Commons Chamber

House of Commons

Monday 3 July 2006

The House met at half-past Two o’clock

Prayers

[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Culture, Media and Sport

The Secretary of State was asked—

Live Music

Mr. Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)
1. What steps her Department is taking to support live music.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr. David Lammy)
The Government are committed to supporting live music in all its forms. Through the Live Music Forum, we are working to ensure that opportunities for the promotion of live music are realised to the full.

Mr. Wright
For 25 years, The Studio in my constituency has encouraged participation in grass-roots music by delivering a range of recording, training, rehearsal and performing opportunities, while giving local people access to internationally recognised musicians. Despite making cutbacks, including redundancies, it is forecast that, by the end of the year, The Studio will run out of money, although it requires only an additional £20,000 per annum to stay open. What steps will my hon. Friend take to ensure that small yet vital concerns such as The Studio stay open, so that live music can be enjoyed today and in future?

Mr. Lammy
I thank my hon. Friend for campaigning to make sure that there are the right music services, particularly for young people in his constituency. In relation to The Studio, I know that the Hartlepool local authority is looking at that issue very closely. It was keen to ensure that the services offered met its strategic priorities for the coming period, as it is an important funder. I hope that we can achieve that, and the Arts Council advises that it is keen to look into how arts provision is met at The Studio. It is important that the local authority and the Arts Council can work together on that over the coming months. I will keep a close eye on the matter but, as my hon. Friend knows, there is an arm’s length relationship between us and the Arts Council; it is right that the funding decisions are made independently.

It is important that we have the right facilities, particularly for young people in our most disadvantaged areas. I know that that is why my hon. Friend takes the issue seriously.

Mr. Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
What would the Minister say to Steve Dickinson, the proprietor of Mojo’s café in Scarborough, who has had to curtail his popular Wednesday afternoon jamming sessions because the two-in-a-bar rule has been abolished? He now faces having to pay for a licence for such events, which allow local bands their first opportunity, and local people to hear music for free at no cost to the taxpayer, unlike the case in Hartlepool.

Mr. Lammy
I like a jamming session like anybody else, but we do have licensing provisions. It is clear that small venues have been able to apply for licensing, and that music is going on. We set up, and specifically tasked, the Live Music Forum, which has representatives from the unions and the industry, to look closely at the issue. It will report to us in the autumn so that we can be clear on how, or if, the licensing provisions have affected our live music venues.

Stephen Pound (Ealing, North) (Lab)
May I wish you, Mr. Speaker, the happiest of birthdays and say how extraordinarily well you are looking? It will not have escaped your notice that at least one other Westminster character shares your birthday; I refer, of course, to PC John Harrigan, although it is also my birthday.

Mr. Patrick McLoughlin (West Derbyshire) (Con)
You are older.

Stephen Pound
Parts of my body are considerably older.

Further to previous questions, may I ask the Minister whether the Department for Culture, Media and Sport will report on a study that I understand it intends to conduct into the experience of small venues and the impact of the Licensing Act 2003—not so much on Mojo’s of Scarborough, but on the wider musical scene?

Mr. Lammy
Yes, I can tell my hon. Friend that we will come back to Parliament on those issues in the autumn.

Mr. Malcolm Moss (North-East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
If everything is so rosy in the field of live music, why do the results of a recent survey by the Musicians Union reveal that there has been a marked drop in live music in smaller venues, particularly those previously benefiting from the two-in-a-bar rule? If Ministers think that the Licensing Act 2003 is encouraging live music, why are they issuing new guidelines to local authorities? It is not the local authorities’ fault; no, it was the Government who passed the inadequate Licensing Act, and the Government who wrote the guidelines, and arrogant and incompetent Ministers who are only now waking up to the situation that we and thousands of musicians predicted over three years ago.

Mr. Lammy
The hon. Gentleman made all sorts of spurious predictions on the record that have not stood up to the facts. If there is incompetence, it is on his side, and the Hansard record will show that.

The unions are part of the Live Music Forum, which is conducting the research and the survey, and as I have already said, that forum will come back to us with its findings in the autumn.

Sporting Village

Mr. Lindsay Hoyle (Chorley) (Lab)
2. What funds are available for the development of a sporting village.

The Minister for Sport (Mr. Richard Caborn)
Just before I answer the question, I believe that most of the House would like to share in our deep sense of disappointment at England’s early exit from the World cup on Saturday, but it would be wrong if the House did not thank David Beckham, who has captained the England team for more than five years. Let me also thank him for the support that he gave to help London in securing the Olympic bid. To Sven—dreams were not realised, but I wish him the best for the future. To Steve McClaren—the man at the helm now—good luck, and I thank him for meeting some of the 300 young people who took part on Saturday; he realised their dreams.

The answer to the question—[Interruption.] Quite honestly, Opposition Members are being churlish when the World cup has been one of our biggest sporting events for many years.

There is no dedicated funding stream for sports villages, but between 2001 and 2006, the Government have invested about £1 billion of lottery and Exchequer funding in sports facilities, which represents the biggest sports facilities investment programme in decades. Derek Mapp, the ex-chair of East Midlands Development Agency, is currently leading a feasibility study looking at how this interesting and innovative concept might be developed further. The study will look at whether sports villages—[Interruption.] If Opposition Members listen, they might discover that there is to be one in their area. The study will consider whether sports villages have the potential to contribute to the regeneration and sustainability of communities on a wide range of fronts, as well as a role in delivering the Olympic 2012 legacy.

Mr. Hoyle
I agree with my right hon. Friend that the whole of England is disappointed that the World cup will not be lifted by David Beckham. Of course there is sorrow, but we look forward to four years’ time, when I believe that we can win it.

I agree with my right hon. Friend that sporting villages are very important. There must be a good geographical spread across the country, but I can think of nowhere better for one than in Chorley, because we are a former new town, with a lot of Government-owned land, where we ended up with housing with absolutely no facilities and no infrastructure to back up the people who have been left neglected. Will he meet members of the local authority and me to pursue the development of a sporting village in Lancashire, but based in Chorley?

Mr. Caborn
My hon. Friend is, without doubt, a great advocate for his constituents. Mr Mapp is getting Deloittes to do a survey, and as soon as that report comes out, which is towards the end of July or the beginning of August, I should be delighted to meet my hon. Friend and his constituents and, indeed, local authority representatives.

Digital Switchover

Derek Wyatt (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Lab)
3. What plans are in place to help older people understand digital switchover.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr. Shaun Woodward)
May I congratulate my hon. Friend on having got back from his constituency, where, this morning, he opened a new £100 million bridge? We were not sure that he would get back in time. We are very pleased that he is here.

To ensure that everyone, including older people, are able to enjoy the benefits of digital switchover by 2012, we are asking Digital UK to lead the campaign to provide relevant information to all households, as each TV region is switched.

Derek Wyatt
The Minister for Sport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn), started off the bridge project, so I should thank him publicly.

Has my hon. Friend had a chance to talk to the Secretary of State for Education and Skills? We have hundreds and hundreds of specialist computer and technology schools, and one of the cheapest ways in which we could carry out the switchover would be to charge those schools with the task of being the local hub for switchover—to go into old people’s homes, to liaise and so on. That would save us millions of pounds and generate great community spirit in those centres.

Mr. Woodward
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that suggestion. We have not held direct discussions on that specific topic with the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, but I will, of course, now initiate discussions with Education Ministers and officials. We are actively engaged in discussions with charities and public bodies, particularly those that represent older people and those who are disabled, because we believe that those are the individuals who will face the greatest difficulties in the switchover. We are absolutely confident that we have a very good plan in place, but we take on board his suggestions.

Mr. John Whittingdale (Maldon and East Chelmsford) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that the conversion of multiple dwelling units to digital reception presents particular challenges? What estimates have been made of the cost of converting MDUs, particularly for social landlords and local authorities? Does the Government propose to make any help available to them?

Mr. Woodward
Multiple dwelling units present a particular problem, of which the hon. Gentleman has made particular efforts to make the House and departmental officials aware. There are especial problems associated with MDUs and we must adopt a sophisticated approach to them. We are in active discussion with all the relevant bodies and we believe that we are on course to solve most of the problems. I remind the hon. Gentleman that it is still nearly 18 months to two years before we begin the process of switchover. We believe that during the next 12 months the discussions that we are holding will bear the fruits and the policies that the hon. Gentleman wants to see.

Mr. Don Foster (Bath) (LD)
The Government already recognise rightly the impact of energy costs on the households of older people. Is the Minister aware that only today the Energy Savings Trust produced a report that showed that the additional energy costs of digital set-top boxes could add £30 a year to household budgets for older people, and an even greater cost with certain new digital television sets? Will the Minister agree to work with manufacturers to find ways of reducing those costs, not least by putting off buttons on digital set-top boxes, and also to ensure that there is energy-use labelling on new equipment, along the lines of that provided on white goods?

Mr. Woodward
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. Yes, we are aware of the report; yes, we are in discussion with manufacturers about it and yes, it is our intention, when switchover takes place, for special codes to be introduced. It is not a problem that applies only to digital switchover; it applies to all digital equipment—mobile phone recharger units and just about everything in the house that uses the digital system. The Government are aware of the issue and are confronting it. I am sure that there will be bipartisan support for our efforts.

Mr. Andrew Mackay (Bracknell) (Con)
4. How the digital switchover pilot schemes have informed future policy; and if she will make a statement.

The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Tessa Jowell)
There have been two sets of relevant pilot schemes. The first of those examined the process of switchover in Llansteffan and Ferryside, and the second considered the needs of vulnerable groups in Bolton. Both pilots provided valuable real-time information. Above all, they confirmed people’s enthusiasm, and that, with support, digital television is popular. We will, of course, take those specific lessons into account in future planning. The results of both pilot studies are available in the Libraries of both Houses.

Mr. Mackay
Is not the Secretary of State concerned that there is a lack of public awareness and that there are still people buying analogue televisions? Is there not much more that the right hon. Lady’s Department needs to do so that when switchover takes place in 18 months’ time it is not another Government failure?

Tessa Jowell
There have been many Government successes. The process of digital switchover, commended by the Select Committee as a bold step and a bold decision, will be one of them. The right hon. Gentleman is right that people need to be properly informed, because, then, their apprehension about switchover—apprehension that tends to be higher among elderly and isolated people—falls. There is encouraging information from Digital UK. A £200 million public information campaign is now under way and in May, the first month of that campaign, the awareness in the borders—the right hon. Gentleman knows that that will be the first region to switch over—rose from 39 to 57 per cent. In Wales, awareness across the country rose from 3 to 22 per cent., as a result of targeted promotion and information. We will ensure that that is available consistently in the years up to switchover.

Hywel Williams (Caernarfon) (PC)
The Llansteffan pilot was a notable success. I am sure that the Secretary of State welcomes the fact that there is a significantly greater take up of digital television in Wales than elsewhere. Does the right hon. Lady agree that the real challenge for future policies is to ensure that all people in Wales have access to television that is produced in Wales for them? At present, 2 to 3 per cent. of people are unable to see Welsh television.

Tessa Jowell
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The key answer is the maintenance of platform choice. For example, in the case of the right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. Mackay), only 9 per cent. of his constituents can get a decent signal through digital terrestrial television, and so they rely on satellite. There are other parts of the country, however, where satellite may be a more difficult option. The maintenance of platform choice is one of the ways in which the constituents of the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams) will receive the service to which I believe many of them will be looking forward.

Gambling Commission

Ben Chapman (Wirral, South) (Lab)
5. When the Gambling Commission will publish a new regulatory regime.

The Minister for Sport (Mr. Richard Caborn)
The Gambling Act 2005 will be fully implemented from September 2007. Between now and then, my Department will consult on and make the necessary orders and regulations, and the commission will continue to consult on, and publish, guidance and codes of practice on how it will operate the new licensing regime. Local authorities have a vital role to play in the new regime, as well. I am meeting the chair of the Local Authorities Co-ordinators of Regulatory Services on Thursday to address the concerns that it has about the timing issues.

Ben Chapman
With the British Medical Association warning only last week that one in 20 12 to 15-year-olds are showing signs of addiction to gambling, is it not time to educate and regulate? Some parts of the industry—such as, for example, internet poker—seem to be virtually untouched by any controls whatsoever. I understand that consultation and the appropriate actions have to be undertaken, but is it not now a matter of urgency?

Mr. Caborn
I agree with my hon. Friend on two points. First, in terms of the role of the commission and internet gambling, that is the very reason for bringing the legislation forward—so that the Government have some controls over internet gambling. Secondly the Responsibility in Gambling Trust, which has been set up and is broadly run through GamCare, is looking at a wide education programme, as well as a prevention programme. I am meeting some of the industry tomorrow on those issues. There are concerns. To a large extent, that is why the 2005 Act was put on to the statute book: to give Government—indeed, Parliament—powers to intervene on behalf of the vulnerable in our society.

Mr. Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)
We were assured by the Secretary of State that the new regime for regulating gambling and the process for awarding the regional casino licence would be open and transparent. The reality is that they are now mired in chaos, confusion and disarray. Local authorities are warning of the kind of chaos and confusion that we witnessed with the Licensing Act 2003. In addition, we have now learned that the Government are to face a legal challenge from unsuccessful applicants. In a further development, Labour Back Benchers representing failed bidders are openly being encouraged to lobby Ministers to overturn a decision made by the supposedly independent commission. Is the Minister aware that the whole process is descending into complete disarray?

Mr. Caborn
I have heard some rubbish from this Dispatch Box, but that is the biggest load of rubbish that I have heard for a long time. We have put in place the most transparent system—arm’s length from Government and my Department—to make an objective analysis of where the casinos should go. The confusion arose in the minds of Opposition Members when they decided to take the number of regional casinos from eight to one. They are now trying to get out of the issue politically and to blame the Government. That representation is totally untrue. We will stand by what we put in the 2005 Act and the process, which is transparent and fair. If people want to make a legal challenge, let them get on with it and take us to the courts.

Mr. Swire
But the Secretary of State has failed to ensure public confidence in the new regime. She will be aware, as will the Minister, that Ministers in her Department have already had to clarify four statements in relation to meetings held by her and her officials with overseas operators. Does the Minister consider it—to use the words he has just spoken at the Dispatch Box—transparent and arm’s length that senior Ministers are being entertained on the estates of American casino operators? Will he act urgently to ensure a complete and full disclosure of the facts to ensure public confidence and transparency in the process?

Mr. Caborn
That is absolutely disgraceful. The Deputy Prime Minister, who the hon. Gentleman is referring to, had no role in planning or negotiations, or in the siting of casinos. When Opposition Members start making those allegations, they ought to come up with the facts. What is being said is totally untrue and unfounded. If anyone is being brought into disrepute, it is the hon. Gentleman.

Royal Parks

Mr. Nicholas Soames (Mid-Sussex) (Con)
6. When she next plans to have a meeting to discuss the state of the royal parks.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr. David Lammy)
I will be meeting the chief executive of the royal parks on 24 July.

Mr. Soames
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Secretary of State is a trustee for the nation of the 5,000 acres that comprise one of the most priceless assets that London has—the royal parks? Will he explain to the House why his Department’s grant to the royal parks has slipped by more than 20 per cent. since 1993? Will he further tell us why he is allowing these fragile environmental fabrics to be seriously degraded by too many unsuitable large-scale commercial events? Finally, will he deal with the £110 million backlog that the National Audit Office found in repairs undone?

Mr. Lammy
If I were not aware that my right hon. Friend is a trustee of the royal parks, that would be seriously remiss of me given that I have spent quite a lot of time over the past year in the royal parks, meeting the Friends of the Royal Parks and the chief executive.

The hon. Gentleman’s tastes may well not be the same as those of Londoners and much of the country, but the Prince’s Trust concert and the success of Live8 indicate that the Royal Parks Agency has been very successful at some of the events that it has put on. However, he is right that there is a balance to be struck between those events and the more reflective enjoyment of those in the parks. That is why this year there have been fewer events in Hyde park. We keep those things under review, working with the Royal Parks Agency and, as I said, I shall be meeting the chief executive shortly.

As to the money, the hon. Gentleman should remember that the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee said in his report that there was

“untapped potential for the Agency to generate income from its considerable assets.”

It is right that the Government bear that in mind when making their grant in aid.

David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op)
On a beautiful day like today it is obvious how very many people—visitors to London, those who work in the city and tourists—make intensive use of the royal parks such as Hyde park, Richmond park, St. James’s park and so on. Would the Minister care to pay tribute to the work of the Royal Parks constabulary, which is responsible for the safety, enjoyment and relaxation of those many people in the parks, and will he lay to rest the rumour that it may fall victim to the merger mania of forces and be absorbed by the Metropolitan police? That would be a dreadful step, would it not?

Mr. Lammy
I am happy to pay tribute to the Royal Parks constabulary. Two of our parks have been awarded the green flag for 2005, and five are being put forward for a green flag for this year. A key criterion of that is that people who enter the parks feel safe, and that is largely down to the work of the constabulary. We ought to remember when thinking and talking about these issues that on Friday in Regent’s park there will be a memorial for the victims of the London bombings. The parks play a huge and important role in our national life.

Mr. Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
In answer to the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor), the merger has already taken place. The Royal Parks constabulary is now part of the Metropolitan police; I am assuming that the Minister was aware of that fact.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mr. Soames) rightly pointed out, our royal parks should be an oasis of calm and quiet contemplation for Londoners, commuters and tourists alike. The notion that in summer 2012 they should become one huge campsite to house those in London for the Olympic games, as suggested by the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Woodward), is barmy. It is also in direct breach of the assurances given by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in this House in a debate initiated by me on 24 May 2004. Moneys can be raised to preserve the royal parks by other means, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) will point out—he was acting as an auctioneer at one such event last week. Will the Minister assure us that he will keep the Treasury at bay and his Department’s hands off our royal parks?

Mr. Lammy
The hon. Gentleman is confused; the Royal Parks is an agency of the Government. The idea that the Government could keep their hands off is ridiculous given that we are funding it to the tune of £25.6 million. The hon. Gentleman’s tastes may not be the tastes of ordinary Londoners, but the Royal Parks always consults on its strategy for events, as he would expect, and it is right that we support it on the events taking place this year and in coming years.

Dr. Vincent Cable (Twickenham) (LD)
Is the Minister aware that the financial position of the royal parks is now so dire that routine maintenance is having to be funded out of lottery grants? Is that an appropriate way to manage either the parks or lottery funds?

Mr. Lammy
The national lottery, in particular the Heritage Lottery Fund, is funding parks throughout the country, and the constituencies of many hon. Members have benefited. Funding for the royal parks is increasing this year to £26.1 million. The hon. Gentleman knows that we are in the middle of the spending review, and it is right and proper that we consider the PAC’s comment that there is “untapped potential” to raise even more revenue from our parks. That is the position, and it is one that the Government have maintained for many years.

Digital Switchover

Norman Baker (Lewes) (LD)
7. If she will make a statement on digital availability in the Lewes constituency.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr. Shaun Woodward)
Ofcom estimates that approximately a quarter of homes in the Lewes constituency currently receive digital terrestrial television, although the vast majority of homes can receive digital TV via satellite, with the right equipment. Proceeding with digital switchover will allow all those who currently receive a good analogue signal to receive digital TV via an aerial, ensuring that the vast majority of people have access to a digital platform.

Norman Baker
Does the Minister understand the strong feelings of the bulk of my constituents who cannot receive much of the BBC’s television programme output because they have no access to a digital terrestrial set-top box that works in the constituency, and will not have until 2012? Do they not deserve a reduction in the BBC licence fee for the time being? What is the position of those of my constituents for whom, when switch-off occurs, a digital set-top box will still not work and who will therefore have to use a satellite dish, but may be prevented from doing so by planning rules because they live in a conservation area or a listed building?

Mr. Woodward
Obviously we are aware of the problems experienced by the hon. Gentleman’s constituents. We are working towards ensuring maximum access for everybody while preserving the Government’s position of platform neutrality. I remind the hon. Gentleman that switching off the analogue signal in 2012 will automatically provide a major boost to the digital signal. Ofcom is working on how to deal with the small percentage of homes in his constituency that might still have problems. Our hope is that we will have solved that problem by the time of switchover.

Understanding Slavery Initiative

Ms Diana R. Johnson (Kingston upon Hull, North) (Lab)
8. What assessment she has made of the work of the Understanding Slavery Initiative producing materials for schools about the trans-Atlantic slave trade to support the teaching of history and citizenship.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr. David Lammy)
The Understanding Slavery Initiative is having a real and positive impact on the teaching of that complex issue, and has produced high-quality materials and training for teachers and museum educators across the country.

Ms Johnson
I thank my hon. Friend for his recent visit to Hull to see our preparations for Wilberforce 2007. Will he join me in congratulating Hull university, which this week opens the Wilberforce institute for the study of slavery and emancipation, which will study the present-day context of slavery and what we can learn from the slave trade, as well as work alongside local schools?

Mr. Lammy
I truly enjoyed my visit to Hull on Monday last week to join my hon. Friend and many other colleagues on the trip to the Wilberforce museum. Hull has been key to the development of the training resource. It is important that teachers are able to discuss sensitive and difficult issues at key stage 3 and have the right materials to do that. Hull has been absolutely brilliant, especially in its work with the National Maritime museum to develop those resources. I wish everyone in Hull the best of luck for the launch of WISE on Friday. I understand that Desmond Tutu is the president of that important new research facility. The work done at Hull, together with work carried out in Liverpool, Bristol and London, will help to ensure that the commemorations and celebrations of the abolition of slavery next year are a huge success.

Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire) (Con)
Does the Minister accept that Wilberforce was not only Hull’s greatest son, but probably the greatest Back Bencher in the history of the House?

Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
And a Conservative.

Sir Patrick Cormack
He did not belong to any party. It was Wilberforce’s parliamentary campaign that led not to the abolition of slavery in 1807, but the abolition of the slave trade. Can those facts be emphasised to all young people as they study what can be achieved by a persistent parliamentary campaign?

Mr. Lammy
The hon. Gentleman is right. That is why a Committee of both Houses, very much with the grace of Mr. Speaker, is examining closely how those issues can be conveyed next year. It is true that Wilberforce played a key role as a parliamentary campaigner, but it is also true that the Quakers, who, for obvious reasons, sometimes remain silent about the role that they played, should be remembered, as should many of the black former slave campaigners.

Ms Dawn Butler (Brent, South) (Lab)
Happy birthday to you, Mr. Speaker and to my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Stephen Pound), who assures me that refreshments are on him today.

Will the Minister indicate whether he agrees with and will support a grass-roots-led UK annual memorial day regarding the transatlantic slave trade?

Mr. Lammy
My hon. Friend is right that some Members and communities have asked for a memorial day. There have been differences of opinion about what day that should be and about whether we should focus on a day or on other things to do with celebrations of the abolition of slavery. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said that he keeps an open mind on these issues, so we will see whether a consensus can be arrived at.

Mr. Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Next year is the 200th anniversary of the death of the slave ship commander turned Christian hymn writer, John Newton. After his conversion on board a slave ship, he wrote one of the most famous hymns of all time, “Amazing Grace”. Will the Minister ensure that next year there is some formal recognition of that amazing figure in English religious literature?

Mr. Lammy
We are in discussions with colleagues in the Department for Education and Skills on these issues, as we are with leaders of our cultural institutions, some of whom sit on the advisory committee that is led by the Deputy Prime Minister. I will ensure that that specific issue is raised.

Sports Participation

Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey) (LD)
9. What estimate she has made of the number of people who play football, tennis or cricket at least once a week.

The Minister for Sport (Mr. Richard Caborn)
This information is not available on a weekly basis, but according to the general household survey of 2002-03, 1.8 million adults had played football, 745,000 had played tennis and 235,000 had played cricket in the previous four weeks. The Department’s taking part survey will provide a complete picture of current participation levels in sport, including football, tennis and cricket, later this year.

Simon Hughes
As the House sends its commiserations to the England team for not winning on Saturday night in that dramatic penalty shootout, as it reflects on the great legacy of Fred Trueman, who died at the weekend, and as it salutes the great performance of Andy Murray, whom we hope will go further, does the Minister think that there is scope for the Government to lead on engaging the great motivating potential of people such as Andy Murray, Rio Ferdinand and Andy Flintoff to make many more people who watch sport go on to participate in it, with all the benefits that that brings us all?

Mr. Caborn
Very much so. The hon. Gentleman is right that such people are incredibly powerful in the community. There is no doubt that they are icons. The sporting champions whom we are developing are playing a major role and talent is being identified through the talented athlete scholarship scheme, right up to possible world-class performers. Young people in schools from the age of 10 will be picked up not by chance, but by design, and they can be put on the pathway to excellence to allow them to realise their potential. I agree that we need to use the sporting icons in our nation more effectively than we do, and we are working to that end.

Mr. John Grogan (Selby) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that the lack of cricket coverage on free-to-air TV might have an adverse effect on the number of children who regularly play the sport? On average, only 200,000 viewers watch Sky’s coverage, compared with a peak of 8 million or 9 million people who watched Channel 4’s coverage last year. Does he also accept the good wishes of many cricket followers for the talks that he is initiating with broadcasters? There is widespread hope that that might lead to the return of at least some live test match cricket coverage to free-to-air TV.

Mr. Caborn
I can partially agree with that, but may I put on record my great appreciation of a legend of Yorkshire cricket, Freddie Trueman? I saw him at Bramall Lane with my dad when I was about 10 years old, and he is truly a legend, as Dickie Bird said on Saturday night.

On Sky television and terrestrial broadcasting of cricket, we must remember what was in the Select Committee report. Had it not been for all the investment of television money in cricket, I do not think that we would have won the Ashes, which was a great feat, or had the coaching programmes and central contracts that the England and Wales Cricket Board now has. One must pay credit to the ECB for the modernisation that it has gone through. It is can now choose a team that can take the Ashes—which that team did, and we wish it well over Christmas and the new year in Australia—and also get more young people under coaching in cricket than there have been for many years. Credit must go to the ECB for that, and the funding—whether we like it or not—has largely come through television revenues.

Mrs. Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
No doubt the Minister would encourage participation in sport by boys and girls, and men and women, in equal numbers, so does he agree that it is unfortunate that the Wimbledon authorities still insist on paying much smaller amounts of prize money to their women champions than to their men champions, even though women are willing and able to play as many sets as men?

Mr. Caborn
I think that the hon. Lady really believed what she said, so I have no doubt that she can join my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and none other than the Prime Minister in having a joint approach to the All England Club authorities. Let us have hope for the negotiations that are taking place with the Women’s Tennis Association. I hope that the All England Club listens carefully in the meetings that I know that its representatives will attend in the next few months, and I hope that this ill will have been rectified when the Wimbledon tournament takes place next year.

Licensing Act

Lynda Waltho (Stourbridge) (Lab)
10. What assessment she has made of the impact on consumers, licensees and community groups of the Licensing Act 2003; and if she will make a statement.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr. Shaun Woodward)
It is too early to determine the full impact of the Licensing Act 2003 on different stakeholders. However, we know that local people are engaged in the licensing process to an unprecedented level and are confident that the interests of the public, as well as of pubs, clubs, bars, restaurants, theatres, cinemas and other establishments, are better protected by the new regime.

Lynda Waltho
Stourbridge police recommend the introduction of the cumulative impact policy in the centre of my constituency. That will enable local people to have a say in local licensing decisions. There is a committee meeting tonight to discuss the recommendation. If the decision is taken to introduce it, it will be the most wide-ranging in the United Kingdom. Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating local police for their work so far in dealing with what has been a doubling of the number of bars and pubs in my town centre, and also for their foresight and vision in taking full advantage of this consultative process?

Mr. Woodward
I agree with my hon. Friend. In fact, this morning I had the pleasure of reading through the notes on the special meeting of the licensing and safety committee in preparation for this question, which were fully available on the web as part of the open, transparent government that we, of course, now operate. The serious point is that what is most interesting is the way that this provides the opportunity for the police and the council to consider together and in detail evidence to ascertain whether proposals to introduce a special policy should go forward.

That is exactly the kind of discussion that we wanted to happen as a result of the Act. We wanted a balance between the interests of the public who are affected by disorder, nuisance and other problems and those of legitimate businesses and people who enjoy themselves by having a drink, while leaving at the right time and not indulging in binge drinking. The combination of those interests and decisions being made by local communities is what this Act was properly for, and the matter raised demonstrates quintessentially why the Act is working.

Mr. John Gummer (Suffolk, Coastal) (Con)
What does the Minister suggest that I say to the Punch and Judy man on Southwold beach who now has to pay £300 in order to entertain the public? What should I say to the parish councils that run the annual church fête that took place yesterday, given that people now have to fill in a form several inches thick to run a perfectly reasonable charitable operation? Is this not in fact a metropolitan operation dreamt up by a Government who have never run anything in their lives?

Mr. Woodward
I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would extend his normal courtesies to whomever he met on a beach, or in any other place that he happened to wander around. The fact is that we are conducting a review of the 2003 Act’s implementation, and, as he will be aware, we are consulting widely. But at the moment, the overwhelming evidence is that—subject to marginal changes that need to be made, and which we have committed ourselves to being prepared to make, if the evidence is there to support making them—the changes brought in by this Act have improved the regulatory regime for those in business and for the consumer.

Mrs. Sharon Hodgson (Gateshead, East and Washington, West) (Lab)
I have seen the benefits that sensible implementation of the 2003 Act can bring in the north-east. Is my hon. Friend aware that Newcastle-Gateshead has recently topped an influential list of the best nights out in Britain? That is no surprise, given that visitors to the area have a choice of such cultural gems as the Baltic centre for contemporary art and the Sage live music centre. Will my hon. Friend join me in welcoming the success of the Newcastle-Gateshead initiative in helping to establish the north-east as an arena at the forefront of British culture?

Mr. Woodward
Clearly, the Newcastle-Gateshead initiative is an example to us all and I invite all Members, including the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), to pay a visit to that area as soon as possible.

Public Accounts Commission

The Chairman of the Public Accounts Commission was asked—

National Audit Office

Mr. Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
19. If he will make a statement on the recent performance of the National Audit Office.

Mr. Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
21. If he will make a statement on the progress of the National Audit Office in meeting its performance targets for 2006-07.

Mr. Alan Williams (Swansea, West) (Lab)
The National Audit Office will present its annual report and accounts to Parliament later this month, setting out its achievements for the year to 31 March 2006 and how it has used its resources. During the year, the NAO produced 61 major reports on the value for money achieved by Departments in using resources across a range of public expenditure. Examples include returning failed asylum seekers, progress in improving Government efficiency, and the failure of MG Rover. The Comptroller and Auditor General certified more than 500 accounts during the year and I know that the House will congratulate the NAO on identifying £555 million-worth of financial savings arising from its work in 2005—a return of more than £8 for every pound funded by Parliament. The Public Accounts Commission will have the opportunity to examine the NAO’s performance on the House’s behalf when it meets to consider the NAO’s corporate plan tomorrow.

Mr. Hollobone
I congratulate the NAO on last week’s report into the failure that is the Child Support Agency. Is it not an absolute scandal that it costs the CSA 70p to collect each £1 of child support, and that 60 per cent. of outstanding child support payments totalling £3.5 billion are deemed uncollectable?

Mr. Williams
That is really a matter for the Public Accounts Committee, rather than the Public Accounts Commission, but one is bound to feel that what we have read about is the latest in a series of disastrous performances by the CSA, which reflect what I suspect is the unpleasant experience of too many of our constituents. Our first inquiry, which was conducted a long time ago, discovered that—unbelievably—the CSA was set up with just one quarter of the staff that it required. Ever since then, it has never recovered.

Mr. Bone
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the National Audit Office is saving this country a lot of money and is he concerned that its expansion is being resisted by the Executive, because they are worried that it would expose their incompetence and weaknesses?

Mr. Williams
On the latter point, I do not know what the Executive’s aspirations might be, but if there is any such aspiration, it is having no effect. The Public Accounts Commission’s role is to ensure that the NAO has the money that it requires and, so far, there has been no serious attempt by the Treasury to curtail the grants that we were considering making to the NAO. I hope that that reassures the hon. Gentleman. Furthermore, because it has been so successful, we asked the NAO to consider whether, instead of achieving an £8:£1 rate of return for the taxpayer, it could do better. To our surprise, the NAO has said that in 2007 it hopes to increase that ratio from the present £8 to £9 for every £1 that it costs.

David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Chairman of the Public Accounts Commission agree that, if the NAO is to maintain and preserve its reputation for professionalism and independence, it would do well to resist the well-known pressure from Government for it to soft pedal its criticism of private finance initiative projects? He speaks of the savings that the NAO has achieved. If he were to press the Government to abandon PFI, which is prohibitive in cost, flawed in concept and intolerable in consequences for taxpayers, citizens and public sector workers, the savings would be vastly greater than the sum that he quoted.

Mr. Williams
Again, that is a matter for the Public Accounts Committee. If the Government have been trying get the National Audit Office to curb criticism of PFI, they have been singularly unsuccessful, and they certainly have not managed to limit the activities of the Public Accounts Committee, on which I sit.

Church Commissioners

The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, representing the Church Commissioners, was asked—

Retired Clergy

Mr. Lindsay Hoyle (Chorley) (Lab)
20. What recent assessment the commissioners have made of poverty levels among retired clergy.  None. However, the Commissioners provide funding for certain schemes administered by the Church of England Pensions Board to assist clergy pensioners on low incomes.

Mr. Hoyle
We should find out what poverty levels are among retired clergy. Some of the clergy were late joining and therefore have not built up a sufficient pension fund to give them the income that they need to live off. When they retire, they also have to buy a property. I know they get a mortgage at 0 per cent. interest, but if they have a low pension to start with and have to pay a mortgage, it leaves those who have come late to the service at a great disadvantage. Will my hon. Friend investigate and calculate how bad poverty levels are among retired clergy?

Sir Stuart Bell
I would rather refer to low incomes than poverty in relation to the clergy. As I told the House on 24 April at column 354 and on 5 June at column 21,

“the Church is reviewing its pension arrangements.”—[Official Report, 5 June 2006; Vol. 447, c. 21.]

The scheme’s cost has been increased by reduced investment returns, new regulatory requirements and increased life expectancy. My hon. Friend’s point is well taken and I will consider it.

David T.C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that poverty among retired clergy is likely to increase if the Church of England investments that fund those pensions are made on the basis of what is politically correct, rather than what is financially correct?

Sir Stuart Bell
I disagree with the hon. Gentleman, in the sense that our investments are properly made and are now at £4.9 billion. We have a proper investment policy—an ethical investment policy which is appropriate for the Church. In my time as a Church Commissioner, since 1997, the assets have increased from £3 billion to £4.9 billion, but of course I would hardly take credit for that.

Cathedral Repairs

Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
22. What the cost of repairs to Lichfield and Hereford cathedrals was in 2004-05; and if he will make a statement.

Sir Stuart Bell
Repair costs for individual cathedrals are not held centrally. However, by way of a statement, an English Heritage survey in 2002 identified £39 million worth of essential structural repairs needed in England’s 61 cathedrals.

Mark Pritchard
Is it not important that we look after our cathedrals, not least Lichfield and Hereford? They act not only as spiritual centres of worship, but as community centres where people gather for live music, as we discussed in the Chamber earlier, and where other non-religious community groups meet in cathedrals. Is it not time that the Government recognised the wider role that our cathedrals play, not only in their diocese, but also to incoming tourists, and started to fund the repairs properly?

Sir Stuart Bell
As the hon. Gentleman says, we should remember the educational benefits, of which Hereford cathedral’s recently launched Tudor trail for schools is a fine example. Lichfield cathedral works hard to encourage school visits, as the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) often reminds us. We are consistently in dialogue with the Government in relation to church repairs, as I may point out in response to another question.

Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The cathedrals of England are a particularly important part of our national heritage. Does my hon. Friend worry that, if the Church of England increasingly turns its back on its liberal traditions and seems to be an organisation that becomes more and more bigoted and less and less committed to the whole of British society, it will find difficulty in getting support from the society in which it is meant to preach?

Mr. Speaker
Order. That question is far too wide.

Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire) (Con)
Thank you for saying that, Mr. Speaker.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, notwithstanding the accuracy of everything that my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) said, these buildings are intrinsically the most important single group of large buildings in our country, and that any Government who allowed them to crumble into decay would not deserve the accolade of a civilised Government?

Sir Stuart Bell
As the hon. Gentleman knows, cathedrals generate about £91 million per year and directly support 2,600 jobs. They are therefore a strong addition to our economy as well as our national heritage.

Ecclesiastical Buildings

Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
23. How many times in the last 12 months commissioners have met the Chancellor of the Exchequer or other Treasury Ministers to discuss financial issues affecting the fabric of churches and cathedrals.

Sir Stuart Bell
You will be pleased to know, Mr. Speaker, as will the hon. Gentleman, that I regularly chat to the Chancellor on several matters pertaining to the Church. We are grateful to him for his listed places of worship grant scheme, whereby last year in England £12,498,019 was paid out in reimbursement of VAT on church repairs alone.

Michael Fabricant
As my hon. Friends the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) and for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) said, the maintenance of cathedrals is important, but also very expensive. As the hon. Gentleman will know from what I and hon. Members on both sides of the House have said in the past, that often involves VAT on building works and grants that are available to cathedrals for work. He cannot operate in isolation on these matters. To what extent has he raised these matters with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and is he aware that the Chancellor is taking them up with the European Union, which is very much concerned with VAT rates?

Sir Stuart Bell
I sympathise with the Chancellor in his discussions on VAT in Europe, where he needs unanimous consent for any change. In relation to my discussions with him, the hon. Gentleman should know that we equally have discussions with Ministers in other Departments, especially the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy), who warmly welcomed “Building Faith in our Future” and promised a Government response shortly. We look forward to that.

Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
Can the hon. Gentleman explain to the House why the five Scottish cathedrals in Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dunblane, Dornoch and Lerwick are entirely supported and maintained by the state, while English cathedrals receive not a penny?

Sir Stuart Bell
I am not responsible for the Episcopal church in Scotland. President Pompidou was once asked whether he was responsible for the Church, and said, “No, thank God.” I can say the same of the Episcopal church.

Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey) (LD)
Would it be reasonable for me to say to all the people who look after Christian centres of worship in a borough such as Southwark—the Methodist chapels and churches, the Welsh Free chapel, and the churches and cathedrals of all three denominations, Anglican, Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox—that if the heritage and importance of those buildings merit it, they can look for financial support, as each plays a hugely important part in the life of a borough such as ours?

Sir Stuart Bell
I read comments of the Dean of Southwark in the newspapers with interest, and I well understand the hon. Gentleman’s position. I am, however, responsible for the Church of England, not for the other denominations to which he refers.

“Building Faith in our Future”

Ben Chapman (Wirral, South) (Lab)
25. What progress has been made in implementing the recommendations in the paper, “Building Faith in our Future”; and if he will make a statement.

Sir Stuart Bell
I refer my hon. Friend to the answer that I gave to the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant). We continue to make significant progress in helping parishes and dioceses respond to the opportunities and challenges that church buildings present. We await the Government response.

Ben Chapman
Given the potential for church tourism to support and maintain church buildings at the heart of many of our local communities, will my hon. Friend do his best to ensure a co-ordinated approach to its development, involving the Church Commissioners, the Government, the tourist industry and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport?

Sir Stuart Bell
My hon. Friend has regularly championed faith tourism and we agree about its importance. I am happy to tell him that Church officials had a positive meeting at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on church tourism last week. He might also be glad to know that the Churches Tourism Association will launch its tourism marketing initiative at its annual convention in November. The Church Commissioners, as well as my hon. Friend, will take a close interest in those proceedings.

 British Forces (Afghanistan)

15:30:00

Dr. Liam Fox (Woodspring) (Con) (Urgent Question)
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the position of British forces in Afghanistan.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Tom Watson)
Before I answer the hon. Gentleman’s question, I am sure that the whole House will join me in offering our condolences to the families of Corporal Thorpe and Lance Corporal Hashmi, the two soldiers killed on Saturday in Helmand province along with their interpreter. I have no doubt either that I speak for the House in wishing a speedy recovery to the five soldiers injured in the same attack. Our thoughts and prayers are with them all.

I should also explain that, given the time when you decided to take the urgent question, Mr. Speaker, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been unable to return to the House in time from his constituency. I apologise on his behalf.

The losses of life that our forces have suffered over the past few weeks are a tragedy. However, they do not mean that our mission in Afghanistan is somehow confused. The position of our armed forces in Afghanistan is clear. First and foremost, our troops are in Afghanistan to ensure that never again is it is a safe haven for the likes of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Quite simply, the risks are too great to us, our allies, and the Afghan people for us to stand aside and allow the terrorists to return. That overriding aim was clear when my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary—then Secretary of State for Defence—announced our deployment to Helmand last January, and it is clear today.

Our forces are our contribution to the expansion of the UN-authorised and NATO-led international security assistance force—ISAF. It is not only a British mission. Danish and Estonian troops are embedded into our forces in Helmand. Overall, 36 nations provide troops for ISAF. They, too, have had their casualties. A Romanian soldier was killed last month and Canadian and US troops have also died.

Our troops are there to help foster the environment in which the Afghans, with the support of the wider international community, can develop sustainable governing institutions and spread the authority of central Government across the country. They are there to help build up the Afghan security forces. They are there to help set the conditions for developing the Afghan economy and infrastructure. That means that we also help put in place the sort of environment in which the Afghans, again with international support, can make an impact on the narcotics trade.

Yes, our armed forces have been in action against the Taliban. That was only to be expected. That was why we sent an air-mobile battlegroup, artillery and Apache attack helicopters. Let me be candid. We would not have deployed such a formidable package if we did not think that there was a genuine threat to the safety of our armed forces. It was not pulled together on a whim. We did not pick and choose. We sent what the top military advice in the country—the chiefs of staff—said that we should send. So I want to make it absolutely plain that there has never been a sense that our aims and objectives were unfocused.

Of course, as with any operation, we keep our forces under review. The House will know that we regularly announce force changes for Iraq, as various formations are deployed in and out of that theatre. Afghanistan is no different, and we are working through such a process now. The hon. Gentleman will know that it is the intention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to make an announcement on the roulement of 16 Air Assault Brigade before the recess, but he will not do so until he has received the advice of the chiefs of staff on the precise details of the roulement. That will form part of a much wider NATO process that will be under way in July.

The House will understand that I cannot go into more detail now. However, right hon. and hon. Members can be assured that, despite press reports today, commanders have not asked for extra infantry or air cover. We do not go into matters such as these in detail, for reasons that the House will understand, but I can go as far as to say that the latest requests to the chiefs of staff, which are part of the planned ongoing analysis, include requests for enablers and engineering equipment. I want to make it clear that these requests were expected from the outset and that we expect more requests from theatre as the campaign continues. If they include “combat” elements, we will consider them seriously and immediately, as we always do.

I must stress, however, that we are only at the start of our three-year operation. Our forces in Helmand only reached their full operating capability this weekend, and there is still much to do. We all know that the democratically elected Afghan Government have had little sway in Helmand. It is inevitable that the earliest stages of such an operation will focus heavily on helping the Afghans to create security and stability. Only then can our wider aid and development programmes go forward unimpeded. They have already begun, and once they are fully under way, they will in turn reinforce security and stability as Helmand’s legitimate economy grows and the rule of law expands, and as we curb the influence of the Taliban and the drugs traffickers.

I shall say one final thing. We are committed to the success of the wider international project to help to rebuild Afghanistan, and we can best do that by making a real contribution—political, developmental and military—to the stabilisation of Helmand. Our armed forces are doing a magnificent job in making that happen, and they should continue to receive the full support of all of us in the House.

Dr. Fox
You will be aware, Mr. Speaker, that there has been much speculation over the weekend about the unease of British commanders in Afghanistan regarding their ability to carry out the mission defined by the Government. I believe that it is absolutely vital that we succeed in Afghanistan for three reasons. First, failure would be a catastrophic blow to the cohesion and reputation of NATO, and it would embolden our enemies rather than weakening them. Secondly, it would provide a victory for the forces of terror which oppose not only our troops on the ground but our entire value system and way of life, and give them encouragement to further their campaign of terror here at home. Thirdly, such a failure would betray the ordinary people of Afghanistan, to whom we have promised so much.

The Government have two basic duties: to maximise our chance of success in the mission and to minimise the risk to our troops. We intend to hold the Government to account in that regard, as is our duty in a parliamentary democracy. I must add that the tone in which the House conducts this process is also extremely important, because those who wish us harm will be listening intently for any sign of weakening in our resolve.

The Government’s presentation of the likely path of events in Afghanistan has been at the most optimistic end of the spectrum from the outset. The belief that the anti-terrorist operation, Operation Enduring Freedom, and the NATO reconstruction mission carried out by ISAF could in practice be separated for long has always been naive at best. Those who defend and promote the forces of terrorism, and who attack our troops or deny us the territory that we need to provide a stable future for the people of Afghanistan, are our enemies. The Government must therefore give our commanders on the ground everything that they need to carry out their mission successfully.

If our military chiefs have asked for more equipment and personnel, when did they start to do so? What specific plans do the Government have to increase the number of fixed-wing aircraft available to our troops in Afghanistan? What will they do to improve the helicopter capacity currently compromised by lack of numbers and difficulty operating in the severe heat? What do the Government intend to do about increasing the proportion of infantry in relation to support troops? What approaches have been made by the Prime Minister and his Ministers to their NATO and EU counterparts about ensuring that all countries pull their weight in this combined NATO struggle? What representations have they made about the appointment of an international co-ordinator to ensure that the funds for reconstruction are not squandered, which is an issue that my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary has championed?

I accept that winning the battle against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and reconstructing that country may require a long deployment and significantly higher numbers of troops and equipment. I doubt very much that it is likely to be, as the Minister said, a three-year operation. I say to those on both sides of the House who have reservations about our involvement in Afghanistan—I know that there are some—that the costs of succeeding in Afghanistan may be very high, but the cost of failure would be intolerable.

Mr. Watson
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support. His three points about NATO, terrorists and ordinary Afghans were well made.

On the point about the request for specific military hardware, the hon. Gentleman will understand that I cannot comment on that publicly yet, except to say that when our commanders ask our chiefs of staff for equipment, if those requests are put to Ministers, we will consider them in the usual way. I said in my statement that if such requests were for combat equipment, we would consider them seriously and immediately.

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about countries pulling their weight within NATO, of course, it is important in an alliance with 34 countries that all countries contribute their fair share. I will make sure that his points resonate in the appropriate corridors.

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about a three-year operation, of course, the Afghanistan of 2009 will still need different agencies of the UK, but our key goal is to build a security capacity for the Afghan Government where it does not exist now. My comments about some of the requests from theatre allude to the need to do that capacity building in the short and medium term. If he has any other fears, he should contact us about those. There has been some misinformed or ill-informed speculation in the press, and I am grateful that he has given me the opportunity to rebut some of the comments made at the weekend.

Mr. Tom Harris (Glasgow, South) (Lab)
May I remind my hon. Friend that many Members of the House are justly proud of the role that British troops played in 2001 in removing an oppressive and fascistic Government? Will he reassure the House, however, that our troops are properly resourced for their continuing campaign against Afghanistan’s poppy trade, whose product causes untold misery in my constituency and the constituencies of almost every other Member of the House?

Mr. Watson
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. I return to the point that we are in Afghanistan to make sure that it never again has the terrorist training capacity that created such a threat to the world a few years ago. The activity of poppy growers is one of the reasons why Afghanistan is such an unstable narco-state. As we try to create a secure economy in some of Afghanistan’s provinces, it is important to wean people off the poppy economy. Doing that too early and too soon, however, could create insecurity. We need triangulation between civic buy-in from ordinary Afghans on the ground, our military’s role and the way in which poppy traders are dealt with. However, his point is well made.

Mr. Jeremy Browne (Taunton) (LD)
I associate members of my party with the Minister’s opening expressions of condolence and regret.

I have a personal and particular interest in this matter, because Royal Marines from Taunton have been deployed in Afghanistan—as have troops from the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Bob Russell), who is sorry not to be present this afternoon.

Will the Minister respond to the following questions at greater length? What assessment has been made of the Taliban’s capacity to destabilise British troop deployments, and what is his response to allegations that people in Pakistan have been giving shelter or support to Taliban fighters?

I have three further questions. First, will the Minister expand on how much clarity there is in the NATO mission, and what proportion of time our troops spend on force protection? Secondly, will he comment on how forces can achieve security objectives with counter-narcotics work, given the connections of insurgents, warlords and indeed Government officials with the drugs trade? Finally, will he comment on the declining security situation? In 2005, 1,600 people were killed by fighting in Afghanistan. So far, more than 1,100 have been killed this year, and there are increasing incidences of kidnappings and roadside and suicide bombings. Does the Minister share my concern and that of many other Members that the tactics used in Afghanistan increasingly resemble those being used in Iraq?

Mr. Watson
Counter-narcotics work is vital to our efforts to promote long-term stability and security in Afghanistan. The drugs trade feeds on and contributes to insecurity in Afghanistan and the surrounding region. However, it is important for our troops to build a security capacity so that the Afghans themselves can fight the drugs traffickers. That will be our key goal over the next three years.

The hon. Gentleman spoke of our relationship with Pakistan. We have good co-operation with Pakistan, which works with us in the fight against international terrorism.

The hon. Gentleman also raised a number of technical points about force protection. I will write to him about those.

Paul Flynn (Newport, West) (Lab)
After five years of attempts to destroy the poppy trade, this year’s harvest will be the highest ever and the price of heroin on the streets of Britain will be the lowest ever. The last Secretary of State for Defence said that the Helmand venture would end in three years without a shot being fired. What we are now seeing in the formerly peaceful area of Helmand is bitter resentment, not among the Taliban but among the ordinary people: murderous resentment of our troops. If we are sucked into a war in Afghanistan, it could deteriorate into a British Vietnam and provoke Afghan terrorism on the streets of Britain. When will we explain to our American friends and to our Government that it is not possible to win hearts and minds by using bombs and bullets?

Mr. Watson
I understand that my hon. Friend has long-held, forceful and powerful views on the drugs trade, which are not widely shared across the House or in the international community.

My hon. Friend’s point about winning hearts and minds is not lost on our forces on the ground. They understand that the way in which to deal with a narcotics economy—and in some areas of Helmand, the only economy is based on narcotics—is to build a security capacity in which the Afghans themselves can deal with the narcotics trade, and also to construct long-term development plans so that the economy of Helmand, apart from the drugs trade, can grow.

I do not recognise my hon. Friend’s description of the situation on the ground, but I understand the points that he has made.

Robert Key (Salisbury) (Con)
If the Minister agrees with me that the Treasury’s £1 billion over three years for this operation is not enough, will he assure the House and the thousands of military families throughout the country that he will not hesitate to seek more funds with which to provide whatever the military need?

The future Panther vehicle must be the answer to many of the Army’s needs in the current circumstances. Only seven are being tried out at present, but 400 are due to come on-stream next year. Will we definitely have 400 Panther vehicles next year, or will that slip?

Mr. Watson
Let me just say to the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence is a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury and very close to the Chancellor, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman’s points are well made.

Mike Gapes (Ilford, South) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister referred to our NATO allies. He will know that there has been quite a lot of difficulty getting sufficient forces in Afghanistan from NATO collectively. Can he tell me whether the discussions with our NATO partners have made any recent progress as regards reinforcement not just from those countries that are already in Afghanistan, but from other NATO partners to assist this internationally vital success? As he and other Members have said, we cannot allow Afghanistan to become a failed state, where it could be a base again for terrorists to attack people throughout the world.

Mr. Watson
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the report that I believe his Committee has published today. I am sure that he will realise that I have not yet had time to read it because my day has got slightly busier than I anticipated at 9 this morning. However, I will read it. We are continuing discussions with our NATO partners on the issue that he has raised.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind (Kensington and Chelsea) (Con)
Will the Minister repudiate the view expressed by the Minister for Europe last week that the present Taliban fighting in Helmand and in the south constitutes the most serious Taliban offensive in the past four years? Will the Minister, so far as current policy is concerned, not only ensure that British capability is enhanced, but resist pressure from the Pentagon to use the presence of ISAF in the south as an excuse to reduce American forces? Will he make greater efforts to achieve a single unified command between ISAF and Operation Enduring Freedom, to ensure the best use of western resources?

Mr. Watson
Our troops face a very serious situation, which is why they are there. The right hon. and learned Gentleman makes his customary wise contribution in the House. Ministers have not yet received a request for any increased capacity, but if they do, I repeat, they will be taken seriously and considered immediately.

Mr. Chris Mullin (Sunderland, South) (Lab)
May I put it to my hon. Friend that we are going to have difficulty obtaining the support of the people in Helmand province for the fight against terrorism if they suspect that we have gone there to destroy their livelihoods? Therefore this may be the moment to get out and dust down the proposal by the Senlis Council for the regulated sale of Afghan opium—in the same way as already happens in Turkey and India, incidentally—to the international pharmaceutical market. I hope that, sooner or later, someone will take that seriously. I realise that there are many difficulties with it, but they are not as great as the difficulties we face doing it the other way.

Mr. Watson
I know that my hon. Friend, as a former Foreign Office Minister and a respected former Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, knows about these issues. He raises a big issue. I am sure that his points will be amplified and I will ensure that they are taken seriously.

Mr. Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
I join others in paying tribute to all those who are serving in Afghanistan. One of the soldiers who was killed last week was a constituent of mine. Given some of the press reports over the past week or 10 days indicating some rumours and suggestions that there are shortfalls, can the Minister give an absolute and unequivocal assurance that that is not the case and that everything is being and will be done to ensure that all our forces can carry out their functions and battles in Afghanistan to a satisfactory conclusion?

Mr. Watson
I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that all our military advice is that the current capacity is acceptable. There are commanders on the ground feeding into the chain of command, and if Ministers receive any requests, as I said earlier, we will consider them seriously and immediately.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry (Portsmouth, North) (Lab)
I should like to add my sympathies to the families of those who have lost their lives, but laying out in front of the House the precise details of our deployment in Afghanistan, or indeed hard-won intelligence about the Taliban, could place our troops in greater danger. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should continue to be guided by operational requirements of commanders in the field and not press speculation about troop equipment and troop requirements?

Mr. Watson
My hon. Friend makes a very wise point. Some of the comments in the press are unhelpful. We always take such matters seriously and we always announce them in the House at the appropriate time.

Mr. Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
When the former Secretary of State for Defence, now Home Secretary, made the original statement about deployment, many of us warned him that the capacity of the force is driven by the definition of the mission, and that this mission was ill-defined from the word go. I am supportive of what our forces are trying to do, but I have always felt—and now feel even more strongly—that until we look again at the mission and decide that it does not cover the reality on the ground, and try to see it through the eyes of the Taliban, we will continue to underperform in the sense of not giving our forces the right equipment and support. If the Minister does not wish to be accused of complacency, he should do two things. First, he should not wait for the Chiefs of Staff to come to him, but go to them and demand to know what the forces need to deliver the mission. Secondly, he should then give it to them.

Mr. Watson
The Chiefs of Staff are no shrinking violets, and they are not backwards at coming forwards, as they say on West Bromwich high street, but the right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I reread the debate in January when my right hon. Friend the then Defence Secretary announced our deployment. He said that the mission was clear and that there could be no security and stability if insurgents, illegal armed groups and the drugs trade were not tackled. Our role is to help the Afghans to do just that. Only then will the Afghan Government, with support from the international community, be able to set about the long and difficult task of reconstruction and development. I am pleased that the right hon. Gentleman joins us in that goal.

Mr. Lindsay Hoyle (Chorley) (Lab)
I am glad that my hon. Friend has given this response, because it is important that both sides of the House show our sympathy for those troops who have lost their lives and their families. We also express our strong support for the troops serving out there. Will he ensure that those troops are not left wanting equipment? The biggest breaker of morale is overstretch, so will he also ensure that the troops get the leave to which they are entitled? That is the biggest boost we could give them.

Mr. Watson
I take my hon. Friend’s point. I am sure that our troops will know that they have the full support of Members on both sides of the House, and I hear the point that he made about overstretch.

John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)
In many conflict situations, people start to want revenge more than they want peace. In the battle for hearts and minds, the danger is of creating vast resentment. Would it not be sensible for the Government to revisit their strategy from the perspective of how we can persuade people, instead of increasing the use of force?

Mr. Watson
Our commanders on the ground understand the need for civic engagement. They are responsible for security building in Afghanistan and they understand that if ordinary Afghans do not buy in to what they are doing, our security objectives will not be met.

Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) (Lab)
My hon. Friend the Minister has outlined the fact that the troops have been in Afghanistan for four and a half years and will be there for at least another three. In addition to the tragic loss of British troops, can he tell us how many Afghan casualties there have been in the four and a half years? He said that the troops’ position has huge public support, but that is not obvious from what is happening in Helmand province and the rest of Afghanistan. Is my hon. Friend aware that many people in the region, including Pakistan, and in other parts of the world simply do not see the British presence in Afghanistan as anything more than an occupying army that should not be there?

Mr. Watson
My hon. Friend makes his customary point, but the operation is backed by UN mandate. Our coalition partners are clear that our objectives are never again to allow al-Qaeda and the Taliban to build a terrorist capacity that is a threat to the way of life all over the world. I would have thought that even my hon. Friend would wish us to achieve those objectives.

Mr. Nicholas Soames (Mid-Sussex) (Con)
If the worthy aims of the mission are to succeed, it is essential that command and control be better synchronised, as has been mentioned by the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), as well as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), the former Foreign Secretary. Would the Minister therefore agree that, when General Richards comes to take over his command, it should be a command of the whole mission in the whole area?

Secondly, does the Minister agree that, as it is a NATO mission, it is important that our other NATO allies cough up a great deal better than they have done so far, with proper fighting brigade-level formations to enable the mission to succeed?

Mr. Watson
The hon. Gentleman always makes a forceful and wise point to the House, and I will reflect his views back to the Chief of Staff, but our 34 coalition partners should play their role in making sure that our objectives are achieved.

Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Contrary to the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn), many service families in my constituency are entirely behind the mission in Afghanistan and entirely understand the need for it, but one of the things that they are understandably anxious about at the moment are the recent deaths. It would relieve their anxiety if they were absolutely certain that the methods of communication between them and their loved ones serving in theatre were open at all times. Sometimes there have been difficulties in getting parcels, letters and e-mails through. Will the Minister make sure that that communication, which is important to morale both for troops and families, is guaranteed?

Mr. Watson
One of the sad parts of my being at the Dispatch Box today is that I have had to cancel a meeting with representatives of families of the three services; I would like to go on record as saying that I will rearrange that meeting as quickly as possible, and those points are just some of the issues that I intend to discuss with them.

Mr. Keith Simpson (Mid-Norfolk) (Con)
The Minister will know that, from the Secretary of State’s original statement, it would be fair to say that the level of violence encountered by British troops has been greater than was expected. The main mission was to bring in civilian support teams to bolster the Afghan civilian infrastructure in Helmand province. Can the Minister tell the House how many of those support teams—with Foreign Office, Department for International Development and non-governmental organisation volunteers—have actually been deployed in Helmand, and whether any of them have as yet suffered casualties?

Mr. Watson
I am afraid that I cannot give the hon. Gentleman that information right now, but I will write to him about it in more detail. On his point about capacity building, I do not recognise his description of the mission as being in some way tougher than we thought it would be; we knew it would be dangerous at the start, but we knew that we had to capacity-build the security forces of the Afghan Government, as I have already said. Perhaps the request coming from theatre to which I alluded in my statement suggests to the hon. Gentleman that we are addressing that point.

Dr. Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
I am grateful for the assurances that my hon. Friend has given this afternoon that the mission is part of the support that is necessary to build the capacity of the new Afghan state and the new Parliament and—crucially for us in the Chamber—to support the parliamentarians as they seek to build democratic institutions throughout the whole of Afghanistan. Is it not important that the Minister’s Department should do everything that it can to argue that, despite the difficulties and the terrible loss of life that we are experiencing, we must stay to see through reconstruction and a viable Afghan state? Is it not important that all Members of the House support that position?

Mr. Watson
Yes, is the short answer to my hon. Friend, but let me give two quick answers. First, she is right that our presence has allowed the first democratically elected Afghan Government for many decades to be put in place, and secondly, our goal now is to make sure that their authority can be enhanced and improved.

Adam Price (Carmarthen, East and Dinefwr) (PC)
There are increasing reports of large-scale civilian casualties resulting from US air strikes in southern Afghanistan. What discussions has the Minister had with his US counterpart, as whatever the short-term military advantage that flows from taking out Taliban fighters embedded in civilian areas, the resultant loss of civilian life has potentially a corrosive effect on local sympathy and support, and could make the already difficult task of the British forces on the ground nigh-on impossible?

Mr. Watson
We talk to our American colleagues regularly about these issues, but the Taliban and the drug traffickers are killing people—innocent civilians—every day in Afghanistan, as a result of their terrorist aims, and until we can give the Afghan Government the capacity to deal with that, we have to be there.

Mr. Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) mentioned the numbers of Foreign Office and other civilian Government staff working in Afghanistan. I understand that they will only travel outside their offices in armoured Warrior vehicles. Given the absence of adequate air cover at the moment, should not those Warrior vehicles be reserved for the Army on the ground, so that they can get the full benefit of them?

Mr. Watson
The way in which such people travel varies in different parts of Afghanistan, but our advice from the Chiefs of Staff is that our capacity is appropriate for current circumstances.

Mr. Andrew Robathan (Blaby) (Con)
Several hon. Members have spoken about the mission. Soldiers understand that it is absolutely essential that one has a clarity of mission, which all energies are devoted to fulfilling, yet the Minister has spoken about narcotics, the economy, the Government and all sorts of things. What exactly, succinctly and clearly, is the mission that our soldiers are pursuing, and to which their energies should be devoted?

Mr. Watson
This seems to be round 2 of the defence debate the other week and I know that the hon. Gentleman does not give his support to our Chiefs of Staff, but they tell us that our mission objectives are clear and that they will be met.

Several hon. Members
rose—

Mr. Speaker
Order. May I tell the hon. Member for West Bromwich, West (Mr. Bailey) that he should stand up to try to catch my eye from the start of the statement, to give me an indication of who wants to speak?

Sir Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield) (Con)
Will the Minister admit that the lives of everyone in our armed services—men or women—in Afghanistan and Helmand province are very valuable indeed? Will he therefore perhaps go a little further in indicating that all the equipment that is required by our armed forces to ensure that their lives are put in as safe a situation as possible will be provided? In the light of the additional opposition to our personnel in Helmand province—this is along the lines of the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith)—is it not right that the original mission should be reviewed?

Mr. Watson
The hon. Gentleman always stands up for our services, and I commend him for that. When the Chiefs of Staff put a request to Ministers, we always take them seriously. If we get any request in these circumstances, his point will be well made and we will take it on board.

Several hon. Members
rose—

Mr. Speaker
Order.

NEW MEMBER

The following Member took and subscribed the Oath:

Robert Neill Esq., for Bromley and Chislehurst

estimates day

[3rd Allotted Day]

estimates 2006-07

Department of Health

[Relevant documents: Fifth report from the Science and Technology Committee, Session 2004-05, HC7, on Human reproductive Technologies and the Law and the Government’s response thereto, Cm 6641; Eighth Special Report from the Science and Technology Committee, Session 2004-05, HC 491, on the Inquiry into Human Reproductive Technologies and the Law; the Department of Health departmental report 2005, Cm 6524.]

This Estimate is to be considered in so far as it relates to a grant-in-aid to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (Resolution of 27 June).

Motion made, and Question proposed,

That, for the year ending with 31st March 2007, for expenditure by the Department of Health—

(1) further resources, not exceeding £37,417,520,000, be authorised for use as set out in HC 1035,

(2) a further sum, not exceeding £38,276,451,000, be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to meet the costs as so set out, and

(3) limits as so set out be set on appropriations in aid. —[Liz Blackman.]

16:09:00

Mr. Phil Willis (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)
I welcome the opportunity to debate this important and topical issue on the Floor of the House. I once again pay tribute to the former Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee, the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson), and members of the previous Committee on producing an extremely thorough and thoughtful report shortly before the 2005 general election.

Few areas of medical and social policy command greater interest or promote greater controversy than research and clinical practice in the area of human reproductive technologies. Producing the report was in itself a considerable challenge. It is no secret that at least half the membership of the Committee disagreed with the report. Well, some people disagreed with it, and it was a real challenge to agree on a final report to bring before the House. That reflects the divisions not only in the Committee but in society on these issues. There would have been something strange about an all-party Committee that did not have significant disagreements on this subject.

In spite of the difficulties in arriving at a consensus, the Committee was right to tackle the question. It is surely the job of Parliament to lead debate and not to shy away from key issues of public concern, however divisive they may prove to be. I would argue that this is a good example of the Select Committee system in operation: not simply scrutinising but helping to influence policy.

The Committee’s inquiry began in late 2003. It began because the Committee had serious concerns about the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. The Government said that they would keep the HFEA under review. The Science and Technology Committee thought that that was not good enough. The Chairman said that the HFEA should be reconnected with the 1990 legislation. That was one of the reasons behind the inquiry. A year later, in 2004, the Department of Health announced its own review of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. The Department sensibly waited for the Committee to produce its report before issuing a consultation alongside its response in August 2005.

The results of the consultation were published in March of this year, and further announcements are promised for the summer. The Government should be commended for the way in which they have responded to the Committee’s work. However, after a lengthy period of consultation—it is well over a year now—I think that the time has come for the Government to come forward with firm proposals, and, I hope, to produce a Bill in draft form.

A Bill is required anyhow to facilitate the creation of the new regulatory authority for tissue and embryos—RATE—from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the Human Tissue Authority, which the Government have pledged to do by 2008. I commend to the Minister a draft Bill which would give the House an opportunity to debate and scrutinise some of the recommendations that will emerge from the Government’s consultation. I hope that today’s debate, and the Minister’s appearance before the Science and Technology Committee next week, will stimulate some decision making on the role of the new authority and related issues.

Before tackling some of the more controversial aspects of the Committee’s report, I shall outline the boundaries of the debate. I shall do so by stressing areas of agreement on the fundamental issues, which are unlikely to change. Both the Government and the Committee agreed with the gradualist approach to the status of the embryo adopted by the original Warnock Committee. I acknowledge that there are those who may disagree with this approach. However, I do not think that there is any realistic chance of it being dropped now for the purpose of legislation—so I think that we must start with the premise of the gradualist approach.

I think that there is general agreement that assisted reproduction is a legitimate area of interest for the state. It is only the extent of that interest that is in question. That in vitro fertilisation is now a common clinical procedure is not in question. The Government agree that legislation should take account of consequent changes in public perception, and that is what the debate is all about. The question is: how far are we prepared to accept assisted reproduction being regulated like other medical procedures, and what additional safeguards are required to protect the human embryo and the future child?

Other points on which the Government agree with the Committee are that there is a need for greater clarity in the policy-making functions of HFEA, and that legislation covering abortion should be removed from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. I will return to that point later. The Government also agree with the Committee that there is a need for some rationalisation of existing bodies. These areas of broad agreement provide a solid foundation for debate on other matters of principle, such as the extent and nature of Government intervention in reproductive health.

There are, of course, areas of disagreement. That is not surprising. The Committee made 104 recommendations. It is interesting that the Government rejected very few of them outright. Indeed, rather than do so, the Government chose instead to consult more widely to gauge professional and public opinion. Not surprisingly, there was disagreement over the Government’s use of the precautionary principle. I am rather pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) is not here to make a speech. He is delayed and has sent his apologies to the House. We have just spent a considerable amount of time discussing the precautionary principle in a new inquiry, and we have not come to any sensible conclusion. The hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Newmark) nods from a sedentary position. The Committee’s recommendation to include the Human Genetics Commission in the new regulatory body was a rationalisation too far for the Government, but I am sure that the hon. Member for Norwich, North would like to take up that issue later, because it was a fundamental proposal in the Committee’s report.

My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon is in Committee at the moment and there was a vote at 4 o’clock, which is why he is delayed. I know that he has given his apologies to Members—in case there was some concern over his health.

The Government disagreed with the Committee’s argument that there was a mismatch between the protection afforded by legislation to an embryo created in vitro before implantation and one at a later stage of development. The Committee was pointing out that allowing the greater use of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD, may mean that the demand for abortions falls—particularly in the case of abortion on the grounds of foetal sex, which is technically illegal but difficult to police. Perhaps the greatest area of disagreement was over the future role of Parliament in regulation. I will return to that a little later.

Andrew Selous (South-West Bedfordshire) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Parliament should not do anything to deny any child the possibility at birth of growing up with both a mother and a father?

Mr. Willis
The Committee made it absolutely clear that it is important for children to be brought up in a loving environment. A significant number of children are brought up in incredibly abusive and unhappy environments. I would not wish to speculate on a child being brought up in a single household, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman in that, where possible, my personal view is that I would like there to be two parents—a male and female—within the household bringing a child up. That does not preclude other methods of rearing, which are perfectly satisfactory and which have proved to be helpful in terms of developing good human beings as far as society is concerned. I will return to that issue later.

On many of the key issues, the Government agreed to consult further. The results of that exercise were published in March 2006 as a summary of the views expressed, with no accompanying explanation of lessons drawn. I am looking forward to hearing from the Minister how helpful the exercise was, although if my interpretation of the volume of the published responses—there were 535—is correct, it would be fair to say that a variety of views were expressed. It was very difficult to draw firm conclusions, but perhaps the Minister will add her comments later.

Judging from the views expressed in Committee, I suggest that the extent of disagreement was never in doubt. However, disagreement should not be an excuse for inaction. Sooner or later the Government must take a view and convince Parliament and the public of the merits of their proposals. There were issues of concern to members of the Committee, and I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members will highlight their own, so I will not attempt to raise anything other than what I consider to be one or two crucial areas, for which Government proposals must be forthcoming.

First is the issue of sex selection for social reasons, which is highly contentious. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House will have different views about it. The Committee could find no adequate justification for prohibiting the use of sex selection for family balancing, but sensibly called for further work to establish the demographic input of such a policy. The HFEA has also consulted on the issue and advised against it. The Government invited views but announced no plans to change their position.

I confess that the Government might be right on this occasion, and that such a policy might well give rise to unforeseen difficulties, so I would want to see convincing evidence of the potential impact before being convinced of the need for change. I suspect that the demand for sex selection is actually quite low—much lower than many hon. Members believe. We should not forget that it currently requires people to go through incredibly difficult and costly treatments to get a child. However, we have to plan for a time when there is a pill that destroys male sperm or ensures that a male embryo could not implant, so the Government need to be clear about how they would prevent sex selection, and they cannot dodge the issue in any draft Bill, or when they bring their conclusions from the consultation before the House.

A second area of contention between the Committee and the Government surrounds the welfare of the child provision in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. The Committee argued that the requirement for those providing fertility treatment to have regard for the welfare of the child, including the need for a father, was unjustified. It held that the provision was not only discriminatory towards the infertile and some sections of society, but that it was

“impossible to implement and…of questionable practical value in protecting the interests of children born as a result of assisted reproduction.”

Quite apart from the difficulty of interpreting what the welfare of the child means in practice, I cannot see a case for the state interfering in the reproductive decisions of parents because they happen to be infertile, when it makes no such attempt in respect of anyone else. For example, there is no welfare of the child provision for other fertility treatment such as vasectomy reversal. So, if the Government are committed to maintaining a welfare of the child provision, I hope that they are prepared to spell out exactly how it should be applied in practice. I look forward to hearing the Government’s latest thinking on what is, admittedly, a very difficult issue.

A third area is the allowable use of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis—PGD—and this needs serious clarification. At present, it is the responsibility of the HFEA, but paragraph 251 of the Committee’s report describes the authority’s policies and licensing decisions on pre-implantation tissue typing as “highly unsatisfactory”. Lord Winston, I suspect, used more graphic language. Certainly, no evidence was produced by the HFEA to support its claim that PGD would be used for “trivial” purposes, and the fact that the Government have agreed that it would be preferable if the parameters for PGD were more clearly set out in law is a tacit admission that the Committee was right.

For many, PGD provides a welcome opportunity for parents to reduce or eliminate the risks of passing on hereditary conditions and diseases such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Huntington’s and cystic fibrosis. The Committee argued in line with the gradualist approach that if an embryo is to be destroyed because it may carry a serious disease, it is better to do so when it is just a few days old than at 24 weeks. However, I fully accept that those who believe that all abortion is illegal and wrong would not subscribe to that view.

The crucial point to emphasise is that new technologies are developing quickly and, as a consequence, the HFEA is being required to take decisions with an ethnical dimension and with serious consequences. For example, the HFEA recently ruled that PGD could be extended to testing for certain types of cancer, and only last month we heard about a new technique developed at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ hospital in London that may enable thousands of diseases to be screened for as existing tests are improved significantly. The key change is that whereas the original PGD screening was for known diseases or hereditary conditions, the new screening is for possible development of conditions later in life, and that requires a substantially different approach from the present one.

Geraldine Smith (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)
If we are not careful, could not such screening become the ultimate form of discrimination against people with disabilities—denying them the chance to be born?

Mr. Willis
I have enormous sympathy with that point. I spent much of my professional life working with children who had sensory impairment and physical disabilities. All of them were precious to their parents, despite the fact that many had huge problems in managing their condition. However, I suspect that many of those parents, if they had had the opportunity to screen out some of those difficulties, would have done so. The question that the Committee rightly asked, and that the Government have to answer, is: should parents in that situation have the choice? We hope that the Government will adopt a fair position on that question.

Geraldine Smith
Is the hon. Gentleman not concerned? Once we start down that slippery slope, where does it all end? I am sure that parents would much rather have a very intelligent child. Many would hate to have a child who grows up to be a politician. They might want a child with blue eyes. That is getting into the realm of eugenics—producing the perfect child that the parent wants. I do not want a world that has no one with any sort of disability, because such people have all been screened out and denied the chance to live.

Mr. Willis
Few hon. Members would disagree with the hon. Lady. I would go further and say that what we have seen in parts of the United States, where deformities, in particular deafness, have been screened in because the parents want their child to mirror their own condition, is absolutely horrendous.

Science is getting to the point where we have an amazing number of techniques and can do amazing things, but at that point we have to stop and to ask, “Is this what we want?” The Committee was right to ask some of the questions and it was right to say to the Government that we simply cannot let such matters drift on. The Government are there to make some of those decisions. The Committee’s recommendation about a bioethics committee is relevant. The hon. Lady is correct: not everyone is comfortable with the new possibilities or with the fact that it is the HFEA, which has only limited input from professional ethicists, that is taking those decisions. That worries me. In my view that is the job of Parliament—but I know that many people would disagree.

The new treatments bring their own ethical dilemmas. The value or rights of an embryo have to be weighed against the potential benefits of avoiding certain conditions; equally, the impact of such activity on existing people with such conditions must be taken into account. Although there are arguments over what diseases and conditions are serious enough to warrant screening, there is a more fundamental argument about who should make those decisions. The Committee argued that Parliament should set the ethical parameters for the use of PGD and other such procedures, and that regulators should then be responsible for ensuring the highest possible clinical standards.

I fundamentally agree with that position. Parliament, rather than unelected regulators, should have responsibility for establishing the ethical framework for the use of PGD and other procedures and for endorsing guidelines as necessary. The Committee proposes a new parliamentary Standing Committee on bioethics that would make recommendations on the need for legislative changes and scrutinise any secondary legislation in the field. Such a system has been adopted throughout Europe and I commend the principle to the Minister for serious consideration.

Of course, such an approach to bioethics would necessitate changes to the existing regulatory framework, which is a fourth area of contention between the Committee and the Government. The Committee recommended a three-pronged approach on a new regulatory framework to give greater clarity to existing legislation and thus allow medical professionals to get on with their jobs without the bureaucratic burden of frequent applications to the regulators.

The Committee’s call for a new human genetics, fertility and human tissue commission to replace the HFEA, the Human Tissue Authority and the Human Genetics Commission appears to have been rejected in favour of a model that combines the HFEA with the HTA. That body will retain the HFEA’s licensing responsibility, although that is a matter about which the Committee was critical. I hope that the House will debate the two sides of that argument today.

My final point is about abortion time limits. Paragraph 308 of the Committee’s report recommended that a Joint Committee of both Houses should be established

“to consider the scientific, medical and social changes in relation to abortion that have taken place since 1967, with a view to presenting options for new legislation.”

It is more than 15 years since the legislation was last reviewed by Parliament. We now know a lot more about the foetus and have gained more evidence about the factors underpinning the 24-week limit. There is growing pressure from those on both sides of the abortion debate to look again at developments since 1990 to determine whether a change to the existing legislation is warranted.

Early-day motion 2379 was tabled by the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith) in support of that, and it had been signed by 59 Members at the last count. Its signatories have all viewpoints; indeed, I signed it myself. The head of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, has recently called for the time limit to be reviewed. All that shows that there is a feeling in the House and the country that we should at least review the scientific evidence and put it before the House, rather than simply pretending that things are as they were in 1990—or, indeed, 1967.

Geraldine Smith
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the matter goes much wider than just the Catholic Church? There is a feeling among people in the country and MPs that a debate should take place. The Government should be leading the debate and putting legislation before us.

Mr. Willis
I agree that the matter goes much further than the Catholic Church. I am not a practising Catholic and do not come from that particular lobby, although I have a strong Christian background. However, this is not about religion. When I become Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee, one of the first things that we did was to ask the House of Lords to fulfil the recommendation of the former Committee by setting up a Joint Committee to review the science and determine where we were on that.

Dr. Brian Iddon (Bolton, South-East) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman think that there is any new science—and science alone—that would require the issue to be brought back to the House?

Mr. Willis
With the greatest respect to the hon. Gentleman, I do not know the answer to that. Does the fact that we now have better imaging of the foetus at 24 weeks represent a substantial change from the situation 10 or 20 years ago? Of course, people such as Lord Winston claim that the foetus is exactly the same at 24 weeks as it was 20, 30, or 40 years ago. However, medical technology, and our ability to maintain life at 24 weeks, have changed. The purpose of having an inquiry was to examine such matters and to try to ensure that we put on the table the question of where the science and technology were, and how we could tackle the key ethical questions so that Parliament could debate and discuss that and the Government could take action, if necessary. That is what Parliament should be doing.

Mr. Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman not appreciate—I am sure that he does—that many people are deeply concerned about the idea of one operating theatre struggling to keep alive a 24-week-old foetus child, while in another operating theatre down the corridor, a 24-week-old foetus baby is being terminated and perhaps left to die on the operating table? That causes great concern to many people across the political and the religious spectrum.

Mr. Willis
I have deliberately tried not to enter into a debate of pure emotion—[Interruption.] That may well be fact, but the hon. Gentleman does not know the circumstances behind either of those cases. To hold that view is grossly unfair when one is unable to examine the circumstances behind why a woman is aborting at 24 weeks. If the hon. Gentleman believes that any woman does that lightly, I am sorry, but I profoundly disagree with him. It is important to examine the core issues, rather than just stating our own personal, emotive views.

Dr. Ian Gibson (Norwich, North) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman consider that, along with the science and the medical advances, there is also the issue of the woman’s right to choose? That is rather important, too, is it not?

Mr. Willis
I fundamentally agree. At the end of the day, it is certainly not for white, middle-class males in Parliament to tell a lady in Birmingham, Brighton or Newcastle what she should do in such difficult circumstances. What the Committee and I are saying is that, given that this issue has not been examined for 16 years, is it not time to examine the science and the technology and put it objectively before Parliament? This issue may well be dealt with through a private Member’s Bill, but I point out, with the greatest respect, that it commands huge interest in the country, so it is up to the Government to take a lead on it, rather than an individual Member. Such a Member might introduce an ill-considered Bill that is purely emotive and does not deal with facts.

Mr. Brooks Newmark (Braintree) (Con)
But does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the unborn life has an equal right to that of the mother, and that that must therefore be taken into consideration? However, it is important that we focus on the technology. Technology has improved in the past 16 years, which is why the House should consider reducing the age of termination from 24 weeks to 20 or 18 weeks. We should investigate this issue through technology and science.

Mr. Willis
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and I hope that he will forgive me if I do not stray into a debate on ethics with him. One wise Committee recommendation was that the House should have a bioethics Committee. We are moving into territory that, even five years ago, we did not believe we would enter. It is important that some of these issues be discussed within that framework.

Our Committee suggested to the House of Lords that we examine the science. It said “no”, and that it would prefer to have the matter dealt with by an ad hoc Committee of the whole House. I approached the then Leader of the House to ask for such a Committee, but was refused. This issue will not go away. It is important that the Government think again and at least set up an ad hoc Committee of the whole House to look at the facts and put them before Parliament. At that point, we can bring in the ethical, as well as the scientific, debate in an effort to resolve these issues.

I commend this excellent report to the House, and I look forward to the remainder of the debate.

16:39:00

Geraldine Smith (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)
I welcome this extremely important debate. The matters before us are complex and they raise numerous deep moral and ethical principles that are highly emotive, as we have already seen, controversial and often divisive—so much so that the Science and Technology Committee was split down the middle when it discussed the report. Five members were for the report and five were against. I was unable to support many of the report’s recommendations. In their response, the Government adopted a much more measured and cautious approach, which I welcome.

I find the attitude adopted by some representatives of the scientific community quite chilling. They appear to believe that the only restrictions that should be placed on their activities are the limitations imposed by their own scientific capabilities. They display a total lack of concern for the moral, ethical, religious and social issues involved, and view those who seek to restrict their activities as modern-day luddites out to wreck their scientific looms. In return, I view those people as 21st century Dr. Frankensteins. They reaffirm my conviction that we must have a strict regulatory regime in place to govern their activities.

I said earlier that this is an important debate. We are discussing the creation, the scientific manipulation and the taking of human life, and the laws applicable to those activities. I shall restrict my remarks to one aspect of the report, which I feel has not been adequately dealt with by the Select Committee or the Government in their response. There is so much in the report that I could speak for three hours on the various recommendations, but I choose to restrict my comments to one area about which I have concerns—the destruction of human life by means of abortion.

Let me make my personal position clear. I would never have an abortion, or I hope I never would, but I do not want to drive women back to back-street abortions. I realise that one cannot have simplistic views; the issue can be complex. Women can be under huge pressures to have abortions. Sometimes it is not an informed choice. It is not the woman’s right to choose. She is often under pressure to have an abortion. 

As has been said, there is growing concern about the abortion law in the UK. Our current law is out of date and is in urgent need of reform. I know that there is widespread public support across the country for that view, not least among those in the medical profession who have the task of killing perfectly formed, healthy foetuses, particularly when they perform abortions close to the 24-week limit.

Dr. Iddon
For the record, does my hon. Friend accept that there is so much in the report for discussion that the Committee decided deliberately to avoid abortion as one of the topics?

Geraldine Smith
Yes, there was so much to discuss. We see today the emotions that are aroused when abortion is mentioned. It is sometimes difficult to have a sensible debate because the pro and anti-abortionists are at each other’s throat, but it is time to have that debate.

The legalised taking of human life under the current legislation has not been debated or amended for the past 16 years. Recommendation 77—

Dr. Desmond Turner (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that this debate concerns human reproductive therapies and the law, not abortion? Abortion is covered by entirely separate legislation. It is fine to debate abortion, but it is a separate debate and should be kept quite separate.

Geraldine Smith
I will come to my reasons for mentioning abortion. Recommendation 77 of the Select Committee, on which my hon. Friend served, states:

“We call on both Houses in the new Parliament to set up a joint committee to consider the scientific, medical and social changes . . . that have taken place since 1967, with a view to presenting options for new legislation. This committee should be broadly based and should include nominees from the Commons Select Committees for Science and Technology and Health and the Lords Science and Technology Committee.”

Recommendation 78 states:

“We recommend that any new legislation introduced to amend the HFE Act should not include abortion, which should be dealt with by a separate Bill.”

I have no problem with that. However, I think it fair that I should comment, given that we mentioned abortion and the need for a Joint Committee in our report.

The Government say in paragraph 106 of their response that they accept recommendation 78, but their response to recommendation 77 is unsatisfactory. Paragraph 105 states:

“The Government has no plans to change the law on abortion. If a joint committee is set up to look at this issue, the Government will consider its recommendations. However, it is accepted Parliamentary practice that proposals for changes in the law on abortion have to come from back bench members and that decisions are made on the basis of free votes, with members and peers voting according to their beliefs and values.”

Ann Winterton (Congleton) (Con)
The hon. Lady might remember that the initial legislation, the Abortion Act 1967, was introduced as a private Member’s Bill, but the Government of the day gave it time in order that it could be enacted. Does she accept that during the passage of that Bill and of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, huge pressure was put on people on both sides to come to a certain conclusion?

Geraldine Smith
I think that the Government should be leading this debate, because there is concern across the country. It is not just about allowing parliamentary time if a private Member’s Bill comes up—they should be making time properly to discuss the issue. Before doing so, they should of course have all the available scientific and medical evidence on the changes that have taken place in society since the Abortion Act 1967 and the most recent amendment to the legislation in 1990.

The current law on abortions was established in the Abortion Act, with a time limit for abortion set at the 28th week of pregnancy. That was reduced to the 24th week by amendment to section 37 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. The central criterion underpinning the time span was that the foetus would not be able to survive outside the mother’s womb at that stage of its development. Following advances in technology and medical care, there is now strong evidence that foetuses are far more developed at a much earlier stage than was previously thought, so that they are able to survive outside their mother’s womb as early as 18 weeks. That undermines the key principle in relation to the formulation of the time limits. When life can be carried on independently of the mother, surely the foetus, or baby, has human rights of its own.

The Government state in their response, however, that they have

“no plans to change the law on abortion.”

Does that mean they have already considered the available evidence and concluded that they are perfectly happy with the current legislation and see no need for change? If so, they should be honest and say so, giving their reasons for reaching such a conclusion. Or do they believe that all the issues surrounding this matter need to be more fully examined? If so, why have not they supported the Committee’s recommendation on the establishment of a Joint Committee? Or do they believe, as they seem to suggest at the end of paragraph 105 of their response, that this is nothing to do with them and that it is up to Back Benchers to sort it out because that is what happened in the past? If so, I would accuse them of abrogating their responsibilities on this issue. While they are correct in their judgment that it is a matter of personal belief and conscience, and must therefore be decided by a free vote in both Houses, that does not absolve them of their responsibilities and prevent them from leading the debate.

I am sure that Ministers and Back Benchers are well aware that this issue will not go away and that pressure for a review of the law on abortion will continue to grow. I would welcome the Minister’s response to the points that I have outlined.

16:49:00

Ann Winterton (Congleton) (Con)
I am grateful to be called in the debate, which takes me back to 1990 and all the issues that were debated then. I went underground for the next 10 years, having had rather too much of them because they were exceptionally difficult and took a lot out of one as well as much time. However, they are exceptionally important and evergreen.

I want to focus on two issues in relation to the Science and Technology Committee’s consultation and report. I begin by commending the fact that the consultation’s terms of reference were comprehensive and rigorous. The Committee consulted extensively— online, through oral submissions and by encouraging written submissions. It was a truly committed initiative, which extended far beyond the usual time schedules involved in such consultation exercises. A little bird told me that the Committee even went to Rome to consult the Vatican. I thought that that was a good move, and I do not speak as a Roman Catholic. It must have been the first time in history that a Select Committee took evidence from the Vatican.

The report is, sadly, not to be universally celebrated and it is worth remembering from the start the amount of internal and public disquiet that surrounded its publication. The Committee was split down the middle, as the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith) said. I commend her bravery in raising an issue that perhaps other hon. Members would have preferred her not to raise. It was right and proper that she did so. Only the vote of the distinguished Chairman, the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson)—

Dr. Gibson
The Chairman would have loved to vote but he did not need to do that. The majority of Committee members voted for the report.

Ann Winterton
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making his position clear.

Geraldine Smith
To add further clarification, the vote on the report took place in the last days of the previous Parliament, in the run-up to the general election. Many of the members who opposed the report could not be present at the vote. I am sure that the Chairman accepts that five members supported the report and five opposed it.

Ann Winterton
Again, I am grateful to the hon. Lady. We all know what pressures are on Committees to reach a conclusion, and the period just before a general election is perhaps not the best time to do so. The hon. Lady has made what happened clear.

The formal minutes of the meetings that cover the approval of the report are a record of the dissent. In the days that followed its publication, the nation and media were almost unanimously up in arms over issues such as animal-human hybrids, germ-line manipulation, reproductive cloning, social sex selection and other hugely controversial proposals, which form part of the report’s recommendations.

Further to the validity of the recommendations—104 in all—the next point to consider is the extent to which they reflected the thrust of the evidence that the Committee received during its year’s extended consultation. For those who attended the oral evidence sessions—I am the first to admit that I did not—read the written evidence and followed the online consultation, it is impossible to accept that the Committee’s controversial recommendations relate in any way to the evidence that it received from the vast majority of participants.

A trio of postgraduate students took time to analyse the material and concluded that the weight of evidence was, for the greater part, conservative in its content and in favour of maintaining the status quo, not deviating significantly from the consensus reached in 1990 on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. The rationale behind the report was the intention to bring the Act up to date in the light of scientific advances. Technology might move fast, but that does not mean that our ethical concerns or the philosophical underpinnings of society and the law have altered radically—as the report would have us believe—if, indeed, they have altered at all. The Act needs to be reconnected not with modern science but with the interests and values of society at large. Some would even argue that those values have become more restrictive than they were at the time of the Warnock report, not least because many developments that were not anticipated at the time have been received with huge distaste by the public. Social sex selection is a classic example. While it attracts support in the maverick Science and Technology Committee report, 85 per cent. of public opinion polls register total opposition to such a proposal.

Warnock is cited by the report, but defended on a cherry-picking basis. The protection for the embryo enshrined in the original Act, for example, has been completely bypassed. On what justification? It is on the opinion of five Members of Parliament. Cherry-picking is applied even more openly to ethical opinions and citations. The continued references to John Harris, Julian Savulescu, Emily Jackson and others who hold similar beliefs are nothing more than a blatant endorsement of libertarian minority opinions.

The philosophical basis of the report is a selective mixture of some rights and harm principles. The rights, however, are limited to the reproductive rights of the adult, and leave little space for the rights of children, let alone the broader rights of society as a whole. The harm principle is limited exclusively to physical harms, and there is no wish to engage with broader, deeper concerns. That is to be regretted.

I wish to speak about the rights and welfare of children, not least because the matter has been in the news recently, perhaps because of the publicity given to the statements made by the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris), who is now in his place, having not been present earlier in the debate. I understand that he wishes to remove from the Act part of section 13(5), which refers to the welfare of the child. I have to admit that I was one of those responsible for the inclusion in the original Act of the need of a child for a father, and I shall read that subsection to the House:

“A woman shall not be provided with treatment services unless account has been taken of the welfare of any child who may be born as a result of the treatment (including the need of that child for a father), and of any other child who may be affected by the birth.”

It was I who encouraged my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) to table a very small amendment on that issue. It was the only one that we on this side of the argument managed to get accepted by the House on that occasion. I might add that that was the only time that I have been a Teller and been on the winning side. In fact, from that point of view, the whole of my parliamentary career has been an absolute disaster. However, I was very proud of that one small amendment, because it meant a great deal.

Perhaps that is why the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon is now trying to get the provision removed. He is, in effect, recommending the deliberate creation of fatherless children, whether to single or lesbian women, on the basis that

“including the need of that child for a father”

is a discriminatory phrase that should not have been included in the Act in the first place. However, it was obvious, when the Act was passed, that the wise intention of Parliament was to place the welfare of the child at the centre of our focus. The welfare of the child obviously extended to his or her right to a father. That is what the House voted on and for in those days.

Dr. Evan Harris (Oxford, West and Abingdon) (LD)
I am sure that the hon. Lady was not chastising me for not being present in the Chamber, as I had told both Front Benches and the Speaker’s office that I was voting in a Select Committee. What evidence does she have that the welfare of the child is protected by this measure? Can she cite studies that show that children of lesbian couples, conceived by donor insemination, or of solo parents—women who specifically seek pregnancy when they do not have a partner—are damaged in that way? The Select Committee found that the evidence was on the other side, and that the provision was therefore unnecessary.

Ann Winterton
My earlier comments were not meant as—

Mr. Walker
Admonishment.

Ann Winterton
I thank my hon. Friend. I am grateful, however, that the hon. Gentleman has made his position clear. I could produce evidence, and evidence has been provided, but I do not have it with me this afternoon. As a mother of three and grandmother of seven, I, like most of my constituents and the majority of people in the United Kingdom, believe that it is better and right that a child has a mother and a father wherever possible, and that it is wrong to create a new life artificially without a mother and a father who will be in that child’s life from the very beginning. We all know of examples of children who have been brought up by single parents, either male or female, who have done a splendid job, and I do not knock that in any way. However, the artificial creation of such a situation is wrong. As we are allowed to express our view in the House, I hope that I have done so clearly.

I believe that the child is discriminated against by writing out the need for a father. Were we to take the hon. Gentleman’s position to its extreme, it could be argued that a preference for a mother is also discriminatory. Will we also see attempts to write out the child’s need for a mother from the Act? Will we next ask for the reproductive rights of single men to be protected? Do they, too, have a right to have children, without the need for a mother? I ask all those questions with my tongue in cheek.

Geraldine Smith
Does the hon. Lady agree that it is not just a question of evidence but of common sense? Most people in the country would think that it makes sense to start a child’s life with a mother and a father. Of course, there are terrific single parents who do a wonderful job. If we are looking for a basis to create a child, however, surely it should start with two parents—a mother and a father.

Ann Winterton
The hon. Lady has put far better than I ever could exactly what I and the majority of people in this country believe.

Mr. Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a deep strain of antipathy towards co-parenting on the Government Benches? When we debated the Children and Adoption Bill some weeks ago, the Government set their face completely against the principle of co-parenting, even when we argued strongly for the paramountcy of the welfare of the child. From birth through to adulthood, co-parenting is being opposed by the Liberal Democrats and the Government.

Ann Winterton
My hon. Friend has made his point clearly. I agree that, in any arrangements made, the rights of the child must be paramount at all times.

David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the hon. Lady correct the suggestion that the points of view that she expresses in this regard are confined to the Conservative Benches? Such views also find voice on the Labour Benches, and the picture is not as simplistic as the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Jackson) suggests.

Ann Winterton
I agree 100 per cent. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have worked closely on these issues for a long time. I was chairman of the all-party pro-life group for 10 years, which is a genuinely all-party group. These matters go far beyond party politics. I hope that that reassures the hon. Gentleman. 

We must move outside the parameters of absurd political correctness and gratuitous gender politics, and acknowledge once and for all that a child benefits from the security of a father and a mother within a stable family environment. The original Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act enshrined many concerns about the welfare of children in that regard.

Emily Thornberry (Islington, South and Finsbury) (Lab)
Is not the main requirement for the welfare of children, which is paramount, that they be born into a loving family—that they be wanted children, eagerly anticipated? Is it not true that children have the best chance in life, whatever the type of home into which they are born, if they are born into a home that wants them?

Ann Winterton
Of course that is true, but people who do not believe in what I am saying usually go on to say that if those conditions are not in place, it is better for children to be aborted: that they are better off dead. I would say that not all those conditions can be in place in every single case. We know of children—in our own family circles and in wider circles—who have had unhappy childhoods, but have grown up to be excellent adults and have played their part in society. We cannot guarantee those elements in anyone’s life, because life is not perfect, but if they are there, that is a tremendous bonus.

As I was saying, the original Act enshrined many concerns about the welfare of children. Many of the recommendations of the Science and Technology Committee attempt to lessen the impact of those concerns. I believe that we should resist those recommendations, and insist that the provisions in the Act are reinforced.

17:06:00

Dr. Brian Iddon (Bolton, South-East) (Lab)
It is important that we are having this debate on an Estimates day. The subject is complex. The report from the Science and Technology Committee contains many chapters and much material that needs to be debated, and in the short time available today we shall not be able to do it justice. Let me say to the Minister that I hope this will be the first of many debates on the subject before we change the legislation, as we must.

When we embarked on the debate, I hoped that it would not be hijacked by the abortion issue. That is not because I do not consider the issue important. The Committee deliberately avoided debating it, however, because it had been debated so often in Government time on the Floor of the House and elsewhere in the Palace of Westminster. I rather hoped that today we would concentrate on other issues, which are not aired as frequently as they should be.

I regard my membership of the Select Committee as one of the most important duties that I perform in this place on behalf of my constituents. The Committee’s members believe that they have influenced Government thinking in a number of policy areas, and have also influenced organisations outside the House. A number of debates are taking place at present, of which this is only one.

During my time in the Committee disagreement has been rare, but the fifth report of the 2004-05 Session was an exception. It resulted in the eighth special report of that Session, which makes it clear that five of the 11 Committee members disagreed with the publication of the fifth report. That probably reflects the divided views of Members across the House, which is why we are given free votes on most of these difficult issues.

After a lengthy inquiry and prolonged discussions, the Committee met again on 14 March last year, faced with 130 further amendments to an already amended report. It was clear to me then that the report would not see the light of day, especially as we knew that Parliament was shortly to be dissolved. A great deal of effort had gone into compiling the report. It had also cost a lot of money, particularly because of visits to Stockholm and Rome—including a visit to the health ministry and the Vatican—and to clinics in various parts of this country. We collected a large amount of evidence, and the inquiry lasted for an entire year. If the report had dropped out of sight, it would have been costly for Parliament, and it would have been a shame in the context of today’s debate. Therefore, I did an unusual thing in a Select Committee: I moved a guillotine. That caused quite a rumpus. On that day, the meeting began at 3.30 in the afternoon and the guillotine was for 8.30 in the evening. Even though it upset some of my colleagues on the Committee, I do not regret taking that action, because if we had not taken it, we would not be having the debate on this important report this afternoon.

Our report states:

“the evidence suggests that the scale of intrusion into the private choices of individuals seeking to have a family can no longer be justified. We do, however, accept that the research uses of the embryo of the human species remain a legitimate interest of the State.”

Other members of the Committee felt that that was too liberal a statement and they moved an amendment against the libertarian approach of certain members of the Committee, but the majority prevailed and the report was published.

I accept that these issues are difficult to grasp and even more difficult to legislate for, but it is now generally accepted that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 is in need of review and I believe that our report forms an excellent platform for that review to take place. As in many other areas, advances in technology in this field are racing ahead of our ability to consider reform of existing legislation.

As I have said, the Committee deliberately excluded abortion from its inquiry and it excluded surrogacy, too. I want to touch on one or two aspects in the report. On the status of the embryo, we agreed with the Warnock view that embryos should have special status. As the present Chairman of the Committee has pointed out, we took the “gradualist approach” that a human being is not created at the point of natural fertilisation but emerges gradually towards birth. However, we respect the 14-day rule that allows research to be carried out on an embryo during the period before the primitive streak emerges, which is the first sign that the nervous system, the spinal cord and the brain are beginning to develop. It is my personal view that no change to the law should be made in that respect, although there are arguments being advanced both to reduce that 14-day limit and to increase it to 20 days, or even beyond that. Baroness Warnock has admitted that that time scale of 14 days is “arbitrary” and it is based on the reasoning that I have already given.

The 1990 Act defines an embryo in section 1(1) as:

“a live human embryo where fertilisation is complete”

which includes

“an egg in the process of fertilisation”.

The term “gamete” covers live human eggs or sperm, but not eggs in the process of fertilisation.

Today, that definition is inadequate because artificially created gametes can be produced and embryos can be created through the process of cell nuclear replacement, or cloning, the process used to give birth to Dolly the sheep at the Roslin institute nearly 10 years ago. Our Committee believes that attempts to define an embryo in any new Act would be counter-productive because it would lead to legal challenges, as the definition of the embryo in the present Act has led to legal challenges.

On sex selection, I agree with the majority of our report’s recommendations, but not all. I spoke against sex selection for non-medical reasons—Members have used the phrase “for social reasons”—either by sperm sorting or by pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. However, for the avoidance of sex-related disorders, I do support sex selection.

Some communities value boys more than girls; India and China are examples. I believe sex selection to be discriminatory and that it should not be sanctioned in this country. The policy of the two countries that I mentioned has serious demographic consequences. However, I recognise that there are arguments for family balancing, especially when a mother has given birth to a significant number of children of the same sex. Alan and Louise Masterton, who have four sons, lost their three-year-old daughter Nicole in 1999 in a domestic accident and campaigned for the right to rebuild their family with a daughter. If families cannot achieve what they want in this country, they will probably go abroad to achieve their ends. That applies to other areas of this debate as well as sex selection, but I have no ready answers to “reproductive tourism”. We have to face the fact that if people cannot get what they want in this country and it is legally available in other countries, they will go there to have that treatment, possibly under less safe conditions than would apply in this country.

Mr. Newmark 
Just because another country may have lower ethical or moral standards, does the hon. Gentleman think that we should introduce them here?

Dr. Iddon
No, I did not say that. We want high moral standards in this country. We do not want to force people to go to other countries with lower moral and ethical standards. For example, the Mastertons had to go to Italy for treatment. Tragically, that resulted in only one male embryo, which was donated to an infertile couple.

Sex selection by PGD or sperm sorting is far preferable to sex selection by selective termination of pregnancy or by infanticide. Sex selection by sperm sorting is not covered by the human fertilisation and embryology legislation and, in my view, it should be.

Mr. Walker 
Is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that if we do not allow people to select the sex of their children, we will have parents committing infanticide?

Dr. Iddon
No, I am saying that in some other countries infanticide is used to achieve what people want. I have mentioned two countries in which it might happen.

The Committee found

“no adequate justification for prohibiting the use of sex selection for family balancing”.

Sex selection in the UK would probably work both ways and the demographic impact would, therefore, probably be imperceptible.

The concept of selection is one on which we need a full debate—fuller than we can have this afternoon—especially if we want to allow selection as a means of achieving greater intelligence or beauty, a certain hair or eye colour, increased memory capacity, or other factors. Science will make all those choices available. I do not say that I am in favour of them, but I am saying that we will have to debate the issue in this House at some point.

The birth of Louise Brown in 1976 at Oldham and district hospital as a result of in vitro fertilisation was a milestone in medical history. Unfortunately, today, only 1.5 per cent. of all live births in the UK are a result of IVF treatment and, considering that the UK gave birth to IVF treatment, it is not pleasing that we were ranked 12th out of 15 countries in Europe that offer IVF treatment in a report published a few days ago by the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. Denmark offers 2,031 cycles per million population, but the UK figure is only 633. In Israel, where there is an active policy to encourage childbirth, the figure is 3,000 and 7 per cent. of treatments lead to a live birth. In comparison, the figure in Denmark is 3.9 per cent.

The Committee formed the view that IVF treatment has become such a routine medical procedure that its regulation can become part of mainstream clinical regulation. That is not to say, however, that there should not be continued inspection of clinics offering the treatment, both in the public and private sectors.

I represent a constituency with some of the poorest estates in Britain and it concerns me that my constituents have such poor access to IVF treatment. Indeed, only a few years ago, our local NHS would not fund IVF treatment. Nationally, only 25 per cent. of IVF treatments are obtained in the NHS. The rich get the most treatment, because they can afford to go to the private clinics. Unless we make IVF treatment more readily available on the NHS, my constituents—poor as many of them are—will continue to be discriminated against because they live in the wrong place.

However, the question is not just the availability of IVF, but the quality of the services on offer. I believe that the success rates of public and private-sector clinics offering that treatment should be published, although clinicians are sceptical about doing so, because their success rates depend on a number of factors; the main one, incidentally, is the age of the woman presenting herself for IVF treatment. However, it is important that people can judge the success rates of clinics, and in taking evidence our Committee found that those rates differed spectacularly.

In February 2004, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence published guidelines on IVF treatment. It recommended the implantation of only two embryos per cycle to avoid the risks that we know are associated with multiple pregnancies. It also recommended that three cycles be offered to infertile women, which would have a considerable cost implication for the NHS. The Government, of course, have asked primary care trusts to offer only one cycle. Again, the House needs to have a proper debate on the NICE proposals. In Italy, the position is different; the Italian Government have insisted that three embryos be implanted per cycle. There was considerable opposition to that proposal, as the Committee found when we visited Rome.

There is a rising trend of infertility in the richer nations. One in seven couples now experience problems with infertility; we need to invest far more in research to find out why. Some blame pollution of our environment by certain chemicals—so-called endocrine disruptors—but that is by no means proven. We should all remember that that trend comes at a time when the demographic make-up of our population is skewed towards the older end. We need more live births to make our demographic spectrum as it was in previous years. It costs an estimated £13,000 for every baby born by NHS IVF treatment, but we should remember that that baby will contribute an estimated £147,138 to the Exchequer throughout its lifetime, so it makes economic sense to support IVF treatment.

Spare embryos can be destroyed, donated, stored for future use by the woman or others, or donated for research. Many people believe that, once created, embryos should never be destroyed, despite the fact that 70 per cent. of embryos fail to implant and are merely washed down the loo. Is it not preferable to use spare embryos for important medical research? I was pleased when Parliament decided to debate stem cell research a few years ago, and to allow it to proceed in this country, admittedly under tight regulation. There is now a reverse brain drain in this country; people are actually coming from the United States of America to conduct much-needed stem cell research in Britain.

There are widespread concerns—shared by me, incidentally—about the principles and practicality of the welfare-of-the-child provision in the 1990 Act. Section 13(5) requires that

“A woman shall not be provided with treatment services unless account has been taken of the welfare of any child who may be born as a result of the treatment (including the need of that child for a father), and of any other child who may be affected by the birth.”

Although most of us have freedom of sexual reproduction, less fortunate individuals who need assisted reproduction actually have to be judged by others, mainly from the middle classes—general practitioners and people on various ethics committees. That is not right. Those people are not in touch, in my opinion, with some of the people on poorer estates in my constituency who are desperate to have children but who are infertile. I do not believe that they should be judged in the pursuit of having a child, and that is one of the reasons why I am against that welfare-of-the-child provision. It is highly discriminatory, especially to people who are leading non-conventional lives.

Our committee heard lots of evidence from professionals, such as GPs and clinicians, who are expected to implement that procedure, but they find it almost impossible to do so. How well does a GP know all the women who are on his or her books? Can they judge? The evidence that we took was that they cannot judge in the majority of cases. The medical profession wants the welfare-of-the-child provision in the 1990 Act to be abandoned. Our Committee also felt that adequate mechanisms are already in place to ensure that any child born in an assisted manner will be protected. Of course we must remember that, since that legislation was passed, we have passed the Children and Adoption Act 2006, which also gives the born child a great deal of protection.

I wish to mention just one more thing: the insemination of single women. It seems ironic that, when we produced the report, the people in the media who wanted to do radio and television interviews with me—I think that it was the same for other members of the Committee—focused on one thing: sex selection, not on IVF, PGD or many of the other things in the report, not all bad and mostly good. Today, with me, they have been focusing on the insemination of single women. Why do not the media get real, look at the whole report and judge it across the spectrum?

During our inquiry we visited the Harley street office of a business called Man Not Included, which offers an internet service to collect and deliver fresh sperm to single women, including lesbians. As it deals in fresh sperm, its services are not covered by the 1990 Act. In my opinion, those internet services need regulating. I have two concerns, one of which is on grounds of safety? How can we be sure that sexually transmitted diseases are not being transmitted from the donor of the sperm to the recipient woman? That needs regulating.

I am also concerned that, whereas the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has a register that lists all the donors of gametes and all the recipients of gametes, those internet services do not have to register donors or recipients on the central register. We are very keen for that to happen now that children, some time in their future, can find out exactly where their parentage is based, but those services will not allow any of the children born as a result of using their services to trace their parentage.

I am in favour of PGD because it will eliminate some of the most difficult diseases that we are facing. I am also in favour of the creation of a parliamentary bioethical committee, on which lay members and professionals from the industry could serve—it need not be made up only of parliamentarians—but what really gets to me is the fact that a quango, the HFEA, is making important decisions without reference to elected Members of Parliament, and it is about time that those important decisions were brought into the Chamber and our Committees, so that we can debate them properly.

It would be a brave person who could predict where these areas of research will take us next, but one thing is sure, they will always be controversial and we will always need to debate them in parliamentary time. I have many other comments to make, but in fairness to other hon. Members, I will sit down soon. Let me finish by saying that our report contains 104 recommendations and, alas, it impossible to touch on most of them this afternoon.

Several hon. Members
rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst)
Order. I offer guidance to the House and seek the co-operation of hon. Members. There are two subjects for debate today. I must try to protect the interests of those who wish to speak on the subject that is before us and also of those who hope to have an opportunity to speak on the second subject. I hope that a measure of rationing will come into the remarks that are made if I am to call everyone who is seeking to catch my eye in this debate.

17:30:00

Robert Key (Salisbury) (Con)
I shall endeavour to speak as briefly as I can, as I am the only Member on the Opposition Benches, apart from the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris), who served on the Committee. I have a few things to say, but what I say will be much shorter because I can simply say that I agree with all 104 recommendations produced by the Committee.

I support the motion, which aims to supply funds and grant-in-aid for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. I congratulate Dame Suzi Leather on the work that she and her colleagues do on a remarkable committee. I think that there will probably be a need for more resources in future, not fewer.

I speak also as one of only two Members in the Chamber today who served on the Committee that considered what became the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. I think it is true to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) and I agree on almost everything, and have done for almost 23 years, except on this issue. We have disagreed with each other for 23 years about some of the important issues that are now before us. I strongly respect her views although I disagree with them.

We are dealing with a report that was produced in the previous Parliament. It was undoubtedly the most interesting and significant Select Committee that I served on for 23 years, despite my having served on five Select Committees. I thank the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), who is the current Chairman of the Committee, for his thoughtful contribution to the debate. I thank particularly the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson), who throughout all the trials and tribulations of a remarkable Committee managed to lead us to a conclusion and to get a report published when it was the wish of some that that should not happen. It would have done a great disservice to the House if a report had not been published.

We are dealing with some of the last great taboos. That is why it is important to tackle them head on. To know what we should do about human reproductive technology, we should start by understanding and appreciating the widely differing views that people hold about the nature of the human embryo.

A young man living in a Jewish community about 2,000 years ago would probably have accepted the traditional Jewish position on the status of the embryo—it is not a person but must be treated with the respect due to a form of human life. That is surely something with which most of us could agree.

In the fourth century, teaching in Roman north Africa, St. Augustine of Hippo believed that the human embryo did not have a soul because it was not sentient. Writing in 13th century Naples, St. Thomas Aquinas rekindled Aristotlean philosophy and decided that humanity began with ensoulment at 40 days for a male foetus and 90 days for a female foetus. Was not that progress?

The Bishop of Rochester advised our Committee last year that the gradual emergence of a person was the usual approach in the Christian tradition until 1869, when Pope Pius XI abolished the distinction between early and late abortions. By 1984 the Warnock committee had concluded, rather in the Christian tradition, that a human embryo develops over time. It said that a human embryo cannot be thought of as a person or even as a potential person; it is simply a collection of cells which, unless it implants in a human uterine environment, has no potential for development. 

I do not think that a human being is created at the moment of conception. That is the moment that takes the egg and the sperm a step nearer to implantation, with humanity commencing at 14 days with the appearance of the primitive streak, the precursor to the spinal chord, signifying cell differentiation and the beginning of sentience. I believe that life is a continuum with a genetic line moving ever onwards, unless it dies out through lack of procreation. That, surely, is why we humans are so interested in our ancestors and, indeed, the fortunes of our children.

There is a huge problem now. Only 30 per cent. of fertilised eggs of embryos implant. What about the rest: the spare embryos? The Church of England Mission and Public Affairs Council said in its report on embryo research:

“The superabundance of embryos, seventy per cent of which do not implant in the womb, is echoed throughout nature… Seed or eggs which do not reproduce are frequently sources of food for other creatures.”

The former Bishops of Oxford and Salisbury, in the other place, have in the past both talked of the problems that arise if all human embryos are regarded as having full human status from the moment of conception. If 70 per cent. of embryos are destroyed, do we believe that they are ensouled human beings and does that mean that heaven is largely populated by embryos? I do not know. I look forward to someone helping with that problem.

Research on human embryos can be undertaken without compromising their special status, but the research must have proper legal and ethical oversight. I also believe that it is right to create embryos for research purposes, always insisting on the 14-day rule. The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough said that Parliament sometimes had to tell scientists to stop that process. We cannot stop science or prevent progress. Science is moving onwards at a fast pace all the time. The report suggests that both Houses of Parliament should have a role in listening to all the arguments, in representing the different views in the legislative process and in deciding what should be legal for the time being—because what is legal now was not legal 20 years ago.

Mr. Willis
That is exactly the point that I was making and I am sorry if I misled the hon. Gentleman. It is important that Parliament be given an opportunity. The bioethics committee is the right vehicle for that.

Robert Key
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his clarification. The problem is that reproductive technology is moving way ahead of us as legislators. That was always going to happen. I remember saying in the Chamber during the Third Reading debate on the 1990 Act, “They will be back.” I am quite surprised that it has taken the scientific community and the Government so long to come back to the House. I support the Select Committee’s call for parliamentary oversight and a new parliamentary Standing Committee on bioethics. Only then will all sides have the chance to be heard and will there be an opportunity for the evidence to be weighed.

I wonder how many Members and how many of our constituents are familiar with the complexities of reproductive cloning, hybrids and chimeras, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, embryo splitting, parthenogenesis, cell nuclear transplants, sperm sorting and haploidisation. Those things are happening around us, for our constituents, in our constituencies, every day of the year. They are real. They are happening today. We cannot ignore them. We cannot say that we wish that they did not happen, because they are happening.

For that reason, I was surprised by the announcement from the Vatican last week, as reported in The Daily Telegraph. The headline was:

“Vatican vows to expel stem cell scientists from Church”.

When the Committee visited the Vatican, it was a huge privilege to be invited to visit the archbishops and bishops and their medical advisers and experts, who did us great courtesy and showed us great respect, as we did them. They will be reading this debate—if not watching it in the Vatican. I would like, therefore, to put on record my thanks to them for putting up with us when we challenged them with some very difficult ideas—perhaps of a nature with which they were not familiar. Perhaps they were not used to being confronted by parliamentarians, because the politics of Italy are different and the role of the Church in Italy is different.

I am sorry that the Vatican made that announcement last week and that Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo said, in an interview with Famiglia Christiana, an official Vatican magazine:

“Excommunication will be applied to the women, doctors and researchers who eliminate embryos”

and to the

“politicians that approve the law.”

I therefore commend the courage of the Italian senator, Paola Binetti, a member of Opus Dei and a prominent campaigner for Catholic rights, who said:

“I am upset and stunned,”

and continued:

“It is a mistake to give out the idea that God is angry with Man because he is not in agreement with him.”

I agree with that. The Vatican’s reaction looks a bit like panic.

I want to make a few comments about the question of so-called eugenics and designer babies. The whole argument is tainted by our memory of the appalling atrocity of Nazism and all that happened then. The word “eugenics” is Greek and simply means well bred and well-being—a good baby. Of course, that is not how it is usually applied. Surely there is a great difference between seeking to create a child with particular characteristics such as blue eyes—or a child who is sporty or musical—to make a master race, and trying to filter out the damaging parts of this fragile human life where that is humanly possible. I have wrestled with that problem for years.

I recall that when the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill was going through the House in 1989 and 1990, I asked my bishop, John Baker, whether he would help. On 20 February 1990, he wrote this to me:

“Where nature itself spontaneously aborts a good many embryos in these very early stages of life, it is hard to feel that to do so deliberately for good reason is contrary to God’s own mind, so far as that is revealed in his created order. Moreover, if we are to be realistic, we human beings are not spiritually, psychologically and socially all so marvellous that we can promise the spina bifida or cystic fibrosis sufferer a quality and fulfilment of life that will make the burden of their sufferings worthwhile. On the whole if you can choose to launch either a life without these such handicaps or one with them, it seems morally better to choose the former. Many parents must pray for a disease-free child; when we are given the power to bring that about ourselves, what does it say about our prayer if we refuse to use that power?”

That puts that argument rather powerfully, and it is as true now as it was.

It is very important, therefore, to be careful when we are talking about designer babies to be clear that we are not talking about designing something to our own wish or to our own vision of a perfect child, but using science, which in my view is God-given, to enable us to use our brains to stop suffering as far as we may. I also feel—the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) said this eloquently, and I agree with everything that he said—that within the law, families should make decisions on their reproduction and not the state. The state does have a role, but we need to rebalance the arguments.

Finally, I want to say a quick word about abortion, because we cannot ignore it; it is part of the issue, and our report said what we thought we should be doing about it. If we want less abortion, we must look very carefully at the figures. Of the 185,000 abortions a year, just 124 occur after 24 weeks. If we are seeking to reduce the quantity of abortions in this country, does it make sense to vilify the tiny number of extremely vulnerable women in the most difficult and terrible circumstances who are in that category, and to say that they are somehow doing something unspeakable? I think not.

Let us look at the other end of the scale, too. Frequently we are told how awful it is that there are so many teenage pregnancies. I asked the Office for National Statistics for the figures, and in my constituency in the past 10 years the number of abortions among girls under 16 was 14. The ONS refused to set the figures out by year because it said that that would break confidentiality. We are talking very small numbers. The highest proportion of abortions in this country are performed on single women and those who have had abortions before. Perhaps that is where we should be considering education; something is wrong there. The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith), who, sadly, is no longer present, used the word “Frankensteins”, but the proportion of abortions on the grounds of chromosomal abnormality is one third of 1 per cent.—that is all. If we want fewer abortions in our country—and, God knows, I am sure we all do—we will need more human reproductive technology and much more education.

17:43:00

Dr. Ian Gibson (Norwich, North) (Lab)
I quake a little when somebody says that we should have these debates in Parliament, because we will need about six weeks to go through the many issues that reflect our consciences and beliefs. It was not easy chairing the Committee—delightful bunch of people as they are; men and women united, just for a minute. I assure the House that I would much rather take penalties in the last minute than have to chair a Committee that was so severely divided. My attitude was, “Let’s just stay here all night”, and without my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) moving a guillotine motion—nasty man—we could have debated the issues for hours and hours. That reflects the problems.

We have come a long way in science from the days when we believed that only one parent was responsible for the creation of an individual. One was either an ovist or a spermist—there are pictures of sperm with young people within them—and that was how it all happened. It is not so long ago that we believed that. It is not so long ago, too, that we did not believe in genes and DNA—in fact, science in the Soviet Union was based on that for many years. In this area, knowledge moves on and beliefs change, and they do so pretty fast.

We as a Parliament need to regulate and legislate in respect of many of the processes that we have been discussing. However, we have to do more than that: we have to think about why we are regulating or legislating. In industry, there is continuous debate about whether legislation inhibits productivity, industrial growth, and so on. Sometimes we do nothing and sometimes we overreact, but I think that we in this country do nothing rather well. We do not get caught up in regulation, yet the world does not crumble about us. The same is true in the field that we are debating now, and that was the spirit in our Committee: we wanted to examine what was happening and make sure that we got legislation where it is needed. We were told at the beginning of our inquiry that nothing needed to happen—that we should leave the subject alone. Well, 104 recommendations suggest that something needs to change.

One has to ask whether the purpose of regulation should be to provide legal protection for the embryo, or to provide some regulation of assisted reproduction, or both. In fact, a regulator is not needed to protect the embryo. If the law says that a person cannot clone an embryo and someone does, one just calls 999 and gets the police in. Regulating IVF treatment is different, of course. IVF treatment is increasing and will continue to do so. Endocrine disruptors, which we have heard about, and many other factors are lowering sperm counts and otherwise making people infertile, but the desire to have a baby is an innate human characteristic, so there will be more pressure on IVF provision. The hon. Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) will remember that when IVF was first introduced, people said that it was a pariah that would destroy the world and that it must not happen, but now it is a standard technique, even though there is not enough of it in the health service, and it is improving all the time. Should the regulator regulate only for technical standards, or do we want it to enforce directions on how treatment is administered, or so on? The spirit of our recommendations was not dogmatic: we were trying to help the new science to develop.

The HFEA was an extremely important addition under the 1990 Act. Regulation was extremely important to building public confidence in that legislation. However, events have moved on. We are not all old Labour—despite what some believe, we know that changes have to happen. We have to move on and the HFEA and its functions need to be examined seriously. For example, does it have the right people on it? It would not worry me at all if pro-life people had places on the authority, which they have been denied. We should get them in, have those arguments and not restrict them, because that diminishes the authority and makes people suspicious.

Is the HFEA rigorous enough about licensing and inspection? The HFEA has a triple role—regulator, policy maker and Government adviser—but it is not possible to fulfil all three functions. That is why the Committee said that we should try to separate them and why we said that Parliament’s role was extremely important. There is a plethora of knowledgeable, concerned people present in the Chamber and many more outside. I believe that the public would welcome involvement in the debate.

The HFEA is to merge with the Human Tissue Authority. We wonder whether that is a political move. The virtues of such a merger have to be explained, because—of course—the British Medical Association is none too happy at the prospect. We could think about merging the HFEA and the Human Genetics Commission—Baroness Kennedy’s group, which examines many issues, such as the new genetic science and its effect on disabled people. The bodies could all work together in harmony much better than they do.

We have heard about the problems of reproductive tourism. I think that it will be hard to stop both that and reproductive cloning, which someone will carry out successfully some day. I remember when people said that we could not clone a sheep or cat, but we have done that, so humans will be in the wings. We thus need to think about the regulation that we will need for inspecting that.

Do we need a national bioethics committee? The public now want a consideration of morality and their views to be put in the relevant arena. Everyone else seems to have such a committee, but we do not. Is that because such committees are perceived as expensive talking shops? Could we establish a body that was really meaningful? Will Parliament really be the best place to make the big decisions? Should we stop giving such issues to quangos?

Judgments are also made by local ethical committees. Are the decisions that are made at local level tough enough, or is it the case that just the great and the good—the local vicar and so on—are appointed to those committees and that they have a nice afternoon cup of tea and a biscuit and then go home? The question of how we achieve localism in such decisions is serious.

Things will never stand still in this area because new, unforeseen possibilities will arise and be combined with market forces and new dilemmas that emerge. As many hon. Members have said, regulation must keep up with that without inhibiting research—even if one thinks that that could be stopped. I accept that scientists can be arrogant and think that they can rule the world, but that is why they must engage with the political process and be brought into that arena. If they are kept out, they will have that opinion. We should not really start from where we are now, but think about starting all over again, given all the new developments that have taken place.

It is lovely if there is a mum, dad and child. It is lovely when a man meets a girl and they fall in love, before there is the question of having children, and they then live happily ever after and everything is perfect in God’s perfect land, as Neil Young would say. However, sadly, it does not always work like that for some people, and there are other types of relationships. The world has moved on to accept such people and be disciplined about them. We must incorporate that in our thinking. The problem is not major, but we must take it seriously. Nothing is really sacred, not even the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990—but gosh, to hear some people talk, one would think that it had to be protected at all costs.

17:52:00

Mr. Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this important debate. I will try not to inject too much emotion into it, but when we talk about human life, emotion is not always misplaced. I hope that the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) and others will bear with me.

I am a little concerned that the subject has been broached by the Science and Technology Committee, because it sounds rather abstract to talk about human reproduction in terms of science and technology; that is a rather sterile heading. Nevertheless, that is the Committee that has considered the matter.

Mr. Newmark 
As a member of that august Committee, I am curious about what name my hon. Friend would come up with.

Mr. Walker
Forgive my naivety, but I would have thought that this could have been considered by the Health Committee. Perhaps it would be a good start if we were revolutionary and established a Select Committee on the family. However, the subject rests with the Science and Technology Committee; those are the terms of our debate.

I share a growing concern with many of my constituents that children are often seen as the ultimate accessory. People used to have Gucci handbags or high-pedigree Dalmatians, but now it seems that people express their individuality by going around having children. On that basis, the child’s welfare is important. Not everyone has the right to have a child. I believe, although it might be unfashionable to do so, that children are a gift. I have spoken to many people in the homosexual community about the lifestyle that they choose to lead. Many of them are perfectly comfortable with the idea that their lifestyle choice excludes them from having children. Therefore, before we go down the road of supporting the idea that same-sex couples should have access to IVF, we should realise that it is the minority of such couples who are looking to do that.

Dr. Evan Harris
Will the hon. Gentleman clarify what he means by a lifestyle choice? Is he arguing that gay people make an optional choice and that they should just choose to be straight and get on with it, as he does?

Mr. Walker
Not in the slightest. I made the lifestyle choice of getting married and having children. People make such choices. If one chooses to live in a same-sex relationship, it is difficult to have children naturally. I have a good friend who is a homosexual. He and his homosexual partner found a surrogate mother and had a child. Those two men are excellent parents and I am fond of them both, but that does not mean that I believe that children’s best interests are served, in the main, by having two fathers, or that I subscribe to the idea that gay couples should automatically have the right to have children.

The scientific community seems to have its own agenda. We read in the newspapers today that Britain is about to have its oldest mother because a woman of 60—I believe—is about to have a child. Whose interests will that serve—those of the child who is born, the woman having the child, or the scientific community? What will happen next year? Will a woman of 70 or 80 be Britain’s oldest mother? The House needs to exercise control over what the scientific community is doing in this area, because the child’s welfare should be absolutely paramount.

Dr. Harris
How old does the hon. Gentleman think that the oldest father should be by law? Should we limit the reproductive capabilities of men?

Mr. Walker
Absolutely not, because as the hon. Gentleman knows full well, men are biologically able to go on having children into their 70s and 80s. However, what is proved by deliberately taking a woman who is past her point of fertility—perhaps 15 or 20 years past—and impregnating her?

Dr. Harris
On that basis, would the hon. Gentleman support preventing men over 50 from using potency aids, given that such aids are an intervention to help them to have children?

Mr. Walker
If the hon. Gentleman really believes that giving 60, 70 or 80-year-old women the choice of having children is a good thing that will benefit the welfare of those children, I am afraid that we will have to disagree. Where we will disagree, time and time again, is about the idea that the welfare of the children should be paramount, and the fact that it is probably not in the interests of a one or two-year-old to have a 70 or 80-year-old mother.

When we have debates on reproduction in the future, I hope that we will remember that children live with the consequences of decisions made by adults. They do not ask to be born, but they will be with us for a long time. I also hope that we can have a bit of emotion in such debates, because when we talk about human life and small people, it is perfectly reasonable to get emotional about their future and their welfare.

17:59:00

Dr. Desmond Turner (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab)
I will try to bring the debate back to the mainstream of the subject. We should remember the context in which we start. On the whole, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 and the system of regulation have served us well for the past 15 or 16 years. But time moves on, the science has moved on at a great pace, and the time has naturally come to start reviewing the situation. The Government had already decided that it was an apt time to do that, and so had we, especially as several controversial decisions were coming up. It was a natural time to look into the matter.

We need to continue our history over the past 16 years of having a framework that provides good clinical services for those who need infertility treatment, and a good research environment that is well regulated so that researchers know clearly what they can and cannot do. For that reason—the fact that we have a working environment that is safe and well controlled—more than any other, we lead the world in matters such as embryology research and embryological stem cell research.

In other countries there is not necessarily such an environment. There have been plenty of examples of that. Where have the threats to clone human beings been coming from? They have come not from our own regulated environment, but from countries where, for whatever reason, the Government have not been able to get to grips with the issues.

Those issues seem to come back to questions of religion and ethics. That was apparent when the Committee went to Scandinavia and then to the Vatican. The Scandinavian attitude was pragmatic. Basically, it boiled down to this: if there is no demonstrable harm to the child, it must by okay and things should be left alone. However, the Vatican had a very different attitude. In his refreshingly sane contribution, the hon. Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) described the theological progress on this issue. The Vatican position is that human life starts at the moment of fertilisation, and that even the zygote has the full rights of a human being.

That creates a great cultural limitation on what can be done, and for a long time Italy was totally unregulated and had no legislation on in vitro fertilisation. The consequence of that was some awful practice. One man was threatening to perform human cloning, and finally Italy legislated, but its legislation in this area, which it introduced just a few months before we did, was very imperfect. For instance, it demanded that all embryos should be immediately implanted once they were produced, and that they could not be stored frozen. That meant that there was a much greater risk of harm, both to the child and the mother, because it was not possible to screen out unhealthy embryos, to do pre-implantation genetic diagnosis—PGD—or to eliminate the possibility of implanting an embryo that was very genetically defective. The net result is a higher incidence of multiple births and birth defects, and greater harm, because the legislation is not sensible and has not grasped the nettles that needed to be grasped. We in this country have grasped them in the past, and we need to continue to do so.

Let us look at a few examples of the problems that arise, which mean that we must carefully re-examine the legislation. One problem is the PGD issue. At present, that is strictly limited to serious life-terminating genetic diseases, but the science has moved on so dramatically that a vast range of diseases can now be diagnosed in the embryo—and to a far greater extent than it is currently licensable to use that technique. We must take stock and ask, “Is it reasonable to avoid using the embryo that would produce a type 1 juvenile diabetic, for instance, and to use the one that would not?” There are many such diseases, which are survivable but clearly undesirable. That matter must be discussed sanely and rationally. Such borders need constantly to be revisited.

Let me give another example. In the context of tissue typing, there was the Hashmi case: the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority licensed an application to produce a baby who could be a tissue donor for its sibling, who already existed but had thalassemia and did not have much of a life expectancy. Tissue typing was essential; otherwise the stem cells would have been rejected.

That case has led to a succession of legal challenges, because the HFEA was working right at the policy limits of the legislation. Effectively, it was almost making law. Was it within its statutory limits or not? The High Court said no, but the Appeal Court overturned that judgment, and the case went to the House of Lords; I do not know what its decision was. We should not determine such issues through the courts. We need to make sure that the regulations and laws that we set down in this place are clear enough to keep lawyers out of this area, so that it can be left to doctors and would-be parents.

I have given two examples, but there are others. I am thinking now of mitochondrial diseases. At present, cell nuclear replacement can be used only for research purposes, but the time will come when it will be technically possible to use it therapeutically. That is not currently legal, but why should it be illegal?

As for cloning, we as a society are totally opposed to human reproductive cloning, and our report—contrary to what some people might suggest—does not suggest for one moment that we should do anything more. Therapeutic cloning is a totally different issue; that is absolutely essential if we are to pursue the production of new embryonic stem cell lines. But in 20 or 30 years, if techniques of reproductive cloning have become demonstrably safe, it is perfectly possible that Parliament and the public might want a different outcome. That is certainly not true at present, but the question needs to be revisited from time to time.

This House should play a central role in determining these issues. It should not be left to the HFEA to make policy in these difficult areas. It has enough of a job to do with its licensing and regulatory functions. I strongly subscribe to our recommendation that there should be a House bioethics Committee that should keep this area under constant review, make annual reports to Parliament, recommend amendments to legislation when it feels them to be appropriate, and conduct pre-legislative scrutiny of draft legislation as it emerges. Such a body should be the key actor in the future, but the whole of Parliament should have a vote on its recommendations. That way, we will take full responsibility for them.

18:10:00

Mr. Brooks Newmark (Braintree) (Con)
As a society, we are increasingly uncomfortable with the existence of received wisdom and moral certainties. It is probably also true to say that we are becoming uncomfortable even with the principles of secular morality—be it utilitarian or libertarian. Such secular morality is increasingly branded as an extension of “public interest”, so that it need not appear to be morality at all. The Warnock report proposed that the putative regulatory body for biotechnology should not be

“exclusively, or even primarily, a medical or scientific body. It is concerned essentially with broader matters and the protection of the public interest.”

It is perhaps fitting that a body that exists to deal with, among other things, the ethical dilemmas posed by genetic hybrids and chimeras, should be similarly heterogeneous. But it is true that scientific evidence and more traditional moral yardsticks must continue to complement one another. The ascendancy of science untrammelled by other concerns leads us into dark places.

The Committee’s investigation of eugenics and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, for example, touched on the potential disaster of social objectives triumphing over ethical objections. Perhaps that is the danger implicit in conflating ethical, clinical and political judgments, which is why I believe that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority might no longer be fit for purpose. There must now be a solid case for reconsidering its remit—and, consequently, its composition—from the ground up.

The intention to merge the HFEA and the Human Tissue Authority into a new regulatory authority provides an important opportunity to address the fundamental concerns about the biotechnology regulatory regime that the Committee expressed. The fact that the new authority will no longer be called the regulatory authority for fertility and tissue does not mean that it cannot become a “RAFT” in troubled ethical waters. The HFEA’s most important failings are not those related to the practical problems that, to some extent, afflict all Government organisations. It is no surprise that the Committee’s recommendation 66 highlights critical failings in the agency’s data management policies. Nor is it a surprise, for example, that the Government’s response lays the blame on the goose that has so often failed to lay a golden egg: IT infrastructure.

I was, however, more struck by the Committee’s findings on the HFEA’s inadequate expertise. I want to focus my remarks on recommendation 47, and particularly the following statement:

“We believe that ultimate authority on issues of public concern should lie outside of the scientific and medical communities.”

That is a sound principle, although many would argue that the scientific and medical communities do not harbour nefarious intentions of the kind that would make them incapable of self-regulation by their various professional bodies. But even if the status quo of lay dominance over day-to-day decisions is to be preserved, it is indefensible for the HFEA to lack a sound basis of scientific expertise; that must be corrected in any new body.

My concern is that insufficient parliamentary time is given to these complex ethical decisions, which are based on a rapidly evolving scientific evidence base. The introduction to the Committee’s report notes the statement, made during an earlier inquiry, that, after 12 years of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, it was necessary to

“reconnect the Act with modern science.”

It also reiterated earlier criticism of the complacency of certain members of the HFEA, and the Department of Health’s “limp response” regarding a policy of constant review. If the HFEA is not keeping abreast of a rapidly advancing field because it has insufficient expertise or organisational capacity, it is clearly necessary to do one of two things.

The first option is to return regulation to the relevant professional bodies. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists stated in evidence that

“the body regulating this area should have sufficient expertise in its make up to tackle some of the difficult clinical, scientific and ethical issues presented to it”.

Does that description not include the professional bodies themselves? We should at least be asking whether regulation can safely be left in the hands of the royal colleges or the British Medical Association, safe in the knowledge that they are deemed capable of engaging with other complex areas of medical ethics. After all, the Committee made a number of recommendations concerning professional bodies’ increased involvement in the management of clinical and laboratory standards. It is only a small step from that position to professional bodies’ wholesale involvement in the development and review of an appropriate regulatory regime. It is only the Warnock principle of lay primacy over these ethical questions that holds us back.

Alternatively, we must establish a regime of regular statutory review by Parliament. It is time to turn our backs on a generation of ad hoc, laissez-faire intervention by Parliament, which relies on the initiative of Back Benchers to ensure that the law is kept in touch with science. That is particularly apposite in the case of the law relating to abortion. I am not an expert on accepted parliamentary practice concerning Back-Bench initiation of legislation, but it seems in this instance to be a convenient caveat to justify the Government’s inertia.

I do not want to go too far off piste and into the dangerous territory of advocating a review of the time limit applicable to abortion, about which we have heard much already. The decision whether to allow abortion up to 24 weeks, 20 weeks or even 18 weeks should be based on the available scientific evidence and should, if anything, err on the side of caution when it comes to the protection of a potentially viable foetus—in other words, a potential life. But, above all, I do not believe that the Government should absolve themselves, or Parliament, from the responsibility of regularly engaging in the ethical debate on the regulation of human reproductive technology. I believe that Parliament, not the HFEA, is the only crucible in which these questions can be discussed fully, because we are uniquely placed to respond to the scientific evidence, as well as to ethical problems and public opinion. The HFEA is quite wrong to view its role as insulating Parliament from difficult ethical choices.

I am heartened by the strength of support of witnesses called by the Committee for Parliament’s increased participation in difficult ethical situations. The Committee’s recommendations about parliamentary involvement are very welcome, particularly on the need for Parliament to be able to revisit contentious issues. But more than that, I am pleased that the Committee recognises the benefit of the increased public confidence that stems from greater parliamentary involvement in difficult ethical questions. It is, after all, easy to lobby a Member of Parliament on a free vote—and much less plausible that anyone should lobby the HFEA.

The HFEA is an unhappy compromise between scientific, evidence-based decision making and the Warnock principle governing the primacy of lay ethical opinion. If that primacy is still required, its proper forum is Parliament—a point that the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) alluded to earlier. The Government must now take steps to see that Parliament is entrusted with the regular review of the legislation governing biotechnology. Only Parliament has the resources to co-ordinate and balance the available scientific evidence, the ethical concerns, and the vagaries and inconsistencies of public opinion that are vital to this area of law. More importantly, only Parliament has the moral authority to ensure that the law keeps pace with scientific advances, without exceeding ethical boundaries or failing to meet public expectation.

18:19:00

Emily Thornberry (Islington, South and Finsbury) (Lab)
I appreciate the opportunity to address the House on recommendation 77 of the Science and Technology Committee, which calls on both Houses

“ to set up a joint committee to consider the scientific, medical and social changes in relation to abortion that have taken place since 1967, with a view to presenting options for new legislation.”

I take the opportunity to examine that recommendation, and particularly the suggestion that there might be a case for reducing the time limit. I want to put on record some facts about how many late abortions there are, and I want to consider whether there really have been scientific, medical or social changes of sufficient importance to warrant serious consideration of changes in the law. I do not believe that there have been.

It is important to recognise the passion that is provoked by the subject. It confronts many people’s core beliefs, and that includes me. It is one of my core beliefs that it is important for every woman to be able to control her fertility. Without such a basic right, women have no chance of equality. No contraceptive method is 100 per cent. effective, and no woman should be forced to carry and bear a child that she profoundly does not want. Abortions must therefore be available. It is right for everyone involved in the debate to declare their own interests, not in the Alda Barry sense of declaring an interest, but as regards their core beliefs.

It is important that those on the other side of the debate make it clear where they are coming from on the issue. One of the reasons the argument for restricting the time limit is so unconvincing is that it is often put by people who themselves are not convinced by it, and who take the pragmatic stance that if they cannot make abortion illegal or criminal, they will do their best to restrict access as much as they can.

Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
The hon. Lady says that all women should have the right to have an abortion. What about the right of the father if he desperately wants to have a child and does not want his partner to have an abortion? What rights does he have?

Emily Thornberry
The right is fundamentally that of the woman who carries and bears the child. We are not going to agree on that, just as I am not likely to agree with Cardinal Keith O’Brien who, as I understand it, is arguing for a restriction on the time during which abortion would be possible I presume that he believes that abortion should be illegal and that there should be no abortions, yet he joins the debate. I believe it is women, not Parliament or the Church, who should be making such decisions.

On the question whether there have been sufficient scientific or medical changes to support a change in the law, let me start with a few facts about late abortions. No one wants to have a late abortion if there is any other realistic option. Less than 1 per cent. of abortions take place after 22 weeks, and 87 per cent. of abortions take place before 13 weeks.

Mr. Walker
You say that 1 per cent. of abortions—

Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I say nothing. It is the hon. Lady who says.

Mr. Walker
I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Lady says that only 1 per cent. of abortions take place after 22 weeks. Can she give a rough breakdown to explain why those abortions take place so late?

Emily Thornberry
Yes. Women who have abortions late are very young, or women going through the menopause, women who do not speak English, women who come across the one fifth of GPs who say they are broadly anti-abortion, women who have had difficulty accessing services and women who are scared, ill educated or marginalised. It is those people who are confronted with such a decision and who, with the assistance and support of medical services, make that extremely difficult decision. It is for them and not for the hon. Gentleman to make that decision.

There have not been any dramatic scientific breakthroughs in recent years. The survival rates are still very low for babies born before 24 weeks, and those that do survive frequently survive with severe disabilities. Last June, doctors at the annual conference of the British Medical Association overwhelmingly rejected a motion calling for the upper limit to be cut from 24 to 20 weeks—77 per cent. of doctors voted against it.

The spark that has reignited the debate on time limits is not medical advances, but the beautiful and highly emotive 4D images of foetuses offered by Professor Campbell in his private London clinic. Foetuses can be seen opening their eyes, kicking their legs and sucking their thumbs, but as Allan Templeton, the secretary of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has said, the images add little to the science. If we want a debate about the science, let us talk about the science. He says:

“Observing these developments and physiological movements is not changing anything about the time of viability. These images however have given rise again to the question as to whether or not there should be a reduction in the time limit of 24 weeks. It is distressing that so much of the comment has been so ill-informed.”

Mr. Newmark
What scientific evidence was there for the doctors who made that decision—the 77 per cent. who voted against reducing the time limit for abortion from 24 weeks to 22 weeks? Was there any scientific evidence behind that decision? [Interruption.]

Emily Thornberry
I am advised that there was a full report of the matter in the Evening Standard. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson). I do not have with me a copy of that well known scientific journal. The point is that there has not been a breakthrough in the science to prompt the Committee to claim that we should re-examine the matter.

At the beginning of the debate, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) was asked what particular medical or scientific changes his Committee refers to when it recommends reconsidering legislation. As I understand it from his response, there is none.

Mr. Willis
My response was that I do not know of any such changes. That is different. The purpose of an inquiry would be to put the issue to bed. If the hon. Lady is right and there is no new scientific evidence, that would come out in such an inquiry and would be laid before the House. If she is wrong and there is new evidence, that would come out in the inquiry and be laid before the House. For the life of me I cannot understand why the hon. Lady should even question the principle of re-examining the evidence after 16 years.

Emily Thornberry
My central point is this: if we want to have a cool and rational debate on the subject and we want it to be prompted by the science, come to us with the science. If not, the debate descends into raw emotion and prejudice. I stated my position at the beginning. We have heard from other hon. Members what their position is. In the end, the decision often comes down to emotion, how people feel and their own sense of what is right or wrong. That is why I believe it is for individual women to make the decision, because it is a profoundly personal decision.

The Marie Stopes International study on late abortion provides many of the figures and stories that I have quoted. I will be happy to provide the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough with a copy. There have been studies about why women have late abortions and the circumstances that provoke those late abortions.

Every time I have been pregnant, I have had the great good fortune that my children were wanted and we eagerly anticipated them. It is difficult to imagine how it must be for women who profoundly do not want to be pregnant, who do not know what to do, who do not speak English, who may be 14, or who may be 48 and already have four grown-up children. Abortion is already so stigmatised that we must be very careful when we tread down this path.

In the end, although we have many disagreements, I presume we all agree that every abortion is a tragedy, and that every child should be born into a home that wants it and loves it. At least we can all agree with the hon. Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) when he said that if we want to try to make life easier for families, the most important thing for us to do is to improve sex education in schools and relationship education so that people treat one another with respect, so that young girls know that they do not need to sleep with their boyfriends in order to be important and in order for their boyfriends to love them, and so that people have respect for themselves and one another. That should be comprehensively taught in our schools, and we should also ensure that people have access to abortion and to information, so that we can all aspire together to ensure that when a child is born, it is wanted and loved.

18:29:00

Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)
With 104 recommendations, the report by the Science and Technology Committee is as deep as it is wide. As a current member of the Committee, I did not play a part in its production. Given its size, I am quite glad about that. I thank the original members of the Committee, especially its former Chairman, the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson), for the inquiry and for the clear report and recommendations.

The report rightly and necessarily challenges our emotional, ethical and religious boundaries. In the field of human fertilisation and embryology, scientific advances, developments and possibilities arise almost daily. I am concerned about the group of people who donate in order to help childless couples to conceive and have children. Recommendation 33 criticises the Government in relation to the removal of anonymity for those donors. It states:

“We regret the Department’s poor use of evidence in policy-making and its failure to commission and have published the necessary research underpinning its decision on the removal of donor anonymity.”

One could argue that there is now a threat to the flow of donors who have been giving willingly. In their response, the Government reject the recommendation on the basis that they used questionnaires, consultations and surveys to discover the views of interested parties. However, discoveries in social, behavioural and economic science often require concerted effort through research or the commissioning of research for science-based evidence.

My question to the Minister—if she would please listen—is this: what scientific evidence was used to inform the Government’s decision completely and retrospectively to change the policy on the disclosure of information on donors? The service provided by donors to couples struggling to conceive is undeniable and self-evident. If the policy is not based on appropriate evidence, the Government may undermine the supply of donors and create a great deal of unhappiness for childless couples in future.

18:32:00

Dr. Evan Harris (Oxford, West and Abingdon) (LD)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I tried to catch your eye for several reasons, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have a long-standing interest in this issue. I was mentioned several times earlier in the debate. I was a member of the Science and Technology Committee that worked on the report—work being the operative word—and I am a current member of the Committee. I am a member of the British Medical Association’s ethics committee, having been re-elected by doctors last week. In addition to all that, I am the Front-Bench spokesman.

The introductory speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) was all-encompassing of the main points of the report and a very fair version of it. He inherited the report and cannot claim that it is his baby, to coin a phrase, but he described it well.

The hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson), who chaired the Committee, did a fantastic job in difficult circumstances. I hugely admire his commitment to science and to his work in the Committee. I extend those remarks to the hon. Member for Salisbury (Robert Key), for whom I have huge admiration that increased, were that possible, as I listened to his speech.

Producing the report was difficult, because five people supported many of the recommendations and five people opposed them. The difficulty faced by those of us in the notional majority was that when it came to debating and voting on the recommendations, the minority had found it difficult to turn up because of the pressures that have been described. It is hard to develop coherence when people vote four against one in some sittings and five against five in others.

I do not accept that the report is libertarian. It is liberalising. However, it does not argue for a change in the 14-day limit, which is the fundamental limit in the 1990 settlement and in Warnock; it does not argue against the Warnock consensus on the gradual acquisition of rights in consideration of the interests of the embryo and the foetus; and it does not argue, as it could have done, for liberalisation of abortion law. It was not extremist or libertarian, but it is fair to say that it was brave.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority felt that it was attacked in the report, but it was not, as the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Newmark) explained. I must be careful about the HFEA, because two of its last three chairs are constituents of mine. The estimable Ruth Deech and the estimable Bishop of Oxford, recently retired, are extremely senior people in their field and brook no unjustified criticism. However, the report should not be seen as a criticism of the HFEA, which does a difficult job using a law that is 16 years old and creaking at the seams and should not be dragged through the courts.

I greatly enjoyed the speech by the hon. Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton). Although I disagree with her, she speaks for many people. She made several points that are worth responding to, including some in which she mentioned me. She talked about society’s distaste for some of the report’s recommendations, although she did not provide data to back that up, except in the case of sex selection, which I accept that a majority of people currently oppose. However, it is not good enough for us to base our law and lawmaking on the yuck factor, particularly when it involves fundamental rights such as the reproductive rights of other adult human beings. That is why the Government were right to legislate to permit gay adoption although a majority of people found that distasteful and something that they did not understand. I am fairly sure that the hon. Lady voted against permitting adoption of children by gay couples. The Conservative approach is usually to argue for less state intervention in private lives unless there is good evidence of harm that requires it. That is a reasonable position. However, it was suggested in several well reasoned contributions that the instinct on some of these issues is to regulate and to legislate to restrict freedom, in which case it is necessary to provide the relevant evidence.

Much has been said about abortion and whether we should debate it. Recommendation 77 argues for a future debate after a review of the law. The hon. Members for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner) and for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon), who are assiduous members of the Committee, spoke well and clearly on the subject. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East that there have been lots of debates on abortion, in Government time or otherwise. There have not. We had the Abortion Act 1967 and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, and last July I called an Adjournment debate on abortion time limits. Other than that, I can find no record of parliamentary time devoted specifically to abortion, other than on ten-minute Bills. We need to have such a debate in order to retain public confidence.

The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) gave a full-blooded pro-choice speech that I greatly enjoyed. It is important that that view, which reflects the majority view in the country, is heard. We do not often hear it because the other side is well organised and feels equally strongly about such matters. However, the hon. Lady must acknowledge that her argument—and the reasons that she gave and that the Stopes report set out—that the individual decisions are for women to make applies at 25 weeks as well as 24, and that Parliament must set a limit. The question is how Parliament determines that limit.

In 1990, the limit was based on viability at 24 weeks. If that period has reduced, the hon. Lady may continue to vote for 24 weeks as a practical limit, and I might support her, having listened to the arguments for why any such reduction should cut across the rights of women in difficult positions. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough said, Parliament must debate that and make its decision: for a practical limit of 24 weeks, a viability limit of 24 weeks or a lower limit, if it believes, on the basis of scientific evidence, that the limit on which viability was previously based has reduced.

I share the hon. Lady’s scepticism about whether medical advances have reduced the time on which viability is based—if we believe that to mean a reasonable chance of surviving a reasonable length of time without unreasonable disability—from 24 weeks. However, like my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough, I do not know the answer and Parliament should have an opportunity of examining the science before deciding.

Our recommendation in the report went beyond viability and considered other issues, including medical and social advances that suggest that, for example, access to early medical abortion, which is an easier way to have abortions—if we are to accept abortions, we should not force women to go through more difficulty than necessary—reduces later abortions. There is a good argument for making access to early medical abortion easier.

The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East set out why we believed that sex selection for social reasons might be considered, and that good arguments against it would have to be made. He also clearly set out our reasons for supporting research.

It has been said that I have strong views on the suggested welfare of the child provision. That also applies to the rest of the Committee. I believe that a provision for considering the welfare of a potential child when dealing with the creation of families by the small group of people who are infertile is discriminatory. It is the wrong way to protect the welfare of the child, which we must do. Social services and child protection bodies are best placed, when a child is born, to make a risk assessment, especially if they have had a warning when someone began the treatment process that there was some anxiety. Experts should make such an assessment, not gynaecologists or general practitioners who hardly know their patients and are not in a good position to make such decisions. We heard evidence in Committee that such intervention was pointless because it was ineffective and ignored, and that the birth of only 10 children a year was avoided through the process. They could be looked after through the other means that I described. Do we want state regulation of fertility? I do not believe that we do, certainly not without good evidence that it would be better to do that. Are we genuinely arguing that it is better not to be born than to take such steps?

On the need for a father, I believe that it is discriminatory and restrictive to subject some women to such a test. The state must have good reason for intervening in such matters and there is no good evidence to show that the children of lesbian parents or single women who specifically seek reproductive treatment are any the worse off for that background. Evidence exists to show that children born to poor families do worse than those born to rich families. Would hon. Members call for clinics to check on the need for cash in the family before offering fertility treatment? No, of course we would not do that. That would also be discriminatory, even though there is more evidence of poor welfare in those circumstances.

Providing for the need for a father creates a market for internet services such as Man Not Included. If we start regulating those services, women will turn to strangers to be impregnated, and there is no protection in such cases. I do not believe that it is a matter of common sense because one person’s common sense is another’s prejudice.

Daniel Kawczynski 
The hon. Gentleman says that we should not discriminate against lesbian couples but, unfortunately, life is discriminatory. The Almighty decided that children would be made through intercourse between a man and a woman. That is nature’s way of creating children. Why does he discount that?

Dr. Harris
We could have a philosophical debate about what God intended and how much of medical science is playing God and going against what nature intended. Treatment for erectile dysfunction also interferes with what God intended but we do not hear many men arguing against access to such treatment.

Daniel Kawczynski
Speak for yourself.

Dr. Harris
I shall not take the hon. Gentleman up on that in the debate because I must finish my speech quickly.

The hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) made a good point about the Government’s evidence for the removal of donor anonymity. He may know that one of the problems with that is that families who use donors choose not to tell the child because they do not want that to be discovered. That means that fewer children have access to such knowledge. There was no good evidence of harm in the current circumstances or of any benefit from following the suggested path. However, there was good evidence of the threat to gamete supply, which has been affected by donor anonymity. I feel strongly about the use of the precautionary principle, which my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough mentioned.

When there is clear evidence of benefit or likely potential benefit, the rule should be that there should be good evidence of serious harm before closing down research options. As the hon. Member for Salisbury said, there is a moral imperative to do good. We should try to maximise the benefits of the treatment. There is a moral imperative to treat infertile women and couples, to conduct research using stem cells to cure disease, and to develop new technologies.

Mr. Newmark
Is not there a moral imperative to protect the unborn child?

Dr. Harris
There is a question about what constitutes the moral rights of the unborn child and where they come in. We had the debate about the 14-day limit and that on the limit on viability. We are considering those matters. There is a balance to be struck.

The report is not a slippery slope. If there is a slope, it goes upwards. I do not speak for my colleagues, but allowing people to take advantage of the technologies and helping people when there is no evidence of harm constitutes an upward moral slope. In any event, we are not considering a slope but a step. That hard-earned legislative step is considered every 16 years at least. That is why we have confidence in proposing that we go down the path that the report suggests.

On the abortion limit and a debate and vote on viability, The Sunday Telegraph reported during the general election campaign:

“Harriet Harman, the Solicitor General, said: ‘This has always been a matter of individual conscience. If something is a free vote it cannot be in a general election campaign… We can debate it later.’”

The Government rightly acknowledge that they do not have a mandate for the status quo for ever and that they should give Parliament the opportunity, through a review and a debate, either to keep the status quo or to change the law. We must have that opportunity.

18:48:00

Mr. Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
I congratulate all those who contributed to the excellent debate. I hope that it greatly improves the understanding of those who have listened to it and those who read it of a range of issues that will—I hope—come before the House and that require, as the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) said, a great deal of debate,

I thank the hon. Member for Norwich, North and the Committee for the excellent report. I do not have to agree with all of it to realise that it is an important piece of work. As the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) said, it shows the work of Select Committees at their best. It does not simply hold the Government to account, which is important, but tries to enhance Parliament’s role in the discussion and shaping of policy. That is especially apt in circumstances in which the House has responsibility not only to review the law but to make decisions in future about the shape of legislation on the subject—on a free vote.

The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) mentioned the two important words “free vote.” Before I venture into the subject of the report, I emphasise that point. Hon. Members who were present during the passage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 will recall that, two years before the measure was introduced, the Conservative Government said that such issues would be considered on a free vote. So they were. It is one of the Committee’s recommendations that the Government should make it clear that the passage of any legislation on this matter will be conducted on a free vote basis. That would certainly be true for the Conservatives, among whom there are different views that it is legitimate for any hon. Member to express.

The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough did a marvellous job of encapsulating many recommendations in a number of key themes. I prepared a set of notes for this debate containing all the issues that I thought we should discuss, but I have discarded them because, in the course of the debate, each of those issues has been raised. That is the mark of an excellent debate that has covered all the necessary ground extremely well. Some might think that it has covered more ground than was desirable, but I believe that we have done the subject real justice.

The hon. Gentleman touched on a matter of considerable importance, namely the procedure involved in taking this subject forward. I also want to emphasise that point before the Minister responds to the debate. On the strength of the consultations that have been carried out, I believe that we have reached a point at which the Government could come forward with proposals. Bearing in mind what happened during the passage of the Human Tissue Act 2004, I believe that the Committee is right to call for pre-legislative scrutiny of any proposed legislation. I hope that the Government will therefore publish a draft Bill for that purpose. I also hope that the Minister will confirm that that process will be conducted on a free vote basis. These are obviously matters for the House as a whole, rather than solely for Front Benchers.

The need for a Select Committee on bioethics merits further discussion. We have discussed a range of issues this afternoon, and there are others, such as surrogacy, that have not been mentioned. The need for discussion on other matters, including the use of gene therapies and genetic research, demonstrates the desirability of having a body of continuing expertise to be developed in the House, on which we could all rely. The Science and Technology Committee has done a marvellous job in producing this report, but we cannot ask it to be responsible for continuously updating Parliament’s views on these issues.

We say that we have had no legislation on these issues since 1990, but we have returned to them from time to time. I recall that, when we debated stem cell research four or five years ago, many Members felt as though they were suddenly being asked to consider the matter without having had the opportunity to do so before. The same applies to the issue of abortion, which, as the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon said, does not get debated if we are not considering legislation on the matter. A Select Committee would offer greater opportunities to debate all these issues.

The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith) made a powerful case for the need for a debate on abortion. Taking a very different tack, the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) argued her case on the issue. I want to echo what the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon said on the issue. We cannot decide here and now whether there is sufficient evidence to justify the view that 24 weeks is too late a point—based on the viability of a foetus—for abortions to take place except in the most exceptional circumstances. The Committee makes a perfectly reasonable case for that subject to be examined. Although such an examination would not necessarily lead to the introduction of legislation, there are proposals about access to early terminations of pregnancy—involving a nurse carrying out the procedure, for example—that might require legislative reform.

My personal view is that it would probably be unwise for that issue to be wrapped up in the reform of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. I would not want hon. Members to have to take a view on the desirability or otherwise of a whole piece of legislation on the ground of their strongly held views on abortion, when the bulk of the legislation ought to be able to proceed without having to deal with that issue. In that respect, it would be helpful if Ministers would make it clear that those issues will be considered separately, and that, if a Committee of the House were to propose options for the reform of the law on abortion, the Government will do as a previous Government did and make parliamentary time available for the House to conclude any such discussions.

My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) took us into the question of the welfare of the child, on which the Committee made a number of recommendations. The way in which the Committee did that was rather curious, because it suggested that the welfare of the child, as currently expressed in the legislation, should be abandoned, but then went on to say that it should still be considered if there were a risk of significant harm to a child, and that there should be a threshold in such circumstances. I cannot see how a legislative framework that requires third parties to intervene to bring a child into the world cannot consider the welfare of the child.

Dr. Evan Harris
The Select Committee’s report states, on page 46, that

“if the welfare of the child provision is to be retained in any revised legislation it should be based on the principle that the state has a role in determining who can have fertility based on their personal history and circumstances.”

We also stated, in relation to medical treatment, that doctors are required to have regard to these issues without an extra layer of regulation. We do not need a specific provision that allows clinics to discriminate, because having regard to the welfare of the child is already embedded in good clinical practice.

Mr. Lansley
I understand that, but unless there is wholesale deregulation of assisted reproductive technologies, those who carry out fertility treatments must take responsibility within a specific regulatory framework. It would send the wrong message if we were to abandon a particular aspect of that framework. If we were to go down a much more deregulatory path, however, the situation might be different.

My hon. Friends the Members for Congleton and for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker) expressed a view that is shared by many people about the best circumstances in which to bring a child into the world. I do not think that we have any doubts about what they said; I hope that we do not. However, when we ask whom we should prevent from having the opportunity to provide a loving home to a child, that is a different question. The argument was put to the Committee that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 was out of kilter with the Adoption and Children Act 2002, but it is not. Under the Adoption and Children Act, social services considering a child for adoption have to consider the child’s welfare very carefully, and to decide whether it will be cared for and given a loving home. That is a perfectly reasonable test. The issue is not whether the welfare of the child should be considered in any proposed legislation but whether we should preclude providing artificial reproductive technologies to lesbian or gay couples.

Mr. Walker
Does my hon. Friend agree that the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) was getting slightly confused when he talked about male erectile dysfunction? This is a serious point. If a man is treated for erectile dysfunction to improve his sex life, that is one thing, and I hope that, if two lesbians were having problems in their sex life, they would receive the necessary treatment. However, we are not talking about erectile dysfunction and sex lives here. We are talking about having children. I think that the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon was confusing the two issues.

Mr. Lansley
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We are, of course, talking about children, and about the circumstances in which couples, and in some cases single people, have access to help to become a parent. From my point of view, a gay couple who go through the process of surrogacy are capable, and in some circumstances entirely capable, of providing a long-term loving home for a child. If a lesbian couple or a single woman wish to have fertility treatment—rather than, for example, donor insemination—that is a perfectly acceptable way of proceeding. Personally—I emphasise that I speak entirely personally—I would prefer that, legislatively, we enabled children to be brought into the world to parents who want to give them a loving home, using the welfare of the child as a continuing measure, rather than trying to restrict that. Too few children are being brought into loving homes, and too many are being brought into unhappy homes where they are not loved and not looked after.

The hon. Member for Norwich, North, who should take pride in ownership, with his Committee, of this report, said that he would rather take penalties in the last minute than go through this again. We would all prefer that, as he might succeed. He touched on the whole question of the HFEA’s role. I confess that I do not understand why the Committee concluded that the HFEA’s tasks of policy interpretation and of inspection and maintenance of standards are necessarily incompatible or subject to a conflict of interest. I think that its understanding of the role that fertility clinics play and of developments in technology—and its interface with clinical practitioners—are an essential part of informing policy. I accept his point that by dint of working with 1990 legislation the HFEA must increasingly make policy decisions that were not anticipated in 1990 and which legislators at the time would have expected to be brought back to Parliament for consideration. That is one of the reasons why we must have legislation, which I hope might establish a slightly more flexible structure that allowed Parliament to take more of the policy decisions, a decade or two hence, rather than leaving such matters entirely to the HFEA.

In passing, as the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon spoke well of HFEA members, let me say that I have been impressed by their work in my dealings with them. I know that the Committee has had criticisms of them, not least in the past. I am grateful for the work that Dame Suzi Leather has done as chairman. She is now moving on, and although I do not necessarily agree with every one of her statements, I think that she has helped tremendously and tackled some difficult issues extremely well in a public context. 

My hon. Friends the Members for Salisbury (Robert Key) and for Braintree (Mr. Newmark) touched on the contest between scientific capability and the framework in which it should be exercised. I am not sure that I could ever help my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury with his question about what heaven might consist of, and I doubt that he was asking my advice on the subject. However, his comments about not stopping science are terribly important, and pre-implementation genetic diagnosis is a good example. We are clear that there are circumstances in which we would not want PGD to be used. For example, would we expect it to be used to try to eliminate a small increased risk of a certain disease later in life? No, I do not think so. In that area, however, the legislation will introduce not broad prohibitions, but a range of criteria, which will have to be determined over time and as science develops. That is one of the compelling reasons for having an interface between lay and scientific views. As the Committee made clear, however, that interface should not just take place in the HFEA but in a dialogue between the HFEA, the scientific and medical community and Parliament. It is important for that to dialogue to continue.

To echo a point that was implied by my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree’s comments, science may continue to change, but science does not drive ethics. As we have in part set out to do, we must make clear not just the ethical framework but the ethical standards that apply to this area of technology. Reproductive cloning is a good example. I cavil slightly at the argument that reproductive cloning technology might have changed in 20 years’ time, which of course it might—human reproductive cloning might even have been achieved in other parts of the world. However, I cannot for the life of me see why this country’s legislative framework should do anything other than say clearly that we are against it and that it will not happen here. I do not subscribe to the view that because science changes, our law must change. On some matters, we must be quite clear. The legislation will contain both broad prohibitions and sets of criteria in certain areas, and we must be clear about the distinction between the two.

The hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner) referred to clearer legislation on sex selection criteria, which is a good example. We must make clear where those boundaries are to be set. The Committee was right that, for instance, the criteria for the use of human-animal chimera, PGD and pre-implantation tissue typing must be set out to a greater degree in the new legislation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) made an important point about donor anonymity. In Committee, we made precisely that point, and voted against the regulations on those grounds. I am disappointed that the Minister brought forward legislation and whipped it through without a free vote. The Committee noted that, and subsequently discovered that the legislation was drafted on the basis of poor evidence. As a consequence, those providing fertility treatments are suffering.

The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) made an important comment, which I echo, about the availability of fertility treatments. I declare a sort of interest, although not a personal one. While Louise Brown may have been born in Oldham, the scientific work was undertaken at Bourn Hall clinic in my constituency, and I am vice-chair of the all-party infertility group. Two years ago, the Prime Minister said that the NICE guidelines, especially on the availability of three cycles of IVF, should be achieved, and that the Government would make clear further progress on that. More than two years later, that has not happened. As a consequence, there are still serious inequalities in the availability of treatment. With regard to my constituents, from last September to this spring, my primary care trust stopped making fertility treatments available. It has now started to make them available, but it has limited the number of contracts to 200, which means that fewer couples are gaining access to fertility treatment than are coming on to the waiting list. Some PCTs are setting perverse criteria, such as not making fertility treatment available until women are 36 years old, whereas the NICE guidelines were designed to optimise the cost-effectiveness of fertility treatments provided through the national health service.

The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East took an admirably utilitarian view of fertility treatments, and said that they contributed to the country’s economy as a whole, which is no doubt true. From my point of view, I just meet couples who want to provide a loving home to children and who, in my view, should be given the opportunity of having their physical impairment remedied by the NHS, as it remedies many other diseases. Infertility is a disease, and it has a big impact on people’s lives. Bringing loved children into a loving home would have an enormously positive impact on those lives, and would do a great deal for society.

Mr. Walker
My hon. Friend says that infertility is a disease. Is infertility in women who have passed the menopause a disease, or just a natural progression of age?

Ann Winterton
It is a condition.

Mr. Lansley
My hon. Friend says, from a sedentary position, that it is a condition. Something that causes people considerable distress is a disease, and it can be a consequence of what is clearly a disease. For example, one of the reasons we are fighting chlamydia is that in later life it will lead to an increased incidence of infertility. Members may say that infertility is a subsequent condition arising from a particular disease, but that is splitting hairs, and I do not want to split hairs in this context. We are dealing with couples who want to provide a loving home, and I think that one of our responsibilities as a society is to increase the number of such opportunities..

Daniel Kawczynski
Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Lansley
I am sorry, but I am about to end my speech.

I welcome the Committee’s report, and hope the Minister will tell us that she will present legislation that will allow the House to put today’s discussion into legislative form.

19:10:00

The Minister of State, Department of Health (Caroline Flint)
We have had a good debate. We have heard a variety of speeches from Back Benchers—12, I believe—in three hours or so, reflecting the complexity and diversity of opinions on what we have been able to discuss today, let alone other aspects of the report that there has not been time to mention.

I welcome the report, and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson), who chaired the Committee that produced it. He passed the gauntlet—if that is the right word—to the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis). As he said, I am due to appear before the Committee next week, and I am sure that it will explore many of the issues raised today in much more depth.

We have benefited from a number of authoritative reports produced by a variety of Select Committees of both Houses in recent years, but I think it fair to say that few have been as extensive as the one that we are debating today, or have produced such wide-ranging recommendations. The report followed a year-long inquiry involving written evidence gathering, examination of witnesses and, as we have heard today, fact-finding missions abroad. The result of that process has been very thought-provoking. It has led to analysis and to a set of recommendations which—although we may not all agree with them—prompt questions that need to be put, given the pace of change in both science and technology and social issues over the past decade or so in this area of public policy.

Those who read the report, regardless of whether they agree with its proposals, will be compelled to examine their own reasoning and rationale in regard to a host of fundamental legal, ethical and social questions and dilemmas, many of which go to the heart of no lesser questions than what it means to be human and what are the proper limits of toleration in a modern pluralistic society. It is hardly surprising that the report did not have an easy gestation, or that the Committee could not reach unanimity on underlying principles. I should refer at this point to the special report that records the dissent of five Committee members. That too has been reflected in the speeches we have heard, particularly that of the hon. Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton).

I do not think, however, that a lack of unanimity is necessarily to be regretted. It illustrates the complexity and depth of feeling that surrounds these issues, and opens them up to wider debate. Certainly our consultation, whose findings we published earlier in the year, revealed a wide range of views. It would be unfair to suggest, as some Members may have been inclined to suggest today, that there is only one view in the scientific community, or that it does not take the issues seriously. The feedback that I have received suggests that, far from having a “go fast” attitude, many in that community want the issues to be aired fully. They want a full discussion, because they want to feel that there is confidence in their professionalism and their approach to the important matters that have been raised today.

I do not believe that any of the issues we have discussed are easy or admit of a simple solution, or at any rate a solution that can be reached by a simple or easy route. In January 2004 we announced our intention of reviewing the 1990 Act—a process that would include a public consultation exercise in 2005. The Select Committee’s report provided an excellent starting point. We took up many of the issues raised and suggestions made by the Committee, and signalled our willingness to consider potential changes. I hope that our response also identified points on which we agreed with the Committee, and showed that when we did not agree we took on board some of the points that have been made again today. I am thinking of, for instance, the regulatory and policy-making role of the HFEA and the question of where Government oversight should lie.

It is right for us to take time to think through the issues and develop our response properly. As I have said, we made clear our agreement with some of the report’s recommendations, and made plain our intention to gather views on others from a wider audience. In common with the Committee, we concluded that the basic foundations of the 1990 Act, as rooted in the earlier report from the Warnock committee of inquiry, remained sound.

I think we should all be very proud of the legislation. Yes, science has moved on, but I think we should be proud of the basic foundation that has served the country so well, not just nationally but internationally. My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner) made a good point: that in not being prepared to explore some of the issues that we have explored, those in other countries have allowed the creation of an atmosphere in which it has been possible to develop some of the worst examples of what we do not wish to see. That has often brought into question practices in our own country, but our debates on the issue, and our underpinning legislation, have stood us in good stead and protected us from some of the wider and scarier practices overseas.

The foundations of the report include the idea of a special status applicable to the human embryo, the need for active monitoring and regulation, and a clearly defined time limit on the development of embryos in vitro for research. When we announced our review of the Act, we made clear that several aspects of the current law and scheme of regulation would not be reopened for debate. We felt that those aspects had been conclusively, and in some cases very recently, resolved by Parliament, or the Government had already made clear their established policy intentions. They include the removal of donor anonymity. The hon. Members for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) and for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) have expressed concerns about its removal, but children’s organisations and others have said that they consider it right. We have talked a great deal about family and identity today. The view has been expressed that children conceived by means of donors have a right to receive information about those who allowed them to be created in the first place.

As I have said, on the whole the 1990 Act has stood the test of time, and is a tribute to the foresight of its creators. It resulted from an extensive process of deliberation and consultation over several years. It established the principle of independent oversight of an area of medical practice, and I believe it has proved to be remarkably robust in the face of legal challenges. I also believe that it has promoted public confidence in assisted reproduction treatment, and has played a large part in enabling the United Kingdom to move to the forefront of cutting-edge developments in scientific and medical research.

There has been criticism of the HFEA, but I think that it continues to do a very good job in dealing with the novel and complex issues that inevitably come its way. I agree to an extent with the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire, who said that it was difficult for organisations to look purely at regulation without examining issues relating to policy development as they see it, in the context of their inspection and regulatory processes. I join the hon. Gentleman in thanking Dame Suzi Leather for her leadership and steering of the HFEA. I also thank all members of the board, who constitute a mix of professional and lay people.

Law and regulation have not stood still since 1990. The House has passed both primary and secondary legislation, either in response to developments or to seize new opportunities. Nevertheless, the Committee and the Government have agreed that there is a growing need to revisit the law, particularly given the rise of new technologies. The Committee had previously expressed that view as a need to

“reconnect the Act with modern science”.

There can be no doubt that developments are moving fast. They include technological breakthroughs in the screening of embryos for hereditary diseases, and we have seen the number of babies conceived through IVF worldwide pass the 3 million mark. That figure includes 100,000 children born in the UK. We need to establish a framework that is broadly acceptable to society, and fit for purpose in the 21st century.

We should remember this, too. It comes from the Warnock report, and it has the same resonance today as when it was first written:

“the law must not outrage the feelings of too many people, but it cannot reflect the feelings of them all.”

That is an important quote today, as it was then. The report continued:

“It must therefore be drawn with a view to the common good".

I believe that a consultative and deliberative approach is key. As we have said, we are keen to continue to explore how wide-ranging a debate we can have and to continue to provide opportunities for more involvement and more debate.

There were 535 responses to our consultation; more than 100 organisations took part. We saw the wide diversity of views. None the less, the ultimate basis for regulation in this area is the public good, and commonly acceptable limits and boundaries. Therefore, the considered views of society as a whole, identified through exercises such as the consultation, the Select Committee report, this debate and debate in the months ahead, are crucial to making sure that we end up with a law as successful as the original law on which it will be founded.

It is clear that responses generally favour measures such as a ban on non-medical sex selection, and retention of a “welfare of the child” consideration in some form. I will talk a bit more about that later. Respondees were generally less convinced of the need to make changes to the scope of permissible embryo research. It will be for Parliament to weigh those arguments, opinions and evidence in its consideration of any proposals to change the law that the Government may bring forward.

There has been much discussion about the role of the HFEA. Some take the view that Parliament could take more of a role not only on that matter but on that movable feast, the way in which science and society develop. In our response to the Committee, we did not feel that a bioethics committee was necessarily the right way forward. We took that view on the basis that the present distributed model of advisory bodies with more specific briefs remained the best option, as it enables specific bioethical issues to be addressed by dedicated groups with the appropriate expertise and sufficient time to devote to the issue. However, we share the Committee’s view that airing and debating bioethical issues in Parliament is important, and we are willing to give further consideration to the appropriate level of parliamentary control over delegated powers under legislation. We accept the benefit of wide consultation. As I have said, I am looking to explore how much further we can develop that debate in the months ahead.

Establishing a regulatory authority for tissue and embryos is not just a costcutting exercise, as some people have suggested, or just a neat joining of two organisations. We believe that, through bringing the HFEA and the Human Tissue Authority together, we can have a single competent authority acting as a regulator under the blood, tissue and cells directives, which will reduce any risk of overlap and duplication. We also think that RATE will be better able to work with other regulators such as the Healthcare Commission to ensure common standards and practices. Having a single source of authoritative guidance on all issues related to the use of human tissues of all kinds will be helpful in one organisation. Again, that will help to ensure good practice and guidance established on common principles in those related areas.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon), the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough and other colleagues talked about the sex selection of offspring. That issue is a good example of why we have chosen to review existing law and regulation. It is established policy that the selection of embryos on the grounds of sex, other than for serious medical reasons, should not be allowed. That position is maintained by the HFEA, which has undertaken extensive public consultation and surveys. That was complemented by the response to our own consultation. However, there is not an explicit statutory ban in law, and nor does the HFEA's policy apply to treatments that fall outside its remit. The rise of new technologies, such as sperm sorting, could therefore allow sex selection to take place in settings outside the scope of regulation.

We consulted on options, including a ban, or a partial ban in line with the Committee's recommendation to allow sex selection for non-medical reasons in order to “balance” a family. It is clear from responses to our consultation that people favoured an explicit ban with no exception for family-balancing, and a range of other surveys have shown widespread public antipathy to sex selection for social reasons.

We must give serious consideration to how a statutory ban could work in practice. As I have said, services on the internet are one factor. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East asked whether the Government would regulate internet sperm providers. We have said in our consultation document that we intend to make the operation of internet services involving supply subject to regulation. We have sought views on the detail of that, but clearly, we can apply it only in the UK. We cannot necessarily apply it to overseas practices.

The welfare of the child and the need for a father are another social concern. Concerns about the general welfare of children underpin many aspects of the current legislation. For example, concern about the psychological well-being of the child is a key reason for the ban on human reproductive cloning. However, the extent to which the law should intervene in decisions to provide treatment in individual cases, or impose “social” criteria for assisted reproduction clinics is less clear-cut. Whatever view we take individually on the merits of different family forms, the issue is about whether it is the state's role to impose a view. I listened carefully to the comments of the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire

In 1990, Parliament chose to require clinics to take account of the welfare of the child, including the need of the child for a father; any change to that position will again be a matter for Parliament. The Committee's report is very clear. What emerged from the consultation, interestingly—and, on this occasion, it contradicts the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East—is that the medical profession, as represented by the royal colleges and the BMA, feels that there needs to be something that recognises the welfare of the child. The BMA wants a general welfare of the child provision to be retained, and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists wants to subsume those considerations within good medical practice. Therefore, there is a view that the welfare of the child is still an important consideration to be taken into account.

The question of the “need for a father” has again been aired. It is not a straightforward matter. The requirement to take account of the need for a father is not a prohibition as it currently stands. The HFEA is required to give clinics guidance on taking account of the welfare of the child. On that point it says:

“Where the child will have no legal father, the treatment centre is expected to assess the prospective mother's ability to meet the child's/children's needs and the ability of other persons within the family or social circle willing to share responsibility for those needs."

We are looking at the response to our consultation on the issue. I am sure that there will be further discussion. Again, we felt it important to put those questions in our consultation because we wanted to reflect the fact that perhaps over time opinions had changed, and the emphasis on the welfare of the child should be paramount in relation to decisions on the issue.

PGD has concentrated colleagues’ minds. The hon. Member for Salisbury (Robert Key) and my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown both spoke about the issue. The screening and selection of embryos, and the grounds on which that may be undertaken, feature heavily in the Committee's report and have done so in preceding reports. Indeed, I believe that that issue, more than any other, led to the instigation of the Committee's inquiry. Although the courts have upheld the HFEA's power to make licensing decisions in that area, the topic remains controversial.

The analysis in the Committee's report is instructive. It raises several facets of the debate, including making sure that embryos are not created and destroyed frivolously, balanced against the avoidance of serious inherited disorders or the ability to treat a seriously ill sibling. It goes on to consider the appropriate setting for decision making and the respective roles of Parliament and the regulator. Responses to the consultation, where they agree that pre-implantation genetic diagnosis should be allowed, show that there is a view that there need to be some more explicit criteria in legislation to determine legitimate purposes for which embryo screening and selection may take place. Again, we need to think about how we deal with the pace of change in the science and the role of the authority in the future, as well as Parliament’s input into the decisions.

My hon. Friends the Members for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith) and for Islington, South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) and the hon. Members for Congleton, for Harrogate and Knaresborough, for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) and for Salisbury (Robert Key) debated time limits. The subject was also touched on by other hon. Members in various ways.

One of the differences between the last time Parliament discussed time limits and now is that then relevant professional bodies exerted considerable pressure in favour of a change. Some hon. Members may have participated in that debate, and I was certainly aware of it. It was clear that the professional bodies felt that the time limits needed to be changed. However, today, the Government have not been approached by any of the relevant professional bodies to state that they have changed their views since the limit was reduced from 28 to 24 weeks in 1990.

At low gestation age, even if the foetus is born alive, there are high risks of death due to immaturity. Indeed, while the possibility of survival of extremely pre-term babies has improved, data suggest that, even with modern intensive care, chances of survival at 22 weeks’ gestation are only approximately 1 per cent., whereas that increases to 26 per cent. at 24 weeks. However, it should be noted that 88 per cent. of abortions are carried out at less than 13 weeks’ gestation, 60 per cent. of which are at less than 10 weeks. Less than 1 per cent. are performed at 22 weeks and over. Only 124 have taken place at 24 weeks and over.

Parliament agreed in 1990 that the legal limit for most abortions should be reduced from 28 weeks to 24 weeks. The debate that informed the decision considered a wide range of issues, including both ethical and practical issues. It is still a matter for Parliament to decide, but I wanted to be clear about the pressures that were coming at the time from professional organisations. That is not happening today. Any proposed changes would need to be carefully thought through, and we have not had the pressure from the organisations for change. The BMA and the royal colleges, which advised the need for a change in 1990, have not given any such advice today.

Mr. Willis
If the Minister is confident—I have no reason to argue with what she has said—that the science has not changed, why will she not agree to an ad hoc Joint Committee of both Houses to put the matter to rest?

Caroline Flint
That is an issue for the House to decide. I was trying to point out the differences between the debate in 1990 and today. In 1990, the professional medical organisations urged the Government to make changes, based on the scientific evidence, but they are not doing so today.

We are trying to ensure that women have access to abortion services as soon as possible. Primary care trusts have a performance indicator designed to encourage them to assist women to have access to early abortions. However, we know that some of those taking part in the debate disagree with any abortion. We have also carried out an audit of the gaps in access to contraception for women, and the point has been made this afternoon about access to better sex and relationships education and information for young people so that situations do not end in an unwanted pregnancy for which an abortion may be the only solution for the individual concerned.

Ann Winterton
Is it not a fact that the more her Department spends on sex education, the greater the level of sexual activity among the young? Is it not time to think of such issues differently, because the objectives are not being achieved?

Caroline Flint
Despite some of our best efforts, the provision of sex education is still patchy, although there is some very good practice, both in and outside schools. In fact, most young people do not want information only about sex. Most of those under 16, the hon. Lady will be pleased to know, are not having sex, but they do want information about the changes to their bodies as they grow up and how to cope with peer pressure during puberty. Much of the work that we do on teenage pregnancy also takes into account issues of low self-esteem. Young people need the confidence to not feel pressurised into having sex, but if they are going to have sex, to do so safely. I wish that the picture was as clear-cut as the hon. Lady might like to imagine, but relationships hardly ever are. We could certainly do more to improve sex and relationships education.

Dr. Evan Harris
The Minister is correct to say that there is no call from the royal colleges or the BMA to reduce abortion time limits, and it is fair to recognise that. However, nor is there any opposition from those bodies to a review. The public want a review, and the Minister obviously thinks that public opinion is important, because she followed the public consultation on the changes to donor anonymity, despite the opposition of the BMA. The Minister has to recognise that in the end it will be a matter for Parliament, and many of us feel that it would be timely to address it in this Session, after 16 years, rather than wait for the next Session.

Caroline Flint
This afternoon has been an opportunity for all views to be aired on the issue, as was the hon. Gentleman’s Adjournment debate last year. I am sure that the discussion will continue. It is important that we understand how many women are having late abortions and why. For example, some women cannot be screened to see whether the baby they are carrying is likely to have severe disabilities until very late in the process, and they may also need some time to think about what to do—which might be not to have a termination. The timing can mean that women have to make very difficult decisions. I do not think that any of the 124 women who have been through that have taken it lightly, and my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury made that point well.

We must also consider the science—what is and is not possible. I heard on the radio recently about the scans taken of foetuses that appear to be walking or sucking their thumbs, but some of those scans were taken at 12 weeks, so we need to think about what points people are making and whether the debate is about the wider issue of access to legal abortion, and not just time limits. I am sure that we will come back to the issue, perhaps next week in Committee and in future debates.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East asked about definitions of embryos and gametes, which he feels are inadequate. We have announced that we intend to ensure that the definitions used in the legislation are fit for purpose, taking account of the rise of new technology. That is a primary reason for reviewing the legislation. For example, we will ensure that all embryos outside the body are covered by regulation. However, we have made it clear that, in common with the Science and Technology Committee, we have no intention of altering the 14-day limit for embryo research.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East and the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) raised the important issue of access to fertility services. There has been quite a debate about the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority publishing its own document on different clinics and what they provide. There were calls from across the Chamber—and, I think, from the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough—to look at success rates. The picture is not clear, because obviously the results very much depend on the profile of the people coming through. As with anything, we do not necessarily want a league table; we just need to be mindful of the issue. Having said that, it is fair that people seeking IVF and support should have some understanding of what they should be looking out for in a good clinic. That certainly should be part of the commissioning process.

I have been exploring further how we might improve the commissioning process for IVF services, both within a primary care trust and perhaps among a group of PCTs in an area, to see how they might commission such services and get better value for money, and perhaps better outcomes and understanding, too. I am pleased to have supported a new project by Infertility Network UK, which we provide with core funding, on ways in which it can work with PCTs to ensure that fertility patients’ voices are heard when decisions about services are made locally.

I am so pleased that the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire mentioned the link between chlamydia and infertility. I have been trying to get the Department and non-governmental organisations to think much more closely about the connections between those two issues, and about why the screening programme for chlamydia is so important. We should do whatever we can to prevent the likelihood of future infertility, and one of the ways we can do that is through better screening for chlamydia; another is by people practising safer sex more regularly.

We believe that stem cell research offers enormous potential to deliver new treatments for currently incurable illnesses, such as chronic heart disease, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. We want to encourage research exploring all sources of stem cells, including embryonic stem cells. In the March 2005 Budget, the Chancellor announced the establishment of the UK stem cell initiative, a taskforce charged with developing a vision and a costing strategy to make the UK a global leader in stem cell research. It is undoubtedly the case that frustrated scientists in the US who want to do the world some good through such research are coming to Britain to share their expertise and to be part of such an important scientific development, which brings hope to so many thousands of people, and so many future thousands of people, too.

The hon. Member for Windsor made a point about the decision to remove donor anonymity. We took account of the views provided in response to a public consultation and a further targeted questionnaire sent to clinics and, through them, donors. The fundamental matter was whether it was right to perpetuate the situation whereby donor-conceived people were denied information held on a national database about their donor. Following consultation, we decided that it was not. Again, that is an issue about the rights of donor-conceived children to have some information about their own life and background. We asked some other questions about that in relation to the consultation and we have also been looking into wider issues around information, which we are hoping to share in the near future.

We have had a wide-ranging debate. Clearly, there is an interest in the subject in the House, of which I have taken note. I have also taken note of the many different points that hon. Members on both sides of the House have raised. As I said before, we should be proud that we have a law that has done a huge service to the development of policy on the subject, both on science and social grounds. However, we have to reflect social as well as scientific changes, and we have to reflect on the best way to get a regulatory authority that has some flexibility, while considering fully Parliament’s oversight role for the future.

I thank everyone for taking part in the debate, and I very much welcome having had the chance to respond to it.

Question deferred, pursuant to Standing Order No. 54 (4) and (5) (Consideration of estimates).

Electoral Commission

[Relevant documents: Oral and Written evidence, taken by the Constitutional Affairs Committee, Session 2005-06, on Electoral Administration, HC 640-i and 640-ii.]

This Estimate is to be considered in so far as it relates to the Electoral Commission (Resolution of 27 June).

Motion made, and Question proposed,

That, for the year ending with 31st March 2007, for expenditure by The Electoral Commission—

(1) further resources, not exceeding £15,334,000, be authorised for use as set out in HC 1039,

(2) a further sum, not exceeding £15,777,000, be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to meet the costs as so set out, and

(3) limits as so set out be set on appropriations in aid. —[Mr. Watts.]

19:45:00

Peter Viggers (Gosport) (Con)
This is the first occasion on which the House has ever had a general debate on the work of the Electoral Commission. As the House will know, the commission is entirely independent of Government, so the opportunities for private Members to initiate debate about its work are limited. I am therefore particularly grateful to the Liaison Committee for agreeing to provide time for this debate. I know that the Electoral Commission prizes the fact that it is directly accountable to Parliament through the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, for which I answer in the House, and has very much welcomed this first general debate on its work.

The House will see from the Order Paper that the Constitutional Affairs Committee has drawn attention to the evidence it took on electoral administration, which is one of the many facets of the work of the Electoral Commission. I shall say more later in my speech about how the various strands of parliamentary scrutiny of the Electoral Commission fit together, but I would like to make it clear at this stage that it is not the intention that the debate be restricted solely to the commission’s work on electoral administration, important though that issue is.

The debate is particularly timely because, five years into the Electoral Commission’s life, it is a good time to take stock of its record and to consider where its priorities should lie for the future. The Committee on Standards in Public Life recently began hearing evidence in its inquiry focusing on the Electoral Commission’s mandate, governance and accountability. I know that a number of Members on both sides of the House have already given evidence to it. I know, too, that the electoral commissioners themselves are taking this opportunity to consider the future direction of the commission, and that is entirely right. This debate will provide an opportunity for a wider cross-section of the House to make known its views on the Electoral Commission, and I hope that both the Committee on Standards in Public Life and the commissioners will take the views expressed into account when reaching their conclusions.

Mr. Anthony Steen (Totnes) (Con)
I am having some difficulty understanding section 16 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, which outlines the arrangements for the transfer of the functions of the parliamentary boundary commissions to the Electoral Commission. Could my hon. Friend explain why the Committee on Standards in Public Life has anything to do with delaying that actually happening?

Peter Viggers
The committee is not delaying that; the Government have given power to enable the transfer to take place, but the proposal to make the transfer has not yet occurred. I will refer to that point later in my speech.

The Committee on Standards in Public Life, to which my hon. Friend referred, played a decisive part in the establishment of the Electoral Commission. In November 1997, the Prime Minister extended that committee’s remit by adding to its existing terms of reference:

“To review issues in relation to the funding of political parties, and to make recommendations as to any changes in the present arrangements.”

In the committee’s fifth report, on the funding of political parties in the United Kingdom, published in October 1998, it recommended the creation of a

“totally independent and authoritative Election Commission with widespread executive and investigative powers”

to underpin its recommendations relating to party funding.

The committee also envisaged that its proposed commission would report on the conduct and administration of principal elections or referendums within six months of their taking place, advise the Government on the modernisation and revision of electoral law, be consulted by the Government ahead of changes relating to electoral law and administration, and act as the registrar of political parties.

Crucially, the committee envisaged that its proposed commission would be, and be seen to be, an independent and impartial body, the members of which would be chosen on a non-partisan basis and by means of a non-partisan procedure, while none the less being acceptable to the leaders of the main political parties. It also recommended that the commission’s budget should be set in such a way as to preserve its authority and independence.

The Government responded to the committee’s report in July 1999 and were altogether more ambitious about the role of the new commissions’ functions. They accepted the recommendation to establish an independent and authoritative Electoral Commission, but they went on to say:

“The Electoral Commission’s role will not be a purely enforcement one. It will have a wide-ranging remit to review electoral law and practice, much of which dates back to the last century. As well as being a force for the modernisation of electoral machinery, the commission will have an important role in promoting public awareness of the democratic process and encouraging greater participation in it. The establishment of the Electoral Commission also provides an opportunity to rationalise the number of disparate bodies responsible for different aspects of the electoral process and to bring overlapping functions together under the overall control of one organisation.”

However, the Neill committee also made it clear that the Electoral Commission’s core functions would be those recommended by the Committee on Standards in Public Life. It stated:

“The bedrock functions of the Electoral Commission as recommended by the Neill committee will be those relating to the new regulatory framework for the reporting of donations to political parties, the ban on foreign donations and the controls on campaign expenditure at parliamentary and other elections.”

The Government also saw the establishment of the Electoral Commission as an opportunity to re-examine the arrangements for the review of electoral boundaries. The committee has expressed doubts about the Electoral Commission assuming the responsibility of the parliamentary boundary commissions, but the Jenkins Commission on the voting system, whose report was published shortly after the committee report, had argued for greater co-ordination and for bringing that work under the Electoral Commission.

The Government therefore created in the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000—usually referred to as PPERA, but I prefer to call it the 2000 Act—the legislation that gave effect to the new arrangements for regulating the finance of political parties and a range of other matters: a statutory framework in which responsibility for both reviewing parliamentary constituency boundaries and local administrative and electoral boundaries could be transferred to the Electoral Commission. To date, only responsibility for local authority administrative boundaries has been transferred to the Electoral Commission.

Mr. Steen
I am great supporter of the Electoral Commission’s work—it has done a wonderful job—but does my hon. Friend agree that the boundary commissions are in a terrible mess. There are all sorts of boundaries commissions—local government, central Government and so on—and I cannot quite work out which one does what. Does he agree that the boundary commissions are already producing new boundaries for the next election that are not within the 70,000 electorate limit that has been recommended. Some are as high as 110,000, and some are as low as 30,000. Is it not about time that the boundary commissions’ work, which is failing, was transferred to a better and more competent body?

Peter Viggers
If the Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, the hon. Member for Lewisham, East (Bridget Prentice) should catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, it is possible that she might refer to this matter because she has laid down a timetable within which the work of the boundary commissions will not be transferred to the Electoral Commission, while leaving it open for it to be transferred at a later date. However, I would prefer to leave that to the Minister, who can speak with authority on it.

Mr. Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
Part of the problem with the boundary commissions is that some of the seven criteria under which they operate are mutually contradictory, and we have had reference to one of them so far. Would anything in the rules of transfer allow the Electoral Commission to look at the criteria under which the boundary commissions undertake their work?

Peter Viggers
The hon. Gentleman has made his point, but, if I may, I would prefer to leave that issue to the Minister, who can speak with authority on the matter. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making his point.

John Bercow (Buckingham) (Con)
Recently, entirely of my own volition, I provided to the Electoral Commission details of sponsorship of a number of visits that I had made overseas, overwhelmingly in the course of my then duties as shadow Secretary of State for International Development. However, given that one already has a responsibility to declare such interests in the Register of Members’ Interests, is there not a danger of duplication—I put it no more strongly than that—if by virtue of the 2000 Act, one is also required to make a declaration to a body that could perfectly well apprise itself of that information from a publicly available source?

Peter Viggers
It is not often that an hon. Member can give total reassurance to a colleague, but I assure my hon. Friend that the current legislation has now amalgamated the requirement to make a declaration to the House authorities and to the Electoral Commission and I share his relief.

Mr. Oliver Heald (North-East Hertfordshire) (Con)
Is it not fair to say that the Electoral Commission pointed out such duplication and was very happy for that change to be made?

Peter Viggers
Indeed, I confirm that the Electoral Commission was entirely happy about the change.

Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey) (LD)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Peter Viggers
I must press on at this point.

I think that I have made the point that the 2000 Act substantially enlarged the original plan for an elections commission, which became the Electoral Commission and has been given very wide powers. The Government saw the functions of the new Electoral Commission

“as crucial to maintaining public confidence in our democratic institutions”.

It therefore shared the view of the Committee on Standards in Public Life that the commission should be wholly independent of the Government and be seen to be scrupulously impartial in its dealings with political parties. It was therefore deliberately not constituted as a non-departmental public body, but was made directly accountable to Parliament. During the passage of the legislation through the House, the Government introduced stringent restrictions on the extent to which commissioners could be involved in active politics.

The arrangements for setting the Electoral Commission’s budget were designed to reinforce that independent status. That responsibility was given to a statutory committee—the Speaker’s Committee—of nine Members of Parliament, including Mr. Speaker and of which I am a member. The Committee is deliberately constituted so that no party has a majority of the membership.

David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op)
I understand that in the evidence given to the Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs, the budget was then about £26 million a year, which represented about three times the figure that a broad range of similar activities had cost when they were subsumed within the Home Office. I support the work of the Electoral Commission and am very impressed by its chairman, but is the hon. Gentleman convinced that the extra two thirds, whatever that may be—£16 or £17 million—represents good value for money for the extra responsibilities that the Electoral Commission has within its brief?

Peter Viggers
I will be dealing with exactly that point in a few moments if the hon. Gentleman will contain himself. May I just deal with the matter of the Speaker’s Committee?

As there has been some discussion in evidence to the Committee on Standards in Public Life about an alleged lack of transparency in the operations of the Speaker’s Committee, I should perhaps note in passing that it was a deliberate decision of the House, welcomed by all the principal parties, that Mr. Speaker should chair the Committee that bears his name. In 2000, the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill as originally envisaged, provided for Mr. Speaker merely to appoint members to the Committee. Mr. Speaker’s predecessor agreed with the Government that she would become an ex-officio Chairman of the Speaker’s Committee, and that decision was welcomed by all the principal parties. The view has been taken that it would be inappropriate for a Committee of which the Speaker is an active participant to meet in public. That is the basis on which the Committee currently operates. There is obviously a trade-off to be made between the degree of transparency and Mr. Speaker taking an active part in the Committee’s work. For my part, I have no doubt that the benefit of the authority of his involvement far outweighs the effects of the inevitable but limited reduction in transparency.

The Speaker’s Committee also approves the Commission’s five-year corporate plan. The Government intended the functions of the Speaker’s Committee to mirror as closely as possible those of the Public Accounts Commission in relation to the National Audit Office. They nonetheless had anxieties about how those arrangements would work in practice and included safeguards in the legislation designed to prevent what they described as runaway expenditure. The Speaker’s Committee is therefore required to consult the Treasury on both the estimate and corporate plan and to have regard to any advice that the Treasury may give. It must also have regard to the most recent annual value for money report on the Electoral Commission produced by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

Both the Treasury input and the NAO reports are very much more than a tick-the-box exercise. The NAO typically reports each year on a specific policy that accounts for a significant amount of the Electoral Commission’s expenditure, such as its public awareness strategy, on which the NAO has reported to us twice. In many cases, the NAO’s choice of subject reflects the concerns that the Speaker’s Committee has expressed, so there is a welcome synergy between us. It is also a very transparent input; the Speaker’s Committee publishes these reports for all to see.

The Speaker’s Committee has a significant part in promoting understanding between the Electoral Commission and the House. However, it is not the only body with a role in this place. I welcome the fact that various departmental Committees have examined the commission’s policy stances on a number of important issues. While it is the duty of the Speaker’s Committee to be mindful, on behalf of the House, of what we call the three Es—economy, efficiency and effectiveness—it is open to others to hold the commission to account in the context of its wider interests for its policy stances. The two strands of parliamentary strategy are complementary, not competitive.

Taken overall, I would submit that there are few tranches of public expenditure of a similar size for which Government are responsible that are subject to the same level of sustained and systematic parliamentary scrutiny as is the Electoral Commission. 

About five years on after the creation of the Electoral Commission, where do we stand? The commission started out with an agenda that its chairman described to the Speaker’s Committee in November 2001 as “very ambitious” in relation to its newness and the existing resource level. The commission has grown. Its net resource requirement for 2006-07 is £26.18 million, and it now has an average full-time equivalent staff of 150, compared with 25 in March 2001.

The commission has thoroughly documented its work in the successive annual reports that it has presented to Parliament. I will comment later on some aspect of its record.

Over the past five years, the political outlook has changed considerably. The conclusions of the Jenkins Commission, which clearly had a marked effect on the Government’s thinking about the role of the commission, have not been implemented. The electoral modernisation has thrown up real doubts about the wider impact of some of the changes that have been made, such as easier access to postal votes. More recently, the controversy over loans to political parties has raised doubts among the general public over the effectiveness of the controls enacted in the year 2000, and further dented public confidence in politicians and political parties. At the same time the level of voter engagement remains historically low.

Not surprisingly, this change in political outlook has impacted on the Electoral Commission and raised questions as to whether the original 1991 blueprint still meets the current requirements. Thus some have expressed the view that the commission’s remit is too broad and that it would be a more effective body if its remit were concentrated on its core regulatory functions. Others have accused it of lacking political awareness, suggesting that it would be more effective if some, at least, of the commissioners had experience of active politics.

The commission has had its disagreements with Government on a number of issues—notably on the extent of the piloting of postal voting in the European elections and the acceptability of all-postal voting at elections, and the need for improved safeguards for our current system of postal voting on demand. There is particularly the debate about individual electoral registration.

In that context, it is worth recalling the key principles on which Henry Samuel Chapman built the first secret ballot law 150 years ago—the rock on which our current system ultimately rests and which

“by combining secrecy with limited vote-tracing both protected the elector and detected fraud when election results were in dispute.”

People tend to remember the secret ballot and tend not to know about limited vote tracing, both of which are very important.

That an independent body has a difference of view with the Government over a policy issue is not inherently a problem, but each of these is a sensitive political issue, and there is a risk in these circumstances that such disagreement may lead to a loss of confidence in the political process at a time when there is general concern about overall levels of political engagement. Some, such as the Government in their evidence to the Committee on Standards in Public Life, have therefore raised the issue whether the commission’s policy development role continues to be appropriate.

There have been two general elections—in 2001 and 2005—since the Electoral Commission was established, but the most recent general election was the first in respect of which the relevant provisions of the 2000 legislation, including the provisions relating to notional expenditure, applied fully. For all these reasons, and others besides, it seems right that the opportunity is now taken on a number of fronts to take stock of the arrangements put in place in 2000, and to consider how best to move forward. One contribution to this process is, of course, this debate. I welcome the many Members who wish to participate. If the debate did not start at 7 o’clock as we originally intended, I do not think that it is for me to apologise. I am grateful for the attendance. The debate is an important part to the process of discussion.

There are three other strands that I should mention. The first is the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s inquiry, which is currently in hand, focusing on the core issues of the mandate, governance and accountability of the Electoral Commission. In practical terms, this means examining the current responsibilities and the balance between the commission’s executive and advisory functions. The inquiry is expected to be completed by the end of the year. I have been pleased to give evidence to it on behalf of the Speaker’s Committee. I will do so again, and I look forward to seeing the Committee’s conclusions.

The Speaker’s Committee has taken steps to satisfy itself that its conclusions that the estimates and corporate plans that it lays before the House are, in the words of the 2000 Act, consistent with the

“economical, efficient and effective discharge by the Commission of its functions”.

Those are the three Es that I mentioned earlier. The Committee was itself planning a general inquiry that would have encompassed issues relating to the commission’s governance and accountability, but deferred these elements when it learned of the proposed inquiry by the CSPL. Instead, the Speaker’s Committee asked the Scrutiny Unit—that is the scrutiny unit at the House—to carry out a detailed study of the commission’s business and financial planning processes, how it assesses the effectiveness of policy outcomes and how the statutory roles of the Treasury and the National Audit Office contribute to the discharge of the Committee’s duty.

The Speaker’s Committee entrusted this review to the scrutiny unit, which has the necessary specialist expertise to conduct precisely this sort of review. I understand that this is the first exercise of this type that the unit has undertaken. The Committee was pleased with the thorough job done by the unit, and the positive response of the Electoral Commission to the recommendations addressed to it. The Speaker’s Committee is still considering the detailed recommendations that the unit addressed to it, designed to improve the effectiveness of its scrutiny. Already, however, it has set up a sub-committee, which I chair, and the Minister for Local Government is good enough to participate in our discussions. This is to give consideration to the recommendations, and I expect to be putting forward recommendations as to their implementation before the full Committee before the summer recess.

Finally, there is Sir Hayden Phillips’ review of the funding of political parties. It is also relevant to the work of the Electoral Commission. Given the extension of the terms of reference in 1997 to the Electoral Commission, specifically to cover party funding issues, it is perhaps surprising that a separate review was felt necessary as a result of the controversy over loans to political parties.

I propose briefly to analyse three specific aspects of the work of Electoral Commission, including its record in each and some of the concerns that have been expressed. They are: first, governance and accountability; second, regulatory functions; thirdly, advisory functions.

In broad terms, the accountability arrangements to the House appear to have worked satisfactorily. As I have already said, the arrangements for regulating its finances have operated effectively, and the run-away expenditure feared by the Government has not materialised. All the existing commissioners whose original periods of office have expired have been reappointed; none of the reappointments has proved controversial in the House. The commission has been to keen to participate in Select Committee inquiries, and this has provided an opportunity for its policy stances to be examined critically.

Less satisfactory, perhaps, have been the arrangements for the political parties to make an input to the commission. While the political parties panel, constituted under section 4 of the 2000 Act, has provided a mechanism for party inputs at an official level, the parties and the commission appear not to have developed a similar mechanism at a political level. Given that commissioners are by definition people with no political experience insofar as that relates to donations, political employment or standing for election for at least 10 years before their appointment, this has been seen as a weakness, in that the commission has had little exposure to front-line political reality. This, some would argue, has been reflected in the overall way in which it has interpreted its role, and on occasion in the nature of the proposals that it has made.

In relation to its regulatory functions, the commission has continued to register new political parties. The number on the register has more than tripled since 2001 to 394. The commission has also received and published details of more than 13,000 donations to political parties totalling more than £180 million, and some £86 million of campaign expenditure at six elections and one referendum, since 2001, while investigating where there is doubt about whether the existing rules have been followed.

A welcome change, for which provision will be made in the Electoral Administration Bill, will be the one-stop-shop for Members, whereby the information needed by the Commission for its register of recordable donations may be drawn from information given to the Register of Members’ Interests. However, as the recent controversy over loans to political parties has shown, there is evidence that public confidence in some parts of the political arrangements is fragile at best.

It is right to record that the Electoral Commission has successfully completed the 126 reviews of local authority electoral boundaries in England that it inherited from the Local Government Commission for England and has implemented all the consequent changes in good time for the next election in the reviewed area. It successfully conducted the regional government referendum in the north-east of England in November 2004.

Simon Hughes
On the local government boundary issue and the transfer of functions to the Electoral Commission, is it the view of the Speaker’s Committee that that job has been well done? If it is, has the committee taken the view that therefore it would be logical—this point was made earlier by one of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues—for the commission to be given as soon as practicable the responsibility for all other boundaries, because the precedent is a good one?

Peter Viggers
My best answer to that is that the Speaker’s Committee takes the view that the Electoral Commission has fulfilled its role satisfactorily—even very satisfactorily—but that it does not follow logically that the work of the boundary commission should be referred to it. I hope and trust that the Minister will refer to that matter later.

Mr. Steen
As I understand it, my hon. Friend is saying that the commission’s job with regard to local authority boundaries has been very satisfactorily dealt with—as my hon. Friend, if I may call him that, the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) pointed out. Why is my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Peter Viggers) not as bullish about parliamentary boundaries? Is it because he has not got the remit to speak, or is it that he feels certain reservations that he does not feel able to share with the House?

Peter Viggers
It is for the Government, and not the Speaker’s Committee, to take the initiative on this issue, so my diffidence is entirely justified.

The Electoral Commission has built up a role in providing authoritative advice and guidance to those involved in running our elections—the electoral registration officers and returning officers. It has to be borne in mind that it is the officers, not the commission, who have the direct responsibility. However, we should consider some of the figures being put forward for the number of errors on the electoral roll—both people who are not on it who should be and people who are on it who should not be. Dr. Pinto Duschinsky, in evidence to the Committee on Standards in Public Life, recently suggested that there might be up to 7 million errors—a projection of an estimated under-registration of 3.5 million. That figure is disputed by the Electoral Commission. There clearly remains substantial scope for improvement on that score.

The commission has also worked hard to promote public awareness of, and participation in, the democratic process. However, it is certainly open to colleagues to comment if they feel that the Electoral Commission need give that area less emphasis in future. That is a matter for colleagues to advise on.

The Electoral Commission has come a long way in the past five years. It has established itself as a serious and respected player on the electoral scene—from a standing start. It has not been helped in that process by some of the rough edges on the legislative framework—at least some of which arose from the rushed enactment of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. The Electoral Administration Bill addresses some of those matters, but there remain a number of other issues, such as the qualification for office, which may also be relevant.

The considerable achievements are a tribute to the hard work and dedication of the Electoral Commission; the chairman, Sam Younger, and his fellow commissioners; Peter Wardle and his predecessor as chief executive; and all the staff. I visited the Electoral Commission recently to reopen their refurbished offices and I was greatly impressed first by the youth of the staff and then, in discussion with them, by their commitment and enthusiasm. They are a good team. I also pay a personal tribute to Dr. Christopher Ward, the Clerk of the Speaker’s Committee, who has been enormously helpful to the Committee.

I know from the Speaker’s Committee’s own examination of the commission that the commissioners accept the need to consider at this juncture whether their priorities are clear enough and, in particular, whether they have achieved the right balance between their different functions. As the commission recognises, a key issue that it currently faces is the extent to which the balance between its different roles—between its regulatory and advisory functions—may need to change in the light of the developments since it was first established in 2000. As I said at the start of the debate, tonight is a first. It gives the House an opportunity to reflect not only on the considerable achievements of the Electoral Commission to date, but on how we would like to see it move forward in the light of the challenges that we face in the electoral field and elsewhere. I look forward to hearing colleagues’ views. I apologise for taking so long, but there are certain matters that it is important to put on the record.

Several hon. Members
rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord)
Order. Before I call the next speaker, I should say that the division of time between the two debates has not worked out quite as it normally does. A lot of hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye. In order to get as many people in as possible, it would be most helpful if hon. Members could curtail their remarks if they can.

20:15:00

Dr. Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
I, too, welcome the debate. I share the view of the hon. Member for Gosport (Peter Viggers) that it is important. However, as he pointed out, it is the first time since the Electoral Commission was formed that such a debate has been held. In many ways, the arrangements that the Electoral Commission has with the House—in terms of how it reports to the House, how it is scrutinised and how it performs its function—have played the role of an inspired invention. I am talking about resolving through the legislation the difficulty of how such a commission would work—deeply involved as it was going to be in matters that could be politically controversial, even though it clearly should not be politically biased in its own right. How that situation was resolved in the legislation, and the function of the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission in that respect, constituted that inspired invention.

However, in reality, as the hon. Gentleman said, the Electoral Commission is the equivalent of a medium-sized non-departmental public body. It has a staff of 150 and a budget of £26 million. Normally, as far as the Government are concerned, the structure for such bodies—particularly, say, next steps agencies—will be a parent Department, a framework agreement and a series of relationships with that Department in order to specify how the accountability is to be undertaken. No such framework exists for the Electoral Commission. There are a number of other unique elements of that relationship with the House that do not in any way parallel the relationship of any other body of similar size.

In practice, the Speaker’s Committee has performed something of a scrutiny role towards the work of the Electoral Commission through its meetings. However, as the hon. Gentleman said, those are not held in public. He gives understandable reasons for that, but it does have something of a result. The Speaker’s Committee accidentally, rather than deliberately, scrutinises what the Electoral Commission is doing. We have an indirect form of running accountability to the House, through the short time allotted to questions to the Chairman of the Speaker’s Committee each month. 

I ask myself whether the commission might be more formally scrutinised through the medium of a Select Committee, as a departmentally attached agency might be. I can suggest a candidate for that role: the Constitutional Affairs Committee, of which I am a member. In any event, the Chair of that Committee, or a Committee designated by the legislation, sits on the Speaker’s Committee by statutory authority. It might be possible for the Speaker’s Committee to change its function. It could take upon itself a scrutinising role through the appointment of senior Back Benchers to form a scrutiny committee. Perhaps a good alternative would be for that Select Committee function to be more formalised in connection with the way in which the Electoral Commission works.

The hon. Gentleman also mentioned what I think is a very restrictive definition in the legislation of who may be appointed as an electoral commissioner, or even an assistant electoral commissioner. It is enshrined in the legislation that if a person is to be appointed to such a post, they cannot have been a member of a political party or held any form of office in one, and cannot have been employed by a political party or, indeed, have been a named donor to one. It is understandable that a number of those restrictions may be imposed, but it is perhaps less known that also set out in the legislation are similar if slightly less onerous restrictions on all members of staff of the commission. Therefore, almost the entire commission will never have had any dealings with political parties, certainly not for a very long time.

As the duties and responsibilities of the Electoral Commission lie at the heart of the functioning of the democratic system of government in the UK, and political parties are an integral part of that, the involvement in the political process of the electoral commissioners and the staff of the Electoral Commission is a pertinent question to consider. As I have said, those who put themselves forward as candidates for the post of electoral commissioner are outside the political process, and it might be necessary to readdress the legislation, but the question that arises is whether there should be additional commissioners appointed through the medium of political parties, or whether the nomination of commissioners in its own right should be addressed. After all, political even-handedness is not the same as political celibacy. It would be beneficial to the functioning of the Electoral Commission if the position on the political involvement of both commissioners and staff were reviewed.

As the hon. Member for Gosport also mentioned, the Electoral Commission has devoted a considerable proportion of its resource not just to regulating elections but to the promotion of electoral awareness and to providing information on the practice of elections and referendums. Within the terms of that remit, it has promoted electoral awareness well, but it must be said that the limitations have meant that only one area has been addressed—voter disengagement, and the issue of not knowing what to do about voting in an era of what one might say are atomised families who might previously have gone to the polls together.

The results of the commission’s audit of political engagement show, however, that other factors are at work. In particular, there is a distaste for voting among those in their 40s, not just among the newly enfranchised. The question whether such distaste results from the inability of parties to engage voters or from a more problematic anti-politics societal norm is a difficult one to answer, but either way it presents the Electoral Commission with a difficult task if it is to promote voting on a wider basis than simply providing information about how to do it. In essence, the challenge is one of promoting the norms and necessities of democracy and politics themselves, which might be considered outside the commission’s remit.

In considering what the commission does to advance awareness of the electoral process, it is tempting, therefore, to argue for a bifurcation of that promoting role. There certainly is a need for information and reminding, and for research into the process of voting—certainly about whether the present geographically based system of casting votes is seen to be appropriate to new generations of voters, and whether changes in its structure can overcome other issues such as the security and integrity of the vote.

However, the process of argument about the role that politics plays in democracy in the UK and why the political process, including elections, is important might be a remit too far for the commission, and the development of political democracy foundations similar to those established in Germany, such as the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which represent the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats respectively, might be a better course of action to address the issue. That would entail, of course, the development and resolution of the argument about state funding for political parties, since the establishment of such foundations could not be seriously contemplated within the present structure of voluntary funding of political parties.

That brings me to the role of the commission in policing the regulation of political parties and the control of campaign finance. Other Members have mentioned that the Electoral Commission has in general been relatively effective—within, frankly, a flawed regulatory brief—at implementing and policing the recording and controlling role. The commission has been less effective in the regulation of donations to political parties, partly because of its own issues about asking questions about donations that might be considered at the margins of its remit, and partly because of the limitations of that remit itself.

The question that might be asked of the Electoral Commission is this: what exactly does it regulate? Its name suggests that it regulates elections, but its practice suggests that it regulates the conduct and practice of elections and the functioning of political parties where they relate to elections. As elections are an important but by no means the sole activity of political parties, that entails the close regulation of some party activity relating to the democratic process, but no regulation of other matters, even where those matters are closely connected. For example, the registration of parties in order to nominate candidates is regulated, but the process of nominating candidates for elections is not. The activity of such candidates once nominated may be regulated, provided that it is within the period of an election, but the activity and funding methods of adopted candidates outside an electoral period is not regulated.

In reality, political parties do not make such distinctions, and in any event they do not operate financially and in soliciting and managing donations in identical ways. Therefore, it may be said that the first problem arises from an implied assumption in the legislation that UK political parties are in essence machines for electing people to posts—essentially the American party model—and the second problem arises from an apparent assumption by the Electoral Commission that, provided certain reporting rules and accounting conventions were laid down, it would be possible to gain a coherent picture of parties’ funding and hence donations.

The Conservatives and the Labour party do not work, and never have worked, in identical ways. The ways in which the parties fund themselves differ fundamentally. The Conservative party was formed in Parliament and gained supporters’ associations that raised money for the party, while the Labour party was formed outside Parliament and operated as both a federation and a centralised party, combining funds in the middle in order to get into Parliament.

The regulation of donations by the commission therefore often fails to record accurately the real income of parties and does not pick up innovations such as the recent funding of local parties outside the campaign period to promote nominated candidates with the use of money that might otherwise be declared as central donations. Proper regulation under those circumstances would probably entail an extension of the assumption of regulation of political parties generally, and might therefore also entail a required operating standard for political parties themselves. That might call into question the reasonable right of political parties to organise themselves in the way that they feel is best appropriate to their political and geographical circumstances. Regulation that covered the whole range of party financial activity, locally and nationally, regardless of the method of organisation, might be more appropriate, and certainly a more transparent and understandable way for the Electoral Commission to discharge its regulatory function effectively in future.

Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
Does my hon. Friend accept that some of us face particular difficulties inasmuch as, as Labour/Co-operative MPs, we represent two parties? The two parties could operate differently, and therefore any regulation must carefully take account of diversity, because I would hate to have to choose which party I wanted to follow.

Dr. Whitehead
My hon. Friend makes an important point about how we regulate for diversity. I was emphasising the fact that, because of that issue, the commission has, not through any lack of resolve or resourcefulness on its part, but perhaps because of the way in which the legislation and its remit are cast, struggled to regulate campaign and party expenditure. It has regulated well expenditure that clearly occurs within campaigns, but that is and always has been an artificial construct.

One could argue that campaigns in marginal seats start on the day that the original result is declared and the seat is then appraised as being, or becoming, a marginal. Efforts to regulate the campaign better by defining more accurately what the campaign period is will probably be doomed to failure. Indeed, as hon. Members will be aware, that is precisely the difficulty that arose during consideration of how we might legislate for that in the Electoral Administration Bill. Again, the question arises of proper regulation implying oversight over the whole activity of party politics—the entire expenditure of parties both locally and nationally.

My plea to the House in respect of the future conduct of the Electoral Commission is that the commission works well where its remit is clearly defined and where that remit can be undertaken transparently and expertly; it works less well where the remit itself remains unclear, or the arrangements under which the commission can work within that remit are incomplete. Perhaps, as the hon. Member for Gosport hinted, it is time to review and make sure that the remit within which the Electoral Commission works in its regulatory, its advisory and its promotional functions is more clearly defined. In that way, we might ensure that on the sticky issue of how parties are regulated and funded, among other matters, the procedure is clear, and the role that the commission plays in it is therefore also clear.

20:31:00

Mr. John Horam (Orpington) (Con)
In today’s estimates debate, it is appropriate to consider whether the Electoral Commission is giving the taxpayer value for money. I believe that it could improve the service it provides and reduce its costs if it took certain steps, which I shall outline.

The commission employs about 150 people. I acknowledge the tribute that my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Peter Viggers) paid to their enthusiasm and youth—I was glad to hear that—and to the excellent role played by the chairman. The commission costs the taxpayer approximately £26 million—a figure that could be cut by up to a half immediately if the commission accepted the suggestion inherent in the remarks made by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead), that all the activity to encourage participation is well beyond the role that the Electoral Commission can realistically be expected to perform. The fact is that, as I am well aware following my recent involvement in the by-election in Bromley and Chislehurst, participation in general elections and in local elections is affected by very different matters from putting an advert on the side of a London bus telling people to go and vote and giving them more information. The issue is far wider and bigger than that, and, to be frank, the Electoral Commission is wasting its time getting involved. The activity was imposed on the commission by the Government—it was not in its original remit—and I think that the commission should get well clear. Quite apart from anything else, that sort of marketing activity requires different skills from the regulatory role that is the commission’s core business.

The commission should concentrate on its core business. As we know, it has taken a conscientious and straightforward approach in advocating individual registration and personal identifiers. The fact is, however, that the Government have in large measure refused to implement those measures through the Electoral Administration Bill. At that point, the commission should have had the robustness to say openly that the Government, to their credit, set it up precisely to take such delicate issues out of party politics but then, when the commission made sensible proposals, the Government voted them down, and that is to fly in the face of the logic of setting up the commission in the first place. The Government have adopted a nonsensical position and the Electoral Commission should have been more robust in making that plain. I realise that there are difficulties in the way of the commission making those points in public with force. None the less, it should have tried, especially in view of the information dug up by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) about the advice given on the Government’s consultation document by various Labour consultees that are in favour of individual registration and personal identifiers. That was brought out dramatically in our last debate on the Electoral Administration Bill, and I am pleased because it shows that there is support, not merely from the official Opposition, the Liberal Democrats and the minor parties, but from the Labour party for that sort of sensible improvement. As we have always said, Britain and Zimbabwe are the only countries that do not have individual registration, and it is ridiculous that it should be so.

Several hon. Members have spoken about the Speaker’s Committee and accountability and their points were well made. With due respect to the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport, who has done a conscientious and comprehensive job, as has the Speaker’s Committee, whose independence and neutrality we accept absolutely, the fact is that the Speaker’s Office and the Speaker himself have many, many other responsibilities. The amount of time that the Speaker and the Speaker’s Committee can devote to these issues is limited. I do not know how many times the Committee has met to consider the matter of the Electoral Commission, but I suspect that the number of such occasions is quite small in any one year. That suggests that, as the hon. Member for Southampton, Test said and my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) has said on more than one occasion, we need to examine the arrangements for accountability to this House. Various suggestions have been made—some rather complicated—but the matter should be grasped as soon as possible. The present arrangements are not entirely satisfactory, even though the Speaker’s Committee is very conscientious.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) pointed out, with great force, in his intervention, the whole business of whether the Electoral Commission should take over the work of the boundary commissions is a total mess. It is profoundly unsatisfactory and there seems to be no clear decisiveness about what will happen.

Mr. Steen
Is my hon. Friend aware that 351 seats in this House cover approximately 61,000 electors, despite the fact that this House has instructed the boundary commission to make each parliamentary seat cover 70,000 electors? Does he agree that the present boundary commission arrangements are not only not working, but they are going against what Parliament has recommended; and that if the boundary commission’s responsibilities are not to be transferred to the Electoral Commission, something else should be done so that we get parliamentary seats of the size that this House has recommended—something that has been prevented by the present arrangements?

Mr. Horam
My view is that votes should have equal weight, wherever they are in the country. That is the principle that I would like to see adopted by the boundary commissions. At present, we have four boundary commissions and votes in different parts of the country carry different weights, and that is unacceptable. I would like the Electoral Commission to take that on board and I would like the Government, whatever their views on the matter, to listen to the views of the Electoral Commission. I do not take a strong view either way on whether the Electoral Commission itself should take over the work of the boundary commission, which would be quite a big bundle of work, or whether the boundary commission should remain in some form but supervised by the Electoral Commission. Whatever happens, given that the present round of boundary arrangements is being completed, the Government have plenty of time to consider the matter fundamentally. As my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes says, this is very important, so let us have clear decisions from the Government.

20:38:00

Barbara Keeley (Worsley) (Lab)
As we know, the Electoral Commission is responsible for overseeing several aspects of electoral law, such as the registration of political parties, the monitoring of significant donations and the regulation of party spending on electoral campaigns. A further responsibility is promoting public awareness of, and involvement in, the democratic system. I understand that that responsibility commands 50 per cent. of the commission’s budget, and I will refer to that aspect of its role first.

Over the past nine months or so, we have been discussing and debating low turnout in elections and the associated problems of falling electoral registration. In the Second Reading debate on the Electoral Administration Bill last October, hon. Members acknowledged that there was a crisis in registration. The Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), talked about “democracy deserts” and the fact that 3 million people, most of whom share some of the characteristics of being poor, council tenants, black, or living in inner-city areas, would not be on the register, whereas those who were better off would be. The problem is illustrated in my constituency and local authority area. Registration levels in Salford vary from 75 per cent. to 92 per cent., with some wards having registration levels as low as 64 per cent., which represents less than two thirds of the people in those wards.

Low registration leads inexorably to low turnout, and the turnout recorded in last year’s general election was 61 per cent. The Electoral Commission’s most recent audit of political engagement showed that beneath the headline figures there were now considerable disparities in the extent of political engagement among certain social groups. That shows that social and political exclusion are strongly related and mutually reinforcing. The report says that professional workers are more likely to feel knowledgeable about politics than manual workers or the unemployed. Only a minority of those in very deprived areas are interested in politics, while a quarter are now unwilling to engage in any activity around influencing decisions. Perhaps most depressing of all, the extent of political knowledge and interest in acting and participating is lower among younger people than it is among the population as a whole. Anyone who is active in political campaigning will know that there is a cohort of younger people who have never voted and are becoming less likely to do so as the years pass. I find it depressing to canvass a 30-year-old who says, “I have never voted.”

Such trends are well known by those who are locally and nationally politically active, and they form the subject of comment and debate by bodies such as the Hansard Society and of reports such as that of the Power inquiry. Having set up the Electoral Commission with the express responsibility of promoting public awareness of, and involvement in, the democratic process, hon. Members should be worried that, five years on, we have a crisis in registration and democracy deserts, with young people and people in deprived areas being uninterested in our democracy and unwilling to vote or to try to influence decision making. Happily, there are measures in the Electoral Administration Bill to start to remedy the problem of registration and to give returning officers more powers to improve access to voting and promote participation.

The Electoral Commission has presided over a slide in registration and has done little that has been truly effective to halt the decline in turnout. Additionally, the commission has quite wrongly argued for amendments to the Electoral Administration Bill that might lead to an even greater decline in registration. It has backed individual registration despite knowing that when such a system was introduced in Northern Ireland, it caused a 10 per cent. dip in registration.

Mr. Heald
Will the hon. Lady give way?

Barbara Keeley
No. We have spoken about these matters a great deal during our consideration of the Bill.

When I spoke on the matter on Second Reading last October, I recalled that an electoral registration officer for the Trafford local authority had said that, in his view,

“whole areas of the electorate would not respond”

to requests for individual registration, especially the poorest responding groups, such as young people. The registration officer for Salford local authority said more recently that he thought that moving to individual registration would have an impact on the register that would be

“a throwback to the days of the poll tax”

because it would make the registration numbers drop like a stone and they would not recover for many years.

I have referred to the cohort identified by the Electoral Commission of young people who do not register or vote when they attain voting age and become less and less likely to register and vote. That links to targets that the commission has set, so I am surprised that it has taken such a stand on registration over the past eight or nine months.

Mr. Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
Will the hon. Lady give way?

Barbara Keeley
No.

The Committee on Standards in Public Life is conducting an inquiry into the Electoral Commission and has asked about the balance of the division of responsibilities between the commission and other public bodies when promoting public awareness of, and participation in, elections. The balance is not working well at present. Propensity to vote, which is a key aspect of the Electoral Commission’s targets 2 and 3 on the increased or maintained likelihood of voting, is measured at 52 per cent. Surprisingly, the most recent report shows that the commission did not until this year establish measures of public awareness on how to cast a vote, where to find out about practical arrangements for voting, and why it is important to vote. Those are key measures to have waited six years to establish.

So we have very low levels of public awareness of, and declining levels of involvement in, our democratic process. On target 3, the percentage of the public who feel that they know about politics has fallen from 45 per cent. to 39 per cent., so the key indicators are in decline.

Mr. Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)
Is the hon. Lady aware of the huge amount of research showing that there is enormous—in some respects, unprecedented—public involvement in politics? I am thinking of the volume of correspondence to MPs, the great increase in activity on the internet and young people’s extensive knowledge of, and involvement in, single-issue politics. Is not much of the problem the failure of political parties to appeal to young people, rather than young people deciding to dissociate themselves from politics altogether?

Barbara Keeley
No, I do not agree. I have been heavily involved in a single-issue organisation—Amnesty International—for more than 20 years. Indeed, my husband used to chair the local group, but when he gave it up nobody else was willing to do it. Despite claims of increasing membership of such single-issue organisations, we found that, in the entire borough area that we served, it was very hard to get six, seven or eight people even to attend meetings. People will sign the odd postcard and send messages on the internet, but they will not contribute in various ways to the running of such organisations. That happens not only in political parties and single-issue campaigning groups, but in scouts, guides and volunteering organisations. So I do not agree that the problem lies with political parties; it is a problem in our society that the Electoral Commission was charged with addressing, but which it has not addressed fully.

A further question relating to the Electoral Commission is governance, which has been touched on, and I want to comment briefly on the restrictions on who can be an electoral commissioner or, indeed, work for the commission. My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) raised this issue and I agree that the situation needs to be reviewed. There is growing recognition that the restrictions are unworkable. A national body is charged with regulating political parties and their finances—a complicated issue, currently—advising those involved in elections and reporting on major elections; yet knowledge and experience of party structures, organisation, fundraising and campaigning are disqualifiers for either governing, or working for, that body.

In that context, the Electoral Commission would perhaps have benefited from establishing a robust relationship with political parties. When the Constitutional Affairs Committee asked questions on this subject of Sam Younger, the chairman and chief executive of the Electoral Commission, last November, we were surprised to find out that that had not happened. When questioned about the commission’s being politically naive—as it was put to him—he admitted that the commission had forged a working relationship with only one political party, meeting quarterly with the Conservatives’ 1922 committee of Back Benchers. I found it astonishing, and I still do, that an independent body charged with regulating parties and their finance had, in effect, developed a working relationship with only one party.

Since that shortcoming was identified, there have been a number of informal meetings with MPs, which I and other Labour Members have attended. Sam Younger will soon meet Members of both Houses to discuss this issue and to see whether a way forward can be established. However, the fact remains that, five years after we established the Electoral Commission, it had not forged working relationships with the political parties until members of the Committee on which I serve queried that point. So as with the crisis in registration, static or falling turnout and low levels of political engagement, the time must be right to re-examine restrictions on the governance of, and staff employment in, the Electoral Commission, so that it does not continue to be politically naive by design.

The issues to which I have referred have been highlighted over the past eight to nine months, and since then there has been recognition of gaps in performance. It has perhaps been a question of too little, too late on registration, as I have outlined, but rather more has been done on trying to bridge the gap between the commission and political parties. I hope that these improvements continue and gather pace, so that, in the new situation following the passage in a few months’ time of the Electoral Administration Bill, there will be a greatly improved Electoral Commission.

20:49:00

Mr. Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Peter Viggers), who gave an outstanding speech setting out what the Electoral Commission has been doing and putting the case for it extremely well. I shall be critical of the Electoral Commission, but the chairman does a very good job and is an outstanding man. We should bear in mind that it is a new institution that has been messed around by some well meaning but ill thought out Government initiatives and incomplete and defective legislation.

The Electoral Commission was created because the Committee on Standards in Public Life said that the oversight of elections should be neutral and should be seen to be neutral, so the task should be taken away from the Home Office. The case for doing so was never adequately made. The Home Office system was not ideal. It gave the governing party an opportunity to rig elections but, in a typically British way, that rarely happened. Indeed, there was rarely even a controversy about the system. One would not recommend such arrangements for Guatemala or the Ukraine, but they seemed to work in the United Kingdom. The old system was also cheap, and this is an estimates debate, as my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam) pointed out. However, we cannot put the clock back.

Any change that we make must be subject to one overriding test: does it contribute to the securing of consent from the electorate to the result? With that, we will get an increase in democratic interest and respect for democracy. Without it, we are on the slippery slope to anarchy.

It is difficult to argue that the early years of the Electoral Commission have bolstered consent. Examples to the contrary are legion, such as the commission’s failure to get to grips with the service voters farrago. It is astonishing that we allowed ourselves to get into the position where we effectively disfranchised a large proportion of our service voters by mistake. The Electoral Commission was alerted to that extensively by me before the election, as was the Government, but they did hardly anything about it. Another example is the postal votes scandal. The Electoral Commission was originally bright eyed and bushy tailed about extending postal voting. It was far too weak and slow in flagging up the crisis that was developing, which we could already see early on as a result of the pilots.

There is the risk of another problem being generated now in relation to the reform of the boundary commissions. If the Electoral Commission is to have such responsibility, it must open up a public debate immediately to ensure that a vote is worth the same—that is, that seats are of equal size—throughout the United Kingdom. We cannot carry on with the moribund system that was put in place after the second world war.

There are several other examples, I regret to say, of the Electoral Commission’s failure to grasp the nettle adequately. I agree with the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) that we still do not really know how parties obtain their money. We are supposed to have more transparency, but we have had only a little more. The Electoral Commission should be pressing vigorously and in public debate to make sure that all necessary information is available.

I also worry that we have inadvertently created the conditions in which the Government can behave as though they had been absolved of their obligation to act impartially, as they had when they had responsibility directly through the Home Office. The Government—any Government—can abuse the system more effectively now by claiming that they have been open to independent advice but, having considered it, have set it aside. That is exactly what happened with regard to postal voting.

All the functions that I have described are core functions of the Electoral Commission. I deeply regret that the commission seems to have involved itself far too much in what one might call not the bread and butter, but the jam—that is, the much more interesting work of encouraging greater participation and understanding of the democratic process. We have had a stream of reports and initiatives on that. It is worth pointing out that when the Committee on Standards in Public Life began the process, it did not recommend that this role should be given to the Electoral Commission but argued that the core tasks given to the commission were already sufficient to do the job. I am not convinced that the problem of voter participation will be dealt with by anything undertaken by the commission. That work will almost certainly turn out to be a waste of money.

Barbara Keeley
I find it surprising that the hon. Gentleman is so exercised by equal numbers for the boundary commissions but not worried about participation. As many as 7 million errors may be being made in registers, and 3.5 million people may not be registered. If there is any scandal—he has used that word several times—that is it.

Mr. Tyrie
I am not complacent about it, but I am not as gripped by it as some Labour Members. Voter participation increases dramatically when, as I think is going to happen, an election takes place in which people do not know what the result will be and major issues are at stake. As recently as 1992, arguably the highest turnout in modern British democratic history was recorded. Technically speaking, it was the third largest by a whisker, but a careful look at the degree of redundancy in the register for the earlier elections suggests that there is a good case for saying that there was enormous participation in 1992. It is largely the job of parties to enthuse electors. If we succeed in doing that, we will see a big recovery in registration and turnout in elections.

Mr. Stewart Jackson 
Does my hon. Friend agree that lower turnouts are a function of social change? Voters may take a consumerist approach whereby they are less tribal than they used to be, say, in the 1950s, when absolute levels of poverty and deprivation were higher and there was no political education. That social pattern is the reason for lower turnouts through the years, and no amount of Government spending will change that.

Mr. Tyrie
I should like to think carefully about that before agreeing with my hon. Friend. I am keen to speak for less than 10 minutes, so I will not think aloud at the moment.

I want to end by making the five proposals that I have already made in a submission to the Committee on Standards in Public Life. First, the Electoral Commission must concentrate on its core tasks instead of engaging in all these other activities. That will also lead to financial savings. As a former Treasury adviser, savings interest me a good deal.

Secondly, the Electoral Commission must exercise leadership right now with regard to what it will probably have to take on board through its new responsibilities for the boundary commissions. We cannot carry on with boundaries that are always 10 to 15 years out of date in relation to the population statistics and with constituencies of such widely differing sizes. These problems are readily resolvable, but that requires leadership from the commission.

Thirdly, we need much more rigorous and independent thinking to implement reform on postal votes. It cannot be right for us to go into an election as we did last time, with so much scope for scandal. Again, the Electoral Commission must be much more vigorous in public debate to ensure that we do not carry on as we are.

Fourthly, we need much more accurate data on party funding. For example, we cannot carry on with the pretence of transparency but the reality of still not knowing—I hope that Members do not think that this is a party political point—how much and by what means trade unions are supporting the Labour party.

We must also sort out the accountability arrangements, to which many hon. Members referred. It is not the Electoral Commission’s fault but ours that they are in such a mess. How on earth did we get into a position whereby the commission is accountable behind closed doors, with no verbatim minutes published, when it scrutinises more than £25 million of expenditure? There is a case for a statutory committee to do the work, chaired by a senior Opposition Member of Parliament, along the lines of the Public Accounts Committee, rather than expecting the Speaker to do it. It is burdensome for the Speaker. The Constitutional Affairs Committee also has a role to play. I have raised that matter in private hearings on several occasions, as the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), who chairs the Constitutional Affairs Committee, knows.

My final point is about the Committee on Standards in Public Life. It brought us to where we are and it is important that it considers carefully what we should do now. We cannot and should not meddle with the relevant legislation indefinitely. We must make one more change and allow matters to settle down. Continual change is a recipe for the further erosion of public confidence. My advice to the Committee on Standards in Public Life is, therefore, to think carefully about the matter, get it right and, to sum it up in one phrase, expect the Electoral Commission to do less and do it better.

21:01:00

Mr. David Kidney (Stafford) (Lab)
After the downbeat assessment of the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie), I am happy to follow with a sunnier and more optimistic view of the Electoral Commission. I enjoyed the account by the hon. Member for Gosport (Peter Viggers) of his recent visit to the commission’s premises. He does not need telling that one is definitely old when one thinks that even Electoral Commission staff look young. He needs no reassurance from me that, behind chief executive Sam Younger’s boyish good looks lies a shrewd, intelligent and experienced operator.

Is it only five years ago that we legislated to set up the Electoral Commission? It is such an obviously sensible thing to do and a constitutional necessity in a democracy such as ours. The public now take the commission for granted, as though it had always existed. I am sure that they found it interesting on the first occasion to learn, after the 2005 general election, the cost of the then Leader of the Opposition’s make-up or of the Prime Minister’s wife’s hairdressing, but, like other hon. Members who spoke, I hope that, after future elections, people will focus more on the serious issues of the source of money and its use.

It is fair to make criticisms of the new organisation’s role so far, and some hon. Members have done that. I am sure that the commissioners and members of staff are not too proud to learn from us and other observers where they are going wrong or to try to make reforms to put that right. The debate on the subject and the two reviews that are currently taking place, which have featured so often in other hon. Members’ contributions, are timely. It is a good time to speak about how well some things have gone and how others need attention and change. However, I do not agree that one of the Electoral Commission’s statutory responsibilities should be removed.

The Electoral Commission has several statutory responsibilities, which I would hesitate to rank because they are all important. Perhaps, after the most recent controversy about parties using loans instead of donations for funding, openness and transparency in the financial affairs of political parties attracts people’s attention. That is one of the Electoral Commission’s responsibilities and includes registering political parties, monitoring and publishing significant donations to parties and regulating their spending on election campaigns.

Beyond that, the Electoral Commission has important responsibilities such as reporting on the conduct of elections. We should pause and think about the reports that we have received in the few years since it was set up. They include reports on elections—not only two general elections but local elections and the pilot schemes for different ways in which to organise voting in local elections, for example, through setting up polling stations in popular places such as shopping centres, organising all-postal ballots or attempting electronic voting and counting. These all make a valuable contribution to our understanding of what works and what does not, and to encouraging more voters to come out and take part in the democratic process. The assessments from the commission have helped us in our understanding of these approaches.

The Electoral Commission has done its job in identifying the weaknesses in the postal voting system since the acceleration in the use of postal votes, and it has made recommendations to the Government on the issue. In fact, when we pass the Electoral Administration Bill into law, we shall be enacting some of the commission’s recommendations on making postal voting more secure in this country. We ought to give credit where it is due in that regard.

An important role for the Electoral Commission in the next few years will be to oversee the implementation of the new legislation. For the first time, consistent guidance will be given to all electoral returning officers and, also for the first time, the commission will be able to insist that the same information be supplied by all electoral returning officers. In a recent discussion that I had with Sam Younger, he told me about requests for information that he had made to returning officers to enable him to compile his reports. He said that some authorities had not even replied, because they were under no statutory obligation to do so, they were busy with other things, and did not regard it as a priority to give him the information that he needed. That will change under the new legislation, and the commission will be able to get the information that it needs to compile its reports, so that people like us who are interested in these matters will be able to read them afterwards.

A good point was made about the slowness of the response in regard to service personnel, but the commission would probably say in its defence that this is an extremely complex issue and that it has made recommendations to the Ministry of Defence. So far as it is able to play its part in promoting greater awareness of the electoral system among service personnel and the importance of their registering to vote, wherever they are in the world, the commission is doing its job.

I want to talk about the statutory responsibility to promote public awareness of our electoral systems. I disagree with the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam)—and with the hon. Member for Chichester in so far as he agreed with the hon. Gentleman on this matter—in that I believe that the commission has an important role to play in promoting such awareness. I am not saying that that should be a substitute for our doing our job of making politics interesting, making ourselves trustworthy and attracting lots of people to come out and join the democratic process. However, there is a role for the commission to provide independent expertise, advice and information to those who want it.

I shall give the House an example of this working in other areas, where other regulators have more than simply a regulatory role. The Financial Services Authority—another Labour innovation since 1997—has a statutory obligation to promote financial understanding. The Food Standards Agency operates in a completely different area of policy, although, curiously, it has the same initials. It is another Labour innovation since 1997, and has the role, alongside enforcement and regulation, of promoting knowledge and understanding of healthy and safe foods. Those examples show why the Electoral Commission should have a role in promoting public awareness. It can be trusted, it is independent and it can be authoritative in providing information.

I commend the work that the commission already does in that area. Contrary to what the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Jackson) said in an earlier intervention, education in politics and citizenship has not been part of the national curriculum until recently. In fact, such education was established in 2001, and it is now part of the compulsory curriculum for all secondary schools. One strand of citizenship education is political literacy, and the Electoral Commission has contributed to the teaching of that subject through its “Democracy Cookbook”, a valuable source of teaching aids for teachers and others in a learning environment. I therefore congratulate the commission on its work in that role.

Like other Members who have spoken, I think that the Electoral Commission has done its job well as a committee on local government boundaries and is worthy of taking over that role for the boundaries of our constituencies, too. The adage that we should walk before we run is sensible, and if the Minister tells us that there is still a little more walking to be done before the sprint stage is reached, I shall take her advice. The commission is earning its spurs, however, and I am sure that it will in due course be a reliable reviewer of constituency boundaries.

With regard to referendums, the commission has the primary responsibility for their conduct. On the small number of occasions on which it has exercised that role, the commission has done extremely well—although perhaps the Government have not enjoyed the result of one of those referendums—in overseeing the conduct of the referendums, setting up the parties for the yes and no camps and ensuring that the question is fair. I foresee quite a call on its services in conducting further referendums in future.

Looking to the immediate future, a lot of work will be done on electoral registration and raising the practices of all local authorities to the level of the best, both in the registration of people’s entitlement to vote and their ability to cast their votes in local and national elections. The two reviews being conducted at present will lead to recommendations to us to amend the 2000 Act, and I gather from tonight’s debate that there will be a willingness to consider sensible and well-thought-through recommendations for change to that law, some of which will be welcome. When we come to legislate, I hope that we will consider not just the receipt of money by political parties but the spending of it, especially between formal elections in this country. I would like to see annual limits on spending introduced and perhaps, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House says, an end to the arms race in political spending in this country, with some flexibility in the years of general and European elections.

It is easy for Members of the House who disagree with the Electoral Commission’s recommendations to say, “We are hardened politicians and we know this business; they are all novices,” because those on the commission are not even allowed to have an experience of politics, as that debars them from being a commissioner or member of the senior staff of the organisation. That is a criticism, and it undermines the authority with which the commission speaks to us, the politicians. I am one of those who supports a change in the rules about who may be a commissioner or senior officer of the commission, and a lifting of the bar on people who have modern, relevant political experience. That could benefit the whole organisation in providing an understanding of what we are about, what is practical and what will not pass through this place. Ultimately, that would benefit the commission and our country’s democracy.

21:13:00

Mr. Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
I have served on the Speaker’s Committee almost continuously since it was created. I now do so ex officio as chairman of the Constitutional Affairs Committee. I used to do the job that the hon. Member for Gosport (Peter Viggers) did so well tonight. The Constitutional Affairs Committee has the Electoral Commission as well as the Department for Constitutional Affairs within its remit. I should also mention that I have given evidence to the Committee on Standards in Public Life for its review of the commission. As a declaration of interest, I should mention that my wife serves on the Committee on Standards in Public Life, but I am not speaking on behalf of any of those aforementioned bodies. As time is limited, I just want to refer to the governance points, and to follow some of the arguments made so far.

Generally, as the debate has revealed, the Electoral Commission has done several good things, but it has not dealt successfully with several areas, and several problems have been identified. Some internal problems were identified by the scrutiny unit report, to which the hon. Member for Gosport referred, and which I agree was a very good piece of work.

My first key point about the commission is that I think it needs authority in the political world. It ought to be a body whose recommendations it is very difficult for the Government and Parliament to turn down. That is what we want for electoral commissions in all other countries, and it is what I want for our Electoral Commission. As a number of Members have said today, however, it is undermined by the lack of political experience on the commission. It is too easy for us in Parliament to say, “Sorry, but you do not know enough about it. You have good intentions, but we know what it is like.”

Sometimes that it true. We may indeed be more aware of, for example, the fact that proposed improvements would not achieve their intended purpose, because we know how parties operate. I think it would be right for the commission to include a minority of members who have experience of the various political parties but are no longer in the front line of activity in that context, and I think we should change the statute to make that possible.

As was pointed out earlier, it was not originally envisaged that Mr. Speaker would chair the Speaker’s Committee. His chairmanship was seen as a way of giving the committee, and hence the Electoral Commission, more authority. That places limitations on the committee. It is clear that if the Speaker’s valued independence and impartiality are to be preserved, the minuted discussions about whose absence—in a thoughtful speech—the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) complained cannot be allowed. If they are, the possibility will arise that the Speaker’s views will start to be quoted. Similarly, the Speaker cannot be questioned on the Floor of the House. The hon. Member for Gosport does the job in his place. The Speaker is a very busy man.

The decision to give the committee authority by making the Speaker chairman had certain consequences for the way in which it could operate. It is important to remember, however, that it does not operate in quite the same way as a Select Committee. Its responsibilities are comparable to those of a Minister in relation to a Department: it is responsible for the Electoral Commission’s estimate, and effectively it brings that estimate to the House. It does not merely scrutinise how the commission has spent money; it decides in the first place whether it can spend that money—whether the money can be allocated for its purposes.

The Speaker’s Committee does a great deal of work of that kind. It challenges the commission’s budget. It makes the commission very aware that certain areas of expenditure are under-challenged, that they may not be continued, and that the budget may have to be varied. It does its work through a regular cycle of meetings, with the assistance of the scrutiny unit and, of course, the National Audit Office, which provides it with extremely helpful material. Its function is different from the normal function of a Select Committee.

At the same time, the Constitutional Affairs Committee has a scrutiny role in relation to the Electoral Commission’s work, its policy proposals and the Department’s relationship with it. It is necessarily an intermittent role. Our Committee has numerous  other responsibilities concerned with numerous other aspects of the Department’s work—including legal aid, the judiciary, other public bodies, national archives and the Public Guardianship Office—although we do question the chairman of the Electoral Commission, and also the chief executive. A number of our recent reports have involved questions to him. We are currently engaged in an inquiry into party funding, an issue that has been mentioned a good deal this evening. We have elicited the views of the commission and many others on that. Nevertheless, it is the case—and will remain the case following any future changes—that the Committee has few responsibilities in this regard.

Do we need to modify the system? There are obviously clear advantages for the Electoral Commission in its being responsible to the House directly, rather than through the Department. I am very glad that that was made part of the system. Indeed, the Constitutional Affairs Committee has suggested that a similar route would be appropriate for the Information Commissioner. We have observed the difficulties presented to him by the fact that his budget was set by the Department and set very late in the day, and the problem—a theoretical problem, at least—that one of the Departments he is scrutinising is responsible for his budget. The direct route to Parliament is therefore valuable.

The hon. Member for Chichester and others have suggested that a new committee, perhaps chaired by a senior member of the Opposition, could conduct its proceedings openly. We might then lose something of the authority conferred by the Speaker’s presence, and it might become a little more difficult to resist Government pressure. It is quite useful to have the Speaker on one’s side if one has to do battle with the Treasury over the estimates. However, it is a serious proposition that we should look at. Even if such a committee were created, the Constitutional Affairs Committee would still be involved because the policy issues that the Electoral Commission is involved in are very much its sphere.

The logical division of responsibility between the Speaker’s Committee and the Constitutional Affairs Committee is that the Speaker’s Committee does pay and rations and the Constitutional Affairs Committee does policy, to put it broadly. It never works out quite like that, for reasons that I will not go into in this short debate. I do not think that we could put all those responsibilities and the responsibility for presenting the estimate in one body, but now that we have established the authority of the Speaker's Committee and the relationship is clearer—it is not as messy as has been suggested by some—we should perhaps consider moving to an arrangement in which the Speaker did not need to chair it and its role could develop from there. I do not have a rigid view about that, but I suppose I would be staking my Committee’s claim if in conclusion I said that any Constitutional Affairs Committee, whatever its membership—four of its members have taken part in today’s debate—would want to continue its scrutiny of the key areas of policy of great constitutional importance with which the Electoral Commission is concerned.

21:21:00

Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)
Like others, I would like to concentrate in the short time available on something that has not yet been mentioned: the oversight of by-elections. By-elections have been in the news in England and Wales, but I would like to share an experience of a recent Scottish Parliament by-election that I think should give all Members of the House cause to consider how elections are conducted. In meetings with the Electoral Commission, I have already suggested ways in which the commission should look at the issue.

There is a juggernaut heading in the direction of politics in this country which I find disturbing. It comes through the effective trebling of spending limits in by-elections to £100,000. The political campaigning time is as short as possible; most parties think it to their advantage to call short campaigns in a by-election. As we all know, with some imagination, £100,000 can go pretty far.

I would like to make Members aware of some of the most dubious campaigning techniques that are being used. Again, I will concentrate on my experience in the Moray by-election, held only two months ago to replace Margaret Ewing, who many people in this House will remember served here between 1974 and 1979 for East Dunbartonshire and between 1987 and 2001 for Moray.

It is important to point out that I am raising the issue not out of sour grapes, because at the by-election my party secured its biggest ever majority. It was our most successful campaign ever. I am not going to go into how bad it was for other parties, but it was not good for them.

The campaigning spending in that by-election was published last week. The Conservative party spent £91,000, the Lib Dems £42,000, the Scottish National party £33,000 and the Labour party £10,000. What happened in that by-election? The Conservative campaign was launched on the day of the cremation of Margaret Ewing. The majority of the materials used by the Conservative party, which has traditionally been the main challenging party in Moray, did not contain the word “Conservative” or “Tory”. Clearly the impression was trying to be created that its candidate, Mary Scanlon, who had been of high standing as a Conservative Member in the Scottish Parliament for the Highlands and Islands, was “another bonnie fechter”, creating the impression that she was following in the footsteps of a Scottish Nationalist. It is beyond credibility. Posters were put up on lampposts throughout the constituency without mention of the party’s name.

The real shocker was that apparently handwritten letters were sent to constituents that claimed to be from independent councillors who never gave their permission for their names to be used in the campaign. That led to headlines on the front pages of Scottish newspapers describing the Conservatives’ campaign as “deceitful”.

The Conservatives were closely followed by the Liberal Democrats, who produced materials that claimed that the SNP candidate was from Aberdeen. That is not true. He does not live in Aberdeen. Indeed, he lived in the same parliamentary constituency as the Liberal Democrat candidate, who was described as “local”. I have given the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Danny Alexander) notice that I intended to raise this issue. Clarification has been sought of why such misinformation was used repeatedly in campaign materials, despite the fact that it was established as not being true. Two months later, I still await a reply from the hon. Gentleman.

Simon Hughes
My hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Danny Alexander), who cannot be here tonight, alerted me that this issue might be raised. My understanding is that the candidate came from a village on the boundary of Aberdeen. As one goes into the village, the sign says that one is entering Aberdeen. In common parlance, that would make the claims true.

Angus Robertson
Is the hon. Gentleman denying that the candidate lived in the same constituency as the Liberal Democrats’ candidate?

Simon Hughes
I am just saying that the village in question is known as being in Aberdeen.

Angus Robertson
The hon. Gentleman obviously has not been there, because he clearly does not know what he is talking about. The point that I am trying to make is that, for significant campaign expenditure, techniques of character assassination imported from the United States are being used in by-elections, whether in Moray, Bromley and Chislehurst or south Wales. That should stop.

Mr. Heald
What the heck is wrong with us describing an excellent candidate as a bonnie fighter?

Angus Robertson
There would be nothing wrong with that if the party had the honesty to add the party name underneath the candidate’s photograph and on the rest of the literature. The party sought to create an impression that she was something that she was not. That is not honest and that is not how political parties should campaign.

Worst of all for the Liberal Democrats was the revelation that they took their own quotes from a report in The Northern Scot—regularly voted the best weekly newspaper in the UK—and reproduced them in campaigning literature as the opinions of the newspaper itself. The editor of the newspaper asked whether they really thought that readers and the people of Moray would be stupid enough to believe that the newspaper would prejudice its reputation for impartial political reporting. That scam has been tried elsewhere by the Liberal Democrats, so they cannot pretend that the manipulation of the comments was a mistake.

I venture to suggest that many hon. Members have seen some of those campaign techniques in their constituencies and in by-elections. It has to stop. Such dubious campaign techniques do nothing but undermine the democratic process.

Kelvin Hopkins (Luton, North) (Lab)
I sympathise very much with the hon. Gentleman’s complaints. He mentioned American campaigning techniques, and I am sure that he will agree that it is significant that sometimes less than half the population participates in elections, even presidential ones. His most important point was about the high level of expenditure. Does he agree that the only way to overcome that problem is to have very low, rigidly enforced limits on election spending, so that we do not go the way of the US, where parties are bought by big business?

Angus Robertson
I sincerely hope that the Electoral Commission will consider the issue of by-elections and the new by-election spending limit. I think that £100,000 for a three or four-week campaign is far too much.

The point about local media coverage is that in Moray we have independent local newspapers that are read by the entire local electorate, but I fear for by-elections in places where the local media have less ability to report impartially on what is being said and done. I would not like to be part of a debate about people’s concerns that elections were being bought. We are running the risk of that happening in by-elections, which, as we all know, are important for all political parties as tests of opinion between general elections.

The Electoral Commission has a role to play but the political parties have a role, too, including through the party bodies that bring representatives of all of us together in the commission. Perhaps we should have a mature discussion about ending some of the campaign techniques that undermine the democratic process that we are all trying to support, as is the Electoral Commission.

21:30:00

Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey) (LD)
Some of the things that the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) said were relatively controversial. I remind him that I visited Moray, where I spent an enjoyable day, and I am sure that I told him that I was going there—but by-elections are robust events and local newspapers are often prayed in aid; they certainly have been in every by-election in which I have been involved for 20 years.

Angus Robertson
By Lib Dems.

Simon Hughes
No, by all parties, if the papers can be used to support the party in any way. We could have that dispute, but I shall be happy to continue the conversation outside.

However, there is nothing wrong with asking the Electoral Commission to look at by-elections, which is the relevance of this debate, and I have no objection to that. I share the view that has been expressed on both sides of the House and elsewhere that party expenditure is properly an issue for the commission. In many ways, I regret the fact that that job was suddenly taken from the commission’s remit and given to Hayden Phillips—not that I have anything against him, but it seems logical to give the commission the task of looking at spending. There is clearly an issue in respect of the spending that starts in seats—whether the hon. Gentleman’s seat, mine or any other—not just a month before the general election, but six months, a year or two years before. That is local spending, although it is technically disguised as part of a national budget. All those things justify giving the Electoral Commission the responsibility of looking further at expenditure.

I welcome this debate on the Electoral Commission. My colleagues and I are grateful to the Liaison Committee for proposing the first debate of this kind. We each have a maximum of 10 minutes for our wind-ups so, on behalf of my party, I shall simply make the points that I think are most important. I apologise to colleagues, therefore, for the fact that I cannot reflect on all the other contributions.

The proposal for an Electoral Commission was a good one and we supported it. It is right that the commission came into existence; it has done an important and good job and we support its continuance. The commission has spent a significant amount of money, but that has been scrutinised. Apart from one year, when there was a critical comment about some of the spend, the scrutiny process has endorsed the commission as having spent its money wisely. That is a good commendation, much better than what we hear in many areas of public life, not least Departments such as the Home Office.

The debate plays into the review undertaken by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which was the genesis of the Electoral Commission, and is thus especially timely. Like the hon. Member for Gosport (Peter Viggers) and others, I have given evidence to the Committee and we await with interest its conclusions at the end of the year. Like the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), I come in to bat strongly in favour of the Electoral Commission. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) said, both on his own behalf and reflecting the views of his Committee, when the Electoral Commission proposes something, the assumption should be that it has the authority to carry the day unless there is a strong argument against it. But that requires two or three things to happen.

First, a minority of the commission’s members should be from political backgrounds, because that will provide the antennae and there will be authority from inside and outside. Nobody will be able to say, “You don’t know what you’re talking about—it’s not like this in real life.” The real life element will have been inserted. I am clear that that should happen.

I am clear, too, that the structure of accountability, which was conceived for the best of reasons, needs to be reformed, so that it becomes a fully open and accountable process of scrutiny and moves from the present position whereby the Speaker, quite properly, cannot participate fully, because it would be prejudicial to his role as the independent guardian of the House’s interests if he were to express views. Therefore, whether with Mr. Speaker or his successors, we need to find another structure to open up the process.

Such things should happen in open forum and the minutes should be recorded, and the Committee might therefore meet more often and be able to take more political responsibility. That would pick up some of the issues raised by the hon. Member for Worsley (Barbara Keeley) and other hon. Members. Any failings—for example, on service voting—might have been picked up much more quickly and action taken much more rigorously. It would have helped the Electoral Commission to do its job better. I can see no disadvantage—but, yes, there must be a minority of political appointees. Four such appointees in a commission of eleven or more would seem entirely appropriate.

One topical debate is still going on: we are debating whether personal identifiers should be part of the registration and voting process, and the Electoral Administration Bill is still before Parliament. My view is that if the Electoral Commission makes a proposal, there should be a mechanism whereby that proposal comes to the House, and that if the Government want to amend the proposal, that is seen as a Government amendment to the independent proposal. We will need to find a mechanism whereby that legislation could be promoted, for example, by the Committee and given special status. That is not impossible and there are parallels in other legislatures.

The next big question is whether the Electoral Commission has tried to do too much, and whether it has concentrated on the right things. My judgment is that it has sought to do what it thought were the relevant things. There are some very good election reports on all the major elections, including on specific sub-issues, such as expenditure at certain elections and the electronic counting of votes, which was tried for the first time at the London elections. Some good policy reports have added to information. An example of one of the ones that matter is the funding of electoral services, which are often underfunded by local authorities.

There is an argument that political advertising should be subject to the Advertising Standards Authority. [Interruption.] Seriously—I have argued for that on many occasions before. Those are real issues, on which the Electoral Commission should be able to do the work. I would not join those who say that it must do only its core job; it can do other jobs too, and it has done them well, by and large. It is clear that it chose to concentrate on party funding. That is very important; the electorate want the reforms to be made. Mercifully, we are moving in the right direction, but we are not yet there.

There has been a set of exchanges about the boundary commission reviews. The hon. Member for Gosport confirmed that the boundary commission review of local government boundaries in England had been done well. I am clear that the Electoral Commission should take over, as soon as possible, the review of UK parliamentary boundaries, and I am clear that there should be one UK parliamentary boundary commission for this Parliament. That would save a lot of money to start with. We would not necessarily get constituencies of absolutely the same size. There are some very good Scottish examples. In my view, it would be illogical for the Western Isles, and Orkney and Shetland, as well as Anglesey in Wales not to be seen as natural constituencies. However, the same principle could and should apply across the UK. If there is a case for smaller electorate in a very depopulated or rural area, that principle should be seen to apply equally in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but we must not continue with different electoral norms for this Parliament in the four countries. That is no longer acceptable. We should have the same electoral norm for this Parliament, other than for exceptions that could arise in any of the four countries.

I want to make two last substantive points. What key issues are now on our common agenda? One of them is to ensure that we increase the number of people who are not only registered but vote—an issue that has been raised by other colleagues. A guy called Gordon Spencer, whom I met at an organisation in my constituency, has recently undertaken, as part of his degree, a piece of research based on my constituency, focusing on what makes people turn out to vote, or why they do not vote. I have a copy of that, and it contains examples of the information that we all need. The information shows, most tellingly, not that people were uninterested but that there were practical issues that made a difference. For example, people were away on the day and had not registered for a postal vote; polling stations were not in convenient places, and were not open for long enough in the day. There are many practical answers to the question of how we can increase the ability of the electorate to participate in elections, and we should do that. We are moving in the right direction, but we have a long way to go.

Kelvin Hopkins
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Simon Hughes
No. I must finish in a few seconds.

I hope that the Electoral Commission will carry out an urgent piece of work on one last matter. We now have many different election systems in many different parts of the UK. That in itself is becoming confusing. I hope that the commission will review that diversity of experience. There is a simple proposition which would make all our lives easier, and I ask the commission to consider it. Given the exact nature of the process in each of the elections, at least we should move to a situation that wherever they are in the UK, at every election people can express their preferences by a one, two, three system rather than some using preference and others by putting crosses on ballot papers. There would then at least be a greater likelihood of people understanding the system, expressing a preference and participating more significantly. I ask the commission to consider that, and I hope that we as a Parliament will then consider the recommendations that it makes to us.

21:41:00

Mr. Oliver Heald (North-East Hertfordshire) (Con)
I did not agree with that. However, some themes have come out of the debate—for example, that the Electoral Commission should have more authority. I agree with the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) and with my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Peter Viggers) that it would be wise for the people on the board of the commission to have some political experience, provided that it is not so much as to be overbearing—a modest amount of political experience, which is balanced. That would be a good thing.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie), who said that the commissioners should do less and do it well. I think that the commission is at its best when it is working from experience in an area at the core of its functions. I would like to see it do more of that and less of the work on the margins.

I am pleased that we are having an annual debate—or are we? It is certainly nice to have the first debate. I have said for some time that it would be useful to have an annual debate about the Electoral Commission. I hope that that will happen in future. I agree with the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) that we need more scrutiny. However, I would like the commission to remain independent and to report to Parliament. I would not want to see it come under the aegis of the Department for Constitutional Affairs.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport, who opened the debate. He does a good job and handles sensibly his role in representing the Speaker’s Committee in Parliament. He takes much trouble with hon. Members if they ask a question. He will often ask them whether they want further information over and above the answers that have been given. That is much appreciated. I join the tributes that have been paid to Sam Younger for the work that he has done.

The issue of the Boundary Commission is a difficult one. I have some doubts about the idea of the Electoral Commission taking over the work of the Boundary Commission. That is partly because I see the work of the Electoral Commission more as a regulator than as an executive body taking forward work such as drawing lines on maps. I would like to see the Electoral Commission considering how the Boundary Commission functions and making comments, based on experience, of what lessons can be learned. There are some points to be made about the figures that are used and whether they are sufficiently up to date.

The process of Boundary Commission reviews is long and some improvements could be made. However, if the Electoral Commission is doing the work, there is a risk that some of the exercises that we would expect from a regulator will not be followed through.

I agree that the boundary committee and the various boundary commissions should come together in one UK-wide body that has particular expertise. In terms of the period over which the Electoral Commission has been working, five years is a good point at which to have a reconsideration. We cannot be entirely complacent. Obviously it is right to say that some good work is done by the Electoral Commission, but if one looks at, for example, the integrity of the ballot and the public perception of that integrity—that must be an important test for the Electoral Commission after five years—many people would say that the standing of the ballot in Britain is probably at its lowest for many years. I notice that, today, the Electoral Commission has brought out its report on the last local elections. It reports that, again, allegations of fraud were a feature of the local elections in 2006, and that the public’s perception of whether postal voting is safe from fraud and abuse has fallen from 51 per cent. thinking it is safe or very safe to just 37 per cent. thinking that. We cannot be complacent about the way in which things are working.

I agree with the hon. Member for Worsley (Barbara Keeley) that there is great concern about the number of individuals who are registered. There are some areas where there is a registration desert. The only point that I would make to her is that the levels of registration are unchanged from 10 years ago. A Government who have been in power for nine years have to take some responsibility for the fact that there has been no significant improvement in levels of registration over that period. Nothing has been done so far to ensure that people are actively canvassed and that data are matched—things that we know can be done, from the experience in Australia.

On party funding, I agree that there is an important role for the Electoral Commission. I was as surprised as the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey that the Government did not choose the Electoral Commission to do the review that Sir Hayden is now doing. As I said at the time, although we have the highest respect for Sir Hayden and his background, the truth of the matter is that we are talking about something that is the core work of the Electoral Commission. One would expect the commission to be doing the job.

As far as by-elections are concerned, I am perfectly happy for the Electoral Commission to look at that. That is an important suggestion. The idea that it is a disgrace—I think that this is the point that the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) was making—to describe your candidate as a bonny fighter in a by-election is extraordinary. It is particularly unfair of him to make that point with such a good candidate. I certainly do not agree with him about that. 

This is a short debate and I can make only a short winding-up speech. If one looks at the overall picture, the worry is about the integrity of the ballot. There has been no shortage of advice about that. It is true that, over the period, the Electoral Commission has changed its mind about postal voting and it has come to individual voter registration rather later than some of us, but its advice has been clear over recent months: we need individual voter registration and identifiers if we are to have a clean system in this country and to get rid of the fraud. It is extraordinary, and a disgrace, that the Government have not been prepared to take the advice of the body that they set up for that very purpose. All the other parties in the House, with the exception of the Scottish National party, which seems to have thrown a wobbly on the issue, agree that we need individual voter registration and we need it now. It is a disgrace that the Government have not done that.

21:48:00

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs (Bridget Prentice)
This has been an excellent debate, with a great deal of consensus across the House. I will more or less throw away my original notes and respond, if I may, to some of the threads that ran through the debate.

Members raised three main issues: first, the boundary commission and the Electoral Commission; secondly, the political experience of the commissioners; and, thirdly, the way in which the Electoral Commission reports. Before I move on to that, I welcome the opportunity that we have had to talk about the work of the Electoral Commission. In particular, I thank the hon. Member for Gosport (Peter Viggers), whose efforts have made it possible to obtain this slot in today’s estimates debate. I thank the Liaison Committee for accommodating that request.

There are many issues relating to the commission about which we may disagree. However, we all agree that the role that it has to play in ensuring the health of our democratic system is very important. So, as the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) said, it is timely, after five years of experience of the commission, that we have a review and learn some lessons about what it has done.

The commission’s stated aim is to promote openness in the financial affairs of political parties, to develop electoral law and practice, and to increase awareness of the democratic processes across the United Kingdom—in short, to promote integrity, involvement and effectiveness in the democratic process. I want to say a few words about how the commission has done that over the past few years.

It is clearly of great importance to our democracy that the commission look at the way in which political parties fund themselves. Nevertheless, a great deal of controversy has been generated recently about donations and loans, so it was appropriate for the Government to hand that matter to an independent figure who could look at it in the round, which is why Sir Hayden Phillips has been asked to review party funding. The Electoral Commission will work closely with him in coming to a conclusion.

I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is present, because in response to hon. Members’ comments about funding, particularly at election times, I am pleased to put on record the fact that he now agrees with me that there should be a cap on funding across the piece. I am pleased that he will be taking that forward in much more detail.

The commission has worked closely with the Government over the past five years in developing electoral law and practice. It has dealt with the passage of seven Bills through Parliament in that time and has worked closely with the Government in trying to ensure that it is properly engaged once those Bills become law. The Electoral Administration Bill currently before Parliament is a very good example of that partnership.

I should like to rebut a couple of comments that the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire and one or two others made about personal identifiers. The Government have said all along that in principle we are in favour of personal identifiers, which is why we have accepted amendments on postal voting and personal identifiers. The hon. Gentleman was quick to quote from the consultation, so let me explain to him and other Opposition Members that the responses expressed a variety of opinions, very often beginning along the lines of that from the London borough of Hillingdon, which said:

“It is difficult to oppose the idea of individual registration in principle but the practical implications are extremely worrying.”

Let us consider instead the comments of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk council, which is hardly known as a bedrock of socialism. It said:

“Undertaking individual registration will have significant resource implications and present almost insurmountable difficulties for staff in contacting every eligible elector. Under-registration and effectively disenfranchisement will be obvious consequences.”

The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam) thought that that was not such a bad idea anyway, and he and the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) seemed to think that the role of the commission in developing electoral awareness and encouraging people to participate was, as the hon. Member for Chichester described it, jam. Frankly, I am appalled that members of a democratic institution such as this Parliament think that using institutions such as the Electoral Commission to promote democracy is simply jam. It is far more bread and butter than that.

I turn to the boundary commission issues. I have some sympathy with the view that a number of Members expressed about the fact that the Electoral Commission has been charged with at some point taking over the role of the boundary commission. The Committee on Standards in Public Life is looking at the role of the Electoral Commission. Some stakeholders feel that it might be worth reflecting on whether the Electoral Commission should take over that role. I hear what hon. Members on both sides of the House say about how well the commission has done in local government, and I have some sympathy with their views, but we should wait until the Committee on Standards in Public Life has reported before we take the matter any further. What is more, the boundary commission has to complete its work, which is to report by the end of this year, before we can deal with the matter.

Political experience was a constant theme throughout the debate. Every Member who spoke seemed to feel that the deliberate lack of political experience in the Electoral Commission is not helping it. In my discussions with Sam Younger, to whom I pay tribute, as did several hon. Members, I have said that I think it would be useful, in the interim at least, if the commission had a small group—an advisory panel—of ex-Members of Parliament, who could offer a view on the experience of being a candidate and of all that the election process entails. He has been open to that idea.

Sam Younger has already set up small panels on matters such as candidates’ expenditure and fraud, so he may well be open to setting up a group of the type that I have described.

On fraud, in its press release on its report the Electoral Commission states:

“The majority of people (55%) did not think that electoral fraud was a problem at the elections, although allegations of electoral fraud and the way candidates fought their campaigns were a key feature in some areas and in the media.

Those who felt fraud had been a problem said they were influenced by media coverage (51%) rather than first hand experience (4%)”.

Perhaps the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire will bear that in mind. He continually bangs the drum and suggests that electoral fraud is widespread in this country. It is not.

Where the commission should report is a tricky issue. The commission sees many benefits in reporting to the Speaker’s Committee, which highlights its independence from Government. The chairman of the Constitutional Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), made a good point when he said that his Committee will of course want to examine some aspects of the Electoral Commission’s work, so it should have a role. I ask the House to wait to see  whether, as a result of the evidence that is put before it, the Committee on Standards in Public Life takes a view on whether it would be more appropriate for the Electoral Commission to report to a body other than the Speaker’s Committee. I assure Opposition Members that the Department for Constitutional Affairs is not suggesting that it should take that responsibility; we would much prefer it to be left to some aspect of Parliament.

Finally, let me say a few words about the future. Since its inception, the Electoral Commission has been successful in meeting its wide-ranging remit. There have been differences of view on policy in some areas, but that has not prevented an effective partnership, and those differences are a sign of the commission’s independence. We believe that the Electoral Commission’s operational role is crucial and probably the area in which, in the next few years, it can add most value to the running of elections and democratic services between elections.

As we have said in our evidence to the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the Government have developed a stronger policy-making capacity since 2000, so it might now be appropriate for the Government to lead in policy development and for the commission to concentrate on ensuring that electoral services are delivered successfully. Meanwhile, we shall continue to involve the commission, administrators and other stakeholders in policy and legislation development to ensure that the electorate’s needs are being met. Another area in which it might be time for change is how to ensure that, while retaining the commission’s independence, there is political input into its work—a point that was raised in the debate.

21:59:00

Peter Viggers
With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker. On behalf of the Speaker’s Committee, I thank all the participants in the debate, which is particularly well timed in view of the inquiries that are now taking place. All the comments that have been made will be noted. In so far as any relevant facts have been raised, I shall ask the chairman of the Electoral Commission to write to the hon. Member concerned. Finally, let me say again that we are extremely grateful to the Liaison Committee for allowing this debate to proceed.

It being Ten o’clock, Mr. Deputy Speaker proceeded to put forthwith the Questions relating to Estimates which he was directed to put at that hour, pursuant to Standing Order No. 55(1) and (4) (Consideration of estimates).

department of health

Resolved,

That, for the year ending with 31st March 2007, for expenditure by the Department of Health—

(1) further resources, not exceeding £37,417,520,000, be authorised for use as set out in HC 1035,

(2) a further sum, not exceeding £38,276,451,000, be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to meet the costs as so set out, and

(3) limits as so set out be set on appropriations in aid.

electoral commission

Resolved,

That, for the year ending with 31st March 2007, for expenditure by The Electoral Commission—

(1) further resources, not exceeding £15,334,000, be authorised for use as set out in HC 1039,

(2) a further sum, not exceeding £15,777,000, be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to meet the costs as so set out, and

(3) limits as so set out be set on appropriations in aid.

estimates 2006-07

Resolved,

That, for the year ending with 31st March 2007—

(1) further resources, not exceeding £189,522,522,000, be authorised for use for defence and civil services as set out in HC 1035, HC 1037, HC 1038 and HC 1039,

(2) a further sum, not exceeding £173,632,056,000, be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to meet the costs of defence and civil services as so set out, and

(3) limits as set out in HC 1035, HC 1038 and HC 1039 be set on appropriations in aid.

Ordered,

That a Bill be brought in upon the foregoing Resolutions: And that the Chairman of Ways and Means, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Stephen Timms, Dawn Primarolo, John Healey and Ed Balls do prepare and bring it in.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) (NO. 3) BILL

John Healey accordingly presented a Bill to authorise the use of resources for the service of the year ending with 31st March 2007 and to apply certain sums out of the Consolidated Fund to the service of the year ending with 31st March 2007; to appropriate the supply authorised in this Session of Parliament for the service of the year ending with 31st March 2007; and to repeal certain Consolidated Fund and Appropriation Acts: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed [Bill 205].

7 July London Bombings

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Michael Foster.]

22:01:00

Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North) (Lab)
The issue that I am raising is not simply a London one. The dead and injured came from various parts of country. On that terrible day, for instance, a 13-year-old girl, Neema Begum, came up to London with her teacher from Walsall. She was to be presented with an award for public speaking in the Youth Parliament. Fortunately, the two were not directly involved, but as they walked from Euston station to Tavistock square, they heard the explosion on the bus that took a number of lives.

On Friday, it will of course be a year since the atrocities occurred on a day of murderous infamy that took the lives of 52 totally innocent people and left a number very seriously injured. It is difficult for normal people to understand the sheer evil, depravity and fanaticism of the four mass murderers. The evil that they did on 7 July last year will not be easily forgotten or forgiven.

I accept that, probably due to parliamentary, ministerial and public pressure, there has been less delay than usual by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority in paying out on claims. However, that is little comfort for those who are still waiting for final awards, or even, in some instances, an interim payment. The Minister will be in a position to confirm or deny this, but it seems that a quarter of the claimants have so far not received anything at all from the CICA.

In a parliamentary reply, my hon. Friend the Minister told me that 319 awards have so far been made and that they amount to over £2 million. Of those 319 awards, 189 were final payments. I take this opportunity, four days before the first anniversary of the atrocities, to urge strongly that the remaining claims be finalised quickly. I hope that it will not be necessary to bring up this issue again in a year’s time. There is a need for urgency and speed and to overcome red tape, which is of course the main reason why I have raised this issue today.

The London Bombings Relief Charitable Fund was set up shortly after the atrocities. The Government have made a significant contribution to it and like everyone in the House, I welcome that. Nevertheless, the amounts to be paid by the CICA do not reflect the seriousness of the injuries suffered on 7 July.

In the reply to my written question, the Minister set out what is described as the tariff. For instance, the sum for the loss of one leg below the knee is £33,000, and for the loss of one leg above the knee it is £44,000. For the loss of both legs, or of both hands or arms, the sum is £110,000. I should point out that these amounts apply in all cases, and not only to the victims of the atrocities of 7/7. There is a current maximum upper limit of £500,000, which has not been increased since 1996. That upper limit needs to be looked at with some urgency, because in cases involving the most severe injuries—I will mention two such cases shortly—I very much doubt whether that capped sum of £500,000, assuming that it is paid, is sufficient.

It is unclear how many of those seriously injured on 7/7 will receive the maximum, or anywhere near it. I have been informed—I checked the figures with the Library as recently as today—that the highest sum so far paid to anyone who was very seriously injured who survived the atrocities is £152,000, and that only five people have received more than £100,000 from the CICA.

One person who was seriously injured—very seriously—is Martine Wright, who was on the Aldgate train. Her case has been much publicised. Both her legs were destroyed above the knee. So far, Miss Wright has received £100,000 as an interim payment. I know that, apart from the question of compensation, she is very keen for a public inquiry to take place; however, I shall not discuss that today as it is outside the terms of my Adjournment debate. None the less, receiving adequate money so that she can try to get her life together as far as possible is still a necessity. Yes, she has artificial legs, but as she has discovered, she cannot walk all the time. She often goes out in a wheelchair, and as she has stated in a newspaper article, she covers her lower body with a blanket because she does not want people to glance at her, which is perfectly understandable. If any of us suffered such horrifying injuries, we would feel the same. Just imagine the support that she needs in terms of alternative suitable accommodation and future earnings. She is in her early 30s and was an international marketing manager. It is not just her legs that have been badly damaged; in the process, so have many other aspects of her life. Lawyers have told her that it could take a long time for her final claim to be settled. That is unacceptable, and I hope that the Minister agrees with me.

Another claimant is Danny Biddle, who is in his 20s. He lost both legs and an eye in the Edgware road attack. I understand that, so far, he has received nearly £119,000. How long will it be before a final sum is paid to Mr. Biddle? The figure of £119,000 cannot possibly be anywhere near the amount that he is entitled to.

In some cases victims left behind a partner. One such case is that of Richard Gray, who was murdered on 7 July. He was an accountant. His widow, with two young children, is obviously keen to have an adequate sum so that they can survive financially.

I understand from the Library that the average amount paid out so far is £6,000. I know that there are complicated rules. I know the argument that public money cannot be handed out liberally. I understand that if there are rules in force, they apply in all cases. But the victims of 7/7 were the victims of a deliberate murderous attack on the state. To that extent, it could be argued that compensation for them falls into a different category.

The hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood), whose brother was murdered abroad, wants to make a short intervention. I shall make way for him in a moment.

In conclusion, on Friday we will again remember the dead. We will again express our determination to ensure that everything possible is done by the police and the security authorities to try to avoid another murderous attack anywhere in the United Kingdom. We will make it clear that the overwhelming majority of Muslims in this country, like the rest of us, deplore and loathe the mass murderers. I make a plea to the Minister. Hurry up, please. Try to finalise the settlements as quickly as possible. In so far as it is possible, let the sums be realistic.

I have quoted two cases, but there are other people who were seriously injured. The least we can do is try to help them with adequate compensation, so they can get the support that they require in order to rebuild their lives in every way possible. That is why I applied for the Adjournment debate today.

22:12:00

Mr. Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth, East) (Con)
I thank the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) for allowing me to participate in this important debate, which is taking place at an apt time of the year. I shall keep my comments brief as I am keen to hear the Minister’s response to those important remarks, which I fully endorse. As the anniversary approaches, there are still claims for compensation which have not been sorted out.

As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, I lost my brother in the Bali bombing. He was killed by the same organisations as hit us on 7 July, so I speak for those people and for the people I have spoken to who were involved in the Sharm el Sheikh tragedy. We did not get any compensation whatsoever. We did not get any insurance payment whatsoever. Why? Because insurance companies do not cover international terrorism abroad, and the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority does not operate outside UK jurisdiction.

Will the Minister please review the situation? We see what other countries do. They now provide adequate responses to look after their citizens while they are abroad. We do not find the UK doing that. I appreciate that the Chancellor made an important announcement in the Budget about providing £1 million towards a charitable fund, but we have heard about the sums being handed out, and £1 million is not nearly enough to cover the future atrocities that may unfortunately take place.

I do not expect any compensation. That is not why I am taking part in the debate. My tragedy has taken place. I am anticipating the events that, sadly, will happen. And they will happen. We have only to look at the size of the barriers surrounding the House of Commons to know that we still live in a very dangerous world.

It is wrong that we can receive compensation, poor though it may be, if we are on a Eurostar train that is attacked while it is parked in Waterloo station, but as soon as it leaves British soil we are not entitled to any compensation from the UK Government. A number of good things came out of Bali. We improved the website containing travel advice and we sorted out the emergency response teams that embassies provide. One remaining objective is to sort out the compensation that should be paid in parity to those affected by terrorism in the UK. Terrorism recognises no borders, and neither should the British Government’s help to support British citizens.

22:14:00

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Gerry Sutcliffe)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) on securing this very important debate. I also offer my condolences to the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) on the loss of his brother. I fully understand the issues that he raises, and I will touch on them later if I can. I thank them both for the spirit in which they made their contributions.

The question of help and support for the victims of the 7/7 bombings is very much in our minds as we approach the first anniversary of those dreadful events. My thoughts, and I am sure those of the whole House, go out to those who suffered a bereavement or an injury, whether physical, psychological, or emotional. As my hon. Friend says, none of us can forget those horrific events of last year. This timely debate gives me the opportunity to bring the House up to date with the facts on how we have been able help those who were injured or bereaved by the bombings. I am pleased that the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick), who is Minister for London, has joined me on the Front Bench for this important debate.

As my hon. Friend said, it is widely known that 52 innocent people were killed in the bombings and that more than 700 people were injured. The national health service, the police, local authorities, and the special assistance centre and telephone helpline established in the aftermath of the tragedy have each played a key role in offering support and help to those affected. We should never forget those who are committed to the emergency services for the work that they do, and did on that day.

The survivors and the bereaved were eligible for compensation from the criminal injuries compensation scheme, the statutory scheme that pays out compensation to victims of violent crime in Great Britain. Compensation claims are handled by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority—CICA—which, as hon. Members will be aware, is an executive non-departmental public body. The authority is responsible for the day-to-day administration of the scheme. It interprets the scheme’s rules and decides how much compensation claimants are entitled to according to its terms.

Ministers are precluded by law from getting involved in individual cases or from commenting on CICA’s handling of individual applications or its decisions in individual cases. However, CICA, in administering a statutory scheme, is bound by the terms of the scheme as set by Parliament. The authority has limited discretion in applying the rules in individual cases. In that respect, the scheme differs from, for example, the London Bombings Relief Charitable Fund, which, as an independent charity established specifically to help 7/7 victims, was free to set its own rules and guidelines and can make charitable grants at the discretion of its trustees.

As I said, I cannot talk about individual cases. However, I can give the House some more general information about claims made to CICA and describe how it is dealing with claims from those who were more seriously injured, which is the issue of particular concern to my hon. Friend. At close of business on Friday 23 June, CICA had received 516 applications for compensation in respect of the 7/7 bombings. It had also received 12 applications related to the attempted bombings two weeks later on 21 July. However, I am not including information about the 21/7 incidents, because none of those victims sustained severe physical injury but have sought compensation only for the mental trauma they suffered. Of the 516 7/7 applications, 18 have been turned down, although some of the claimants have appealed against that decision. CICA has paid 370 awards totalling £2.3 million, comprising a mix of interim and final awards. In 217 cases, a final award has been accepted and paid, thereby bringing the case to a close.

As for serious cases, CICA has interpreted that as meaning cases where the claimant has lost an eye or a limb or has sustained severe burns or other injury of comparable severity. It has received 17 claims where the principal injury meets that definition of seriousness. According to CICA, in every serious case it has made substantial interim awards on account. In most instances, that interim award has been the tariff award for the most serious injury sustained. Therefore, in several cases the interim award has been well in excess of £100,000. CICA is not yet able to finalise these seriously injured cases, because they all involve claims for compensation additional to the basic tariff award for loss of earnings and special expenses. In all those cases, the final prognosis for recovery is not yet clear and CICA is not yet in a position to make a final assessment of the claim for financial loss.

Mr. Winnick
Will my hon. Friend confirm, unless I am wrong, the figures that I cited, which showed that the highest sum paid so far is £152,000 and that only five people have received more than £100,000?

Mr. Sutcliffe
I published figures in my written answer to my hon. Friend, but I shall ensure that I put the exact detail in writing if they are different from the figures that he cited and those to which I referred.

Work remains to be done on the cases. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority will, of course, aim to finalise the claims as quickly as it can. However, when that is likely to take some time, it will be ready and willing to make further substantial interim awards where possible.

The authority continues to receive applications at the rate of about 30 a month, and those newer applications account for most of the cases in which it has not yet been able to make an offer of compensation. There are also 11 bereavement cases, for which the authority has not yet received applications.

Mr. Winnick
I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend, but I have looked at his written answer. At the time, I did not ask him the question that I just asked and it is not therefore covered. I understand that the issues are complex and I do not criticise my hon. Friend—he did not know what I might ask. Will he write to me in reply to the question that I asked a moment ago and place the response in the Library as quickly as possible?

Mr. Sutcliffe
I am happy to write to my hon. Friend. Clearly, I want to ensure that the fullest possible information is in the public domain and I shall therefore place a copy of the letter in the Library.

I said that there were 11 bereavement cases for which the authority had not yet received any applications. As I said earlier, the victims of 7/7 and those bereaved by the bombings also had financial support from the London Bombings Relief Charitable Fund. The Mayor of London and the British Red Cross set it up in the immediate aftermath of the bombings. The Government donated £1 million to the fund in July 2005 and we announced last month that we were donating another £2.5 million to it, so that the trustees could give further assistance to the bereaved and injured of the 7 July London bombings.

Before that second Government donation, the fund had made more than 900 charitable grants, totalling more than £8 million, to more than 300 individuals. It now expects to be able to make another 200 to 300 charitable grants, and I believe that many such grants have already been made to those who were seriously injured or bereaved.

To complete the picture, I remind hon. Members that we also passed regulations in 2005 so that payments from the London Bombings Relief Charitable Fund are disregarded for the purposes of assessing entitlement to means-tested state benefits. We have, of course, thought hard about what can be learned from these dreadful events. We had already been examining ways in which to improve the criminal injuries compensation scheme before the 7 July bombings. However, the events of 7 July obviously highlighted specific problems with the scheme, especially the process involved, the length of time taken, and the amount of the payments, particularly in the serious cases. That is why the Government made a donation of £3.5 million to the charitable fund, which has been able to make payments on a more flexible and quicker basis than a statutory scheme. We have learned lessons—for example, that there needs to be a clearer policy for making interim payments, and that discretion should be used when possible to allow practical common sense to prevail, within the rules of the scheme.

We know that the scheme in its current guise is not perfect. That is why we undertook a public consultation this year, with proposals for refocusing the scheme to increase amounts of compensation for those most seriously injured, while providing more immediate local help and practical support for those whose injuries were less serious. We will publish the results of that consultation exercise later this month and announce our plans for reforming the scheme before the summer recess.

Let me consider the points that the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East made. One of the problems with the statutory scheme is that it was not designed for the sorts of events that happened in Bali or, indeed, those of 7/7. Supporting the charity was the best way in which to introduce some flexibility into the system. However, I know that the concern that the hon. Gentleman raised about terrorist tragedies throughout the world is widespread. Perhaps we can meet him and people who support his cause to ascertain what we can do in future to try to find the best way in which to provide immediate practical assistance to individuals at home and abroad. I undertake to consider that. Clearly, we are now living in a world that is more dangerous than ever before, and it is important that we address the situation by giving support to the people who need it as quickly as possible.

The CICA arrangements are in place, as I have said. I understand what my hon. Friend is saying: we should try to process these issues as swiftly as possible. I have tried to explain that that is what we want to do, despite the difficulties that we face in regard to the rules of the scheme. By supporting the charity fund, we have been able to provide some flexibility, however. We are looking at the future of the scheme and at what needs to be done. I hope that my hon. Friend will accept my explanation. I will write to him on the issues that he has asked me about, and I hope that the House will understand what the Government are trying to do.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-five minutes past Ten o’clock.