I am grateful for this opportunity to debate the future of grant-maintained schools and to enliven this calm and quiet week. I am also grateful to my hon. Friends who have torn themselves away from speculation and their telephones to join me this morning.

With more than 1,000 grant-maintained schools across the country, some 500,000 pupils attending them, and one in five secondary schools gaining GM status, the GM sector is undoubtedly a principal player in education.

The good news is that parents have been voting with their feet and sending their children to grant-maintained schools. The bad news is that, too often, a dirty fight has ensued when a school has chosen to go grant-maintained. I do not object to a battle in which people put forward the arguments, but I object to battles in which Labour party members in particular employ a series of scare tactics and untrue statements.

There have been a great many examples of such battles—there were two in my constituency which were not particularly horrendous, but which I found very disquieting, as did the parents involved. The first example arose when a Catholic school decided to ballot for grant-maintained status, and a Labour politician went round telling the parents that GM status was against their religion. That is the sort of statement that one should not make to a Catholic.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the honour that has been bestowed upon her. Did she notice that the Annunciator said that she was Dame J. Knight?

Since I am not wearing my glasses this morning, could my hon. Friend tell me whether it is now correct?

indicated assent.

Thank you very much.

The second example in my constituency occurred when two schools in Long Eaton decided to ballot for grant-maintained status. There was a ferocious anti-grant-maintained campaign run by a lady who described herself as "just a concerned parent". She called her campaign SOLES: Save Our Long Eaton Schools— from what, I have no idea. Misinformation abounded; those who were in favour felt themselves unable to put their heads above the parapet, and the ballots were lost.

Only a few months later, that so-called concerned parent turned up as a Labour party activist, then a Labour councillor and then on the shortlist for selection as the Labour party candidate in Erewash for the next general election. What was wrong with her declaring her credentials in the first place? If she had wanted a clean fight, she could have had it. She fought a dirty campaign to sway parents. It was misleading, misinformed and wrong.

Those two examples, although minor, have been mirrored across the country. The real purpose of a school becoming self-governing is to enhance its ability to serve the people who really matter: the pupils. A school may serve its pupils by having control over all its budget, and using it in the interests of the children and the school.

As the head of Shennington primary school in Oxfordshire—a recent opt-out—said:

"If a school does decide to become GM the reason should not be money. A school should do it for the freedom because it wants complete control".

That is quite right. Interestingly, when the head of Baverstock school—an early opt-out—was recently interviewed, he said:

"We quickly discovered by handling our own budget, which came direct from Whitehall, we could buy materials and fuel at up to half the price that the council could supply them. Today we have … brand-new classrooms … And instead of having to cut teachers we actually have more staff than the local authority would have allowed."

By having entire control of their budgets, GM schools have achieved such good results, yet too many Opposition Members have overtly and covertly campaigned against GM status.

Does the hon. Lady agree that some of the schools which opted out early on have been able to provide some extra staff and some extra facilities because of double funding, which was opposed by the Public Accounts Committee two years ago? Is it not true that £1 extra for a grant-maintained school is £1 less for a local education authority school?

The hon. Gentleman and his friends have tramped that argument all over the place for many years. If it is true, why does he not go home and tell all the schools in his constituency to opt out? If he alleges that GM schools get more money, in their best interests he should tell all schools to opt out and obtain that extra money. I also urge the hon. Gentleman to look at a more general survey of teachers, which was conducted in the past few months.

Three quarters of teachers in GM schools said that their class sizes had not increased, whereas the majority of teachers in LEA schools said that they had. Of those in grant-maintained schools, 90 per cent. said that in-service training was good and special needs provision had improved. An overwhelming majority did not want grant-maintained schools to be abolished. That is a very important survey, revealing interesting results.

There is great interest in GM status: it is a big issue, and grant-maintained schools deserve a secure future. I suggest three ways in which to help secure their future, which I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Schools will take on board.

First, the grant-maintained schools need to know that there is no possibility of local education authority control returning. They need financial security for the future, and they need to plan for more than one year ahead. They need to have an assurance that their budget will no longer be fixed by the LEA's decision about its schools budget. The common funding formula addresses that point to a certain extent, but there are areas that do not have a common funding formula, as the trigger threshold has not been reached.

I fully support what my hon. Friend has just said. Does she agree that one of the strange ironies of grant-maintained schools is that, although they have become grant-maintained to be free of local education authority control, their funding is, unfortunately, still in some ways controlled by local education authorities, whose interests are not in the grant-maintained sector?

I agree entirely. What is happening with too many schools is that the global purse strings are still held by the LEA—the organisation from which the school has opted out. That is an anomaly which I should like to see addressed.

The second area that needs further consideration is more general. There are considerable differences in the amounts spent per pupil in different areas. We all accept that differences arise, but in some instances, the differences are worryingly large. One reason, of which I and my hon. Friends who represent Derbyshire constituencies are aware, is the way in which the LEA decides to allocate its money.

From the latest figures I have obtained from the House of Commons Library, it is clear not only that Derbyshire allocates less than the average of its education budget to the general schools budget, but that the authority is one of the worst delegators in the country in terms of money diminishing as it filters down through the potential schools budget to the aggregate schools budget. Yet it is the aggregate schools budget that equates with the money that gets into the classroom.

Let us take three similar counties in terms of standard spending assessments: Derbyshire, Suffolk and North Yorkshire. One finds that, in terms of the aggregate school budget per pupil, Derbyshire gives £200 less than the other two counties. That means that the authority is not getting money where it is needed—in the classroom.

An aspect over which authorities have no control is the area cost adjustment. As a result of the ACA, about £100 more per primary school pupil and about £200 more per secondary school pupil is aggregated into the SSAs of the 12 south-eastern counties. Although extra costs are recognised, those large sums, distributed on an all-or-nothing basis, are difficult to justify.

There is merit in ensuring that future area cost adjustments do not have those large discrepancies. I also believe that there is merit in looking at a common funding formula for all schools in the country. Those points are easy to make, but the difficulty is getting from A to B. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister, however, to look at my suggestions.

On the area cost adjustment, does the hon. Lady realise that the discrepancy is as great or even greater for maintained schools in local authorities? There is a difference of several hundred pounds between the per head expenditure in primary and secondary schools of Newham and Tower Hamlets, both very needy east London boroughs, because of the arbitrariness of the current ACA formula. Does the hon. Lady realise that funding for nursery schools, of which the SSA does not take proper account, automatically reduces the per capita amount for locally managed schools? There are lots of things wrong with the present formula.

To a certain extent, I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Clearly, I cannot talk about the situation in London, because Erewash is not a London constituency. However, I point out to the hon. Gentleman that the SSAs are made up of a series of hugely complicated items. That is why I would like there to be a common funding formula for all schools which would be easy to understand. I would like to ensure that the schools get more money than they do at present, and that far less money is held back as, sadly, is the case with too many LEAs.

The third way in which to secure the future of grant-maintained schools is better use of the private finance initiative. "PFI" is not a particularly sexy-sounding trio of letters, but it is an initiative that can be useful to grant-maintained schools. It means that they do not have to wait for public money to carry out the repairs or to build the extensions they need; they can do such work much earlier. We all recognise that many school buildings that were thrown up in the 1960s are in a sorry state of repair.

I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to look again at the PFI. At present, the rules are complicated and the procedures are not very clear to anyone. They have only just been circulated to governing bodies.

Ockbrook Redhill, a school in my constituency, spent considerable time and effort trying to determine whether its proposals were acceptable in principle under the PFI scheme, and on getting the nooks and crannies right. For the PFI to be a useable option, the rules need to be simple, understandable, easy to get going and quick; those are the essential ingredients for a scheme that will be an extremely important route for grant-maintained schools. I should like my hon. Friend the Minister to look at those three points, which would improve and secure the future of grant-maintained schools.

The possibility of an insecure future lies elsewhere. In December, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), the shadow Secretary of State for Education, wrote a secret letter to Labour Members. It began, "Dear Colleague", and was headed, "Urgent—GM Schools". It was the sort of message that one gets in Herge's "Adventures of Tintin", which my children watch avidly on television. The letter continued:

"We are opposed to schools opting out and remain committed to the white paper pledge to bring such schools back … I thought it would be helpful for you to know that there has been no change of policy in relation to events in the last few days."

After 200 days had passed, lo and behold, there were considerable changes to the policy. What else did the hon. Member for Brightside say in December? He said:

"There is no plan to have a paper on GM schools, nor is there any intention that GM status should continue."

Let us see what happened.

A Labour party policy document turned up, warmly entitled "Diversity and Excellence—a New Partnership for Schools". It talks about grant-maintained schools on just about every page. I understand the Labour party's problem, because, when the Leader of the Opposition chose to send his son to a grant-maintained school, as did one or two of his colleagues, he not only pulled the rug out from underneath the shadow Secretary of State for Education and 90 per cent. of the parliamentary party, but took the floor away.

The party was left with two questions which it had to answer. The first was how to reconcile the irreconcilable in a new policy document, and the second was how to pass off the new policy as both changed and unchanged. That is probably why the Labour party has had more changes of mind on its education policy than there are steps in the hokey-cokey; I doubt whether it has finished that dance yet.

So we have this document, "Diversity and Excellence—A New Partnership for Schools", which has been referred to as

"the sort of soft-sell slogan that possesses all the meaningless charm of a detergent commercial."

I wish that I had thought of that myself. In fact, the person who wrote those words was the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), the former deputy leader of the Labour party.

In December, this document was not going to happen. Although it was not going to mention grant-maintained schools, it in fact uses the words "grant-maintained" on just about every page.

When the document is not talking about grant-maintained schools, it is talking about fairness—fair this, fair that, fair funding, fairness to parents and fair admissions. Presumably all the teachers will be instructed to mark "fair" against every entry in pupils' reports. When the word "fair" is used as extensively as it is in that document, there is more than a fair chance that it is covering up more than its fair share of rubbish. It is worth examining Labour policy a bit more closely, and for real.

Independent grant-maintained schools are not compelled to have politicians on their governing bodies, but the Labour party would force them to include two councillors. We can all imagine which two would be chosen. Secondly, grant-maintained schools receive resources directly from the Funding Agency for Schools, which is also independent. The Labour party would abolish that. In view of the amount of money now being held back from schools by local education authorities, how much would the schools get if the money for grant-maintained schools were directed no longer through the independent funding agency but through LEAs? A lot less than they do now.

The document then says:

"We will set a new national target of 90 per cent. of the school's budget to be delegated from LEAs to the schools".

If that is what the Labour party believes, why does it not ring up all its Labour-controlled local education authorities now, and tell them to delegate 90 per cent. of the education money to schools tomorrow? The Labour party has not done that, and its real policy has been to hold back as much money as possible in LEAs, not to give it out to schools.

Even if 90 per cent. of the money went to schools, that would mean that a secondary school with a budget of £1.5 million would have £150,000 taken away, and a primary school with a budget of £200,000 would have £20,000 taken away. Teachers would have to be taken out of those schools. That is what the Labour policy really means when one translates it out of the fudge in which it is written.

The Labour party would also interfere in the way in which schools are run. Independent grant-maintained schools are now allowed to apply to the Secretary of State for permission if they wish to expand, but Labour would make them apply to their LEA. That would mean that a popular school would not be allowed to expand. We should return to the same fudge that happened when popular schools were penalised in an attempt to force parents to send their children to schools to which they did not want to send them.

The language in the document is different from what we have seen before; it is a fudged language that has shimmied around one or two edges to please the Islington chatterati. None the less, the document is as great a threat to grant-maintained schools as any previous Labour proposal.

The debate is about grant-maintained schools, but I emphasise the fact that, whether schools are grant-maintained, voluntary, run by the local education authority or independent, they are equally important, equally valued and equally distinctive in their own way. I always hope one day to see the return of direct grant schools, in which I was educated as a child, which were abolished when the Labour party was in control. All types of schools are important, and in the programme of education reform, the watchword must be stability.

We must continually ask what schools, teachers and parents want. Parents want high standards. They want to get the best out of their children. They want good English, good grammar and a decent grounding in maths, and they want their children to know their historical and geographical place in the world. That is easy to say but hard to produce, but we are currently achieving it.

survey of 500 grant-maintained schools whose results were published recently in The Times Educational Supplement showed that the huge majority of schools were in no doubt about the advantages of going grant maintained. Ninety-two per cent. had appointed more staff, a similar percentage had increased spending on books and equipment, and they were achieving consistently good exam results and attendance rates. That is what parents are looking for.

The hon. Lady has just listed all the advantages of grant-maintained schools. Can she tell the House whether there is any hard evidence that, as a result of those advantages, standards have been levered up?

In 1993, 41 per cent. of 15-year-olds in grant-maintained comprehensive schools achieved five or more GCSEs at grades A to C compared with 36 per cent. in LEA-controlled schools. So schools in the grant-maintained sector are producing better grades for pupils than were achieved under LEAs. [Interruption.] Whether Opposition Members like it or not, that is the case.

The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) asked whether the schools had improved, given the extra funding that they gain from their grant-maintained status. It is no good giving us raw figures for examination passes. The hon. Member for Bath is right; there is no evidence that standards have improved. That is the key question, given the amount of resources that have been put into those schools.

I appreciate that nothing will convince the hon. Lady and her hon. Friends, because of their constant hostility to grant-maintained schools. In fact, I have not heard her express any genuine interest in standards.

Parents want their children to be taught well, and to get good grades in their examinations and a good start in the world. In practice, they are voting with their feet and sending their children to grant-maintained schools because they know that that is what they will get. There are now 1.3 million parents with children in grant-maintained schools. Those schools are popular with parents, and they are here to stay. We need to recognise that and to secure their future—and we need to abolish proposals such as those of the Labour party.

The speech by the hon. Member for Erewash (Mrs. Knight) was interesting, but packed with inaccuracies and false statements. The fundamental flaw in Conservative policy in recent years has been its concentration on the education of the few rather than of the many. Over many years in this country, we have been successful in educating very well indeed the brightest and the best, but we have failed to educate those in the next group down. We have failed to educate the mass of the people to high standards.

Grant-maintained schools were created to destroy local education authorities. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the debate has been peppered with denigration of the work of LEAs and of locally elected councils in general. The former Secretary of State for Education, the right hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten), lost no opportunity to attack local education authorities throughout the country.

As the Conservatives have lost more and more seats on local councils, until they have only a tiny rump of councillors left, their desperation has increased to grasp back control of schools. Essentially, grant-maintained status has nationalised schools and put them under state control.

The hon. Member for Erewash and I served on the Standing Committee on the Education Act 1993—for nearly 180 hours, I believe. At every stage, nearly every clause gave the Secretary of State for Education more and more direct powers over grant-maintained schools, so they are no longer locally accountable.

Grant-maintained schools join other failed enterprises such as city technology colleges, which were supposed to spread across the country raising standards. We have seen what has happened to many of them. One, in Birmingham, had lower standards in technology, mathematics and science than the local comprehensive school.

So much for jacking up standards. We heard in a debate the other day that just 32,000 pupils were involved in the assisted places scheme, but they received twice as much funding as children in LEA schools.

I intervene briefly, as I suspect that discussion of city technology colleges at great length would be rightly ruled out of order by you, Madam Speaker. The hon. Gentleman makes his point in the shadow of last week's announcement that we have reached 100 schools which are either CTCs or technology colleges, the latter being built substantially upon the success of CTCs.

The Minister has not answered the question. I made the point that the 15 CTCs have had highly preferable funding, yet have not proved that that funding has led to improved standards in the schools. Perhaps the Minister can give evidence later that standards have increased as a result of the extra funding that CTCs have received.

I have no argument with the teachers, parents or pupils in grant-maintained schools, but the system is failing. There are three main areas where I object to grant-maintained schools. First, the early opt-outs received considerable extra funding. The hon. Member for Erewash glossed over the point I put to her in an intervention, and did not answer it. If she looks at the 9 June edition of The Times Educational Supplement, she will see the headline "MPs defied over £40m bonus for GM schools".

If the hon. Lady reads the Public Accounts Committee report published on 19 January 1994, she will see that the Committee recommended that the Department for Education progressively withdrew from existing grant-maintained schools the excess funding of central services, with a view to that funding being removed completely within two years. An all-party report made that recommendation, which is being totally ignored by the Government. They say that they may rule out the double funding by 1999.

indicated dissent.

The Minister shakes his head, as if to say that the Government will not rule out the double funding at all.

A small primary school in Tower Hamlets has found that it receives £200,000 extra funding because it is grant-maintained. My point is that every pound extra received by a grant-maintained school is a pound that is not received by a LEA school. The hon. Lady made the point that grant-maintained schools have kept their class sizes as they were, while class sizes had increased in LEA schools. I am glad that she accepts that class sizes have increased in LEA schools, but that must be because funding is being withdrawn from the LEA schools and put into grant-maintained schools.

On capital, the hon. Lady may want to refer to evidence received by the Department for Education on the capital funding of grant-maintained schools. The figures clearly show that, two years ago, grant-maintained schools were receiving three times as much per pupil in capital spending as LEA schools. That extra funding is just a cheap political bribe. Schools and parents do not want to opt out. The hon. Lady failed to tell the House how few schools had opted out last year, or that the majority of ballots were now resulting in no votes. Some ballots in my county are producing a very substantial no vote.

My second objection to grant-maintained status was touched on by the hon. Lady, who said that grant-maintained schools had far more control over their own affairs. I have no problem with schools having internal control of the running of their day-to-day business. That is right and proper, and I have always said in the Chamber that I support the local management of schools. Such local management has given autonomy to individual schools.

A self-perpetuating coterie of governors that has formed in grant-maintained schools has the power of decision-making about the admissions policy of schools. We have discovered in parts of London and in other parts of the country that admissions policies arranged by governing bodies sometimes deny local children—who live in what used to be the catchment area of a school—a place in that school. The decisions are being made solely by the governors of the school. It is not right that a small unelected group is able to make that decision.

I am trying not to interrupt the hon. Gentleman's flow, but this is an opportunity to correct two of the misstatements that he is making. First, 66 per cent. of ballots on grant-maintained status this year have recorded yes votes, so one of his statements has been shot down in flames. Secondly—as he well knows—every admissions policy that is proposed by grant-maintained schools must be approved by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. It is simply not the case that grant-maintained schools can change their admission policies willy-nilly.

I am pleased that the Minister has confirmed my earlier point that admissions policies are in the hands of the governors, and can only be ratified by the Secretary of State for Education. Local people who have been elected to sit on councils have no say in the policy at all. The governing bodies make a decision that is rubber-stamped by the Secretary of State. In other words, we have a quasi-nationalised education admissions policy.

These debates allow a constructive shooting match to take place. Does my hon. Friend agree that a fundamental flaw in the grant-maintained system is that schools are not seen as possessions of the community, area or town they serve, but only of the parents or potential parents of the day? Do not such schools reflect the divisive education structure that this country tried to get rid of in the middle of the last century, and reflect also the aspirations, social background and financial resources of different groups within society?

That is exactly my point. The school ceases to be the property of the local community, and becomes the property of an individual governing body that will serve its own interests. That is the total antithesis of the choice which the hon. Lady and so many Government Front-Bench Members talk about. What is happening in many grant-maintained schools is that the school is choosing the pupils rather than the pupils choosing the school.

I turn now to my third main objection. The hon. Lady is wrong to say that the money provided to the Funding Agency for Schools is coming out of LEA budgets. The money is moving in a circle, from the LEA to the Funding Agency for Schools—a quango in York—and back to the grant-maintained schools. As most of that money is raised locally, it should be accountable locally through the councils.

The money moving in the circle through the LEAs and the agency and back to the schools is producing another layer of bureaucracy and wasteful inefficiency into the system. The Funding Agency for Schools alone is costing £11 million to run. That £11 million is not going to schools to provide more books, teachers or services, but is providing jobs for people shuffling paper in York.

Those are my objections to grant-maintained schools. There is no upsurge of desire in this country for schools to become grant-maintained, and parents are now deciding to stay with LEAs. Later today, a report by the Education Select Committee will be published which raises many important issues to do with the important role of LEAs in the running of schools.

I noticed that the hon. Member for Erewash mentioned LEAs only in a derisory manner. She attacked her own LEA, even though it is running the schools and the education system for children in her constituency. If she looks at that report, she will see that Members of Parliament have recognised, on a cross-party basis, that local authorities have a powerful role to play in running schools, and that they are needed to ensure accountability and the success of our schools.

The hon. Member for Erewash failed to say what would happen should a grant-maintained school start to spiral downwards and fail. That has manifestly happened to some of them, just as it has to certain local education authority schools. In the case of such schools, the LEA steps in to provide assistance. In the most extreme circumstances, it can send in an education association—that weapon has not yet been used by the Department for Education.

What happens when things go wrong in a grant-maintained school? Who will oversee the education of those children when the governors degenerate into a squabbling mass, like those at the school in Stratford? In such circumstances, the school is referred back to the Secretary of State for Education. There is no local accountability, and no local body able to provide assistance.

This useful debate, albeit a brief one, has enabled me to set out my views on grant-maintained schools and why I oppose them. My party will continue to advocate changes to them, which are designed to deliver fair funding and proper accountability.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Mrs. Knight) on securing this important debate. It has exposed the fallacy that somehow the Labour party has changed its mind on grant-maintained schools.

I wish that the Labour party could be consistent. The hon. Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) served with me on the Committee considering the Education Reform Act 1988, which set up grant-maintained schools. The current shadow Home Secretary was then Opposition spokesman on education, and I was left in no doubt about his vehement opposition to grant-maintained schools.

The right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) was then the education spokesman for the Liberal party. His venom against such schools was plain for all to see, and was expressed in speeches that were officially recorded. I note that the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) is nodding his head, so I assume that that venom against grant-maintained schools is still apparent in the Liberal party.

I support the concept of grant-maintained schools, because it has offered diversity of choice in state education. Those who are wealthy are able to send their children to the private school of their choice. Before the introduction of grant-maintained schools, those without such wealth had to leave that choice to the local education authority, which directed where children should be sent. There was no choice in the state system, because it lay with the LEA.

My one great pleasure is that the grant-maintained system has introduced diversity of choice to the state education system. That should be embraced and welcomed. The Labour party may argue that fewer schools are opting to become grant-maintained. I do not believe that the figures prove that, but should that be so, I am sure it is due to schools' uncertainty about the future.

Schools are unclear whether the Labour party will follow its leader, who has taken advantage of the grant-maintained system. I suppose he is one of those middle-class people about whom the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) used to talk so much. Certainly, if my wife was a leading barrister, I might be even be middle-class.

Although the grant-maintained system has delivered essential diversity of choice, it is high time we introduced a national funding formula for education, because far too much confusion is caused by the different amounts of money held by education authorities and their various expenditure. It has taken me some time to obtain a breakdown of the relevant figures, but they are revealing.

For example, according to its 1994–95 central budget, Staffordshire, which has a total pupil number of 159,000, spent £2,975,000 on management. Derbyshire, with 84,000 pupils, spent £3,787,000 on management. That is a great difference.

I recently tabled a question

"To ask the Secretary of State for Education if she will list in ascending order the difference between income and expenditure for school meal services for all counties over the last seven years."— [Official Report, 7 June 1995; Vol. 261, c. 208.]

I was surprised by the answer from my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Schools. It revealed that Derbyshire county council had spent £115 million on subsiding school meals, whereas Lancashire, the next closest on the table provided, had spent £94 million—a £20 million difference. Those differences become more apparent when one considers that Lincolnshire, a Conservative-controlled council, spent just £11 million in those seven years on subsidising school meals.

I do not mind that local education authorities should be able to decide to spend that money, but that expenditure should be open to scrutiny. If an authority is spending money on subsidising school meals, it is clear that it is not available to be spent on other education services. The expenditure may be simple and straightforward, but too many of the relevant figures are hidden, and the purpose of that expenditure is not easily identified.

The hon. Gentleman will recall from a previous debate that, for 9 per cent. of children, the only hot meal they get in the course of a day is the subsidised school dinner provided by local education authorities. Is he suggesting that needy children should be deprived of that hot meal, which they would otherwise not get?

No. I am not suggesting anything, I am simply revealing figures and facts—Lincolnshire spent £11 million on subsidising school meals, whereas Derbyshire spent £115 million. I accept that a comparison between Lincolnshire and Derbyshire is not a good one, but it is worth comparing Staffordshire and Derbyshire, which are roughly the same size.

In those seven years, Staffordshire spent £47 million on subsidising school meals, which is still £60 million short of that spent by Derbyshire. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) must accept that a lot could be done with that £60 million. I accept that education authorities decide what they want to spend their money on. The county breakdown and the differentials revealed by my hon. Friend's answer were, however, extremely interesting.

The other great benefit of grant-maintained schools—I plead with the Opposition to think carefully about it—is that they have made LEAs act more responsibly, because there is now an alternative available to parents. When I entered the House in 1986, the sixth form of Ecclesbourne school, in my constituency, was under threat of closure, because the LEA wanted to close all sixth forms in the centre of Derby and replace them with a tertiary system of education.

The school launched a massive campaign to save its sixth form, which was supported by all the parents. The LEA's proposal was sent to the Secretary of State for consideration. After a very vigorous campaign, I am glad to say that the Secretary of State rejected the proposal to close the sixth form.

I attended a public meeting at Ecclesbourne school at which one governor said, "I believe that the school should keep its sixth form, but because I am a socialist—and the county council's socialist—I must do what the county council wants me to do". County councils and local education authorities can no longer impose their views upon schools quite so easily, because schools now have an alternative.

I turn to the suggestion that somehow grant-maintained schools are unaccountable. A sad but true fact is that the voter turnout at local government elections averages about 40 per cent. The voter turnout when a school ballots to become grant-maintained is usually more than 70 or 80 per cent. Parents who are involved in the school and in the community want to ensure that there is a good grant-maintained schools system in place for their children.

Does the hon. Gentleman think that it is democratic that parents can vote to take a school out of the local education system and into the grant-maintained system for ever? Under the present rules, there is no way that a school can ballot to re-enter the local education system. The hon. Gentleman is saying that parents who send their children to a primary feeder school will have no choice whatsoever about whether their children should attend a grant-maintained school. They have no option because that decision has been taken for them. Is that accountability?

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. We spent many long hours taking the legislation through Committee when my right hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker) was Secretary of State for Education. The hon. Gentleman misses the point entirely. If he had his way, parents would have no choice at all. They would be forced to send their children to LEA schools, and the local education authority would determine the admissions policy, irrespective of parents' wishes.

Parents now have a choice. If they do not wish to send their children to grant-maintained schools, they do not have to do so. Parents can be certain that grant-maintained schools will remain, and that we will continue to have the diversity and choice in the state education system that I have talked about and believe in passionately only by ensuring that the party in government supports the grant-maintained policy.

Unlike Labour Members, the Conservatives do not mouth one thing and then another because a senior party member chooses to take advantage of the grant-maintained system. I will give way to the hon. Gentleman once more, but I am conscious that time is short.

I wish that the hon. Gentleman would be honest with the House and with the country. The majority of parents, whether they send their children to grant-maintained or local education authority schools, have absolutely no choice in the matter. The majority of schools choose the children who attend those schools. Parents who live in certain catchment areas have no choice but to send their children to the nearest school. It is the schools and the local education authorities which allow parents to send their children to those schools. It is a misnomer to say that parents have any choice; they do not. Will the hon. Gentleman please be honest with the House and with the country?

If the hon. Gentleman does not believe that choice exists, he should take up the matter with the Leader of the Opposition, who has exercised that choice, as have a good many Members on the Labour Front Bench. The Labour party is displaying grand hypocrisy on the issue. I have asked questions about grant-maintained schools in the past.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I will not give way, as time is short. The number of admissions to grant-maintained schools has increased. Schools that were threatened with closure by local education authorities have gone grant-maintained, and they have flourished. They are run by the local community, and they are part of the local community. They provide a diversity of choice in education.

The Labour party would offer a choice only to those people who could afford to go to the private system. The Government believe that every parent should be able to choose what kind of school their children will attend. There is a choice in the state system: between the local education authority schools and those that are independently grant-maintained but part of the state education system.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Time is short, or I would give way willingly—although the hon. Gentleman has a bad record for giving way when he is at the Dispatch Box.

That is why I am passionately committed to grant-maintained schools, the grant-maintained sector and the state education sector. The element of choice that we have introduced into the education system has also brought many of the loony local education authorities under control. Before we introduced the grant-maintained system, schools had no escape route; they had nowhere to go. Schools now have an alternative to being run by local education authorities; as a consequence, those authorities have become more responsible. All hon. Members should welcome that development.

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Erewash (Mrs. Knight) on securing the debate. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, I agreed entirely with one or two of her remarks, to which I shall return in a moment.

Of course, I disagreed entirely with a number of her comments—not least the paeans of praise that she heaped upon the grant-maintained schools sector. She seemed to suggest that the Government's grant-maintained policy has proved a tremendous success. However, anyone who has examined the figures will know only too well that it has not been a success—indeed, it is an ailing policy that has failed almost completely.

Towards the end of her remarks, the hon. Lady referred to the 1.3 million parents whose children attend grant-maintained schools. She failed to point out that fewer than 50 per cent. of those parents voted in favour of grant-maintained status. It is worth recording that only 500,000 people in this country voted for grant-maintained status, and that very few people are currently voting for grant-maintained status. The number of ballots for grant-maintained status has declined markedly, and the number of schools that opt out of the local education sector has also decreased significantly.

Many parents did not vote to opt out in many local areas. In some schools that have been opted out for four or five years, none of the parents whose children currently attend the schools exercised their vote, because their children did not attend the schools at the time the ballot was taken. Is that not even more despicable than the figures cited by the hon. Gentleman?

The hon. Lady is absolutely correct. She also draws attention to the welcome remarks of the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg), who pointed out that the grant-maintained system is not the system of democratic choice that the Government would have us believe.

It is perhaps worth recording the figures for opting out. From Easter 1994 to Easter this year, there have been only 48 secondary school ballots, and only 13 schools voted to go grant-maintained. That compares with 171 ballots in the previous year, when 107 schools voted to opt out. There has been a similar decline in the number of primary school ballots.

As the hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Mr. Jamieson) said, the grant-maintained policy has failed, despite the many bribes that the Government have offered. The Government have promised to phase out double funding gradually, but it is interesting to note that, in the process, a number of grant-maintained schools will receive additional money this year for the first time. I suspect that many local education authority schools will be pleased with such phasing out, despite the various bribes in respect of capital funding.

Grant-maintained schools are a failed policy in terms of the number of people voting for it and its ability to lever up standards. The hon. Member for Erewash was unable to answer when I asked her whether, despite all the financial advantages that had been given to grant-maintained schools, there was any hard evidence that standards had been levered up. The Minister is now about to give us some figures.

It would be invidious to run down a list of schools, but the hon. Gentleman will remember, as will the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Ms Morris), who is about to speak from the Labour Front Bench, that the evidence from Baverstock school—the solid accounts of achievement and its turnaround from a school that was failing in virtually every respect to what we now have—has been attributed by the head overwhelmingly to its grant-maintained status.

If the Minister can cite only one school, that is extremely worrying. We can swap school for school, and I could start talking about Stratford school, for example.

However, if we look at the base starting point for grant-maintained schools, taking into account the number of children with free school meals and the selective nature of many grant-maintained schools and we then look at the examination results, the SAT figures or anything else, we realise that there is no clear evidence that all that additional support—the uneven playing field provided for grant-maintained schools—has led to a levering up of standards.

The hon. Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin) said—I have forgotten his precise words—that Liberal Democrats totally hated grant-maintained schools. When I nodded to him, he implied that I accepted what he said. I should like to put it clearly on record that we dislike not the schools, but their grant-maintained status and the two-tier education system which has grown up because some schools have that status.

As we understand there is a coming together between the Liberal party and the Labour party, would part of that be an undertaking to abolish the system of grant-maintained schools?

I was about to answer that point. Having criticised the two-tier system that grant-maintained schools have introduced, it is important that I make it absolutely clear where my party stands.

We have a simple policy. We would bring grant-maintained schools and city technology colleges back into a light-touch strategic planning framework of the LEA, which would be responsible for the fair allocation of resources, establishing the pupil admission procedure, sorting out such issues as special educational needs, and determining, for example, whether a school needs to close or a new school needs to open. The LEA would also be responsible for issues relating to quality monitoring and levering up standards, and would have a role to play in the arbitration of disputes. Individual schools would decide which LEA services they wished to provide.

We believe that all schools in Britain should be given maximum freedom to make decisions that affect their own day-to-day running. Our approach does not pander to old-style corporatist, centralist, domineering local education authorities; it is a system that frees up individual schools within a local, democratically accountable, strategic planning framework.

Can the hon. Gentleman confirm that his party's policies would continue to allow some schools 100 per cent. delegated funding?

The hon. Lady uses 100 per cent., and her document uses 90 per cent. Those figures do not make sense without identifying the base line. We are saying that some money would be retained at the LEA level to fund the various functions that the LEA would carry out.

I agree with the hon. Member for Erewash about Labour party policy. At least the hon. Lady, the Minister and the hon. Member for West Derbyshire have a clear policy. They would like the continuation of grant-maintained status, and they have introduced legislation to force every school to consider it on an annual basis; and, if possible, they will continue to make as many arrangements as possible to help grant-maintained schools to become established.

My party is also clear about where it stands. We would bring grant-maintained schools back into a light-touch LEA strategic planning framework. The hon. Member for Erewash was absolutely right to point out that the Labour party now has a totally fudged policy that satisfies nobody. Despite all the efforts of its spin doctors, the Labour party is unable to convince schools in the grant-maintained sector that it is now being nicer to them; nor can it convince Labour activists, many of them with roots in local government, that Labour has not gone soft on grant-maintained schools.

The big anomaly in the Labour party's proposal is that, having totally opposed grant-maintained status and undertaken to bring those schools into the local strategic framework, Labour now says that schools that opted out will be allowed to continue their special status as foundation schools. They will have a different governing body and composition, and they will be able to retain access to their own assets by way of a trust. That makes nonsense of the ability of local education authorities to plan properly and strategically.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I shall happily give way to hon. Member. I hope that, in the intervention that he is about to make, he will remind the House of what he said in the House on 9 December last year:

"One of the problems with GM schools is that they increasingly complicate the sort of strategic provision that needs to be made."—[Official Report, 9 December 1994; Vol. 251, c. 542.]

Will not the Labour party's latest fudge proposal make that strategic planning almost impossible?

It is obvious that the hon. Gentleman has not read the document in question. We made it absolutely clear that schools choose from the three categories that we have designated in our paper on the local democratic framework. The hon. Gentleman's final point concerned strategic planning and admissions policy. If he looks at appendix 3 of "Diversity and Excellence", he will see that it is carefully spelt out.

The hon. Gentleman made much play of underlining the clarity of the Government's view, particularly in terms of the 100 per cent. delegation that they would afford to grant-maintained schools, but he failed to address the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Ms Morris) on the implications of the Liberal Democrat proposal, which in theory would allow every school to opt for 100 per cent. delegation of the ASB.

With respect, the hon. Gentleman is talking absolute nonsense. I have just explained that, if the LEA is carrying out some central functions, funds need to be retained to pay for them. That is clearly set out in our document.

The hon. Gentleman fails to recognise that his party is trying to put a precise, specific figure of 90 per cent. on it. That is nonsense, because the central services that are needed vary from one LEA to another. For example, the costs of transport in a rural area differ from those in an urban area. The hon. Member cannot have it both ways, but that is what his document "Diversity and Excellence" tries to do.

The hon. Gentleman was as critical as I was when the Government brought out their document "Choice and Diversity". We used to jokingly call it, "Chaos and Confusion". I believe that the Labour party's document is "Chaos and Confusion—the sequel".

The Opposition welcome the chance to debate what has often been called a Government flagship policy. This has been an interesting opportunity to try to shed some light on why that flagship policy has gone so badly wrong.

It was the former Secretary of State for Education who said, on Second Reading of the 1993 Education Bill, that he was setting

"in place a new framework for primary and secondary schools that will endure well into the next century."—[Official Report, 9 November 1992; Vol. 213, c. 627.]

He went on to predict that, by April of last year, there would be 1,500 grant-maintained schools. He could not have been more wrong. Seven years after GM status was introduced, only 5.6 per cent. of all schools have chosen to go that way. Only 16 schools in Wales have GM status, and 28 local authorities throughout England and Wales still have no GM schools at all. No one—not even the most optimistic Government supporter—can possibly claim that, numerically speaking, the policy has been a success.

The hon. Member for Erewash (Mrs. Knight) has a cheek to come to this House and try to give us the impression that schools are still queuing up to opt out. Every prediction made by the Government has proved false; every target that they have set for GM opt-outs has been missed.

We could just dismiss GM status as a failed policy, had the consequences and costs for all schools and for all pupils not been so serious. In its first year of operation, £11 million was spent by the Funding Agency for Schools; 261 officials administer GM schools from York; 77 more officials help to administer GM schools from Sanctuary Buildings. Almost £1 million—£800,000 in fact—has been spent on the Grant-Maintained Schools Foundation.

All this amounts to millions of pounds spent, not on reducing class sizes or on putting more equipment and resources into schools, not on the £4 billion school buildings maintenance backlog, but on administering a bureaucracy that merely duplicates the work being done by local education authorities.

Wasteful though that is, what people find most offensive about the financial aspect of GM schools is the way in which schools that do not choose GM status are deliberately discriminated against. Why should not children attending schools whose governing bodies and parents have decided to stay in partnership with local authorities get the same funding? It is not just the £25 million that has been lost to locally maintained schools through double funding: it is the 2.7 times more spent on capital projects in GM schools which causes such harm.

It is all very well for the hon. Member for Erewash to say that schools which want the money can just opt out, whereupon they will be given it. The hon. Lady is parliamentary private secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer—

As of this moment.

Indeed. Still, I wonder what he would say if he knew that the hon. Lady wants every school in the country to opt out so as to get additional resources. That would mean that the national pot of money spent on education would have to grow—but it has never done that under this Government. As more GM schools have come into existence, the amount of extra money given to them has steadily decreased. If all schools opted out, they would, of course, not be funded at the enhanced rate given to the first opt-out schools.

The fact is that the amount of money spent on education has substantially increased under this Government. The reductions took place between 1974 and 1979. The figures since then show a steady, consistent increase on the money spent on education.

Why does no one believe the hon. Gentleman? Why do parents not believe him? Because their children are in classes with more than 30 pupils. Why do teachers not believe him? Because they are being asked to do their job without the necessary resources. The hon. Gentleman might believe what he says, but he and his colleagues are probably the last people left in the country who think that way.

What sort of message does the Minister think he is sending to children and parents when he seems to value one child, in financial terms, more than he does another? No one except the Government—not parents associations, not local authority associations, not, to their great credit, even GM schools themselves—continues to defend this sort of inequity of funding. As our Public Accounts Committee said, it is unacceptable.

Unacceptable though the financial arrangements for GM schools are, the greatest damage is the damage that has been done to the local partnerships in which schools operate. The whole GM notion was based on the belief that schools and parents shared Tory Ministers' dislike of locally elected education authorities. On Second Reading of the 1993 Education Bill, the then Under-Secretary of State found himself unable to make a single positive statement about local authorities. He showed no inkling of understanding of the good that local authorities can achieve.

What Conservative Ministers have never understood, but what parents and schools have always understood, is the fact that, to succeed, a school needs not just to compete but to co-operate. To succeed, it needs to share ideas. It needs to learn from others. To succeed, it needs quality information about its performance and its targets. It must pool its resources so that important areas such as special needs, music and sport can flourish.

Schools, in short, do not exist as separate competing units. They need strong, stable local partnerships, and good local education authorities can provide them.

As the hon. Lady is so obviously against GM schools and in favour of LEA schools, will she urge her leader to send his son to an LEA school instead of a GM one?

I am not against GM schools: I am in favour of all schools that raise standards for their children. I am not here to criticise schools, teachers or pupils. I welcome high standards in every school, no matter what its status. Parents base their decision about where to send their children on a number of aspects. The leader of my party would have sent his child to the school in question whether or not it had grant-maintained status.

The Government's whole approach has been divisive. It is no good Conservative Members such as the hon. Member for Erewash complaining about the alleged behaviour of some local councillors. I do not condone bad behaviour by councillors on either side of the political divide, but the Government have a lot of gall, given that Ministers have approached GM status in a way that meant that a divisive mess was bound to ensue. We warned the Government that their approach would lead to divisions and bitterness, but they took no notice.

The Government talk about choice, but they have failed to offer schools different but equally valued options. The Government have been so committed to the GM option that they have almost made enemies of those who did not follow in their wake.

Conservative Members of Parliament have campaigned hard on every opt-out ballot, so that they can come here and wear each new opt-out in their constituencies as a badge of pride. Time and again, they have stood up during education questions and asked Ministers whether they welcome the decision of a school in one of their constituencies to go grant-maintained. Certainly every Labour councillor has campaigned hard against GM status ballots, because not to do so would have threatened the status of other schools in their areas.

This is no way to run schools; but the legislation was framed in such a way that it was inevitable that these problems would follow. We have wasted valuable money, time and ideas talking about structures, when the real issue facing us is how to raise standards.

We must end the divisions and the turmoil of the past 15 years. Our task is to rebuild partnerships and restore trust. We can do that only if we move forward and stop looking back; if we listen and learn from what we hear; and if we seek change through consensus. That is what Labour does in its paper "Diversity and Excellence: a New Partnership for Schools".

It has been interesting today to see which side of the Tory divide Conservative Members put themselves on. Do they belong to the category who try to tell us that we have changed our minds on GM schools and will keep them? Or do they belong to that brand of Tory who tries to tell us that we, the Labour party, have it in for GM schools? Within three days, the Prime Minister has said one thing and the Secretary of State for Education another.

We shall offer schools a choice within a framework that strengthens crucial local partnerships. We shall ensure that funding is fair and open. Labour accountability will exist locally, to parents in the community, as well as nationally, to central Government. Parents will know that admission procedures will be fair, with no return to selection through the 11-plus. Above all, schools will know that they are responsible for managing themselves, and that local authorities are there to support them in raising standards.

A notion much favoured by Ministers is that local authorities control schools. That control vanished with the introduction of local management of schools. Schools control themselves, but local Labour education authorities throughout the country are showing a new role for LEAs that involves raising and monitoring standards and supporting schools in their vital task of improving the performance of their pupils.

Labour will root all schools in that locally accountable and supportive partnership. It will offer them the choice of being community, foundation or aided schools. We shall preserve the best of the changes, which is independence for schools. But we shall restore local accountability, which has been so badly damaged.

A debate about a failing Government policy has been useful, but we, the Opposition, look forward to our agenda, which will focus on success.

In the time available to me, I shall try to cover as many points as possible. The House will understand that I do not have a significant amount of time.

I begin by echoing the congratulations that have come from both sides of the House to my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Mrs. Knight) on the splendid way in which she opened the debate. It was a typically rumbustious speech. She was backed by my hon. Friend the Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin). My hon. Friends are a credit to their county. I listened with great interest to their contributions.

Inevitably, the debate has generated heat as well as light. That, perhaps, is scarcely surprising. Every one of our education reforms has aroused hostility within the Opposition parties. The grant-maintained initiative has probably ruffled more feathers than most others. The reason is simple. Opposition Members belatedly pay lip service to parental preference and to school diversity and autonomy, but they do not really believe in them. Yet putting these ideals into practice is precisely what self-government is all about.

Only six years ago, local authorities had a monopoly of state schooling. We do not need a PhD in economics to know that monopolies rarely serve the best interests of the consumer. The GM initiative broke that monopoly. It gave parents a high-quality alternative to local education authority schools within the state sector. It also gave parents a direct and decisive say in the future of their children's schools.

Five years ago, there were only 30 GM schools. There are now well over 1,000 in the primary, secondary and special sectors, and the number continues to grow. Incidentally, whenever a percentage is quoted by Opposition Members, they never tell us that, at secondary level, after only six years, one in five of all secondary school children is at a GM school. That is some progress.

Not in Bolsover.

The hon. Gentleman says from a sedentary position—he kindly joined us nine minutes ago—"Not in Bolsover." That is Bolsover's loss.

There is no mystery about the rapid growth of the GM sector. It has taken place because self-government is good for schools, pupils and parents. In other words, it works. Self-government gives a school control of its total budget, not only the portion that is delegated by the LEA. Some of the additional funding is used to buy services that were previously provided free by the LEA.

But GM schools have freedom to shop around and get better value for money. That means that most GM schools have money left over to pay for additional staff, books and equipment. These are important practical benefits of GM status, which pupils, teachers and parents can see and feel. But there is much more to self-government than that.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash said, self-government is about being in control of one's own destiny. It is about getting rid of dual controls and the back-seat driver. A self-governing school is free to preserve and develop its existing character. These freedoms, combined with total control of resources, give GM schools much greater responsibility to respond to the needs and aspirations of the communities that they serve. They do so without getting bogged down in the mire of LEA policies and procedures.

We know that GM schools are popular with parents. That echoes and enlarges what my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash said in response to an intervention. For three successive years, GM comprehensive schools have, on average, achieved better GCSE results than their LEA counterpart comprehensives. We know that GM primary schools achieved better results than LEA primary schools in last year's key stage 1 tests. So the GM sector is flourishing as well as growing. It is a clear example of a successful initiative that has attracted interest throughout the world.

I believe that, in due course, all maintained schools will be run on GM lines—indeed, not only maintained schools. The Education Act 1993 extended opportunities to independent promoters to propose the establishment of new GM schools. I am delighted to say that we have given approval in principle today to the first of such proposals, from St. Anselm's Roman Catholic college for boys and Upton Hall Roman Catholic convent school for girls, both in Wirral. They will be the first independent schools to come in from the new route. I look forward to welcoming them to the GM sector.

I shall deal briefly with Labour's plans. We did not hear too much about them from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Ms Morris) when she summed up on behalf of the Opposition.

What is the Labour party's response to the success of GM? Anyone who read the press reports of a fortnight ago might well think that the Labour party is now supportive of the policy. The hon. Lady rightly confirms that, throughout the country, Labour councillors and Labour Members are opposing GM schools wherever there is a ballot, but she says that, in theory, they are supportive of GM schools. That is an interesting policy combination.

The detail behind the policy document tells a rather different story. Behind that public relations facade—the exciting talk about new relationships, partnership and trust—is a much duller reality. The Labour party proposes only three types of barely distinguishable state school. It assumes that most GM schools will become foundation schools. Some have seen this as a U-turn on the GM issue. In fact, it is nothing of the kind. Foundation schools would hold their own premises and employ their own staff, but voluntary aided schools do that now, and they are not self-governing.

The essence of self-government is a school's ability to control its total budget, and to manage its own development without LEA interference. Foundation schools would have neither of those characteristics. All three categories of school proposed by Labour—the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) highlighted this—would have up to 10 per cent. of their budget held back by the LEA. All three would have LEA representatives on their governing bodies. As my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash said, we can imagine the nature of one, if not both, of the councillors who would turn up on the governing bodies. At least one of them would be ideologically opposed to the schools' very existence.

All three types of school would have to negotiate their admission policies with the LEA. Again, all three would be subject to an LEA planning regime. So all three would, in slightly varying degrees, be LEA-controlled. Labour proposals for the GM sector boil down to the abolition of self-government.

Labour has invented the O-turn; an elaborate manoeuvre which leaves it facing in exactly the same direction as it has always faced. Labour's policy remains what it has always been: to return GM schools to LEA control. Although it is easy to accuse the Labour party of malice in this respect, its policy could even be the result of simple ignorance.

It is not too long ago that a Labour Member, whose name I shall protect, said during an informal discussion with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that he could not possibly support GM schools, because at heart he did not agree with fee paying. Is that the level of knowledge of the Labour party? For those who have not followed, there is no fee paying in GM schools. I make that clear in case there any other hon. Member thinks there is.

There is insufficient time to reply to the very wise and detailed comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash on funding. I assure her that we will continue to look carefully at the national funding formula. She has heard me say before from the Dispatch Box that there are some problems in that respect. I assure her that we are considering the matter with the best will in the world.

The hon. Member for Bath spoke of a policy that had failed. He should ask the grant-maintained schools about it; he should visit them. Labour Members can contemplate visits only when armed with a cross and clove of garlic, but I would have hoped that Liberal Democrat Members might visit the schools. If they did, they would find that the schools, far from having failed, are popular and successful.

We are grateful to the hon. Member for Bath for having affirmed his party's continuing outright opposition—

Order. We must now move to the next debate.

I should like to offer you my belated public congratulations on your being honoured, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As you know from our discussions in the Tea Room, I do not have a high regard for the honours system. If more people like you were honoured, I might begin to have a rather different attitude.

I was interested by the comments of the Under-Secretary of State for Schools at the end of the last debate when he mentioned the O-turn. I have heard of the U-turn but now we have the O-turn. I regard Government policies as being more of a Q-turn; they go around in circles and have a let-out for themselves with a little squiggle. That is true of this debate.

Before I run away with myself, to which I am prone, I ask hon. Members to keep their contributions short, as I shall. That will give everyone with an interest in the subject a chance to say what they have to say. Unfortunately, we are not too good at that in the House. I have often sat long and patiently, wanting only a few minutes while people have rambled on for 25 minutes saying what could have been said in five. If that is a criticism of both sides of the House, so be it.

This is an important subject that causes great concern to all constituencies that have the continuing problem of opencast mining. I am fortunate, because although there is one opencast site in the local authority that covers my constituency, there is none in my constituency because the mining would be too deep for current technology. The Permian bed that covers the coal measures under my constituency makes it an impossible task.

You are well aware of the problem, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because your constituency has more than its share of such problems. It is interesting that when such matters are debated, we find the normal divide in British politics: those who have the problem on either side of the House want to do something about it; those who do not have the problem are often not very interested or are willing to advocate a process that makes other people's lives miserable. It is a case of not in my backyard.

There is considerable interest in the subject throughout the country. As one of the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg), I appreciate that he has a great problem. I know what it is like. Luckily, in the village where I live we had a narrow escape a couple of years ago. There was not enough coal in a pit heap to make it viable and it was decided not to take the mineral beneath it before the site was landscaped. I was eternally grateful.

Next Thursday in the Jubilee Room, there will be a meeting of the Biddulph Action Group organised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley). Many things are coming together. That campaign is not from my constituency but from the miners parliamentary group, which is concerned about the issue. I know that many other mining Members who do not belong to the miners group have the problem, including some Conservative Members.

Opencast coal mining is absolutely unnecessary. We have it only because certain groups of people are doing very well financially from it. No benefits accrue to the population in general. If I was still burning coal, which fortunately I am not, and went to a coal merchant and said, "I hear opencast coal is cheaper, can I have some?", I would not get a reduction. All coal is the same price for domestic consumers. The opencast market is a scandal and disgrace.

At one time in the north-east, both Northumberland and Durham county councils had sound policies of considering opencast output as a percentage of deep-mined output. It was rightly felt that, as deep mining capacity was reduced, so should opencast capacity be. Over the years, we have heard all sorts of arguments about the necessity for opencast coal, such as how it was needed to be blended with deep-mined coal. In the north-east that is no longer true because there are no deep mines left in County Durham: only one survives in Northumberland on a wing and a prayer. There is tremendous opencast mining output and no sign of it reducing.

I remind hon. Members who have studied the subject, and I see that there are some here, of the Flowers commission in the late 1970s, which recommended that opencast mining should be gradually phased down to—I use its term—a tick-over level. Some tick-over. It seems to me that it is going on at a fair speed and shows no sign of reduction.

At the time of the Flowers report, legislation from the Department of the Environment stated in effect that a need for coal would be a consideration when local authorities decided whether to grant planning permission for opencast mines. I know, for example, that at that time I appeared at no fewer than six hearings where applicants had appealed to the Department of the Environment after the local authority had decided to turn down their applications. On all six occasions the appeals were turned down. The late Nicholas Ridley later overturned one of them, but five out of six was not bad.

However, that was not the way in which the Government preferred to work because they changed the guidance and introduced mineral planning guidance 3, MPG3, one of the worse items of legislation ever. I call it legislation because, in effect, it is legislation. If local authorities do not abide by it, they face great cost disadvantages should they be unsuccessful against the applicant for a licence.

MPG3 stated that it would be assumed, without any sort of analysis, that opencast mining was a good thing. An application for a licence would be refused only if the local authority thought that there were pressing environmental reasons for doing so. Overnight, that changed the emphasis. The operator previously had had to prove a need for coal and the desirability of the site. Suddenly, the deal would go ahead and it was up to local authorities and anyone else who opposed such a move to prove environmental grounds.

The statistics after that new guideline was introduced show a quick change and that many more opencast appeals were successful. As a result, councils initially were reluctant to take operators on because they knew that they had little chance of success on appeal. They would not only have to bear the cost of the hearing but pay operators' damages for loss of trade—talk about one-sidedness; that is appalling.

Two years ago, we had the cataclysmic deep mine closure programme. We were told that regardless of price, there was no market for a vast amount of coal. I should have thought that if there was no market for coal, opencasting would be gradually phased out. That has not been the case. What is happening is what we always believed would happen. Evidence has been given over many years to the effect that opencast coal would replace, not supplement or assist, deep-mined output. That is precisely what has happened.

I understand that MPG3 has been modified slightly, but it does not appear to have altered much. No consideration is given to need. Anyone can approach a local authority, say that he wants to mine coal and present his plans. The coal may never be disposed of—the firm could go bankrupt—but there is no procedure for monitoring.

We should like a return to pre-MPG3 times. I should have thought that, if there were a need for opencast coal, operators would not have too much difficulty in proving it. I know that previously, they had some difficulty, which is why they lost so many appeals. That showed that the system was working.

I do not speak a great deal on environmental matters because I am not an authority on them, but I know a little about markets. I know that for every employee in the opencast sector, five people would have been working in the deep-mined sector. Taking into account all the mining communities, the ratio would be about seven or eight to one. The coal costs the same but the difference is between employing one or eight people. That, it appears, is no longer the issue; the real issue now is why are deep mines continuing to be run down and closed with a subsequent reduction in manpower?

The situation will get worse because more gas and nuclear-powered stations will undoubtedly come on stream, despite what the Government say to the contrary. There will therefore be less demand for coal. Unless something is done, we shall end up with no deep mines, and the bulk of our coal will come from opencast sites, for as long as they last—I understand that we are now down to the final 20 or 25 years of potential supplies. Some might be pleased about that; it is only a pity that we had to lose so many deep mines and import coal to bring that about. In addition, we have lost an industry and the skills of tens of thousands of people. There are 3 million people unemployed, but the scandal continues.

I am now going to say something a little unusual. I was a member of the Standing Committee that considered the Coal Industry Bill when the industry was being denationalised, which was another disaster. Members of the Committee were heavily lobbied by the National Farmers Union, and I found that it had a fair case. It will want to know what is being said today so I shall make my remarks loud and clear. I am prepared to help the NFU as a decent and responsible Member of Parliament and I want it to reciprocate. When it has heard what I have to say on its behalf, I hope that it will seriously consider changing its attitude about access to the countryside so that when I and others go for a walk we do not face an obstacle course. Members of Parliament are reasonable and we try to help people; it is not unreasonable to ask the NFU to reciprocate.

One of the problems that farmers have, as they have made clear for a long time, is that the land which is returned to them is not satisfactory for agricultural purposes for a long time, if ever. They say that, following statutory reinstatement of the land, a period of five years is not the end of the matter and that some work might still need to be done afterwards.

Almost 15 years ago, there was an arrangement between farmers and landowners and what was then the National Coal Board. It was called a post-release rehabilitation scheme. That sounds good—it reminds me of the miners' rehabilitation centres. "Rehabilitation" is an interesting word. Under the scheme, land would be examined after a given period, and any remedial work required would probably be done by the landowner if he or she so desired and paid for by the coal board. It appears, however, that that did not happen very often.

One has to ask why the land is not returned to its original condition. Is it because it might affect profit margins, or because it might make opencast mining less attractive? When all is said and done, deep mines, which could produce more cheaply than opencast sites, have been closed.

Wearmouth colliery in my constituency was heading towards producing coal for £1 a gigajoule. Coal was mined in a 7 ft high seam, the highest that had been worked for about 90 years. However, it was closed because it was said that there was no market for its coal, even at £1 per gigajoule.

I have done my bit for the NFU, and I hope that the Minister will consider the matter seriously.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way to a farmer on his own side. He mentioned the need to reinstate land. Will he say a word or two about the apparent failure of opencast operators to deal with the problem of ground water from opencast sites? A substantial site at Blindwells in my constituency is about to stop work in October or November this year. We have been advised by the Coal Authority that the mining operators are not going to be required to continue pumping the water out of the site, which means that when the water table reaches its original level the surrounding areas will be severely affected by badly polluted ground water. What on earth can be done about that?

I thank my hon. Friend for his helpful intervention. He will be well aware that we tried to get something done about that when the Coal Industry Act 1994 was being passed. We were given all sorts of assurances but no specific legislation. The same is happening with the Environment Bill, which is currently going through its final stages. In other words, we are no further forward—it is all promises but no legislation. I am sure that until we have a change of Government things will remain the same because such legislation would mean interfering with commerce. We all want commerce to do well and we all want wealth to be created, but not to the exclusion of everything else.

rose—

Order. The hon. Gentleman is not giving way. Before I call another hon. Member, I hope that the House will take note of the hon. Gentleman's generosity in leaving time for others. This is a short debate in which there is a great deal of interest. I hope that speeches will be kept short to enable as many hon. Members as possible to speak.

I must apologise to the House and the Minister because I might have to leave before the debate ends. I undertook another engagement before I knew that this debate was to be held. I shall, however, be here for most of it.

I join the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Etherington) in congratulating you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The honour has given great pleasure to your many friends of all parties.

That, however, is the only point on which I agree with the hon. Gentleman. His thesis was that opencast coal was unnecessary. My thesis is to the contrary, but I believe that we must deal properly with its environmental aspects.

A few old Labour party workhorses were trotted out and exercised today. The Labour party was hostile to opencast mining because it was largely run by the private sector whereas the nice, benevolent British Coal looked after coal miners and provided safe jobs. I do not think that those arguments are relevant any more.

I regret that while we are—quite properly—talking about the environment, the Opposition seem thus far to be dressing up the environment to use it as an argument against opencast coal. That would be a disservice to a fine industry and those who work in it. We must spell out the fact that surface-mined coal is provided at a low and predictable cost whereas deep-mined coal is high cost and carries an even higher risk factor.

rose—

If the hon. Lady wishes me to give way I shall do so, but it will extend the time that I take. Hon. Members cannot have it both ways.

I shall be brief. How does the hon. Gentleman believe that the true and full cost of opencast coal mining can be measured? He talks about economic appraisal and opencast coal being cheaper, but has he taken into account the blight on property and, for example, the effect of dust on health? How does he ensure that the true cost is known?

The hon. Lady makes an absolutely fair point. That is why the debate is relevant. Such equations must be considered, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will give reassurances on those points when he replies.

If I may, I shall continue my thesis about the benefits of surface-mined coal, and point out to the House that surface-mined coal, as I am sure many Opposition Members are aware, can be blended with deep-mined coal, which has a higher moisture content. With that blend, it is more acceptable, more manageable. It reduces the high chlorine content that exists in many seams of deep-mined coal. It has one tenth of the average amount of chlorine of deep-mined coal. It is has a low ash content and a high calorific value, particularly in the north-east and in parts of Scotland. Those are all environmental considerations. Surface-mined coal is part of the overall equation that we are discussing. It is not helpful to the argument and to one's knowledge to rubbish it as an aspect of the mining industry before reaching a conclusion.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Just once more.

It is an extremely simple question. Will the hon. Gentleman comment on the sulphur content? Is it not true that opencast coal often has a much higher sulphur content than deep-mined coal?

That may be so. I make no apology for the fact that I am listing the advantages of surface-mined coal. We should recognise that the properties of surface-mined coal improve the handling characteristics and the saleability of deep-mined coal. We now have acceptable blends for shipment abroad; we still export a lot of coal. If we make our deep-mined coal more acceptable to people who buy from us, we are helping the industry as a whole.

Sometimes, when deep-mined coal cannot be washed further, the addition of surface-mined coal will make it saleable. In Nottinghamshire, for example, each tonne of high-chlorine deep-mined coal needs to have about I tonne of opencast added to it to make it acceptable to purchasers. If the implications of the comments of the hon. Member for Sunderland, North were followed through, they would cast a grave burden on the acceptability and the saleability of the coal, which is Britain's coal and which we are trying to sell to people in this country and abroad. It will harm British industry and British jobs if we go down the hon. Gentleman's route.

We are still competing against imported coal. I shall not go into the arguments about how the imported coal is acquired, as those are yesterday's arguments, but the fact is that we are still in competition. There are certain commercial facts about opencast that cannot be denied, the first of which—this deals with the point made by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley)—is that those who are involved in its extraction will say that it is far cheaper to extract coal from the surface rather than from deep mines. I should have thought that that logically follows and does not need a great deal of proof.

The second point is that we must produce coal to sell abroad. The third and vital point—I am astonished that the hon. Member for Sunderland, North did not concentrate on this—is that the coal industry and the surface-mined coal industry provide a great many jobs in various communities. Those are very important points. I have the honour, with the hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr. Tipping), of representing a north Nottinghamshire seat, and jobs are important in coal mining areas. It is a dirty and a dangerous job, and we should accept that it has already suffered a great deal from contraction. Opencast is a key element in the objective of sustaining a large economically viable United Kingdom coal industry. It is a significant contributor to the bottom-line profits of the rest of the coal industry and hence the maintenance of jobs in it.

To my hon. Friend the Minister, I say, as do other colleagues here, that it is important that the new guidelines for MPG3 should work with the grain and ensure that coal from the surface is economically and environmentally acceptable. The environment is extremely important, and the environmental effect of opencasting on local communities is a matter of great responsibility for my hon. Friend and, indeed, for MPG3.

We must accept that the Coal Industry Act 1994 imposes such a duty on developers, which they accept. They in turn must ensure that they mitigate the worst effects of their operations on communities, and planning authorities must ensure that they do. Local people must accept that surface mining is about not just profits and shareholders but jobs in communities. There are many examples of former opencast coal mining operations being restored to great benefit in our communities. There is one not far from north Nottinghamshire, the Rother Valley country park in south Yorkshire. There are excellent examples of environmental attraction once coal surface mining has been concluded.

The call for opencasting to be closed down because there is surplus of deep-mined coal elsewhere is shortsighted. It has merit in the short-term, but to close down a significant part of the coal industry cannot be a good long-term proposition. Competitive disadvantage, if my earlier thesis is followed, will certainly be brought about from short-term expediency. One cannot just turn on and off surface mining like a tap. It is a five-year programme, and that is why the environmental aspect of it is so important. We must remember that the employers, the major contractors, have invested £1,000 million in their surface mining activities. It is not a fringe activity. They employ 15,000 people, directly and indirectly, often in areas that have suffered drastically from coal mining closures.

Planners must give opencast a fair wind. It can do without the hostility of some hon. Members and some people outside. It must be allowed to produce low-cost indigenous coal, which will enable the industry to thrive and continue to export. I suggest to my hon. Friend the Minister that more drastic constraints will put that at risk, as will the ideological opposition of some Opposition Members. I hope that my hon. Friend will resist going down that particular route.

I congratulate you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on your knighthood, and my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Etherington) on securing this debate on a subject which is so vital for my constituency.

Mine is not an ideological argument, but a purely practical argument about the horror that my constituents have to put up with. I have long campaigned against opencast mining, which has expanded with increasing alarm in my constituency, because of the horror that it brings. As well as being directly related to pit closures, which have destroyed our pit communities and led to high unemployment, it has had a dreadful impact on the environment in my constituency.

First, heavy lorries thunder through villages and local communities from the early hours of the morning, past residential properties and the main pedestrian walkways where parents are often taking small children to school. The increase in the number of heavy lorries is making conditions intolerable for residents and exacerbating the dangers that pedestrians have to endure all the time.

Secondly, there has been widespread damage to the landscape, which is visible to both commuters and visitors to the beautiful city of Durham from virtually every main approach as more and more opencast sites are agreed. Both tourism and local industry have been increasingly affected. The open countryside is being ravaged, conservation areas are being damaged and the dust and debris resulting from mining operations threaten the local flora and fauna.

Thirdly, there is the dust and nuisance that people have to endure. Residents are inevitably subject to dust and diesel pollution. Last year, residents of Bowburn in my constituency had to put up with opencast mining at the R J Budge (Mining) Ltd. site at Whitwell, which is approximately half a mile from their homes—less than that in some cases. There have been significantly greater dust deposits in their gardens, and many more cases of asthma, particularly among children.

There are no guarantees that the implementation of dust control measures can avoid the hazard. Moreover, there is no control over exhaust emissions from the plant. Dust pollution is far more than just a nuisance. In a recent answer to a parliamentary question from me, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health accepted that an independent advisory committee had confirmed research findings showing an association between opencast mining and the increase in asthma.

The hon. Member for Newark (Mr. Alexander) may not still be present when I make my speech. My hon. Friend speaks of the effects on health, welfare and the environment in his constituency; will he now condemn the hon. Member for Newark for not taking those effects into consideration?

I said at the beginning of my speech that my reasons for objecting to opencast mining were not ideological, but motivated by a desire to protect my constituents from environmental damage. The hon. Member for Newark (Mr. Alexander) gave purely ideological reasons for supporting an industry which is making millions of pounds for certain people. When he speaks of ideology, he should look to himself rather than Opposition Members. Many thousands of people's health, as well as their everyday lives, are being dramatically affected.

Opencast mining is detrimental to the quality of life. It affects both the environment and the general morale of local communities. The effect on those communities is traumatic. Former mining villages in my constituency are only now recovering from the scars left by the industry. In recent years, the area has been subject to considerable environmental improvements, including the reclamation of former colliery sites and the creation of new industries, jobs and recreational facilities. The establishment of new mining operations in those areas is a dreadful retrograde step—and it could go on for 30 years.

As well as the new applications, there are the "while we are here" applications. For example, R J Budge started work on the Whitwell site on 1994. In January 1995 the firm applied for a variation to build an additional 20 m mound on the same site because there was not enough room to pile up all the overburden. By April, less than a year after coaling had started, RJB admitted that it had already extracted 100,000 tonnes from the site, although the permission granted on appeal was for only 250,000 over five years. RJB has also warned that it is seriously considering opencasting an area twice the size of the existing site, across the road from it, although the initial application stated that it was not viable. If the site is agreed it will be operational in my constituency for 30 years, which would be catastrophic.

R and A Young's original application and permission at Cocken Lodge, Leamside, was to extract 36,000 tonnes. It produced 90,000. The site grew and grew; permission was given for the extraction of a further 46,700 tonnes, but 60,000 were actually taken out. A further extension was granted to extract 324,000 tonnes, and then another 65,000. R and A Young later returned with another application, this time to opencast a further 670,000 tonnes. After appeals and High Court action, the site is now being mined by R J Budge, which is exactly what it wanted.

Opencasters cannot be trusted: that is the lesson that we must learn from today's debate. At this moment, there is a threat of another application at Park Hill and Old Quarrington in my constituency. The strength of local opposition is enormous. At a public meeting about a month ago, hundreds of people expressed their determination that the application should be refused. The proposed work would constitute an unjustifiable intrusion into open and highly visible countryside; it would be a major cause of pollution, and would seriously damage amenities that local people have a right to expect.

There are 260 houses within 250 m of the proposed site. It is incredible that the firm should want to apply for a site so close to those houses. The applicants themselves accept that there would be an adverse impact on nearby residents, but they are going ahead with the application. Given the sheer numbers of residents affected, the pollution caused by dust, diesel, noise and traffic and the inevitable severe visual intrusion, allowing the application would constitute a huge departure from the county structure plan.

I am sure that the application will eventually go to appeal, but what will happen then? In a recent parliamentary answer, the Minister acknowledged that nationally, since 1985, a staggering 40 per cent. of all opencast sites which had been run on appeal against the wishes of the community had been in County Durham. The north-east bore an amazing 57 per cent. of all such planning consents approved on appeal. That is an appalling statistic, not just for the people of Durham but for those in the north-east generally.

The hon. Member for Newark constantly claimed that the industry brought many jobs into the area, but that claim is not substantiated. I am not aware that more than one job has been created by RJB on the most recently approved working site in my constituency for a so-called local—that is, someone living within 10 miles of the site.

On 15 November 1991 The Journal, a local newspaper, carried the headline, "Appeals inspectors 'swayed by misleading employment claims'—Opencast bosses fail to deliver promised work". It was reported that

"hundreds of jobs promised at controversial opencast coal sites have not been delivered",

including Stobswood where 500 jobs had been promised and 76 people were employed, Plenmeller where 120 jobs had been promised and 26 people employed, and Chester House where 160 jobs had been promised and 101 people employed. A British Coal official admitted that job predictions had not been met, but attributed that to technological advances. As I said, one cannot trust the opencasters. Moreover, potential and existing jobs are threatened by the new ugly opencast sites which have developed, particularly in my constituency.

In an amazing and shocking confession, the Government have acknowledged that they have blighted Durham with unwanted opencast sites; they have also been forced to accept the growing body of evidence of health risks associated with such sites. Those facts alone must force a rethink of the Government's disgraceful attitude to opencast sites, not just in my constituency but throughout the country.

I, too, congratulate you on your honour, Mr. Deputy Speaker, which has brought much pleasure to all of us in west Yorkshire. It is also appropriate that you should be in the Chair for this debate as over many years you have contributed so significantly to our debates in the House on mining, especially in relation to opencasting. Having said all that, I am bound to honour your admonition to be brief, so I shall not repeat things that I have said on previous occasions.

It is clear that there are some circumstances in which opencasting is acceptable and sensible, and others in which it is not. In my constituency, we have clear examples of both those positions. In the south of my constituency at St. Aidans, there is a huge site which was derelict, an eyesore and dangerous. Opencasting was the only practical way of solving that problem and of creating good countryside and a good environment for local people. It produced a great deal of community gain in terms of cash, as well as the long-term benefit that will come to the environment. In such a situation, opencasting makes sense.

Further north in my constituency, in the sensitive green belt area between the town of Garforth and the conurbation of Leeds, one finds a situation in which opencasting cannot make any sense. At Austhorpe, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Mudie), and at Garforth, communities are capable of attracting high-quality inward investment, both in commerce and in industry. There are established communities and a crucially sensitive area of environmental green belt. The problem that we face in such a region is that individual applications for opencasting are made and each case is considered on its own merits without any real strategic overview of what is right for the region.

My hon. Friend the Minister will rightly point out that mineral planning guidance No. 3 states that there should be local minerals plans which highlight where opencasting is appropriate and where it is not. Around the country, a number of local minerals plans make precisely that sort of judgment. That does not help us in Leeds, however, where no local minerals plan is in place and where the process of obtaining such a plan is inevitably some years away as the whole exercise is bound up with the unitary development plan inquiry, which will take years.

In that region, we faced an application from one company, H J Banks, for a site on the line of the A1-M1 link road. Inevitably, there will be sterilisation, so the company has made a very short-term application. Against the wishes of the local communities and of the Department of Transport, which feared that the site would delay the building of the road, the company received planning permission on a one-off basis. The moment it has that application and is into production, however, it comes forward with another application for another site nearby which will enable it to continue its mining even though that site has nothing to do with the line of the road or sterilisation and is on green fields. A further three, four or potentially five applications are known to be already on the table or in the pipeline for consideration. The problem that we face when we come to a planning inquiry is that each of those applications is considered in isolation and we do not have the protection of a local minerals plan.

MPG3 stresses the importance of the concept of sustainable development. The real core problem for constituencies such as mine is that it is unclear what sustainable development actually means. In Garforth, it must mean the attraction of modern high-quality investment which is coming on the back of the excellent communications and the skilled work force. In that region, unemployment is not high. The region is expanding and attractive and many high-quality companies are seriously considering locating there. If sustainable development means anything, it must mean that, for that region, we should promote a planning environment which attracts and is helpful to that programme. We should not put in opencasting which, whatever safeguards are put in place, will produce some measure of dust. One company which has built a £20 million factory in my constituency says that opencasting causes problems for the purity of its product.

The real core of the problem that a constituency such as mine faces is that if one does not have a unitary development plan there is no opportunity for a strategic overview to be taken of what is right for that region.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Perhaps I may finish this point; then of course I shall way to the hon. Gentleman, whose constituency suffers problems not dissimilar to those in my own.

Between Garforth and the Leeds conurbation, a number of opencast applications are coming forward which clearly do not fit into the pattern of development of that region. It must be right for a strategic overview to be taken. Such an approach cannot be taken within the time frame of these planning applications because the local minerals plan inquiry is caught up in the unitary development plan. It must therefore be right for the Minister and the Department to call the applications in and inject a strategic overview into the structure.

Because the hon. Gentleman represents a marginal seat, he was able to get the Secretary of State for the Environment to visit his opencast site. The hon. Gentleman is talking about the cumulative effects of application after application in the same region. Was his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State taking note of what he had to say about that, and would the Secretary of State be prepared to see the cumulative effect of sites in nearby constituencies which are not marginal and therefore not of such interest to him in the next election?

I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment came to my constituency to consider the situation and to discuss with local action groups and local representatives the issues that are involved. If I have been more successful in attracting Ministers to consider problems in my constituency than the hon. Gentleman has, that is perhaps just a fact of life, but—I say this without making party political mischief between us—the issue that the hon. Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Gunnell) faces in his constituency and that which I face in Elmet are not dissimilar. Both of us are exposed to a position in which there is no local minerals plan in place, a number of opencast applications are either on the table or in the pipeline, and some opencast mining is already under way.

What I am saying to my hon. Friend the Minister is specific not just to my constituency, but to the hon. Gentleman's as well; exactly the same issues would apply. When the Secretary of State was in my constituency, I specifically made the point that this issue affected the whole of the green belt around the south of Leeds, where sensitive green belt regions have been designed to maintain the separation of different communities, where communities are able to attract good quality investment, and where opencasting is not suitable in terms of the sensible economic development of those regions.

I therefore say to my hon. Friend the Minister that, within the context of MPG3 and with all sensible economic planning criteria, in regions such as ours, a strategic judgment must be made as to whether applications should be granted. They should be based on a strategic overview of what is right for that region, rather than put forward one by one, whereby individual companies chip away at a local authority and its unwillingness to spend large sums of money fighting cases through inquiries.

In the situations that I have described, I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to make it clear that, for that particular region, he will call in applications so that a strategic overview can be injected by the Government.

I should like to address local issues which could involve your part of Wakefield, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as well as my constituency and those of my hon. Friends the Members for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) and for Hemsworth (Mr. Enright). We have the same problems in relation to opencast mining. The problems relate not only to mining on derelict sites, which have been mentioned, but to planning applications. For instance, an inquiry is imminent on the Sharlston opencast site.

When we discussed mineral plans and extraction in Committee on the Environment Bill, where the Minister led for the Government, I spoke of problems to which I should like to refer again today to try to impress on the Minister the importance, when considering applications for opencast mining, of the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) about the environment, health, noise and dust pollution as well as the nuisance of lights. The Minister must attend to those matters in relation to applications and appeals.

The Sharlston application is from a Mr. Banks and would involve opencast mining in a green belt area. I invite the Minister to view that rural area because it would be a crime to blight it with opencast mining, and the people responsible for the applications should be treated as criminals. It seems that the hon. Member for Newark (Mr. Alexander) would defend such developments. Houses and communities are situated less than 200 m from the proposed site; if that is the kind of development that the hon. Gentleman thinks should go ahead in that environment, I have little sympathy for his constituents.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I am reluctant to give way to the hon. Gentleman, but as I have mentioned him I will certainly give way.

Perhaps I may help the hon. Gentleman by giving him the positive assurance that that was not what I said. I argued that surface-mined coal should not be rubbish and that in considering planning applications the Minister should be extremely sensitive about the very implications that the hon. Gentleman mentions.

The hon. Gentleman did not say that in his speech, but I accept his points.

I impress upon the Minister that it is a question not just of planning applications but of the problems which develop from them. In the Oulton area of my constituency there was opencast mining in the past. Because coal can now be mined at a greater depth, there is an application to carry out new opencast mining on that Oulton site. That is also a crime against the community. The Minister must take opencast mining seriously.

In Committee on the Environment Bill I said that we do not want rape of the countryside in Sharlston. People in that area are totally against the application. They take the view that the closure of the deep pit at Sharlston followed by an application for opencast mining creates problems and is an added insult to the people who lost their jobs in that area. The Minister must consider a number of issues.

I should like to develop other matters, but as a large number of hon. Members want to enter the debate I shall be brief. I ask the Minister to consider the Sharlston application because it could be used as a barometer, as an example of refusing planning applications for coal that is no longer needed. The problems for the environment from such a development can be envisaged. I invite the Minister to come to Sharlston, look at the site and let me have his observations about what he thinks is right or wrong about an application to develop opencast mining there.

I also shall be brief. Opencast mining is clearly a controversial activity, but there is no reason, when debating it, for logic and truth to go out of the window. I think that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley), who is no longer in her place, said that deep mining was an environmentally friendly way to extract coal while opencast mining was an environmentally damaging way to do it. That is patently absolute nonsense.

I have a duty to defend my hon. Friend, who is not here at the moment. She did not say what the hon. Gentleman attributes to her. She asked how the total costs of opencast mining could be evaluated, taking into account social and environmental costs. I do not remember her making any comparison with deep-mined coal.

We have to take the logic of the hon. Lady's remarks to their conclusion. If she takes into account the environmental costs of one form of mining, opencast mining, I assume that she must take into account the costs of deep mining. It is manifest nonsense to say that deep mining is environmentally friendly, as some hon. Members have hinted. Anybody who was brought up in the north-east of England, as I was, and who saw the smouldering pit heaps and the legacy of disease and injury that were caused by deep mining would not say that. We can argue that opencast mining has considerable advantages and that, when the work is finished, the land is generally restored to an extremely high standard. The risk of injuries, accidents and dangers to health of the people in the opencast industry is smaller than it is to those who work in deep mines.

The hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Etherington) said that opencast coal was not necessary. My hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Mr. Alexander) made some good points about that. It is manifest rubbish to say that such coal is not necessary. Opencast coal is needed to add to the coal from deep mines to make the deep mines viable. If the hon. Member for Sunderland, North wants to shut Blenkinsopp colliery in my constituency or Ellington colliery in Northumberland his proposal is the way to do it.

The hon. Gentleman accuses me of talking rubbish. That is fine, because he is an expert on the subject. I do not mind such comments from him because they are obviously authoritative. If land is as well restored after opencasting as he says—he has many more farmers in his constituency than I have in mine—why does the National Farmers Union not agree with him?

I can say from first-hand experience that the land in my constituency that has been opencast and restored is in some cases better than it was originally.

Farmers will vote Labour next time.

Chance would be a fine thing. I do not think so.

Plenmellor, which is being used for opencast mining, was mined in the past. The land was potholed, had shafts and was dangerous. It will be restored to open moorland. We need opencast coal. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North spoke about sulphur. I suspect that she is wrong; I think that opencast coal has less sulphur than deep-mined coal. The advantage of opencast coal is that it can be mined completely clean and its calorific value can be determined exactly. Power stations do not blend coal themselves, but buy ready blended coal, so if it was not available here they would buy it from abroad.

It should be borne in mind that, for about every 100 tonnes of material that is mined underground, only 60 tonnes is coal. On average, there is 40 tonnes of spoil, which has to be tipped in the countryside.

I do not see how, if the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) took a walk down the Durham beaches, where colliery waste has been thrown for years, he could argue that properly controlled opencast mining is as environmentally damaging as existing deep mines.

Through MPG3, the Government have done a great deal to tidy up and strengthen the planning laws relating to opencast mining. For a start, they have removed the qualification of national interest, which was a great step forward. Before that, opposition to opencast applications could easily be overridden because of so-called national interest and objections to importing coal. The Government are putting in strict controls so that opencast coal mining happens only in areas where it is suitable or where it improves derelict land. That point has not been mentioned either.

The land surrounding opencast workings on the site of the old Orgreave colliery will be restored to a much better standard at no cost to the public purse. If the site had not been opencasted, the work would have cost the taxpayer £10 million or £15 million. There are environmental benefits of properly controlled opencast mining.

I sympathise with my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet (Mr. Batiste) since there is not a mineral development plan in his area. He should have one. Most of the country is covered by such plans. Indeed, most county councils or local planning authorities consider whether opencasting is possible and where it can be carried out to benefit the mining industry without causing untold environmental damage that affects nearby residents. I congratulate the Government on their stance and on their new rules and regulations in MPG3.

It is very interesting to listen to some Tories complain about opencasting in their areas and about the fact that they are likely to get more opencast applications. With odd exceptions, most of them were there in 1992, shutting the 31 pits with the President of the Board of Trade—who is now, so I am told, Deputy Prime Minister. Most of them went into the Lobby to shut the 31 pits despite the fact that almost every Opposition Member who spoke on the issue said that it would result in more opencast applications in every coalfield in Britain. Now they are crying and whining and whingeing because what has happened is exactly what we forecast.

It is a scandal that the President of the Board of Trade is being promoted when he helped to shut the 31 pits and took part in that—I shall use my words carefully—very smelly deal with R J Budge. There is no doubt that when the President of the Board of Trade knocked that £100 million off R J Budge's contract, he knew that Mr. Budge would make a load of money out of opencasting. Every one of us who work and live in those areas know that an opencast application is a licence to print money. That is the reason for MPG3. This Tory Government wanted to assist their friends, many of whom put money into the Tory party, including Mr. Budge. It is a classic example of the Tory party liaising with others to line their own pockets in return for ensuring the closure of deep-mine pits.

It is an affront that the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) said that my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Etherington) was on about rubbish. The hon. Gentleman went on to tell us—I think that this is what he implied—that he wanted to opencast Ellington colliery. It is under the sea. I do not know whether they have some new equipment that I have not heard about.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No. The hon. Gentleman made it clear that he wanted opencast instead of deep mines and he referred to Ellington colliery. I think that I can rest my case.

rose—

The hon. Gentleman has had his chance. Sit down. I know that he voted for Major. Now he has his problems he should not land them on us.

We want to get back to the main question: the blight of the coalfield areas. We know only too well that if any opencast applications were made near Chequers, they would be turned down. The truth is that, with rare exceptions, most opencast applications are made in areas from which spring—in the main—Labour Members of Parliament, including the First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means. He knows about the subject as much as anybody else.

The Government do not really care. They are not bothered about the outcome. That is why there has been a host of applications recently—to line Mr. Budge's pocket so that he can hand over some more money to the Tory party. That is all part of the scene. That is why we have to get back to what can be done.

I am not one of those people who say that, when I worked in a colliery, there were no environmental hazards. Of course there were, but they are now developing deep mines such as those at Selby and Asfordby which are not like the old-fashioned pits in Durham, Derbyshire and Lancashire. Although they are not environmental hazard free, they are very different from those that we knew and worked in.

In the run-up to the general election, knowing that the Tory Government are not going to do anything to help us, we have to impress on our Labour Front-Bench team the kind of policies that we need for the future. First, we have to tackle this opencast business and get back to what we used to have. I remember a policy of no more green-field sites. We also used to have a policy which was in line with the Flowers commission—allowing, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North said, opencast mines only to tick over. That meant that they hardly mined anything at all.

In Government, Labour party energy policy should be to take the remaining pits back into public ownership and then control opencasting. Mr. Budge and his friends would no longer exist. That is the only way. We can play around with MPG3 as long as we like, but we have do something more dramatic.

I will finish on this point because many hon. Members want to speak: there has been an aura around Mr. Budge and Arkwright in my constituency. Everybody is saying that this wonderful new authority is shifting a village from one side of the street to the other, that it is all benevolent and that it wants to do it for the good of the community. I have to tell the House that it is the biggest con trick of all time.

R J Budge closed Arkwright colliery and the methane came pothering out into the village and nearly blew it up. The villagers banded together, with my help and that of others, to take British Coal on. They took it to court, issued writs, and were on the verge of making money out of British Coal when what did it do? It said: "We've got a wonderful idea. We'll opencast all of Arkwright, we'll shift your village and you'll all get a house apiece." It saved itself all that wonderful compensation.

The whole thing was a con trick from beginning to end. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North for giving me an opportunity to put that on the record. Those Arkwright people are really being shifted against their will. They had no option because they were frightened to death of the methane exuding from the old colliery. Now that we have had this debate, it is very important for our Front-Bench team to understand that we need dramatic answers. Pottering about with MPG3 and other such matters is important and I do not disregard it, but we have to take back control to ensure that we can be masters in our own house.

I hope that the Minister has listened carefully to the strong opinions of people who represent coalfield communities because there is no doubt that, over recent years, they have had a tough time. Coalfield communities aspire to a better future and that is what this debate is all about.

In principle, I am not against opencasting, with one big proviso: it has to lift the landscape, enhance the environment and clear up areas of contamination and dereliction. There are some good opencast schemes. I draw the Minister's attention to the Moorgreen site in Nottinghamshire—the site of a derelict colliery which has been opencasted and will be replanted forming part of the new Greenwood forest giving people access to a better future; the recreation of Sherwood forest. Opencasters are not interested in such sites because they are small and difficult. They want the big, new green-field sites.

One can contrast Moorgreen and Robinettes just to the south. Robinettes is a mature landscape—the landscape of Lawrence. It is the area where Lawrence was born, where he roamed and where, I suspect, he did other things as well. The Erewash canal runs through it and the village of Cossall lies within it. It is an important site, yet British Coal tried to destroy it. I am pleased that the local campaign group succeeded and that the county council turned down the plan.

I know that RJB (Mining) will come back with another application. The company will be more sophisticated in that it will change the name in the application. Instead of calling the site Robinettes, the company will call it Shortwood Farm, but it is the same application. The company will do that because it believes that it can make money not out of a small derelict site, but out of a big green-field site.

I point out to the Minister that the average cost of opencasting is 80p per gigajoule—that is what the opencaster is aiming at. I hope that the Minister realises what is happening now in the deep-mining industry. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) talked about the new pits. Coal is being produced at Selby at £1 a gigajoule, and at Asfordby and Welbeck the figure is £1.20. As a result of the restructuring and because many of the overheads have gone, costs are coming down. I tell the Minister straight that, within two to three years, the cost of deep-mined coal will be lower than the cost of opencast.

The real costs of opencast are far greater than the figures suggest. Opencasting destroys landscapes, it destroys the environment and it puts people's health at risk. We need, as we have said before, a more sophisticated way in which to establish the real costs of development. The real cost of opencasting is that it ravages the community. I am no apologist for the deep mining industry. It is bad, tough and rough, but it is getting better.

The problem is not just what happens when there is opencasting, but the threat of planning applications for opencasting which hang over the community for years.

Opencasting blights the area before and afterwards. We must look for a real energy policy—an energy policy with the deep coal industry as its cornerstone. Unless we have such a policy, I despair about the future. The cost of a new deep coal face is about £30 million. It is clear that, in 1998 and beyond, the new private owners will go for opencasting rather than capital investment. We must get a grip of the situation and give people a new and better future. They have had a tough time and they deserve better.

I want to deal with the two arguments put by the hon. Members for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) and for Newark (Mr. Alexander). They argued that opencast mining was advantageous to the country and to the local community provided that high-quality restoration followed. I dispute that argument.

The Flowers report, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Etherington) referred, was produced in 1981. It spoke in terms of opencast being taken to tick-over level; opencast coal was not required in the amount that the hon. Member for Hexham suggested was required for technical reasons. The amount required for technical reasons is extremely small. If the hon. Gentleman had read the 1993 report produced by the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, he would have seen that the evidence given to the Committee by the Coalfield Communities Campaign suggested that the amount required for technical reasons could be cut to less than 10 million tonnes. That suggestion was made when 60 million tonnes of coal was deep mined. The Minister will be aware that the Select Committee recommended that opencast mining production be cut to 10 million tonnes.

In 1994, opencast coal production had reached 16 million tonnes and the total amount of coal produced in the United Kingdom was 48 million tonnes. In other words, the proportion of opencast coal has increased to one third of the total produced in the United Kingdom.

On restoration, I invite the Minister to visit the Redbrook site in my constituency. It was used for opencast at the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s. It was a long-term project. The site has been restored, but the land is blighted. It is now just pasture land. There is no arable farming, the woods have not been returned and the streams do not meander as they used to do. It takes up to 100 years after an opencast mine has ceased operation for land to return to the state that it was in before opencasting started.

Will the Minister confirm that, in a letter sent from his Department to RJB (Mining) just after privatisation, 110 opencast sites were identified in an area stretching from Derbyshire to the north-east? Will he confirm that figure? Will R J Budge be able to put in planning applications for sites that have been turned down before privatisation? If so, we in the mining communities can expect many more sites to be proposed for opencast mining.

I suggest to the Minister that there is now a need for insurance and bonding because some schemes may leave great holes with which the local authority will have to deal. R J Budge has already created such a problem at the Orgreave site, which was the subject of a debate in the House on 16 May. Several issues should be considered. I ask the Minister to ensure that he reviews opencast mining and to ensure that it is cut to tick-over level, as suggested in the Flowers report.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Etherington) on obtaining this debate, which has been extremely interesting and important. No Labour Member underestimates the nation's need for energy or the inevitability of hard decisions, given that no conventional energy source is unpolluting.

Opencast mining, however, should be a last resort and not a first resort. The industry should be recognised for what it is—noisy, dirty and destructive—and its economic worth, in terms of jobs and national need, should be judged accordingly. It should be an industry that is developed only when it can clearly serve the community's interests and that means the interests of the whole community.

Instead, opencast has been developed as a further expression of the Government's privatisation programme and of their hatred of the National Union of Mineworkers. Of course there are circumstances in which opencast can be tolerated. In some areas, it has a long history and the local community may have found an accommodation. In other areas land with a legacy of dereliction may be appropriately mined as opencast as a prelude to clear-up and restoration. In too many areas, however, as this debate has shown, the effects of opencast on the local community have been appalling.

Much opencast activity could have been avoided. In most cases, the same quantity and type of coal could have been mined from deep mines. When the Tories came to office in 1979, total coal output was 137 million tonnes, of which only 14.5 million tonnes—just 10 per cent.—was from opencast. Today, the proportion from opencast is almost one third, albeit that total coal output is down to 48 million tonnes.

Deep-mined coal production has been massively reduced by direct Government intervention and they have set in train a parallel strategy to promote an increase in coal from opencast mining. They gave guidance to local planning authorities in which they made it clear that

"it would be against the national interest to refuse permission for coal extraction"

by opencast mining. That judgment was reinforced by a series of further measures that, rather than being a response to the changing needs of modern communities, led to opportunities for making private profit by a few of the Tory party's friends.

Opencast mining is one of the most environmentally destructive activities in the United Kingdom today. It has immediate effects on the surrounding neighbourhoods and long-term effects on the landscape. It is Labour's view that, in most circumstances, the damaging effects of opencast far outweigh the economic benefits, and nothing that has been said today will change our mind.

The immediate effects on communities have been graphically outlined by many of my hon. Friends, not least by my hon. Friends the Members for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) and for Sherwood (Mr. Tipping). The nuisance of noise, blasting, excavation, vibration, dust and the intrusion of heavy lorries all blight local communities, let alone property values. The long-term effects are more difficult to evaluate. Opencast leads to the permanent loss of mature countryside, and although restoration can grass over an area, it cannot bring back the natural contours.

It would be wholly wrong to believe that such concerns are limited to the ranks of city-dwelling green groups, or even to members of the Council for the Protection of Rural England. I was born and brought up in a south Wales valley. Yes, the miners were hard men, but they loved their countryside and knew every path and contour of the mountains. They loved nothing better than walking on the hillsides or digging their back gardens.

That is why opencast mining such as that found on the Selar Farm site near the village of Cwmgwrach in west Glamorgan is such an abomination. It splits the community between those so desperate for work that they are prepared to make the compromise, and those desperate to defend the natural heritage. People should not have to make such choices.

Labour is committed to environmentally sustainable development. While recognising the need for jobs, Labour in government will operate a presumption against opencast mining, and permit it only where it would be to the benefit both of the local community and of the local environment. I hope that, in that aim, we might satisfy my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), because I believe that the green-field sites will eventually be excluded. Labour in government will reverse the process, although we shall do so within a comprehensive energy strategy that puts the needs of the nation, of local communities and of the environment into the same equation.

The Minister is the one who must answer questions today. Can he explain how the revised guidance will make any difference? What does he say about the Sharlston application described by my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien)? Will the provisions in the Environment Bill, inadequate though they are, apply to opencast and the issue of polluting mine water? What is his answer to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) about Blind Wells?

As my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) asked, will the Minister put on record his response to the idea of bonding? Surely if our holidays can be safeguarded we should be able to safeguard our communities. Surely we cannot allow R J Budge to continue to do what he did in Sheffield, where he put restoration into the hands of a separate company and then allowed that company to go bankrupt.

The Minister must answer those questions today, and we must learn to protect our environment and our communities from the destructive activity of opencast.

I have had more invitations than a tourist bureau to tour the country, and I would certainly be interested to look at some of the sites. Indeed, I have already agreed to visit some areas.

We had one small interlude with a bit of dramatics—pantomime, perhaps—from the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), who reminds me of the three ugly sisters in one go. In general, though, there was a balanced debate in some areas with some Members, and there was acceptance on both sides—[Interruption] I must tell the hon. Member for Bolsover that his teeth are still slipping. Positive points were made on both sides and there was recognition, but not by all hon. Members, that there has to be a balance.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Etherington) on initiating the debate and on allowing various Members to put various points. I shall read the report of the debate tomorrow, because I shall not be able to answer all the questions now. Indeed, I shall be able to do no more than touch on some of them.

I understand the environmental concerns that were raised clearly and emphatically by hon. Members on both sides of the House. Letters have come in too. The Government have understood those concerns and taken on board their importance. They have influenced the thinking behind the new guidance published last July, which emphasises that development should be allowed only when it can be carried out in an environmentally acceptable way, or where there are overriding benefits, but it is not and should not be the intention to stop all opencast mining. That point has been made by hon. Members on both sides of the House.

I was interested to hear the hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr. Tipping) say that opencast can be done satisfactorily from an environmental point of view. The mess can be cleaned up and we can end up with an acceptable, if not environmentally improved, area afterwards. The aim of the guidance is to ensure that the extraction of coal can take place in accordance with the full and proper protection of the environment and within the principles of sustainable development.

The new guidance was not produced rashly. It was drawn up after extensive consultation with the industry, planners, environmental groups and local communities, and it responds to many of the concerns that were expressed. I recognise that some of what has been said, especially by the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg), was about areas that were mined before the publication of the new guidelines, and I hope that they will at least help in such cases in future.

The guidelines emphasise a development plan led approach, with tests of environmental acceptability for individual projects. We have taken a tougher approach to the assessment of factors such as noise, dust and visual impact, and there is an annex that addresses each one in turn. We are committed to monitoring the implementation of the guidance through the research programme.

We also recognise the conflicting views on the characteristics of the coal, and intend to undertake research, starting early next year, to examine whether opencast coal has advantageous or disadvantageous characteristics. Some of the arguments have, therefore, already been taken on board.

The development plan led approach ensures that decisions on land availability and use are debated fully and openly at local level. That must offer the greatest certainty for industry about where coal extraction is likely to be allowed. Similarly, communities where coal reserves exist will have a clearer idea about where such activities are likely to take place, and over what period. That in part answers some of the questions that have been asked.

The new approach, which responded to many of the concerns raised, has been generally well received. I understand that the industry is somewhat concerned, and is conscious of the restrictions, but I recognise that there are difficulties on the other side, too. We intend to enforce the restrictions.

Green belt policy has been mentioned. It is true that there is no bar on making planning applications for development in the green belt. Nor do we intend to introduce a presumption against mineral working in green belts. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] The simple fact is that minerals can be worked only where they are found, and such workings represent a temporary use of the land. Their extraction need not therefore be incompatible with green belt objectives, but applications for mineral working in green belts should be examined carefully, and development should be allowed only where the highest standards of operation and restoration can be achieved.

Nevertheless, MPG3 does not encourage applications for green-field sites but says that priority should be given to proposals involving the clearance of dereliction. If operators wish to work sensitive green-field sites, they will need to demonstrate that real benefits will accrue from their proposals.

rose—

I shall not give way because I have only one and a half minutes left, and I want to touch on a few more questions.

There are some good examples, one of which was cited by the hon. Member for Sherwood. Any hon. Member who happens to know the Rother valley country park, near Sheffield, will know that it represents another example of considerable success.

The importance of development plans has been touched on. That is a key element in meeting the Government's objectives and in ensuring that development and growth are sustainable. In emphasising a planning-led approach, the Government were responding to the concerns expressed that the 1988 guidance was too centrally driven. We believe that a plan-led approach to the supply of land for coal and colliery spoil disposal will provide more certainty for the industry and for the communities in areas where coal reserves exist.

The plans should set out criteria against which individual proposals will be assessed. The guidance makes clear that the criteria should include consideration of employment and other economics effects of the proposals, any environmental improvements or other material planning benefits likely to result, the effect on landscape and local amenity, the effect on the local environment of transporting coal off the site, the cumulative effects of the proposals on an area, the avoidance of sterilisation of mineral resources and the avoidance of unplanned piecemeal working of deposits, which was a matter about which my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet (Mr. Batiste) complained. The Secretary of State has visited my hon. Friend's constituency, and I intend to do so as well. I may not have the stature of my right hon. Friend, but I hope that my hon. Friend will welcome me nevertheless.

Order.

I am most grateful for an opportunity to discuss Dartmoor national park, a subject close to my heart and close to your constituency, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I raised the subject of Dartmoor in an Adjournment debate in February 1988. I have great a love for Dartmoor. I am a life member of the Dartmoor Preservation Association, and I pay tribute to the association's patron, Lady Sylvia Sayer, who has done more for Dartmoor and the environment than nearly any other person. I also want to recognise the work of my former research assistant Kate Ashbrook. She worked with me on the Dartmoor Commoners Bill, and is now chairman of the Ramblers Association and general secretary of the Open Spaces Society.

My request for a further debate has been prompted by the appalling accident on 18 June this year, when three young children were seriously injured near Great Mis Tor—some 1,700 ft up on the moor and about a mile north of Princetown—when a mortar bomb exploded.

The Worrall family was out enjoying an afternoon in the Dartmoor national park. They are letterbox enthusiasts, as so many of my constituents are. I myself am a letterbox enthusiast. In letterboxing, walkers hide boxes on the moor for fellow wanderers to discover. There are books about letterboxing which show where letterboxes may be placed. In the old days, there were five letterboxes in the most remote parts of the moor.

The idea was that, when one got to a remote letterbox, one left a postcard there. The next person who came to the letterbox would stamp the postcard and take the card back to a proper post box at the edge of the moor. Sometimes, one would not get a card for three to six months, such was the inaccessibility of the letterboxes.

There used to be five small post boxes in inaccessible parts of the moor. Today, there are some 3,000 letterboxes. It has become a huge sport, in which competition is fierce and enthusiasts are determined. Children and adults alike engage in a harmless but amusing pursuit, but it means that people rummage in nooks and crannies and upturn rocks and boulders to find their prize. It is an innocent pastime that occupies a good deal of leisure interest throughout the national park. Many thousands of people are now members of a society for letterboxing enthusiasts.

Unfortunately, in her enthusiasm to try to find a letterbox near Great Mis Tor, Jenny Worrall, aged eight, touched an unexploded mortar bomb and was badly injured. I am pleased to be able to tell the House that Jenny—despite undergoing two operations to remove shrapnel, and having been in intensive care for some time—is now in a general ward in Plymouth, and is making great progress. Her brothers Gary, aged 10, and Ricky, aged 9, have each made a good recovery from their shrapnel wounds.

Apparently, five people have been killed on Dartmoor by mortar shells since 1951, and two civilian injuries have been caused by military activity on the moor as well. The Dartmoor national park was created in 1951 as one of 10 national parks formed principally to provide urban dwellers with open spaces in which to roam, explore and escape from it all. The parks were designed to preserve and enhance the natural beauty of the area, and promote its enjoyment by the public.

The parks are some of the most guarded areas in Britain, and are protected from intrusion by development, noise or nuisance. The question must be asked—how can the military's use of such a national park for live firing with ammunition be consistent and compatible with the purposes for which the park was established?

There are three principal ranges in the Dartmoor national park—Okehampton, Merrivale and Willsworthy. I remember visiting the Willsworthy range with you, Madam Deputy Speaker, where we saw what was being done there. It is true that the number of days on which live firing takes place is reducing. The data that I have received for 1994 are particularly interesting. While the permitted number of days for firing at Okehampton was 112, the range was actually used on only 50 days. On Merrivale range, the permitted use was 173 days, but only 73 days were used. On Willsworthy, 232 days were permitted, but only 108 were used.

It is clear that the actual use of the ranges is about 50 per cent. less. than the permitted use. If that is a general picture, and if similar spare capacity exists across the Ministry of Defence's estates, there must be scope for priority release of training areas on Dartmoor. Surely we must review the need for so many training sites and the cost of those sites if each is under-used to that degree.

In 1993, the Public Accounts Committee highlighted the shortcomings in the management of available Army training land. There was widespread dismay in 1991 when the licence periods for Okehampton and Merrivale were renewed by the Duchy of Cornwall for 21 years, as opposed to the usual seven years. It was as if the Duchy felt that it had no interest in the fact that the national park should be protected from a further extension of military use.

Agricultural set-aside could provide alternative opportunities and locations for military live firing. What is the point of laying off more and more agricultural land from agricultural use if that land is not used for something beneficial? Why should we pound Dartmoor with more and more live fire? Why should there be military training in the wildest and most beautiful countryside in the nation? Why are 13,340 hectares-7 per cent. of the total area of the Dartmoor national park—designated for military use and live firing?

As more people explore the moor, the more likely it is that there will be a recurrence of the tragic accident of 18 June. Dartmoor attracts 8 million visitors a year, and we know that 357,338 people visited the eight information centres in the national park between 1993 and 1994.

Some people believe that, as Dartmoor has been used for military training since 1870—some 80 years before the national park was set up—and that live firing also took place before the national park was established, live firing should take precedence. They believe that it is not relevant that the Dartmoor Preservation Association was formed 13 years after military training started in 1870, and has been opposing live firing ever since.

The conflict is not so much about military manoeuvres and dry training—proper uses of a national park—but firing live ammunition. The conflict between military requirements and public access and environmental considerations has been a matter of continuous controversy. It was investigated in the Nugent report, and in the Sharp report, which noted:

"military training and a national park are discordant, incongruous and inconsistent".

It has also been considered in the Edwards report.

I recognise the need to defend the realm and to train our military. I greatly respect the work done in my constituency by the Britannia royal naval college at Dartmouth, HMS Cambridge at Wembury and the marines in Bickleigh. Their manoeuvres involve dry training, firing blanks and physical endurance tests. They do not involve firing live ammunition.

It is interesting to note that the cessation of the cold war seems to have increased the need for live firing in this country. The British Army used to train extensively in Germany, as well as in the United Kingdom. Now that the troops are back from Germany, they are pounding around our national parks in increasing numbers.

Part of the Luneburg training area in northern Germany is a national park. The public outcry was so immense throughout Germany at a national park being used for live firing that the German Government were forced to find an alternative site for that type of training. Live firing no longer occurs on the Luneburg training area.

The House may be interested to learn that no other European country permits live firing on any area within a national park. When the Minister replies, I hope that he will explain why Britain is the only country in the European Union that allows its national parks to be used for live firing.

While the national park authority pursues its principle towards the ultimate withdrawal of military use and reductions in the restrictions imposed upon public access, another accident is waiting to happen. That is inevitable, and the military know it. Perhaps the Dartmoor national park should be renamed the Dartmoor military park.

It is not good enough to say that there have not been many accidents. There are unexploded mortars on many parts of the moor, and more and more are being discharged every week, so it is inevitable that another accident is waiting to happen, especially when that national park provides open access to the public to enjoy the countryside.

It is not good enough for the Government to say that signs are posted to warn people not to pick up items, or they may be blown up. Dartmoor is a national park for the public's enjoyment, not a place of danger where people should guard against everything they do.

I call on the Government to review the necessity for live firing and military training in our national parks. They should carry out a full investigation into whether, as a result of the alternative land use policy that the Government have rightly pursued, new areas of land that were formerly used for agriculture could now be better used for live firing and military training. That is the only way in which another terrible accident can be avoided.

What is required of the British Government? They should follow the lead set by the German Government and find another site, unless live firing could be confined to a specific area of Dartmoor which would pose no danger to the public. Without that commitment, people will continue to stumble across unexploded ammunition, particularly if they are letterboxing and looking in nooks and crevices for the boxes.

Safety procedures could be made more rigorous, but I doubt whether they would solve the problem. Dartmoor should be used to the full, but the more it is used for hunting, hang-gliding, orienteering, or other leisure pursuits, the more likely it is that another accident will happen, however careful the military are.

I pay tribute to the meticulous way in which the military decide where and how they fire, but I fear that, when one is dealing with dangerous explosives, people will inevitably stumble across an unexploded bomb. Any accident is one too many.

I am not suggesting that more rules and regulations should be introduced, or that we should have more registers and more bureaucracy. I do not think that that will help. Better signs might be useful, but not more pieces of paper. That would be nothing but an administrative expense. What is required is to use land other than national parks for military firing, and there is other land available.

The tragic accident of 18 June need not have happened. I hope that the Minister will realise that one of the best jobs he could do, as long as he remains in his post, is to find alternative land, so that live firing—not the military—can be confined to certain areas.

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to raise this matter.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen) on raising this important matter. I should like to begin by expressing my deep regret over the unfortunate accident that occurred during the afternoon of Sunday 18 June on the Dartmoor training area. I obviously wish Jenny and Gary Worral a full and speedy recovery, and I am glad to hear that they are making good progress.

As I told my hon. Friend last night, I have trained as a soldier so much on Dartmoor that I am confident that I could find my way from A to B without a map. The unfortunate incident occurred close to Great Mis Tor, part of the moor with which I am sure that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, are familiar.

It appears that, during a visit to the national park, a family from Ashburton had been engaged, as my hon. Friend said, in the pursuit of letterboxing. While the family had paused for a rest, one of the children apparently picked up a metal object, which subsequently exploded, causing serious stomach and spleen injuries to the girl, aged eight, and shrapnel injuries to one of the two boys who was with her. Our early investigations have revealed that the munition involved was a 2 in mortar round, which was manufactured in March 1942.

As my hon. Friend knows, a military board of inquiry has already been established to investigate the matter, and the full circumstances surrounding the case will not be clear until the board has concluded its investigations.

National parks have accommodated many uses since their creation. They are indeed living, working landscapes. My Department employs about 50 people at Dartmoor and contributes considerably to the local community. I am sure that my hon. Friend will want to bear that in mind when weighing his remarks. I believe that that should be taken into account when formulating policy for the national parks, and that we should recognise their entirely legitimate uses.

Of course, a balance rightly must be struck between those legitimate uses and the understandable wish of the public to enjoy the peace and tranquillity which those parks offer. Although military training may not conform to the general perception of quiet enjoyment, it is often forgotten that it is that very military presence which has helped to preserve and secure the exceptionally beautiful and varied landscape which attracts so many visitors to the national parks.

On the issue of military training generally, and the use of military parks in particular, my hon. Friend will know that the draw-down of forces from Germany and the introduction of new weapon systems are placing significant demands on our training areas. Some must be used more intensively, and others developed to provide new infrastructure. While use of training land will be maximised, we are of course conscious that this needs to be balanced against the interests of conservation.

It is an often forgotten fact that the Army has had a presence in the national parks since long before they were designated as such. At Otterburn, for example, the military training area was established in 1911, some 45 years before it was designated as a national park. As my hon. Friend rightly said, there has been a military presence on Dartmoor since the early 19th century, again many years before the national park was created.

The military presence in those areas has done a great deal to enhance and conserve the landscape and the natural environment. Salisbury plain is a superb example of an area where the long history of military training has helped to preserve one of the most important archaeological sites in Europe and one of the finest examples of chalk downland in the United Kingdom.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

If I my hon. Friend will allow me, I must press on.

My hon. Friend mentioned the need for safety in the national parks. It has, of course, long been the policy of my Department to provide the greatest possible degree of safe public access to the defence estate. With that in mind, the Department has reached agreements with the landowners and the Dartmoor national park authority to stop military training on Dartmoor every weekend throughout the year, and to permit unrestricted public access.

It is not the miliary use of Dartmoor—everyone understands and accepts that we must have a location in the south-west where military training can go on—but the live firing that concerns me.

If my hon. Friend will try to contain himself, I hope to come to that point.

As I have said, the Department has reached extensive agreements to ensure public access. I should like to make it quite plain to the House that we have no intention of altering our policy on public access. We shall continue to encourage it wherever it is consistent with essential operational, security and safety requirements, and with the interests of conservation and of our landlords and tenants.

On Dartmoor, the arrangements for managing military training and public access are monitored and guided by the Dartmoor steering group. That is a non-departmental public body which was established in 1978, following a recommendation in the report by Lady Sharpe on military use of the Dartmoor national park. The steering group is made up of representatives from my Department, the Dartmoor national park authority, Devon county council, English Nature, English Heritage, the Countryside Commission and the owner, the Duchy of Cornwall.

The group's principal aim is to reconcile the requirements of military training, conservation and public access on Dartmoor. At present, it meets annually under an independent chairman, Sir Anthony Barrowclough QC, who is appointed jointly by the Department of the Environment and the Ministry of Defence. Sir Anthony has been extremely successful in enhancing public access and conservation, while at the same time advising on the balance between the military presence and the interests of the national park, the Duchy and, not least, the general public. We are not complacent. despite of his excellent work. As my hon. Friend said, Dartmoor training area has been used for military training for many hundreds of years, and it was used extensively for live firing by British and American forces in preparation for D-day.

The very regrettable incident which occurred recently highlights the fact that not only is there a danger as far as live firing areas on our ranges are concerned, but also some small risk remains in those parts of our training areas which were used as live firing areas in the past—for example, during the second world war. Buried munitions can and do work their way to the surface, and there is always a slight risk, even after clearance, that ordnance may appear on the surface. As my hon. Friend may know, when a blind is fired these days, the most extensive efforts are made to locate it.

At Dartmoor, my officials and local range staff do all they can to alert members of the public to the dangers, and there are a number of measures currently in place with which my hon. Friend is familiar. The live firing areas are clearly defined and marked, and there are warning boards on all main public access routes into them. Periodic sweeps of the training areas are also carried out in order to clear unexploded devices.

However, despite those efforts, there remains the possibility that some ordnance could rise to the surface and remain undetected, even after a full search has been made. That is the case not only on Dartmoor but also, regrettably, throughout the United Kingdom wherever there are likely to be munitions—some of which could have remained undisturbed, and possibly unstable, for 100 years or more.

I am therefore concerned that we do all that we possibly can to draw the potential risks of unexploded ordnance devices to the attention of as many visitors to our training areas as possible. In that respect, my noble Friend Lord Henley, the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, has recently written to the chairmen of nine of the national parks to seek their help in warning members of the public who visit those areas of the dangers which may exist in those parts of the parks used as military training areas.

On the issue of military use of national parks more generally, I can say absolutely that the military training areas which are found in national parks provide essential facilities for military training which could not be dispensed with and could not be found elsewhere. Military use of national parks accounts for only about 3 per cent. of their 3 million acres, and live firing amounts to about 2 per cent. of the total acreage.

We carry out live firing and dry training in six national parks: Dartmoor, Northumberland, the Pembrokeshire coast, the Peak District, Snowdonia and the Yorkshire dales. Like the public, the military use national parks for adventure training, orienteering and hill walking.

My hon. Friend asked me to address the question of live firing. It is important that he realises that we will continue to introduce simulation wherever possible. My hon. Friend may not be aware that a new tactical engagement simulation system has been an amazing success. It is extremely expensive, but a number of full sets of equipment have been ordered. The Chief of the General Staff and I watched it being used on Salisbury plain last week. It is truly remarkable, and I believe that my hon. Friend should be encouraged about its use in the future. However, I must emphasise that nothing can supplement or replace live firing.

Having said that, my hon. Friend will be interested to learn that national park designations—with all the constraints they bring for current and future military use—apply to some 30 per cent. of the Army's training estate, which, as he said, is extremely busy. Taking full note of its responsibilities as far as the use of national parks is concerned, my Department has issued a declaration of commitment to the national parks.

It is my firm intention that we will abide by that declaration and formally consult the various national park authorities and the Countryside Commission over any proposal to extend or significantly intensify military activity within a national park. In addition, my Department has signed similar understandings with English Nature and Scottish Natural Heritage, and we will shortly be doing so with the Countryside Council for Wales. We will also continue with the policy of releasing any land that becomes surplus to defence requirements.

My hon. Friend knows that conservation plays a very important part in our strategy for use and management of the land which we occupy within the national parks. My officials maintain regular close liaison with the national park authorities through the conservation groups that are established on military training areas.

Will the Minister give way?

No.

I assure my hon. Friend that we fully understand his strong feelings about the matter, but our national parks are not the same as national parks abroad. National parks abroad are designated solely for the purpose of recreation. Our national parks have always been—it is one of their glories—living, working landscapes.

My hon. Friend knows Dartmoor very well, and I know the Yorkshire dales particularly well. The dales simply would not exist in their present form unless they had been farmed. It is a living, working landscape, and the military are very much a part of it. I know that my hon. Friend would want no less.

I take on board my hon. Friend's points, but I am afraid that I do not agree with his argument as to why we should end live firing. I believe that he is right to point out that there is a danger on Dartmoor of people picking up items which they should be very wary of handling. We will continue to do everything we can to draw the public's attention to those matters.

It is my wish that the public should have as much access as possible in order to enjoy the defence estate. While I believe that there is a great deal for them to enjoy, it is also my firm wish that they be safe—I know that that is my hon. Friend's primary concern also. Unfortunately, the only way that my Department can guarantee that absolutely is by prohibiting access, which is a move in the opposite direction to the path that we are determined to follow.

In light of what I have said, I hope that my hon. Friend will agree that the action we are taking to encourage safe public access and to educate the public about military training is the best way forward. While I regret the recent incident very much, I hope that people will continue to come and enjoy all that the defence estate has to offer. I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing an extremely important debate at—bearing in mind the background against which it was raised—a very apposite moment.

I acknowledge my hon. Friend's concern for the safety of all who use the parks. I also beg the general public to pay the closest attention to the extensive safety markings and signs that exist in all the national parks where live firing takes place to prevent and enhance their own safety. I thank my hon. Friend for raising the matter, and I hope that he will be reassured by what I said.

Order. We now move to the next topic.

First, I should make it clear that my hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) will be helping me in the debate. The Minister and I have agreed that he should share the time.

I am grateful for this Adjournment debate, which gives me the opportunity to draw to the attention of the Minister and of the House the injustice to the parents and carers of severely handicapped children under five years of age, and perhaps to do something to rectify the anomaly that the mobility component of the disability living allowance is denied to those parents and carers.

I wrote to the Ministry and received a reply from the chief executive of the Benefits Agency, Ian Magee, who kindly pointed out that, regardless of the compassionate case that I had presented to him, section 73 of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 states:

"Subject to the provisions of this Act, a person shall be entitled to the mobility component of a disability living allowance for any period in which he is over the age of 5".

His letter also pointed out that appeals to tribunals and adjudication officers are to no avail as they must adhere to that clause. I ask the Minister to alter section 73 of the legislation.

I should like to quote as an example the case of my constituent, Rebecca Kennedy, of 17 Attlee crescent. Mayfield, Dalkeith. Today is the 50th anniversary of the election of the Attlee Government, so I hope it is a good omen for the case. Rebecca is 19 months old. Her mother has given me a list of what is wrong with her and I shall read it out.

"Rebecca has got brain damage and cerebral palsy—she has both ataxic cerebral palsy and spastic cerebral palsy. She has epilepsy—myoclonic seizures and petit mal seizures. She is microcephalic, which means her head will not grow to the normal size. She has abnormal swallow, which means she cannot eat and requires suction. She is blind. She has only 1 per cent. vision in her right eye and her left eye does not work properly. Rebecca cannot roll, sit, stand, let alone walk. She cannot use any part of her body. All she can do is lie on her back."

I should add that she is a beautiful young child.

Transport is a problem. Her mother writes:

"To get a bus, I have to take a snug seat wheelchair, a tray for the suction machine, the suction machine itself, all her tubes, a bag carrying nappies, food plus her drugs. The seat of the wheelchair is very large and heavy. You cannot fold it down as it is hard backed for her spine. To fold the frame down you have to take the tray off and the frame is extremely heavy. There is no possible way I could use a bus, even with two adults helping."

She then challenges anyone to come along for a demonstration. The most important part is as follows:

"Rebecca requires 24-hour care. You cannot leave her for a second as she could choke to death on her own saliva. She takes lots of muscle spasms due to her cerebral palsy. In the future, she will be getting an operation which will mean a tube shall be coming out of her belly to feed her through."

That is heart rending and no one has challenged those facts or her condition.

The argument that children under five are not mobile and can be carried physically does not apply to Rebecca. There are many other children in similar predicaments.

The compelling case that my hon. Friend is making for a change in the rules can be of help to disabled people generally. It would be enormously helpful, as he says, to disabled children, but others too could benefit. My hon. Friend has long shared my concern and that of other right hon. and hon. Members that many people who have Alzheimer's disease are excluded from applying for the allowance because of the very restrictive criteria used. Is he aware that the Alzheimer's Disease Society now estimates that as many as 17,000 people with the disease who are under the age of 65 are being excluded because of those very restrictive criteria?

I have had correspondence with the Alzheimer's Disease Society and there are practical examples in my constituency. As my right hon. Friend knows, we have been trying to form an organisation to look after people in that anomalous position.

I am sure that Rebecca's predicament is repeated throughout the country. Her case should be heard on its merits and should not be written off because she is under five. Rebecca will never be independently mobile and the whole Kennedy family have rallied round to offer her mother and father financial and physical help. The local community of Mayfield has contributed towards the very expensive walker that is needed for a child such as Rebecca. A normal walker that helps children start walking is nowhere near as expensive. Rebecca's grandparents, uncles and the rest of her family have rallied round, as has the local community, and I am proud to represent them. The family have an old car and its upkeep and running costs are a severe burden on the domestic budget.

I understand that lifting the five-year policy will cost the Government money, but if children such as Rebecca were cared for not by their families but by the state, the cost to the country would escalate. I am in no way threatening the Minister. The Kennedys would never contemplate that option as their love and dedication are far too great, but keeping children such as Rebecca in an institution would be more costly than the sums of money that would accumulate if they received an allowance. The figure has been roughly estimated as £30 million. That is not a large amount when one takes into account the budget of the DSS.

I hope that the Minister will override the Treasury. I am aware that the dead hand of the Treasury locks on to every detail of Government spending and that, for some reason, it claws money back, usually not from the fat cats but from the people who most need it.

I ask the Minister to give carer families justice, and to make that justice effective. The Kennedys and others like them need help now. If we wait until Rebecca is five years old—she will not qualify for another three years—her family, who deserve better, will have to carry a heavy burden of increased costs. Of course communities are sympathetic to such cases—no one who knows about the disabilities of this little girl and the burden on her family could be otherwise—but sympathy is not enough. The Kennedys of this world who have dedicated their whole lives to the care of disabled children need help, guidance and financial backing.

My trade union background has taught me to be short, concise and to the point, and I intend to be so. I only wish that many other people in this place were the same. I urge the Minister to drop the five-year qualifying rule in section 73 and to allow those cases to be examined and then to qualify for the mobility component of the disability living allowance. That would give the people caring for such children a morale boost. Even more importantly, it would be a way of showing that the community and the country believe that justice should be delivered to the people who dedicate their lives to the children like Rebecca whom they love so dearly.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Clarke) for initiating this debate. I think that the House was impressed by the lucid and sincere way in which he invited us to discuss this case and other relevant matters.

The case raised by my hon. Friend is, as he knows, not unique. I have a number of similar problems in my constituency, as, I am sure, do other right hon. and hon. Members. Like my hon. Friend, I want to pay tribute to the dedication of parents such as those whom he has described—there are many of them—and to their commitment, which is simply colossal. To care for a child with multiple disabilities is hard enough for any parent. For those—I have met some of them—who are themselves disabled, it is doubly difficult. For those who cannot take employment because of the demands of their parental responsibilities, the willingness of the wider community to provide the necessary support is vital to their day-to-day lives.

I know that solutions do not come easily, but our minds are set on seeking to achieve genuine community care. That is why I was delighted to hear my hon. Friend pay tribute to his community. When a child of three or four cannot walk because of a disability, that causes quite enough stress for his or her parents. When moving the child requires more physical effort than a single adult can muster, the stress is clearly redoubled. Such parents know that mobility problems will be with their children for life—for the whole of their lives. So their inability to obtain mobility support is a further source of stress and strain in an already difficult situation.

The Prime Minister has signalled his recognition of the fact that children under the age of five can and should benefit from nursery education. Of course we welcome that. This is therefore surely a good opportunity to review the cut-off at five years of age for access to mobility support—that was the kernel of my hon. Friend's case.

I should be interested to hear from the Minister what new thinking the Government have done on this matter. I imagine that he will not dispute that it can become clear long before the age of five—as in the case mentioned by my hon. Friend—that a child will never be capable of independent mobility. Hence the needs of the family and others must be taken into account in any forthcoming review. I certainly hope that a review is under way.

I am sure that the Minister will not dispute, either, that the purpose of the mobility element of the disability living allowance is to promote independent mobility for those facing long-term disability, or that there can be clear benefits from providing such support at an early age. We have heard of the constant care required in some of these cases, and of the difficulties experienced when moving children with severe disabilities. The issue is the independence of carers as well as of their children. We should try to alleviate, wherever we can, the burdens carried by those who choose to do the caring.

Many voluntary organisations and professional bodies are involved too—Mencap and the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation to name but two. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) will confirm that the organisations dealing with the 19-plus groups also have a stake in this matter. I visited some of them only last week in Rochdale and Oldham, and I expect to visit more of them before the end of this week. I know that I shall witness there more problems similar to those that we have been discussing today.

Not for a second do I want to make a party point, but the Minister knows that Lord Brian Rix of Mencap and many others draw to our attention time after time in the all-party group on disability—my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe has played a noble role in it, as have Conservative Members and Members from the smaller parties—problems of the sort identified by my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian. There are no doubts about their views of those problems.

Parents, especially young parents, are greatly shocked to find, sometimes overnight, that the child whom they were expecting to provide the greatest joy of their lives has severe disabilities that mean that a great deal of caring and understanding on the part of everyone concerned will be needed.

We are not charging towards the Government demanding a reply today, but we do seriously invite them to hold a review—and to involve others in it. We can learn a great deal, not just from the national organisations that I have mentioned, but from local groups. I thought it wonderful that my hon. Friend paid tribute to such groups. He was talking about a 19-month-old child; that suggests to me that people quickly rallied round to meet the family's needs.

I hope that the Minister will respond to my hon. Friend's excellent speech in the spirit in which the debate has been held. I hope that he will consider the case sympathetically, because it was a sensibly made and compassionate one. That is only what I would expect from my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian.

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr. Clarke) not only on selecting an important general issue but on directing our attention to a particularly sad and tragic case in his constituency. He promised to be short, concise and to the point, and he most admirably was.

We cannot listen to an account of the predicament of Rebecca Kennedy without being moved by it. Her position is obviously a most difficult one. Her family are coping admirably in very difficult circumstances, and any appeal for more help for them is bound to stir our hearts. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that discretion cannot be exercised in this case because of the terms of the statute—that is the basic point. He has therefore come to the House to invite the Government to consider altering the law. I entirely accept that that is a proper way of putting the argument.

We are talking about—I shall briefly put the matter in context—the entitlement to the mobility component of disability living allowance. The allowance was introduced in 1992 for people disabled before the age of 65 and, for them, it replaces the help formerly available through attendance allowance and mobility allowance. People who need frequent help in connection with bodily functions, and who would previously have received attendance allowance, now receive the care component of DLA at either the middle or higher rate. People who are physically disabled and, as a result, are unable to walk, or virtually unable to walk, who would previously have been entitled to mobility allowance, now receive the mobility component of DLA at the higher rate. New lower rates of both components were introduced to extend help to people who, though disabled, could not previously qualify for the old benefits. Disability living allowance is tax free, non-contributory and non-income related, and is intended to provide help with the extra costs associated with disability.

It is important to understand the principles that at least traditionally have been understood to lie behind these matters. Disability living allowance is not a form of compensation for disability but a personal benefit based on the effect of a disability rather than on the fact that someone has a particular disability or condition. What matters is whether the condition gives rise to care and mobility needs and, if so, how those needs affect the day-to-day life of the disabled person. An award of DLA can trigger eligibility to other benefits—for example, someone who is caring for a disabled person receiving DLA may be entitled to invalid care allowance, as I understand that Mrs. Kennedy is. An award of DLA can also provide access to one of the premiums payable with the income-related benefits such as income support or housing benefit.

As the hon. Member for Midlothian said, the purpose of the mobility component, because it is directed to the effects and dealing with what has to be done to ameliorate those effects, rather than with the condition itself, is to help people to be independently mobile. That point was taken up by the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke). That, of course, assumes that it would not be right to pay benefit to anyone whose mobility could not be improved. To take an extreme case as an example, someone who is in a coma will never be independently mobile.

Two statutory tests may be relevant. One of them, which we have heard about in detail, is section 73(1) of the Social Security (Contributions and Benefits) Act 1992. That is the age restriction. The second test is section 73(8), which states:

"A person shall not be entitled to the mobility component for a period unless during most of that period his condition will be such as permits him from time to time to benefit from enhanced facilities for locomotion."

The classic example of someone who would not be so entitled is my example of someone whose condition is so severe that he is in a coma. I understand that very few cases are refused on that particular head.

The second matter, and the most important one, is the position of children under five years of age. I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Midlothian appreciates—I saw the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) in his place earlier; he has now left the Chamber but he stood in my place in 1975 to advance the argument that I am about to put to the House, but I understand that he has changed his views since—that we are talking about a restriction that goes back all the way to 1975–76.

Children under five were never eligible for mobility allowance which, as I have explained, was the predecessor benefit. That goes back to the introduction of mobility allowance in 1976. It has been argued throughout—that argument has been advanced in the House on several occasions—that the rule should be changed. However, the general view of Governments of all descriptions since that period, nearly 20 years ago, has been that it is best to retain the exclusion.

Research conducted in the mid-1980s by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys into the incidence and prevalence of disability concluded that mobility allowance was well targeted on people who were severely disabled. That is why, when we introduced DLA, we decided to base eligibility on the higher rate mobility component, largely on the old mobility allowance conditions of entitlement. The OPCS findings also informed the creation of a new lower rate of the mobility component to help people who were able to walk but needed supervision to make use of the facility out of doors, extending help with mobility needs for the first time to people with a mental impairment rather than a physical disability.

The principle that underpins DLA is that awards are intended, in general terms, to be based on the effect that disability has on the care and mobility needs of an individual and not on the disability itself. There is a distinction in the case of children. I appreciate that we can argue about how great the distinction is. I appreciate also that we can argue whether it should apply to three, four or five-year-olds. How much is there an amount of additional care and supervision that the disabled child needs beyond what a child of normal health would require?

We recognise that some young babies need substantially more care than able-bodied children. That is why there is no age limit comparable to the one that we are discussing when it comes to the care component of DLA. We do not accept as a general proposition, however, that the position is quite the same for the mobility component. It is the Government's view that it is not so convincing to talk of a three or four-year-old as being independently mobile. I appreciate the problems, of course, when I hear about the difficulties of getting poor Rebecca Kennedy on to a bus and lifting a particularly heavy snug seat, or whatever it is called, which is part of the wheelchair. I understand that there is a real problem. As a general proposition, however, we say that the mobility component is all about making people independently mobile. That is the great success of it for the older person.

We say that the position of children is different. I recognise that there are cases where it may be—

I understand what the Minister is saying. I am a father of three children and I understand that there is involved a normal upbringing, including going shopping with them. They are mobile, or partially mobile. Shopping outings are part of learning, of meeting other people and being in the community. The same can be said of meeting relations and making journeys to visit them. Why should a person who is disabled stay at home? That is really what the Minister is suggesting should happen.

The hon. Gentleman is right. There is an element of degree of mobility. We are saying that, classically, the mobility component is directed towards independent mobility. As the hon. Gentleman said, perhaps with remembrance of his own children, young children of three or four years of age learn to walk about, and the amount of supervision that is required diminishes as they become older. As I have said, it is a matter of degree. At the end, the difficulty for the Government is that we have competing priorities. However heart-rending is the case which the hon. Gentleman moved us with, we say that when taking the principle of independent mobility, disabled children under five, given the traditional way of looking at these matters, must be at the lower rather than the higher end of the priority list.

I cannot put it any more firmly than that. There will always be difficult decisions in social security matters when it comes to drawing a line. Undoubtedly, the drawing of lines creates hard cases. It is our view, however—this has been a conventional view of Governments, as I have said, for 20 years—that the proper dividing line, if we have to draw one, is the age of five years in this instance for the mobility component of DLA. That is comparable with school age, when normally children become less dependent on their parents. Before the age of five, it is normal for children to be unable to go about without their parents' help.

Much careful consideration was given to this issue. It was the subject of much debate during the passage of the Disability Living Allowance and Disability Working Allowance Bill, which went through Parliament not that long ago. We do not believe that extending the mobility component to the under-fives can be the principal or leading-head claim on the list of priorities for benefit expenditure when there is so much pressure on resources and so many competing priorities. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that that would be expensive. He correctly quoted a figure of £30 million a year, which would indeed be the cost of extending the limit from the age of five to two. Although I appreciate that, as he said, it is perhaps not that big a sum when cast in the wider budget of the Department, it is nevertheless a considerable sum.

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman; he has moved our hearts on the issue, but I am afraid that the Government have to take the view that, on competing priorities for social security expenditure, we are not presently minded to alter the law, and it would require statute to do what the hon. Gentleman wants.

Order. We must move to the next topic.

I am grateful for the opportunity to draw the attention of the House to the case of Catherine Laylle, who holds dual British and French nationality and whose case has been raised in the press on more than one occasion in recent months. The importance of her case is underlined by the presence today of a number of right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House who have taken an interest in her case and who, I understand, may wish to intervene, albeit briefly, in this short debate. I will therefore seek to abbreviate my remarks on what is at once a complicated and a highly emotional case.

At the outset, I would like to express my gratitude to my hon. Friend the Minister and to the Lord Chancellor for seeing me and my constituent on this matter and for dealing courteously with my written representations. Alas, despite many efforts, no way has yet been found of satisfying what I believe to be the legitimate grievances of my constituent.

I shall paint in some background to the case. Catherine was 29 years old when he she met her husband, Peter Volkmann, a German citizen. She had a well-paid job in the City of London and he was studying medicine while doing his military service. They married in 1984 and lived in her Kensington flat while he studied and she worked. Their son Alexander was born in the following year.

After a while, Peter Volkmann abandoned his studies, found a job with a German company in London and then transferred his employment to Germany. Ms Laylle left her career in the City and went with her husband to Germany where a second son, Constatin, was borne. Alas, by 1992 the marriage was in difficulty and the couple agreed to separate. An agreement was then drawn up, and verified by a German notary, which provided that Catherine should return to London to live with the children and that Alexander and Constatin should spend much of their holidays with their father.

The arrangement went well until last summer when, four days before the children were due to be returned to Catherine, she received a letter from her husband saying that the children would not be coming back to London. My constituent was understandably devastated by that appalling breach of faith and the negation of a mutual agreement. Her pleas were dismissed by her husband with, I understand, abusive language and much disdain. She therefore took action to make the children wards of court and obtained a High Court order for their return under the terms of article 3 of the Hague convention. That decision was subsequently endorsed by the German court in Verden.

Alas, Catherine's joy was to be short-lived. During the half-hour that she allowed her husband to say goodbye to the boys, the children were abducted by members, I understand, of Peter Volkmann's family. The court order, I am told, empowered the court bailiff, with police support and physical force if necessary, to ensure the return of children to their mother but no one knew the whereabouts of the children.

The bailiff became unavailable and her husband's lawyer likewise. It transpired that her husband gone to Celle, a town nearby with a higher court where he had lodged an ex parte appeal. That court ruled that he could keep the children until the case could be heard. A month later, at a hearing which neither took evidence from Catherine nor interviewed her or her witnesses, the court ruled that the boys should stay in Germany.

It is now a year since my constituent effectively lost her sons. Some would say that she had had her sons stolen from her. She has spent all her savings on legal fees and visits to Germany. She has had much sympathy but little action to redress the situation. Not surprisingly, she is in a state of considerable despair. She feels that a process designed to alienate her children from her has been followed. Her visiting rights have been tightly circumscribed—she gets three hours a month in Germany, under supervision. The current situation is little short of outrageous. Germany and the United Kingdom are senior partners in the European Union. The provincial German court has, in effect, closed its doors to the pleas of my constituent when all she wants is justice.

Since the Celle ruling, Catherine has had access to her sons only under the supervision of German social workers and such access is limited to a few hours each month in her husband's home. On one visit, I understand, her children were removed as she arrived, put into a car and driven away by her husband. That underlines that the situation is nothing short of outrageous.

There are, however, perhaps two openings of which I hope advantage will be taken. First, I understand that the European Commission of Human Rights will be examining her case in its next session, which it will hold very shortly. Catherine is compiling and submitting evidence under three separate articles of the convention. However, as we all know, a considerable period may elapse before any decisions are forthcoming. Meanwhile, she is actively deprived of her undoubted rights of access to her sons.

There is perhaps a second chink of light in this sad case. I understand that at the meeting of European Union Justice Ministers last week, the question of a pattern of law in this area was raised and consideration may be given to the need for fresh legislation. It is my understanding that the French Justice Minister, Jacques Toubon, threw his weight behind the idea. I hope that I can be reassured by my hon. Friend that our Ministers will take the same robust approach.

I would be grateful if my hon. Friend would clarify to me and the House the role of the child abduction unit and say what success it may have had in the case so far. We all know that legislation, especially European legislation, could take a very long time to be put into effect. Catherine is looking for early action by the British and German authorities and I believe that she deserves it.

In conclusion, it is now seven months since Catherine last saw her children. She thought that she would have three hours with them this month but has now been told that their father is taking them on holiday to an undisclosed destination. She will not abandon her sons. She is a fighter and loves her children too much. She believes, rightly in my view, that she is the victim of a gross miscarriage of justice. She has fought long and hard for her rights. The French Government are giving her support. I hope that she can count on the help and support of our Government, too. I trust that the Government will find they have the fullest co-operation of the German authorities as well.

I rise with the permission of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Sir N. Scott) to take part in this short debate about a vital matter.

I wish to raise only one point. My involvement is as a result of a personal approach by Ms Laylle. I wish to draw attention to the fact that both Britain and Germany are signatories to the Hague convention, which in article 1(a) states that it exists

"to secure the prompt return of children wrongfully removed to or retained in any Contracting State".

There seems to be no question that, under British law, the children were wrongfully detained. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister whether he can advise about why the German Government and judiciary are not adhering to the Hague convention to allow international law to take its proper course.

rose—

Order. The hon. Lady may speak on the understanding that she has the permission of the right hon. Member for Chelsea (Sir N. Scott) and the Minister.

I shall be brief. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Chelsea (Sir N. Scott) on raising this important issue of human rights. I am speaking as someone who has also had some involvement with the case and as the Secretary of the all-party group on child abduction which has worked very hard with Reunite, the organisation that co-ordinates work to help mothers and fathers in similar positions.

In this case, we are dealing with a European country, one which, like us, is supposedly part of the great new European movement which is meant to bring people together. However, the way in which the German Government, the German courts and, indeed, individuals in the German provincial town in question have behaved makes me despair about any future co-operation within the European Union. What has happened is disgraceful.

The Hague convention has been blatantly broken by the German Government. One can imagine what would have happened if it had been the other way around. If the British Government or British courts had behaved in the same way, there would have been a great uproar and much lobbying by the German Government.

I want to ask the Minister exactly what has been done. What pressure has been brought to bear? How high up the political agenda is this case in the discussions about European unity and a single currency? If we cannot help someone like Catherine Laylle get her children back, the road to European union and co-operation with Germany might as well be abandoned now.

rose—

Order. Again, the hon. Gentleman may speak with the same restrictions.

I speak with the permission of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Sir N. Scott) and the Minister. I have known Catherine Laylle for many months now and I have been deeply disturbed about the case since the beginning. I agree with my right hon. Friend.

Justice is to be found, as they say, in the interstices of procedure. The procedures that have been followed and my knowledge of the way in which the case has been conducted in Germany has filled me with a sense of despair. I cannot believe that someone like Catherine Laylle could be so effectively abandoned by the process of justice in Germany. I have made representations to the German ambassador, to other representatives of the German Government in the United Kingdom and to other members of Chancellor Kohl's private office. I have begged them to consider the case.

In the interests of a coherent and sensible Europe, it cannot be right that such situations should prevail. There is no doubt that the matter can and should be resolved in the interests of the children and of Catherine Laylle. I plead with the Minister to consider every conceivable means that can be employed—be it through the Foreign Office or any other channel—to redress this absolutely unforgivable injustice.

I, too, am an officer of the all-party group on child abduction. Ms Laylle has been to see me and given me certain papers. I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Sir N. Scott) for allowing me to participate briefly in the debate.

I shall make just two points. First, Ms Laylle is partly of British citizenship; her two children are partly of British citizenship and are also wards of court in Britain. Against that nationality and wardship background, it is indefensible that so far it is the German courts which have reserved to themselves sole and exclusive rights of jurisdiction.

Under the terms of the Hague convention, it is the Lord Chancellor's Department that is the designated "Central Authority" through which the British Government discharges their duty under that convention. I draw the House's attention to the duty outlined in article 7(f), which states that it is incumbent on the "Central Authority"—the Lord Chancellor's Department—to

"take all appropriate measures … to initiate or facilitate the institution of judicial or administrative proceedings with a view to obtaining the return of the child and, in a proper case, to make arrangements for organising or securing the effective exercise of rights of access".

I hope that the Minister will explain why the duty clearly placed on his Department under the Hague convention does not yet appear to have been discharged. I hope that he will assure me that it will be discharged in future.

Secondly, in a reply given to me on 26 June the Home Office said:

"Where a child is successfully abducted to a country which is a signatory to the Hague convention, an extradition warrant may be issued."—[Official Report, 26 June 1995; Vol. 262, c. 494.]

It is evident in this case that Ms Laylle's two sons have been successfully abducted to Germany and Germany is a signatory to the Hague convention, so the issue for the Home Office is why extradition warrants have not so far been issued. I hope that the Minister will be able to explain why no extradition procedures have so far been initiated and to tell us whether they will be in future.

I should like to thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Sir N. Scott) for raising the issue and for his courtesy in giving me advance notice of his line of argument. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester, North (Mr. Jenkin) for his contribution, the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Miss Hoey) likewise, my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir J. Stanley).

Towards the end of his comments, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea said that the French Government were giving Ms Laylle support. I must make it clear that, within the proper constitutional limits which define judicial and executive boundaries, the Government have also done and are doing as much as they can.

For the benefit of the House, I shall outline the role which the Lord Chancellor's Department and other Departments play in relation to child custody cases before foreign courts. I shall then deal with the specific case that my right hon. Friend has raised. It might be convenient for the House if I say that the case has thus far been dealt with entirely within the strictures of the Hague convention. However, the House should know that within the Hague convention there is a limited discretion not to return children in certain circumstances. One of those circumstances is when the children themselves have made their views known.

Questions relating to child abduction and custody are governed by the Hague and European conventions of 1980 on this subject. The Child Abduction and Custody Act 1985 enabled the United Kingdom to ratify both conventions. The purpose of the conventions is to prevent international child abduction and to promote the exercise of rights of contact with children.

The Minister said that, under the Hague convention, if the children expressed a particular view, that view had to be taken into consideration. Is he saying that if children are kept with one parent for a period of time that does not have a bearing on their eventual view? Children are ultimately fairly malleable and therefore speed is of the essence. Something should have been done earlier. Does he agree that that fact should have a huge bearing on his comments?

As one who practised as a family lawyer for many years, I have to tell my hon. Friend that hardly any two cases are the same. I have no reason to doubt that the German judicial authorities were able sensitively to seek the views of the boys whose ages—[Interruption.] I hear comments from behind me, but I suspect that the House would like me to continue with my remarks.

I was referring to the purpose of the Hague convention in preventing international child abduction, and the promotion of the exercise of rights of contact with children. The Hague convention does that by requiring a contracting state to return children who have been wrongly removed from another contracting state in breach of rights of custody. The European convention does so by the mutual recognition and enforcement of orders made in contracting states.

In each contracting state there is an administrative body known as the "Central Authority", which is responsible for administering the work of the conventions. In England and Wales, the "Central Authority" is the Lord Chancellor's Department, and the work is carried out by its child abduction unit, which is part of the official solicitor's office. The unit does all that it can to help in achieving the objects of the convention, which are, essentially, to safeguard and promote the interests of children on an international basis. In doing that, it sends and receives applications for the return of children, or the recognition and enforcement of custody orders. It communicates with parents, lawyers and other central authorities and instructs solicitors to act on behalf of applicants in other countries wanting to take proceedings in England and Wales.

It is not, however, the unit's role to intervene in private law custody disputes that are being contested in foreign courts. Those are matters to be resolved through the courts concerned.

I should at this point mention the part that is played by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In general terms, the consular department is responsible for the protection of British nationals overseas. In the area of child abduction, a variety of types of practical assistance can be offered, including providing details of local lawyers who correspond in English and who can provide background information on the family law system in the relevant country; approaching the local authorities for help in tracing the child, where appropriate; drawing the local authorities' attention to any English court orders that exist, and encouraging the speedy resolution of any legal proceedings; and providing informal help with matters such as the translation of documents and finding cheap accommodation.

I hope that my right hon. Friend will forgive me for going into detail about the Government's responsibilities in such matters, but I consider that a clear understanding of the extent and limits of those responsibilities is vital in looking at the unfortunate situation that his constituent, Ms Laylle, is in.

As my right hon. Friend has explained, his constituent and her husband, who is of German nationality, separated in February 1992. Their sons, aged 8 and 10, have British, French and German nationality. Ms Laylle and her husband entered into a separation agreement with the assistance of a German lawyer, which included the provisions that "parental custody" of their two sons should be entrusted to Ms Laylle, that she and the children should live in London, and that the father should have generous contact with the children. That arrangement was a written agreement between the father and mother and not a judicial order giving custody to Ms Laylle. The children left England on 6 July 1994 to spend the summer holidays with their father.

On 22 August, the father wrote to Ms Laylle to say that both boys had said that they wanted to live and go to school in Germany rather than England, and that he had applied for the right to keep them.

On 26 August, Ms Laylle applied to the child abduction unit for the return of the children under the Hague convention on the basis that they had been wrongfully retained away from their habitual residence in breach of her rights of custody. She also applied to the high court on an ex parte basis for a wardship order, and that was granted on 30 August. The application under the Hague convention and the wardship order were transmitted to the German central authority, and were referred to the family court at Verden, which considered the matter on 20 September. The court ordered that the children be returned, but the father successfully appealed to the higher regional court. Ms Laylle engaged lawyers in Germany to represent her.

It is important at this point for me to emphasise that proceedings under the Hague convention do not determine custody issues but are intended to restore children to the jurisdiction of their habitual residence so that decisions about their future can be made there. This reflects a generally accepted principle of private international law that decisions about the future care and welfare of children are best made in the country with which they have the closest connection. However, the convention acknowledges that there may be circumstances in which children should not be returned, and therefore gives courts a limited discretion to refuse to make a return order.

One of the reasons for refusing a return order is that the child concerned objects to be returned and has reached an age and degree of maturity at which it is appropriate to take account of his or her views. It was on that ground, after talking to the children, that the higher regional court upheld the father's appeal against the return order made by the family court in Verden. Ms Laylle has complained that she was not allowed to give evidence or speak at that hearing or present her own psychological evidence in respect of the children. It is generally accepted that proceedings under the Hague convention are summary in nature, and oral evidence is discouraged. In this instance, the only grounds of the father's appeal were the wishes of the children, and for that reason the main concern was to discover the children's wishes.

The issue of custody then came before the family court at Verden on 23 February this year. The decision of the court, given on 30 March, was that the children should be placed in the "temporary" custody of their father, and that Ms Laylle should be allowed limited contact with them: specifically, there was to be no contact for a period of three months, following which supervised contact at the father's home was ordered, initially for three hours a month, and from October 1995 for one day a month. Ms Laylle was represented by her two German lawyers at the hearing on 23 February and received assistance from the British consulate in attending the hearing. I understand that the wardship proceedings in this country were discharged on Ms Laylle's application on 4 April.

During the period leading up to the hearing on 23 February, the child abduction unit provided Ms Laylle with as much assistance as it was able within the limitations of its statutory role. Following the court's decision on 30 March, a further meeting took place between the unit's solicitor and Ms Laylle, at which it was explained that there was no basis on which the Government could intervene on the general grounds that German proceedings relating to children are intrinsically unjust or improper.

The procedure in such cases in Germany is substantially similar to our own. In family proceedings in Germany, both parents can be professionally represented, and the judge, who is independent of the Government, can call on the services of the local youth court to provide a report on the children and see them. In making a decision, he or she has, like a British judge, wide discretion in weighing up all the circumstances of the case. However, the unit's solicitor undertook to write to Ms Laylle's lawyers in this country and in Germany to ask whether in their view the order was unusual or represented the sort of order that a German court might make in a case such a this; whether there were any grounds for appeal on the basis that the judge was plainly wrong or wrongly exercised her discretion; and whether there was any material irregularity in the proceedings, which could form the foundation of a formal complaint or an application to set aside the judgment.

A separate point which had by this stage arisen was that divorce proceedings had been instituted both in this country by Ms Laylle and in Germany by her husband. It appears that the proceedings begun by Ms Laylle were first in time. However, I understand that Ms Laylle's husband has applied for a stay of the English proceedings, and that a jurisdictional dispute exists about the competence of the family court at Verden to entertain the divorce proceedings in Germany. This is a matter that must properly be resolved under German law; it would not be appropriate for the British Government to intervene in the process.

It is understood that there are grounds for appeals against the court's decisions on custody and contact, and that appeals have in fact already been lodged against both decisions. It is also understood that the decisions made about the children to date are of an essentially temporary nature pending the final resolution of the divorce proceedings, and that the appeals against those decisions will be based on evidential matters before the court and not on any fundamental defect of procedure or denial of process.

I also understand that Ms Laylle has a case against Germany pending before the European Commission of Human Rights in respect of her situation. Naturally I am unable to comment on these proceedings, and we must await the outcome.

Thus, while I sympathise with the difficulties in which Ms Laylle finds herself, I do not consider that there is any more substantive assistance that the British Government can provide. It is particularly important to recognise that the children have British, French and German nationality. The matters at issue are the subject of appeal under the German legal system, and the outcome of those appeals must be awaited. As I have said, there is no basis in procedural terms, in what is essentially a private law dispute, on which the British Government could properly intervene.