Commons Chamber

  House of Commons

Thursday 9 July 2009

The House met at half-past Ten o’clock

Prayers

[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Energy and Climate Change

The Secretary of State was asked—

Domestic Energy Tariffs

Mr. Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
1. What recent discussions he has had with (a) energy companies and (b) Ofgem on the structure of domestic energy tariffs; and if he will make a statement.

The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Edward Miliband)
I have frequent discussions with Ofgem and the energy companies on domestic energy tariffs. In the past nine months, and following Ofgem’s finding of unfair pricing, suppliers have removed £300 million in unfair premiums, including £96 million from those on prepayment meters. Ofgem is also changing the law to forbid future unfair discrimination against customers on the basis of where they live or how they pay.

Mr. Carmichael
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that answer. Is he aware of the situation that faces some of my constituents? When changing from prepay meters to key meters—from card meters to key meters—they found that they had to pay the premium, which was later to be refunded by the energy company. Surely that system should not be allowed to operate.

Edward Miliband
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that issue and I hope that the change in licence conditions that Ofgem is introducing will prevent unfair pricing practices. I should be grateful if he wrote to me, or provided me with more information, about the particular practice he was talking about, and I shall obviously draw it to Ofgem’s attention to see what can be done.

Alan Simpson (Nottingham, South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will recall that earlier in the year the Prime Minister met a group of MPs who were concerned about the complete mess the energy companies are making of social tariffs. Only 600,000 households of the 5.1 million in fuel poverty are included in the tariffs, many of which are so obscure and inaccessible that they are just a really bad joke. At the time, the Prime Minister said that he was in favour of a gold standard scheme that would be made mandatory for the industry as a whole. Can the Secretary of State say how close we are to having such a mandatory scheme?

Edward Miliband
My hon. Friend raises an important issue. He has a long and distinguished record of campaigning on such matters. I believe that the social tariff system needs reform. At present, the system tends to be piecemeal—who gets into it and who does not is often an arbitrary process. We shall have more to say about it in the future.

Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State back from his paternity leave. He is looking fantastically well, considering that he is being woken every two hours of the night by bawling and screaming—but perhaps he is not returning the Prime Minister’s calls these days.

Does the Secretary of State think that the relationship between wholesale and retail gas prices is sufficiently transparent?

Edward Miliband
I think that we have brought greater transparency to it. The hon. Gentleman will know that as a result of the announcement made by the Chancellor in the Budget there is now a quarterly publication by Ofgem on the relationship between wholesale and retail prices. As always, I am open to any suggestions about how to improve the situation. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need proper transparency so that people can see that when wholesale prices go down, retail prices follow.

Greg Clark
I am grateful for that. Let me make a suggestion. At the moment, two Government quangos are saying contradictory things. Ofgem says that everything is under control, yet just last week Consumer Focus said that every household is paying £74 a year too much. As a suggestion, can the Secretary of State cut through the confusion and end it once and for all by a swift, forensic reference to the Competition Commission on that narrow point?

Edward Miliband
I will look at the hon. Gentleman’s proposal. Personally, I am worried about references to the Competition Commission, apart from the most extreme cases and I will tell him why: it is a lengthy process, which will not yield results on behalf of the consumer. However, I will look at the point that he raises and I undertake to discuss it with Ofgem.

Mr. Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
On unfair electricity prices, I have been on my knees to my right hon. Friend’s predecessors about industrial electricity prices. My right hon. Friend, as a south Yorkshire MP, will know of the devastation of job losses in the steel industry, caused in part by high electricity prices. Will he talk to EDF, which is a state-owned company, and if the company will not listen, will he talk to his opposite number in Paris, and ask them to agree the same tariff with Corus as exists in France or other European countries, so that greater hope can be given on the future of the steel industry in south Yorkshire?

Edward Miliband
The difference between us and the French is that we do not direct tariffs for energy companies. We do not have that system, but I think that my right hon. Friend raises an important point. Yesterday, I met representatives of industry from the west midlands who are concerned about the position of other industrial consumers. I think that we need tough regulation in that area, which is one where Ofgem needs to act. It is something that I have discussed, and will discuss, with Ofgem.

Home Energy Efficiency

Paul Rowen (Rochdale) (LD)
2. How much funding he has allocated for home energy efficiency measures in 2010-11.

The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Joan Ruddock)
The principal schemes for delivering home energy efficiency in 2010-11 will be Warm Front, the carbon emissions reduction target, and the community energy saving programme. The budget for Warm Front in 2010-11 is £195 million. The other two schemes are funded by the energy companies, so the information for a specific year is commercially confidential. However, based on the measures that are to be delivered, we can say that estimated overall spend will be around £3.7 billion between 2008 and 2012.

Paul Rowen
I thank the Minister for that. I am sure that she is aware that there are 2¼ pensioners in fuel poverty—[Hon. Members: “2¼ million.”] Sorry; there are 2¼ million pensioners in fuel poverty, yet the pre-Budget report estimated that the increase in expenditure on the issue would deal with an extra 66,000 people only. Given that she has not told us how many people the energy companies will help, what impact will that extra expenditure have on reducing pensioner fuel poverty?

Joan Ruddock
Let me tell the hon. Gentleman that, because of our fuel poverty policies, we managed to bring 4 million people out of fuel poverty. That was a huge achievement. It is the rise in global prices that has put people, including pensioners, back into fuel poverty. However, in the winter, we raised fuel payments for pensioners to the highest level ever, and we have said that we will do that again this winter. We have ongoing programmes with the energy companies, and they are giving social assistance as well, so I suggest to him that the Government are doing a great deal to alleviate fuel poverty.

Mr. Andy Reed (Loughborough) (Lab/Co-op)
While I welcome the Warm Front programme in particular, is the Minister aware that a large number of houses of a non-traditional construction will not be given a guarantee, and so cannot have the work done? It is estimated that there are 250,000 such houses across the country. Will the Minister meet me and others to discuss the problem, so that we can find some way of getting efficiency measures into non-traditional homes, and so that everybody can benefit from the work that is being done?

Joan Ruddock
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. We have, of course, had due regard to the points that he and others have made, and we are looking carefully at how to bring non-standard homes into the scheme. For example, for solid-wall homes, we are producing new programmes and pilots that will give us the option of using air source heat pumps. Through other programmes, such as the carbon emissions reduction target uplift, which is an obligation on energy companies, we will make it possible to do more work in homes that are not conventionally built.

Miss Julie Kirkbride (Bromsgrove) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that one of the biggest and easiest hits that we can make when it comes to our climate change ambitions is tackling domestic carbon emissions? The measures taken in the home are therefore the most important. Why does she not bang heads together, get a smart metering agreement between the various companies, and implement it as soon as possible?

Joan Ruddock
I agree with the hon. Lady’s proposition. About 27 per cent. of our emissions come from the domestic sector and result from the choices that we make, so that sector is very important. We have already announced a roll-out of smart meters. It is a complex programme—it needs to reach every household in the country—so it will start next year and will take 10 years. If we can speed it up, we will. It is very important, it is the way forward, and we will do it.

Mr. David Chaytor (Bury, North) (Lab)
Is not a national energy efficiency programme important not only as regards climate change, but for job creation? On the economic stimulus packages that different countries have introduced in response to the economic crisis, is it not true that the proportion of those resources that we are allocating to green jobs is far lower than in the USA, China, France, Germany and South Korea? Would not a national energy efficiency programme, clearly identified and clearly branded, be one of the most effective ways of registering our support for action against climate change, and—

Mr. Speaker
Order. May I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that I think that he has had three questions? He will, however, get one answer from the Minister.

Joan Ruddock
May I tell my hon. Friend that 21 per cent. of our targeted measures were on green jobs? We, of course, started from a much higher base than the United States; we had already put in place many measures, and were already on track to increase them. The home energy saving strategy, on which the Government recently consulted, provides for what is essentially a national energy saving programme, directed at homes and small business. That will go ahead very shortly, and I think that it will produce the kind of measures that my hon. Friend has championed in the House.

Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
The hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor), is absolutely right. We need a national energy efficiency programme with far greater ambition than that shown in the three rather pedestrian programmes and the very vague funding that the Minister has mentioned. The fact of the matter is that, even if we include private sector funding, we spend about a third of what Germany spends on energy efficiency, and it is already far more efficient than we are. If we want a programme that is attractive and easy  for consumers, and that will ensure the transformation in energy efficiency that the Government have failed to deliver, they will need to adopt our proposals of £6,500 for every household in the country, and a real partnership between a public—

Mr. Speaker
Order. May I say for the benefit of the Front-Bench team in the future that what we need is not a statement, but a question?

Joan Ruddock
The Government will not take any suggestions such as the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) has made about his programme. [Interruption.] Let me explain to him. I wrote to his colleague, the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), to ask him to explain exactly how the Opposition’s programme was to be funded. I have had no reply to that letter. We have costed it at £200 billion. Where will the money come from? His party is dedicated to cutting the Department that sponsors such programmes. There is no way in which the programme that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) mentions will be funded and we—

Mr. Speaker
Order. I think the Minister of State is being led astray by the statement. We must focus on the policy of the Government, rather than that of the Opposition.

Climate Change

Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
3. What recent representations he has received from those living in rural areas on the effects on their living conditions of climate change; and if he will make a statement.

Mrs. Joan Humble (Blackpool, North and Fleetwood) (Lab)
4. What steps he is taking to inform the public of the effects on their living conditions of climate change; and if he will make a statement.

The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Edward Miliband)
The recent UK climate projections spelled out the dangers of unchecked climate change: hotter, drier summers and warmer, wetter winters. As people from rural areas have made clear, this would have a particular effect on agriculture and farming. My Department, working alongside the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, is seeking to inform people of the economic, social and human consequences of this for the UK, and therefore of the need to act on climate change.

Mr. Drew
Two years ago my county was under water, which sadly is a harbinger of what climate change will probably bring. What guarantees can the Government give that we will get appropriate measures—those that we have already spoken about—and that those measures will be applied in rural areas, where we have a disproportionately high number of older people living in older property that is in desperate need of measures such as loft insulation? Can the Government reassure me about what they are willing to do?

Edward Miliband
My hon. Friend makes an important point about rural areas. The truth is—this is why what the G8 leaders agreed yesterday is significant—that we need action throughout the world to protect people in rural areas, because we know that climate change is a global issue. Unless every country acts, we will not be able to avoid the dangerous climate change that would increase the frequency of events such as the one mentioned by my hon. Friend, which happened in my constituency, too. Again, he makes an important point about energy efficiency. One of the things that we have done in the Warm Front programme, for example, is to pilot measures for people off the gas grid, which is an issue in rural areas, to try to help them with new kinds of renewable heating. Also, the community energy saving programme that my hon. Friend the Minister of State mentioned will pilot help for some of the poorest people in rural areas.

Mrs. Humble
I very much welcome the huge investment that the Government have put into new sea defences in Blackpool and in Cleveleys, but what further action can the Government take to protect and inform people about the immediate risks of climate change and to plan for a low carbon economy that will safeguard our future?

Edward Miliband
My hon. Friend is right to say that spending on flood defences will have to increase. It already has increased to £800 million in the final year of the current spending review. That is an important investment, which will have to rise further. The best combination for us would be to adapt to the effects of climate change that are inevitable, and to strive domestically and internationally for the action needed to prevent dangerous climate change in future. That combination of measures is necessary and we must strive for it, particularly in the next six months in the run-up to Copenhagen.

Mr. David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
I noted the Secretary of State’s responses. Surely informing the public should be a top priority to get them on board. His recent pamphlet was a start. How effective does he think measures such as pamphlets are in making the public aware of the important challenges facing individuals and households, as well as industry?

Edward Miliband
The hon. Gentleman makes an important and challenging point for all of us. We are sending out copies of the leaflet on the Copenhagen manifesto, to which he refers. My assessment of the state of the debate in Britain is that it is good, because there is broad consensus politically about the need to tackle the problem and among the public about the science. However, we need to bring home the point—this relates to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) made—that climate change will happen in the UK if we do not take action. The danger is that people think that it will happen to people somewhere else. We have to convince people that it will affect future generations in the UK significantly if we do not act.

Fuel Poverty

Danny Alexander (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (LD)
5. What recent progress the Government have made towards their targets for the alleviation of fuel poverty.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr. David Kidney)
We remain committed to doing all that is reasonably practicable to ensure that households do not live in fuel poverty. Between 1996 and 2005, the number of fuel-poor households in the UK fell from about 6.5 million to about 2.5 million. Rising fuel prices have reversed that trend, and that is why my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister last year announced a 20 per cent. uplift in the carbon emissions reduction target, a new community energy saving programme, higher Warm Front grants and a big increase in cold weather payments.

Danny Alexander
I am grateful to the Minister for that answer. Given that people who use heating oil and liquefied petroleum gas are more than twice as likely to be in fuel poverty than the rest of the population, will he assure me that the ongoing renewable heating incentive consultation will not propose an additional levy on heating oil and LPG? That would be paid by people who use heating oil and LPG in rural areas, and it would add to the bills of people who already pay the highest prices in the country.

Mr. Kidney
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question, but I am not prepared to give that assurance today. What I can say is that our proposals for feed-in tariffs and renewable heating incentives offer new opportunities for people to reduce their energy costs by producing more energy for themselves and, hopefully, selling back an excess afterwards. We will consult on our proposals for the renewable heating incentive, which we hope to have in place by April 2011.

Mr. Brian Jenkins (Tamworth) (Lab)
Will my hon. Friend assure us all that his Department is alive to the fact that, when energy prices went up, domestic prices followed very rapidly, but when energy prices fell, domestic prices did not fall as rapidly? What is his Department doing to track those companies and ensure that they do not rip off their customers?

Mr. Kidney
I should say two things about that: first, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made me responsible for consumer interests, so I personally shall take an interest in the issue; and, secondly, Ofgem has been asked to produce quarterly reports on the very point that my hon. Friend has made, so that there is both transparency and the information to hand to enable people such as me to take action if necessary.

Energy (Waste Facilities)

Miss Anne McIntosh (Vale of York) (Con)
6. What criteria apply to the eligibility for renewables obligation certificates of energy-from-waste facilities; and if he will make a statement.

The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Joan Ruddock)
Renewables obligation certificates are granted only on the biomass proportion of the input waste in an energy-from-waste plant. To be eligible for ROCs, energy-from-waste plants must be accredited as combined heat and power plants and have agreed a fuel measurement and sampling procedure with Ofgem.

Miss McIntosh
I am grateful for that answer but, from the proceedings of the Climate Change Bill, the Minister will be aware that if energy-from-waste plants are to be successful, they need to have access to ROCs on the same basis as other projects. Will she consider making the criteria apply in a similar way to the energy sector?

Joan Ruddock
We need to acknowledge that, to date, there has not been the most effective provision. Indeed, in April, we altered the fuel measurement and sampling requirements on energy-from-waste plants to secure ROCs in response to industry feedback that the previous requirements were too arduous. We have seen a positive response to that, and departmental officials are working with industry representatives and Ofgem to establish new measurement techniques. As the hon. Lady knows, the Government support energy-from-waste plants. We have made a significant sum of money—about £2 billion—available to do that. A number of huge projects are on the stocks and we expect them to come to fruition soon. In May, the largest one was finalised in Greater Manchester.

River Severn Estuary (Barrage)

Mr. Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
7. What progress has been made on his Department’s appraisal of the proposals for a barrage on the River Severn estuary; and if he will make a statement.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr. David Kidney)
The Government response to the public consultation on Severn tidal power is expected to be published shortly. A decision on whether to support a Severn estuary power scheme will be made after further assessment of the costs, benefits and impacts, and following a second public consultation, which is likely next year.

Mr. Robertson
I am grateful to the Minister for that response. When he said that a decision would be made on whether to support the idea, what exactly did he mean? If it goes ahead, I presume that the entire barrage will be funded privately. What support can the Government give that project?

Furthermore, when the Minister assesses the appraisal, will he make sure that there will be no negative impact on my constituency of Tewkesbury, which flooded very badly two years ago? I am not against the barrage in principle, but will the Minister make sure that there would be absolutely no negative impact on my constituency in that respect?

Mr. Kidney
The hon. Gentleman has asked me so many questions; I shall do my best to answer as many as you will allow me to, Mr. Speaker. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we take flooding extremely seriously and it will be considered as part of any environmental assessment for any project that might go ahead.

As to what project might go ahead, the hon. Gentleman knows that a range of possibilities are before us. The consultation that has just taken place is about which are feasible and practicable and should be pursued further. That further stage is due next. There are tremendous gains to be made from renewable energy, but we know that the environment in question is internationally important and that people locally are concerned about a number of navigation issues. All those subjects will be considered in that second consultation.

Dr. Kim Howells (Pontypridd) (Lab)
My hon. Friend will forgive me for saying that I have been hearing such statements for at least 30 years. I would very much like to know his opinion of the two technologies that seem to be emerging. One is a 10-mile barrage across the Severn and the other is the building of tidal lagoons. Which does he think will offer the best value for money, which will do the least environmental damage and when are we going to get on with building them?

Mr. Kidney
A lot of progress has been made in just the past 12 months. My right hon. Friend is very unfair in asking me to announce my chosen project today; there are a good number to be assessed before that decision can be made. However, as the Sustainable Development Commission said in its report, there is tremendous potential. We would be irresponsible not to take seriously the prospects of possibly getting quite a large proportion of renewable energy from these sources. The technologies, their respective costs and who would pay for the investment, however, are matters still to be determined.

Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
Will the Minister reassure us that the Government are not drifting relentlessly towards the solution of one giant barrage, with all the environmental consequences that that might have? We should keep open the option of a mix of technologies starting with a much smaller barrage, such as the Shoots barrage. That could start saving carbon much earlier and make more of a contribution to carbon budgets—and without those dire environmental consequences.

Mr. Kidney
It does not even pain me to say that I have seen the Liberal Democrat proposals and that they will be taken into consideration when we assess the different options. I assure the hon. Gentleman that every practicable technology and scheme will be considered. Each will be assessed, and we cannot make a decision at this stage; there is work to be done before we can.

Carbon Capture and Storage

Mr. Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)
8. What recent representations he has received on the development of carbon capture and storage technology; and if he will make a statement.

The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Edward Miliband)
Since my statement to the House in April and our consultation document last June, we have had a wide range of representations on carbon capture and storage. There has been a warm welcome for the combination of the most environmentally ambitious conditions for new coal-fired power stations in the world, which we announced, and a plan, backed by legislation, for up to four CCS demonstration projects.

Mr. Brown
I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Companies such as Scottish Power have a strong interest in CCS technology. Has he estimated how many green jobs and what likely investment there will be for the UK economy off the back of the technology, if it moves forward?

Edward Miliband
There is huge jobs potential. It is estimated that, in the round, there could be 30,000 to 60,000 jobs in carbon capture and sequestration by 2030. That is an indication of the scale of the potential, but that requires a certain funding stream for carbon capture and storage. We have managed to find a proposal to make that happen, and it will be in a fifth-Session Bill, subject to consultation. I hope that it will receive all-party support.

Mr. Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
Can the Secretary of State confirm that the Minister in another place said during a debate on the carbon budgets—alas, we have not had that debate in this Chamber—that there was no realistic prospect of commercial carbon capture and storage before 2025 and that, therefore, when the Prime Minister offered the prospect of four such stations as a way of helping us out of the recession, he was either misleading the House or presupposing that the recession is going to go on for another decade and a half?

Edward Miliband
If I may say so, that was, uncharacteristically, a slightly confused question from the right hon. Gentleman. The truth is that we will be demonstrating carbon capture and storage, and we want to do so as soon as possible; that is why we are introducing the funding mechanism. There is a separate question about when it will be commercially deployable on a widespread basis in this country and around the world. The figures that I have seen suggest that that will be possible by 2020; obviously, opinions differ. However, the most important thing is to drive the technology forward as quickly as possible and I hope that he shares that aspiration.

Mr. Jim Devine (Livingston) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend know about a Scottish company called Elimpus, which is at the forefront of technology in identifying leaks in nuclear power plants and from pylon wires? Recognising that it is a worldwide company, will he agree to meet me and its representatives so that its technology can be applied in Scotland?

Mr. Speaker
Order. I fear that the question might be a little wide, but I will leave it to the Secretary of State’s discretion.

Edward Miliband
I am sure that the company to which my hon. Friend refers has equities in a range of areas, including carbon capture and storage. Subject to time being available, I am happy to meet him and its representatives.

Charles Hendry (Wealden) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State accept that as a result of the Government’s delays and dithering, we are not leading the world in this technology, and that we are now behind the United States, Canada, Norway, Abu Dhabi, China and other countries? Does he understand that one third of our coal plant is closing in the next few years, but because of the Government’s delays investment in new coal plant is on hold, as companies do not know what the CCS regime is? For nuclear, the Government set out a road map, with the Office for Nuclear Development and the Nuclear Development Forum. If that is good enough for nuclear, why have they not shown the same commitment to carbon capture, which could be at least as important for our future energy security and in meeting our low carbon commitments?

Edward Miliband
I wonder where the hon. Gentleman has been for the past three months, given that I made a statement to the House in April and set out a consultation document in June with the most environmentally ambitious standards for new coal-fired power stations and the most ambitious plans for the demonstration of carbon capture in coal-fired power stations. That will be taken forward with legislation going through this House. Unlike the Conservative proposals, ours are based not on funny money but on actual costed plans that will be implemented. I hope that the Conservatives will support them.

Mr. Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley) (Lab)
The opponents of carbon capture recently said in an article that I read that if we get this up and running only 25 per cent. of carbon would be taken out of clean coal. Is that a true statement or is it just them playing games?

Edward Miliband
We should never underestimate the ability of such people to play games. On the facts, we have said that as a condition of building any new coal-fired power station, at least 25 per cent. of the plant will have to be based on carbon capture and storage. There is a simple reason for that. Because it will cost significant amounts of money to build CCS plants, we think it right to demonstrate capacity at that scale. When the technology is commercially proven, which we hope will happen by 2020—that is the basis on which we are planning—plants will have to be 100 per cent. CCS-based. That is the most environmentally ambitious set of conditions for new coal-fired power stations of any country in the world.

Renewable Energy

Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
10. If he will take steps to ensure that energy from renewable sources is given priority access to the national grid.

The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Edward Miliband)
All generators should be given a grid connection consistent with their development plans. We do not believe that the progress on that has been speedy enough, and we are determined to do more to make that happen, building on the recent agreement between Ofgem and the National Grid for an extra 450 MW of grid capacity, which will speed up connection for a range of projects by up to seven years.

Tim Farron
I thank the Secretary of State for his answer. There are 2,500 anaerobic digesters connected to the German national grid and only 35 in this country— 36 if we count Ambridge. I can assure him that farmers in south Cumbria are very keen to help the Government to make up that embarrassing deficit, and want to create Westmorland’s first anaerobic digester. Will he  agree to meet me and farmers in my constituency to help us to gain priority access to the national grid and to ensure that we transform organic waste, farm waste and off-farm waste into clean energy?

Edward Miliband
I am sorry to correct the hon. Gentleman on one point. I believe the Ambridge project did not go ahead. I may be wrong, but I believe it did not get planning permission, no doubt from a Liberal council.

On the hon. Gentleman’s serious question, this is a priority, and it is important that Ofgem sees it as very much part of its duty to drive this forward. It has a duty to future consumers in its remit.

Tim Farron
A meeting?

Edward Miliband
I will come to the hon. Gentleman’s question about meeting him.

Part of that duty to future consumers has to be to drive forward connection to the grid. I am sure that one of our ministerial team will meet the hon. Gentleman and his friends.

Dr. Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
I am sure that my right hon. Friend is aware that a number of important wind farm developments are still facing a wait of 15 years or so to secure connections to the grid, even though they are in the process of getting ready to run. Will he talk to the National Grid Company about its 2020 vision document, to ensure that it encompasses the most urgent possible strengthening of the grid so that connections can proceed much quicker?

Edward Miliband
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I took powers in the Energy Act 2008 to take action if companies, the grid and Ofgem could not sort out that problem. If they do not do so quickly, that is exactly what I will do. We have to speed up grid connection, and it has to be seen as a central part of what Ofgem, the regulator, does under its duty to consumers present and future.

Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey) (LD)
Given the Government’s regular warm words of commitment to the renewable sector in general, not least yesterday, and given that there is 25 per cent. growth a year in wind energy worldwide—we are clearly the best European country for wind energy—why is there no industrial or manufacturing strategy to ensure that we produce the jobs to support the industry’s development and give us the green road out of recession that the Prime Minister and Ministers regularly say we need?

Edward Miliband
There absolutely is an industrial strategy on that; my right hon. Friend the Chancellor allocated £405 million in the Budget for precisely that purpose. As for wind generation, last year we saw a 29 per cent. increase in the UK in onshore wind generation and a 67 per cent. increase in offshore wind generation, making us the world leader in the latter. Of course there is more to do, and we are determined to do it.

CO2 Emissions Targets (Skills)

Mr. Jim Cunningham (Coventry, South) (Lab)
11. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills on the skills required from the work force in order to meet targets for reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Joan Ruddock)
Ministers and officials in DECC and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills have worked together to develop the Government’s low-carbon industrial strategy. It will set out how Government will work with employers, unions and training and education providers to address key skills gaps in the transition to a low-carbon economy. This issue affects work forces throughout the UK.

Mr. Cunningham
I thank my hon. Friend for that answer, but can she say how much the Government are actually investing in the low-carbon industries and what the economic benefits will be?

Joan Ruddock
The Budget 2009 announced £1.4 billion of new spending to support the low-carbon sector. That will contribute to a total of £10.4 billion of low-carbon and energy investment over the next three years. I do not think you would allow me to read the whole list, Mr. Speaker, but that includes £405 million for the development and employment of low-carbon technologies, improved insulation for homes, low-cost loans for small and medium-sized enterprises, energy efficiency loans for public sector organisations and so on. There are currently 880,000 people employed in the sector, and we expect that number to grow.

Mr. Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)
The Minister will be aware of the recent report by the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change on the UK oil and gas industry, and the point that it made about the transfer of skills from that industry to offshore renewables. In particular, the technology for offshore wind is very different from that for onshore wind. What will the Government do to encourage the use of facilities in the UK to build offshore wind turbines and create an industry here?

Joan Ruddock
The way in which we will undertake that will be more obvious to the hon. Gentleman when the low-carbon industrial strategy and the skills strategy that goes with it are published. We are, of course, working intensely with the industry. The oil industry has a remarkable record of innovation and skills, and if we can have those skills deployed in other sectors for a low-carbon economy, that will give a great boost to the way in which this country can progress into that economy.

Climate Change (Public Awareness)

Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)
12. What steps he is taking to increase the level of awareness among the public of the consequences of climate change.

The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Joan Ruddock)
The Department takes steps to raise awareness of climate change through ministerial speeches, publications—such as the climate impact study and “The Road to Copenhagen”—the departmental website and the Act on C02 campaign.

Phil Wilson
My constituency covers the Tees valley plain, which, according to an independent report, can cater for between only 20 and 25 wind turbines, but 62 are planned and proposed. Does my hon. Friend agree that, while we all know the importance of making people aware of climate change, it is equally important to take people with us in solving the problem, rather than swamping them with wind farms? County Durham has already passed its renewable threshold for wind farms and is on course to meet its 2020 target soon.

Joan Ruddock
I congratulate my hon. Friend’s area on its progress. Clearly, we must have developments that are sensitive to the landscape—that is a matter for the planning process. However, it is our responsibility as a Government to help people understand the real need for change in our production and use of energy, to protect the environment and to secure energy supplies. We all need to understand that climate change is the greatest threat to our wildlife and our countryside.

Sir Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield) (Con)
Would the Minister accept that, for many, especially those on low incomes and the elderly, the consequences of climate change have merely been higher energy prices than normal? Energy prices are so critical to the elderly and those on low incomes, so could she and the Government be a little more sensitive in introducing policies so that the most vulnerable are not the worst affected?

Joan Ruddock
The most vulnerable need our help. The help is there and we will continue to keep constantly under review the impact of our renewable energy programmes on bills. However, there is no way in which we can have lower energy prices and high fossil fuel use in the future. It is destroying the planet and we have to make a change. We will make the change and do it in a way that is fair.

Rob Marris (Wolverhampton, South-West) (Lab)
I have spent the past three and a half years campaigning on adaptation to climate change. I am delighted to say that the string of Government announcements in the past six months shows that the Government have finally got it. By approximately what date will the adaptation sub-committee of the Committee on Climate Change produce its first report?

Joan Ruddock
My hon. Friend, who has done so much on adaptation, has caught me out. I will have to write to him to tell him exactly when the report is expected. He knows that we have recently appointed the chair of the sub-committee, who will join the independent Committee on Climate Change. I am sure that they will get on with their work as quickly as possible and I will write to him with the details when I receive them.

Low-carbon Economy (Employment Opportunities)

Tony Lloyd (Manchester, Central) (Lab)
13. What recent discussions he has had with ministerial colleagues on the opportunities for employment in a low-carbon economy; and if he will make a statement.

The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Edward Miliband)
I have frequent discussions with colleagues, including the First Secretary of State, about building a low-carbon economy. We will shortly make announcements about allocations from the £405 million that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor made available in the Budget to help build our green manufacturing strength.

Tony Lloyd
My right hon. Friend has already made it clear in other answers how exciting the prospects are for the green revolution, which will create wealth and jobs. Given that public sector money will not be the most abundant resource available, what can be done to ensure that we mobilise those at the cutting edge of the industrial revolution, and not simply have a scattergun approach, which will lead to the sort of waste that we cannot afford?

Edward Miliband
My hon. Friend asks the right question. We must make the best use of the available money—I referred to the allocation that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor made in the Budget. When we fund carbon capture and storage demonstration projects, it is important that our consultation documents reflect that, and that we build a network of CCS throughout the country to ensure that we have the clusters that will build the industries of the future. It is right to invest now—the Conservative party would not agree with that—because that will build the industries of the future.

Electricity Generation (Coal)

Mrs. Siân C. James (Swansea, East) (Lab)
19. What his policy is on the use of coal in electricity generation; and if he will make a statement.

The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Edward Miliband)
Coal power stations play a vital role in providing reliable and affordable electricity supplies. The Government believe that new coal power stations in the UK will be important in retaining the diversity and security of our energy supplies, but only if they can be built and operated in a way that is consistent with our climate change goals.

Mrs. James
In 2008, we were 31 per cent. dependent on coal for our electricity supplies in this country. It has been, and remains, a valuable source of fuel. I am pleased that the Secretary of State recognises that, but we must not underestimate the role that coal—particularly carbon-abated coal—has to play in the future mix of renewables, coal, gas and nuclear. Coal needs to play an important role.

Edward Miliband
My hon. Friend speaks very knowledgably about this subject as a result of her background. It is important that we have coal as part of the energy mix. The problem in this debate arises when we try to pick and choose from the low-carbon technologies that are available; the truth is that we need all of them. We need clean coal, renewables and nuclear, as she has pointed out. All of them must play a part in overcoming the enormous challenge of tackling climate change.

Topical Questions

Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD)
T1.  If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Edward Miliband)
My Department has responsibility for international negotiations on climate change. Last month, we published our manifesto for the Copenhagen climate talks, which are due to conclude in December. Yesterday’s decision by the G8 leaders to unite around the scientific consensus that we must avoid temperature increases of more than 2° was a welcome step towards shaping an ambitious Copenhagen deal. We hope that that will be reflected in an agreement today by the developed and the developing countries.

Sir Robert Smith
Earlier, the Secretary of State referred to trials being undertaken by his Department to tackle fuel poverty for those not on the gas grid. Given the Prime Minister’s warning this week that we are again facing rising oil prices, what reassurance can the Secretary of State give to my constituents and to those in the rest of the country that they will be able to heat their homes effectively this winter if they rely on oil?

Edward Miliband
The hon. Gentleman has raised an important issue. The volatility of the oil price is a problem for consumers in Britain and for our economy. It is hard to take steps to stabilise it, but there are regulatory and other measures that we need to look at. I would say to his constituents and to others who are off the gas grid that, first, we need to ensure that they get the best deal on electricity prices, and I am pleased that the regulator has taken action on that. Secondly, we need to help them to connect to the gas grid when they can. Finally, we also need to offer them alternative technologies, and that is the kind of action that we are piloting.

Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh, North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
T2.  Will my right hon. Friend give the House an update on the progress made yesterday and overnight at L’Aquila on climate change?

Edward Miliband
My hon. Friend will be pleased to hear about the G8 communiqué. This is the first time that the world has signed up to a 2° objective. The key issue for today, which is most important, is to get unity between the developed and the developing countries around that 2° objective. Why is that important? It is important because it will drive the action that countries need to take. Frankly, we need more ambition in the run-up to Copenhagen, but a 2° agreement will drive that action.

Paul Rowen (Rochdale) (LD)
T3.  There are 7,000 zero-carbon dwellings across Europe that meet the passive house standard, yet only one of them is in the UK. Does not that show that the Government’s policy on carbon reduction is just empty rhetoric?

Edward Miliband
No, because we have rightly said that we are going to have zero-carbon homes here from 2016. It is right to set that standard—we are one of the few countries to have done so—and it will apply to every new house. We are also taking action to trial the new technologies to which the hon. Gentleman refers, and we will have more to say about that in the coming months.

Mrs. Siân C. James (Swansea, East) (Lab)
T4.  Will the Minister please give me an update on the community energy saving programme, particularly in constituencies such as my own in Wales?

The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Joan Ruddock)
CESP places an obligation on the energy suppliers and the energy generators. It will provide for about £350 million of energy-saving measures specifically directed at low-income areas. There are 284 eligible areas in Wales, a substantial number of which are in my hon. Friend’s constituency. I am concerned that we should have a proper balance encompassing the rural areas and I hope that there will be projects in Wales. This will be a new type of programme, whereby we will go house to house and take whole-house measures, amounting to a real step forward in terms of a proper community-based energy efficiency programme.

Willie Rennie (Dunfermline and West Fife) (LD)
Considering that the carbon capture competition has already slipped by one year, what guarantees can the Secretary of State give that there will be no further delays in the process, especially considering that only one bidder is capable of getting to the 2020 deadline? Will he guarantee that the deadline will be met by next year—before the general election?

Edward Miliband
The hon. Gentleman is not right to say that only one bidder is capable of meeting the 2020 deadline. Three consortiums are involved—ENR, RWE and Scottish Power, I believe—and all can meet the timetable. It is right that we need to get on with it, which is why we announced the new conditions and why we announced the levy mechanism for which we intend to legislate. I am confident that speedy progress can be made.

Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)
T5.  Liquefied petroleum gas is a vital heating source in parts of my constituency, but in some ways it is a forgotten fuel in terms of regulation. While acknowledging the changes to regulations on estate infrastructure for distribution, which will come into force later this year, what more can be done better to regulate this market so that my constituents get a more competitive deal?

Joan Ruddock
My hon. Friend has put his finger on a really difficult problem. We have looked very carefully at this market, and the truth is that it is made up of a very significant number of small companies and competition is a matter for the market itself. I agree the issue is crucial for people who are utterly dependent on LPG and we will continue to keep it under review. It may be, however, that we have to introduce new technology to these homes through our fuel poverty programmes so that in due course they are no longer dependent on that fuel, particularly if we cannot find a means of reducing its cost to the householder, which I acknowledge is significant.

Greg Mulholland (Leeds, North-West) (LD)
I was delighted that the Secretary of State visited Green lane in Cookridge in my constituency in connection with the British Gas green streets competition. Will he join me in publicly congratulating the street’s residents who won the competition by decreasing their usage by 35 per cent. What lessons can the Government learn from that excellent initiative in order to roll out something that will benefit all households up and down the country?

Edward Miliband
I was very pleased that the street won the competition after my visit—although I should say that I cannot claim cause and effect. The competition was very informative in showing what communities can do together to save energy and there was huge enthusiasm in that street for the initiative and what it had been able to achieve. I agree that we need to roll out that sort of project more widely. That is what CESP is all about: a street-by-street, house-by-house approach to bring communities together to tackle carbon emissions.

Mr. David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)
T7.  I am sure that the Secretary of State is aware of the tremendous opportunities to exploit the coal reserves on the north-east coast, particularly by using the underground gasification method. Will he support the moves and request by the north-east to set up a strategic environmental assessment as a matter of urgency?

Edward Miliband
My hon. Friend’s question follows up on an interesting visit I made to his constituency to meet the wide range of representatives that he gathered to discuss underground coal gasification technology. We want to move forward on that, so we will obviously come back to his group in order to do so.

Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
The Secretary of State rightly congratulated the G8 on its 2° target as a limit on global warming, although to do otherwise would be to invite inevitable catastrophe, but will he tell us what that translates into in terms of the more important measure of the atmospheric concentration of CO2 in parts per million—or was that question too tricky for the leaders of the world?

Edward Miliband
It translates into the target aim of 450 parts per million. I was talking about this to John Holdren, the chief scientist of the US, yesterday. Now that we have this 2° target, the key task for developed and developing countries from here on up to Copenhagen is to say what the pathway is—including the mid-term targets we need for 2020—towards meeting that challenge. Now that the leaders have agreed to the objective, at least at the G8, we now need a 2° deal out of Copenhagen.

Judy Mallaber (Amber Valley) (Lab)
Yesterday the Energy and Climate Change Committee was told that a 500 kW tidal turbine would shortly come on-stream at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney as a result of co-operation between a small innovative company in Bristol, Tidal Generation Ltd, and Rolls-Royce in my neighbouring area. What can the Government do to encourage such co-operation, and to help small innovative companies involved in marine energy to bring their ideas to market and overcome the financial difficulties that they experience in trying to obtain support?

Edward Miliband
My hon. Friend is right to congratulate the parties concerned on their initiative. The marine deployment fund is intended to encourage precisely that form of technology. I believe that marine energy has great potential for Britain. Government must play a strategic role—I have mentioned the low-carbon industrial fund—to encourage the kind of co-operation that my hon. Friend has described.

Sir Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield) (Con)
If the Prime Minister is right and oil prices are going to rise dramatically again in the immediate future, what action will the Secretary of State take to prevent British industry from becoming less competitive, and to prevent the most vulnerable from having to bear additional costs that they cannot afford?

Edward Miliband
The hon. Gentleman has raised an important issue. We need to ensure that all the necessary mechanisms are in place to prevent speculation on the oil price, so that changes are based on the fundamentals rather than on speculation. That is why we are examining the regulatory systems—for instance, through the International Organisation of Securities Commissions, which is the international regulator.

One of the arguments for the transition to low carbon is that it will make us less dependent on fluctuations in the fossil fuel price. We need the right regulatory systems, and we also need to undertake that low-carbon transition.

Miss Anne Begg (Aberdeen, South) (Lab)
Yesterday saw the publication of Oil and Gas UK’s annual economic report, which showed that oil and gas would play an important part in the energy sector for the foreseeable future. Key to that are enhanced recovery and lengthening the time for which reserves will be developed. How can the Government help to ensure that the industry does not shut up shop and go elsewhere, but continues to develop the North sea? Will my right hon. Friend arrange to visit Aberdeen to observe the showcase of the offshore oil and gas industry, and also—

Mr. Speaker
Order. I think that that will do.

Edward Miliband
My noble Friend Lord Hunt greatly enjoyed his visit to Aberdeen. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s championing of the oil and gas industry. The initiative taken by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in the Budget in relation to the new field allowance was designed to bring about investment in the North sea, but—through the PILOT group, with which my hon. Friend is importantly involved—we also want to continue our discussions with the industry about how we can best help it in future.

Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
May I stress to my right hon. Friend the need to regulate the use of fluorine-based gases, or F gases, in supermarket refrigeration units? They are up to 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of global warming. The industry itself is asking the Government to regulate to create a level playing field. May I urge the Secretary of State to discuss such action with his opposite numbers, so that it can be expedited as soon as possible?

Edward Miliband
The matter is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but I will undertake to discuss it with him.

Mr. Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
The Secretary of State and the leaders of the world have defined dangerous climate change as a change of more than 2°C in the average temperature. Can the Secretary of State confirm that the average temperature in Cornwall is more than 2° higher than that in the north-east of England? Will he assure people that if they move from the north-east of England to Cornwall they will not suffer any great danger, and that any dangerous consequences—

Mr. Speaker
Order. I must say to the right hon. Gentleman that the whole principle of topical questions is that they should be brief, and that only one question should be asked.

Edward Miliband
For the second time today, I believe that the right hon. Gentleman is slightly confused on this question. The point about rising temperatures across the world is that it will drive temperatures up across Britain, so moving from Cornwall to the north-east will not solve the problem. The right hon. Gentleman is one of the few people in this House who does not seem to take the problem of climate change as seriously as I believe he should. I am looking forward to meeting him to discuss this further.

Harry Cohen (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
There is very poor availability of information to compare the prices and performance of the different energy companies. A very nice lady from Centrica British Gas, Catherine May, told me it leads the way in implementing the Government’s scheme for insulation in the homes of the elderly, but it has halted the processing of new applications and other companies do not do anything at all. When will we see a proper comparison of the prices and performance of the different energy companies?

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr. David Kidney)
The whole point of the Ofgem probe was to get to the bottom of complaints about poor information to consumers from the energy companies, and a number of changes to licence conditions will be made to try to remedy those problems. As regards the commitment of individual companies to the carbon emissions reduction target—CERT—which was, I think, the other point my hon. Friend was making, we are conscious that we need the information from each of the energy companies in order to make that assessment, and I will be talking to them about that.

 Newspapers (Surveillance Methods)

11:31:00

Dr. Evan Harris (Oxford, West and Abingdon) (LD)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the steps he is taking to look into the actions of the police, the prosecutors and the Information Commissioner in respect of the use by newspapers of illegal surveillance methods.

The Minister for Policing, Crime and Counter-Terrorism (Mr. David Hanson)
I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to the hon. Gentleman’s question. I should first of all inform the House that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is today in Manchester at the Association of Chief Police Officers conference and is therefore unable to respond to the question himself.

The original allegations date back to 2006, following which, as the House will be aware, there were convictions. However, serious allegations have appeared in the newspapers this morning, which clearly go much wider than the original case. That is why I have spoken this morning to the assistant commissioner, specialist operations, John Yates, and why my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has spoken to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner within the last hour. The Metropolitan police are urgently considering these allegations and will be making a statement this afternoon.

It would be wrong for me in any way to pre-empt that statement as this is first and foremost an operational matter for the Metropolitan police. However, I give an undertaking to the House that I will report back following the considerations by the Metropolitan police, when I can do so.

Dr. Harris
I thank the Minister for that answer. Does he accept that I am not relaxed, that I do not think the House is relaxed, and that neither are the public relaxed in any way about fears not only of surveillance by the Government, but now of surveillance by newspapers and their agents? Will he further accept that we all want to see healthy, responsible investigative journalism, especially in respect of public figures who wield power, but that it must be within the law and seen to be within the law, and it would be extremely toxic for our democracy if vested interests were seen to be able to in some way buy their way out of the criminal justice system? I would be grateful if the Minister kept the House informed of the actions he is taking.

Mr. Hanson
As I have said, the allegations that have been made are serious and deserve examination, and the Metropolitan police will this afternoon be examining them. I will report back to the House in due course. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the law itself: unlawful interception is an offence under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. Where an individual intentionally intercepts a communication without lawful authority, that is punishable with a fine or a prison sentence of up to two years. He will also know that in the case considered two years ago, punishments were given. I will have to reflect on what the Metropolitan police are looking at this afternoon, and as I have said, I will report back to the House in due course.

Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con)
There is no doubt that the story that appeared in this morning’s newspaper raised questions. We rightly cherish the freedom of the press in this country, but it is vital that that freedom is not abused. Journalists do, of course, need to be able to pursue stories that are in the public interest and to do their job free from interference, but they are also obliged both to obey the law and to conform to the Press Complaints Commission code, which sets the standards for their industry.

I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation about the Metropolitan police statement that is due later today, and for assuring the House he will bring back further reports in due course. Does he agree that it is important that everyone in this House gives a measured response on these issues and that we leave it to the police to decide whether there is any new information that warrants further action?

Mr. Hanson
With due respect to the hon. Gentleman, it is not for me to give the reflections of the House as a whole; individual Members will make their judgments and give their views in due course. I have simply said to the House that these are serious allegations that need examining, and the Metropolitan police will examine them. I have spoken to the Metropolitan police this morning, as has my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. We await their investigation and examination, which is ongoing as we speak. They will be making a statement shortly—this afternoon—and I shall report back in due course on its implications. I can do no more, because investigating these issues is an operational matter for the police.

Chris Huhne (Eastleigh) (LD)
Of course everyone in this House will want to see investigations in the public interest, but investigations should not be undertaken merely to titillate the interests of the public. The public have a right to protection against illegal intrusion into their privacy, whether by the state or by private bodies such as newspapers. If, as is reported, more than 1,000 phone taps took place, it beggars belief that this involved just one journalist or that senior executives did not know what was happening—indeed, the allegation is clearly that senior executives on this newspaper did know. I welcome what the Minister has said, but does he not agree that it is extraordinary that the Leader of the Opposition, who wants to be a Prime Minister, employs Andy Coulson who, at best, was responsible for a newspaper that was out of control and, at worst, was personally implicated in criminal activity? The exact parallel is surely with Damian McBride. If the Prime Minister was right to sack him, should not the Leader of the Opposition sack Andy Coulson?

Mr. Hanson
As I have said, the allegations relate to criminal offences and the police are examining those matters as we speak. The hon. Gentleman will know that there is legislation providing for a criminal offence to cover the allegations that have been made. I hope that he will accept that I can only respond in that way at this moment.

Keith Vaz (Leicester, East) (Lab)
The Minister will recall that in evidence to my Select Committee’s inquiry into what happened to the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), senior officers of the Metropolitan police told us that as a matter of practice whenever an investigation involved a high-profile person, politicians, including the Home Secretary and other politicians, and the Metropolitan Police Authority, were informed. Will the Minister confirm that no Minister has ever been informed of any of these allegations until last night?

Mr. Hanson
My understanding is that the Metropolitan police and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, like me, discovered these allegations on the production of the newspapers overnight and this morning.

Mr. John Whittingdale (Maldon and East Chelmsford) (Con)
The Minister will be aware that the fact that a private investigator had intercepted the telephone calls of a large number of people was well known at the time. He will also be aware that the chairman of News International gave a categoric assurance to my Select Committee that no other journalist, beyond Clive Goodman, had any involvement in or knowledge of that matter. Can the Minister say whether he is aware of any evidence to contradict that statement? When my Select Committee reopens its inquiry, as it has decided to do, will he ask the Metropolitan police to provide us with any information that they have that is relevant to this case?

Mr. Hanson
The allegations came to light today, we are examining them with the Metropolitan police and I obviously concur with what the hon. Gentleman has said.

Mr. Tom Watson (West Bromwich, East) (Lab)
Should elected leaders be relaxed about a spin doctor responsible for bugging the heir to the throne?

Mr. Hanson
I hope that, again, my hon. Friend will recognise that those are allegations, the Metropolitan police will examine them and I will report back following their investigation.

David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
The Minister cannot brush aside as an operational responsibility something for which the Home Secretary has responsibility. The allegation in The Guardian is that none of the many hundreds of people whose communications appear to have been intercepted were notified by the police that they were the victim of a crime. That is a matter for the Home Secretary, so can the Minister give an answer on that point?

Mr. Hanson
Again, the right hon. Gentleman will be aware that these allegations have come to light this morning. We are examining them, as are the Metropolitan police, and I will report back to the House on the outcome of those examinations when I have an opportunity to do so. I cannot give him any comment today on the allegations, given where we are on the time scale since they became public.

Emily Thornberry (Islington, South and Finsbury) (Lab)
Given the existence of the Wilson doctrine, may we have an assurance that no one involved in the surveillance of politicians has been given a parliamentary pass?

Mr. Hanson
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has confirmed the Wilson doctrine. We will have to look at the issues and the investigations. I cannot give my hon. Friend an answer on the point now, but it will be a matter for the police investigation, and if there are responsibilities for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, we will examine that.

Sir Menzies Campbell (North-East Fife) (LD)
Since the Leader of the House is on the Treasury Bench, and since she has a responsibility to the House as a whole, may we have an undertaking that consideration will be given to whether any breach of privilege arises on this occasion?

Mr. Hanson
The right hon. and learned Gentleman will be aware that business questions follow these proceedings. My right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House has indicated that she will consider those representations and will respond shortly.

Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) is right that this issue raises profound questions that go to the heart of our democracy. Even though Statutory Instrument No. 1677 gives greater resources to the Information Commissioner, may we be assured that he will have sufficient resources to undertake his part of what will be a difficult investigation?

Mr. Hanson
As of this morning, my colleagues and I have not had an opportunity to speak to the Information Commissioner or the Crown Prosecution Service, which was mentioned in the original question from the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris). We will examine those issues shortly.

Mr. Ben Wallace (Lancaster and Wyre) (Con)
It was my understanding that the inquiry into the bugging of the members of the royal family hinged on an inside employee of British Telecom giving out the numbers for celebrities and members of the royal household. Could the Minister give us some assurance that he is taking steps to ensure that telephone providers adhere to their data protection obligations so that we are all protected, as are other people?

Mr. Hanson
Again, as with the serious allegations that have been made today, any such activity would constitute a potential criminal offence and would be investigated accordingly.

Martin Salter (Reading, West) (Lab)
I hope that you, Mr. Speaker, and the Minister will agree that this is an extremely serious matter and that there are many avenues that the House and its Committees may wish to explore. For example, do Mr. Coulson and his employer, the Leader of the Opposition, stand by the comments that the former made to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in March 2003 that it is acceptable to make cash payments to police officers for private information? Why on earth did the Metropolitan police not properly investigate and prosecute those who were working for Mr. Coulson, who tapped the phones of Cabinet Ministers, Members of Parliament and other public figures?

Mr. Hanson
I am afraid that I will sound repetitive, but the allegations that my hon. Friend makes are ones that the Metropolitan police are examining as we speak, as part of their efforts to uncover the truth of the matter. It is not for me to comment on those operational matters.

Mr. Nigel Dodds (Belfast, North) (DUP)
Many serious issues are raised by the allegations, and in Northern Ireland we are familiar with questions about phone tapping. However, in every case—unless, obviously, it was a police operation—the target of such surveillance was notified. May we have an assurance from the Minister that the issue of why people were not notified that they were being surveyed will come before the House and that a full explanation will be given?

Mr. Hanson
I am confident that that is precisely the sort of issue on which we will reflect once we have discussed this matter further.

Geraldine Smith (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)
These allegations have serious implications for national security. If Cabinet members and the Deputy Prime Minister had their phones tapped, what did the Metropolitan police know? Were they aware of this, and if so, why did they not tell the Deputy Prime Minister and other senior Cabinet Ministers?

Mr. Hanson
Again, the Metropolitan police commissioner and assistant commissioner are examining the issue at the moment to try to get to the truth of what occurred and the impact of those allegations. I await this afternoon’s statement with interest.

Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
Are the Government satisfied with the measures that are in place to prevent illegal access to the police national computer? If, in the light of these allegations, they are not satisfied, what will they do about that?

Mr. Hanson
I am confident that we have security of the police national computer. As with intercept information, there are offences that would involve potential criminal action in the event of activity being undertaken in that field.

Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
Has the Minister noticed the relaxed attitude of Opposition Front Benchers in relation to this matter, which contrasts with the indignation that they showed when the police interfered and intervened in the office of the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green)? Is it because they have something to hide, and is it because they are trying to hide Mr. Andy Coulson, who should be getting the sack?

Mr. Hanson
My hon. Friend makes his points in his usual inimitable style, and I am sure the House will have noted them.

Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)
The allegations are that the phone tapping and hacking were widespread and that the people who were on the receiving end were not notified. Will the Minister now assure the House that those people who have been the subject of hacking or tapping will now be notified of the fact that they have been a victim?

Mr. Hanson
Again, I think that the first duty of the Metropolitan police is to examine the issue. That is going on at the moment. There will be opportunities to look at some of the other consequences in due course and, as I have said, I will report back to the House on the matters flowing from this allegation today.

Rob Marris (Wolverhampton, South-West) (Lab)
Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that he will remind the Metropolitan police and the Information Commissioner that the defence of “in the public interest” relates to something that is in the interest of the public body and not something that satisfies the curiosity of the public?

Mr. Hanson
My hon. Friend has made a valid point. I am trying, given that we might have cases of criminal activity as a result of the investigation into these allegations, not to comment too much on these issues.

Adam Price (Carmarthen, East and Dinefwr) (PC)
Whatever the operational decisions made by the Metropolitan police, will the Minister tell us what the Government’s policy is on informing people that they have been the subject of illegal surveillance? Is it the Government’s view that the principle should always be that those people should be notified? As a first step, will he tell us in his statement later this evening how many Members of Parliament and Ministers, according to the information held by the Met, were targeted as a result of the operation?

Mr. Hanson
Again, I will report back to the House on these matters at an appropriate time. It might not be today, but we will look back on those issues in due course and I shall respond when the opportunity arises.

Mr. Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend should be playing for England, so straight is his bat this morning. At 7 o’clock this morning, I saw a hunched figure with a suit-bag and a mobile phone crossing Speaker’s Yard. It was Mr. Andy Coulson. I thought that he was on the way out, having been fired. This is not now about him; it is about the judgment of the Leader of the Opposition in keeping him with a Commons pass. For the House of Commons—

Mr. Speaker
Order. A number of other Members are standing whom I would like to try to get in. I must ask the right hon. Gentleman for a question.

Mr. MacShane
Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is not a matter for a Metropolitan police statement this afternoon, and that the House of Commons must decide to set up its own inquiry to hear evidence under oath from all concerned—from the employees of this foreign national, who so instructed them, and from the police officers—to get to the bottom of this matter?

Mr. Hanson
If the House of Commons wishes to look at those matters, that will be a matter for you, Mr. Speaker, and for the Leader of the House.

Mr. Andrew Robathan (Blaby) (Con)
It seemed that the Minister was saying earlier that the Metropolitan police heard about these allegations only in the newspaper today. However, the Metropolitan police decided not to proceed. Who in the Metropolitan police decided not to take this matter further? Was it the last commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, or the deputy commissioner, or was the decision made lower down the food chain?

Mr. Hanson
Again, the purpose of the Metropolitan police’s examination of this issue following my discussions with Mr. John Yates and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s discussions with the commissioner is to establish the facts. These allegations appeared overnight and this morning and they are now being investigated.

Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
It is quite clear from the revelations in the newspapers this morning that there are also questions about the role of the Press Complaints Commission, which seems to have failed completely in its duty to protect the public and properly investigate this matter. Criminal activity was clearly involved in what it was investigating, but it failed to ask questions of the appropriate people to get the right answers. Will my right hon. Friend continue to investigate that issue, too?

Mr. Hanson
I will draw those comments to the notice of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, who has responsibility for these issues.

Mr. John Baron (Billericay) (Con)
May I return to the very serious allegation about illicit accessing of the police national computer? It is one of the more serious aspects of the matter. Will the Minister use this opportunity to re-examine the measures in place to make sure that the integrity of the PNC is maintained?

Mr. Hanson
Self-evidently, the integrity of the PNC is a matter of high importance for the Government. We will take all steps to ensure that it remains secure. In the light of the allegations, I shall be looking at whether further steps need to be taken.

Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
Given Mr. Coulson’s dubious reputation, none of us on this side of the House can feel comfortable while he is around to wander the corridors here. While he is under suspicion, can we not at least take his pass away from him?

Mr. Hanson
Those issues are not for the Government. They are for the House authorities.

Richard Younger-Ross (Teignbridge) (LD)
In response to an earlier question, the Minister said that the offence could be punishable by a fine or imprisonment. Some cases of hacking are not punishable by imprisonment. I believe that, in 2007, the Prime Minister was considering expanding the application of imprisonment for offences such as hacking into the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, but dropped the proposal after receiving a delegation from News International. Will the Minister look at the matter again to make sure that such hacking is an imprisonable offence?

Mr. Hanson
I am not aware of the circumstances that the hon. Gentleman has outlined. As he knows, offences without lawful authority under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 are punishable with a fine or a prison sentence of up to two years. That penalty was delivered in the case of two years ago.

 Business of the House

11:51:00

Alan Duncan (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
May I ask the Leader of the House to give us the forthcoming parliamentary business?

The Leader of the House of Commons (Ms Harriet Harman)
The business for next week will be as follows:

Monday 13 July—Consideration of a carry-over motion for the Political Parties and Elections Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Political Parties and Elections Bill.

Tuesday 14 July—Remaining stages of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [Lords].

Wednesday 15 July—Opposition day [16th allotted day]. There will be a debate on NHS dentistry, followed by a debate on caring for elderly. Both debates will arise on an Opposition motion.

Thursday 16 July—Topical debate: subject to be announced followed by a general debate on preparation for the climate change conference in Copenhagen.

The provisional business for the week commencing 20 July will include:

Monday 20 July—Second Reading of the Child Poverty Bill, followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments.

Tuesday 21 July—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by motion on the summer recess Adjournment, followed by, if necessary, consideration of Lords amendments.

The provisional business for the week commencing 12 October will include:

Monday 12 October—Remaining stages of the Health Bill [Lords].

Tuesday 13 October—Remaining stages of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords].

Wednesday 14 October—Opposition day [17th allotted day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.



Thursday 15 October—General debate on defence policy.

Friday 16 October—Private Members’ Bills.

Alan Duncan
I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the business. Last week, I raised the issue of the length of time that the Treasury has taken to respond to some MPs’ correspondence. We should perhaps be grateful that it replies at all. May I ask the right hon. and learned Lady for a further statement on what appears to have become common practice in the Department of Work and Pensions? Ministers there are passing MPs’ correspondence to their various agencies for a response, even when the matter concerns Government policy.

If the issue is administrative, of course it is right for the relevant body to reply, but I am aware of a number of cases in which a Member has sought clarification from a Minister on departmental policy, only to receive a totally inadequate response that did not come from the Minister, who had passed the buck to the Child Support Agency, which in turn stated that it was unable to comment on the issues raised in the letter as it could respond only to operational matters. Does the right hon. and learned Lady agree that it is highly disrespectful to this House, and perhaps also incompetent, for Ministers to delegate correspondence in this way? Will she endeavour to inform the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions that, when a Member writes to a Minister, it is the Minister who should reply?

May we also have a statement from the Work and Pensions Secretary on the abject failure of the Government’s flagship welfare reform policy, Pathways to Work? This scheme was established—at a cost of £129 million this year alone—to help people get off incapacity benefit and find employment. However, statistics released by the Department yesterday show that fewer than one in 10 people who have started on the programme have actually managed to find work. How on earth do the Government plan to deal with the grim rise in unemployment that we are facing, and which has been caused by the recession, when the track record of what they have tried to do already seems such a dismal failure?

May we also have a debate on the Government’s strategy for reducing the alarming rate of teenage pregnancies? Yesterday, it was revealed that young people who took part in a £5 million Government scheme that aimed to help tackle the problem by encouraging 13 to 15-year-olds to talk to each other about sex were twice as likely to become pregnant as a similar group. That is a sad indictment of the Government’s failure to develop a coherent strategy. The fact is that Britain has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe: more and more young girls are seeking an abortion, and the higher rate of sexual activity is leading to an alarming increase in sexually transmitted infections among teenagers. May we have a full day’s debate on this serious national issue so that we can help to develop a much more thoughtful response to the underlying problems and encourage young people to be more careful with their body and their life?

May I once again seek from the Leader of the House the guarantee that I have not yet received, even though I have asked for it many times, that the House will be comprehensively updated on how the Government intend to compensate those who lost out from the collapse of Equitable Life? We need that before we rise for the summer. Her response at Question Time yesterday to my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) revealed a perhaps wilful, misunderstanding of the difference between proper compensation and ex gratia payments. They are not the same thing, and the ombudsman called for compensation.

The right hon. and learned Lady will note that 307 Members have now signed EDM 1423.

[That this House notes the Parliamentary Ombudsman has taken the unusual step of using powers under the 1967 Act to present Parliament with a further and final report on Equitable Life; also notes that the Public Administration Select Committee's second report on Equitable Life, Justice denied? concluded that the Government response to the Parliamentary Ombudsman's report was inadequate as a remedy for injustice; recognises the vital role the Ombudsman plays in public life; reaffirms the duty of Parliament to support the office of the Ombudsman; believes the Government should accept the recommendations of the Ombudsman on compensating policyholders who have suffered loss; welcomes the formation of the All-Party Group on Justice for Equitable Life Policyholders; and notes with regret its necessary formation and the fact that over 30,000 people have already died waiting for a just resolution to this saga.]

Given the scale of the concern about the Government’s reaction to the ombudsman’s report and her subsequent damning second report, will the Leader of the House confirm that the matter has been discussed at Cabinet level? Will she give us an assurance today that the House will have an opportunity to cross-examine the Chief Secretary to the Treasury next week? She keeps declining to confirm whether the promised statement will be an oral or a written one. The House requires an oral statement, and will she now give an absolute guarantee that that is what it will be?

Ms Harman
In respect of Treasury Ministers’ responses to letters from hon. Members, this issue has been followed up. I am not yet in a position to reply to the hon. Gentleman, but I will make sure that I come to the House next Thursday with all the facts and figures about the response time. Of course, there has been a great increase in the number of letters from hon. Members to the Treasury, and that is a response to constituents’ concerns at this time of economic crisis. However, that does not mean that people should have to wait longer—far from it: they should get a prompt reply to the concerns and anxieties of their constituents. I will make sure that I have an up-to-date answer ready for the House next Thursday.

The shadow Leader of the House is absolutely right in what he said about ministerial responses and agencies. Responses on policy are a matter for Ministers, and should not be delegated for explanation by an agency. Agencies have to account for their administration of policies, but they do not have to account for the policies themselves. That remains a matter for Ministers. If the hon. Gentleman gave me some examples, that would assist me in following the matter up on behalf of Members of the House.

The hon. Gentleman talked about Pathways to Work. It is very important indeed that we help everybody who wants to get into work to find their way back to the world of work. He will know that the pathways programme deals with those who have the greatest problems. They may have had a problem of alcohol or drug abuse in their past. They may have mental illness problems or they may have been in prison. They may have a range of problems or a combination of them all. The pathways programme says that there is nobody we write off. We do not say, “That’s it. You’re written off, you can’t ever play your part in the world of work.” We should recognise that it is sometimes very difficult to help those people back into work and we will not have a 90 per cent. success rate, but that does not mean that it is not important for those programmes to go ahead and help people into work.

The hon. Gentleman is right that teenage pregnancy is a complex and difficult issue. We all agree that we want to see a fall in the number of teenage pregnancies. That has to do with good sex education, contraception and girls having aspirations to something other than early pregnancy. Their opportunities in life need to be more than that. The responsibility of boys is also involved—mentioning that is often forgotten.

The hon. Gentleman was talking about a pilot scheme—an experiment that was tried out. The whole point of a pilot scheme is to find out whether something works. There is no dishonour in piloting something to see whether it works, and if it does not work, acknowledging that while pressing forward to try to find out what does work. If there was a magic answer to the question of teenage pregnancy, it would have been found before now.

On the question about Equitable Life, there is absolutely no need for the hon. Gentleman to patronise me over not knowing the difference between ex gratia payments and compensation. I do indeed know the difference. The Government’s position is that there is not a legal obligation to pay compensation, but there is a moral obligation to make ex gratia payments, and that is what Sir John Chadwick is working on. I have said there will be a statement before the House rises; there will be Treasury questions next week, so the hon. Gentleman will have the opportunity to ask the Chancellor in person during oral questions next week.

Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
Dealing first with the urgent question we have just discussed, we heard a deplorably weak performance from the shadow Home Secretary, and it was not mentioned at all by the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan). As the question clearly raises potential issues of privilege, may I ask the right hon. and learned Lady to consider those issues and report to the House? Will she also ask of her Cabinet colleague, the Attorney-General, about the prosecution policy that was adopted previously? Perhaps the Solicitor-General could make a statement to the House.

A useful innovation recently was for notice to be given to the House when it was known that a statement was to be made by a Minister. Last week, two White Papers were published and oral statements were made to the House. One of the White Papers was about banking, where I accept that there may have been market-sensitive material, but the one on Monday was about international development and I cannot quite accept that it was not known last Thursday that a White Paper was to be published on Monday. Will the Leader of the House look at the matter again and give Members of the House proper notice when a statement is to be made, particularly on the publication of a White Paper? Will she also make good the promise of the Secretary of State for International Development that we will soon have a debate on international development issues?

May we have a debate on the case of Gary McKinnon, the Asperger’s syndrome sufferer who is being cynically handed over to the United States authorities, possibly to serve 60 years in an American jail? The Home Secretary, somewhat disingenuously, says he cannot instruct prosecution. That is absolutely right, but what he can do is stop the extradition and allow the circumstances in which that unfortunate gentleman could be tried in this country. Many of us felt that the one-sided extradition treaty was a disgrace to Britain. This use of that disgraceful treaty is a further disgrace and a shame, and I hope we will have the opportunity to debate it.

I support the view already expressed about Equitable Life. The right hon. and learned Lady is absolutely right to make the distinction between an ex gratia payment and compensation, but she ignores the findings of the ombudsman. The early-day motion tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable), which has attracted 307 signatures, shows the strength of feeling across the House. If we can get 16 more signatures, there will be an absolute majority of Members who want something to be done. May we have a proper debate and an oral statement on the issue?

The House rises for the summer recess on 22 July. Will the Leader of the House ring round all the Government offices to make sure that we do not have what we have every year, which is a profusion—a plethora—of written statements in the last days before the House rises, so that people cannot examine the statements and ask questions in the House? Last year, we had 63 written statements in the last two days. The worst offender, incidentally, was the Prime Minister, with no fewer than 10 written statements on the last day. That is unacceptable. The Leader of the House has time at least to phase the statements over the next week. Will she do so?

Ms Harman
The hon. Gentleman made further points about Equitable Life. I think 100 per cent. of Members want justice for Equitable Life policyholders who have lost out. We all agree with that, and a process is under way to make sure that ex gratia payments are made.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the custom and practice whereby loads of written ministerial statements are put out in the final days. I am already raising that with ministerial colleagues, to encourage them not to leave things until the last moment. If every Department does that, the difficulty is that there is an unmanageable amount of statements for colleagues to respond to. I shall remind all colleagues that the matter has already been raised by the House and that this time we have to try to break the habit of a lifetime—of tipping them all out before the summer recess. I will do my best, and so will my deputy and the Chief Whip—[Hon. Members: “Ah.”] So it is sure to be all right.

The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) mentioned the case of Gary McKinnon. As I understand it, the matter is not for the Home Secretary’s decision; it was for decision by the courts, which have decided that this man should be extradited. It is not at the discretion of the Home Secretary, but a decision by the courts.

The hon. Gentleman made the point that when a White Paper is to be produced there should be an indication to the House—perhaps the previous week—even if the particular day was not specified, so that Members at least know that something is coming up. In order not to give a date that then turns out to be wrong—because something else happens that moves the date a day or two, and everybody says, “Aha, something’s gone wrong”—we have been deterred from announcing oral statements in advance, but actually the outcome is perverse. We are planning something and we know about it within a day or so, but we do not inform the House. When we come back, I think that perhaps for an experimental period, we will try to give a business statement indicating when oral statements about major documents are likely to be coming up. That is a good suggestion.

On the question about the revelations in The Guardian, the hon. Gentleman will have heard the responses given by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Crime and Counter-Terrorism to the urgent question. A number of Members have already raised with me whether there is a question of privilege. It certainly does raise issues of grave concern. We are elected to represent our constituents and, to do our duty in that respect, to hold the Executive to account. We must not be impeded in that work by interference through the interception of our communications. That would constitute contempt of Parliament and a breach of parliamentary privilege, and it is something I shall have to consider.

Several hon. Members
rose—

Mr. Speaker
Order. Thirty-seven Members are seeking to catch my eye and, as always, I am keen to get in as many as possible, so I must ask each hon. Member to ask one brief supplementary question and, of course, I look to the Leader of the House, as always, to provide a pithy reply.

Jessica Morden (Newport, East) (Lab)
There was a very short but excellent debate in Westminster Hall last week on the Government’s response to the Archer inquiry. Given the huge importance of the issue to those affected, may I join calls made by other Members for a much longer debate on the Floor of the House on that important issue?

Ms Harman
I know that despite the increase in compensation for the victims of contaminated blood supply, there is still a great deal of concern for people who have, unfortunately, been contaminated through no fault of their own. I will bring my hon. Friend’s comments to the attention of Ministers in the Department of Health.

Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
One of my local papers, the Keighley News, recently reported that a judge who had sentenced people involved in gang violence to prison had complained that he had to give “extraordinarily lenient sentences” to those people

“Because he was hidebound by the law”.

He went on to criticise a system in which people who have spent time on bail subject to a curfew receive a reduction in sentence. Given that judges are complaining about the lenient sentences being handed out, may we have a debate on the subject? It causes a great deal of concern in my constituency.

Ms Harman
It is best if we leave the judges to get on with sentencing, which is their job, not ours, and the judges leave us to get on with legislating, which is our job, not theirs.

Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
Will my right hon. and learned Friend reflect, with her colleagues, on the mechanisms to be used to inform the House and me, the constituency MP, when it is known how the Serious Fraud Office intends to proceed with the MG Rover inquiry? Will she confirm today that it remains the Government’s intention to publish the inquiry report as soon as possible, and that the Government will do everything that they can to ensure that the former workers of MG Rover receive the money that is their due from the trust fund that has been set up?

Ms Harman
The Government agree very much with my hon. Friend that those who are owed money should be paid as quickly as possible by the trust; my hon. Friend has championed his constituents in that regard. As far as the publication of the report is concerned, as he said, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has referred the question of whether there should be a criminal investigation to the Serious Fraud Office. The SFO has undertaken to decide whether the matter warrants a full investigation within, I think, 20 days of the matter being referred to it. If there is not to be any further criminal investigation, the report will be published. Obviously, if there is to be a criminal investigation, nothing must be done that would prejudice it, but the report will be published once any criminal investigations have been concluded.

Justine Greening (Putney) (Con)
May we have a debate on the effectiveness of Jobcentre Plus in helping people to get back into work? In 2002, my London borough of Wandsworth had five jobcentres; now we have just one. Local people are concerned about the resource ability of Jobcentre Plus to give them meaningful help to find employment again. May we have a topical debate on that?

Ms Harman
I would like to pay tribute to those who work in jobcentres and Jobcentre Plus. They do an incredibly important job. The service has been transformed from what it was during the last recession, when people sat behind grilles and paid out unemployment benefit, or signed people off on to incapacity benefit, but did not help them to get back into work. There is a whole range of work and training now available to people who face the awful fact of unemployment. I hope that the hon. Lady will support the extra investment that we put into Jobcentre Plus to make sure that it can work even better on behalf of those who face unemployment.

Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire, North) (Lab)
May we have a debate on health and safety for those employed in the construction industry? My right hon. and learned Friend will be aware of a report recently produced by the Department for Work and Pensions on the issue. Its author, Rita Donaghy, a senior employment expert, made a number of recommendations, foremost among them the extension of the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 to the construction industry. Will my right hon. and learned Friend assure the House that those recommendations will be given serious consideration?

Ms Harman
The Rita Donaghy report is very important, and I should like to thank her for her work. The Gangmasters Licensing Authority, which my hon. Friend was instrumental in setting up, has ensured that workers are not undercut by exploited labour and has protected migrant labourers from being exploited. It has saved the taxpayer money by reducing the evasion of tax, and above all, it has helped with health and safety. Rita Donaghy’s suggestion that the 2004 Act be extended to the construction industry is well worth considering.

Mr. Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)
Given that a clear majority of those who can sign early-day motions have signed the motion on Equitable Life, why does not the Leader of the House simply list it as the subject of the topical debate next week? Or does she think that 307 Members of this House can be persistently and consistently ignored?

Ms Harman
Everyone—all Members of the House—are concerned that there should be justice for the Equitable Life policyholders. There has been a debate on the subject in Westminster Hall and a statement in this House. We all agree that the policyholders should receive ex gratia payments, and the Government are setting about enabling that to take place.

Sir Stuart Bell (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
The House will be grateful for the statement made by the Minister for Policing, Crime and Counter-Terrorism on the serious allegations made against News Group Newspapers today. I remind the Leader of the House that the allegations are serious. There are allegations of hacking into Cabinet Ministers’ private telephone numbers and the numbers of Members of Parliament from three major parties, and allegations that a parliamentary Select Committee was misled. Given all those serious breaches of our privileges and sovereignty, I invite my right hon. and learned Friend to lay a motion before the House next week, referring those matters to the Standards and Privileges Committee.

Ms Harman
Those are issues of grave concern. It is absolutely fundamental that once we are elected to this House, we are able to get on with our job without let or hindrance. Certainly, if unlawful interception of telephone communications, voicemails and texts had taken place, it would be contempt of Parliament and a breach of parliamentary privilege. Those matters are of grave concern, and I will certainly consider what issues have arisen and what would be the appropriate action for me to propose to the House.

Mr. John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD)
Transport bosses from Manchester are meeting the Minister with responsibility for rail later this afternoon to discuss their concerns about the Government reneging on their promises on the number of railway carriages for Greater Manchester. May we have an oral statement to the House to assure hon. Members about the number of railway carriages that we are getting, and about when we will get them, so that we can start dealing with congestion on our railways in Greater Manchester?

Ms Harman
I am assured by my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House, who represents a seat in Greater Manchester, that there has been no reneging on any commitments on important transport infrastructure in Manchester.

Mr. Elliot Morley (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
Corus in Scunthorpe has today announced a further 360 job cuts. That comes on top of 500 job cuts that were announced recently. Given the severe impact on the steel industry in Scunthorpe, and indeed nationally, will my right hon. and learned Friend ask the Business Secretary to have urgent talks with Corus about its plans, to bring some stability to the company? While I am grateful for the regional development agency taskforce, which is being sent into Corus to help staff, may we have a debate about how we can use selective regional aid to help areas such as mine, which are being hit so badly by the global downturn in manufacturing?

Ms Harman
My right hon. Friend makes important points on behalf of his constituents. There will be a Minister from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills at the Dispatch Box later this afternoon, responding to the topical debate on manufacturing in Britain.

Mr. Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)
May we have a debate on access for international observers to Gaza, in the light of the apprehension of a boat in Gazan waters recently?

Ms Harman
I will raise the matter that the right hon. Gentleman has brought to the attention of the House with my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary.

Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House arrange for the Business Secretary to make a statement on the operation of the guidelines on the recently passed amendment to the National Minimum Wage Act 1998? That amendment forbids the use of tips, gratuities, service charges and cover charges to pay the minimum wage. She will know, because I gave her a copy, that it is almost the sixth anniversary of my ten-minute Bill on the subject. My proposal resulted in a change to the law recently. Confusion has reigned since the regulations have been in place, because it is not clear how one can prevent people from taking and keeping payments made by customers, so can the guidelines be published soon, as the regulations will come into force in October—

Mr. Speaker
Order. I think we have got the drift.

Ms Harman
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work that he has done, which began even before we came into government and brought into effect a statutory national minimum wage. I congratulate him on his private Member’s Bill, which he introduced in 2003 and which amended the national minimum wage in respect of tips. We are very proud that we introduced the national minimum wage. It has helped millions of people. Secondary legislation will go through Parliament to address the points that he has been raising, including in his Bill, and there will be consultation.

Sir Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield) (Con)
Sadly, the motion on the setting up of a Select Committee for the reform of the House did not go through last night. It is therefore future business. In order to facilitate the passage of a measure that the Leader of the House clearly wants, will she give me an assurance that she would look very sympathetically at the transfer of the drawing up of Standing Orders from the Executive of the day to the House of Commons as a whole? That would provide the House of Commons with the independence and integrity that it deserves.

Ms Harman
I did commit to bringing a motion to the House to establish a Committee that could look at a number of important issues to strengthen the role of the House, including the way in which we select Chairs of Select Committees and the role of the House in arranging the business of the House. I tabled a motion which was not regarded as broad enough. Having seen the amendments, I withdrew the original motion and tabled one that incorporated the spirit of the amendments. Unfortunately, an hon. Member objected to it when it was brought to the House last night, but I hope that they will withdraw their objection and that the House will have another chance next week to make sure that the motion goes through.

Julie Morgan (Cardiff, North) (Lab)
I am sure my right hon. and learned Friend is aware that the Ashes is taking place in Cardiff for the first time ever. Does she agree that this is a good move? When may we have a debate about spreading major sporting events around the UK?

Ms Harman
Cardiff has shown how, with the Welsh Assembly and great leadership by the First Minister of Wales, it can be made the centre of a range of international events, and I am sure the Ashes will be very successful.

Mr. Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Will the statement on Equitable Life be in oral form?

Ms Harman
I cannot say now whether there will be an oral or a written statement, but the Chancellor will be responding to oral questions next week.

Laura Moffatt (Crawley) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families rightly reviewed the progress that Haringey council had made in improving children’s services following the terrible killing of baby Peter, but there are eight authorities whose services were found wanting by Ofsted, including West Sussex county council. Will my right hon. and learned Friend find time for us to debate these important matters on the Floor of the House?

Ms Harman
I will raise these matters with the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families and look for an opportunity for further accounting to the House. My hon. Friend will know that the Secretary of State is today taking part in a programme of encouraging more highly qualified people to go into the important job of social work so that whether for old people, people with mental health problems or, above all, children, there are proper social services to take care of them.

Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
An unsuccessful independent candidate at the recent local elections in Cornwall has accused the Conservative party of targeting the second-home vote in particular at elections. If that were true, the Conservative party would be acting entirely legally because those people are on the electoral register, but it has stimulated a debate locally about whether it is right for people with multiple houses around the country to have votes in different places. Will there be an opportunity for the House to debate that?

Ms Harman
The Political Parties and Elections Bill is going through Parliament. It has just gone through the House of Lords and will come back to the Commons following the debate on amendments in the other place. I am not yet clear whether there would be an opportunity for that point to be raised when the Bill comes back to this House, but the hon. Gentleman can have a look to see whether there is one.

Mr. Lindsay Hoyle (Chorley) (Lab)
Will my right hon. and learned Friend find time for a topical debate on the success of the Freedom pass for pensioners? We should be able to extend it to young people. People spend a lot of money sending their children to school and college, and we are now coming to the summer holidays, so can we introduce a Freedom pass for young people? That would make an excellent subject for a topical debate, which my right hon. and learned Friend has promised in the past, but it has failed to reach the House.

Ms Harman
My hon. Friend is right: the Freedom pass has been incredibly important in providing opportunities for older people to be out and about all over the country. It was led by the Government and we are extremely proud of it. The extension of such passes to young people was made by Mayor Ken Livingstone in London, and other authorities can no doubt consider doing the same.

Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
The Leader of the House will be aware that the closing date for the consultation on the Building Britain’s Future White Paper is 21 September so, rather perversely, we will clearly not get the debate in the House as promised on page 113 of that White Paper before the closure of the consultation period. However, is there not a broader point here? When the Government bring forward White Papers, their provisions are either otiose, in which case they are just ministerial window dressing, or they are significant. If White Papers have significant proposals, such as the Department for International Development White Paper earlier this week, it is right that we should have an opportunity to debate them properly at some stage. Will the Leader of the House give an undertaking that, following a reasonable period after the publication of a White Paper, the House will have the opportunity to debate the proposals in that White Paper before we get to the point when legislation is brought to the House?

Ms Harman
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. There is an opportunity in the debate on 21 July on the motion on the summer recess Adjournment for hon. Members to make contributions exactly to that effect.

Mr. Eric Martlew (Carlisle) (Lab)
My right hon. and learned Friend will remember that at the last business questions I asked a question, and I shall ask it again because we need clarity. Will the Leader of the House arrange a debate on the issue of Secretaries of State in the other place not being able to make statements to this House and not being answerable to this House? There is great concern among Members in this place that those Secretaries of State are not answerable to the House of Commons.

Ms Harman
I can say no more to my hon. Friend than I said last week, which is that there are Ministers from every Department accountable to hon. Members in this House.

Mr. Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
The acting Prime Minister was quite right when she said it would be a contempt of Parliament for hon. Members’ phones to be tapped, so when the Minister for Policing, Crime and Counter-Terrorism makes a statement later, could we have an assurance that no hon. Member’s phone has been tapped by the Government since 1997?

Ms Harman
The hon. Gentleman will know that the Wilson doctrine stipulates that the work of hon. Members should not be impeded by any interception by way of the security services. What my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Crime and Counter-Terrorism said in response to the urgent question is that if there was anything further to report, he would make sure that he kept the House informed. I do not think he promised to make an oral statement to update the House this afternoon, but he will make sure that the House is kept informed if there is any further action or any outcome.

Sir Peter Soulsby (Leicester, South) (Lab)
On Tuesday, in response to a question from the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan), the Minister for Housing announced that he would make a statement on Pennbury and other proposed eco-towns before the summer recess. Given that the Pennbury proposal will have a devastating effect on my constituency and the regeneration of the city of Leicester, and indeed on the constituencies of the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan), my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) and many others, may we have an assurance that that statement will be made at such a time and in such a way that we can have a full debate on its content?

Ms Harman
I will bring my hon. Friend’s comments to the attention of the Housing Minister and make sure he realises that my hon. Friend’s comments are supported by a number of Members across the House.

Mr. Ben Wallace (Lancaster and Wyre) (Con)
In the light of the newspaper articles this morning about Cabinet Ministers possibly having their phones tapped, which shows that the Government are incompetent even at protecting the Government and their people from intercept, may we have a debate on information security which, as the Leader of the House knows, is the responsibility of the Cabinet, so that before we rise for the recess we can hold the Government to account for the function of national security, in which they have failed?

Ms Harman
On national security, accountability is not only to Ministers but to the Intelligence and Security Committee. The hon. Gentleman will have heard my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Crime and Counter-Terrorism informing the House of the actions that the Metropolitan police are taking, when he responded to the urgent question this morning.

Mr. Tom Watson (West Bromwich, East) (Lab)
Gary McKinnon should be tried in the United Kingdom. He suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, and to remove him forcibly from the UK would be a brutal act. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that people will rightly be angry that one man involved in hacking is forcibly removed from this country, while another has a security pass to the parliamentary estate?

Ms Harman
rose—

Mr. Speaker
Order. May I just say to the Leader of the House that the hon. Gentleman has made his point and it is clearly on the record, but that the case is, I am advised, sub judice? I know that the Leader of the House will want to be very cautious about the way in which she responds.

Ms Harman
The Extradition Act 2003 provides for extradition to the United States in respect of a number of serious offences. If the courts decide that there is a case to answer, the case will go before the courts and be considered on its evidence. There is also an appeal mechanism.

Mark Hunter (Cheadle) (LD)
At the time of the most recent Health questions, there had been only one fatality from swine flu. Now, there have been seven deaths and thousands more cases have been brought to light. Given the dramatic escalation in the number of cases, and with the parliamentary recess almost upon us, will the Leader of the House agree to press the Secretary of State for Health on the need for a further debate in Government time on the UK’s preparations for dealing with the swine flu epidemic?

Ms Harman
The Secretary of State for Health has kept the House regularly updated on action both to protect people from swine flu and to work internationally to tackle the pandemic. If any further announcements are to be made, he can make them while the House is sitting. If the House is in recess, he will obviously make sure that all hon. Members are kept informed.

Mr. David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)
In response to two questions from hon. Members yesterday, the Leader of the House became the latest in a long list of Ministers to support the case for compensation for pleural plaque sufferers. However, she did not answer the question whether there would be a statement in the next two weeks. Will there will be a statement in the next six days, before any more suffering takes place?

Ms Harman
I am afraid I cannot give an exact answer to my hon. Friend, but I shall discuss the issue further with the Justice Secretary.

Mr. Nigel Dodds (Belfast, North) (DUP)
Following on directly from the issue that the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson) raises, I think the House will be aware of the excellent statement made in Northern Ireland, recommending a change in the law which would overturn the House of Lords decision on compensation for pleural plaque sufferers. The law has already been changed in Scotland. Is it not time that we had a statement, before the summer recess, ensuring that there is consistency throughout the country so that all sufferers can benefit from a change in the law and access compensation?

Ms Harman
I shall bring that point to the attention of the Justice Secretary.

Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
It is normal practice in many workplaces for an employee who is accused of a serious criminal offence to be suspended from that workplace, irrespective of where the alleged offence took place. Is it therefore not appropriate to have Mr. Coulson’s parliamentary pass withdrawn?

Ms Harman
I think that there is an established procedure, which the House authorities and the Speaker operate, for the consideration of any suggestions that a House of Commons pass be withdrawn.

Mr. John Baron (Billericay) (Con)
With discussions on reform of the House under way, will the Leader of the House reflect on answers given during Work and Pensions questions, showing that, between 1997 and 2000, each page of primary legislation received 14 minutes of scrutiny in this place, and the most recent figures, showing that that time has halved to seven minutes? May I suggest to her that if this place is to do its job properly, either we must have more time to scrutinise legislation or we must introduce less but more effective legislation?

Ms Harman
The balance between the scrutiny of Government Bills and all other non-Bill debates, such as Opposition day debates, debates chosen by the Liaison Committee, general debates, topical debates and Budget debates, will be considered by the Committee that I hope the House will set up next week, with my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) as Chairman. The hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron) raises an important matter, and senior Members are prepared to get on and look at it on behalf of the whole House, so I hope that the friends of the hon. Member who last night objected to the Committee and prevented its being set up, will prevail upon him. I suggest that to the hon. Member for Billericay, and I shall talk to him afterwards.

Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it is a strange legal system that allows an out-of-court settlement to gag somebody from giving information that may lead to a criminal investigation? Does she think it a matter worthy of further investigation? Mr. Gordon Taylor, who is head of the Professional Footballers Association, signed such a settlement with the News of the World, and he may have been implicated in covering up criminal activity. He may also have compromised his representation of the players whom he is paid to represent, because it has now been revealed that the News of the World may have investigated the private lives of some of those people, too. Does my right hon. and learned Friend not think it a curious situation and something worthy of examination on the Floor of the House?

Ms Harman
There are a number of issues of concern. There are issues that concern the Press Complaints Commission and the operation of the press, which are the responsibility of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. There is the issue of the potentially criminal actions, which is a matter for the police and, ultimately, Home Office accountability. Of course, the Minister for Policing, Crime and Counter-Terrorism answered an urgent question today. There are also the serious allegations of interference with hon. Members as we have gone about our responsibilities to represent our constituents, and that is a matter for the House. All those matters must be looked into, and we must have clear answers.

Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)
On Sunday, there was an uprising in Urumqi, in the Xinjiang province of north-west China, and its suppression led to more than 150 people being killed and to more than 1,500 being detained. May we have a statement early next week about the action that the Government have taken on the issue? And may we have a guarantee that the Prime Minister will contact Hu Jintao, if he has not already done so, to ensure the human rights of those who are being detained?

Ms Harman
I know that the Foreign Secretary has joined other Foreign Secretaries and the United Nations in calling for the exercise of restraint so that there is a right to demonstrate and there are no more injuries, but I shall ask the Foreign Secretary to write to the hon. Gentleman with further details.

Harry Cohen (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
May we have a full-scale debate about the media in this country—not just about the Coulson illegal phone-tapping affair, but about BBC pay and pensions, which far exceed those of Members, the vile bile that is written about Members and, paradoxically, the need to save local journalists’ jobs? May I put this question to the Government and ask the Leader of the House about Government policy? Self-regulation seems to have failed in the financial sector and in Parliament; why, then, is it all right for self-regulation to persist in the media?

Ms Harman
I shall bring my hon. Friend’s comments to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

Greg Mulholland (Leeds, North-West) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Health has so far ignored calls for an inquiry into the NHS using independent sector treatment centres, including calls from the family of Dr. John Hubley, who tragically and unnecessarily died at the Eccleshill treatment centre. May I say to the Leader of the House again—this is the second time—that we need a debate? I cannot call for one, because I am my party’s health spokesperson, but this is an important issue, and the NHS National Patient Safety Agency has warned that such treatment should not go ahead without proper procedures in place. May we have a debate on that important issue in Government time?

Ms Harman
Safety for all patients is important, irrespective of where the NHS provides that care. I shall have go back to the question that the hon. Gentleman asked me before, and to his question today, and ask the Health Secretary to write to him.

Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
A number of my constituents have raised concerns about newspaper reports that Lloyds Banking Group is employing and recruiting overseas IT workers while laying off staff. Should not a so-called British bank, which is supported by British taxpayers’ money, support British workers? May we have a debate on that urgent matter in order to hold Lloyds Banking Group to account?

Ms Harman
Perhaps my hon. Friend could ask Treasury Ministers about that issue during oral questions next week.

Mr. Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley) (Lab)
Will my right hon. and learned Friend approach the Secretary of State for Health about the postcode lottery as regards drug treatment and the financing of individual health authorities? At the minute, it seems that one health authority has it and the other does not. It really is a dog’s dinner, and the Government need to look at the issue.

Ms Harman
That is an important matter, but it is one for the individual primary care trusts; my hon. Friend will no doubt seek a discussion with his. If he is not satisfied with his PCT’s response, he should raise the issue directly with Health Ministers.

Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
As the Leader of the House will recall, some months ago I raised the matter of Bolsover district council’s need to replace 108 prefabricated bungalows, which were built after the end of the second world war. We had a meeting with the previous Housing Minister, who has now gone. We need to debate the issue because Bolsover district council had been led to believe that if it did not own its own housing stock, but had an arm’s length management organisation, it would get the money from the Government to replace those bungalows. Their foundations are rotting and we need a debate on the issue.

More importantly, will the Leader of the House convey to the new Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government that we need him to meet Bolsover council representatives, to ensure fair treatment between councils that retain council stock and those that have gone over to ALMOs?

Ms Harman
I shall ask the Minister for Housing to meet the hon. Gentleman and representatives of his council, to sort out how the upgrading of that housing should be dealt with. Perhaps some of the Building Britain’s Future investment of £1.5 billion will find its way to Bolsover.

Emily Thornberry (Islington, South and Finsbury) (Lab)
Until and unless we can be assured that the Leader of the Opposition’s director of communications has not been involved in the surveillance of Members of Parliament—[Hon. Members: “Out of order!”] Until and unless we can be assured that that person has not been involved in these crimes, can the Leader of House not withdraw his parliamentary security pass?

Ms Harman
I have to say to Opposition Members that the question of who has a pass to the House is a matter for the House—not for me, personally, as Leader of the House. All I can suggest is that my hon. Friend raise the matter with the House authorities and ask them to respond on whether it is acceptable for that person to continue having a pass, allowing him to move freely around the House.

 Points of Order

12:42:00

Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I thought about raising this matter at business questions, but I think that it is more appropriate on a point of order. Mr. Speaker and his predecessor have always deprecated the release of information to people outside this House before its announcement here. A few moments ago, the Leader of the House gave the future business and provisional business for October, and announced the delay of the Report stage and Third Reading of the Health Bill until Monday 12 October.

That information was given to lobbying organisations, NGOs and others long before it was discussed through the usual channels or with anybody else, including shadow Ministers from my party or, I believe, the Conservative party. It was certainly made known long before it was announced to the House. I know that this has happened before and that it is not unusual, but it seems wrong that Departments should be able to make announcements about the timing of the future business of the House to organisations that are not part of the House, before hon. Members know about it. Could not instruction be given to Departments to ensure that that does not happen in future?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord)
The hon. Gentleman could have raised that issue during business questions rather than as a point of order. The whole House will be aware of how strongly Mr. Speaker feels about such activity. The points that the hon. Gentleman has made are on the record and will be studied by everybody—not least Treasury Benchers and, I feel sure, Mr. Speaker.

The Leader of the House of Commons (Ms Harriet Harman)
Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The truth is that Departments do not know exactly when their Bills are to receive Second Reading or have further stages debated until the business managers have decided, following discussions with the usual channels, and told them. Obviously Departments can make inspired guesses and put them around, but if they do that they might find one of these days that they are proved wrong. I assure the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) that the business managers do not discuss the business of the House in advance with anybody at all. We would not do that, because it would not be right.

Mr. Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Given the seriousness of the urgent question this morning, do you agree that it would have been appropriate for the Home Secretary, rather than the Minister for Policing, Crime and Counter-Terrorism, to have been here to answer? The Minister had obviously not been afforded the information with which to answer properly to the House. Mr. Speaker is committed to ensuring that the House can hold the Executive to account. The Home Secretary is in this country at an event that could easily have been rescheduled, and he—not the Minister—should have been here this morning.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
Obviously the Home Secretary would ideally be here to answer such an urgent question. However, it is extremely difficult—particularly on a Thursday and when the urgent question is granted at the last minute—for the Government to rearrange all their business. However, I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, which is firmly on the record. In some circumstances, however, what has happened is quite understandable.

Mr. Nigel Dodds (Belfast, North) (DUP)
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. During the responses to the urgent question earlier today, the Minister said that there probably would not be a statement on the matter later today. May we have some indication of when a statement is likely to be made, given that the Metropolitan police are likely to say something about the issue later today? Is there any reason the House cannot be informed about when that ministerial statement is likely to be made—on Monday, for example? If the House cannot be so informed, what is the problem?

Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. That is not for the Chair to answer today. The situation is developing and more information about it will become clear as time goes by. If the Government decide to make a statement, I am sure that they will make it at the appropriate time.

Mr. Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Last Thursday, Mr. Speaker made a statement to the House and a number of Members were disappointed that they were not able to ask him questions about it as they ask Ministers questions about their statements. Mr. Speaker himself canvassed the idea of a Speaker’s question time when he was seeking election to his post.

I wonder whether—through you, Mr. Deputy Speaker—we could raise with Mr. Speaker the idea that when the Speaker makes a statement to the House, he will accept questions about it from right hon. and hon. Members. I am sorry that Mr. Speaker is not in the Chair at the moment and so cannot respond directly. However, I hope that, having put my point on the record, I can obtain a response from him in due course.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
As the hon. Gentleman will understand, I cannot respond directly to him. I suggest that he write in detail to Mr. Speaker, setting out his suggestions. I am sure that he will get a response to them.

 Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

[Relevant documents: The Eighteenth Report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Counter-Terrorism Policy and Human Rights (Fifteenth Report): Annual Renewal of 28 Days 2009, HC 726.]

12:48:00

The Minister for Policing, Crime and Counter-Terrorism (Mr. David Hanson)
I beg to move,

That the draft Terrorism Act 2006 (Disapplication of Section 25) Order 2009, which was laid before this House on 18 May, be approved.

May I start, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by saying that the urgent question was granted today at 10 o’clock? My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is in Manchester and the transport system is not yet effective enough to have him back here for half past 11. In response to the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Dodds), I should say that I indicated that I would update the House at an appropriate time when further information came to light.

In our debates on what became the Terrorism Act 2006, the Government agreed that there should be a requirement for the annual renewal, by order debated in Parliament, of the extension of the maximum period of detention of terrorist suspects from 14 to 28 days. As the House will know, two such orders have been made since the commencement of the 2006 Act and the order today renews the maximum period of 28 days for a further period of one year, beginning 25 July 2009.

Over the past 18 months, pre-charge detention has been the subject of considerable debate—that is an understatement—in the House, including during the passage of the Counter-Terrorism Bill last year. The issue has been discussed by the Home Affairs Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which is chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore). It would not be appropriate for me to go over those discussions today, because they have been, and will continue to be, an important contribution to the debate.

It is worth reminding ourselves of and reflecting on why Parliament agreed the exceptional 28-day limit. As Members will know, terrorist investigations are hugely time consuming. The increase from 14 to 28 days was necessary primarily as a result of major investigations into the use of encrypted computers and mobile phones, complex terrorist networks, the international nature of networks, and the use of more, and different, languages. From my perspective and that of the Government, public safety is paramount; it is our main responsibility.

Ms Dari Taylor (Stockton, South) (Lab)
Is my right hon. Friend going to announce to the House how many individuals have been put on pre-charge detention because there is concern about their activities?

Mr. Hanson
I can give my hon. Friend those statistics. She will know that to date 11 individuals have been held for more than 14 days on pre-charge detention. As a result of what happened in that 14-day period, six of those 11 were held for the maximum of 27 to 28 days, of whom three were charged and three were released without charge. She will also know that in the past two years nobody has been held beyond 14 days.

Sadly, terrorism is with us. The situation is very fluid. We are still at a level of severe threat to the United Kingdom. The issues of encrypted computers, mobile phones, terrorist networks, international languages and the need to gather evidence abroad may well require us, in response to further terrorist activity, to take actions— I hope they will be uncalled for—whereby the use of 28 days may be appropriate.

Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire) (LD)
I have heard all this before. In Northern Ireland, we had this debate year after year, and it was pretty much unequivocally proved that detention without trial was a recruiting sergeant for terrorism, rather than something that helped to reduce it. Why does the Minister think that the lessons of history can be ignored today?

Mr. Hanson
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s interest in and affinity with Northern Ireland. He will know that I served as a Northern Ireland Minister for two years. He will also know, as will the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Dodds), that in Northern Ireland there have been, and will continue to be, considerable terrorist threats to the security of the population. I believe that it is important that we retain these powers. We have had, over some years, debates on extensions beyond 28 days, but now, I hope, we have a settled will that 28 days provides the opportunity for detailed investigation—where appropriate, with the appropriate legal safeguards—to ensure that we protect the public, which, for me, is key.

Keith Vaz (Leicester, East) (Lab)
An issue that has been raised in every one of these debates, in all parts of the House, has been the impact on communities. A whole section of the excellent report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights is devoted to the need for the Government to place an impact assessment before the House. Has that assessment been done, and is it available for Members to read?

Mr. Hanson
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his intervention, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) for his comments, through the Joint Committee on Human Rights, on the impact on suspects and communities. I have looked at that issue this very week, and I will commission an impact assessment shortly. If the House will allow me, I will report back to it when the final commissioning has taken place to ensure that we deal with those matters.

Mr. John Baron (Billericay) (Con)
Why is the Minister so intent on ignoring the evidence against long pre-charge detention periods? Having served in Northern Ireland, I know that it was a recruiting sergeant for the IRA in turning communities against us. However, that question has already been asked, so let me refer him to the international evidence, which suggests that in the vast majority of countries across the world, and in most western democracies—in places such as Turkey, for example—pre-charge detention periods are less than a week. The evidence simply does not stack up.

Mr. Hanson
There are, self-evidently, different legal systems with different nuances throughout the European Community. The Government judge that 28 days is a mechanism that we need, with the appropriate legal safeguards, to ensure that we protect the public—that is our first priority. The fact that the power has not been used for two years does not mean that in difficult, trying circumstances where terrorist activity could have been commissioned or undertaken, we would not need it again. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor), I gave details of 11 individuals who have been through that maximum period since the legislation was enacted, three of whom were charged as a result, and who may well not have been charged had we not had that extra 14 days, with the appropriate legal safeguards.

Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)
The Minister mentions the number of individuals who were released during the 27-day period. We have discussed this extension ad nauseam in this House and in Committee. Can he indicate any level of dissatisfaction among the security services, the police and so on about having to release these individuals, because none has come my attention?

Mr. Hanson
One of my responsibilities as Minister for Policing, Crime and Counter-Terrorism is to look at what the police are saying about these issues. I refer the hon. Gentleman to the former assistant commissioner, Bob Quick, who said in giving evidence on the Counter-Terrorism Bill:

“In some investigations, we have seen”

attack planning activity

“materialise so quickly that on public safety grounds we have had to act pre-emptively before we have had the opportunity to exploit pre-arrest evidential opportunities. That places a huge burden on the investigating officer.”

That view has been supported by the current post holder, Assistant Commissioner John Yates. Only in the past few months, Jonathan Evans, the new director general of the Security Service, has stated:

“Al Qaida and other international terrorist organisations remain a very serious threat.”

We need to be aware of that and able to take action.

Patrick Mercer
I am grateful to the Minister, but he has not answered my question. As he knows, I head up the counter-terrorism sub-committee, and I am not aware of any great tensions or worries among the police or security services about the individuals who had to be released at the last moment. Am I wrong, or has he, or the Home Secretary, been under pressure about the individuals who have gone to the wire and had to be released?

Mr. Hanson
It is difficult for me to comment on individual cases, but the key point is that we have used the power in respect of 11 individuals, for 28 days. Three individuals were charged in that 14-to-28 day period, and the fact that three were released because there may not have been sufficient evidence, with the allegations being dropped, does not hide the fact that without those extra 14 days there would have been no possibility of charges being made.

Chris Huhne (Eastleigh) (LD)
This is not just a question of reducing the debate to numbers and to how tough one is measured by how long the period of pre-charge detention is. There is a clear change to the threshold test, which persuaded some of the Minister’s former colleagues to change their views. Why would not the flexibility that the Crown Prosecution Service now has on the threshold test substitute for this measure? Why should we not reduce the period to 14 days? What proportion of terrorist cases, on the latest available figures, have resulted in a conviction, and how does that compare with other cases brought by the CPS? The figures I have seen show that terrorist cases continue to have a higher conviction rate than non-terrorist cases.

Mr. Hanson
I do not carry the number of convictions in my head. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that I am trying to answer to the House in an appropriate way. I will consider those issues. If the figures materialise before the end of the debate, I will give them to him when I wind up.

We judge that 28 days is a necessary opportunity, in difficult circumstances, in the event of such activity.

Mr. Nigel Dodds (Belfast, North) (DUP)
On the lessons to be learned from Northern Ireland, there is a difference between indefinite detention without trial—a measure that our party opposed—as it applied in Northern Ireland and the measure before the House, which retains 28 days with all the safeguards and so on. Whatever other points may be made, it is a bit invidious to make that comparison, because the two things are not the same at all.

Mr. Hanson
The hon. Gentleman hits the nail on the head. He will know that internment without trial, which was used for public safety reasons in Northern Ireland at a certain time in history, is not the same as a 14-day extension to 28 days with judicial oversight. A judge has to examine the case, and I am accountable to this House and to the noble Lord Carlile, who reviews these matters. The situation is entirely different, although, if I may say so, we are dealing with some of the same problems. There might well be complex, difficult cases involving detailed trails of evidence that require a level of investigation for which 14 days will simply not suffice.

Several hon. Members
rose—

Mr. Hanson
I should like to make some progress, but I shall give way finally to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South, and the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes). I have been quite generous.

Ms Dari Taylor
I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend, who has indeed been generous. Will he acknowledge from the Dispatch Box that the Home Office is not communicating effectively? In the Yorkshire bomb factory episode, it was 14 days before officers could get into the factory to start the investigation. It is critical for all of us to feel that we have a sense of what is going on, so that we can confidently support pre-charge detention of up to 28 days. I ask him to accept that the Home Office is failing to acknowledge its responsibility in that regard.

Mr. Hanson
My hon. Friend makes a passionate case for the use of the power that we currently have. She will know that I have been in post for, I believe, six weeks and four days. I will attempt to examine that issue, because there is a genuine argument, in the interests of public safety, for ensuring that we make that case. What has happened over the past two years has not required the use of the power, but with the threat to the UK still at severe level we need to be sure that in the event of a plot either being thwarted or happening, those who are trying to damage our constituents and disrupt their daily lives are brought to justice within a legal framework and within the time that we have.

Paul Holmes (Chesterfield) (LD)
rose—

Mr. Hanson
I give way for the last time. This is a short debate, and I want Members to be able to have their say.

Paul Holmes
I thank the Minister. Other democratic countries do not have anything like 28 days’ detention without charge. Typically, they have two to seven days. The USA and Canada have two days and New Zealand has one day. The Minister pointed out that they have different legal systems, and one difference is that they make extensive use of post-charge questioning to overcome the difficulties of getting into encrypted databases and so forth. The Government have given themselves limited powers to do that. What use has been made of them, and why cannot the Government adopt the practice of other countries by making extensive use of post-charge questioning?

Mr. Hanson
We could have adopted, for example, the model used in France, where pre-trial detention can last four years and it is theoretically possible for someone to be held for that full period. We could have taken the approach of our good colleagues from Spain, who can hold people for five days before handing them over to judicial authorities, after which they can be held in preventive judicial custody for up to four years. We have not taken that approach. We have made a judgment, which will be tested again in the House this afternoon, that 14 to 28 days is a reasonable period, with reasonable judicial safeguards, to ensure that individuals can be charged. Let us not forget what this is about. It is about real threats to our community, and we need to have discussions about that.

As I have mentioned, there are not just general safeguards but specific ones in the judicial system. A Crown Prosecution Service lawyer has to make an application for an extension beyond 14 days, with the senior investigating officer present. Defence solicitors are provided with a written document in advance of each application. Applications are usually strenuously opposed, and the hearings last for several hours. The investigating officer may be questioned vigorously about all aspects of the case.

There is judicial oversight of extensions. A judge can grant an extension of less than seven full days, but he can also grant up to 14 days. That remains subject to judicial oversight. In my view, there is no contradiction between pursuing counter-terrorism objectives and providing a legal framework to defend individuals’ liberties and ensure that they are represented and have the opportunity to state their case. Pre-charge detention of 14 days remains the norm, and 28 days is for exceptional circumstances such as those my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South, described.

As hon. Members know, the threat level remains at severe. That means, sadly, that we are preparing for an attack that may be highly likely. Since July 2005, when British terrorists attacked the London transport system, murdering 52 people, the anniversary of which was only this week, there have been numerous plots against UK citizens, including in London and Glasgow in June 2007 and Exeter in May 2008. I cannot predict what might happen in the next 12 months. The 28-day limit has been used, and the noble Lord Carlile has consistently highlighted in his annual reports that he expects in the course of time to see cases in which even the current maximum of 28 days will be proved inadequate.

I believe that we have made a good case. I recognise that people are concerned about civil liberty issues, but I believe that judicial overview is sufficient to ensure that the security of individual freedoms is protected at the same time as the liberties of others in the state. I hope that the House will agree to the order. I shall try to answer points that are made in the debate, and if possible I will return to the figures that the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) mentioned. If I do not have them by the end of the debate, I will certainly write to him in due course. I carry many things around with me, but not every precise figure, and I would not wish to mislead him or the House.

13:06:00

Mr. David Ruffley (Bury St. Edmunds) (Con)
When we debated the last such order, the Government were in the midst of attempting to increase the pre-charge detention limit to 42 days. Having failed to convince the House of the case for 90 days, they then failed to convince Members of another place of the case for 42 days. The fact that we are here again debating an extension of the application of the 28-day limit reflects the fact that these matters are not set in concrete. The fact that the extension must be renewed annually reflects the fact that it is an exceptional power. Although we will not oppose the order, the Government should be aware that the consensus on 28 days is not in any way unconditional.

The statistics on the use of 28 days do not demonstrate to us a continuing and permanent need. In 2006-07, 10 people were held for between 14 and 28 days, of whom seven were charged and three released without charge. In 2007-08, one person was held for longer than 14 days and released on day 19. Since March 2008, no individual has been held for longer than 14 days. I wonder whether, reflecting on those figures, the Minister accepts that the evidence for the year’s extension is not completely compelling.

As the Minister will be aware, there continue to be problems with the legal framework for pre-charge detention. The Joint Committee on Human Rights report last month raised a number of questions about the 28-day period. There are concerns that the current law does not uphold a suspect’s right to a judicial hearing, and about the amount of information that suspects are given about the reason for their detention. A recent ruling by the Law Lords on the cases of three individuals under control orders is a sign that despite all the safeguards that are in place, the right of all citizens to a fair trial means that the Government need to re-examine the nature of evidence presented to suspects. The same applies to the order before the House.

We all accept that this country faces a real and increasingly complex terrorist threat. There is no debate about that at all, but for exceptional measures such as those in the order to be acceptable to the public, the Government need to continue to make their case for them.

Keith Vaz
The hon. Gentleman is making a careful and measured case in support of the order. He participated in the previous debate on its renewal and will recall that several Members asked about the assessment of the impact on communities. Is he as concerned as I am that it has taken the Government so long to initiate the risk assessment, when it is clear from all our debates so far that our support for the measure is based, as he has just said, on the Government’s making the case?

Mr. Ruffley
The right hon. Gentleman anticipates my next point. I was about to say that the Government, in publishing their Contest 2 counter-terrorism strategy, have attempted to explain the nature of the terror threat and the need for robust policies to face it, but the fullest explanations are required. It is therefore pertinent to consider the concerns about Operation Pathway and the arrest of 12 students in Manchester. Hon. Members will recall that the then Assistant Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Bob Quick, was forced to resign for revealing the operation. The Prime Minister told us that it was a serious plot based on solid evidence, yet not a single charge has been made. Pursuant to that and the comments of the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), does the Minister agree that if talk of alarming and dangerous plots is not followed up with transparent judicial process, the wider public will not necessarily be assured of the need for intrusive and tough counter-terrorist measures?

Chris Huhne
The hon. Gentleman is making a compelling case for treating the provisions as temporary. Why, therefore, will not the official Opposition vote against them today? Are they insisting on taking St. Augustine’s position—Lord, make us virtuous, but not yet?

Mr. Ruffley
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s comments. Our position is that we will, on balance, give the Government the benefit of the doubt on the basic condition that the order will be kept under review. I shall make some further remarks at the end of my speech that will answer the hon. Gentleman’s point.

Ms Dari Taylor
The hon. Gentleman is generous in giving way. The subject is difficult and detailed and we all need to ensure that we are concentrating. I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman. There is a small but vocal ethnic group in my constituency and in Teesside. None of its members has spoken to me about pre-charge detention and none has criticised it or perceived it as problematic. Indeed, members of that group work with Cleveland police. Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that groups have spoken to the Conservative party or to him personally to express serious concerns about pre-charge detention? It is important to share our knowledge as well as the concerns that we clearly have.

Mr. Ruffley
The hon. Lady makes a fair point. Colleagues have already said that draconian measures, which are not fully explained or transparent and do not carry public support, can in some circumstances become a recruiting sergeant for those who wish to commit terrorist atrocities against this country.

Patrick Mercer
May I answer the question asked by the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor)? I have certainly received representations from the small but influential Muslim community—Sufis, who are remarkably balanced, sensible and loyal people—in my constituency, asking me to explain the implications of the order. Sources that I handled in Northern Ireland in years gone by have also expressed reservations about it. I will expand on that later, should I be allowed to speak.

Mr. Ruffley
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. I hope that that goes some way towards answering the question about the representations that we have received. I suspect that Labour Members have also received such representations—the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee is nodding. If he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he may wish to answer the question asked by the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor).

The Minister has reiterated the case for 28 days, relying on many of the arguments that were made previously—often for 90 days and then 42 days. Although I accept that the complex nature of some terrorist plots and the difficulty in gathering admissible evidence means that extensions will be required, can the Minister offer an update on moves to allow the use of intercept evidence in criminal proceedings? We have not heard much about that in the debate. It is now more than 18 months since the Chilcot review recommended that it was in the interests of national security to develop an acceptable way of bringing intercept evidence to court. I do not know how much progress the follow-up committee has made—perhaps the Minister can give us an update. Sir John’s new responsibilities for the Iraq inquiry will place further burdens on his time. It will be interesting to hear about that from the Minister because it bears on the case for the necessity of 28-day periods of detention.

Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North) (Lab)
I apologise to the hon. Gentleman and the House for having to leave the chamber, once the Minister has finished speaking to meet a party from my constituency. We are fortunately a long way from 90 days, which was proposed four years ago, and from 42 days, which was proposed more recently. I give the Government the benefit of the doubt on 28 days, as the official Opposition intend to do, because witnesses who gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee and were unhappy with 42 days were satisfied with 28 days. They included Ken Macdonald, the former Director of Public Prosecutions. There is therefore a case to stick to 28 days for another year, but the Government should keep the matter under review. The sooner we can get back to 14 days—or even seven days—the happier most of us will be.

Mr. Ruffley
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s comments. The order must be kept under review. If the evidence suggests that the period can be reduced from 28 days in future, we will support that. However, we must examine the evidence.

From today, our support for the extension of pre-charge detention in the order will depend on what any Government are able and willing to do about two things. First, they must demonstrate convincingly to Parliament that the security situation is such that 28 days remains indispensable and cannot be shortened. It may seem self-evident, but that means that we need a proper and continuing discussion in Parliament about the security situation. Secondly, they will need to look at the legal framework governing the judicial authorisation of extended detention to ensure that it meets the procedural protections afforded not only by our common law but by article 5 of the European convention on human rights. I hope that this will give an indication of the approach that we want to take, should there be a change of Government before the next renewal.

The Government of the day have a duty to keep the people of this country secure, with parliamentary consent and public understanding, and to take the measures that are strictly necessary to achieving that end. Protection for the public and for this country must be, and can be, achieved in ways that uphold our historic freedoms and our reputation for justice and procedural fair dealing. It is in that spirit, and that spirit alone, that we make our case today and will not vote down or seek to divide the House on the measure before us.

13:21:00

Mr. Andrew Dismore (Hendon) (Lab)
I should like to speak to the tagged report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The Select Committee starts with the premise, as it always does, that human rights law imposes a duty on the state to protect us all from terrorism, and it is on that point that today’s debate must focus.

The 28-day provision was supposed to be a temporary measure, but this is the third annual renewal debate since it was introduced in 2006. There is therefore a risk of its developing an air of permanence, as the Prevention of Terrorism Acts have. That legislation was originally aimed at Irish terrorism, but it has been renewed year after year, decade after decade.

In preparing for today’s debate, I looked at my notes for last year’s debate and the relevant report. Little seems to have changed, save that yet another year has passed without the power having had to be used. I concede that that is not, in itself, proof that the measure is not needed, but it does mean that we need to scrutinise ever more closely the question of its renewal.

The recent report of the Eminent Jurists Panel on Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights warned of the corrosive effect of open-ended departures from ordinary procedures and of the danger of special measures, introduced to deal with a temporary crisis, becoming permanent. The point appears to have been accepted in principle by the Secretary of State for Justice, who was recently reported in the press as having indicated, in a public lecture on 12 May, that UK counter-terrorism laws built up in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on New York and the 7/7 attacks on London should be reviewed and may need to be scaled back. He is reported to have said:

“There is a case for going through all counter-terrorism legislation and working out whether we need it. It was there for a temporary period.”

The Government have set out their case again today, stating that the complex nature of terrorism investigations requires the longer period of detention. However, we know from what the Minister has said, and from published documentation, that only six people have been held for the maximum of 28 days, of whom three were charged and three released. In our previous reports, my Committee indicated that detailed, qualitative information was needed for Parliament to make an informed decision. Since September 2008, three people have been convicted. There is a retrial involving other defendants, and I accept that we cannot scrutinise those cases until the retrials have been concluded, but, as I said last year, we could carry out a detailed analysis of the cases of the three people who were released. However, we were told at the time that the Home Office does not hold information on those cases, as they are an operational matter for the police, in consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service. That was a surprising response, as lessons could be learned from the cases of innocent people who have been held for 28 days. Despite last year’s assurances of more detailed information being made available, it seems that all we are getting now is the Home Office’s statistical bulletin. That gives only the bare figures, which are not a great deal of use.

During last year’s renewal debate, the then Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty), expressly accepted the need for detailed information to be made available about how the power had been used in practice when debating future renewals. Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service inspectorate reported on the counter-terrorism division of the CPS in April 2009. The Government relied on that inspection in response to our inquiry into their plans to conduct a qualitative review.

Mr. Winnick
As I have indicated, I am not in favour of reducing the period of 28 days at this stage. Should we not, however, pay tribute to the other place—which I do not always do—because the proposal to increase the period of detention from 28 to 42 days was carried in this House and even, unfortunately, in the Home Affairs Committee, with various qualifications, but their lordships rejected it. So, although it was carried in the Commons by a majority of nine—the number of Unionist MPs at the time—the period was not increased from 28 days, and nor should it be in any circumstances.

Mr. Dismore
My hon. Friend has made his point. I would simply say that my Committee did not endorse the proposal on 42 days, even though his Committee did.

Mr. Winnick
Unfortunately it did, yes.

Mr. Dismore
I was referring to the inspection by Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service inspectorate. The Government say that, on the basis of that inspection, there

“does not appear to be any need for another inspection.”

However, the CPS inspectorate has not conducted the qualitative analysis that we recommended in earlier reports. We therefore reach the same conclusion that we reached last year on the question of the need to go beyond 14 days to 28 days—namely, that we are unable to reach a view as to whether the Government have made their case. In our report, we repeat our call for a thoroughgoing review of all those cases in which the power has been exercised, with a view to ascertaining whether those released could have been released earlier, and whether those charged could have been charged earlier, on the threshold test. We simply do not know the basis of those charges.

The Minister for Policing, Crime and Counter-Terrorism has made much of the safeguards available through judicial hearing and oversight. We have grave reservations about that, however. A person who has been arrested on suspicion of terrorism has a convention right, under article 5(4), to a judicial hearing to determine the lawfulness of their detention. They have the same right to a judicial hearing under the common law principle of habeas corpus. In a number of our reports, we have expressed our concern that the current arrangements for judicial authorisation of extended pre-charge detention are not compatible with the right to a judicial hearing. We are concerned that the hearing of an application for a warrant for further detention is not a fully adversarial hearing, because of the power to exclude the suspect and his representative from the hearing, and to withhold from the suspect and his lawyer information that is provided to the judge.

We are also concerned about the adequacy of the judicial oversight at such extension hearings, because the judge is empowered to consider only the future course of the investigation and whether it is being conducted diligently and expeditiously by the police, rather than whether there is sufficient evidence to justify the suspect’s original arrest and continued detention.

Since the last annual renewal of the 28-day measure, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights and now the House of Lords have held that the requirements of a fair hearing under article 5(4) include the requirement that the detained person must be given sufficient information about the allegations against him, to enable him to contest those allegations or to give effective instructions in relation to the allegations to the person representing his interests.

The statutory framework for the extension of pre-charge detention expressly provides for the withholding from the suspect and his lawyer of information that is seen by the judge, and for the exclusion of the suspect and his lawyer from parts of the hearing. There is no provision for special advocates in the closed part of extension hearings, and even if there were, it is now clear that the essence of the case against a detained person must be disclosed to that person to enable them to contest the allegations.

The decisions of the Grand Chamber on the Belmarsh regime, and of the House of Lords on the control orders regime, concerning the minimum that is required for a judicial hearing to be truly judicial in nature, make even clearer the risk of breaches of article 5(4). Unless amendments to the statutory framework are made, renewal of the maximum extended period of 28 days risks leading in practice to breaches of article 5(4).

Our report also notes with interest that our concerns about the compatibility of the pre-charge detention framework with the right to a judicial hearing following arrest are shared by the Eminent Jurists Panel on Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights in its recent report. The panel also comments on the example that this sends to the rest of the world, stating:

“It is distressing to see how the slackening of procedural safeguards in countries like France, the UK and the USA, has been exploited by other States with less well-entrenched legal systems and human rights safeguards.”

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, asked about the impact of the measure on communities. Last year, we recommended that the Government seek and make available to Parliament independent advice assessing, in general terms, the likely impact on individuals of being detained without charge for up to 28 days, and—this point has not yet been raised—the actual impact, including the psychological effect, on individuals who have been detained for more than 14 days pre-charge. We should look not only at the collective impact on a community but at the impact on the individual people concerned. Every person has their own individual human rights. Human rights are personal, not collective.

Keith Vaz
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Bearing in mind what the Minister said from the Dispatch Box today—it is still a puzzle to me why it has taken the Government so long to begin the process of assessment—this process should involve consultation with Parliament on how the risk assessment is going to be conducted. It should not be done solely from Whitehall for Whitehall; it should include the process of parliamentary scrutiny.

Mr. Dismore
I thank my right hon. Friend for that good suggestion.

Last year, the Government undertook to conduct a risk assessment on the effect of the 28-day extension on communities. Asked when the community impact review would be complete, Lord West told the other place:

“We hope to have the initial findings out by the end of the year”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 1 July 2008; Vol. 703, c. 203.]—

namely 2008. A year later, neither type of impact assessment—individual or community—has been made available to Parliament.

The Government acknowledge in their reply to our queries their commitment to undertake a review of the impact of all counter-terrorism legislation on our communities, but they now envisage publishing a research report by late November 2009. However, the psychological impact of extended pre-charge detention on individuals will not be included within that review. Such an assessment could already have taken place in the case of those held for more than 14 days and then released without charge. We recommend again that the Government obtain and make available to Parliament such an impact assessment.

The other main new point is about the presumption of innocence. Last year, the Minister conceded that a special paper on the impact of press speculation on the right to a fair trial had not been prepared, but it “might be worth considering”. Strasbourg case law is very clear that the presumption of innocence requires Ministers to refrain from pronouncing on a suspect’s guilt before a suspect has been convicted. The approach of the Attorney-General, whereby a specific newspaper or broadcaster may have their attention drawn to risks of publication and prejudging a particular case, is very ad hoc and does not address the problem of possible prejudice to fair trials caused by Ministers commenting on cases when suspects have been arrested—even before they have been charged. In our view, the Director of Public Prosecutions should draw up and consult on draft guidance on how to avoid prejudicial comment—by the press or Ministers—following the arrest of terrorism suspects, particularly after they have been charged.

In common with the official Opposition, I do not oppose the order, and I say that simply because we have insufficient evidence to form a view either way. If renewal is sought next year, the Government must produce an evidence-based case with the analysis that my Committee has recommended for several years, especially if the power is not used over the next 12 months, bearing in mind that it has not been used over the last two years. Either way, further safeguards are needed in the light of recent judicial pronouncements—and, indeed, in the light of common law and common sense—so we look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to these points.

13:32:00

Chris Huhne (Eastleigh) (LD)
I am always very pleased to follow the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), who made a number of good points. I have to say, however, that as with the speech of the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley), I am slightly confused by the hon. Gentleman’s position, as it seems to me that this House has a very long and honourable tradition of giving the Executive powers only when the case for them is clearly made out. What we have heard from the hon. Member for Hendon, based on the deliberations of his Committee, is that the Government have not made out a case for the extension of the period of detention without charge.

We on the Liberal Democrat Benches are unhappy with the further extension of what was clearly introduced as a temporary provision. That is why we will divide the House on this issue later today. There is an old adage that there is nothing so permanent as the temporary, and there are many examples of that in our legislation, but we should not seek to extend that principle to these particular provisions.

My argument today is that 28 day pre-charge detention is no longer a necessary or appropriate length of time to detain a terrorist suspect. The Government have not made their case on that. The Joint Committee on Human Rights released its report last month suggesting, as the hon. Member for Hendon said, that the Government have not made their case, which I believe is because they cannot make such a case.

I am not naive. I recognise that the western world has changed substantially since the 11 September bombings and there is no doubt that the UK faces serious terrorist threats from sophisticated international groups intent on doing us harm. It follows that investigations into these threats will be complex, transnational and will involve difficulties such as dealing with foreign languages and computer encryption. But the methods we use to tackle those threats need to be proportionate and effective, which pre-charge detention, I suggest, is simply not.

Since 2000, the Government have drastically altered our detention periods. We have rapidly progressed from a position of seven days to 28 days of maximum detention. That is to ignore the frankly quite staggering attempts in between to extend detention to 90 days, following the 7/7 bombings, and then last year to extend it yet again to 42 days through the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008. Luckily, the Government were defeated due to almost universal opposition. I believe that the Government seriously lost their case on this matter, particularly if we look at some of people who peeled off and became critics. Despite that defeat, 42 days’ detention lurks as a threat on the statute book, not least due to the draft Bill that the then Home Secretary placed in the Library.

This is all part of a pattern from a Government who have an obsession with tough-sounding policies that may appease parts of the electorate but, in reality, have little impact on the problem—or, as we have heard from some hon. Members, run the risk of having a completely counter-productive impact on the problem. It seems to me that attempts to reduce the period of detention are long overdue.

Let us look at the facts surrounding the detention period. Since June 2007, no one has been held in pre-charge detention for longer than 14 days. Over the whole period reported to us, only 11 people who were terrorist suspects have ever been held for longer than 14 days and only six people have ever been held for the full 28 days; half of those, moreover, were eventually released without charge. Half were released without any surveillance or suspicion, which tells me that the innocent have been made to suffer most. This House should surely be exceptionally careful about affecting British law and the rights of the innocent.

Many numbers have been used dispassionately in the debate today, but we must not forget the human implications of what it is like to be imprisoned for close to a month. It is a terrifying and disorientating experience even for someone who is guilty, let alone for a potentially innocent person, and it can have a huge impact on their life, particularly when they do not even know what they have been charged with. How fundamental an assault on the principle that we are innocent until proven guilty is it to be incarcerated for a long period without even knowing what we have been accused of?

Two weeks should be long enough to decide whether someone should be charged with a terrorist offence or not. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) pointed out, our current 28 days far exceeds the equivalent limits in other comparable common law democracies. Australia has 12 days, the United States two days and Canada allows for one day. The Minister’s answer was basically “What about France and Spain?”. We deliberately chose our comparison because these are Commonwealth countries whose traditions of law stem from the law that began in this country—namely, traditions of freedom and liberty. Let me reiterate that, as it stands, our current 28 days far exceeds equivalent limits in other comparable common law democracies. We have never traditionally compared ourselves and our tradition of liberty with that of Spain, France and other continental countries, which have a very different tradition. However, it is perfectly legitimate to compare ourselves with other common law countries.

Why do the Government insist that we need to hold people for close to one month when so many other countries manage to charge and convict with pre-charge detention periods of less than a week? Surely the Government are not suggesting that our police and Crown Prosecution Service are slower and less equipped to deal with terror threats. Are the terrorist threats we face more complex than those of our Commonwealth cousins? I think not.

We consider that the arguments previously used in favour of retaining 28 days’ pre-charge detention have been particularly weakened as other methods of combating terrorism and bringing charges have been strengthened. The counter-terrorism landscape has changed over the intervening period. The Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 allows for post-charge questioning. The Chilcot report, published in February 2008, has paved the way for the admissibility of intercept evidence. Perhaps if the House were to agree with us today and vote this temporary provision down, the Government might put a little more effort into ensuring that intercept evidence is admissible in court and the security services are better resourced to deal with the modern threat.

According to the Home Affairs Committee report on Contest, released earlier this month,

“the UK’s counter-terrorism apparatus is first-class, effective and as ‘joined-up’ as any system of government can expect.”

Surely that makes the point again. Why do we need to do particular violence to our traditions of liberty and of trial, given that the Home Affairs Committee—and I am sure that the Government would support its judgment—says that our counter-terrorism apparatus is first-class?

Ms Dari Taylor
I am just about at explosion point. I am really very sorry to say this to the House, but when the hon. Gentleman tells us that if the Government put in a bit more oomph or the Home Office handled its work load with a bit more urgency so that intercepted material could be used as evidence today, it is obvious that he does not know what he is talking about. Chilcot and the rest of them have been trying for months to work out how intercepted material could be used as evidence without damaging our agencies in any way. If the hon. Gentleman does not know that when he is addressing the House, he should do.

Chris Huhne
I am delighted that the hon. Lady is getting so worked up. I merely remind her that in both Australia and the United States—the United States example is particularly relevant—intercept evidence is already admissible in court. If she spent any time talking to serious investigators of both terrorism and organised crime in the United States, she would find that they think it astonishing that we are not prepared to avail ourselves of a fundamental tool for the bringing of successful prosecutions.

Let me also remind the hon. Lady that the reason it is so important for us to think about the United States is that we have such a close intelligence relationship with it. I suggest that if the United States can use intercept evidence without blowing a hole in the abilities of its security and secret services, we too should be able to do so. As the hon. Lady knows very well, this issue has been dragging on for ages.

David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
I apologise for intervening when I have only just come into the Chamber, but an even more relevant example is Australia, where the head of counter-terrorism has stated in terms that those who do not use intercept evidence in court are not being serious about counter-terrorism.

Chris Huhne
I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I am delighted that he managed to hotfoot it into the Chamber to make that devastating intervention. I note that the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor) is not seeking to respond to it.

As I have said, the arguments previously used in favour of retaining 28 days’ pre-charge detention have been substantially weakened, and we ought to take account of that. Moreover, the threshold test is now substantially more flexible. I believe that the real reason the Government failed so conclusively in their attempt to increase the number of days from 28 to 42 was that a whole series of serious people who had been involved in the counter-terrorism effort for many years were unpersuaded.

The Crown Prosecution Service can now bring charges on the basis of reasonable suspicion alone, even when it does not think that the chance of a conviction is greater than 50 per cent. With that flexibility, in 2007 the Crown Prosecution Service enjoyed a 92 per cent. conviction rate in terror cases—I am sorry that the Minister has not been able to give us the most up-to-date figures, but I can give him the most up-to-date figures that are available to me—and in 2008 the conviction rate was 78 per cent. Both those rates are substantially higher than the rates of conviction for other serious crimes.

Mr. Ruffley
Can the hon. Gentleman give us the number of cases lying behind those percentages? Percentages can often deceive.

Chris Huhne
I will happily send the hon. Gentleman a letter, but he knows as well as I do that the number of terror cases is relatively small. The crucial point is this. If we are able to prosecute successfully more than three quarters of those against whom charges are brought, the massive amount of additional flexibility still available to the Crown Prosecution Service enables it to bring charges in other cases if it so desires, and if it considers such action important to the defence of national security. It is that additional flexibility that I believe to be so crucial. It may be said that that, too, could be onerous in terms of civil liberties, but I think it far better for people at least to know with what they are charged than to be in a Kafkaesque position, floundering around unable to meet accusations against them, with the possibility of being detained for long periods without even knowing what they are suspected of doing. In my opinion, all those developments create a compelling case for a reduction in the maximum length of pre-charge detention.

Mr. Winnick
I fear that I shall not be joining the hon. Gentleman in the Lobby. Although I understand all the reasons he has given, I shall support the Government. One of my reasons is that the witnesses who gave evidence against 42 days’ detention to the Home Affairs Committee—I felt that the Committee had reached the wrong conclusion, and as usual I made my views clear; I believe that I was in a minority of one—did not seem to want a reduction in the 28-day period at this stage. When the former chief of M15 opposed the 42-day period in her maiden speech in the House of Lords—again, we all make up our own minds; fortunately, the Lords rejected that—she did not seem to suggest that a reduction in the 28-day period was necessary at this stage, given the acute terrorist danger that Britain faces.

Chris Huhne
The hon. Gentleman has made a good point. The difficulty is that what we were discussing at the time was a proposal for a further extension from 28 days to 42. The clear and pressing need was to defeat that proposal, as it constituted another serious attack on civil liberties. When we consider the use of these powers since the 7/7 bombings, however, and when we consider the changes that I described earlier, we see a compelling case for returning to the arrangement for which the Act originally provided, rather than applying the extension of the period without charge.

David Davis
I gather than the hon. Gentleman is arguing for 14 days. As he will recall, when we debated the 42-day detention period, we discussed the Heathrow plot in excruciating detail, and we found that in one serious case someone had been detained for between 14 and 21 days. I think that the hon. Gentleman’s argument would be more compelling if he were supporting 21 days rather than 14 at this stage.

Chris Huhne
I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has raised the subject of the Heathrow plot. He is absolutely right. The reason we were prepared to vote with the official Opposition on the extension to 28 days was the evidence surrounding the investigations of that plot. If the right hon. Gentleman had arrived in the Chamber a little earlier, however, he would have heard me enumerate a number of changes—in particular, the flexibility applying to the threshold test—which provide a substantially greater toolkit for the authorities dealing with terrorism than was available to them at that time. As the great liberal John Maynard Keynes once said:

“When the facts change, I change my mind.”

David Davis
He went on to ask:

“What do you do, sir?”

Chris Huhne
Indeed. As I hope the House recognises, the circumstances have changed.

I know that the Government are sinking in the opinion polls, but that does not mean that they should cling to ill-thought-out laws that they rushed through in moments of panic and fear while attempting to reassure the public that action was being taken. The end-result has been that this Government have tumbled into a counter-terrorism strategy rather like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, in that there is no exit strategy and the Government can tell us nothing about when they intend to end these apparently temporary powers. Yet, as we know from having heard from Members with experience of counter-terrorism in Northern Ireland, there are considerable dangers in a Government acting disproportionately and abandoning the moral high ground. We must not abandon the moral high ground, we must not retreat, and above all, we must not become the sort of threat that we are attempting to fight.

13:50:00

Keith Vaz (Leicester, East) (Lab)
This was a very quiet and sombre debate until the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) spoke and livened matters up considerably. There was a very passionate intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor), and the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) galloped into the Chamber to make his intervention.

I find myself in precisely the same position as the official Opposition—that of putting the Government on notice. We have debated this matter at length, and it is important that the House has a proper, full debate on the issues involved, because they concern the liberty of the subject. We should therefore take time to consider the matter rather than rush in and agree a renewal. I shall therefore be in the Division Lobby with the Government—and presumably with the official Opposition—in support of the measure that the Minister has brought before the House today.

The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley) summed up my feeling extremely well when he said that we accept the Government’s case as put forward by the Minister, but that the next time this matter comes before the House we will expect the Government to put a stronger and more effective case. That is not a criticism of my right hon. Friend the Minister’s speech; I say it because we can no longer just accept in good faith statements made on issues of this kind.

My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) has just left the Chamber, but I wish to pay tribute to him for the work he has done in this area. The fact that we have 28 days is, by and large, due to the fact that he came up with this compromise when the Government had originally suggested an extension to 90 days. That is why he and other Members also support the Government measure to renew, I think.

The Minister was not the responsible Minister when this matter came before the House at the time of the debate on 42 days, but he will recall that the concern we all had was that there was a need to give the Government these powers only if the Government were in a position to use the powers. Reference has been made to the Home Affairs Committee report on extension to 42 days. Hon. Members—especially my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North—said that we came to a conclusion that would mean the period would be extended. That is right, but it is important to put it on record that although we accepted that there ought to be an extension, there were a number of conditions that we felt it was important the Government should meet before that 42-day period was triggered. We did not say that it should just go ahead willy-nilly, but I should have realised that a combination of my hon. Friend, Baroness Manningham-Buller and Shami Chakrabarti would eventually see this measure defeated.

In checking on the constituencies of hon. Members, I was reading the “Dod’s Parliamentary Companion” report on proceedings before the House in the 177th year of Dod’s. It contains an account of the last debate we had to try to raise the period from 28 to 42 days, in which it said the Government

“scraped through by nine votes. Few could really understand why so much political capital had been expended on a 14-day extension of detention which, by the time concessions had been made, looked unlikely ever to be deployable anyway. The provision seems highly likely to be amended in the Lords, where it has already been condemned by a former Lord Chancellor, a former Attorney General and a former Director of MI5, in addition to the opposition. Then there will be the ‘ping pong’ between the Houses, and the risk of defeat yet again.”

There was no ping-pong of course, as the Government accepted the decision of the other place and as a result the 42-day proposal was defeated.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) made an eloquent speech that rightly drew attention to the eighth report by his Joint Committee on Human Rights. He pointed out the Committee’s concerns, which I do not think the Minister addressed so I hope he will do so when he comes to reply. Is the Whip—my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Mudie)—nodding and trying to encourage me to get on with my speech? I assure him that there is plenty of time left in the debate, with no more speakers other than the Front-Bench spokesmen, so if he will allow me to develop my arguments, I will be extraordinarily grateful.

When the Minister replies, I hope he will deal with points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon. When his Committee considered the matter, it did not see that there was a case for an extension certainly beyond 28 days, or even for keeping it at 28 days. His speech was an “on notice” speech, therefore. Along with the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds, myself and other Members, he is putting the Government on notice that we would not be prepared to go along with this proposal on a future occasion unless additional information were placed before the House.

Chris Huhne
We have had a number of commitments from Members over the years on issues to do with this matter—I am thinking of control orders in particular. Members have stood up and made a very similar speech to that which the right hon. Gentleman is making, in which they have said, “I’m putting the Government on notice. Next year, we’re not going to do this,” but that has not then transpired. Is the right hon. Gentleman making a firm commitment that if this Government—or perhaps another Government—come forward with this proposal again next year, he will vote against it?

Keith Vaz
I think it is better to give a firm commitment than to be accused of being St. Augustine, which is one of the favourite descriptions of hon. Members in certain other circumstances. Of course we simply cannot go on renewing this order unless we have something more from the Government than, “It is a very complicated process; there are a lot of computer disks to examine; it does take a lot of time to look at these situations,” especially as the head of counter-terrorism, Assistant Commissioner Yates, is already worrying about the possible reduction in his budget that the Government are proposing or agreeing to. So yes, we have to put the Government on notice. We have to ensure that the point of scrutinising the Government in both the Select Committee on Home Affairs and the Joint Committee on Human Rights is to hold them to account. They have had us on good faith, but it is time we said to them that there is a point when good faith runs out. Therefore, next time we will expect the Minister to come up with firm evidence in order to convince us that the Government have the right approach.

I am sorry to delay the Whip in his whipping arrangements, but may I raise one further point: the impact on communities? I raised this with the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds and my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon. It really is not good enough for the Government to come before the House every year and say, “Yes, we will have an impact assessment. Yes, we will begin consultations with communities,” and then not to do it. I am always prepared to be convinced by the Minister’s boyish charm. When he appeared before the Select Committee, he told us exactly how many hours he had been in the job, and today he has told us how many weeks and days he has been in the job, so he is obviously counting very carefully indeed. I do not expect him to say today that this is due to start shortly and that by the time we discuss it next year the impact assessment will be ready. I want to know who is conducting the impact assessment, how many people are sitting on the panel, what budget will be available, and which cities will be visited. I want detail when he comes to reply, or else I shall go back to the Library and table a whole series of parliamentary questions—I will not bother to wait for a letter as that will take too long. Is he giving me his boyish, charming smile? I will expect that kind of detail when he responds.

Ms Dari Taylor
Would it not be appropriate for this risk assessment process to include parliamentarians?

Keith Vaz
Absolutely. The Minister should take a leaf out of the book of the Minister for Borders and Immigration—I am talking about what happened when the Government were defeated on the Gurkha issue—and remember the importance of consulting Parliament. I am sure that the Home Affairs Committee, some of whose distinguished members are in the Chamber today, would want to be consulted, as would the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The Minister should let us know precisely what is planned, because we have heard some wonderful statements from the Government about community cohesion—the Prime Minister has announced additional money and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has talked about communities working together—but we need to see detailed plans before we can support them on a future occasion.

My final points relate to intercept evidence. Again, I am sorry to disappoint the Whip, but this debate lasts only an hour and half. I do not know whether anybody has been arrested or detained in Leeds, but this issue affects the whole country and the liberty of the citizen, so I should be grateful if he allowed me, without hurrying me along, to finish this small contribution. I say to the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) that my Committee’s report recommended that intercept evidence should be used, because we felt that that was the right approach to take. I take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South that this has to be done carefully, but it should not be done so carefully that we never get it implemented. At the time, the Prime Minister made a statement to the House in which he said he was in favour of this.

So let us adopt these sensible proposals and try to make progress on this matter. Let us all put the Government on notice that next time we will not nod this through; we will be much more critical if the Minister does not come up with the goods.

14:01:00

Mr. Hanson
I have to tell my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) that I was 52 years old on Sunday, so I gratefully accept his compliment about boyish charm.

I note that the tone of the debate has been one of putting the Government on notice. The Opposition, my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East have all taken that approach, and I hear it in the spirit in which it was given. The hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) is trying to test the House today, and that is a perfectly legitimate position to take. I suspect, given the soundings that we have taken in this debate, that I know what the result will be, but we will shortly see what happens.

I wish to make my remarks reasonably speedily. Again, the key thing for me is protecting the British public. We talked earlier about the 11 people who have been held for more than 14 days’ pre-charge detention, six of whom have been held for the maximum 27 to 28 days. As I mentioned, three have been charged and three have been released without charge. I can inform the House that two are facing trial very shortly on serious charges, and one was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment last December. That conviction and sentence may not have happened—the information may not have been brought forward—without the 14 to 28 days’ maximum provision being put in place. That is what I believe this is all about.

I accept again—this has been debated today—that there have not been any incidences in the past two years. This is a temporary power and the measure provides for it to carry on for one further year, if the House supports it today. I hope that we will examine the situation in relation to potential and actual terrorist activities in the next 12 months and, if need be, make the case that I have made today that there are difficult issues that may need further assessment during that 14 to 28-day period.

I wish to touch briefly on a couple of the points that have been made. The issue of intercept evidence was mentioned by the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley), my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East and my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon. As the House will know, the Government remain committed to using the best evidence available to enhance the ability to bring prosecutions. The Privy Council review has taken place under Sir John Chilcot. We will be considering that and I hope that we will make announcements on these issues shortly. A copy of the progress report of the advisory group has been placed in the House Libraries so that Members can look at these serious issues that need to be resolved.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon was concerned about judicial oversight, which was mentioned by his Committee. We have always maintained that judicial authority should be in place to determine the application for extended detention and to ensure that, as is the case in Northern Ireland, the original legality of the arrest is examined when it is questioned by the detainee. He will know of the recent case involving Duffy and others in Northern Ireland, which followed the tragic murders earlier this year, in which those issues were addressed as part of the consideration.

Mr. Dismore
My right hon. Friend rightly says that this has always been the Government’s argument and that we have always questioned it. Since last year we have had the decision of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in the Belmarsh cases and the decision of the House of Lords in the control order cases, both of which speak to this very point about what proper judicial scrutiny means in such cases. Both those decisions point to our current arrangements being inadequate.

Mr. Hanson
The recent House of Lords judgment was mentioned by a number of hon. Members, including not only my hon. Friend but my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East and the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds. We are at the moment considering the impact of the judgments in the case of AF and others. We do not accept that there is an automatic read-across to all proceedings involving closed material, but we are examining the issue and, again, I very much hope that we will be able to respond shortly. We have already written to the High Court to explain that we will be responding to the judgment shortly.

Chris Huhne
This is a quick question. Will the Minister set a deadline for the consideration of the admissibility of intercept evidence, bearing in mind the precept that work always expands to fill the time available?

Mr. Hanson
I have given a clear commitment, not only today but in Home Office questions on Monday, that we will respond to this judgment shortly. We are examining the issue in detail and we have written to the High Court to explain that we are examining it. As ever, I have given a commitment to report back to the House.

I believe that the hon. Gentleman used the word “Kafkaesque” when he said that people could be charged without knowing what they were being charged with. I wish to make it clear to the House that that is not the case; suspects are told why they are being detained and what allegations are being investigated, and as much detail is given as is possible within the constraints of an ongoing, fast-moving criminal investigation.

The Government have made the case for this measure, which seeks to provide for a one-year extension, although I appreciate that there is some scepticism.

Keith Vaz
At the risk of incurring the wrath of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East, may I ask whether the Minister will deal with impact assessments and risk assessments?

Mr. Hanson
indicated assent.

Keith Vaz
It seems that the Minister is coming to that—excellent.

Mr. Hanson
My right hon. Friend anticipates my peroration on these matters—I hope it will be made with boyish charm.

From my perspective, there are some key issues here. We have made the case for this measure. I accept that there is a need to examine risk assessment issues—we will examine those—and how we provide confidence in the community.

Chris Huhne
rose—

Mr. Hanson
I will give way in a moment, but I am trying to answer the questions my right hon. Friend asked about the assessment that we are making of the impact on the community. They are being discussed in government this very week, and I have examined them. I hope I shall shortly be in a position to make some announcements on those issues. I cannot make such announcements today, but I will do so shortly and I hope that that will satisfy my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon and his Committee, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East and his Committee.

Mr. Dismore
Again, my right hon. Friend has referred to assessments of the impact on communities, and I welcome that. However, he has not mentioned the impact on individuals—that is a point that my Committee made this year and last year. Will he confirm whether an assessment will be made of the impact on individuals? Will he also answer the point about ensuring that trials are not prejudiced by statements made in the media or by Ministers?

Mr. Hanson
Again, it is a self-evident truth that trials should not be prejudiced by statements to the media. I very much hope that everyone involved in these issues will examine them. It is important that, as part of the detention procedure, people do not have their trials compromised by statements made outside the situation.

Chris Huhne
rose—

Mr. Hanson
I would like to finish the point that I am trying to make in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon. He has mentioned assessments of the impact on individuals and on communities. This week, I have looked at those issues in government, and I shall be making statements on them shortly. I cannot do that today, but I hope that my hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East will accept that these matters are before us.

Chris Huhne
Before the Minister gets to his peroration, I hope that he will deal with the point about the flexibility of the threshold test, especially as he has experience not only of the Home Office but of the Ministry of Justice. He is therefore in a very good position to tell the House how much extra flexibility is now available to prosecutors to bring charges so that these provisions are unnecessary. Will he deal with that issue, because he has not mentioned it?

Mr. Hanson
The House may recall that this point was mentioned during my initial contribution. We have made a judgment that the extension from 14 to 28 days is needed because of the threats to our communities from individuals who try to damage them. We are trying to balance the liberties of individuals with the liberty of society as a whole, and I commend the order to the House.

Question put.

Division 196
09/07/2009 14:10:00
The House divided:
Ayes: 239
Noes: 59
Question accordingly agreed to.

Resolved,

That the draft Terrorism Act 2006 (Disapplication of Section 25) Order 2009, which was laid before this House on 18 May, be approved.

 Council Tax

14:22:00

The Minister for Regional Economic Development and Co-ordination (Ms Rosie Winterton)
I beg to move,

That the draft Council Tax Limitation (Maximum Amounts) (England) Order 2009, which was laid before this House on 10 June, be approved.

The draft order that I present for the approval of the House was laid under section 52F(7) of the Local Government Finance Act 1992, which was inserted by the Local Government Act 1999. In my view, the provisions of the order are compatible with the European convention on human rights.

The draft order sets out the maximum 2009-10 budget requirement for Surrey police authority, which means that we are proposing to cap the authority in-year. Subject to the House’s approval, I will make the order and issue a notice to Surrey police authority informing it of its maximum budget requirement for the year. The authority will then be required to recalculate its budget requirement at or below the level of its cap. It will also have to arrange for the relevant billing authorities to send out revised council tax bills for the current year.

Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
The order is based on the notional budget, and the notional council tax as a result of the notional budget. Will the right hon. Lady explain, given the huge difference between the actual and the notional, how the notional figure was arrived at, and why, if the police authority—rather than the police force—received notification that the Government were using the notional rather than the actual and set the actual within hours of the notional, the Government did not return to accept the actual in their calculation?

Ms Winterton
The introduction of a notional budget, which is a change from the previous rather inflexible system, means that the Government, rather than using a straight, crude capping system, have been able to allow a budget to be set, which is what happened with Surrey last year. It was made quite clear to the authority that in calculating this year’s budget the Government would agree to it on the assumption of the budget that would have been set if the Government had not made an exception for Surrey last year. Today, we are taking this action because last year we allowed Surrey to have a notional budget, but it was always clear that when we considered what would be allowed this year we would return to that figure.

Sir Paul Beresford
I follow that. The difficulty with that argument is that it would be more sensible to use the actual budget, which Surrey used in its calculation, in spite of the notional from the previous year.

Ms Winterton
The hon. Gentleman’s assumption—those on his Front Bench might think that this is the way to operate, although I am not sure—would effectively mean that authorities that had set a notional budget, therefore allowing them a higher budget, would be able to continue to do that year on year, which would not be fair on other authorities. The alternative would be to return to the crude capping system that applied under the previous Administration. I shall return to some of the background issues later in my speech.

During the debate on the provisional local government finance settlement on 26 November 2008, my predecessor as Minister for Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth (John Healey), said that we expected to see an average council tax increase in 2009-10 substantially below 5 per cent. He also made it clear that the Government were prepared to act against excessive increases made by any authority, including requiring them to rebill if necessary.

Three-quarters of authorities set increases below 4 per cent., almost 40 per cent. set increases below 3 per cent. and a further 23 authorities either set no increase or are reducing their bills. However, two authorities did set excessive increases this year. On 26 March, my predecessor announced to the House that the Government were “designating” Surrey and Derbyshire police authorities. He proposed maximum budget requirements for the two authorities at levels that would bring them within the capping principles that were determined by the Secretary of State for 2009-10.

In his written statement to the House on 13 May, my predecessor said that both designated authorities had challenged their proposed maximum budget requirements. He and the former Minister responsible for policing, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker), met both police authorities to hear their cases in person. Having carefully considered the representations made by the authorities, and having taken into account all relevant information, the Government decided to take the following action: to cancel the designation of Derbyshire police authority and to nominate it instead, with a notional budget requirement for 2009-10 that will be used in any future capping comparisons; and to proceed with the designation of Surrey police authority with a maximum budget requirement at the level proposed on 26 March—£197,206,000. The draft order therefore covers Surrey police authority only. We believe that the proposed action in the draft order, and the separate action that we are taking in respect of Derbyshire, represent a measured and proportionate response to those authorities’ excessive increases.

Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. She just said that she regarded the action in respect of Surrey as measured and proportionate, but what evidence base was used to draw a distinction between the Derbyshire case and the Surrey case?

Ms Winterton
I shall come to the difference between the two but, briefly, Surrey was given a notional budget last year yet still introduced an excessive increase this year. Ministers listened to the representations that were made and then came to their decision. As I said, even though Surrey moved to notional budget last year, it still imposed an excessive increase.

Sir Paul Beresford
When assessing the pros and cons of the decision, was it taken into account that saving £1.6 million would cost £1.2 million in rebilling? In my constituency, that works out to a cost per head of £4.65, but council tax payers below band F will not make any saving above that.

Ms Winterton
We will find out Surrey’s actual costs in due course. Last year, Lincolnshire police authority estimated rebilling costs at £1 million, but the actual cost was £380,000. It is true that rebilling has to be done, but that is an inevitable consequence of setting an excessive increase and being capped in-year. All authorities know that, and that the best way of avoiding rebilling is not to set an excessive increase in the first place.

Of the 15 authorities that had previously been set notional budget requirements, Surrey is the first to have set an excessive increase in the subsequent year. As I have said, it is also true that the capping powers introduced by this Government are more flexible than they were previously. Under the regime that operated before, we would have had to designate Surrey police authority last year: instead, we were able to nominate it. That is an important difference.

Even after capping, Surrey police authority will get a 2.5 per cent. grant increase from the Government. It will get a total of £5.7 million extra compared to last year, and it is also being allowed to set a band D council tax increase of 3.2 per cent. That is higher than the average increase in England of 3 per cent.

Robert Neill
I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way again and, as always, she is being most generous. My hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) mentioned the cost of rebilling, and the Minister referred in part to that. Was any attempt made to consult and find out the rebilling cost before a decision was taken? How can she assert that the action was proportionate if Ministers did not know what the cost of rebilling would be, compared with what might be recovered?

Ms Winterton
As I have said, any authority that is going to set an excessive increase knows that it will have to carry out in-year rebilling. It is that authority’s responsibility to take that into account when it decides to set a higher increase than anywhere else. The hon. Gentleman may feel it is right for the council tax payers of Surrey to pay an extra £1.6 million. Presumably that is his proposition. However, we believe that there is a duty on the Government to curb excessive council tax increases, particularly in difficult economic times.

We recognise the inflexibility of the system introduced by the hon. Gentleman’s Administration. We adjusted the system, and for a number of years there was no capping whatever, but we have to take a balanced view. We are trying to get the balance right, to ensure that council tax payers are protected from excessive increases, particularly during these difficult times. It is not a bolt from the blue. No authority can think, “Oh goodness me, we didn’t think about the rebilling costs.” Authorities know about the costs when they set the increase, so it is their responsibility. However, as I said, although last year Lincolnshire police authority said that rebilling would cost about £1 million, the actual figure came out at £380,000. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree that it is important that we see the actual costs. My right hon. and hon. Friends met the authorities and listened to their representations, but if there is the flexibility for a notional budget one year and they still set excessive increases it is important that the Government take action.

Robert Neill
I hope not to trespass too much on the Minister’s time, but will she deal with this simple point for me? Given that she says we must look to the actual figures—she quotes the Lincolnshire example—is it not all the more important to make at least some inquiry into what Surrey’s billing costs will be? Unless the Government know the actual costs, how can they decide whether the action is proportionate and in the overall interests of council tax payers? Perhaps there is a gap in the system that should be looked into.

Ms Winterton
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman’s policy will be that whatever figure is given will be taken into account in any future response. Of course, Surrey produced an estimate when challenging the cap we proposed, and that was taken into account. I merely point out that sometimes—as in Lincolnshire last year—there can be a slight difference between the estimated costs given at the time of the challenge to the cap and the costs that actually arise.

Sir Paul Beresford
I will mention it to the right hon. Lady if I receive any letters from band D council tax payers, particularly those who pay by 10 monthly instalments, thanking us and the Government for the reduction, which will be about 32p a month.

Ms Winterton
I am sure the hon. Gentleman will pass on any representations he receives.

As I have said, we think the response to the different authorities is proportionate. In this instance, Derbyshire has been treated the same as Surrey was last year.

It is worth remembering that two years ago—in 2007-08—the authority’s council tax precept stood at £171.27. It set an excessive 9.7 per cent. increase last year, and was designated for capping and in-year rebilling, but, as with Derbyshire this year, the designation was cancelled and instead the authority was nominated and set a notional budget requirement. In other words, the authority was allowed to keep its excessive increase in full in 2008-09, and it avoided any rebilling costs for the last financial year.

However, this year, the authority set a precept of £197.10, which is 15.1 per cent. higher than its 2007-08 precept. By contrast, the average council tax increase for England over those two years was 7 per cent. As I have said, even with in-year capping, Surrey is left with an actual precept increase of 3.2 per cent., and £5.7 million is going into policing there this year.

Out of 421 authorities, including 37 police authorities, Surrey is the only one that has set an excessive increase for two years in succession. The current economic climate makes it even more important that local authorities keep council tax under control. This Government increased Government grant for local services by 39 per cent. in real terms in the first 10 years after we took office. The 2007 comprehensive spending review provided a further £8.9 billion up to 2010-11. I urge hon. Members to support the order, because I believe that it is the right way to strike the balance, and to ensure that while authorities have extra money, excessive council tax payments do not fall on council tax payers.

14:41:00

Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I am sure that all hon. Members will want to thank the Minister for Regional Economic Development and Co-ordination for introducing the measure with her customary charm and courtesy, but I am sorry to say that her having done so does not alter the fact that the case is not terribly good. However nicely the case is put, council tax on band D properties has more than doubled in the Government’s time in office, so it is a bit rich for the Government to lecture anyone, including a police authority, on increases in expenditure, particularly as the Audit Commission has given Surrey police authority the highest rating for value for money.

My party introduced capping, and I accept that, but the world has rather moved on since. As time has gone by, it has become more and more apparent that the current system of capping is past its sell-by date, as I told the right hon. Lady’s predecessor a year ago when we debated the matter. The Surrey case very much demonstrates that. The right hon. Lady made a good deal of the proportionate nature of the response, but with respect, I point out that the evidence suggests that the response is not genuinely proportionate.

There was a Westminster Hall debate on 11 June, I think, dealing with the subject. Neither the right hon. Lady nor I was able to be present, but I know that we both read the transcript. Ten out of the 11 Surrey Members of Parliament attended; the other sent his views via one of his colleagues. The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) was there, too. It was a lively debate, and every one of those Surrey Members of Parliament expressed the same view: the response was not proportionate. The figure quoted clearly then—it has never been contradicted by any Government source—was that about £1.2 million would be expended to recover £1.6 million, so all in all, the Government may get back about £400 million. That is not a proportionate response, given the background.

Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
It is £400,000.

Robert Neill
The hon. Gentleman is quite right; I am very grateful. The sum is so small that one could almost forget about it, in the overall scheme of things. It was also pointed out that although the Government are posing as a defender of the council tax payer, there is a certain irony, because there is not evidence of a level playing field. Under this Government, in the first eight years of the Metropolitan Police Authority’s existence, its precept was allowed nearly to quadruple, without any intervention from the Government by way of a threat of capping. It is interesting that no action was taken. Whether that had anything to do with the political complexion of the Mayor who then ran the police authority is difficult to say, but the opaque nature of the way in which the system works sometimes causes people to question whether decisions are taken on an entirely objective basis.

The treatment of the two police authorities is interesting. One wonders whether the treatment was entirely due to what I have just mentioned, or whether the Labour party hoped that Derbyshire was a county council it might just have hung on to in an election that was about to come up as the orders were being laid. The ruse did not work, of course, and I suspect that Labour will not have to worry about any shire counties being under its control for some considerable time.

That does not alter the overall picture. As hon. Members from Surrey explained very well in the debate, the situation is a consequence not of profligacy on the part of the Surrey police authority, but of unfair funding that seems to leave Surrey police—a force that faces considerable policing challenges, which were well set out in the debate by the Members representing the county—one of the worst-funded police forces in respect of the pressures that it faces. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) will speak in the debate, so I leave him to develop that point in more detail.

Against that background, despite the Minister’s valiant attempt to present the order in her usual reasonable way, there is a bit of cheek in the Government capping Surrey and claiming to put right a problem of their own creation, because of the way in which the capping regime has become too blunt as time has gone on, and the lack of transparency in the funding formula.

If there is an issue about the people of Surrey’s priorities in relation to the policing budgets, and about what they think is the appropriate level to expend given the pressure of policing demands on the county, the right way is to let them decide. Rather than a decision being taken on high, with the right hon. Lady or any of her successors arriving in some vice-regal capacity to rescue them, it would be much better to let the people of Surrey have a vote and decide whether the proposed precept rise is excessive.

That would be a genuinely democratic result in which people could all have faith. It would save us all having to go through the annual ritual of the debate about what is notional and what is actual—I shall not go down that route—and it would save having to go through the annual ritual of householders being somewhat bemused when they open the rebilled bills for comparatively small amounts.

There was a time when capping had to be used to constrain large increases in council tax bills that went well beyond the norm. We are getting to the stage where a comparatively small excess on the part of an authority which, on the face of it, has a history of not having received its fair share of the available pot, is being dealt with in a manifestly disproportionate way. With respect, clodhopping might be a more accurate description of how the matter is being dealt with.

As on previous occasions, we do not intend to divide the House, but we want to register the fact that the situation is probably an indication that the system is approaching its sell-by date, and that next year others may have to put in place a different system to make sure that the issues are decided by voters, not in a debate that would seem somewhat unreal to people in the county of Surrey.

14:48:00

Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
I agree with much of the speech made by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), as is often the case because he speaks very reasonably on such issues. He teased the Government a little, but it is time that his party was teased as well on the topic of capping. Let us be honest. The measure was introduced by the Government whom he supported. He proposes a referendum when an above-prediction increase is proposed in an area. That is an interesting concept and I generally approve of such a method, but we have discussed the cost of a rebilling exercise, and the cost of running a referendum might be rather high as well.

Last year my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) spoke in the equivalent debate, making many of the same points as the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst has just made and with which I concur. If a police authority, in this case, or a local authority has been put in place to represent a community, it is best placed to set priorities and to engage with and consult its community, as I know has happened in this case, to ensure that there is support for the proposed funding level. I am surprised that there are not more Surrey Members here to debate the issue, but the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) is in his place and has already made a significant contribution.

Sir Paul Beresford
If the hon. Gentleman looked at the debate that took place in Westminster Hall, he would find that 10 out of the 11 Surrey Members were present. We made it quite clear where we stood, and the Government just turned a deaf ear.

Dan Rogerson
I certainly appreciate that the hon. Gentleman has taken the trouble to attend and contribute to this debate.

I have contacted locally elected representatives in Surrey about the issues that are being debated locally. Their view is that, at all the local liaison forums and meetings throughout the area, people have made it absolutely clear that they are behind the police authority in protecting front-line policing. As the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst said, the authority has taken steps to be as efficient as it can, as the Audit Commission has noted. The authority has some of the lowest costs and grants per head of the population. It has already looked to cut office staff, and it has made senior officers redundant, so it has done what it feels it can to be as efficient as possible.

The police authority has reached the stage where it is considering front-line policing, and local people are understandably concerned. They have taken the trouble to engage with the issue, and they have indicated their support for the authority’s decision to level a rate that is slightly higher than that which the Government feel appropriate—hence, we find ourselves where we are today.

Unfortunately, I have not had the opportunity to check the following statistic, and I am sure that the Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but one locally elected representative told me that the grant per head of population in Surrey is lower now than it was 10 years ago. That conclusion is arrived at after taking account not of inflation, but of the basic funding. It highlights the pressures on the police authority, and it shows that, by increasing the precept to that level, the authority had to take action that it did not want to take.

The views of the public are on the record, and I am sure that local newspapers and media will have followed the debate and reported it widely. The former Member for Guildford, Sue Doughty, has run a petition on the issue, and local authority members in the district, borough and county tiers to whom I have spoken feel that the police authority has made every effort to be as efficient as possible. There is no option now but to try to raise the money locally in order to protect what is an important, front-line policing service on which Surrey communities rely.

A number of issues have been raised in Westminster Hall and in another place noble Lords and baronesses questioned the Government on the topic and raised issues about the county’s proximity to London and its effect on policing issues, and the county’s transport issues. I shall not revisit all those questions, but I should say that my party clearly opposes capping and does not think it necessary. The principle should be that locally accountable people are in place to take decisions on behalf of their communities. Had the authorities completely ignored the will of the local community, gone against it and not taken steps to ensure its support, as they might have done in times gone by, the Government might have had slightly more of an argument for their actions today. However, it is clear that the people of Surrey are willing to pay the increase to protect the front-line services that they need in their communities.

The point that the hon. Member for Mole Valley made about the pittance that will be saved from most people’s council tax bills shows the arbitrariness of such action. It has been taken not in a measured way by looking at the details of the case, but in order to hold the line and send out a signal to other authorities.

I am disappointed that the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst feels that his colleagues will not be able to oppose this measure; I suspect that they have aspirations for where they might be in a year or so, and they may be concerned about setting precedents. That, however, is for the future, and we will see what the electorate make of that possibility.

If the debate on localism, to which all parties have been contributing, is to have any meaning, it is crucial that we allow locally accountable bodies to speak up for their communities, deliver services and levy taxes that those communities have demonstrated they are prepared to pay. I shall listen to the rest of the debate, but I am minded to divide the House on this motion.

14:55:00

Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
The Minister should understand from my record that I am in favour of tight budgets, value for money and efficiency—and proportionality as well. The most interesting thing for me about this debate is that I expected to support enthusiastically my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill); unusually, however, I find myself supporting many of the points made by the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), although not necessarily the theory behind them. The hon. Gentleman has certainly done a little homework—presumably, it was for the Westminster Hall debate—on the background to the situation of Surrey police.

Surrey police force and Surrey police authority are very efficient, and have had plaudits from organisations such as the Audit Commission that have looked at them. The police force receives the lowest grant per head of population of any police force. It is rather galling to hear from Ministers about increases and how much money has been put into police forces nationally and then to look at the reality for Surrey. The grant for Surrey police has decreased in real terms. In 1997, it received £96 per head of population; now, 12 years later, it receives £93 per head. [Interruption.] I am sorry that the Minister is not listening; perhaps she will read  what I am saying later. The real-terms reduction in grant is 39 per cent.—a considerable clobbering for Surrey police.

This saga’s big complication, which has only just been touched on, is that the Government have made their calculations on a notional budget and hence a national council tax. In June last year, the chief executive of Surrey police authority was informed that the Secretary of State had decided to nominate the authority for capping purposes and that it would be given a notional budget. However, no constraint or capping level related to that notional budget was mentioned at the time. When, in contrast to the police authority, Surrey police force started doing its budgetary calculations, the idea of a notional budget was raised with the Government as a precautionary measure. In a reply dated 25 July 2008, Department for Communities and Local Government lawyers replied that

“there is no requirement on the Surrey police authority to calculate a notional level of Council Tax (based on the notional budget requirement) for 2008/09 and Surrey police authority will set their budget requirement and their precept for 2009/10…in the normal way”.

At the end of October, Surrey police force—the force, not the authority—was informed that if Ministers decided to use their capping powers, a notional council tax might be used. Again, there was a warning that no decisions had been made. In early November, Surrey police force—again, not the authority—sought further clarification and was told that the police authority was to be informed on the position regarding notional council tax in due course. That confirmation did not arrive with the police authority until 28 January 2009—literally within hours of the actual budget and precept being set.

The capping designation now is that Surrey police authority is faced with the ludicrous situation of rebilling all Surrey council tax payers for a minimal reduction. The squeeze on Surrey police authority’s grant and its budget ceiling means that it has had to cut staff progressively. It has calculated its manpower levels for the years 2009-10 to 2012-13. It commences, before the capping, with a reduction of 159 personnel for this year, moving to a total reduction of 373 policemen and women in 2012-13. This is before designation and rebilling take effect.

The cost of designation is a further £1.6 million cut. The cumulative effect over the same period is a further reduction of 55 policemen and women. The rebilling will cost Surrey police authority £1.2 million. It has used the rebilling authorities—the district councils—to assess this. That translates into a further reduction of 24 personnel—24 fewer policemen and women. In my area, Mole Valley, that works out at about £4.65 per bill. That means that at band D, it costs £1.47 more than the reduction: not until band F is the negative position reversed.

I hope that the Minister can visualise the huge sigh of relief in every band D household when their council tax bill drops through the door for the second time, giving them a huge annual reduction of £3.18. As most people pay in 10 monthly instalments, the reduction will be 32p a month. Most people will be confused; some will be bemused. If they are aware of the cost to their already strapped police force of the rebilling, in addition to the capping, they will be very unhappy, if not furious. Local authorities throughout Surrey will have to reset their direct debits for every council tax payer paying by those means. Many thousands of Surrey residents who pay by bankers order will have to send a new bankers order form, probably costing 20 per cent. of the total saving just in the stamp and the envelope, and more if one includes the costs to the bank of changing everything.

It is a ludicrous, disproportionate situation. Bearing in mind the tiny saving, the Department could easily set the designation to next year, but for Surrey police authority alone, Ministers have decided to place a further cut, with the expensive, unnecessary, bureaucratic rebilling. Looming in the background is the prospect of a judicial review, which will be interesting, as I think I am correct in saying that nowhere in the new legislation does the word “notional” appear in relation to capping as regards either budgets or council tax. However, that is not my decision or the Minister’s—it will be for the court.

The additional cuts to pay for this rebilling have meant a lesser, more stretched police presence in difficult circumstances that will be exaggerated by the current economic climate. The Government do not have to require a rebilling, and common sense demands that they do not.

15:03:00

Paul Holmes (Chesterfield) (LD)
In the course of this short debate, three issues have arisen. First, there is the concept of a notional budget and whether that has any status in law. As we have heard, that issue may be going to two judicial reviews, one relating to Surrey and one to Derbyshire. Secondly, what is an excessive budget? Who decides what an excessive budget is, and what are the criteria for deciding that there is one? Thirdly, if there is an excessive budget, who takes the decision to stop it and to punish the local body—council, fire authority, or, as in this case, police authority—that is introducing it?

We have heard about the principle of local democracy and local accountability. Over the past year or two, a big buzzword in the Conservative party and the Labour party has been localism. We hear a lot of talk about localism, but see almost no evidence of any move towards delivering it. Localism—local democratic accountability—means that the local community elects its police, fire and local government authorities and decides what is best for local people. It decides on levels of council tax, on what services to introduce or cut and on how to deliver the wishes that local people have expressed through the ballot box. That is localism, giving real power to local people, as happens in just about every other democracy in the world.

In Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, Finland, any of the 50 states of the USA or the provinces of Canada, people cannot understand the system that we operate in which 90 per cent. of taxation is brought to No. 11 Downing street, and then some of it is handed out with strings attached. Local authorities, and through them the police and fire authorities, get about 20 to 25 per cent. of their money from local council tax and the rest, with strings attached, from the central Government block grant.

The system is alien to most democracies in the world. It was alien to how we operated in this country in the 19th century, when major leaders such as Joseph Chamberlain in Birmingham pioneered the first public transport systems, gas, sewerage and all the rest. That was done by local authorities without their having to go to the Government, cap in hand, and say, “Please can we do this?”

Some of the first signs that we were abandoning that came in the 1970s. The famous Clay Cross rent rebels took action back in 1973, for example. Then in the 1980s, the Conservative Government introduced rigid rate capping. Labour opposed that in the 1980s and 1990s, but when it came to power in 1997, it continued the system. The Minister said that the Government had made it more flexible, and there is some truth in that, but they none the less continued the rigid control from the centre over locally elected bodies and local accountability. All the talk of devolution, accountability and localism is absolutely meaningless unless we give real financial power to local democratically elected people.

Who should decide whether a budget, in this case a police authority’s budget, is excessive? It should be local people. In Surrey, and in Derbyshire, which the Minister mentioned about nine times—I was counting—the police authorities got the full support of the local population through consultation groups. People said, “We think that the police in this area are so underfunded, under-strength and understaffed that we are prepared to pay a higher than normal council tax increase to support them.”

In both counties, it was a cross-party process. I know for a fact that it was in Derbyshire, and I understand from the Westminster Hall debate, in which I took part and in which, as we have heard, 10 of the 11 Surrey Members spoke, that it was in Surrey as well. It appeared from the consultations with electors’ groups and community groups that there was widespread support across all areas for setting the budget that the Government then decided was excessive.

Sir Paul Beresford
Surrey’s budget is supported about 49 per cent. by council tax and about 51 per cent. by the Government, so local toes are being trod on very badly.

Paul Holmes
I thank the hon. Gentleman. Surrey is one of the great exceptions, as it is one of the police authorities for which as much as 50 per cent. of the money comes from local people. I remember a previous Police Minister, two or three Ministers ago, saying a couple of years ago when we debated the underfunding of Derbyshire police that one way forward was to use the Surrey example of switching the emphasis from central Government to locally elected bodies and council tax. That was about three Police Ministers ago and nothing has happened since, but if we do that, it will take us back to the principles of accountability, democracy, local devolution and localism.

If those principles mean anything, they must mean that local people make decisions through the ballot box, and their elected representatives decide on the level of council tax, local income tax or whatever taxation is in use. If people are unhappy about it because the council tax increase or in this case the police authority precept is excessive, they will decide that through the ballot box. That is what ballot boxes are about, and it is what local democracy should be about.

There is a key question that I want the Minister to answer, because we did not get an answer when I posed it in the Westminster Hall debate. When the Government use this power—I believe wrongly, because things should be decided locally—how do they decide that a budget is excessive? We have heard all the detailed statistics showing that Surrey is an efficient police authority, as the Audit Commission has stated. Derbyshire is the same. The police authority is very efficient and has made many backroom cuts in the past few years. The Government and the auditors have praised it for doing that. There is no fat to be cut. As the Government admit, every year since 2006, when they introduced a new funding formula, Derbyshire’s police budget has been underfunded by £5 million. This year, Derbyshire has increased the precept by £1.6 million to try to overcome some of that. If it is underfunded by £5 million a year and it has increased council tax by £1.6 million to offset roughly a third of the underfunding, how can the budget be excessive? If one should have £5 million more and one raises £1.6 million, one is still underfunded by £3.4 million.

According to the Government’s figures, in 2006, 2007 and 2008, Derbyshire police were grossly underfunded, but the Government will not let Derbyshire police authority, with the backing of all three political parties and community consultation throughout Derbyshire, do anything about it. That is illogical. Next year, Derbyshire could well be in the same position as Surrey. What was done to Surrey last year has been done to Derbyshire this year. The Government have said that they will not make Derbyshire rebill or cap it directly, but they will knock £1.6 million off next year’s money. Derbyshire, which has among the lowest numbers of police officers per head of population of any shire county in England, will have to lose 60 front-line police officers by next April to meet what is capping, in all but name, this year.

I repeat that I would like the Minister to answer, not so much the questions about accountability and localism, which we have debated previously, but the question that I asked in the Westminster Hall debate at the start of June. How do the Government decide what constitutes an excessive budget in the case of Surrey and of Derbyshire? If Derbyshire, on the Government’s admission, is underfunded by £5 million, how can raising £1.6 million towards that be excessive, when it makes up only about a third of the shortfall?

15:11:00

Ms Rosie Winterton
I recognise the concerns that hon. Members have expressed today. I emphasise that capping is not something that we do lightly. Indeed, as I explained earlier, we have introduced a much more flexible system. In some years, no action has been taken, but we need to examine the overall situation and ensure that we get the right balance between local accountability and the Government’s role in ensuring that council tax rises are not excessive. Of course, it is, first and foremost, for local authorities to set their council tax and justify it to local electors. However, we also have a duty to protect council tax payers from excessive increases.

I want briefly to comment on several points that have been made. The hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) talked about the overall financial situation. There has been a total increase of £48.4 million of Government grant—23 per cent. in real terms—between 1997 and 2009, and an increase of £32.5 million, which is 80 per cent. in real terms, between 2001 and 2009-10. There has therefore been a big increase. Even with the cap this year, Surrey will receive £5.7 million more.

To answer the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes), capping principles were announced to the House on 26 March. They were: a budget requirement of 4 per cent.; a council tax of 5 per cent. Although it is obviously up to Surrey police authority to decide how to spend its budget, its figures show reserves of £9.4 million, of which £5.6 million is not earmarked. As I have said, it is up to the authority to decide how it uses that money.

Sir Paul Beresford
If the right hon. Lady looks further behind those figures, she will realise that, as a percentage, they are below the level required by the Audit Commission.

Ms Winterton
I should also add that, because of the increases that the Government have put into local government and policing, police numbers in Surrey in September 2008 were 262 higher than in March 1997. On 30 September, Surrey had 1,882 police officers and 1,721 police support staff, which is 994 more than in 1997. I think that we have taken the right decision in this instance.

Sir Paul Beresford
If we extrapolate the budget that results from the capping, the designation and the anticipated grant, the reality is that Surrey will lose 373 policemen and women over the next three years, and, because of the capping, the designation and the rebilling, a further 55. So, to use the Prime Minister’s approach, this is a negative increase.

Ms Winterton
I think that I have explained fully the way in which we have changed what was a rigid system so that, last year, we were able to give Surrey a notional budget, meaning that it would not have to rebill. However, it has always been made clear that the changes that were made last year would be taken into account this year. The authority ignored the warnings that it was given. As I have said, Surrey is the only authority that, having been notified of a notional budget requirement, set an excessive increase in the subsequent year. I have to say to all the hon. Members who have spoken that, having considered the case, the Government have no doubt that firm action needs to be taken.

I think that the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) raised the issue of judicial review—

Robert Neill
indicated dissent.

Ms Winterton
Perhaps it was the hon. Member for Mole Valley. I understand that this morning the judicial review application was refused on the papers. Of course there is a right to appeal—a right to request an oral hearing—but the application was refused this morning.

I emphasise again that we do not take these decisions lightly. We have to balance the issues of service provision and local accountability with ensuring that council tax payers do not face excessive council tax bills. That is why we have taken this action, and I hope that the House will support the order.

Question put.

Division 197
09/07/2009 15:18:00
The House divided:
Ayes: 239
Noes: 33
Question accordingly agreed to.

Resolved,

That the draft Council Tax Limitation (Maximum Amounts) (England) Order 2009, which was laid before this House on 10 June, be approved.

 UK Manufacturing

Topical debate

15:30:00

The Minister for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr. Pat McFadden)
I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of UK manufacturing.

The business of making things—manufacturing—matters to every Member of this House: it has been a defining part of our economy for hundreds of years; it has contributed to our reputation across the world; and it is a significant part of our economic strength.

Kelvin Hopkins (Luton, North) (Lab)
Will the Minister give way?

Mr. McFadden
Not for the moment, as I am only one sentence into my speech.

Since the time of the industrial revolution when we were dubbed “the workshop of the world”, manufacturing has helped the UK to punch above its weight, and one of my principal points today is to counter the impression that we are not still a country that excels at making things; we most certainly are, but where once we led the way as producers of iron, coal and cotton, we are now blazing a trail in new areas such as robotics, software, new technology and advanced manufacturing.

Kelvin Hopkins
rose—

Mr. McFadden
I see that my hon. Friend is still anxious to get to his feet, so I shall give way to him.

Kelvin Hopkins
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. I want to be as supportive as possible, but I have to quibble with his suggestion that we are still a manufacturing nation. We have a gigantic trade deficit in manufactures, contributing to a very substantial balance of trade deficit which is ongoing, in contrast to Germany, for instance, which has a massive surplus as it has looked after its manufacturing better than us. I hope my right hon. Friend will accept that.

Mr. McFadden
I do not accept the assertion that we are not a manufacturing nation. We are the sixth largest manufacturer in the world, and I believe that manufacturing is a critically important part of our economy. I see the pride, passion and commitment of UK manufacturing in my own constituency week in, week out. When the Prime Minister visited Wolverhampton last Friday, my hon. Friends the Members for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris), for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase) and I were able to introduce him to many local manufacturers such as Goodrich in aerospace and Nuclear Engineering Services Ltd in my constituency, where people have built up excellent manufacturing industries employing hundreds of other people and making excellent products.

Manufacturing is still a critical part of our economy, employing 3 million people directly, with more in supplies and associated services, and contributing £150 billion to the UK economy.

Mr. Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)
The Minister is talking about the new industries in manufacturing, which is very good, but he seemed to dismiss the older ones. However, there is an opportunity for many such industries—shipbuilding and metal beating, for example—in that their products can be used for the new green industries, particularly for offshore wind, for instance. So will the Minister not dismiss them so lightly?

Mr. McFadden
I did not dismiss the old industries; I reject that assertion. I believe that traditional manufacturing and the newer industries can combine to contribute to our manufacturing strengths, so I am certainly not dismissing any manufacturing industries.

Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)
We are now going to have more nuclear power stations, which I greatly welcome. Does the Minister agree, however, that we have waited too long to make that decision, and that a lot of the skills we need to manufacture our own nuclear plants—[Interruption.] No, I will accept part of the responsibility, but this Government have been in power for a long time—since 1997. Does the Minister agree that if we had been more diligent and made the decision earlier, we would not have to import as much as we will have to simply to be able to construct our new nuclear build?

Mr. McFadden
I am prepared to be open-minded and to accept criticism of Government policy from many quarters, but I will not accept criticism from the Conservative party about being late to the game on the new generation of nuclear power stations. The hon. Gentleman’s party has changed its position on that issue more times than a Highland dancer in the middle of the most active reel. I hope that the Conservatives now accept the need to move forward in that regard.

I was explaining the importance of manufacturing to the UK economy; as I said, it contributes some £150 billion to the economy, accounts for half of Britain’s exports and is responsible for 75 per cent. of our business research and development.

Mr. Fraser Kemp (Houghton and Washington, East) (Lab)
Does the Minister think that an excellent example of how traditional industries can modernise for the future can be found in the motor industry and the investment in low-carbon cars that has been considered. Nissan, in my constituency, is one organisation that is looking closely at producing the next generation of low-carbon cars, and a decision is expected on that shortly. Does he think that that is another way of developing our manufacturing base? May I also quickly correct something he said? He said that 3 million people are employed in manufacturing, but I suspect that the real figure is 200 more than that, because 200 extra staff have been taken on by Nissan as a result of the success of this Government’s scrappage scheme.

Mr. McFadden
I am happy to be corrected by my hon. Friend, who anticipates what I am coming on to say about the importance of the low-carbon economy in our manufacturing future. He rightly stresses that, and the Government are actively working with Nissan and other manufacturers on that agenda.

This country has excellence and world leadership in some manufacturing sectors—for example, aerospace. We have the second biggest aerospace industry in the world, with more than 100,000 people directly employed in the manufacture of aircraft systems, engines and equipment. We are fortunate to have world-class companies, such as Rolls-Royce, based here in the UK. It is a world leader in the production of aero engines and provides a prime example of the kind of innovative and forward-looking manufacturing that is certainly part of our economic future.

Several hon. Members
rose—

Mr. McFadden
Many colleagues wish to intervene today. I will try to be generous, but I am keen to make progress.

Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD)
While praising excellent industries, I hope that the Minister also recognises just what a world leader this country is in subsea engineering—that has come on the back of the oil and gas industry in the North sea. To that end, now that energy is the responsibility of a separate Department, does his Department still have an interest in promoting the business side of the oil and gas industry and all the service industries that go with it?

Mr. McFadden
My Department works very closely with the Department of Energy and Climate Change on these issues, and we will jointly be publishing a low-carbon manufacturing strategy in the not-too-distant future. We have worked on that co-operatively.

It is important to remember that our manufacturing base also helps us to attract significant inward investment. The UK is the world’s second most popular destination for foreign inward investment. Investment projects in advanced manufacturing have increased this year by 18 per cent, so even in the midst of a downturn inward investment in manufacturing is a UK success story, and we must not forget it.

Rob Marris (Wolverhampton, South-West) (Lab)
A golden thread running through manufacturing is the importance of investment in capital equipment, and capital allowances are one of the tax regimes to encourage that. Is my right hon. Friend as astounded as I am that the policy of those on the Conservative Front Bench, as announced by the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) on 12 May, is to cut capital allowances by £3.7 billion a year?

Mr. McFadden
That kind of policy is the last thing that our manufacturing industries need, particularly in the midst of a downturn when we hope that hard-pressed industries are able to take investment decisions in order to prepare for the upturn when it comes. The Conservative party has come up with a policy that would strike at the heart of those investment decisions, and that is the very opposite of the support that manufacturing industry needs.

Kelvin Hopkins
I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend about the importance of manufacturing and preparing for the upturn when it comes. Will he and the Secretary of State do everything possible to sustain the General Motors van plant in Luton—the best van plant in Europe, which produces the best vans in Europe and, I would argue, has the best work force in Europe? It is vital for our future.

Mr. McFadden
The importance that we attach to that plant was evidenced recently by the visit of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. We are doing everything we can to ensure that General Motors continues with its manufacturing base here.

We have manufacturing excellence in this country. I have mentioned one or two sectors, and there are others, such as plastic electronics and bluetooth technology—things that we use every day that are made here in the UK and are an important part of our manufacturing future. Of course, we must also acknowledge that, amid those strengths and our strong position overall, manufacturing has had a tough time during the recession. Some companies have gone, including some well known names, and people have lost their jobs. We understand the pain that that causes for individual families and communities. We are determined to ensure that those affected get a second chance to retrain and reskill, and to start again. That stands in stark contrast to what happened in previous recessions, when people in manufacturing sectors and others lost their jobs and were left with little more than a giro cheque to keep body and soul together. They certainly did not get the active help that they needed to have a second chance.

Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
We still have the ongoing debate about whether wage compensation is a realistic approach. It was depressing to hear that even the Proact proposal in Wales has yet to take off. In other parts of Europe, many of our competitor companies have employees on short-time working paid for by the state to keep them in employment. Are the Government still actively considering that as a way to keep our people in employment?

Mr. McFadden
Let us consider the European comparisons. We are not alone in our manufacturing industries being affected by the recession. There has been a decline in trade in goods across the world. In the year to April, manufacturing output declined in this country by 13 per cent. In the US, the figure was 14.6 per cent., in France it was almost 20 per cent., in Germany it was 24 per cent. and in Japan it was more than 30 per cent. The effect has been felt around the world, and it has often been greater in other countries than here in the UK.

No Government can say that they can stop an economic recession having an impact, but we will do everything we can to ensure that the recession is as short and as shallow as possible. I shall tell the House about some of the measures that we are taking to support manufacturing through the recession.

During the past year, the Manufacturing Advisory Service, which does an excellent job, has helped nearly 8,000 manufacturing companies to improve their efficiency and effectiveness, improving gross value added by some £120 million and, in many cases, helping to generate new sales. The vehicle scrappage scheme, which my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington, East (Mr. Kemp) mentioned, has had a serious impact, with 94,000 orders for new vehicles.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West mentioned, we also have a £50,000 investment allowance, meaning that the 95 per cent. of businesses that invest less than that sum a year are able to write those investments off, giving them the confidence to make the investment that our manufacturing industry needs.

We must do more to prepare for the upturn, and that is why we have brought together the former Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Department for Innovation, University and Skills in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. That will help to prepare the country for the economic upturn and ensure that we put the support in place where it will have most value. We will certainly not stand by and watch the recession take its course, as we were advised to a few months ago by the Opposition. We believe that we have an active part to play and that that philosophy of industrial activism that was once the vogue on the Opposition Benches, before being abandoned, is still important.

Mr. David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)
Is not our record in direct contrast to that of the Opposition, who actively closed coal mines, actively closed shipyards and actively destroyed the steel industry in this country?

Mr. McFadden
My hon. Friend makes a good point. We cannot insulate the country from closures—I do not pretend that we can—but we do what we can to avoid them and to give help where they take place.

Mr. Ian Cawsey (Brigg and Goole) (Lab)
Although I welcome the measures that the Government have put in place to keep the manufacturing sector together, it is also important that we retain certain core manufacturing industries, such as the steel industry in north Lincolnshire and my constituency. A fortnight ago, Corus said that 500 jobs were to go there and this morning it announced that another 366 will go. Active intervention—the report from the Federation of Small Businesses and the TUC talks about wage subsidy, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew)—is needed to keep such businesses at the capacity that they are at now so that when the upturn comes we still have steel in Britain.

Mr. McFadden
I have been in active contact with Corus in recent weeks. My sympathies go out to my hon. Friend’s constituents who are affected by job losses, and those of other hon. Members. Corus has told me that the critical issue it faces is demand for the product that it makes. Half that product goes into construction, so the best thing that we can do is to try to ensure that there is demand for the product that is made. We have brought forward spending for social housing, for additional investment in schools and hospitals and for initiatives such as the car scrappage scheme so that there is demand for the steel that is made. In the long term, that will be more effective in supporting the steel industry than any short-term wage scheme. I must stress that.

Let me talk about our industrial policy, as published in “New Industry, New Jobs”, and some of the support and initiatives available from the Government. We have set aside £750 million for a strategic investment fund. About a third of that will go to low-carbon initiatives, because we understand that how we build and heat our homes, produce our energy and transport ourselves will all change profoundly in the years to come.

As a Government, we take the view that we want British industry to be in the best possible place to take advantage of those opportunities. We are working with colleagues from the Department of Energy and Climate Change on a low-carbon industrial strategy to ensure that as we come out of the downturn we back the best of British industry in initiatives such as wind and wave power and low-carbon vehicles, as well as others, and that we take advantage of the opportunities represented by the low-carbon economy. As the G8 meets and discusses these things, it is of course a challenge to respond to climate change, but it is also an industrial opportunity. This Government are determined to ensure that British industry has the help and support it needs to take advantage of that.

Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)
The Minister is talking about industrial activism and support as regards climate change. That is all to be welcomed, of course, but how much of that £750 million has seen the light of day? How much has been spent or invested so far, when it was announced months ago?

Mr. McFadden
It was announced in the Budget and plans will be brought forward over the coming months. The hon. Gentleman is critical of spending; I point out to him that his party is determined to cut spending by an extra £5 billion this year. I do not see what hope that would give to manufacturing industry, which needs support to invest in some of the opportunities that I have mentioned. I could say the same about training. We believe it is important that our workers have the skills to take part in modern manufacturing, which is why we will put £1 billion into Train to Gain next year. That is money that the hon. Gentleman’s party, as recently as Monday, pledged in this House to abolish. The Opposition have pledged to cut spending on training, and they are committed to cutting support for spending overall. That is not what our manufacturing industries need.

What those industries need is co-ordinated support and help from the Government, directly where it makes a difference. They also need the Government to be a smart customer, because we are a major purchaser of many goods and services right across the economy. In the past, Governments may not have looked so actively at their role as a customer, but we are determined to do that in the future.

A critical part of our manufacturing strategy is that we take advantage of the opportunities presented by the change to a low-carbon economy, whether that involves new nuclear capacity, low-carbon vehicles, or wind and wave power. That is what we intend to do, through the strategic investment fund and other initiatives.

This debate is critical to our economy. Manufacturing is a hugely important sector, and we are a country that makes things. We are the sixth biggest manufacturing economy in the world, and we will continue to be a major manufacturing economy in the future.

Several hon. Members
rose—

Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal)
Order. I inform the House that Mr. Speaker had imposed a time limit of eight minutes on Back-Bench contributions, but that additional Members have since expressed a desire to contribute to the debate. I am therefore reducing the time limit on Back-Bench contributions to six minutes.

I call Mr. John Penrose.

15:51:00

John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I shall try to keep my comments as brief as possible to allow plenty of time for other colleagues to make a contribution.

I shall start on a momentary happy note by saying that the Opposition have one fundamental point of agreement with the Minister. We agree that manufacturing is clearly vital for this country’s long-term economic future. It has been for many years, and must be in future, a core part of this country’s economy and employment. My party would like to see it grow and prosper at a far higher rate than it has in the past.

The Minister was right to point out that manufacturing still accounts for 13 per cent. of our GDP—a substantially smaller proportion than it used to be, but still very material. He was also right to point out that we are sixth in the world rankings on manufacturing. There are plenty of industries in which we can be proud of our standing: he mentioned aerospace, and I completely agree with him.

I am afraid, however, that the situation is not quite as rosy as the Minister tried to paint it. The sad fact is that for many decades the experience here has been of long-term decline in manufacturing, relative to other countries. That has been going on under Governments of all stripes, not just this one, for many decades.

Kelvin Hopkins
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that one factor that has had a crucial effect on our manufacturing sector for a long time has been the overvaluation of sterling, relative to the currencies of other significant developed nations? The countries that have attended to their exchange rate and made sure that it is kept in line—such as Germany, for example—have prospered rather better than we have.

John Penrose
I should love to agree, but I am afraid that I cannot. I am a free marketeer, and so believe that the market is rather better at choosing appropriate exchange rates for most countries than politicians are—certainly, it is better than politicians in this place. In addition, Germany’s experience with the level of the deutschmark and now the euro has not been altogether happy in many periods of its history. I am not sure that it is a good example, although I accept the underlying point that I think the hon. Gentleman is making, which is that many countries’ currencies have been overvalued or undervalued for periods. That clearly creates stresses and strains in the world economy.

To illustrate how long our relative decline has been going on, it is instructive to look at the rate of job losses in our manufacturing sector. Because of various comments from the other side of the House, I shall make one comparison—and I shall limit myself to this—between the Labour and Conservative records. Under the previous Conservative Administration, 137,000 manufacturing jobs were lost each year. However, I am afraid that the rate has accelerated under the current Labour Government, and that the number of manufacturing jobs lost each year is now 152,000. Clearly, we are still making mistakes and we still face a fundamental underlying problem.

Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Can the hon. Gentleman tell us how many manufacturing jobs have been created under the Government?

John Penrose
I do not have a clue, but I am sure that either the hon. Lady or somebody with the appropriate note from the Labour Whips is itching to tell us and will doubtless leap to their feet at some point during the debate.

It is instructive to consider why there has been a long-term decline. Some factors are the fault of Governments and politicians, but others are part of the global economy. It is instructive to realise that, because in the face of the economic winds of change other countries may have dealt with the pressures better than us. We have already heard about Germany, although I did not agree with the precise example.

The most important factor is globalisation. Many countries have become part of the global economy and, because they have a particular advantage in low wage rates, have made huge strides in trading their way upwards and out of poverty. I am sure everybody in the Chamber agrees with that and welcomes it, but the unfortunate and painful downside for the UK has been long-term pressure on internationally traded goods, particularly those that are manufactured in this country. That has been a major factor in the erosion of Britain’s relative competitive position in manufacturing.

That has not been happening only over the past 10 years, although there has been a strong impact on the Government’s performance. In the 1980s and ’90s, before the so-called BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India and China—emerged and became part of the world economy, we were all talking about the Asian tigers, who were doing exactly the same thing. It has been going on for many years, and it is up to us to address the issue rather more effectively than we have been.

Some of the problems are self-inflicted, however. In the old days, there was appalling labour market rigidity and industrial strife. Thankfully, that problem has been substantially reduced; it has not gone completely, but it is more a problem of history than of today. The UK has a good record in research-led innovation—scientific innovation from our universities—but unfortunately we are not as good as many other countries, particularly America, in converting theoretical science into practical manufactured products that can be sold abroad. In many cases, other countries are better at taking on such ideas and investing in them. I do not say that we are awful at it, but we could do better.

Mr. McFadden
I agree that there has traditionally been difficulty in bringing great ideas from the laboratory to the market. That is why, as part of “Building Britain’s Future” we have announced an innovation fund, to be shared between Government and levered-in private sector funding, to do precisely what the hon. Gentleman is talking about. I hope he welcomes that initiative.

John Penrose
I am delighted to have been able to give the Minister the opportunity to make that explanation. I am sure we all wish the initiative well, although we obviously need to make sure that it delivers what it promises. I am sure that all hon. Members would agree about the principle that it is trying to achieve.

We must deal with some other external problems, one of which, particularly at a time of recession, is the threat of a resurgent force of protectionism. As the Minister rightly said, we are facing one of the worst recessions in living memory, and it has hit manufacturing and construction particularly badly. There is danger at this point in the economic cycle, because there are always temptations for the voices of protectionism in countries all round the world to try to re-raise barriers, either tariff or non-tariff. Clearly, that would affect the UK’s ability to export. These days, manufacturing is overwhelmingly a global industry and a global business in many sectors. Protectionism is an arrow aimed at the heart of our manufacturing sector if we cannot fend off those siren voices and ensure that the forces of protectionism are held at bay.

Given that scenario, why are other countries doing better than us in maintaining their manufacturing sectors and making them prosperous? What should we be doing? My party has come up with a series of ideas, and I propose to summarise them, but I shall not go on for too long because I am conscious that other Members want to contribute.

First and most importantly, we need a simpler tax regime, and lower taxes wherever possible. Half of one of our tax ideas was mentioned by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris), who spoke about our plans for capital allowances. He neglected to mention what we would do with the money; I am sure that that was merely an unintentional oversight, and I am happy to help him out. The aim, of course, is to reduce corporation tax and the cost of employing staff, particularly for smaller companies. Our ideas on that, which are already a matter of public record, are to cut corporation tax and payroll taxes for small firms, to defer small firms’ VAT bills, to introduce measures such as small business rate relief, and to make the latter mandatory.

Those ideas are all simple and straightforward, and will help small firms in many sectors, particularly manufacturing, to prosper. They make life simpler, and they mean that firms do not have to check with their accountants before making an investment decision. The measures allow firms to focus on customers, rather than on tax implications, and firms will therefore be much more likely to remain competitive.

Rob Marris
rose—

John Penrose
I give way, but with trepidation.

Rob Marris
I quite agree with the hon. Gentleman: we cannot compete with India and China. We need capital investment. He is right that Conservative party policy is to cut corporation tax from 28 per cent. to 25 per cent. for larger companies; that is where the £3.7 billion comes from. The countervailing measure to make the policy cost-neutral is to take £3.7 billion away from capital allowances. I just put it to him that manufacturing industry disproportionately relies on capital allowances. We want capital investment, and we have to have it, because we cannot compete on wages with India and China.

John Penrose
I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, but it is also true to say that in the past 10 years, this country’s tax code has become incredibly baroque, long and involved. I think that it is one of the longest in the developed world. It is now incredibly difficult to enact any measures, other than simplification measures, that will have a practical effect on investment decisions, because people cannot understand the tax code, which is supposed to encourage them to do one thing or the other. Simplicity is far more important, as a way of getting people to focus on customers.

I am conscious of the time, so I shall move on and talk about skills improvements. I think that there is a degree of agreement across the parties on the aim and importance of improving skills throughout the economy, although I suspect that we would disagree on how the Government are going about that. I should like to correct one point made, doubtless unintentionally, about the Conservative party’s policies on Train to Gain. The Minister for Business, Innovation and Skills said that we plan to reform Train to Gain, but he did not say how we planned to spend the money thus freed up. Just to make sure that he understands, I point out that our policy is not a cut, but a redistribution of the money so that it is used in a way that we hope is rather more productive. Some £775 million will go to reform Train to Gain. That will create 100,000 extra apprenticeship places, fully fund 77,000 existing places that are currently only partly funded, create a £2,000-per-job bonus for new apprentices in small and medium-sized enterprises and boost group training associations. That is not a cut; it is, we believe, a better way of spending the existing money.

Other factors that are vital for manufacturing are simplifying and speeding up the planning process. It is extremely difficult for anybody who wants to build a new factory in this country to find a site and battle their way through the thickets of our planning law, and in that regard it is difficult for us to compete with many other countries. That puts off many potential investors. The system needs to be simplified and made quicker.

Equally, we have a problem in our energy sector. Many manufacturers—particularly those at the heavier end of manufacturing, who inevitably use a great deal of energy—have come to me and, I am sure, many other Members present in the Chamber, and said, “Look, the problem with Britain’s energy prices is not only that they can be high, but that they are particularly volatile.” Volatility makes planning extremely difficult, and is particularly difficult to cope with for those in heavy industries; it therefore needs to be dealt with.

Mr. Weir
I agree with the hon. Gentleman about energy prices. Is there not also a problem with the type of contracts that some energy companies impose on high-end users? They demand large sums up front because of the effects of the recession, in which so many companies have gone to the wall.

John Penrose
The effects are many. The hon. Gentleman has picked up one, and it is a major factor. It is extremely difficult in some cases to take out forward contracts that might allow a firm to hedge its exposure. There are a number of things that can be done, but the problem with them is that none works as well as in other countries.

Finally—here we are in agreement with the Minister—there are great opportunities for this country in green manufacturing and creating a low-carbon economy. There is a degree of overlap between the two parties, largely because we would argue that our party introduced a series of ideas, which the Government swiped and are claiming as their own. Whatever the provenance of the ideas, measures such as smart meters, feed-in tariffs, encouraging renewable energy sources such as biogas and marine energy and, as the Minister mentioned, encouraging low-carbon buildings, transport and commerce by retrofitting energy efficiency measures to existing stock, and in our case proposing a high-speed rail route throughout the country, will stimulate locally produced and locally manufactured products that stand a chance of putting Britain in the forefront of some of the most important and exciting new industry areas in future.

There is much that can be done. Other countries are doing these things better than we are. I have set out the Conservative party’s recipe for coming back up the order of merit internationally, and I commend it to the House.

16:06:00

Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
I welcome a great deal of what my right hon. Friend the Minister for Business, Innovation and Skills said in introducing the debate. If the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) will forgive me, I do not think I will be using his recipes in relation to manufacturing.

Those of us who come from the west midlands know how badly the manufacturing sector is being hit by the current economic downturn. The West Midlands Committee is conducting an inquiry and will report in the near future, so I shall not prefigure that. In the short time available, I shall make a few comments about the automotive sector, both because my constituency includes Longbridge and as Chair of the all-party motor group.

I shall not go over the issues about MG Rover that were discussed this week and will be spoken about again in great detail, save to say that, with all the accusations and counter-accusations that have been flying around over the past few days, I hope nobody loses sight of the fact that the important people in the debate are the 6,000 workers who lost their jobs, and their families, the communities that rely on them, and the suppliers to that plant. I hope that when he winds up the debate, my right hon. Friend will confirm that it is the Government’s intention to publish the inquiry report into MG Rover as soon as possible, and that after four years of waiting those employees will be able to get the money that is their due from the trust fund that has been set up.

On broader automotive issues, I welcome the fact that the signs coming out of the introduction of the scrappage scheme are positive. Perhaps there are lessons that we can learn from that for the future. Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind what my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) said about short-time working subsidies, which still have a role to play? We need to look at those more seriously. I welcome the automotive assistance programme that was published in February, but like others I want to underline the fact that that programme is not yet working quickly enough. That must be addressed.

For companies of strategic significance in the west midlands economy, it is particularly important that things move more speedily in order to attract the necessary investment. One example is Jaguar Land Rover, where the issue is loan guarantees on commercial rates. That must be brought to a conclusion as soon as possible so that that company can realise its undoubted potential.

That brings me to the main issue that I want to cover today—risk. Assessing, managing and taking risk is at the heart of any business. Businesses cannot operate without risk. That is clear from the example of the automotive industry, where there is a risk every time millions of pounds are invested in developing a new product, research and development and so on. It was even clearer this week when motor sport industry representatives came to Parliament to talk about its potential—some hon. Members might have seen the industry’s exhibitions. It is involved in a range of areas—from green technologies to defence equipment—that go well beyond motorsport, and at the root of that involvement is the industry’s ability and willingness to take risk.

At a time of economic downturn, there is a greater consensus about the need for the Government to intervene to nurture manufacturing. That is what the automotive assistance programme is all about, but, if we are to do so when bank credit is difficult to obtain, we must start taking responsible risks. The problem is that the machinery of government—for all the right reasons of looking after taxpayers’ money and so on—can end up being too risk-averse, and the resultant delays can get in the way of what we want to do.

When bank credit dries up, the Government rightly say, “We need to ensure that the European Investment Bank can put money in,” but the European Investment Bank then looks for guarantees. It looks to the Government to back up those guarantees with their own loan guarantees, so the Government go back to the company to try to secure the guarantees that the firm could not provide in the first place. The danger is that we get into that big circle and we do not get very far.

We, as politicians, must learn some lessons from that, because we often create that state of mind. When someone takes a risk, sometimes things will be successful and sometimes things will be unsuccessful, but when something is unsuccessful we politicians have a habit of immediately looking for heads to roll and for somebody to blame and of saying, “You should never have taken that risk in the first place.” We had an example of that earlier this week, when the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) went back to the MG Rover story and said that, in 2005, at that crucial time, it was absolutely wrong for the Government to invest—to risk—£6 million to try to save 6,000 jobs. Interestingly, the Tories supported the measure at the time, but they attack it now. Political amnesia is an interesting thing. The point is that it was justifiable to risk that money to save those jobs. It was the right thing to do, but it did not achieve the right result. We need to learn some lessons from that, but I certainly hope that they do not lead us to say, “Never take the risk”, or to just play the blame game.

16:12:00

John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
May I begin by reiterating the written apology that I have made to you, Mr. Speaker, and through you, to the House? I may have to leave a few minutes before the end of the debate, although our timing is such that I hope to be able to stay for the full debate.

There is no doubt that UK manufacturing has been going through a particularly difficult time and has been deeply affected by the current crisis. We should not underestimate that. Indeed, we have heard about examples of those difficulties from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) and the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Mr. Cawsey), who mentioned Corus. Office for National Statistics figures show that the drop in output has been worse than anticipated. Many companies are struggling, and that struggle flows through to lay-offs and redundancies. I do not for one moment underestimate those difficulties, but in the short time available to me I should like to turn to the future and to the opportunities that it presents.

It would be wrong to fall into the trap that many people fall into of regarding British manufacturing as somehow old-fashioned, outdated, ineffective, rooted in the past and of no consequence to the future. Far from it; in manufacturing, the high-tech and advanced engineering sectors, in particular, and many others are world-leading and world-beating. We should not only support them now, but nurture them into the future. As the Minister said when he gave his figures, we still have the sixth-largest manufacturing industry in the world, comprising 12.6 per cent. of the economy, by the gross value added—GVA—measure, and 3 million employees. That is important by anybody’s reckoning.

Certain sectors, including the steel and automotive industries, have suffered grievously, but the quality and strength of many others, such as the high-tech and advanced engineering sectors, remain a success story that we must support. I should like to touch on two examples of such opportunities. First, the Pentland firth, which is close to my home in the north, has a tidal resource that it is estimated could deliver up to 31 GW of energy. Given current technology, that is probably a tad optimistic, but a yield of 10 to 15 GW is highly realistic.

The technology is developing rapidly. Three years ago, I was told that in aviation terms it was at the Wright brothers stage, and a couple of weeks ago I was told that it had advanced to the Spitfire stage; in a few years’ time, we hope to be in the jet age. The Crown Estate has a licensing process and British-designed, British-made turbines, leading the world, will be the first in productive service. Companies such as Rolls- Royce, Atlantis and International Power are all involved. We have the opportunity to be the first in the world and to centre the industry in this country, with jobs in the UK—including a few, I hope, in Caithness.

Mr. Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
My hon. Friend is right that the renewable energy industry gives a great opportunity for British manufacturing, particularly in remote locations. Will he join me in welcoming the investment made in Campbeltown by Welcon? It has the potential to create a few hundred jobs in the manufacture of wind turbine towers for the offshore wind generation industry.

John Thurso
I am happy to welcome that development in Campbeltown.

The danger is that other countries will see what we are doing and latch on to the technology. How often in the past has British innovation become somebody else’s production? We must not lose the opportunity; the threat is that things will go elsewhere. I make a plea to the Government, and I am meeting Ministers at the Department of Energy and Climate Change to put this point: the Government should play the co-ordinating role that will make sure that at this early stage the bits are joined up so that the opportunity is realised.

The second opportunity on which I want to touch has already been mentioned by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield; it relates to the motor sport industry. I had a fascinating meeting with the industry’s representatives and I love what it is doing. There is such quality and breadth in its engineering. Everybody thinks that it is just to do with Formula 1, but it is not—it is about advanced gearboxes for articulated lorries which will reduce the amount of fuel used, about electric transmission, about the aerospace and defence industries and about £6 billion of exports. The motor sport industry, too, needs to be supported.

If there is to be support, we need three things. First, we need a clear strategy. That is not about picking winners and losers but about identifying strengths and opportunities and making sure that they are supported. The Government have made a good start and I hope to see more of the same. The second point is about skills. In the next three years, we will be approximately 5,000 jobs short in advanced areas such as nuclear technology, the advanced automotive industry and many other activities. We need to find a way of getting the skilled engineers that we need.

The third issue is finance. The current crisis in the City should be regarded as an opportunity. This is a time when we can redirect our finance, which can stop being the purview of the masters of speculation, and when the City can once again become the servant of commerce and industry. That means less debt and more equity. We need to find ways in which we can get more equity to absorb more risk into British manufacturing industry.

There is no doubt that British manufacturing is suffering today, but it is a success story to be nurtured and taken forward. As I said, it will offer a real prospect for sustainable growth once the recession is over. We should not lose sight of that opportunity.

16:19:00

Mr. Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich, West) (Lab/Co-op): I represent a traditional manufacturing constituency; even today, well over 20 per cent. of the work force are employed in manufacturing and construction—the two sectors that have been hit hardest by the recession.

In my regular conversations with the managers of small and medium-sized companies in my constituency, the Government’s general approach is recognised as being appropriate. When I speak to those people, the first thing they tell me is that the important thing is to sustain demand. Without that demand for the goods and products that they produce, all the schemes are not worth much. The Government’s commitment to bringing forward public spending and to sustaining demand is therefore crucial in terms of the thrust of the policies that are necessary to sustain manufacturing and make for a recovery. These people are not instinctively supportive of Government intervention and Government spending, but they argue, time and again, that if we do not have the general policies in place to sustain our manufacturing base, when the tide turns and the economy grows we will not have the industrial capacity to secure the jobs and the profits to pay into taxes to pay off the public spending that we are incurring now.

The overarching policy is right, but some pillars are working well and others are not. First, on the balance sheet, I will mention those that are working well. After a slow start, the enterprise finance guarantee scheme is undoubtedly playing an important part in the survival of manufacturing SMEs. The flexibility on tax offered by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is an enormous help to a large number of small companies. The scrappage scheme, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), appears to be playing its part in sustaining demand in the motor industry and, in turn, the steel industry. The prompt payment initiative is also very welcome.

However, other pillars are not working so well. I want to concentrate particularly on credit insurance. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield went on at some length about risk. That is nowhere better reflected than in the support that the credit insurance industry gives to the construction and automotive supply chain, which in general does not get much support. Rachel Eades, a representative of Accelerate, the motor industry supply body, says:

“The majority of our clients have all been hit with either or both a reduction in cover and in many cases—and it seems to be growing—the complete withdrawal of insurance cover for vehicle manufacturers and tier one suppliers.”

That is hitting companies in my constituency, and in the rest of the black country, particularly hard. They know that there are opportunities to promote and sustain their sales but cannot get the credit insurance necessary to do so. It does not help that even when they can get it, the premiums have gone up and their overheads are that much greater. In many areas of the motor supply industry, credit insurance has been withdrawn altogether. The Government initiative announced in April to top it up is therefore irrelevant, because one cannot top up something that does not exist. This is a big issue that is hampering the ability of small companies in the black country to sustain their viability. I hope that the Government will look at it again.

The other big handicap in the Government proposals is that they relate only to domestic companies. Our Government representatives are internationally promoting a global fiscal stimulus, with construction in European countries designed to stimulate the European and wider world economy, but companies in my constituency that would be capable of using the competitive pound to sell and to enhance their profitability and potential work force in those markets cannot do so because no export credit guarantee insurance is available.

I know that the Government are consulting on that, and I hope that the Minister will ensure that that consultation reaches a speedy and productive conclusion. Otherwise, there will be companies in the black country that are unable to support the Government’s overall initiatives to promote world growth, and particularly the element of that growth that will help much-needed small and medium-sized enterprises in areas such as the black country.

16:25:00

Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)
It is apposite that we have the opportunity to debate UK manufacturing industries at this moment, during a deep recession. Somebody spoke earlier about political amnesia, but one thing is for certain: people are not going to forgot the hurt that has been felt during this recession.

My hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), the shadow Minister, spoke about the need to make absolutely certain that we do not resort to protectionism—a view with which I agree heartily. The last thing we want is a wall built around the European Union as some sort of protectionist device. Even if we were to build a wall around it, I suspect that we would put the contract out to tender and the Chinese would win it. We know that they are pretty good at building great walls, but it would be of no benefit whatever to us. We really do believe in free trade.

Before I move on to the impact of manufacturing and its importance to us, I wish to make a brief point about trade missions and exhibitions, which I feel are vital. I am a co-chairman of the all-party export group, and I believe that the attempt to save a bit of money by cutting trade missions and exhibitions throughout the world has been rather foolish in the long term.

Frankly, I thought that we made a grave mistake when we got rid of the royal yacht and did not replace it with anything. We could have had a new yacht, manufactured in Britain, as a showpiece throughout the world on which to exhibit goods made in the UK, supported by our trade ambassador, Prince Andrew. We did not, and at the same time we cut the number of missions and exhibitions we support throughout the world. Other countries are not doing likewise. Our so-called European friends are also our competitors, and they are getting out there in the world and promoting the goods that they manufacture. I do not blame them for that; I blame us for not matching them.

We have taken the same attitude towards our embassies, high commissions and consulates throughout the world. We are cutting and closing missions right, left and centre and bringing the flag down. We might think that that is associated with our colonial past, but it has nothing to do with that and everything to do with our trading future. The Chinese are also our competitors in manufacturing, and they are doubling or trebling missions. I hope that the Minister will look again at our attitude to trade missions and exhibitions throughout the world.

It was asked earlier how many manufacturing jobs have been created recently. The only figure that I have compares the number of people employed in manufacturing in 1997, when we left office, with today. In 1997 it was 4.53 million, and today it is 2.7 million. There has been a huge reduction. Manufacturing is still important to the UK, and it is not simply at the hands of this Government that it has reduced. It has happened over successive generations. However, we have to realise that there is a problem and that we cannot base the future of this country simply on the service sector.

It is absolutely right that we have to invest in research and development. We talk about innovation, which we are pretty good at, but we have to be pretty good at production as well. We have to build on the fact that we are good at innovation and research and development. Some of us managed to see the Lightning, the electric sports car that will hopefully be built in the midlands, in the House a few weeks ago. It has had a lot of research and development here, and it will be manufactured here as well. It will do 198 miles before it needs to be recharged. That is the future, but we must not turn our back on the car industry of the past in the midlands and other parts of the country, which is suffering greatly.

We support the car scrappage scheme, which works in France and Germany. I think that the Government made the right decision—we will have to monitor the scheme to ascertain whether it needs to be extended when the time comes, rather than turning our back on it.

BAE Systems operates in my constituency, where we have a superb plant. As I am sure the Minister knows, it employs 4,500 in the Samlesbury plant in my constituency, and 7,000 in the Warton plant, which is not far away. Thanks to the company’s putting so much investment into the two plants in the north-west, many other jobs have been created in small enterprises. Frankly, many people could not name those small companies, some of them are based in lock-ups, and would not even know what they were doing, but the existence of BAE means their existence. It would therefore be short-termist of any political party that takes over in 2010 or earlier and is trying to save public funds to cut defence expenditure and procurement. We need to ensure that our troops have the equipment that they need to protect the country and that there is sufficient investment in future in projects such as the Lightning, and in the joint strike fighter and other aircraft.

16:31:00

Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
I am glad that we have the opportunity to discuss such an important subject. I welcome, as well as the Minister, his new colleague from Wales, the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas). I know that he will be very helpful in providing additional assistance to manufacturing.

It is easy, when faced with the press, to focus only on the negative. I should like briefly to make a couple of positive points about my constituency. We are pleased to welcome the company Thales, which will provide approximately 80 jobs by the autumn in manufacturing an impressive vehicle, for which is there is much demand nationally. That is a great story. We also have the Proact scheme, which is working well with our local college, Coleg Sir Gâr, and helping 12 local companies to use time productively. If those companies cannot sell as many products, and therefore cannot do as much manufacturing, they can at least upskill the workers.

We should not only improve workers’ skills for an upturn in the economy, but invest in infrastructure. As the Minister explained, and as my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, West (Mr. Bailey) said, programmes for schools and hospitals help steel and other manufacturing industries, which are supplying all the good construction work, but we must also examine the infrastructure that we need for our industry. We are lucky in my constituency to have rail and the M4, which means that we have excellent manufacturing sites within a few minutes of road and rail.

We should look at manufacturing throughout the UK, especially in areas such as south-west Wales where every job is valued. We should not simply focus on one or two areas, where perhaps there is a greater concentration. We need the investment as much as anywhere else.

I want to consider the more complex issue of investment in our sewerage infrastructure. It is easy to understand how money for schools and hospitals is channelled—it goes via the Welsh Assembly and county councils; we know what we are doing. However, we have recently had a consultation about water pricing, which arose because of the need for water companies throughout the UK to examine investment in the infrastructure. That has affected manufacturing industry in my area because the lack of investment in sewerage means that we have a planning restriction on expanding our factories. The water companies have to raise the money from individual domestic users and there is great variation throughout the country. For example, in south-west England, a huge effort is made to keep the beaches clean and that has a knock-on effect on the domestic price. We need to consider how we right that infrastructure to ensure that no area is disadvantaged and in a position whereby it cannot build factories because the necessary investment has not been made in bringing sewerage up to the required standard. That burden should not fall only on the domestic consumer.

I should also like to bring to the Minister’s attention the matter of energy prices. We know that worldwide oil prices have been on the G8 agenda. The high-energy industries are represented in my area by Corus, and I should like to remind the Minister that the town of Llanelli is nicknamed “Tinopolis”, because Corus produces tinplate there. That product is very much in demand at the moment, and we are “lucky” that there is still a strong market for tins and cans for food and drink. However, we feel that we are perched perilously on a knife-edge, and that every cost increase makes an enormous difference to our ability to compete across the world. We need to provide companies with certainty and stability and to help them to plan for their energy costs. That is undoubtedly a great worry for them when they are trying to do their long-term planning. I stress to the Minister the absolute urgency involved in getting that right, and in getting guarantees not only on immediate pricing but in relation to our investment in providing for future energy supplies so that we can become less reliant on imports.

In that context, I reiterate that we cannot discount the importance of coal. Much as we might like to reach a point at which we did not have to use a single carbon product, that is not the reality, given that about 70 per cent. of our electricity currently comes from carbon products. We need to think carefully about whether we would not be better off making a considerable investment in coal rather than importing oil. Clean coal technology is a key part of that question. If we could get ahead in that game and produce the necessary materials and technology, we could sell them to the world rather than allowing others to overtake us. We have an ideal opportunity to lead the world in that area.

16:37:00

Sir Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield) (Con)
Manufacturing industry has always been my prime priority. Press articles this week entitled “Economy stuck in stagnation” and “Manufacturing output slump” make for depressing reading. The disappointing news is that the United Kingdom economy did not exit recession in the second quarter, as had previously been predicted; instead, it is now stagnating, according to the gross domestic product estimates produced by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. That is the reality. Last month, the institute estimated flat output growth in the second quarter and downward revisions to industrial production have stunted GDP forecasts.

I agree with the Minister, however, that we are one of the great world leaders in advanced manufacturing. We have some of the greatest companies in the world. They operate from the United Kingdom but they are global players with huge strengths in new technology and in innovation.

Mr. Evans
My hon. Friend has listed some of the problems; does he agree with me that if Sir Alan Sugar is the answer, we had better look again at the question?

Sir Nicholas Winterton
Inevitably, I share my hon. Friend’s view on Mr. Alan Sugar—or should I now call him Lord Sugar? Perhaps not yet.

Will the Minister ensure that the Government do not place additional burdens—such as an increase in national insurance, Government-generated energy price rises, fuel tax and regulation—on manufacturing industry? These are all important factors. When will he reverse the crippling £16 billion cost—that is an official estimate—of constantly changing regulations, and the £7 billion of new taxes introduced a year by his Government? When will he recognise that manufacturing industry is one of the only sources of sustainable, non-inflationary economic growth—a phrase that I have used over many years—and the key to getting out of this damaging recession? I put this to the Minister as a challenge: if the future of this country is to be built on modern manufacturing strength, when will the present Government start to encourage, and not de-incentivise, our industry and manufacturing?

Despite receiving unprecedented valuable bail-outs from the taxpayer—from the HM Treasury—the banks et. al. are all providing little or no meaningful assistance to hard-pressed manufacturing via the necessary increase in lending. I am sure that the Minister will agree. The plight of small to medium-sized businesses is very serious, since the commercial banks still refuse to lend to struggling businesses, which are, after all, the powerhouse of a modern economy.

I know that individual businesses in my Macclesfield constituency are finding it extremely difficult to secure the affordable credit that is so vital for their present survival. Sadly, I have to report to the Minister that the situation in the constituency, as witnessed by the Macclesfield chamber of commerce, continues to deteriorate. That situation, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) would confirm, is repeated throughout the north-west.

Autac, a company in my constituency that manufactures cables and connectors for heavy-goods vehicles and fork-lift trucks, is just about coping with the downturn, but is having to produce very small orders at short notice in order to survive. The management believe there has been major de-stocking and that customers are now keeping minimum stocks. The company has been particularly hit by the drop in demand for commercial vehicle parts and commercial vehicles, while vehicles as a whole have featured strongly in this debate.

The Macclesfield chamber of commerce is seeing the usual reduction in spend by businesses on training and marketing—very dangerous for the future—with several manufacturers also having had to reduce R and D spend, which is also critical for the future. Several are concerned about the change in rules on tax relief, for example, and are waiting while HMRC investigates claimed costs.

Locally, as in many parts of the world, there is concern over PAYE, business rates and employment legislation; and the pension protection levy is also an issue. The printing industry in my constituency has been particularly hard hit—initially by competition from China and increasing material costs, which has now been exacerbated by the fall in demand for marketing and printed material. A local firm, for instance—this is not untypical—has had dramatically to reduce its work force and, what is more, renegotiate terms and conditions with the remainder of its staff. Large vacant premises are becoming a major issue due to the lack of demand for such property, while current business rates, as the Minister knows, are a very serious problem indeed.

The final major point made to me by the local chamber of commerce was that it is suffering from increasing demand for its services with a lack of any Government support. I have to report to the Minister—I say it with some regret—that the Macclesfield chamber of commerce has failed to secure a contract with the Northwest Regional Development Agency, which has once again gone to a large commercial provider, despite the fact that the chamber of commerce is so closely in touch with industry in the area. I hope that the Minister will pay some attention to this matter and make some inquiries into it.

Let me tell the Minister that I feel passionately about manufacturing industry. Over all my years in the House, I have been an advocate of manufacturing industry because of the role it plays in the economy of any successful country. Will the Minister please take the burdens off industry and not add to them; will he understand what industry is about? The fact is that businesses need money at this time, so why cannot the Minister and the Government do more to encourage the banks to provide the liquid capital and the resources that industry so desperately needs to survive until the economy turns up? We rely on the Government to take very positive steps.

16:43:00

Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister will have heard my earlier intervention and my continuing plea, together with those of my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) and for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle), for wage compensation. I shall say no more about that now as I want to move on to more positive things, for which I thank the Government, but the Government need to recognise that the pleas will not go away.

In January this year, I approached a number of people in Gloucestershire to seek help with problems I faced at that time. Two major companies in my constituency, Delphi and Renishaw, were laying off some members of their work force and putting others on short-time working. Following an initial meeting with Business Link’s south-west skills service, we were able to fasten a partnership together, and I am extremely proud of the way in which we have worked.

At that stage, the skills service was considering whether Train to Gain could be used to deliver business improvement techniques, in accordance with national vocational qualifications level 2, to those who would be on short-time working. The aim was to ensure that we used rather than wasted the time that those good people sadly had on their hands, and that if and when the recession ended they would be ready to go out and compete with their European and other rivals.

We had a number of meetings with a huge number of partners. We met representatives of the South West regional development agency, and I thank Ann O’Driscoll for helping us with the paper that she prepared. We also met representatives of the Learning and Skills Council, Jobcentre Plus, Gloucestershire Training Group—the key vehicle for the training to take place—the Government Office for the South-West, Gloucestershire First and Business Link itself. As a result, we have been able to develop very effective training packages. I thank the Government for the resources that they are potentially investing, and the way they have followed up the work of those organisations.

We have offered support to both Delphi and Renishaw, and are about to launch the training packages for real. At first we envisaged quite a small number of positions, but the number rose to 1,100. It is likely to stabilise at about 450, but because the scheme is voluntary, the door is open for others to “upskill” themselves so that they can take advantage of what the Government have offered. We believe that this is a model that could be adopted in other areas. It is the south-west’s equivalent of Proact. As I said to my right hon. Friend the Minister, it is disappointing that Proact seems not to have taken off as effectively as it might have.

I am immensely proud of what has been done in my constituency. When people think of Stroud, they tend to think of rolling green hills, the creative industries and tourism, but in fact it is still a major manufacturing centre, which is why I have been so keen to ensure that we keep as many people as possible in employment.

Now that the scheme is up and running, it is important to ensure that it develops. I want to make a number of points about it. I do not expect my right hon. Friend to respond to them all now, but I hope that in due course I can meet him with some of the representatives. Alternatively, he might choose to write to me.

First, some employers fear that they will have to pay if people do not complete the course, which is to be supervised by Ofsted. It must be made clear that neither those who train nor the employers who allow them to train will be penalised. We must underwrite the cost. Secondly, the awarding bodies—the qualifications academies—must recognise that if they charged individually the cost could become onerous, and that they should drop their price for the collective numbers involved. Thirdly, given that Train to Gain is capped, I hope that my right hon. Friend will tell us how we can allay people’s fears and reassure them that the funds will be there for both adults and young apprentices if we choose to expand the scheme, as I hope we will.

As I have said, the scheme is innovative, and it shows the Government working at their best. I hope that the compensation and contribution arrangements will still operate, but if this scheme works, it will be something of which everyone should be proud.

16:50:00

Mr. David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)
I did not think I would agree with much of what the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman said, but I did agree with the comment that we should not pretend that everything in the garden is rosy. That would be a disgrace, and very unfair to the people who have lost their jobs, the companies that are struggling and the communities that are under pressure.

We are certainly impacted on by the worldwide recession, but we are also impacted on by decisions taken by Governments in the past. I want to talk first about decisions taken in the 1980s in the industry I worked in—coal mining—and the effect they had not just on the people working in it, but on those working across the whole of manufacturing industry.

In the 1980s, the main way we supported underground coal mine roadways was by putting in arch girders. Arch girders cost £108 a set, and they were used for every yard we moved. In 186 pits, we were moving thousands of yards a week. By the early 1990s, however, there were hardly any pits left, and the impact on the steel industry of the fall in demand for that one piece of equipment was massive. The manufacturing base was therefore impacted on as a result of direct Government intervention, but the impact was not felt only in the nationalised industries. Companies such as Huwood in my constituency, which made conveyor belts, went to the wall; companies such as Gullick Dobson and Dowty, which were making hydraulic supports, were no longer needed; and companies such as Anderson Boyes in Motherwell, which made cutting-edge shearers and coal cutters in this country, have now disappeared or are owned by German companies. That is a clear example of the failure of the market to deliver.

We are now seeing what is happening as a result of our Government having come into office in the 1990s. We have seen the introduction of the regional development agencies; in my part of the world, that has played a major role in supporting manufacturing industry. Sadly, however, the Leader of the Opposition says the regional paraphernalia, as he has described it, is one of the things that he has in his sights in the so-called attack on the quango state. If that happens, that will have a major impact on support for manufacturing industry in the north-east of England.

The regional development agency in the north-east has set up a manufacturing advisory service, which has played a major role in assisting more than 250 companies, helping them to save almost £4 million in the last two years alone. It has also helped to cut CO2 emissions by almost 26,000 tonnes in the same period. The Government, the regional development agency and manufacturers have between them set up the New and Renewable Energy Centre in Blyth, which supports the development of electric vehicles by Smith vehicles—part of Tanfield—near Consett. It also supports Nissan in developing electric cars; my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington, East (Mr. Kemp) mentioned that. A new technology centre in the Sedgefield constituency has helped in the development of plastic electronics; that is another example of us tapping into the skills of the people of the north-east, supported by this Government agency that the Conservative party would do away with. A centre for innovation has been developed, too, where we will take forward cutting-edge technology on Teesside to develop biotechnology, making energy from waste and mass.

The traditional skills are still there, too, to be deployed and developed for the use of this nation, as has happened in the north-east of England for centuries. When the Minister began his comments, he spoke about the long history of manufacturing in this country, and there was some chatter about that. In my part of the world, we received a charter from Queen Elizabeth I to develop the first industrial-scale coal mining expeditions anywhere in the world, and in the early 1700s we set up the first industrial-level ironworks, and we still want work today. We are ready, we are willing and we are very, very able to build the new high-speed trains that are at present up for discussion. If the Minister really wants to do us a favour today, he should go to see the Secretary of State for Transport and tell him to give the contract for the trains to the Tyne Valley yard, which just happens to be in my constituency.

There is more to come for the future. There are real opportunities, if we grasp them between us. This is not a job that the Government alone can take on; there is also a role for the private sector. There is so much potential in the coal reserves off the north-east of England. The new methods of accessing coal, including underground gasification of coal, could transform the way coal is used to power the energy of the world. There is more coal under the North sea off the north-east of England than the whole world burns in a year, and we are leaving it there to rot. Joint work between the Government and the private sector is needed in order to access it.

Another development has also come to a standstill: carbon capture and storage. There is much debate in the industry about what to do. What infrastructure should we build? Should we build the equivalent of a B road or a motorway? If we build it too small, will it be fit for purpose for the future? If we build it too large and things do not work out, will we have we wasted money? The truth is that while we are talking nothing is happening, but it needs to.

We are entering a world where turbines that are 140 metres high with blades 55 metres long—the total sweep is 110 metres, which is more than the length of Wembley’s football pitch—are being built off Aberdeen. That is the sort of technology that we are getting into and that is the sort of thing that we want to see off the north-east coast of our country. We can achieve that, but if we are to deliver it, the private sector and the Government will need to step up to the plate. One of the biggest things we are going to be worrying about is the shortage of copper to provide the energy and the cabling from the sea to the shore. We have to get our act together on that. Again, it is down to us to work with the private sector to ensure that that happens. The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) spoke about being a free marketeer, but I am sorry to say that the free market has failed this country and without total Government intervention it will do so again.

16:55:00

Mr. McFadden
This short debate has shown the passion that exists in this House for manufacturing. Of course this has been a changing story for our nation and we no longer have as many large manufacturing plants with thousands of employees as we did some decades ago. However, in that story of change we must not be too quick to ascribe a story of failure and decline.

One of the themes to emerge from this debate is the impact of the recession on manufacturing. My hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson) rightly said that it would be remiss of us not to acknowledge that, given the people who have lost their jobs and the companies that have gone to the wall. We do acknowledge that, but I wish to say something about the scale of the impact and to repeat the figures that I used in my opening comments. In the year to April, manufacturing output in the UK declined by 13 per cent., which compares with 14.6 per cent. in the United States, 19.9 per cent. in France, 24.3 per cent. in Germany and more than 30 per cent. in Japan. There has been an effect and companies have gone to the wall, but the United Kingdom has not been hit disproportionately hard compared with other countries—some countries have done worse.

A second theme was shown in the agreement across the House on the importance of the transition to a low-carbon economy for our manufacturing future. The hon. Members for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) and for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), and my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) commented on that. It is right that carbon capture should be considered as part of that. This country has to make the most of the transition to a low-carbon economy. Hon. Members have also stressed that we need to equip our workers with the skills to take part in the low-carbon economy, and it is important to create opportunities, as well as to know that the demand exists. To that end, we have the Train to Gain programme, we have 12,000 new apprenticeships this year and we have 300,000 more higher education students than we had when we came into office. Ensuring that our country has the skills to take part is crucial, and not only for economic reasons. If we do not ensure that, there will be a great sense of exclusion from the economy of the future, and we must guard against that.

The third theme of the debate was demand, which was raised specifically by my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, West (Mr. Bailey). He rightly said that the Government made a choice as the recession hit to do what they could to stimulate demand, be that through construction, other capital projects, the car scrappage scheme or action in other areas. We have done what we could to stimulate demand. I accept that we must continue to work on the schemes that we have announced to ensure that they are effective. We have been active on some of the specific problems that have been mentioned, for example in respect of discussions between Corus and EDF Energy about energy prices.

The final theme of this debate that I wish to mention is local pride. That can be seen in the companies mentioned by hon. Members from across the House. Manufacturing gives shape and identity to our constituencies, and what goes for our constituencies also goes for our country. That is why manufacturing is such a crucial part of our economic future.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of UK manufacturing.

 Nuclear Weapons Proliferation

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Mary Creagh.)

17:00:00

Dr. Gavin Strang (Edinburgh, East) (Lab)
I am very pleased to have the opportunity to bring the important and urgent matter of nuclear weapons proliferation before the House. The nuclear non-proliferation treaty, or NPT, is the cornerstone of the international non-proliferation regime. The treaty came into force in 1970 and is recognised as having been a real success. It was negotiated at a time when there was a very real danger that the number of states with nuclear weapons could reach 20 or more within a decade or so. The fact that that did not happen is recognised as being in large part due to the treaty. The NPT is also given credit for the decision of a number of states that had set out on nuclear weapons programmes, or that had inherited nuclear weapons from their Soviet predecessors, to abandon that path.

The NPT is essentially a deal between those of us with nuclear weapons and those without. The non-nuclear weapons states agree not to pursue nuclear weapons. In return, they have access to civil nuclear energy and a promise of disarmament from the five recognised nuclear weapons states—China, the US, Russia, the UK and France. While the so called “grand bargain” at the heart of the NPT is easily described, supporting and enforcing it is a constantly changing task as technology advances and politics shift. The fundamental issue is whether the NPT is the way forward for the next 20 years.

The developments in nuclear proliferation have been something of a roller coaster ride in the past two decades. Following the end of the cold war, steps were taken to strengthen the non-proliferation regime, and the NPT review conferences of 1995 and 2000 gave us real grounds for optimism.

Review conferences are held every five years as part of the ongoing operation to ensure that the mechanisms in place to protect the world from nuclear proliferation are up to the job. The conferences of 1995 and 2000 were significant successes, with the conference in 2000 adopting a 13-step programme of action for the total elimination of the nuclear arsenals of the nuclear weapons states.

From 2000 onwards, however, we have been going backwards. The last review conference, in 2005, ended in failure. Nothing was achieved. Later in 2005, further efforts to strengthen the regime were made at the UN millennium summit, based on Kofi Annan’s high-level panel report, “In Larger Freedom”. Again, these efforts got nowhere. In the meantime, the United States and India reached a deal that significantly undermined the NPT central bargain. India is a non-NPT country, yet the US agreed to supply India with civil nuclear fuel and technology.

I am sure that other parties were content to see the lack of progress and content to let the US take the blame, but it is clear that the previous US Administration were not working to strengthen the global non-proliferation regime, to say the least. The former UK ambassador to the UN, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, has said:

“From the year 2000 onwards...the George W Bush administration applied itself quite deliberately to the de-construction of rules-based systems in the fields of arms control and disarmament.”

All the while, resentment continued to grow towards the nuclear weapons states that their disarmament obligation was not being met.

The link between non-proliferation work and disarmament is strong, and is brought out in the recent report of the Foreign Affairs Committee. It is far more difficult to deal effectively with a less co-operative state, or to build support for measures to strengthen anti-proliferation work, if dissenting parties can point to the failure of the nuclear weapons states to make progress towards disarmament. At this point, I will restate my own view that the UK’s decision to replace Trident is a setback.

Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
My right hon. Friend might be coming on to this point, but the decision to go through the initial gate—possibly in September when the House is not sitting—is more than a little bizarre. Does he agree that the Government ought to be brought kicking and screaming back to this place—certainly as the Americans and Russians have moved the debate on—so that we can properly debate whether that is the right way forward?

Dr. Strang
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I agree. There is real concern—certainly among Labour Members—about the September decision. I do not quite see why it has to be made in September and I would like to think that there could be some movement on this point. We know that the Trident replacement bid is a big issue that will not go away—far from it, as it seems to be getting more and more prominent for a range of reasons. My view, like that of my hon. Friend, I think, is that Trident should have been cancelled many years ago. However, I agree with his point.

Having endured those bleak years, are we now on the way up? There are, in my view, real grounds for optimism. The first is the new Administration in the United States. My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Bill Rammell), then Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, told the Foreign Affairs Committee:

“The prospects for disarmament under President Obama are much greater and stronger than they were under President Bush.”

That, I think, is incontrovertible.

The new President has declared that he wants to work towards a world without nuclear weapons, to pursue the US ratification of the vital comprehensive test ban treaty and to support a verified fissile material cut-off treaty. As the House will be aware, the US and Russia made progress earlier this week on a joint understanding for a new strategic arms reduction treaty. The START follow-on treaty would reduce the number of deployed strategic warheads and delivery vehicles. Surely that encouraging development points up the difference in President Obama’s approach from that of his predecessor. I would go so far as to say that President Obama provides us with the best hope we have had for years in the area of non-proliferation.

Our own Government have shown that they are seized of the importance of progress at next year’s NPT review conference. In March, the Prime Minister announced that the UK is to work with other countries to set out a “Road to 2010” plan. I understand that publication is likely to come before the House rises, and I hope that is right.

There are signs of movement at an international level, too. In May the preparatory committee agreed by consensus an agenda for the 2010 NPT review conference. That might not sound like much, but it is a lot better than what has been achieved in the past. Indeed, it was the first time that that has been achieved in the preparatory committee for 15 years. Later in May, the UN conference on disarmament, which had been deadlocked for 12 years, agreed a programme of work, including the negotiation of a fissile material cut-off treaty.

It seems there is indeed scope for progress, and it is vital that we seize this opportunity, because the challenges that we face are urgent. Iran and North Korea are NPT signatories and they have breached their NPT obligations—North Korea has tested nuclear devices. India, Israel and Pakistan have all acquired nuclear weapons since the treaty came into force, with major implications for security in their regions. All three refuse to join the NPT. The NPT nuclear weapons states still hold massive nuclear arsenals, and would continue to do so even after the planned START follow-on treaty is fully implemented.

The security of nuclear material is a great concern, especially as the use of civil nuclear power worldwide is expected to expand. The A.Q. Khan proliferation network shows the ongoing threat of the illicit transfer of technology and materials, and the threat of terrorist efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and materials is surely a continual concern.

So how do we proceed? Looking to the 2010 review conference and beyond, a consensus has been emerging over some of the steps that need to be taken. First, we must see the early entry into force of the comprehensive test ban treaty. It can come into force only when all five nuclear weapons states and all states with civil nuclear reactors have signed. Nine such states, including the United States and China, have still to make this commitment. As I have mentioned, President Obama has pledged to pursue this, and the fact that the Senate is Democrat-led gives further ground for hope.

Secondly, to strengthen measures that prevent the illegal diversion of material to nuclear weapons programmes, we must have universal adoption of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s additional protocol, which allows inspectors more intrusive access. The Government recognise that progress here is a priority.

Thirdly, a fissile material cut-off treaty would halt the further production of plutonium and weapons-grade uranium. The Government have identified that as an essential step towards a world without nuclear weapons and, as I have mentioned, President Obama has reversed the position of the previous Administration and reinstated US support for the treaty.

Fourthly, moves to guarantee supplies of fuel for peaceful nuclear energy uses, enabling countries to forgo the development of fuel-cycle facilities, would limit the risk of diversion and of terrorist intervention. If progress is to be made here, participating states must have absolute confidence that supplies would be guaranteed.

Fifthly, we need proper enforcement measures for states that breach or withdraw from the NPT system—a point made by President Obama in his speech earlier this year in Prague. I am pleased to say that this is also a priority of the UK Government.

Sixthly, we nuclear weapons states must take steps to de-alert our existing arsenals, reduce our dependence on those arsenals in our defence policies, and improve our levels of transparency. As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has pointed out, the fact that we do not even have an authoritative estimate of the total number of nuclear weapons attests to the need for greater transparency.

Finally, we nuclear weapons states have an obligation to disarm. As I have said, disarmament is one of the three pillars of the NPT, and the world is watching closely. The progress towards a successor to START made by the US and Russia this week is an encouraging step in the right direction. Non-nuclear weapons states will need to see that we nuclear weapons states have an ongoing commitment to further, deeper cuts in our arsenals.

This week, Robert McNamara, US Defence Secretary during the Cuban missile crisis, died. Unlike most hon. Members, I can remember the Cuban missile crisis. I was a student and can remember the genuine fear that we all—students and university lecturers—felt at the time. Forty years after that crisis, McNamara famously revealed how close the world came to nuclear war. He said:

“It was luck that prevented nuclear war...Rational individuals came that close to total destruction of their societies. And that danger exists today.”

The case for a world without nuclear weapons was made by Robert McNamara in one sentence, and I will close with it today. He said:

“The major lesson of the Cuban missile crisis is this: the indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will destroy nations.”

Surely the greatest security challenge facing us today is to do all that we can to ensure that that does not happen—not in our lifetimes, not in our children’s lifetimes, not in our children’s children’s lifetimes: not as long as mankind inhabits this planet.

17:13:00

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Chris Bryant)
I wholeheartedly congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Dr. Strang) on securing this debate. As he rightly pointed out, this issue is one of the most important issues facing our generation, and generations yet to come. What the present generation faces is different from what a slightly older generation faced, but this is a matter of timely concern.

First and foremost, the debate is timely because in Moscow this week President Obama and President Medvedev signed a successor to the strategic arms reduction treaty. Over seven years, it will lead to a fairly dramatic reduction in the number of warheads held by the two countries, limiting each to an arsenal of between 1,500 and 1,675 weapons. That is something we heartily welcome, and which we might not have thought possible two or three years ago.

The debate is also timely because the UK has an extremely strong record in this area. Since the cold war we have reduced our nuclear firepower by 75 per cent. Since 1997, we have reduced the number of warheads by 50 per cent., and I think all Labour Members, and for that matter all members of the Labour party, take particular pride in that. The UK’s firepower now represents less than 1 per cent. of the global total. Worldwide figures for nuclear weaponry are now the lowest since the 1950s. Indeed, as my right hon. Friend said, the next five-yearly review conference of the non-proliferation treaty will be in 2010—next year—so it is timely for us to be looking at such issues.

As my right hon. Friend pointed out, there are some strong reasons for a degree of optimism. Not only did we see the agreement between the United States of America and Russia this week, but we also have President Obama’s clear and unambiguous pledge to seek ratification of the comprehensive test ban treaty. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister pointed out earlier this year, there is probably greater optimism about wider ratification of the treaty than there has been for some considerable time.

Other countries have played a notable role. I single out two. Since Brazil joined the non-proliferation treaty in the 1990s, it has provided energetic leadership around the world, in particular in Latin America. The UK has had a strong, high-level bilateral commitment with Brazil since 2007. Similarly, when South Africa decided to change its position on nuclear weapons, it too took up energetic leadership on such issues around the world, and we want to work closely with South Africa on them. We also have strong bilateral relations with Russia in that regard and are keen to continue that work.

My right hon. Friend was right to point out that early on, before the non-proliferation treaty came into force in 1970, many academics in the UK and around the world believed that by the early 1970s the number of countries with nuclear weapons would rise to between 25 and 30. However, there are now 189 members of the treaty and only three countries stand outside it, so there are reasons for optimism, but as has been pointed out, there are significant reasons for concern too.

Everybody in this country and the rest of the world who has seen the news about North Korea this year is concerned about the situation there. With a second nuclear explosion in May, North Korea has shown open defiance of its obligations. I am glad that the United Nations moved swiftly, and the Security Council provided an unambiguous response. Similarly, Iran continues to enrich uranium in open defiance of numerous Security Council resolutions. Let me make it absolutely plain that we as a country and a Government want further cuts in stockpiles in all countries that retain nuclear weapons.

The world community is presented with a significant new problem, or challenge, by the expansion of nuclear energy. We need to make sure that there is security in the production of fissile material, and that countries moving towards nuclear energy options—often in response to rightful climate change concerns—are doing so for peaceful ends.

There are key issues that we need to address. First, we want a strengthening of the mechanisms and institutions that surrounded the issue of non-proliferation. We want to make sure that there is early and absolutely certain detection of clandestine activity in countries around the world. If we had been able to detect that more certainly in the case of Iran, we might have been able to provide a far clearer and far earlier response from the international community, but we also point out that Iran has no opportunity to move beyond its obligations, and the international community stands firm in response to what Iran has been doing.

We need to strengthen enforcement, because where there is early cognisance of clandestine activity that could be used to move towards producing nuclear weaponry, there should be robust sanctions, as there have been in the cases of North Korea and Iran. There should be tough consequences for those who seek to withdraw from the non-proliferation treaty, and we want to clarify article X of that treaty. We are interested in the proposals that have come from the European Union, and we want to make sure that the clarification goes ahead; we will work with our allies to make sure that it does. It is clearly important that we secure fissile material. One of the greatest dangers to security around the world is the possibility of rogue states or rogue organisations gaining access to fissile material. For that reason, we have doubled our contribution to the funding of the International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear security fund.

The Government believe that the prospects for the comprehensive test ban treaty—an issue raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East—and, for that matter, a fissile material cut-off treaty, are brighter than they have been for a good many years. We will continue to make a powerful case for all states to sign up to, and ratify, the comprehensive test ban treaty. We also want talks on a treaty to cap the production of fissile material for explosive military purposes to be under way by early next year. Nationally, we will continue our groundbreaking work with Norway and the non-governmental organisation VERTIC—the Verification Research, Training and Information Centre—on the science of verifying warhead reduction. We will host a conference for the nuclear weapon states on confidence-building measures, including the verification of disarmament, later this year, in September.

My right hon. Friend referred to Trident, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), who is not now in the Chamber. Let me make it clear that the decision made was to begin the concept and design work required to make possible a replacement for our current ballistic missile submarine fleet, and to maintain the option of using the Trident D5 missile beyond its current life expectancy. That does not mean that we have taken an irreversible decision that commits us irrevocably to possessing nuclear weapons for the next 40 to 50 years. Nor does it mean that we have decided to “replace Trident”, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East put it. It is true that, as I have said, we have decided to begin concept and design work to make possible a replacement for the platform, but that is not a replacement for Trident itself. That is not a decision to which we are committed for ever and a day.

Of course, we would be happy, if it seemed appropriate, to place our small proportion of the worldwide nuclear arsenal on the table as part of a multinational process of disarmament. Indeed, we very much hope that there will be further moves towards multinational disarmament, and we would very much want to be part of those negotiations. I point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud that bearing in mind that our nuclear arsenal amounts to a mere 1 per cent. of the global total, we do not believe that a unilateral decision to make it impossible for us to maintain Trident beyond its current life expectancy would make the dramatic difference that some suggest it would.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East for the opportunity to clarify these matters. I end by quoting from a speech made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister earlier this year, when he said:

“Now in 2005 the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference failed. We cannot afford to fail next year”—

when the next review conference comes around. He continued:

“So as we approach the 2010 Review Conference I want us to renew and refresh for our times the grand global bargain, the covenant of hope between nations at the heart of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It is a bargain under which we reaffirm the rights and responsibilities for those countries which forgo nuclear weapons. But it is also a bargain under which there are tough responsibilities to be discharged by nuclear weapon states, for as successor states we cannot expect to successfully exercise moral and political leadership in preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons if we ourselves do not demonstrate leadership on the question of disarmament of our weapons.”

That was what the Prime Minister said earlier this year. We will be publishing soon a document entitled “The Road to 2010”, in which we will lay out a credible road map to further disarmament because we, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East and my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud, want to live in a world that is free of the fear of nuclear weaponry.

Question put and agreed to.

17:26:00

House adjourned.