure, which, in my submission, works extremely well.

There is no doubt that ship owners have been campaigning very loudly about the recent rises in light dues. That is perhaps understandable in the current economic climate, but the matter has to be seen in the correct context. Due to the efficiencies of the three GLAs in the use of new technology, automation and the reduction in bases and in the fleet of lighthouse tenders, a substantial saving has accrued to ship owners in recent times. Until last year, the most recent increase in light dues was in 1993. Dues were cut in 1997, 2002, 2004 and 2006. As I understand it, light dues are about 32 per cent lower in real terms today when compared with 1993. Like pension funds holidays taken by employers when times were good, a day of reckoning always arrives. Shipping has enjoyed a light dues holiday, but the consequence is that the deficit in the GLA fund is something like £21 million, and that cannot go on without affecting the quality of the service provided and therefore compromising the safety of life at sea.

Of course, ship owners are hard-nosed business people—it is a tough and competitive business—but they have been complaining about light dues for as long as I can remember. It has not arisen as a consequence of the present difficult times. It was the case when I was in the lighthouse service in the 1960s. Lobbying on the merger of GLAs has probably been around for much of the history of the three lighthouse authorities. Not so long ago, a shipping representative complained rather bitterly to me about the fact that Her Royal Highness, the Princess Royal, had become a patron of the Northern Lighthouse Board because he saw it as yet another impediment to lobbying for the GLA merger.

I know that my noble friend Lord Berkeley has no interest whatever in compromising the provision and effectiveness of aids to navigation. He is seeking economies of scale by reorganisation. I have been around the block on reorganisations a few times. As well as being merchant service officers and working in the lighthouse service, another occupation frequently found in my family is nursing. In my subsequent career as a nurse and as a representative of the profession in a nurses’ trade union, I saw too many reorganisations. I think there have been something like 19 in the National Health Service in the past 40 years. Most of them were allegedly designed to provide efficiencies and synergies. Not every aspect of them was wrong, of course. However, almost all those changes and reorganisations invariably brought about huge redundancy costs, a consequent loss of experience among senior people and demoralisation among staff. An inevitable sequela was an increase in management costs and support staff. I suspect we might well have the same outcome if this Bill were enacted, although I am sure that is not my noble friend’s intention.

The existing structure of GLAs provides for each part of the UK and Irish coasts to be covered by people who have unique knowledge of their own coasts which, as the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, said, are the most dangerous in the world. That knowledge must not be lost. Something like 80 per cent of the staff in the GLAs are involved in design, engineering and marine services. Many members of staff would be lost in any new structure where there is relocation to a new HQ, which would almost certainly be in England. As reorganisation in any business shows, many members of staff are not in a position to relocate. The consequences could be quite damaging to the safety of navigation. New premises would be required for a new two-tier structure, training and recruitment issues would follow and it is highly unlikely that the staffing requirements of the new commission and the new regulatory office would show that fewer staff would be required. There would be a reduction in some of the most senior posts, but that would be outweighed by redundancy costs and the need for more support staff to cover a much larger area. Does the Minister have any figures on the cost of the staff at the Department for Transport who are devoted to GLAs? Has any comparative estimate been made of the staffing costs for the proposed new regulatory body?

There are political issues to consider. I am not sure that those of us who believe in a United Kingdom should give gifts to the Scottish National Party, such as proposing the abolition of the Northern Lighthouse Board. I am not approaching this from nostalgia or from any nationalistic point of view, but I suspect that many Scots would find it difficult to relate to, for example, the responsibility for Sule Skerry Lighthouse, which is 40 miles north of the Scottish mainland and the same distance west of the Orkneys, to be in Harwich, Tower Hill or somewhere else in the south of England. Neither do I think disentangling the Trinity House lighthouse service from the rest of Trinity House will be as simple a matter as my noble friend Lord Berkeley suggests.

As for the politics of the Irish issue, as has already been said, this morning, of all mornings, when delicate manoeuvrings on devolution appear to be coming to fruition, is not a good time to propose abolishing a successful cross-border body. I am on record in this House as supporting a more equitable funding arrangement for the provision of the Irish lighthouse service, but we also have to recognise the long history. Britain had the largest merchant fleet in the world at the time of Irish independence, and the Irish Free State had almost nothing by comparison. The Dáil—the Parliament of the Irish Free State—perhaps understandably told the Brits that if they wanted to protect their merchant shipping, they could jolly well pay for it. So, there was never a division and the CIL had been a successful cross-border body for three-quarters of a century before the Belfast agreement came into being, and it seems nonsense now to tear it up. We cannot ignore the Belfast agreement because the CIL features in it as an excellent example of all-Ireland co-operation.

We need to have seamless provision in the waters of the geographic British Isles and that co-operation should continue. I have seen the ILV “Granuaile”—the Irish lighthouse tender—operating in Scottish waters, and that is the way it should be, rather than creating a situation where we may need additional staffing costs to cover Northern Ireland, in addition to new ship-time costs and helicopter-time costs and, as I understand it, two new DGPS stations.

I was disappointed that the Government did not find time in their legislative programme for the draft marine navigation Bill. That draft Bill had the support of the three GLAs and would not have been contentious. It would have allowed more opportunities for commercial earnings, which would defray the costs to the shipping industry.

My noble friend Lord Berkeley questioned whether the lighthouse boards are the best people to make spending decisions. The GLAs do not work in a vacuum. They work closely with the shipping industry to ensure safety. When lighthouses and other aids to navigation are no longer necessary, they are decommissioned. To give but one of many examples, Killantringan lighthouse, the light station where I was born, was discontinued a little over two years ago. On the other hand, in consultation with maritime interests, the original Monach lighthouse, which had been unlit since early in the Second World War, was brought back into commission 18 months ago.

Some shipping lobbyists would like to go further. Once they get the merger of GLAs, they would like to get rid of many traditional aids to navigation and many lighthouses. That day may come in the longer term but for the present there is that increasing reliance on GPS, electronic charts and other electrical and radio-generated aids to navigation. However, all these systems can fail. As the cruise master of a cruise vessel pointed out to me not long ago, fewer and fewer officers of the watch on far too many vessels can no longer deal with horizontal and vertical sextant angles, rising and dipping distances or a running fix. He found that rather worrying. For him, as for me, lighthouses are still a vital failsafe.

We await the outcome of the WS Atkins review, which has been commissioned by the Government. That review will deal with all the issues being debated today, including light dues and UK-Irish co-operation. We should know the outcome of that report shortly. No doubt the Minister will let us know when it is due to be published. We will undoubtedly then have further debates so that we can shed even more light on this matter.

My Lords, I come afresh to this subject, unlike most people in the debate so far. The basic premise of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, seems to be backed up by the shipowners: we have an inefficient and expensive body that is crippling British trade. “They would say that, wouldn’t they?” rings in my ears. Then there are those who are involved in the current structure who say, “We don’t need any change”. Again, they would say that. What will the Government say about the reviewing of the situation? What have we done to see what the structure is here?

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Boyd, pointed out that everyone involved in the history of the pricing mechanism should, judging by his analysis, go away and take a long hard look in the mirror. Holding prices down for too long and pushing them up at the end is bound to cause major problems—end of story. It was basically incompetent of whoever handled it like that; they deserve a very high degree of criticism. There are no two ways about it—it was bound to happen. Whoever took that decision deserves to have all the blame end up on their desk.

As for the question about Ireland, we have taken over responsibility for Irish waters for good historical reasons. The analysis of the noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie, is probably one that nobody would disagree with. Is Ireland now capable of doing this itself? Probably, technically, yes. Is there any point and does anybody benefit from it? Safety at sea, in terms of people’s lives and threats of greater pollution if there are disasters, should be borne in mind. It is also worth remembering that we are one geographic unit. In today’s previous debate the question of whether we could go away from Europe at certain times reached a level of hyperbole where unhitching Britain from the European continent and towing it somewhere else on the result of a referendum was an underlying theme. We are where we are: shared geography is something we cannot escape from.

Is this the most efficient way? This is an old structure and maybe it could be reorganised. Maybe there are too many members. However, there has to be some form of analysis of this. If two bodies that are well entrenched say that there are problems, they are probably not the best two to listen to on reorganisation. We need somebody looking in from outside. I accept that there is no guarantee that anybody coming to this from outside will get it right. My advice would be: take your time and pick your persons well. Surely we should take a look. If some of the functions of all three bodies can be centralised to a greater degree, that should be looked at. It comes down to better control of the whole and a better idea of what is going on.

Is Scotland prepared to give up all ideas of control in this respect? As somebody who has not lived in Scotland for a long time, I am not in the best position to judge. What is functioning best for those people who are moving these large, complicated pieces of machinery through an environment in which things can go horribly wrong should, I suggest, be the underlying thrust. At what price can it be done? Whether this way of collecting funds—or any variation on it—is the best way forward should be considered at the same time. Maybe the structures we have are past their sell-by date in total. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is merely saying, “Change them a little bit”. Maybe we do not want to do this. If we are going to look at this, surely we should do so in the round. The things that we cannot escape are geography and the fact that if something goes wrong we pay a price, potentially, in human and environmental terms. With that in mind, I look forward to what the Minister has to say and the response of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, to my comments.

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for introducing and explaining the purpose of his Bill in his usual expert and comprehensive manner. I enjoy following the noble Lord, Lord Addington. He makes good points but he does not steal my thunder. I just wish I could tempt him to these Benches.

Many noble Lords, including me, have been concerned about the management of our navigational aids and the GLAs. Safe and efficient operation of the navigational aids is clearly vital for shipping. We should also not forget the marking and management of the wrecks—an important function of the GLAs, as mentioned by the noble Viscount, Lord Simon. Here I pay tribute to the crews of the GLA ships. They have to put to sea in adverse conditions, all seasons and hazardous waters. We should be grateful to them.

The catalyst for this Bill is money, or the lack of it. It seems that the Government reduced the light dues when the shipping industry was enjoying very good trading conditions and increased them when times became hard. This is a point made by many noble Lords. The comments of the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, were very illuminating; we are lucky to have his wise counsel.

Clauses 1 to 5 provide for the creation of the commission and its regulator. I am not yet convinced of the need for either. The jury is out. Before making any definitive statement, it would be wise to wait for the Atkins report, referred to by many noble Lords. My understanding is that it should be available next month, so we will not have to wait too long. I am sure the Minister will tell us what the progress is. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Boyd of Duncansby, outlined in his excellent speech some of the practical difficulties with what is proposed. I intend to draw the text of his speech to the attention of my honourable friend Mr Brazier.

There is always the risk of being taken in by a chief executive who persuades parliamentarians with a very good presentation. Last year I visited Trinity House’s operation in Harwich and I admit to being very pleasantly surprised. It seems that the deputy master, Rear-Admiral Sir Jeremy de Halpert, is running a pretty tight ship, with few obvious inefficiencies. For instance, across the road from the new main building was a new integrated facility for the maintenance of buoys. It was not clear to me how it could be done much better because it was all purpose-designed for the task. I wish I could say the same about some MoD maintenance facilities that I know of. I have not visited the other GLAs but I know that there has been collaboration and integration. What is the view of the Minister with regard to having one GLA? Are the savings proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, real or illusory?

Clause 8 meets an important need. As many noble Lords explained, the GLAs are currently restricted in their commercial activities. However, I am always anxious about public bodies being able to undertake commercial activities for fear that this will undermine existing operators or discourage commercial operators from coming into the market. In my commercial existence, many years ago, I was the victim of exactly this. It is therefore no surprise that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has skilfully inserted some safeguards. I would, however, need to feel comfortable that they are effective. They do, of course, rely on Clauses 1 to 5 remaining in the Bill. However, it would be easy to substitute the Secretary of State for the proposed regulator.

All noble Lords taking part in this debate will be aware that the GLAs have a duty to inspect local navigational aids. While most local lighthouse authorities work diligently and rectify any slight defects promptly, this is not universal. It should be. Clause 9 corrects this, as the noble Lord described. I would be rather more cautious if it was proposed that a GLA itself could impose a financial penalty, as this would merely be passing public money from one public pot to another.

The sure touch of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, seems to have deserted him in Clause 10. Charging light dues to the Royal Navy would have little utility but would require extra administrative effort. It might also distort training programmes in order to minimise cost and I wonder what use it would have. It would affect only a few ships and the extra income might amount to only £250,000—perhaps the marginal costs of the proposed regulator. Even if it was twice this amount, I do not think that it would be worth a clause in primary legislation. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, when he replies, could indicate what he expects the revenue to be.

More important, the clause could interfere with Section 1 of the Old Pals Act. That is a serious danger. The effect would simply be to move a little money from one organisation operating for the good of all seafarers to another one doing the same thing. There is no new money for defence. If Gordon Brown will not give defence enough money to run a war, he is hardly likely to make up the cost of light dues.

Turning to the central point of the Bill, I think that all noble Lords will agree that it is a little odd that we continue to subsidise GLA operations in the Republic of Ireland when that state can now stand on its own two feet. I suspect that this issue is the primary motivation for the noble Lord’s Bill and I agree with very nearly all his analysis of the situation. However, it is important to remember that the concern is the subsidy and not how the service is provided. The best solution may well be for one GLA to cover all the requirements of the entire island of Ireland. Again, I would want to see the Atkins report before commenting further, but there is clearly much political benefit in having several successful cross-border bodies, of which the CIL is just one.

The Bill raises several important issues, some of which would have been in the Marine Navigation Bill had it appeared in this Session. The defects that I have outlined are amenable to amendment. Therefore, we should give the Bill a Second Reading and look forward to the detailed surgery and examination, even if, as the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, hopes, the Bill does not survive the operation.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Berkeley for bringing forward this Bill. It has generated an excellent and thought-provoking debate in your Lordships’ House, although there is an element of déjà vu, as we went over quite a lot of this ground during the summer on the order. My noble friend will know that the normal practice is that the Government do not support or oppose Private Members’ Bills in this place. We make no exception in this case. He will be able to tell from what I have to say that, while we welcome some provisions, the Government have serious reservations about other aspects of the Bill.

I acknowledge that some clauses of the Bill are consistent with the Government’s position on improving the powers of the general lighthouse authorities. They are based on clauses that were included in the draft Marine Navigation Bill when we consulted on that measure in 2008. I thank my noble friend for including those provisions in his Bill and I apologise for the fact that it has not so far proved possible to find time to bring the draft Bill forward as a programmed government Bill before your Lordships.

The timing of this debate is, in one sense, a little unfortunate. The Government have acknowledged the need for a comprehensive assessment of the provision of the maritime aids to navigation service in the UK and Ireland by joining our Irish counterparts in commissioning a wide-ranging study, to which a number of noble Lords have referred. That work was announced on 10 June 2009 by my honourable friend the Shipping Minister and is being carried out by WS Atkins, which is due to report next month. It would be inappropriate of me today to anticipate its recommendations. I expect, however, that if Atkins delivers results in accordance with its terms of reference, we will see some useful ideas on how the three general lighthouse authorities can make improvements to their working practices, both jointly and individually, which will feed through into efficiency savings. I am sure that the lighthouse authorities will welcome the noble Earl’s comments and his reference to the improvements in efficiency that he detected when he visited them.

I should like to comment in particular on what is, I think, at the heart of my noble friend’s Bill, which is the proposal to transfer the powers and duties of the three authorities to a newly established marine navigation aids commission and for many of the related powers of the Secretary of State for Transport to be exercised by an office of marine navigation aids regulation. If that were done, the current unified system of aids to navigation throughout Ireland would be lost.

My noble friend is aware of the assessment of the provision of the aids to navigation service that we have commissioned. In the terms of reference, we asked for consideration of the costs and benefits of the present structure of three authorities compared to a unified system or one divided along national boundaries. We await the outcome of that work with interest. The disadvantages of a unified system may well outweigh any benefits, but we do not want to embark on a route such as that proposed by my noble friend without a careful assessment of the costs of doing so.

My fear is that a new, dedicated regulatory body would prove much more expensive than the current arrangement for managing the General Lighthouse Fund and overseeing the general lighthouse authorities, which involves—this is the answer to the question asked by my noble friend Lord MacKenzie of Culkein—only two full-time people and the part-time help of a number of others in the Department for Transport. The regulatory costs of the existing arrangements are kept to a minimum at present and the DfT resource is part of a larger remit with wider responsibilities than just the administration of the GLAs.

In addition, there would be a considerable set-up cost in relation to pensions, redundancy, relocation, retraining and new infrastructure in creating two new bodies, so it is likely to be a long time before any savings would emerge. Those costs would have to be met by the shipping industry through the General Lighthouse Fund. I should also remind your Lordships that, in his 2005 report Reducing Administrative Burdens, Sir Philip Hampton recommended a large reduction in the number of regulatory bodies.

I can understand the logic behind having one body to deliver a maritime aids to navigation service and this will be considered as a part of our current study. However, we must remember that the existing authorities have an excellent record of providing aids to navigation to the very highest international standards and we do not want to compromise that—I commend what the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, said about that. I strongly suspect that, if we are to retain the local knowledge and incident-response capability that are crucial to our safety performance, it will be difficult to make significant cuts in the regional infrastructure inherent in the present structure, so savings from consolidation are likely to be small.

However, we believe that there will be significant opportunities for building on the already extensive collaboration between the three authorities. This is where I anticipate seeing some more cost savings appearing in areas such as the management of the combined fleet of ships. For similar reasons, we should carefully consider the evidence before taking the step of splitting the management of Irish Lights. I fully accept that we have to improve the funding arrangements and ministerial colleagues are engaged on this. However, Ireland is a good example of where geographical considerations are not necessarily coincident with political boundaries and we want to be sure that the long-term solution that we come up with is consistent with both economic objectives and our maritime safety objectives. The lighthouse service in the UK and Ireland is rightly held up as an excellent example of co-operation, bringing together a unified British Isles solution to maritime safety. The Commissioners of Irish Lights have continued as a cross-border body since the establishment of the Irish Free State, the success of which was confirmed by both Governments by the inclusion of CIL as a model of all-Ireland co-operation within the 1998 Belfast agreement. We would only move away from such co-operation if all the benefits of doing so were very clear.

I should at this point refer to the discussions that are taking place between our shipping Minister, my honourable friend Paul Clark, and his Irish opposite number, Noel Dempsey, the Irish Minister for Transport. As recently as 2 February, this week, Mr Clark wrote to Mr Dempsey on the subject of the funding of Irish Lights’ activities in the Republic of Ireland. He said in the letter:

“I think it would be of great benefit if we could jointly state our unequivocal commitment to progress to a situation where Irish Lights were fully financed from Irish sources within a definite period”.

However, I correct the figure to which my noble friend Lord Berkeley referred as the cost of Irish Lights. The subsidy to the Irish Republic is not £15 million. I seem to remember that he used that figure in our debate in the summer. The correct figure is, of course, substantially less than that because the £15 million figure includes the cost of providing a service for the coast of Northern Ireland.

Subject to what Atkins may say in its report, it is possible that even the economic case for changing the current arrangements in relation to Ireland will prove unconvincing. I do not believe that the UK or the Republic of Ireland would be willing to transfer responsibility for their aids to navigation to another sovereign state. It would then follow from my noble friend’s proposal that there would have to be two separately funded authorities providing aids to navigation in and around the island of Ireland, which may be less efficient and more difficult to co-ordinate. It would also follow that if the Republic had a separately funded system, ships visiting both countries on one voyage would have to pay light dues twice, once to each country’s authority. That would have implications for the shipping industry’s costs.

Turning now to some of the less controversial aspects of my noble friend’s Bill, I welcome the way that he has embraced some of the ideas that went into the draft Marine Navigation Bill when we put it out to consultation in 2008. Whatever organisation is responsible for providing maritime aids to navigation, they need to have the powers and authority to do so effectively. The measure to clarify the extent of jurisdiction will help to assist the providers of aids to navigation in operating an efficient safety regime everywhere in the seas around this country.

Looking at Clause 8 of my noble friend’s Bill, I am pleased, too, that he agrees that the funding of the lighthouse authorities should remain essentially as it is. The system is not perfect and we are continuing to look for ways to improve it, not least by trying to include as many as possible of those who use the aids to navigation in the payment system.

The possibilities for obtaining income from commercial activities by the providers of the service are important in maximising the use of resources. It is inevitable that there has to be some spare capacity in a system that needs to be capable of rapid response to emergencies. If that spare capacity can be employed profitably in other, non-critical commercial work that brings in additional income, it can only be to the benefit of those who pay for the system. The general lighthouse authorities have already made good use of their existing powers in this way and I therefore applaud the clause that permits greater use of spare assets.

An often overlooked but none the less important aspect of the work of the general lighthouse authorities is their involvement with local lighthouse authorities in ensuring that standards are maintained. In drafting the Marine Navigation Bill, we took the view that these powers would benefit from improvement, particularly in respect of the enforcement of directions by a general lighthouse authority so that on the, admittedly quite rare, occasions when there is a serious failure in the delivery of local aids to navigation, there should be the threat of a criminal sanction to deter continued non-compliance. My noble friend is therefore quite right to incorporate this in his Bill.

Regarding Clause 10, my noble friend is clear in his intention that as many people as possible who benefit from the work of the lighthouse authorities should pay for them. Generally, we agree with him, but any attempts to broaden the base of payers must be workable and cost-effective. In the case of this particular clause, I believe that, in its present form at least, it could impact only on a small number of vessels involved in activities such as safety and revenue or fisheries protection.

Clause 12 deals with pension liabilities. These are a growing issue for the general lighthouse fund. In a sense the general lighthouse authorities are a victim of their own success in modernising and automating their infrastructure, which has created a large number of pensioners in comparison to the present staff levels. By operating a pay-as-you-go final salary pension scheme from the general lighthouse fund, we have reached the position where pensions are a disproportionate part of the costs of the service. The authorities’ net pension expenditure in 2007-08 was £14¼ million. They are carrying an unfunded potential liability of some £330 million.

Like many other sectors, this is a situation that cannot be allowed to continue for the long term, and changes need to be made to enable future pensions to be fully funded. I am pleased that my noble friend Lord Berkeley has included this sensible measure, which is based on the clause in the draft Marine Navigation Bill, to enable changes to be made which might modernise the authorities’ pension arrangements. It is a step that will have to be taken regardless of any other changes to the governance of maritime aids to navigation. I will nevertheless remind your Lordships that as we advised during the consultation on the draft Bill, the Government have no intention of reaching any conclusions on new pension arrangements for existing or former staff of the general lighthouse authorities without full consultation with all those involved.

Before I conclude, I wish to respond to some of the points which were made in the debate. I echo the tribute made by my noble and learned friend Lord Boyd of Duncansby and the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, to those who work in the lighthouse service. They do a wonderful job, sometimes in very difficult circumstances. It is right that this House pays tribute to them today. My noble friend Lord MacKenzie of Culkein referred to the increase in light dues, as, indeed, did many other noble Lords in the debate. It is worth putting on the record that even after the increase in light dues that is due to take place on 1 April this year, light dues will be no more in absolute terms—that is, 43 pence per net registered tonne—than in 1993. This is 32 per cent lower in real terms after taking account of inflation. I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, referred to the decision by Maersk to divert an extra line from the Far East to Felixstowe. Like him, we believe that this is an indication that the increase in light dues will not act as a deterrent to foreign shipping companies bringing their ships to the United Kingdom.

As regards the efficiency of the GLF, its investments in recent years have generated very positive returns which have helped to maintain or cut light dues rates. Viewed over the past five years, the portfolio has delivered a positive return of 11 per cent. That is another example—I hope the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, will agree—of the GLF doing the right thing.

I hope that I have explained why the Government are concerned about the proposals in my noble friend’s Bill for establishing a Marine Navigation Aids Commission and an Office of Maritime Navigation Aids Regulation. We are also concerned about his proposals for the effective turning off of the Irish Lights. My noble friend is well-intentioned and very determined. I suspect that we shall hear from him and other noble Lords on the subject on more than one occasion in the future. However, I hope that he will realise, from our efforts to carry out a full review of the provision of aids to navigation, that the Government share his concern to achieve an end result that provides an improved and efficient service. We are not convinced that his model is the right one, but we admit that we do not yet know all the answers. I hope that the current review will provide many of them. I thank all noble Lords who contributed to the debate for their excellent speeches.

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken; we have had a very good debate. Not everybody agreed with me, but I did not expect that. A number of issues have been raised. I will not attempt to answer all of them, because I will not repeat what I said in my first speech. However, I hope to answer one or two questions.

My noble friend suggested in his response that I am trying to turn off the Irish lights. That is not the case and we both know it. It is a question of getting a more equitable means of financing them. Whether or not we have one structure that covers the whole of the British Isles, including Ireland, under a marine navigation aids commission or something like that, the key is to get commonality of services. Many noble Lords spoke about the importance of local services, and they are absolutely right. What I was and am trying to achieve is equitable financing between ships coming into UK ports and those entering the Irish ports. As the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, said, how the work is done on the ground is a separate issue. However, as the Republic is a separate member state, there is no difference between a ferry crossing the Irish Sea and paying light dues at both ends—in Dublin and Holyhead or Birkenhead—and a ship crossing the Channel between Dover and Calais. If light dues are chargeable in each port, they should be paid.

My noble friend Lord Simon asked about the role of the MNAC. This is in Clause 1(3)(a) of the Bill. He and the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, mentioned that the estimated cost of the new structure would be £25 million to £70 million. I was given that figure by representatives of Trinity House when I met them. I have asked them several times since to give me details of how they arrived at the figure, but there has been total silence. I do not believe that the figure is sensible: there is no evidence to back it up. I maintain that if one merged some of the back offices, which is what I am proposing, and possibly reduced the number of expensive board members, one would make a saving.

The noble Lord, Lord Greenway, said that the arrangement with Ireland was part of an international treaty that could not be broken. As I said in my speech, a Written Answer on 12 January last year stated that there is no legal or constitutional reason why it could not be broken. I do not know who is right, but that is what the Written Answer said.

There is some debate about whether ships are being diverted away from ports and, if they are, why that should be so. The noble Lord, Lord Greenway, mentioned extra ships coming in from the Maersk company. My information is that the “Emma Maersk”, one of the biggest container ships in the world, if not the biggest, came in to Felixstowe. I have several photographs of it. I am told that it is now going around the Atlantic loaded with empty containers because it is cheaper for it to steam in a small circle than go into port. We can debate this until the cows come home, and I fear that we will get different views from different people.

The noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie, said that the continuation of lights and navigation aids is absolutely vital. I entirely agree. I am certainly not proposing to change this. There are wonderful new electronic devices, but many ships do not have them and need to use lights.

My noble and learned friend Lord Boyd talked of the concerns of people in Scotland about whether the Scottish Government would be happy to see the end of the Northern Lighthouse Board. That is a consideration. I have no views on whether one organisation should be based in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh or anywhere else. If it is all part of a UK system, there is no reason why it could not be based in Scotland or England. That is something that we need to discuss further.

The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, is clearly concerned at the proposal in my Bill to charge the Royal Navy for entering UK ports. He said that it was a waste of public money to move it from one pot to another. However, I do not believe that this is public money: it is money paid by the shipping lines. I do not see why the Navy should be exempt from paying money for using the navigation aids paid for by the shipping lines, any more than anybody else should be exempt. We can discuss that in Committee.

My Lords, there is a very good answer to that question. It is extremely likely that there will be some occasion each year when the Royal Navy provides valuable assistance to Trinity House. If it did so on a commercial basis, it would be extremely expensive.

That is a very good response; we can look at that again. I take the noble Earl’s point. As my noble friend Lord Faulkner said, there are many issues that should be looked at, including how payments are made.

All the other issues could be discussed at a future stage—if we get there. I will conclude by addressing my noble friend’s final comments about the joint statement between the Republic and the UK regarding their willingness and intention to come up with a solution to what we have all been calling the Irish question. This is very welcome. I am grateful to him and his colleagues for doing this.

Noble Lords have made many comments in this debate and I am grateful to them all for participating. There is a lot to reflect on.

That the Bill be read a second time.

My Lords, this Bill appeared in the previous Session in another place, where the Member in charge was Mr Andrew Dismore. I am pleased that it passed through all its stages in the other House and, indeed, that it received all-party support in that House. However, its Third Reading did not take place until 20 October last year, which meant that, by the time it was sent to this House, there was unfortunately insufficient time for it to proceed through its parliamentary stages before the end of the Session.

However, my interest in this Bill, and the reason that I was keen to sponsor it in your Lordships’ House, derives from a speech made in this House by my noble friend Lord Dixon, to whom I pay tribute for his work on the issue. My noble friend spoke powerfully in December 2008 about the many cases that he knew of in the shipbuilding industry on Tyneside where people exposed to asbestos developed pleural plaques and lived with the constant worry of contracting life-threatening asbestos-related conditions as a result. In that debate, he said that he himself had worked in the shipbuilding and ship-repairing industries for 37 years and that some of the colleagues with whom he had served his apprenticeship and worked alongside had died of asbestos-related diseases. He knew from that direct experience what a terrible death it was. He also reminded us that there is no way in which anyone can get pleural plaques other than through exposure to asbestos, so it is very clearly an industrial condition.

Like my noble friend Lord Dixon, my home area is the north-east of England, and at different times in my political life—in the European Parliament and in the other place—I have represented the shipyard areas of both Tyneside and Wearside. Because of that, I know how much the issue of pleural plaques causes fear and dread. I also know that, before the House of Lords 2007 judicial ruling, compensation had been paid to people over a 20-year period but that since then many others have tragically been caught by the ruling and have been unable to benefit. This, I believe, has created an unfair and anomalous situation between people in the same neighbourhoods and the same workplaces. My Bill would restore the position that existed before the House of Lords 2007 ruling on the case, which had been brought before the House of Lords by insurance companies.

Importantly, the Bill would also create parity of treatment between Scotland on the one hand and England and Wales on the other. The Scottish Parliament has already legislated to restore compensation to affected workers and, interestingly enough, the Scottish courts have recently confirmed the legality of the new position in Scotland in rejecting arguments against the legislation by insurers, in particular.

While I respect, and indeed fully support, the right of the devolved institutions to introduce their own policies, I urge the Government to follow the Scottish example. I hope that the Government will accept—as indeed I hope will the spokespeople of the opposition parties—that it is particularly galling for former shipyard workers on Tyneside and Wearside, many of whom have done stints of work in the Scottish yards, to have to endure this discriminatory and unfair treatment.

While many of the people affected by pleural plaques are in shipyard areas such as mine, the issue affects many workplaces and former workplaces throughout the country, particularly in the engineering sector. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting our colleague the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln to discuss this issue. He is unable to be here today but supports the Bill strongly. He told me of the significant research done into the incidence of pleural plaques by the industrial chaplain to the engineering industry in the Lincoln area. The evidence collected shows the way that workers were exposed to asbestos, and it also highlights the negligence that occurred through the lack of information given to those who were exposed to this highly dangerous substance.

I know that the Government will have some fears that if the 2007 ruling is entirely reversed and we go back to the situation that existed previously, injury lawyers, for example, may seek to profit through this by maximising every possible claim, resulting in costly bills to industry and government.

However, I hope that the Government will consider tackling the issue of excess legal profits in other ways. It would be quite wrong—even grotesque, in my view—to let concerns about the cost of justice prevent justice from being granted to those who deserve it and need it most. It is of course hard—it has certainly been hard for me—to get completely reliable figures for how many claims could be introduced as a result. My understanding is that there were probably about 4,000 or so claims pending which were halted by the 2007 ruling, and that there have probably been about another 3,000 since then. I have to say that my figures are guesstimates based on information supplied by one firm which was probably representing about 30 per cent of cases at a time, but that is the best guesstimate that I have been able to make in the circumstances.

I assume, however, that as compensation had been paid for a considerable number of years before the ruling, and as, too, the outcome of the ruling was far from being a foregone conclusion, the Government must have planned for a certain level of ongoing expenditure on such cases. If the judgment had not taken place, or if the result had gone the other way, the Government—and, of course, insurers—would have had to continue to pay compensation in any case.

I willingly concede that the Bill raises a number of legal aspects, some of the details of which can of course be looked at in Committee. There is also the recent helpful case in Scotland for our guidance. That case was decided on 8 January of this year and ruled firmly against the challenge to the Scottish legislation brought by insurance companies. On the legal aspects of the Bill before us today, my honourable friend in another place, Andrew Dismore, met lawyers from the Ministry of Justice. I have seen an account of the meeting, and none of the legal issues seem insurmountable—far from it. Indeed, at this point I pay tribute to the work done by Andrew Dismore and a considerable number of other colleagues in the other place, who have shown both persistence in raising the issue of pleural plaques and considerable knowledge of the legal and other issues involved.

The Government, including both the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Justice, have met me and other interested Members of both Houses about the issue, and I appreciate that they understand the concerns of those with pleural plaques because of exposure to asbestos. I know, too, that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Justice have been considering the issues raised in the Bill and looking at a variety of ways of helping people who are affected. I am grateful for that, but I still hope that my Bill can make progress.

In conclusion, although this time on a Friday, at the end of Parliament's working week, is not a time at which attendance is high, I am sure that noble Lords will none the less not underestimate the great interest in this issue in both the national and local media. Indeed, the media interest in areas such as mine is constant and intense. There is hope and expectation that the discrimination created by the 2007 ruling and the financial hardship experienced by many pleural plaque sufferers will be addressed by your Lordships' House, by the Government and by Parliament as a whole. I beg to move.

My Lords, I have heard of pleural plaques on several occasions, but was never clear exactly what they were until I started doing some research for this debate. The judgment that removed compensation included the statement that they do not do you any harm in themselves, but it does mean that you have been exposed to a potentially lethal substance. That leaves us in a rather odd situation. If we could prove that certain types of pleural plaques would lead to certain conditions—I have not been made aware that we can—there would be an unanswerable case that compensation should always be given. However, there does not seem to be enough medical knowledge here to decide even the likelihood—if there has been improvement on this I would be very interested to hear it—of developing further complications and damage.

In that very odd situation, when trying to decide what to do, we are left with the question: is the fact that you have been exposed to a potentially lethal substance in itself worthy of compensation, because the risk and possibility of further complications is there? People have also decided that the establishment of risk is not enough; you must have something that damages your health in the long term. That was my interpretation of the judgment. Is the worry worthy of compensation? That seemed to be one of the key issues.

I appreciate that this was not their decision but a legal decision, but are the Government prepared to accept that the worry itself is sufficient to warrant some form of compensation, given that it is accepted that asbestos can lead to something that is life-threatening or even fatal? It is a very odd question and, thinking about it, is there much more to say? The noble Baroness gave a very good example of what has gone before. Will the Government say what they are about to do? I am inclined to think that there should be at least some form of compensation, although I probably speak for myself and not for my party on this one. Unless there is a good reason why there should not be—perhaps certain categories can be removed as being low-risk—worry should be taken into account. When someone discovers they have damage such as pleural plaques, unless you can tell them definitively that there is no need to worry—of course, some will still worry—surely their lives will be blighted to a degree.

I have another question for the Minister. Now that the established legal position is that there is no condition, does that affect your life insurance and other insurance claims, such as healthcare? If it does, there clearly is a knock-on effect. If it does not, I still suggest that we need to take the matter slightly further. If we are in the process of establishing risk, I would like to hear more about how the Government and the machinery of government have established the degree of risk and how the perception of risk affects people, because even if the risk is heightened only slightly, it can still affect people’s lives. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

My Lords, I welcome the fact the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, has introduced this Bill, which deals with a very important matter that deserves debate in this House, possibly unlike the debate in which the Minister and I were involved earlier today. I am aware that one of the noble Baroness’s colleagues in another place, Mr Dismore, hoped to introduce an equivalent Bill in another place today, following on from his attempts to debate it in the Commons earlier.

I start, as the noble Baroness did, by expressing my sympathy for those people who have had the misfortune to come into contact with asbestos and had to suffer its consequences. Those consequences have led, in many instances, to compensation being paid to victims of asbestos-related injuries. That is the principle which the House should bear in mind as we debate this Bill, because that is the basis on which the laws of personal injury compensation are based; someone who has suffered and is suffering because of the work that they did should be entitled to compensation.

Like the noble Baroness, I would like to go back into the history of this. As she reminded us, the Court of Appeal decided in the Rothwell case in the autumn of 2007 that pleural plaques are not compensatable—a decision that was upheld by this House, sitting in its judicial capacity in the case of Johnston v NEI International Combustion Ltd. The Bill, which seeks to overturn that decision, departs from that principle. I think the noble Baroness would accept that the Bill is very narrowly about pleural plaques. The condition is asymptomatic, and therein lies the difference between pleural plaques and other asbestos-related diseases that do have symptoms that amount to injury, are therefore actionable in law and can therefore be compensated for.

The noble Baroness has made a good and passionate case for her Bill. She has made a virtue of its narrowness and its intended application. However, I urge her to consider the possible ramifications of widening a settled and general principle of personal injury law. If there is an identifiable and provable link between suffering or injury in such cases and action taken by or negligence on the part of the employer—a legally provable causal link with the injury that someone is now suffering—the normal law of this country, without any amendments such as in this Bill, would give those people a locus for action.

As I understand it—I will accept any correction if I am wrong—pleural plaques do not turn malignant or become malignant mesothelioma. I will probably refer to it as “meso”, as do most lawyers. The pleural plaques do not cause asbestosis to develop, nor do they increase the risk of lung cancer. They are a different condition. If anyone who has pleural plaques also develops meso, he will have grounds for a personal injury claim. The passage or not of this Bill will not affect that situation, which is as it should be.

The noble Baroness is attempting to overturn a decision of the House of Lords in its judicial capacity, now the Supreme Court, which was an effort to reassert the general principle of the law as the understanding of asbestos-related conditions developed and changed. I accept that it is a matter for Parliament to do those things. This is obviously the only route that the noble Baroness or her colleagues in another place can now seek in order to effect that. Only Parliament can change the law if the Supreme Court or the House of Lords in its judicial capacity has declared it to go one way or the other. If that was the case, it might be more appropriate for a Government-led initiative. I would welcome the Minister’s comments on that.

I have a number of questions I should like to put to the Minister, particularly as his department has much greater access to resources than the rest of us. I should be grateful if he would take note of these and for some answers. First, the Government conducted a consultation process nearly two years ago, after which I believe they estimated that the cost of implementing the changes being sought under this Bill were somewhere between £4 billion and £28 billion. Those are very large sums and to go from £4 billion to £28 billion is a very large range. Will the noble Lord confirm that those are the figures provided by the department? Does it still stick with them or is there an accurate update of its the estimates?

Secondly, how does the retrospective nature of the Bill affect the estimates of what the costs might be? That is a serious question for the insurance companies, particularly those which possibly have ceased to exist. Thirdly, will the noble Lord—or this might be a question more for the noble Baroness—give the House an idea of how quantum would have to be decided in each case if the Bill were to be passed? Again, since the noble Baroness referred to it, one might draw on the experiences in Scotland. That might help the noble Lord to answer the first question on the estimates of total cost.

Fourthly, I would be grateful if the noble Lord could tell us about what is happening in Scotland. We know that the Bill was passed and that there has been a subsequent judicial challenge. I think that it has gone to the highest levels of the courts in Scotland, but obviously it could go from there to the Supreme Court. Fifthly, a few moments ago I drew the attention of the House to the difference between pleural plaques and mesothelioma. I am aware that mesothelioma claims can be a long and drawn-out process, and indeed it is one of the problems in those claims. This debate is therefore a useful opportunity to ask the Government whether they have any intention, or even suggestions to make, as regards speeding up the process so that compensation can be paid on a somewhat more helpful timescale.

Again, I congratulate the noble Baroness on bringing forward this Bill for debate. As I said, it is an important issue and one about which she and a great many others, particularly in the north-east, feel strongly. I am sorry that I cannot agree with her, and while I have full sympathy for all sufferers of any asbestos-related disease, I am not persuaded that this is necessarily the time to overturn the decision of the court. However, I will of course listen carefully to what the Government have to say and to the response of the noble Baroness when she concludes the debate and then during the further stages of the Bill.

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Quin on securing a Second Reading debate on this important issue. The main focus of her Bill is pleural plaques. I know that this issue was the subject of a similar Bill in the last Session of Parliament and several previous adjournment debates in another place, where an identical Bill is also receiving its Second Reading today.

The Bill provides for asymptomatic pleural plaques and the separate conditions of asymptomatic pleural thickening and asymptomatic asbestosis to constitute actionable damage under the law of tort for which damages may be awarded. In approximately 1 per cent of cases, pleural plaques cause symptoms, and in these cases it remains possible to bring a claim under the civil law. The Bill also contains provisions on limitation and retrospectivity to enable claims to be brought in cases which were stayed pending the House of Lords decision on pleural plaques and those which have not been concluded subsequently. The issue of pleural plaques has been the subject of considerable interest and attention both within Parliament and outside it. It may be helpful if I begin by explaining the current position before turning to the Bill.

As noble Lords may know, the Government have carried out a consultation exercise on the question of whether pleural plaques should be made compensatable under the civil law. The consultation paper proposed action to improve understanding of pleural plaques and to provide support and reassurance to those diagnosed with pleural plaques to help allay their concerns. It considered the issues that arise in relation to changing the law of negligence and invited views on whether this would or would not be appropriate. It also sought views on the merits of offering no-fault financial support to people diagnosed with pleural plaques, and on two possible ways of doing this. I understand the concerns that have been expressed about the time it has taken to reach conclusions in the light of this consultation. The House of Lords decision raised extremely complex and difficult issues which have required very careful consideration within Government. It has also been important to look beyond the issue of pleural plaques itself to consider how people who have been exposed to asbestos can be supported much more widely.

We have made clear throughout that it is very important to ensure that any decisions are reached on the basis of the best available medical evidence on the nature of pleural plaques. For that reason, we have commissioned and published reviews of the medical evidence carried out on behalf of the Chief Medical Officer for England and Wales and by the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council to help inform consideration of the issue. Helpful further discussions have also taken place with key medical experts in relation to the medical evidence.

As I have said, it is also important to consider much more widely how people exposed to asbestos can be supported. The Government have been consistent in their commitment to give people suffering from mesothelioma and other serious asbestos-related diseases the help and support they deserve, and we are determined to build on the positive steps that we have already taken on this. With that in mind, the Justice Secretary has confirmed that the Government are actively considering measures to make the UK a global leader in research for the alleviation, prevention and cure of asbestos-related diseases; and to help speed up compensation claims for those who develop serious asbestos-related diseases such as mesothelioma. This includes examination of the process for tracking and tracing employment and insurance records, as well as looking into the support given to individuals who are unable to trace such records. Further details of the Government’s plans on these extremely important issues will be announced shortly.

The Bill has to be considered in the context of all these developments. It represents one possible approach to the issue of pleural plaques. However, there are a number of other approaches to the wider issues surrounding asbestos-related diseases which could be appropriate. We want to ensure that these are considered fully and the best response identified. As we are still in the process of assessing what the Government’s response should be on pleural plaques and the wider issues affecting those suffering from asbestos-related diseases, it is not possible to give a firm indication today of what the Government’s ultimate position on the noble Baroness’s Bill may be.

The noble Lord, Lord Henley, asked five questions, to which I do not have answers, other than that the Scottish judgment is, as he said, currently being appealed and it would be inappropriate for me to comment on it. The essential point about the speed at which the asbestos-related claims I have alluded to are considered, and his other questions, will be answered when we complete the process of consultation and publish the results. We hope that will happen shortly.

On the basis of what I have said so far, I can confirm that the Government are content for the Bill to proceed today.

My Lords, I am grateful for the three contributions to the debate that we have heard and for the support that I have received from many of my noble friends in the House for the ideas contained in the Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, referred to the fact that pleural plaques are largely asymptomatic and asked relevant questions about the medical evidence and the medical implications of pleural plaques. Obviously this issue can be considered in further detail in Committee; none the less, I refer the noble Lord to the information supplied by the House of Commons Library for the debate there on Wednesday 11 February, in which Members referred to studies of groups of patients with pleural plaques. These studies showed that where the plaques were thickened and widespread there was an increased risk of developing more serious asbestos-related diseases. However, when you know that someone has been exposed to asbestos, it is difficult to say whether the more serious disease develops because of the plaques or because of the exposure over a prolonged period of time to that substance.

I was merely trying to say that if the condition can be seen as an indication of further problems occurring, early action may be appropriate.

Indeed. I accept that point. There seems to be a link between those people who have very thick pleural plaques and later problems of the kind to which the noble Lord refers. I was also grateful to the noble Lord for understanding the psychological damage that people experience as a result of knowing that they have pleural plaques, and the anxiety and concern that that causes for them ever afterwards.

I was grateful too to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, who also showed understanding for those who have been diagnosed with pleural plaques and their worries and concerns. I was a little concerned that he was not more enthusiastic about the Bill. I hope that he is persuadable, because the Bill had strong, all-party support in the other place. Strong statements of support came from both the Liberal Democrats and the noble Lord’s own party.

One reason for my expressing considerable caution is the whole problem of potential costs. My understanding is that the Government had estimated costs to all parties of somewhere between £4 billion and £28 billion, which is a pretty wide range. That is why I put that question to the Minister. I was hoping for an answer which might help us in this debate. Perhaps we will get it in due course.

I understand the noble Lord’s point. Without having a clear idea of the potential number of cases, it is very difficult to estimate the costs. However, if the ruling had been different, the situation which had existed for 20 years previously would have continued and, therefore, those costs would have had to be met. As I said in my opening speech, there are ways of trying to limit the profits that companies try to make out of bringing forward claims of this kind.

The Minister reminded us of what I also should have mentioned when I introduced the Bill earlier; namely, that the Bill is being presented in pretty well identical form in the other place today. I pay tribute once again to my honourable colleague, Andrew Dismore, for his persistence in bringing the issue forward.

Many of the issues that have been raised could very fruitfully be explored in Committee. This issue will not go away, because many elected representatives as well as Members of your Lordships' House feel very strongly about the situation of people with pleural plaques and the discrimination that we feel has been created by the ruling in 2007.

I remind noble Lords that the legal situation in Scotland is now very similar to that which existed in England and Wales for so long. My Bill merely tries to return us to the status quo ante. That is much more a matter of political will than of insurmountable, detailed issues of principle or legal ramifications. For all those reasons, I hope that the Bill will be able to proceed. I ask the House to give it a Second Reading.

That this Bill be read a second time.

During the passage of the recent Health Bill through your Lordships’ House, I tabled an amendment to the effect that it should become a duty on primary care and hospital trusts to co-operate with relevant local transport authorities to co-ordinate the provision of patient transport services. By the way, the phrase “co-operate with” was appropriately non-specific and flexible to allow for the differing needs of each local area. I tabled my non-clinical and practical amendment because of concerns about which I had been made aware: that an existing failure to co-ordinate transport for patients is wasting public funds and making travel to and from hospital unnecessarily difficult for many people. I was certain that Her Majesty’s Government would share my view that that needs to be tackled.

For example, I have been told that 25 per cent of the “did not attends” at Newham Hospital can be attributed to transport problems. That is distressing for the patients who may not get another appointment for some time, and it is an incredible cost to the NHS which has a statutory duty to provide patient transport. I was in a major London teaching hospital a week ago and saw people who had been sitting for hours in an outpatients' waiting room just waiting for transport to get home. That is an unpleasant and bad situation. While it is right for patients to have transport provided, I argued that it was not sensible for the NHS to be providing that service without any consideration of whether passenger transport authorities, unitary authorities and county councils might assist in meeting that need possibly at a much lower cost than that faced by the NHS.

I am not talking about severely ill or disabled people with needs for specialist transport but outpatients and those who sometimes after ridiculously long waits are despatched home in a taxi. That is a different group of people from those needing ambulance and specialist care while being transported.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, who I am delighted is responding today, agreed with me when she replied to my amendment that it is vital for the NHS to engage with its local passenger transport authorities and key partners in providing a health service that is of high quality, that is responsive to the needs of the patient and that people can access. Indeed, that lies at the heart of the vision of a modern NHS. The Minister went on to inform the House that guidance to primary care trusts published in August 2007 clearly states that they are responsible for commissioning ambulance services and patient transport services to such extent as the PCT considers necessary. In cases of hardship, patients with a social need for transport may seek reimbursement through the benefits system. In her response, the Minister cited local examples of health organisations and local authorities working well together across a range of health, transport, education and social care services to ensure that patients are offered the most appropriate transport services that best meet their individual needs and that the expectation is that such good practice will be spread more widely.

In the process of withdrawing my amendment and pointing out that a willingness to pilot such co-operation and co-ordination in some areas is not quite the same as imposing a duty to do so, I begged leave to think about whether I could take the issue forward in some way, and hence the Bill. I tabled it because the evidence of my own eyes tells me that the good practice evidenced by the Minister has not spread to the extent that was hoped. In an attempt to reduce the level of anecdote around the issue in advance of today’s Second Reading, I sought evidence of current levels of NHS local authority spending on patient transport. Officials at the Department of Health have informed the Lords Library that this information is not collected centrally. Spending on this form of transport takes place at the local primary care trust level. The large number of trusts and local authorities would make further research a Herculean exercise that I am not in a position to undertake, but plainly there is very little interest at a central level in the economics, let alone the waiting times for individuals as this is not collected. In the present financial climate, I suspect that local authorities' trusts will see the implementation of such measures as costly and a burden. Some might well claim that that is the case. In many cases, they would feel that public transport is already available. I think that they are wrong and are missing a trick.

As for value for money, as part of the duty on primary care trusts, hospital trusts and local transport authorities, my Bill specifically requires them to have due regard to the efficiency and economy of providing patient transport services from the point of view of both the users of such services and service providers. It could be said that a greater use of public transport would ease the problem, but this is unrealistic, particularly in rural areas, as we know. I am not talking about large public service vehicles operated by one of the major transport companies, but smaller, minibus-type transport run by a trust or local authority—the sort of bus that takes 10 or 20 people, which can access virtually any road or street and collect people from their doorsteps and take and return them to the doctor, the hospital, the clinic or the day centre, with the reason for the journey being health, social care or education. Moreover, even in our towns and cities, the transport needs of some of the patients in terms of special needs impairment, disability and access will be such that the use of a public bus would be unsuitable and, in rural areas, virtually non-existent.

While I am on the subject of the vehicles, I would anticipate that school buses for children with special needs might be included here. I should like to be certain that during the day and through the school holidays these vehicles are utilised for the benefit of the whole community. Currently, a plethora of small vehicles are ferrying people around our towns and villages, but their arrivals and departures are not well co-ordinated. While you wait for the health bus, the social bus passes your door without stopping—and, in the way back, the passengers on the social bus wait and watch you depart on your health bus, which may pass their door. The waits that we all grin and bear in clinics and outpatients departments are the same as often endured by those folk, who have to wait before and after their appointments for travel to and from the venue, often turning a 10-minute consultation into a day-long endurance course, which for many frail people is not a pleasant experience.

My Bill would reduce the current waste of resources and improve the user experience by taking the guidelines and turning them into reality by enclosing a duty on local authorities and the NHS primary care trusts and hospitals to co-operate and collaborate in the provision of patient transport. It would also ensure that such collaboration is evidenced and the outcomes audited. I beg to move.

My Lords, it is very difficult to disagree with the aim behind this Bill—that you should have better co-ordination of services which relate to each other and have an effect on each other, to try to get the best out of them. Do we need a Bill to achieve that? That is the question, and one which the crystal ball of experience suggests might be referred to in the Minister’s speech. Best practice is often very difficult to achieve; we all know that it is there, but we all know that people like to defend and control budgets and do not like their pet schemes interfered with. Thus a degree of sympathy comes from these Benches on this matter. However, how do you enforce it? What sort of contracts should we take on and how do we go?

We have a degree of sympathy but also a great deal of regret that it is even considered necessary to bring forward a Bill. What is the Government’s thinking about this? As the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, pointed out, missing appointments for medical treatment will probably account for a considerable degree of wasted organisation and money from the public purse—probably more than the more moderate proposals in this Bill would cost. There may be no absolute parity between them, but it is certainly a compensatory factor here, and a saving may be made by greater reliability of service. However, you cannot guarantee that people will turn up on the day, even if the transport comes to their door.

What are the Government doing to address the problem the health service finds itself in of not getting people to appointments for treatment? It invariably leads to more costly emergency procedures later on. We need an answer to that. Indeed, the noble Baroness may well think that there is progress somewhere else. But she has identified a real problem. The Government may be able to tell us that progress is happening, what is being done to monitor that progress and change things where they are not working. If so, answers to some of the points raised in this Bill will be delivered. However, the noble Baroness has a point. If you do not get people to health service appointments on time, you invariably end up paying for that later, one way or another. The noble Baroness has pointed out a real problem.

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, for introducing this important Bill, which is so important for patients, the elderly and disabled people.

The Bill reminds me of a national inquiry which I chaired some years ago into the services for disabled people known as the artificial limb and wheelchair services. The service was highly unsatisfactory: the money was plentiful but the management incompetent. In particular, the transport arrangements were expensive and inefficient. Often an ambulance would collect a number of patients from quite a large area but this would take so long that they would be late for their appointments. Some would have missed the appointment altogether by the time they arrived and then would have to go straight back home. Someone worked out that the cost per patient per mile was greater than that for Concorde.

The situation improved over time with better management, but as the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, emphasised, there are still problems with the patient transport services today. Patients are still arriving late for appointments. Some vehicles simply do not turn up. That causes all sorts of knock-on effects on patient treatment and welfare.

According to the National Kidney Care Audit patient transport survey carried out by the NHS Information Centre, kidney patients travelling to hospital for life-saving treatment received a more punctual service from private and public transport than from hospital-provided transport. The survey asked all 19,000 patients who had treatment in dialysis units their views on patient transport, which can have a major effect on the quality of life. Nearly two-thirds of all haemodialysis patients, who typically have three or four hours of dialysis treatment three times a week, completed the survey. It concluded that just over 60 per cent of patients said that the service met their needs, which is good news. Unfortunately, the rest reported long delays and journey times when using hospital-provided transport.

The views of managers from all 247 dialysis units were invited and responses received from 212 units surveyed—a response rate of 85 per cent. The survey was also extended to commissioners who were asked to report for each renal centre for which they commissioned. There was a 90 per cent response rate from the commissioners. The responses from dialysis unit managers and renal care commissioners suggested several possible causes of transport problems.

First, only one-third of units have clear eligibility criteria for hospital transport. I always remember going to one centre for disabled people, and staff there pointed out to me a patient who came every few months for adjustment to his artificial leg. They told me that he insisted on hospital transport whereas he actually visited the centre once a month using his own transport because he enjoyed the trip and the social occasion. When it was pointed out to him that he might use his own transport rather than the hospital one he looked slightly embarrassed.

Secondly, the survey showed that only half the managers in the survey reported having a system in place to monitor the quality of transport for which they were responsible. Thirdly, the staff felt powerless to influence the provision of transport for their patients.

Among its recommendations, the audit said that there should be clear and transparent commissioning arrangements for kidney patient transport and that patients should be involved in the commissioning and monitoring process. It recommends that no patient should have to pay for transport to and from treatment and that transport should be an important factor in deciding the location of new dialysis units. Of course that brings up the interesting issue that, in the past, far too many hospitals and treatment centres have been located in areas more for the convenience of the local MP than of the actual patients.

It would be helpful if the Minister could outline what procedures are now in place to co-ordinate patient transport services in the NHS, and how the Bill might change the existing set-up. Can the Minister assure the House that transport services for disabled and elderly people are also taken into account? With regard to the report into patient transport services for those with kidney problems, can the Minister say what action has been taken to improve the situation?

My Lords, the Patient Transport Bill tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, seeks to place a duty on primary care and hospital trusts to work with local transport authorities to co-ordinate the provision of patient transport services with the provision of other passenger transport services, such as local bus services, within the areas over which the trusts have responsibility. I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss this important issue today.

Patient transport services—which, if the House permits, I will now refer to as PTS—are services for people with a medical need for transport to and from a health facility. Department of Health guidance sets out the broad criteria by which patients are eligible for PTS. Who is eligible? Primary care trusts are responsible for providing PTS where a patient’s medical condition is such that they require the skills or support of PTS staff on or for the journey, where the patient’s medical condition impacts on their mobility to such an extent that they would be unable to get healthcare by any other means, or where it would be detrimental to the patient’s condition or recovery if they were to travel by other means.

So patients are eligible for free non-emergency patient transport services if they have a medical need for such transport. A clinical need for treatment does not imply a medical need for transport. Medical need for non-emergency patient transport is determined by a healthcare professional. The principle that should apply is that each patient should be able to reach a healthcare facility in a reasonable time, in reasonable comfort, without detriment to their medical condition. That would apply across the piece, including to kidney patients. I am not going to into social need, which is a different issue about providing additional money for people who cannot afford to get to facilities under a separate programme that is not addressed by this Bill.

The guidance sets out and includes, among other things, the criterion for the patient’s medical condition, which, it says,

“is such that they require the skills or support of PTS staff on/after the journey and/or where it would be detrimental to the patient’s condition or recovery if they were to travel by other means”.

I am describing the criteria for PTS to make it clear that patients who require PTS have different needs from other kinds of passengers. They have different needs from patients who have a social need, to whom I have just referred, for whom provision is made separately under the healthcare travel costs scheme.

The department explicitly supports co-operative working, which is the principle behind the Bill. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Addington, on his work today as a multi-disciplinary Liberal Democrat spokesperson; I wonder what he did to deserve such punishment. He absolutely put his finger on the point: this requires local leadership and management to get it right at the right level. That is the eternal dilemma that we often face in these issues.

In the same guidance document which I just quoted, the Department of Health’s 2007 Eligibility Criteria for Patient Transport Services, the explicit point is made that the NHS should engage with the local passenger transport authorities and other key partners, such as local authorities and county councils, when co-ordinating access for the public to health services. It also states that:

“A range of different providers may provide PTS”,

and that primary care trusts,

“may lawfully ask other bodies to assist in the exercise of their commissioning functions”.

The measures described in the Bill allow for and encourage co-operation between local services. These are already clearly and explicitly laid out in our guidance.

It is worth saying that I am talking about the particular needs of patients because there is a real issue about, for example, whether you can use a vehicle to take children to school or on a school trip when you possibly need wheelchair access, oxygen or particular facilities. There is an issue about what kind of vehicles you would need and how to co-ordinate that, which presents the kind of challenges that the noble Lord, Lord Addington, recognised need local management and local leadership. It is not that they cannot be overcome, but they need that sort of co-ordination. It is an issue of safety and—I will go on to talk about this—such vehicles would need to be registered with the CQC. I will talk about the new regulatory framework that is being brought to bear on this region.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, has said, we do not collect centrally information that would measure how many co-operative arrangements are in place and how they are working. This is an issue for local areas, and not for the Government to micromanage. However, I can absolutely see where the noble Baroness is coming from in her determination to make the most effective and cost-effective use of public resources in this area. I completely accept that point.

I am sure the noble Baroness will be pleased to learn that we know that a recent change in the financial arrangements for PTS has led to a change in approach to this issue locally. PTS was recently removed from the acute tariff funding arrangements, which has led to a shift from most PCTs delegating commissioning responsibility to acute trusts, towards primary care trusts taking day-to-day responsibility for their PTS commissioning. This means that many primary care trusts are now in a good position to begin exploring new partnership working opportunities with local councils and others. We certainly want them to do so. These new arrangements can be informed by good practice which has already been developed and shared locally. The department recognises the guide Providing Transport in Partnership, which was published by the North West Centre of Excellence in 2009, as an example of where joint approaches can help to ensure better use of health, community and public transport networks. We must ask, given the principle that NHS services should be organised and managed locally, whether placing a requirement for co-operation in national law would be a disproportionate use of legislation in these circumstances.

One further element of the Bill may seem a trifle unclear. I ask the noble Baroness to look at this when she gets to the later stages of the Bill. The existing guidance says that it is,

“the responsibility of the PCT to ensure that appropriate services are being provided at an appropriate cost and standard”.

Therefore, the NHS needs to retain the responsibility for patients with medical needs. PCTs, when working in partnership with local authorities and other stakeholders, need to retain responsibility for those people. Does Clause 1(2) raise a question over that paramount responsibility and where it rests? Is that what the noble Baroness intended? She may need to explore that.

The different level of responsibility for PTS patients is illustrated by the fact that all services commissioned to provide PTS will now be expected to register with the Care Quality Commission from April 2010. This is a new requirement, as PTS was not previously regulated, but the CQC has identified PTS as an activity that requires registration because of the inherent risks in transporting unwell and often vulnerable patients.

I am aware that the noble Baroness raised this issue during the passage of the last health Bill; indeed, we discussed it then. While I regret to say that we do not agree at the moment that this is necessarily the way forward, I hope that she will acknowledge that we are making progress in this area. Her determination to keep raising the issue has undoubtedly contributed towards that and I expect that we shall continue to have this discussion.

My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord McColl, for their support and for raising incredibly important issues. I also thank the Minister for her empathetic and understanding attitude towards what I am trying to do by raising the issues in the Bill. I appreciate that this is a complex area but I feel that, when I have had a chance to consider the points that she raised, there will be ways in which we can take this forward.

I agree that local leadership is important and necessary. I am delighted that CQC registration has been introduced, as that is of benefit to everyone. The recent changes that the Minister outlined are also good if we are trying to get this right. I appreciate that primary care trusts retain overall responsibility for each patient, but I think that, when they are co-operating, they already manage to do these things. They also manage to put people in taxis sometimes and somehow that is thought to be all right, so there must be ways round this. I am hopeful that, by taking the Bill forward, we can both reduce the obvious waste of resources that occurs through non-attendance, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, pointed out, and deal with some of the acute difficulties that the noble Lord, Lord McColl, outlined in his helpful remarks. All this would be of benefit not just to patients but to taxpayers and the wider community, so I urge noble Lords to support the Bill and I ask the House to give it a Second Reading.